Additional Tags: same warnings as usual, I guess Bam counts as a warning after last chapter lmao

chapter nine - weak, small hands

The horror in Rachel's face feels good.

The thought is tempting. The thought of Rachel with her legs ripped off frightens him in how tempting it is. The thought of her in pain is visceral in its vividity, in his hope for it. Khun is not a person fond of violence. He's not a person who gets a sick kick out of hurting others. It is a weapon for a purpose and nothing more. But he sees Bam's expression, an empty smile waiting at his word to cause hurt, to make pain, to cause suffering and it is because of her. The workshop, because of her and Hansung, broke Bam. He can never be the same, he can never be put back together.

And she had been carried up by them this entire time.

The look on her face, the utter, twisted, unbearable horror, on her face is not a comfort. She hadn't known. She'd really truly not known. She probably barely understood the concept of murdering Bam.

"Bam," she says, voice weak with disbelief.

He turns his head to look at her now. "What did you think would happen?" he asks her kindly. "Did you think there would be no consequences? Did you think it would never come back to hurt you? You always warned me not to betray anyone and so I have not. Did you think rules were for other people?"

Khun wants to laugh and cry. Rules were for other people for him. But then again, he didn't break ones he explicitly told someone else to follow.

Bam's eyes flick towards him, head cocked over to the right. What do you wish of me? The question is clear and patient in his eyes and weighs like a glacier. She deserves it, she deserves it, she deserves hell on earth but -

But Bam doesn't deserve to feel it on his hands. He doesn't deserve to remember, when he's better, that Khun told him to hurt the only star in his sky he ever had until then. Not for his own self-satisfaction.

The problem is Rachel still deserves to hurt.

Thankfully, there's an easy solution now that he's thought of it. Well, no, it's not easy. Khun hates simple, easy things, but this is the easiest one. "Bam, do you have any knives?"

Bam looks at him. "Would you like me to use one?" He's brought up his pocket while asking, fingers swiping through its meager storage.

"I would like to use one." Khun knows how he sounds. His anger is often loud puffs, furious voices, easy brow creases and emotional weight. It's when he sounds the most like a Khun, cold, pleasant, but full of sharp icicles, that proves his real raw anger. Falling back on family pastimes is not his favorite thing to do.

Bam looks at him and then slides one out of the pocket. It's sheathed in leather. He tosses it to Khun, who catches it and spins it in his fingers. Rachel has started trying to escape the wreckage. She's crawling, then pushing herself up on her knees.

Then she's on her feet and running and Isu moves to go after her because he already knows, thank fuck, but she's apparently not forgotten how to run because she's out the door with her injuries like a fucking cockroach. Isu doesn't even try to go after her.

Bam looks at him. Khun debates it, because her death would be one less thing to worry about. Then he contacts Ran instead and says. "Rachel's trying to escape the hotel, get her."

"Tch." But his pocket clicks off the call which means Ran probably listened to him.

"Could she always do that?" Endorsi demands. When no one answers, she repeats the question. "Could she?"

"Yes," Khun says with a sigh, going back to calming his breathing. His fingers are freezing. He rubs them to warm them up, cursing the lapse in control. To distract himself from the loud footfalls and the confusion in the room, he examines the knife instead. Out of its sheathe, the blade is slightly curved and wicked sharp, likely more for stabbing and curving inward or side slices. He can imagine Bam's hands curled around it, swinging like you would for a certain punching technique.

"Have you used these much, Bam?"

"Yes," Bam answers without hesitation. His crescent moon smile is gone, flat expression back in place. "Fists aren't clean enough, more difficult to hide in situations."

You'll have to demonstrate for me sometime. Khun bites down on the words, on the suggestion that could be interpreted as an order. "Interesting." He sheathes it and tosses it back. Bam catches it and puts it away.

Endorsi glares at him. "Did you know the whole time?" she demands of Isu. "Both of you?"

Isu quails a bit, but then looks her in the eye and nods. Hatz's expression shutters.

Khun does not envy Isu right now.

Viole gently eases the door open to Sweet and Sour's connected hotel rooms. He had escaped the sound of Isu-ssi's team yelling and going at Khun and Isu, likely by order but he more didn't want to hear it and cause more problems. It was best to be obscured. Horyang nods to him from the tiny kitchenette and Viole nods back. "Is everything all right?" asks the man. "I heard shouting."

Which means the others slept through shouting and Horyang, much like him, had simply resigned himself to stay awake through the shouting instead. That and feigning sleep are the easiest ways to survive the sounds of a workshop exercise close to your head. Interfering is not. Being asleep however, is even worse.

"Former owner showed up," Viole says simply. Unlike the others, Horyang doesn't flinch at the vernacular, though he prefers not to use it. Viole has never asked why. He's spent more time out than Viole has in, ownerless. Some things simply must be adapted out. "The first one. She and Khun-ssi have a vendetta now."

"Ah." Horyang goes back to stirring. "Did you kill her?"

"She escaped," he says. "I wasn't allowed to interact."

"Likely for the best," Horyang tells him. "Conflicts of interest, too soon for the snow to melt. Will you be punished?"

There's an extra edge in that question, and something in Viole mixes hot and cold at the suggestion. Cold because Khun-ssi has made it clear that that will not happen (or he has made it frank it would be unlikely for rewelding to happen, forging is difficult and for now it was Khun-ssi's duty to learn and not his to teach based on complimentary styles of behavior that didn't fit anyway) and hot because they care about him and he's just a weapon, he doesn't know why it matters but it feels nice.

"No," he says. "Khun-ssi seems intent on taking responsibility."

"Strange, but fitting." Horyang is quiet for a moment. Then he says. "Goseng likes him."

