There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)-Chapter 426 - 419. A Thousand Days

Zein felt like his heart dropped to his stomach when he saw the crack. The sound was eerily loud in the quiet pavilion, and as his chest got heavier from worry, the orb shattered.

"What--"

Zein opened his mouth and almost choked when something--someone--dropped onto the floor from the shattered orb.

"Ugh--" Bassena, in a dusty, tattered coat, coughed and wheezed into the floor. He pushed himself and wobbled slightly as he stood up, shaking his head from the impact. He winced and pressed the heel of his palm onto the throbbing vein in his forehead.

And then, as if he snapped out of a stupor, he gasped, looking up, and the amber eyes locked into his one and only guide.

"Bas--"

Before Zein could finish uttering the esper’s name, he was already getting enveloped in a tight, almost scalding embrace. Bassena was hot, like he was in a fever, but the moment their silhouette touched each other, the heat dissipated as if Zein was pouring water all over the esper’s fire.

Hands clutching the guide’s back and head tightly, Bassena buried his face in the crook of Zein’s neck, inhaling the guide’s scent as if that was the only brand of air he needed. "I almost thought...I would start to forget your face."

Zein raised his brow and asked while stroking the esper’s back. "How long did you--"

"A thousand days," Bassena said with a clenched jaw. "I can’t go back before the thousand days is up."

Zein pulled the esper’s head back and frowned. "Are you telling me you’re going to forget my face in just three years?"

Bassena paused at the guide’s annoyed reaction and laughed softly, almost inaudibly, as he pressed his forehead to Zein’s. As he heard the esper’s contended sigh, Zein couldn’t help but smile and patted the bronze cheek gently.

"So you really do come back older than me."

Bassena froze; amber eyes widened, before pulling himself back and blinking repeatedly at Zein’s amused smile. In the next second, he had grasped the back of the guide’s head again, pulling Zein into a heated kiss full of longing.

A thousand days of longing.

And while Zein only waited for a hundred hours, he took the kiss as if he had waited for a hundred weeks; clawing into the Bassena’s upper arms like he wanted to damage the coat even more.

They would have probably kept at it, kissing until the day lost its light and regained it back if it wasn’t for the sound of coughing and throat clearing. Only then that Zein remember where they were.

He pulled away with a slight gasp and took a half-step away from Bassena. He wouldn’t care much, usually, but there was a little girl there, whose eyes had been covered by the Saintess. Elena was protesting and whining about wanting to ’see the avalanche’ while the Medium covered her flustered face with the innocent white rabbit.

Even the Templars averted their eyes bashfully.

"Look at you tainting the priests," Bassena whispered playfully, and he was rewarded with a flick on his forehead.

"You must have been exhausted," the Saintess smiled at the couple. "Why don’t you have some rest? We will send a meal to your room, Luzein."

"Thank you," Zein nodded and pulled Bassena out of the pavilion to relieve everyone from embarrassment.

Before completely stepping away, he glanced at the remnant of the shattered black marble, which was in the process of evaporating.

"It seems like you can’t get back anymore?"

"It’s a one-time use only," Bassena shrugged.

"Good," Zein muttered, low enough for it to be inaudible--unless the listener was a high-ranking esper.

Bassena raised his brows and smiled, intertwining their fingers as he leveled their walking speed. Cheekily, he whispered. "I still have another marble, though."

The blue eyes glanced at him coldly, but Bassena felt happy about it instead. Zein was rather indifferent when he entered the marble, but now the guide didn’t seem to want to let him go. Even after they entered Zein’s suite, the fingers holding his hand were now moved to shed the pathetic-looking coat.

"I thought dragon leather is supposed to be durable?" Zein dropped the coat which had gotten singed and ripped to the ground.

He dropped Bassena to the couch too, while at it.

"Maybe the dragon used for that hadn’t traveled to the place I went through," Bassena chuckled, taking a deep breath as the guide straddled him on the couch.

"Where were you training in, anyway? Hell?"

Surprisingly, Bassena just shrugged in agreement. "Close enough, I think. Lots of fire, and then lots of ice--really bad for garments..."

The last word was uttered in a sigh as he felt Zein’s lips on his neck. "You don’t seem corroded," the guide muttered between kisses, and Bassena grasped the guide’s waist while taking a sharp breath. "Was the time stopped inside?"

Zein stopped his ministration on the esper’s neck so he could watch the slightly flushed face. He stroked the clean jaw with the back of his fingers. "Too bad; I was hoping I could see you rather rugged."

