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Ivan was an incredibly easy person to hate.
On the surface, he was as perfect as a person could get. He had it all, having sponsors who lavished him with attention, a steady presence in the musical sphere as a “pet performer,” a pretty face and an amazing voice, to boot. He never lost his temper and he always had a smile ready, calm and collected and patient as a monk. The marketing followed this persona to a T, making him into the gentle, enigmatic boy-next-door to Luka’s beautiful, clean popular boy to Till’s rough and tumble troublemaker.
“That’s why I said I’m boring.” Ivan told Till, once, when he was still bed-bound. “You remember the movies we used to get to watch on special occasions. The girl never goes for the nice guy, she always wants something exciting.” He had a wry smile on his face when he said it, obviously already resigned to the fact that he was like vanilla ice cream- nothing to sneeze at, sure, but widely considered bland. The worst part was, Ivan perhaps even more obviously, didn’t hold it against them. Till gave Ivan a hard time for it because he didn’t really understand Ivan’s self-deprecation, the way his smiles didn’t reach his eyes.
They hadn’t since the beginning of the competition at least, long before he ever woke up. He smiled like it was a habit, a bad one that he should break, an ugly twist of the lips that he showed to the cameras because he knew that was what they wanted.
They were living out archetypes long dead, ones that somehow managed to still be appealing even though they came from human flicks that were shot before the landing. Till thought it was asinine, to be honest. It was stupid and pointless to shove them into reductive boxes that hadn’t meant anything for decades, centuries even. Ivan said it was nostalgic and sort of poetic that despite the aliens having not made up the roles in the first place, they still enjoyed them, just as the humans had so long ago.
Till told Ivan that was stupid. Ivan merely laughed.
Ivan was an incredibly easy person to hate. Still, Till had never quite been able to hate him. Not even before they’d known each other well, when he’d still been wary of the dark-eyed boy and held a misplaced ire towards him for perceived slights. He especially couldn’t hate him, now, when he’d watched the quiet, lonely boy who almost always wore a mask grow into a quiet, lonely man who hid his darkness behind smiles. He hadn’t changed much and yet Till could barely recognize him. He wondered if Ivan could recognize himself.
He wondered if Ivan could recognize him as the boy that he had once known.
Ivan and Mizi were cooking in the kitchen while Till sat in the attached living room, drawing at the coffee table. He watched them and listened to the quiet murmur of their cooking and the combination of that with the scratching of his pencil lead against the sketchbook paper made for a soothing thrum in his head. The comfort the background noise brought helped distract from the way that Till’s stomach twisted at Ivan and Mizi’s familiarity, the ease at which they laughed together and elbowed and bumped into each other. Till remembered having that familiarity with Ivan, once, but that hadn’t been since they were teenagers, since they’d graduated, before Sua had died.
It hadn’t really been all that long but it felt like an eternity.
Till let out a sigh. propping his chin up his free hand, his pencil hanging limp in his other. He doesn’t know what he did wrong- he hadn’t intended for him and Ivan to grow apart after graduating but that’s what had happened. He would send messages to Ivan but they never got responses and eventually he just stopped trying because it hurt too much to stare at a screen that said “delivered” but never “read.” At the time, he was angry, pissed off at Ivan for never replying- never even reading his messages, when they were supposed to be friends. Eventually, though, the anger burned away and turned to hurt and sadness. He would run the thoughts over in his head, looking them up and down, trying to figure out just how he’d fucked up to drive Ivan away.
Everything had seemed fine, up until they graduated and lost touch. Sure, Till had known that after they graduated, it wasn’t going to be at all like what they’d had, seeing each other practically every single day while they were stuck in the Garden and only ever losing touch during breaks when Till got locked up by his owner and whatever Ivan did happened. Ivan never talked about it, always close-lipped and getting a hollow look in his eyes whenever Till asked, so Till stopped asking. But even though he knew it was going to change, he hadn’t thought that Ivan would want to stop talking to him, would completely disappear and treat him like he was just another acquaintance when they saw each other at mandatory functions. Even now, he still couldn’t remember anything that would have indicated that Ivan was unhappy being around Till before they graduated. In fact, all he could think of were instances that indicated the opposite.
Till remembered being younger and playing his recorder, the one that Mizi gave him when they were kids, his one object that was just his for the longest time. It was back before he’d really gotten to know Ivan and he still was wary of the other boy, he would sometimes catch a glimpse of someone moving around in the bushes out of the corner of his eye. It took him a while before he realized it was Ivan, it took until he accidentally stumbled upon Ivan napping at the lake’s edge after Till had been playing nearby. Later, when they had been well into their teens, Ivan would play pranks on the other kids and smile whenever Till laughed. He hadn’t seemed unhappy then.
