There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)-Chapter 700: Side Story 3. Stellar Blossom - 35

It was midnight when Radia got the call, and he ran straight from the annex without even grabbing his coat or thinking about using his summon’s portal.

When he arrived, Han Shin was already there since he slept in the main mansion, and Joon was no longer thrashing around. His temperature was still high, however, and he was breathing heavily.

"Nothing changed through healing," Han Shin shook his head. "But he got calmer after we put a cold cloth over his forehead."

"Seeing it like this, it looks just like regular fever," Laurel said, stroking Radia’s back. "Almost like how you were when you were teething."

"Or when you had those growing pains in your puberty," Calix added.

"It doesn’t seem like anything serious, right?" Han Shin looked up in worry. "He won’t relapse or anything, right?"

Radia took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second to calm down his racing heart. "You’re the healer, Shin. Do you see his organs going haywire?"

"Well...no."

Radia took a seat on the bed and stroked the writhing face. Rather than in pain, it looked more like Joon was having a nasty dream. "At least he’s not cold," he said in relief. In fact, Joon’s skin was rather scalding. "Let’s treat it like a common fever. If he’s still like this in the morning, we’ll bring him to the hospital."

"I think we should go to the hospital regardless of his condition tomorrow, just to make sure," Calix said. "I’ll call the doctor to make an appointment."

The fever lasted until dawn, and while he told the others to go back to sleep, Radia clumsily nursed Han Joon with Badri’s help. When Joon finally stopped mumbling and became more warm than scalding, they changed his clothes and moved him to the other side of the bed.

As the sun peeked up, Han Joon breathed more steadily, and his fever was almost gone. Laurel came to relieve his son and let Radia have a change of clothes as well as rest. But how could he? He wouldn’t be able to rest until Joon woke up.

It was when the sun climbed higher and Shin came again did Han Joon opened his eyes with a start, like someone waking up from a nightmare.

"Hah!" he almost jolted, and the black eyes were opening wide for a few seconds while he breathed heavily. "Haa...ha..."

Radia held the startled face carefully, and asked with a voice full of concern. "Joon? Do you recognize me?"

The black eyes shifted from the empty air to him, blinking slowly. Once, twice, and he parted his lips in confusion. "...Radia Mallarc?"

Laurel gasped and Radia let go of Joon’s face. His heart was racing and his palms felt clammy. Stepping back, he asked carefully. "How old are you?"

"What? I’m fifteen, but--ugh!"

Han Joon winced and grasped his head. A nasty headache assaulted him as he tried to get up. When he leaned back again, there was already a stack of pillows to support him--but he had no time to think about it.

"Hyung! Are you alright? Are you in pain?"

"Hyung?" someone grasped his hand and he frowned at the word. When he saw the speaker, it was a rather familiar face. "...Shin?"

"Hyung..."

His eyes were throbbing, and so was his head. Layers of memories and new information flooded his reality. "Wait a minute," he raised his hand and lowered his head. "Can you...give me a room to think?"

"Y-yeah, of course!"

Han Shin--and everyone--stepped back to not crowd the bed. Han Joon brought his knees up, and propped his elbow as he brought his hands to cover his face, deep in ponder. He tried to arrange the memory that seemed to come from two different timelines.

He had his memory until he was fifteen, but also a memory of a dream-like sequence when he was seven years old and living with people who seemed to love him very much--for whatever reasons. Those people were also present in his current reality, which was irregular. New information he got started to trickle down; the hospital, adult Shin, his father’s death...

Ah.

"I see...it’s the future," he muttered, taking a deep breath. "So, father’s die?"

"Y-yeah..." Han Shin replied cautiously.

After managing his memory, Han Joon returned to his usual calm self. He got out of the bed promptly and bowed his head to Laurel and Calix. "I’m sorry for being a nuisance."

"No, Joon! That’s--"

Before Laurel could argue in lament, she had to pause because Han Joon was looking down and touching his solar plexus. A dreadful silence filled the room as realization dawned upon him; eyes unblinking and a million questions flashed by.

"I don’t have...a core?"

"Ah..."

* * *

"Fifteen? Why fifteen?" Zein asked curiously as they ran through the garden separating the guest mansion from the main one.

Unlike Shin who was staying in the main mansion, or Radia who was in the adjacent annex, Bassena and Zein stayed in another building where guests of the family usually stayed. It was where Zein was staying when his past was revealed before, and where Bassena used to stay when he ran away from home. Because of this, they were quite late hearing about Joon’s condition.

"Who cares why?" Bassena said with a bright face, and Zein couldn’t help but chuckle.

