There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 220 - 214. Day of Contending Wealth

Chapter 220: Chapter 214. Day of Contending Wealth

"Hey,"

Zein blinked his eyes opened. He was only planning to close his eyes for a bit to calm himself, but he almost drifted into sleep as he leaned back on the couch. The familiar husky voice pulled him to the surface, and the amber eyes he saw the moment he opened his eyes flooded his cold heart with warmth.

Without thinking much, he reached out his hand almost like an instict, pulling the handsome face and pressed their lips together. It was brief, but enough to put a smile back on his face.

"You’re done with your own thing?" Zein asked as Bassena nuzzled his neck from behind, arms circling the guide’s torso.

"No," Bassena lifted his face and replied with a smile. "But some little birds told me you were upset."

And that was enough for him to bolt out of the conference room and headed back to the hotel while listening to Nadine’s explanation of what transpired in the guides conference.

"Ah..." Zein chuckled and tapped on the esper’s arms. "Get over here, I want to see your face," he gestured to the couch, and Bassena immediately jumped over the backrest, didn’t even bother to circle around.

The moment Bassena seated on the couch, Zein laid his head on the esper’s lap. The amber eyes widened, the brows above them arched in delightful surprise. It was usually Bassena who used Zein’s thigh as a pillow, so this was a nice change. Not just for the intimate gesture, but the fact that Zein seemed to try relaxing after a bad day--something that needed to be coerced from him in the past.

And Zein wasn’t just laying on Bassena’s lap, but reaching up to play with the esper’s face; stroking the sharp jaw and feeling the slight stubble while enjoying the handsome visage.

"Heard you gave the guides quite a fright," Bassena grinned. As much as Zein enjoyed the view, Bassena also enjoyed the indulgence, scratching the guide’s scalp gently to relax the man further.

"Maybe," Zein blinked slowly; relishing the delightful touch while fulfilling his own contentment. "I just...I guess those things end up pouring out."

Some of the stagnant, rotting water that he only kept inside before.

"Personally, I regret not being able to see it," the amber eyes twinkled for a second, before they dimmed slightly while looking at Zein. "But as much as I like it, you’re probably thinking that it might be detrimental to the project, aren’t you?"

Zein let out a sefl-deprecating smirk. Bassena truly knew him well. "That’s natural, isn’t it?"

"Well..." the esper stared into the blue eyes, smiling charmingly. "Rather than worrying about it, we can just ask Radia tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Zein arched his brow. Why not asked the Guildmaster today, though? They had commlink and everything.

"Yep, tomorrow," Bassena repeated. "Because today, I want to take you on a date."

Zein raised his body and looked at Bassena with narrowed eyes. "A date?"

"Well, I mean...we have a whole city to tour and everything," the esper shrugged, fishing out a helicopter ignition key from his pocket. "Just saying."

Basdena waited for a response, but Zein just sat there with an expressionless face, so he was getting flustered. Perhaps it wasn’t the time yet? Maybe Zein wanted to solve this quickly first?

So he retreated his hand and let out an awkward laugh. "Or not, haha--"

His words were drowned by a sudden, passionate kiss. When the guide parted their lips, he could see Zein’s lips curled, and they did have that date--but not before he got dragged by the guide to the bedroom.

After all, they couldn’t afford to defile another aircraft.

* * *

"Will it get us into trouble?"

Zein wasted no time asking Radia the next day, the moment the man graced them with his presence again, right before the auction started. They were still waiting for Rina to get ready, so Zein used the time to ask Radia about it.

"Why do you think so?"

"Because I confront the mainstream," Zein, perching on the sofa’s backrest, shrugged.

Typically, going against the mainstream and creating controversy was something that shouldn’t be done when they were trying to gain support and approval. Particularly, not by lashing out in the middle of a convention and ending it with a walkout.

"Mainstream...mainstream, huh?" Radia tapped on the armrest with a smile playing on his lips subtly. He raised his gaze to look at Zein, then, asked with a glint in his crimson eyes. "Who do you think set the mainstream, Zein?"

"The public?"

Radia chuckles and shifted his gaze to the esper, who was in the middle of choosing outerwear for the guide. "Bas?"

