Work Text:
When Mizi runs barefoot through the artificial grass during hide-and-seek, Till can’t help but stare at her from afar, mesmerized. He watches the way she energetically climbs the trees, the way she majestically leaps down to the ground. He can’t help but think that such a place is much too small for someone who runs the way she does.
Using crayons and a distant memory, Till draws open fields of green, the shortest blade of grass there three times taller than the tallest blade found at the orphanage, and blooming sunflowers the size of trees. At the center, he doodles a stick-figure girl with long pink hair that sways with the light breeze, and a big smiley face to top it all off. When he’s finished, he puts the crayon down and admires his own work with shining eyes.
Till flips the paper over so that it faces away from him. “What do you think, Freddie?”
Freddie, a mere guitar, doesn’t respond. But that’s okay, Till likes to think he knows what the guitar is thinking if it could speak.
“Yeah, I think she’ll like it, too,” Till says. “Come on, let’s go give it to her together.”
Till gets up from the floor, gently lifting Freddie from the ground and pulls the strap over his shoulder. He pats Freddie as a small apology for forcing him to come along before setting off to find Mizi.
He looks everywhere—the orphanage, the schoolhouse, and the playground.
“She’s in Group A,” Sua explains as she sits on the motionless swing. Till looks at her with a dumbfounded expression, wordlessly asking for her to explain further. She doesn't.
The boy on the swing next to Sua kicks his feet on the ground to stop himself mid-swing. Evan, if Till is remembering correctly.
Curiously peeking at Till, Evan adds, “Group A is taking the test today. So she won’t be back until bedtime.”
“Oh…” Till says, the hand gripping his drawing lowering until it falls limply by his side. Sua notices and stands up from the swing, walking towards Till.
She snatches the paper from Till in one swipe before he can even react. “What’s this?”
“H–Hey!” Till reaches for the paper but Sua turns her body away, blocking Till from snatching it back. Till becomes very aware of Freddie’s presence, whose weight around his shoulder makes it hard for him to move as freely as he'd like.
Evan swipes the paper from Sua to glance at it himself, and Till basically jumps on the boy the moment he does, sending all three of them, including Freddie, tumbling down. Sua, the only one left standing, rolls her eyes at the unraveling scene.
“Give it back!” Till yells, and grabs the drawing with no resistance from Evan. Till crawls away from Evan’s body, messily wiping his cheek with the back of his dirtied hand. Freddie bobs up and down with Till’s movements. A shadow looms over both of them.
“You don’t seriously think you’re in Mizi’s league, do you, guitar boy?” Sua asks coldly, literally towering over Till. Till shifts his posture so that he’s sitting cross-legged on the grass.
“I just… want to be friends with her…” Till mutters in a low voice, hand rubbing the back of his neck.
“You can’t,” Sua says.
“But why not?” Till asks back, in a challenging voice.
Sua pauses, as if she hadn’t expected to be challenged. Evan smiles at her amusedly. The gears in her head turning, Sua says, “W–Well, you can’t because you’re, you’re too stupid. And she doesn’t like stupid people.”
“I’m not stupid!” Till argues.
“But you always score last in all the tests,” Sua replies, and Till has nothing to counter that fact. His face glows red with embarrassment at being called out.
“Ugh! Damnit!” Till screams, hands pulling at his own hair. He jumps to his feet and runs away in humiliating defeat, artificial grass crumpling beneath his feet. He doesn’t stop until he’s sure he’s out of Sua’s sight, hand resting on his knees to help him catch his breath.
“This sucks…” Till says between gritted teeth, gripping his guitar for comfort. Freddie, as usual, says nothing. “How am I supposed to get less stupider, Freddie?”
“They don’t call you guitar boy for nothing,” a teasing voice comes from behind him. Till almost outwardly groans, but he manages to hold it in. Just barely. He turns around.
Evan, that's what Till thinks the boy's name is.
“What do you want?” Till asks in a hostile tone. Evan holds up both of his hands as if signalling a peace offering.
“I simply want to help,” Evan says.
So, it’s actually Ivan.
Till doesn’t pay a lot of attention to the other kids, which makes sense considering his best friend is a freaking guitar. Mizi is an exception, of course. She sticks out in the orphanage, among all the kids, looking like a princess straight out of a fairytale book who somehow ended up here. The type who ends up with Prince Charming in the end and lives happily ever after.
