#he couldn’t pick between mizi and ivan

[quishquosh]

luka is gonna pull up to round 7 in this. trust me.

[bluemoonscape]

Here’s my @alnst-secret-santa fic for the lovely and amazing @chevalperd, who requested some ivanmizi besties content for her gift! This was really fun to do, especially seeing as I consider the recipient of the gift a friend! Word count at 4.3k—it’ll be up on AO3 within a few hours, but for now, read below the cut. I hope you don’t mind that I included some 4nakt dynamics around the ivanmizi for plot. Happy holidays, Ish <33

Ivan couldn’t really say for sure how he’d gotten to this point in his life.

…Well, actually, he could, and in painstaking detail, too. It started at about the time his father ushered him into show business, married this runway superstar millionaire, put a handful of stepsisters in front of him with an unheard but cheerful “here you go, kid!” taught him to conform to the public’s vision of him, tarnished his self-esteem—

Anyway, the short version was this. Ivan had been crushing on someone for a while. By a while, of course, he meant every waking hour since he met the guy (approximately four years, five months, one week, and 2 days, counting. Not like Ivan was keeping track or anything). Ivan had never been the type to fall so hard, or at all, really, but Till was special. 

Ivan met him while he was taking classes through university and juggling his well-established career, and from the moment he saw him with his guitar case covered in stickers and his jeans littered with rips and patches, he knew Till was the only one for him. If it wasn’t Till, it was Ivan in sweatpants eating from a carton of peppermint swirl ice cream with a spoon with hard water stains watching A Charlie Brown Christmas and wondering if anyone would say anything if he just stopped going out in public and instead hibernated in his stupidly big, stupidly empty apartment until the Progresso soup cans ran out. And the ice cream. Which was looking like it’d be yesterday’s news sooner rather than later.

It was around while he was doing this exact activity when his father rang him. This was a rare enough occurrence that it briefly occurred to Ivan that a stroke or cardiac event might be involved. He picked up on that basis, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder as he scooped out the last candy cane pieces from the corners of the container.

“Hello, Father. I didn’t expect to hear from you—everything alright?”

“What?” his father said absently. “Oh. Yes, everything’s fine. I called to extend an invitation to the Christmas party, on the twenty-third. Arrival at five, dinner at six, games throughout the rest of the evening. Will you be able to make it? Sua has already agreed.”

Sua was a bonus. Sua was the baby of her sisters, which put her much closer in age with Ivan than the other girls. She was the only one of his stepmother’s children he ever bonded with beyond surface level pleasantries, and he hadn’t seen her in some time. Still…

“I don’t know. I might have an event that night. Since when are we having Christmas parties again?”

A pause. “Since right now. Why not? There will be family friends there. Colleagues. You might meet some people interested in getting involved in your work.”

Of course it was just a way to network. It always was. God forbid they have one Christmas party with just the family like they used to before the families crashed together about as gracefully as two tectonic plates. Ivan’s Christmases as a little kid were probably the most fun he ever had and ever would, based on the way things were trending.

He must’ve been quiet for too long, for he was jolted by his stupor by, “Sua’s bringing her boyfriend—would you like to bring your girlfriend? Mizi, was it?”

Ivan froze.

The wrongest thing about that was the combination of “Sua” and “boyfriend” in the same sentence. That was weird.

The second wrongest part was the belief or pretense of belief that Ivan actually had someone to share his life with. That was absolutely laughable.

But it was his fault he thought this.

“Right.” Ivan coughed and sat up straight, setting the carton and spoon down on the clear coffee table to hold the phone in his hand. The carton tipped, and the spoon clattered to the carpeted floor with a trail of minty goodness. “Mizi. Right.”

Because this was the really hilarious thing that he totally forgot he told his father and stepmother after making the mistake of confiding in them that he did, in fact, have his eyes on someone and was not, in fact, self-isolating. The unfortunate part came when they asked for specifics. What was she like?

“Artistic,” Ivan had said, caught up in the mental image of Till in music class, playing his bass, Till in their philosophy class, staring off into space, daydreaming about something undoubtedly beautiful. “Passionate, fiercely loyal, a little shy.”