Ivan would read to him because it helped him understand the material, he would help patch Till up after a particularly bad fight, he’d pick Till up from the detention’s reception area and sneak him into the kitchens before curfew so Till could still get dinner, he would look over Till’s songs for him and suggest revisions when he thought that this chord would actually work better than the one he already had. He did all of these things that he didn’t have to do, he smiled at Till, he teased Till relentlessly, he covered for Till when Till was late for class- Till couldn’t fathom just what he’d done to screw all that up. He can’t remember anything, no fights, no insults, no competitions he’d won and gloated one too many times about. He doesn’t have a clue what he did but he knows he must have done something because as soon as they graduated, Ivan cut him off, went full cold turkey. It wasn’t just him, Ivan did it with Mizi, too. He apparently kept in touch with Sua but she didn’t tell any of them about anything they discussed, which was to be expected, as she was unhelpful to a fault. Till didn’t know what Mizi had seen in her, though he will admit, now that she’s gone, he misses her, too.
He knew that her loss was hitting Mizi and Ivan both pretty hard. Even Till would sometimes turn with a snide comment, expecting to see Sua there, and there would be no one there, just an empty spot where one of their friends used to be. It had felt like that when Ivan dropped off the grid, too, except instead of Sua being gone it was Ivan. Till had wanted to go to Ivan’s apartment and confront him about it, his stomach roiling with hurt and anger and betrayal but Sua and Mizi had talked him down. All he ended up doing was throwing a champagne flute he wasn’t supposed to have at the wall and getting escorted off the premises. Ivan would’ve laughed at Till for getting thrown out of the party, if he’d been there, Till just knew it. That thought only made the hole inside of him get bigger, though.
Till can’t even remember when Ivan first wormed his way into his life. Now, he barely remembered his life without Ivan in it, only a few brief glimmers of Mizi and some other kindnesses before him. It was so nice to have someone seek Till out rather than Till having to do all the work, Ivan showing up and putting himself on the chopping block, handing Till the knife and letting him have his way with him. Maybe Ivan had just realized he could do better, that’s why he’d pulled away, that’s why he’d disappeared but then, why was he back? Why had he given up his life for Till?
Till chewed on the end of his pencil absentmindedly, still watching the two most important people in his life putter around in the kitchen. This life he was living had to be the most improbable way this could have gone- the fact that Ivan and Mizi were still alive and that Till was too, well, that was nothing short of a wonder. He was unimaginably lucky, he must be.
“Till, dinner’s ready!” Mizi called, turning to look at him with shining eyes and a grin. Till could see her with that exact expression, her face ten years younger, and it made his chest ache something fierce. Part of him wished he could go back, back to a time when things were simpler and he didn’t have to deal with the knowledge that Sua would die and Mizi would start to slowly fall apart and Ivan would willingly put his life on the line for him. He wished they could all go back, sometimes.
But right now, he had other things that were more important; namely, what Mizi and Ivan had cooked up for dinner tonight. He closed his sketchbook and got up, returning Mizi’s smile and sitting down for a meal with the two people who mattered most to him in the world.
“Till?” Mizi asked and Till stopped in his tracks immediately, swiveling around to look at her. She was frowning but not in the way she did when she was angry or sad, this was more confused. She was squinting at him and tucking a strand of her long hair behind her ear. “Isn’t that Ivan’s shirt?” Till blinked. He looked down at himself and tugged at his shirt, finding that it was, in fact, one of the ones that Ivan had claimed once he’d settled into their apartment a bit more and gotten to pick out clothes. It must’ve gotten mixed up with Till’s in the wash and he’d grabbed it by accident.
“Yeah, I guess it is. Must’ve grabbed it by mistake.” Till replied, smiling sheepishly at Mizi. She gave him a knowing look and shook her head, rolling her eyes. She returned to looking over reports, as she had been, and Till left her be in favor of going and finding Ivan. He wasn’t hard to locate, set up in their shared bedroom on his bed, muttering to himself and chipping away at his own reports. Ivan had fully thrown himself into the work Hyuna and the rest of the rebellion had given him- strategy. He was a schemer and a plotter through and through and so they had given him the perfect job, one where he could put his planning abilities to use. He was always going over routes, contingencies, applications of differing companies and locations when it came to the rebellion’s demonstrations. Sometimes, Till would even walk in on him cackling to himself at a job well done. This was not one of those times, though, with the way that Ivan kept running his hands through his hair and flipping through papers. “Ivan?” Till said and Ivan jerked up, looking a bit crazed. He blinked and stared at Till for what felt like a very long time before he shifted slightly and let out an audible breath.
