Archive of Our Own ^beta

There has to be more to life than this, Aguero muses to himself by the river as he reels in his fishing rod. He’d make sure of it. Perhaps she saw that in him when she approached him—kind, poised, and just enough on the right side of mysterious to capture Aguero’s limited attention span.

Of course, she was hiding something; it wouldn’t be interesting if she wasn’t.

He learns that her name is Khun Maria, and she doesn’t reveal her full hand until Aguero’s more than ready to hear her story. It’s a smart move, because it’s only then that he’s also ready to believe her.

“Aguero, you’re certain about this?”

She frames it like a question but Aguero can tell it’s meant to be a statement, affirming and nothing more. He flashes an easy smirk her way to match the gentility of her smile, both as calculating as they’re meant to be complementary.

“Yes, leave it to me.”

“And your sister?”

“If you cared for her, you wouldn’t be asking this of me,” Aguero retorts without sparing another glance at her. In return, he hears the bright chime of her laughter, purer than it has any right to be.

“Does that mean you don’t care for her, Aguero?” she questions softly.

He lowers his gaze, one hand tightening on the handle of his fishing rod. It’s a fair question, but Maria was not giving him a fair request, so there was no reason why he owed her a fair explanation. The fact he promised to fulfill the favour was enough for her.

So Aguero reels it in, nice and slow until the hook hangs over his palm, a snapper snagged onto it.

“It means,” he pauses, watching the fish squirm with a clairvoyant smile, “I care just enough.”

It’s Kiseia who has always put his sister up on a pedestal. She thinks the same as his mother, propping her up as the one who will bring their house back into Eduan’s better graces. Nevermind that Kiseia isn’t technically a part of their branch, but given her history now, it’s not as if she has much else to lose. If nothing else, Aguero can admire that kind of stupid, undying devotion. Sees it in the way she fights on his sister’s behalf without ever being asked, doing little more than to raise her reputation in advance of the Princess qualifiers.

Which, to be frank, she was always going to receive an invitation for. His mother had ensured that ages ago—with his help of course—but drumming up some noise around her name wouldn’t hurt. Perhaps some weaklings would voluntarily take themselves out of the running until the next go-around, Kiseia had mused aloud with a giggle.

Aguero, on the other hand, hadn’t thought it was a strategy worth pursuing. After all, it’s far more important to weed out the strong competitors, the ones who actually posed a threat, but he held his tongue. It was better this way, to keep their attention occupied and directed towards something else while he laid the groundwork.

A few weeks later, Aguero’s sister gets summoned to the ring, right on schedule, and it’s Kiseia that calls Aguero out on his lackluster reaction.

“You don’t seem happy at all,” she says with a frown. “What’s got you so down, Aguero?”

Aguero doesn’t bat an eye with his response. “Did you not expect her to be called? This is nothing to celebrate.”

“You’re still worried about Maria, aren’t you?”

It’s not a lie when he answers: “Yes, and you are too.”

“Not right now I’m not,” Kiseia retorts, folding her arms. “You never stop strategizing for one moment, do you?”

“That’s what mother hired me for,” Aguero says in return, finally looking up at her. Family or not, their purposes have all been carved out long ago, only this is a contract signed inked in blood. “My job only really starts now. That’s why she hasn’t thanked either of us yet.”

He doesn’t specify whether he’s talking about his mother or his sister, and Kiseia doesn’t ask. It’s the same answer anyway, a heavy one, one that binds them both.

In actuality, it isn’t all that hard to get his sister disqualified. He had decided to opt for the softer route the moment Maria questioned how much he cared for his sister. It wasn’t purely because he cared for her, but because it was the simplest way to get the job done (and being able to sidestep that question didn’t hurt either).

He was born a son of Khun, not a daughter. His feelings on the matter were complicated, an explanation that he owed no one. Which worked just as well because to be honest, he was still digesting it himself. Regardless, he knew enough, knew that his purpose in life was more than to support his sister’s ascension to princessdom. This could be deemed a rebellious phase, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Without him, she wouldn’t make it, and didn’t that just speak to the flaw of the system? The fact his loyalty was being taken as a given?

Kiseia shoves him out of the house, screaming at him while his mother remains silent, both speaking volumes on what they truly think of him. His own sister walks out the front door only to backhand him once, wordlessly, and then disappears past him without looking back. The contrast is pitch perfect on why Kiseia is his cousin, not his sister.

Aguero, to his credit, lets her hit him. He’s pragmatic, not cruel, so he chooses to give his family space. Obeying Kiseia, Aguero leaves the house, taking a nice long stroll in the opposite direction of his sister towards his usual favourite riverbend. He’s nursing his hot stinging cheek when someone in the distance catches his eye.

Beneath the darkening sky, a man that doesn’t belong here approaches, with footsteps so quiet that Aguero wouldn’t have noticed him if he wasn’t already facing that way. It’s the hair that gives it away, chestnut-brown, a dead giveaway that he’s not a Khun. It’s somewhat concerning that he’s here given all of that, alarm bells ringing in the back of his head. A mirror to when Maria had appeared before him, seeking help he didn’t realize back then that he was willing to give.

