Chapter Text
The wait was agonizing.
The numbers continued scrolling up for what felt like hours, both columns whirring by far too fast for Bam to catch sight of the individual digits before they disappeared. His world narrowed until the only thing that still registered to him was the rapidly-changing scoreboard and the sweaty press of Khun’s hand in his.
Bam didn’t even have to look at Khun to know that his eyes would also be fixed on the scoreboard, and that he was probably already wracking his brain to try to come up with a backdoor out of this situation. Bam wasn’t sure he’d be able to find one, not this time, but if anyone could find it, it would be Khun.
The first sign that they were nearing the end of their wait was when the frantic whine the numbers had been making as they whirred by abruptly changed in pitch, and Bam realized he could begin making out individual ticks as the number continued counting up. Both counters soon trickled off as last-minute stragglers rushed to get their votes in, and then, finally, the numbers on both sides—those under the red thumbs down and green thumbs up—went still, revealing the final count.
Silence reigned throughout the entirety of the Ascendant theatre.
The audience, who had been oddly subdued as they cast their votes, slowly began to make themselves known once again, a dull rumble gradually increasing in volume as everyone began to make sense of what they were looking at.
Bam found that for once he could sympathize with them—he was struck speechless by the result as well. Even as a newcomer to the Floor of Love, he was well aware of the deceptive nature of the final vote. While the runner-up in the final match did, in theory, have the ability to advance to the next floor alongside the grand winner, the vindictive and bloodthirsty nature of the crowd made it so that the final vote was little more than a formality. On the 109th Floor, being the runner-up was the same thing as being a loser, and losers were not to be shown any mercy.
So how could it be, that for the first time ever, in all 32,542 iterations of the Ascendant games… the majority had voted to spare the losing team?
Bam’s first instinct was to wonder if he’d made a mistake, if he’d misunderstood something, but the numbers sitting there starkly on the scoreboard told him that there’d been no mistake. It was a slim majority, barely more than half… but compared to the usual results, it was a landslide victory.
By his side, Bam could see that Khun was having difficulty believing it as well, reduced to staring at the 139,208 glowing starkly next to the green thumbs up symbol. His mouth opened and closed several times, although no words came out.
Meanwhile, the announcer had recovered enough from his obvious shock to finally speak up, disbelief evident in his voice. “This… this can’t possibly be right,” he stuttered, as the audience began to murmur in dissatisfaction. “I’m sorry, good people, but it seems as though our scoreboard system is experiencing a glitch. The numbers were tallied up incorrectly, the votes will be re-examined and a revised count will be made—”
If the announcer’s excuses continued after that, it was impossible to tell, his words lost amidst the chorus of discontented boos that followed. It must have sounded like a weak excuse even to the sizeable portion of the attendees who had voted to have Bam executed, because no one seemed happy about it, and a variety of loose items such as vegetables and shoes began to rain down on the stage. The announcer apparently gave up on providing announcements to the audience at this point in favour of engaging in a vicious-looking argument with a number of other people in the judge’s box who had left their seats to confront him. They seemed every bit as outraged as the audience, gesticulating wildly with raised voices that couldn’t quite be heard over the screams of the crowd.
“Bam?” Khun asked, eyes wide.
“Khun,” Bam said, squeezing his hand comfortingly. “Khun, it’s okay. It’s over now, we can….”
Khun was shaking his head violently. “Bam, you don’t understand,” he said urgently. “The gamemakers set this trap to kill you, they’ll never be satisfied with ending it like this. Whether it’s tradition or not, there’s no way they’ll be willing to let you go like—”
Khun’s frenzied explanation was interrupted by an ominous creaking sound.
Filled with a grim foreboding, Bam looked around, noticing that in a number of locations across the stage, the sand seemed to be shifting and trickling downward in the same way it had during the Wild Beast Hunt—specifically, he realized with a growing sense of dread, as it had when new animals were sent out on stage. Before Bam’s horrified eyes, massive cages began to rise out of trapdoors concealed in the dunes, each one holding a large, furiously pacing creature that seemed to be made out of nothing but steel and swords.
Bam immediately recognized the lion from their first match. And not just one, but three, four, eight… twelve lions. Clearly the game designers had learned their lesson, and learned it well.
