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“What are you doing?” Till raises his head and frowns at the phone in front of him, where Ivan has suddenly stopped his rambling about this new asshole choreographer of his; instead of his voice, from the speakers is now coming out a weird shuffling noise.
Out of frame, Ivan hums, pensive. "I have some fan calls later,” he says, managing to explain exactly nothing. Till’s frown deepens, the sketchbook on his lap is momentarily forgotten.
“And?”
“I have to get ready for it, and I just happened to remember this,” Ivan explains, wiggling a box in front of the camera. “The last brand we advertised for sent each of us a box of clothes, but I’d forgotten it until now. Do you mind if I try them on while we call?”
“Oh– Sure, I guess,” Till replies. “What brand is it?” he asks then, because since their last comeback Ivan’s group has advertised for at least seven different firms and Till would like to be prepared to collect some incriminating material in case he’s gonna witness Ivan in a goth style again.
“The streetwear one,” Ivan says, ruining his plans for blackmail. Interest lost, Till’s eyes flit back to the half finished sketch on his lap with a noncommittal hum.
“I’ll try them and then you can tell me which outfit looks best on me, alright?” Ivan sing-songs.
Till huffs– As if. First off, Ivan’s fashion taste is atrocious to say the least; with no stylist hiding in the shadows of some corner of his dorm, whatever the guy is going to put together will for sure be an offense to fashion itself. And even if he by some miracle managed to put something decent together it’s not like Till would admit it, duh. Ivan already has a way too big ego as it is, best not inflate it further.
Till picks up his pencil again as Ivan gets changed into his first outfit, then the second. From the quick peeks Till throws at the pretentious runway walk Ivan is putting up, he’s at least managed to not put neon green together with fuchsia, which he guesses is already an accomplishment for the guy.
“Mhhm, I guess this will be the last,” Ivan announces, once again out of frame to get changed into another fit. There's a slight whine in his tone, as if he's somewhat upset about his fun being already over– Till rolls his eyes at that, but he can’t stop the fondness from bubbling in his chest.
The noise of clothes being put on comes to an end, and then Ivan’s cheery voice once again calls out for him.
“Are you ready to see, Till?”
“Yeah yeah, just come out,” Till rolls his eyes again. He didn't think Ivan would get so worked up about some clothes.
Ivan starts getting back into frame as he says, “I’m not sure what fabric they used for this top, but it's really comfortable on the skin. I also appreciate the general shape– It's not exactly what I would normally wear but I don't dislike it. Though the pants–”
–but Till doesn't even hear any of it because, as soon as Ivan gets into view, something in his chest explodes and the aftermath leaves a deafening buzz in his ears.
Right in front of him, on a phone screen so cracked it's holding on only thanks to spite and a dream, is Ivan—Ivan, wearing a turtleneck crop-top and low waisted baggy jeans.
Ivan, arms completely bare that leave absolutely nothing to imagination.
Ivan with a top cropped before his belly button, and fuck, he really had to show for the infinite hours he spends dancing and practicing, huh? And Ivan, whose– down, lower, his– his waist–
Till’s face is red. Fuck. Full-on ripe tomato set on fire type of red. What the fuck. What the fuck. Since when does Ivan show his skin around like this, and since when does his waist look like that–
Till slaps himself, open palm against cheek. The sharp sound barely makes it to his ears. What the hell. His mind is just a static sound and a voicemail informing that all rational thinking services are out of service in favor of blood rushing to the upper part of his body and drool rapidly collecting in his mouth. And he’s also sweating. What the hell?
“Till?” Ivan calls for him. “What do you think?” As he asks that his hips move and those scandalous pants fall even lower than before. Till tries to open his mouth to say something normal, and a pathetic noise comes out of it instead.
Ivan bats his eyes, confused. Till just wishes a meteorite would fall on his apartment and take him with it.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, fuck, fuck, what even is he supposed to say? Why is Ivan asking for his opinion? He never does. What is he planning? What has he sniffed out of him? What devious thoughts hide behind the malicious glint in his eyes and the everything-but-innocent way he placed his hand on his—his waist?
