Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 197

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

Chapter 197

Contrary to Griam’s expectation that the firmly sealed doors of Halbern Manor would turn away the Crown Prince, they opened with almost laughable ease.
The moment the door swung wide, Fession surged straight toward the second floor as if he’d been waiting all along.
To the room he had always visited for the past half year,
where Arelin had always lain.
‘Had Halbern Manor always felt this desolate?’
Following Fession as he strode forward with almost frantic haste, Griam sensed how much the manor’s atmosphere had shifted in mere days.
It had always been vast and quiet, but it had never emanated such profound loneliness.
More sensitive to such a shift than Griam, Fession threw open the door that the Nursing Corps always guarded.
…….
The curtains beside the open window fluttered in the breeze. A cool wind brushed his cheeks. In the sunlight flooding the room, the bed lay empty, stripped of all trace of its occupant.
Why was it empty?
She should be here.
Why isn’t she?
Fession rubbed his eyes, unable to believe what he was seeing even as he stared, his face contorting in anguish.
“Your Highness.”
He heard Griam’s voice calling to him, standing as if he’d become part of the landscape, but Fession couldn’t move.
“No.”
This can’t be.
Fession pressed down on the empty bed one more time, shaking his head in denial.
It’s all a setup. They’re playing a trick on me.
They’re lying.
Because I’ve been searching for Arelin so desperately.
Because I’ve been chasing only after Arelin.
So….
“It’s all a setup. They’re all lying to me. Isn’t that right?”
“……Your Highness.”
“Isn’t it, Griam?”
“Your Highness…….”
“Tell me it is.”
Fession tried desperately to make sense of the situation.
“It doesn’t make sense. This isn’t right. She vanished in front of me? Just like that? She must have been kidnapped. But they’re saying she’s dead. Does that story even hold together?”
Griam could neither confirm nor deny easily. Watching Fession’s desperate gaze, his face twisted with anguish.
It suffocated him.
He drew a deep breath, his chest expanding fully, yet the suffocation wouldn’t ease.
“……Arelin.”
The moment he closed his eyes, the image of Arelin bleeding replayed on his retinas. That Arelin hadn’t seemed to be in pain—only bewildered.
Who was the man who’d taken Arelin? He’d seen him clearly, yet the memory wouldn’t surface. The Imperial physicians said the shock might have caused partial amnesia.
Fession wondered if perhaps he’d seen a hallucination.
Empress Azeni had told him it would be better not to ask about Arelin anymore. Better not to search for her.

“Why?” he’d asked.

What the Empress had answered, he couldn’t quite recall now.
The memories were tangled, impossible to retrieve in order. Yet throughout it all, Arelin’s smile—so dazzling, so guileless—kept surfacing, and Fession felt he was losing his mind.
He wanted to see Arelin.
He wanted to confirm she was safe.
He wanted to know who that man was.
No—more than any of that, he needed to know what had become of Arelin.
What had happened to Arelin…….
“Your Highness, Your Highness…….”
“……Griam.”
“Are you all right?”
Fession pressed his lips together hard and shook his head weakly. Seeing how pale Fession had become, Griam’s own heart ached.
Convinced that Fession couldn’t remain at Halbern Manor any longer, Griam led him away.
Fession, whom Griam had expected to resist stubbornly, followed without protest.
Until they encountered Mehren.
…….
Mehren’s eyes were blank, as if he hadn’t expected to meet Fession here.
Griam was startled seeing him. Mehren, who normally wore a weary, sharp expression, now had eyes so lifeless it was as if he’d abandoned life itself.
“Mehren.”
…….
“Mehren, tell me.”
Fession seized the hem of Mehren’s garment.
“Is she really dead?”
…….
“Did Arelin really die?”
Mehren’s expression darkened with sorrow. His own heart was breaking, but seeing the boy before him—whose heart was breaking even more—only deepened his torment.
“Please… say something, anything…….”
Everyone in Halbern Manor knew that Fession cared for Arelin. Though all were shrouded in grief, they pitied the young Crown Prince most of all.
Mehren’s tightly sealed lips finally parted.
“I have nothing to tell you.”
He wanted to say something—anything.
But Mehren knew nothing either.
“Truly, I have nothing to say.”
Empress Azeni had hinted that it would be better if Arelin were treated as dead, but even that was a cruelty.
Mehren couldn’t bear to be so harsh with this Crown Prince.
A weary smile flickered across his face, then vanished. Despair dawned in Fession’s eyes. Mehren’s expression and gaze revealed far more than any words could have.
“Go carefully, Your Highness.”
So Fession couldn’t bring himself to hold Mehren back as he turned away with a helpless gesture.