"The people in power," the esper answered briefly, before concentrating back to contemplate between a leather jacket and a white fur coat.

"Exactly," the Guildmaster smirked. "Why do you think the mainstream is geared toward what it is today? Because the one in power does not care. They can’t sympathize enough with the things happening to the unfortunate ones," Radia paused, looking at Zein who was pondering his words, before adding. "Because they are not you."

Tilting his head, Zein looked back at the summoner with questioning eyes while Bassena patted his shoulder.

"You know what it is like to be the victim of an unfortunate situation," Radia explained. "But you also have power now."

"Power..." Zein muttered, slipping his arms into the fur coat that Bassena was holding.

"The other guides in that room might not know, but the organizer and the World Government representatives know who you are."

Zein, who was in the middle of fixing his lapel, paused and blinked as he realized what kind of power Radia talked about. "You mean...as Ishtera?"

"Yes," the Guildmaster smirked. "And those two are the only one you need to impress anyway."

"But how do we know the representative was impressed?"

Radia tilted his head. "Why? Did she not look impressed, Nadine?"

Zein blinked at the sudden involvement of the female guide, who readily replied from the bar where she gathered with Dheera and the assistants. "Well...she did smile throughout Captain’s heartfelt rant--I mean, speech."

Dheera giggled at the word, still regretting that she didn’t record Zein’s outburst yesterday. Calling it an outburst was definitely an exaggeration because Zein barely raised his voice. But since he never did that before, they might as well say he was going on a rampage.

"Who?" Zein widened his eyes in surprise that Nadine seemed to know the representative. And then he recalled seeing her talking rather amiably with someone during the second speaker’s presentation. "The people at our table?"

Nadine nodded as she tapped her chin in contemplation. "I don’t know who the man was, but the woman who talked to me is probably that guide...umm..."

"Hami Lee," Bassena reminded them.

"Yes, that!" Nadine clapped her hand. "She asked me a lot about the division’s detail, and it was a genuine curiosity. She seemed more fascinated than astonished, so I had guessed she wasn’t a regular guide. How should I say this..."

Alice, who was also there yesterday, offered the words. "She looked like someone in charge?"

"Yes, that!"

"Ooh--was that why you were going full customer service yesterday?" Dheera asked in excitement. She herself never thought about that, and was now praising herself for keeping her mouth shut so she didn’t say anything foolish yesterday.

"Bingo!"

"As expected of Zein’s sub," Radia chuckled, spreading his hands in a show of relaxation. "So, in conclusion, there’s nothing to worry about. It seems like, while Celestia did pull a trick to make you have that presentation and reveal our method early, the committee did what they could to not make us lose out too much."

"Well, it’s nice to hear that at least they’re not skewed to one side," Zein commented.

"It’s because the Celestial Beings are involved," Bassena chuckled as he put away Zein’s remaining outerwear into his storage ring. "They can’t play politics too much with the oracle present, or it would be them who got the smite."

What launched this reclamation plan in the first place was the words from the deities in the Towers and Temples, given through the oracle who stayed in the Association’s main headquarters.

"What about the media?" Zein asked again, recalling the journalists were present in that room.

He hadn’t checked the net since yesterday, as per Bassena’s request. And it wasn’t that he worried about what media talked about him, but more about the possibility that it might affect the project. If the public sentiment were bad, people might think Trinity shouldn’t spearhead the project. And they had been pouring too much into this project that it would be a massive loss to lose it for public sentiment.

Radia, however, just scoffed. "What about them? If they write what you said words per word, that would be even better," he stood up then, as the door opened and Rina peeked inside the suite with an apologetic grin. "Besides, government never listens to public sentiment unless it’s an election time."

"Hmm..." Zein wouldn’t know, he was always out of the government’s radar since he was born. He almost always thought those people were myths. So, what did he know? Might as well trust someone who was more acquainted with this matter. So he finally shrugged his shoulder, as well as his worry. "Well, if you say so."

"I said so," Radia said with a confident smirk. "Let’s go, we’ve got money to burn."

It was time to head to the auction.

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