What left is the distance I have to cover, to reach your heart?

*

The 96th floor was known as the floor of the moon.

Halfway between the mountains and valleys of crusted earth, spokes of light trickled through cracks of clouds. The rims of the mountains stood tall and mysterious against a velvet darkness.

"A lunar crater," Hatsu murmured, his eyes tracing an enormous, circular depression ten meters below them. "I wonder who made that."

Hwa Ryun shrugged. "Regulars on the floor leave their mark when they fight." There is ash-grey dust on the surface of her eye patch. She does not brush it away.

The party was swift-footed despite the churn of the craters and the shadows on the barren land that resembled molten iron. Khun's every step stirred up moon dust that created impenetrable clouds.

"Think we'll see any space turtles here?" Rak's question went unanswered as the group trudged behind Hwa Ryun, who led the way with baffling precision. It was as if she was navigating with an invisible atlas.

Hwa Ryun's footsteps finally stopped at a questionable opening on the ground, marked with the crest of Jahad. A test stop.

"It says only three people can take the test here." Endorsi read aloud the carvings on the stone stoically as she is blue-lipped from the cold. Gloved fingers traced the scratching on the surface.

"I'll go with Bam," Hwa Ryun's voice rose clear above a quicksilver breeze.

Khun is surprised with her volunteering but does not disagree. He slides up, hands in his pockets. "I guess it's three of us - "

"I think Endorsi has to come with us. She has bong bong, and a fisherman in this test will be more advantageous than a lightbearer."

She spares him a glance. "Sorry Khun, a guide's sixth sense."

Khun takes a measured breath, and the air seems to have become colder. It is not the first time he has felt less and less relevant. He can feel the heat from Bam's attention beside him. Raising the edges of his eyes, he crinkles them into a smile. "Looks like I get to rest this time," he joked.

He uncurls his fingers deep in his pockets and taps the edge of Bam's coat. "Stay safe. We'll be waiting for you".

Khun watched as Bam disappeared into the dark tunnel, that familiar feeling surging through him again - letting Bam go like this without him, with everything to lose. He looks over his shoulder because he needs a distraction, and the vast, desolate moon creates a shudder that travels through the tips of his fingers.

He closes his eyes and sighs, turning slowly to go like a little bird unwilling to leave its sky.

Come back soon, Bam.

*

Bam returns twelve hours later when light has become a scarcity.

The wind whispered into the cave where the group sat in. Bam smells food over a fire: five potatoes, a pot of noodles, tomatoes and eggplants. The chestnuts that Shibisu had stashed from the last town were scattered on the floor.

Khun is nowhere to be seen.

Shibisu senses who Bam is looking for and answers without the question. "Khun's in an adjacent cave. He's been training since we came here." Shibisu gives a lopsided smile as he turns potatoes over hungry flames.

"You should persuade him to have some dinner."

Bam twined his coat tighter around himself as he walked to where he wanted to be. Behind him, the mountains are smoldering black shadows. The anthem of the moon whistled through hollow craters and the crusty earth. Dusk meets dust.

He stands at the eight feet tall entrance of the cave Khun is in and feels an odd sense of apprehension. Khun has been distant lately. There were spider cracks in his smile, complicated blues in his eyes. Bam allows the darkness of the cave to swallow him as he thinks of how to have his best friend laugh again.

Time slows when Khun turns to look at him.

"Bam?"

Khun is surrounded by white frost that is bioluminescent in the darkness. Ice crystals are stacked in spires and spun into arcs of silver; it was as if they were together in an endless milky way. In his eyes, Khun radiates a thousand of colors, and Bam smiles.

"I guess it's my turn to wait for you to finish training," Bam teased. He tossed a freshly cooked potato twenty feet across the space to Khun. Bam remembers fondly how it is usually Khun who is waiting for him with folded arms to eat together.

"Dropping me a hot potato now aren't you?" Khun caught his dinner gracefully with gloved hands. He moved aristocratically across the cave. His eyes are the color of rapid oceans, and Bam risks being swept away.

They sit cross-legged at the entrance of the cave because Khun wants to watch the moon wax and wane. Bam eats his potato whole while Khun peels his carefully with nifty fingers. The surface of the moon disappears in phases – a waning crescent, a waxing gibbous – each time the gritty surface around them throbbed like a wounded snake before dissolving quietly into a nebula. It was as if they were the only two souls awake in the entire Tower.