* * *

By the time Fession returned to the Imperial Palace, the sun was setting.
The crimson sky of dusk melded sublimely with the Imperial Palace’s architecture, yet Fession felt as though he alone inhabited another realm, floating untethered.
It was Empress Azeni who received him upon his return.
“Fession.”
“Mother.”
Empress Azeni asked nothing, simply drawing Fession into a tight embrace.
“You’re all right.”
His breath came short and tight.
“I… I can’t breathe.”
“You’re all right, my son.”
Her hands that soothed him were achingly tender.
“Everything will be fine.”
Only for now will it hurt.
You’re still young, and for that I’m grateful.
You’ll be able to forget.
It was only a youthful infatuation, after all; in a few years it will fade.
With time, you’ll smile again as you did before.
You’ll forget completely.
Beneath the ceaseless stream of comfort, Fession closed his eyes, nestled in Empress Azeni’s embrace.

* * *

It took six months for the rumor that Arelin had died to become established fact.
As autumn waned and winter began—when Arelin had fallen into deep sleep—Harun and the Demon Twins, after prolonged denial, finally accepted that Arelin was dead.
The Demon Twins wept until Albrecht left.
Harun pretended not to cry, but Fession noticed his reddened nose and eyes, and knew he had wept too.
“Aren’t you going to cry?”
Because the Demon Twins had cried so much they’d nearly become dehydrated, the servants and attendants watched Fession nervously, on edge.
If the Demon Twins were like this, what about our Crown Prince?
Fession could see such thoughts written plainly on their faces.
“I can’t cry.”
Everyone praised Fession then—remarking how mature and dignified he was, how admirable a child who could restrain his tears.
Fession found it strange.
He wasn’t crying because tears simply wouldn’t come—that was all.
The tears that had flowed so readily when Arelin was alive had somehow dried up entirely.
That wasn’t the only strangeness.
As if his heart had withered, Fession neither smiled, nor wept, nor raged, nor rejoiced.
He simply did what needed doing, and because he lived, he lived on.
The surrounding people’s praise began to shift after Fession overtrained and fell gravely ill.
“Why did you push yourself so hard?!”
When the alarmed instructors demanded an answer, Fession’s reply was remarkable.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
…….
He’d been having nightmares.
Or rather, he couldn’t fall asleep at all.
Every time he closed his eyes, fragmented moments would suddenly surface, seeking him out.
Fession couldn’t understand those who said Arelin was dead. There was no body, no funeral—how could she be dead?
No matter how many people insisted Arelin was gone, he couldn’t believe it without seeing it with his own eyes.
He thought of her as having simply departed somewhere, having left him behind.
With each day Arelin was absent, the void she left behind became only sharper, hollowing out his heart.
There was nothing wrong with his daily functioning. Fession remained an exemplary Crown Prince, flawless in every way.
It was only when emptiness and unease suddenly consumed him that he would slip into Halbern Manor and spend whole nights in the room now void of its master.
Time passed.
Fession did not recover.
More time passed.
Fession still had not recovered.
You’ll be able to forget?
It was only a youthful crush?
You’ll be fine when you’re older?
You’ll fall in love again?
Things will be different when you’re grown?
Time flowed past, skirting both the anguish that tore at his heart and the oppressive sorrow.
Within all those words of comfort, Fession remained trapped in memories of Arelin that shone ever more vividly with each passing day.
How could he ever forget this?
With every moment, he heard something gnawing away.
The sound of Fession’s once-solid world, his flawless and perfect world, crumbling.
His heart squeezed as if in a vise, and Fession closed his eyes.
Still, he couldn’t breathe.
Spring never came to Fession’s world again.

And so fifteen years passed.

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