Chapter 21

‘How much sleep did I have?’ A tingling sensation in my legs woke me up.

‘My legs…’

I didn’t think it was too heavy, but the feeling in my legs was dull because I had been in one position for a long time. After a while, I couldn’t bear the numbness anymore, so I decided to carefully put a cushion under the emperor’s head. Fearful that he might wake up, I calmed my fluttering heart and quickly succeeded in supporting his head with the cushion.

I got up, stumbled the moment I took a step, and fell back onto the carpet. This was because tingling feeling soon intensified quickly climbed all the way to my head. I screamed despite no sound coming out as I struggled.

‘Ah! Help me!’

As I endured the pain that was amplified for a few moments, the numbness in my legs was relieved as blood finally began flowing through in an inherent manner. When I looked at the clock, almost an hour had already drifted by since the emperor laid his head on my lap. I walked around the room and to relax the nerves on my legs.

‘Next time, I’ll try to somehow support his head with a cushion from the very beginning.’

It was then when the drilling pain disappeared.

“…ugh…”

At first, I thought I heard wrong. However, the only noise in the bedroom where there was only silence went straight into my ears.

‘Did the emperor make that sound just now?’

Looking towards the sofa, the emperor, who had been asleep with a pretty face in the world, was drenched in cold sweat.

‘Is he sick?’

Startled, I hurriedly scrutinized him intently. However, until now, I couldn’t figure out why the person who had been sleeping well initially was suddenly in this state.

‘What should I do, should I bring in the head maid?’

The emperor recoiled while I was confused and worried about whether I had to call people.

“… liana! No!”

It was as if he had a sudden seizure, screaming and throwing his arms into the air. Suddenly, his face turned blue. With that desperate appearance, I soon noticed the reason for his unseemly behavior.

‘He was having a nightmare right now?’

I couldn’t wake him up because I was supposed to be a doll. However, his face was so distraught that I didn’t feel comfortable to leave it alone.

‘What do I do? Should I wake him up?’

I couldn’t do this or that, I panicked.

“Please, no!”

But the moment I saw him crying sadly with tears forming around his eyes, my mind went blank. His pain, the one that was mentioned in the book, I could feel it emanating from him in waves.

He was the male protagonist, so I knew he was just someone originally from the book. I knew he had a traumatic experience, but I didn’t take it seriously because in my mind, it was just a setting. But now, seeing this man with a pale face and struggling in pain, if I could still think of him as a character, then he was a character that was playing in reality.

This was real life.

Suddenly, his agony became all too palpable. The pain of losing a precious person—it was all due to his negligence, and because of that, he goes crazier by the day due to all that mental torture. At that moment, I felt sorry for him. He was suffering alone, so I held his outstretched hand in the air unintentionally.

‘His hands are cold.’

It was frigid, very much unlike the emperor I know who always maintained a high body temperature. I clasped my hand, hoping that the warmth of my hand would be passed on to him.

‘It’s okay. I’m here. Your doll is here.’

I hoped he felt the presence of the doll even when he was sleeping, to help him calm down. Then I stroked his head with my left hand; slowly and carefully, to make sure he notices.

“Liliana…”

How long has it been?

I don’t know whether if it was because he noticed my touch, but his painful struggles slowly subsided. Little by little, the emperor’s face, which had been unbearably distorted, relaxed.

‘Was it effective?’

In that state, the emperor slowly opened his eyes.

“…who?”

He was barely awake, his long lashes shivering slightly. My heart pounded when I saw those red rimmed eyes.

I took a big risk to try and calm him down, but now he dares to wake up and then attack me with such tantalizing beauty?! The nerve of him!

‘Hmmm, should I make him go to bed again?’

As if he had no knowledge of his sins against me, he hugged me as soon as his golden orbs regained their clarity and focus.

“Ah! Liliana!”

‘Ahh!’

When an oversized man came at me, it was hard for me to bear the weight. I just fell back without any resistance. Fortunately, the emperor supported the back of my head, so I was able to avoid injuries from occurring.

‘Umm… what’s up with this?’

I was so surprised and stunned at the same time, but the emperor just hugged me tightly. At one point, both of us were lying on the floor. When I fell, the emperor seemed to have fallen off the sofa with me.

“Liliana, Liliana.”

His whole body was lying over me, trembling. The emperor, who always had a threatening aura, grabbed me without hesitation and shook. Somehow, my heart felt faint.

In the book, simply calling it a ‘nightmare’ was insufficient to describe his complicated expressions and thoughts. This one simple word, in real life, was not really that simple at all.

‘His nightmares are pretty serious.’

I patted his back slowly to reassure him. Then there was only silence left in the bedroom. Fortunately, his trembling soon abated. But even after it stopped, for a while, the emperor still did not rise.

I glanced at him with a thoughtful expression.