Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 14

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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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Chapter 14

“How is she?”
The Royal Physician nodded with evident satisfaction as he finished his examination.
“She’s improved remarkably. Her heartbeat is normal, her pulse is steady, and her mana response is within normal limits.”
“That’s a relief.”
Mehren exhaled in relief.
“We’ll need to continue monitoring, but this degree of improvement is genuinely astounding. What method did you use?”
The Royal Physician asked in wonder.
Mehren gave a wry smile.
When Arelin had a seizure, she’d typically collapse for at least a week before regaining consciousness. If she’d recovered to normal in just four days, then yes, it was fast.
“I didn’t do anything in particular, really…….”
The only difference was that Mehren had remained at her side.
Had that alone made such a difference?
“Psychologically, too, she seems far more stable than before. She usually carried a somewhat anxious quality.”
“That’s fortunate.”
“I’d recommend she return to normal meals and light activity now.”
“Understood.”
“However……”
A shadow crossed the Royal Physician’s face.
“However?”
“As time passes, it appears the young lady’s body continues to weaken progressively.”
Mehren bit his lip.
“If this continues……”
“That’s enough.”
“I-I apologize.”
“No, you have nothing to apologize for.”
At the initial diagnosis, they’d said she wouldn’t live past five. And now? Arelin was six years old.
It was no surprise that she could collapse or deteriorate at any moment. Mehren understood that much perfectly well.
‘Which is exactly why I’d been desperately pestering that wretched lord to come.’
He’d wanted to meet her while she could still speak and walk about.
Now he wondered if even that mattered anymore.
“I hope you’ll pay special attention to the young lady’s health.”
“Yes, of course. I understand.”
After the Royal Physician withdrew, Mehren approached Arelin. Her cheeks, which had seemed hollow not long ago, had regained their color and bloomed a soft pink. Somehow, that small change made his mood gentler.
“What is it?”
At Arelin’s question, Mehren smiled.
“For dinner tonight, you can have whatever you’d like.”
“That’s wonderful.”
Arelin laughed.
As Mehren watched her smile, he thought to himself.
It was fortunate he hadn’t waited any longer.
If he’d let her slip away without ever understanding the affection that had clung to him so helplessly, the tenderness that had settled so heavily in his heart—what would that have felt like?
“Young lady.”
“Yes?”
Her small hand and cheek.
Had they always been this delicate?
It had taken so long.
Making the decision had been difficult, but once his resolve was set, everything else came easily.
“Would you like me to hold your hand?”
“Oh……”
Her eyes widened in surprise, and it was endearing.
“Yes!”
As Mehren took her small outstretched hand with firm resolve, he too made a decision.
He would raise her well from this moment on.

* * *

The Water-Gold Gathering.
In this circle of childhood friends—of the Crown Prince, for the Crown Prince, and by the Crown Prince—the pivotal figure was undoubtedly Crown Prince Fesion, first, second, and third priority.
“Your Highness, what’s wrong with you?”
“Do you know?”
“I have no idea either.”
Everyone in this gathering had their eyes on the Crown Prince’s closest companion.
But what if the Crown Prince himself seemed uninterested?
“Hmm.”
Listless one moment, listless the next.
The gathered children grew confused by an attitude so unlike the usually vibrant and cheerful Fesion.
“Um…… Your Highness?”
“……”
“Um, Your Highness?”
“……”
Whatever the other children fumbled about or clung to for attention, Fesion’s mind was entirely elsewhere.
‘Arelin isn’t here again.’
The fact that Arelin was absent.
And the news Halbern had conveyed.

“It appears the young lady Arelin has taken ill and won’t be able to visit today.”

Fesion, who’d been brimming with anticipation to play with her today, was so disappointed and worried that he couldn’t focus on anything else.
“Collapsed again……”
How could anyone collapse so frequently? Did her body consist of glass?
Fesion had begun to feel that Arelin was almost a different species than himself.
To collapse so often and still be alive—wasn’t that a miracle in itself?
Worry and amazement, questions and curiosity, and countless other incomprehensible emotions all tangled together, causing him to half-heartedly go through the motions of whatever he was doing.
“Go and ask her yourself.”
“N-no. You do it.”
“I…I don’t want to either.”
Everyone noticed that the Crown Prince was different from usual, but each hesitated to ask why, for fear of falling out of favor.
They only passed the buck around; no one stepped forward.
Yet in that very gap, a pair of twins with gleaming eyes appeared.
“Your Highness, Your Highness, why do you look so down?”
“Your Highness, Your Highness, why do you look so gloomy?”
A pair of twins who’d been playing elsewhere approached with sparkling eyes as they returned.
The gleam in their gaze was unmistakably that of someone who’d found entertainment, so Fesion waved them away.
“Go. I’m not in the mood to play with you right now.”
Siel tilted his head.
“If you’re not in the mood to play with us, what mood are you in?”
“If you’re not in the mood to play with us, what mood could it be?”
Watching the twins laugh with delight, Fesion sighed.
“I have something on my mind.”
“What is it? What is it?”
“What could it be? What could it be?”
“Well……”
“Your Highness has a worry?”
“What kind of worry does Your Highness have?”
Fesion momentarily doubted whether he should even confide such worries to these two, but decided it didn’t matter.
He didn’t have many other people to talk to anyway.
“I visited someone a few days ago to ask how they were doing. Would it be okay to visit again?”
A question no one would have anticipated.
The twins glanced at each other.
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“If you want to visit, isn’t that what you just do?”
At the twins’ answer, Fesion’s expression brightened.
“Right? That’s what I thought!”
“……?”
“……?”
Why was he so delighted?
Griam, standing beside him, slapped his own forehead. Emboldened, Fesion beamed and stood up.
“Sorry, everyone! I have to go. There’s something I need to do.”
“Huh? Wait!”
“Griam, come with me!”
Fesion stood up urgently, as if something had just occurred to him.
“Let’s go pay a visit!”
As Fesion laughed with renewed energy, the twins glanced at each other again.
“But who exactly is he going to visit?”
The twins tilted their heads in unison.

