Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 13

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 13

Arelin.
It was a pet name I hadn’t heard in ages.
A tender voice from long ago, from a time so distant my memory could scarcely hold it—from when I was very small.
“I’m an orphan.”
His pleasant voice murmured it softly.
“I don’t know who my parents are, never seen their faces. I don’t even know if I was abandoned or if they died.”
It was the first time I’d heard this story. Mehenai’s past never appeared in the novel.
“Care, affection—naturally I never received such things. Love… I really couldn’t say.”
A frown of discomfort, a breath as deep as a sigh.
“Honestly, I don’t know what love is—not as people describe it.”
His voice came low and measured.
The lashes that hung long, casting deep shadows, hid what expression Mehenai wore. I couldn’t tell.
“It might sound absurd, but I never planned to bear or raise children.”
Somehow my worthless lord had tangled those plans.
When he added that aside, Mehenai smiled thinly, as though puzzled by his own words.
“To be honest, I still don’t know what to do with you.”
“……!”
“But that doesn’t mean I want to cast you aside or that I dislike you.”
Mehenai smiled wryly.
“You won’t believe it, I’m sure.”
Yet for all the dryness and coldness in his voice, the hand that stroked my head was tenderness itself—almost excessive. I couldn’t know what to believe.
Still, I felt something in him. Some tangled, perplexing emotion—bewilderment and helplessness intertwined, leaving no clear answer.
“It’s my failing. It always is.”
Those long, slender fingers that had touched only documents now brushed my eyes. Tears had gathered there again.
“All of this came from my insufficiency.”
“…….”
“I thought even if I couldn’t raise you well, at least I could provide for your needs without want. I was shortsighted.”
“……You have no fault.”
“Are you forgiving me?”
“You have no fault.”
“You won’t say forgive, then.”
Silence returned.
But it was far more comfortable than before.
“Mother.”
“Yes?”
“Be my mother.”
“What?”
“If you’re sorry.”
“I’m a man, however.”
“Mother.”
“…….”
I was aware of my own absurdity. I knew Mehenai might simply throw up his hands and leave.
Perhaps it was easier to let him push me away than to grow accustomed to this tenderness.
“Mother.”
But then—
“Mother is, biologically speaking, a bit difficult.”
Mehenai, who had worn a resigned smile, lifted his shoulders slightly.
“Still, I’ll do my best.”
His unexpected playfulness drew a laugh from me unbidden.
“It’s been a while since I saw you smile.”
How could I keep playing along with this absurd pretense? This impossible insistence?
“It suits you.”
That he—so rational, so logical—would humor even such unreasonable words bewildered me. Yet it delighted me so much that my eyes widened. I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t trust it.
Mehenai laughed.
Softly curved eyes paired with a faint smile transformed his always sharp expression into something gentle.
“Smile like that often.”
So he could smile this way.
In the warm light of early morning, watching Mehenai sit quietly with that smile, I suddenly felt I couldn’t bear to lose this moment.

* * *

The crisis had passed, but Arelin’s condition had not improved.
The moment dawn broke, the Healing Magic practitioners and Temple priests that had been brought in worked ceaselessly to mend her body, administering newly acquired remedies.
“With this, I think we can breathe easier.”
“We won’t know yet. Keep monitoring her condition.”
“Yes, Mehenai.”
Once Arelin was settled into sleep, Mehenai turned his attention to Uni.
Though he’d gone without sleep, the relentless pace was so familiar to him that he felt well enough.
“So, what happened?”
Uni reported, her face gone pale.
“Someone appears to have stolen medicine.”
“What?”
Uni explained calmly.
“On the day the young lady was supposed to take her medicine, you were present, so I couldn’t administer it. The next night, I was up late and forgot—came a bit late—and another maid said she’d already brought it, so I thought nothing of it…… but……”
The problem was that maid.
“She was one of those who caused a commotion yesterday.”
“Was one?”
“When I went to verify, she was already dead in the Prison.”
Mehenai said nothing, simply loosening his necktie. As he undid the cufflinks on his sleeves, the tightness seemed to ease.
“The cause of death?”
“Suicide, they say. Hanged herself, or so the story goes……”
“It couldn’t possibly have been suicide.”
Mehenai’s voice turned glacial.
“What of the stolen medicine?”
“We haven’t found it yet.”
“Hmph.”
How remarkable.
“Mehenai?”
Dared they do this under his roof? In the Halbern Mansion itself? Mehenai could scarcely contain the laughter that threatened to break free.
“How enterprising. While my attention was scattered these past days.”
Mehenai tapped his fingers thoughtfully.
They’d seized the moment when his eyes and ears had grown dull.
“Let it be ruled suicide and moved past. Uni, does anyone else know of this?”
“No! Only you, Mehenai.”
“Then keep it secret, and continue to mind her health.”
“Yes!”
Uni left the room.
Alone amid the piled Documents, Mehenai’s eyes gleamed with a cold, dangerous light.

