The Obsessive Male Leads Want to Eat Me Alive - Chapter 2

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

Chapter 2
Sisrain and Heinrich meet for the first time at a mansion.
That mansion was known by another name: The Forest.
A clandestine institution that gathered orphans of unclear origins and awakened their latent abilities.
In that world, magic and supernatural powers were extraordinarily rare, and nobles eagerly paid vast sums to adopt children with abilities.
All for a child who would become a trophy to glorify their family name.
In the novel, children raised in The Forest were called “Trees.”
An ancient sorcerer had sacrificed their life to place a powerful curse upon this forest, and that power drew out the latent abilities of the children, awakening them.
However, this powerful and useful curse often came with severe side effects.
The stronger the ability awakened in an adult, the more prone they became to suddenly losing their sanity and going berserk.
It meant that while they were fine as children, adulthood brought nothing but suffering.
‘This was why Sisrain and Heinrich suffered so much.’
My favorite character in that novel was Heinrich, the protagonist’s counterpart.
A boy born from a lowborn courtesan’s body, yet inheriting the genius magical talents of his noble father.
He was the finest Tree that The Forest had ever produced.
‘And he was beautiful too!’
Yet this beautiful prodigy with violet eyes and silver hair was arrogant and insufferable, consumed by an inferiority complex born from abandonment.
Moreover, traumatized by his father’s cruel words—”born from a filthy body”—he became obsessed with an extreme, almost pathological cleanliness.
Heinrich’s father was the kind of man who discarded the courtesan carrying his child like a used tissue.
To such a man, Heinrich was nothing more than a foreign object in his life.
Abandoned from the moment the umbilical cord was cut, the boy eventually lost even his mother who had raised him alone, and drifted aimlessly until he washed up in The Forest.
Throughout this ordeal, Heinrich’s trauma deepened, and consequently, his obsession with cleanliness became even more pronounced.
‘But Sisrain was in a state of absolute filth….’
When I first encountered Heinrich, Sisrain’s appearance was nothing short of deplorable.
Matted hair, and having lived in a cave, he was covered in soot—a walking ghost of black dust. His foot, which had been caught in a trap, was even festering with infection.
The moment Heinrich saw Sisrain, he felt a visceral revulsion.
So the first words that spilled from his lips were,
“Filthy.”
―just that.
After that, this insufferable chihuahua of a protagonist tormented Sisrain relentlessly.
‘He earned his comeuppance.’
Readers, having witnessed Heinrich’s tragic backstory, accepted his warped personality as understandable, but…
To the eyes of a young, obsessive fanatic like me, he was simply someone who deserved revenge.
‘Heinrich was truly cruel.’
Stepping on an injured foot and calling him a cripple—even I was shocked by such cruelty, and later when he got beaten, I overlooked it with clouded judgment, thinking he deserved it.
But there was a twist: Sisrain was actually of ‘royal blood.’
Once Sisrain became royalty, he framed Heinrich for treason.
And keeping the now-ruined Heinrich by his side, he tormented him with a cruelty so extreme it bordered on flaying him alive.
‘It was truly agonizing and pitiful….’
With barely a moment of peace between them, whenever a scene of their tranquility appeared, readers had to savor it like licking the lid of a yogurt cup.
I used to be a massive fan too.
But no matter how much I tried to rationalize it, watching Sisrain’s increasingly unhinged antics was unbearable.
Please stop. Just stop…!
Those were the nights I’d weep for my beloved, tears soaking my pillowcase as I drifted into sleep.
And then suddenly, I found myself transported into the novel!
“This is way too sudden, isn’t it…?”
I muttered to myself.
“Anette, do you have a question?”
The instructor at the front of the classroom smiled warmly and asked. Oh, I’d forgotten we were in class.
I saw the sparkling eyes of the children turning to look at me. Ages ranged from four to twelve in this group lesson, but they all shared one thing in common.
They were all impossibly adorable…! Like little quail eggs lined up in a row.
I smiled and shook my head.
“No, instructor.”
“Shall we end the lesson here then?”
“Yes!”
The children raised their tiny, precious fists with a whoosh and cheered.
* * *
Lunchtime after class.
Today’s menu consisted of warm lamb stew, soft cream bread, and a colorful assortment of strawberries and blueberries.
“Anette! You don’t find group lessons with the little ones fun either?”
Shasha, whose lips had turned purple from eating blueberries, asked me from across the table.
You’re a little one yourself, Shasha.
“Age-based classes are too difficult. They always teach such hard material…”
I replied flatly to the dejected Shasha.
“I don’t find it that hard.”
“Wow! That’s because you’re smart, Anette!”
The Forest had a well-designed curriculum for nurturing excellent trees.
