Struggle Chapter 112

And you make me strange too. Taerok absolved his own conduct with sophistry. Nanyoung, with the hands that had been clawing the floor, scratched at Taerok’s thighs and knees. The thing that had been bulging in and out suddenly pushed up hard against the skin of his belly. Nanyoung threw his head back at the pleasure that gripped him as if his testicles were being torn off, and ended up spraying fluid from his member despite it being morning.

“Nanyoung is about to show his uncle a rainbow.”

Taerok’s outrageous conduct did not end there. He held tight to Nanyoung’s body, which was twitching and convulsing, and while still inside him, thrust in and out as if forcibly opening and closing a door, then pulled out to the entrance and messily spilled his seed in the shallow spot.

“Hah, hah….”

Taerok swept back his hair, a satisfied look on his face. Nanyoung was still trembling violently, lost in the afterglow. His eyes, neither fully open nor closed, stared blankly into space.

“Dear me.”

Only then did Taerok click his tongue. That didn’t mean he regretted it, however.

“His stomach will hurt, so he’ll skip breakfast too.”

He was only worried about that.

Taerok pulled the bedding over to support Nanyoung’s lower body and slowly withdrew his cock. With a gush, what he had spilled at the entrance soiled the blanket. What Taerok had stocked most of when moving here was neither horse tack, nor books, nor writing implements, but bedding. The thick cotton blanket would have to be washed again and dried for a long time. But Taerok, unconcerned by that, simply lifted Nanyoung into his arms and headed for the washroom.

“Young master, breakfast…!”

Sim Eung, who approached Taerok as he emerged belatedly, stared at him with a pallid, horrified expression. That impertinence remained unchanged. Taerok, to the audacious servant who took after his master exactly, instructed, “Prepare something thin and warm for Nanyoung’s meal.” Sim Eung glared at Taerok’s retreating back not as if looking at the august and noble Grand Prince, but as if looking at a wretched thief who had made off with the orchid he had cherished and treasured.

∞ ∞ ∞

All throughout breakfast, Nanyoung alternately glared at Taerok and watched him warily. There were only two of them, so it wasn’t as if Lee Taerok wouldn’t notice. He ate in silence and only opened his mouth after he had emptied his bowl. Whether it was because both Nanyoung and Taerok had received strict upbringing, they did not try to converse at the table unless it was something out of the ordinary.

“Now tell me. What is it you want to ask so badly?”

First, Nanyoung decided to vent about why he had been glaring.

“Did it feel satisfying to slander me, who is perfectly fine, as a fake? You just used a strange excuse to torment me.”

“It wasn’t an excuse. You say that because you don’t know how badly my paranoid fears flared up. Nanyoung is so indifferent.”

Taerok was nonchalant. Nanyoung was dumbfounded by the lies that flowed so smoothly from his lips without the slightest shame.

But he decided to let it slide here. Because Nanyoung had his own plan as well.

“Then now… your paranoid fears have subsided, haven’t they? And you must be in a good mood since you found me again?”

“Hm.”

His attitude seemed to say, let’s see what trick you’ll pull.

Nanyoung’s eyes promptly lit up. He knew it was shameless, but his uncle had toyed with him from the morning until his bare bottom was bright red, so it would be truly nice if he granted this much of a request. Above all, right before his eyes was a white creature with eyes like baduk stones, so clear and bright, that he simply could not endure without asking.

“Would it be possible to raise one of the puppies here?”

“No. It’s not possible.”

Nanyoung looked at Taerok with eyes full of disappointment, regret, and a touch of resentment.

Taerok shook his head as he warmed the teapot and steeped the tea.

“It’s not possible.”

“Why? This place is so big—is there no room for one little puppy to live?”

“Don’t be sarcastic. It would be faster to coax me with aegyo instead of telling me not to be petty when the place is so big.”

“Uncle…!”

Taerok was like a massive sculpture. He merely filled Nanyoung’s cup in silence, showing not the slightest sign of wavering.

Nanyoung bit his lip hard, and in the end, with a fading voice, he revealed the vulnerable feelings he had wanted to hide.

“I’m… lonely and bored….”

“…”

“When you go out to the provinces, Uncle, I’m so lonely I can’t bear it….”

