There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 378 - 370. The One Left Behind

Chapter 378: Chapter 370. The One Left Behind

"I hate you."

The words were uttered with a sting in his tongue and a pain in his heart. But it wasn’t a false claim. Zein did hate his father. He didn’t see the need to lie to his heart, and to the man he saw from the first and the last time.

Rather, it made him want to be the most truthful than any other time.

"For the longest time, I had hated you," Zein gripped the cold frame of the stretcher, remembering all the hatred he kept, the curses he hurled, every time he thought about the man he was supposed to call his father.

The man he never knew, the man he never saw. A faceless villain he based his hatred of a relationship on.

At least, until he could put a face on that villain.

After twenty-seven years, he found out who his father was, plastering his own face to the unmasked villain. And yet, his heart found no respite. Decades of unpleasant feelings, unlike a trace in the rain, couldn’t be erased with just a single shower. His heart was confused, even if his mind could rationalize the horrible outcome.

"Even now, after I know everything, I still hate you," Zein reached out his hand, brushing a strand of loose hair off the pale face. His fingers stayed there, until they were as cold as the cheek they touched.

"I hate...the way you think your sacrifice will do us any good," Zein opened his mouth to a strained voice he almost couldn’t recognize as his own. "I hate that you didn’t stay with her and ensure her safety beside her."

Zein hated it. He hated it still, how Roan left Lucia alone with that wicked man. He should have been with her. Even if they had to run to the end of the world and the edge of hell, even if they had to sacrifice other people, he should have stayed with her.

What kind of paladin away from the one he should protect?

What kind of Esper left the side of his Guide?

What kind of father left his child before they were born?

"I hate...that I should never know the touch of your warm skin even for a second," Zein pulled his fingers away, as if the coldness had pierced his skin, and pierced his soul while at it. "I hate that I have no chance of calling someone my father. I hate..."

Zein gritted his jaw, hands curling on the metal frame of the stretcher as his words caught in the crescendo of his heartbeat. Still, through the burning throat and stinging eyes, he pushed the words out.

"I hate you..." his shoulder, which suddenly felt like there was a ton of weight piled up there, hunched over. "I hate that in the end, I still love you..."

His voice waned into nothing more than a wisp of whisper, as his heart screamed silently into the void.

"I hate that I have to struggle with all of this...thoughts, and emotions--"

And jealousy, of every child who came to know their fathers when those fathers were still alive. And dismay, as he thought it might be better for him to never know his father at all. And anger, for his misplaced hatred and frustration.

He was upset, he was confused, he was lost.

"What should I do?" he gripped the stiff arm, and pressed his head on the cold hand. "What should I do...father?"

* * *

"Thank you, Father. You can bring her home now," Radia chuckled at the sound of his whining, drunk mother on the other side.

The perpetrators had been apprehended, including those who cluelessly waited in their homes, and joyfully enjoying the ruse of a party his parents held. While nothing would be concluded until the trial was over, there was no dodging this, because the Old Houses would never let this rest.

He wouldn’t, at any rate.

But that could wait until a bit later; he had a new priority to attend.

"Where to, Sir?"

"The hospital."

Radia leaned his head back and exhaled long. There was a slightly uncomfortable feeling in his gut, calling his father good-naturedly, when his lover had just killed his own, and his friend had just found the lost remnant of his dead father.

Gods. This whole affair truly left them in a mess. None of them needed a healer, but the invisible wound was the most dangerous of them all.

There was no cure, of course, for the pain of loss for those who were left behind. Not even the deities could revive anyone with no pulsing brain and beating heart. But in the wake of those passing, questions were usually surfacing. Answering them, oftentimes, lightened the agonizing pain.

That, more than any consoling word, was worth more for those who were mourning.

And Radia came with some answers in his hand.

Walking through the corridor of his family’s hospital reminded him of the first time he met Han Joon. An almost forgotten memory of the boy who was as brave as he was pitiful. His heart stung and his neck throbbed at the thought of that boy, but he felt relieved to see the redness beneath those blue eyes.

At least, Zein could properly cry, unlike Han Joon.

He had told Bassena to bring Zein, as well as Han Shin who came slightly earlier than him, to the director’s office. They were too high profile to loiter around the hospital lounge, even in the VIP section.

Looking at Han Shin also made his heart heavy. There was a card in his pocket, bearing the shelf number of the older sister’s ash, which he hadn’t the time to relay with how hectic this day had been.

Ah, yesterday. It was already past midnight.

Gods. They were such a mess.