Khun had been right. The gamemakers couldn’t leave it at that, and they had activated the execution method they’d prepared for him in advance regardless of the results of the vote.
He should have known that they wouldn’t be permitted their happy ending.
But he didn’t have time to despair. First priorities first, Bam reminded himself, turning to Khun.
“I guess this is it, then,” he said, surprisingly not having to force a smile onto his face when he addressed his friend. He must have already run through every possible emotion at his impending demise by this point, because he felt astonishingly calm. “I’ll distract the beasts, so be ready to run on my signal. The rest of the team should still be here somewhere so you should try to join up with them. Rak’s been really worried—I’m sure he’ll be relieved to see you’re safe.”
Khun shook his head, his hand tightening further around Bam’s like he thought it would be wrenched away from him. “No. No way,” he said, face pale but determined. “I won’t let you face this alone. I’ll regret it for the rest of my life if I leave you now.”
Bam had expected some resistance, so he wasn’t overly surprised at the refusal. He was touched, honestly, that even now Khun was willing to risk it all just to stay with him, but also frustrated at his unwillingness to see reason when his life was on the line.
“Khun, what was the point in me catching you—with choosing to lose the fight at all—if I just let you die here?” Bam asked, voice tinged with desperation. He hadn’t wanted to taint his last moments with Khun by arguing with him. “Live, please. Won’t you do that much for me?”
He had never wanted to guilt or manipulate Khun into doing as he asked, but if that was what it took to keep him alive, there were few things Bam wouldn’t be willing to try. He clenched his first, praying that that would be enough.
“Bam… “ Khun said, his voice pained. “I’m sorry, but no. You put yourself on the line for us every time, and you’re always the one who suffers alone in the end. Don’t make me stand by and watch as you do it again, I couldn’t bear it.”
“Khun, I—”
“Besides,” he added with a tiny, humourless smile. “You lost in the finals, which means that according to the rules your teammates are forfeit and can be snapped up by any scavengers who might want them, remember? So even if I do survive this, I have nowhere to go but back to my family, and that really would be a fate worse than death.”
He sounded as if he was trying to make a joke out of it, but Bam saw the fear, the abject misery in his expression at the idea of being taken back to the life he’d tried so hard to leave behind, and Bam couldn’t find anything remotely funny about it.
He was also forced to recognize that Khun had already made up his mind. Khun’s heart was set, and Bam knew that it would be almost impossible to turn him from this course now that he’d chosen to follow it until the end.
“... Well, they can’t exactly expect me to go quietly if you’re here,” Bam said, offering him a small smile as he conceded defeat. “I’ll fight to the last to make sure you survive.”
“I could be saying the same thing to you,” Khun said. He smirked, looking every bit the arrogant Great Family descendant, and shot Bam a look out of the corner of his eye. “Wave Controller.”
Bam returned his glance warmly. “Lightbearer.”
The cages holding the lions stopped rising, locking in place with a hiss of machinery. Resolved, the two stood as close together as they dared, fingers brushing as they prepared themselves for the inevitable moment the cages opened and the lions came barrelling out, hungering for their blood.
Before that could happen, however, they were interrupted by the unexpected sound of a man screaming very loudly from somewhere close by.
“AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”
They barely had enough time to notice the sound, much less ponder what it might mean when Bong Bong suddenly popped into existence in front of them, causing them both to jump backward several feet in shock. A split second later, Endorsi, Anaak, Hatz, Laure, Rak, and a still-screaming Shibisu hit the ground as the device unceremoniously spat them out. Having dropped its passengers, it shrunk back into a tiny ball and flew back into Endorsi’s waiting hand, seemingly drained of power.
“Guys!” Bam exclaimed, startled. He looked around at the group one by one as they all gathered around him—everyone apart from Shibisu, who was still face-down in the sand where he’d landed, muttering something about “reckless driving.” “What are you all doing here, you need to get—“
“What do you mean, what are we doing here?” Hatz asked bluntly, as if he couldn’t believe that Bam had to ask. “We’re here to help get you out of this mess. The result of the vote was a surprise, I’ll admit, but I always guessed that things would end up this way.”