Back then, Aguero had guessed Maria’s intentions before she had revealed them. A female Khun had deliberately sought him out; there were very few likely reasons as to why. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out.

Here, however, Aguero had no idea why this man was walking towards him with such intent. He was tall, with large golden eyes and brown hair pulled into a ponytail. He sticks out like a sore thumb. Still, he had gotten past all of the Khuns’ defences—not just the basic exterior but the interior circle as well. That alone meant he was dangerous, but Aguero didn’t feel scared. There was something in his eyes, similar to Maria’s, that told Aguero that he knew exactly what he was looking for, appearing simultaneously lost and yet perfectly in place.

“Can I help you?” Aguero calls out, deciding to come out strong to gauge his reaction.

The stranger stops in his tracks and has the audacity to look, what, weirdly bashful? Then, with a lighthearted wave, he picks up his pace, breaking out into a jog towards him.

“It seems that I can,” Aguero mumbles to himself, a chill running down his spine.

He should be at least a little cautious, concerned about the unknown, especially when he knows nothing about the other party here. It’s fun to tear a challenge apart, piece by piece, but he’d need information to work with first. In this case, the only thing he has to go off of is the sense that this man is powerful, beyond powerful. And he wanted something from Aguero, something he’s unsure if he’s willing to give.

At least he has no reason for him to run; now that he’s helped Maria, now that he’s dug his own grave with his own family. It’s only a matter of time really, so why not entertain this stranger who’s come to seek him out?

“I…yes! Khun?” the stranger squeaks, stopping next to Aguero with a hopeful smile.

Aguero can’t help but laugh at his demeanour. “If you are looking for any plain old Khun, I suppose I’d do.”

“N-no, I mean, uh,” he stutters, and all of a sudden, the intense aura Aguero had sensed earlier disappears, “I was looking for you, Khun.”

“I know, you said that. You know where you are, right?” Aguero raises an eyebrow. After all, he was in a place swarming with Khuns.

Instead of agreeing, the man does a quick 360 scan despite there being no one else in sight. Then he turns his attention back to Aguero, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, his ponytail swaying a little as he does.

“I’m…not sure, actually. I’m…I’m not supposed to be here, am I.” His voice falls flat at the end, eyes widening in comically slow motion.

Aguero wrinkles his nose, sighing. “You’re lost. I don’t know how you got here and why you’re looking for a Khun, but if it’s about the upcoming Princess selections, we have nothing to tell—”

“I’m not lost! I mean, I guess I kind of am, but I was looking for you, Khun. I wanted to…to…” he bites his lip, sighing, “this is weird, isn’t it.”

“It is weird. You keep saying that, but I’ve never met you before,” argues Aguero, shutting him down. “I’m not convinced I’m the right Khun you’re after, but if you can describe him, I can track him down for you…for a price.”

“Don’t,” his voice suddenly veers steadier, forceful, sun-blazed eyes glaring at Aguero. And for whatever reason, Aguero’s half-pressed to believe him when he speaks next. “You’re Khun Aguero Agnis. I’m exactly where I want to be.”

None of this makes any sense, but that doesn’t mitigate the fact that the man is calling out his name with a confidence that seemingly came out of nowhere. Without any further information, Aguero had no way of determining if he was ally, foe, or just some lost straggler that dreamed up his name—which meant he had to fish for that information until it became no longer viable to do so.

“Okay, seems I can’t offload you to some other poor son of Eduan’s.” The man frowns at that, and Aguero has to hold back a giggle from how openly obvious his disapproval is, smeared all over his face. “So, you got my attention. Care to introduce yourself?”

“Bam,” the man answers, suddenly more upbeat, a large smile breaking across his face, “I’m Bam.”

“And what can I do for you, Bam?”

“Oh! Uhm, I haven’t quite gotten there yet, actually…” Bam mumbles.

“Gotten there? You mean…you got lost trying to seek me out and you don’t even know what you need from me?” Aguero scoffs, torn between whether this Bam was stupid or trying to pull a quick one over him.

If not for the fact that Aguero was pretty sure that Bam broke through Khun family wards (deliberately or otherwise, both were equally dangerous in their own right) to get through to him, Aguero would be treading a lot less carefully right now. However, he was, quite frankly, stumped. Stuck. How could he offer an exchange of information when Bam couldn’t even articulate what he wanted from him?

“It’s not a…need, per se. I mean, you don’t have to do anything for me…unless you want to—not that you have to!” Bam babbles, tripping over his words like a lost child.

“Why would I want to do anything for you?” Aguero retorts, halfway to giving up on playing coy. Seems it wouldn’t get him anywhere at this rate. “I don’t owe you anything. We’ve only just met.”

“R-right. We just met.”

“But you think you know me.”