Oh, how delightful! And what was her name?

So Ivan clammed up.

“Mizi,” was the first name that came to mind. “Her name’s—Mizi!”

His stepsister’s girlfriend of two years.

The girl Till was infatuated with.

Definitely not Ivan’s girlfriend.

In his defense, it wasn’t so weird when one considered how close he’d become with Mizi in his own right. He probably saw her more than he saw Sua at this point. She was bright and bubbly and, above all, relentlessly determined to make him feel included in all things. 

It was a little embarrassing at first. He felt like he was just the little brother she was taking pity on. But now, he might even call her his best friend. Despite all the reasons he’d collected to avoid her (you’re pathetic, you want what she and Sua have, you want Till to look at you like he looks at her, you’ll only bring her down)—she found her way right into his heart. But never once had she ever consented to being the girl he used as a pitiful excuse to his parents to convince them he wasn’t alone, not hopelessly and stupidly in love with a boy he couldn’t have.

“Uh,” he said smartly into the phone. “Sua’s bringing a… boyfriend?”

A hum of confirmation.

Last I checked Mizi was definitely a girl did I miss someth—?

“Great!” he chirped. “Good for her. Unfortunately, I don’t think I, um, or Mizi, will be able to come. My schedule is pretty packed, so…”

“It is?” God fucking hell, it was like his father could see his lie right through the phone. “The day before Christmas Eve?”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck me. Why do I even try? I should hang up. And block his number. And move to Scotland. I hear the weather’s nice there.

“You know,” Ivan said haltingly, “let me… check my calendar and see if I have a spot.”

Obviously he did. The day was entirely empty, whiter than the rare thick snow blanketing the streets outside.

He could make something up, but clearly his father was already beginning to question the existence of this supposed girlfriend—with reason, too—and he hadn’t seen Sua in months. Maybe he could work something out. Maybe he could pull something together in time to keep up appearances and appease his family for a few more years.

So he opened his big dumb mouth and said, “It’s tight but I can fit you in.”

“Excellent!” his father shouted right into Ivan’s ear, “Won’t you bring Mizi? We’d love to meet her.”

Not because they were actually interested in being connected to someone Ivan loved, but because they couldn’t have the family looking bad. Ivan always tried not to let it get to him. He rarely succeeded even after all these years living out on his own.

“Yeah.” Ivan cleared his throat. “I’ll see if she can come.”

~

So yeah. Ivan could, actually, say for absolute certain how he got to this point in his life, on the doorstep of his father’s giant house that had never been a home for Ivan, a noodle casserole in his arms and a baby blue bowl with snowflake designs filled with frosted sugar cookies in Mizi’s arms.

“Ivan?” Mizi smiled at him uncertainly, touching his shoulder with her free hand. She’d gotten a pixie cut in the months since he’d last seen her, before he met her for coffee and dropped his bomb of a favor on her. She looked so pretty like that, tiny pink ears exposed to the cold air, her bangs fanning above her brows in the wind. Ivan could see why Till liked her. Maybe Ivan would too if he was more… something. Or less something.

He smiled back at her, and she asked, “Are you gonna ring the doorbell?” Sheepishly, she added, “I can’t feel my toes.”

Ivan’s gaze dropped to her feet. “You’re wearing fur boots,” he teased, “it probably doesn’t take much to make your feet cold in those.”

Mizi whacked his arm hard enough to hurt, stared at him dead in the eyes, and deliberately pushed the doorbell with her index finger, decorated with a red and green striped nail. He returned her dirty look.

They both jumped to face forward when the door opened, and before them stood Ivan’s stepmother in a spotless white evening gown that stood stark against her long sheet of raven hair. Sua was practically the spitting image of her, as were her older sisters. Their mother’s genes were strong. The RBF ran strong in the family.

“Ivan.” Her mouth approached something vaguely resembling a smile, close-lipped and tight. “I’m glad you could make it. Your father will be pleased. And is this… Millie?”

“Mizi,” Ivan corrected with a frown.

Mizi waved awkwardly.

