There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 705

Chapter 705: Side Story 3. Stellar Blossom - 40

One of the things Joon wasn’t allowed to do was browsing the link.

He was not given a commlink--not the one he should own, nor a new one. They did not hide the intention either. The counselor told him it was to prevent any shock in his brain from the disparity between the outside world and his own. Decades of gap was not a trivial thing to face, after all.

That was also why the others had been releasing information bit by bit. They informed him about his father’s death, but Han Joon knew there was something more behind that story. In the first place, someone in his father’s position would not go inside a dungeon. Not to mention, the dungeon was owned by the military.

But he did not pry. Han Joon did not want to challenge the theory about how floods of information might make him unstable. It might be true after all, and he didn’t want his mental state to be offset.

But then again, he didn’t need to know.

What he wanted was his memory, and it couldn’t be gained from reading stuff in the link. He didn’t think there would be much information about him there anyway, much less about his relationship with Radia.

And that was all he cared about at that point, so he obediently stayed off-link.

But not this time.

He couldn’t just sit still after hearing such disturbing news. Radia kneeling in front of someone for him? What the fuck was that even mean?

But one thing he knew: there was no way he couldn’t find it on the link. Even if it was the teenage Radia who did it, the media would eat it up simply because he was from House Mallarc. But the current Radia was the next patriarch, Mortix’s chairman, and a guildmaster--the media would have a feast.

No matter how powerful House Mallarc was, they wouldn’t be able to prevent such news from spreading or erase it from the link.

With that thought, Han Joon strode toward the library without even changing his clothes. There was a multimedia corner where he could browse the link, but he knew he would be found out soon if he used it, so he had to move quickly.

He didn’t need to know much anyway. All he wanted to know was why and who. Who had dared to make his darling kneel in public?

Thankfully, there was no house staff at that moment, so he should have had enough time to browse before someone found out about it.

Quickly, he turned the screen on and typed on the virtual keyboard. As he thought, it was easy to get the result. Three wide screens in front of him were quickly filled with articles, video recordings, and social media commentaries.

He read the articles first to get the gist of it. He found out that it was during a general public auction, and it happened in the Western Republic. The auction was for a relic, and the owner had confronted Radia in the middle of the process, challenging him to kneel if he wanted the relic.

And Radia did. He knelt and begged for the relic, saying it was for his sick...husband.

Any other time, Han Joon would get elated by that word, since no one had ever outrightly mentioned it so far.

But not now.

The only thing on his mind was how someone made Radia kneel when he desperately needed something. It was unforgivable. It was even more unforgivable after he watched the recording.

A white field of snow. Like a burnt matchstick, a figure clad in black pressed his head on the ground, bleeding flame across the snow. As the figure trembled from cold and desperation, Han Joon could feel his hand trembling too. A voice, hoarse and filled with tears, was pleading.

Pleading for him.

It took Han Joon a while to move his trembling hand. He let the recording play over and over in the background while he perused what people said about it in the media. He was never one to care about that before, but he couldn’t help it. What had people said about his Radia; he needed to kno--

"There’s no need to look at these."

A hand grabbed his, slightly smaller than him. It dragged his hand off the pointer, and promptly closed the many articles and videos on the screens. A waft of clean, soft, powdery scent grazed his senses as he watched the screens gradually turn empty.

That was fast. He had only browsed around for half an hour at most, and yet the man himself was already there. It seemed like Radia truly didn’t want him to know about this.

Han Joon wondered why. Was it so he wouldn’t know the extent of his condition? If Radia went as far as doing that, he must have been very, very sick. Was he actually dying? Laurel did say he was in a coma.

Swallowing his sigh, Han Joon leaned back. As the back of his head touched Radia’s chest, he inhaled the scent he remembered and closed his eyes. It was the scent he had secretly enjoyed once Radia left his room, the scent left on his sheet and his pillowcase. Gradually, he calmed down enough that his hand was no longer trembling.

Perhaps, knowing that he was not in good condition, Radia let him stay like that, leaning his head against the warm chest.

"As you can see, it gave me a very good reputation and boosted the company’s stock price," Radia continued in a soft tone, probably trying to reassure him.

But it wasn’t an empty statement. Even though he hadn’t seen much of them, Joon did see more positive reactions. Of course, some people mocked him for it, but most found Radia’s action endearing. It seemed like the general public found him relatable, the way he was willing to do anything for the one he loved.