Chapter 106: Them
Chapter 106: Them
—CELIA—
Was meeting them at the office merely another illusion my exhausted mind had created?
Or...
Had I truly met them?
A cold shiver quietly traveled down my spine as the question refused to leave my thoughts. No matter how many times I tried convincing myself that everything had simply been another lingering effect of my coma, my heart stubbornly rejected the explanation. It was as though some invisible part of me already knew the answer and simply refused to let my mind accept it.
The room fell silent.
Lilith continued absentmindedly scrolling through her phone, probably searching for another backup of her missing manuscript while muttering complaints under her breath.
Meanwhile, I remained frozen on the bed, unable to shake the uneasy feeling growing heavier inside my chest.
Then...
Three firm knocks echoed against the apartment door.
Lilith looked up.
"Oh."
She stood from the chair beside the bed.
"They’re here already."
I blinked.
"...Who’s here?"
"The executives from Asterion Design."
She walked toward the door while smoothing the wrinkles on her sweater.
"They were kind enough to bring your portfolio back personally. I honestly thought they would’ve just asked a courier to deliver it."
She laughed softly.
"They’ve been surprisingly concerned ever since you fainted."
Concerned...
For me?
Before I could ask another question, Lilith opened the door.
Five men stepped inside.
My entire world stopped.
"..."
No.
No...
No...
My pupils violently trembled.
Standing inside the room....
Were five impossibly familiar figures and they were looking directly at me.
And near the doorway stood Aelith.
The room spun.
"..."
My breathing caught.
Lilith smiled politely.
"Please come in."
They nodded one after another.
"Thank you for receiving us," Sebastian said formally.
His voice.
It was exactly the same.
Exactly.
The last thread holding my composure together snapped.
I shot upright so abruptly that the blanket tangled around my legs.
"They’re here!!"
My own scream startled even me.
Lilith jumped.
"What?!"
"It’s them!"
I pointed at the five men with trembling fingers.
"It’s really them!"
"Celia?"
"You wrote them!"
I grabbed Lilith’s shoulders so suddenly that she nearly dropped her phone.
"Lilith!"
My voice shook uncontrollably.
"Your book! They’re alive! They’re right there!"
She stared at me as though I had suddenly developed a fever.
"...What?"
"Your novel!"
I turned frantically toward the five men again.
"That’s them!"
Lilith immediately placed both hands against my forehead.
"Oh no... Celia... I knew you should’ve stayed another night in the hospital."
"I’m not hallucinating!"
"You have a fever."
"I don’t have a fever!"
My voice echoed throughout the room as I pointed a trembling finger toward the men standing near the doorway. None of them had moved since entering. They simply watched the exchange unfold with quiet amusement.
To anyone else, they probably looked like successful executives visiting an employee who had collapsed during an interview.
To me...
They looked exactly as they had in that other world.
Sebastian stood with the same dignified posture that always made him seem untouchable. Matthias remained as straight as a knight awaiting orders. Ezekiel’s golden eyes were hidden behind modern glasses, but I still recognized the calm intelligence behind them. Damien, well, Ren... had his hands tucked casually into his pockets, wearing an expression that somehow managed to be both relieved and worried.
And Aelith...
He hadn’t taken his eyes off me since the moment he entered.
Lilith pressed the back of her hand against my forehead and frowned.
"You’re warm."
"I am warm because I’m alive!"
She sighed dramatically before looking at the five men.
"I’m so sorry. My sister has been through a lot recently."
"No!" I grabbed both of her shoulders and turned her back toward me. "Look at them! Really look at them!"
"I am looking."
"No, you’re not!"
"I literally am."
"Lilith!"
She blinked innocently.
"What?"
I nearly cried from frustration.
"It’s them!"
"...Who?"
"Them!"
I pointed frantically toward Sebastian.
"Sebastian!"
Then toward Damien.
"And Damien!"
Then Ezekiel, Matthias, and finally Aelith.
"Aelith too!"
Lilith looked at each man one by one before turning back to me with complete seriousness.
"...They’re very handsome."
I stared at her.
"...That is not the point!"
"No?"
"No!"
She folded her arms thoughtfully.
"I mean... I suppose I can understand why you fainted."
My jaw dropped.
"Lilith!"
"What?"
Before I could continue arguing, she suddenly frowned.
"...Wait."
Her eyes slowly narrowed.
"...How did you know?"
I froze making my heart skip a beat.
She tilted her head. "How did you know I wrote the fifth male lead with the name Aelith?"
The room instantly became silent.
I looked at her and stuttered.
"B-because..."
My throat tightened.
"...Because I was there."
Lilith’s brows knitted together.
"What?"
"I was there!"
The words burst out before I could stop them.
"While I was in a coma... I was there, Lilith!"
I moved closer, clutching her hands tightly.
"Please believe me."
My voice cracked.
"I wasn’t dreaming. I lived there. I met all of them. I laughed with them. I cried with them."
"I..."
Fresh tears blurred my vision.
"I fell in love with them."
