Black Swan Chapter 16

Fortunately, that did not seem to be the case. Lee Hwanmae merely smoked his cigarette in silence, staring only past the one-way mirror. Exhausted from wiretapping over fifteen hours, he did not seem to pay any attention to Yoo Nanoh.

Yoo Nanoh considered asking Lee Hwanmae whether he had any intention of having children at all, but decided against it. This was because he feared he would receive the response, “I won’t marry. Now I can’t get an erection for anyone other than men, just like you.”

Damn it. You have to see the moon to pick mulberry leaves.

Yoo Nanoh suppressed his surging anger. No matter how much he set out fresh water every night and prayed to Samshin Halmi for nephews and nieces, the person who would pick the mulberry leaves for him was Lee Hwanmae. The problem was Lee Hwanmae’s sexual identity.

Even though it was said that back in high school, Lee Hwanmae was famous as a Casanova who didn’t go a single day without women (according to Lee Hwanmae’s childhood friend Cho Younghyun, he once dated seven girls at the same time, got caught, and was beaten up by the female students involved…), that too was an old story. After graduating from high school, he spent five years at a male dormitory school, and after that, he spent as many as seven years in the military. In short, he had rotted away in a men-only environment for a total of twelve years. In essence, due to environmental problems, he had satisfied his desires only with men for a whole twelve years.

However, in truth, if Lee Hwanmae made up his mind, he could sleep with women as much as he wanted. Those around him often made recommendations, and Yoo Nanoh’s adoptive father Yu Changgyeong had persuaded Lee Hwanmae several times to marry and start a family as soon as possible. Rejecting all those pouring requests flat out, Lee Hwanmae satisfied his desires with men night and day. His behavior was suspicious in many ways to attribute solely to his environment.

Sure enough, his closest confidants had long since determined him to be a pederast. Lee Hwanmae’s nature was in fact that of a pederast, but living without knowing it, he finally awakened to his instinct after entering a men-only environment…. His closest confidants whispered in unison. Yoo Nanoh alone lonely (?) suspected Lee Hwanmae of being a bisexual, but this too was in fact merely a vague intuition with no clear basis.

Fuck, what does it matter if he’s a pederast!

Yoo Nanoh bit his teeth tight.

The world is divided into two types of people. Those who live doing only what they want to do. Those who live doing even things they don’t want to do. Yoo Nanoh was the former, and Lee Hwanmae was the latter. His half-brother Lee Hwanmae was fated to live fulfilling only duties for the rest of his life. After discharge, he could not have physical relations with men for the rest of his life. Reproduction was his grave duty.

“His eyes are mismatched.”

Although he blurted it out bluntly as if protesting, even to Yoo Nanoh’s eyes, the greenhorn Staff Officer was an exotic, handsome man. Big, beautiful eyes, a splendid nose bridge, and a delicate bone structure like the Statue of David. If he were short, he would have picked on that and cursed him, but because he was similar in height to himself at first glance, Yoo Nanoh was even more irritated.

“That too is a charm. Isn’t it an atmosphere hard to come out of a face as if measured with a ruler?”

“It’s facial asymmetry. His left face and right face are completely different. What is this, he’s not even a two-faced man…”

“Indeed, Division Commander Yu has a sharp eye.”

Lee Hwanmae smirked. Holding the cigarette between his fingers, he made a frame with his hands toward the greenhorn Staff Officer again.

“Yes. His overall impression is a soft and melancholy atmosphere, but if you look closely, his left face and right face are completely different. The right side is the cool, resolute, and strong face of a man. On the contrary, the left side is the unstable, confusion-filled face of a boy. He possesses two faces.”

Only then did Yoo Nanoh sense the thorn concealed in Lee Hwanmae’s words. It looked like a kind of character evaluation disguised as a compliment on appearance.

He possesses two faces, huh…. It’s a metaphor commonly used when pointing to a fellow who is different on the outside and inside. But don’t most of the snakes differ on the outside and inside?

The people of the Western Continent had temperaments completely different from the people of the Eastern Peninsula who loathed a character different on the outside and inside. They rarely revealed their inner feelings under any circumstances. It was due to the savage environment where having one’s nose cut off right before one’s eyes occurred as a matter of course if one acted even slightly careless.

Yoo Nanoh scrutinized the greenhorn Staff Officer thoroughly. Although he picked him apart this way and that for a long time, except for his exceptionally handsome appearance, it was difficult to discover any particular unusual point.

Hmm… if he’s a fellow chosen by that fastidious Lee Hwanmae, he wouldn’t be an ordinary fellow. There’s definitely something.

