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Khun slowly starts disappearing from Bam’s side. Bam would walk into the living room while heading for the kitchen, and Khun would be resting on the couch, but after Bam left the kitchen with a glass of water he was gone.
His hand still hasn’t healed. He cleans and treats it three times a day, making sure to keep the bandages sterile, but day after day passes with no sign of it getting better. He can curl his fingers slightly and pick up light things, but other than that, his right hand is essentially useless. And while he is ambidextrous, there was only so much he could do with one hand. He tried using Shinsu to heal it at one point, but the second he willed it into his scorched limb, his hand erupted in agony, and fire crept up his arm, burning more skin halfway up his forearm. Bam didn’t try again after that.
He asked Evankhell about it when she stopped by, but even she couldn’t explain why the burns weren’t healing. “I’ve only heard of it, but my assumption would be that there’s a tiny bit of flame still lodged in your hand,” she said, “and it’s keeping your injury from healing. The only way of getting it out is for the fire user to take it back.”
Well, that wouldn’t have been so bad, if it weren’t for the fact that Khun stayed out of his way as much as he could (the only time they were even in the same room for more than a minute was when Khun was discussing strategy and battle plans), and even if he wasn’t avoiding Bam, Bam knew Khun’s firefish absolutely despised him.
It’s my fault. If I hadn’t made the firefish so mad by demanding answers out of it, we wouldn’t have ended up like this. Khun is still sick, too—while he tries to hide it from Bam, Isu keeps him updated on Khun’s condition. It hasn’t improved.
One night, Isu runs into his room in a panic. Bam is awake almost immediately, the habit ingrained into him after years of training. “Isu?”
“It’s…It’s Khun,” Isu wheezes. “His fever’s really high—I think he’s a bit delirious. He keeps repeating your name. I don’t kn—”
Bam’s out of the door before the Scout has a chance to finish speaking. Even in the dark, his feet find their way to Khun’s room instinctively. Isu hovers at the doorway, letting Bam enter alone.
The Light Bearer is lying limp on his bed. The blankets are on the ground, and Khun is sweating. His eyes are closed, and his breaths are shallow heaves, but Bam can hear his name uttered over and over again, desperation clear in his voice.
“Khun?” he speaks quietly. He’s not sure if Khun will hear him, but it’s worth a try, right?
Khun stills. Blue eyes crack open, hazy and unfocused. “B-Bam?” he croaks.
“Khun.”
Bam makes to move forward, but before he can, Khun’s eyes snap open, and he rolls to the farthest edge of the bed. “Don’t come near me.”
“Khun, I’m—”
“Stay away from me,” Khun hisses harshly. His hands clench the blankets in tight fists. “You’re—” he gasps for breath. “You’re just going to get hurt.”
Bam hates this. He hates seeing Khun like this, weak and vulnerable, denying himself comfort for fear of hurting Bam. “Do you…want an ice pack?” he asks finally.
Khun swallows, and even that movement causes a wince. He slowly nods, a defeated, tired look making its way across his expression. Bam turns to grab one, but Isu speaks up, “I’ll get it.” Bam had nearly forgotten the Scout was there in the first place. Which, he supposes, means Isu’s very good at his position.
Isu comes back with the ice pack and hands it to Bam. Bam leans forward, and Khun looks like he wants to move, but the Light Bearer must have exhausted himself. The ice pack is gently laid on Khun’s forehead. It melts almost immediately.
Bam frowns. This wasn’t going to work. Maybe if he tried using Shinsu…? He didn’t have an ice Shinsu quality like Khun, but raw Shinsu was waterlike, so it would probably work? And it’s not like he’d have to touch Khun to use it, either. “Khun, I’m going to try cooling you down with Shinsu, okay?”
“No…” Khun rasps. “The fish…”
“I won’t touch you,” Bam assures him. His heart sinks as he admits it, but if that’s what it takes for him to get close to Khun, so be it. Khun looks at him with a weary gaze, but he stays still.
