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Aguero is seven years old when Mother tells him about soulmates.
By now, he’s old enough to realize that the appendage on his back is only one half of a missing pair. He’s seen other kids his ages try to fly with it, only managing to flail wildly before crashing back down.
Mother is probably telling him now so he doesn’t try the same thing. Not that he was planning to.
“Every person is born with one wing. Their soulmate has their other wing. They can only fly if they’re together.”
“Why don’t people look for their soulmate?” Kiseia had asked. She was five, just having moved in after her mother was killed.
“They become a weakness,” Aguero says before Mother can answer. “If your soulmate gets shot out of the sky, they’re bringing you down with them.”
Mother nods approvingly. “Yes. Soulmates are a liability. You have no need for them.”
That makes sense. Aguero always keeps his one left wing folded neatly away, anyway, only looking at it in the mirror—the insides are white with barred grey-blue, the outside is a solid hue of the same grey-blue. It’s pretty, he’ll acknowledge that, but forever incomplete. Not useful to him.
“…doesn’t have a wing, though,” Kiseia is saying, and Aguero catches up to her words. She’s right. Their sister doesn’t have a wing.
“Jahad princesses candidates get them amputated when they swear off love,” Mother replies. “When they become a Princess, they can create their own wings from Shinsu. No need for a physical thing weighing them down.”
“Wow…” Kiseia breathes. “That must be a huge sacrifice.”
She’s still young. But she’ll learn it quickly enough. Maybe too quickly.
He is fourteen years old when Maria approaches him with a deal that he accepts.
And he is sixteen when his sister kills himself, and Kiseia turns on him with a knife in her hand, grabbing feathers and slicing until blade meets bone and goes though—
Khun is seventeen years old when he enters the Tower, briefcase in hand, his half-severed wing carefully tucked behind him.
Have I seen you somewhere?
Heard a wind calling names
Holding on, holding on, howling
There is a boy on the Second Floor with the Black March.
It’s not difficult to pin him down, the boy’s wings flapping fruitlessly behind him as he tries to push himself up—wait.
Wings?
There is a boy on the Second Floor with the Black March and a full pair of wings. He introduces himself as the 25th Bam, and he doesn’t seem to know anything about the Tower or soulmates. His muscles are atrophied, lacking the strength required to keep them extended. They’re in terrible shape, really—feathers are crooked and some are even already broken, and dirt and grime clings to them like he has been sleeping in a cave his whole life.
Bam informs him that this is, in fact, the case. Khun does not know how to answer that.
But he does his best to preen them the way his mother taught him, There’s nothing he can do about the broken feathers, unfortunately—those will just have to molt away on their own—but he runs his fingers through sleek bluish-grey and white feathers, smoothing out the barbs that make up each feather vane, until Bam’s wings are as neat as he can get them.
“That feels a lot better,” Bam sighs in relief. “Thank you, Khun-ssi.”
“No problem.” Khun makes a mental note to grab Bam some preening oil next time, too. The feathers are neat now, but they’re still quite dull, not to mention just generally sagging from the lack of muscle. “You need to stretch them out more. Like—” his single wing twitches, before he thinks better of it and gently takes one of Bam’s wings instead, extending it slowly. Bam winces, and it’s only because he briefly squeezes his eyes shut that he misses the way Khun’s own eyes widen at the matching pattern.
If he still had the other half of his wing, he’s sure it would be a perfect match. He drops his hold. “Like that.”
“I’ll do my best,” Bam says. Then he turns to Khun. “Do you want me to preen yours?”
To amputate a wing completely is one thing. Besides the obvious message of swearing off love, it prevents any misunderstandings and false hopes—there’s nothing to confirm or deny a soulmate. But a pinioned wing, a wing only partially amputated at the last joint, is a symbol of disgrace. Even if they find their soulmate, there would be no way for either of them to fly.
But here Khun is, having found his soulmate, who already has his full set of wings, who, with some training, can fly without a soulmate.
He gives Bam a teasing grin. “Do you even know how?”
“Um…” Bam laughs sheepishly. “I think I kind of understood the motion when you helped me…?”
“I appreciate the offer, but my wing is okay for now,” Khun declines. “I’ll let you know if I need help with them.”
He doesn’t know if Bam knows about soulmates. But he doesn’t want to be around when Bam figures it out.
(I've been) waiting for you out there
Heard the rain chanting pain
Holding on, holding on, a warning
It hasn’t escaped Bam’s notice that everyone here only has one wing.
