Try Begging - Chapter 160.1

It couldn’t hurt so much if it was all fake.

And another thing.

He now understands why she pretended to love him. It was a perfect misconception that she made him complacent to escape. He realized this after their conversation.

[ Leon, do you still love me? Is that why you’re unhappy? ]

Yes.

Was that it? She allowed him to taste her sweet love, addict him to it, make it so he couldn’t live without it, and then she took it away forever. She let her taste happiness because she wanted him to be miserable.

She was smart. She knew well that losing something forever is much harder than never having it at all. He was a fool. He didn’t imagine it. He only understood after experiencing it.

The cracks weren’t just in the woman’s world. She left a crack in the dam of hatred he thought was unbreakable, and as that hatred crumbled. The recklessly swelling love burst forth like a tidal wave, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

So, where the means had dissolved, only purpose remained. Where hatred had vanished, only love stayed.

And just as Leon lost his way, so too did his love. Believing that he could do without her love was cowardice. She never intended to give him love in the first place, but he pretended to reject it first to piece together his crumbling pride.

Love faded easily, but hatred didn’t, he believed.

Yet his hatred cooled faster than his love.

Every time he hesitated to tell her he loved her, it was because guilt in his father’s voice whipped his tongue.

‘You love the daughter of the woman who killed your father? Pathetic and shameless.’

‘But Father, d*mn it, Grace did nothing wrong.’

His father might reproach him for lacking conscience, but after all, the Winsons had always been a family without one. He had fulfilled his duty, so he deserved to shake off the ghost of his father.

“Grace…”

Now a free man, Leon could speak his truth without hesitation.

‘I’m sorry. I misunderstood you. I directed hatred that you don’t deserve towards you. I understand if you can’t forgive me…’

Yet, I love you. Shamelessly so.

Still, he didn’t know where to send this true sentiment. Once again, he just confirmed how lost he was.

“Grace.”

Like a child learning new words, he repeated the same name out loud, over and over. Then he closed his eyes tightly. In his imagination, she was right there.

“I’ll kill… Don’t abandon me…”

When Grace sobbed these words in her sleep-talk, instead of chuckling it away, Leon had put down his glass and held her, calling her name.

Grace, it’s okay. You don’t have to kill anyone. I won’t leave you.

However, he hadn’t done that back then, and now he was left here alone. If only he had known then what he knew now…

No, if only he had trusted her. He traced back through time with useless regrets—to the last day he heard Grace’s voice, to the moment she returned to Chesterfield station, and even further back to the day they first met as a boy and girl on the beach…

It was ridiculous, thinking a thirteen-year-old boy could have had any power.

‘I want to go back. I will return. Come back.’

He repeated the same words again and again. Lost and circling the same regrets, Leon could only call out the same name.

Grace. Grace. Grace.

In this abyss, where only her name echoed back instead of his own, no answer came.

The once sunny weather turned abruptly, unleashing thunder and rain.

“Typical for April.”

The commander momentarily turned his gaze from the window back to his desk.

It was his first day back from Easter break, and a stack of aggravating tasks awaited him. He was flipping through audit documents to submit to the legislature when his secretary caused a commotion outside the door.

“Please wait a moment, Major! You shouldn’t…”

Major? What’s going on?

Even before the commander decided to leave, the door of the office burst open. Major Winston was the rude one who stormed into the office without making a promise, announcement, or even knocking. He knew his manners better than anyone else, but he was arrogant enough to ignore them proudly.

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