Chapter Text
Being needed was a powerful drug.
Till discovered this in his first year at the prestigious Anakt Academy when the shining star of their grade tapped him on his shoulder.
"Hey, can I borrow a pencil?" She asked in a whisper, leaning far too deeply into Till's personal space that he could smell the floral notes of her scent.
Heart racing and palms sweaty, Till had surrendered the pencil in his hand (his only one) and stuttered out a "No problem!" when she squealed out a quick thank you. At least it was art class, and Till's practiced hand was confident in its strokes that he could substitute in a cheap ballpoint pen.
"You're a lifesaver," She cooed as she handed back the pencil after the class had ended. While tucking a strand of long pink hair behind her ear, she tilted her head and asked, "What's your name? I'm Mizi."
"Till," He managed out while staring at the splotch of dirt on his shoes. There was a brilliance to the girl before him that was unbearable to look at in such close proximity. Her flawless skin shined with such a healthy glow in spite of the fluorescent lighting, and her lips were soft and plump even when they stretched into a radiant smile.
A goddess. A literal goddess stood before him.
"Okay Till! I'll see ya!" She declared as she scampered out of the room, oblivious to the fact that she had gained a new devotee.
From that day forth, Till made sure that he had an extra pencil, and a backup to his extra pencil, for the day that his goddess needed one. When she turned to him a week and a half later with a sheepish plea for a spare, Till's heart nearly shot out of his chest with excitement.
It felt good to be needed.
His goddess soon began sitting next to him in class. From his seat, he could catch faint whiffs of that delicate floral scent she favored or hear her quietly hum as she drew. He feared his face might turn permanently red for how easily and for how long it stayed flush every time their eyes met during class. Till could especially feel the weight of jealous glares from some of his peers that the goddess of Anakt deigned to even greet him at the start of every class.
For Till, it was more than he could have ever imagined when his freshman year had started at Anakt. The first week of his freshman year had taught him everything he needed to know about the unwritten striations of their school's society. Though they all abided by the same uniform, most of his classmates could easily dissect everything wrong with Till as if it was some simple quiz.
There was always some subtle pilling on his pants from the harsh settings of their local laundromat, and his shirt always sported some wrinkles, never with the crisp lines of a professional pressing. The creases in his shoes or the way the shoelace on his right shoe was hanging on by a few threads spoke to the fact that his only other pair of shoes were the ugly brown loafers for fancier occasions. Their eyes always caught the way flecks of mud always dotted the bottom of his pants from riding his bike to school on roads that always sat just out of sight of the city’s priorities.
Scholarship student. The label hung over him like a sinful brand.
But what was worse was that though Till had gone through all the same hurdles as everyone else, part of his tuition came from his mother scrubbing down the school's toilets at night. She had taken the job after he had been admitted, knowing that there were exclusive grants available for the school staff. Till's hard-earned exam scores and portfolio meant nothing after one of his classmates had pointed out the striking resemblance Till had to the janitor. Every merit Till had worked for was gone in an instant when rumors churned that he was some dumb charity case. It was an insult to those whose friends had been rejected from the school, but a deeper affront to Till.
Anakt Academy was known as the top high school for its top performing arts programs with an unparalleled collection of alumni who had achieved greatness and celebrity in the real world. Beyond that, it laid claim to hosting children from the wealthiest and most influential families in the country, many of whom simply wanted to bump elbows with future celebrities. And somewhere, in the ruthless competition for admission, the son of a single mother who cleaned for a living had taken a precious spot.
After the first month at school, Till had nearly collapsed under the weight of scrutiny from his peers. While other scholarship students survived by kowtowing to some of the crueler students, Till had been too prideful to bend the knee for a fellow student. His early defiance made him a target. While Till could handle being excluded by his peers, the awful remarks Till heard about his mother burned away at his patience and reason. On one particularly bad day before class, his fists itched to sink into one of their cheeks in hopes that a good beating could make a person decent.
As tears began to bite at his eyes as his classmates' laughter echoed in his ears, his goddess had saved him.
Mizi, the Goddess of Anakt, had saved him.
With a gentle prod to reorient his gravity, she smiled to Till and asked, "Hey, wanna join my club?"
There had been only one possible answer.
"Yes!" Till had declared, voice cracking. He wiped away his tears and nodded, suddenly deaf to the cruelty of his classmate.
"Great!" Mizi placed a travel pack of tissues on his desk, along with his borrowed pencil. "Come to Room 303 after school is over, okay?"
Room 303.
It would be where his life would begin.
"I can't believe you bent the spine like that. This was a first run with an exclusive, limited edition cover variant. You had to pre-order it to get it."