Khun ate quietly beside him as the skyline flickered.

"How was the test?"

Bam shrugged. "Tough, but we managed. Bong bong was useful. Hwa Ryun says we have one more test tomorrow before we can ascend to the next floor."

Khun doesn't miss the wince Bam gave when he changed the position of his arm. Khun's lips creased into an improbably thin line. "Bam you've got an abrasion there. Come, let me –" The fire fish emerged and in an instant restored Bam's skin.

"Thank you."

Bam always thanks him, even though Khun has healed him a dozen times before.

Khun gives a feather-like smile, his complexion milky white. "One of the few things I can do for you." Or maybe the only thing.

Bam senses that Khun's thoughts are fluttering like birds and feels inexplicably perplexed. He wishes that the walls Khun has built around himself would fall away.

"There are many things you have done for me, Khun."

Khun is glad the moon is much darker now so Bam cannot see his face. His heart compresses tighter and tighter as he imagines that Bam is pitying him. There has always been a silver of panic buried in him when it came to Bam – a fear that he is not good enough and that he is doing everything wrong.

How do you ever know if you are doing the right thing?

"Khun? Is everything okay?"

Bam's hand finds a spot on his shoulder and Khun feels his warmth despite the layers of clothing.

"I'm fine."

Khun decides to enjoy the fact that there is something intimate about sitting side by side in the darkness.

"Just wondering how long we'll stay together as a team like this."

Bam indulges in staring at Khun for moments more.

"We'll always be a team."

Bam says it with a voice larger than life and uses words that Khun wants to hold on to. Always. Khun imagines a perpetual pendulum, counting down the remainder of his time with Bam.

Khun allows Bam's words to flare in his head like short-lived stars. He barricades the thought that every minute that passes is one fewer with Bam.

The cold air in the cave seems to solidify, enclosing them both into a single ethereal world, and Khun cannot help but wonder if this icy shell is enough to keep him and Bam together always.

*

Morning came faster than either of them expected, and Khun did not sleep a wink. He remembered falling through the surface of his nightmares. In front of him, Hwa Ryun's coat is the color of torn plums, filling his vision with shades of purple, grey, and purple. Her scarf is stretched backwards in the wind.

The landscape shape-shifted as they walked, trickles of black water running through dry cracks on the ground. There were mushroom shaped domes on the floor, which Rak took great pleasure in bursting. They erupted easily, releasing puffs of smoke.

Rak sniffed. "I can smell moisture." He turned to the guide. "Where on earth are we going? What is the test?"

Hwa Ryun smiled mysteriously. "To pay a visit to someone who will give us the key to the next floor."

"Someone lives here?" There was no hiding the incredulousness in Shibisu's voice.

Hwa Ryun ignores him, and it is an hour later that they arrive at a body of still water that gave off a permeating cold. Behind it the mountains silhouetted against the huge bowl of the sky. What was beyond remained a mystery.

"A lunar reservoir," Hwa Ryun said. "Formed by particles of water ice, scattered into darkened craters, and formed in the shadows." She turned to Bam. "It is the start of the journey of the one you will need to meet."

Bam grinned. "Well, what are we waiting for?"

She held up a hand to stop him from advancing further. "Only one other can take this path with you and return safely. The rest are to wait here."

Endorsi glared at her. "And why is that so?"

Hwa Ryun shrugged. "The person who lives here is not fond of guests." She turned to Bam. "This time, I suggest that I go with –"

"Khun will come with me."

The red-witch is taken aback. "Bam, you will need a guide."

Khun cleared his throat, feeling the need to say something. "Bam, I am a hundred percent okay for you to go with Hwa Ryun."

Shibisu looked at Khun, Hwa Ryun, and then Bam. "Uh, Hwa Ryun, how about the three of you go?"

"Only two."

Bam turned, and Khun hated that this was the moment their eyes had to meet.

"Khun, if you could come with me?"

Khun's mouth opened and closed. If this was Bam's way to make him feel essential, it was failing terribly. A cold vapour wrapped around his heart, rattling the lid on his overflowing insecurity.

Hwa Ryun sighed and dropped her folded arms.

"Can you make a vessel to carry you both on the water?"

