The Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health Chapter 204

They say that when someone goes through something utterly absurd, they can’t even react.

That was me.

I stood there, dumbfounded, unable to say a single word.

“No, I mean—ha.”

It was a brief encounter, but the impact was intense.

By the time it occurred to me that I should say something to Pession—who had mocked me relentlessly and left behind a warning that he’d kill me if I showed my face again—I was already alone.

“What was that?”

Only then did I replay the situation in my head and let out a hollow laugh.

“No, seriously. What just happened?”

At first, I was too stunned to properly understand what had happened.
Then came disbelief.
And finally, anger flared up.

“What the hell did that bastard just say to me?”

When it finally sank in how I’d been treated and I stormed back to the hall in a fury, Pession was there with a perfectly composed face, dealing with people as if nothing had happened.

Wow.
That bastard.
That sly bastard.

“Does he have a split personality or something?”

“What do you mean by that?”

If Mehen hadn’t returned right then, I might’ve caused a scene with magic.

Then tomorrow, the front page of the Albrecht Times would’ve been about me.

“Mehen.”

“Yes, I’m listening.”

“Am I… not good enough?”

“…What?”

“Am I not pretty?”

“…?”

It hurt enough that he didn’t recognize me, but what was that nonsense about how much I’d ‘had done’? This face is natural, you jerk!

“Why are you suddenly asking something like that? You’ve never cared about appearances.”

“Well, uh—ha. Because some guy asked me how much I’d had my face redone.”

“?”

When I glared daggers at Pession, fuming, Mehen seemed to realize something and pressed his fingers to his forehead.

“…Shall we go back now?”

I wanted to snap back at him, to say something, but I couldn’t refuse Mehen when he grabbed my arm and begged me to leave with such a desperate look.

Even as he dragged me away, I didn’t stop complaining.

“Mom, Pession is weird. He didn’t recognize me at all. I think he’s kind of lost his mind.”

I could’ve accepted skipping the touching reunion, but I’d never imagined this kind of reunion.

Not recognizing me at all?!

“How is this even possible? Does this make any sense?”

That feeling of common sense completely collapsing.

After raging nonstop, my blood sugar dropped.

“Ah, I’m hungry.”

Come to think of it, I hadn’t eaten properly while getting ready for the party.

I didn’t even think to grab any finger food once I arrived—I’d been staring at Pession the whole time.

Now that my head had cleared, I was starving.

As I belatedly thought about what to eat once we got back to the hotel, Mehen asked cautiously,

“Did you meet His Highness the Crown Prince?”

“Yeah.”

“How did it happen?”

I gave him a rough explanation of what happened while he was away.

“Hah. I told you not to cause trouble.”

Mehen looked like he was about to cry.

“You’re not even his real daughter, yet you resemble Valer in this way too.”

“Mom, are you insulting me right now? I just went to see Pession.”

“Give me back my cute Arellin.”

Mehen buried his face in his hands and lamented. I puffed out my cheeks in a sulk.

“Mehen.”

“Yes?”

“Confess. There’s still something you haven’t explained to me, isn’t there?”

“……”

Mehen fell silent.

And in moments like this, silence was as good as a yes.

“When you warned me not to cause trouble… was that really about not meeting Pession?”

Mehen’s expression darkened even further.

Just looking at his face, it was obvious there were complicated circumstances behind it, and a sigh slipped out of me.

“Haa.”

I thought once this illness was cured, everything in my life would finally go smoothly—but it’s not that simple.

Only now did I acknowledge how rash my stubbornness had been.

Right. Fifteen years had passed. There was no way everything would still be the same.

I’d been naïve to hope it would all end with Ta-da, I’m back! and everyone living happily ever after.

What right did I have to expect a bed of roses?

Ha. I really wanted to coast through life.

As I reflected on the timeless truth that the world is never that easy, I steeled myself.

“Explain it to me,” I said. “As thoroughly as you can.”

 

 

 

****

 

 

No matter how detailed Mehen tried to be with his explanation, he’d been away from the capital, staying in El Sionel the whole time.

So just from Mehen’s story, I still couldn’t fully understand how my cute, lovable, kind, literal ray-of-sunshine Pession had grown up into such an annoying, rude guy—

but I could understand why Pession had acted so sharply when he met me.

