Struggle Chapter 22

The eunuch laughed quietly. It was because the eunuch Sim Eung had a faint idea of what was in the Grand Prince’s heart. As much as he knew, he also found it praiseworthy. The fact that a young heart could feel jealousy and disappointment, yet agonize over it and try not to be that way on his own.

“Such feelings arise even between close friends. The closer someone is, the more you may sometimes feel disappointed, let down, and then reconcile again. If I may dare to say so, is growing up in that manner not the way of the heart?”

Especially for Nanyoung, who as mentioned had grown up in this palace without friends and even more so without peers, how great a significance must his uncle have been. Sim Eung found it regrettable that for Nanyoung, such a person happened to be Lee Taerok, that cold-blooded grand prince, but since it was beyond anyone’s control, he accepted it and offered sincere advice.

Nanyoung fiddled with his fingertips for a moment before finally asking, his voice a little louder.

“Then as I grow older, I’ll mature and it will lessen, won’t it?”

“Of course, sir.”

Besides, Nanyoung might make friends, and would he not also have a betrothed? Then these feelings would vanish in an instant, becoming mere childhood memories.

Sim Eung gave a generous smile, just like a grandfather. Only then did Nanyoung show a small smile.

“If Uncle knew of this day, wouldn’t he think me a foolish wretch?”

Surely, towards his nephew… he is the sort of person who would think that. Although he is such a man, still, he was fond of Nanyoung, so would he truly? Though lacking a little confidence, the eunuch nodded.

“You need only go and offer your sincere congratulations.”

Nanyoung smiled bashfully.

∞ ∞ ∞

On the way to the Queen Dowager’s Hall, he met the Crown Prince. The Crown Prince waved his hand towards Nanyoung. Since it was just the two of them, his attitude was far more informal. Nanyoung also approached the Crown Prince with hurried steps.

“Whoa, whoa. Don’t run.”

The Crown Prince, who had grown a great deal in the meantime, cautioned his frail younger brother. Although he had also gained a younger sister, she was a princess after all and opportunities to meet her were distant, so as he aged, the Crown Prince came to regard Nanyoung with greater particular affection. To the point that whenever he recalled the times he had childishly grumbled, “Uncle likes you too,” he would kick the blankets in embarrassment.

“I greet Your Highness.”

“Indeed. Have you been well? I heard you attended yesterday’s wedding ceremony as an envoy. Did you do well?”

“Of course. I did well.”

Nanyoung grinned. The Crown Prince looked at Nanyoung as if finding him endearing and patted his shoulder. He sensed that Nanyoung felt slightly awkward with that touch. It must be because the time they had been estranged was longer, after all. The Crown Prince, Gak, smiled wryly and praised him for encouragement.

“I can hardly believe you’ve grown enough to handle official duties like this already.”

“Your Highness… are you alright?”

“When it’s just the two of us, you may call me brother. Hmm. I’m not sure what you mean by ‘alright.'”

Nanyoung glanced around at those nearby, then leaned in and whispered.

“The Crown Princess’s wedding ceremony was postponed… You had been looking forward to it…”

Nanyoung felt a sense of guilt over that matter for no real reason. There was absolutely no need for it. It must be a sense of guilt that his thoughts having been too focused on his uncle was not the proper frame of mind as a younger brother.

“Ah, it’s fine. On the contrary, it might be fate so I can properly meet the person destined to be my match. The person destined to be my match might not have been old enough to be presented at the selection back then, could she not?”

The Crown Prince replied with a somewhat playful glibness.

“Following the next selection, you might have one as well—a double celebration could come about.”

At the Crown Prince’s merely cheerful words, Nanyoung smiled sheepishly.

The Grand Princess Consort visits the Main Hall and the Queen’s Hall first. She receives dates and chestnuts from the King and pays her respects to the Queen. It was the King who had suggested that afterward it would be nice for everyone to see them off as they left the palace together and exchange greetings.

This was the reason why Nanyoung, who had no particular role in this process, had been waiting here at the Queen Dowager’s Hall like this.

“Since the princess was born, this is the first joyous occasion in a very long time. It is a lovely sight to see the whole family gathered like this.”

