The Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health Chapter 172

“Miss Arellin, are you here alone?”

Seeing the girls hesitate before speaking to me, I felt puzzled for a moment.

With my reputation completely wrecked, public opinion toward me should’ve been rock bottom by now, right?

It was strange that girls my age—who normally wouldn’t even look at me and would keep their distance if I were alone—were actually coming over.

Did they come to pick a fight again?

“What is it?”

I could’ve ignored them or chased them away, but—

“For some reason, that’s hard to do when it’s girls.”

Maybe it was because I secretly admired the idea of having girl friends.

Having learned about friendship through novels and comics, I’d always had a vague longing for “girls’ friendship.”

Not that I thought I could have something like that now.

“Well, um……”

The girls glanced at each other, then, as if making up their minds, asked me,

“Miss Arellin, are you very close with Lord Cheyen?”

“?”

“Do you know what Lord Cheyen likes?”

“??”

Why are you asking me that?

“I’m not close to him, and I don’t know him well.”

At my firm response, the girls looked confused.

“Th-then why would Lord Cheyen act like that toward you……?”

“I was surprised because he’s not usually so friendly with anyone!”

Maybe he was just trying to give me some big, fancy piece of trouble?

I wanted to complain about how much that guy had messed with me, but first, I tried to clear up any unnecessary misunderstandings.

“We just happened to run into each other a few times before. Maybe that’s why?”

I wasn’t lying.

We really had just run into each other by chance.

“Ohhh, so that’s it!”

Thankfully, the girls accepted it. It didn’t look like they were completely convinced, but still……

“Well, Miss Arellin is unfriendly to everyone anyway.”

“I even saw her scolding His Highness and the little devil twins.”

What is my image, exactly?

And even though my image was supposedly ruined, the girls’ eyes were strangely friendly.

It was the kind of look I used to get when I played a piece perfectly just by hearing it once.

“……?”

When I frowned at the overly sparkling gazes, one of them asked,

“So how did you get close, exactly?”

I told you we’re not close.

Guys, did you even listen to what I said?

Their eyes said they couldn’t understand what I’d done to make “someone like that” keep sticking around.

“This is unfair.”

I seriously hadn’t done anything.

If anything, I wanted him out of my life.

My mood soured instantly, and when I made a sulky face, someone laughed.

“Looks like Miss Arellin really hates it.”

“That’s interesting. Isn’t this what everyone wants?”

“Right? Maybe it’s because she’s a young lady of House Halvern?”

At this point, even I—dense as I was—couldn’t miss their goal.

“So Cheyen is the point?”

These innocent lambs were being fooled.

Run away, all of you. That guy is a demon with only a nice outer shell!

“Miss Arellin, between His Highness the Crown Prince and Lord Cheyen, who do you like more?”

Why would you even ask something so obvious?

“Of course, Pession!”

Do you really think our cute, adorable, pretty, handsome Pession can be compared to Cheyen, huh, human?

You’re comparing trash to light!

Apologize to the light right now!

At my blunt answer, everyone’s eyes widened.

“Wow……”

“Oh……”

Once the excitement faded and reason returned, I got embarrassed and clamped my mouth shut. Seeing my face turn bright red, the girls’ eyes sparkled.

“Arell!”

As if he’d heard his name even from far away, Pession came trotting over.

“Arell, did you call me?”

“No, I didn’t, so go back.”

“That’s weird. I thought I heard you.”

Tilting his head, Pession looked around me and made a strange expression—somewhat hostile, somewhat wary, and clearly displeased.

The girls, who usually flocked to Pession like moths to a flame, must have sensed his mood, because they stiffened.

Pession spoke to them firmly.

“Don’t hurt Arellin.”

“Huh? Y-yes.”

“Be nice to her.”

“O-okay, okay.”

Why would he say something like that?!

All the embarrassment landed squarely on me.

Still, even though I was embarrassed, I didn’t hate this feeling. I didn’t really understand it.

“Am I really going?”

When I pushed him away, telling him to go, Pession looked disappointed. That kind of face attack is dangerous—it’s fatal to my heart……

“You said you were going to play ball. You like that, right?”

“Still……”

“You can come back after and we’ll hang out.”

With reluctant, longing eyes, Pession finally nodded.

“Okay!”

Strange. He was just smiling like usual, but when Pession smiled, it felt like warm spring sunlight was shining down.

Hmm. Am I wearing love-tinted glasses?

