Struggle Chapter 26

Then Taerok turned his head and met the eyes of Suhwan, who had been watching them.

“And this is a face I am seeing for the first time. Have you taken on a new palace officer? Judging by the beard beginning to grow, he does not seem to be a eunuch.”

“A palace officer…”

Though incomparable to the King’s brothers or sons, he was still a son of a noble house. Nanyoung murmured in astonishment.

Suhwan offered an impeccable courtesy to Taerok, then replied with an unperturbed air, as if the rude words he had just heard did not bother him in the slightest.

“I am Sim Suhwan, youngest son of the Commander of the Capital Garrison at Jingoksan. I am studying together with Grand Prince Heonui, sir.”

“Then you must be my nephew’s senior brother.”

“Yes. That is so.”

Taerok gave him no further attention and turned back to Nanyoung.

“How nice it must be to have gained a younger brother.”

“He is not my younger brother…”

“Indeed, he does not appear young at first glance. Is he my age, then?”

It was Taerok’s jest. Indifferently tossed out, yet mischievous. Nanyoung gave a small laugh at the teasing he had so missed. Suhwan’s eyes, as he watched, narrowed. Had he ever been one to laugh like that? Lee Nanyoung, who seemed stiff in all matters with not a gap for a needle to slip through, appeared in an instant like a very young boy before Lee Taerok.

“He is five years older than me.”

While Nanyoung and Taerok conversed pleasantly, the horses that the party had ridden were being busily moved to the stables and the luggage to the storehouse. The two of them alone seemed to belong to a different world. Even Suhwan, standing right beside them, could not intrude into their world. It was as if an uncanny wall had been erected. They were family, but was it always like this? Suhwan recalled the relationship between himself and his own uncle. It was true that his uncle was exceedingly fond of him, but the age gap was large, and even if he held him dear, it was merely to the extent of an uncle and nephew.

But those two, too, were also an ‘uncle and nephew,’ and yet even the perceptive Suhwan found it difficult to state with certainty from where this different feeling arose.

“I have prepared your room, Nephew. Still, how could preparations be made carelessly when a Grand Prince is coming?”

“Did you know I was coming…?”

“I did not know. Had I known, I would have told you not to come. Did you not only send a falcon to inform me after setting foot on this land?”

Taerok’s tone was rather stiff. Nanyoung could discern that he was inwardly angry.

Since a falcon could not cross the sea, it seemed he had only been able to inform him of how many days the remaining journey would take and who was coming after they had already arrived. Though Nanyoung could see how the sudden appearance might be disconcerting, he also felt somewhat wronged. Had the schedule not been too pressing to notify in advance?

Taerok, who had been walking ahead, stopped abruptly. It was likely because he, too, realized that his anger was childish.

He turned around and asked in a voice much softer than before.

“Can you properly grasp a blade with a cutting edge by now?”

“…Uncle, I am now at the age of setting one’s mind upon learning. I am fifteen, I tell you.”

Nanyoung murmured in a slightly pouting voice.

At the word fifteen, Taerok’s eyebrows twitched and he laughed languidly.

“Ah, already?”

“Already, you say… It is only now that I am fifteen…”

“It seems you wish to grow up quickly, Nephew.”

“…”

“Why is it that you wish to do so.”

Nanyoung stepped up onto the wooden floor as Taerok guided him. The shape of the wood and the color of the oil applied were different from the place where he had lived. The timber was consistently lighter, and its hue was more red. He only realized after Nanyoung was standing here that the color red suited him well.

“I do not know. But I feel that when I grow up, something will change.”

“Nothing changes greatly. Growing old as a Grand Prince is a tedious affair.”

“Do you say that even after gaining a spouse?”

In an instant, Nanyoung was startled, wondering if he had spoken in a sulky voice. But fortunately, Taerok seemed not to have noticed such a sign.

Feeling guilty for no reason, Nanyoung clutched at his chest. His body, worn from the long journey, seemed to have reached its limit from feeling a myriad of emotions all at once. Taerok stepped up beside Nanyoung. Leaning over, he removed the hand clinging to his chest and stroked his back.

“It was tedious.”

He replied indifferently. Then he tilted his head and gazed intently at Nanyoung.

But Taerok soon broke away insipidly.

