Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 54

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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 54

Nadelli was weeping softly.
“Stop crying.”
“But Leslie…”
Leslie wiped Nadelli’s tears away with an irritable hand. Nadelli trembled.
“Should I… should I go apologize to the Halbern Manor?”
“You don’t need to. Think about it—it was just a tea party. Not even a formal one.”
Besides, there was no precedent for someone to react so sharply over a single careless word.
“But still…”
Nadelli remained frightened.
Leslie bit her lip.
“A girl who used to hide in the corner and couldn’t say a word…”

“Why should I?”

A single sharp retort that had cut down Leslie the moment she’d stepped in to mediate.

“I’d prefer it if you simply remained quiet, as you have been all along.”

At the memory of those rose-gold eyes, so utterly indifferent, Leslie’s lashes trembled involuntarily.
It had been just a moment, but she’d been overwhelmed.
She’d never been conscious of it before, had always assumed her own superiority as natural fact—yet she’d found herself without warning, frozen and speechless beneath Arelin’s casual nod of dismissal.
It had carved a deep wound into Leslie’s pride.
‘She looked at me as though I weren’t even worth her time!’
That a girl destined to become Albrecht’s most exalted woman should be looked down upon—it was unbearable, a slap to her very essence.
“But… hiccup… even so, if she ignores me later, I’ll… I’ll be angry at her.”
“Huh. And what will you do if she gets angry back? You, who don’t even know who your own mother is?”
What did it matter if she was from House Halbern?
House Belpart was just as storied and noble a lineage.
“Ah, stop crying!”
At Leslie’s exasperation, Nadelli hiccupped. Another girl, watching them both, spoke up.
“What if we did something about it instead?”
Nadelli’s and Leslie’s eyes glimmered at the conspiratorial whisper.

* * *

“Here’s your tonic for today!”
The color of the medicine Fession held out was suspicious.
“Why is it turning blacker and blacker?”
It had been green at first.
“I put in lots of things that are good for your health!”
“…”
He’d mentioned something about a special commission from the crown prince, and now something—something was definitely happening.
I accepted the medicine with reluctance.
A bitter stench rose from it.
“Do I have to drink it?”
“I went to so much trouble to find these ingredients…”
“…”
Fession’s eyes drooped sadly. My breath caught. He looked like an abandoned puppy, and I flinched without meaning to.
“I’ll… drink it.”
I’d lost.
The moment I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed it like poison, a thunderous roar of applause erupted from all sides.
This couldn’t be right.
“Arelin, I’m curious about something.”
“What?”
I was rolling a candy Uni had given me around in my mouth, desperate to rid myself of the medicine’s taste.
“What happened at the tea party?”
Fession asked, meeting my gaze.
“Nothing.”
“Really?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Whether something unpleasant happened.”
This perceptive boy.
True, it was unreasonable to hope he wouldn’t notice after I’d acted so irritably.
“It’s fine.”
“Arelin…”
“Fession.”
“Hmm?”
“If you worry about it, it’ll make things harder for me. So just pretend you don’t know.”
“How can I pretend I don’t know? I’m going crazy thinking about it.”
Fession murmured anxiously, his brow furrowing.
“You acted that way toward me because of what happened. Didn’t you?”
When I opened my mouth without speaking, Fession seemed to understand everything at once.
“In the end, it’s because of me, isn’t it?”
“That’s…”
It’s complicated.
Even if it happened because of Fession, how could that be his fault?
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I’m still sorry.”
“You…”
Why are you always like this?
Sometimes Fession seemed more mature than me, despite my memories from a past life.
Was this thoughtfulness and kindness something natural to him, woven into his very nature?
“Will you stop coming to the gatherings then?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?”
“It feels like my fault.”
“It’s not your fault—I told you. You don’t need to apologize for something you didn’t do. Don’t apologize so easily.”
Fession was the kind of person for whom forgiveness suited him better than apology.
What could someone lacking in nothing possibly want from me?
‘I can’t do anything well, I keep hurting you, I’m sickly, I can’t even exercise properly.’
And yet there was a part of me that wanted to meet his heart halfway.
Unfamiliar and clumsy as it was.
“Fession.”
“Hmm?”
“You’re my first.”
Fession blinked.
“First what?”
“Friend.”
The girl who used to hide away in corners with no one to play with, who insisted she preferred solitude and spent her time playing violin—across both this life and my previous one, a true friend for the very first time.
“You’re the first real friend I’ve ever had.”
My face flushed hot.
“Fession?”
“Wait.”
Fession murmured softly, hiding his deeply reddened face.
“…I think I’m going to die from happiness.”
Seeing him so pleased, I felt embarrassed too. I hadn’t said much, so why was he this happy?
Every time Fession acted like this, I felt acutely aware of how much he cared for me, and something in me twisted strangely.
Would it have been better if I’d remained ignorant? I don’t want to think this way, yet I find myself doubting whether his feelings are truly real.
You have a heroine in this story, after all.
“What will you do later when you end up liking someone else?”
I spoke carelessly, and Fession immediately pushed back.
“That won’t happen.”
“How can you say that so certainly? Something like that could happen.”
“No. That can’t happen.”
“But that ‘what if’—”
Fession’s expression grew hurt as he watched me falter.
“You don’t trust me that much, Arelin?”
“…”
My mind knows the answer.
That I should say I trust him.
‘But…’
I already know the truth.
That this is a Romance Fantasy World.
The exchange ended in an awkward silence.
Fession, who had been so happy before, looked at me with wounded eyes full of longing, but he didn’t ask again.
I never did learn why.