There’s a few exceptions. Neither Endorsi nor Anak have any, and he knows Rachel never had any to start with—she never said anything about it, just that Bam was different. He tries to ask Khun, but Khun gets flighty when Bam brings it up. He doesn’t seem to like his own wing very much—Bam’s never even seen it extended.
So he asks Isu instead, who’s a lot more open to explaining, despite his surprise. “You don’t know about soulmates?”
Bam says he’s lived under a rock his entire life. Isu laughs like he’s made a joke, and Bam’s not sure what about that was funny, but the Scout does tell Bam how the one-wing soulmate system works, explains that it’s not a coincidence that both Lero-ro and Quant have a matching set and tend to stick around each other, and that Bam is definitely someone special, having two wings from the start.
“I’m surprised you asked me about this, though,” he remarks, as Bam thanks him for the information. “Khun wasn’t around?”
“He’s…” Bam hesitates. “He gets a little…weird?...when I bring up my wings. I don’t think he likes his own wing very much.”
“Fitting for his family, I suppose.” Isu shrugs. “Although with that kind of injury, it’s not like I can blame him.”
“Injury?” Bam echoes, alarmed. “His wing is injured?”
“Well…” Isu pauses. “It’s…probably not something he wants to draw attention to. But if you fold your wings, you see how the primaries—the longest outer set of feathers—are a lot longer than the rest?”
Bam nods.
“Right. Well, if you look at Khun’s wing, it’s missing those feathers. In fact, I haven’t been able to confirm it, but I think his wing’s been pinioned. I don’t think I’ve been able to make out the entire outer third of his wing at all.” Isu glances around, then back at Bam. “I think if you want to know more, you should ask him. He’s never opened his wing around any of us, not even to stretch, so I doubt it’s a happy thought for him.” He gives Bam a smile. “He seems to have a soft spot for you, though. Maybe he’ll show you.”
It took some time and it took some hope
And like a coward, I waited at home
I wrapped my hands around you in the dark
To see what happens to the heart
Bam asks eventually, because he’s a curious person, and Khun indulges him too much.
“I guess it couldn’t escape your notice forever, huh?” he sighs. “Yeah. It’s been partially amputated.”
“Oh,” Bam says. “What happened?”
“Not something I like to think about,” Khun replies bluntly. Bam’s expression falls, though, and there’s an odd sense of guilt nagging him for it. He hesitates, but offers an olive branch. “I don’t like looking at it. But if you want…you can feel it in the dark.”
“In the dark?”
“If you just want to know how it’s been cut,” Khun says. “I’ll let you feel it in the dark, so none of us have to look at it.”
Bam looks a bit nervous about it, but his curiosity wins out in the end, because he acquiesces and they turn the lights off. Khun slowly extends the remainder of his wing, trying not to shiver when Bam runs his hand over the feathers. The motion pauses for a moment, and Khun wonders if that’s it, but then he hears Bam’s own wings shift open. Bam must be comparing their wingspans. Then fingers are brushing over the broken edge.
“…Oh,” Bam says, after a long silence. “Did…did it hurt? When—um—when your wing was injured?”
“…It could’ve been worse,” Khun decides to reply. He’d deserved it, after all. Bam doesn’t seem to know what to do with that answer, but then one of his wings is wrapping carefully around Khun, pulling him close. It’s gentle with all the kindness he never earned.
Perhaps it’s only fair, then, that he doesn’t get to keep his soulmate at all.
Did I see you stand there?
When the sun burns your air
I'm with you, I'm with you, feel for you
“You’ve got two perfect wings, and you can’t even use them,” Hansung scoffs. “We’ll need to do something about that.”
“What if I like them as they are now?” Bam challenges.
Jinsung grabs one wing and yanks it back until it dislocates. Bam screams, and Jinsung snaps the bones of the other wing, two clean breaks.
“Then you would do well to lose that sentiment.” Hansung smiles. “Welcome to FUG, Jyu Viole Grace.”
And when he finally takes on the mantle of Jyu Viole Grace, and his wings heal, the first thing FUG makes him do is train his muscles for flight.
They keep him in the air with Shinsu, forcing him to maintain his weight through frantic flapping. The first month, he loses count of the amount of bones broken from slamming into the ground, wing muscles protesting against the strain. But by the second month, he can sustain his flight. By the third, he’s swooping and spinning in the air, dodging out of the way of the attacks and firing his own.
Flight is exhilarating. It would be a lot better, though, if he had someone to share it with.
He wonders if Khun knows he’s his soulmate. He must, if he’s grown up in the Tower. The lights might have been off when he showed Bam his wing, but Bam has always been able to see in the dark. It wasn’t difficult to stretch out his own wings to compare a matching set.