Khun nodded silently. Bits of ice fell from Khun's open palm, twisting to form the slender frame of a boat. Hwa Ryun's hand is a vice-like grip on his arm, and she whispers something in his ear. Khun takes care to remember her every word.

Bam blinked in surprise as he stepped on the boat after Khun. A current had now formed in the previously still water, as if it was raked by an invisible artic wind.

The group waved them goodbye as the little ice boat was carried further into the darkness, a curtain of mist sliding to cover the secrets of the moon.

"You should have gone with him," Endorsi said, pulling the hood of her coat up against the wind. "What if something happens to them?"

Hwa Ryun's casts a single red eye on the princess.

"If Bam has his mind set on the flow, why should I sail against it?"

*

Khun hardly noticed that snowflakes had started falling above them. All he feels is the swift current, the pull of the wind, and Bam. Between drops of snow, he can see only darkness. Ahead of them may as well be the edge of a nameless cliff.

"Watch out." Bam's eyes narrowed. "Something is coming."

Khun's lighthouse materializes just in time. He seized Bam's forearm to pull their bodies against the boat, narrowly avoiding strange wisps of smoke that hurled over them. From the glow of his lighthouse he sees a sunken face and in the next moment he is assaulted straight in his gut.

"Khun!"

Bam catches his wrist before he is tossed off the boat and into the darkness. Khun wished Bam had caught his hand instead.

The boat spins three times from the impact – north, south, north – Bam's hand remains firm around him. A second series of shadows were arriving closer, larger. Before Khun's feet is back on the boat he has already summoned a clear wall of ice around them, a mere muslin curtain to keep them safe. Black shadows darted around the edges around the perimeter.

"What do you think they are?" Khun's face is restless; he only wants to keep Bam safe. Beside him, a pair of golden eyes shuts, then opens.

"They are restless spirits." Bam's voice is no louder than the wind outside the boat. "I can feel them."

The vessel is an erratic compass on the water. "I can get rid of them," Khun declares decisively. His ice spear is a formidable wheel in his hand. He imagines cleaving the spirits, or burning them into cinders with the firefish – they would yield and fall apart in smattering ashes.

"No," Bam says gently. The fingers around Khun's wrist uncurl. "Let me do it."

A dozen shinsoo loops appear in the sky resembling the halo of angels. Rain falls through the mist warmly. The water quivers. None of the spirits writhe under the mercy of the rain that is erasing their existence. Khun looks at Bam, whose eyes are bright with compassion. There is no hostility or condescension.

Hwa Ryun's words rush back to him like water flooding through shutters. He will be our god.

The rain and Khun's sentiment dissipate as quickly as it started.

Fifty miles later the boat starts an ascent, flecking water on their coats. Khun has all ten fingers on the hull of the boat. The volume of water around them was enough to swallow a dozen cities.

"It's been a long time since we've been on this sort of adventure you know, just the two of us," Bam whispers in Khun's ear in a cheerful sort of way as they clung on for their lives. Whoosh. Their coats flared behind them like wings.

Khun manages to snort without getting water inside his nostrils. "Probably won't be the last." They both shared a laugh.

Their journey on water ended at an opening of a gorge where white cliffs flickered past in the mist. They disembarked on rocks that were as large as Rak's uncompressed torso. Khun lets out a huge breath, as if he has not exhaled for the last hour.

Bam tilted his head to the sky and inhaled deeply. The air smelled like flying leaves and wood smoke, a far cry from the dusty moon. There was now a little more light, and Bam could see that Khun's hair was in a disarray from the wind and the water.

"What?" Khun's brows creased. "We should start finding our way."

Bam smiled. "You may want to look at your reflection in the water."

Khun peered into the silver riffles where the water creased and attempts to straighten his hair.

"Look," Bam murmured. "Butterflies." Around them fluttered a pair of moon butterflies. Even in the quarter-light, the spots of purple iridescence on their wings were radiant.

Above them, a handful of stars showed themselves for a moment, murky, scarcely visible between the fog. They flashed blue and red and white.

"A house?" Bam is bewildered.

The house was an exquisite antebellum on the crest of a cliff. Held by huge, symmetrical pillars and a spiderweb of white ivy, it seemed to have stood still in time with a haunting beauty. They walked past bell arched gates into a garden with geometric stones. Finally standing in a grand foyer, Khun counted sixty steps on a magnificent helical staircase that gently curved to a high, kaleidoscope ceiling.

