Struggle Chapter 29

…Yes. Surprisingly, he did not dislike it. If it had been someone else, he would have cleared them from his sight, if only because he hated seeing them constantly sickly.

Taerok turned Nanyoung’s head to sit him properly and pressed his chin firmly onto the crown of his head. In truth, even this was already excessive contact that went against decorum. Even when Nanyoung was young and not yet invested as a prince, he had not done this.

But perhaps because he had seen him since he was so very young and small, even now that Nanyoung was fifteen, Taerok still felt he was that young and small.

“There is no need for you to resemble me, but that you still think so well of me even though you are no longer a child—it is gratifying indeed. Especially even after seeing such a sight last night.”

“Ah… I had just barely managed to forget it, Uncle…!”

“If you are well enough to move about at night, Nephew, shall we go moon-viewing?”

Taerok asked in his characteristic manner of speech. That ambiguous manner, where one could not tell if it was a musing to himself or a question.

“The moon here is red.”

“It is, on occasion. The people here do not consider it an ill omen, so do take your fill of seeing a red moon, which you could not easily see in our homeland, until you grow sick of it.”

Taerok pushed away the fever-warm Nanyoung and climbed down from the bed. Behind him, as he shook out and tidied the hem of his clothes, Nanyoung asked cautiously.

“What if I am not better by night?”

“Then you simply rest.”

“No. The moon-viewing—will you do it with someone else, as you did last night?”

“As I did last night… You mean on the night you were peeping, Nephew?”

“…”

He did not think it was a particularly explicit question, yet Nanyoung showed a troubled expression at merely this much.

Taerok smirked and nodded. He himself preferred drinking alone, but he did wish to tease his nephew a little. Now that he had grown somewhat, the subjects to tease him about had increased as well.

“I suppose I shall. But enjoying it in such an open place is not to my taste…”

“In, in an open place, how can a scholar remove his clothes and… such…”

“When you said last night, I thought you were speaking of that.”

Having straightened his attire, Taerok drew the line again, as usual. Returning to being Grand Prince and Grand Prince.

“Rest. If I let my nephew, who came all this way, be sick the whole time and then return, I would have no face to show my elder brother.”

And Taerok left the room.

Nanyoung felt his strength gently ebbing away, having seen and heard far too much in a short time. He lay down with a low groan.

Soon, Sim Eung entered. In his hands was a herbal decoction that had cooled to lukewarm. It had been prepared earlier, but Taerok had not come out at all, so he had waited, watching for the right moment, and thus it had cooled.

“Sir, it is lukewarm, so you may drink it straight down.”

“There is no need to be swayed every time by your uncle’s jests, you know.” Frankly, that was what he wanted to say. It is a crime to be a eunuch. Swallowing a deep sigh, Sim Eung handed the white porcelain bowl to Nanyoung. Having drunk herbal decoctions until it had become second nature, Nanyoung, thoroughly accustomed to the bitter taste, emptied it readily.

∞ ∞ ∞

At night, Nanyoung had at last recovered enough to move about. Taerok had already been seated and was in the midst of having emptied half a bottle. In the hand of Taerok, who did not easily get drunk, was a cup of liquor with a potent fragrance. He had seen the Crown Prince brother drink it once. The round, concave cup was quite different in shape from the one Taerok held now. Taerok’s was wide to the side and somewhat flat.

“Still, it seems your body has grown a little in the meantime. I thought you would be ill for a long while.”

“I am not that frail…”

Having spoken in a pouting voice, Nanyoung reached his hand toward the liquor cup. Taerok smacked that hand away and poured plum tea into an empty cup. It was fermented just short of becoming liquor, so it did not intoxicate but had a faint, prickling tang.

Drinking the plum tea, Nanyoung looked at the willow tree hanging luxuriantly behind Taerok. The willow branches danced this way and that in the night breeze. Whenever they did, petals as small as a baby’s fingernail showered down like stars.

“…Is it alright that you are not by the Grand Princess Consort’s side?”

Nanyoung asked quietly. It was the uneasy feeling that had been caught like a thorn in his chest, in his throat, even while he was ill. Except for the first day of his arrival, he had not seen the couple together.

“You must have already noticed. That my wife is refusing not only the acupuncture physician but even her husband’s visits to her room.”

“…”

“Whether something has happened, or where she is unwell—you will not tell me, will you?”

