Chapter 72 - 71. Incessant Surprises
It was only dreamless at the start.
After drifting inside senseless space, Zein suddenly found himself with a familiar scene of the ruined city. Only, he wasn’t the shard, but himself. A human trapped inside a city where a monster lurked and called its beast comrades.
But rather than the shabby clothes of other survivors, he wore his black SavAsh combat suit and held a pitch-black dagger. The beasts came and he fought desperately, just like always. He had no magic energy left in his body that was slowly drenched in blood. Even the pitch-black dagger turned red—and that was when Zein paused.
Bassena--he chanted the name, the single word felt like a lead in his mouth, so hard to spell out. But when darkness came to envelop him, Zein only felt relieved as his consciousness waned and he closed his eyes, thinking he could finally rest with ease.
When he opened them, he was staring at a pair of amber eyes. Probably because he’d been so exhausted from fighting and feeling like he’d die any second, he felt absurdly glad to see that handsome face and warm eyes. Zein reached out to grasp the esper’s face and pulled the man into a kiss.
Only...the kiss felt strangely real. It was warm and soft, and he could taste coffee on them—the bitter kind.
Zein blinked and pulled away, tilting his head at the surprised face above him. "Huh, what—you’re real?"
The shock, parted lips curled into a smile then. "So you’re kissing me in your dream?"
Zein leaned back into his pillow with a chuckle. "Mm, yeah," he answered truthfully while blinking at the ceiling for a while to chase out the rest of the drowsiness. "Why are you here?"
"Hmm...so you don’t mind kissing me in a dream," ignoring Zein’s question, Bassena licked his lips in contemplation. "What about in real life, then?"
"Never said I mind either way," Zein got up and cracked his stiff body slightly. He turned toward the nightstand and reached out for the glass of water already there.