Laure nodded, readjusting his quilt to lie more comfortably over his shoulders. “If there was ever a chance that this could end in complete and utter disaster, then that was almost certainly what was going to happen. We’re used to it at this point, Bam.”
“But…” Bam said, dumbfounded. “Wait, I don’t—”
“And you!” Endorsi interrupted, turning to Khun. “I can’t believe you threw yourself out of the box, you incomparable idiot! Didn’t you know we were coming to save your sorry ass?”
“... Even if I had known you were coming, I still would’ve taken my chances with the freefall, thank you very much,” Khun replied, barely missing a beat.
“You—you asshole!” she fumed. “You huge jerk, I don’t even know why I—”
“But…” Khun continued, somewhat begrudgingly. “I think you might have distracted the guards enough to give me an opening to get myself out, so I’m grateful for that, at least.”
“Blue Turtle is just trying to look cool after he’s the one who let himself get captured in the first place!” Rak cackled gleefully.
“... You want to die, Gator?”
Shibisu was examining the contents of the nearest cage as he hauled himself to his feet, brushing the dust off of his tracksuit pants. “So that’s what these people have come up with as an execution method? Seems… easy enough,” he said. Admittedly, his confident attitude would have been more convincing if he hadn’t just gone white as a sheet, a bead of perspiration trickling down his forehead. “We can take them, can’t we, guys?”
“As far as I’m concerned, if you’ve fought one metal zoo animal, you’ve fought them all,” Anaak said, her voice bored but her tail twitching in anticipation. “They’ll have to try a lot harder than that.”
“It does seem unlikely they have any tricks left that we haven’t seen,” Laure agreed, yawning.
“Please, everyone, it’s fine,” Bam said. He’d been increasingly alarmed by the direction of their conversation and took advantage of the first break in the dialogue that he could to voice his protest. “None of you have to die with me. You’re all strong and clever—you can have a second chance. There’s no need for any of you to suffer for something that I did.”
Bam had always thought that their team was a fairly diverse one in terms of personality, but the expressions they showed him at that moment were all identically unimpressed.
“And risk becoming a thrall?” Endorsi asked. “No way, never. I’d sooner fight my way out of here than be owned by anybody ever again, for any reason.”
Hatz didn’t say anything, but his grip tightened on Donghae’s hilt at Endorsi’s words and he nodded once in curt agreement.
“And also,” she added, eyes fixed straight ahead of her, “I’ll probably regret saying this but you know what? This team isn’t so bad. At least, not after all the work I’ve put into training you slobs. The idea of having to start over from scratch with a brand new batch of idiots wearies me.”
“Hah! Like anyone else would take you,” Anaak snarked, drawing her needle.
Outside of the temporary refuge of their circle of friends, Bam could hear the lion cages finally begin to creak open. He knew he wasn’t the only one to have noticed, because despite the upbeat banter, the air between them shifted ever so slightly, and it was obvious that everyone had begun mentally preparing themselves for the inevitable.
Bam sighed. “Nothing I say is going to get any of you to reconsider, is it?” he asked, in a last-ditch attempt to make them see reason.
“You shouldn’t even have to ask, Black Turtle,” Rak said, punctuating his words with a firm nod. “None of us will leave you behind.”
While it was frustrating to be trying so hard to protect the people he loved the most and find them unwilling to be protected, Bam found that their determination lit a tiny, traitorous flame in his heart nonetheless. His fingers tightened around the Black March’s hilt, and soon he felt himself nodding.
“In that case,” he said, unable to do anything but cave in the face of his friends’ stubbornness, “I promise that even if we have to rip this whole place apart, we’ll get out of here—all of us—and keep climbing.”
“That sounds more like the Bam we know!” Shibisu cheered, throwing an arm over his shoulder and knocking their heads together.
Despite his outward confidence, Bam’s heart was thudding in his ears as the lions burst through the gates of their cages and began sprinting full-speed in their direction, closing in from all sides. In many ways, he would have been much less frightened if his friends had left—if Khun had left with them—but there was some satisfaction in this, too, even if the stakes were higher than they’d ever been before. His shoulder was pressed against Khun’s, and they were standing together with their friends as they faced down disaster.
As it was always meant to be.
They’d come this far together, and they’d face this end together. It might be the end, but this time, at the very least, no one would be left behind. They were all in agreement, and there was nothing left to do or be be said.
