Struggle Chapter 40

“But did you not say my uncle has clearly come out to hunt? He is not someone who would seek small game in such a small place….”

“Ah, not this place, but over there, the mountain on the opposite side. That side has rugged terrain and is connected to the end of the mountain range, so it is home to fairly large beasts. Things like wild boar.”

Suhwan blinked, having walked into a spider’s web strung by a night spider. Then he reached out his hand to Nanyoung, who was following behind, pushing him aside and pulling him forward.

“There is a spider’s web here, young master. Be careful.”

Nanyoung stared blankly at Suhwan’s hand gripping his arm. Perhaps because it had not been long since it was lit, the light of the sitting lantern they had brought out was still clear. Standing behind Suhwan, the light did not reach him properly, but even so, Nanyoung could see things like the veins and bones on the back of the hand that held him.

“Let us stop here.”

Nanyoung spoke impulsively.

In truth, it was not impulsive. He had been planning it. He simply had not known he would carry it out at this very moment.

“You wish to turn back, do you not?”

Suhwan, who had turned around as if he had expected it, was slightly flustered by Nanyoung, who was staring at him without showing his back.

This look in his eyes. It was unprecedentedly clear and limpid, yet held nothing at all. Suhwan, who had inwardly prided himself on being a step above the young grand prince, was disconcerted. Had he truly been a step above? He was confused. The night is originally like that. Is not darkness what makes the familiar strange and the known fearful?

Unknowingly, Suhwan swallowed dryly. Nanyoung took the sitting lantern from Suhwan’s hand and lowered it. At that force—which was embarrassing to even call force—Suhwan submitted. The sitting lantern was set down, and its light stretched upward from below. With a strength equally awkward to call strength, Nanyoung pushed Suhwan. A tree stump touched Suhwan’s back.

“My junior…. Have you ever kissed a man?”

Nanyoung’s voice was very low and moist, as if drenched in dew.

“Young master.”

“Have you ever mingled bodies with a man?”

“You must not do this. Please reconsider what it is you are about to set in motion.”

“I know perfectly well what it is I am about to do.”

Nanyoung raised his eyes with a gleam. Perhaps due to the warm lamplight of the sitting lantern, his gaze seemed all the more moist.

“I am trying to confirm it. My teacher said that to become a noble man, one must know oneself and know others. I am trying to know myself.”

“What do you intend to realize by such a method, and what do you hope to gain after realizing it, that you act this way? There may be nothing that remains. No, that would rather be fortunate. There may be nothing but loss ahead, young master.”

“What do I lose?”

Even as he asked back impertinently, that voice of Nanyoung’s somehow seemed sorrowful.

“I am a grand prince. My junior, where would you go and say you kissed me? If I deny it? If I claim you insulted a royal kinsman, slighted a royal kinsman, and ultimately sought to sully His Majesty the King’s name, would only my junior lose?”

Suhwan grasped Nanyoung’s forearm. At that firmly constricting strength, the corners of Nanyoung’s eyes drooped downward.

“Do you wish to kiss me?”

Watching Nanyoung, who appeared young again in an instant just from the slight drooping of his eye corners, Suhwan asked gently. He did not know what this grand prince was thinking, but there was not a single wrong word. What he stood to lose was himself and his family. Let us soothe him properly and let it pass—at first, Suhwan had thought that as well.

Nanyoung raised his gaze again. Like his nose, straight as a sock seam that drew a gentle ridge, the corners of Nanyoung’s eyes also drew a ridge before rising upward. Everything else was clear and innocent, but not his eyes… . Suhwan had always thought so.

“If it is an order, will you do it?”

Suhwan was so dumbfounded that he laughed. Yet at the same time, his mind churned.

“Do not try to use me, Lord Grand Prince.”

He tried to admonish him with feigned sternness, but it did not work. Nanyoung instead drew closer to Suhwan.

“I think I have to do it.”

Nanyoung looked as if he were about to cry. To ask to be kissed with such an expression. These royal kinsmen…! Suhwan clicked his tongue sharply.

“You commanded it. Lord Grand Prince did.”

“Yes.”

Nanyoung nodded.

His mind was clearer than ever. Nanyoung stayed still for a moment, then asked in a small voice. Must I close my eyes? At that question, Suhwan clenched his teeth.

