Black Swan Chapter 9

Yoo Nanoh ended up bursting into a vain laugh. In the midst of the absurdity, he felt that it was truly just like Lee Hwanmae. Normally, Lee Hwanmae would dress up and carry himself so fashionably that Yoo Nanoh had often taunted him, asking if he was possessed by the ghost of an aspiring celebrity who committed suicide after slipping up hundreds of times in auditions. How could a guy who was groaning while completely abstaining from food and drink until just a moment ago start going on about “Am I handsome?” as soon as he found a bit of composure? At any rate, talk about incurable narcissism.

“Go apply ointment on your hands, you housemaid’s eczema patient. Don’t let your guard down just because it’s almost healed.”

Yoo Nanoh muttered grumblingly as he tossed a bamboo wife rolling around the floor of the room toward Lee Hwanmae. Lee Hwanmae, who was applying moisturizer to his hands, wore a serious expression.

“I asked if I was handsome? Just answer me.”

“…Hmph.”

In his heart, Yoo Nanoh’s mouth itched to answer that he was the ugly duckling of the century. However, extremely unfortunately, Yoo Nanoh and Lee Hwanmae were faces that closely resembled each other like bread baked from the exact same mold. Insulting his half-brother’s face was nothing more than spitting on his own face.

“Well… you’re not ugly. Since you and I look alike, could that be an ugly face? Though of course I’m five hundred million times handsomer than you. Only the mold is the same; the details are different, right? If I am the universe’s number one handsome man, you are just about passable.”

Yoo Nanoh, who was disparaging his half-brother’s face as much as possible, suddenly furrowed his brow. Looking at Lee Hwanmae’s behavior of closely checking the mirror and touching up his face, a strange anxiety swept over him out of the blue. Fitting for Lee Hwanmae’s younger brother, Yoo Nanoh was a man whose brain turned fast and who even possessed alert intuition like a wild animal. That signature intuition flashed red warning lights continuously. Why is that vixen bastard acting like that over and over again? Don’t tell me…

Don’t tell me he really intends to seduce someone? But at a time when a million-man army has set up camp right in front of us?

Dizziness surged up as if he had downed strong liquor all at once. Yoo Nanoh glared intently at his half-brother. Even in the midst of that, his brain steadily performed logical deduction work, offering up pieces of evidence one by one to back up Yoo Nanoh’s suspicion.

Lee Hwanmae usually said like a habit: Mobilizing large forces to kill many enemies is the worst, lowest-level move. A wise commander must know how to defeat the many with a few, and the wisest move of all is turning back a vast army with a three-inch tongue. Every commander ought to possess the skill of blowing one’s nose without using one’s hands.

In accordance with that theory, the main strategy Lee Hwanmae adopted was none other than incitement. If so, the conclusion comes out right away. The reason why Lee Hwanmae suddenly cared about his face at this point when a million-man army was flocking in.

Lee Hwanmae was preparing for a seduction. Preparing to personally seduce a certain figure who would drive the million-man army away from the border line. No, incitement. Right now, Lee Hwanmae was preparing an incitement under the name of seduction. The target of that incitement would be a big shot who ranked high even within the military leadership of Usaguk. Survival on this side depended on whether that negotiation succeeded or failed.

“I asked how I am?”

Lee Hwanmae asked once more. Yoo Nanoh quietly stared at his hyung’s white face. A heavy rock weighed down his chest once again.

Fitting for half-brothers, Yoo Nanoh and Lee Hwanmae closely resembled each other, but on the other hand, their atmospheres were vastly different from each other. Yoo Nanoh gave a sharp, aggressive impression like a wild beast at first glance to the point where his alias ‘Orchid❨蘭❩’ was embarrassing, but Lee Hwanmae was elegant and gorgeous, fitting for his alias ‘Plum❨梅❩’. A delicate dignity that Yoo Nanoh lacked drifted subtly around him. Lee Hwanmae was a single plum tree, just like his alias.

Yoo Nanoh asked in a sunken voice:

“Do you really have to step forward yourself? Can’t you send out someone else?”

To his younger brother who abruptly hit the nail on the head, Lee Hwanmae answered right away without the slightest agitation:

“No. This absolutely has to be conducted by me. That is how important an entertainment it is.”

Entertainment.

At the expression ‘entertainment’ rather than negotiation, Yoo Nanoh’s blood temporarily ran backward.

“…I’m asking straight out. Is the counterpart of your entertainment a sodomite?”

“Hmph, Nanoh, you sure are quick-witted as expected. You saw it accurately. That bastard is a sodomite.”

