Actually, It’s a Messy Melodrama Chapter 62

Taejun gently took Haeshin’s wrist and made him sit down on the sofa. Haeshin’s act of sitting down obediently without trying to shake off his hand somehow made his heart tickle.

“Did you sleep well?”

Taejun asked, letting go of the hand he had held with a gesture full of regret. Haeshin felt that he was sitting too close to Taejun but nodded without widening the distance between them.

“I slept soundly without any dreams too.”

“That’s fortunate.”

“I thought I would definitely have nightmares because of all the things that happened yesterday.”

Hearing Haeshin’s reply, Taejun smiled faintly without realizing it. He somehow felt he knew the hidden meaning behind Haeshin’s evasive ending words.

Taejun was almost certain that the reason for his sound sleep was Cha Haeshin. And he could also feel that Haeshin considered Han Taejun to be the reason, too.

Han Taejun and Cha Haeshin were relying solely on each other at the edge of a cliff. The unspoken feeling they shared only with each other filled Taejun’s emotions to the brim.

A silence fell between the two people. It was a shy silence, rather than an awkward one. As both were contemplating the emotions they were feeling for the first time in their lives, Haeshin’s phone, which was placed on the kitchen table, rang loudly.

“Just a moment!”

Haeshin stood up, smiling awkwardly. Taejun followed Haeshin, who was heading to the kitchen, with a gaze full of regret. He couldn’t understand himself why he felt so regretful.

“Yes, I am Cha Haeshin.”

In the meantime, Haeshin, who had answered the phone, walked back to the living room while continuing the call.

“Yes. She is my mother, but…”

That was the moment Taejun felt an unusual atmosphere. Haeshin’s footsteps, which were walking towards the sofa, abruptly stopped.

“Th- that, what…”

“What is it? What’s wrong, Cha Haeshin.”

At the same time, Taejun sprang up from his seat and approached Haeshin. Haeshin’s hand holding the phone was shaking unbelievably. His already pale face visibly turned ashen in an instant.

“That can’t be… What, did you get something wrong?”

“What is it? Why are you acting like this?”

Taejun asked again, his voice urgent because of Haeshin’s trembling voice. Simultaneously, Haeshin dropped the phone to the floor. Before the surprised Taejun could move, tears began to stream down Haeshin’s cheeks.

“You, why, what’s wrong?”

“Representative Sir… Mom… our Mom…”

Taejun’s expression crumpled into one of despair as he heard Haeshin’s words.

☂️

“Cha Haeshin…!”

Haeshin’s body instantly collapsed onto the floor as he walked out into the corridor after confirming his mother’s body. Taejun, who desperately grabbed him, also sank to the floor and hugged Haeshin’s body with all his might. Haeshin’s slumped shoulders soon began to heave.

“Representative Sir… Representative Sir…”

“Yes. It’s me. I’m here…”

“How… how could this happen?”

Taejun couldn’t bring himself to answer Haeshin’s subsequent question. He felt so suffocated and frustrated that he wanted to scream, but since it was something he couldn’t do in front of Haeshin, he could only hug Haeshin tighter.

“She… she shouldn’t have done this to me, should she? Huh? How could Mom… until the very end… sob…!”

The bottled-up grief finally burst out. Haeshin clutched Taejun’s clothes and poured out his tears in his arms.

They said she had jumped from the window of her hospital room. Since the window of the VIP room faced the rarely frequented private walking path, the discovery was late, but since she fell headfirst, they said there would have been almost no chance of resuscitation even if she had been found earlier.

“It can’t be suicide. It can’t be… This, this is wrong. Representative Sir… It can’t be. Please…”

“Yes. I’ll find out. I’ll find out, so…”

Taejun couldn’t bring himself to finish his sentence. He couldn’t offer any comfort, not telling him not to cry, or to calm down. Even if the cause of death was revealed, Haeshin’s mother could not come back to life.

Of course, Han Taejun had a way. Although he didn’t know when it would be activated, they had a clock that repeated and returned. Whenever the time went back, his mother’s death could be undone.

But was that really true? Would it truly become something that never happened? Would the pain Cha Haeshin was experiencing now disappear because of that? Would it become a wound that never existed? Taejun felt devastated and hugged Haeshin even tighter.

“It’s my fault… Representative Sir, it’s my fault. I should have… I should have looked after Mom better earlier. Mom… I shouldn’t have left Mom alone…”

Haeshin finally began to blame himself, painfully hitting his own thigh. Taejun grabbed his hands, held them against his chest, and hugged Haeshin harder.

