Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It wasn’t a surprise when Till realized he wanted to end everything. Honestly, there is nothing to lose anymore in his life. Everything is just the same as it is and it will remain as it is too, even if Till is gone. There will be no one to grieve for him, no one to take care of his grave, too. Well, maybe Mizi will, when she is available to do so. Till just wanted to disappear, he doesn’t want to burden anyone. Even when he dies, he will still burden Mizi and the others to come to his grave once in a while, so Till just wanted to disappear instead. 

Till watched the cloud slowly moving as he leaned back.

Then, he jumped.

When he woke up, he didn't know who he was. He doesn’t know his name, his age, his birthday, everything. Even when a pink haired girl came to look at him, he couldn’t remember anything. She said, “Your name is Till and I am Mizi.” ‘Till’ doesn’t really know how to talk, he forgot everything already. But he readily nodded after he saw the girl was on the verge of crying when he didn’t respond. So he tried to speak, with all his limbs tied up in bandages and half of his head too, he still tried to speak. “Mi…zi…” he said, he could hear his scratchy, unused voice spelling out the girl’s name.

Till tried to give her his smile, he knows it’s crooked and looks ugly in front of her, but for some reason Till doesn’t want to see her crying. So, Till smiled crookedly, and called out to her again with a weak voice, “Mizi.” 

The girl ends up crying, still.

The doctor told him that he was in a critical situation for a month before barely managing to stabilize. It was already more than a week since he was out of the intensive care unit. Till really doesn’t remember anything, even though Mizi, the pink haired girl, has been coming to see him with another girl–her name is Sua–every two days. 

They tell him that he was in the hospital due to an accident. Whenever he asks Mizi, she will always say that he was in an accident and never tell him the details. Till thought that it makes sense because all of his body hurts. He could see all the bandages wrapping his legs and arms, and also the one on his head. Till was told that he broke several bones and had a head fracture. He was also told that he is forbidden from doing heavy exercises after his discharge. Not that he will be discharged soon. After all, he can only barely lift his right hand now. Till was told that he will begin the physiotherapy after the doctor deemed him better, he doesn’t know when it will be though. 

Today, Till was allowed to be in a wheelchair. Since Mizi visited him yesterday, it means that she won’t visit today. He was accompanied by the nurse he often sees with the doctor. The nurse said his name is Hyunwoo. Hyunwoo is a sweet person, he often helps Till when he couldn’t lift his right hand to eat. Apparently, he is the dongsaeng of his doctor, Hyuna. “You are cool,” Till admitted after Hyunwoo lifted him and put him in the wheelchair. “Both you and your noona , the doctor.” 

“Well, thank you for the compliment, Till.” He was awarded with a bright smile on Hyunwoo’s face. Hyunwoo’s smile is warm. Till doesn’t really remember anything, but he feels like he rarely faces people who smile warmly in front of him. Hence, Till tried to smile at Hyunwoo, trying to replicate the sunny smile that Hyunwoo gave him. Well, it ended up with Hyunwoo laughing so Till thought it was a success. 

Till was brought to the garden. It was the first time he inhaled fresh air after opening his eyes and staying in his room for almost two weeks. Hyunwoo didn’t say anything and Till was grateful for the silence. He wanted to bask in the lightly flower scented garden. 

It was then that he saw a man with hunched back, sitting on the bench. He was reading a book attentively and Till could see several flowers drawing in it. The drawing looks pretty and Till asked Hyunwoo to bring him closer to the man. Although Hyunwoo hesitated at first, Till said that he would only talk with the man for a minute and that what he wanted was to see the book with the flowers. 

“Hey,” he called the man. The man, wearing a black jacket over the white shirt, looked up after being called. “My name is Till, what is yours?” he asked.

“Ivan,” the man said, “hello, Till.” He was met with a sunny smile on Ivan’s face, even more warm than the one he usually spotted on Hyunwoo’s face. “Would you like to read this book?” Ivan asked as he pointed the book in his hand. “It seems like you are interested in it, seeing that you are looking at it intently.” 

Till nodded, admitting that he wanted to look at the book.

“I will give it to you,” Ivan said, giving the book to him. “I can’t stay really long, so I will be going now.” 

“Ah,” Till was stunned, he didn’t know what to say until he saw the man standing up and leaving. “Wait–”

But Ivan had walked away.

Till didn’t know why his name was on the first page of the book. The next day, when Mizi visited him, he voiced his confusion. “I met someone named Ivan,” the moment he said that he could see the widening of Mizi’s eyes and the stiffening of Sua’s shoulder. 