Till knows he’s not good enough to be Prince Charming, but he would still very much like to be her friend. He likes her infectious smile, and she's very pretty. Who wouldn't want to be friends with a cool gal like her?
Ivan points to problem number four on Till’s worksheet. “This one’s wrong.”
“No, it isn’t,” Till argues.
“You multiplied wrong.”
Till squints at the problem, as if that would help him spot his mistake quicker. A few seconds pass before Ivan’s finger slides discreetly towards a number…
“Oh. I did,” Till says, feeling dumb. He flips his wooden pencil to the eraser side, furiously scrubbing at the error. It’s getting harder because there’s not so much pink anymore left on his pencil, probably because he keeps making too many mistakes.
“Here,” Ivan says. He holds up one of those boxy erasers.
Till snatches the eraser from Ivan. Before meeting Ivan, Till doesn’t usually bother with those types of erasers, but he’s started stealing every single one that Ivan offers because he’s petty like that. But for some reason, Ivan never notices, or he just doesn’t say anything.
“Thanks,” Till says without really meaning it. He redoes the problem.
“You have a long way to go,” Ivan says with an amused smile. Till wants to snap his pencil in half. But he barely restrains himself. The adults have reprimanded him for breaking his pencils one too many times already.
“...Fuck off,” Till curses, but he continues on the next problem in the worksheet nonetheless.
Ivan watches from above as Till tries to claw his way up the tree that he’s perched on. Ivan tilts his head as the boy keeps sliding down despite his efforts.
But no matter how many times Till fails, he always keeps trying. Determination, or something like that. It’s a curious concept to Ivan, one the black-haired boy doesn’t fully understand. But it’s one he’d like to understand in the future, if possible.
Freddie lays not too far away, propped up against the trunk of a neighboring tree. Perhaps also watching Till in his struggles, Ivan bets.
“This is stupid,” Till complains when Ivan hops down. “I’m stupid, the tests are stupid, everything is stupid. I don’t know how much longer I can put up with this.”
“Don’t you want to be friends with Mizi?”
Till sighs. “I don’t even know anymore. I think Sua’s right—I’m not good enough for her. Or for anyone. I’m gonna be a screw-up for the rest of my life. Stuck here because nobody’ll want me.”
“That’s not true,” Ivan says. I want you.
But he doesn’t say it.
“...Let’s work on something else,” Ivan says. “You’re good at the memory test. We can practice that again. I’ll go get my flashcards.”
Till’s nose scrunches up. “Really? I feel like I’m scoring worse than last time. Probably because of all this useless crap you keep tryin’ to cram into my head!”
He punches Ivan in the arm without meaning it. Ivan chuckles.
“You’re smart,” Ivan says with lidded eyes. He interrupts himself with his own yawn. Then, he lies down next to Freddie, leaning his back against the tree.
“...Just in a different way,” Ivan continues. He closes his eyes. “There are things that you know that I don’t.”
“Oh, like what?” Till says sarcastically. He waits patiently for Ivan’s answer, but the black-haired boy is already snoring when he glances at him.
Till scoffs. “I knew you were just spitting out bullshit.”
“Ivan’s a freak, don’t you agree?”
With a permanent marker, Till draws a makeshift mouth on Freddie. Then, Till says in a falsetto voice, “You’re right! That guy is definitely a freak! You’re so smart, Till!”
Later, the adults chastise Till for “vandalizing” Freddie and take the guitar away from Till as punishment. When Freddie is returned to Till three days later, the permanent marker has been thoroughly scrubbed off, no black marks have been left behind. Brand spanking new.
Till brushes his fingertips against the smooth surface of the guitar, before muttering a quick sorry under his breath. Freddie can’t talk, but maybe he forgives Till.
While the other kids are outside playing, Till sits alone on one of the bunk beds in the back of the orphanage house. Looking around to check that nobody's around, he takes his hand and gently runs his index finger over the guitar’s middle string.
There’s no friction at all. Freddie sings aloud the accompanying note, and Till smiles at the sound that just feels warm. There’s no other way to describe it.
Freddie can’t talk, but he doesn't need to. Till knows that he’s been forgiven.
Till closes his eyes and strums more strings, his other hand moving in sync on the guitar’s neck. A melody plays softly, the intensity of which increases the more that Till grows confident in his hands. He plays a song that reminds him of a soothing voice, wide blue skies, and the feeling of wind—real wind—blowing against his face. It’s the same feeling he gets when he watches Mizi run, a raw warmth that he can’t quite put into words.