To his younger brother’s question, the hyung answered without hesitation this time as well. It was a leisurely tone as if humming a song while picking wild greens in a spring field.

Yoo Nanoh suppressed the boiling sense of humiliation and tightly clenched both fists. There was no disgrace like this since he was born. In order to prevent the war, that Lee Hwanmae was trying to entertain someone? Entertain…?

A terrible imagination followed right after. Does he plan to sell even his body by any chance? No matter how much he is a bastard who doesn’t pick and choose means if it’s for achieving his goal, surely to that extent…?

He might go that far. No, he would have no choice but to go that far. Because this war was so extremely disadvantageous to this side that it had to be stopped by mobilizing any means necessary.

The sight of his half-brother pouring wine for a balding middle-aged man while smiling with his eyes passed before Yoo Nanoh’s eyes. He had heard the story of a young female head of a household engaging in prostitution to feed her family in grinding poverty many times, but he had never imagined that a similar thing would happen to his own brothers. He was driven to the brink of insanity from rage. In a situation where that proud Lee Hwanmae even resolved himself to perform body lobbying, Yoo Nanoh even tasted a misery where it felt like the ground beneath his feet was collapsing. Even in this situation, he felt like the world’s most cowardly fool for standing by without stopping his hyung.

Yoo Nanoh barely opened his mouth.

“Who is it? Tell me when the entertainment is over. I’ll kill him for you.”

“That’s it, that’s it. As expected, I can get through to you, Nanoh.”

Lee Hwanmae let out a chuckle as he took off his robe.

“It seems I wasn’t the only person who changed over seven years. If it were you back in your Hwado days, you would have thrown a fit telling me to quit right away, but now you choose practicality… Is time scary indeed? Well, just as you said, war isn’t some ranking fight among athletic blockheads.”

“As long as we don’t get caught, nobody knows.”

Yoo Nanoh retorted firmly.

“A disgrace that nobody knows is not a disgrace. Tell me. I’ll kill that entertainment counterpart for you. I must kill that bastard with my own hands. And then I’ll forget it cleanly. I promise.”

“Wonderful. Your favor is excessive though.”

“It’s not favor, but playing politics. You know it too, don’t you? Regardless of time and place, the vast majority of numerous improper acts that occurred in the process of adjusting interests between factions were sealed away in secret rooms.”

“Yeah. That’s politics.”

Lee Hwanmae, who laughed out loud, waved his hand.

“Thanks, but I’m good. He’s a chess piece that the great God found through endless trouble, so I must get my money’s worth out of him. Don’t worry, I plan to end it with just smiling appropriately with my eyes. Since it’s such an important entertainment, I merely aimed for perfection. You bastard, contrary to appearances, you secretly have a lot of petty worries, don’t you?”

Lee Hwanmae complained continuously as he put on his uniform.

“I don’t like it either, but it can’t be helped. Didn’t we learn plenty of life’s bitterness here for seven years? Well, that’s how worldly affairs go. In business in any field, entertainment is essential. Every party B in the world checks their appearance and attire before meeting party A. I can’t be an exception either.”

Yoo Nanoh quietly observed Lee Hwanmae putting on his uniform. After detailed observation, he concluded that the body lobbying he had originally worried about would not happen. Even if Lee Hwanmae might wag his tail softly at a middle-aged man, a major disaster like taking off his clothes did not seem likely to occur.

Come to think of it, if that guy who values style like his life had resolved to do body lobbying, he wouldn’t have slipped it to me like this either.

The Lee Hwanmae that Yoo Nanoh knew was a fellow who would handle the job without even a mouse, a bird, or God knowing, and then put on a totally innocent face saying, ‘Oh? The war isn’t happening?’ That was Lee Hwanmae-style politics. Yoo Nanoh grimaced and crossed his arms. Either way, rage surged up. Fuck, I don’t care how great a monk-head that entertainment counterpart is, just you wait.

Considering Lee Hwanmae’s public status, even a minor wine entertainment was a painful humiliation. There is no perfect secret in the world. To the point of turning back a million-man army, that entertainment counterpart was undoubtedly a key figure among Mukso’s clique, but someday the fellow would definitely blab the fact that he received entertainment from Lee Hwanmae. Yoo Nanoh dangerously flashed his long, narrow eyes.

No matter how many secrets it knows, a corpse has no words.

I play politics my own way. I will kill him, without fail. With my own hands, I’ll gouge out that fellow’s eyeballs, cut out his tongue, and kill him off. By doing so, I will perfectly seal the secret.

“Now then, let me head out.”