Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 6

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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 6

The world stops.
A small girl looking out the window holds her place within it like a painting.
Hair the color of platinum melted from sunlight. Eyes the hue of rose quartz. That pale white face—he knew it.
Arelin, the Halberg maiden.
Arelin Sigria Halberg.
Whoooosh—
A fierce wind swept past once more.
The child watching beyond the window turned her head to look at Fesion.
“Oh.”
In that instant, the frozen world began to move again.
Focus gathered in eyes that had been hollow, and color kindled in that pallid face, and Fesion was seized by an emotion he could not name.
“Hmm?”
Arelin’s eyes widened at the sight of Fesion.
“Your Highness the Crown Prince?”
“U-um?”
When those rose-quartz eyes—holding the tender spring of soft pink—took him in, Fesion stumbled awkwardly.
“How did you… get here?”
“Oh, I wanted to apologize!”
Unable to admit he’d snuck in, Fesion laughed and fumbled for words.
“Are you well? Your body, I mean?”
“Yes. As you can see.”
This was their second conversation, and it felt different from the first. Fesion clenched his fists in nervousness, then tilted his head.
Why am I like this?
“Um, sorry. I mean, I told you to run, and…”
Speaking the words aloud, Fesion regretted them. He’d wanted to apologize more impressively.
For some reason he couldn’t fathom, it hadn’t been impressive at all just now. Not at all.
Still, he had to apologize. The apology itself was what mattered.
“I didn’t think you’d actually collapse. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“That’s understandable. It’s fine.”
“Hmm?”
“You needn’t worry about it.”
“Eh?”
At her composed reply, Fesion tilted his head.
He was grateful for her easy forgiveness, but somehow it felt wrong. This wasn’t right…
“But… you forgave me so easily? You collapsed.”
“My constitution has always been weak, so it’s unavoidable. You didn’t mean any harm, did you? I ran knowing I’d collapse anyway.”
“Well, I suppose that’s true, but…”
Arelin shook her head with the faintest hint of a smile.
“You came in without permission, didn’t you? You should go now.”
“Eh? Uh? Uhhh? Did I say something?”
“Mehenhe wouldn’t have allowed it, so I assumed as much. I’ll keep it secret, so please go. I still need to rest and recover.”
“Oh? Right, you should rest.”
With impeccable courtesy, Arelin bowed and saw Fesion off.
It was warm enough, yet somehow felt like a dismissal.
…No, it couldn’t be. He was the Crown Prince. Wherever he went, he was received with welcome. That didn’t make sense.
‘The young lady must be quite ill.’
As Fesion left the room according to Arelin’s words, something stirred in his chest on the way back—a strange sense of incompleteness.
“What is this feeling?”

* * *

Not long after Fesion had gone.
“Is all well?”
Mehenhe arrived with impeccable timing.
‘So I was right—he did sneak in.’
She’d suspected as much, but having Mehenhe appear like an enforcement officer left her with an odd feeling.
“Yes. Everything’s fine.”
……
Mehenhe’s eyes swept over her with a keenness that seemed to pierce through to her very thoughts.
As if measuring whether she was lying.
She had no loyalty to vouch for the Crown Prince, but she’d rather avoid the resulting hassle.
“Really.”
She held out both hands as if in earnest supplication, and only then did Mehenhe’s expression soften. But then he seemed taken aback.
“I… apologize. I wasn’t trying to interrogate you.”
Mehenhe’s words faltered, uncertain. She understood what he wanted to say, but it was strange to see him stammer before her.
Why does he stammer?
Wasn’t she just a burden? A child he’d been forced to raise because his lord had insisted on it?
Something he couldn’t cast aside, something too burdensome to care for, yet something he couldn’t ignore—a thankless responsibility.
They were not family. There was no deep bond between them.
He was simply her guardian, and she his ward.
Mehenhe had the duty to care for her, but no duty to be kind about it.
Now that she thought about it…
“You’ve been coming around a lot lately?”
Recently, Mehenhe had been visiting her room frequently. That had been extraordinarily rare before.
Mehenhe had left her with the Childcare Unit and shown his face only occasionally.
At her observation, Mehenhe seemed startled, looking at her with an unreadable expression.
It wasn’t exactly that she felt hurt by it.
“I know you’re busy, Mehenhe.”
“That’s not…”
“I’ll stay quiet.”
Their eyes met as he faltered.
“I’ll be silent and obedient, as if I’m not even here, so you don’t have to worry about me.”
Mehenhe’s expression hardened.
“It’s all right. You needn’t trouble yourself with me.”
……
“You’re busy. Go do your work.”
……
Mehenhe’s frozen face opened, his eyes terrible and his voice barely grinding the words out.
“Arelin. No—miss.”
“Hmm?”
……
He seemed about to speak, but fell silent instead, looking at her.
Mehenhe’s hand gripped the edge of her chair as if to crush it, then released.
The oppressive force that had roiled like a storm vanished in an instant.
And then came his answer.
“If that is what you wish, miss, then so it shall be.”
Mehenhe had shuttered away every emotion, his face now unreadable.
“Forgive the intrusion. Please enjoy your rest.”
Mehenhe offered a clean bow and departed. Only then could she properly exhale.
“…Why was he angry?”
She was surprised.

