Struggle Chapter 48

His danjeon was hot. It felt as if a ball of fire was inside him. Nanyoung was slowly realizing in his body that Taerok’s words were correct. If it were a mistake, it should have ended after one time, yet ever since Taerok had touched him yesterday, Nanyoung’s body had remained persistently hot. It was not simply a fever. This was something that had begun to grow from within.

Uncle planted a seed in my belly… Like a melon seed, it will grow inside my belly and make me burst.

But the one who had spread his belly open so that he could plant the seed was none other than Nanyoung himself. That was what Nanyoung was afraid of.

∞ ∞ ∞

After Sim Eung came and looked after him, Nanyoung’s condition repeatedly improved and worsened by turns. Yet in the end, apart from the clumped secret that had formed within him, Nanyoung recovered under the meticulous care. On the third day, he became well enough to move about without any difficulty. Sim Suhwan, he was told, had already returned the day before. Crouching in the bath and receiving the water that Sim Eung poured over him, Nanyoung heard that news.

For three days, Taerok did not come to see Nanyoung. It was better that way. If Taerok had come every day, Nanyoung’s fever would not have gone down even now.

Even Sim Eung, who had initially thought that whatever quarrel there might have been was fleeting and that the blood relatives would soon grow close again, was now quietly gauging the mood amid Nanyoung’s strange silence that persisted even as his body recovered. Merely having gone for a night walk and taken a tumble, Nanyoung had matured as if he had undergone dozens of experiences. That air was emanating faintly from his entire body, not just his eyes.

“What is this?”

Abruptly, Nanyoung raised his head. What roused his spirit from its vacant, sunken state was the scent that penetrated his nose.

“It is the fragrance you have been using all along until now. The one you always use during your bath—is something about it uncomfortable, Your Highness?”

Nanyoung shook his head.

“No. No… I won’t use this anymore.”

“Then I shall retrieve it from the water and draw a fresh bath.”

He no longer wished to use the same scent as his uncle. Nanyoung, who had been about to say he would change the water, pulled his body back and turned, but upon seeing Sim Eung drenched in nervous sweat all over his body, he slipped back into place.

“…There is no need to go to the trouble twice, so I shall use it this time as it is. From next time onward, do not use this fragrance anymore.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Nanyoung squeezed his eyes shut and rested his chin on his crouched knees. Once Sim Eung too had left and he was left entirely alone, only the occasional sound of water droplets could be heard. With his eyes closed, he could see nothing, and only his heightened sense of smell trapped him, unable to escape Lee Taerok’s scent.

Some time later, Nanyoung opened his eyes as if he had come to a resolution.

Let me not consider it affection. Let me consider it lust. Even if I cannot become a seonbi, let me rather think that it was lust and that I was momentarily swayed by it. It need not be my uncle. No, it must not be my uncle. It may not be Lee Taerok.

After his resolution, Nanyoung left the bath, and the water had grown tepid.

Afterward, Taerok, who had gone hunting without a word to Nanyoung, returned and entered the bathhouse. His movements in removing his clothes, which were a mess of dust and dirt, were unhesitating. Unlike how he had stripped them off in one breath, he neatly arranged the garments he had taken off and placed them outside, then began to splash the freshly drawn water over himself, only to frown at the scent lingering in the air.

“…Lee Nanyoung was here.”

Taerok did not use Nanyoung’s princely title. He merely called his name, yet somehow it sounded exceedingly secret to the ear. The servant who had been sorting the fragrance materials for the bath outside replied, tense to the utmost.

“His Royal Highness Grand Prince Heonui stopped by three gak ago and then left.”

“Ah… I see.”

Taerok murmured. Then he poured water over himself from the head once more. Sweeping back his hair and face, he drew a deep breath. The sight of his pectoral muscles swelling greatly and then subsiding was rather fearsome.

Though it was clearly the same ingredients and the same amount, from Lee Nanyoung there emanated a subtly different scent than from himself. And that scent still lingered in the air. Taerok inhaled it once more, then immersed his body.

‘What kind of existence do you truly wish to become to Grand Prince Heonui?’

The question that had hovered faintly in Taerok’s mind for nearly five years drove itself in like a wedge as of yesterday.