“Oh, I see. I’m delighted to meet your acquaintance, Mizi. The children speak highly of you. You’re Sua’s friend, aren’t you?”

Mizi bumped her foot against Ivan’s, and Ivan repressed a mortifying snort.

“Yes ma’am, your daughter is a fine young woman.” Mizi’s voice was so exaggeratedly posh, Ivan was somewhere between bursting into tears of laughter or sinking into the porch floor. “And your stepson is a total knockout.”

Sua’s mother blinked. Ivan smiled convincingly.

“Come in, then,” she said, ignoring Mizi’s comment. “It’s cold out there. I’ll take your coats—you can set the food on the table in the dining hall. Sua and her partner are in the sitting room off the entryway.”

Seeing as Sua said it was “a surprise” who she was bringing as her own fake date on the phone, Ivan was curious to see the mirage boyfriend.

He and Mizi put his casserole and her cookies on the banquet table, then made a beeline through the crowd to the sitting room, offering grins and polite waves to the mingling socialites—all people Ivan didn’t recognize.

Ivan nearly tripped over the threshold when he and Mizi walked in to find a very uncomfortable-looking Till dressed in a turtleneck and jacket, hair swept back from his forehead, sat a respectable distance from Sua on the sofa near the hearth of the fireplace.

Mizi, unbothered, gave an excited shriek that definitely did not belong in this house.

“Till, oh my god! I didn’t know you would be here!”

Till froze up when Mizi threw her arms around him and squeezed him. He coughed over her shoulder. “I—Hi, Mizi. Merry Christmas.”

Sua, elegant as ever in her midnight black dress dotted with glittering studs, smoothed out her dress over her knees and stood, crossing her thin arms and arching an eyebrow at Ivan, who was busy gawking at her date. She stared at him sternly for an uncomfortable amount of time before extending her arms to him. 

“Well, c’mere.”

Ivan stepped closer and stooped down to hug her. It wasn’t a particularly warm, fuzzy hug, the kind he imagined some siblings might give each other after being apart for months, but their relationship had always been based on quiet respect and love, the sort of two people who didn’t feel in need of such overt validation from the other. His friendship with Mizi was more… sweet, he supposed. Sentimental.

While Sua moved to wrap Mizi in a much more intimate hug and whisper something in her ear, Till stepped up to Ivan, his eyes fixed somewhere below Ivan’s eyes. An awkward smile tilted his lips. “Hey, you. Been a while.”

They both hesitated, hovering in front of each other. Then when Ivan went in for what he perceived as a safe side hug, Till went for the full embrace, leaving them clutching at each other’s shoulders in the absolute worst, most awkward attempt at a friendly “bro” brand of affection Ivan had ever taken part in.

He cleared his throat and stepped away at the girls’ unimpressed looks.

Long night.

This was going to be a looooong night.

~

Dinner was, as Ivan expected, a bit of a disaster.

Ivan sat next to his father at his insistence, and Sua next to her mother, Till at her side and Mizi at Ivan’s. Ivan kept stealing glances over Sua and the parents at Till. Every now and then, he thought he saw Till looking back at him until he remembered Mizi was right by him.

Sensing something was off, Mizi gently nudged his ribs with her elbow and gestured at her plate with her fork when she caught Ivan’s attention. “Your casserole is delicious.” She laughed, a sweet, good-natured sound. “My cookies seem a little childish now.”

“What? No, no, not at all.” Ivan grabbed her hand where it rested near her silverware—a familiar gesture of comfort between them that also happened to present a pretty good front for the performed romance. “I love your baking. If no one else eats them, you know Sua, Till and I will.” He looked back down at his plate, resisting the urge to push his food around like a petulant child. He didn’t have much of an appetite. “Anyway, my mom used to make cookies for the holidays, so…”

Mizi’s expression softened. “Christmases used to be pretty fun around here, huh?”

“Yeah.” Ivan flicked his tongue against the inside of his lower lip, his heart sinking at the memory of a better, more innocent life, before showbiz, before his mom, before Sua’s family, before adulthood. Back when he had a home and wasn’t only surrounded for the holidays because of a lie he made up to seem like less of a fuck-up. “They did.”