"Hello?" Bam's voice echoed through the space.

Khun looked contemplatively at the gilded furnishings. This was probably the place Hwa Ryun meant. Her whispers came back to him like a cloud – you will need to give up something precious in exchange in order to summon the person you need to see. She obviously does not tell him what it is he has to give.

Khun starts with the simplest way. He thinks that exchanges such as these are rules made by the simple-minded. Pressing a blade to his palm, he cuts himself deep enough for his blood to stain the ground. He hardly feels the pain. Holding up a hand to stop Bam from approaching him, he says: "I know what I'm doing Bam. I'll summon him – her – whoever it is."

He breathed, listening to the muted swirl of the wind outside the house, the silent swirl of the fog. His blood is a bright scarlet on the ivory floor. Momentarily he wonders if it was a bad idea for Bam to insist that he come. He suspected Hwa Ryun already knew what exactly she had to exchange.

He gets one knee, pressing his bloodied palm on the floor. Walk the paths of logic, he told himself. Every outcome has its cause, and every predicament has its solution. His heart pounds unreasonably.

What else do you need from me?

Khun removes his earring made of pure suspendium, as it is the only item on him he could describe as a treasure. It was a fabulous blue, a treasure of the Khun family. Khun remembers his mother putting it on for him. Aguero, she had said. A tiny charm, full of his memories. His identity.

He soaks it with his blood, willing someone to appear. Or something.

Insecurity, he decided, was a decay. Or a thief. It takes a little from you each day, so you are not aware of your loss until it becomes irreversible.

How could he be Bam's lightbearer if he could not help him? He must summon whatever it is. He swore to get Bam to the top of the Tower. Khun ignores the spider-cracks on his shoulders, holding the weight of what he was. Of what he wanted to be.

He cuts his wrist deep enough till he feels the blade severe a necessary artery. He feels pain now, just a little. The blade clatters on the ground, and Bam grabs his collar fiercely.

"Khun!" Bam pulls him forward so they are face to face. "Heal yourself please, stop this – stop this now!"

Khun shakes his head stubbornly, and Bam is angry enough to make senseless threats. "I'm going to kill you myself after this," he muttered. "What on earth did Hwa Ryun tell you?!" Khun chortles because he imagines Bam killing him.

He suddenly hears a voice as soft as a chime, making an indiscernible noise in his ear.

"Just wait... wait a little more."

He tries to push Bam off him, who is bent on stopping the relentless gush of blood from his wrist. His ears strain to listen. Bare your soul to me.

Khun hears his name being called multiple times by Bam, each time more frantic than the last. He waves them away with his good hand.

How would he bare his soul? His mind churns inside his skull. He had lots of secrets, but there were few with great importance. Maria? He remembers her hair swaying in the wind the last time they met. The last star above her head winked out when she turned from him. The air around her exploded as she disappeared.

Khun is now shook hard by the shoulders. As Bam's face spun into view, it was as if a key had fit snug into a keyhole. The key rotates, and the lock turns like magic.

Bare your soul.

Inside his chest pulsed something huge, something full of longing. He pulls Bam's face inches from his. Interminable seconds pass. A trillion things crossed his mind on what he could say or do.

The air streams with possibility, humming like a plucked string. His blood drips black.

"I'm afraid of losing you, Bam." Khun whispers, proud that he manages it without stammering. He imagines his soul tearing free as he closes the distance between them. Bam's lips are warm and the world recedes. Khun feels his life is paper thin, not because of the blood he has lost but because of what he has done.

The antebellum is suddenly lit by shivering candles; waxy bodies melting into puddles. Suspended lamps casted shadows and illuminated smoky mirrors. The air seemed to be filled with a dusty gold. As Khun breaks away from Bam, the room rematerializes around them.

Exhausted yet exhilarated, Khun finally allows the firefish to close his wounds. Bam's attention on him is like a floodlight. He gingerly takes the hand Bam offers him and is pulled to his feet. Together, they turn to the person in front of them who is both beautiful and strange.

The woman is slender and grey. Her robes resemble long curtains. Over her face is a veil that trails two feet behind her.

"What insolent guests," she says with disdain, her fingers faintly touching the golden laurel crown on her head. "Dripping blood on my floor."

