Actually, It’s a Messy Melodrama Chapter 121

‘Let’s get married.’

‘I will make you happy for the rest of your life.’

Haeshin quietly opened his eyes in the still, dawn air. With the sound of Taejun’s breathing right beside him as a background, he blinked slowly, and the blurry scenery in front of his eyes began to faintly come into view.

“…….”

For a long time, Haeshin blankly stared at the ceiling of Taejun’s bedroom, which had now become familiar. He had simply fallen asleep and woken up, but his mood was extremely downcast.

Had he been dreaming? It seemed so. Was it a sad dream? It didn’t seem like it. The happy emotion that had filled his chest remained faintly in his memory.

Even so, strangely enough, Haeshin was sad upon opening his eyes. He felt gloomy. It felt as if he had just wandered back from a very long and sorrowful dream. Why was that?

Hardly any pieces of the dream remained. However, he also felt like he had heard Taejun’s voice right before waking up. Yet even that voice hadn’t sounded sad. Rather, it even felt full of hope.

If so, where on earth did the sorrow Haeshin was feeling right now stem from?

Haeshin carefully removed Taejun’s arm wrapped around his waist and stood up from the bed holding his breath. The more he tried to find the source of his emotions, the clearer his mind became, making it seem like sleep wouldn’t return.

“Whew……”

Coming out into the living room, Haeshin opened the balcony door, went outside, and took a deep breath in and out. The summer dawn air, sticking damply to his skin, dragged Haeshin’s senses back to reality.

Summer was leaving. He could feel the density of the sultry heat gradually thinning out. Feeling simultaneously a desire for this peaceful summer to last longer and a longing to face the next season quickly, Haeshin leaned against the railing.

Lately, Haeshin had been feeling this kind of emotion quite frequently—the experience of an emotion, which he couldn’t tell where on earth it stemmed from, swallowing him whole.

It was mostly when he woke up from sleep that he felt it, and it always had the commonality that the contents of the dream weren’t accurately remembered.

One thing for certain was that the symptom was related to Han Taejun. It was the same right now. He didn’t know why he felt this way, but he could tell one thing: the sadness he felt was because of Taejun.

At times like that, Haeshin would feel a sense of loss, as if he had forgotten a very important memory.

“Is there really a memory I forgot?”

Therefore, Haeshin set up a hypothesis. It was the assumption that there was a lost memory to Haeshin. Once or twice could be explained as pure coincidence, something that happened without a reason, but when it occurs consecutively, a moment comes where it can no longer be understood with the explanation of ‘just because.’

Many questions still remained regarding Haeshin’s regression. Among them, there also existed a question about Han Taejun, whose presence had been strangely faint.

The imperfect first memory, the existence of Han Taejun which seemed as if someone had erased it on purpose, and even the incomprehensible emotions he frequently felt lately.

He wondered if this sense of loss he was feeling now might be the afterimage of a memory about some lost past, squeezing through a small gap between a wall that someone had forcibly blocked up.

“Could it be that I……”

As Haeshin repeatedly thought along those lines, the moment he was about to reach a somewhat more organized hypothesis.

“Cha Haeshin.”

At the familiar voice heard from behind, Haeshin turned around in surprise. With disheveled hair and a foolish face from not being fully awake yet, Han Taejun was approaching.

“Why are you out here like this?”

“Are you awake?”

“Yeah. Because you weren’t there.”

Taejun put out a terribly ticklish answer very naturally. The even more amazing point was the fact that Haeshin also accepted his answer naturally.

“You’re not a child.”

Haeshin lightly tossed a joke and reached out his hand to fix Taejun’s disheveled hair, then suddenly stopped his movement.

That is to say, it was in moments exactly like this that a strange sense of foreignness was felt.

Taejun and he had already connected their hearts and were even a couple who shared a bed. They were also in a relationship sharing a very special secret of just the two of them that no one else knew. So it wasn’t a strange thing to feel such deep intimacy in a short period of time.

But despite that, Haeshin felt a strange unfamiliarity from the emotion he was feeling right now. To force an explanation into words, it was a feeling as if there were blanks between the emotions.

It was a blank that shouldn’t exist at this kind of density. The feeling as if he had lost something very important grew its size right along, the deeper his affection toward Taejun became.

“What’s wrong?”

