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It starts from his gut and spreads all the way down to the very tips of his fingers. In the privacy of his pod, all Ivan can do is shiver as he wishes he could clutch a blanket to his person. The cold is not something he likes, but he will tolerate it.
He has to.
Sua, the black haired girl whose pod often stopped opposite his, was bundled up in frills like the caricature of a matryoshka doll. Her fluffy white bonnet made her face look full and rounded. Gilded tombs do worms enfold indeed. He knows that beneath her carefully calculated chubbiness lies a starving skeleton, desperate for any scraps of affection. No amount of pretty clothes could mollify the doll. How many layers would the segyein unravel before all that was left of her would be a dull, hastily-painted minature, he wonders.
But Ivan straightens up. He is better than the broken doll. He is more human than she ever was and twice the performer she dreams to be.
So he brushes the invisible lint off his lapels and smartens his hair up. He doesn't glance at Sua another time, content to let her wallow in her misery. After all, why should he care? He has enough of his sorrow to form a small sea, roiling with the force of a thousand moons and curdling like spoilt milk. Then, the only question that remains is the seaworthy sturdiness of his vessel. Ivan's confident he won't splinter against the frosted rocks.
That's all that matters.
So, when the pod opens, Ivan steps out. He does not shiver as the warmer air brushes the sliver of skin between where his suit ends and where his gloves begin. He pretends that he actually likes how the white suit is tailored to his body and doesn't wish for a darker variant to hug his skin instead. He smiles easily, shows off his snaggletooth in a smirk, and doesn't even have to try to win the crowds favour. He knows he's lightyears better than Sua, who is doing little better than a doll hanging from snapped strings.
He throws his arm around her shoulder, playing up the "estranged siblings" image the segyein seem to eat up. It's a small satisfaction when Sua stiffens up against him, but a larger thrill threatens to overwhelm him when she pulls away. Her frilly bonnet brushes against his face and does him good by hiding the look he shot her.
It's an easy thing after that, to hum a single line from his new album. Sua tries to overshadow him by performing a snippet of her upcoming duet with Mizi, but Ivan knows than a blazing comet can never be more captivating than the influx of a distant star.
When he commends her, he makes sure to let the pity in his eyes shine. He brushes his hand against her arm in the mockery of a brother. He bundles her up in fabricated affection and plays off her warbling voice as the trill of newborn songbirds when he knows she is anything but. Ivan smiles and smiles and smiles and lies and it's only a small, brief comfort he receives when the two of them are ushered back into their pods. The pod that contains him inside its confines like a yellow egg yolk waiting to be punctured.
Ivan pulls down the sleeve of his suit. It is cold, but he will endure it.
Sua will exit the pod, he knows, and try to pretend like she is not sprinting towards Mizi. She will bury her face in a mane of pink hair and press kisses beneath golden eyes, and Ivan will try to pretend like he is fine. He will sit under a tree brimming with a mockery of blood red flowers and seem like he doesn't ache for a mop of silver that shines brighter than the holographic moon.
He has to.
Ivan offers a firm clasp to Mizi's shaking shoulder. He resists the urge to wipe away the blood spattered on the corner of her chin, knowing it would only alienate him further from his friend. She is shuddering with the force of a thousand winters and Ivan understands. But he knows what it's like to have never known love, and a private part of him can't help but wish that Mizi would stop being so selfish. Atleast she was seen. She was known, she was held in desperate embrace, she was seen.
Atleast she had been loved.
Really, Ivan should have known. How very much like Sua for her to clip her own wings, to have willingly peeled away her frilly coverings and left behind an unpainted miniature for Mizi to grieve after.
What good will it do, he thinks, for a heart to keep beating without blood rushing through in a mad rhythm? Sua was a fool, a besotted fool, until the very end.
He watches as Mizi is enclosed in her pod, the hairline fracture of an eggshell, and is whisked away. Till's performance is next, and Ivan leans back in his pod, ignoring the cold fibreglass against his skin.
It is cold, yes, but when he sees silver onscreen, a burst of warmth threatens to drown him alive. He doesn't dare take his eyes off the moon.