"I said I was sorry!" Till huffed, clutching his hair in frustration as the blond boy in front of him continued to rub the spine of his book. "Do you want me to buy you a new one?"
There was silence between them as the blond considered it. Finally, he shrugged, voice soft and sleepy despite how stressed he was making Till. "You wouldn't be able to afford it."
Till could feel his blood pressure rise and he had to dig his teeth into his bottom lip to keep himself from shouting. Instead he gripped his hair and started counting the number of digits that separated his bank account from Luka's. The spine was perfectly fine from his point of view, and if anyone was to blame, it would have to be Hyuna. Luka never let him borrow anything without letting Hyuna read it first, and the spine had been like this since picking it up.
But Till knew it was a losing battle to place any sort of blame on Hyuna.
"Say you're sorry, Luka," Hyuna called out as she swung into the classroom as if on cue. Plastic bags bursting with snacks hung from her arms while her hands were full with balancing two coffee trays stacked upon each other. She set the coffee trays down in front of Luka.
"Sorry," The blond mumbled obediently. He had a knack for pressing on sore spots with Till whenever he was in a poor mood. A soft tap from Hyuna's foot to his shin urged out the next few words, "You don't need to buy me a new one."
"Good boy," Hyuna grinned as she tossed the plastic bags onto the empty desk next to Luka.
Till pretended to wretch as the words made Luka sit up in his seat, a soft flush coloring his cheeks. He got up to grab his drink from the tray, a simple red eye. "You're disgusting."
"Love's not disgusting," Luka shot back just as quickly. Till rolled his eyes as he took his first sip. Luka knew how to get on his nerves, but Till had grown a resistance to it over time.
"Thanks for babysitting," Hyuna joked as she handed Luka his drink, a monstrous concoction bursting with whipped cream and caramel drizzled on top. "Was he being fussy?"
"Extremely."
Till dug through the plastic bags to see what the bounty was like today. Hyuna knew without needing to ask that Till appreciated the heartier snack options. Today she had picked out some new cup ramen flavors and a few yogurt cups along with as many chips and candy she could stuff into the plastic bags.
The first few club meetings, Till had anxiously avoided the snacks, fearful that he might get caught in a bind later when forced to pay up for them. But Luka, despite his words, could be extremely thoughtful when he wanted to be, and would huff at Till until he had sampled every single snack and announced a ranking. It meant more than Till could put into words when no one ever chased him for money, and especially when Hyuna showed up to the next club meeting with extra bags of the chips Till had favored.
These days, Till feasted without worry.
"Where's Mizi?" Hyuna asked, keeping her mouth open so Luka could feed her a chip.
"Library. They said that they're printing it out," Till responded as he absentmindedly sorted through the selection. He grabbed some instant cup ramen, a yogurt cup, and his favorite chips to have for later.
"Oh? Sua's actually ready?" Hyuna grinned. "I'm bummed I'll have to sit this out. She's been working on it for so long."
Hyuna and Luka were both in their senior years. It was particularly busy for Hyuna with the amount of student projects in her schedule. She was a part of the film program at Anakt, and had easily flourished as one of the top cinematographers in the school. Her schedule was bursting with projects as every wannabe director in the school clamored to have her involved. Not to mention Hyuna had her own short film to worry about.
At the club, Hyuna proved to be a monster when it came to the finishing process. She could have months worth of drawings cleaned up, processed, and stitched together for publishing in a week. Usually with a fresh title treatment to go along with it too. She had been Till's savior during each and every project that they had worked on together.
"What am I gonna do without you?" Till sighed, already dreading the thought of needing to do this work himself. Today was one of the only days that Hyuna didn't need to help wrangle a film crew.
"Hey, what am I gonna do?" Luka whined, smacking the bag of chips in his hand against the desk. "I'll wither without my Hyuna."
Till rolled his eyes, disgusted that his senior in school could flaunt such childish behavior. "Start by leaving."
"Make me," Luka whined back, which only made Hyuna laugh.
Luka was the resident pest who should have been just as busy as Hyuna during his senior year, especially with a rumored debut in an upcoming boy group. Though he was a founding member of their club, he didn't contribute anything to the creative projects that their group undertook besides his unfiltered criticisms. Luka's saving graces were his nearly encyclopedic knowledge of BL, his personal collection that could rival any library, and the fact that his feedback was often useful and precise though cruel in delivery.
Till hated having to admit how much Luka had taught him. There was a stark difference in his art from a year ago, and it burned Till up to know that he owed a great deal of that improvement to Luka's blunt feedback.
