#thenatales
My collection of Khuntober works for this year's #khuntober2024! I had a lot of fun writing these ^^
Ratings: G-M
Total word count: 8.2k
Please check tags before reading each!
archiveofourown.org/series/4400428
💠 #Khuntober2024 Day 22: Khun/White
Alternatively, a mildly horny drabble. Khun cut a deal with White to help Bam. Things are... going as expected, really.
"I could just kill you." "You won't." "Who says I won't?" White laughs. "Mmm. But killing you outright is boring. I could bring you close enough that you'll beg me to give it to you instead. Have him watch me do it." Khun looks at him sidelong. "Do that and you'll die too." "Would I?" White smirks, crossing his legs in his seat. The firefish swirls around him cautiously. "Why don't we find out?"
💠 #Khuntober2024 Day 22: Khun & White
The one where threats are made.
#Khuntober2024
Day 22 Khun/White
While reading their interactions, I thought of this ( I wonder if someone already did something like this)
Childhood
Since the moment I saw Ran and Khun interact in the anime I couldn’t get them out of my head best siblings probably get on each other’s nerves a lot
My late entry for #Khuntober2024 day 17 Khun&Ran over on twitter and hey my first post on here! 💕
💠 #Khuntober2024 Day 18: Khun & Rachel
Wherein Khun wakes up, chooses psychological violence, and decides to ruin Rachel's - and subsequently, Yura's - day.
"A.A.," Ran says, as vehement as a portable stormcloud, "what the fuck. That's my yogurt." Aguero sits curled up on the couch, licking the lid to a delicious cup of strawberry rhubarb. "I know." "Why the hell did you eat it?" "What else do you do with yogurt? You eat it." "You bastard, I'd sell you for a sandwich." "Same." Ran's hands curl into fists. "Are you going to get me more, at least?" Aguero takes another mouthful. "I don't know," he shrugs, "Besides, Novick ate one, and Xia Xia the other, what's the deal with coming to me about them?" Ran's lightning for eyes strike dangerously, "What?" "Go yell at them, not me. You know I'd get you more." Huffing, Ran stomps off to unleash electrical hell. Khun's smile turns sly smirk. He just bought these today, Ran's are still in the fridge. Getting back at his teammates for skipping practice: done.
💠 #Khuntober2024 Day 17: Khun & Ran
Ah, siblings.
"The fourth team will be assaulting the floating arena from here to evade the Lo Po Bia light bearer teams-" smack "-given their visual cones reported by recon. We would be able to intercept the-" smack "-princesses competing in the semifinals of the tournament before the scheduled competition involving-" smack "ASENSIO." "Hey." "Do you have to pop your gum during our conference call?" "Of course. It gets your attention, little brother." "What." "Yeah. 'Cause not all of us happen to be the slayer candidate that you're stupid whipped enough to drop everything in your life for and crash his wedding-" "ASENSIO." "See, it works! Now that I've got said attention, your plan sucks because it doesn't involve enough spearbearers, namely, me, at point C." "...That's where Maschenny is." "And?" "..."
💠 #Khuntober2024 Day 16: Khun & Asensio (2022)
In an AU where Asensio would have played a role in the wedding crashers gang to break Bam out of Traumerei's grasp, a strategy conference call -
𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘬
- gets some extra sfx.
Shibisu sips his coffee, looking out into the square from his spot at the outdoor cafe. Fifteen minutes left. Khun wasn't here yet, which works for him. It allows him to get his thoughts together, replay potential scenarios in his head, tapping foot under the table betraying his anxiety. He’s waited so long, he doesn’t know… but he’s ready to tell Khun before they’re all to split again, these few days of hidden reprieve on the 31st floor the perfect chance. His eyes wander to the side, near the fountain in the square. What he sees grinds his mind to a halt. Khun finally appeared, as he said he would, early as always. What he didn't expect was Bam's presence next to him, still a shock to him even without the long hair. Laughing. Khun, laughing, a small smile tugs at Shibisu's lips — They're holding hands. Khun says something to Bam. They hug. They kiss. Something quick and chaste, but a kiss.