“What d’you need, Till?” He replied, smiling tiredly. Till shook his head, rolling his eyes.
“Do I have to need something?” He asked, coming over to sit on the edge of Ivan’s mattress. Surprisingly, Ivan was a pretty messy person. He rarely ever made his bed and right now it was more a nest than an actual bed, logbooks and screens and notes scattered everywhere amongst the blankets. It was funny, actually, because Ivan had locked himself up in their room that day since breakfast, saying very little and acting weird around Till but normal enough around Mizi. Till wondered if he was just tired, or stressed about some work thing. “Can’t I just want to talk to you?” Till asked. Can’t I be worried? He thought but didn’t say. Ivan squinted at him suspiciously.
“Yes, you can,” He allowed, sighing. “But that’s not why you’re here.”
“Man, I hate it when you’re right,” Till laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. Ivan huffed a laugh at that, seeming disappointed. “But the thing is, I’ve been wearing your shirt all day. I must have grabbed it by accident and I only just realized.” Ivan blinked.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, so, I can give it back right now if you want.” Till offered, already pulling up the bottom of the shirt. A cool hand on his arm stopped him.
“No- no, no need.” Ivan blurted, hurriedly clearing his throat. “I don’t mind. You can give it back to me after next wash or something.” Till hesitated but let the shirt settle back to where it used to rest and he hummed. He finally looked back to Ivan’s face and found that he was pointedly not looking at Till, his cheeks painted a dusty pink. Till didn’t think he’d ever seen Ivan blush before. Was Ivan sick? Was that why he had been cooping himself up all day? Till placed his hand to Ivan’s forehead, trying to gage whether or not it seemed warmer than usual.
“Are you sick?” He asked and Ivan looked at him like he’d grown a second head.
“What? No, I’m fine.”
“But you’ve been acting weird all day and now your face is pink-“ Till started, frowning.
“Till, I’m fine.” Ivan interrupted, the pink in his face glowing brighter. Huh, then it was just a blush. Ivan waved Till off with a huff and pointedly looked at his tablet, eyes scanning the words on the glowing screen. “Now, don’t you have something better to do than bother me?” He demanded, shooting Till a glare out of the corner of his eye. Till considered packing up and going back into the sitting room, settling down in the washed-out overcast light that came in through the windows and doing some work himself but with the exhaustion that dripped from the stiff slope of Ivan’s shoulders, he opted not to. Instead, he flopped back on Ivan’s bed with his hands behind his head and said,
“Nope!” He even popped the “p” for extra emphasis. He gave Ivan an overly imploring expression, trying to look particularly pathetic and sincere. “Won’t you read to me?” Ivan squinted at him, tilting his head to the side slightly as if looking at him from a different angle would help him make more sense of the situation. “Please?” Till begged, turning the notch up on the pitiful, even letting a pleading note sneak its way into his tone. He saw Ivan’s jaw tighten and his lips press together before he let out a sigh through his nose and turned off his tablet, putting it away.
“Fine,” he agreed, getting up and grabbing a thin paperback book from the table at the side of his bed. “I’ll read to you- but only a chapter, okay?”
“And then we’ll switch, and I’ll read to you, like when we were kids,” Till replied and Ivan froze, his eyes going wide. He stood there for so long without moving that Till almost got up but Ivan nodded after a long beat of silence and sat on the bed, getting comfortable.
“Yeah, like when we were kids,” he murmured, his voice sounding strained. He cleared his throat and opened up the novel, which was apparently a story from the mid-20th century about a fireman who, instead of putting fires out, was the one starting them. It spoke of a man who was dissatisfied with his day to day life, with his lifeless home and mediocre relationship with his wife, and felt intrigued by the books he was forced to burn.
Ivan’s soft voice and quick wit made the text more fascinating than it would have been otherwise, as despite the fact that the story was interesting, Till wasn’t really much one for literature, or books in general. Still, Till smiled and relaxed in listening to Ivan read, which was something Till had been wheedling him into lately since they’d all been getting caught up in their work and Ivan had a deep desire to make himself useful so he would pour all of himself into that without any care for the consequences. Till knew that Ivan liked to read, that it comforted him and provided a quiet escape, but he also knew that sometimes it was hard for Ivan to find the time with his work so Till did his best to help with that by asking Ivan to read to him like they used to. Ivan always seemed surprised, as if he hadn’t expected Till to remember that, too.
