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Ran doesn’t remember much from his childhood. Undoubtedly, he’s still a child. However, in his mind, his life can be divided into two categories: life before and after leaving his mother. Living with his mother offered him some peace, as much peace a Khun child could have, and perhaps shelter. Have manners, be enjoyable, wear nice clothes and don’t snicker. An easy life to have.
Except for the annual parties. Ran absolutely despised those. Of course, for whoever God was resting upon the Tower was a sly being, most of Ran’s memories regarding the first phase of his life were of these dreadful parties.
When one talked about home, when they would question his past—a child of Khun, a talented Ranker, the biological brother of Princess Maschenny—Ran could only remember the parties and a girl. He doesn’t talk about either of them.
There is a part of him that thinks he could have liked these parties. When he was too young to mingle with others, when Maschenny was simply his sister and not the ‘Princess of Zahad’, when the room didn’t feel that small, Ran could have enjoyed the parties. But alas, Maschenny got rid of the ‘sister’ title when it came to Ran—she’s a sister to the Princesses—, Khun Eduan kept extending his family and Ran could do nothing but grow up.
“Khun Ran.” Ran had been staring at the distance, where his mother and Maschenny were conversating with another Khun woman and who Ran assumed was her daughter, when someone called his name. “You usually don’t attend these events.”
In all the parties that followed, Ran thinks, he had met many insufferable people but not one could compare with the time an actual child came all serious to interrogate him. This should have been illegal.
“Do I know you?”
“Obviously not. As I said, you don’t attend these events.”—the other boy smiled and extended his hand—“Khun Aguero Agnis.”
Ran scoffs at the introduction. Of course, the boy was a Khun, this was a family event, he didn’t have to add it. The boy must have felt Ran’s annoyance because he gave him a smug smile and sat next to him. Ran made a mental note to himself that, when he met Aguero again, he would probably kill him.
“This is my sister.” He said and motioned towards the girl speaking to Maschenny. Ran could see the similarity between them. Her blue hair was pale like the boy’s and her eyes a dark blue like most of the Khun kids. “She’s going to be a princess of Zahad in some years.”
Ran frowned. Aguero noticed. “I don’t understand why they want to become Princesses. It’s dull.”
Ran didn’t know it then, being still a child, unaware of everything that surrounds the tower, but this comment was going to play a vital part to the rest of his life. Because as soon as the words were uttered, Aguero laughed, a genuine laugh that you wouldn’t hear from a Khun. Ran had never been more confused.
“Tell me Ran, are you bored?”
“No, I’m having a blast.” He told him in the most monotonous voice. Aguero smirked.
“Want to play a game?”
Absolutely not.
“Sure.”
“Cool.”—Aguero looked around—“see this girl over there?”
“Yes.”
“What is she thinking?”
“I’m not a mind reader, idiot.”
“Don’t give up so easily.” The other replied “Look closely. She’s tapping her foot impatiently and staring at her Pocket. She doesn’t want to be here.”
Ran looked at the girl and noticed that whatever Aguero had told him was true. The girl had her Pocket on visible mode, checking it every passing minute, while other times she would look at the door wistfully.
“Not bad.”
“I’m an excellent people reader.” Aguero explained, “Also, I heard her saying that she doesn’t want to be here, three minutes prior to my arrival.”
“Cheater.”
“I prefer the term opportunist.” He smiled “But since I like to play fair, I’ll give you an easy one.”
“I’m sure you will.”
Aguero smirked. “What is your sister thinking?”
Ran turned to look at Maschenny. She was listening to Aguero’s sister with a smile on her face. Anyone who would see the exchange would say that the two girls were enjoying each other’s company. Maschenny’s posture was upright and proper, her hands fixed on her chest as if to show that she was carefully listening to the other girl. At some point, she giggled slightly. Maschenny never giggled.
“Your sister annoys her.” Ran says after some careful thinking “They probably told her that she’s going to try and become a Princess of Zahad.”
