There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)-Chapter 64 - 63. A Short Rest

"Hey," the one that greeted him in the lobby was nonother than the Chief Guide himself. "You went out for a bit and something happened?"

"Life is adventurous," Zein shrugged, walking nonchalantly toward the smaller guide.

On Saturday afternoon, the guild building was pretty deserted. Two strike squad was still raiding high-class dungeons in another area along with the two 5-stars Zein still hadn’t met till now, and the rest of the espers were enjoying their weekend. Even most of the civilian workers were free on the weekend, so there were only a handful of people in the guild.

"You did as I told you, right?" Abel stopped the taller guide, putting his palm against the other’s chest.

"Of course,"

The smaller guide nodded, and then, after a few seconds of silence, asked cautiously. "How is it?"

"Two dead, two almost erupt, and the rest is injured quite badly," Zein replied dryly, in a tone of a regular report. Casualties and death during missions were something he was already familiar with. In fact, he thought the small guild was lucky—a red gate and only two death. The Mobius being there quickly was such luck, preventing the outbreak just in time.

But for someone like Abel, who lived in the green zone where casualties were minimum, it was a tragedy. "That’s rough..." he looked at the pensive Zein with concern. "You’re okay?"

It felt kind of ridiculous, getting someone worried about him when he didn’t even come inside the dungeon. But the concern came from a good place, so Zein replied kindly. "I’m fine," he added lightheartedly, "Met someone hot too, so it’s not too bad,"

"Hey!" Abel slapped his upper arm lightly, with a grin plastered on his face. "Who—"

"Zein!"

Abel’s question was cut suddenly by a loud voice coming from the entrance. Zein turned his head and muttered in startle, "Bas?"

Bassena Vaski, who was supposed to have a commercial shoot at the Capital, was there, with bloodshot eyes filled with fury.

The quiet space seemed to echo the loud yell and hurried footsteps even more as Bassena walked across the marble lobby in haste and with fierce amber eyes.

Zein blinked, surprised that his name coming out with such urgency from the esper. "Wha—"

Before he could even utter a single word, Bassena had already in front of him, fast even without the teleportation skill. The esper grasped Zein’s upper arms, staring at him from head to toe with fervent eyes.

"You’re okay? You’re not hurt?"

Again, Zein just stared at the esper in confusion. And a little bit of fascination. He hadn’t seen Bassena this frantic before, even during the expedition. The esper always calm—or rather, always ’acted’ calm.

But there was nothing to be frantic about, wasn’t it?

"I’m fine, why are you like this?" Zein tilted his head. In the middle of the lobby, no less. It was fortunate that not many people were here at the moment.

Bassena let out a breath of relief, arms perching on Zein’s shoulder as he tried to calm his breathing. "I thought there was an outbreak..."

"Huh? Didn’t I tell you—" Zein paused and check on his commlink. He was meant to send a text explaining the situation to Bassena, since the call ended abruptly. But it seemed like he only typed it up without ever sending it. "Oh...my bad."

He looked up then, observing Bassena keenly. Now that he looked at it, the esper came in a formal, three-piece suit and a coat, even though it was a summer afternoon. His hair looked like it had been combed neatly before but got messed up recently through rigorous movement—like running or teleporting...

"Did you come back in the middle of your work?" Zein asked, tapping the arms still on his shoulder.

"...yeah, why?"

Trying to lift the arms off his shoulder, Zein stared at the esper with frowned brows. "Why would you do that?"

"...why?" Bassena lifted his bowed face, eyes widened in bewilderment.

"It’s not even a dungeon break," Zein said. He wasn’t even inside the dungeon itself. Deathzone had a dungeon break daily like clockwork, and he had survived everything it threw at him. Even if an outbreak happened, Bassena should know that Zein had enough capability to survive on his own. "It’s not like I’ll die in a simple outbreak—"

"Don’t say that!"

Again, Zein blinked in surprise, as his body was pulled into a tight hold. "Don’t...say that..."

Both the voice and the arms around him were trembling. The head pressed on his shoulder felt heavy and...sorrowful. It was weird, and nothing like the Bassena Vaski he knew. This wasn’t worry...it was fear. There was something more to this than about Zein being near a dangerous place.

