Struggle Chapter 35

Taerok clenched his hand, which had nearly reached out toward Nanyoung’s damp cheek. He curled his hand into a fist, then stretched it out straight, and before the weeping boy, he heartlessly refilled his teacup.

“Your throat must be dry. Drink.”

Nanyoung looked at Taerok with resentment. But as he was told, he drank the tea. As if it were a cup of liquor, he cast aside decorum and drained it completely.

“I resent you, Uncle.”

“Did I perhaps serve my nephew liquor instead of tea?”

“I still spoke honestly. But you, Uncle, are a coward. You do not even offer an explanation. If you have come to dislike me, just say you dislike me. If I am a bother, say I am a bother.”

“Yes, to be honest, you are somewhat bothersome right now.”

This was likely the moment when Taerok cast aside the roles of uncle and elder and acted most like his true self toward Nanyoung.

It was not that Nanyoung was bothersome, but that demanding what he could not tell him was troublesome. Regrettably, unlike usual, Taerok’s patience was short now. It was because Min Nanok’s words were nibbling away at him, tormenting him. Because of those words, he was now suspecting and being cautious of every word and action he wanted to direct at Nanok. Paradoxically, it had become the attitude most characteristic of Lee Taerok, and at the same time, the moment least true to his heart.

“Unless you intend to be a bother, do you want to make things difficult for me and upset me?”

“…”

“It is true, is it not. Honestly.”

Taerok retorted in a languid tone.

Because, truly and honestly, those words were correct, Nanyoung could only shut his mouth tightly.

His face burned hot. The image of himself reflected in the unsparing words Taerok threw at him was truly that of a child.

The hiccups he thought had stopped while drinking tea rose up again the moment he closed his mouth.

“I am having a hard time too.”

A lie….

“It may seem a lie in my nephew’s eyes, but I have my own difficulties.”

Perhaps because the atmosphere had entered a lull, his voice was somewhat softened. At the softened voice, Nanyoung, feeling even more wretched, began to struggle desperately to hold back his tears. Thanks to that, his cheeks and lips puffed up abruptly.

Young, so young.

Taerok smiled dimly. A gap of thirteen years. Thirteen years he had lived first. The distance between us that will not narrow. Yet the bond of blood relatives that will never part.

‘What exactly do you wish to become to Grand Prince Heonui?’

Could he even become anything more? Uncle and nephew. It was merely that.

But could he become something else?

The words that had been like a grave warning from Nanok had instead planted a certain seed in Taerok.

Did I seem as though I wanted to become something more than just an uncle? Was such a desire visible to the eyes of one who had yearned to go to another world? That was something he could not know at all, even by quietly looking into Nanyoung’s eyes.

If those words were to prove true, would the day come when Lee Nanyoung would also realize it? No matter how much the distance of years would not narrow, Lee Nanyoung too would grow up someday and would come to know desire.

Even though it had not yet happened, Taerok suddenly shuddered at the image of himself that would be reflected in Nanyoung’s eyes. Everything was bothersome, irritating, and among them, Nanyoung especially grated on his nerves, so he wanted to send him away. He wanted to make him get lost far away.

“Leave.”

“Uncle….”

“Since my nephew so wishes it, I will not block the next matchmaking documents. As there will be no fool who would send a precious daughter anew to a grand prince rumored to be as good as cursed, and now there is surely no way for this uncle, who will be a widower for life, to block the future of my nephew who is just growing up. It has worked out well. Go and direct the petulance you wished to indulge toward me onto your betrothed instead.”

“Uncle! Just a moment ago, I did not mean—!”

“Lee Nanyoung!”

Taerok slammed the tea table. The tea set flinched and jumped; the cup toppled and the tea spilled over. Surely, beyond the door, the servants would be at a loss, wondering what on earth was happening inside.

“Do not act spoiled.”

“…”

“You are a royal kinsman, the Crown Prince’s younger brother, and a grand prince—until when do you intend to act spoiled?”