"More than she is fond of you?" Horyang's singular wing turns into a multitude of hearts and Viole lets his lips stretch into a foreign smile. "You are completing transformation, re, rehabilitation, rather. It is something to be proud of."

"Thank you," says the gentle giant, quiet and flushed with pride. "But she likes him for you, so I hope he doesn't ruin it."

Viole has no doubts of what Horyang would do if Goseng were wrong. For all the posturing and humility displayed on the twentieth floor, Horyang's honor and pride are the only thing preventing absolute savagery and equal power. That and the limit on his arm. They are alike in this. "I will inform him to keep that as a secondary objective."

His lips twitch and Horyang laughs.

They are silent as Viole settles himself on a chair. The others sleep on, Prince's snoring the loudest proof.

"How was he?"

"Cassano?"

"Yes."

Viole turns these thoughts over and answers. "Breaking, broken. Hurting. It has reached him. His human half reached him."

"Defunct?" Horyang asks.

Viole tuts. "Strongly considered disposable."

"Ah." Horyang lets out a deep, long breath. "Did he say anything?"

"He hates you," Viole tells him. Bam would have lied, but Sweet and Sour do not know Bam, and Viole is unfamiliar with him now, so he doesn't lie or hide the truth, or speak with awkwardness. "He hates that you are free. He hates that you have chosen humanity over reforging. It is a blasphemy that you have to choose at all, and you have not chosen vengeance."

Horyang makes a quiet, ragged noise in his throat and Viole falls silent. He looks down at his shoes, unable to shield his eyes with his longer bangs. But when Viole looks up again, Horyang is placid and nothing has burned in the pan.

"He's changed so much," says Horyang.

He doesn't elaborate from what and Viole doesn't ask.

"Beta requested for me to chase after him."

Horyang's eyes flicker. "I see."

"Would you like to? In my place. He is your-" Viole picks his word quietly. "Brother. Your family, fellow survivor. Would it not be fitting?"

"You're my family, Viole." Horyang answers without hesitation. "You're alive and he's a reason you're suffering right now. If he crosses my path, I will hurt him if I have to. But you're in front of me healing, and that's more important than shaking him to his bones."

Viole is silent, mostly. But just as Viole had looked away from the ripples of raw emotion on Horyang's face, so too does Horyang let Viole temporarily malfunction without any judgement.

"Thank you, Horyang-ssi."

"You would do the same for us."

If either of their voices are choked by their own dysfunction, they do not say so.

Rachel gets away.

Not for his team's lack of trying (though Khun is starting to suspect, when Michael and Apple do not return until last, that perhaps some people are not trying), but she has mastered how to hide properly this time, so her disappearance is more inevitable than any of them want to admit. They say nothing to this however, because everyone wants answers and no one really knows how to get them. Or give them.

It's only noon and Khun considers finding the strongest pot of tea he can find and chugging it until he's nauseous.

Bam is still with Sweet and Sour which is good. He has no idea how to handle that. He could send the rest of his team to go after Rachel and bury her under two tons of stone and see how she likes it. He wants to do it himself, obviously but with Bam that's just a non-starter. This morning's smile just cements in Khun's brain that that is a terrible idea, and so is leaving Bam behind.

Meanwhile, everyone in their teams is getting up to date on the situation, which is a little easier now that no one is shouting.

"Can we do anything politically?" Endorsi is asking.

"She's too unknown," Isu says. "And betrayal isn't uncommon anyway. It's nothing she can actually be punished for."

"We can hope that she'll be tripped up at the shinsu density past this floor," Hatz says, though his heart really doesn't seem in it. "If we can get past her, that can be enough to be sure she won't try anything on someone else."

"She can stab us in the back later from behind," Isu says with a sigh. "Because we can drop our guard if we're not carrying her and all of that."

"Well we need to do something," Endorsi huffs. "If she can even try and kill Bam, who knows who else she's willing to throw under the bus?"

"She didn't throw any of us under before this."

"We didn't give her an opportunity," Isu says. "And now she's on the loose and going… where?"

"Likely as far away from us as possible." Khun takes a deep breath. His decision is made and none of them will like it but honestly he doesn't care. "Look, let's forget about her."

"What?" All of them, even Isu, shout.

Khun is very glad Bam is not in the room. "If we see her, yes, we should wreck her shit to all hell." He still intends to… later. "But we have Bam back and if we go after her, it'll look more suspicious on our parts. We have to keep undercover somewhat. If she had done anything to our current team, yeah, but this was eight years ago. We can't do anything about it."

Which makes him sick.

"On the other hand, if we dismiss her efforts entirely, she could slip up in an attempt to prove us wrong or to get attention."

"Are you saying she's an attention seeker?" Endorsi's voice takes on something cold and wry. Like she's one to talk.

"She can be," is all Khun says. "So kicking her to the curb is preferable. But I'd rather avoid her if we can help it."

That's a lie. It's a very good one. But for now it has to be true. For Bam.

No one looks particularly happy, but they have to agree. Going out of the way to go after one regular was the height of distraction and stupidity. Enough of them have followings on the internet for it to be a bigger deal than it needs to be.

So they agree and that should be that.

Except for the fact that when Bam comes back, the rest of Khun's team follows sans two people. They had gone to eat so it's not a big deal. Still, something tells him to ask.

"Ran," Khun nods to him. "Where are Apple and Michael?"

Ran grunts through his yogurt drink. "They quit."

Khun raises an eyebrow. "They what?"

Ran jerks a thumb at Bam. "They saw him and fled. They quit."

Khun raises a skeptical eyebrow at Bam, who merely shrugs his shoulders.

"Most of FUG's lower agents are frightened of me, or worshipping," is what Bam says to that.

Well fuck.