He did not know what kind of existence it was, but it was not that of uncle and nephew in the eyes of the world. He had already crossed a line from which that could no longer be. And Lee Taerok was not the kind of person who regretted things that had happened or choices he had made.

Then, did he wish to covet Lee Nanyoung by force, to tear him apart, uproot him, and ruin him forever? When he asked himself, that was not it either. Taerok still remembered his nephew’s young face and found it endearing. It was the same now, only feelings other than endearment had mixed in more. And lust as well.

He did not wish to ruin him. Then what was the right thing to do? It would be best for everyone not to touch him any further. Returning to being uncle and nephew, pretending nothing had happened, would also be nothing but deception, yet it would not be entirely impossible. Even if the inside were festering, so long as the outside appeared sound, people were bound to be deceived.

“But the thing is, I do not wish to do so…”

Taerok murmured slowly.

“Your Highness. May I enter for a moment.”

Just then, someone disturbed Taerok’s musings. Taerok answered with his eyes closed.

“Come in.”

The man with the harsh beard, who had been on the verge of turning Suhwan away at the gate, entered. Taerok rested his arms on the edge of the bath and tilted his head back. With his eyes closed, he merely gestured lightly with his fingertips.

“Bring me a cloth from over there.”

Pansu, having cleverly understood, brought it and soaked it in the bathwater. And then he caught a glimpse in spite of himself—of Taerok’s half-erect member.

Just as Taerok did not hide it, Pansu pretended not to see, wrung out the towel, and placed it over his eyes, then whispered very low.

“It is said that His Majesty the King is in critical condition.”

“…”

“There is talk that a calamity, which one dares not speak of, may soon occur.”

Taerok’s expression, with his eyes covered, was unreadable. Even the line of his mouth did not change.

It had been quite some time since the king had begun frequently taking to his sickbed. But it was three years ago that once he lay down, he could not easily rise again, and a year and a half ago that the Crown Prince had begun conducting state affairs in his stead.

Everyone must have been preparing their hearts. Yet when it came to the death of the king, of all people, one must never show that preparation, and must always fall into shock and grief as if it were utterly unforeseen.

And beneath such a curtain, everything is accomplished, and everything ends in failure.

At Taerok’s gesture, Pansu silently bowed his head and left the bathhouse.

Taerok’s thoughts shifted from Nanyoung to the Crown Prince. Of course, that did not mean Nanyoung was entirely erased. Nanyoung would exist in a corner of the bathhouse like a quiet phantom—just as Taerok had, over the years, often recalled his nephew for no reason at all.

Even now, when that uncle was weighing the qualifications of another nephew, Nanyoung could not completely vanish from Taerok’s mind.

∞ ∞ ∞

Someone entered the room where Nanyoung slept and at once placed a hand on his forehead.

Startled by the touch, he woke. In the room, filled with a bluish darkness as if day had not yet fully broken, his uncle was looking down at him. As if pressed down by Taerok’s palm, Nanyoung could not move at all.

“Your fever has gone down.”

It seemed he had placed his hand there to check his temperature. Only after Taerok’s hand lifted did Nanyoung exhale.

Taerok wiped his hand with a towel that was nearby. From that towel came the scent that he used and had also given to Nanyoung. While he slowly wiped his hands, Nanyoung rolled his eyes and surveyed the room. There was no one else but his uncle and himself. It had been a long while since they were left alone together.

Taerok looked at Nanyoung. Even seeing his nephew, for whom his presence seemed to be no small source of discomfort, Taerok had no intention of moving aside. On the contrary, when he saw Nanyoung glancing around and then trying to shut his eyes tight and pretend to be asleep, he was merely dumbfounded—did he think that would work, no matter how dark it still was?

“I know perfectly well you are awake. Get up.”

Without any indulgence, Taerok pressed him. At those words, Nanyoung shut his eyes even tighter instead.

“You will have to get up.”

Taerok murmured, turning his gaze out the window. As it was summer, a damp atmosphere could be felt thickly through the window, which was left slightly ajar. The sky he had observed on his way out to this room, too, was overcast with clouds, dark even for the hour when both moon and sun hung in the sky together. The road ahead was urgent, every moment counting, and it would be troublesome if the weather turned foul as well. If their feet were hindered even a little, it would become very troublesome indeed.