There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 130 - 126. Overflowing Emotions

Chapter 130: Chapter 126. Overflowing Emotions

"Who..." Zein frowned as he yanked the door open in annoyance, but his words stopped in his mouth when he saw the blazing twin ambers below furrowed platinum brows. "Bas...?"

Wordlessly, Bassena gripped the surprised face tightly, and Zein stumbled back from the sudden movement, bringing the esper with him. "What the fuck?" the esper’s husky voice was hoarse and filled with agitation. "What the fuck, Zein?!"

Blinking in a daze, Zein stopped himself from moving backward, grabbing the esper back. He stared at the twin flames piercing at him and sighed. "What happened to your anger management?"

"Do you think I have time for that after I heard what happened?!" the low voice was getting higher now, and Zein felt thankful that the door was already shut.

Without averting the piercing ambers, Zein asked in return. "So what exactly happened? Tell me."

"You--!" Bassena started with a loud voice, only to stop and bit his lips at Zein’s emotionless face. The blue eyes, which were duller than usual, reflected his angry face, and it made him stiffen. When he opened his mouth again, his voice was quieter, weaker. "That you were...caught in a dungeon anomaly and...had a burnout..."

"Yes," Zein moved his hand to the messy platinum hair and gripped it. "Was any of that something I could control?"

The answer to that was no, but Bassena found his tongue lost its power and just parted his lips without managing to eke out any word. In the end, after staring at the stern blue eyes for a while, he slumped down, hands sliding over the guide’s arms as he ended up on his knees.

"...’m sorry," the esper said weekly, clutching into the guide’s hands and he stared hard at the floor. His spine, his nape, his eyes...all felt hot from anxiety. Even as he held into the guide’s hands and felt the man’s warmth, seeing Zein uninjured with his own eyes, his heart still thumping loudly.

Zein looked at the imposing esper that was sagging on the floor, clutching into his hands as if they were his lifeline, and sighed. Slowly, he lowered his body and crouched in front of Bassena. He pulled out one hand from the esper’s clutch and caressed the distressed head.

"You have to know that once we’re back to the Deathzone, something like this might happen more often than we anticipate," Zein said while stroking the platinum strands. He could feel the esper stiffen at his words, but he continued. "You can’t react like this every time I get in danger, Bas."

Bassena lifted his head then, and Zein felt his heart skip a bit. The amber eyes were staring at him with so much feeling there--worry, anxiety, affection, desperation--that he couldn’t help the thumping of his heart.

"Still," Zein took a breath to steady his heart again, brushing the messy fringe falling over the esper’s forehead, and said with a smile. "Thank you for getting worried..."

In the few seconds that passed after, Bassena was staring at the soft pair of blue and the smiling face without blinking, feeling like his emotion would overflow and take hold of his body.

And it did.

Before his mind could warn him to stop, he was already leaning forward, claiming the smiling lips with his own. Swift and with no warning, it made Zein fall back in surprise, and had to prop himself with an arm while the other gripped Bassena’s hair.

The blue eyes blinked at the fierce yet shaking amber orbs, at the lips parted in short breaths, at the face that felt like it would crumble in a second. It was so different from the face he saw this past month on television.

This was the face only he could see.

And just like that, Zein found himself pressing his lips on the esper’s, tilted his head and caressed the trembling jaw. As he accepted the hot, anxious tongue inside, Zein used both his hands to clutch into the esper’s head and back, prompting him to fall backward.

Before his head could touch the hard floor, the esper’s large hand already grabbed the back of his head and cushioned his fall, as they kissed against the floor.

Zein felt no lust from this kiss, however deep it went. Bassena was like a child chasing a comforting light, which consumed him like a pilgrim thirsting for water; a necessity, a salvation. Even after they parted, the esper still looked at Zein like a lost child.

Pressing his face on the crook between the guide’s neck and shoulder, Bassena embraced the older man tight as if Zein would suddenly get sucked into another dungeon anomaly. "Do you know...how scared I was...when the first thing I heard after stepping out of the tower was about your dungeon incident?"

Zein closed his eyes, feeling the esper’s heart drumming against his chest, and stroked the trembling back. He wondered...would it be like how he felt when he heard about the dungeon break invading the residential area five years ago.