“Where did you meet him?” Mizi asked with a careful voice, then she spotted the book in his hands. “Did he give you that book?” she asked again.

Till nodded at her second question. “I met him in the hospital garden. I’m allowed to be in a wheelchair now,” he said. “We just met yesterday, but I didn’t know why my name is in the book he gave me,” he explained to Mizi, opening the book to the first page and pointing to the name written on it. “Do you know him?” he asked carefully, watching as Mizi gritted her teeth and Sua resting her hands on Mizi’s shoulder.

“He…” Mizi hesitated for a second, turning back to look at her girlfriend. Till feels like he is trying to get courage from the other, but he also feels like Sua doesn’t really like the thought of telling him about Ivan. Till saw Mizi take a deep breath before saying, “he is a friend.”

“Mizi,” Sua called out in a reprimanding tone. “Tell him the truth, will you?” 

“I can’t,” Mizi said and shook her head.

Till frowned after hearing their exchange. “What truth?” he asked, he felt a bit betrayed at the thought that Mizi was lying to him. “Tell me,” he said again, bored into Mizi’s eyes to look for something, maybe to look for the truth. Mizi looked away, unable to stand his gaze. He shifted his gaze towards Sua who was standing, still with her hand on Mizi’s shoulder.

“I am not sure if I am allowed to tell,” Sua said.

“Tell me,” he repeated.

Till watched as Sua shook her head and Mizi patted the hand on her shoulder. “She is right,” she finally said. “It’s not our place to tell, Ivan will need to tell you the truth himself.” Her tone sounded sad and grieving. Till doesn’t know who and what she was grieving for. However, Till doesn’t like that tone coming from her. 

“Okay,” he gave in. “I will ask when I meet him again.” As soon as he said that, he felt the tension in the room melted. 

“Which flower do you like?” Sua asked, changing the topic. “My favorite is the one called Lily of The Valley,” she added and showed him the page titled ‘ Lily of The Valley ’. Has she read this book before? How come she knows where the section about Lily of The Valley is? he pondered. “Yes, I have read this book before,” Sua admitted. “You used to show me the book. It’s your favorite.” 

Honestly, Till was startled the moment Sua said she had read the book before. “Can you read minds?” he asked with pure curiosity. There was a light chuckle coming from Sua, it was the first time he saw her with a smile. Laughter also erupts from Mizi, making her eyes into crescent as she laughed out loud. “Oh, then, did I say it out loud?” he asked as he scratched his head, then tilted his head in confusion after hearing another peal of laughter from Mizi and Sua.

“You asked the same question to Sua before,” Mizi finally said while wiping psychological tears on her eyes after laughing too much. 

“Oh.” Till could feel warmth spreading from his neck, upwards to his cheeks.

“You!” Till exclaimed when he saw Ivan again in the garden. Still in his wheelchair, along with Hyunwoo pushing it, Till asked Hyunwoo to bring him faster to Ivan. “You know me,” he said in front of Ivan after arriving near the bench. “Why didn’t you say so?” he said with a hint of anger. If he knew him, why hide it? Moreover, why give him the book obviously signed with his name?

“My name is Ivan,” Ivan said.

“I know! Why didn’t you say that you know me?!” Till asked, still feeling angry over not being told that the other knows about him. “Are you making fun of me?” he asked, voice full of irritation.

Ivan shook his head and showed a small smile on his face. “It’s a bit hard,” he said and looked away from him, “when you showed up with a blank face that tells me instantly that you forgot about me.” Till was stunned and didn’t know how to react to his words. Till never thought that way before, Mizi was always accepting of him and Sua never really shows what she was feeling. “I’m not blaming you,” Ivan added. “It’s just that, it hurts me a bit knowing that you forgot everything all over.”

“Who are you?” Despite knowing the other will be hurt when he asked that, Till still asked in the end. “I want to know you,” he said, “it feels like my mind is telling me to get to know you.” Till frowned after he said that and added another question, “who am I to you before my memory loss?”

Till didn’t get an answer. “Which flower did you like? From the book.” He gets a question instead. 

Till knows that the other person doesn't want to talk about him before his memory loss, so he answered truthfully. “The forget-me-nots. Small, but strong in all ways,” he said. In response, he gets a light chuckle from Ivan. 

“You haven’t changed a bit,” he said.

“Did I like forget-me-nots before?”

“Yes, you like it so much that half of your paintings are them. The other halves are paintings of either me or Mizi.”

