There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 619: Side Story 1. The Twilight Zone - 1

Chapter 619: Side Story 1. The Twilight Zone - 1

Sitting on the flat boulder where his ancestor--ancestors--created the Templar of Arms Master which later became House Ishtera, Zein stared at his hand while stroking the platinum hair leaning on his shoulder.

"Why are there two of them?" he asked, glancing at the esper’s hand on his waist.

Bassena flinched and replied hesitatingly while hiding his blushing face. "It’s...supposed to be wedding rings."

"I see..."

Bassena swiftly raised his head and straightened his back. He grabbed the guide’s shoulder and stared intensely at the blue eyes. "I’m not stingy, okay? I just--"

"I know," Zein chuckled and flicked the esper’s forehead.

He looked at the ring again and remembered hearing Bassena say he had something that his mother made for him. Zein didn’t really know anything about jewelry, but he could tell the rings were very personal.

The body was a delicate carving of a landscape, with a diamond carved as a mountain placed in the middle. There was a trace of slight tampering, which Zein reckoned came from a size altering. But it was very smooth and honestly, Zein was amazed that Bassena got his size correct to the millimeter. The ring was fitting very nicely, and he wondered if Bassena had measured his finger at one point before the operation started.

He looked at Bassena and smiled at the thought of the esper keeping these rings for years, going over and over about the ’perfect’ situation to propose only to end up having it in a raw field surrounded by wild plants and weeds.

"You probably have been wanting to use this ever since you received your mother’s inheritance, huh?" Zein brushed the platinum hair away, only to remember that the scar above the forehead was no longer there.

Really too bad; it was a scar Bassena got from the dungeon that allowed them to meet each other for the first time.

Hmm...Zein started to understand Han Joon more.

When he was busy lamenting about the esper’s smooth, scarless, handsome face, the amber eyes moved closer until Zein couldn’t see them anymore. He chuckled against the lips that captured his, and circled his hands around the esper’s neck.

It was a soft kiss born out of admiration, and when Bassena pulled back to stare at the blue eyes, he let it out in words. "You’re so pretty..."

"It had been a while since I heard that," Zein chuckled. He used to dislike that term, because it was a scary word for him when he was still in the red-zone.

Now...he didn’t mind it anymore. He could accept it as a compliment rather than a threat to his safety. And with Bassena...it was uttered with so much affection and worship that ’threat’ was no longer existed in the same parallel with the word anymore.

Bassena, facing the soft smile of the guide, was actually feeling more breathless than the moment they were kissing earlier. "You’re even prettier under the sun..." he said dazedly.

"The sun is almost gone."

Pfft--Bassena lowered his head and stifled a laugh on the guide’s shoulder at the reply that sounded like a dismissal.

"I like it,"

But then, Zein muttered softly while caressing Bassena’s hair. When the esper pulled back to look at the guide’s face, the blue eyes were gazing at the sky.

Or rather, at the violet sky that looked as if the glittering sea swallowed it. They couldn’t see the sunset, but the short moment when the golden light of the sun and the blue sky clashed was incredibly sweet, "The sun looks like your eyes, but the sky looks like ours."

"Ah..."

Bassena blinked in a daze, and Zein looked down, tilting his head at the esper’s blank look. "What?"

"You’ve said it before..."

"I did?"

"Yeah, in the Southern Kingdom’s beach."

"Ah..." Zein remembered the moment he tasted the sandy beach for the first time. And also something else. He raised his brow and smirked. "When you abruptly asked me to marry you."

Bassena laughed from the absurd memory of him feeling so dazed by the guide’s beauty and words that he temporarily lost his resolve.

"And abruptly canceling it," Zein continued.

Ugh--now that one was just embarrassing. Bassena pressed his lips as one of his greatest fumbles of the past. It made him curious though...

He held the guide’s waist and looked up. "Will you accept it back then?"

"Hmm..." Zein raised his brow slightly, smiling at the cute face his boyfriend--no, fiance--made. Who would have thought that this man was considered one of the three strongest espers in the continent nowadays? He chuckled at the sparkling amber eyes. "I think so."

"...really?" Bassena blinked in surprise.