The Queen Dowager, having looked around at her grandchildren with a warm gaze, uttered a blessing with a generous smile. Nanyoung wore an expression that was hard to discern, as if smiling or as if crying.

Nanyoung had simply been lost in thought.

As if to rouse Nanyoung, the sound announcing the arrival of the King and Queen was heard. He rose from his seat. He managed somehow up to that point, but shortly after they took their places, at the announcement that the Grand Princess Consort and the Grand Prince were entering, he came to his senses as if doused with cold water. Nanyoung clenched his fist tightly. The entire time he had been out of it, he had been agonizing over what words of congratulations to offer his uncle and the new person who had married his uncle that would truly reach them. But as if to render the few things he had thought of pointless, his mind went blank.

As if every sound droned, as if swarms of bees descended and covered his ears, everything sounded distant.

The doors opened… Nanyoung felt a sense of unfamiliarity so strong he wondered if this was indeed the woman he had seen once, for the first and last time. The reason, he realized, was because her hair was done up in a chignon. And her atmosphere was astonishingly similar to his uncle’s.

“I greet Her Majesty the Queen Dowager.”

Taerok’s voice was like an echo booming in a mountain thick with fog. Nanyoung watched everything happening as if observing it from within a dream.

The seated couple looked as alike as siblings. On the way back to the palace, Nanyoung had heard about what would happen late at night after he departed. It had been a vague yet explicit explanation. But with mere words, he could not possibly imagine what that actually was. Because it was something that did not exist in Nanyoung’s world. Because it was merely a singular event.

Suddenly, his eyes met Taerok’s.

“…”

Taerok, looking quietly at him, seemed to be saying wordlessly: Nephew, your mind has wandered off again, I see.

For some reason, Nanyoung felt as if his face were suddenly burning. As if the explanation of that ‘event’ that occurred last night, which he still could not understand, was being felt not with his head but with his body, his face flushed hot even while still understanding nothing.

“May you both be happy, respect and revere each other, and become a model couple.”

Even as the Queen Dowager offered her blessing, Taerok listened with one ear and let it slip out the other.

His wife would surely be the same anyway.

Nothing had happened between them last night. Nanok had loosened his own hair, and Taerok had cut his own thigh to draw blood. Neither of them emptied the final cup of the wedding wine. The wedding wine and Taerok’s blood mixed and soaked the bridal blanket, and with that, the cold couple, who either detested each other or shared a common purpose, with only one of those two possibilities, concluded their wedding night.

Turning their backs to each other, they each sought sleep that would not come, lying far apart, and around the time when even the servants on night watch were all asleep, Taerok went outside. He woke only Saon, rode a horse down the dawn roads to a pavilion he owned, and returned around sunrise. That was all. What he thought about as he was bathed in the morning dew coincidentally turned out to be Nanyoung.

When he recalled the image of him standing there, dressed in black ceremonial robes, saying he would carry out official duties, an involuntary chuckle escaped him. A mere babe who knew nothing of what was going on… when did he grow up like that? Two completely different impressions struck him. He is still young, and at the same time, when did he get so grown.

‘Isn’t it too much to be thinking of your nephew even on your wedding night? The Grand Princess Consort will feel hurt.’

Saon, who had brought out a separately set aside unrefined liquor while serving the wedding wine, murmured while tipsily drunk. Instead of replying that that person was probably falling asleep thinking of some other person or some god or something too, Taerok gave no response whatsoever. It was a marriage made without affection anyway, a ceremony held because each had their own interests to look after.

When he returned, Taerok asked Nanok, who was waking up drowsily:

‘This Lord of Heaven that you believe in—is this being a woman or a man.’

‘…’

What on earth is this man talking about at the crack of dawn? At first, Nanok wore such an expression, then answered in a voice hoarse and rough.

‘He said that He created us in His own image.’

‘…’

‘Then would not the Lord of Heaven that I believe in resemble myself?’

‘Then it is a woman.’

That’s not it….

But Nanok did not attempt to persuade this utterly thickheaded man.

As he changed his clothes, Taerok chuckled to himself, ‘My new wife thought of a woman on our wedding night, and I thought of my nephew—how absurd and preposterous.’ There was more than one thing amiss, but Taerok did not give it any deep thought.