“Paintings?”

“You love to paint,” Ivan said. “You should read the book until the end, there are several doodles in it. You were the one who drew them.”

Till flipped several pages of the book and he found a little drawing on one of the sections. It was a mini Ivan drawing, complete with the little snaggletooth. “You are right,” he said, then with a bit of confusion he asked again, “I drew this?”

“Yes, you did.” Ivan nodded. “We used to date,” he suddenly said.

“Huh?”

“We used to be boyfriends,” he repeated.

“Used to?” Till asked after regaining his composure. Why did this man say they were dating so suddenly?

“I don’t know what I am to you after your memory loss.”

“...” Till doesn’t know what to say. He was at a loss for words and didn’t know how to react properly. Then, after he was done processing the information, Ivan had long walked away from him. 

“He said that we were dating?” Till said, a bit unsure with the words coming out of his mouth. He wanted to make sure that what Ivan said was the truth, so he asked Mizi and Sua when they visited him the next day. “Was I really dating him?” he asked once again after not getting a response from both of them.

“It wasn’t really dating per se,” Mizi said. She hesitated for a while before finally giving in. “You were already engaged to him,” she said. “Did he not tell you that?” 

“No, he didn’t. Can you tell me more?”

“We can’t,” Sua answered fast. “It’s not our place to tell you about what happened to you,” she said and gritted her teeth. “It’s also not our place to tell you about what happened to him.”

Till sat in silence before nodding. “I will ask him,” he said.

“He might not want to tell you,” Mizi said. “Last time, he…” before she could finish her words, Sua interjected, telling her that she can’t tell him anything. To be honest, it was annoying that they are hiding something from him, but Till feels like they don’t really know what went on between him and Ivan.

“Ivan,” he called out after he saw him again in the garden. Till saw a food container in his hands, from what it was seen, it looked like a soup container. “What did you bring?” he asked. 

“Soup,” Ivan answered. “And… this.” He showed a bucket of flowers, full of forget-me-nots. 

“If I accept, will you tell me what happened to me before?” he asked, hands hovering on accepting both of the things.

“If I tell you, will you forget about it again?” he got a question in return.

In the end, he didn’t get any information that day. He still ate the soup and put the flowers into the vase.

When he woke up, he remembers nothing.

There was a man outside his room, holding a soup container and a bucket of flowers. He doesn’t know him and his head hurts, heck , he doesn’t even know himself. He shifted his gaze, away from the man looking intently at him and finally towards the doctor in front of him.

“Do you know your name?” He shook his head.

“Your name is Till,” she said. “My name is Hyuna and I am your attending doctor,” she continued. “You have a condition called generalized amnesia. It is a subtype of dissociative amnesia where you forget your entire life history and identity. Your memory may or may not recover,” Hyuna explained. “However, it seems like your condition is rare. This is the third time you forget everything. It seems like a traumatic response, considering what happened to you. We might need to run more tests, to make sure whether the head trauma is affecting it or not.”

“Okay,” Till said. “Who is the man lingering outside the room?”

“He…” Hyuna hesitated on answering. “I will let him in, talk to him, okay?” Hyuna left with the nurse. He could see her talking to the man outside the room, gesturing that he is now allowed to 

“Do you remember me?” the man asked as soon as he entered the room, not even bothering to sit down. Till can only shake his head, indicating that he remembers nothing. He just found out that his name is Till from the doctor several minutes ago. How was he supposed to know who this man is? However, Till feels like his heart is being squeezed by something invincible. It’s like something is scratching his heart and telling him that he is supposed to know the man in front of him. But he couldn’t remember a thing, he doesn’t even know his age and where he lives. He doesn’t know why he was in the hospital in the first place. 

“My name is Ivan,” the man said. “Your name is Till. You have a friend called Mizi, she has pink hair. She usually visits you with her girlfriend, Sua.” He explained bit by bit, giving him the flower and the soup. “We are friends,” he said. Till nodded at his explanation, however he didn’t really understand why he felt repulsed when the man said he was his friend.

“What are the flowers called?” he asked, caressing the seemingly small flowers gently. They look strong, regardless of how small they look. Till instantly fell in love with the flowers. Then, he realized that Ivan didn’t answer his question. Ivan’s face scrunched up, as if he was holding back his tears. In response, Till doesn’t really know why he held up his hands and put it on Ivan’s cheeks when he saw a tear drop. He wiped the tear drops with his thumb. “Why are you crying?” he asked slowly.

