Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 82
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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 82
The chill settles in.
A dagger flies to my heart and sinks in.
In the genuinely frigid silence that descends, nobody dares speak.
“Uh, u-um.”
I barely manage a sound.
‘Did he see it?!’
Did Harun see me doing this and that?! I haven’t actually done anything wrong, but for some reason my cheeks flush crimson.
My heart was peaceful when the twins and Harun arrived, but the moment I spot Fession, it starts hammering wildly.
It’s manic. Insane.
The physiological response appears before I can even process it. It’s absurd.
Is something actually broken inside me?
My slow, sluggish brain and yet my heart swelling with joy at seeing Fession again after so long—the combination sends me into panic.
“…….”
Fession freezes, his eyes darting between me and Harun.
“Oh?”
“Your Highness!”
And then he runs.
“Fession!”
Where are you going?!
Didn’t you come to see me?!
I’m still standing there dumbfounded, blinking stupidly, when the Saren Knights nearby lose all composure.
“A love triangle?”
“A romantic dispute?”
“Ooooooh.”
“So whose heart will the lady choose?!”
What nonsense is this?!
Harun, suddenly entangled in this supposed romantic scandal, quivers his eyelashes.
His expression is completely wronged.
* * *
It’s over.
It’s done for.
Completely ruined.
Thump-thump.
I pummel whatever cushions come to hand until Uni and Rena pull me apart.
“Miss, please calm yourself.”
“You’ll hurt your hands!”
“I can’t calm down!”
My heart, which started leaping the moment I saw Fession, now pounds so violently I fear I’m headed for cardiac arrest.
My face is still blazing, and part of my mind has taken a spacewalk.
I…….
“Ugh.”
He saw it, didn’t he? He saw me clinging to Harun, didn’t he?! That’s why he left! Is he disappointed in me?! Does he think I’m someone who clings to anyone?!
“I’m losing my mind!”
I start hammering the cushion again.
The twins watch my impromptu violence with bewildered expressions.
“What in the world is going on, Ciel?”
“I have no idea, Noel.”
Harun, who entered the manor with us, trembles still wearing that aggrieved look.
“So our nephew and Miss were on those kinds of terms?”
“……No.”
“No?! Don’t make me laugh!”
Harun wants to bolt, but he’s not yet strong enough to overcome Jaren.
Jaren roars with laughter, clearly savoring every second of this.
“I’m betting fifty thousand gold on the Crown Prince.”
“I’ll put a hundred gold on young Jaren.”
“What, a hundred? That’s pittance. Let’s start the base at ten thousand gold.”
“Fine, get lost you pauper!”
“Then I’m putting a hundred thousand gold on my nephew!”
The Saren Knights who came along open a betting pool, hoisting a sign that reads “Crown Prince vs. Harun: Who Will Arelin Choose?!”
These people—they drink, they gamble, they do every bad thing under the sun.
“Hey, Arelin. Did His Highness come and go already?”
“Why did he just leave?”
Harun bows his head silently.
I dodge the question too.
“Why is Harun acting like that?”
“Harun, Harun?”
Noel pokes Harun’s cheek with a curious tilt of his head. Harun’s expression crumbles like he might cry, and he flees to the corner.
Anyone watching would think I’d already consummated a marriage with him.
“Argh!”
Why now?! Of all the timing?!
“Twins.”
“Yeah?”
“Listen carefully. I’m asking you because you two are the most ruthlessly honest.”
“What kind of question requires such dramatic buildup, Arelin?”
I steady my breath, which is growing rough again.
“Fession…….”
Two pairs of golden eyes blink. The twins urge me to speak faster, but for some reason my mouth won’t open at all.
How much does Fession seem to like me?
This simple question won’t leave my lips.
“Fession, what?”
“What what!”
“Just wait, I’m panicking right now!”
I try again. The question catches in my throat like before. My mouth suddenly feels dry, anxiety prickling across my skin.
“Arrrgh!”
Why am I like this?
As I cling to the cushion again in distress, the twins exchange cryptic glances.
“Arelin’s acting weird.”
“Are you hurt somewhere?”
* * *
Crown Prince Palace.
Unusually quiet today, it has transformed into a frozen tundra.