"Alright," Zein reached up and patted the blond strands. "Let’s get somewhere else first,"

There weren’t many people in the guild at this time, but it wasn’t as if there was no one. From Abel and the receptionists, to guild members and workers that walked through the ground floor—all of them had been stopping and watching ever since Bassena first stepped into the marbled lobby. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓

When Zein felt the esper’s hold on him loosen, he patted the man once more. "Let’s go to your office."

* * *

"What was that?" Zein didn’t waste time and asked straight after removing his mask the moment they entered the wide office on the thirteenth floor.

Although, rather than an office, it almost looked like a living space. Zein seated himself on the large couch that looked like it would be nice to sleep on, facing a wide screen that reminded him of a billboard. He would like to look around some more, but his eyes were drawn to the esper beside him, who had been leaning back with a forearm over his closed eyes.

The coat and the suit had been shed, leaving Bassena in a shirt and vest, looking even more miserable than before, although he was no longer trembling. Zein waited patiently, until the arm went down and the esper finally spoke.

"My mother...died in a dungeon break," Zein stiffened then, as Bassena added. "Ah, but she wasn’t a civilian. She was an esper, a magician type."

Right then, Bassena turned his head, and the amber eyes gazed at the guide. "She was strong, a 5-star, at least when she was still active."

The esper took Zein’s hand, and the guide notice how it was quite weak, as if the man was being careful. Zein understood then, why Bassena was being frantic. It wasn’t like the esper didn’t know he was strong enough to protect himself, but because he knew being strong wasn’t enough to twist the thread of fate.

"She wasn’t in the location for the raid either. She was on vacation to recuperate, and then the dungeon near the villa broke," there was a bitter smile on the esper’s face. "It’s quite ironic, isn’t it?"

"...what is?"

"It’s like a soldier died in a car crash after surviving the war," Bassena laughed quietly. "She said ’don’t worry, it’s just an outbreak’ and then..."

"Okay," Zein pulled his hand off the esper’s, and put it on Bassena’s head, thumb caressing the creasing forehead. "Okay, I get it. I’m sorry,"

Bassena blinked at each movement of Zein’s caressing thumb. The amber eyes, which had been looking lost and weary, started to get calmer. Bassena shifted then, lowering himself to lie his head on Zein’s thigh.

"Again?" Zein raised his brow, reminded of the time during the expedition when Bassena used his thigh as a pillow too as a payback. "Do I have to do this every time I apologize to you?"

The response only came as a chuckle, and Zein sighed, succumbing to the esper’s whim. Perhaps because he did feel guilty for failing to send the message and made this giant puppy worried. If it stemmed from an unreasonable excuse, Zein would have scolded the man, but he understood such trauma.

He realized then that they had something in common. But their source of trauma was different; while Zein would be triggered over civilians’ fate in dungeon break, Bassena was scarred over the outbreak itself.

Also, for the sake of the built-up dark circle under the esper eyes. It was covered by makeup since he had a shoot for the last two days, but it was visible now after his momentary outburst, not to mention jumping off a helicopter, teleporting to the compound, and running to the lobby.

The esper did look like he needed some sleep badly, so Zein just let him. "Did you sleep at all this week?"

"I don’t know?" Bassena laughed. "I don’t think so,"

"Can you even function like that?" Zein smacked the esper’s forehead lightly.

"I managed," with that short answer, the amber eyes closed and they spent some time in peaceful silence. Zein too, started to get lulled into drowsiness, until Bassena decided to speak again.

"I found out four years ago," Bassena suddenly said while taking Zein’s hand and putting it on his head, as if telling the guide to pat him again. "I found that the accident was intentional."

"What do you mean?"

Kicking his shoes off and raising his legs fully to the couch, Bassena stared at the ceiling and smiled coldly. "The outbreak; it was man-made," Zein paused his hand at the answer, but it wasn’t the extent of the dark reveal. "So was my mother’s illness, and the timing of her convalescence vacation,"

Zein frowned for a bit. "Did it have something to do with why you’re inside that dungeon?"

The esper chuckled, looking up at the guide’s face with a grin. "You’re quick," Bassena stared at the abstract painting on the wall in his sight and continued. "Yeah, my clan tried to kill me there for knowing about it, so I killed them."

It wasn’t the kind of thing someone would say proudly, but Bassena did. He was proud of it, avenging his mother and himself with his own hand, tearing down his own guild and clan when he was just barely twenty-three. He didn’t care that he was called a traitor, a murderer, a snake, a demon—he regret nothing.

