Struggle Chapter 67

Taerok patted Nanyoung’s buttocks with his remaining hand. The more he did, the more Nanyoung tensed up. Using that as an excuse, Taerok scratched near the spot where Nanyoung felt it most. Even though his fingers were quite long, Nanyoung’s sensitive spot was so deep inside that he could barely reach it. It was like having an itch somewhere specific and only being able to scratch around it—Nanyoung unconsciously licked his lips. He was growing impatient.

Taerok listened with pleasure to the sound of that tongue lapping against his ears. He carefully scooped out the inside. Each time, clumps of fluid flowed down along his fingers.

He had come a lot.

“If left inside, you really would have ended up with your uncle’s baby.”

At the sound of him clicking his tongue and muttering, Nanyoung gripped Taerok’s shoulders painfully. He deliberately dug his nails in. It wasn’t even ticklish. Taerok snorted with a laugh, then brought his hand around to the front and pressed firmly on Nanyoung’s lower belly.

“Haaahk…!”

At the strong pressure, Nanyoung’s waist buckled forward. He was practically being carried on Taerok’s shoulders.

Thanks to that, his buttocks spread a little wider, and what had been inside gushed out. He had come inside three times, and this was the amount. Even so, it was fortunate that Nanyoung didn’t know Taerok’s desire was still unquenched. For now, at least, he wouldn’t know—but that would only be temporary.

“Qu-quickly. Please finish quickly…”

“Wait.”

“When, when will it be over…?”

“I don’t know. Shall I take a look?”

“Ah, no!”

Nanyoung was horrified. The vivid memory of Taerok burying his face in his entrance, licking and sucking, came rushing back.

And after what felt like an eternity to Nanyoung, Taerok finally withdrew his fingers from his entrance. He held his hand outside the bathwater and flicked it—tap, tap—each time sending pale fluid splattering.

Nanyoung, utterly exhausted, slid down into the water like melting away, his face flushed crimson. Taerok wiped his hands thoroughly and placed one on Nanyoung’s forehead.

“You’ll have a fever.”

“…”

Even to his own ears, his breathing was already wheezing—signs that it was likely.

“I need to return to the palace.”

“No.”

“Why not…? Isn’t it all done?”

“If my nephew came to my palace and returned home a sick man, how heartless a uncle would everyone think I am?”

People already call you a cold-blooded man without a drop of pity or tears… Nanyoung pouted his lips.

“And as for ‘all done’—”

Taerok rested his chin on his hand and gazed at Nanyoung with a sidelong look.

“Does that one act make it an even trade? You’re not the Crown Prince, but a Grand Prince. Just because I’ve taken a Grand Prince to bed, would my interest in the throne simply vanish?”

Nanyoung’s gaze, which had been languid and softened, sharpened instantly like shards of broken porcelain.

Nanyoung shot to his feet. Water sloshed and splashed everywhere.

“You’re truly worse than a beast.”

Even as his breath was already wheezing, Nanyoung stepped out of the bath. Without looking back, Taerok asked.

“You’re going to leave alone like that? Then the servants will know everything.”

Nanyoung’s hand froze for a moment. Neither Taerok’s treasonous ambitions nor their incest could be revealed to anyone. That was fear.

“It would be wise to properly discern which of my words made you angry.”

But… why am I feeling something stronger than fear right now? He wanted to bolt out as if being caught were no big deal. He didn’t want to see his uncle. Why?

“So young and still so inexperienced.”

Taerok clicked his tongue briefly.

As he rose from his seat, water droplets showered from his body. At the sound, Nanyoung flinched. Taerok approached him without even wiping himself dry.

Reaching from behind, he took a large cotton cloth beside Nanyoung’s clothes and wiped his own body.

“Not leaving?”

He asked, knowing full well that Nanyoung couldn’t leave. Nanyoung bit his lip, then turned around.

Taerok suppressed a smile at the tearful, pleading expression on his face—as if asking for help. This little thing is manipulating me. He placed an undergarment over Nanyoung’s shoulder. Below it, Nanyoung’s buttocks, which had swollen slightly, were reddened from Taerok’s body having slammed against them. Finger marks were also visible. They were marks Nanyoung could never see for himself.

“…When you return, it would be wise not to let your attendants help you dress.”

