Chapter 197 - 191. Duty and Calling
Zein usually woke up with his biological alarm, unless he was physically drained or mentally distraught. Or both.
Today was none, and he woke up just after dawn just as usual. Only, instead of a ceiling, he woke up staring at a pair of warm amber eyes. "This feels familiar," he commented, lips curling upward reflexively.
"Like the time you woke up and kissed me out of nowhere?" the esper asked.
"Ah," Zein chuckled softly, recalling the day he visited the lab for the first time and touched the shard. He dreamt of something--he couldn’t remember what--but he recalled calling out for Bassena and when he opened his eyes, the esper was there. Zein didn’t think twice to kiss Bassena then, thinking it was still a dream.
Perhaps, he was already started to fall for the man even then, only that he was too afraid to admit it, too wrapped up in his worry that Bassena’s interest was nothing more than an esper attachment for a guide, a mere infatuation created from the good feeling during guiding.
But for the many months of their vague relationship after that, the most intimate guiding they ever did was through kisses, and that was only twice. Even after they finally made love, Bassena never asked for a guiding.
This time, as he stared at the warm ambers, Zein knew it wasn’t a dream, but he still reached out to grab the platinum strands and pulled the esper down for a kiss.
And this time, because it wasn’t a mistake of a half-sleep delirium, the kiss didn’t end shortly. It went further and further until Zein found himself straddling the esper’s hips, pulling off the esper’s shirt, and...well, it was safe to say he did his morning exercise in a different way.
"You didn’t sleep?" Zein asked as they basked in each other’s warmth beneath the comforter, while the sky getting brighter.
"How do you know?" Bassena raised his head from the guide’s chest.
"Because you were already up when I woke up," Zein smirked. There was only one instance when Bassena woke up earlier than him; when Zein slept in so late after having his outburst.