"Yeah," Zein replied without hesitation. "There’s no reason not to since I’ve fallen already."

"Wow..."

The blue eyes narrowed and Zein squeezed the esper’s cheeks. "You’re not going to suddenly cancel it this time too, aren’t you?"

Bassena pursed his lips. "The ring is on your finger..."

"Radia said nothing is certain until your signature is on the paper."

"You learned all kinds of tricky things from him."

Zein smirked. "Eh--they have some uses," he shrugged.

Bassena chuckled and held the guide’s hands, leaning his face onto the palm and kissing every knuckle. They were on a date on private property, without a pesky healer jumping at them for every sign of PDA, so Bassena would use the chance as much as he could.

Well, as much as Zein let him anyway.

"To be honest, this legal stuff doesn’t really matter to me," Zein rubbed the kissing lips with his thumb, feeling them twitch and tense up at his words. But Bassena had matured in their relationship and patiently waited until Zein finished what he wanted to say.

Smiling softly, Zein continued while stroking the platinum hair. "We lived together already, and we’re imprinted. That’s enough for me to feel certain that we will spend the rest of our lives together," he took the esper’s hand and stroked the band, slightly bigger than his own. "With or without the rings."

Bassena pressed his trembling lips and pressed his head on Zein’s chest, feeling the steadily beating heart that he was thankful for each day. "Really," he sighed. "I could never beat you."

"Do you want to?"

The answer came swiftly. "N-no."

Zein curled his lips and cupped the wry face, leaning down and whispering lowly. "What about a kiss? You could win me through that."

Bassena blinked twice before laughing and leaned his face forward. "Gladly," the esper whispered back, welcoming the slightly cold lips that had been exposed to the sea breeze, warming them with his own.

Zein liked it; liked the warmth that those lips provided. When it came to it, Bassena had always felt warm. Be it the darkness inside his core, his body heat, or the heart that steadily pulled Zein away from the edge of the cliff. It was with that persistently enveloping warmth that the coldness in Zein’s heart, festering for so many years in this cruel world, could finally melt away.

And he grew needy for that warmth, easily longed for it even after only a few hours of absence. Like an addiction, he sought that warmth the moment he opened his eyes in the morning, and couldn’t fall asleep before he felt it before he closed his eyes in the night.

Zein, who rarely felt greedy for anything, had his heart filled with the desire to own that warmth and never shared it with anyone. Was it something that came with imprinting, or had it grown inside his heart even before then? Zein had no idea anymore, and the line between before and after that fateful bond became more and more blurred.

But unlike before, when he kept hesitating about his feelings, Zein was no longer denying it. He embraced the warmth, the addiction, and the person causing everything.

The person who was beautifully bathed in golden light. Still, those ambers were prettier than any sunset, and Zein had no intention to share it with others.

This time, he let the desire win over his rationale and pulled the man even more toward him. They had escaped death together--was there any need to hold back at this point?

Zein grabbed the platinum hair and deepened the kiss. It was the first time they could be alone after he woke up, and the piled-up desire was bursting out unbidden. He was thirsty for some passionate kisses, not just the gentle ones they had to quench their longing.

As their tongues danced inside their mouth, Bassena’s hands tightened around the guide’s waist. A rough battle of wit was clashing in his mind, but in the end, instinct took over as his twitching fingers slipped inside the guide’s shirt. Zein shuddered at the touch and the kiss stopped briefly.

"Zein--"

"It’s fine," Zein grabbed the esper tight and breathed heavily against Bassena’s lips. "We’re on private property."

Bassena almost choked on the sudden laughter trying to creep out. "On your ancestor’s historical place?"

"Even better."

Pfft--Bassena laughed, and he laughed some more when the guide smirked against his jaw and licked his neck. "Wait--"

Zein tilted his head in confusion when Bassena pulled back. He watched curiously as the esper took off his coat and carefully spread it over the boulder. Zein raised his brow and smirked. "What a gentleman."

"Don’t worry," Bassena pressed his knee on the edge of the boulder, looming over the smirking guide. "That would be the last time I acted like one today."

"Good," Zein licked his lips and yanked his fiance down.