The other person he owed was Sua, who entered the room behind Till's pink-haired goddess.
"Sorry we're late!" Mizi bounced immediately over to the snacks and the drinks. She grabbed the strawberry matcha latte with a hand held out for Hyuna to slip her credit card back. Mizi was one of the Anakt students who could proudly boast both the talent and the wealth that the school was known for. It was a small blessing that she took great pleasure in spoiling her friends.
Sua closed the door behind them. She held several folders that held thick bundles of paper in her arms, and carried them with the tenderness meant for a newborn baby. When her eyes met Till's, she smiled with such sincerity that Till moved from where he stood to go to her as if drawn by some magnetic force.
"It's ready," She announced as Till drew close enough to hear. "I can't wait for you to read it."
"Holy shit, Sua," Till's hand dipped as Sua set one of her scripts on it. It was far heavier than he was expecting, heavier than any of the scripts that came before it. "You wrote all of this?"
"Well," Sua started, suddenly bashful as she tucked hair behind her ear. "More than half of it is the story bible. There's an outline for the future too, and I wrote a few extras so you'd get a better grip of the world."
He flipped through it and found each page stacked tightly with single-spaced words in size 10 font. Till distracted himself by sipping on his coffee before the density of the text could overwhelm him.
...Too late.
"I thought we were doing something short," Till mumbled as he waved the folder in his hand. It made a loud noise as it wiggled in the air.
"It is!" Sua laughed a little nervously. "A short prequel to a much larger story and world. We're just doing the prequel and nothing more. "
She fidgeted with the rest of the printouts, and suddenly could no longer maintain eye contact with Till. Her face was bright red as she turned to Mizi for comfort.
"I read it, Till! It really isn't that long!" Mizi assured as she came over to hug her girlfriend.
To think that the Ice Queen of Anakt, known for her lethal glares and surly personality, could crumble so easily under a little scrutiny. Till once lived in fear of her, but now he only felt his heart soften at the sight of her flushed face.
"I know it's a lot, but I swear it's good," Sua continued on, starting to speak faster as if some door was shutting before her. "It's my magnum opus, Till, and it can only be you. I can't imagine entrusting this to anyone else to draw."
As if an arrow had dove straight into his chest, Till stumbled back and had to steady himself against a chair. "Hey, you can't just say that!"
Being needed was a powerful drug.
"Please, Till," Sua continued on as she sensed the weakness in her prey. "No one else can do it like you can."
He could feel his brain buzz with dopamine, and adrenaline rush through his veins from the thrill of the words. The script in his hand was starting to feel a bit lighter. He looked down at it, and started seeing the truth to Sua's words.
No one could bring justice to Sua's writing like he could.
"It'll be our masterpiece before we graduate," She reached out and touched his hand lightly.
Till looked to the side as he felt heat rise to his cheeks. Sua had become a close friend over the past year and a half, but it didn't give him total immunity to the gentle touches he craved. Better yet, there was a special sort of euphoria he got when he considered the privilege of receiving such a gentle look from the school's Ice Queen. He cleared his throat roughly, "Let me read it first."
"Take your time," Sua encouraged.
Mizi squeezed her girlfriend harder in joy. "See? I told you Till would."
Flustered, Till could only sputter out, "I'm just reading it, okay?"
"That's as good as a yes from a doormat like you," Luka inserted himself back into the conversation. Till rolled his eyes, choosing to bite his tongue than indulge in the blond's ragebait.
"Look, let me just read it first, okay?" He sighed, shaking the folder and wincing at the way gravity clung to it. "We've never done something this... big. It's a lot, and what if I can't finish it?"
Sua nodded and squeezed Till's hand before letting go. "It's okay even if you can't or don't want to do it. I have back-ups."
"No, I wanna do what you wanna do," He asserted even though the weight in his hand made his stomach roll with anxiety. The density of the text scared him, but the thought of disappointing Sua scared him more.
Till and Sua had not gotten along when he first joined their club, which Till has once only known by its official name: The Literature Appreciation Club. In actuality, the club that Mizi had dragged Till into was unofficially and affectionately called "The Society of BL Enjoyers" by its members. The Society of BL Enjoyers sought to appreciate each and every form of Boys' Love while also operating as a convenient deterrent for the fanboys Mizi had quickly amassed. To gain official entry into The Society of BL Enjoyers, prospective applicants had to go through a vicious hazing ritual of pre-requisite readings.
