BW C50

Chapter 50

“But still, even so, even so… if it had been the General, that man could have been saved. The General is strong. There was no need to take his life so mercilessly.”

Hoeun’s eyes grew damp. Thinking of the dead man left him wronged and stifled. That person must have had family. Judging by his age, he might even have had children. When his family later learned of it, they would resent Taemuk. They might suffer harm. All manner of worries crowded in.

But—

“Why should I.”

Taemuk replied coldly.

“…Sir?”

Hoeun looked up at him with a face that said he doubted his ears. Taemuk, his eyes somehow hollow, looked at Hoeun and said,

“Why should I save those things? Did they entrust their lives to me or something?”

“Saving the people is the General’s duty!”

At that, Taemuk laughed again. He couldn’t help but laugh at Hoeun’s sense of righteousness—so naive it was childish. Raking back his drooping fringe carelessly, he spoke as if utterly bored, without sincerity.

“Even if that were my task, among the people I save, there are no nobles.”

“…”

At those words, Hoeun realized that Taemuk harbored hostility toward the yangban. He had sensed it, off and on, until now—but had not imagined that hostility would go as far as killing someone.

If the man had been killed for being a yangban… then what about Hoeun?

Hoeun’s eyes wavered in confusion. Taemuk grabbed his chin and forced their gazes to meet. Then, as if peering straight into his head, he said,

“Yes. If you hadn’t been my guide, I wouldn’t have cared whether you died or not.”

“…”

“Maybe I’d even have thrown you out as bait to the monsters. If they can taste, wouldn’t they like pale, tender meat like yours?”

At that, Hoeun’s lashes quivered wide.

“Th—that jest… goes too far.”

“A jest? Does it sound like a jest to you?”

Taemuk raised and lowered his brows, chuckling. Then his face hardened abruptly and he flung Hoeun’s chin aside. The rough force made Hoeun’s whole body lurch. His ribboned hair flitted up and fell.

It was only a rough shove—yet it felt like being slapped. He had not been treated this way by Taemuk in recent days. He hadn’t been exactly kind, but he hadn’t been harsh either.

How had it come to this.

Should he not have asked why he killed the man? If he had pretended not to see even after seeing, would their relationship not have come to this pass? But that… would not have been right.

Hoeun stared at the empty ground. Tap, tap—drops of red blood fell and spattered. When he lifted his head, Taemuk’s hand was pressed to a hollowed gouge in his flank. He was biting his lower lip, red and wet with blood.

Having had a chunk of living flesh bitten out, the pain must have been enormous. So even Taemuk—who had never once shown that he was in pain or weary—was twisting his face that way. Seeing it, Hoeun’s eyes wavered.

“Take it off.”

Taemuk ordered again. Hoeun drew in a short, hitching breath. Then, with a firm face, he gave a clear refusal.

“No.”

“What?”

“I said no.”

“…”

“Since the General has not done what must be done as a General, I, as the General’s guide, will likewise do nothing.”

As he spoke thus, Hoeun’s chin trembled in small shivers. He tried to seem calm, to seem decorous—but in truth he was afraid. Afraid of this situation, afraid of what might happen next, and above all, most afraid of Taemuk standing before him.

“…”

Taemuk looked at him steadily. Without blinking, he stared. Then, tilting his head slightly, he asked,

“Oh? So the noble I killed is more important than I am, your Military God?”

“What matters is that the General committed a killing. His status is not what matters.”

“His status is not what matters?”

For some reason, Taemuk chuckled again. Then he dragged his palm down his face. Around his eyes, fatigue, irritation, and anger had muddled together in a paste.

“You go on about being the General’s guide and such—and now that it comes to what must be done, you don’t want to do it.”

“…”

“Craftier than you look, aren’t you.”

So saying, Taemuk licked the corner of his mouth. His tongue, stained with blood, was red enough to be ghastly. He scarcely felt human. Terrified, Hoeun fussed with his clothes with trembling hands—

Grab.

His neck was seized. And his body lifted into the air.

“Kh—”

With his windpipe squeezed tight, Hoeun instinctively grabbed at Taemuk’s wrist, trying to pry his hand away. But Taemuk’s hand was strong as seasoned wood, hard as rock—and hot as heated iron. His throat felt branded with a soldering iron.

