Struggle Chapter 46

“Must be firmly fixed in place with cotton cloth. Keep him from moving it as much as possible…”

“That much is not difficult.”

There is a fact that the king had ordered kept quiet, which many more people do not know. Taerok had been to the frontier. The northern border was always chaotic and dangerous. Nomads would cross over every season to plunder as a matter of course, and when the river waters receded, they would expand their territory at will. Countless battles were fought there, and Taerok had seen every kind of wounded and casualties in that place. Making sure a soft body that swelled up thickly just from gripping its wrist a little did not move was nothing at all.

Daeseok wrapped Nanyoung’s wrist meticulously. Because his fever had risen, Nanyoung did not seem to know even where it hurt. He only barely let out moans of pain. Taerok did not direct his gaze at Nanyoung’s face as he let out those moans. Like a strict elder who would not indulge his whining. Only, he watched the servant’s hand movements keenly, missing nothing—how the cotton cloth was wrapped, to what degree the wrist was fixed, and about where it should be tied.

The man finished his work and left the room without a single unnecessary word. A quick-witted fellow. Only when Taerok was left alone with Nanyoung in the room did he approach him.

“…”

White crust like salt flowers had formed on Nanyoung’s lips, his cheeks were flushed, and his hair, which had been let down so as not to worsen his headache, clung to his cheek or the nape of his neck every time he tossed and turned. Taerok took the towel that had been draped over the basin and wrung out the water in one go. He wiped his face, then turned and soaked a thin length of fine silk gauze in the other water on the table. When he covered Nanyoung’s lips with it, he could feel Nanyoung’s lips pursing and sucking beneath the thin cloth.

“Drink slowly.”

His whispering voice was so gentle that one could not possibly recall the events of the night before.

A few shichen earlier, when Nanyoung had complained of thirst and he had let him drink water, he had choked and coughed endlessly. He had eaten nothing, yet he vomited up even the clear water, and Taerok had been uncharacteristically flustered. The reason he had gone out to see to Sim Suhwan when he could have simply driven him away was that he needed hands accustomed and skilled in caring for Nanyoung.

Still, Taerok was observant and good at handling his own body.

“Pitiful.”

Though Nanyoung had become like this because of him, Taerok murmured the words somewhat affectedly.

Nanyoung’s eyes opened, flickering hazily.

“Uncle…”

“At dawn you were calling for the Commander-General’s son—only now do you call for me?”

“It hurts so much…”

“You did something deserving of a scolding, so you must endure the pain as well.”

At Taerok’s cold words, Nanyoung’s lips pouted as if he were sorrowful. Yet Taerok let nothing pass.

“Just try crying. If your fever rises further here, I will bring the Commander-General’s son before you.”

“Bring him… and then what?”

Nanyoung retorted impertinently with brimming eyes. Taerok gave a sneer. Truly, it seemed Nanyoung did not know what humiliation was. He had exchanged deep kisses with him and even masturbated—did he truly not know what acts a person’s heart could drive them to?

“It would not be a pleasant sight.”

Taerok murmured, removing the cloth from Nanyoung’s mumbling lips.

“At least, not a sight to be seen in this safe and indolent place.”

“…Sometimes you seem so cold and distant, Uncle, as if you are in a place far away.”

“Is it because I was at the frontier?”

“You were at the frontier?”

Even while sick, he chattered so very much. Taerok considered putting him to sleep as he was, but seeing the eyelids that, unlike the quick and easy closing, opened with great effort, he decided that if left alone he would fall asleep on his own soon enough, and resolved to stay by his side and talk to him a little.

“I was.”

“What is that place… like?”

“Distant and cold. Just as you said, dear nephew.”

“Is it very far…?”

As far as that foreign country where you once were, Uncle… Even without saying it, Taerok felt he could hear Nanyoung asking. Taerok shook his head.

“It is not as far as that, but it would be more difficult to endure than that. For you, dear nephew.”

“I… would be a burden wherever I went.”

“…”

“Wherever you went, Uncle, I would find it hard to follow.”

“Nanyoung.”

Still, he was a sick child. He must have been frightened, too. Taerok’s resolution—one that hardly qualified as such—to act as he had before, scattered instantly at Nanyoung’s words.