“Do as you please.”

Then he added.

“No, keep them open.”

The thought that the grand prince would kiss him while thinking of his elder brother, the Crown Prince, made his mood utterly foul. Suhwan realized anew that he, too, was a man beyond his control. Contrary to his command to keep his eyes open, Suhwan closed his own eyes and tilted his head.

Though he had clearly told Nanyoung to keep his eyes open, he himself could not keep them open.

As Suhwan drew closer, Nanyoung realized that this person could never become that certain someone. As Suhwan approached, the only thing visible was how his face was, after all, different from that certain someone. Nanyoung’s eyes flew wide open, then, in the end, squeezed shut.

And then, their lips touched.

The first sensation was that lips were rougher than expected, and more pliant than expected.

Nanyoung thought it would end there.

His scholarly learning within books was deep, but his heart in human matters remained that of a five-year-old, his stubborn temperament frozen nearly at the moment he had first met his uncle—this was clearly revealed in such aspects.

He thought it would stop there, but as Nanyoung tried to pull away, Suhwan grasped his arm tightly.

“…!”

Suhwan—he tried to push him away, but through the slightly parted gap of his lips, something hotter and wetter touched. No, it tried to touch.

But what was quicker was Nanyoung’s eyes.

In the unexpected situation, Nanyoung’s vision rolled faster than usual… and someone who should not be in this place came into view.

A thud sounded. It was the sound of Nanyoung roughly pushing Suhwan away before he could tilt his head and slot their mouths together easily.

Labored breaths escaped, and Suhwan’s lip, scraped by Nanyoung’s teeth as they broke apart, was beading with blood. Somewhat stirred by the wound and what had just happened, Suhwan wiped his lip with the back of his hand. About to demand whether Nanyoung had not been curious up to this point, Suhwan saw that Nanyoung, his face startled like a deer, could not tear his gaze from the diagonal direction behind him, and so he turned his head that way.

“Ah….”

A sigh escaped Suhwan’s lips.

There stood Lee Taerok.

“…Uncle.”

Nanyoung barely managed to open his mouth.

If only Taerok would stride over and slap his cheek, perhaps it would be better, but Taerok was merely staring at him in silence.

Could it be that he was seeing a phantom? Wondering if only he could see it, Nanyoung looked at Suhwan. But seeing Suhwan’s expression, turned in the same direction, become as pale as death, Nanyoung admitted—he had to admit—that Taerok was not visible only to him.

Taerok bowed his head for a moment. Then he approached the two who had frozen in place.

Suhwan’s hand was still gripping Nanyoung’s arm, and Taerok, glancing at it, said only one thing.

“Let go.”

As if overwhelmed by that force of presence, Suhwan faltered and stepped aside.

As soon as Suhwan moved away, Taerok pulled Nanyoung by the wrist.

“Ah… Uncle.”

The grip strength was terribly fierce, impossible to know. Nanyoung let out a groan of pain.

“Young master…!”

Startled, Suhwan called out to Nanyoung. Or perhaps he had meant to call out to Taerok.

Taerok, who had been about to take a step, looked back at Suhwan.

“Even when you do not know yourself whom you are calling, do not wag your tongue carelessly.”

Even if Suhwan was older than Nanyoung, he was not older than Taerok. Especially, Taerok possessed something like a ferocious presence. Even Suhwan, who had grown up watching his father the Deputy Commander-in-Chief and had never been overpowered in spirit by ordinary men, could only swallow dryly and step backward.

As he turned and led Nanyoung away, the hem of Taerok’s robe struck the sitting lantern. The lantern toppled over. Suhwan hastily caught and righted it, fearing it might lead to a mountain fire. And when he raised his head again, Nanyoung was already being led down below by his uncle’s hand.

“…”

He had inwardly thought lightly of Taerok. He had believed the rumors were simply exaggerated. When he had seen him together with Nanyoung, he had thought that rumors were indeed just rumors, and when he had seen him alone as the head of a group, he had inwardly underestimated him, thinking his reputation was somewhat inflated due to his striking features.

But Lee Taerok, met face-to-face in reality, was beyond the rumors. The ominous rumors. Lee Taerok was exactly that. Like a calamity itself.