As Ivan went on, it became obvious that the longer and longer he read, the closer and closer he got to sleep pulling him under, his voice getting quieter and his head nodding forwards, his eyes drifting closed, before he would catch himself and get back to reading. Eventually, he nodded off, his voice trailing and his body drooping forward, and he didn’t catch himself. Till waited for a good handful of minutes before sitting up, taking the book out of Ivan’s hand and putting a bookmark in it, placing it on the table where Ivan had retrieved it from. After that was done, he moved Ivan so he was laying down and he tucked Ivan in.
In the late morning, the kitchen was filled with pale light streaming in from the windows and the sound of Ivan humming. Till had never been able to decipher Ivan’s sleeping habits, sometimes he’d find the other man clacking away at his tablet until the wee hours of the night napping on the couch in the middle of the day, sometimes he’d hear him getting up at six in the morning, sometimes he’d find him napping on the couch early in the afternoon. Perhaps true to form, Ivan was enigmatic. That may have been the only thing that the marketing team ever got right, that Ivan was as difficult to read as a book in a language you couldn’t read.
Till hadn’t ever been able to read him, anyways.
Finally leaving their shared bedroom, Till ambled out and settled at one of the stools at the kitchen counter, watching Ivan as he puttered around the kitchen. Ivan hadn’t noticed him, yet, because Till was actually pretty quiet when he didn’t open his mouth, padding around the apartment with bare feet and careful movements.
Ivan was packing lunches for the week ahead, which looked like sandwiches this time- but it was always simple stuff that wouldn’t perish easily and would travel well. Mizi and Ivan swapped lunch duty each week to keep the work balanced and Till wasn’t allowed near the kitchen ever since he somehow managed to set the rice cooker on fire. Singing some song that Till didn’t recognize, Ivan was wearing an oversized sweatshirt and shorts, his shoulders straight and his hair tied back. His hair had been growing out lately, ever since he got hurt. When Mizi commented on it, a week or so ago, Ivan had simply blinked and pulled at his bangs with a thoughtful hum.
“My hair grows fast.” He said, in way of explanation, as if that was enough to explain how his hair, which had been shorn and short when the competition started, was now brushing the back of his neck. His bangs were down past the tips of his ears, which meant that he usually had to pin them up when he was cooking to keep them out of the way. It was strange to see so much of his face, as for the whole time that Till had known him, Ivan’s bangs had hidden half of his face in a shroud of inky black hair. Only the sharp chips of obsidian that were his eyes ever peeked through the dark curtain, the black gaze cutting and cool.
Eventually, Ivan turned around and that black gaze landed on Till. Ivan’s eyes widened when he saw Till and he just stood there staring for a long beat. Then, he turned back and faced the stove, checking the kettle.
“Do you want tea?” He asked and Till snickered, muffling it just slightly in his hand. Ivan’s shoulders stiffened, bristling at the sound but he didn’t say anything.
“Sure, I’ll have tea.” Till answered. “Is there anything left over from breakfast?”
“We have doenjang jjigae, I kept some warm on the stove for you.”
“Thank you.” Till said, getting up and finding the pot that Ivan had pointed to. After getting a bowl of rice for himself, he spooned the stew over it, enjoying the spicy, savory smell, and returned to the kitchen counter. Ivan set down a steaming cup of tea and plate with a hoppang in front of him a moment later and set about doing the dishes, still humming the song that Till couldn’t recognize. Till blinked, surprised by the red bean bun but he wasn’t about to look the gift horse in the mouth. It didn’t take long for Ivan to finish washing the dishes and when he did, he walked around the bar and sat next to Till, pulling a small, worn paperback out of the large pocket of his sweatshirt. The cover was bent in such a way that Till couldn’t tell what he was reading but knowing Ivan, it could really be anything, so he didn’t even try to guess.
Chewing on the hoppang and mulling over the sweet, distinct taste of the red bean paste, Till went over the day’s plans. It was late in the morning but today, he and Mizi had drills and more instruction to get them up to speed on the comings and goings of the rebellion. They’d discussed going at about midday but there were no signs of Mizi around their shared space, none that hadn’t been there last night. Her hair pins were still on the low table near the couch from where she’d taken them out last night while they were watching the news. The white cup with a faded floral print she’d claimed as her own early on into their residence here was still sitting, clean and unused, by the sink. There was even a container of leftover doenjang jjigae sitting by the stove, undoubtedly meant as breakfast for Mizi. She must not have come out of her room yet, which was unusual, because it was almost always either her or Ivan that were up first. Till was only ever awake first when he didn’t sleep.
