Actually, It’s a Messy Melodrama Chapter 66

The words of Taejun became a thunderous roar, shaking Haeshin’s soul. Han Taejun continued speaking, leaving a stunned Haeshin.

“If you ever try to take your own life again, then, then I really won’t let you off the hook.”

“CEO…?”

“Don’t even think about dying in front of my eyes. Do you understand? Never again. Not a second time.”

Taejun repeated the same words several times, practically pleading. The hand gripping Haeshin’s collar in a threatening manner was, in fact, clinging to Haeshin.

Don’t die again. Don’t make that choice in front of my eyes a second time. That was akin to Taejun’s promise never to let Haeshin die again. At the same time, tears poured down Haeshin’s cheeks. The crying erupted before Haeshin’s thoughts were even fully organized.

Taejun’s words were so strange. It was odd enough that he suddenly came all the way here, but telling him not to die in front of him. Only someone who had witnessed Cha Haeshin’s death could say such a thing. That was something the Han Taejun of this timeline should definitely not be able to say, even if the Han Taejun of the previous timeline might have.

One possibility violently churned in Haeshin’s mind. An impossible, absurd possibility, one he had never even dared to hope for.

“What, what do you mean, hic… What do you mean, sniff…”

Haeshin desperately asked, barely swallowing his sobs. He needed confirmation. The conjecture that had surfaced in his mind seemed too preposterous, and he wanted Han Taejun to verify it.

Taejun, whose eyes had become moist at some point, pulled up one corner of his mouth.

“You know what I mean.”

“Ah… Aah…”

At that moment, Haeshin opened his mouth and cried out like an animal.

“No, no way… Surely, CEO… you remember, you remember?”

Haeshin’s words were almost entirely muffled by sobs and difficult to properly discern, but it posed no problem for Taejun.

“Yes. So, never again… please don’t die in front of me…”

Taejun collapsed as if he hadn’t just been grabbing Haeshin’s collar and threatening him. Taejun’s hand, which had been roughly holding Haeshin, immediately pulled Haeshin into his embrace.

It was only when Haeshin’s heart beating against his chest was felt that Taejun realized he was alive. Haeshin, embraced in his arms, mumbled with a trembling voice.

“A lie… it’s a lie… No way…”

“It’s okay because I know everything. It’s okay now, Cha Haeshin.”

“I… I…”

Taejun responded without wavering to the confused Haeshin’s words. It was understandable that he couldn’t easily believe it. Taejun himself had only realized after witnessing Haeshin’s death several times with his own eyes.

Haeshin’s disbelief was a reaction born out of the desire to believe Taejun’s words more than anything. The stronger assurance Cha Haeshin craved, knowing he would be surely disappointed and hurt if it were a misunderstanding because he yearned for it so desperately, was clearly visible to Taejun.

“I know. I… I remember everything.”

So, Taejun kept answering. To prevent him from being anxious, from worrying if it was a mistake. Only then did Haeshin collapse his forehead onto Taejun’s shoulder and burst into tears.

“Why, why only now… Why did you only come now…!”

It was an unfair resentment.

“Why are you telling me only now. Why…! I, I thought I was alone…! I didn’t know anything and all this time, all this time alone…!”

It was also aimless complaining. Haeshin knew that, in truth, Han Taejun bore no responsibility or fault. But Haeshin couldn’t collect himself in the face of the miraculous relief gained after extreme despair.

He had endured countless repetitions of hell but couldn’t speak to anyone about it. This was the first time he was complaining freely while being held in someone’s arms.

Even his mother’s arms, when he was very young before the regression started, weren’t a refuge where Haeshin could lean in and be fully spoiled.

“I… hic… how much… how much I suffered…”

Perhaps that was why. Once the sorrow broke out, it wouldn’t stop easily, and Haeshin cried while hitting Taejun’s chest with fists that lacked strength.

“I… I…”

Taejun found it difficult to continue speaking. He didn’t know. He had no way of knowing that there was another regressor besides himself, and that this regression had all stemmed from Cha Haeshin’s death.

Therefore, Han Taejun could have made excuses. He could have said he didn’t know. He could have claimed he was the victim, that because of his death, he had repeated life several times without knowing the reason, and that it had driven him to the brink of madness. Taejun could have recounted his own suffering there.

