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“I need to talk with him.”
“No, you don’t. You really don’t have to.”
“Have you talked with him?”
“...I have nothing to talk about with him.”
Short hair really did suit Mizi. Till never could have imagined it, he’d always think of her ethereal and flowing, and her beautiful hair flowing after her wherever she went, but it did fit her.
The dark circles under her eyes did not.
Till sighed, reaching out a hand, before pulling it back, fingers twitching slightly, just like when he was trying to figure out a note on his guitars.
“You need rest.”
“So do you. You are still injured.”
Till was acutely aware of the bandage around his neck, before he shrugged, ignoring the shot of pain echoing through his muscles.
“I won’t be able to rest until I have talked with him.”
Mizi looked him in the eyes, as if looking for an answer from him for a question she wasn’t asking.
“...where is he anyways?”
“I know where he is. I think Hyuna didn’t want me to know but—” Mizi trailed off, and Till scoffed.
“What is the deal there anyway?”
“I don’t know. I think… I think Hyuna had known him for a long time. She doesn’t talk about her time in the garden.”
“...please. I have to talk to him.”
He could see Mizi’s shoulders crumble a little.
“Please… don’t do anything rash.”
When did Till ever?
“You know, I thought you would be a more difficult opponent, when I saw you before the performance.”
Luka greeted Till with that, but he just looked… weird.
He was always pale, paler than any human Till had ever seen before - he was almost the same shade as his outfit. Usually his paleness was offset by professional makeup - that made him look more elegant under the lights of the stage, but right now he just looked… sickly. His eyes were bloodshot and tired, and his hair was a mess as it fell into his face, and he looked up at Till, boredom evident in his voice.
“...what do you mean?”
“I thought you might have had a strategy. Your stylists surely did. I thought you might have been told about it by your Guardian, or maybe it was even your idea and you directed the stylists. But no,” Luka sighed dramatically. “It was false hope.”
“What are you even talking about?!”
“You were the underdog. No way you could have won with outsinging me,” Luka rolled his eyes. “Which one of us is the better singer is irrelevant. What matters is numbers. Ivan’s voting numbers could have rivalled me. I was looking forward to that, but—” Luka shrugged. “We all know how that turned out. You are way too controversial. A lot of the audience loves you and also a lot of them despise you. There was only one way for you to win - if you had gotten Ivan’s voters.”
“There’s no way I could have—”
The room was spinning, and Luka stood up, and for a moment, Till thought they were back on the stage, the beat echoing in his eardrums— but no, it was just his own heartbeat.
“Your hair, slicked back like Ivan’s in your previous round. Your pants full of red patterns, like you were treading in the pool of blood left behind by him. All you would have had to do is to tug on their heartstrings a bit. Ivan wanted me to be here. So help me. But you couldn’t even do that. You made it so— boring.”
Till grabbed Luka’s shirt, yanking him closer, so their heads almost crashed together.
“Not everyone likes the games you do,” Till hissed. “Why are you doing this?”
“What makes you confused?” Luka slowly blinked. “Isn’t that the point of the competition? To be the one remaining in the end? Ooooh, I see. Mizi.”
“Keep her name out of your mouth—”
“Why do you cling to her so much when she has gotten you killed?”
“Wha—”
“You got distracted by her. Even if you had gotten a second wind from her, and you kept performing… well.”
“I’m not dead!”
“Oh yes you are,” An unnatural grin crept up on Luka’s face. “We are all dead here. You died, she died, I died. Our deaths just hadn’t caught up to us from that stage yet.”
Till punched Luka in the face.
It didn’t make him feel better.
“I’ve been trying to think about it— about him,” Mizi sighed, while changing the bandage on Till’s neck which was making him squirm. “Stop fidgeting.”
“...sorry. Why are you thinking about him?”
“Don’t you?” Mizi’s voice was quiet. “He has that effect. Of getting under your skin and leaving that itch behind. I think Hyuna has it the worst but...”
Yeah.