Bassena laughed and pulled the guide even closer to him. "Am I not rugged enough, right now?"

"No," Zein rubbed the jaw that only had a thin stubble instead of a full-grown beard. Honestly, he had a playful thought of imagining Bassena coming out with an untrimmed beard and long hair; like a wandering mercenary. "Not enough."

There were a lot of things that were ’not enough’ when Zein said it; the time, the space, the feelings intertwining through their touching lips and roaming fingers. The kiss nor the touch wasn’t enough to fill the gap created as they were apart. Be it a hundred hours or a thousand days, they knew now that being apart for that long was agonizing.

It was not enough to say they missed each other; it wasn’t even enough to say they loved each other. In that adequacy, they chose to not speak, and just soaked in each other’s presence, entangling in each other’s embrace as they fell on the couch.

Bassena sighed and buried his face in the crook of Zein’s neck, inhaling deeply the soothing scent that had been absent from his life for three years.

It was hard. Gods--it was hard.

It was harder than the time he still looking for Zein’s identity. It was harder than the time Zein kept him at arm’s length.

Because he had tasted what it felt like to be basked in the soothing scent that erased his nightmare. What it felt like to fill his vision with the beautiful visage and brilliant pair of blue. What it felt like to have that melodious voice uttered his name with affection.

To lose those for a thousand days...

If it wasn’t for how busy he was trying to survive the trial, he would have fallen into madness.

"Call my name," Bassena whispered as he felt a caressing hand on his head.

"Bas," the voice was like a dream, like a cradle; firm yet gentle, seeping into his soul. "Bassena," he closed his eyes, enjoying the voice that seemed to be uttered with a smile. "Sena, baby..."

Bassena tightened his hold on Zein’s waist and back, feeling the guide embrace him back in response. The caress on his head did not stop, calloused fingers scratching his scalp nicely.

"I’m glad," Zein muttered while looking at the ceiling.

"Hmm?"

"That you don’t seem to change,"

Bassena raised his head and looked at the guide in surprise. "Did you think I would?"

"I don’t know...maybe," Zein replied while still looking at the ceiling in a daze. "I have no idea how much time you’ll be going to spend over there, and...you looked anxious before going in..."

"I don’t--"

"I know, baby," Zein shifted his gaze to the esper’s face. Just looking at those amber eyes, he already knew that this Bassena was still his Bassena.

Among all of his fears, he was worried that Bassena would become someone he did not fall in love with. Because Zein had never considered himself to be a romantic person. He did not have the confidence to say that he would love Bassena no matter what.

He loved his Bassena--the one he met in the Deathzone, who was valiant and a little bit arrogant, but also fumbling adorably while trying to earn his heart. The one with an innocent mind and harsh outlook. The one who was rational and trustworthy, but also childish and whiny.

His Bassena, who had promised to protect him and became his future’s guarantee.

He did not want to fall out of love with Bassena.

Zein stroked the stunned cheek, rubbing the black scales he came to love more and more. This too, was part of his Bassena.

"I don’t think I could do it," Zein muttered.

Bassena blinked and shook his head slightly to clear his mind. "What?"

"Getting away from you for a thousand days."

Bassena froze; there was nothing he could do but stare at the guide without blinking. His brain felt like it was short-circuiting while trying to digest that short, simple line.

Zein had heard that getting away was harder for guides than for espers, even though it was espers who would be in more danger without their guide. But guides’ attachment relied heavily upon their soul, upon their mind. It wouldn’t be hard physically, but mentally?

He understood now how his mother couldn’t survive without his father’s existence.

Zein chuckled wryly. And he wasn’t even bonded yet with Bassena.

"...Bas,"

"Y-yeah?"

"My ability is still needed in the Deathzone; you know that, right?"

Bassena simply nodded, still wondering where Zein was going with this abrupt conversation.

"So I can’t be tied to you," Zein looked into the widened amber eyes, smiling as he stroked the bronze cheek. "Not yet."

"Zein--"

"But after that," gently, he pulled the stunned face closer until they could feel their breath mingling. "After that, you can make me yours completely."

Bassena had spent all of his free time inside the black marble imagining what Zein would say to him. Would the guide say he missed Bassena? Would the guide spoil him if he said he was so miserable during those thousand days?

But never--never in Bassena’s wildest mind that less than an hour after he came out, Zein would give his this;

A proposal for imprinting.