“I do know you.”

“Well, I don’t remember meeting you, and I have a damn good memory,” Aguero argues with a firm smirk. “So, Bam, are you a time traveler? Am I in a dream? A floor test exploring my past, perhaps? Maybe you’re assessing me right now. Is that why you’re keeping so tight-lipped?”

Bam’s jaw half-drops, waving one hand wildly in front of his face in denial.

“No! I could never be a floor director or an administrator,” he says with a hiccup of a smile, “I think you’d be pretty good at it though, Khun, but you’d never agree to do it long-term.”

Aguero’s first instinct is to agree with Bam’s assessment. He’s always thought so too, that he might get a kick out of that. That interest would wane of course, once the monotony and bureaucracy of it all settles in. But he wouldn’t mind crafting entertaining exams and assessing Regulars’ potentials for a couple of years.

The realization comes with a douse of cold water. Bam, a man he’s met for less than ten minutes, has read him (if it is indeed, him; he’s still unconvinced on that front) in an uncomfortably thorough manner—and Aguero isn’t used to being the one read. Which means he certainly isn’t going to confirm Bam’s wild shot in the dark.

So he says this instead: “What makes you say that? I haven’t even been chosen as a Regular yet.”

“You will be,” Bam answers confidently, his smile upturning proud.

Aguero’s stomach twists a little uncomfortably at the sight, unsure if he should feel satisfied or just plain weirded out at the degree of Bam’s assurance in him. He’d be right, of course, an easy thing to bet on, but still. It was too intimate, too close.

“Well, if you’re just here to tell me things you know from this other version of myself—”

“—it’s not another version—!”

“Sorry,” Aguero walks back his previous assertion, not apologetic at all as he clicks his tongue, “my future self, then.”

Bam opens his mouth to speak, and then closes it, silent.

“Ah, well, you’re not good at this lying thing either, are you,” Aguero quips, folding his arms in amusement.

“That was always more up your alley,” Bam mumbles, glancing at his shoes.

Damn. He’s not even bothering to lie about it. How in the world does Bam even survive in the Tower being such an open book? It must be some insane raw power keeping him from being taken advantage of.

“You don’t sound very happy about that,” he says flatly.

“I always preferred when you were honest with me,” replies Bam, glancing up from beneath his eyelashes, softer than before.

I’ve never been honest with anyone, thinks Aguero, but he doesn’t say that either. He doesn’t need to. If his future self has found someone to trust, then he presumes Bam’s been vetted pretty thoroughly. But that doesn’t exactly stop Aguero from questioning his own judgment silently anyway.

“Is that why you’re here? Because I wasn’t honest with you?” Aguero asks slowly.

It wouldn’t be the first time. Remembering the lies he’s fed others over the years would be a tiresome affair. As strange as this encounter has been, it has managed to somehow distract him from what sent him out here in the first place, what he had orchestrated at Maria’s behest. Another string of lies brought to fruition. He wasn’t honest with Maria either, but that didn’t matter to her if he got her to the finish line. He had the feeling that he couldn’t say the same about Bam.

Bam shakes his head, on the cusp of breaking. “I can’t tell you, it’s part of the conditions for being able to…to be here, but…” he reaches out for Aguero with one arm, as natural as breathing, his fingers closing around Aguero’s smaller wrist easily. “I’m glad I found you, Khun.”

Aguero stiffens. Bam’s hand is too warm on his skin. Too friendly, wrong, familiar, alien, unnecessary. It’s a gentle grip, not quite holding him in place, but a modicum too entitled to all the same. Bam knows him, some version of him, and Aguero can’t help but seek an ulterior motive in the line of Bam’s crescent-moon smile, the way the name ‘Khun’ is synonymous with ‘Aguero’ or ‘A.A’ on Bam’s tongue, the insinuation that they do this kind of thing all the time.

The very thought could be poisonous, a no-strings attached genuine concern, or even worse, affection. He wouldn’t survive out there with that attitude, counting on someone else. It’d be so…boring, bland, unstable, following a set of prescribed rules to a destination that he probably didn’t care for in the first place.

No, he wants to bring it all down, and there’s no place for someone clumsy and kind-hearted like Bam in it, as tempting as it might be.

He shakes Bam’s hand off, and turns on his heel before he could see Bam’s expression. “I think you should go,” Aguero murmurs, and walks away.

Bam does go, at first, but it doesn’t take him long to come back.

To be fair, neither of them have very many places to go. Bam, by Aguero’s top hypothesis, is a time traveler that has unfinished business with an Aguero of the future, or Bam’s present, or whatever hell time paradigm they seem to be operating on. By common time-travel rules, Bam should be tied to him in some way, which would explain why he starts making more frequent appearances when Aguero has a moment alone. These days, that’s almost all the time.

Bam may not confess to the method in which he arrived within Khun family borders, but he seems to handle himself fine while here despite having nowhere to stay or go. The only thing Aguero knows for sure is that Bam makes himself known for Aguero’s sake only, whether that’s by the riverside, the old clearings, or the gates by Eduan’s estate.