Nanyoung, without any malice, gouged at Taerok’s heart.

Taerok let out a sigh.

“Nanyoung.”

“You’re going to coax me into giving up, aren’t you?”

“The lifespan of a beast is shorter than yours.”

“Uncle…!”

“Won’t you spare a thought for my heart, having to watch you grieve after losing it?”

And Taerok cleverly gouged at Nanyoung’s heart.

Just because he had acted clever and cunning didn’t mean it wasn’t sincere. This, too, was Taerok’s true feeling. Nanyoung would grieve terribly. Nanyoung’s body was not of a healthy constitution, to the point that heartbreak could lead to physical harm.

“Waiting indefinitely for you, when you lay sleeping for so long it frightened me that you might never wake—once was enough. I never want to do it again. So this discussion ends here.”

Taerok rose from his seat. Left alone, Nanyoung couldn’t shake the thought that though it was he who had been scolded, it was Taerok who was wounded, and so he sullenly gazed only at his own reflection in his spoon. That distorted face seemed somehow to resemble Taerok.

The deputy minister had come to visit, so Taerok was away for a while. Since it was to calculate the number and quality of falcons to send, it would take quite some time.

Nanyoung tossed and turned before getting up and heading to the kitchen. There was the puppy that he had pestered and begged Kkotnyeo about, asking if they couldn’t keep it just one more day. As it happened, the others had been taken away early by the other servants, leaving only the white one.

“…You’re the last-born too.”

Nanyoung let out a deep sigh and stroked its fur. The somewhat coarse yet soft and warm texture of its body filled his hand amply.

Just keeping it here in the kitchen was already going against Taerok’s words. I can send it away tomorrow. If I send it away tomorrow, it won’t be a complete wrong. Nanyoung repeated this to himself in his mind, but he knew he had already given his heart to the white creature. To become so attached in barely half a day—he could understand why his uncle found him unreliable.

“It’s my fault, it’s my fault.”

The puppy, not understanding the words, lifted its head and let out a small whimper, looking at Nanyoung with eyes like baduk stones. That clear gaze made him smile.

How long had he been watching? Nanyoung didn’t even hear the sound of someone approaching.

“I knew you’d be here.”

A voice slightly tinged with the scent of alcohol was heard. Nanyoung looked up in surprise. Taerok stood in the doorway.

He came in, untying his coat strings.

“The deputy minister has left.”

Then he draped his own outer robe over Nanyoung’s shoulders.

“I’m not cold.”

“I’m the one who’s nearly overheating, so I’m doing this.”

Affection seeped through his curt words. It wasn’t quite that he was hot, but rather that he disliked Nanyoung being cold more.

Nanyoung pulled Taerok’s robe tighter around his shoulders, quietly blushing.

“No matter how much you want to keep it a secret, you shouldn’t forget that I am the master of this place. Someone is bound to whisper in my ear. So, did it feel generous and satisfying to defy my orders and hide the puppy here?”

“…It seems I’ve already grown attached. You have good reason to worry about me, Uncle.”

“If I were to fault your fickle heart, I find it more resentful than pitiful. This must be why people say that whether one is a fool or a sage, the one whose heart runs deeper is the one who loses.”

Taerok uttered it like a sigh.

At that confession in a manner so utterly characteristic of him, Nanyoung stiffened.

“Raise it.”

Taerok, as he gave his permission, rested his chin on his hand and stared silently at the flickering fire in the hearth, so for a moment Nanyoung thought he had misheard.

“What can be done, since you’ve already given your heart to it.”

“I was thinking of separating you from it before you grew any deeper…?”

“You said you were lonely.”

Taerok closed his eyes.

“Those words have weighed on my mind all day.”

There would be times in the future when he would often have to go out, leaving Nanyoung behind. Nanyoung had become an existence living in hiding, having abandoned his own fate. Stubbornly refusing to look back—that was how he managed to cross the main gate, but once the gate closed, the thing that made him turn back again and again was Taerok’s heart for the Nanyoung he had left behind. At the very least, shouldn’t Nanyoung not wither away? Wasn’t that his rightful responsibility? An orchid is, by nature, an exceedingly difficult thing to raise.

“Raise it. But don’t give it too much affection, and don’t forget that someday there will be a parting.”