"Alright," he said soothingly. "You know I’m fine now, so you can stop worrying."

Bassena lifted his head harshly and stared hard at the guide. "How can I stop worrying when something like this happened every time I’m not in Althrea?!"

Zein blinked at the frustrated tone, and suddenly remembered the dungeon anomaly near the hospital, which happened months ago, also occurred when Bassena was on a business trip.

"It’s like a curse!" the handsome face scrunched up in frustration, amber eyes blazing in anger at the world.

Softly, calmly, Zein tapped the esper’s cheek. "It’s just a coincidence," he stared firmly at Bassena until the esper’s face faltered and the amber eyes closed, probably in an attempt to control his emotions. Zein smiled at the gritted teeth and asked. "What about you?"

Bassena opened his eyes in surprise, blinking dazedly at Zein’s question. "What happened to your trial?"

"...oh," the esper belatedly responded. "It’s alright, I get a new blessing..." he said flatly as if successfully speedrunning a saint-class trial in a month was only worth an afterthought.

Zein smirked at that, and patted the esper’s cheek again. "Good job," he said, before groaning slightly at the growing discomfort of their position on the floor. "You can tell me about it tomorrow. For now, help me up."

Zein did sustain no injury thanks to Han Shin immediately healing him for any scratch and cut he received during the Specter’s attack, but that didn’t mean he was already in full health. The aftereffect of burnout was still prevalent, and apparently, locking lips with someone he missed the past month couldn’t alleviate the mental offset much.

Immediately after asking it, Zein felt his body become weightless, and the next thing he knew, he was being carried in Bassena’s arms. "I told you to help me up, not carry me around," he said as the esper walked toward his bed.

But Bassena only hummed in response, and Zein just sighed and let the esper be. It only took a few large strides for the esper to reach Zein’s bed anyway, so there was no use in arguing. Gently, Bassena put Zein on the edge of the bed, where he lowered himself to the floor and laid his head on Zein’s lap.

Looking at the man who smelled of travel, Zein realized that Bassena was coming straight here from the tower, without even stopping to rest or clean himself beforehand. He looked outside the window, at the dark night sky, and the clock that spelled midnight.

"Do you want to sleep here?" Zein asked while stroking the hair that fell over his thigh.

Bassena lifted his head and looked at the guide with wide eyes. "Can I?"

"I need to sleep now, so just make yourself at home," Zein rubbed the dark circle below the unblinking amber eyes. "Take a shower and go to bed."

It took Bassena a minute of silence before finally nodded wordlessly. The esper got up and stepped back then, letting Zein crawl back to lay on his bed.

As he stared dazedly at the ceiling to embrace drowsiness, Zein vaguely heard the sound of trickling water from the bathroom. The sound lulled him slowly, back to his burnout-induced sleep. Before he went completely under, however, he smelled the scent of fresh body wash, and instinctively moved his hand to stroke the head laying on the edge of the bed.

"Sleep, Bas..." he said softly, voice slurred from drowsiness. He felt the head leaving his palm and the mattress dipped lower, and his eyes fluttered open to meet a deep gaze from a pair of ambers hovering above him. A large hand, cold from the late-night shower, touched his palm, and their fingers interlaced above his head.

They stared at each other like that; Zein waited wordlessly at what Bassena wanted to do. Everything seemed to stop then, even time and the beating of their heart. There were a lot of emotions in their eyes; palpable in the amber orbs, and hidden beneath the sapphire gaze. Within the silence of the night, the longing was apparent in their heart.

After what seemed like an eternity, Bassena grabbed an unused pillow from the bed and strode wordlessly toward the other side of the room, slamming his big figure and cramming himself on the couch.

Zein blinked slowly in the bed for a while, before dragging his tingling palm across his hair.

Should Bassena ask for things to escalate further, Zein wouldn’t have any excuse to reject the esper. He was too exhausted to deny Bassena’s desire, too weak to reject temptation, and missed the younger man too much. He would accept any kiss, any touch, any advances. Maybe even reciprocate them.

But he might feel uncomfortable after, thinking that everything was just an effect of circumstances.

So he was glad that Bassena hold back.

That he didn’t get any reason to distance himself from the esper.