Aguero supposes if he just never left home, then that’d be the last he’d see of Bam for a while. Except he also can’t stand the restlessness that arises from his mother’s aimless mumbles and her antipathy his way, the way his sister treats him like a specter. A part of him can’t help but despise the fact that his future self had done anything to warrant Bam to follow him to his own past.

What had Aguero done? Time travel tales were often that of warning, ill-advised attempts to change the unchangeable. If Bam had wanted to salvage things with his family, it was a little too late for that. He should’ve shown up before Maria did to take her out of the picture. In that case, Aguero’s plans would’ve been far more difficult to string together, no other easy victor to crown. Maybe it wasn’t about him; maybe it was about the next Princess of Jahad. Maybe he’s just a bystander, one that Bam just happens to be close to. Convenient.

But as it is, Maria hasn’t been by to see him. And it’s not as if Aguero misses her, stuck between wanting to see her and not wanting to hear what she has to say to him now that he’s upheld his end of the bargain.

That doesn’t prevent Aguero from waiting for her, less frequently than he used to, but in the meantime, the glimmer of hope still fails to diminish. Instead of the twirl of an ocean breeze coming to greet him, he receives the bloom of a spring sun, bundled up in the form of a man who would not leave him alone. He supposes it’s better than being subject to his mother’s vague plans turned threats or his sister’s prolonged muteness, but the flip side of all that shit is that he knew his family. As much as he distasted the way they and the Khuns as a whole operated, they were predictable. Bam, on the other hand, was predictable in a separate way. His logic was simple and sound, truly elementary in terms of deducing where his train of thought would lead to, but Aguero didn’t get his motivations for being here, which negated his ability to read Bam as a whole.

“You look upset again,” Bam pipes up, one hand propping up his chin thoughtfully towards Aguero.

“And that upsets you too,” Aguero deduces by his body language, the noticeable downturn of his tone.

“Is that weird?”

“Not for most people,” says Aguero, shaking his head. “You care about how others feel. Empathy. It’s generally a trait that others look kindly upon.”

Bam lets out a chuckle under his breath, specks of gold dancing in his eyes. “You don’t believe that, though.”

“No. I believe it’s a good trait when it’s used right. You’re too obvious.”

“Obvious how?”

Aguero sighs. “I’m not going to spell it out for you, Bam.”

“If you do, maybe I’ll leave you alone,” he counters, inching closer with a boyish grin on his face. Aguero gapes at him for a split second before recovering, clearing his throat. “What, you’re upset that I’m here, aren’t you? I’ve already told you, Khun. I can’t go yet.”

“You make it sound like you’re a ghost stuck here haunting me until I fulfill your final wish,” Aguero says dismissively.

Bam beams.

“Kind of! Spell it out for me, please?”

He’s the younger one here by far, and yet it’s Bam who is literally pouting with wide, puppy-like eyes, begging for something that no self-respecting Khun would say yes to. Utterly ridiculous. If anyone could get their way just by virtue of whining and playing up their cute side, then Aguero would’ve chosen to polish a whole other set of skills. Still, any possibility of getting Bam off his back would be a welcomed addition to his mess of a life.

“You know me, in some form in the future—”

“—I never said that,” Bam cuts in, his pout sinking even deeper. Great.

“Whatever it is, you should know that this isn’t a great time for me,” Aguero explains gruffly, biting his bottom lip.

“I do,” Bam says, earnest and soft. One of his hands reaches out again and the contact makes a lasting sting, but Aguero’s too caught up on the sincerity of Bam’s words to take note of what that means.

“What do you mean by that, Bam?”

Bam has the decency to look bashful, like he’s given something important away. “I mean, I’m probably here for a reason. If you’re right…”

“If I’m right,” Aguero repeats dumbly, rolling his eyes.

“Right,” Bam says, half-cheerily, “then, I met you at this time for a reason. It must be an important time in your life.”

Aguero swallows quietly, squeezing one hand into a fist. Yeah, that’s putting things mildly. He betrayed his family, allowing Maria to move on to the final stage of the Princess selections at the expense of his sister’s candidacy, and now the entirety of the Agnis branch was at risk of expulsion. Risk was probably not the right word for it; no family of a failed Princess candidate with the last name Khun ever got a second chance. It was only a matter of time before their home was given away to another one of Eduan’s wives, when they’re cast aside and tossed outside of Eduan’s main circle of residences, reserved for those he deems special and worthy.

Chances are low, but Aguero really hopes he gets called up to be a Regular before then.

“Something like that,” he eventually mutters.

“Wanna talk about it?” Bam squeezes lightly on his hand, and Aguero tenses under the touch, stomach swimming with unease.

“No, you’re not such awful company that I need you out of my hair, actually,” Aguero lies, playing up a perfectly painted smirk. “Follow me around, ask me shit, I don’t care. Just not today.” He dusts himself off and slips his hand out from beneath Bam’s palm, still tingling when he stands to take his leave.