How rare it was, for Bassena to be the sober mind in the group. He was tending to Zein carefully, and kept conversing with Han Shin--whose nerves seemed to catching up now that they were in the hospital--to pass the time. Cups of warm drinks and meals cluttered one side of the table, as evidence of time passing.

As if his presence was an alarm, they all turned and straightened their back when they saw him. Zein’s lips parted, but Radia raised his hand to silence them and closed the door. He glanced at Bassena, who proceeded to envelop the room in his darkness. The room dimmed, but no one would be able to hear them from the outside.

"What do you get?" Bassena asked, placing a cup of warm tea in front of Radia like an offering.

"Would you like to hear about Zein’s father first, of just everything from the start?"

"Does it need to be chronological?"

"Hmm..." Radia observed the swollen flesh beneath the hazy blue eyes and deemed this one was more urgent. "The simple answer is; a bait," Radia exhaled. "They are trying to use Alteroan Ishtera’s remains to bait the vessel of Setnath."

They clenched their fists, but honestly, it wasn’t surprising.

"They would have spread the image of him in that tank so it reached you--sometime next week. They plan to make a contact and draw you to their place," Radia continued. "But before they could do that, we fortunately made a move."

"Y-you wouldn’t fall for that, right? Zein?" Han Shin gripped the guide’s hand tightly as if Zein would suddenly get up and rush out. But he had just lost his brother to the prison, and his father--how insignificant the man might seem in his life--to the rubble.

Right now, he couldn’t bear the thought of losing his friend, even in a mere scenario.

Zein let out a sigh. "If it was a few months ago, I might," he smiled wryly.

If it was right after he found out about Alteroan, or the time when he was under the effect of touching the Specter’s core, he probably would move without thinking it through. But not now.

"Well, I have you guys now," he said sincerely. A reliable lover, a powerful friend, a trustworthy moral support. "Besides, if it reached me, I bet it’d reach Radia first."

"Quite right," Bassena chuckled, refilling everyone’s drink as if he were the owner of the room. "But what were they doing with Zein’s father in the first place? It can’t be that they save the remains just to use it as bait someday when they didn’t even know Zein existed for sure."

Radia took his time to drink the warm tea first. He was, in fact, hadn’t had any liquid intake since the raid started. "Based on what I got from Baaleon Horin, they were researching the goddess’s blessing in Ishtera’s body."

"The blessing of protection from Frejya," Zein leaned back and crossed his arms, brows furrowed at the very idea of preserving a corpse to research a blessing.

"Yes, that," Radia nodded. "Apparently, your father’s--pardon me--corpse, had no sign of decomposing even after a few days. These Horin guys...they are truly obsessed with extracting the power of deity--which I presumed is the whole reason why they want you in the first place,"

"To the point that they turn to the Deathzone."

Radia snapped his fingers. "They believed that the force in the Deathzone might be a Celestial Being too--just from another team."

"What nonsense!"

"Not really," Radia patted the healer’s head. "We still have no idea what is the entity that Zein saw in his vision, so any theory could work. But we digress. The point is, that a blessing from a temple’s Goddess is usually only given to a Saint or Saintess, not an esper. The direct lineage of Ishtera is an exception to this rule, so we can see where their thought process going."

Zein gritted his teeth as he tried to make a conclusion. "So, because they failed to get the vessel of Setnath, they thought about extracting the blessing of the Goddess from my father’s body?"

"So they say,"

"What a bunch of bastards!" Han Shin was frowning so deeply that his eyelids seemed to disappear completely. "No wonder they worked with Golden Viper--no offense, Bas."

"None taken," Bassena waved his hand. "And that obsession for deity’s power...what drove that? What is their objective?"

"Well that," Radia stood up, "is something I’ll tell you tomorrow--later."

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "There’s still a mountain of files I need to read before turning it to the investigation unit," he sighed. "But it’s been a long day, and we deserve some rest. You..." he looked at Zein. "Get some sleep. I told the Iron Shield to look for you in the morning. Let’s not clutter our minds with too many things for now, alright?"

"Alright," Bassena replied readily. He too, wanted Zein to rest first. There would be a lot of things to do later, so it would be best if the guide could get as much rest as he could.

Zein just nodded, feeling better that someone else deciding things for him right now, because his head was still muddled.

Radia smiled in satisfaction, but it soon vanished when he looked at the healer. "Shin, come with me," he wasn’t sure about telling the younger man about this now, but they were already in the hospital where the columbarium was, so there was no point in delaying it any longer. "I’ll take you to your sister."