“Ivan?” Till asked and Ivan hummed, acknowledging him but not looking up. He’d taken the clips out of his hair so his bangs were falling into his eyes and Till had half the mind to tuck them behind the other man’s ear but he shoved down the urge. “Have you seen Mizi yet today?” Ivan glanced to Till, opening his mouth with a click of the tongue and thinking for a moment before letting out a sigh.
“No, I haven’t.” Ivan answered. Till frowned, concern collecting in him like rain in the crook between a street and the sidewalk.
“Damn,” He muttered, running a hand through his hair. “We were supposed to work today.” He got up from his seat and walked over to the door of Mizi’s room. Her room was right off of the living room, in contrast to Ivan and Till’s bedroom, which was off of the hall, next to the laundry room. Till knocked on the door, a soft rap of the knuckles against the imitation wood, but there was no answer, even after a good few minutes. He knocked again, louder this time, and he called,
“Mizi, are you up? It’s practically noon, we’re worried about you.” The only response Till got was silence, ringing through the room and adding salt to the wound. If she was in there, which was almost certain, she didn’t want to talk to him. Till tried not to let it hurt, he knew that she didn’t trust him like she had Sua, that no one would ever measure up to that, but he had hoped after the time they’d spent together the last few months that she’d at least be willing to talk to him. He’d hoped that they were better friends, that she could trust him. He let out a low growl despite himself and tried to ignore the stinging that hissed behind his eyes, pushing down the hurt rising in his chest like the sun in the morning- inevitable and unavoidable.
He felt a hand on his face, fingers scratching gently at his scalp, and he let out a heavy breath. He looked up to see Ivan standing in front of him, watching him with an indecipherable expression on his face.
“It’s not you,” Ivan said softly. Till honestly doubted that but the sentiment was nice enough. “I’ll see if I can talk to her, ‘kay?” He ran his fingers through Till’s hair more and Till had to physically hold himself back from leaning into the touch. It was the slightest of things, just Ivan’s nails running across Till’s skin but it thrummed through him, making the tension he was holding in his chest, in his shoulders, dissipate and float away like breath on a cold morning. Till sighed and nodded, pulling reluctantly away from Ivan’s touch and padding over to the couch.
“Good luck.” He said and Ivan laughed, smiling as he huffed a breath out his nose. He nodded and approached the door, knocking on it and waiting for a long while before saying something low enough that Till couldn’t make out the words. After a beat, an indistinct response came through the door and Ivan let out a sigh. The door opened just barely and Ivan slipped inside, running a hand through his hair and shooting Till a reassuring look before disappearing into Mizi’s room. Till gritted his teeth and hated the ugly twist in his stomach, the bitter jealousy that swirled in him and like a true black hole, ate everything around it.
He shouldn’t feel this way, jealous and ungrateful, because Ivan could get through to Mizi when Till couldn’t. He shouldn’t hold it against Ivan, he shouldn’t envy Ivan and worry that Ivan and Mizi had a special connection that he and Mizi would never have. Till hated himself for this, hated that he couldn’t stop the rot that crept through him whenever he saw Mizi and Ivan lean against each other and snicker at some joke they had together that Till didn’t know and didn’t understand. Mizi was still grieving Sua’s death and even if she and Ivan did like each other, well, Till should be happy for them. Two of his best friends, caring about each other and hopefully happy together- Till should be elated at the idea.
But he couldn’t be, not with the festering resentment in what seemed like the deepest parts of him. He felt like such an idiot, Ivan was right to call him out for loving and looking from afar at a girl who'd never even seen him as anything more than a friend. She’d never done anything to imply interest in him, she’d never done anything but treat him like she’d treated their other friends, he was no different from Ivan or Sua or even Hyuna. He was just another face and he hated it.
Suddenly, a loud noise crashed through Till’s self hatred. He slowly tuned back into his surroundings and heard another loud noise, one that he could now tell was a shout. He’d never heard the neighbors shouting at each other so either something had changed or-
“This is just so on brand for you!” Ivan yelled, his voice echoing through the thin walls into the room Till sat in. Till flinched at the sound, even though it was muffled, because he couldn’t ever remember a time where he had heard Ivan yell before. It was kind of terrifying. “You’ve always hidden away from the hard things but now Sua’s died and you can’t run from that like you have everything else, so you’re using it as a reason to destroy yourself! No, not a reason, an excuse, because of course the first time something bad happens to you, you let it eat you alive! You can’t just blow up and expect us not to care! Don’t you know that when a star implodes it takes its whole solar system with it? You’re not the only person alive!”