Basic etiquette for adoption into noble families, as well as history, culture, geography, alchemy, and magical formula studies.
I was a model student and did well in my studies.
Though I had no awakened abilities whatsoever.
Of course, what mattered at the Forest wasn’t academics—it was ability.
Someone like me couldn’t even become a “tree,” just “weeds,” so to speak.
That’s what extras are, after all.
“But you have mana, Shasha. If you eat a lot, your mana will grow too. So let’s eat up.”
“Really? Okay!”
Shasha, convinced by my nonsense, began devouring her bread eagerly.
I took the opportunity to secretly wrap a cream bread in my handkerchief and smiled wickedly.
I need to give this to my baby.
By now, Sisrain would be in the cave, surrounded by absolute darkness.
The thought of him there made my heart ache.
In the novel, Sisrain had been a terrifying mine master, but the real boy I saw before me was simply lonely and hurting.
‘And he was far cuter than I expected!’
Just as I had fallen for young Heinrich when I first saw him in The Forest, I found myself completely enchanted by young Sisrain.
‘Their futures must be bright.’
So, I could summarize my current goals into two points.
1. Allow Sisrain to live comfortably in The Forest like the other children.
2. Make sure Heinrich and Sisrain get along well.
‘If they become close from childhood, there won’t be any tragedy in their futures, right?’
Could this dark story actually turn into something sweet?
I smiled to myself, lost in pleasant daydreams.
* * *
That night.
I snuck into the Kitchen and knocked on the counter.
Knock knock knock! Then knock—knock, knock knock!
This rhythm was a secret signal that Sisrain and I had recently created together.
We had become quite close, enough to establish something like this.
Of course, it took my relentless effort—bringing him food every day, chattering away at him while he gave curt replies and tried to avoid me, and so on.
‘It was a time of patience.’
But fortunately, it seemed he had recently opened his heart a little. Just a tiny bit. The smallest amount imaginable.
After hearing the signal, a boy resembling a young wolf carefully emerged from beneath the counter cabinet.
His dark, shaggy hair framed eyes that gleamed like rubies.
“Anette.”
“Sisrain!”
My face brightened instantly. I rushed over and pulled a cream bun from my pocket.
“You like this, don’t you? I brought it especially for you. I wanted to bring two, but there were no extra buns today. I’ll definitely bring two next time. Come on, try it!”
I chattered away happily, but something seemed off about Sisrain.
He held the bread without eating it, cold sweat beading on his skin.
‘What’s wrong with him?’
Looking more carefully, I noticed his ankles were completely red and raw, the flesh sunken so deeply that bone showed through.
My heart sank.
“…You’re hurt? What happened to you?”
“It’s fine. It’s nothing.”
Sisrain tried to pull down his short pant legs to hide the wounds.
“It’s not nothing. Doesn’t it hurt?”
“No. It doesn’t hurt.”
A lie.
He crawled here despite those injured legs just because I called him?
‘It must be a trap Mimosa set.’
Thinking of him suffering alone, my chest ached.
He hides from the world to avoid getting hurt, yet here he is, wounded again, Sisrain.
‘A hellish fate, they say….’
Sisrain.
Like any protagonist in a novel, Sisrain carried a twisted past as heavy as Heinrich’s own.
His mother was descended from the Mephistopheles bloodline, a family that wielded the powers of ancient demons.
Sisrain’s father, who had been emperor, loved her deeply, and together they had a child.
Among the children of Mephistopheles, some were born with the ‘Black Ability’—a rare and formidable power that appeared perhaps once in several generations.
Yet the ability itself was also a curse.
It heightened the senses to the point of making daily life unbearable, and while granting tremendous power, the demons would torment the child, plunging them into a living hell.
Whether that was true, I couldn’t say, but Sisrain’s childhood had certainly been miserable.
His mother was murdered, and he himself was abandoned in secret.
After that came the circus, beatings, slave auctions, and countless other horrors before he found his way to The Forest.
‘Such a young child with eyes so deep and dark.’
He must have grown up in an environment where he couldn’t even voice his pain.
The moment I thought of it that way, my grip tightened involuntarily.
“I’m sorry, Anette.”
The boy’s sunset-red eyes lowered to the ground.
“You’re angry. I make people angry.”
“….”
I found myself unable to respond, my throat tightening as I held my breath for a moment.
It’s not that you’re bad—it’s the adults who are terrible for making an eleven-year-old feel so small.
“Sisrain, I’m not angry.”
“…Really?”
“Yes. I’ll only speak kindly to you!”
I offered him a bright, gentle smile.
Sisrain looked at me as if he couldn’t comprehend it.
“Why?”
“Because you’re beautiful?”
Sisrain gazed at me quietly with those crimson eyes that gleamed between his dark hair, as I spoke with shameless candor.
Then, with a faint smile, he let slip a soft voice.
“You’re the beautiful one, Anette.”

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