Taejun asked. It was a voice worrying about Haeshin, who had suddenly stopped his movement and plunged into thought. Haeshin hesitated for a moment. It was still nothing more than a vain hypothesis without any evidence, so a doubt arose whether it was okay to say this.

“Mr. President.”

However, the agonizing wasn’t long. There was no way there would be something he couldn’t say to Taejun after coming this far.

“Yeah?”

“You know.”

“Yeah.”

“I thought that maybe we…… might have already been in a relationship where we liked each other…… even in the previous rounds.”

“What……?”

“I know it sounds strange to me too. Just, I just get that thought. I mean, the thought that maybe we lost the memory of already having met each other among the numerous regressions.”

And Haeshin’s assumption soon dealt a massive shock to Taejun. It felt like he had found the answer to where the sense of foreignness he had often felt when he was with Haeshin stemmed from.

To Taejun as well, there were definitely moments when Cha Haeshin felt familiarly close to an unfamiliar degree. If that was because of a memory that hadn’t completely bloomed yet, if a memory briefly lost as an aftermath of numerous regressions was sending a signal.

“It sounds too much like a delusion, right?”

Losing his confidence at the sight of Taejun, who was silent for a long time, Haeshin hurriedly changed the subject. Taejun shook his head.

“No. I was thinking that it really might be so.”

“Ah……”

“That maybe I might have already loved you since a long time ago.”

“……But why do you have a sad face?”

At the same time, Haeshin, who read Taejun’s expression, asked with a puzzled face.

“No, just……”

“Just?”

“If that’s the case, I wonder why I forgot you.”

Finishing his words, Taejun bit his lip. Guilt rushed in just from the assumption.

“If I was by your side, why couldn’t I protect you?”

“…….”

“Why couldn’t I remember until now, making you lonely…… making you lonely all by yourself.”

Just from the assumption, he felt more incompetent than ever before. Taejun had a conviction that if he had known Haeshin earlier, he would have been able to help him so that he wouldn’t suffer alone for a long time.

But if they weren’t simply a relationship that knew each other but were already a relationship that loved each other, why did he let him die at the hands of Jin Youngmin? Why hadn’t he remembered until now and kept his hands off until Cha Haeshin came to find him?

Many thoughts made scratches on Taejun’s heart like sharp arrowheads and disappeared.

“Hmm, my thoughts are different though.”

Right then, like a salvation as always, Haeshin’s voice wrapped a massive protective shield around Taejun.

“Isn’t it because Mr. President was there that I was able to come all the way here?”

“…….”

“It’s a matter of order. It’s not that I experienced this kind of thing because Mr. President couldn’t protect me…… but who knows, maybe it’s because Mr. President tried to protect me that I was able to carry on my life even like this and meet Mr. President again.”

Approaching close, lightly hugging Taejun’s waist and looking up at Taejun while chattering away his thoughts, Haeshin was excessively lovely.

Taejun’s expression, which had been stiffly frozen, melted away in an instant. Taejun raised his hand, gently stroking Haeshin’s cheek as he replied.

“That this would have been the best I could do?”

“That this could have been the best we could do. Well, something like that.”

“Hmm.”

“There might have been an option that would bring a better result. But we’re not God, so what human could always make only the right choice without trial and error?”

Haeshin knows—just how many doors of failure one has to open to find the single most correct answer. Just like Haeshin had to experience countless deaths to stand right here, in this spot.

On the lips of Taejun, who was silent for a moment, a smile gradually spread.

“Are you getting better at talking as the days go by?”

“I was originally good at talking. Mr. President hasn’t really beaten me with words either, have you?”

“Me?”

“Yes. Whenever it gets unfavorable, you always just go ‘Really now, really now,’ only doing this.”

Saying so, because Haeshin mimicked Taejun’s voice, Taejun burst out into a loud laugh. Haeshin giggled along, liking to see his face from which guilt had vanished before he knew it.

In the spot where a round of laughter passed, the two looked completely into each other’s eyes again.

“I really wish…… this was the end of the numerous failures.”

At Taejun’s words whispered with a heart more earnest than ever before, Haeshin shook his head.

“My failures have already ended.”

At that moment, Taejun had a premonition—the fact that at Haeshin’s answer, he wouldn’t be able to endure the surging passion.

“Since I met Mr. President like th— mgh……!”

And just as Taejun had expected, before Haeshin’s words could even fully finish, he swallowed his lips.