To find out what that ‘something’ in question was exactly, clues were excessively lacking. Even 19th-century famous detective Sherlock Holmes would not be able to accurately deduce the inner story lurking in Lee Hwanmae’s entertainment operation with facial asymmetry as a single clue. Yoo Nanoh once again poured silent curses toward Lee Hwanmae. Truly a bastard who doesn’t know teamwork, would dishhydrosis break out on your tongue if you let us in on the operation a bit? What is this, tantalizing a person like this?

At times like this, Yoo Nanoh harbored serious suspicions. Could it be that in a past life he was an unrivaled mother-in-law, and Lee Hwanmae was the eldest daughter-in-law of a head family who gave birth to seven daughters only? Or perhaps in a past life he was a husband who cheated as often as every other day, and Lee Hwanmae was his devoted wife? Whatever it was, it was definitely the worst relation of sworn enemies.

Even so, he was relieved. He was startled thinking Lee Hwanmae might have harbored sexual interest in that greenhorn, but that did not seem to be the case. Then again, starting from his face, he was a fellow far removed from Lee Hwanmae’s taste. There was no way Lee Hwanmae, a connoisseur of ugly ones, would feel sexual interest in a fellow as handsome as a male deity.

Fitting for a special forces unit where only athletic guys overflowing with testosterone were selected, the condition of most faces of the Mae-Ran-Guk-Juk members was terrible beyond expression. The guys who approached Lee Hwanmae were also octopuses, hippos, owls, salamanders, brown bears, and walruses with whom any man whose eyes functioned normally could never get an erection under any circumstances. Yet Lee Hwanmae had slept with them comfortably.

As his thoughts reached this point, Yoo Nanoh’s entire body turned cold. Swallowing dry spittle unawares, he secretly looked out of the corner of his eye at his half-brother. That perverted sadist fellow… don’t tell me he actually has serious feelings for Hobongie?

Kim Hobong. From Ranjo (蘭組), the circle Yoo Nanoh had led at Hwado. An ugly one confidently acknowledged as Number One even in Ranjo, a gathering place for ugly ones. The nickname Yoo Nanoh gave him was Tadpole Eyes.

In addition to his bulging eyes, Kim Hobong’s face had numerous serious problems stationed on it. Cheekbones that looked like large gourds attached to both sides. Nostrils proudly turned up high toward the sky. Above all, thick catfish lips that could not close properly because of protruding front teeth were the masterpiece. Shockingly, that ugly fellow had been attending on Lee Hwanmae alone for as long as four years. His closest confidants had long accepted Lee Hwanmae and Kim Hobong as being in a common-law marriage.

Common-law marriage. Whenever he recalled this word, Yoo Nanoh was on the verge of being appalled. He wondered how this could be. During his student days at Hwado, he used to tease Kim Hobong, saying, ‘You’re miserably ugly, so if you want to marry, you must succeed greatly.’ Never imagining that miserably ugly fellow would later enter a common-law marriage with his own half-brother.

No. This is really not it. How could he with that Hobongie whose name is even ugly…!

At times like this, Yoo Nanoh resented his father. Kim Hobong was none other than the partner Yu Changgyeong, Yoo Nanoh’s adoptive father, had deliberately attached to Lee Hwanmae. He had calculated that rather than sleeping with that ugly Kim Hobong, wouldn’t Lee Hwanmae also hurry up and get married?

However, breaking expectations, Lee Hwanmae kept Kim Hobong close for four years. Thanks to this, Kim Hobong cleanly shook off his long-standing appearance complex, identified himself with Royal Noble Consort Suk of the Choe clan, and walked around putting full power into his shoulders in every matter. Although he did not say it out loud, he did not hesitate to make explicit appeals to Lee Hwanmae’s blood relatives (Yoo Nanoh, Seo Jukgyeong, Ryu Hopi) to treat him as their sister-in-law.

You perverted bastard Lee Hwanmae, snap out of it quickly. What are you going to do if you, who would die for form, keep Hobongie around as your favorite boy? If Mori Ranmaru had tadpole eyes and catfish lips, future generations would have mocked Nobunaga forever.

Unlike Yoo Nanoh who had grown gloomy, Lee Hwanmae looked quite in a good mood. He kept a smile around his lips and was staring at the greenhorn Staff Officer. Yoo Nanoh knit his brow and asked.

“It seems the wiretapping result was satisfactory?”

“More or less. I wondered what to do if the business sputtered from the start, but it seems I don’t need to worry about that point.”

Answering while letting out a smile, Lee Hwanmae added continuously.

“By the way, doesn’t that fellow look very fickle?”