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Once, Kiseia bit his hand so hard that she left teeth marks.
The Khun family traits were cold-blood and intelligence, but Kiseia had always carried a bit of poison in her too, in her slow smiles and her sharp gaze. The only time when she softened was when she was with Sophia.
He had grinned at her, her least-favorite smile, cold, no color, all condescending mockery. He let his hand hang limply in her jaws until she let go and spat out blood.
His hand stung, but a small child - even one from the Khun family - couldn't do that much damage.
If Sophia saw you now, he said, still holding his hand out, she would never love you back. Nobody likes uncivilized brats like you.
This is why I hate you, she spat back. Don't go around saying things like that. It's not right.
Why are you mad? It's just some friendly advice. He thought he had finally figured her out, his poisonous cousin, the intruder, his little sister. She seemed to hate everyone except for Sophia, and although he hadn't figured out the why part yet, he could tell this much:
Kiseia was in love, and she hated Khun Aguero Agnis because he was her competition, and thus her worst enemy.
Kiseia had always been childish, but perhaps she had been right. Maybe Kiseia had understood things long before he did.
In the tower, and especially within the Khun family, love was always a competition.
This isn't a game, she said bitterly. It is to you, but it's not to me.
It doesn't have to be war either, he said. Or if it is, we can have a truce, can't we?
Even back then, he had always been looking for ways to break the rules. He hadn't figured out yet how cruel and absolute they could be.
No, she said, looking at him with the depth of hatred only siblings could attain. And this isn't war either. This is survival. But you wouldn't understand, would you? You've never had anything to live for.
Years later, when he does understand, there's a girl, and there's a boy.
Years later, he tells a girl to bet everything on the flip of a coin, knowing that she would lose.
She was a different type of poison, this one, all summer on the surface but death underneath. He had traveled with her for long enough to see that she and Kiseia were the same type. Take away that one thing, put them in front of a mirror, and they were nothing.
He thinks he might even hate her as much as Kiseia had hated him, back then.
Rachel tries to hate him back, but he can tell that it was the kind of hatred that came from fear. She had been forced to hide her true self for seven years because of him, had been forced to smile and sit in a wheelchair and play the part of a weakling. Every time she saw him, she had to be reminded of who she really was.
"Since when have you been so close with Bam?" she asks, jealous and hiding it horribly. "He's trusting you with his life, you know."
Ever since you threw him away, Khun wants to say, but instead he just gives her his coldest smile, all malice, no answers. She doesn't deserve one anyway, and she hates this smile even more than Kiseia did.
"Whatever you have," he says, "I'll take away from you."
Threats and promises work well on this one, because they are all she has ever known.
Rachel doesn't kill him, but she doesn't kill Bam either. Khun doesn't lift a finger to save her, despite years of pretending that he would. He thinks that they can call it even.
Years later, the boy tells him that he wants to climb the tower together, knowing that he will follow.
He's a jewel, this one, all summer on the surface and life underneath, even after people have hurt him and betrayed him, fed him poison and lies. There's something warm in his gaze, something that doesn't belong to a cold-hearted killer, something that everyone can sense just by coming close to him. It makes people want to use him, or help him, or sometimes both.
Bam never looks up at the sky unless it's dark, but prefers clear days over cloudy ones. Khun thinks he knows why; he's keeping it a secret for now.
He thinks, if they ever make it to the top of the tower together, he won't know what to ask for because it would already have happened.
He's lying to himself. So what? It's nothing new.
When he first realizes what Bam means to him - that he is somebody to live for - the first thought he has is: how do I help him get to the top of the tower?
Old habits die hard, but he doesn't realize that until years and years later.
If someone asked him what his fatal flaw is, and Khun would say something like "oh, my pride, I suppose," even though he is no more arrogant than every other cast-off scion of the 10 Great Families and more than careful enough to make up for it.
The truth is, Khun's fatal flaw is that he sometimes forgets that love is a competition, but not a game.
Kiseia thought that the competition had been in between her and Aguero, it had actually been between her and the Tower itself. Her idiot brother is still figuring that part out, whenever he forgets not to think about it. But he thinks he might finally understand how his sister felt, after all this time.
