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The rain pours down on a limp body, crimson blood spilling out beneath him. A man stood in front of him, eyes hung low, shoulders sagging, wondering why he would do this . The man clenches his fists as the lights go out and the crowd chee—
The body abruptly sits up, stretching his limbs out, almost breaking his numb shoulder in the process. He pays no mind to the dark red beneath him, it's just paint mixed with glycerin after all. The director yells “cut” from behind the camera, grumbling to himself about having to redo this scene for the nth time.
Ivan deadpans at him, complaining about how he has to lie on hard concrete for so long in such an uncomfortable position, drenched in water and red paint. The director, being the mature man he is, ignores Ivan, signaling for the makeup artists to redo the side of his face again.
Till, who seems to be seething, spits curses under his breath in every language he can think of. It's freezing, they’ve been quite literally drowned in water for 2 hours, trying to perfect the take. He has half the mind to kick Ivan off the raised platform they’re shooting on, who just looks up at him with an awfully bright cheshire-cat-like grin, his fake fang jutting down to his bottom lip.
“Asshole,” Till groans, “just stay still and finish the goddamn take. It's been 2 hours since we started shooting this scene.”
The scene itself started from the kiss, which they’d gotten over after a grueling 9 tries, mostly due to Ivan being a bit of a ditz.
~~~
“We’re starting the shoot in a few!” A staff member yelled, probably the director’s assistant.
“Let's finish this quickly in one take, this scene is pretty straightforward. Plus, I don't want to catch a cold and give the staff a hard time.” Till hopes Ivan is listening to his words, he truly doesn’t want to get sick—his hopes are let down almost immediately.
“Mhm, of course.” Ivan speaks with his head in the clouds, a close-eyed smile on his face. Till sighs.
The first time, Ivan is the one who messes up, he started the kiss a little too enthusiastically. Till almost chokes, mid-kiss. They both back up, Ivan’s complexion flushed, the polar opposite of Till’s, who’s dreading the next few takes.
“S-sorry.” Ivan does not sound sincere at all.
“It’s fine. Fix our hair please!” Till yells out to the stylists, paying no mind to his co-star right next to him, his facial expression resembling a wet puppy with treats shoved in its face.
The next take, Ivan gets so caught up in kissing Till that he has to ask Ivan when he's going to strangle him.
“When are you gonna choke me?” He murmurs, somehow through the peck. Ivan abruptly freezes, face dropping instantly. They stare at each other for a good half second, while the director yells out a “cut!” like his life depends on it.
“Oh… I must have been swayed by the mood, sorry.” A lame excuse, as usual, but Till just turns away, irritation written all over his face.
“Let’s just get ready for the next take.”
3rd take: Ivan accidentally bites Till’s tongue with his fang. They were supposed to do a close-mouthed kiss.
4th take: Ivan stumbles a bit, probably due to the heavy downpour from the sprinklers, and steps on Till’s foot. “Ow.”
…
9th take… Ivan somehow messes his acting up, which is literally his job. Till decides they need to have a little chat and drags Ivan into a silent corner. Both of them are soaked to the bone, random towels draped over their backs to make sure they don’t contract a cold.
Ivan thought Till would scold him, so he apologized at once. The silver haired man paid no mind to his incessant rambling and instead butted in with his own story.
“You know… there was this one time, I was acting with a senior I respected a lot. It was a long-awaited moment, but I got really nervous and messed up a bunch. The director started sounding annoyed, so I executed it perfectly on the 11th attempt out of peer pressure.” A pause. “The thing is, I never had the courage to watch that scene after the show came out. Every time I try, my heart starts pounding and I get reminded of the recording process.” A longer pause. Ivan tries not to stare too hard. “What I'm saying is, instead of being so nervous, just try to have fun.” Ivan’s fidgeting stops. “That’s what you’re here to do anyways, right?” Till smiles behind his cup of water.
He glances away, slightly embarrassed from the creepy staring Ivan is giving him. “Let's go, we have to restyle again.”
Ivan keeps staring as Till walks away, blushing like an idiot with stars in his eyes. “So cool…”
They get the last scene finished in the next take. Ivan still complains about his shoulder afterwards, even through their off-topic banter.