The response he got was another sob and it hurts to see him cry. Ivan thought that crying doesn’t fit him, he should have laughed freely like everything in the world belongs to him. He shouldn’t be hunching his back in the small hospital room, crying his eyes out. “Don’t cry,” Till said, trying to calm him down to no avail. 

“... Forget-me-nots.” 

“Huh?”

“The flowers. They are forget-me-nots. They are your favorite,” Ivan repeated as he put his hand on Till’s hand resting on his cheek. He pecked the palm of his right hand, snuggling it like his life depended on it. “If I tell you about this, will you remember tomorrow? Or will you forget them again?” he asked, tone desperately seeking for confirmation. 

Till was speechless. He can’t promise the other man that he won’t forget tomorrow, or the next day, or the next month. The doctor said it happened to him thrice already, he might forget his memories again for the fourth time. Till doesn’t know how to answer, he still feels like lying and telling the man in front of him that he won’t forget though. 

“Forget it,” Ivan said. “As long as you are alive… It’s okay for you to forget all over again. I will tell you everything from the start. If I need to do it for the rest of my life, then I will do it for the rest of my life.”

Till found out that he used to date him, or rather, they were engaged before his accident. He didn’t answer what kind of accident befalls him, he dodged the question regarding the accident. Till is annoyed by that, he wanted to know what happened to him that hospitalized him for more than two months. However, the other was tight lipped and won’t tell him anything about it. 

“If you won’t tell me about it then get out,” he finally said, fed up with everything that Ivan hid from him. To his surprise, Ivan really got up and left him. He was left alone in his room. 

Afterwards, Ivan will visit him every day and tell him bits of his old life. Even though he is still tight lipped about the accident.

One day, Ivan didn't come. Till doesn’t know why, but it stirred something deep inside him. Till was afraid that the other might abandon him. And then… his head started hurting as memories flooded in. 

When he was a kid, Till was abandoned by his parents. He was unloved as a child, his parents didn’t want him so they left him behind in an orphanage. There, in the orphanage, he met Mizi, Sua, and … Ivan. It was then that Till felt like he belonged somewhere. He couldn’t remember what his parents looked like, nor could he remember how his childhood had been with both of them. However, he could remember vividly that the people around him in the orphanage took great care of him. 

Hyuna was one of the main sponsors for the orphanage, along with her husband, Luka. She was a doctor and she usually checked up on the kids in the orphanage whenever she visited. Luka, her husband, will bring books and new clothes for them, then, he will recite some stories for the kids. Sometimes, Hyuna’s dongsaeng , Hyunwoo will come along with them. At that time, Hyunwoo was still in the college of nursing, so he couldn’t really assist Hyuna in checking up on the kids. Usually, he will play with the kids and tell silly stories about the three of them.

It was then that the kids found out that the three of them came from the same orphanage, The Anakt Garden. It’s the same orphanage they are all in. Or, to put it simply, Hyuna, Luka, and Hyunwoo used to be children under Anakt Garden Orphanage’s wings. Apparently, the three of them stayed until adulthood with no one to adopt them. Till thought that the four of them will grow up in the orphanage until adulthood, just like the three of them. Then, it all went downhill when a man called Urak came to adopt him on his eight birthday.

He didn’t know why the man adopted him, but one thing for sure is the fact that he hated him so, so much. Because the man took him away from his family , because the man forced him to do things he doesn’t want to. Because the man… is disgusting in every way. When he first came to the orphanage, he acted all mighty and capable, to the point that the caretakers in the orphanage all cheered when he said he wanted to adopt Till. 

In reality, Till had to endure his beatings and sometimes vulgar touches. Not that Till didn’t fight back, of course he did. In the end, whenever he fights back, he will get beaten black and blue by Urak. Till had tried to run away, but somehow, Urak always catches him before he is able to run away. Then, Urak will drag him to the bedroom, to be beaten or to do disgusting things that Till hated a lot. For around seven years, Till had to survive under that disgusting man’s hand. 

Then, he somehow enrolled in the same school as Mizi, Sua, and Ivan. The fifteen year old Till was vastly different from the bright and sunny eight year old Till in the orphanage. His friends are still being taken care of in the orphanage as no one wanted to adopt them. Good , Till thought when he heard the news. He would have hated it if his friends were to suffer under a parent like Urak. 

Ivan was the first one to notice something wrong. He forced him to the corner of the locker room, then forcefully lifted his shirt, only to see the black and blues on his skin. Some of them are even old wounds. It was also the first time that Till had his panic attack, fearing that Ivan would do the same thing that Urak did to him. 