Yeah, Till understood what she meant.
Back in Anakt Garden at one point Ivan walked up to him.
“Hey. I found something. Come look at it.”
Ivan didn’t really take no for an answer when he wanted to inflict something on Till, and to be fair, Till was extremely bored, so he followed him.
Ivan lay down next to one of the bushes and pointed, so Till scooted next to him and—
There was… something between the branches. It looked like a web of sorts, but not like those on the nets that the teachers gave them to catch the fake-butterflies with that one time. (Only one time, because Till threw the net to one of their heads.) No it was thin, and spread between the branches of the bush.
And in the middle, there was… something.
It was a small thing, and had many legs - one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And it was just climbing on the small web.
“What is that?” Till whispered.
“I don’t know,” Ivan whispered back. “My Guardian has some associates who have similar legs, but… they are bigger. Never seen one this small.”
“You think it’s a Guardian?”
“Don’t think so. Too small for that. I took the web back a week ago - it’s all sticky. But I think— I think it made it again.”
“Huh.”
It was an odd thing, and Till had no idea how long did they lie there on their stomachs, staring at the web.
“Maybe some kind of a bug. Seen a lot of those on the streets.”
“Seen one like this?”
“No.”
“Hmmm,” Till mused, pushing himself back into kneeling. “I’ll run and ask Mizi.”
And before Ivan could have said anything, Till had ran off.
And in a short amount of time, Mizi was lying down next to them, and so was Sua, and now the four of them were staring at the weird bug.
“It’s a spider,” Sua was the one who spoke, her dark eyes fixed on it. “Seen it once. Big sister didn’t like it. Said they originate from Earth, but probably sneaked on some spaceships, and now are on some other planets too.”
“What do they do?” Till asked, and Sua didn’t even look at him.
“Did your Sister tell you?” Mizi asked, and Sua nodded, because of course she’d answer Mizi.
“She said people were scared of it. Apparently she got an old book once, or… something like that. Old tales from old Earth. But she said as scary spiders looked, they were very useful animals. But she didn’t know how.”
“But why do they make this web? Do they like it?” Mizi asked.
“I think that’s where they live. And also they trap smaller bugs in it. To eat. To survive.”
“So they are hunters,” Ivan whispered. “Do you think it’ll eat us?”
“Don’t say weird things!” Till snapped at him. “That thing is way too small to eat us!”
“But— maybe it does like making the web,” Sua said, resting her chin on her linked hands. “Sometimes even things you do to survive - you can love those things as well. And maybe find beauty in it.”
It sounded weird to Till, back then.
But now—
Now, thinking of Luka in that cabin of his, Till remembered the spider in Anakt Garden.
“Punching him over and over again won’t make you feel better.”
“I won’t punch him again.”
Mizi was quiet, and Till smiled a little at her, albeit his smile felt fake.
“Besides. You punched him more than I did.”
“And it didn’t make me feel better. I wish it did.”
“Maybe we should try it again. Together, this time.”
And Mizi smiled back at him, and her eyes had a gentle shine to them.
“Maybe.”
They didn’t.
“Why do you think we are dead?”
“They are going to catch us. And do you think they’d put us back on stage? Don’t be ridiculous. We are not as pristine and untouchable as before. We are ruined goods.”
Luka certainly looked like one, albeit he looked better. He fixed up his hair, even though he still looked stupidly pale, as he lied down, and Till noticed once again the scars on his chest through his opened shirt.
What kind of surgeries were they? Necessary? Cosmetic? They didn’t fully hide the scars, and Luka exposed them on stage at times.
Clearly it wasn’t bad enough to ruin his image.
“Was it fun to you?” Till asked, surprised by how low his voice was
“Hm? What was?”
“Toying with us. With Mizi. With me. Probably with everyone else you sang with. Was that fun for you?”
“What is the alternative?” Luka’s voice was bored. “To scream and cry on stage? No point. Might as well enjoy the moment, right?”
“You are insane.”
