Waking Up (Tower of God fanfiction-- KhunxBam)

Waking Up

"I.. I almost lost you."

Khun blinks, rather disoriented. He doesn't know what's going on, and it's strange.

And then he sees the golden eyes, and he finds home again.

"Bam."

It's almost staring, but it's more like... gazing. Searching for stability, searching for change.

And then they're hugging, clasping, squeezing-- It's you. You're back. I'm back.

But Khun is already thinking; his brain realizing he doesn't know what's coming next. What he's supposed to be doing. He doesn't know what the team's going through right now. And he can't... not know. "What happened, Bam? What's going on?"

Bam sighed softly. He was already prepared to have this talk. Khun wasn't the type to miss out, and he's probably ashamed that he did.

But Bam... Bam missed too. He missed Khun.

Maybe that motivated him to take the notes. For when Khun woke up. If he woke up. But he didn't want Khun to think about the tower just yet.

"Slow down, Khun. A lecture won't help you now."

"Being oblivious isn't good for my brain." Khun gave Bam a hard stare. It was all he could do to not attempt to tear out of the room in search of answers. Not that he could if he wanted to, as had hypothesized earlier. Comas, it seemed, weren't good for your body.

"It's nice. Talking with you." Again.

"You haven't answered my question."

"I will. Later."

Bam had gotten more stubborn, and Khun knew when he was fighting a losing battle. "How much time do we have to... rest?" Khun still needed something to work with.

"The rest of today, so calm down. We have time." Bam threw an easy smile his way, and the light-bearer couldn't help but sink into the covers and grin back. Bam had a charm about him that Khun had noticed since Evankhell's floor.

"Are you just going to stay here? Don't you have other things to do?" Like train? Khun knew that he was falling behind. Everyone had probably learned several new techniques since they last met. But he couldn't let his best friend go. They couldn't grow apart. Not yet.

And not just for Bam's sake.

"I wanted to... spend time with you." To make up for the sleep he lost worrying for the other.

Khun didn't know why his heart lifted when Bam said that, or why it made him smile that silly grin. Correction, he did know. He had known for a while, and he remembered knowing before he lost consciousness. And he wasn't willing to risk its implications. So he tried to shut it out.

Tried.

"Come here." Bam's eyes jerked up to meet blue orbs, and he saw that Khun was searching his face. For what, he didn't know.

Khun... Bam didn't know what he would be without him. When he was in the coma, Bam would often think about their time together, time he was going without now. And he knew Khun helped him become so much more than the desperate boy who had entered the tower to find what he feared losing. Khun was... his best friend. His advisor, his peer, his teammate... something people had tried to take advantage of before. Bam wouldn't let that happen again.

He knew that something had... changed between them. He didn't know exactly when--sometime on the Hell train, he thought. Or maybe it had started before that. But there was a tension, a tension that Bam had regretted not confronting Khun about before the fight with the data Jahad. He might never have gotten the chance to talk about it with him... and now that Khun was finally awake, he wouldn't wait any longer. He couldn't.

So he let Khun search, and he dutifully came over to sit on the bed with him.

"Khun... I need to talk to you about something."

"And you think I don't?" He had literally just asked him to come closer. Obviously some sort of conversation would have to ensue.

Of course, it didn't hurt that Bam's face was now less than two feet away.

"Khun, is it... just me?" Do you...?

Khun chuckles at the poorly formed inquiry. "Just you, Bam. Only you know the question you're asking." But Khun was guessing at it. He was hoping. And it was something specific.

"Look, Khun, I'm not straight." Bam looks him in the eye.

"And I'm not stupid." His sharp replies were contrasting the vulnerability and hope in his eyes.

Now Bam falters a little. "I... I--"

"I missed you in my dreams, because it wasn't the real thing."

Bam's gaze jerks up. Khun had took his hand.

"I-I missed you when we ordered out as a team. It wasn't the same without you protesting to eat alone."

"I missed you when you disappeared to the Pot without telling anyone."

"I missed you when I was Viole. You guys were my weakness... especially you, Khun."

"I missed you after you died on the Floor of Tests. It was the only reason I could endure climbing with... her."

"Khun, you don't know how glad I am to have you back." Bam's eyes glinted of tears he was too strong to shed before, and he tore his eyes away. And Khun's heart melted.

"Bam." He looked up.

"I...." But Khun, for once, had forgot his words.

So he kissed Bam. Because then there was no loss of anything but their sense of time.

"Khun," he murmured against his lips, "I like you."

Khun met Bam's golden eyes. "I think I like me too--"

Him and his ego. "Shut up." But Bam couldn't hold back a grin.

Khun pulled in again as he finished his sentence. "...but I almost like you more."