Nanyoung wept silently. Tears dripped down steadily. He was screaming with his whole body. It was a desperate outcry. I am lonely. There is no one. I have no friends and no betrothed. When I tried to make a friend, you blocked it, Uncle. My betrothed—you blocked that too, Uncle. You made me all alone, and then you took on every role yourself—my friend, the adult I admired, even the accomplice who shares my secret—so how can you push me away like this? He was convulsing with his entire body in that manner.

Yet contrary to that surging energy, his face was merely pale with shock, his shoulders trembled finely, and his tightly clenched fists pressed down upon his thighs. He was silent.

“Leave before you show an even more unsightly display. I say this thinking of my nephew’s dignity and honor.”

Taerok spoke in a voice tinged with a deep, somber tone.

At Taerok having turned his body completely sideways, Nanyoung finally gave a polite bow and rose.

Nanyoung wiped his face and steadied his breathing. Hoo, hoo…. By the third exhale, he could finally feign composure as if nothing had happened. When he took his first step, he faltered briefly. But from the second step onward, he did not. Nanyoung was a grand prince, and the image of a grand prince that he regarded as his ideal was Taerok. Even if he could not become such a man, could he not possess a dignity roughly comparable? Nanyoung barely made it to where the horses were. Ignoring the gazes of those who had accompanied him, he straightened his back and grasped the reins.

“Let us go.”

Taerok is a strict teacher. When teaching the sword, he taught until blisters formed on the palms; when teaching archery, he taught to the point where, every time he changed clothes, his shoulders ached so much he wept and wailed. Now, it seemed he was teaching the way of becoming an adult just as painfully.

Leaving Taerok’s residence, Nanyoung tilted his head very slightly toward his shoulder. But he struggles not to look back.

Resentful…. Heartbreaking. Did he have to teach me like this every time? When I have no one but you, Uncle—for a friend, a teacher, an accomplice.

The chilly wind of late autumn crept into Nanyoung’s collar. It made his body shiver as if freezing to the bone.

Adolescence… did it mean something like a fourth spring? Does autumn not suit it better, rather? Capriciously the rain comes, capriciously the wind blows, then it is mild, then freezes again.

Nanyoung hates autumn.

And he hated his young self.

In truth, he hated himself more than autumn….

∞ ∞ ∞

In the spring of his sixteenth year, Nanyoung petitioned to leave the palace. The king was deeply regretful but granted permission, saying he had reached that age. In the autumn of his seventeenth year, the residence was fully completed, and Nanyoung left the palace. That winter, the king was bedridden for a month. On the day a month had passed, he barely managed to rise from his sickbed, but among the ministers, an extremely impertinent concern began to spread little by little.

Nanyoung killed time in the quarters he had used before leaving the palace. He had entered the palace somewhat early, and it was because the king’s official duties were not yet finished. It was a gathering for the first time in a long while, under the pretext of a meal or tea, simply because the king wished to see his children who had left the palace. Had the princess entered the palace? And more than that… had my uncle come as well?

“Sim Eung. You know, by any chance….”

“Yes, young master. What is it now that you find so difficult to ask and thus hesitate?”

Sim Eung asked, wearing a generous smile as if looking at a grandchild.

Yet at that kindly question, it became even harder to ask. Why did merely trying to ask whether his uncle had come feel so much like committing a sin? What on earth in my heart is not honorable?

After tormenting his innocent lips for no reason, Nanyoung soon shook his head. Whether or not he had come, he would find out soon enough—there was no need to act impatiently.

“No. It is nothing. I am sorry for bothering you.”

“Oh my, how could that be so. That is precisely what this humble one is here for.”

Even Sim Eung, a man of the Nam-in faction, was here by his side, yet his own blood-related uncle was far away, saying he was bothersome. Of course, a eunuch and a grand prince are different, but still, he wondered if the uncle-nephew relationships of ordinary noble families or commoners also capriciously drew this close and then severed.

Time passed and passed, and at last the king summoned Nanyoung. Of course, he did not come in person. He ascended the vast palace and entered the inner hall.

“Our Grand Prince Heonui has come.”

The king, visibly marked by illness, extended his arms toward Nanyoung. Even without an affectionate embrace, it was a sufficient welcome.

“I behold His Majesty the King.”

Nanyoung offered a bow.