But instead of being disgusted or horrified by the readings, Till had found the graphic novels to be quite thrilling. He had never read BL before, and most of them made him blush and unable to look anyone in the eye when asked what he thought, but he could not deny that the artwork and the storytelling could be quite captivating. When he said as much to Sua and Luka then spent a good thirty minutes praising the stack of Asada Nemui titles, the icy pair quietly added him to the club's group chat.
It wasn't long after that Sua approached him with a thin folder and asked if Till could draw something for her. Though Till had never drawn comics before, and the end result had been quite clumsy, that first collaboration unlocked a new door to their friendship.
"It's going to be angsty, but I think it'll be really romantic too," Sua gushed as she fidgeted with her drink. She always got a hot hojicha latte and Till had learned to associate the soft, nutty aroma with his friend.
"You have to realize that your definition of romantic isn't always the same as most of society," He teased and earned a soft peel of laughter.
Their first collaboration had been loosely based on the rivalry between Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. Sua had cooed about how cute the central couple was even as their relationship devolved into utter toxicity that ended with the main character breaking his own leg as a testament to his love before a major ice skating competition. Their love was problematic from start to finish, but Till found a strange thrill in realizing Sua's vision.
"Tell us what it's about, Sua!" Hyuna demanded, tapping the desk to get her attention.
Sua's face was still pink from blushing before, and it returned to a deeper, rosier hue. "It'll be called Sweet Cure, and I want it to be the beginning of a larger universe called Black Clematis. There's Gris, the naive youngest son of the royal family, who gets sent off to a military academy where he meets Eden, a talented cadet. What Gris doesn't know is that Eden is secretly a surviving heir to an ancient royal bloodline, one that Gris' family had overthrown to take the crown. Bound by duty to his family, Eden swears revenge against Gris' family."
"Charma?" Luka perked up in his seat. The blond nudged Hyuna, and seemed to whisper something long and complicated into her ear. Sua flushed even more, but chose to ignore Luka.
"This first story will be about them during their academy days when Gris falls in love with Eden," Sua turned towards Till, "Eden encourages the crush even knowing that he'll have to slaughter Gris and Gris' entire family in order to reclaim his heritage. Gris falls hopelessly in love. When Gris realizes that he has fallen madly in love with Eden, Eden takes advantage of Gris' naivete and devotion to reclaim the throne. Gris' life will be ruined all because he trusted Eden. Ah, it'll be so tragic!"
"And deeply toxic!" Mizi chimed in with a grin. "Sua says we can't get into it until the sequel, but they're going to do horrible things to each other!"
"Wow, you really love to make men miserable," The comment from Till had the pair of girls nodding brightly.
"This is why it has to be you, Till," Sua encouraged. "No one else understands it like you do."
"Thanks?" He still flushed at the odd compliment. "I mean, who else would it be? It's not like anyone else draws."
"Well, that too."
The group soon settled down into their bounty of snacks and reading. Even with the weight of Sua's gaze on his back, Till managed to get through a quarter of it before they had to leave. Mizi and Luka had dance practices in the evening and Hyuna worked a part-time convenience store job. Sua usually went to the ice rink for practice, where Till had recently gotten a part-time job as a janitor. His mom had been disappointed that he wasn't using the time to study, but she eventually moved on when Till claimed he wanted to a buy a new guitar.
"Text me if you have any questions. I know the world-building might seem a little dense and complicated, but I need it all to establish a plot point in Black Clematis," Sua chattered by his side. She had been a bundle of anxiety ever since she had exposed her precious idea to the scrutiny of others, and Till knew that the only cure to ease Sua would be to show her some early sketches.
"Alright, alright, I got it," Till sighed, feeling a bit exhausted after an afternoon of entertaining Luka and reassuring a nervous Sua. "I'll finish it after work and I'll text you."
"As soon as you're done reading," Sua locked eyes with him until he nodded. Once satisfied she waved, turned, and entered the girl's locker room.
Till sighed, regretting having to work today. But he still felt a faint buzz in his fingers. It felt good to be needed, to be wanted. Even if it meant having to draw an entire epic on his own.
As Till changed into his uniform, his thoughts lingered on Gris. Till had just gotten to their first meeting, but he had seen enough to feel a gentle attachment towards Gris. While he knew nothing of being a prince or being bound by wealth and duty, he could understand that basic, primal craving for companionship. As the perpetual fifth wheel to two couples in a club dedicated to love, Till often thought of what it would be like to hold someone so casually like Hyuna did Luka, or to kiss with the unperturbed laziness that he often caught Mizi and Sua.
He understood what it meant when Gris said he needed to be needed.
Wanted to be wanted.
While sweeping the hallway of the ice rink, Till's thoughts lingered on how much Gris wanted to be loved.