But Taejun made no excuses. He couldn’t. He was swept up in a realization more powerful than pitying his own life.

“I…”

Ah, I love this person. Not just some petty sympathy or pity, not wanting to use this person as a tool to end my regression, but simply loving this person genuinely, cherishing and wanting to protect them. That’s why I’ve been so desperately lingering by this person’s side.

In truth, he should have realized it earlier. When he was circling Cha Haeshin, inventing all sorts of reasons, when he began struggling desperately to save him even without the certainty that it would benefit him, he should have known.

If he had, Cha Haeshin wouldn’t have had to suffer such pain again.

“I’m sorry, Haeshin…”

So, Taejun could only fully submit before Haeshin and confess his sin.

“I should have protected you, but I… I should have realized you sooner…”

“Hic… Why are you apologizing, CEO…”

Then, this time, Haeshin scolded him, asking why he was apologizing. The mumbling voice, saying, ‘It’s natural that the CEO wouldn’t know,’ was both lovely, completely out of sync with the situation, and simultaneously pathetic.

His goodness, which had not broken despite living such a difficult life, was endearing, and the fact that Cha Haeshin hadn’t even had someone to complain to freely all this time was utterly heartbreaking. Cha Haeshin’s life, without anyone to blame without reason or logic, without a partner to recklessly throw a tantrum at, felt pitiful and heartbreaking.

“Because I should have realized it sooner.”

Taejun released his arms from around Haeshin, cupped his cheeks to make him look up at him, and spoke again without wavering. Everything was his fault.

Even if he couldn’t have known, he should have realized, and not realizing his own feelings early was an even bigger problem.

“No way…”

“What do you mean, ‘no way’?”

“CEO, hic it’s not, hic, your fault. It’s… sniff… natural that you wouldn’t know.”

Haeshin muttered, his face wet with tears, barely holding back his sobs. Taejun’s fingers gently wiped away Haeshin’s tears.

He swallowed the words that he loved him, that he had already deeply loved him. He didn’t want to burden Haeshin, who was fighting a fierce battle on the border between life and death, with his feelings.

If Haeshin didn’t feel the same way, he would feel more burdened receiving Taejun’s help in the future. For now, it was better to leave it as sympathy.

Cha Haeshin didn’t have to love him. Taejun’s own love was reason enough for him to dedicate himself to Haeshin.

“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is now. Because I know… Because I know now. So the important thing is.”

Taejun paused for a moment and swallowed dryly. He felt like he would cry too if he wasn’t careful. Although Haeshin’s tearful appearance was even cute, he would surely look undignified.

Above all, Taejun needed to appear like the strongest person in the world in Cha Haeshin’s eyes right now. He needed to be someone Cha Haeshin could lean on, rely on, and desperately seek help from without a hitch.

Taejun continued speaking in a more fortified voice.

“The important thing is that I will always be by your side from now on, that I will sympathize with you, and that I will help you with all my might.”

Perhaps these were the words Haeshin had waited for his whole life. Words he wished anyone would say to him. Words that would assure him that he was no longer alone.

“So, from now on, you can complain all you want.”

It was natural that Haeshin burst into tears again in the face of that tender compassion.

☂️

“How could such, such a thing…”

Haeshin blinked, looking at Taejun with a disbelieving face. Taejun, who had disclosed such a massive truth, wore a calm expression.

“Then, CEO, you kept… kept regressing without even knowing the reason? Every time…?”

“Yes. So eventually, I gave up on even trying to find the reason.”

Haeshin’s face painfully contorted at Taejun’s answer. He could barely imagine what it would feel like to regress endlessly without knowing the reason or the timing.

Taejun comforted the sobbing Haeshin in the narrow alley of the hillside village for a long time and then brought him to his own house. He didn’t want Haeshin to stay for a single moment in a place where Jin Youngmin could find him at any time.

And Taejun slowly told his story when Haeshin asked how he had found out. His story, which he hadn’t been able to tell anyone, just like Cha Haeshin.

Only then did Haeshin understand the answers to the small questions he had felt about Taejun before.

He finally understood why Taejun had said, “I will definitely save you this time” on the day he was ill and barely conscious, and why he had come to dislike Jin Youngmin, with whom he hadn’t had a particularly bad relationship before, to such an extent.