The feeling goes away when the song ends, leaving Till only longing for it again.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Till turns around to see Ivan leaning against the doorframe, slowly applauding yet his eyes are filled with genuine admiration.
“Wow.” Ivan walks up and sits in the spot next to Till on the bunk bed. “Did you learn how to play on your own?”
“F–Freddie taught me,” Till says, averting his eyes. “Give him the credit, not me.”
Ivan's eyes lower from Till’s face to the instrument sitting innocently in his lap. Though Ivan has never cared about invading Till's personal space, he's strangely more reserved about approaching Freddie. More cautious, one might say.
Reluctantly, Ivan reaches a hand out. He hovers his hand slowly above the guitar, as though implicitly asking for permission to touch. He glances at Till, who wordlessly nods his head.
The guitar's skin is cold against Ivan’s fingertips. But more prominently, he can feel a faint pulse that goes badump, badump, badump.
“We’ve been best friends since forever,” Till says. “We make a lot of music together.”
“How does that work?”
“Only half the song is mine, Freddie comes up with the rest.”
“Interesting,” Ivan says, and he means it. He withdraws his hand from Freddie. “So, what was your half about?”
The sound of cicadas, what ice cream tastes like on a hot summer day, gentle hands brushing the hair strands out of his face. The feeling of snow accumulating on his nose, waking up and running down the stairs on the twenty-fifth of December, a deer carcass on the road spotted while on the car ride to the toy factory.
The deer’s eye didn’t twitch. It’d been dead and rotting there for days, and nobody had come to collect it. A man's voice, coaxing him to come out of the car, because they had arrived at the toy factory.
“Just… random stuff,” Till mutters. “Boring stuff.”
“What kind of boring stuff? You make even the most boring of things interesting. So just tell me.”
That’s the part of Ivan that Till doesn’t like. The pushy parts, how nosy the boy can be, shamelessly. Sometimes, he just comes off as insincere to Till. Fake, just like everything in this place. He doesn’t like it at all.
Till shakes his head. He lies, “I don’t know.”
The smile on Ivan’s face slightly falters.
Ivan lowers the hand holding the colored flashcards. “The order was blue, red, red, yellow, violet, yellow. You got the second-to-last color wrong. At least you got pretty far in.”
“No way! It was definitely cyan,” Till says.
“It was violet.”
Late at night, it’s deathly silent. No adults around. The lights are either off or dimmed close to the point of being off—it paints everything in an eerily sinister shade.
Till feels naked without Freddie around. But he had to leave the guitar behind, mainly because he didn't want Freddie to get in trouble after he followed Mizi out of the orphanage area. As cool of a girl Mizi is, her curiosity will kill the cat one day. Kill someone one day.
“Shh,” Sua says as she puts a finger on her lips as Ivan peeks around the corner.
All four children freeze in their tracks. In the distance, heavy footsteps can be heard echoing throughout the sterile hallways. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Till sweats. Hard. This is crazy, this is crazy, this is fucking crazy…
The footsteps pass, leaving them with only silence again. Ivan, who is leading the group, signals for them to follow him as the coast seems to be clear. They tiptoe carefully through the dark hallways, Till covering his mouth with his hand as his nightshirt becomes drenched from the sweat dripping down his neck.
He’s scared. He’s so scared of being caught. Inexplicably, the image of the dead deer comes back to him. Maybe that’s the imagery that he associates the feeling of unadulterated fear with.
They sneak into one of the rooms. The lights turn on automatically through a sensor. Till violently flinches, but Ivan remains calm.
“Don’t worry,” Ivan softly whispers, trying to soothe Till’s uneasiness. “The cameras in this room don’t work.”
Mizi steps forward, mouth wide open. “Whoa…”
She approaches the various the pastel-coloured machines connected by tubes and pipes. At the end of the conveyor belt, there’s a plastic bin filled with dolls of the same type marked ‘DEFECTS’. Copies of a plastic, pretty man in his twenties with golden locks of hair and an absent-minded stare.
Mizi picks up one of the dolls and presses the button on the back.
“Always remember to Luk-a both ways before crossing the street,” the doll mechanically says. “You wouldn’t want to end up in a puddle of your own blood on the floor, now, would you? Heehee!”