“Is that an invitation, Khun?” Bam calls out behind him, a hint of amusement in his voice.

At least he’s smart, deciphering Aguero’s actions for what they are, because despite the teasing, no sound of footsteps follow.

“You’re really good at this, Khun.”

“It’s not hard. You just have to have patience and a lot of time on your hands.”

“And you have both?”

“I multitask.” Aguero shrugs, reeling in his fishing rod as if on auto-pilot. A medium-sized trout squirms his hook as it comes in, its multicolour scales catching the light. Aguero holds onto it for a few seconds longer than he normally would’ve before letting it go.

“With?”

 “Thinking,” Aguero answers flatly. “It’s a good way to compartmentalize.”

“Most people I know find fishing frustrating,” Bam says.

“They’re not good at this, then,” Aguero responds, a small grin breaking across his face. “Luckily, fish like me.”

There’s a pause before Bam replies, long enough that it makes Aguero turn his chin to face him. Somewhere along the way, he’s gotten used to the rhythm of Bam’s sentences: a thoughtful comment here, a chime of laughter there. He always seems to read Aguero’s beats too, stepwise.

“Bam?”

“It’s not luck,” Bam says, a touch of finality in his tone.

Serious is a nice look on him, Aguero decides. His usual face was fine, more on the sweet, clueless side. There’s nothing wrong with that, except in a situation where he’s trying to convince Aguero of his crazy story (or lack thereof). The serious look helps Aguero entertain his theory a little bit more.

“And what makes you so sure?”

Bam shrugs, his features softening immediately at the follow-up question his way.

“It’s you, Khun. You’ve always made your own luck.”

It’s little sprinkles like that which bring Aguero glimpses into this other version of himself. Things like “sometimes I think you care more for your hair than your lighthouses” and “I can count on one hand the number of times your plans have failed” and “you’re far kinder than you give yourself credit for”. It’s hard not to think about “you never said you lived in such a big and beautiful place all alone” and “even at this age, you never stop thinking, do you?” and “don’t. don’t take that on too.”

On the flip side, whenever he recalls his Khun’s brilliant (or idiotic, he’d argue) stunts, Bam is noticeably more optimistic, a flash more confident, recounting feats that Aguero unfortunately found recklessly impressive.

Their relationship must be close, he concludes. It resides in the way Bam’s voice softens when he tells Aguero he’s more than his family name, even as he speaks it full of fondness. It’s how Bam stammers when he utters ‘Aguero’, foreign yet not brand new on his tongue. It’s the silence Bam allows him when he says Maria’s name for the first time, all tentative, and for a split second, Aguero’s nearly compelled to tell him the truth. That Maria came right when he needed to be found—and how she turned out to be exactly who he needed to find in return. That he doesn’t regret the looming cloud over the Agnis branch every single day they’re not formally forsaken, not because they deserve to be, but because the system is shit and they should experience that first-hand. That he wanted his sister to lose, because he’d be stuck in her shadow forever if she was crowned a Princess of Jahad, a grave that could not be undug.

Instead, he says this.

“Maria’s not coming back, if that’s what you wanted to hear.”

Bam frowns, setting aside his own fishing rod. Aguero doesn’t even bother telling him that’s a bad idea anymore.

“It’s never mattered what I want to hear. I’m not one of your chess pieces, Khun. You should tell me the truth.”

“Is that why you’re here? To reveal the truth about one of my deep, dark secrets?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was!”

“Then I guess you’ll have to be stuck here a while longer.”

“That’s fine with me. It’s you that my presence bothers, Khun,” Bam says, sounding—oh geez—butthurt, like a kid. Seriously?

“It doesn’t—” Aguero argues but then cuts himself off, one hand frozen on his fishing rod. He coughs, looking away with a strange tingling sensation in his chest. Why is Bam’s expression getting to him? It’s not like Aguero to care about someone’s feelings being hurt because of something he said or did.

“It’s not your presence that bothers me. It’s everything else that does,” he settles for at last, sighing.

An innocent head tilt. “What do you mean?”

A fish bites, but Aguero doesn’t reel it in. “You care about me, and I don’t feel like, like,” like I deserve it. “It isn’t me, the person you call your best friend. I’m just a placeholder, Bam.”

“That’s not true, and even if it was, that doesn’t matter!” he exclaims, gesturing as if Aguero’s spoken nonsensically.

“How could it not matter?”

“I mean, you’re going through a rough patch. I can’t just abandon you like that.”

Aguero blinks dumbly a few times before throwing his head back and laughing. In the process, he ends up letting go of his fishing rod completely, abandoning the pretense of fishing whenever Bam got a little too personal. “And what makes you say that?”

“I brought up Maria, didn’t I?” Bam shoots back, a harder bite to his words. “You said she’s not coming back. That means she’s already gotten what she needed from you. Unless you need something from her.”