The confession escaped so naturally that I didn’t even realize what I had said until complete silence settled over the room.
Lilith slowly blinked.
"...Wait."
Her expression became strangely thoughtful.
"...All of them?"
I stared at her.
"What?"
"You said you fell in love with all of them."
"No!"
She pointed at me.
"You literally just said it."
"I meant–"
She gasped dramatically.
"Celia."
"No."
"You’ve been secretly collecting male leads?"
"Lilith!"
She pressed a hand against her chest.
"I raised a harem-loving sister."
"I did not!"
She looked genuinely impressed.
"I only wrote five because I thought one would’ve been lonely."
I covered my face.
"This is not what we’re talking about!"
She couldn’t stop smiling.
"So..."
She counted on her fingers.
"The duke.The archmage. The knight. The crown prince. And the elven king."
She looked back at me.
"All five?"
"Oh my goodness..."
I buried my face in my hands.
"No!"
She burst into laughter.
"I’m kidding."
I slowly looked up and she was still smiling.
"I know."
I frowned. "...Know what?"
"I know what you’re trying to tell me."
"What... you know everything?"
She nodded.
"I mean everything."
The room suddenly felt colder.
"I know everything."
My breathing caught in my throat.
"...Everything?"
Lilith looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite describe. It wasn’t pity, nor was it concern. There was only quiet understanding, as though she had been waiting for this conversation for a very long time.
My heart lurched.
"...You knew..." I whispered, staring at her in disbelief. "You knew all along..."
She shook her head gently.
"No. Not from the start."
Her gaze drifted briefly toward the five men standing silently near the doorway before returning to me.
"It happened during the second week of your coma."
I frowned.
"The second week?"
She nodded.
"I couldn’t bring myself to write after what happened to you." A faint, self-deprecating smile tugged at her lips. "Every time I opened my laptop, I ended up staring at a blank screen. I thought maybe reading my own manuscript again would help me remember why I loved writing in the first place."
Her voice softened as she recalled those days.
"So I opened the draft."
She paused.
"And... something was wrong."
The room became impossibly quiet.
"The story..." she continued slowly, choosing every word with care, "...wasn’t the story I had written anymore."
I stared at her, unable to interrupt.
"The major events were still there, but everything in between had changed. Entire conversations were different. Characters were behaving in ways I had never planned. Even their personalities... they felt more real than the versions I had originally created."
She let out a slow breath.
"At first, I honestly thought I was losing my mind."
A weak laugh escaped her.
"I even checked the file history because I thought someone had somehow edited my manuscript."
She looked at me.
"But no one had."
Silence settled over the room once more.
"I kept reading," she said quietly. "Because I wanted to know what had happened."
Her eyes gradually softened.
"And then... I found a sentence."
I felt my heartbeat quicken.
"It wasn’t something I had ever written."
She smiled sadly.
"It said that the villainess secretly dreamed of opening a boutique of her own... that she wanted to design dresses people would remember."
Tears instantly blurred my vision.
"I never wrote that." She shook her head. "But you told me that."
A lump formed painfully in my throat.
"I remember you saying it years ago while we were eating instant noodles because we couldn’t afford anything else." She laughed quietly through her tears. "You told me that one day you’d become a real designer and people would wear clothes with your name stitched inside them."
She looked directly into my eyes.
"I never forgot."
Neither had I.
"But when I read those words..." Lilith continued, "...I knew they hadn’t come from me."
She lowered her voice.
"They came from you."
My lips trembled.
"I still didn’t want to believe it."
She smiled bitterly.
"It sounded ridiculous. So I decided..."
She hesitated before admitting it.
"...to experiment."
I blinked.
"...Experiment?"
"I wanted proof."
Her expression became sheepish.
"So I started changing the manuscript."
The five men exchanged glances.
"I introduced conflicts that had never existed before."
She counted them on her fingers. I removed scenes."
"I changed dialogues. I altered relationships. Then..."
Her eyes drifted toward Aelith.
"...I created him."
She then looked back at me.
"But I wanted to know whether the story would simply follow whatever I wrote... or whether someone inside it would react."
Her breathing became slightly uneven.
"So I wrote an elven king. I gave him a name which was Aelith."
She smiled helplessly.
"And then I waited."
Everyone listened without saying a word.
"When I reopened the manuscript the following morning..."
She swallowed.
"...the scenes had changed... the villainess responded."
A tear rolled slowly down my cheek.
"You. You refused to follow the route I had written."
A shaky laugh escaped her.
"You even ruined half of my plans."
Despite everything, I couldn’t help laughing through my tears.
"...Sorry."
"You should be."
She sniffled dramatically.
"I spent hours planning dramatic romance scenes only for you to completely ignore them."
Damien quietly cleared his throat.
"...She ignored quite a few of us."
Matthias coughed to hide a smile.
Sebastian looked away altogether.
Even Ezekiel’s lips twitched slightly.
Lilith looked from one man to another before placing both hands dramatically on her hips.
"Oh well, before I proceed to explaining many many things... Let me first properly introduce them to you." Lilith added with a playful smirk