Yeah, his husband was happy. He was at his happiest ever since Joon woke up, and Zein could understand why.

"Joon!"

Because now he could come to Han Joon without having to explain who he was.

"Joon..."

Bassena immediately rushed toward the man sitting on the armchair, who this time only took about three seconds to figure out who he was. "You’re...Bassena?"

"Haa..." Bassena collapsed in front of Joon’s legs, leaning his head on the man’s knee as he breathed in relief. "Finally..."

Han Joon raised his brow. "What’s wrong with you?"

"He’s been waiting for the day you remember him," Zein explained with a chuckle.

All this time, Bassena and Zein could only look from afar, being explained more as ’the twins’ parents’ rather than Joon’s friends. Zein was fine, but Bassena was devastated. Perhaps that was why he was the one most angry when Radia said Joon should just forget everything.

Funnily enough, this behavior was very in line with teenage Bassena, so it wasn’t difficult for Han Joon to accept that it was really Bassena--the unruly kid following him around after getting beaten up. He chuckled and patted the platinum hair before raising his head to look at Zein.

"Ah, you’re..."

"I’m his guide."

"Right. You have twins together," Han Joon nodded.

Bassena raised his head in surprise. "Oh, you remember that much?"

"I wrote it down in my journal before going to sleep last night," Han Joon raised a notebook he had been clutching.

It was something that the child counselor advised him to do before leaving the hospital. Since the new situations could be overwhelming for him, he was told to write as much as he could in the journal to differentiate his old memory from the new one. It was also deemed good for him, who just learned how to express emotions, to write what he was feeling every day.

Thanks to that, it didn’t take long for the new fifteen-year-old Joon to synchronize with the new body and the week-long memory he had when he was mentally seven years old.

"I was told you helped a lot in curing me," Han Joon bowed his head slightly. "Thank you."

"I didn’t do anything directly," Zein shrugged.

"But he was the one bringing the Saintess!" Han Shin chimed with a grin.

"You’re doing great too," Han Joon patted his brother’s hair, smiling fondly. "A saint class, huh?"

"Hehe..."

"...I did that first," Bassena pursed his lips like a child, even though he had a child on his own already.

Han Joon smirked as he shifted his gaze to the pouting adult. "Heh, it’s hard to believe. It feels like yesterday since I beat you for refusing to listen."

"I grew up well, okay?"

"Yeah," Han Joon laughed softly. "I’m proud of you."

"Hyung..."

Han Shin gasped. "Who’s ’hyung’?! He’s my hyung!"

"Shut up!"

Zein rolled his eyes and left the childishly bickering adult fighting for a mentally-teenager man. It was just like watching Kar and Asa bickering over who would get to sleep next to him only for Zein to sleep in the middle instead. So pointless.

He sighed and approached Radia who, as always, watched from a slight distance. "They never changed even after becoming a father," he shook his head in exasperation. Radia chuckled in response, which meant he wasn’t as distressed as before. A development, Zein would say. "So, how far did you tell him?"

"Just that he had an affliction in his mana core," Radia replied quietly. "We didn’t tell him why."

"Can’t he find out?"

"We don’t give him a commlink, and there’s barely any articles about him or the truth about that man’s death, so it should be fine."

Han Joon had just found out he was no longer an esper. No matter how calm he was on the outside, Radia was sure a lot was going on inside his head. Joon was just good at hiding things--he was better at this stage than he was in his childhood. The last thing they wanted to do was add more stress by telling him the complete truth.

If things kept progressing anyway, he would find out in due time.

"Well, at least we know that his memory is progressing," Zein said.

"...yeah."

Zein tilted his head, observing the wary expression in the crimson eyes. Radia did not look distressed, but there was an uncomfortable sense in his demeanor that confused Zein. "You’re happy, aren’t you?"

Radia smiled wryly. "It’s...complicated."

"Why?"

"It’s easy holding back when he was looking like a clueless kid, but..."

Radia took a deep breath and exhaled heavily. Yeah, it was easier for him because it wasn’t that hard shutting his urges in front of a pair of innocent eyes and a child’s demeanor. The easily blushing kid was more adorable than anything, and Radia had been able to put a brake on himself by thinking he was looking through a window viewing someone’s childhood memory.

Staying in the annex was an extra step, but Joon himself rarely approached him because he was a shy little boy in front of a crush. It was not easy, but it was easier.

On the other hand...

"This is the period when I fell for him," Radia massaged his temple.

"Ah..."

This will be really, really hard. Probably the hardest period to get through. And Radia had no idea how long it would last.