“Yikes,” Sua says. Mizi drops the doll back into the bin, unimpressed.
"This place gives me the creeps," Till says, rubbing his arms. "How'd you even know about this room?"
"I have my ways," Ivan says.
In the corner of the room, there lies an old decrypt crate. Both Mizi and Ivan push the box out of the way, revealing a vent small enough to fit a child. Till puts his hand against the metal louvers, feeling a slight cool breeze emanating from the slit openings. Ivan reaches in the pocket of his pants and pulls out a screwdriver.
"Someone's weirdly prepared," Sua says with suspicion in her voice. Ivan answers her with a knowing smile.
Ivan unscrews the cover off the vent, like he's done it a million times before. He kneels down and crawls inside, followed by Mizi, and then Sua. Till bites his lip, a certain unwillingness to set foot in that tiny, cramped vacuum. He's a troublemaker at heart, always has been, but even he knows his own limits…
Sua's head sticks out from the vent to tell Till, "Fine, then. You can just wait here. Alone."
The prospect of that terrifies Till more than the prospect of traversing a dark, claustrophobic tunnel. So, Till resigns himself and with a rapidly beating heart, rushes inside the vent as well, desperately trying to catch up to the other three.
A thought occurs to Till, they're placing an awful amount of trust into Ivan, of all people. It's started to come a little naturally to Till, and when did that start happening? The only one he should trust is Freddie. Who's been there for him ever since he got dropped off at this strange place.
They're not even friends.
Not only that, but Ivan is an orphan with potential, unlike Till. He'll find a family willing to adopt him soon enough. He'll abandon Till, like everyone does eventually. And Till can't bear the thought of that even happening, it wrenches his heart inside out. That's why he doesn't want to think about it.
Finally, the four reach an opening. Like the rest of the facility, the spacious room is shrouded in darkness, but there's more of a unique light source than the other rooms. Mizi's mouth drops wide open as she veers towards the center of the room, where the reflection of stars can be seen in her pupil.
The ceiling is a sunroof in the shape of a circle, transparent glass that displays the night sky in full detail, a real sky, not like the fake painted one down in the underground orphanage area.
"It's beautiful," Mizi says in awe. Sua joins right next to her, looking up at the tiny bright dots. She's not as fascinated as Mizi at the sight, and even a little melancholic. Yearning, how one would put it, twinkles in her eyes.
"Do you think anyone's ever walked on a star before?" Mizi asks. "I wonder how it must feel. Would the ground be soft or hard? Cold or hot?"
"I think most of the stars are hot," Sua answers. "But maybe one day, we'll discover a frozen star. And when you step on it, it'll feel like walking on ice."
"Brrr, that'd be cold!" Mizi squeaks, shivering at just imagining it. The tips of Sua's mouth curve upward ever-so-slightly.
Till stays silent, staring at the night sky, which he hasn't seen in a long while. The last memory he holds of it being in his second-floor bedroom window which he didn't think much of at the time. Even now, it doesn't hold much meaning. Ivan notices his uncharacteristic silence.
"Nothing you haven't seen before, huh?" Ivan quietly asks Till.
Till stays quiet, still observing. A realization comes to him. The sound of cicadas reminds him of how his mother used to read bedtime stories to him, her soft gentle voice lulling him to sleep. Ice cream reminds him of fleeting happiness, a stranger who noticed him struggling in the heat and offered him momentary relief from the world's hardships. You need to thank him, Till. Always thank the people who do kind things for you.
Till stares at Ivan's face, noticing a few strands of Ivan's hair obstructing his face. In this dark, desolate place that creates objects that exist solely to fulfill the happiness of children around the world… Materialistic things such as toys, ice cream, and the night sky don't inherently hold meaning.
It's the memory behind those things that matter. The memory of them, here, in this moment, together, witnessing the night sky and its grand opulence.
Till raises his hand, using his fingers to brush those strands of hair out of Ivan's eyes.
"Thank you for showing us," Till mutters in a low voice.
Something in the air shifts. Ivan falters, eyes widening, that fake polite smile scrubbed off his face in the sheer, overwhelming power of Till's sincerity.
It all comes back to Ivan in a flood. A bonfire reflecting off the homeless stranger's eyes, a voice telling Ivan that he's resourceful, which is good, because that means he'll last a long time on the streets. Memorizing the schedule of when nearby restaurants take out the trash. A hand on his shoulder. 'You're a smart child, I can see the potential in you. Let me bring you to a place where your potential can be maximized. A place where your belly will be full at all times, a comfortable bed to sleep in, and a roof to shield you from the rain.'
