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evergreen-dryad · 4 years ago

Text

begin again.

[day 6 - eyes/dreams]

They are in the golden field of grass again, out on the test floor of Evankhell.

The sky blazes blue, blue above them — it takes a while for Baam to remember it is an artificial sky, and it is the ceiling he is looking at. It always takes time for Baam to realise, so it seems. He knows, because he can see it in the way Baam looks around, and the little jolt of realisation that comes when his shoulders shift, and his wide eyes stop to a point slightly above them, instead of soaking it all in.

Khun looks at him, and feels his chest grow.

This is how he imagines Baam arriving. A Baam that has come back to life, fully intact as if nothing had happened. Across the field, he starts running.

Strange he can't imagine Baam anywhere else, but this place echoes of him — a sea of gold, and the forever blue of the sky stretching on.

"Baam," he breathes, name barely curling past his mouth. He can't hear him, he's still some distance away — sitting up, breaking off a bit of the tall grass to taste —

And then the announcement breaks. Khun barely hears it — after all, he knows it by heart. His heartbeat loud in his head.

He has to make it to him this time.

Baam, scrambling for the Black March, standing. Running, but with the distinct black-red of his clothes, it's only a matter of time before someone sights him as an easy kill.

"BAAM." The shout explodes out of him, surprising even him. Baam turns around, alarm in his entire stance, too shaky to even hold a sword let alone a legendary needle properly. Golden eyes look at him, pull him in, and Khun—

—feels the world fall away. It's just the two of them, in this moment of time.

Baam smiles, a tremulous thing. There is knowledge in his eyes, and grief. He feels it pull at his gut.

And Baam says the damning words, "Is Rachel still safe with you?"

He has to stop looking at him. There's a block, a feeling in his chest that won't go away. He recognises it as — yes, he's upset.

The moment sways, like oil across water, and he starts to feel himself waking up.

He's dreaming again. He's dreaming of where they began, long ago in a golden field under a fake sky, but that sky was the most beautiful Khun has ever remembered one being. He's always noted them as one may note a nicely wrought piece of architecture, but never has his mind dwelt on one.

(Blue for emotion, for horizons on the morrow. Always far away.)

Not when the boy he loved—

(no. did he? dissonance.)

Are you sure, Aguero? His mother's voice murmurs insidiously from the corners of his mind. Did you love him, or were you trying to gain more things from him? Who is he kidding? It's ultimately his own voice, forever asking himself, did he change? Or not?

He can't admit he misses him. He stares into space, the image stuttering as he opens his eyes to darkness. Not out loud, never. Whenever he talks about him to other people, he passes it as coolly as he would every other subject.

The impulse to laugh it off catches in his throat, and the summary always comes out brief and hard, so no one would even think of prying.

No one does, anyway. At this stage, everyone in the tower has lost at least a few people. It is nothing strange.

He wonders, if no one would ever light the same feelings in his heart as Baam had. With each year, he could feel himself becoming more and more detached. Allies were allies. He checked in with Shibisu and co., and could call them friends, but didn't feel the pressing need to socialise with them more than necessary. Getting ahold of Rak was an obstacle in of itself, so the conversations they had were sparse to most.

Ironically, perhaps the most he talked to, or put in the most effort for, was putting the facade on for Rachel.

With Rachel, he makes himself be gentle. The gentleness that could have gone to Baam, he dredges it up, and telegraphs the movements for her. He doesn't have to feel it to be able to do it. That has usually been how he's been able to keep winning, keep succeeding for every floor.

Rachel, of yellow eyes, slitted pupils, sallow skin. The viper in the grass that had bitten Baam's heel. Pale corn yellow that don't shine as Baam's do, not in the same way. Fool's gold.

She tells him she dreamt of Baam again. Yes, so did I. How much does she feel she needs to repeat this performance? Does she dream of Baam every night like he does? He doubts it. He really, really doubts it.

"I dreamt of him calling out to me," she says softly. She always looks at her hands when she recites these. They move minutely, fingertips aligning. "From a very dark place," she added, swallowing, as though to mask emotions. "There were fish all around him, and he spoke with their voice." She murmurs, eyes turning to the window for dramatic effect. "I think a great silvery fish had swallowed him, you see."

He doesn't see, but he supposes he can applaud her for varying up the routine. He opens his mouth, and soothing words tumble out.

He dreams of the throne in the crown game, Baam sat upon it resplendently, safely. This time, he simplifies things. This time, he takes liberties he would never have thought of before. He lovingly crowns Baam's mop of dark hair, leans against him, deposits himself in his lap like a cat in its favourite spot.

