Actually, It’s a Messy Melodrama Chapter 3

“Ugh…”

A pained groan reached Taejun’s ears. Taejun, who had been fumbling in his pocket for his phone, looked back at Haeshin as if possessed. Haeshin, covered in blood, was looking at Taejun with eyes he had opened with great difficulty.

“Nex… Nex…”

“What? What are you saying?”

The words spilling out amidst the blood he was coughing up were already unintelligible. Taejun leaned down and put his ear to Haeshin’s mouth. However, perhaps because his throat had been cut, he could only hear pained breaths.

Taejun straightened up. By now, even if he called an ambulance, there was no hope. He lifted his head and looked up at where Haeshin had fallen, his eyes meeting those of a man he didn’t know how long had been there.

It was Jin Youngmin. He looked emotionally agitated, but Taejun couldn’t tell if it was because he had just committed murder or because Taejun had witnessed the scene of the murder.

Taejun slowly stood up. The situation had become extremely complicated, but he wasn’t anxious. No matter what happened here, even if Jin Youngmin came down to cover up his crime and killed Han Taejun, the future that awaited Taejun was already determined. It had been for a long time.

So, instead of running away or trying to fix the situation, Taejun spoke to Youngmin.

“What are you?”

“See… I was right…”

“What?”

“You two were screwing behind my back, weren’t you, fuck!”

Taejun frowned at the absurd, nonsensical words. He couldn’t understand how he could say such vulgar things after killing someone.

At that moment, his heart tightened, and a ringing sound filled his ears. Taejun cursed under his breath. He knew well what this symptom meant. Since things had turned out this way, he wanted to get a little more information, but the timing wasn’t good.

“Say something, you son of a bitch! Make some excuse!”

Leaving behind Youngmin’s voice screaming as if he would tear Taejun apart at any moment, Taejun closed his eyes, not understanding why he had made such an assumption. The fact that he didn’t know exactly what was going on was somewhat regrettable, but it didn’t matter since he had plenty of time.

At least, there was one thing worth paying attention to next time.

Feeling a slight sense of self-loathing for thinking such thoughts when someone had just died next to him, Taejun closed his eyes.

July 7th. The end of the world.

☂️

“…”

Taejun opened his eyes calmly, without any sign of surprise. He saw the familiar ceiling. Once, he used to make a fuss, almost screaming, when he opened his eyes, but that was a long time ago.

After getting out of bed, Taejun first checked the date. Taejun’s regressions were always indiscriminate, so the date he returned to was different each time. Sometimes he would regress a year, and other times just a fortnight.

It wasn’t just the time he went back to that was indiscriminate. The day it ended was the same. Taejun called the moment his life was abruptly cut short the “end,” and even that appeared suddenly, like a natural disaster.

Regression usually happens when you die, doesn’t it? But that wasn’t the case with Taejun’s regressions. At some point, his consciousness would suddenly cut off, and when he opened his eyes, he would be back in the past.

The unpredictable timing of the regressions, with no way to prepare or cope, had once nearly driven Taejun insane.

Since he couldn’t know when the end would come, he couldn’t make any proper plans. His meticulously prepared plans would end before they even began, and if he lived recklessly without making any plans, the moment of the end would come annoyingly late. If such a life repeated endlessly, anyone would lose their will.

“One month…”

Taejun muttered after checking the date. June 7th. He had returned exactly one month before the day he witnessed Cha Haeshin’s death.

Even though he was trapped in a difficult curse, Taejun hadn’t been completely idle. He had learned some things amidst the unpredictable curse of regression.

One of them was the deadline of the end. July 7th, 2023. The moment his life ended never went past that date. There were times when it didn’t last until July 7th, but it had never gone past that day.

The very day Cha Haeshin had died in the last cycle.

Taejun frowned with a serious expression. He had a lot to figure out, and one month wasn’t a very long time.