“Fifteen people?”

There were fifteen people who pretended to be me?

Back at the hotel, while properly devouring a delicious late-night snack and ice cream, I listened to Mehen tell me about the wild events and incidents that had shaken the capital over the past fifteen years.

As if impostors pretending to be me weren’t enough, there’d also been a huge trend sweeping the capital called the “popular young lady style”:

Platinum-blonde hair, pale pink eyes.
Cold and aloof personality?

“…Was I really like that?”

Me? Aloof? I had no idea what they were talking about.

Lena, who had been worrying that I’d get a stomachache from eating ice cream so late at night, burst out laughing.

Setting aside how people misunderstood my personality, the fact that there had been fifteen impostors pretending to be me was—

“That’s scary.”

Was it people’s desire for power?

Or their hunger to rise in status?

Wow. Maybe you really do need that level of obsession and ambition to chase power.

Thinking about how the whole world must’ve gone crazy, all trying to catch Pession’s eye, trying to seduce him, made me feel conflicted—and honestly, a bit irritated.

Apparently, there were even cases where two or more impostors appeared at the same time, each insisting they were the real one.

What a ridiculous world.

“In the end, they all failed,” Mehen said.

“Obviously. With Halbern watching so closely.”

“That wasn’t actually the reason.”

“Then what was?”

Surprisingly, the reason they failed wasn’t because of Halbern’s power or my appearance.

“It was because of your abilities, my lady.”

“My abilities?”

What did I do?

Rena explained proudly.

“The twins from Sperom made them play the violin, Lady Claire tested their magic, and for the young ladies who claimed they’d talked with you, they took the impostors to the library and made them read books in multiple languages.”

“Oh.”

“They could imitate some things pretty well, but there was never anyone who could do everything, so they always got caught!”

The fact that Harun even tested whether they could read his expressions was kind of cute.

Hmm. Harun’s expression language was pretty hard.
Even I struggled to master it.

“Now that I hear it, I was kind of amazing.”

“The last impostor, who appeared two years ago, managed to imitate those abilities quite well. But thankfully, His Highness the Crown Prince personally declared that she wasn’t Arellin.”

“How?”

“No one knows.”

Mehen shrugged.

I got curious.

Just what kind of method had Pession used to figure out she was fake?

“But while all these impostors were running around, what was Halbern doing?”

“……”

Mehen gave an awkward smile.

“Well, since they’d be exposed as fakes pretty quickly anyway…”

“Was that the right call, or the wrong one?”

“…The wrong one.”

“My mom isn’t usually bad at her job, though. Why? Why make that kind of mistake?”

“…Because Arellin wasn’t by my side?”

Hmm. That excuse was one even I couldn’t resist.

“Next time, no mercy!”

“Of course. You won’t be leaving our side anymore, right, Arellin?”

That wasn’t the kind of question I could answer clearly.

I dodged it with a vague smile, and Mehen’s smile deepened.

“Right, my daughter?”

“Ugh.”

Mom only called me that at times like this.

“…I’ll try.”

“Trying isn’t enough.”

“I’ll do my absolute best to stick around.”

“Yes.”

Only then did Mehen smile in satisfaction.

With the ice cream finished and my sugar levels restored, my mood lifted, and I took stock of my current situation.

“So, if I want to be recognized as Arellin without causing trouble, I need Dad to show up?”

“Yes. That’s the easiest and fastest way.”

It wasn’t the only way.

Just the most complicated and annoying alternatives existed.

“Hmmm.”

But then a thought crossed my mind.

Do I really need to work this hard just to be acknowledged as Arellin?

I’m Arellin anyway.

If they can’t recognize me, isn’t that Pession, the twins, Harun, and everyone else’s loss?

“…?”

Mehen suddenly shivered.

“That’s a little unsettling.”

After everything I went through—the pain, the suffering—just to get healthy, how dare they call me a fake?

No matter what happened! Hey! I wasn’t even there!

‘Should I tease them just a little?’

At this point, I was curious.

Would they recognize the real me if I hid my identity?

“My lady, why are you smiling like that?”

“Why do I suddenly feel a chill…?”

When I grinned, Lena and Dylan both started trembling.

Mehen looked at me uneasily.

I smiled brightly.

“I just thought of something really fun. Anyone want to hear it?”