... Well, maybe there was one thing left.
“Khun…” Bam began, three words waiting on the tip of his tongue, aching to be let out.
But before he had the chance, the ground opened up and swallowed them whole.
*
Khun was fiddling with the Lighthouses that Shibisu had returned to him as he walked, adjusting their glow for their new surroundings while the Scout himself attempted to make conversation with Bam.
“Not going to lie, Bam,” Shibisu said casually, walking along with his hands in his pockets. “I was mentally putting the finishing touches on my will while you were giving your little speech up there. You don’t do anything halfway, do you?”
“Y-you heard it?” Bam asked, suddenly embarrassed. He turned away quickly as if hoping to hide his flushed face, but even in the dim blue light, Khun could still see the red creep up to the tips of his ears.
“Oh, trust me. Everybody heard that.”
“... I didn’t think it was that bad,” Khun said loyally, shooting Shibisu a warning glare as he sent his Lighthouses up to hover in the air over their group. He understood what their friend was trying to do but felt strongly that making the rest of the team feel better shouldn’t come at Bam’s expense.
“Are you kidding? For what should have been a plea for mercy, that was the most threatening thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” Shibisu laughed. “But you must have gotten through to them somehow, you’ve always been weirdly good at inspiring people to act in unexpected ways. I mean, look at Khun.”
Khun shoved him, and Shibisu danced away out of his reach, laughing.
“Not to belittle Bam’s success, but I’m not sure if it was that they were moved or threatened by what he said,” Khun said, attempting to smooth his ruffled feathers. “It’s also possible that they just picked the option that they thought would be most entertaining in the long run. Bam did promise them a show, after all.”
“Well… whatever their reasons were, it seemed to work in our favour. Shame the judges decided not to follow through on their part, though.”
The conversation lulled slightly at that reminder, and the thin veneer of normalcy they had been attempting to project fell away with it.
Compared to the deafening noise of the crowd in the amphitheatre, the place their small group had ended up in was uncomfortably quiet. After they’d fallen through the floor, they’d found themselves deposited in a long, dark corridor, musty and damp-smelling. They’d been walking down the darkened hallway for several minutes now and encountered very little worth mentioning. In some places the walls seemed to be old brick, others simply packed earth. There were strange pulley-like devices set sporadically in the walls, and what seemed to be crates and cages of various sizes and makes scattered off to the side.
But most conspicuously, they had yet to find anything to explain how—or why—they had ended up here in the first place.
“Where are we even?” Anaak was the first to ask.
“Well, we fell down the trapdoor, didn’t we?” Shibisu said, the speed of his answer suggesting that he’d already given it a great deal of thought. “I’d say this is the hypogeum—you know, the access tunnels that the thralls use beneath the stage? This is also where they send up the beasts from, I think.”
“So maybe try keeping it down, won’t you?” Endorsi hissed. “What if there’s still something down here?”
“A good thought, your highness,” a voice spoke up in the darkness ahead, “but all of the beasts that were being held here until recently are currently running loose on stage with no way of getting back down. You’re safe for now, so don’t worry.”
The team, already on high alert, acted as one.
The stranger who’d spoken found himself confronted by an array of unsheathed weapons and baangs primed to fire. He didn’t blink, merely observing their display of force with faint disdain. “I suppose I should’ve expected that,” he said drily. “I assure you, though, that there is no need for weapons. I’m simply here to provide directions.”
Khun regarded the newcomer suspiciously, not quite ready to call back his Lighthouses. It was a man Khun didn’t recognize, although he was well dressed and seemed wealthy. Certainly not a thrall, then, or anyone that he might have expected to run into down in these grimy corridors. What was a person like that doing here?
The man looked toward Bam, lifting his sleeve and showing him his signet ring. Wisely, he didn’t attempt to get any closer. “My name is Adris Vah Hempel, a scion of the Po Bideau family,” he said. “I believe this is the first time we’ve spoken face to face, but for your purposes, I’m just one of several judges of this floor. Congratulations on successfully swaying the crowd to your favour, it’s quite a commendable achievement. The very first of its kind, in fact.”