Was Haeshin’s death a one-time occurrence, or had it been repeating? If it was repeating, did Cha Haeshin always die on that day in the cycles where Taejun survived until July 7th without reaching his end? If so, was his regression causing infinite deaths for Cha Haeshin?

Countless questions filled Taejun’s mind. Not only that. The most puzzling thing was that in all those numerous cycles, this was the first time Cha Haeshin had sought out Taejun for help.

Even in his original life, before this endless repetition began, Cha Haeshin hadn’t come to Taejun. No matter how long ago it was, he wouldn’t have forgotten the incident where his cousin’s spouse suddenly clung to him, begging for his life.

In other words, an unprecedented event had occurred, and Taejun couldn’t understand that point. In every cycle, events always unfolded the same way at first. Only when Taejun made a different choice from before did the future change as well.

Then what choice in this cycle had led Cha Haeshin to Taejun?

Organizing the questions that filled his mind one by one, Taejun got out of bed and headed to the bathroom. The first thing he had to do was learn about Cha Haeshin, that person.

☂️

“One month…”

Haeshin opened his eyes in bed, checked the date, and let out a deep sigh.

It would have been nice to return to a time when he was still free, but only a month ago? It was a shame that he had returned to the most painful time.

“Well, it can’t be helped.”

However, Haeshin, already accustomed to such misfortune, shrugged and got up from the bed. Or rather, he tried to.

“Ugh…!”

With a pained groan, Haeshin collapsed back onto the bed. From his waist down, there wasn’t a single part of his body that didn’t hurt. He looked down and saw his arms covered in scratches and bruises. Once he became aware of it, the pain began to surge.

“Ugh…”

Haeshin groaned and searched his memory. He remembered a time a few months ago when he had been confined to the house and, feeling too suffocated, had snuck out for a walk, only to be caught. It must have been a few days ago.

He had thought he had gotten away with it since Youngmin hadn’t said anything, but somehow, Youngmin had found out. He had come home yesterday in a rage, grabbed Haeshin by the hair, thrown him onto the living room floor, and violently forced himself into him without any foreplay. The verbal abuse, asking which bastard he had been rolling around with outside, was a bonus.

It had been a while since he had returned to the recent past, but the fact that he could easily recall the memory meant that the violence had been intense. It was among the worst of the countless acts of violence Haeshin had experienced.

Perhaps he felt it more acutely because his mind was already quite broken by then. Well, it wasn’t a particularly important matter.

Unpleasant memories surfaced. The bodyguard, who, feeling pity for Haeshin continuing his miserable life, had shown a small act of mercy by allowing him to take a walk under his watch for just ten minutes, was slapped and fired.

It was a familiar occurrence. The “relatively” good people around Haeshin were always dealt with in that way.

Once upon a time, Haeshin had felt guilty towards such bodyguards. Because whenever he struggled to escape Jin Youngmin’s grasp, there were people who suffered the consequences.

But now he knew that guilt was a luxury. Those people earned money in exchange for turning a blind eye to, or actively assisting in, Jin Youngmin’s abuse. They were not the kind of people someone who repeatedly experienced this pain and death should feel sorry for.

Besides, since the disadvantages they suffered would all disappear when he regressed after some time, in reality, the only one writhing in pain in this hell was Cha Haeshin himself.

“Still, it’s better to be today than yesterday.”

Haeshin, who had been lying down blinking at the ceiling, soon muttered in a cheerful voice. If he had been even more unlucky and regressed to yesterday, Haeshin would have had to endure that violence all over again.

Besides, since Youngmin had committed that terrible assault yesterday, it was his turn to act like the world’s sweetest husband today. Although the intensity of the violence would only worsen every day until the day he died, at least not today.

“Sigh… Anyway, one month is too short…”

Haeshin, who had barely managed to sit up while enduring the pain, pouted and began to ponder with a serious expression.

In the last cycle, Haeshin had acted impulsively, which was rare for him. He had abruptly approached Han Taejun, with whom he had little prior interaction, and begged him to save him.