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“No.”
“I haven’t even said anything,”
“You didn’t need to.” Till sighs, staring ahead at the run-down shack in front of him. A blaring sign, half fallen, was plastered onto its tattered roof, the words ‘ENTER IF YOU DARE’ lettered in an obnoxious neon green.
“I was just going to suggest—”
“No.”
“Would you let me finish?” Ivan huffs, with a faux-pout. Till knows it’s fake when he actually looks cute doing it.
“You want to ask me if we can go into the haunted house. I’m going to say no. You’re going to call me ‘chicken’. I’m going to tell you to shut the hell up. Do we really have to go through this whole song and dance?” Till says, pinching at the space between his brows.
“Till, I would never call you a chicken. You’re too cute for that, you’d be more of a… scaredy cat.” Ivan says earnestly, feigning an innocent smile as he tilts his head at the younger man.
Till bristles, “I’m not scared, dumbass! I just don’t want to waste my time when we could be doing…” His voice fades, struggling to think of something. Shit, it was Halloween, why was he running out of things to think of doing?
“You’re right, Till. You’re right. We could be at a party. Except— you hate parties, they’re loud, they’re bright, they’re filled with ‘dickwads’. Hm, no, you’re right, what we should be doing is going trick or treating, but no, we’re young adults, aren’t we? Is that still socially acceptable? Don’t think it is. We could watch a horror movie, but you’ll fall asleep halfway through any movie.”
“God, fuck, I get it. You didn’t need to have a whole hypothetical conversation with yourself.” Till grumbles.
Ivan beams, “Were you not just doing the same thing mere moments earlier?”
Here’s the thing, though. Till really wasn’t scared, and he really did think that this was a colossal waste of his time. But the thing is, he really couldn’t think of anything else to do. Their gig was four hours away, and he couldn’t use ‘practice’ as an excuse— not after spending all night rehearsing with Ivan lounging over his bed, who was flipping through celebrity magazines his mom left astray on the dining room table.
“Ugh, but it’ll be tacky, and it’ll be awkward when we don’t scream when we’re supposed to,” He groans, pulling at his face. Ivan hums, seemingly considering what Till was saying.
“Why don’t we scream when we’re supposed to, then? Put on a show, if you will,” Ivan suggests.
Till gives Ivan an incredulous look, “Why would we do that?”
“To support the local community! To participate in jovial exchanges of goodwill! To uh, not make it awkward?”
“Okay, you have fun doing that,” Till says, despite making his way to the cardboard box stand that sat in front of the entrance. Ivan excitedly bounds behind Till, before slowing to his usual charming expression at the sight of the lady manning the counter.
“Tickets for two, please,” Ivan requests, flashing a smile at the lady. She looks at them both, unimpressed.
“Bit too old to be celebrating Halloween now, aren’t ya?” She asks, with some sort of a fake accent.
“We are,” Ivan says, unabashedly, as Till groans for what was most definitely not the first or last time that night.
The woman looks them up and down before shrugging, “Fine, do whatever you want. My son’s your age and he set up this thing anyway,”
“Then why were you even judging— forget it, why do I bother?” Till all but snatches the tickets from the lady’s hands before gripping Ivan’s wrist with his other free hand, dragging him towards the entrance. Ivan’s eyes widen comically.
“Till?” Ivan asks, his gaze wavering between their joined hands and the back of Till’s head.
“You wanted to put on a show, didn’t you? We’d look more scared this way,” Till murmurs, his ears flushed. Truthfully, Till may have wanted an excuse to hold Ivan’s hand. Yes, the man next to him annoyed him to death, and yes, he was the bane of his existence, but he was also, unfortunately, his bisexual awakening. Maybe Till found the fact that Ivan’s personality seemed to take a 180 whenever he entered a room to be endearing, but Till thinks he’d rather die in a dystopian battle of the bands than let it get to Ivan’s head.
Silence hung between the pair for the next few seconds. Till could practically feel Ivan’s gaze burning holes through the back of his head before he finally spoke.
“Yeah, I did want that,” Ivan says quietly, tightening their grip, “Lead the way, my knight in shining armour,” He singsongs.