Eugh. Till shivers. This is obviously one of Ivan’s schemes. To– To show off and try to fluster Till and make him say he looks– Ugh. Good or whatever. Acting like one of those tempting succubi from the weirdest mangas a sketchy pirating website has to offer. Where the hell is this train of thought even going. Retreat, fucking retreat. And why is he still staring straight at Ivan’s waist.
“Earth to Till?” Ivan calls for him again, brows slightly furrowed, “Did your connection die?”
“Ugly!” Till just replies, before realizing he just randomly shouted while he's still blushing like he got stuck for an hour in a 50 degrees sauna. A single meteorite won't cut it. He needs human extinction to hurry up a few decades and spare him the fucking humiliation.
But because Till is nothing but stubborn and also devoid of basic preservation instincts, the latter obvious since the day he decided to call Ivan his friend, and also because there’s no fucking way Ivan can call his rabid parasocial fans dressed like this because then the sales of his group are going to completely tank because most of their fanbase will be fucking dead, he carries on. He’s just doing everybody a favor, truly.
“That thing is ugly as fuck on you. You look—terrible in it. That's not your style at all. I'm gonna puke actually. Nobody should be subjected to looking at you with that on ever, especially not somebody that paid to see you. Throw it away. Better, burn it. Better, make Luka burn it. Whatever you do, don't wear that for your calls. Ew.”
Ivan blinks, slowly. Human extinction. Global warming. Capitalism. Anything. Fuck, why couldn't those weird fuckers have been right about the world ending in 2012.
Ivan doesn't comment on his jumpy tone, or the way he looks like he's going through a cardiac arrest. He just says, “Alright, Till,” and stares at him some more.
After a while, he gets out of view once again to change back into his old clothes—but not before Till has sneakily taken a handful of screenshots. No, he doesn't fucking want to talk about it.
“Is that your new sketchbook?” Ivan asks, his huge eyes staring in interest at the notebook that’s peeking out of Till’s tote bag. He’s dressed up all in black today, and adding to that the ridiculous mask and hideous beanie he insists on wearing whenever they hang out in public—even if Till keeps telling him it only makes him look more suspicious—Ivan appears more ready to go rob a bank than to grab a coffee in-between a shoot and a rehearsal.
Till nods, mumbling something that sounds like a confirmation as he wrestles with his phone in the nervous attempt to scan the fuckass qr-code that will allow him to finally know what damned drinks that this shitty cafè Ivan brought him to has to offer. That’s his first mistake: getting distracted. A noob slip-up on his part; by now, he should know to never get distracted whenever Ivan is involved.
Ivan smiles and then, taking advantage of Till’s losing battle against humanity’s terrible idea of progress in technology, his long fingers quickly grab Till’s sketchbook.
When Till notices and lets out an embarrassing squeaky noise, it’s too late. The sketchbook is already secured in Ivan’s unyielding hold, his sudden grin sharp and taking up half his face.
The signature impression-of-a-serial-killer smile makes it all just worse, and Till considers calling the cops on him for petty theft and also mass murder. If they want any proof, they just have to type Ivan’s damned name in the Twitter-slash-Tiktok search bar and they’ll see how many poor people he killed by simply swinging his hips and winking at the camera. Instinctively, Till frowns at the thought. Anyway. He’s getting sidetracked.
“Give that back.” Till grits his teeth. He can’t scream at him in public, and Ivan is very clearly taking advantage of that. Scheming asshole.
Ivan pouts. This grown man, whose face is worth more than whatever money Till will be able to make in his whole lifetime, declared South-Korea’s heartthrob, fresh post military service citizen, is honest to god pouting. Till has to fight the urge to punch him in the nose here and there. Character growth, Till tries to tell himself in a voice that suspiciously sounds like Mizi. He’s grown past settling all his issues, irritating as they may be, with his fists—right?
“But Till,” Ivan whines. Whines! What is he, a spoiled puppy? “It’s been so long since I took a look at your drawings.”
Screw character growth. If Ivan is still stuck at that time when he was a seven year old stealing Till’s stuff for fun, Till should pay him back exactly as he did back then.
He lunges across the small coffee table separating them, trying to grab his sketchbook back, but Ivan simply evades his desperate move and opens the notebook, his infuriating grin growing even wider. Till is so screwed.