'All you must do is to keep being yourself.'
The feeling rises in Ivan, like a crescendo. The plate of hot food, the soft sheets at night, the high test scores, the adults' praises… none of it can even compare. This indescribable warmth, not the type that can be felt from a fire. But the one he can only feel when he observes Till, everything he does.
Ivan craves all of it. He wants to take that warmth away from Till, all to have to himself.
Most of all, Ivan just wants to understand. He wants to know how Till sees the world, would like to steal his eyes just for a glimpse at the tender lenses that the boy uses for everything. Like pulling a teal button away from a doll's face and replacing his own eye with that button.
Ivan quickly recovers, slipping the facade of casual apathy back on. "It was nothing."
Adoption day comes, the orphanage flooded with strangers. In the room he normally sleeps in, Till nervously checks the tuning of Freddie, sweaty hands excessively fiddling with the guitar's pegs.
"Your anxiety is rubbing off on Freddie," Ivan notes, trying to calm Till's shaking hands. Till can't help it, the heavy weight on his shoulders makes him want to throw up. His performance today is the deciding factor of whether he'll be adopted or not. If he screws up, nobody'll want to adopt him. He'll be a useless, unlovable child, undeserving of joining any family.
"I'm gonna be sick," Till says, closing his eyes.
"Everything is going to be alright." Ivan tries to give Till a pat on the back, but the grey-haired boy flinches away.
"Easy for you to say! You're Mr. Perfect, of course, it's gonna be absolutely no problem for you to find a home! I'm a lost cause, I couldn't even score better on the tests with your help!"
Ivan doesn't refute any of Till's points. In fact, he already knows all of these facts. Maybe he even knows too much. Instead of placing a hand on Till directly, he places his hand on Freddie instead. The one that Till cherishes the most here.
"Adults don't care about any of that stuff," Ivan says. "Trust me. No matter what happens today, everything will figure itself out."
Till really hates it when Ivan lies to his face. He hiccups, but he refuses to cry. Nothing bad has even happened yet, so why would he? No, he'll continue pushing through until the very end.
"Will you at least come back and visit me after you get adopted?" Till asks.
"Of course."
The answer comes so naturally out of Ivan's mouth. Maybe Ivan wants to live in Till's little delusional world, too. It's a nice place, like their own little paradise away from the world.
"And if later, I find out you lied, I'll come find you myself and give you a good smack to the head."
"But not to my face, right? Remember during Valentine's Day when you said that my face was my best—"
Till flushes a deep red with embarrassment, covering Ivan's mouth. "Don't you dare finish that sentence! You're never gonna let me live that down, huh!"
The small, makeshift stage is different from the soft, artificial grass he would perform on. The crowd of adult strangers is different from the group of orphans that Till has come to know, their eyes more cold and unfamiliar. Looking at him like a piece of meat to be judged at a butcher's shop. At least Freddie is calm, because Till feels like he's just a breath away from having a panic attack.
The adults sit down. Till internally counts down the seconds until it's time for him to start his performance. He dreads it. But it should be okay, just like Ivan said… because he's good at playing guitar, it's one of the few things he's good at. And Freddie has his back, like always.
Till adjusts the microphone to his height. He takes a deep breath in. If he plays his best—no, if he plays his heart out, and one of the adults here adopts him…
Maybe they won't have to sneak out of the orphanage just to get a glimpse of the night sky. Ivan will get adopted by some rich family, people who aren't nice but are better than nothing. They'll be the type of snobbish adults who have standards for their children, but Ivan will thrive. Mizi will get adopted by a nice woman who loves her bright and bubbly personality, her unending optimism. Sua will get adopted by a family who finds her appearance cute, and be fooled by that fragile facade she puts on.
They'll all meet again someday on the outside, and make new memories together. And laugh about how they all coincidentally happened to meet in an orphanage hidden inside a toy factory, how strange. How very strange. Ivan will finally smile at him, and tell him, Didn't I say so? Everything was going to be alright.
With a newfound determination, Till takes his hand and strums on the guitar.
No noise comes out. The deafening silence fills the room, instead. All the adults are staring at him, at his incompetence. Their judgmental eyes…
Till exhales panickedly, strumming Freddie again. Nothing. His face turning red, he fiddles with Freddie's pegs, and tries again. Silence.
