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"Stay here until you're called back on stage," a gruff voice orders, shoving him into the dressing room. It was a damp, grimy place far removed from the sterile, white corridors outside. The place reeked of stale air and things forgotten, left to rot. Against the wall stood a single chair facing a cracked mirror, both half-hidden in shadow.
Water patters to the floor, echoing with his every step. Each footfall feels heavier, like he's dragging an unseen weight through quicksand. His ears throb, his head pulses, and cold sweat slides down his brow, mingling with the dampness already clinging to his clothes. He stares down at his hands, trembling and streaked with dried red.
He doesn’t make it to the chair. His knees give way, and he sinks onto the cold tile before the mirror. One bloodstained hand presses to his mouth, muffling the sobs that claw up his throat. The sound is raw and desperate, the sound of something small and helpless, wounded and bleeding.
Behind him, smudges of crimson trail across the floor, mixing in with the rainwater that dripped from his clothes. The light above flickers. Till’s lip quivers as his fingers dig into his tangled hair, shaking. The image won’t leave him, his face seared into his mind.
Why did he smile?
Till has never understood him. Since they were young, Ivan had been the steady drumbeat of his life, a presence so constant it was hard to remember a time without him. Yet, even now, Till could never fully grasp how Ivan’s mind worked. He always seemed like he knew more than anyone else.
How long had he felt this way?
With a trembling hand, his cold fingers drift up to his lips, brushing against the dry, cracked skin.
He closes his eyes, wantonly cupping his own cheek, pressing his fingertips to his mouth as though he might conjure Ivan’s touch there… if he only tried hard enough. He aches to recreate the way Ivan’s fingers had pressed to his face, brushed by his ear, the ghost of a kiss left behind like a brand.
He imagines the soft pressure of Ivan’s lips, the strange warmth against his own. That forceful insistence, like he was trying to tell him it was for his own good. Till pulls his hand from his face to look at his expression in the mirror. His face looked like it was wracked with grief. Eyes glazed over, his dark circles becoming more prominent against his pale skin.
He couldn't help but think that in another life, the kiss might have felt comforting. Something gentle, even beautiful. But here, in this empty room, he was left with only his own touch and a hollow ache where Ivan’s warmth had once been.
He ached to ask him questions. Why? Why did you do that? How could you do that to yourself? Are you an idiot? Why would you let that happen?
In the middle of that dark room, Till realizes something awful.
He loved him.
In a world where they were robbed of their free choice, their love was the one thing they could choose.
The one thing they could control.
Mizi had been his light, a steady, bright constant sun that continuously flickered in and out of Till's life. He held onto her light for as long as he could, thinking that it was all that kept him alive. He had worshipped her like a goddess, some divine being of hope that would help him cope through the torment of living. But she wasn't anything more beyond that.
She already had a person she loved more than anything. She was her own person. Till had never approached her—he was content watching her from afar, like how a plant can comfortably grow in the presence of the sun without getting too close.
Till had never once felt jealousy or anger towards Sua. He regarded her as a proper friend and an acquaintance, not a competitor for Mizi’s love. He's always wondered why, and now he knew.
Mizi’s love never belonged to him.
Till had loved the idea of her. Her smiling face, her bright eyes and her charming laughter that felt like hearing the chime of a sweet sounding bell amidst the sound of flesh being torn apart. She was light. She was day. She was everything good in the world. Till held onto her image like it was all that tied him to each breath he took.
But Ivan... Ivan was nothing like her. Where she had been sunshine, Ivan was a dark cloud hovering at the edges, brooding, intense, always watching from the shadows. He was the kind of presence that lingered long after the room emptied, his silence somehow louder than any words. At first, Till had found him unsettling, even creepy. But Ivan had stayed. Through every lost moment, through every fractured day and every long, unending night, Ivan had never left his side.
Even as the sun disappeared, the sky broke apart, and the stars began plummeting from the heavens, Ivan had always been there. The drumbeat of his heart. The gentle warmth that washed over him with each nudge and embrace. The source of warmth that Till could smother himself in if he wanted to.
If only he had wanted to.
He feels regret so potent it was pounding in his head, against his skull. How could he not see him? Had his image of Mizi blinded him so harshly that he could no longer recognize the comfort that Ivan’s presence had been? If only he could see him. If only he could speak to him again. If only he'd just taken his hand that day when the stars fell around them.
If only. If only. If only. If only. If only.
Till forces himself upright, swaying on unsteady legs. With numb fingers, he peels off his rain-soaked clothes and lets them drop carelessly to the floor. His limbs are trembling, his throat raw from screams swallowed back, but he forces himself to move.
He drags on the black and neon green outfit meant for the final round, pulling the shirt over his head. He stares into the mirror, and the person staring back doesn’t look like a performer—he looks hollow, stripped bare, a man with nothing left to lose. It wasn’t enough. Not for tonight. Not for Ivan.
He needed to say something, something that would cut through the noise and reach anyone still willing to hear. A message, something to leave behind.
He picks up the pants meant for the stage, holding them by each leg. Carefully, deliberately, he kneels to the floor, using the fabric to wipe away every last stain of what he trailed inside when he first walked inside the room— Ivan’s blood.
He presses the cloth into each smudge of crimson and rainwater, forcing the garment to drink up every last drop. He doesn’t stop until the pants are soaked through with that single, irreversible truth.
He wears the blood soaked garment with pride and conviction. It’s all he has left of Ivan. And all the world would see.
There's a slam on the door.
“Hey! Get ready, you're on in two minutes!”
Till lifts his hand to his lips, wetting his fingers before raking them through his hair, pressing it back in a meagre attempt to look less disheveled. This could be his last performance; he feels it settling in his bones, a finality so cold it should scare him.
But strangely, there's no fear—not a trace of the nervous dread that once gnawed at him before every show.
Tonight, there was only a silent, acceptance and resolve, a steely calm.
He was going to give it everything he had, every last shred of himself.
.
.
.
If I sing with everything I have, will you hear my melody?