“Mizi!” A voice caught their attention; Ivan’s father regarded Mizi curiously, eyeing her from her hair to her dress and jacket. “Tell us about yourself. Ivan has spoken fondly of you.”

“Oh yeah?” Mizi laughed nervously, nudging Ivan’s side again. “Oh, well, you know, we just hit it off. I work in marine biology, and I met Ivan through Sua. Um, what else…”

“Marine biology?” Ivan’s father hummed. “Such an interesting field. Quite a divergence from your major though, right? Music to marine biology is quite the jump.”

Till’s head shot up where he was staring down at his plate. Ivan resisted the urge to “accidentally” spill a glass of wine all over his father’s suit.

Instead, he forced out a laugh. “Mizi’s multi-talented.”

“I suppose she must be.” Ivan’s father nodded approvingly, as though seeing Mizi in a different light. “I must admit, the way Ivan described you, I thought you’d be much different.”

Mizi glanced frantically between Ivan and his father, an obvious cry for help in her green eyes. “Different good or different bad?” she asked with a nervous grin.

“Oh, good, naturally.” Oblivious, Ivan’s father smiled. Sua seemed to be having the time of her life, anyway—technically, her stepfather approved of her girlfriend, though he didn’t know Mizi was her partner and not Ivan’s. “I expected you to be a little wild, truth be told. Though I applaud your hobby in songwriting, it’s hardly sustainable without a label—a good foundation in a science field will serve you well.”

Oh, Till definitely knew. He looked right at Ivan, everything in his bewildered face asking “is this real?”

Mizi scrambled to cover for him, loudly announcing, “Well, the songwriting thing was more of a…passing interest! Ivan knows this. I don’t tell a lot of people about it. Till is really more of the writer.”

Sua’s mother looked at Till with new scrutiny. Till shrunk in his seat like a child being offered a plate of broccoli.

“Really?” Ivan’s father asked, frowning, his thick brows twisted in obvious confusion. “We were under the impression Till was the one more into sciences. It… come to think of it, was it marine biology?”

Now it was Sua’s turn to turn the color of a ripe tomato in her chair.

Served her right. Looks like Ivan wasn’t the only one who got caught red-handed this holiday with a fake partner to cover up for a lack of a heterosexual relationship—or in Ivan’s case, a lack of a relationship as a whole.

“You know,” Ivan said quickly, “maybe you mixed them up. Easy mistake to make.”

His father glanced back and forth, suspicious, but about what, even he didn’t seem to know. In fairness, it wasn’t every day your son took your stepdaughter’s girlfriend as his fake date to your holiday party while your stepdaughter took your son’s crush as her fake date and then spent time with her actual girlfriend, your son’s fake date, on the down low.

It was easy to miss.

“Well,” the man huffed. “Maybe.”

He turned to an executive across from him and down one seat and launched into a new conversation. The topic was effectively dropped.

Ivan hid a bitter glare behind his wine glass.

A whole lot of good that does now.

~

When Mizi found Ivan hiding out on the front porch after dinner with another full glass of wine in hand, she sighed, grabbed his glass, and upended it in the snow, which now looked like a bloody murder had been committed in its presence.

Ivan stared at her blankly. “I don’t think you realize how expensive that wine is.”

“Don’t know, don’t care. I brought you a cookie.” With no further preamble, she thrust a sugar cookie with bubblegum pink frosting into his hands.

Ivan accepted it reluctantly. “You came out here and spilled my drink to give me a cookie?”

“No, the cookie is a mean’s to an end. You’re not driving us later, by the way.” Mizi sank down to sit on the top step of the porch and patted the spot to her left. “Come on, sit.”

“But I was sitting for an hour at dinner.”

“Ivan, do not make me make you sit.”

She was dead serious. She’d done it before and she’d do it again. Her piggyback-transition-to-headlock maneuver was undefeated in multiple regions.

Knowing this, Ivan sat down at her side. He still wasn’t very hungry, but he didn’t want to hurt Mizi’s feelings, so he took a bite of the cookie.

It was really good. No matter how bad things got or how lonely Ivan was, at least there was Mizi’s baking.