“And what did your rebellion give you?” Luka rolled his eyes. “Broken over and over again. Our bodies do not belong to us, but getting it broken... Might as well chase the fun things, right? Isn’t that more fun?”
“...Mizi and Sua liked singing together, and you used Sua to attack Mizi.”
“And what did that give them? Better to have fun with no strings attached. The only strings we have are to the Guardians, and the fans voting. No point in other entanglements.”
“...what about Hyuna?”
Now that got a reaction out of Luka, a slight wince.
“...she had killed me just as much as that foolish Mizi of yours.”
This time, Till didn’t punch him before leaving the room.
“I’m fucking pissed at Ivan.”
He was drinking. Till wasn’t proud of it, but he was drinking, and Mizi was there, the two of them outside, looking at that terrible sky above.
“Nobody asked him to die for me! What the hell was he thinking! And dying the way he did— what was the point?!”
“Dying so the other will live. Ignoring what would the other feel. I— I wish Sua was still there. I’d yell at her.”
“Would you?”
Mizi nodded, also having alcohol in her hand, cheeks flushed.
“I’d give her a lecture about leaving me like that. And then I’d hug her and never let her go.”
“Huh. I think I’d punch Ivan in the face. But he’d probably just smile, as he always did. The bastard.”
Mizi laughed before choking on her laughter a bit, tears swelling up in her eyes.
“I will yell at Ivan a bit for you as well.”
“Thank you. I don’t think Sua would care about me yelling at her.”
“...I miss them.”
“I miss them too.”
And Till threw the empty bottle, and screamed at the sky - and Mizi also put her own bottle down, joining him in the scream.
He sometimes sang with Mizi at the Garden back then, practising, but it was always… weird. Till struggled keeping up with Mizi’s honest energy, and now—
Now they were screaming together, like a duet that only the two of them would enjoy.
“Who even are you?”
“That’s a stupid question. You know very well who am I. Everyone does.”
“You are just a mirror,” Till hissed. “You mirrored Sua for Mizi. Ivan for me. You are playing the roles they want you to be. Who even are you?”
Luka didn’t reply, just lifted his chin, and Till stepped closer.
“You play that role on stage - to live, and to have fun. What role are you playing now, so Hyuna isn’t throwing your sorry ass out, but also isn’t letting you out?”
As always, when Hyuna was mentioned, Luka’s eyes darkened a little.
But then, he smirked.
“I think I don’t have to do anything. She already made up her mind. She just expects answers from me I cannot give.”
Till was… frustrated.
What was he supposed to do with Luka’s serene attitude, like that spider back in Anakt Garden, so Till crossed the room, grabbing Luka’s shirt, yanking him up to his feet, slamming him against the wall.
Luka didn’t even fight back.
“I think you are pathetic,” Till hissed. “I think you are jealous because Mizi and I had people who’d die for us and you wanted to use that, just because you are too much of an asshole for anyone to do that?”
“And be emotional wrecks afterwards? There is nothing to be jealous of. Besides - you never looked at Ivan. I have seen the previous rounds. You didn’t see him.”
Luka seemed like nothing would faze him, and Till just wanted to shake him up a bit.
So Till did the one thing he could think of to unsettle him, and pressed his lips to Luka’s.
Luka didn’t struggle back, not like Till did, but he did gasp by Till’s lips, and Till didn’t know what else to do.
And then Till pulled his head back, and Luka looked at him, curiously, and Till could feel that whatever Luka was thinking, he was running many, many things through his head. Maybe trying to think about what he should reflect back at Till.
“Shut up,” Till snarled, despite Luka not saying a word, before letting him go, and storming out of the room Luka was still cooped up in.
He didn’t want to look back.
Back then, in Anakt Garden, a few days later, Ivan tore down the spider’s web, and when Till touched it, it was sticky and annoying and then they fought about it, as the sticky thing kept clinging to their hands.
That’s how it felt leaving Luka’s room, invisible threads sticking to his skin.
How could you get rid of those?