They wave each other goodbye, Khun watching him go with a smile, before it slides off and back into his usual sealed stoicism, blue eyes scanning the square. Shibisu feels incredibly stupid and blind, sitting there with his coffee, random chocolate and a small boxed arrangement of blue and white flowers. Khun comes closer, and never in his life has he wanted to run and hide and avoid this situation more than he does now, his stomach pitching somewhere cold and nauseating. Khun starts walking towards him. "Hey, Isu." Khun asks, sitting across from him. "What did you want to talk about?" His eyes scan the table, and it isn't hard to imagine what those objects could possibly be for. It's his favorite chocolate, and Bam had been the one Shibisu asked about these particular things, suggested the flowers to him, peonies of white and rich, royal blue, that same blue that meet his dumbfounded own. When they do, they don't change. There's none of the happiness witnessed seconds before, only acknowledgement. Calculative, none of the animated light.
Shibisu stares. Then scoffs, more for himself; tramples and stuffs the feeling in some empty compartment within him, slams the lid on it and smiles. He opens his mouth, hesitates a split second, knows that gave him away, but he bullshits with a smile for no one, "Bam left these for you." Khun's eyebrows rise and the stoic mask slips and 'fuck why isn't that for me' slips through his mind when Khun smiles warmly at the gifts on the table. Khun lets out a breath. “My favorite.” ...Why did he believe he ever had a chance?
💠 #Khuntober2024 Day 14: Khun/Shibisu
Pain is on the menu again~
"If Agraciana hadn't killed herself that day, would things have been different between us?" "No," Kiseia replies. "I'd still want to kill you." The hilt of her dagger groans with her tightening grip, its blade buried in the ground just left of Aguero's head. She hadn't intended for it to land there, if the cut on his cheek was anything to go by. He doesn't struggle. He doesn't move. "And when I become family head?" Aguero asks from beneath her. "When I stop what led us to this in the first place? What then?" "Atonement won't bring her back." "Killing me won't bring her back, either." "No. But it'll feel good." "Only in the moment. What about after?" "I've lived without you all this time. We've been apart more than we've been together." Her lips curl, poison at the edges. "Nothing will change this, brother." "Nothing? Are you sure?"
Kiseia smirks then, that same poison bright in the glint of her teeth. It's as if she's chomping at a bit in her mouth, one made of curiosity only just enticing enough to keep her held back. Her head tilts in mock consideration. Aguero swallows. Seeing her like this makes him wonder if this is what he could have been had he let his rage control him. Perhaps he should have - he wouldn't be under her like this, contemplating the exact way to reverse their positions, the trajectory of the icicle point that will end her life. The thought weighs heavily in his mind. He's willing to kill his sister-cousin. The last remaining family he has, his last bind to that other family that still has any meaning. And after, he will be alone. "You can try," Kiseia says lightly, cutting into his thoughts. Her gaze returns to his, to the sight of Aguero's expression threatening to betray him. "For the time you've got before I bleed you dry."
💠 #Khuntober2024 Day 12: Khun & Kiseia
When their confrontation comes to pass, one last conversation.
"You're both important to me," Bam says. He looks at Khun's reflection in the mirror. "Not just because of what you can do." Khun's baleful glare does not relent. Hwaryun continues combing Bam's hair, exuding disinterest. It doesn't sit right with him. He strides forward, placing a firm palm on Bam's shoulder. The frost of his eyes settles on her single ruby, standing up to her, as if to push her back with his presence alone. She pulls the comb gently in one last stroke, strands cascading in the same motion as her other hand to Bam's opposite shoulder. Meeting Khun's gaze head on, she tilts her head. He doesn't look away. Neither does her god. A secret smile plays on her lips, taunting Khun. "I'll leave you to it, then." She hands Khun the comb and leaves the room. He doesn't miss how Bam watches her go, words dying on parted lips when gold meets reflected steely blues. The silent plead Bam gives him aggravates Khun further. He corners Hwaryun in the hall later. He has some choice words, repellent, a deterrent to keep FUG from sinking their claws back into 𝘩𝘪𝘴 wave controller, and she, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺, need to know them. Between his arms, she stares. He doesn't speak first.