Bam removes the ice pack, then stretches out his hand and hovers it right over Khun’s forehead, channeling a tiny bit of Shinsu into it. He condenses it into a small bubble, and he’s about to let it drop on Khun’s forehead when suddenly the air around them heats up, dry and crackling. Khun’s eyes widen, and he opens his mouth to speak, but all Bam sees is a spark and a flicker of fire before coils of flame lash out at him, fast and deadly. The only reason it doesn’t burn his face is because Isu jerks him backwards and out of the room before either of them can react. “Bam! Stop!” He grips the Irregular tightly before he can rush back in.
In terms of strength, Bam is exponentially stronger, but he’s not going to injure Isu by pulling free. “Why…” he peeks through the doorway, and the firefish is out in its full glory, fins fluttering with ripples of reds and oranges and yellows. Its white eyes blaze in hot fury, a clear warning in its stare. The second Bam tries to enter the room again, a streak white fire nearly impales his neck.
“Bam…” Isu places a comforting hand on his shoulder. “…I’ll…go check on Khun?”
He walks into the room without an issue. Bam wants to scream.
He can’t keep standing at the doorway. Isu can’t see the firefish, he can tell—if he could, he wouldn’t be standing so close to Khun like that, murmuring quiet words that Bam can’t make out. Unable to continue watching, Bam trudges back to his room and collapses on his bed.
His dreams are filled with dances of fire and flames, swirling slowly and daintily, consuming everything in its wake.
He doesn’t see Khun anymore after that. Every time he peeks into any room the Light Bearer’s in, he has to dodge threatening jets of flame. Even their strategy meetings now can only have either Khun or Bam physically present, the other has to participate through a Lighthouse.
It’s not the same. Bam doesn’t know how long he can keep this distance from Khun. Everything feels so empty without his Light Bearer by his side. There’s no one to calm him down when he wakes up from nightmares, no one to talk away the self-deprecating thoughts that whisper you’re not strong enough, it’s your fault, you only cause everyone around you to get hurt. There’s no reassuring conversations after each battle, just more and more guilt weighing him down.
One fight, he comes back with a gash across his torso and a sprained ankle. Neither are particularly bad, but they’ll both be hindrances in a fight along with his hand. Despite all his training and talent, High Rankers are still very powerful, and Bam rarely leaves a fight without at least a scratch. The fact that his right hand is still useless just makes it worse. And now, there’s no one to heal him.
He staggers back into their ship, exhausted after the long battle, and they warp away from the battlefield. They won, but until Bam’s injuries heal, they probably won’t be fighting again soon.
Bam has nearly forgotten what it feels like to heal without any extra help. The scabbing, inflammation, the annoying itchiness. Shinsu helps, of course, but in a battle with powerful weapons and techniques, even Shinsu can’t heal everything like the firefish can. It’s unfair, Bam wants to shout, that Khun can go around healing everyone else’s wounds but his. Khun’s returned to his position as a Light Bearer, rarely wielding his ice spear anymore. It’s a lot harder to fight without him by his side.
Hansungs pulls him after everyone settles down. “Look, I know your situation with Khun is…delicate, right now.” That’s an understatement. “But you two definitely work best together. Your fighting has been…lackluster, recently.”
“…I’ll see what I can do,” is all Bam says, turning away. What can he do? He doesn’t even remember the last time he saw Khun face-to-face.
Somehow, they end up talking on opposite sides of a wall. It’s thin enough to make out each other’s voice if they speak loud enough. Unfortunately, Khun’s voice is still strained from fever, and Bam doesn’t want to push him more than he already has. Their pleasantries are mechanical and automatic, anything but emotional.
“I’ll talk to you later, Bam.”
Bam’s the one that breaks first.
“I miss you, Khun.” His voice cracks. “I—I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” A sliver of incredulity slips through Khun’s tone, and at this point, Bam is so desperate for any sort of emotion in their conversation that even disbelief is better than nothing.
“I—” Where does he even start? Sorry for not telling him about the firefish issue? Sorry for angering the fish? Sorry for trusting Rachel in the first place that led to the firefish being in Khun?