Khun bristled at the mention of the word “judge,” but hearing the man’s somewhat-genuine congratulations threw him off. Bam was still eying the man with a doubtful expression, but he looked the slightest bit thoughtful as well, so Khun tentatively decided to wait and see what he would do.
If the man made one wrong move toward Bam, though… he’d be ready.
“So, about those directions,” Adris Vah Hempel said, clapping his hands once. “It’s a bit of a walk from here still, but there is a transport pad that will take you to the 110th Floor at the end of this passage. Ignore the branching paths and continue to go straight ahead and you should find it without issue. The Princess Lydia Valerian Jahad and her team have already left via a different platform, so you shouldn’t have any more trouble with them, either. Get out of here while you still can.”
Bam’s expression appeared troubled, a sentiment Khun shared. “But why?” he asked.
“You passed the test. By everyone’s standards, by every law here you passed. That means it’s high time for you to be proceeding to the next floor now, don’t you think?”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“And we’ll actually be allowed to leave this time?” Bam pressed, clearly not quite able to believe it.
The judge snorted, as if Bam had just said something funny. “I can understand your disbelief, but really, who’s going to stop you? The other judges? The authorities? They’ll be too busy dealing with the riots to give you any trouble.”
“Wait, riots?” Bam asked, casting a questioning look to Khun, who returned it with equal confusion. “What riots?”
“About that,” Adris Vah Hempel said, still in that same unconcerned tone. “Unsurprisingly, the fact that the popular vote to allow your team to pass wasn’t honoured hasn’t sat well with the good people of Floor 109. It seems that some citizens are responding fairly… violently to having their authority flouted. There’s fighting in the streets and in the amphitheatre itself, and newsboards are being vandalized and torn down all over the city. Some family members of the judges and administrators of the games have begun barricading themselves in the citadel to avoid the mobs and there are fires in the commercial district. It’s a huge mess.”
“Then we can’t just leave,” Bam said, his voice betraying his horror. “If people are dying now because of what I did, then—”
“Some things aren’t all about you, Jue Viole Grace,” Adris Vah Hempel interrupted. “This is a storm that’s been brewing here for a very long time, you’re just the spark that happened to set it off. The people on this floor have always been kept happy by the idea that their opinion matters, that they hold the power, but it was always only going to be a matter of time before they realized that their opinion only mattered as long as it was the one someone else wanted them to have.”
“And you’ve known this the whole time,” Bam accused, gold eyes flashing. “You manipulate these people, and you’ve knowingly benefited from this.”
He shrugged. “That’s just politics. You didn’t do such a bad job at manipulating these people, yourself, Jue Viole Grace,” he added, and Bam’s mouth closed shut. “Anyways, this will all blow over soon enough, and everything will go back to the way it’s always been.”
“If that really is the case, then what’s in it for you?” Khun asked. “I thought that those in your line of business all wanted Bam dead.”
“There is some division amongst the gamemakers, not everyone wants the exact same thing. As for assisting you, it’s simply that myself and… certain other parties wished it to be so,” the man said enigmatically. “They requested I get you out of that situation safely, and I agreed to it. I care considerably more about the continued stability of this floor than I do about helping the King settle his grudges.”
“But who—”
“It’s not important. I just ask that you remember this if you ever return to this floor with a mind to exact justice on us, Irregular.”
With that brusque farewell, Adris Vah Hempel disappeared into a narrow corridor off to the side, waving a hand behind him. “Just remember—go straight,” he repeated, and then he was gone.
“I actually think I’d like to come back here as a Ranker one day just so I can plant my fist in that guy’s smarmy face,” Anaak said.
“For once, my niece, we are in agreement,” Endorsi said, patting her head absentmindedly until Anaak lost her patience and punched her in the side.
Things weren’t exactly relaxed after that encounter, but the tension was lessened slightly now that they had some idea of where they were going and it seemed unlikely that anyone would be coming after them immediately. Low conversations punctuated the stale air, and the faintest feeling of hope that came with the knowledge that they would soon be out of here made the path ahead seem a bit less grim. Shibisu had started up a game of I-Spy, and then the sound of faint laughter and good-natured ribbing joined the rest to create a comfortable little pocket of warmth just for them.
