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It starts normally enough.
The 101th Floor is well known for its breathtaking landscapes, with towering mountains and rolling plains. Little towns and small cities are built into the sides, following the sloping ground. After the hellish tests of the 100th Floor, this Floor is meant to be a break, a sort of final reprieve before every test becomes impossibly difficult.
Khun gets the team a nice place in the heart of one of said towns. It’s a little risky, being so close to the public, but it’s busy enough that most people don’t really pay attention. Besides, this makes it easier to go scouting for information. It also, inadvertently, shows the team everything they could be doing instead of scouting for information.
The first day, they just wander around the local markets. Endorsi fawns over the fancy jewelry designs of the region. Hatz finds a store selling swords and spends the entire day there. Isu drags an annoyed Anak to try some local cuisine, which Anak seems to begrudgingly enjoy. Rak sees a poster about some sort of geopark (Khun is pretty sure he was just interested in the rock on the poster), and decides he wants to go there (likely to eat said rock). Bam seems curious enough, so Khun makes the executive decision to bring the team to the geopark the next day.
It’s about as exciting as he expected, really. The sights are nice, but he’s not a geologist. He doesn’t know much about rocks beyond the basics.
The first thing Rak does upon stepping on the rocky ground is to bend down and take a huge bite out of it. “This tastes pretty good!”
Khun takes one look at the gawking park ranger and proceeds to drag the gator back before he gets another bite. “Stop being a public menace,” Khun scowls.
“It’s tasty!” Rak protests. He scoops up a bit more with his claws and tosses it at Bam. “Here, Black Turtle, try some!”
“Bam can’t eat rocks, idiot,” Khun lectures. “We’re here to look at rocks, not eat them.”
Not that the rangers would be able to do anything about it. A Slayer Candidate, two Princesses of Jahad, and a Khun Family Member. What are they going to do?
Luckily, Rak eventually harrumphs and stops trying to eat the rock, instead joining Anak on a flat rock to bask in the sun. Lauroe rolls over to them and passes out on the ground.
“Well, we’ll leave you two lovebirds to explore together,” Isu grins, wrapping an arm around Hatz, who shakes him off just as fast. “Have fun!”
“Suits me, I don’t want to be near Earrings anyway,” Hatz scoffs.
“I could say the same to you,” Khun fires back.
They have a brief glare-off before Bam and Isu drag them apart from each other. Khun is perfectly fine with that. He and Bam wander through the park together, observing all the rock formations. Khun makes a snarky comment on most of them, and Bam giggles along.
It’s only when Khun turns away briefly to stare at some park-named “Tofu Rocks” that he sees, out of the corner of his eye, Bam pull out the rock that Rak gave him and pop it into his mouth.
On its own, it’s not the strangest thing he’s seen. He knows Bam has learned about a lot of miscellaneous things by tasting them. Heck, when they met on the Second Floor, Bam tried to eat the grass. And when Isu first gave him that can of soda, he tried to eat the can after drinking its contents. Khun stopped him before he bit down, though.
So he’s about to tell Bam to spit that out right now as Bam chews down on the rock and swallows it with a gulp. “Hm, it’s a bit salty.”
“What the fuck,” is all Khun has the mind to say.
Bam jumps, looking startled at Khun’s stare. “Oh! Sorry, I’ve been told it was rude to eat rocks in front of people…? But I didn’t want to waste it, so…”
Khun blinks. Blinks again. Stares at his boyfriend, who shifts nervously under his gaze. “P…People don’t eat rocks.”
“Rak eats them.”
“Rak isn’t a person.”
Bam does not seem to take that as an argument. But instead, he points to the rock formation in the distance. “Those are the Tofu Rocks, right?”
“…Yeah. They’re named like that because erosion wore them down in those cube shapes.”
“They look a lot more tasty…”
Khun decides to ignore that comment. They continue their walk, even as his mind starts going into overdrive. Has Bam always been able to chew through stone? (That might explain why he’s always so unfazed when Rak does it). How strong are Bam’s jaws, then? How did Khun miss this before?
(And somewhere in the hidden recesses of his mind, there’s a whisper, That’s kinda hot.)
No, Khun thinks furiously, shoving that thought all the way back into the trenches where it belongs. Bam is not awakening more things in me. I refuse.
Luckily, Bam doesn’t make any other weird comments for the rest of their park exploration, and by the time they leave, Khun has just about resolved all of his dire questions in mind. And by “resolved”, he means they’re securely locked in a box in his brain with the key thrown away. He even has enough brainpower back to ask Bam, “Did you like the park?”
“Yeah! It was nice,” Bam smiles. “It was a little disappointing that none of the rocks moved, but they did have interesting shapes.”
“Rocks don’t usually move,” Khun replies, bemused, as he flicks through the pictures they took on his Lighthouse. They’re pretty well framed. Some would make nice wallpapers.
“Really? They did back in the cave I was trapped in,” Bam ponders.
Khun pauses. “Are…are you sure those were rocks?”
“Well…they felt like rocks,” Bam muses out loud.
“I don’t think they would move if they felt like rocks.”
“They also tasted like rocks.”
And with that, the box of locked questions springs back open again.