“As expected, His Highness……”

“Did you see his face when he ran over earlier?”

“I’ve never seen His Highness act like that!”

I could hear the girls whispering, but I ignored them.

I don’t know. I can’t hear you.

 

 

 

****

 

 

 

The girls’ attempts at striking up a conversation—ones I’d thought would end quickly—kept going even after several days had passed.

When Pession or the twins were around, they only lingered nearby without approaching. But when I was with Harun, or alone, they came over as if they’d been waiting for the chance.

“Harun, you really are something……”

“……?”

Well, even I had to admit it.

With Pession constantly radiating a dangerous aura that made it feel like you shouldn’t interrupt him, and the twins already infamous in their own right, it made sense.

But Harun?

How could someone be this respectable?

“Want to be my son-in-law?”

“?”

“If I had a daughter, I’d marry her to you.”

“You’re seven years old.”

I know!

But that was my honest thought just now. It was easy to see why Harun was popular.

“With Harun, it feels like he’d earn the money and take care of the household.”

“……? The household? Wouldn’t the servants—”

“Right, the servants would.”

“Then why—”

“It’s a metaphor! Just a way of speaking!”

“…….”

Even now, you could tell.

If it were one of the twins, they’d latch onto my words and try to outargue me somehow. Harun just quietly accepted it.

Who could possibly dislike a guy like this?

“Lord Harun doesn’t talk much……”

“He’s never bullied anyone!”

“He’s kind to us too.”

That’s not kindness, that’s probably just silence.

Anyway, I looked uneasily at the girls who kept approaching me to chat.

What is this friendly atmosphere?

“Maybe it’s because Leslie isn’t here.”

Lady Leslie, the top-ranking girl among the nobles, had disappeared under the excuse of long-term recuperation.

That didn’t mean everyone was friendly toward me, though. Things had split neatly in half.

The Chloe faction, and the Arellin faction.

“Look over there. Lady Chloe comes from a baron’s family, but she doesn’t seem to know proper etiquette.”

“Tsk, mingling with commoners who don’t even know their place.”

“I heard Lady Chloe’s mentor is a commoner too. Maybe that’s why?”

These high-blooded noble girls clearly didn’t like Chloe—someone who’d rolled in from nowhere and gained more attention and popularity than those who’d been there all along.

So much so that they were even trying to drag me into it, someone they usually ignored like dirt.

“That ‘commoner’ mentor is a senior-grade mage, you know.”

Considering that a senior-grade mage who really put their mind to it could burn down an entire continent, it was laughable how ignorant they sounded.

“Well, I guess from a child’s perspective, their own family probably looks like the greatest thing in the world.”

Tsk, tsk. Mages are not people you want to mess with.

“Though, at our house, they all act pretty well-mannered and gentlemanly……”

I thought about the senior-grade mages who never missed my lunchtime performances.

On the surface, they all looked perfectly normal—but having read the novel, I knew better.

I knew just how insane the Mage Tower really was.

“Ordinary mages are fine. It’s the senior-grade ones that are the problem.”

They’d wipe out entire monster habitats for research.

One mage once sealed off a territory by erecting a wall of burning fire along its border for 180 days just because they didn’t like the local lord.

Another experimented with mind-reading magic and turned a living person into a brain in a jar.

“Well, they don’t usually commit crimes or do anything technically inhumane.”

The brain-in-a-jar experiment had used volunteers, after all.

“Still, it’s best not to get involved with mages if you can.”

That’s why I wanted to avoid them……

But lately, the Mage Tower had practically become an ally of House Halvern, making that impossible.

It was already bad enough that after every lunchtime performance, mages would hover near me, staring with eyes so clear it was uncomfortable.

If I so much as greeted them once, it caused a huge fuss.

“Miss Arellin?”

Pulled out of my thoughts, I turned toward the noble girl who had called me.

“Honestly, I don’t get the hype. Is Lady Chloe really that pretty?”

“Isn’t that level of looks pretty common? Someone like you, Miss Arellin, now that’s different!”

“Watching the young lords drool over Lady Chloe is just embarrassing.”

“She’s often seen with Lord Cheyen too—there’s no way they’re close, right?”

I let the familiar mix of jealousy and envy go in one ear and out the other, but then I noticed the expectant looks fixed on me.

“You think the same as us, right, Miss Arellin?”

Think what, exactly?

When I just blinked silently, a direct question came flying.

“What do you think about Lady Chloe?”