“Look, Bam.” And now Khun’s voice is just resigned. “I have an idea for how I might be able to…stop this. Trust me.”
“Really?” Bam perks up immediately. Just the thought of being able to simply touch Khun again is too tantalizing. Not to mention that he would really like to use his right hand again. “What do I need to do?”
“Nothing.” The word comes out harsh and blunt. Bam flinches; obviously, Khun doesn’t see it. “I don’t want you to do anything. Leave me alone.”
“W-What?”
“Leave. Me. Alone,” Khun demands coldly. “Stay away from me.”
“But…” Bam trails off as he hears Khun walk away. The Light Bearer’s no longer listening. “Khun…come back, please…”
Silence.
“Bam?”
“What, Isu?”
“Khun’s—”
“I don’t care what Khun’s doing,” Bam snaps back. “He told me to leave him alone.” He’s given up hope of ever getting his right hand back to a fully healed state, he just had to make do with being left-handed for the rest of his life.
He sees Isu flinch at the bitter tone, but the Scout continues nonetheless, “He’s locked himself in his room, and he’s been there for nearly an hour now without any response. My Observer detected life in there, so obviously he’s not…well, you know. But no one can get into his room but yo—”
“He probably changed his security to block me, too.” Bam’s voice starts caustic, but he can’t keep it there, and it quickly sinks into despondency. “What part of ‘leave me alone’ wasn’t clear?”
“No, it’ll work for you. I checked his security configuration, you’re still the only one with access to his room,” Isu says. “Look, I haven’t told anyone else about this, but if you aren’t going to check, I’m calling the others. I know you haven’t seen Khun much anymore, but he’s been…worrying, these last few days. If we have to break down his door, so be it.”
“…Fine.” Bam drags himself to his feet, heading towards Khun’s room.
Isu stops right before they arrive. “I think you should go in on your own. I know Khun told you to stay away, but despite everything he says, he really does care about you. He wouldn’t push you away without a good reason.”
Bam sighs, but at this point, he’s too tired to argue with Isu. He knocks on Khun’s door once, and as Isu said, no response. It is…a bit worrying. Even if he ignores the entire firefish issue, what if Khun really didn’t want to see him? What if going in would just make everything worse? Bam doesn’t know how much of their relationship was left, whatever remained was probably nothing more than tiny threads, stretched thin. Does he really want to risk rupturing the last string holding them together?
Bam stares resolutely at his feet, before he pushes the door open and shuts it behind him. He refuses to look up, to possibly meet Khun’s infuriated, or even worse, disappointed face.
It’s…very cold in this room. Way colder than it should be. Bam takes another step forward, and his foot meets ice. That’s not right.
Very, very slowly, he looks up.
In front of him is the most horrifying sight he’s ever seen. “KHUN!”
Khun is surrounded by ice spikes. Two of them are sticking through him. One pierces through his left leg, the other through his right arm. Bright, crimson blood trickles down, staining the clear ice. The firefish, for once, doesn’t blast Bam out. It’s more concerned with keeping Khun alive. But the second it starts melting through one of the spikes, Khun grits his teeth, and another one shoots out of the ground, impaling his abdomen. Bam recoils in horror. “KHUN! What are you—”
Blue Lighthouses create a shield in front of Bam, preventing him from going any further. Bam can break it easily, but he hesitates, Khun’s words from before flashing in his mind. Khun wanted to be left alone. But Khun was…suicidal? Bam couldn’t—
“I have an idea. Trust me.”
Trust? He talked about trust when this was his plan?
“You…said…” Bam is barely able to make out the words, they’re so faint, bordering on inaudible. Then he realizes Khun isn’t speaking to him; he’s speaking to the firefish. “When…this flame goes out of control…you’ll…burn everything around us…”
And? Even if Bam has absolutely no idea what’s going on, he can practically hear the firefish’s mocking tone.