“You’ve been moping all night and every day leading up to this.” Mizi mimicked his earlier gesture at the dinner table, covering his cold hand with her smaller, warmer one. “I know you and your dad have a complicated relationship. I understand why you’d be so upset. But I get the feeling there’s something more.” She turned his hand over and stroked her thumb over the longest, most visible scar on his wrist. And god, he hated when she did that. It made him choke on air a little every time. “Why did you agree to come if you knew you wouldn’t have a good time?”

Ivan drew his hand away from hers carefully and wrapped his arms around his knees, sighing and watching his breath fog in the air. “Like you said, it’s complicated. I guess a part of me still wants to please my father, even if I never really can entirely. And I wanted him to see that I can do well on my own. That I’m… functioning beyond what the public sees.”

Mizi rested her chin in the palm of her hand, looking up at him with an expression so gentle he could hardly even look at her. She was so good. She was so kind. He didn’t deserve her. 

“What the public sees doesn’t matter,” she said. “What do you see? How do you see your life, Ivan?”

Pathetic? Pitiful? Laughable? So meaningless it was comedic?

“Like…” He toed the wiring of the string of lights tied around the porch rail. “One of these crappy bulbs that’s burnt out before you even open the package.” He gave Mizi a wry smile, hoping it sounded more humorous than sad, but the look on her face said he failed at that. “I feel like I only showed up to be seen and I’m not really seen anyway.”

“By your father, maybe,” Mizi conceded.

He looked at his shoes.

“By Till?” she pressed, quieter.

Ivan’s shoulders slumped, and he rubbed at his face, trapping a groan behind his teeth. “It’s sad.”

“It’s not sad.” Mizi squeezed his shoulder. “You’re not a sad person. And Till cares about you more than you realize. We all do, you just don’t see it. You won’t.”

“Mizi…” Ivan shook his head and let his hands slide from his face. How could he explain it? How could you even explain something like this? “Mizi, the way he looks at you, if you saw, you would know. The way you and Sua look at each other. I—“ He swallowed, realizing he was giving too much away. “You don’t know.”

Mizi’s hand tightened, then let go entirely. Ivan felt his heart briefly kick in panic—wait, don’t be offended, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that—and then Mizi practically tackled him in a hug, that hug he so desperately needed with the warmth and cheesiness and safety. Ivan let himself lean into her, bringing his own arms up to circle her waist.

“You feel alone,” Mizi murmured. “You think you have no one, and you’re so, so wrong.”

Ivan sniffed from the cold and let his eyes squeeze shut, if only for a second, so he could imagine it was only them in the world. “I know you’re my friend, I do, but it’s not—“

“The same,” Mizi finished, pulling back and gripping his face tight enough to smush his cheeks. “I know. I know it’s not the same. It doesn’t have to be the same. Yeah, I love Sua, but I love you too. Just because it’s a different type of love doesn’t mean I love you less. You don’t mean less to me. You don’t mean less to Sua. You don’t mean less to Till.”

“I don’t think I can believe you.” Ivan winced, entirely at a loss for words. “I wish I could. But you’re so good, Mizi, you’re the greatest girl I’ve ever met and Till should like you. Sua too. I don’t think I’m even jealous of you. I’m not angry with you for what you have. I don’t wish I was like you.” Ivan hesitated. “I just wish I liked being me better.”

Mizi smiled, and for a moment, Ivan thought he was probably just as head over heels in love with her as Till and Sua were, only it wasn’t that he wanted to kiss her, he just wanted to be at her side. He wanted to hold her hand and cook while she baked and hug her on a cold front porch all the time.

This is what having a best friend feels like.

“Ivan.” Mizi shook his face playfully. “You may not feel seen, or wanted, or loved, but I see you, I love you, I want you around. I’m here. You are an amazing, kind, intelligent, funny, loving human being, I adore you, and,” she grabbed the pink cookie and pushed it against his closed lips. “I want you to shut the hell up about how supposedly worthless you are and eat the cookie.”

And if that wasn’t exactly what Ivan needed to hear.