It had been tedious. Tedious enough to play such a prank on a nephew who had come a long way. But at the same time, the moment Nanyoung arrived, it became astonishingly un-tedious.

Nanyoung had grown much in the meantime. So much so that he wondered if his knees had ached at night. There would be more things he could do with a grown Nanyoung. For example, a hunt requiring an overnight stay, which the younger Nanyoung had pestered to go on but had ultimately not been taken to.

Have I grown old as well? To be glad simply at seeing family in a foreign land.

Taerok was self-mocking inwardly. Though he knew he would not have been this pleased even if that family had been the Crown Prince, or the Queen who was his sister-in-law, or even the Queen Dowager.

“The room is here.”

Taerok brushed past Nanyoung and opened the door. It was a room decorated in somewhat strong colors. What was particularly unusual was that a bed was placed there. Above the bed, a cloth of thin gauze hung like a canopy.

“There are insects at night. It would be best to close this without fail when sleeping.”

Nanyoung approached and fingered the cloth. Watching his back, Taerok scratched his neck. Now that a little time had passed, seeing Nanyoung in this place felt both wondrous and unreal. Moreover, with him being enveloped in that thin gauze, he looked as if in a dream.

“You must be weary, so I will have the meal brought to you here.”

“Ah… Uncle…!”

Before Nanyoung could even catch hold of Taerok, he had already turned and was leaving.

∞ ∞ ∞

The food here subtly did not suit his palate.

Or perhaps he was so exhausted that his tongue had broken out in spots and the inside of his mouth was rough, leaving him without appetite. Still, at Sim Eung’s dire threat that a medicinal decoction on an empty stomach was absolutely forbidden, Nanyoung barely managed to empty half a bowl of rice. The rice, too, was quite different from that of his homeland. Should one say it was somewhat lighter.

Perhaps because of that, the rice seemed to float about in his stomach like feathers, and Nanyoung could not easily fall asleep.

“…The moon is red.”

He had occasionally seen a red moon, but here, perhaps because red was used abundantly even in the ornaments, it looked especially crimson. Nanyoung pushed aside the fluttering gauze canopy and finally left the bed.

Sleep would not come at all. The hushed voices of Sim Eung, who had been clearing the dinner table, talking quietly with the acupuncture physician who had come along, circled around in his head. The content was that the Grand Princess Consort was steadfastly refusing, saying she had no need of a physician.

Was she very unwell… Nanyoung clasped his index fingers behind his back, forming something like a reverse clasp, and strolled leisurely around the courtyard.

He walked wherever his feet took him. On a sleepless night, the red moon was surely bewitching him. Though he thought he was walking in place, when he raised his head, an unfamiliar wall came into view.

“…”

Nanyoung stared blankly at the dark window, then turned his steps.

Having no destination, he merely wandered here and there. At this rate, he would not even be able to find his own quarters. I should head back now… It was just as Nanyoung was about to turn his body.

From a pavilion tucked away in a secluded spot, with windows notably wide and horizontal, a shrill sound was heard. It sounded like moaning in pain. Flustered, Nanyoung ended up heading towards it. If the Grand Princess Consort, who had been quartered separately because she might be contagious, was suffering alone, would that not be a serious matter?

Forgetting even to neatly remove his shoes, Nanyoung climbed up impulsively. The red, lightweight wooden floor creaked. And that sound was heard not only from beneath the soles of Nanyoung’s feet but also from further inside, where the shrill sound was coming from.

The closer he drew, the more it was not a low sound of illness. Mixed in were cries that seemed almost like screams. Startled, Nanyoung strode closer, then, realizing the door was slightly ajar, bent his knees. It was consideration, thinking that a nephew by marriage, who was indifferent to the point of being a stranger, suddenly appearing might startle her, but Nanyoung truly did not know it would lead to a different outcome.

“Ah…!”

At the moan that burst forth, Nanyoung turned his head sharply through the crack in the door.

And what he was faced with was not an invalid.

There was no patient there. Or rather, at a glance, one might seem to be ill. The person lying with their back against the bedding had round shoulders flushed bright red and was breathing out hot breaths. The bridge of their nose and their cheeks, revealed every time they tilted their head back, were red as well. The groans of “ah, uh,” that escaped their lips also sounded like the moans of sickness.