“I was enjoying myself in a nice house while Mom… our Mom… I knew she was a person who was struggling and hurting just as much as I was… sob… I could even embrace Jin Youngmin just to survive, but I never held Mom’s hand… Representative Sir, I couldn’t even hold Mom’s hand once… I… It’s my fault…”

“Cha Haeshin, please… No. You know that’s not true.”

“Sob… Hooo…”

“Hey, Cha Haeshin! Hey! Get a grip, get a grip!”

In the end, Haeshin, unable to withstand the shock, lost consciousness in Taejun’s arms. The tears that flowed down Haeshin’s face dropped onto the cold hallway floor.

☂️

Haeshin was alone in a space where pitch-black darkness unfolded. There was neither light nor shadow there. There was only darkness, with no discernible beginning or end. Haeshin sat huddled in the middle, staring at the endless void.

No emotion was discernible in his eyes. Fear, loneliness, a yearning to escape—none of it was there. He was just like a doll that merely breathed.

Haeshin slowly opened and closed his eyes repeatedly. It was clearly a strange and unfamiliar space, yet oddly enough, he felt no desire to run away or escape from it.

He had no will whatsoever. He just wanted to become a speck of this darkness and stay here forever. He was truly sick of trying. He didn’t have the strength left to struggle anymore.

Living and dying were meaningless, so Haeshin just wanted to disappear from the world. If he couldn’t do that, existing alone forever in this darkness wasn’t so bad either.

Then, a light appeared far away. Haeshin’s expressionless face crumpled. Haeshin hated the light. He didn’t want to move toward it. Where there was light, there was always shadow, and Haeshin knew that his life would forever exist only in the shadows.

Haeshin huddled even smaller and closed his eyes. It was a movement as if hiding himself from the light.

He hoped that light would never find him, that it would just leave him here. Please, may he no longer be mocked by life and death.

That was all Haeshin wished for right now.

⍣ *

Haeshin, who lost consciousness at the hospital, didn’t wake up easily even after returning home. Taejun left Haeshin alone. Since there was no indication of a physical problem, he decided to wait until Haeshin woke up on his own.

But when night fell and Haeshin still hadn’t woken up, he started to worry. Furthermore, Haeshin hadn’t eaten anything all day today. Although he didn’t know if Haeshin would try to eat when he woke up, he couldn’t leave him alone any longer.

“Ah…”

However, Taejun, who cautiously opened the door and stepped into the room, let out a short gasp at the unexpected sight. Haeshin, who had woken up at some point, was sitting with his legs dangling over the edge of the bed.

“Cha Haeshin.”

Taejun called his name carefully. Haeshin’s appearance looked so fragile, as if he would crumble if touched, that Taejun couldn’t rashly approach him.

What it felt like for one’s heart to be torn apart, Taejun now felt it deeply. It was unbelievable that someone else’s pain could be felt as his own.

Pity, compassion. He could no longer claim the emotions he had casually thought of when looking at Haeshin. Taejun was genuinely worried about Haeshin, more than ever before.

Taejun cautiously approached Haeshin and sat down beside him. Haeshin, who was looking at some point in the air, deep in thought, didn’t turn his eyes even when Taejun sat beside him.

No comfort came easily, so Taejun just sat beside Haeshin for a long time. He hoped Haeshin would feel his warmth. He hoped Haeshin would realize that there was a person who could do anything for him just by turning his head.

How much time passed? Haeshin, who was sitting still like a doll, opened his mouth in an extremely weak voice, like a candle flickering in the wind.

“Representative Sir.”

“Yes. Go on.”

“What did I do so wrong?”

Haeshin didn’t cry, but Taejun felt a sorrow more profound than tears in his question. Fragments of a heart ripped to shreds melted into every breath he exhaled.

“I kept, kept thinking about it… but no matter how much I think, I don’t know. What… what did I do so wrong?”

“Nothing. There is nothing. What could you have done wrong?”

“My father, who made my and Mom’s life hell, and Jin Youngmin, who… who dragged me down to hell, don’t live such an unhappy life, do they? But why… why am I having such a hard time?”

“Cha Haeshin…”

“Why do I have to be the only one who is hurt and suffering like this every time? I just… I just want to be able to live like a normal person… I really only need that. Was that such a big greed?”

Taejun bit his lip. At the hospital, when Haeshin was sobbing, his heart ached so much that he wished he wouldn’t cry, but seeing Haeshin now, expressing his pain without shedding a single tear, made him think it would be better if he cried, if he just cried.