Tears form at the corner of TIll's eyes. One of the adults gently leads him away from the stage. They take Freddie away from him. It's only when Till runs to his room and smothers his pillow with his face that he breaks down, sobbing wildly.
He should've known.
After adoption day is judgment day, only a week apart from each other.
It's cruel, Ivan thinks. One by one, some adults from adoption day come back to the orphanage to pick up the child of their choice. Perhaps not their first choice, but their second, third, or even fourth choice. Usually, their first choice is already taken.
Till hasn't talked to him since adoption day. Ivan understands.
A woman walks through the door with short gray hair that frames her face nicely. Familiar teal-colored eyes. And a face that's as lovely as the boy that Ivan likes. The world freezes.
Ivan, for all his knowledge in how the world works, hadn't expected this. He wants to laugh in the face of cruel reality, but instead he puts on a polite smile.
The outcome is the same in the end. This changes nothing. Of course, there has to be one last gut-wrenching blow to Ivan, to his entire existence. He can take the teal buttons off the doll's face—but he could never see what the doll sees. He can never have what that doll has. Never know the warmth that the doll was made with, how its creator cradles it with care.
"Hello," Ivan greets the woman, hands neatly behind his back. "Are you looking for Till?"
The woman blinks, before her mouth widens into a calm smile. "Yes, I am."
The footsteps in Ivan's gait are heavy as he leads the woman through the hallways of the orphanage. The floorboards creak beneath his feet. He can hear the voice of his heart screaming a million different things.
It's painful to live like this. He doesn't understand how Till can do it. No wonder his personality is so unruly—Ivan wants to do nothing more than tear apart his own skin, anything to stop this horrible feeling in his heart.
Ivan feels consumed by the terror, but he continues on.
The door opens.
"Till?" the woman asks. A poignant pause. A gasp.
"Mom!" Till yells, running over. He crashes into her, but the woman accepts him into a loving embrace, arms wrapped around him like he's the most precious thing in the world.
Ivan watches.
"You're here," Till says into her shoulder. "I knew you'd come back for me."
Liar, Ivan thinks. You thought she abandoned you because you weren't lovable enough.
But of course, you are. Unlike everyone else here…
"I'm sorry," the woman says, her voice wobbling at the end. She squeezes Till tighter. "I'm so, so sorry it took this long to find you… I should've fought harder to protect you from your father. It's okay, I've got you. We can go home now."
"Yeah," Till says with a sniffle. "Home."
All the orphans gather by the entrance, except strangely enough Mizi is absent. Sua says she's not feeling too well. Ivan understands. He understands too much. Too much.
Till is let down to the ground by the woman, the boy turning to Ivan. With a strong in his voice, he says to Ivan, "Take care of Freddie for me. And when you get out of here, let's meet again. I'll come find you."
Till takes Ivan's hands into his own, looping his pinkie finger around Ivan's.
"I swear I will," Till says.
Till's infectious delusional world is tempting to get sucked into. Ivan is fascinated by it, fascinated by Till even until the very end.
"It's a promise," Ivan says, curling his pinky.
Till waves everyone goodbye. He and his mother walk out of the orphanage area, entering the little cable car, and leave, never to come back. To venture to the outside, where Ivan doubts he'll ever get the chance to set foot in again.
Because of Till, Ivan learned what it felt like to have a song written about you. He learned the meaning of having company while eating at a dinner table together. The thrill of observing the stars side-by-side in an area they're not supposed to be in. He learned what it was like to have someone who looked at you with those kinds of eyes, the eyes of someone who knew what it was like to love someone.
Good behavior should be rewarded, of course. This is something Ivan learned from adults at a very young age.
"Experiment 621 was a failure," the Doctor says, putting the paper down onto the table with a sigh. "What a shame. I had such high hopes for him."
In front of the doctor is a one-way glass to a concrete room with no windows. Human guts spilled on the floor. Pieces of a broken guitar.
A man in a suit asks the Doctor, "What of his partner, the boy? Is he still of any use?"
"No. I let him go," the Doctor admits. "It was good timing as well. His mother was about to cause a huge stink about him. Good riddance, I say."
It's why Ivan has no regrets about coming to this awful place. Because he learned something new here, something he would've never learned on the streets.
What it means to love and be loved.
Thank you, Till.