“Do you even know what I might do, that you would try to follow me.”

“…”

“Does what you did with your uncle feel like a dream to you?”

“…”

“You’re not a child who would be confused about such a thing, and I know it, so why do you do this.”

“…Do you want me to remember it, Uncle? You could just bury it, pretend it never happened…”

“Pretend it was a mistake?”

Silence was answer enough. Taerok pressed his fingertips firmly against his brow bone. It had been less than five years, but it seemed he had been keeping rather close company with that one in the meantime. Nanyoung was saying things that Sim Suhwan might say, and it soured Taerok’s mood.

“Even the brushing of sleeves is said to be a bond from past lives. If even sleeves are so, how can lips touching be a mistake.”

Taerok seized Nanyoung’s collar firmly and pulled it toward his own face.

“Why do you make me vent my anger on a sick child.”

He shifted the blame onto Nanyoung without the slightest hesitation.

“We entwined tongues as well. Do you intend to call that far a mistake too? Would you entwine tongues with Sim Suhwan by mistake? And then what—after that, will you let Sim Suhwan do to you what this uncle did?”

“Uk… I-I have no relationship whatsoever with Sim Suhwan…!”

“Nanyoung, Nanyoung… why do you say such foolish things. If you rub lips with a bastard you have no relationship with, it’s the same as saying you’d rub cocks with him by mistake too.”

“…”

“Nanyoung, your uncle has hardly ever scolded you at all.”

Taerok’s voice, though angry, was even. He did not even furrow his brow, and his expression was unreadably calm, as if whitewashed. Nanyoung was afraid of that quiet fury. Even as he shrank his shoulders, on the other hand, he did not avoid Taerok’s gaze. Even Suhwan had withdrawn, after all.

Looking into those eyes that stared so fearlessly at him, Taerok could not help but let out a hollow laugh. When he looked at the deer, he had thought of your eyes—but that was not it. Nanyoung was something like a tiger cub. One that could never become an adult.

“…Since I do not wish to be angry, it would be best for you not to associate with that fellow from now on, and to abandon your curiosity about relations with men.”

“It isn’t curiosity about men…!”

“Then what?”

“Uh, that is…”

“Just lust? Curiosity about sexual acts?”

“…”

Nanyoung bit his lip hard. You’d rather die than say it, then… Taerok released Nanyoung’s collar. Sliding loose, Nanyoung rested his head on the pillow again. Just from having been angry for that brief moment, his head throbbed as if it would split. He hadn’t cried on purpose, but tears streamed down. He felt wronged and was angry at his own body. He closed his eyes and stifled his crying, huk, huk.

Lust, curiosity about sexual acts. None of that was it. He had realized it after kissing Suhwan and after kissing Taerok. It was not because he had touched his member. He simply yearned for Taerok. What he had been curious about was not whether he liked men. Whether what he harbored for his uncle was not the lingering attachment of an ungrown childhood… ah, it was his uncle he had been curious about. He was not the least bit curious about other men. He was not even curious about women.

He was curious solely about Lee Taerok.

But only after touching him like this did Nanyoung realize that he must not be curious about Taerok. Because the things that had happened between them did not feel disgusting or vile, the fear that they must not go any further seized him by the ankles.

“I will forget it.”

Nanyoung spoke to Taerok, who had looked at him with complicated eyes before finally rising from his place. The ringing in his ears was so severe, and he was so dizzy as if someone were clutching his head and shaking it, that he had no certainty whether his voice was coming out properly, or whether it was reaching Taerok. Still, he had to say it.

“I will consider it a mistake. I will forget it. If I don’t… if I don’t… …What good does it do you, Uncle, for this not to be a mistake.”

Taerok heard Nanyoung’s voice clearly. Even though the pitch bounced wildly and the volume wavered, Taerok had never once missed Nanyoung’s voice. Even when he was younger and far more inarticulate.

Taerok grasped the door handle. He does not look back.

What good does it do, he asks… A hollow laugh hung on Taerok’s lips as he left the room.

It does no good at all. What good it would do—that should have been asked of the Lee Taerok who pushed Nanyoung away five years ago, not the me of now.

Taerok did not covet Lee Nanyoung for the sake of what was best.