* * *

It had been ages since I was ill.
This body knew sickness well enough, but by my memory—my previous life’s memory—I’d had the kind of health that was second to none. I was never sick then.
They say you don’t appreciate health until you’ve lost it. Now I understand.
And now I understand why they say illness makes everything sorrowful.
My eyes opened, and seeing no one beside me, tears came—proof I was falling apart.
Alone again.
“Are you awake?”
While I lay silent and weeping, a quiet voice soothed my sorrow.
I turned in surprise, and heard the soft rustle of pages turning at my bedside.
“Mehenai?”
Long, slender fingers brushed my hair back. It felt nice.
“You’re awake.”
Mehenai had been reading Documents.
Why was he reading Documents here?
“You should sleep more. Rest aids recovery, they say.”
“Mm.”
I closed my eyes, then opened them again.
No matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t believe it. That Mehenai was here beside me.
Was I dreaming?
Had everything before this been a dream too?
“Mother.”
“…….”
“Mother.”
Mehenai pressed his hand to his forehead as though troubled. His expression made me smile despite myself.
He probably didn’t know that when he looked like that, I only wanted to call him mother more.
“Hold my hand.”
A careful, shy request.
Still uncomfortable, Mehenai quietly took my hand. Our joined hands felt both familiar and strange.
The lukewarm warmth in that touch drew my eyes closed without my knowing.
How many Documents had he turned through? The faint scent of ink and dry paper lingered on his fingertips.
But what circled at the tip of my nose was the scent I’d caught when held in Mehenai’s embrace.
The soft, tender scent of ash wood that rose from those large hands eased my heart.
Today, somehow, I felt I could have a good dream.

* * *

Mehenai set down the Documents and watched the child asleep, her small hand gripping his.
She slept as she had before, but her expression was far more at ease.
“What am I doing.”
Holding hands—what was so significant about it?
He’d never done such a thing before, which made admitting it feel awkward, but Mehenai didn’t dwell on the past.
“……Perhaps I should have done this sooner.”
It was a practical, rational calculation—that having a professional caregiver would be better than relying on someone as ill-suited as himself.
Yet watching the sleeping child grip his hand with her small fingers as though it were a lifeline, all such reasoning simply dissolved away.
“It was right to stay here beside her.”
Stacks of Documents awaited, matters demanding his direct attention piled high, yet Mehenai’s focus rested entirely on the sleeping child.
The warmth of their joined hands was not unfamiliar, exactly.
What confused Mehenai more was a strange, tickling sensation.
An undefined emotion—one with no name, no shape—that he couldn’t grasp, yet which drew him again and again to linger at the child’s side.
“Mother……”
A word he’d known of but never spoken aloud.
He would have wished to have been beside someone to witness it. Unluckily, the Grand Duke of House of Halbern had also lost his mother in childhood.
How could a man without parents pretend to be a mother?
“I have no answer.”
Uncertainty, yes—but not displeasure.
At the very least, more settled than when he’d stood hesitating before the doorknob.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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