“Oh, no, the rich boy who had everything he could ever want is insulting me! Whatever shall I do?” Mizi mocked, her high voice sharp as a knife. Till wondered distantly how long they’d been yelling at each other. “You’re such a hypocrite! How is what I’m doing any different from what you did to Till? You were going to leave him alone in the world and make it his fault you died- If that’s not selfish, then I don’t know what is!”
“You would’ve done the same thing for Sua!”
“That’s different-“
“No, it’s not! It’s not different.” Ivan screamed, but it honestly sounded more like a sob. Till’s chest tightened at the sound, worry pooling in his stomach. Till didn’t think that he’d ever heard Ivan cry before. He wasn’t sure he ever wanted to. “You don’t know my life, Mizi! I know he’ll never love me back. Do you know how hard it is to love someone from afar and not be allowed to touch them?” It went quiet after that. Till could only hear the slightest murmur from the other room, even when he was straining to try and make out what they were saying, and then the door to Mizi’s room opened with a bang. Till flinched so hard that he fell off of the stool he was sitting on with a yelp. He saw Ivan’s feet as Ivan ran to their bedroom and slammed the door behind him.
After that burst of noise, it was silent again, and Till let out a groan from where he lay sprawled on the floor. His back hurt from the fall and he could still feel the vague ringing in his ears from the impact and the banging of the doors. As used to loud noises as he was, he wasn’t used to them being sudden and interspersed- at shows, they were constant and it was easier for them to dull into a steady thrum in the background. In the Garden, well, he’d gotten desensitized to those, too. Sucking in a deep breath, he pushed himself up. It took him a bit because it was hard to get the motivation to push himself up- somehow, he had gotten exhausted from just witnessing the shouting match, though he didn’t know how. Whether or not it made any sense, the fatigue was already collecting in his limbs and making him just want to return to his room and sleep the rest of the day away. Unfortunately, Ivan was in their room and though he probably hadn’t locked the door, Till somehow doubted that he wanted any company at the moment.
Soft, barely-there footsteps broke the silence and a hand extended into Till’s line of sight. He looked at it for a beat before he reached up and took it, using it to leverage himself up from the floor. He almost bumped into Mizi once he was finally standing, his forehead nearly smashing into her chin but he was able to catch himself before he did. He caught a glimpse of her face and his stomach twisted, sharp and ugly. From her appearance alone, Till would say that Mizi hadn’t slept in days. Her yellow eyes were bloodshot and a little bit glassy like she’d been crying, her skin far, far paler than it usually was and the purplish shadows underneath her eyes were threaded with visible veins of blood. Her hair was a mess, stray hairs flying everywhere, her long pink locks held up in a sloppy bun by a yellow scrunchie, and she was just wearing a t-shirt and athletic shorts, wrinkled and haphazard. It wasn’t that she usually put a lot more thought into her appearance but she always made it look purposefully messy, stylishly casual, rather than now where she just looked like a mess.
She shook her head and let out a long, drawn out sigh, pushing her glasses up her nose.
“Are you still up to go work out?” She asked Till, looking at him tiredly. Till blinked, admittedly surprised by the question. He hadn’t thought she’d still be up to it, and to be perfectly honest, he didn’t know if he was still up for it. Still, he wasn’t the type to say no to her, now or ever. He laughed slightly.
“Yeah, sure,” He replied, scratching at the back of his neck. He watched her for a moment, the way her shoulders were slumped and her gaze was distant. “Are you sure you’re up for it?” He asked and she blinked, seeming surprised by the question.
“Of course.” She chirped, smiling. Till knew the smile was fake. He’d been around Mizi enough that he was able to differentiate between the natural and the forced. She and Ivan had similar tells, actually, which made it even easier to notice. “Why wouldn’t I be up for it?” Till merely looked at her, trying to impart how unimpressed he was by her performance of cheer.
“I don’t know, the shouting match you and Ivan just had?” Till replied after she seemed to be set on pretending as though nothing had happened. She pressed her lips together and didn’t respond. Till barreled forwards, rolling his eyes and letting out a sigh. “Or the fact that you look like a walking corpse? You’re right, though, I don’t know why I’d be worried in the first place. Obviously, you’re totally fine and I’m an idiot to even worry about you in the first place.” His words became sharper and meaner the longer he went along, his resentment at her refusing to talk to him earlier showing its ugly colors. She’d talked to Ivan, chosen Ivan over him, and that was fine. Till was fine with that. He ignored the part of his mind that was insistently whispering that they hadn’t really talked at all, argued if anything, and that she hadn’t really chosen Ivan over him, that he still had a chance.