There's no place like napping in a sunspot. Khun closes his eyes, and feels warmth. The soft thigh beneath him, the slight brush of Baam's hands above him as they fidget and readjust.

The flush of his face for doing such a thing, but his eyes remain determinedly closed. He can absolutely will this blush away, damnit.

He dreams he dreams he dreams. He reconstructs times of when he was with Baam, he revisits, he redoes it in such a way he can be happy with. He could have touched him on the shoulder more. He didn't need to have focused on bickering with that ridiculous Samurai guy about his earrings, god — so instead, he turns to Baam and acts cute instead.

"Right, Baam?" He knows he's definitely a good-looking guy, courtesy of Khun genes, so just notice him more.

I'm here. You don't need to fixate on Rachel so much-

"Is Rachel happy with you?"

"I trust you, Khun-ssi."

A gentle smile that leaves Khun choking on wordless grief in the mornings.

Why is it that Baam seems to look more wide-eyed and delicate with each dream? What does Baam even look like? Is he sure of the exact contours of his face anymore? The exact hue of his eyes-?

(There were no photos taken. That damn Yu Hansung could have given them those instead of those nuisance rings, he's sure there's usable video footage somewhere in their archives.)

The shades of Baam's eyes:

Burnished, bronze, warm toffee, that gleam gold like coins, or amber in low light, like honey. Amber that Khun would allow to drip around and entrap him.

Amber that has gone away with the light, amber that is only a memory.

Nothing on the Lighthouse network too. Disappointing. He supposes he can't expect images of small fry on 2F to interest anyone.

If only they could have known Baam—

Trust Baam to never reproach him, even in the worst of his dreams where he cradles Baam's brokentornbleedingblue body. He never asks the words Khun always does to himself, everyday:

"Why didn't you save him?"

How could you have failed? How did you not take account of this? Did you underestimate Rachel? Why couldn't you have been there-

(Always: "Have you taken Rachel to see her stars yet?"

Not yet, he always answers at last, head lowered.

He never says the rest out loud: when she does, that's when I'll finally throw her off the tower. )

They do say to keep your enemies closer for a reason, he reasons as he leans in to lightly brush away Rachel's self-pitying tears, once again. They are disgustingly cold, he observes clinically. Not that fresh, hm?

Khun never gives Rachel a reason to doubt he is anything but gentle towards her.

(Khun A. A. dreams of the ways he could have saved the 25th Baam. Twenty-five nights and more, in a row.

It never changes. It begins and it ends with Rachel, bringing Baam to existence, ending his life. It begins and it ends with Baam, always asking him to look after her.

It begins and it ends with Khun Aguero Agnis, unable to look him in the eye, and tell him the truth.

What does Baam dream of? Where does he exist now? Khun doesn't believe in the afterlife, but —

—Baam should have died happy. Innocent. With no memory of what Rachel could have done to him.

If there is a god watching from the top of the tower, then Khun prays—

If pray is even the word to use — that he's happy. Perhaps even better, with no sensation or thought or memory.)

— begin again: Khun Aguero Agnis meets the 25th Baam in a golden field of grass. They become friends. They do not, and Khun passes him by, and Baam dies a bloody death early. They do not, and Khun wins for Team A, and Baam does not pass on, and Rachel leaves him behind. They do, and Khun wins for Team A, but the fiasco for Team B happens anyway and Baam finds Rachel, so they’re left behind.

begin again —

Where Jue Viole Grace sleeps, Baam emerges.

Baam dreams of Rachel, of stars and towers and being flung into darkness. Falling, from a great height, into the great dark, with no one to ever hear his voice crying out again. He dreams of a shaft of light opening into his dark world, and Rachel coming to save him once again. But no. Of course not — he wakes, and they tell him she put him here.

But he can't stop dreaming of her.

And of happier times. In the cafeteria. With the others. With Khun.

Baam dreams of blue skies and warm blue eyes, and a hand that reached out to him. Hands and words that cut through others so easily, but have always been gentle with him.

The dreams begin with Rachel, but they always end with Khun. From sunrise yellow, to deep night blue.

//or: the anime was khun's dreams of the test floor so they have more moments together. i projected my angst onto khun, so here we are. it began as a drabble, and after repurposing it for day 6 it’s still basically a long angst drabble set in canon.

...maybe i’ll rewrite it for AO3 one day. 3am brain is dead.

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