The entrance was adorned with loose leaves tinged red. Well, ‘adorned’ was the nice way to say it. In truth, they looked poorly taped onto the edges of the wood framing the main entrance. Nevertheless, the leaves trailed around the entrance, even making their way to the floor, where they weren’t so much ‘stuck’ as they were just thrown around, as evidenced by Till almost slipping on one before Ivan swiftly grips him by the waist.
“Broke anything?” He smirks, like the asshole that he is.
“My dignity,” Till bemoans. Despite this, he does not, in fact, pry Ivan’s arm out. Ivan also doesn’t bother releasing his hold on him, but that’s not exactly out of character.
They continued to walk inside the dark hallway, with Till keeping his eyes trained on the floor so he could spot any other stupidly decorated props he didn’t want to trip over. Ivan, noticing this, chuckles with amusement.
“If you keep staring at the floor the whole time, I’m going to start assuming the worst of you,” He says, switching his grip from Till’s waist to his hand, enveloping a calloused palm.
“And what exactly would that be?”
“That you’re scared,” Ivan hums, with a non-committal shrug.
As if it were on queue, the door behind them shut loudly right after, enshrouding the two in darkness. Till feels the grip travel up his forearm as Ivan jolts. Oh, nice.
“Right, that I’m scared,” He replies, with a smirk lacing his tone.
“I was just startled,” Ivan says, his voice deceptively monotone. Too normal, Till thinks.
They kept striding forward, Ivan’s forearm-hold unwavering. Till frowns as he keeps his free palm grazing the walls next to them in an attempt to find an edge to turn through,
“The fuck? Is this place just one long ass passageway? I swear it didn’t look that lengthy from the outside,” He grumbles, aggressively beginning to pick at the wood, as if to carve a corner himself. Ivan stays eerily silent at this, causing Till to pause momentarily, staring at his figure.
“Why’d we stop?” Ivan asks. Till raises an eyebrow.
“Didn’t know if you could hear me. You ok?” He asks, genuinely concerned. Ivan was a lot of things, but silent wasn’t one of them, and certainly not when Till was within his orbit.
“I’m fine,” Ivan says, slowly, “I’m just trying to make sense of this place. There are no lights, there are no weird sounds other than the floorboards creaking… There aren’t any signs of life here either. I don’t understand.” He explains.
Till’s eyebrows knit in frustration, “Yeah, I get it. It’s weird. There’s no furniture I can make out either, it’s just—this.” He glances at Ivan, trying to locate his eyes through spatial reasoning alone, “But don’t go all quiet on me, that’s scarier than anything else this haunted house could throw at us.”
Ivan snorts, squeezing Till’s bicep gently, “Got it, I’m more terrifying than a worn-down, haunted shack that someone’s dog probably died in.”
“Took you fifteen years to get it, but I’m glad you finally got there,” Till teases, relishing in Ivan’s laughter echoing throughout the empty abode.
The sound of a harsh wind billowing interrupts his enjoyment, however, as they both turn in the direction of the sound, alarmed. Ivan quickly adjusts his hold yet again, loosely gripping Till’s wrist.
“Follow me,” He murmurs, pacing quickly towards the source. Till desperately keeps his palm on the walls to ground his sense of direction, no matter how useless it seemed at this point. They stare ahead at a now broken window, biting gusts billowing through the gaping cracks. The boys shivered, unconsciously moving closer to each other.
“Do we uh, open it?” Till asks, his eyes raking over the window to spot a handle. Ivan finds it before he does, wordlessly moving to rotate it to the side before pushing it open. He looks over at the outside world with hesitation.
“Are we supposed to leave like this?” He asks, his voice’s colour returning as a clear opening presented itself.
“Does that matter?” Till snaps, “For all we know, this could’ve just been some dumb sham granny over there set up for a quick buck, and we were the only fools stupid enough to fall for it.”
“Then, wouldn’t we make more use out of our money if we found the actual exit?” Ivan muses, “I mean, there’s no reason to be frightened, we have a clear exit if things go south.”
Is he fucking serious.
