Struggle Chapter 39

“Young master. Do you take me for some six-year-old child? To even make such a joke… It seems this place is to your liking.”

At Suhwan’s hearty laughter, Nanyoung bowed his head slightly.

He had to admit it. He was still trying to find traces of his uncle through Suhwan. Like an infant unwilling to part from its mother, did he still wish to act spoiled toward his uncle? His uncle had been right. He must stop such behavior. How many years had it been since they last saw each other? His uncle probably no longer remembered him, except on his birthday.

If only he could take a spouse…

“Look, a fish is coming closer.”

At that moment, Suhwan leaned his body toward Nanyoung. Their shoulders pressed close together. At the tip of where Suhwan pointed, a fish the size of Nanyoung’s palm truly crept up and tapped his toes. A gentle ripple spread across the water’s surface.

At the ticklish sensation, Nanyoung curled his toes. Because the fish had appeared and tickled his foot, he missed the chance to tell Suhwan to move away a little. Suhwan, pressed close, quietly gazed at Nanyoung’s profile. He laughed in disbelief at the cheek where fine downy hair was visible. The grand prince is twenty years old now, yet has no beard, only downy hair… . No wonder rumors circulated that the cold-blooded grand prince had blocked his nephew’s marriage. If he appeared this way even in the eyes of others, it was certainly all the more likely in his uncle’s eyes. Having practically raised him himself, at that.

“Young master…!”

It was when Suhwan was unknowingly drawing closer and closer to Nanyoung’s cheek. A servant sought Suhwan. At the sound of “young master” calling for him, Suhwan instantly composed himself and sat up properly.

“I am being summoned, so I must go for a moment, young master. If you intend to fall into the water again, you must go to the shallows and play there. You understand, yes?”

“You are the one treating me as a six-year-old. Go and return.”

Suhwan sprang up and headed toward the servant.

Quietly holding his breath, Nanyoung stared at the water’s surface.

“…”

Because it had been an unconscious action, Suhwan assumed Nanyoung would not have noticed how close he had leaned toward him, but that was not so. Nanyoung had been watching the water’s surface, and the surface, with only slight ripples, had revealed everything.

Was I testing Suhwan?

Yes. I was testing him.

Nanyoung had been waiting for Suhwan to come closer and make a mistake. Holding his breath, he had waited for those lips to finally touch his cheek. It was not because he had feelings for him. Rather, it was because there was something he wanted to confirm.

One of his teachers had called Nanyoung a scholar. He said he endlessly pursued learning, desired to know, and from there should branch out anew. It would not have been empty words spoken just because he was a grand prince.

Right now, Nanyoung wanted to learn endlessly. There was something he wanted to know. Something he had to confirm… .

“Lord Grand Prince!”

Suhwan, who had gone to the servant, returned. Unlike how he had called out to Nanyoung from afar as he approached, now that he was near, he hesitated. Nanyoung pulled out his wet feet, patted them dry with a cotton cloth he had prepared in advance, and waited for Suhwan.

“Well… would you like to go hunting?”

“Hunting?”

Nanyoung frowned faintly.

Though he no longer fell ill for all sorts of reasons every season, Nanyoung’s constitution was still not robust. He did not have a solid, sturdy build like Suhwan; his archery was passable, and his swordsmanship was rather poor. Moreover, aside from such reasons, he simply did not enjoy hunting itself.

The only time Nanyoung had ever wanted to go hunting was that time long ago when his uncle had said he was going and would be camping overnight.

“I know you do not particularly enjoy it, but it is said that your uncle, the grand prince, is nearby. He seems to have come for hunting….”

At those words, Nanyoung turned his head sharply. He pressed his lips firmly shut. Suhwan, who for the past few years had observed Nanyoung from closer than anyone except Sim Eung, noticed that Nanyoung was now distressed. The way he bit his lip, curling it inward rather than protruding it, seemed to suggest he was a little embarrassed as well. It appeared he was rather tormented at having been discovered to be upset over the fact that he and his uncle had grown distant.

Over such a trivial thing… .

Suhwan laughed inwardly, derisively.

Rather than that, you should be hiding that desire of yours that seems fixed on His Highness the Crown Prince, Lord Grand Prince.