“You said…us…” Khun gasps out. When the ice at his abdomen starts to thaw, he summons one more, cutting through his other leg. Bam can’t even imagine the pain he’s in right now—not only was he stabbing himself with spikes of ice, he still holds the Lighthouse barrier in front of Bam. Khun has incredible mental strength. “You…can’t survive…without a host…right?”
The firefish hisses angrily. Whatever Khun meant, he had clearly made the fish agitated.
Khun is silent for a moment, presumably listening to the fish speak. Then he laughs, a hoarse, raspy laugh, tinged with nothing but certainty. “Always.”
The ice shifts behind him, and a spike shoots towards his neck.
“KHUN!!” Bam doesn’t think before he slams his bandaged hand against the Lighthouse barrier, shattering it in one blow, his hand is in agony, but it doesn’t matter, he lunges for Khun even though he can see it all happening in slow motion—he won’t make it, the tip is just about to pierce Khun’s neck—
The firefish moves faster than them both.
It melts the ice spike into water millimeters away from Khun’s neck, the rest of the ice in the room vaporizing instantly, shrouding the boy in a fiery cocoon as it heals all his self-inflicted injuries. When it’s done, it sinks back into his body, but not before shooting one more look at Bam. Its eyes still boil with anger, but it seems almost…subdued now? Before Bam has time to figure it out, it flashes a blinding white, and Khun drops into his arms.
“Khun? Khun!” Bam doesn’t even register the fact that he’s touching Khun and nothing hurts. All he can see is the vision of Khun surrounded by spikes of ice, and the last one that was supposed to plunge into his throat.
Khun’s eyes flutter open slowly. “…Bam.” A small smile makes its way onto his face. “I told you…I had a plan, right?”
“You—” Bam’s voice cracks with relief. “You said you had an idea. An idea is not a plan!”
“Sorry, sorry.” With a bit of effort, Khun shakily stands up, and nearly collapses if not for Bam supporting him. “Guess I’m still a burden, huh?”
“You are not,” Bam snarls, surprised by the vehemence in his own voice. “You will never be a burden to me. We’re climbing this Tower together or not at all.”
Khun looks taken aback, and Bam worries for a second that he was too forceful, that Khun really hadn’t forgiven him for barging in, but then his eyes soften, and all he says is, “Okay.” When Bam stares at him longer, eyes demanding an explanation, he sighs, “I’ll promise tell you everything later. But I’m really, really tired right now.” He glances out the window; it’s nighttime.
Bam helps him to his bed, and promptly crawls in under him. “You’re a fool if you think I’ll leave you alone after this,” he mumbles. Khun is warm but not too warm, just the way he should be.
“I guess I am a fool, then,” Khun murmurs back quietly. “But if that’s what I need to be to have you, then that’s what I’ll be.”
They drift off in each other’s arms.
Khun does explain later. He explains how he realized the firefish worked like a parasite, not because it harmed the host (in most cases, it was actually the opposite), but because it needed a host to live.
“Without a host, it’s just a tiny flame that’ll die quickly,” he explains. “So the only way to get it to cooperate…”
was to make it think I would take my own life.
Bam reaches out with his bandaged hand—it’s healing now, he can tell, it no longer hurts as much as before—and places it on top of Khun’s slightly clenched fist, squeezing lightly. “I…understand…” he says finally. “But…you’re not allowed to die for me. Ever.”
Khun turns to look at him, eyes wide. “You could hear the firefish?”
“No.” Bam shakes his head. He doesn’t know how he missed it before, Khun’s devotion towards him. “But I…figured it out. I don’t…” It’s a picture that will forever be painted in his memory, the horror when he found Khun like that, limp in his own ice. “I don’t ever want to see you do something like that for me again. Promise me you won’t.”
“I can’t promise that.” Khun’s voice is weak.
“Promise me.”
“I—” Khun looked Bam in the eyes, swallowing thickly. “Okay, I promise.”
“Thank you.” Bam smiles at him, and Khun, after a second of hesitation, smiles back.
The morning light filters through the windows, and this time, Bam welcomes the warmth.