As if pulled by a magnet, Khun soon found himself next to Bam, matching strides with him in the dark. He thought that Bam looked tired and he didn’t like the sight of the blood that stained his clothes, but he seemed to be moving alright, and Khun guessed that he’d been largely healed by the Thorn already. He would still want to look him over himself at some point, but that could wait until they were somewhere safer.
For now, Khun was just relieved to be able to look over and still see Bam beside him. He’d been so prepared for them to die together that the novelty of still being alive hadn’t quite worn off yet.
Bam’ mind was also preoccupied with similar thoughts, as Khun soon learned.
“So. We, uh. We didn’t die,” Bam admitted lowly after they’d been walking for a while. It was a simple observation, but Khun didn’t like the fact that Bam seemed unwilling to look at him as he said it.
“... No, we didn’t.”
It had seemed like a neutral enough answer to Khun when he’d said it, but Bam sighed in response, shifting uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, Khun,” he said unexpectedly, and Khun was a bit taken aback by how regretful he sounded. “I wouldn’t have… done that if I’d known it would turn out like this. I just… my head wasn’t in the right place and I really thought that I was going to die and that would be my last chance to—”
Oh. That.
Well, if that’s all it was….
“We,” Khun corrected him.
“What?”
“You thought we were going to die, and I thought so too,” Khun said, laying it out patiently. “And I kissed you back, so don’t beat yourself up about it.”
“Still… I told you I’d give you space,” Bam said, his eyes still downcast. “And since we somehow managed to survive that after all, I want you to know that I still intend to keep my word, regardless of… whatever else might have happened in there.”
Bam seemed genuinely contrite, like he was trying as hard as possible to convince Khun that he meant what he was saying. Like he thought he’d be mad. Khun felt the beginnings of a pleased smirk teasing the corners of his mouth as he casually wandered a little ways ahead of the Irregular, heart pounding out a rhythm he could practically dance to.
“Yeah, about that,” Khun said over his shoulder, careful to keep his voice neutral. “Sorry, I guess this is long overdue, but I’ve been meaning to tell you that I’m withdrawing my response to the question you asked me before. I’ve thought it over, and my new answer is ‘no.’”
“No?” Bam asked. He sounded worried, probably trying to figure out exactly which question Khun was referring to. The guilelessness in his voice made Khun simultaneously want to tease and reassure him, and the contradiction was so inherently Bam that it made him smile.
“It’s ‘no, I don’t want you to see other people,’” Khun clarified cheekily, taking mercy on him and turning back before Bam could jump to the wrong conclusion. He tentatively reached out and slid his fingers between Bam’s, marveling at how warm it was, at how natural the fit seemed now that he wasn’t too busy being distracted by their imminent demise to notice. “I’m greedy and horribly selfish, so I only want you to see me from now on… if that’s alright with you?” he trailed off, a bit of uncertainty creeping in despite his teasing tone.
It was stupid. Khun knew how Bam felt about him, had seen it proven to him over and over again, but he still couldn’t seem to kick that instinctive disbelief that there could be any hope for a good thing to happen to him.
If Bam was disappointed with his reply, however, he didn’t show it at all. He immediately lit up at Khun’s words, the concern parting like a veil to be replaced by an impossibly wide smile. His hand squeezed around Khun’s fiercely.
“It’s more than alright with me, it’s… damn, it’s everything I could hope for,” Bam said, eyes glowing as he met Khun’s, warm but burning with barely restrained joy. “As if there’s anything or anyone else in this whole Tower I’d rather look at.”
Khun had wanted to keep his cool for this. As far as cheesy lines went that one was almost unbearable, but when Bam said it, he spoke with such conviction that Khun couldn’t help but be flustered anyways. His face grew hot and he felt nervous and out of control, but in a good way, like things were proceeding too quickly for him to even begin to get a grip on but he knew he would enjoy the ride down anyways.
Bam was so, so bad for his heart.
“I know this is asking a lot of you,” Bam continued, his voice gaining some seriousness, “and I know that you’re right to be concerned about the potential scandal in the future once word gets around that we’re together, but….”
“Hush, Bam,” Khun soothed him. “We’ll deal with that problem when we get to it. I don’t know if it’s possible to create as big a scandal as a FUG Slayer Candidate making out with a member of the Ten Great Families in front of an audience of tens of thousands, but amazingly, it seems to have actually worked out for us this time.”