There’s no way he’s going to be able to get his sketchbook back now, not without getting assault charges– Does he know how stubborn Ivan can be. Defeated, Till settles for moving his chair closer to Ivan as the guy goes over his drawings, in the naive hope that he’ll be able to grab back what’s rightfully his once Ivan lowers his guard.
Despite all his rough teasing and gloating, when Ivan actually starts looking through Till’s drawings his movements are careful—he turns every page slowly, like he's afraid of creasing them.
His gaze is focused, eyes fixed and never leaving the sketchbook even for a second. Everything from the gentle way he holds the notebook, to his suddenly silent demeanor, to the way he's giving the sketches his full attention– Ivan flips through the pages in such an almost reverent way that it has Till’s stomach doing weird flips.
Ivan’s comments are scarce, but devoid of their usual teasing edge. They're just honest opinions, curious questions about this or that choice, and they're somehow worse than any ironic remark the guy could've made.
For a few moments, despite the wild pounding of Till’s heart, everything is calm.
Then Ivan flips the page once again, and Till is suddenly slapped back to reality by the physical reminder of why he really shouldn't have let Ivan get his hands on the sketchbook.
When Ivan turns the page, his curious eyes settle on—himself.
Occupying almost the entire page is a portrait of Ivan, a quick thing Till sketched down with rough pencil strokes. A quick thing Ivan was never supposed to see.
“Is this from my last live?” Ivan asks, voice a little too quiet, eyes not raising from the sketchbook.
Till refuses to reply, ears heating up, knowing the answer will be used against him forever. It’s not like he purposefully went out of his way to stumble onto the live, alright?
Till is simply a good friend, which means he likes to be up to date with what Ivan is doing, especially on those times when they’re both so busy they can rarely call– And if following a few Ivan update accounts automatically made his algorithm believe he’s a diehard fan, well, what the fuck can Till do about it?
So it’s truly not his fault if he stumbled upon recordings of Ivan’s latest Weverse live, watched them instead of going to sleep and then sketched down a specific pose he’d found himself replaying on his screen multiple times. It’s just– Ivan is aesthetically pleasing, there’s no point in denying it. That makes him a good model. That’s truly all there is to it. Not that Till is going to tell him that. He still has some self-respect, thank you.
But Ivan doesn’t prod at him for more, because his eyes then slide down, and that’s when Till silently starts calculating what are the odds of a sudden stroke gracefully ending his life in this exact moment; that’d be more merciful than seeing through the consequences of his actions.
On a small corner at the bottom of the page are, well– Waists; a little less than a dozen of those, sketched quickly, rough graphite on paper.
Ivan’s eyes immediately zero-in on them, even more so when Till lets out a noise embarrassingly close to a death rattle.
Ivan studies the drawings for a few endless seconds, as cold sweat runs down Till’s back—if he doesn't breathe, maybe everything will be alright and he'll be spared? That usually works with T-rexes, probably, and looking at his predator grin you honestly couldn't tell the difference between one and Ivan.
“These are…” he starts, slow. See? Fucking Tyrannosaurus-Rex, playing with his food and all. Could try to make Till’s miserable demise at least quick and painless, but no. “... they’re very great anatomy.” Ivan says so in a weirdly clipped tone, as if he's not sure what to say himself.
Till lets out a dry laugh that could earn him an award in the fake-lying-bitches competition, and that's saying something considering that Luka’s nominated for it too.
“Yeah. Anatomy. I've been—practing. You know. With… yeah.”
“Waists,” Ivan suggests with a cheery lilt. Till should've ran out of this fucking cafè ten minutes ago. Eaten the sketchbook before Ivan could open it. Anything but this painfully slow public execution.
“Yes,” he says, and he can quite feel the not so metaphorical nail being beaten in the coffin of his last shreds of dignity. “Waists.”
A suffocating silence falls on them after, with Till refusing to meet Ivan’s gaze in any way—until he hears the noise of pages being flipped once again. Dread and panic fuel his reaction.
“Wait–” Till yells, truly way too loud for the public space they’re into but right now he couldn’t give less of a fuck, not when he has to do everything he can to avoid Ivan looking at the next page on this god-forsaken sketchbook– But it’s too late.