Suhwan, too, was lost in his own convictions, even as he misstepped completely.

One cannot see the landscape that is closest. The area beneath the lamp is the darkest, just as a person knows himself the least.

∞ ∞ ∞

Nanyoung could not sleep at all. He knew that his uncle sometimes went wandering, as if on a journey, for hunting. He even knew he would stay away for several days and nights.

Yet he had never once actually seen his uncle hunt. He could not at all conjure an image of him killing something and drawing its blood. This was true only for Nanyoung. Everyone except Nanyoung could very easily picture the sight of Taerok harming something.

Using such a reason as an excuse, Nanyoung was pacing restlessly, claiming he was trying to imagine the scene of his uncle hunting, and thus unable to sleep.

The moon was pale and white as a ghost. It was vastly different from the red moon he had seen with his uncle in that foreign land.

Back then, his uncle had treated him as a fully grown being, and he had thought that at last they stood on the same line and saw the same things… . That very illusion had been the greatest proof that he was still immature.

In the end, Nanyoung decided to go for a late-night walk.

“Where are you going?”

It was Suhwan, in a voice just awakened from sleep, who caught Nanyoung as he was about to go out in his sleeping clothes, thinking no one would see him.

“If you go out like that, those who see you in the moonlight will misunderstand.”

“Who would be watching at this late hour?”

Suhwan laughed as if slightly dumbfounded.

“You have someone right here. Me.”

“There is no reason for you to misunderstand me.”

Goodness, you are prickly, Lord Grand Prince… . Suhwan clicked his tongue, then said, wait just a moment, and went back inside.

What he brought out were his own durumagi overcoat and a dapho jacket for himself to wear. He draped the durumagi over Nanyoung’s shoulders.

“I know you did not stop by your room because you did not wish to wake the servants unnecessarily. I have brought it, so wherever you are going, let me accompany you instead.”

“…”

Instead of answering, Nanyoung quietly slipped his arms into the durumagi.

This was also a first—to wear a durumagi directly over sleeping clothes. Still, it was a little better than before. Though because the durumagi was Suhwan’s and not his own, it was excessively large in the chest and long in the sleeves… .

“I must look as though I have stolen and worn my eldest brother’s clothes!”

“Impertinent. Are you implying you are His Highness the Crown Prince, then?”

“Oh my… young master, you are truly stern. Is it not a joke?”

“There are jokes one may make and jokes one may not.”

“Yes, yes. I was wrong. Where had you intended to go?”

Nanyoung raised his head. The moonlight was bright, but the place he had meant to go was dark. Following that gaze, Suhwan tactfully brought out what had been used as a sitting lantern.

“Not even a hand lantern but a sitting lantern….”

“What does it matter? As long as it can light the way. Now, let us go. Where shall I escort you?”

“The Deputy Commander-in-Chief, His Excellency, would be distressed. Do not use such flippant speech….”

No matter how prickly he acted, the grand prince was soft-hearted. Show him a little care, and he soon softened like a younger brother following his elder brother. Even within the royal family, watching a grand prince like this must have caused much worry. His body was weak, and his disposition gentle. Even that cold-blooded grand prince being weak only toward his nephew was probably because of this very sight.

So Suhwan speculated as he walked ahead.

As the country villa was nestled within the mountains from the start, the path the servants took to draw water and gather wild greens was right before their eyes. Suhwan, who had come here every season since childhood, could walk this place even with his eyes closed.

“You have secured a fine guide, young master. My night vision is remarkably bright—did I ever tell you that before?”

“…This is my first time walking a night path with my junior, so when would I have heard such a thing?”

“Wow, did you just now call me your junior? You have finally decided to become my senior!”

“It is only because you begged and pleaded so much that I called you that, and only once because I am grateful you are guiding the way.”

Suhwan laughed loudly. Startled by the sound, Nanyoung hushed him, “Shh, shh.” At Nanyoung’s frightened voice asking what they would do if they woke a tiger, Suhwan declared that no tiger lived on such a small mountain.

“A tiger, too, has its vessel. In a small vessel, only small things are fated to live. How could something as great as a tiger live in such a handful of a vessel?”