Bam steps a fraction closer to her. "Who are you?"

She arches a single eyebrow. "You have summoned me without knowing who I am?" She points at Khun. "Is he not your guide?"

"He is not."

The woman glides towards Bam and in an instant has a gloved hand on his cheek. Blood rushes through Khun's ventricles; he would kill her if she hurts Bam.

"Son of Arlene," she murmurs. "So you are here climbing the Tower."

Her lips curl behind the veil. "I am Fate." Her voice is velvety and soft. "I can see recompense. Selfishness. Chalices of people's ecstasy. The beginning of the Tower. The end of it."

There is a stillness in the room as she speaks, and Bam is paying full attention. Khun is deep in thought, his face aglow with the memory of what he had just done.

"Cursed son of Eduan," she seethes behind him and Khun jumps. "You are not paying attention. Like a little boy with stars in your eyes." She measures him with her eyes, looking up and down. "As useless as your father."

Khun grinned. "At least we agree on something."

Fate dismisses them by placing something in Bam's hand. Bam closes his fist around the key that will bring them to the next floor. She touches his forehead and Bam's face empties.

"Bam?"

Bam's face closes. "I am fine."

"Go on, boys. My fingers are stiff from weaving the yarns of fate." She beckons her fingers and a single blue earring appears. "You should keep this." She places it back on Khun's ear. "Do not let go of something that is important to you so easily." A flame on a candle buffets back and forth.

"Tell Jahad I said hello."

She takes most of the lights with her as she disappears. Bam soundlessly made his way to the path that would bring them full circle to where they first started, and Khun is only a step behind him. The silence between them causes a distress so acute, it is almost unbearable.

Is this how it should go when you have bared your soul?

Khun's heartbeat rustles as he decides to speak. "Bam, what did she show you?"

Bam took his time to respond, but finally said: "She showed me two paths." His footfalls did not slow, though his voice caught when he said 'two'. The moon butterflies leading them drew electric-blue loops in the air. Then violet. Then amber. Khun looks only at Bam.

"And what were they?"

"One path with you, and the other without."

"Why was I not there?"

A pause.

"You were dead."

Khun has a thousand questions, but he asks the one which he thinks is the most important.

"Which was the path where you were safe?"

Bam does not answer, he is wishing he is capable of unhearing or unseeing. They go on for twenty more steps without talking. Khun can hear Bam's heart beating quicker than his own, a thud and a thud against a faraway cage. He finally pulls Bam over to a halt. The cold air blows at him, billowing any fear out of his body and backward into the dust.

"Bam. Take the path which keeps you safe, whether or not I am there."

Bam looks like he has something rancid in his eyes. "No. I will not lose you." Something in his voice shakes. "I can't." They look at each other, riding the spirals of uncertainty. Light suffuses through the mist gently and outlines them in silver.

Khun smiles sadly. "But I cannot lose you too." Fate, he thinks, is never fair, isn't it?

They were faced with a deadbolt that no amount of shinsoo could undo. Khun wonders, if Bam becomes a god, would he be able to undo fate?

"I will create another path," Bam says, as if reading his mind. "Where I will be alive, and so will you."

Hope blooms across Khun's chest and color returns to his translucent cheeks. Bam's words were a bright, clear window of sky. He decides that he should never stop believing.

Khun laughs. "Just less than an hour back I remember hearing that you were going to kill me yourself."

Bam rarely has a comeback to Khun's teasing, but this time he does. "And just an hour ago, you kissed me."

Khun visibly blanched, blue eyes darting everywhere. It was one thing to take a kiss from your best friend, and another to be confronted for doing the deed.

The surface of the moon suddenly quakes and Khun misses a step. This time, Bam catches his hand. The floor quivered, prompting them to hasten their pace as if they had outstayed their time. Between them ran an electric intensity. Khun's heart cartwheels.

"I – "

"Next time," Bam says. "Do it when I'm not worrying about you trying to die." Khun is gently pulled forward by the hand, and he blinks.

Next time?

The Tower is tilted. In any moment, Khun thinks he will fall off the edge. They trot over frost and leap over five craters, each of a different size. There is a crystalline brilliance in the ice that covers the surface of the moon. Khun takes a thousand breaths. The floor is a tender grey.

Bam doesn't let go of his hand for a long, long time.