But Khun never said anything, and now it’s too late.
FUG dyes his feathers black. Viole wants to protest, but by now, he knows better. The chemicals burn and smell awful, but he forces himself to stay still and take it without any change in expression. Jinsung pats him on the back and calls him their little angel of death. Once Viole is finally alone, he locks himself in the bathroom and throws up, trying not to look at the tainted feathers. It was his last reminder of the times before. He understands why Khun doesn’t like his wing anymore.
He wonders if Khun would recognize him now.
And because fate is cruel that way, he finds the answer amidst a shower of flames and debris, a resounding yes as they’re torn apart once more and his view of Khun is blocked by stone and rubble.
(I've been) asking you, hide away (save me)
When the storm on your way
I'm with you, I'm with you, here for you
The first thing Bam does upon returning is to try and get all the dye off his feathers.
It’s an arduous task, and it doesn’t help that whatever they used to stain seems to be quite long-lasting. Khun walks into him in the bathroom, vigorously scrubbing, ignoring the way shafts bend and break from the force. “Bam…”
He lets Khun sit him down, take the sponge, and gently clean off the dye. It takes a long time, and it never quite cleans off completely, but soon he can see the white of his feathers again.
“They’ll replace themselves in molt eventually,” Khun says. “But I don’t want to scrub them too much and ruin them completely.”
“Thank you,” Bam says earnestly. And then, quietly, “FUG taught me how to fly.”
Khun watches the dirtied water drain. “I’d be surprised if they didn’t.”
“They also trained me to carry a lot of things in flight,” Bam adds.
Khun side-eyes him. “What are you getting at?”
“If you want to fly,” Bam offers, “I could carry you.”
Silence. Bam pretends not to notice the way Khun’s single wing twitches.
“It doesn’t have to be now,” he says, worried he’s overstepped something. “It’s just…an open offer. That’s all.”
“…I appreciate it,” Khun replies. Not a no, but clearly not a yes. He doesn’t say anything more, and Bam doesn’t add more. But he does extend a wing to cover Khun before they fall asleep.
It took some time and it took some tears
To learn the lesson of killing fears
I'm breathing out and I release the hold
To see what happens to the soul
The Hell Train, unfortunately, doesn’t exactly offer the open space needed for flight. Not to mention the constant battles and stations they need to fight through. And by the time they’re out, it’s already too late.
Bam watches Khun sleep on, looking almost peaceful in near-death, and curls his wings around himself to sleep by Khun’s side.
Waiting for rain, awaiting sunrise
Paint the shade (lying down)
Waiting for the storm for so long, alone
Khun finds him on the balcony of Yama’s battleship at night, staring up at the sky. “Bam.”
“Khun.” Bam smiles, before it turns into concern. “Is something wrong?”
“I was about to ask you that, actually,” Khun says. “You’re normally asleep by now.”
“I guess…I’m just thinking about things,” Bam admits.
Khun nudges him slightly. “Don’t put me out of a job too quickly.”
Bam laughs, before turning serious again. “I was thinking…about soulmates.”
“…Ah.” Khun tries not to flinch. “I…I thought about your offer. When you asked me after the Workshop Battle,” he clarifies, when Bam looks confused.
“If you wanted to fly?” Bam’s expression lights up, and Khun shrugs, trying to sound nonchalant about it.
“Yeah, if it’s not too much trouble…I guess I am a little curious.”
Take me up, then keep me high
Never let me go before
You teach me how to fly
Bam wraps his arms around his waist and extends his wings. They’re sleek and shiny, muscles flexing for flight. “Ready?”
Khun takes a deep breath, placing one arm on top of Bam’s, letting their hands touch. Slowly, he extends his single remnant of a wing, and Bam seems to startle a little at that, but he adjusts so Khun can stretch it out as much as he can. “Ready.”
Take me up, then keep me high
'Cause above the rain, above the clouds
It's always bright
Hurricane, come again
Lift me up, forgive me Earth
I'm going away
“You found out we were soulmates, didn’t you?” Khun asks, as they circle slowly above the battleship.
“Yeah,” Bam admits.
“When?”
“On the Second Floor. I’ve always been able to see in the dark.”
There’s a small, disbelieving laugh. “And you never said anything?”
“I didn’t know if it was something you wanted.”
Khun sighs. “I still don’t know if it is, to be honest.” Bam lands them back onto the balcony. “But…whatever this is…I do like it. I like being with you.”
Bam smiles. “Yeah. I like this too.”