There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 619

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?"