* * *

First the Crown Prince’s visit, and then what transpired in Arelin’s room.
Having endured all of it, Mehenhe’s mood plummeted through the floor and into the depths of despair.
As a result, the Halberg Residence fell into an unusual killing silence where everyone tended their words and their steps.
At last, someone gathered their courage to address the situation.
“Mehenhe, why do you seem so angry?”
At Dilen’s question—his aide—Mehenhe paused.
“Angry, you say?”
He thought he’d misheard.
“Me?”
“Yes. Aren’t you angry?”
……
Am I angry right now?
Because of what Arelin said?
Mehenhe’s expression crumpled miserably. He finally set down the documents he’d been forcing himself to read and pressed his fingers to his brow.
‘I’ll stay quiet and obedient, so you don’t have to worry about me.’
It was what he’d wanted to hear.
Truly, shockingly, what he’d desired to hear.
He’d hoped the difficult, difficult ‘child’ would be obedient enough that he needn’t concern himself with her.
Yet hearing those words directly filled him with something filthy. His mood had become utterly foul.
It sounded as though she were condemning him for being unworthy. Yes, he’d overstepped his station as a guardian lately, but did she have to say it like that?
Or was he simply garbage?
“Damn it.”
He didn’t know anymore.
But.
He hadn’t wanted to see that expression on her face.
‘Miss, are you truly content with that?’
Mehenhe bit his lip.
His thoughts drifted to the perpetual anguish that had haunted him.
Was he truly unfit as a guardian? Should he not seek out better protectors? The Childcare Unit was composed of the finest talent, yet he always sensed its insufficiency.
And there was no one to ask for counsel. In a situation surrounded only by hyenas eager to feast upon Halberg’s misfortune, where could he possibly seek advice?
And her true father—that man—had left the child in his care and hadn’t shown his face since.
“What news from the Northern Fortress?”
“Still locked in fierce combat, it seems. They say communication will be impossible for a fortnight.”
“That damned battle.”
“The front lines are apparently intense.”
Intense or not, that place was always thick with death, and Mehenhe had grown numb to it.
“Has there been a reply to the letter I sent?”
Mehenhe’s request, which he’d been sending for years now—to find another guardian—had been refused.
The question of when he’d return to the Northern Fortress met with “Holding the line.”
Everything else: “Too tedious to explain in writing; I’ll tell you when I return.”
And now, regarding Arelin’s health crisis: “Handle it yourself.”
“This bastard.”
His inability to march to the Northern Fortress and seize the man by the collar—owing to the sedentary weakness of a clerk’s physique—was Mehenhe’s eternal regret.
“But the young lady needs family…”
Was showing his face so difficult?
As Mehenhe pressed his temples against a throbbing headache, Dilen, who had been watching him carefully, ventured some advice.
“I suspect you may be overthinking things, Mehenhe.”
“I am?”
Mehenhe looked bewildered.
“From Miss Arelin’s perspective, mightn’t you feel more like family than the Duke, whom she’s never once met?”
“…Someone like me?”
Mehenhe’s expression twisted strangely.
It became an expression of disbelief.
“You jest.”
Mehenhe was merely a ‘guardian.’ He was a retainer who understood his place well.
Arelin was his lord’s child. That boundary must not be crossed. Yet Dilen did not seem to share that view.
“No matter how closely they work together, the Childcare Unit remains, to Miss Arelin, merely ‘people caring for her on Mehenhe’s orders.’ They feel like substitutes for you.”
“That can’t be. The Childcare Unit…”
“Think carefully, Mehenhe. A child that age doesn’t desire jewels or crowns.”
Dilen spoke with conviction.
“Only the warm presence of a guardian.”
……
“Just having a guardian nearby might be enough for her.”
Remarkably fitting counsel.
Mehenhe’s eyes grew darker still.

* * *

“Griheim.”
‘Here we go again.’
Griheim, the Crown Prince’s chief attendant, had been seized by an overwhelming urge to resign.
For one reason alone.
“Griheim.”
……
“Griheim?”
……
“Griheim!”
“Yes, Your Highness. I’m listening. Speak.”
He wasn’t listening at all, in fact.
Hearing with one ear and letting it out the other, Griheim quietly recalled when this strange behavior had begun.
It was from that day.
No doubt about it. From the day of his visit to the Halberg estate. Fesion had become strange from that point forward.
“You know, Griheim.”
For what seemed the five-hundredth time, Fesion described his meeting with Miss Arelin, his expression enigmatic.
“What could that have been?”
……
“It’s a first for me.”
At seven years old, Fesion had encountered what seemed to be the greatest mystery of his life, and his face bore the weight of deep contemplation.
Griheim turned away with a look of exasperation. If he kept watching, he feared he’d snap.
“When the young lady said to me, ‘You needn’t worry about it,’ but she still collapsed because of me—morally speaking, shouldn’t I do something about that?”
“You’ve already apologized formally, and the palace has sent gifts aplenty…”
“Griheim. I’m the Crown Prince, so I have to set an example for everyone, right?”
……
“Aren’t I?”
“…Well, yes.”
The answer was predetermined; all you had to do was agree!
Griheim assented with reluctance, and Fesion nodded with great satisfaction.
“And before she sent me off, she bowed to me, but somehow that seemed significant, didn’t it? What do you think it meant?”
What could it possibly mean?
“What’s your thought on it?”
I have no thoughts whatsoever.
“Hmm.”
The Crown Prince was so absorbed he would earn a scolding from his tutor if the man saw him studying like this.
The Crown Prince had been like this all day since then.
‘What on earth happened that day?’
Curiosity was forbidden.
It was enough to simply follow along, but Griheim was beginning to struggle.
Whether Fesion knew Griheim’s heart or not, he sat with his chin propped in his hand, gazing out the window.
Watching the window thus, the fragile profile of Arelin came to mind—her empty gaze turned outward.
What had she been looking at that day?
“Griheim, what do you think the young lady is doing now?”

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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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