* * *

“Arelin!”
Ugh.
“I came to see how you’re doing!”
Why had he come again?
That cheerful demon had returned. The very demon who’d knocked me down first and then pretended to care. I wasn’t falling for it anymore.
“Are you in a lot of pain? So you collapsed again. Do you really collapse this often?”
Even with my guard raised to maximum, I surrendered to the Crown Prince’s unbridled obliviousness. My chest ached, and I closed my eyes for a moment.
This is quite the formidable opponent.
“Oh! Arelin, what’s wrong? Did I do something wrong again? Does it hurt?!”
“No, it doesn’t hurt. Just give me a moment.”
Drowning in this overwhelming brightness, I felt like I was suffocating. Could humans really shine this brightly? Had he always carried this much light within him? Was the Crown Prince actually……not human?
‘My mind is spinning, and I’m losing my grip on sanity.’
I steadied myself and looked at Fesion. He sat there docile as a well-behaved golden retriever, his eyes bright and round, waiting for my next word.
Why did it seem like he had ears and a tail that didn’t exist?
“Isn’t today supposed to be a Water-Gold Gathering meeting?”
“Yes! That’s right! I remembered!”
“Right. So then…why are you here……?”
Why are you here when you should be at the Water-Gold Gathering?
It seemed the Crown Prince wasn’t someone you could reach with euphemism or roundabout speech. He answered directly with a wide smile.
“I heard you’d collapsed, so I left early to come visit you!”
“Oh……”
What a sound like dark clouds gathering over my life.
Albrecht’s most popular person and its most powerful nobleman showing me attention and neglecting others?
This should be the moment my heart soars, yet it was soaring in an entirely different way.
‘I’m done for.’
How many eyes full of envy and jealousy would be fixed on me now? My future as today’s gum to be chewed and spat out seemed vividly clear.
I could say with certainty: my interpersonal relationships, already hardly fertile ground to begin with, had now been thoroughly destroyed.
They were sprinkling pesticide before the fertilizer even went down.
‘Not that I was ever planning to cultivate relationships anyway.’
But there’s a difference between choosing not to do something yourself and having someone else ruin it for you.
“Does it hurt a lot? Why do you hurt so much? Is it because you’re always like this? Are you sick? You’re sick, aren’t you? Is it something you can’t recover from?”
The bright, clueless serial killer of propriety bombarded me with questions without any awareness of what he’d done to me.
Help me, Griam. Help me, Mehren.
Griam didn’t seem inclined to help, and Mehren wasn’t here. As for the others…… they couldn’t intervene across the unbridgeable gap in status.
“Well. How lonely.”
Life is solitary.
“Hmm?”
“It’s nothing.”
At this rate, I’d be drained dry by endless questions, my vitality sucked away until I withered to nothing. My future, displayed at opacity level 10%, was waving goodbye. I tried to escape from this destined conclusion.
“Why did you come?”
“Huh?”
The Crown Prince’s head tilted to the side.
He didn’t understand the question? It was simple enough.
“Because I wanted to see you.”
So he wanted to see me. Why did he want to see me?
“Why me?”
“Huh?”
“Do you have something to tell me?”
“No!”
“Then what’s your business?”
“Visiting you because you’re sick!”
“Beyond that?”
“There is none?”
The more the conversation continued, the less clear it became whether this was even a conversation—or just a collective monologue where each of us was saying our own piece.
Were we actually engaging in mutual communication, exchanging information and opinions?
“So you’re saying you came to see me with no particular business or anything to say—just to see me? Is that what I’m understanding correctly?”
“I came to visit because you’re sick!”
“……Excluding that.”
“Yes!”
“……”
I don’t understand.
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to see you?”
“……”
“Why? Is there something wrong with that?”
The Crown Prince tilted his head in confusion.
I couldn’t find an answer to his question. I’d never met anyone who simply came to see me without reason.
“That’s……”
How was I supposed to answer this?

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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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