It was stupid to hope. He was stupid to hope.
“Till,” Mizi said after a moment, her eyes boring into him. She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed and Till tried his best to keep scowling at her. He wanted to stay angry, he didn’t want to forgive her, he wanted her to take care of herself. “You’re not an idiot and thank you for worrying about me but I really do want to go to the gym with you. Is that okay?” She smiled at him, sincere and hopeful.
“I,” He hesitated, frowning still. “Alright.” He’d never been good at staying mad at people, not really. He was too softhearted for it, his mom used to tell him as much, before they were separated. She’d ruffle his hair and laugh at him whenever he’d stomp his foot and pout. Strange thing to remember all of a sudden, he mused to himself as he put his shoes on in the foyer. He finished before Mizi did and grabbed their bag. She met him at the door and they started their trek to the central station of the rebellion.
There were a few different stations interspersed in different districts and neighborhoods, only similar in that they were all relatively rundown and unmonitored by the occupation government but Till and Mizi were headed to the central headquarters. It was accessible via a few different routes; you either went to one of the few fronts or to the actual location, a bunker underneath an empty warehouse out in the borderzone of the city where the air quality got bad enough that you needed to wear a mask outside, if you wanted to be able to breathe. Till and Mizi were headed to one of the fronts because they went often enough that they could pass the front off as their employer.
In contrast to the central headquarters, the building that their apartment was in was located in an old financial district that had been converted into one of the human slums after the occupation started. The human slums were all areas that used to be devoted to some other business but now, they were used for containing the humans that were free-range pets or emancipated, which made them a good location for the rebellion to lodge their members.
Their building was just another old apartment building, not directly affiliated with the rebellion but there were a few other members that lived there as well, on different floors of course, to make sure no one could feasibly connect the dots between them. Even if humans congregating wasn’t odd in the slums, they didn’t want to give anybody a reason to suspect them of anything and report them.
The slums were a place where people regularly went missing and almost nobody ever tried to find them. It was a futile pursuit, as they were almost always taken by the occupation government or by traffickers. Everyone in the slums was paranoid and traitorous, worrying that the occupation government would find some reason to take them in again and put them back through the wringer but entirely willing to report someone else and do the same to them. It was something that happened with alarming frequency. The government would take any excuse to get people back under their thumb, where they could make them docile and obedient little robots.
It didn’t matter if they were robots who happened to be made of flesh and happened to be easy to break. After all, they all knew that it was always easy to make or find more.
Ivan had grown up in the slums. He mentioned it to them upon finding out where they were, where their apartment building was. Apparently, he’d been part of the statistic they were warned of- he had been one of the many humans who was kidnapped and then sold to the highest bidder, which happened to be the owner who sent him to the Anakt Garden. Mizi had been horrified to find out that Ivan had been not only sold, but kidnapped and drugged without his consent. Ivan had seemed surprised by her alarm.
It made sense, in retrospect, that Ivan had grown up in this kind of place, one where a knife in your back was just as likely as a rainstorm, where getting jumped and kidnapped in an alley was so ordinary that people were desensitized to it. Ivan’s adoption was common knowledge (though from where he was adopted not so much) and Till had always been struck by Ivan’s grim cynicism, the way he never went against any of the rules but he never seemed to agree with them, either. How he never really rose to Till’s bait, even when Till poked and prodded his every nerve in search of a reaction, before they had gotten close enough that Till preferred to tease than to truly jab.
Till wondered how Ivan could have grown up here, in this place that seemed to eat people alive and spit them out all ugly and cruel, and managed to turn out the way he had. Really, it was a wonder that Ivan wasn’t more cutthroat. Till didn’t know whether he was sad that Ivan had grown up here or grateful that it had, at least in part, made Ivan into who he was now.
They didn’t want to be recognized, being former ALNST participants and legally dead, so they’d taken to covering any identifying features they could. Which meant that Mizi had her hair up in a hat, her face hidden beneath the brim of the hat and the shadow created by the hood of her sweatshirt. Till simply wore a mask and pulled the hood of his jacket over his head despite the oppressive, sticky heat of late summer. Till had even considered dying his hair but the horror on Ivan’s face when he’d mentioned it made him swear off the idea.