"Admit it, you need Viole as much as I do. And so long as he climbs this tower, I will be a constant. Which means..." Her eyes dip to his lips, her own curling in another smile when she returns them upward. "You will need me, too." "Like hell I will." "Don't you want to get closer to him?" she questions, eyebrows rising. "Don't you want him to be as relaxed around you as he is with me?" She watches his jaw flex. Inching closer, she makes him a honeyed, whispered offer. "Who better to help you with that than me, Khun? I know you love him." A storm swirls in his expression above her, her smile magnifying his thunderous rage. It is genuinely funny to her, though. He's so transparent, transparently in denial about his own truths. Her victory over them both is sweet. However, she won't give into that sweetness quite yet. It will taste better when Khun eventually gives it to her of his own discretion. After all, the offer she's about to make him is something he can't refuse. She knows this well. All she has to do is dangle Bam before him, and Khun will do 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨. But her god is 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴, and he needs to know it. "I can show you how he likes it," she says. His face snarls as that proceses. "What?" She decides he can stew with that implication for a bit. Blue storms swirl, swirl further with fury above her the longer she stays quiet; her smile widens, widens like her fingers as they graze across his cheek, thumb smoothing over glossy lips He jerks from her touch. "What do you mean, Hwaryun?"
"As you heard." Still, her smile remains. Deep down, she loves how easy he is to rile up, how he tries to hide behind pride and stoicism despite being made of glass. Her fingers slip to toy with the lapels of his open shirt collar. The muscles of his forearm ripple at the edge of her sight, yet, all he does is take a breath. She's got him listening. Here is the offer he cannot refuse. "Give me one week," she murmurs, leaning close; breath warms across his chin. "One week... he will love you as you want him to, and... more. You'll need me to make it happen." A beat passed between them. He doesn't move. "Hm?" Leaning back, she looks at him. He actually seems contemplative. It's... endearing, she thinks. Well, what comes after doesn't matter, she knows he's already agreed. It's a path the three of them are meant to take. Both of them already belong to her. "A... week," he finally murmurs, storms abating. "A week," she nods. They are all meant for each other.
💠 #Khuntober2024 Day 10: Khun/Hwaryun
So this is technically KhunBamHwa but today I make the rules 🤪 Someday I will write something for my second-favorite OT3. For now... possessive Khun and Hwaryun battling over Bam, who only wants the three of them to get along. 😂
Or...?
It was right there on his wrist, constantly visible at the edges of the waking moments of his life: his own name. Bam. When he had asked Rachel what it was, why it had appeared overnight like nothing, scribbled shapes he was still learning how to read giving him cause for panic, Rachel had stared for a while. Then, laughed at him. Every soul has another half, she explained patiently, and told him that this 'soulmark' was a phrase that his destined one would say to him the most. That that's how he would know who they were. You're lucky, Bam, and she patted his head. Looking at her, he thought he could never want it heard in any other voice. But her wrists were blank.
When the tower doors opened for them, fields of gold and blood and him, alone in the middle of it, he had already long forgotten about the implications of the ever-present mark until that boy came along. The one who grabbed his wrist and dragged him through the grasslands, guidance when he desperately needed it most. And then - "I'm Khun Aguero Agnis," he had said, and offered his hand. "You can call me Khun." Bam looked at it. At his wrist, at a mark there, the first not his own he had ever seen, and there it was: I love you. Bam looked at Khun, the phrase in his mind. He took the lightbearer's hand, shook it, "Twenty-Fifth Bam." "Bam," Khun nodded, testing the name on his tongue. Bam. It was then Bam realized he had been holding Khun's hand a second too long, Khun raking his calculative sapphire blues over him, and then he was in his face - "Where did you get that weapon?" - the matter of the soulmarks folding back into afterthought.
💠 #Khuntober2024 Day 9: KhunBam #2
A bonus for my bsky friends, the beginning of a wip that one day will get finished. One day.
No promises and no false comforts are offered even if they are well meant. Their experiences temper their every decision, slowly work to harden whatever softness they are still capable of. It's just how the tower is - it has a way of hardening things. Both of them were proof of that. This is a reminder of what that softness once felt like. Cradled in hands more familiar than his own, a pulse just under warm skin, beating gently in a rhythm that calls each other's names, even when one half was but an echo in frozen stillness. This is now, and there is one irrefutable truth: "I'll be right here with you."
💠 #Khuntober2024 Day 9: KhunBam
I'm a little busy... but I didn't want to miss out on today 🥹
"He's changed you." She lifts her head. It stays tilted at an angle, her shaking pupils seeking him at the corners of her eyes through the ruined fringe of her hair. They rest on him and she bares her teeth. A manic grin, one that gnarls her features in the low light. Khun was not afraid of much of anything anymore. But Maria's voice - her melody of a voice that once brought and now shatters his hope, contains him in it. "You've made it this far. Who are you to feign righteousness with me? You killed your own sister for me. Why, why is it that you suddenly need reminding, Aguero?" Maria leans forward, eyes flashing. Her chains drag across the floor and strain against her weight. "There is no such thing as right or wrong. There are only beliefs, and those with the power to enforce them. And Jahad's beliefs – my father's beliefs – are absolute. You fight for nothing." "Maria–" "You'll die for nothing!" She bawls furiously. The ground shakes beneath them. Her chains rattle with it, tin bells above groaning metal, distant shouts in the hallway dissonant with her hyperventilation. Then - much like her god-king of a father, hours ago - she laughs. Laughs, a defeated amusement drawing her to the stone on shackled arms and legs. "We're all dying... for nothing..."