“‘If things go south,’ are you hearing yourself?!” Till hisses, glaring at the now more visible mega-watt smile Ivan irritatingly seemed to have permanently on. God, did Till want to wreck his composure. Then again, now that he thinks back to it, he’d rather have this obnoxious version of Ivan over the strange one from earlier.
Ivan playfully rolls his eyes, “Fine, Till, be a wuss about it—”
“That’s not going to work on me every time, Ivan.”
Ivan faux-pouts again, his curly hair making his puppy dog look really work for him. Till hates that he finds it cute, “Okay, heading out the window then,” he says, sighing dramatically as he sticks one of his long-ass legs over the ledge, before launching his other one there.
Till climbs out (like a normal person), before slamming the window shut, wincing slightly at the extra cracks he definitely heard form through the glass, thanks to him. Ivan giggles.
He giggles. It might’ve been the cutest sound Till’s heard all week. Till decides not to think about it.
“Come on, I wanna give that hag a piece of my mind,” Till says, tugging Ivan back towards the booth.
“And our two dollars back!” Ivan chirps, happily being strung along.
“...And our two dollars back,” Till agrees.
• • •
As they make their way to the frontside of the shack, Till zeroes in on the lack of a chrome-coloured cardboard box, and the appearance of—
Oh for fuck’s sake.
“Don’t tell me you set this shit show up,” Till all but growls, glowering at the blond excuse of a human being standing in place of the afformentioned cardboard stand. Said man turns around, his expression deadpan.
“Oh, you two.” He casts them a bored glance before swiping through his phone.
“Luka, always a displeasure seeing you.” Ivan nods, placid.
Till grunts in annoyance, “Get your head out of that phone and look me in the eye, coward.”
“Coward?” Luka chuckles, without looking up from his phone, “And what exactly have I done to be cowering in fear from you two of all people?”
“What’s that supposed to mean—”
“So did you set this thing up?” Ivan interrupts, sending Till a let’s not make this longer than it has to be kind of look. Yeah, sure, fine. Whatever.
“Hm? Oh, that. Yeah, there were these middle schoolers setting up some sorry excuse of a haunted house here. Figured that, as a respectable senior, I should show them what potential this place could’ve had. Five minutes later, they had completely vacated the residence.” Luka explains, staring at the shack wordlessly for a mere moment before returning to whatever it was that he was doing— was he playing Ludo?
“Is that Ludo ?” Till blurts, completely disregarding whatever else Luka said.
Luka raises an eyebrow, “What about it?”
“Who the fuck plays Ludo alone? And on a phone? Scratch that, you would play Ludo against a computer,” Till says, shaking his head.
“Hah, against a computer? No, I’m playing against myself.” Luka corrects.
Till gapes momentarily, before shutting his mouth, “You know what? Forget I asked. More importantly, what illegal crap did you pull to scare those kids out of this place? And why was your mom still selling tickets here if it was empty?”
“You have a mother?” Ivan cross-questioned, suspiciously.
Luka blinks, “That was Hyuna in a wig.”
“That was what.” Till asks as Ivan simultaneously mutters, “Thank god you don’t have a mother.”
“Told her she’d get a cut of the profit if she sold tickets to people getting in here. Might as well make a quick buck or two out of this place.” Luka shrugs, “She came up with the whole old lady bit, though, no clue why, but I was pretty into it.”
“To be fair, you’d be ‘pretty into’ her wearing a trash bag,” Ivan reasons.
“You’re no better,” was all Luka decided to reply with, effectively shutting Ivan up. It seemed to be a skill only he and Sua possessed.
“Wait a second, let’s circle back. So you decided to steal the kids’ shack—”
“It’s a community shack.”
“—and make your own haunted house with it, am I getting it so far?” Till asks, frustatingly rubbing at his temple. Luka hums in agreement.
“But you didn’t do anything to make it haunted,” Till argues, his voice beginning to waver in confusion.
“It’s scary enough on its own,” Luka says.
“So you’re charging people… to enter a communal area you didn’t change whatsoever.”
“When you say it like that, it sounds like a crime.” The corner of Luka’s mouth tilts upward.