“Shh.”
Attendants and servants take pains upon pains not to even breathe audibly.
There is one reason.
The Crown Prince Fession, who has suddenly begun radiating an arctic chill.
“Why is His Highness the Crown Prince being like this?”
“Didn’t he go to Halbern Manor?”
Normally, whenever he returns from Halbern, he smiles like spring sunshine, so this is utterly bewildering.
He finally secured entry permission through a private audience with the Duke of Halbern!
Yet Fession has been dragged about by delegations and ceremonial duties for the approaching Foundation Day Festival, with no time to spare.
“I hate being the Crown Prince.”
“It was precisely because you are the Crown Prince that you met Miss Arelin, so you should be grateful.”
“I’ve started regretting it.”
But when news came that the twins and Harun had gone to Halbern Manor, he couldn’t bear it—he threw his schedule to the winds and went himself.
“Your Highness! You can’t simply abandon your duties like this—!”
Palsel, who arrived to discipline the wayward Crown Prince, freezes in place.
“Sir Griam, why is His Highness like this?”
“That is…….”
Fession, who typically smiles or wears a positive expression, today appears devastatingly cold and sorrowful.
Griam laughs awkwardly; Palsel releases a sigh.
“Let today pass without incident. I shall adjust the remaining schedule—allow him proper rest.”
“Understood.”
Griam exhales deeply.
Even Sirua, summoned to the Crown Prince Palace as always on these occasions, flinches at Fession’s expression.
“Why’s he like that?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea…….”
“If Griam doesn’t know, who would?”
Griam avoids his gaze. He suspects the reason, certainly, but how can he carelessly speak of what his master feels?
Sirua looks displeased, but he dares not provoke Fession, who radiates such unusual coldness today.
Meow!
In the end, today too Sirua leaves with only the cat Siru taken from him.
“I’m lending you Siru just for today. You have to return him tomorrow, understand?!”
Fession pretends not to hear as he strokes the cat’s belly.
“Siru, come home tonight! You hear me?!”
Meow!
“Let’s go inside and have some treats, Siru.”
The Crown Prince kneads the cat’s soft belly while emanating gloom.
The Crown Prince Palace grows even quieter as a result.
“Does Arelin like Harun?”
The first thing he saw upon entering the manor was Arelin embracing Harun.
And moreover.
“Maybe I should try kissing her.”
A kiss? She was going to? With him? Not with me? And she initiated it herself?
His heart plummets.
His mind goes white as snow—he cannot think at all. His hands tremble, his breathing grows harsh. And a tumult of emotions wells up inside.
For a moment, Fession nearly rushed forward to roughly tear Harun and Arelin apart.
‘There must have been a reason.’
But what reason could there be? What he saw was unmistakable.
No one acts that way without feeling.
He has held her before, certainly, but always he was the one holding her—never has she actively embraced him first.
Fession exhausted every ounce of his patience suppressing the violent urge to remove Harun from Arelin’s side.
“Now that I think about it, she was oddly kind to Harun. Affectionate. She never smiled at me like that.”
Even when he and the twins quarreled and were about to fight, she chose Harun, whom she barely knew.
“Harun…….”
His face gone ashen, Fession presses his lips together.
Hiss!
His grip tightens; Siru claws and escapes from his arms. Blood beads on the back of Fession’s hand.
“Your Highness!”
Griam rushes forward urgently, but Fession remains lost in thought, feeling no pain at all.
“Griam.”
“Your Highness, are you hurt?”
“What if Arelin truly likes Harun?”
Griam is at a loss for words.
From his perspective, that was absolutely not the case. Harun, being quiet and always caught between the twins and the Crown Prince, was simply being looked after—wasn’t he?
“Then the two would……be together…….”
His heart aches sharply; Fession clenches his teeth.
The mere thought of them together drains all color from his world.
Rationally, he knows he ought to want this for Arelin’s sake, but if that happened, he could never come to like Harun.
That he could be so petty, so contemptible—it appalls him.
As Fession sits meekly accepting treatment from Griam, his gaze downturned in misery, a single attendant quietly enters.
“Your Highness, a request for audience has come from Halbern.”
“What?”
“Princess Arelin wishes to see you. What shall we do?”
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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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