💠 #Khuntober2024 Day 6: Khun & Maria
I'm not late 🤪
Another peek at a draft of a different part of a specific wip... oh my. Things are happening.
“It’s been a habit since I was young. When I found a jewel that I liked, I hid it somewhere so I wouldn’t lose it.” His fingertips turn pale. “So I’ve never… tried them on.” Tilting his head back to the sky, he says nothing more. That look. Tired, half-lidded eyes cradling distance, depth, darkness, something he can sympathize but not empathize. Deep blue instead of gold, pale blue hair thrown into motion by the breeze. Again, it brings Wangnan back to the thought of Viole, of days and nights spent restless staring up and out into nothing.
He wonders why they choose to live that way, always suspended on personal balconies, teetering between safety and the freefall found on the other side of the railing. Standing on the edge, neither here nor there. Edges Khun seems to gauge and study and consider and turn over and never choose to jump or walk away from, until it was safe, until it was *right*, until it was too late, the decision made for him instead. Edges Viole chose to ignore and escape to the endless possibilities of the sky, resigning himself to circumstance, everything he was never supposed to be and everything he ever desired, blown away by the storms. Stuck there, never moving - it was a decision in itself. They would never lose, that way. They would never win, either.
When the opportunities pass into nothingness, would they be content to spend their lives wondering what could have been? Content to have turned their futures into the views beyond balcony edges, cordoning them off with a railing, ever to be observed and never touched? Who knows. As a spectator, he can only stand on those balconies himself, look up and contemplate what it is that they both see out there in that fathomless blue. He can watch as the decisive moments come and go, clouds sailing below the ceiling. As a spectator, he can also watch things happen. “Do it sometime,” he says to the sky. “Try them on.” Khun hums.
💠 #Khuntober2024 Day 3: Khun & Wangnan
another wip peek
Transcript: The backhand Bam receives to the face echoes in the throne room. Khun muffles a pained noise in his throat, Adori casting her gaze on him and lifting her needle higher to hover above his neck where she had nicked it before. A silent threat. He would have never been this sloppy in the past. It had been too many years without having to wear his mask of indifference. Too many years since the Khun family demanded it of him, froze his emotions in ice. Too many years of having let himself be melted, reshaped by Bam's soft touch. Bam shakes his head. A dribble of blood paints his lips. His tormented eyes return to Khun's. Look away, Khun begs him. Jahad lifts his arm— "If I may be so bold as to make one final request of the king of the tower." Bam doesn't look away. Jahad huffs. His head only half-turns in Khun's direction on his throne's plinth, enough for the ruby blaze of his left eye to burn into blue. Adori dips her head. Khun has never had room for such reverence.
Transcript Part 2: "You ask for much," the king grouses. "I, too, wish to see the end with my own eyes." The handle of the Heavenly Mirror feels firm through the fabric of his pocket. "As the one who delivered him, let me be the one to end his life." Bam's eyes widen, Khun's name falling soundless from his lips. The king does nothing but stare back at him evenly. It is then the shinsu around them seems to warp and thicken for a moment, turned oppressive, squeezing the space around Khun and though his lungs scream for reprieve he narrows all he is into defiance of the Red Eyes. Something cracks. He flinches. He doesn't look away, doesn't crumble; the suns of Jahad's eyes leave afterimages in the trembling of his pupils. It stops. Khun gasps, sweat slipping into his eyes, a shoulder beginning to throb, and - of all things, Jahad laughs. He laughs, cruel and clipped, an echo of what Khun heard a day before. A gauntleted hand motions to his guards. "Lift him off his knees."
💠 #Khuntober2024 Day 1: Jahad & Khun
rough draft from a wip I daydream about and may finish someday, born many years ago
#khuntober2024 Day 15 - Free day (Khun/Viole)
A redraw of a past #khunbam fanart, celebrating the 2nd cour of Tower of God Season 2 anime