“…”

Instead of answering, Taerok stared intently beyond the pavilion. The profile of Taerok as he looked back over his own shoulder was exceedingly handsome. Nanyoung gazed blankly at that profile, then unconsciously swept his hand from his own forehead to his nose, lips, and chin. Even if he could not know the tactile sensation of touching Taerok’s profile, he could well enough tell that their features were quite different.

After a long silence, Taerok set down his cup. It was Nanyoung who stopped him from refilling it himself. He withdrew his hand and took hold of the cup, filling the broad, hat-like vessel. Taerok gave a wry smile. He had not taught him this—had he learned it from the Crown Prince? How old was the Crown Prince this year? Unlike with Nanyoung, Taerok had not the slightest interest in his other nephews.

“Drinking liquor poured by you, Nephew. Time has flowed mercilessly.”

It was an answer wholly unrelated to what Nanyoung had asked.

Taerok emptied the cup with ease. The liquor was so strong that its fragrance alone seemed capable of intoxicating Nanyoung. Or perhaps it was the scent of the flowers, which grew deeper as night fell.

Taerok’s fingers, rolling the empty cup in his hand, were wet with over a dozen droplets of liquor. Even his fingertips had become fragrant.

Gazing beyond the pavilion once more, Taerok asked.

“Even as time passes, you remember the promise you made with me, do you not?”

“…I remember.”

Nanyoung was sharp. He quickly grasped what Taerok was referring to. Yet it was Taerok who had not kept it. He had thought Taerok had forgotten it entirely after the wedding ceremony… To have remembered it and still come all this way to a foreign land—Nanyoung truly could not understand Taerok. The uncle he had thought he would come to understand as he grew older had only grown more distant, as wide as the thirteen years’ difference in age that could not be narrowed.

“I remember.”

Still, Nanyoung nodded fervently, meaning that he remembered and wished to keep it. “Your head will fall off,” Taerok murmured softly, catching hold of his chin. As he held his chin, his body leaned in, and the fingers that held him were wet with liquor, fragrant. It was so quiet that even the sound of the wind passing could be heard. Taerok’s eyes, deep as ink, peered into Nanyoung, and Taerok, too, saw himself through Nanyoung’s eyes.

I should tell him.

It was not simply because he was a nephew he was fond of and on good terms with—he wanted to make his nephew an accomplice. That was the urge.

“So, trusting that you alone, Nephew, even if disappointed in me, will not turn your back on me, I shall ask.”

“Yes…”

“Say my wife is not sick at all, and that I am soon to be abandoned by my wife. Nephew, would you then be disappointed in me?”

He had the certainty that, even through their time apart, he was the center of Nanyoung’s world. For the sake of that certainty, Taerok waited for Nanyoung to give the answer he desired.

“N, no…”

Nanyoung promptly produced the correct answer.

To Taerok, the time away had been a rather pleasant wait. Like waiting for liquor to mature to a fine taste, he had been curious how much Nanyoung would change and how much he would grow in the time they had not seen each other. And Nanyoung, having grown as much as he had anticipated and to a degree that was gratifying beyond expectation, still followed him.

How childish. At first, it had been because the rumors surrounding the uncle-nephew relationship were intriguing. But now, he was watching Nanyoung purely for his own amusement and possessiveness. To think that having one being wholly under his influence and looking only at him could be such a gratifying thing.

“It is something only you know, Nephew. That I am a husband who has been spurned.”

“Yes… Of course. I will not tell anyone.”

Nanyoung glanced at him furtively. He seemed to worry that Lee Taerok, a man of immense pride, might be in a humiliating situation. Taerok, not finding it pleasant that Nanyoung was walking on eggshells around him, asked as if in jest.

“Your teething is finished, isn’t it?”

“Teething… Of course it is finished.”

Even his molars had all fallen out. In Taerok’s memory of when he last saw him, Nanyoung’s canine had fallen out and one molar was missing. His gums would have been bare, but it was somewhat wondrous that they had all grown in during the time they had not seen each other.

“Indeed, quite some time has passed that we were apart.”

“So why did you suddenly leave for such a faraway place… I don’t even have a close friend.”

“What have you been doing, still unable to make a single close friend? And what do you mean you don’t have one? There is that fellow who came with you.”

“…He is not a close friend.”

Then what is he.