“Yes, my mother does get ahead of herself sometimes,” Aguero said in a casual tone. Ran didn’t know what he expected but it wasn’t this. “She doesn’t like your sister either.”
“How can you tell?” Ran had briefly observed the other girl but he was certain that she liked Maschenny. After all, she was the one who kept talking and smiling. Honestly, their interaction looked a lot like that of a young kid meeting their personal hero.
“She moves her hands too much. Every time your sister talks, she nods an excessive amount. Also, she plays with her fingers which yes, is a clear sign that she’s uncomfortable, but that’s not why she does it.” Aguero explains, his eyes never moving from his sister “If you notice, she doesn’t do it out of habit. This is why she casually looks down to make sure she’s playing with her fingers. She wants to look awkward. She wants to appear unthreatening.”
“She sounds lovely.”
“All Khuns are.”
Ran can only nod.
“So, everyone has a giveaway to how their feeling?”
“Pretty much.”
Ran nods again before turning to Aguero. “What’s yours?”
The older boy smiles wickedly. “It wouldn’t be fun if I told you, would it?”
.
Two years later, Ran attends his last Khun Family party. He didn’t know it at the time but his life would drastically change after that. Maschenny no longer attends these events, too busy being a Princess, too caught up with the new found power and glory to care about her family—care about her mother and Ran—, too far away. Ran is almost thankful for her absence.
Good riddance, he thinks when his mother announces that she won’t be attending. It’s easier, hating her, if she isn’t present. Ran thinks that this way he can easily separate a sister he used to have, someone who didn’t care for many things but she cared for him, and the Princess of Zahad, the golden child. He could never kill his sister after all.
But Princess Khun Maschenny Zahad was a different story.
Ran is so caught up with his thoughts that he doesn’t notice Aguero, now older and slimmer, talking with his mother, his sister and cousin by his side. Ran was almost in friendly terms with Aguero, as friendly as the Khun family allowed, and though he wouldn’t admit it out loud, the other boy annoyed him slightly less than most people.
And today, as Ran watched him glancing at his sister while doing a specific action, Aguero had never bothered him less.
“A.A!” he called out. Aguero mumbled an apology to Ran’s mother and walked towards Ran.
“You’re shorter than I remember!”
“Shut up, asshole.” Ran told him and then leaned closer “I got it.”
“Got what?”
“Your giveaway.”
Aguero’s eyes lighted up a little. He leaned back and let out a chuckle. “Let’s hear it, little detective.”
“You play with your earrings.”
Aguero is startled for a moment and Ran feels like he can hear the other’s brain working. Or rather, trying to work. The moment is short, however, because Aguero simply smiles.
“Not bad, kid.”
.
When it’s time for the next Khun family part, Ran leaves his house. His mother stands at the exit, her face unreadable. Ran takes a good look at her and knows that she’s wondering why he’s leaving. Ran wondered the same thing for many nights.
He might be leaving to find power. Leaving to find a purpose. Leaving because, at the end, all Khun kids who wanted to live and not just survive followed the same route. Or perhaps, he might be leaving because the room was too small, the people to overbearing and he no longer had people he tolerated by his side.
No matter the reason, Ran doesn’t answer his mother and he doesn’t look back.
.
He has heard the rumours and the stories of Aguero’s betrayal but none of them seemed believable. However, Ran couldn’t exactly voice these thoughts out loud. Another reason why the Khun family was absolutely terrible.
So what if he favoured Maria?, he catches himself thinking when his mother told him about the death of the Agnis daughter. Ran couldn’t understand why they all made such a big deal out of it, they weren’t exactly a lovable family. Aguero probably thought that Maria deserved more to be a princess than his biological sister or perhaps, like Ran, he had seen the blood and gore that surrounded a Princess of Zahad and didn’t want that fate for his biological sister. No matter the reason, in the end, the outcome was this; a Khun had been chosen for a Princess.
And Aguero was never seen again.