“So what you’re saying is, I should kiss you in public more often.”
“In your dreams, Bam,” Khun replied teasingly. “But,” he added, “that’s just in public. When it’s just us… you know, I might be willing to be convinced.”
“Really?” Bam asked, his voice hopeful as he glanced around with exaggerated slyness. The expression didn’t fit quite right on his face, and mostly just looked cute instead of sinister. He should leave that role to Khun, really. “Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re pretty much alone right now.”
“The rest of the team is barely ten paces ahead of us, Bam. That’s hardly what I’d call ‘alone.’”
“But those are our friends, they don’t count,” Bam insisted. “And anyways, you can’t tell me that you haven’t noticed that they’ve been avoiding looking our way for the entire time that we’ve been down here.”
“Hmmm,” Khun pretended to consider it. “You might have a point there.”
They leaned in closer together, and Khun subconsciously angled the Lighthouses away from them. Their lips brushed, Khun’s eyelids fluttering shut. And then….
They were rudely interrupted by a loud, insistent chime.
What is it this time? Khun huffed impatiently, ready to give the annoying twinkling sound a piece of his mind, but what he saw when he opened his eyes made him hesitate.
“Bam?” he asked, drawing back slightly in confusion as Bam summoned his Pocket and frowned at what he saw. “Bam? Is everything alright?” he tried again, not liking the dark expression that had appeared on a face that had only recently been so happy.
At Khun’s voice, however, the shadow lifted, and he was just Bam again, scratching his head sheepishly and casting a wry smile in Khun’s direction. “It’s nothing, Khun. Just… I’m getting a call. Sorry, I don’t want to interrupt but I should probably take this.”
“It’s your Master again, right?” Khun shrugged, a what-can-you-do gesture. “It’s okay Bam, take your time placating the dragon, and then we can get back to what we were doing before.”
“Promise?”
“Giving you an inch really was a mistake, you’ll always take it a mile,” Khun said, shaking his head, although he knew Bam would easily spot his fond expression. “I’ll tell the others to take a short break.”
It was a bit disappointing, Khun thought as he caught up with the others, that he and Bam had been forced to interrupt what they’d been doing, but he satisfied himself with the knowledge that there would be plenty more chances for them to do all sorts of things together from this point onward.
The odds might be against them, but they would have their time together. He’d make sure of it.
His feelings were complicated, as they always were, and he still had doubts, but for the first time in a long time, Khun felt genuinely optimistic about what the future might hold.
When he finally left the 109th Floor, he would do so without looking back.
*
The smile Bam had plastered on his face purely for Khun’s benefit dropped as soon as he deemed his Lightbearer was safely out of range. He slowly exhaled, breath hissing out from between clenched teeth as he fought to get his temper back under control.
Truthfully, he’d been barely restraining himself ever since he’d seen and recognized the caller’s name that had popped up on his Pocket, and if he’d managed to hide it well enough to fool Khun, it was likely only because of a combination of dim lighting and the fact that his friend was still fighting off the lingering effects of the drugs he’d been given earlier.
Bam had thought it was over. He hadn’t expected to have to deal with this, but just his luck—that damned woman must have memorized his number the last time they’d spoken.
Bam accepted the call, but only because he was intent on making his position clear. “You have a lot of nerve contacting me like this,” he said coldly, not even giving the caller a chance to introduce themselves. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just hang up.”
“Good day to you as well, Jue Viole Grace,” the person on the other end replied, not even a brief pause in her voice to suggest she’d been thrown off by his abrupt demands. “It’s lovely to hear your voice again. I trust you and yours are doing well?”
“No thanks to you. If you’re so eager to talk, just say the word and I’d be happy to come back to see you myself, in person,” Bam said in a low voice, after glancing in Khun’s direction to make sure he wouldn’t overhear—Khun didn’t need to deal with this on top of everything else. Luckily, he seemed to be in the middle of an argument with Rak and probably wouldn’t notice if Jahad himself popped into existence in front of him. “Now that I think of it, I do have some unfinished business with you that I wouldn’t mind addressing.”
