Chapter Text
Till isn't aware of it, but he's begun to smell a lot like the flowers that populate Anakt garden.
Ivan concludes that this is a result of how the flowers lean closer to Till where he walks. They probably see him as fresh entertainment, or rather, fresh meat. The red flowers, innocent looking and ripe for the trampling underfoot of careless children, are poorly hidden cameras of course.
And for all Ivan's weariness of their proximity to the kids in Anakt garden, he lets himself get dangerously nearer and nearer to Till's vicinity, which almost always guarantee the watchful supervision of the red flowers.
He despises the soft petals of them, as well as the black dots that so clearly reside behind the yellow illusion of a flower's core.
They're such unassuming objects lurking among the garden that Ivan quickly realizes how little others suspect the flowers of being a threat. Particularly, how ignorant Till is of the rounded red plants that he avoids stepping on, out of some sickeningly sweet politeness that makes Ivan wish Till would punch him again.
It doesn't help that Till is completely fine with doing anything around the flowers.
He'll write a song that Ivan hopes the aliens will never get to hear, fall asleep amidst the grass in complete vulnerability, openly observe Mizi and Sua with a weaponizable kind of sorrow, all within the presence of the flowers.
If Ivan weren't a coward, he'd smash every flower that trained its mechanical eyes at Till. Instead, he glares at the art Till makes out of the inanimate spies and only bashes the flowers to pieces afterwards. Though Ivan knows Till resents him for it, the principle of it remains a necessity.
Once, he'd even gifted Till a flower, since he was new to Anakt garden and hadn't much idea what one should do to make friends.
Since then, Ivan's destroyed at least a hundred flowers and ran off with all the others, so that the aliens lingering stare at Till wasn't on his conscience. Usually, he intervenes with the flower's presence as swiftly as possible, but sometimes it's not so easy a task to remove them.
Today is an exception adhering to that problem, as Till insisted on joining Mizi in learning to make flower crowns, an inexplicable craft that Sua picked up from Anakt knows where.
Naturally, Ivan has sat with the other three, despite refusing to touch a single flower without crushing it in his palm.
Mizi gives him one of her finished practice flower crowns anyways, which Ivan is forced to accept on receiving the strength of Till and Sua's combined offence if he were to decline.
As they all continue weaving the flowers, Ivan inspects those he holds in his hands, checking for a peek at the black voids of the camera lenses.
Eventually, Ivan stops and lays the crown in his lap, as he's sure prolonged examination of the flowers would inevitably draw the attention of the aliens that go through the footage.
The flowers leave a very distinct scent attached to his hands, which unfortunately, reminds Ivan a lot of Till. It's definitely a sterile sort of stench, artificial in nature, but it would be much worse to Ivan if it weren't for how it's been imprinted on Till.
"What's with the frowny face?" Asks Mizi, interrupting Ivan's glaring contest with what he knows to be aliens on the other side of the flower cameras. Her tone is cheerful, until she notices what he's looking at. "Do you not like it?"
Mizi is the definition of blissful happiness, for everyone and within herself, so Ivan quickly speaks to amend her glumness before Till or Sua make to unnecessarily defend her.
"I do like it." He assures her, pointedly ignoring the scrutiny of Till and Sua's frowns along with the cameras nicely weaved into a crown resting on his lap. "I just don't get why you need to make them."
Luckily for Ivan, despite Till and Sua's mouths both opening to reprimand him for saying such a disgraceful thing, Mizi only seems to gain a spark of enthusiasm from his words.
"Well that's the best part!" She announces gleefully, effectively shutting up Till and Sua before they've even started.
Ivan focuses on Mizi as she completes her second flower crown and moves closer to Sua's side, much to Sua's well concealed delight.
"They're crowns. That means we put them on the heads of other people when we like them." Mizi shuffles slightly to place the woven flowers on top of Sua's head. "See? Now Sua's my queen and she gets to order me around. Plus, the flowers are really pretty and Sua's already pretty, so they make her look even prettier!"
"Wow Sua, your face is almost the same shade as the flower's petals." Comments Ivan, smiling at how Sua only grows redder due to the observation.
Before she can attack Ivan somehow, Mizi goes about inspecting every inch of Sua, asking what's wrong and if she doesn't like the crown. Of course, Ivan is sure that Sua's just flustered that Mizi would be so plain about gifting her the flower crown.
If Ivan did that to Till unprompted, or even prompted, he'd probably get beat up again.
However, Ivan can't help wanting to plant the flower crown on Till's head, at least to show that he is truly apologetic for all of the flower art he's destroyed. To Till, Ivan probably just seems like a nuisance who crushes flowers for no reason and likes to bother him in all their free time. Still, for Ivan, being hated by Till has always been a better option than meaning nothing to Till.
With little ceremony, he delivers the crown to rest on Till's fluffy grey hair, which is ruffled minutely compared to how it is in future.
"Technically, it's from Mizi." Ivan says to Till's blank expression as he stops to consider what's just occurred. "It means you're the king." And it means you're my favorite, Ivan mildly finishes for himself. He sees no need to voice that addition to Till though.
"I don't want to be a king, but I'm keeping it on anyways." Declares Till decidedly, scowling distantly in response and continuing the motion of weaving flowers together.
Satisfied with the less than heated reaction from Till, Ivan leans back on his palms and waits, staring up at the clouds in the sky as if they're also not artificial like they probably are. He plans for when he's going to get up and run away with all the flowers in his reach so the cameras no longer have access to Till for at least a few hours.
Next to Ivan, Mizi playfully fusses over Sua and Till weaves a couple flower crowns meant for no one, not even himself, which Ivan will inevitably steal from him later.
It smells like Anakt garden flowers.
But to Ivan, it smells like Till.
When Ivan kisses Till up on stage, it doesn't taste like the flowers in Anakt garden, nor does it smell like them either.
He supposes Till hasn't smelled that way in a very long time. He supposes they haven't been around those flowers in an even longer time.
So maybe Ivan's a little delusional, but when the final round of shots are fired and he should be smelling the sharp twang of blood and smoke from his wounds, instead, he can only smell the phantom scent of red flowers.
He wishes the cameras were flowers again, that the eyes and ears listening to Till sing were just crushable objects again.
Ivan wishes he could save Till from the aliens a few more times, but he's glad he could do it one last time.