He used to think that he could mess with all the rules of the Tower. He and it are old enemies, old acquaintances. They used to play together, and Khun would win every time, even though - and he knows this now - it's not a game.
He doesn't think of it as easy anymore, not after his last game went so disastrously well. He still sees it, sometimes, when he is too tired to dream:
Maria, looking not a day older, her smile just as pure as it was yesterday in his memories, warm and shy like a ray of sunlight over a cold pond of ice. It shouldn't be there, but there it is.
He wonders, sometimes, if he ever learned to stop being arrogant and started acting more impulsively, if he will ever be able to admit to being wrong about helping her.
He also wonders, sometimes, if he will ever learn to forget - his sister's sightless blue eyes, hands cold, Kiseia crying, his mother saying trust no one, especially not yourself. You are your own worst enemy, Khun Aguero Agnis.
Once, Bam came to find him, late at night, shivering like he felt cold, only that the cold went down to his bones, and afraid of the dark.
"Do you think I should stop trying to climb up the tower?" he asks, whispering because it's late, it's quiet under the covers, because secrets are meant to be whispered, and because if anybody else overhears, he might break their heart.
It breaks Khun's heart anyway.
There are a few things that nobody else knows about Bam, but Khun does.
Put Bam in front of a mirror, and he'll only see himself. Put him in a cave, and he'll become his own light. So many people think they can see the pattern there, put him on a pedestal, make him a god, and they think he'll become whatever they want him to be. But even if you put a crown on his head, he will drop it the instant that someone he cares about gets hurt.
He wants to say: you don't have to, if you don't want to.
He wants to say: sure, whatever you want. At least this way you won't have to make friends with demons and mass murderers, tricksters and liars and puppet-masters. At least this way, you can be free.
He wants to say: yes, it would be better for you. Find somewhere to hide, someplace Jahad can never find you. I'll start looking tomorrow, we'll see how far we can get.
But instead he just reaches for Bam's fingers and holds them in his hands, blowing on them and trying to make it feel less cold. He can't do much for the shivering, and he doesn't have an answer. He is the most useless person in the Tower, and he hates himself for it.
"You're an irregular," Khun tells him, and the word still chills the marrow of his bones. It feels like telling Bam you're a monster. You're a killer. You are destined to shake this tower's foundations and rip off the sky.
Bam just looks at him, and because he knows that Khun doesn't mean it that way, it doesn't hurt.
"I'm not sure if you can stop climbing, even if you tried."
"I'm sorry," Bam says, and Khun shakes his head, no, Bam has nothing to be sorry about, ever. "I'll get over it by the morning. I'm just tired."
He's not just tired, but Khun doesn't call him out on the lie. He is made up of lies, white lies, lies by omission, ugly, enormous lies, and in the end, the only truthful thing he can do is hold Bam close as he cries silently into his shoulder, and not say a word more.
He realizes that old habits die hard.
I always do this, he thinks.
He wishes he could change, take Bam far away from here, away from FUG, away from the constant games and lies and tests. He wishes he could hide Bam away in some bright corner of the tower where the sky is particularly beautiful and keep him from harm. Keep him from learning how to harm others.
This is a dangerous desire, he knows, because if Bam doesn't go up the tower, then nothing changes.
If nothing changes, then his father gets to keep selling his daughters and sons for entertainment.
If nothing changes, then even if Bam can be happy, Khun never will be.
"I'm sorry, Bam," Khun whispers. He twists his fingers into Bam's shirt and wishes he could wring himself dry of desires. He is too full of them. They'll drag him under.
"Don't be," Bam sounds tired, exhausted, like he might fall asleep.
He will wake up in the morning, and when he does, they will both pretend that this conversation never happened.
Somewhere, a coin gets flipped and nobody knows whether it lands heads or tails.
Somewhere, a boy looks up at the sky and decides to fall, or doesn't.
Somewhere, a girl looks into a mirror, flinches, or smiles.
And somewhere, a boy drifts off to sleep, but not before deciding: enough is enough, screw the rules of this game. It's time to go to war.