He blinked at her, grinned, and laughed so hard he accidentally butted the cookie from her hand, breaking it in two and sending it skidding down onto the second step of the porch, pillowed by a fine sheet of snow.

“Hey!” Mizi gaped, but, equally unable to take herself seriously, she dissolved into a fit of giggles. “You killed my cookie!”

“My apologies to the cookie. Here, see, it’s fine. You can have half now.” He shoved the more intact half of the sugar cookie into her waiting mouth; it crumbled, and more probably got on the ground than in her mouth. Ivan took a huge bite out of his piece, nearly unable to keep his mouth shut while he chewed because of how much his cheeks hurt when he tried not to grin.

It was the lightest Ivan had felt in a long time.

“Hey,” Mizi told him later that night as they walked to the car, the car keys transferred decidedly to her from a tipsy Ivan, “for what it’s worth, I think if you paid more attention, you’d see that Till and lots of other people look at you that way, too.”

“After he just learned that I’ve described him under your name to people who ask me who I’m seeing?” Ivan snorted. “Not a chance.”

Mizi’s eyes flitted ahead to Sua’s car, where Sua had gracefully climbed in behind her driver and Till was hung up outside the door, looking back over his shoulder at the pair. Which of the two he was fixated on was hard to tell.

“Actually,” Mizi said drily, licking remnants of pink frosting from her molars, “I think your show of idiocy has him hook, line, and sinker.”

Even though Ivan didn’t believe it, he had to admit, it made him feel warm somewhere in his stomach where he must store his feelings of yearning and general longing.

No matter how bad things got or how lonely Ivan felt, at least he wasn’t ever really alone.

[crustyfloor]

Ways of endearment for the observers

Was there a part of you hoping you could mimic what they had?

Status: Completed

Words: 2k

Read on AO3

Read here:

Mizi and Sua were something special, among all the other kids in Anakt Garden. They were the closest to each other. Ivan hadn’t seen Sua smile more when she wasn’t near Mizi. Mizi had that kind of effect on people Ivan guessed.

“Mizi….for you.” 

Ivan observed the two from his desk nearby. In Sua’s hand was a miniature version of a flower crown and a rare look of nervousness on her face when the creation was taken by Mizi. But of course, even though it looked bad. Nothing compared to the ones Till made. Mizi still accepted it with a big smile and grabbed Sua in a tight hug to which the other girl averted his eyes and mumbled something Ivan couldn’t hear.

Till liked flower crowns. If the many hours Ivan had spent seeing Till make flower crowns with ease all the time even when they weren’t meant for anyone in particular was any proof. If he liked them so much, Ivan wondered. If he were to make one for Till instead, would Till like it the way Mizi does?

And so here he was now, carefully threading two stems together as he remembered seeing Till do it many times before, though admittedly Ivan wasn’t as good at this, the result was anything but a proper flower crown. But he still found himself proud of it, proud enough to present it to Till with a smile. 

“What’s that..?”

Till asks as he glances up from his notepad and pauses his rapid scribbling. Instead, focusing on the flower crown Ivan was holding. And not the Mizi doodle. Just Ivan. 

“It’s a flower crown,” Ivan said with a practiced chirpy tone as he placed it on Till’s head, a single flower fell onto Till’s lap. “Do you like it?” 

Till slowly took the flower crown off and gave a look when the whole thing crumpled from the impact and then snorted. 

“No. it’s bad.” 

“Oh.” Ivan breathed. Well, he knew that already. So it didn’t hurt when Till said it, but maybe a part of him was expecting Till to put on a smile anyway and be happy about it, but alas he wasn’t like Mizi in that sense. 

There was silence a long stretch of silence between the two, awkward as Till averted his eyes and huffed, grabbing the bundle of flowers with bent stems. 

“Sit down…. I’ll teach you how to make a better one” Till replied curtly, snapping Ivan out of his thoughts and he immediately took a seat next to Till as he began explaining how to properly tie the stems together. 

‘Well….This is good enough too.’

————

Till was beside him, still visibly seething after taking a thorough scolding from their teacher for drawing during class. 

This didn’t stop Ivan from trying to tease Till about it when they took their seats at lunch, which caused him to get a thorough verbal beating from Till…. so it was apparent Till was too busy to talk. 