“So, I told you that much, huh,” Aguero mutters, cursing his future self’s stupid level of transparency.

“Yes. Do you believe me when I say that I know you now?”

Aguero shakes his head, his lips a tight line. “You don’t, and this isn’t a rough patch. Just a means to an end. A long one, but still.”

“No—” Bam cries out. He seems shocked at his own raised voice for a moment, but then recovers. His eyebrows are furrowed when he speaks again, full of concern. “You’re good at internalizing things, Khun. You never ask for help and you always take on too much and I’m pretty sure you’ve been in a rough patch ever since I’ve known you. You just pretend it isn’t a big deal—”

“Stop talking like you know me!” Aguero interrupts in a shout, abruptly rising to his feet. Bam’s eyes are blown wide in response, marigold-sun before an eclipse, mouth half hanging open. The hurt is so palpable on his face that guilt crawls up Aguero’s spine before he even has a chance to suppress it. Fuck. That’s new. He pushes through it anyway.

“You don’t know me. I’m fine. And it’s fine if Maria never comes back. It’d be fine if you never come back too.”

The last part is definitely forced, but Aguero can’t tell if Bam can tell that part too when he nods pathetically, shinsu aura deflating as he too gets to his feet. His hands are hanging weakly by his sides, fingers twitching as if seeking comfort, as if Aguero was going to give him a hug despite sending him away.

“It’s not the same, but I know you enough to not believe you by now, Aguero,” Bam says, and with a shake of his head, he’s gone.

The problem with Bam is that he makes Aguero feel bad over things that shouldn’t be an issue. Bam has clearly not been raised in the Tower based off the way he talks about fairness and friendship and loyalty, which have their own place—but certainly not above pragmatism, surety, success—all things that must be earned. He has none of that rapport with Bam, not personally, and yet that doesn’t mitigate Bam from acting as if they mean something to each other.

Trust is fool’s gold, and Aguero’s never considered himself a fool. Hence, he has no reason to believe anything Bam’s been saying to him, has no reason to ask him to stick around.

So why in the world does he feel so guilty?

When Bam eventually appears again, two days later, Aguero doesn’t apologize and Bam doesn’t ask him to. They manage to talk about it all the same.

“I’ve been waiting, you know, for the thing that will give me license to leave,” Bam starts to say, almost whimsical. “I thought you telling me to leave would do the trick, actually.”

“I’ve said that more than once, Bam.”

“Seriously, though. You meant it that day.”

“And what, you listen to every word your Khun says to you?”

Bam smiles, his eyes flickering from Aguero’s earring to his lips before he chuckles. “You wish. I mean, you do enjoy ordering people around, and most of the time we listen because we know it’s the right thing to do.”

“Most of the time. You mean he gets it wrong sometimes too, huh?”

“He always thinks he’s right. Sometimes we disagree, because right is subjective. Win the battle or win the war? One life for a strategic advantage? We…don’t always see eye to eye on those.”

Aguero rolls his eyes, exhaling audibly.

“Let me guess. You want to save everyone, even when it makes no sense to.”

“I’d like to think it always makes sense to save someone,” Bam argues, frowning.

“Then they should never be in a position to require saving,” Aguero says in return. “You have to pick and fight your battles for the greater end, Bam.”

“And I’d tell you I want to win them all. You’d then tell me how that’s impossible, but I’d watch you work miracles at your own expense anyway,” says Bam, sounding a lifetime too far away. “We can’t save everyone, and not all lives are equal to us, but I’d never want to not try.”

Aguero stiffens. “That’s idealism you should’ve grown out of decades ago.”

“You said that to me before too,” Bam says, smiling like it’s all just a joke rather than presumed history. “I fail. A lot. But I still try.”

Four days later, the Agnis branch gets the official notice that they will be displaced from their current residence, marking the end of their tenure as part of the Khun family main branch.

Kiseia moves out before she’s even asked to, her room already wiped clean. Aguero doesn’t bother at all, all his valuables gathered in a hidden box that he’s kept safe elsewhere. If they want to kick him out, the least they can do is all the clean-up too, be reminded that someone lived here before them, that a haphazard mess might be their fate as well when their own Princess candidate fails.

His mother gives them curt directions to their new home, but none of them depart together. His sister excuses herself, saying she has no belongings she wants to take with her, but she’d like to look around the main branch one last time and pay her respects. Aguero leaves before he’s asked any more questions he’d rather not answer.

By sundown, everything’s a done deal. Their new home is a lot smaller, plainer, creaky floorboards and washed-out colours. He can already sense his mother’s displeasure growing in the limited space. It spreads as she paces the hallway, cautious glances towards the door awaiting her daughter’s return.

Midnight strikes; still no word.

An eerie feeling settles into Aguero’s gut then, one that stays with him until the sun rises and the news gets delivered to their front door.