The page has already been flipped, his fate has already been written, Till is going to kill himself: he can do nothing but wheeze miserably as Ivan is faced with a full page filled with, solely and exclusively, waists. A specific waist to be accurate, depicted in dozens and dozens of positions and angles.
Till closes his eyes, braces for the impact like he was a guy tied to the tracks with a high-speed train incoming and the one who’s supposed to save him being an idiot that can’t make up his mind about ethics—that is to say, he braces for impending doom.
He doesn’t think Ivan recognized his waist in these pages, god, he really hopes he didn’t, but this is Ivan he’s dealing with; he’ll be teased relentlessly for the simple fact he got so obsessed with a specific waist he drew it over and over and over. So he holds his breath and waits, but the hit never comes.
When ten seconds pass, and then another ten, and nothing happens, Till dares to open his eyes. In front of him, Ivan is staring at the sketchbook and if Till didn’t know better, he’d say his cheeks look slightly red.
When he notices that Till is looking at him, Ivan suddenly closes the notebook as a weirdly strangled noise comes out of his throat.
Before Till can say anything, the sketchbook is hurriedly placed back into his hands.
“I’m going to see what happened to our orders,” Ivan says standing up, and his tone is so calm and even that Till can immediately tell he’s faking it.
By the time the shock of whatever just happened wears off, Ivan has already gone up to the counter. Till doesn’t have the heart to tell him they didn’t even order anything yet.
“I’m so happy we finally managed to meet up, Till! It feels like it’s been forever since we last saw each other, you have to tell me everything that happened!” Mizi says as they step into the campus’ cafeteria, and then proceeds to talk his and Sua’s ears off about the usage of lighting design in modern theatre plays for the next two hours.
And Till loves Mizi, he really does, and he loves listening to her talking about whatever, and he also agrees that watching a show that uses only a flood light for its entire duration is fucking boring, but after so long of ranting even he needs a break. So, leaving Sua to intently listen to her girlfriend’s complaints, he sneakily takes out his phone, planning for some doomscrolling before going back to the difference between PAR and Fresnel lights.
Said planning gets kicked out of the window the second his dash refreshes and a new video uploaded by Ivan’s group appears. Curious and also brainrotted, Till’s eyes are automatically trained towards the short mv—sixteen seconds later he’s a pillar of salt, grip on his phone so tight it could crush under the pressure.
“What’s that?” Sua asks, her rapacious eyes immediately catching onto his abnormal stillness. Sniffing weakness, most likely.
She leans in and taps replay on the screen as if it was her own, and by the end of the video her eyebrows have raised significantly. “What? What’s happening?” Mizi barges in, eager to be included. Sua shoots the screen another glance, “Well, that’s… audacious.”
Yeah, audacious. Till guesses it’s sure a way to describe what they just watched: a short teaser, a quick overview of the group’s seven members. Of their waists, to be specific. Of their waists wrapped in different types of ancient looking, extremely revealing clothes, to be super-fucking-specific.
Till’s hands are hitting the call button before he can even rationalize his actions, and as always Ivan picks up immediately.
His cheery, “Good morning, Till–” is immediately cut off by Till’s hurried words.
“Since when do you promote fucking– fucking–” what even should he call that? Weird lingerie? Clothes made to appeal to vampires whose kinks are stuck in the Victorian era?
“I promote fucking?” Ivan asks, sounding endlessly entertained, and Till resolves he has to kill him– Before he dies, though, he has to make sure Ivan knows how much of a whore he is.
“Fucking. Corsets. Since when do you promote them,” he spits out. Literally. Spit flies on the screen and also on the table; Sua throws him a disgusted glance.
“Corsets?” Ivan’s reply comes slow and clipped, as if he’s taking the call from the moon. Till shuts his mouth to hiss, and his teeth clank together so hard they make noise.
“Corsets,” Till confirms with a growl.
There’s a few seconds of silence, Ivan’s brain probably slowly booting up, and then comes a click of tongue—enlightenment.
“Oh,” Ivan says with a small chuckle that has Till seeing even more red. “You mean the new promo.”