~~~
“Good morning.” A tall, black haired man walks through the recording studio door, water bottle in hand, ready for vocal warmups. He hurriedly takes off his jacket and loudly clears his throat. Till is sitting on a couch behind the soundproof recording room, swiping through his phone mindlessly. The two were supposed to sing their My Clematis cover after Ivan finished Black Sorrow.
Ivan walks up to the raised mic, slightly adjusting the height—Sua had last used it and she was much shorter than him. They start off with a few scales, nothing too hard or easy, and Ivan perfectly executes all of them, of course.
Mizi, along with the rest of the cast, were all splayed out in the room next to them, waiting for it to be their turn to record. Today was a singing day, everyone was supposed to sing at least a part of their song, just to get the material down for the music team to build off.
—
On the count of three, producer-nim started the background music for the last verse of Black Sorrow, almost an hour had passed.
“ Such,” a short breath, “black, black sorrow,” Till could tell that Ivan was putting his entire chest into the lyrics. Ivan had always been better at singing than him, he couldn't deny that fact.
“그리고 너,” his voice falters a bit,
“언제나 나에겐 너,” Ivan’s eyes squeeze shut, hes dropping every last ounce of emotion into his voice.
“Black sorrow,” his voice is strained.
“나에겐 너,
Black sorrow,” a growl creeps into his voice, grungy and coarse. Till almost flinches and grabs his own throat, that must hurt.
“나에겐 너,
Black sorrow .” Still, Ivan somehow immediately recovers and finishes his verse with a smooth tone, which has Till sweat-dropping and the producer happily clapping.
“That was great!” An assistant yells into the mic connected to his headphones, they finally finished. Till sighs, forcing himself up off the couch with a loud, drawn-out groan.
Ivan, who had just downed an entire full bottle of water, happily greets Till with an almost bone-crushing hug, who grumbles some more and threatens to punch Ivan in the gut. Ivan laughs, dragging Till to the second raised mic, instantly back in singing mode.
“Are you done with your complaining?” A teasing lilt can be heard in his voice, the silver haired man actually considers waltzing over to sock him in the gut. He shoots an insult back instead, “Shut up, Ivan.” Which actually works.
Their My Clematis cover takes an extra 2 hours to finish, solely because Ivan is a brat and Till always falls for his teasing. Producer-nim is done with life.
~~~
Hyuna somehow manages to break the mic while recording ALL-IN, not her fault the mic peaks at even a small yelp. Mizi’s there, by Hyuna’s request, for moral support—and also to fix any broken items.
It's almost 6:00pm by the time they’re finished, Till and Ivan waiting outside. Sua had decided to go grab a snack from the convenience store down the road and Luka offered to go with. So Till and Ivan were left alone to mingle.
Their “mingling” was actually quite peaceful, Ivan only managed to really annoy Till a total of 4 times, an all-time low. Usually, Ivan would be all up in his space, poking his cheeks, hugging his arms like a child, laying his head down on his lap without consent, etc. But today, for some odd reason, he was less clingy. Till would never admit this, but he even missed the attention a tad bit.
He didn't miss it for long. Ivan gripped onto him at the drop of a hatch when he brought up the odd behavior, not letting go until Till had to go home—which took some convincing even then.
Till sighed, half deflating on his couch. He would never admit that Ivan was appealing to him, never. Not even when his face lit up at the sight of sweets, especially strawberry flavored things. Not even when Ivan jumped him from behind asking politely for a favor of some sort. Not when Ivan praised Till’s choice of style in clothing. No. Never.
Ivan, on the other hand, had professed his mild obsession quite a few times, waiting for a reply from the other side. He was observant enough to notice the small blush on Till’s face every time he got him a gift. But he was also completely at peace with the current situation, bickering with Till brought immense joy.
Everyone else simply watched the drama from afar, munching on imaginary popcorn, waiting for something to happen. Well, with the exception of Mizi, who was impossibly ignorant. Sua found that trait to be incredibly endearing.
Luka, contrary to his on-screen persona, quite liked watching the drama unfold, chatting with everyone happily about the newest gossip. Especially with Hyuna, who he could annoy and set off the second he opened his mouth. He felt quite amused at her annoyed yelling.
The staff—on the other hand—were always sighing from afar, facepalming aggressively from the sidelines. The ALNST cast was quite the handful.
Albeit, a nice handful.