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Bam knows what it’s like, to put your life on the line. He’s trained for it, first with Jinsung Ha, now with Evankhell, and it’s drilled into his head, tattooed onto his frontal cortex— do not show weakness to your enemy. Keep your emotions in check. On the battlefield, there’s chaos at every turn, claws swiping and fangs bared, sniffing eagerly for a whiff of vulnerability. Compartmentalise your thoughts, and throw away the key.
He’d done that— stared each bloodied corpse in the eye as they flew towards the Wall. Called up tens of thousands of souls, watched them burn up into wisps of nothingness, as the glowing bow thrummed in his hands, almost alive. ‘I will share my power with you,’ Albelda had once said. Only now, two years later, did Bam resolve to use it.
‘For lending me your power… thank you.’
To protect his precious people, he will fight.
People looked up to him. As a God, as a Leader, as a moving piece, a thorn to strike Jahad down. People had demands and expectations, “You’re our God!” “Slayer candidate? He sure has guts.” “This Irregular has the power to change the Tower, just wait and see.”
With Khun, it’s different.
Bam remembers his first moments on the Floor of Test. The golden sway of sun-bleached grass, the vast expansive blue that filled the sky. Khun was there for him, with his self-satisfied smirks and snarky commentary, hand outstretched, pulling him up and beyond. Then, there’s those dark nights, haunted by the empty promise of blinking stars, stretching on until soft amber tickled the bedsheets.
But Khun… he’d be there, as a shoulder to lean on. A pillar of support. With his head-pats and one-armed hugs and his secret chocolate stash specially reserved for these moonless nights, he would play orchestral numbers from his Pocket as Bam buried his face in Khun’s pyjamas.
“Bam,” he’d murmur, and the steady surety of Khun’s voice would ground Bam in the here and now. “Bam, are you okay? You can talk to me, anytime. I’ll listen.”
And he would smile, soft around the edges, as his lighthouse bobbed innocently above them, endlessly blue.
Bam knows what it’s like, on the battlefield. He’s bottled up his emotions like an unlit Molotov cocktail, but when the Cage teleports before him, it cracks.
‘They’re safe,’ his wings tremble at the thought, ‘I can’t believe it worked.’
‘He’s safe,’ another voice whispers. ‘You protected him.’
There’s a steady whir of a ship engine. It purrs to a stop before him. Click. The latch swings open, and—
“—Bam!”
When a familiar blue-eyed man appears before him, it shatters.
It’s Khun.
Was it wrong? Burning those souls?
Khun breezes past Bam’s ‘I’m fine’ with the confidence of a best friend. “I feel like I’m bursting with power,” Bam smiles, but the corners of his lips don’t want to move. “I don’t think we’ll have a problem moving on to the next wall like this—” his voice cracks, and then that Molotov cocktail’s burst into flame.
He’s pulled in. Bam hides his face— blinks back the blurriness in his eyes, the lump in his throat. It was so light, almost weightless, the way the bow rested in his hands like it belonged there. When the souls had dissipated, one by one, he’d felt them slowly move on.
Pressed against Khun’s chest, he can hear the other man’s heartbeat, slow and steady, unfazed despite his recent brush with death. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. He sinks into it, fingers twisting around spun cotton as he breathes in Khun’s familiar scent.
He’s warm. Ever since Khun returned, he’s been running at a higher temperature than before. It reminds him of hot chocolate and kimchi beef stew, of roasted chestnuts in the middle of winter. It’s nice.
Above him, Khun is talking.
“Let’s try to think of it as a good thing.” When he speaks, Bam’s mind stills. It’s instinctive, the way Bam listens to Khun’s words, and it calms him, like watching gentle waves lap at the shoreline. “Those souls, I’m sure they lent you their powers thinking that you’d use them for a good cause.”
When the arrow fired, Bam had felt those voices disappear. “But—”
“Don’t blame yourself.” Khun continues, “You see, White’s power… Like you predicted, I revived it with the souls of the people who died in this battle. But I didn’t think about them at all, while I gathered their souls. I didn’t feel guilty either. I’m sure the same goes for White. The fact that you feel sorry for them and it hurts you so much to use their powers,” Khun pets Bam’s head in slow, steady pats, “distinguishes you from me. Distinguishes you from White.”
Khun stops petting Bam’s head, and settles with cradling the winged man against his chest. His face is hidden, and something’s sliding down his cheeks. It rolls off his face and splatters on Khun’s lighthouse, as they hover in mid-air. ‘Bam,’ the other man mouths, and there’s a light press of lips to his hair.
‘You’re different to us,’ Khun echoes what everyone else says. But, when Khun says Bam’s different, it holds an undercurrent of, ‘you’re better.’ Better than what others think. Above senseless violence, tyranny, and weaponised fear. Not Jahad. Just Bam.
“Don’t ever doubt those feelings of yours.” He patches up Bam’s worries, dusts off fallen pieces as he slots them back where they should be. He’s an expert at tidying things up— sorting out the mess of Bam’s emotional state, wiping off dirt and grime from Bam’s dishevelled visage. Because, when Khun comforts Bam, it makes him feel normal. Like he’s returning back to the days before FUG, before Hell Train and White and Kallavan and the Cage. Where he’d spend his days joking during meals, sprawled face-down on his bed as Rak shoves his face with chocolate bars, and Khun plays with his knives, flicking the sharp blade between his fingers, again and again.
Before Bam was swallowed up by the inky depths of the ocean.
Before Khun lay, unmoving, cased in glass.
Bam still dreams of it. Strands of blue slipping through his fingers as Evan murmurs his condolences. That moment when he realised, it’s not beating.
But now, he hears it.
Thu-thump.
Thu-thump.
It’s proof, that Khun is alive.
Squeezing tighter, Bam nuzzles against Khun’s chest, and a soft huff escapes from above him. “Bam,” the other man whispers, “are you okay?”
Hidden in Khun’s arms, Bam lets out a shuddering breath. “I’ll be alright.”