That left Ivan with nobody to talk to but two eyes to look around and entertain himself by watching his peers. Mostly everyone was minding their business and eating if not talking to the person beside them. Ivan’s eyes were easily drawn to the vibrant pink hair that stuck out among the crowd first. A few tables away Mizi and Sua were sitting together as they always were. Seemingly in their own world as Mizi was happily talking, facing Sua who was more focused on the braid she was making with the thick strand of Mizi’s hair than what Mizi was saying but still nodded and replied things Ivan couldn’t hear now and then. 

Ivan averted his eyes away from the girls and back to Till who had looked to calm down, distractedly stabbing the small pile of white rice on his tray with his spoon. Ivan’s mind went to a time when Till had mumbled something along the lines of “Would she touch my hair too if I grew it longer…” and when Ivan popped up behind him and asked what he said Till jumped in place and proceeded to shout at Ivan. 

Ivan had read in one of those cheesy romance books that he happened to pick up one day and put back the next, a girl was getting her hair braided by a guy she had a crush on. She described her feelings as “butterflies.” It sounded silly to Ivan, but he wondered. Was that what Mizi felt when Sua touched her hair? Would Till get that same fluttery feeling if it was Ivan doing it to him instead? 

It was now later in the day. The sky was a bright orange and curfew creeping around the corner Ivan had gotten bored of making faces at the sky so he sought out Till as he always did. And he wasn’t hard to find. Ivan, as expected found Till already lying by the tree asleep. Till had a weird knack for sleeping everywhere but his bed and Ivan had half a mind to throw something at him to wake him up but decided against it when his eyes caught on the sight of Till’s usual untamed, wild grey hair, and then his mind wandered back. Till’s hair wasn’t quite long anymore so it would be difficult to make a solid braid but it didn’t stop Ivan from slowly settling down beside the boy and grabbing at a few strands.

Till’s hair was rougher than it should be. 

Well, to be expected Ivan guessed. If he couldn’t help to go a day without causing his uniform to rip and stain then why would he bother keeping up with his hair? Thats okay. 

And so for the next few minutes, Ivan meticulously ran his hand through till hair, meticulously taking out and tearing at every knot until he was unable to catch on anything else. 

It looked softer now and Ivan couldn’t help but feel proud of himself for his work. It was only when Till started to shift did he realized he was waking up and removed his hands. Looking innocent when till woke up, at the weird dull throbbing in his scalp he cast Ivan a suspicious glance. 

————

Ivan had expected Mizi to be the first one to go. But in a less than surprising turn of events Sua had been the one to fall to the floor, surrounded in a pool of her blood. Ivan watched as Mizi’s stiff body had to be dragged away from Sua after not responding to her name for the third time. Ivan felt a little sympathy for her. He remembered her being so excited only a few hours ago, hugging Sua tightly after assuring her that they would show the aliens ‘the best duo they’ve ever seen’ and that they could make it out together. All they needed to do was be themselves. That mizi loved her and she believed in them. All that positivity amounted to nothing at the end of the day. It’s such cruelty that she had to have her bubble popped in such a horrific way. Wouldn’t it have been better for Sua to spare that innocence such a rude awakening?

It put a knot in Ivan’s stomach.

Through the side of his eye, he looked to Till who was a few pods down staring down at the scene with widened eyes, Similarly, the reality was dawning on Till too. Just where the hell they were right now. What they were fighting for. 

Minutes after Mizi was taken off the stage cleaning crew came in. For the few minutes to an hour cleaning crew would spend ridding the pristine white stage of crimson red the participants were allowed back into the building for a breather. He, Mizi, and Till were all gathered into a room, two heavy doors weighed down by heavier iron kept them inside, a precaution for those who may decide to try their luck at escaping. 

The silence was profound as everyone stood in separate areas of the room, taking in what they had just seen. And for once, Till wasn’t even looking Mizi’s way as he was seemingly lost in his head thinking.

Mizi, on the other hand. She was well, not okay. At all. It didn’t take a genius to know why. She had a distant look in her shocked eyes as she touched the long-since-dried blood splatter on her cheek with a gloved hand. 