The news of his sister’s death is not so much lifechanging as it is numbing. It’s likely that he’s been ready for this in some form ever since he said yes to Maria’s request. She had asked him then if he cared for her; he said he cared just enough. By actively deciding to help her enemy, Aguero knew this was a possible outcome, no matter how remote.

Still, he should care more that she took her own life.

He does—and yet, it didn’t feel real. That she will never live in this new home of theirs, having voluntarily left herself behind in the highest echelon that she could reach. That she handled her own failure by quitting. That she had harboured these thoughts ever since Maria beat her—not fair and square, but as fair as the Tower allows.

That night, Aguero finds himself a new spot, a murky corner-bend where lake meets forest. He should be surprised when Bam pops out behind a tree like the serial stalker he is, but Aguero merely sighs when he sees him.

“Were you waiting for this?”

Bam softens his way, a profound sadness layered on his face.

“Were you?”

Aguero’s shoulder slump and he leans back, hazily staring off into the darkening skies.

“We were never going to be the same after that. I suppose I should be grateful she didn’t drag it out the way my mother is right now.”

“That’s not what…I mean, I’m sorry this happened to you, but you don’t seem very sorry yourself. I don’t want to presume.”

Aguero blinks at him. “I thought you would’ve been all like ‘don’t say that, Khun’, or ‘you’ve gotten to acceptance awfully quick’. What’s the matter? You’ve given up trying to influence me to be more like your Khun?”

Bam blushes, another wayward look that all but confirms Aguero’s suspicions.

“That’s not…I may not have been entirely truthful about why I got sent here,” he says slowly, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

“…out with it.”

“I really shouldn’t—”

“Bam,” Aguero cuts him off bluntly, clicking his tongue. “You know me. I’m excellent at compartmentalizing. She’s not coming back.” The words echo in the dark, a solemn reminder. “But you do, you keep coming back. Tell me why. Please.”

Bam swallows.

“I…asked for the chance to meet you during a time before you met me.”

There must be a more graceful way to handle that revelation—more confirmation than ground-breaking—but Aguero can’t help but goggle at the confession.

“You—for me? Why would you…?”

“Aguero,” Bam says gently, his given name too tender to be a lie, “even after all we’ve been through, you still refuse to open up. We’ve lived fine that way for a long time, I’ve always trusted you kept secrets for a reason, but it’s never quite felt fair to me. You know everything about me, shouldered my pain, fought my wars. I wanted to be there for you too. I swear I never thought I’d do so this way, but it just so happened that someone else shared my concerns and thought I deserved the chance to come find you here. So…I took her up on it.”

The explanation is even more ridiculous said out loud than Aguero could’ve imagined.

“You asked to be sent back in time in order to…get to know me better? You’re kidding, right?”

“You’re a really hard person to get to know!”

“So what, you waited until my family crumbled around me to see how I’d react?”

“You always brushed it off and said you’re good at handling disasters. I thought you were exaggerating.”

“And you were never trying to change me. Is it even possible to? This is real, right?”

Bam nods. “She said you wouldn’t remember me the moment I left. If I wanted to make an impression, it had to be strong and it had to not involve remembering me as a person. Otherwise you’d just forget when I left.”

“So, what kind of impression were you trying to make?” Aguero asks.

Bam’s lips curl up into a smile at the question.

“I wasn’t. You came to look for me and you stopped chasing me away. That was good enough for me, really. Like I said, I wanted to be here for you, even when no one else would be.”

Aguero snorts.

“I’m fine as I am. Being an outcast just affords you more opportunities to do as you please.”

“But you can do that anyway. You always accomplish amazing things. It’s just…it’s a lonely way to live, don’t you think?”

“Means to an end.”

“And your end is?”

Aguero laughs hollowly. “Shouldn’t you know that already?”

Bam shakes his head, somewhat saddened at the confession. “You tend to change your mind on that whenever it’s convenient for you, and I mean that in a strategic way. You’re just…you’re awfully hard to read. I know you, but you never look at yourself the same way. You really are so much kinder than you want to admit out loud, as if it’s a weakness. You’re terribly observant, but you only show that off when it suits you to.”

“That’s just common sense, Bam.”

“No, it’s not only that. You like to put on layers upon layers and you’re always inventing new ones so no one can ever have all of you.” He pauses, taking that in for a moment with a deep breath. “You never reach out for help, so we have to reach out to you. It doesn’t matter that you’d push us away because I—I need you to know that the offer is there, always, here, now, forever. But I didn’t want it to seem like…”

“Like what, pity?” Aguero bites out.

“Yeah,” Bam says in a smaller voice. “It’s okay, though. I wish someone had reached out to me when I was alone in the cave. I wish that when I looked that lost that someone would’ve stopped to give me a hand that I could trust. I wanted to be that person for you, Khun.”

The defensiveness and pain of the past day, months, years vanish for a split second when he tilts his chin up to look at Bam, half his face illuminated by the moon. It seems ridiculous that he was saying such a thing, but Bam’s been horrendously earnest this whole time, even when he was concealing the truth of why he was here. It was hard not to trust him; perhaps Aguero’s trusted him all along.