“Pardon?”

“If word gets out that you came back from your uncle’s residence with finger marks on your buttocks, all our trouble of bathing together will have been for nothing.”

Nanyoung, startled, covered his own buttocks. By chance, his hands landed exactly over Taerok’s finger marks. His hands were smaller than those marks.

“It makes me want to thrust back inside, so hurry up and get dressed.”

Clicking his tongue, Taerok also put on his clothes.

Nanyoung stood stubbornly with his back turned. I’ve already seen everything—why hide so desperately? Taerok pondered for a moment, then felt his lower body stiffen as his gaze swept over Nanyoung’s side, his armpits where pale skin showed, his shoulder line—and admitted that Nanyoung had made a wise choice.

Having dismissed the surrounding servants, Taerok hid Nanyoung beneath his own cloak and headed toward the small pavilion. It was a rather amusing sight. Lee Nanyoung wasn’t exactly the size of a squirrel—could he really be concealed like this? Still, Nanyoung seemed to find comfort in even this pretense, so Taerok played along.

Only after they entered the inner room did Nanyoung relax. Taerok watched as Nanyoung, creeping forward on his knees toward the bronze mirror, began to arrange his topknot, then stepped outside.

“Ho there.”

At his call, a servant soon appeared. Taerok said that his nephew had come early in the morning to share breakfast together, so two servings should be brought. The servant, wondering when Grand Prince Heonui had arrived, tilted his head but still answered, “Yes, sir,” and received the order.

Returning to the room, Nanyoung was inserting his pin into his headband. His hands were quite deft.

Taerok abruptly sat down behind Nanyoung. Their gazes met across the mirror.

“I’ve ordered the meal to be brought.”

As if he had changed clothes, Taerok’s tone had also shifted. Nanyoung, astonished by Taerok’s brazen change of demeanor, parted his lips slightly and stared at him fixedly.

Regardless, Taerok rested his chin on Nanyoung’s shoulder. Nanyoung’s body stiffened taut. With Taerok pressing his cheek against his own and remaining still, Nanyoung didn’t move a muscle, as if his nape were clamped in a beast’s jaws.

“Hmm.”

As if having convinced himself of something, Taerok nodded and rose.

“Don’t wander about aimlessly. Stay here.”

“Where are you going?”

“Do I need your permission to walk around my own palace?”

He could just say it’s a secret—why does he always have to phrase things like that? Nanyoung’s lips jutted out like a bird’s beak. Taerok suppressed the urge to pull them tightly and left the room.

Waiting until Taerok’s footsteps faded and eventually disappeared entirely, Nanyoung sprang to his feet.

He said not to wander about, so I won’t wander about. Rationalizing with sophistry, Nanyoung began rummaging through the masterless room. He flung open the document chest, opened cabinets, and searched through trunks.

“Ah… not here? Surely it’s not gone…”

He muttered anxiously, opening and closing things in a frenzy. Still, after rummaging, he would tidy things up plausibly. Perhaps because of that, time felt even more pressing.

At the slightest sign of someone approaching, he would hold his breath and wait. When the presence faded, he would search again.

In the end, Nanyoung slumped to the floor empty-handed.

“There’s nothing here…”

One might ask if moving around a bit left him so winded, but for Nanyoung, this movement was a tremendous ordeal. His hip joints, which Taerok had spread wide, creaked as if out of place, and his knees were the same. Every time he walked, his buttocks and thighs ached, and the vivid presence of his entrance—something he had never been conscious of in his entire life—left him bewildered.

As the exhausted Nanyoung sat on the floor, huffing and catching his breath, Taerok returned.

“…”

Entering the room, Taerok slowly surveyed his surroundings. Nanyoung tensed up, wondering if Taerok had noticed something.

Soon, Taerok smiled quietly.

“It seems you were looking for a secret passage.”

“…”

At the words that struck right through him, Nanyoung’s lips pressed tightly shut.

“I don’t need anything like a written pledge from you. I don’t believe in sweet-talking words of loyalty from the start anyway.”

“…If one of them betrays you and reports that you’re plotting treason, what will you do then?”

“Are you worried about me now?”

“Not in the slightest…”

Yet those words sounded instead like he was worried about Taerok in every way—except for one.