There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 152

Chapter 152: Chapter 147. Piling Trash

The Templar of Arms Master.

Zein had thought those people were fully purged along with his father twenty-eight years ago. But what...what was that.

"It might not be that," Bassena held the trembling hand on the windowsill. "It might just be a symbol he saw somewhere and thought it was nice as a tattoo."

Zein wanted to laugh bitterly at that. It was such a ridiculous conjecture, and Bassena himself knew it. After all, even if the man only ’coincidentally’ found the symbol and made it a tattoo, they needed to question where exactly he saw that symbol.

Still, it did what Bassena intended; calming Zein down.

The blue eyes closed for a second as Zein took a deep breath. "Jock," Zein called out, with a little subdued tremble in his voice that was only noticeable by Bassena who was standing next to him. It was clear from the furrowed brows and sharp glint in his eyes that Zein was still slightly agitated. "Can you spare someone to find out about that police officer?" he asked after the driver arrived behind him.

Jock tilted his head to look outside the window. Fortunately, the police officer was just about to get into the van, so the driver could still look into the man’s face. "Certainly," Jock nodded in affirmation, typing into his commlink. "I can’t go too deep, however, since it’s not my squad’s specialty."

"No matter," Bassena told him. "Basic info is fine. Just send it to the Chairman, and he’ll take it from there."

"Understood," the driver nodded before going back to his initial position beside the door.

Bassena looked around. Thankfully, the other didn’t seem to notice Zein’s agitation. The old man’s daughter was busy calming down the Director, and the two men were discussing the event on their own. The only one who stared at them was the old man, but Bassena knew he wasn’t the type to put his nose in other’s business.

Taking advantage of the other people’s ignorance, Bassena took Zein’s hand and walked to the adjacent room; a little pantry, it seemed. The guide, surprisingly, didn’t object to that. They leaned to the small counter while Bassena took the liberty to make a coffee--an instant one, since that was the only one available.

"...do you really think...that man had nothing to do with the Templar?" Zein asked after a while, quietly.

"No," Bassena answered truthfully while stirring the brown concoction in the paper cup. He just said that thing to calm the guide, but the police officer didn’t look like someone who would just tattoo something on his person just because it looked cool. "It’s not something that could just be found coincidentally."

So it must have been a conscious decision. Also...

"The position of the tattoo is too similar to be a coincidence," Zein muttered.

Yes--the position of the police officer’s tattoo was similar to the one in Zein’s father. If they put logic to it, then it was easy to think that the position of the ’cult’ symbol had been preordained, which wasn’t a stretch for a worshipper organization.

"But I thought they were all purged already?" Zein frowned, gripping the counter and staring at the floor hard until his vision was filled with Bassena, who came in front of him.

"We don’t know that," the esper said, taking Zein’s hand and putting the coffee cup there. "All we know is that...Arja Vaski eliminated the traitorous faction and killed your...the Paladin."

"You’re saying--"

"There was no account of what happened to the orthodox faction."

Zein bit the inside of his cheek, staring at the cup that emanated a sweet scent. It gave his mind some kind of clarity, as he thought back to the report that Radia gave him. Yes, now that he thought about it, the report only mentioned that Arja Vaski killed the Paladin and eliminated the other faction that gave him the request.

"But...wouldn’t they try to eliminate the rest of the Templar that was on the Paladin’s side?" Zein frowned.

"They might, but..." Bassena tapped on the counter, eyes looking in the direction of the little fight down there. "That officer doesn’t look that old, probably in his mid thirty,"

"And?" _{freёwebnoѵel.com}

"That means, he was still a child when the Golden Viper hunted the Paladin," Bassena said. There was a restraint sound in his voice, as if certain words made him clench in fury. But he continued quickly. "The Templar was a clan-based group, meaning the children were already considered as part of the group since their birth--just like how it was with the Vaski and the Golden Viper."

Of course, Zein got that calculation already. But he didn’t get where Bassena was going with that. Seeing the guide’s confused face, Bassena smiled and asked. "If you’re a prominent member of a clan, and you realized you are being hunted, what would you do?"

"There’s people that told me they envied how I could care less about things, that they also want to not give a fuck about the problem they’re facing," Zein said with an ironic smile. That was how people saw him; a cold and nonchalant person that gave no fuck.

In that case, he was different from Bassena. "I’m just the type that ignores and avoids conflict."

"I don’t think that’s necessarily bad," Bassena said carefully, feeling cautious about the shift in mood.

"There’s a fine line between not giving a fuck and running away," Zein replied while walking to the edge of the counter and stopping in front of the trash bin. "People who look or said they don’t give a fuck, most often than not, are just ignoring the problem."

He looked down at the trash bin and smirked. "They ignore it, throwing the problem aside, like this," the empty paper cup in his hand fell into the bin. He didn’t move away though, just staring at the half-full container.

The trash would get picked up once it was full, and sent to be destroyed. "But there’s no disposable system or incinerator in people’s minds," all those problems that he kept shoving away, saying that he would think about them later, that he had no time to think about it now, "...and while the trash kept on piling, we kept ignoring them until it grew rotten," Zein smiled cynically, looking into the corner of his soul where the water had been stagnated for decades, filled with piling trash, "and turned poisonous."

Ignoring things and running away, Zein was good at that. He knew it wasn’t what the twins wanted, but he still buried himself in guilt and refused to live decently. He avoided looking into his past, his history, his ancestry--not because he didn’t care about them, but because he was afraid he wouldn’t like the result. He coped with his situation by saying there was nothing he could do about it, only to regret it after.

And he keep hurting the feeling of probably the only person he ever had affection for, because he was afraid of things that hadn’t happened yet. Pushing away while putting on a leash, because he neither could let go nor let the person in.

"Hmm..." and that person was now smiling adorably, while leaning closer. "Then you have to spend more time with me, don’t you think?" Bassena put his hands on the counter behind Zein, caging the guide between his arms. He tilted his head and whispered playfully. "As your trash disposal agent?"

Zein blinked at the twinkling amber eyes, before muffling his laugh. "Pfft--trash disposal..."

But yeah...just as he said, talking with Bassena somehow reduced those piling trash. Perhaps it was the sense of safety, or the growing affection, but Zein found himself able to sound his heart and soul easier with this younger man, dragging out those rotting trash and incinerating them a bit by bit. So he looked into the esper with a smile, tapping the bronze cheek lightly. "Well, I’ll consider your offer."

"Yeah?" Bassena chuckled in response, shifting just a tad bit closer, enough for their lips to touch if he stumbled.

"Mm," Zein hummed in affirmation, and tilted his head slightly, sliding his hand on Bassena’s arm before tapping at the esper’s wrist. "But do you know your commlink had been blinking for a while now?"