Until one day, Ran opened the door to his room and saw the other boy-now a man-with a girl in a wheelchair.
“Ran.” Aguero greeted. Ran looked at him, then at the girl and then back at him. “I heard you were climbing the Tower.”
“I am.”
Aguero nods and turns to the girl. “This is Rachel.”
“Hello.” Ran gave her a short nod. He tried to study her, find a secret well-hidden, but it seemed the girl was as ordinary as possible. Maybe even more considering the fact that she was stuck in a wheelchair. Aguero coughed, capturing Ran’s attention, and subtly fixed the earring on his left ear.
“Can we talk?”
.
Ran agrees to climb the tower with Aguero and Rachel without much convincing. At first, he claims that he shouldn’t since Rachel is at a disadvantage but it only takes one short speech about owning AA a favour, for him to agree. There is no real favour but both him and Aguero know that only an idiot, or someone who knew too much, would agree to help.
Rachel smiles brightly when Ran agrees to join their team. It’s a sincere smile that shines too much for Ran’s liking.
.
The first night after Novick joins their little team of misfits, Ran finds himself in Aguero’s bedroom. The other one doesn’t get to utter a word and Ran is on top of his bed, a pillow on his arms.
“Novick snores.” He states “It’s either this or murdering your teammate.”
“Our teammate.”
“Rachel’s teammate.”
They both drop the subject after that. Aguero lets out a sigh and continues working with something on his lighthouse. Ran closes his eyes and tries to sleep. The scenery is almost familiar to his past. As a child, whenever he had a nightmare, he would find himself sleeping in his sister’s room. And now? Now, with a monster called Novick snoring like a devil, Ran found himself in his half-brother’s bedroom.
Maybe that was how it felt to have a family.
.
Ran continues coming to sleep to Aguero’s bed. After all, the other boy doesn’t really sleep and the bed is too comfortable not to be used.
“Do you think you’ll die if you fall asleep?” Ran asks one day. Aguero lifts his gaze and stares at him. Ran watches him close his eyes for a minute or two. Then, they suddenly snap open.
“Worse.”
Ran doesn’t ask again.
.
He stops going to Aguero’s room.
.
Until one day, he hears a loud noise.
Ran knows that the proper thing to do when hearing a loud noise in the middle of the night is to do anything but follow the noise. However, Ran was never one to listen to what others said.
That’s how he found himself in Aguero’s room again. He opened the door and saw most of the room trashed and his half-brother sitting in the balcony as if his room hadn’t been destroyed. Ran carefully closed the door behind him.
“You woke me up.” He simply says. Aguero doesn’t acknowledge him much to Ran’s annoyance. Still, despite his better judgement, Ran walked towards him and stood next to him.
“Do you think there’s a sky at the top of the tower?”
Ran has learned that sometimes there are many right things to say when talking to someone and yet Aguero will always choose the weirdest ones.
“I guess.” Ran told him “There are weirder things to expect.”
Aguero nods. “Do you think there are stars too?”
Ran holds back the bitter remarks he wants to make. Aguero apparently trashed his room in the middle of the night and instead of explaining why, he was just bothering Ran with scenarios about the top of the tower. As if they could even get that far.
“If there’s a sky, probably.”
“I hope there are stars.” Aguero tells him and looks towards the fake sky “I hope they shine brighter than anything. Because if they’re up there, and if they’re beautiful, maybe I can finally understand. Maybe I can accept.”
Ran regretted following the noise after all.
“Do you know why we climb the tower? It’s because we hate what we have here. We chase the unreachable because we think that we’ll find what we want at the end of the road, granted by some kind of sadistic God. But, it’s such a silly thing, isn’t it? You think you’re going to climb the Tower and take whatever you want but that’s not how the Tower works. It doesn’t give. It just takes, takes and takes until you don’t have anything else to give.”
“This seems like a bad day.” Ran blurts out “First Rachel, now you.”
“What about Rachel?”
