The Obsessive Male Lead Is Obsessed With Me! - Chapter 12

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 12

At the same time, tension settled over us.

-Al, Rose. Which one of you will succeed me?

But Sister and Brother pretended not to know and played dumb again today.

“John! Here, Mother’s glass is empty.”

“Fill mine too. The wine tastes particularly good today.”

-Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me! You brats, other families fight over who gets to be the head, but our family has perfectly capable people refusing to become head!

“But Father, if I rise to Duke, won’t I have less time to read books?”

“I constitutionally can’t sit at a desk for long periods. I’d go crazy doing paperwork and run away from home.”

-You two…

Watching Sister and Brother, who only got along at times like this, Father covered his face with both hands.

Seeing him through the crystal orb made it look like he was crying, so I took out a handkerchief and wiped the crystal orb instead.

“Don’t be too sad, Father. After some time passes, won’t either Sister or Brother say they’ll inherit your position?”

-*Sob*, Cecil… My baby. Since you brought it up, how about you?

“I’m engaged to the Second Prince.”

If only Lionel were a powerless prince we could bring into our family as an adopted son-in-law. But as long as he’s called the prospective crown prince, it’s impossible for me to become Duke.

-If you said you’d become Duke, I could break off your engagement even now…

“Unfortunately, it’s too late, Father. Mother finished the paperwork at the Imperial Palace today, didn’t she?”

-Really? Is that true, dear?

“I was just about to talk about that. The penalty clause we discussed before has been revised… Let’s discuss this privately tonight. We’re still eating.”

-Hmm, let’s do that.

Father has no idea, but that penalty clause revision was my handiwork.

Just in case, if by chance. Even if Lionel gets banished to the Temple following the novel’s flow, I made sure my fiancé wouldn’t change to the First Prince.

“Oh, there’s something I want to learn from you, Mother.”

“Hm? From me?”

Mother tilted her head as if she couldn’t guess at all what kind of learning I was requesting.

“I feel like I’ve taught you everything I could teach… Anyway, I welcome it. What do you want to learn?”

“Well, it’s…”

* * *

“Ta-da!”

I opened the case lid with a cheerful sound effect, but Lionel sitting across from me only blinked with his characteristically emotionless face.

Still, he did react after seeing the contents of the case.

“Cookies…are they?”

“Cookies…they are.”

Whether he knew I was copying his speech pattern or not. Lionel looked down at the cookies that had been neatly arranged… but got a bit disheveled and crumbled during transport, and opened his mouth.

“How fresh.”

“Right? …No, wait. These aren’t fish or meat, so what do you mean by fresh?”

Fresh cookies. It was such a fresh expression that I couldn’t tell if it was praise or criticism.

“Both their appearance and color… I’ve never seen cookies this colorful and irregular before. That’s what I meant by fresh.”

“That was criticism!”

“Pardon?”

He blinks with an innocent face as if that wasn’t what he meant.

‘Hmph, does he think someone will go easy on him just because he makes that innocent expression?’

…But just looking at that face does soften my sharpened mood a bit.

Apart from being handsome, it was because I couldn’t see any sinister malice or mockery.

‘In terms of looks, you’d wonder if he and the First Prince are really brothers, they’re so different.’

If the First Prince took after his maternal side, Lionel took after his paternal side. Perhaps that was also one of the reasons the Empress disliked Lionel.

“Well, Your Highness has probably only eaten perfectly baked cookies, so this would be your first time seeing cookies with such varied shapes.”

“Yes.”

“Wow, unnecessarily honest…”

I suddenly became curious.

‘Has this man ever told a white lie or anything like that?’

Somehow it seemed unlikely.

Lionel was someone who lacked malice as much as he lacked goodwill, like a hollow doll whose ability to respond to what I said was almost miraculous.

At this point, I wondered if that smiling face I saw last time was just my imagination.

“There’s a saying that a good-looking cake tastes good too, but anyway, what matters is taste rather than appearance, right?”

I slid the cookie case toward Lionel.

“Please try one.”