“Oh, spare me the threats, Slayer Candidate—we’re far past the point where you’d need them. Once you arrive at the next floor you’ll be well out of my reach once and for all, and I haven’t survived this long not knowing how to recognize when I’m beaten. This is the last you’ll hear from me, that much I can promise.”
“What do you want, then?”
“Oh, so many things, Jue Viole Grace. Power, respect, a way off this damned floor once and for all, or maybe just a big mug of ginseng tea. It’s practically impossible to get here, you know, and one cannot survive on barley water alone.”
Bam bristled at the mockery in her tone. If she’d called just to taunt him, then he’d—
“... But that’s neither here nor there,” she continued, with the air of a housewife discarding a sheet that had become too worn for use, or a plotter moving on from a scheme that had proven fruitless. “From you, Jue Viole Grace, I’ll ask only one thing: look after him.”
Bam clenched his teeth, anger making his head buzz at the sheer hypocrisy of her request.
“... After everything you did—after everything you tried to do to us, what gives you the right to ask me for something like that?” he demanded. “Are you going to try and convince me that you cared about him all along, that you’ve only ever had his best interests at heart? How could you possibly expect me to believe you?”
“I can’t imagine anything more tedious than trying to convince you of anything you’ve already made up your mind not to believe, Slayer Candidate,” Bernice said wearily. “Think whatever you’d like. As you might imagine, I’m slightly preoccupied with problems of my own at the moment, so I won’t waste my time with this. Unless I’ve read you completely wrong then I believe you will honour my request, so I’m satisfied with that.”
“I will, but only because it’s him, not because you asked me to.”
“I don’t care about what excuse you give yourself so long as you do it,” she said, her voice sharpening to a point. “There are monsters on the upper floors far worse than me, and before your story is done you might wish you’d let him go safely back to his family when you had the chance. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“We’ll be fine, although I appreciate the concern.”
“Of course. Best of luck on the final stages of your climb, Jue Viole Grace. I don’t doubt you’ll need it.”
The call cut off, and Bam was struck with the overwhelming sense that even if he attempted to contact that same number again in the future, he would be greeted by nothing but static.
Goodbye, Khun Bernice, he thought, silently giving voice to the farewell he hadn’t uttered.
He couldn’t help but wonder just what those words would have meant to Khun. Would he be relieved that it was finally over? Alarmed that a person who’d betrayed him had been able to contact Bam so easily even now? Or would he be sad—it wasn’t everyday, after all, that Khun met someone with the wit to keep up with him. Bam didn’t know Bernice at all in the end, and as to what the nature of their relationship had really been, he could only guess.
But he knew Khun, and understood that his feelings on her were bound to be complicated. He liked to think that it had meant something, that in the end Bernice had chosen to contact Bam one last time for no other reason than to ask him to look after Khun.
But just as he knew Khun, however, Khun also knew Bam. This fact was made especially clear when Bam joined up with the group again and, despite the bustle of their teammates grumbling as they got ready to be on their way once more, Khun’s gaze immediately snapped to him, noticing at a glance just how unsettled he was. Letting the others go in front of him, Khun fell back to join Bam at the rear of the party once more.
“Tough conversation?” he asked quietly, running his fingers through Bam’s bangs in a comforting gesture. He started out tentatively, like he wasn’t sure what he was doing or if the gesture would be welcomed, but quickly gained confidence as Bam sighed and leaned heavily into his touch.
“Sort of,” Bam said, turning his head until his cheek was cradled in Khun’s palm. Khun seemed momentarily surprised at the change in position but didn’t move away.
“Want to talk about it?” he asked, voice dropping lower.
Khun’s blue eyes—the very same ones that Bam had heard referred to many times as cold—were so wide and soft at that moment. It was a marvel and a crime, he thought, that someone could be so wonderful and not even realize it.
But they’d promised to be honest with each other, and the road ahead of them was long. Bam planned to spend every second of that time convincing him.
“Yeah,” Bam said eventually. He dropped a kiss into that palm and gently removed it from his face. He didn’t let go, however, instead allowing their joined hands to drop down and swing between them. “But later. Let’s get off this floor first, and then I’ll tell you everything.”
One more promise, as quick and easy as breathing, and hand-in-hand they walked off into the future.
Finis