There was even a sense of innocence and child-like brutality in his strangely cheerful voice as he talked about it. But the man who laid on Zein’s thigh looked like a docile puppy in need of some sleep right now.

"Do you know why they did it?"

"The main reason was probably her inheritance wealth, but...it wasn’t all..." the cheerful voice dimmed then. The tall body turned so he faced the couch’s backrest, and the platinum head nuzzled slightly against the guide’s side.

Zein thought Bassena had decided to sleep without continuing, but an answer came. "Because of me," the esper muttered. "They thought I was too spoiled by my mother, and used her death as fuel to drive me into extreme training—no, that wasn’t training, it felt like torture..."

There was a lot of emotion inside the voice—anger, sadness, guilt. "But I wanted to be strong, just like how they intended. I was molded into the Vaski’s rabid viper," the strained voice laugh suddenly. "Ah...I was such a mess back then—cruel, unruly, facing everything with anger. I was constantly reminded of my mother’s death, told it was because I wasn’t strong enough..."

Zein leaned into the couch, and unconsciously started to caress the platinum locks. The man laying on his lap, the strongest esper of this generation, felt like a fragile existence suddenly. Was that why this man became so attached to him?

No...that wasn’t quite right too. There were people who helped and raised him up before Zein. "Did you meet them during that time?"

Radia Mallarc and Han Joon. They were like Bassena’s guardians, however weird that sounded. It was why Bassena couldn’t defy them. But it couldn’t be said as an attachment.

"Yeah..." the esper laughed, the vibration spread to Zein’s abdomen. "They beat me up so much until I gave up and stopped making a mess in the academy,"

Zein wondered what would happen then, if Bassena didn’t meet the both of them, and got to have Han Shin and Reina as a friend from that encounter. Alone in the pit of vipers being used as a tool...a very dangerous tool.

A tool just like Zein.

Perhaps it was the fact that he had people to lean on, and that he successfully fulfilled his revenge, that made Bassena saw things differently from Zein. Unlike Zein, Bassena had gotten rid of his guilt and unresolved feeling. So despite having experienced loss and betrayal, he was not afraid of treading the path again, chasing his newfound attachment toward Zein without any reservation.

Zein just didn’t understand one thing, however. "Why...do you still use your family name?"

Even until now, Zein had no intention of attaching that person’s name to his. But why would Bassena still use the name of the clan that made his life miserable?

"Hmm...for practicality, I guess," Bassena answered in a drowsy voice. "I was already known by that name...and..."

"And?"

A sleepy chuckle came out, and that cheerful, innocent tone. "Isn’t it fun? The name Vaski now belonged to me, not the fallen clan that disappeared to the corner of the continent. People associate the name with the Serpent Lord, not the non-existent Golden Viper guild."

Zein raised his brow, before smirking to himself. Ah...what a Bassena thing to say. It was something that could only be uttered by someone strong and ruthless.

Obviously, Zein didn’t have such standing or power. But there was also no merit for him to take that person’s name, so doing it like Bassena wouldn’t result in anything.

But it was an admirable thing still; that high-as-heaven attitude. It was refreshing how Bassena saw it as a mischievous prank more than anything. It was like showing off to the whole world that he didn’t care about his old clan anymore.

Yeah...this man was someone like that. The kind that just bulldozed everything in front of him, attacking head-on, never running away. Just like how he chased Zein, pursuing the guide with blatant attention and raw emotion, facing his own mistake without hesitation.

Ah, Zein understood then, why he let Bassena continue his advances, why he couldn’t outrightly reject the esper.

It was admiration.

That unreserved attitude that knew exactly what he wanted; Zein didn’t have that.

"Hmm..." he stopped his patting motion and moved his fingers down, brushing the platinum strands away from the esper’s face.

Young. He looked young like this, quiet and defenseless, closing his eyes and breathing steadily with such peacefulness. Was this the man that brought fear to people? That commanded silence just from the wisp of his shadow?

Zein stroked the tanned cheek, glowing in nice bronze under the office’s soft light. With a smirk, Zein pinched the unsuspecting cheek. "Aren’t you cute?"

The guide continued to play with Bassena’s face, taking advantage of how deeply asleep the esper was. Although, Bassena would probably let him even if he was awake. In the end, Zein put his palm on the esper’s neck while caressing, closing his eyes to dive into the sea of darkness. But he wasn’t guiding, just letting his consciousness float inside the comfortable space, and doze off together.