After a minute, an alien came in and pulled Mizi out taking her somewhere else and leaving only him and a still stunned Till. Huh. He and Sua weren’t even close, so why was he acting like this? Perhaps now would be a good time to say something. The cleaning crew wasn’t going to take forever, and Till still had his round to win. So Ivan did that. 

“Till.” No response came when he approached the boy’s side. 

“Till.”

“Till?-“ 

“Ivan.” 

The sound of his name from Till’s mouth sent a shiver down his spine, he hadn’t heard that in a while. But he didn’t stay that way for too long as he settled down on the floor next to Till.

Don’t let it get to your head. 

“Sua’s dead.. They killed her…” Till breathed out, pulling his knees close to his chest. 

“I…I mean…shit, I don’t know. That is what this is about but, she and Mizi were doing so well…the plan looked like it was working..” 

“It was always just meant to be a shallow hope.” was what Ivan wanted to say. But that wouldn’t be helpful. And Till was still talking, to himself at this point. He wasn’t addressing Ivan but also simultaneously using him as a brain dump.

Till then seemed to have realized he was rambling and shut his mouth after a while. Awkwardly averting his eyes from Ivan’s direction. Well, to be expected but at least Till hadn’t moved away yet. Looking at him, it was clear he was still on edge. when Ivan thought up some small words of comfort they didn’t come to light on his tongue, it didn’t feel right. It probably wouldn’t be of any use anyway considering it would only work if it was genuine. So instead, without much thought he extended a hand and brushed it over Till’s shoulder in a brief show of hesitancy before giving in and grabbing Till’s shoulder in a firm grip. Ivan hoped Till knew what he was trying to say with that when they locked eyes for a second and Till wordlessly eased into the touch. 

—————

Ivan felt like he was burning

Despite the bone-chilling drops of artificial rain pouring down on him, suffocating him the same way he was suffocating Till now. Just barely. Because no matter how much he willed himself. His grip never got tighter. He didn’t know why. But it didn’t matter, he just needed to make it look convincing. 

And it seems it was working. 

Thump. 

Till was like a dead weight in his hands. Ivan wanted him to move, to keep trying to pry him off, anything. He was trying to find Till. Instead, he was looking straight at a hollow body that was supposed to hold a person but was more like what he always was, a beaten-down boy with nothing left to lose and nothing left to live for. It was like he was already dead in Ivan’s hands. Ivan didn’t know how to feel. 

‘Do you want to leave me that badly? Of course, you do. It’s not me you care about leaving, after all.’ 

Thump. 

Ivan wished he had the heart to give Till what he wanted, but he was selfish. Unworthy of Till’s grace, his attention, even in his last moments. Ivan was nothing compared to Mizi anyway. He would never have the place he desperately tried to claim in Till’s heart for years. He was okay with that. 

‘….’

Was this how Sua felt? When Mizi was singing her heart out thinking that together, they were stronger than the chains holding them down. Whilst she was always too aware of the weight that would inevitably crush them and their spirits? 

Ivan would’ve laughed if not for the stinging in his side preventing him from even retaining the hold he had on Till. To think he was once disgusted at Sua for doing what she did. Painfully etching her memory in Mizi’s mind the way she did. And then turning around and doing the same for the man who wouldn’t even glance his way, even now. Ivan wondered what Till would think if he did.

He was a hypocrite. 

He could accept that. 

But at least, Ivan was better than Sua. Ivan would only be a fleeting memory to Till. And what was Ivan if not a hopeless follower if he was content with that? It was more than he deserved for the person he was.

Thump. 

For these shallow emotions that never mattered, Ivan would die and Till would survive to the end of this, maybe even find Mizi again. Maybe escape Alien stage. Hopefully, live a life worth living like he dreamed of when they were kids.

Ivan’s vision started to blur as an indescribable weight burdened his eyelids. A stinging in his throat and the feel of burning liquid running down his chin sealed his fate as his shaking hands separated from Till’s neck, instantly the other eyes shot open, and then—

…

‘Oh. You’re looking at me.’