“You came here just to…to comfort me?”

“I don’t know if I did that great a job, but you’ve always enjoyed my company, even when we talked about nothing, so…I figured it was worth a shot?”

“Bam.”

“Yes…?”

“You’re unbelievable. How are you still alive, being this naïve?”

Bam frowns. “I’ve had to make sacrifices. Too many of them. But I promised that I’d never sacrifice you, Khun.”

“Why not? What is it about me—?”

“I, oh—I’m sorry, I have to go.”

Aguero raises one hand in protest. “Hey, no, not while you’re just beginning to spill the truth, Bam. You can’t just say—”

“Sorry, A-Aguero,” Bam stutters, one hand sweeping his bangs aside, flashing an apologetic smile his way. His side profile dims beneath the moonlight, reflection disappearing into the rippling surface of the water. “It seems I’ve said too much, so she’s pulling me back. I really didn’t want to be dishonest with you, but you saw right through me anyway. Some things never change, huh.”

“Wait, w-wait, Bam, hey Bam, come back! Come…back.”

He looks around, a sense of loss befalling him like a casted shadow. He had been looking for someone, asking someone to return, but…but who?

He’s a pariah, an outcast. No one would listen to him; no one would look for him. So why did he feel so strongly just now to grab someone else’s attention, to grab someone’s hand mid-motion?

To reach out to someone?

“I’m glad it’s you that he picked, you know? He had a tough childhood too. You suit him.”

Bam frowns. “You say that, but I don’t even know why you’re being nice to me. He’s never even told me the deal between you two.”

Maria laughs. “Oh, and he probably won’t. If he was here right now—”

“—if he was here right now, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Right. But we are, so did you want to ask me something, Bam?”

“I’d rather hear it from him,” Bam sighs. “But I don’t even know how to go about it. He’s really, really good at talking his way out of arguments.”

Maria doesn’t look surprised at all at his admission. Instead, she winks at him.

“Want to go behind his back, then? Not give him a chance to weasel out of…well, kind of.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, I still owe him a favour,” Maria muses, laughing fondly at the memory. “I don’t suppose he’d count this as it.”

“You do? See, that’s the problem,” Bam mumbles with a pout, making Maria’s eyes twinkle again. “What’s ‘this’ that you’re talking about?”

“There’s something I can do on this floor specifically to send you back so you can talk with Aguero as he was then. You can’t explain why you’re there and who you really are in relation to him, and you can stay until he’s summoned to be a Regular. However, if you tell him the truth enough that he believes it, then I’ll have to sever the connection. He can’t be allowed to know enough that he’ll remember you before you’ve even met.”

“That’s a paradox, isn’t it?”

“Yes, a lot of things are. This is to prevent that from happening.”

“But you said he wouldn’t remember me.”

“Not unless you leave a lasting impression. It can’t be related to who you are though, because he won’t remember you.”

“That’s…vague and confusing.”

Maria grins, clearly pleased with herself. “The point isn’t to leave a lasting impression, but maybe you’ll impart something good on him while you’re there. He kind of needs it.”

“That’s not encouraging at all to hear.”

“Perhaps, but wouldn’t you like to find out for yourself?”

Aguero raids Eduan’s personal inventory, hunting for weapons and trinkets and luxuries, but he fails to leave with the one thing he’s been seeking. It’s been a while, and he’s made sure to keep himself busy in the aftermath of his family’s political demise, but there still remains a nagging curiosity within him.

The goal hasn’t changed. He’s gained enough notoriety to talk and have people listen, rumours fueling his intellect and skill as he builds up his plan to collapse Eduan’s empire, perhaps the entire system as it stands. He’s not strong enough in his current state. He’d need help. And with that, he’d need to figure out how to obtain manpower and an absolute level of loyalty that he’s never garnered in the Khun Estate. It’s certainly tricky, what with everyone manipulating everyone else behind their backs, vying for something or another that they refuse to admit they desire. Aguero is just one of them, armed with grander dreams and nothing to lose.

Now, power is finicky and hard to come across, especially in its infancy. As is trust. So when he meets a boy in a field carrying the Black March, seemingly lost and alone and perfectly ripe to be killed, Aguero’s first thought is that the Black March could be key to his revolution. A weapon fitting of bargaining, unlocking numerous doors of his master plan years ahead of schedule.

The boy will die and Aguero will take his weapon and that’ll be that. He was called to be a Regular this time for a reason. Perfect timing.

But that boy was summoned too. He had the Black March, and he was called here in his own right. It might be a trick, but he genuinely looked as if he had not a clue why he was here, an open book full of potential. Maybe Aguero owed it to himself to explore that, to stick around and see how things unfold. It felt strangely right, to try.

So instead of leading the boy to his death, Aguero reaches out a hand with a smile and introduces himself to one Twenty-Fifth Bam.

And the rest, as they say, comes full circle.