“It should be! Hand over our goddamn money!” Till thrusts his other palm out. Luka stares at it briefly before shifting his gaze to Ivan and Till as a unit, looking them up and down for a second or two.
“No,” He decides.
Ivan and Till balk, “No?”
“The fuck you mean no ?” Till seethes, as Ivan squeezes his palm placatingly.
“Exactly that. I think I should be paid for my services. In fact, I personally think I’ve charged you too little.” Luka says, frowning at his phone.
“I’m going to light that shack on fire and throw your phone into it—”
“Congratulations, I guess.” Luka interrupts, unperturbed.
“For what?” Ivan asks, his voice frustratingly calm despite the continuing madness descending upon their already fever-dream-like day.
Luka finally puts his phone into his pocket before looking at the two in mild disbelief. “For that,” His gaze drops to their conjoined hands.
They blink at him, nonplussed.
Luka sighs, “I wonder, did you two get scared at all in there? Did you, perchance, hold hands because of it? Or were you holding hands to navigate through the dark?”
Well, yes and yes. “What does that have to do with—”
“Perfectly normal things to initiate human contact over, I’m sure. Yet now, you’re out here, safe, albeit cold, still holding hands. What impression do you think you’re giving to a lowly outsider?”
The gears in Till’s head begin to turn as he processes Luka’s words. Ah. He feels himself beginning to flush amidst the undignified noise Ivan lets out in realisation, “That’s not—”
Ivan’s head snaps towards him, “It’s not?” He asks, his composure finally breaking for the first time since they entered the shack. Till only stares, at a loss for what to say.
“It is, he’s just an idiot,” Luka says, rolling his eyes.
Ivan side-eyes the other, “I don’t remember asking you for your input,” He says, clipped.
“Yeah, whatever. Figure your shit out,” Luka pulls his phone out again, before leaving the area, two dollars in hand. Their two dollars in hand. Till looks on at Luka’s retreating figure helplessly, before booking back at Ivan, who still wore the same look of distraught.
“I—” Till starts, before sighing sharply at Ivan’s downcast expression. He raises Ivan’s chin towards him. “Listen, I didn’t do all that hand-holding stuff just now because I like you. I didn’t even notice it, honestly, but that was why I did it in the first place.”
“I’m confused,” Ivan admits sheepishly.
Till groans, “I’m not good at this, Ivan! Gah, this is just freshman year with Mizi all over again. What I’m trying to say is that I do like you, a little more than what’s considered friendly. A lot more, actually. Tell me to shut up.” Till confesses, praying that his face wasn’t as red as it felt.
Ivan’s eyes grow wide, his mouth agape as a slow pink flush rises from his neck and makes its way to his ears, “You like me?” He asks, breathlessly, “I thought…” He trails off, his brows slightly furrowed. Till impulsively decides to kiss them, revelling in the pink’s increasing brightness in response.
“None of your crippling self esteem issues here. Do you realise how easy you are to like? You’re annoying, annoying as shit, but it’s a special kind of annoying that you only show me. It’s not a guy pulling a girl’s ponytail, it’s like, if he stole her pencils but gave them back to her on the last day of high school, after four years.”
“I did do that,” Ivan mutters.
“Yeah, idiot, I know. And it’s fucking weird, but it’s endearing. Your presence is— I wouldn’t know how to live without it. You make me feel loved, and like you’re hot, but you know that, obviously,”
“I am?” Ivan looks at him with awe.
Till casts him a bewildered look, “Uh, duh. You’re also cute though, when your hair’s all curly and not styled. Or when you idiotically grin really wide every time I indulge your tendencies— god I need to shut up,” Till relenquishes his hold on Ivan’s chin, using that palm to instead hide his mortified expression.
“Till?” Ivan’s voice is quiet, fond.
“What?” He whispers, not trusting his voice to get any louder than that without embarrassingly croaking.
“I’ve loved you ever since you punched me in the face for stepping over your favourite flowers in pre-school.”
Till looks up, Ivan’s looking back, with a smile so bright it rivalled what the sun could’ve been if it were summer.
“You’re insane.” Till breathes.
“As you so love to remind me.”
“I do, yeah.”