Afterwards, he ended up in the infirmary.

Later, Ivan told Mizi and Sua about what he saw. He got reprimanded for scaring Till, but they got angry on behalf of Till, too. His friends helped him collect the evidence of the abuse Urak did to him, submitted it to the teachers, and asked help from the teacher to go to the police. Hyuna also helped him examine the wounds and the traces left by Urak’s assaults. Thankfully, the teachers were on their side and strongly asked the orphanage to take Till back for a while until the procedure with the police is finished.

In the end, Urak was detained for life in prison.

However, the damage was done and Till feel disgusted all over. He felt disconnected by his own body and most of the times, he went into seizure whenever someone touched him without his consent. Hyuna tried to set him up with a psychologist, it helped him a bit and he is grateful towards Hyuna.

But it was a deep trauma he could never stop thinking about. The monster is gone, but the memories stay . It was rooted deep inside him, to the point that Till feels like he should scratch his skin until it sheds and the new one forms. 

It was then that Ivan told him to pick up a brush and draw things. It was also then that Ivan gave him a book about flowers. 

“You can start drawing the flowers whenever you feel like everything is going wrong,” he had told him before. “Which one do you like the most?” Ivan had asked him after he flipped the pages. Then, Till showed him the page about Forget-me-nots. From then on, Till learned how to draw Forget-me-nots whenever his skins were itchy. Till also learned how to draw his friends. Most of the time, he asked Mizi or Ivan to pose for him since Sua doesn’t really like acting as a reference for his drawing. 

Till fell in love with drawing, back then. It was his lifeline, his savior. For the first time in his life, Till wanted to do something and draw his friends in a big frame while they were all smiling. He also dreamt of getting into an art school. Slowly, Till started to focus more on his future. Sure, the memories are still there. Sure, the damage is done. But his friends are more important and every single moment with them matters for Till. Till learned how to live with his scarred and wounded body, alongside with the help of his friends. 

Then, Ivan fell in love with him in their third year of high school. 

Till was adamant at first, but he couldn’t resist in the end. He ended up accepting his confession after being chased around by Ivan for half a year. They started dating once they started their first year of university. Till got into an art major, while Ivan got into an engineering major. They enrolled in the same university, along with Mizi and Sua. For Till, it was the most beautiful moment in his life. 

Then, he got into an accident that damaged his hands.

Till lost his lifeline. 

And so, Till also lost his will to live.

Till dazedly stared at the ceiling after recovering his memories. It feels like being suffocated under the water, at the same time it also feels like falling free again from a high building. So it was like this , he thought. In the end, he even failed to kill himself. Till wanted to die, he desperately wanted to. Now he understands why his friends refused to tell him about his ‘accident’. Turns out, it wasn’t an accident at all. Turns out, everything was his own doing. 

Till let out a shrill laughter and a choked cry. He couldn’t do this anymore, he wanted everything to end. Till sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed. And he struggled to get up with his crippled legs. He walked closer towards the windows. Laughter erupts from his throat after looking down and finding out that his room was on the highest floor. Then, he should die this way. 

And so, Till was no more in this world.

Chapter Text

"Ivan." He could feel a gentle shake on his shoulder. Ivan burrows his head deeper in the blanket, still shutting his eyes shut. Ivan doesn't feel like waking up yet, because he feels like everything will burst into nothingness if he did so.

Ivan could hear a sigh, before he felt soft lips touching his forehead. He blinked his eyes slowly and savoured the way the other man was hovering over him, trying to wake him up. 

He can't help but yank the other man down and give him the a tight hug. "Till," he said, burrowing his head to Till's neck. 

"What?"

"Till," he called again.

"What do you want?"

"Till," he called once again before he laughed out loud. "I just had the worst dream," he said, mumbling to the crook of Till's neck as he inhales the light soap scent on Till. 

There was a beat, a millisecond silence, before Till sighed softly and pulled back. "It's just a dream," Till said and gave his lips a small peck. "Everything is okay here." 

"Yes." Ivan nodded, pulling down Till for another kiss. It was light as feather, it tickles something beneath his skin. It was just a light peck, but it made his heart beat louder than ever. And Ivan thinks, oh, I love him and I am glad he is here.

Mizi stood in front of two urns, one black and one white. Both beside each other, in the same closed space. With forget-me-nots hanging near them. There was a nameplate, the deceased's names forged on it. It says:

Resting in love,
Ivan and Till.