Through winding streets and alleyways, they made their way to the front and paid the shopkeeper the fee so they could enter. They ducked underneath a threadbare curtain into a dusty hallway where the pipes were visible against the walls, some of them even dripping into small puddles on the pockmarked floor. Their only light came from spaced out flickering LED installations, the shadows cast by said installations foreboding and dark. It wasn’t a welcoming place, dilapidated and smelling of mildew, and that was the point. They took a turn that was easy to miss and fished their keycards out of their pockets, touching them to a nigh-invisible sensor that was well hidden by the harsh shadows.
Getting into the compound undetected by someone who’d want them dead or imprisoned again was the hard part, now all Till and Mizi had to do was make their way through the place and get to the gym without incident. They greeted a few of their fellow rebels, the ones they recognized, but otherwise it was a fairly simple affair. The gym was one of the bigger parts of the compound, three floors with varying dedicated purposes including swimming, track, working out with weights, etc, etc. Thankfully for Till and Mizi, there was a floor that had an area dedicated specifically for sparring, as well, which was what they were there for.
Facing off against each other, they sparred, though the longer they went at it, the more that Till noticed that Mizi seemed more like a cornered animal than a trained combatant. Yes, she was fighting as well as she always did but her strikes were keen as a knife to the gut, the look in her eyes fragile and frantic. She seemed eager to tear something down, whether it was him, whether it was herself. She nearly broke his nose with a crack to the face that he dodged just barely and she let out a growl. Till knew how hard she hit, knew that when she went at the punching bag with enough gusto that dust would fall from the ceiling and the chain holding the bag up would creak and groan like an old man trying to get up a flight of stairs. Till skidded to the side, barely avoiding a kick to the gut, and he grabbed Mizi by the ankle and flipped her over his shoulder. He let her get up and he ducked away from another punch to the face.
“Stop coddling me and just hit me!” She roared, punctuated by swings and kicks and lunges that have her tumbling across the floor and leaping back up to attack again. Her eyes were glassy, tears streaming down her cheeks that were already pink from the exertion. As desperate as she’d gotten, her stance was still sturdy, her hits were still strong and accurate, he was just nimble enough to avoid them (not to mention he’s got a lot more experience when it comes to fights than she does.) She tried to slam her body into him and he used her momentum to swing her around and she went hurtling into the mat. She tried to get up but her arms trembled and she collapsed back to the mat, letting out a broken sob. She curled in on herself and another feeble cry echoed through the empty gym, her body shaking as she finally let herself weep. Crouching down, Till immediately put his arms around her and held her until her breathing evened out.
It took a while before she was ready to stand back up, ready to go back home. Till wondered to himself when he started thinking of it as home.
Loving Mizi was like nothing else Till had ever experienced.
It was bubbly and breathtaking, intoxicating like sugar on the tongue, like the adrenaline rush of the bright light and cheering crowd after he finished a number and no one had gotten bored of him yet. When he fell for her, he fell hard and deep, he looked down into the darkness and dove in readily. He’d made his choice, even if he hadn’t understood it at the time, and he didn’t think he’d ever come to regret it. He would never stop loving her because Mizi was the most amazing girl he’d ever met, audacious and fiery, bolder than anyone would expect someone with such a delicate frame to be. She wasn’t just strong as hell, she was the best singer he’d ever heard and they were in a program with some of the best voices on the planet. She was beautiful, too, especially when she grinned wide and when she laughed, her yellow eyes gleaming with mirth as her hair rippled out behind her in rosy pink waves. Sua was the one who made her laugh the most, who made her grin like no one else. It took Till a long, long time to see that.
Loving Ivan wasn’t anything like loving Mizi.
It was instinctive and intense, to the point that when he finally got used to the feelings buoying in his chest, they had blended in with his breathing, with his thoughts and his heartbeat. When he fell for him, he fell gradually and blindly, it was like wading out into deep water and not realizing until too late that he was drowning, caught in the undertow, his heart in his throat. It was the kind of thing he didn’t notice until someone else pointed it out and when he finally looked at it, the pieces slotted together, it all made too much sense. He’d caught feelings for Ivan, who had so willingly supported Till throughout everything, who cared stubbornly and silently, who was practically Mizi’s polar opposite. Instead of looking at Mizi and seeing her looking at Sua, Till would look at Ivan and see him already looking back. Ivan’s cheeks would pink slightly and he would look away, his eyes hidden behind his dark curtain of hair, but Till would still catch a glimpse of Ivan looking at him like he’d hung the stars in the sky, fond and unwavering.
With Mizi, things were spontaneous, chaotic, as stunning as they were surprising.
With Ivan, it was almost rhythmic, easy to fall into and not realize he was there. It was terrifying. He’d already fallen.