“…”

Actually, since I rolled out the dough and cut it with molds before baking, the shapes themselves weren’t that ugly. The problem was that cookie crumbs were scattered everywhere, making them look messy.

He must have only eaten pastries that were perfect in both appearance and taste to describe this as fresh.

So I thought Lionel might refuse to eat them, but unexpectedly, he took off his gloves and readily picked up a cookie.

Watching him put the cookie studded with chocolate chips that looked sweet enough to make your mouth water just by looking at it, I unconsciously swallowed.

I watched his jaw move several times and his Adam’s apple bob before asking him.

“How is it?”

“It’s fine.”

“Be more specific. Do you mean it’s delicious? Or do you mean it’s not tasty but you can tolerate eating it?”

“It’s the first time I’ve tasted something like this, so it’s hard to say…”

Lionel, who was about to pick up another cookie, noticed crumbs on his hand.

It seemed like a reflexive action, but he looked down and licked the crumbs off his hand with his tongue.

Then our eyes met.

“It’s not that it doesn’t taste good. It’s just that the sweetness is strong, so it would be difficult to eat a lot at once.”

“I, I… I see… But you know, Your Highness licking crumbs off your hand doesn’t seem quite right.”

“I apologize. I showed you an unsanitary sight.”

“No, it’s not a matter of hygiene…”

More like a matter of my heart?

I really never imagined that a man licking his fingers could be this devastating.

“Ah, right! Dignity! You have dignity as a prince. Only do that kind of behavior in front of me.”

“This kind of behavior?”

Lionel asked back with a puzzled voice, and since I had no proper response, I just coughed lightly and changed the subject.

“About those cookies. I baked them myself.”

“Is that so? Why did you do what the chef should do?”

“Why do you think? I was trying to build a close relationship with my fiancé.”

At my words, Lionel frowned slightly as if he’d heard something difficult.

“What does personally baked cookies have to do with building relationships?”

“What do you mean what does it have to do with it? About these cookies, I first baked them three days ago to give to Rio. The only people who’ve eaten them are my family. Oh, even my father hasn’t tried them since he’s at the estate now.”

“…”

“These are very, very, very special cookies that can’t be found anywhere else. I won’t bake them for anyone other than my family and Rio in the future either.”

Even after saying all this, Lionel showed no particular reaction.

‘Sigh, what was I expecting.’

I continued speaking while observing Lionel’s face as he looked down at the cookies instead of me.

“So this is a gift I’m giving only to you, my fiancé. Do you understand what I mean?”

“I understand.”

Lionel picked up the cookie case with his hands and placed it on his lap.

Then he wrapped his hands around the case.

“Something made for me, that belongs to me.”

“Yes. Like the fountain pen I gave you as a gift.”

“…Like the fountain pen.”

Just hearing his murmuring voice, it seemed like he might be thinking ‘How touching that you made this personally for me!’ but his expression hadn’t changed much, so I wondered if that wasn’t it.

‘Difficult, so difficult. Why don’t I try developing a magical device that reads minds?’

Even though I’m a genius, that seemed impossible, so while I was inwardly groaning about it, Lionel started picking up cookies and putting them in his mouth.

I was lost in my own thoughts and wasn’t paying much attention, but at some point I noticed he was stubbornly shoving cookies into his mouth without taking a single sip of tea!

“Rio, isn’t your throat getting blocked? Earlier you said it was too sweet to eat all at once?”

“….”

Perhaps because his mouth was too full to speak, Lionel just chewed and looked at me instead of answering.

After chewing like that for a while, he finally managed to swallow what was in his mouth and reflexively looked down at his hands.

His hands had crumbs on them like before, and after glancing at me briefly, he took out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his hands.

Then he touched the corner of his mouth once, wiped his lips clean with the handkerchief, and called in the head butler whom I had glared at and sent outside.

“Did you call for me, Your Highness?”

“Bring the item I had prepared.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

The butler bowed his head respectfully and went outside. Shortly after, when he returned, he was carrying an unexpected item in his arms.

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