* * *

I found myself thinking as I flailed through another day in that exercise hell where anyone who walked fewer than two thousand steps faced punishment.
‘This is strange.’
I’d only started attending the Water-gold Gathering to escape this torment, so why did it feel like I was digging my own grave?
Both last time and this time, I’d been too uncomfortable with the atmosphere to properly complain, only to find myself exercising instead.
Which meant all the suffering fell on me.
‘It hurts. I feel like I’m dying.’
I couldn’t even let it show. The moment I thought I might actually faint—
“What, exercising?”
An unfamiliar baritone descended smoothly.
Hitch.
My breath stopped.
So this was what it meant for one’s hair to stand on end—a chill raced down my spine, my neck growing cold.
‘I must have misheard.’
I tried to ignore it.
“Hmm? Aren’t you exercising?”
The voice that followed made ignoring impossible.
That was when I learned something: if a human is frightened enough, they can’t even scream.
‘Should I ignore him?’
I’d thought that if I gritted my teeth and forced my mind hard enough, maybe I could just let him pass…
“Are you ignoring me right now?”
Nope. That wasn’t going to work.
I somehow managed to move my head. Perched atop the shrubs the gardener had so carefully maintained, a man both strange and familiar came into view.
‘The man I’d met at the Sharit Mansion before.’
The man gazed down at me with a lazy smile, as though he’d discovered an amusing toy.
His slit pupils caught the light in a gleaming gold that pinned my eyes like nails.
“Why…”
My locked throat barely managed to form words.
“Why are you here…”
“Hmm?”
The man laughed.
It was the smile of a satiated predator—one with no immediate intention of touching me, yet one that made me desperately want to run.
“Of course I came to find you.”
As though that were obvious.
“How did you…”
The man shrugged and glanced at my left hand.
“Hmm?”
The Falling Star Mark on my hand—which had glowed for a few days before its trace vanished completely—now glowed softly again.
‘It was a tracker this whole time.’
So there was no escaping then.
‘I’m finished.’
As the thought crossed my mind that I’d been caught well and truly—
A question suddenly bloomed.
“How are you unharmed?”
This was the Halbern Manor.
This man was no legitimate visitor but an intruder.
The Halbern Manor had a maze garden designed to trap intruders and one hundred and one protective wards layered into its very stone.
So how was he unscathed?
“Hmm? Oh, right. So this is House Halbern. You’re from House Halbern? Tch. This is annoying now. Cursed bloodline. No wonder it took me longer to find you.”
The man chuckled casually as he spoke.
“Don’t be so afraid, though. I’m not going to eat you.”
“So you do eat people, then?”
“Maybe.”
The man’s golden eyes deepened.
“What do you think?”

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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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