“Abandon the thought that if you say no, I’ll say, Yes, so be it, and step back.”

“Gen—ghk—”

“I have no manners, and no dignity.”

“Let—go—kh—”

“I was born a beast.”

Taemuk all but slammed the struggling Hoeun onto the cot set behind the tent. Had the bedding not been soft, his back or his neck—something—would have broken.

While Hoeun froze, shocked by the sensation of every bone in his body rattling, Taemuk climbed over him. Then he whipped up Hoeun’s cheollik, which hung long like a skirt. Snapping out of it, Hoeun grabbed his wrist.

“Don’t!”

But Taemuk, with Hoeun’s hand simply dangling from his wrist, flipped back the layers of clothing with a few brisk motions. Yet, dressed formally as a noble, Hoeun had so many layers that even as he stripped and stripped, more clothes appeared.

“Fuck, there’s nothing here I like.”

His face crumpled more and more. Cold sweat beaded across his brow. His mouth was wet through with blood that had refluxed. At intervals, surging pain set his whole body trembling.

It wasn’t pain from fresh wounds. It was the price for using strength. It felt as if the bones were being ground to fine grit. As if the muscles were being wrung, and the skin stabbed by hundreds, thousands of thorns going in and out. Being thrown into boiling oil would have hurt less.

He wanted to get rid of it at once—to be freed from this fucking pain. And the means lay before him now, for the first time in his life.

Grinding his molars, Taemuk tore through Hoeun’s clothes. Unwitting of the moment, Hoeun cried out sharply,

“So do I! It is a horror to me that the General is my Military God!”

At the clear tone ringing like a bell, Taemuk’s brows pinched tight. It wasn’t that the words grated—it was that all the way to his eardrums, it felt as though his ears were being crushed.

Taemuk, wrenching one eye painfully, pressed his palm down on Hoeun’s chest.

“Kh—”

His hand was so large, his strength so great—Hoeun felt as though his ribs were pressed flat. His heart, his lungs—every organ in his body was crushed; his breath was stopped. For the first time in his life, he learned one could suffocate without being choked by the throat.

Terrified, he flailed to get free. Taemuk bent his great, mountain-like back slowly. Then, in his characteristic low tone, almost in a whisper, he said,

“Don’t you think you’re a horror to me, too.”

“…”

At that, Hoeun’s movement stilled. His large, clear eyes turned slowly to Taemuk.

“How did something like you become my guide.”

Taemuk wrinkled the bridge of his nose as if in true disgust. He shook his head, as though he couldn’t comprehend it.

“…”

At those words, Hoeun’s eyes emptied. Eyes that had always been full—packed with no gaps—now held nothing at all.

Taemuk’s words hummed and buzzed, circling his ears.

“You are a horror.”

“How did something like you…”

“My guide.”

Sentences turned to words; words became syllables, prodding him painfully.

So that was it.

So that’s what he thought.

As expected—he did not measure up.

He was lacking, insufficient; a disappointment.

While Hoeun sat stupefied, his under-robe was torn in a series of snaps by Taemuk’s hand. Hoeun’s white, soft bare chest lay plainly revealed. Taemuk did not bother to strip the clothes away; he merely bared the chest.

“…”

Hoeun’s white skin shimmered as if it gave off light of its own. Taemuk ran a rough palm over it.

It felt properly warm, smooth—and strangely soft though there was no flesh. He had touched that bare skin before, more than once, and yet today the feel was different. More precisely, it was Taemuk who felt it differently.

The noose of pain that had been choking him loosened by a notch. It felt as if air came to a man who had lived without nostrils. Energy ran through his body; he felt, distinctly, blood flow through his brain. Taemuk closed his eyes briefly and savored it fully.

And when he opened his eyes again, the light was gone from them. His face was expressionless. As if possessed by something—or as if something had been lost.

Like a wild beast digging earth, Taemuk yanked at Hoeun’s trousers in a hurry. Coming to his senses belatedly, Hoeun kicked and struggled.

“Don’t—Don’t do it! No. No!”

“…”

But Taemuk did not answer. It wasn’t that he was ignoring Hoeun’s words—he looked as if he could not hear them. He seized Hoeun’s trousers without even untying the knot, pulling and tearing blindly. Under his brutal hands, the soft silk bristled like knives, scratching at Hoeun’s tender skin.