“She acted weird today. A little bit sad, but mostly when we’re around. I would ask her about it but, well, I don’t really care about her.”
Aguero chuckles at the comment. Out of instinct, he brings his hand to his ear and touches his earring. Ran's own brain gear seems to be working at that moment. He sees the movement, he thinks of the past months, thinks of even before that and suddenly the riddle of his youth is solved.
“I got it wrong, didn’t I?”
“Got what wrong?”
“You don’t touch your earring when you’re uncomfortable.” Ran explains “You do it when you’re sad. That’s why you did it when you were with your sister. Why you do it now.”
“Is this why you joined the team?”
“I thought she was keeping you hostage.” Ran shrugged to which Aguero scoffed.
“As if!”
“Then why are you here?”
Aguero doesn’t answer him right away. Instead, he guides him inside and closes the door. They sit across one another and wait. For what exactly, Ran isn’t sure.
“I never understood Rachel, you know. She has a thing for whatever shines.”
“The stars?”
Aguero nods. “Which is extremely ironic because she had what she wanted right here, close to touch, solid and real and better than any of these stars the tower tales promise. I’m not her, however, and I can’t judge her way of thinking and desires. She could keep trying to reach the stars, she could fall and bleed and die a horrible death and I wouldn't mind. But that, climbing and simply finding the stars, is not enough for her. Was never enough for her. She also had to destroy everything, take everything. She had to—“Aguero stopped himself from continuing, his knuckles white.
In the few years Ran had lived, he had seen many things, bad and good, and gruesome but this particular scene unfolding in front of him was new. His brother pressed his palm against his face and let a choking sound, a mix of laughter and a muffled sob.
“When I first began climbing the Tower, I found something wonderful. Something no God could give me and no Khun family member could take away from me. But Rachel? She took it away. Not because it bothered her, not because she needed to, but just to show that she could."
“Bitch.” Ran said and Aguero smiled. For a moment, they were both kids again, trying to understand the way the Tower and its people worked. “Do you want me to kill her?”
“It would be really simple, wouldn’t it?”
“I have fought much worse.”
“I know.” The other one smiled “But I’m going to break her myself. This is why I’m doing this. I want to take her to the top, have her see the world for the first time, truly have everything she wanted right within her reach and then,”
“Take it away?”
“Take it away.”
“The Khun genes are showing.” Ran chuckled “So, I’m only throwing ideas but I think you should tell the others.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, so they won’t stab you in the back if you try to hurt Rachel? They need to have all the facts otherwise they might turn against you.” Ran explained, “Besides, it won’t be hard, we don’t really like Rachel.”
“You’re only saying this to make me feel better?”
“Am I? You forget that she’s just sitting in a chair doing nothing. And! She ate the chestnuts that I bought yesterday.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t kill her after such a betrayal.”
“Novick tied me up.”
“I can’t believe you almost ruined my revenge for food.”
“Not any food! Chestnuts! Do you know how hard they are to find?”
Aguero smiles at him.
“I do.”
“Good, so don’t take mine. Ever. And do go to sleep, AA”—Ran got up and walked towards the exit—“Nothing will change if you die from exhaustion.”
“I’ll try.”
As he leaves, Ran thinks that in another place, in another time when they wouldn’t have been born as Khuns, he wouldn’t have minded being brothers with Aguero. Maybe comforting him would have been easier too. But, they had been born in the Khun family and Ran had a Princess of Zahad as a sister and Aguero had been raised in a power-hungry cold environment, so such thoughts were pointless.
Khuns were never a real family, bounded by blood or not.
.
The next day, Ran wakes up slightly lighter. He finds Rachel at the kitchen, making something to eat, she sees him and smiles. Ran smiles back.
He decides that he will listen to Aguero, he’s going to be friendly and protective of Rachel until the right time comes. Then, he will let his brother, a voice inside him promises, have his revenge.
And if by any chance, anyone tries to stop him, Ran is going to kill them.