“Yeah,” he snarls, hoping Ivan’s expensive speakers will convey the venom on his tongue. Sure, the promo, the what-fucking-ever thing that resulted in Ivan getting in front of a camera dressed like that. Who thought that would be a good idea? Who even gave him such a tight corset to wear? Had Ivan even been breathing? It has to be edited footage, there’s no way a human body is actually built like that–
“So you’ve seen it.” Ivan sounds delighted. “What did you think of it, Till?” he asks, teasing, as if he’s well aware that if he were physically there Till would’ve already punched him in the face and he is finding a sick delight in it.
“I think you have no fucking shame,” Till grits out. Ivan simply hums, and Till has to mournfully acknowledge that he’s probably feeding into his degradation kink.
“And also–” he tries to keep spouting, but then Ivan interrupts him, his voice contemplative. “Hold on, though. The full ad should be out on Friday, that was just a teaser. How did you even know it was me? I mean, we weren’t all wearing corsets,” he wonders, and he sounds almost genuinely perplexed.
Till freezes. Both Sua and Mizi’s gazes slowly turn towards him and the phone in his hands has become a ticking time-bomb. Should he cut the red or blue cable? Till knows shit about electronics.
“Oh. My. God.” Sua whispers under her breath, tone laced with clear disgust, and Till hopes an explosion will actually kill them all before she can speak. “You recognized him by the shape of his fucking waist.” Till should really, really get better friends. Unfortunately, despite all his grievances, Till still hasn’t acted on his wishes.
Till, in order, turns so red he gets dizzy by the amount of blood that just rushed up to his face, screams, and then closes the call so harshly he almost cracks the screen of his phone– Not before yelling to Ivan that he’s a fucking whore, though. There’s priorities.
‘I appreciate your insight on my work ethics. Unfortunately, one must do what the market demands, and I’ve been told my body sells well,’ is the fucking PR garbage text Ivan sends him a few minutes after Till hung up the call in his face and rushed out of the cafè before Mizi and Sua fully shifted into sharks that just smelled a hint of blood.
Till only replies with a picture of his middle finger before he gets home and promptly passes out still fully clothed on his bed, refusing to elaborate on anything that just happened.
When he wakes up some hours later, it’s to his back hurting in seven different places and to several unread texts from Ivan. Groaning, Till sits up and grabs his phone—the movement makes all of his joints pop in a painfully loud way he pointedly decides to ignore.
And really, by now he should’ve learned that no text from Ivan can ever be normal or harmless. Still, Till never thought he would have the gall to send him straight up pornographic pictures– So no one should blame him when he lets out a scream, then some curses, and then another yell just to drive the point home once he opens their chat.
If his neighbors come knocking at his door spewing shit like peaceful cohabitation and acceptable daytime hours for loud noises again, he’ll just shove his phone in their faces and see how they handle this.
In Till’s trembling hands shines a stupid mirror selfie of Ivan, with a stupid fucking tight full-body corset enveloping his waist in a constricting embrace. Till tries to flit his eyes somewhere else, to settle them on Ivan’s shoulders, covered by a simple dress shirt, but that only manages to make him notice how they’re so broad that they’re almost double as wide as his waist. Dots start swimming in Till’s vision.
‘I think you might appreciate some behind-the-scenes pictures,’ is the caption Ivan forwarded. Fuck, is this Ivan’s ultimate plan to get rid of him permanently? Maybe Till should do the both of them a favor and kill himself before Ivan can finish the job.
Halfway through drafting ten paragraphs of curses and moral speeches about maintaining one’s dignity even when in the clutches of capitalism, Till is overcome by a wave of rage and throws his phone against the wall. It cracks, and so does his back. He ignores both and furrows his head into his pillow and screams.
Then he settles under his blankets, determined to fall back asleep and forget everything that happened today. It takes him hours before the exhaustion finally wins over the haunting visions of Ivan’s mischievous grin to the camera.
“You’ve been ghosting me on Tiktok,” Hyuna declares as she sits dramatically beside Till, ignoring the fact they’re in a library and that he was for once actually trying to study.
Till grumbles. “I’ve deleted it.”
“What?” Hyuna squeaks. She appears shocked, as if she had no idea one could just do that.
Till clicks his tongue, uselessly trying to get back to his coursework. “It’s just a self-imposed ban,” he mumbles. Over Tiktok. And Instagram. And Twitter. And any fucking social media that involves pictures and people being able to leave their useless comments under them. Even Pinterest’s on thin ice.
Hyuna squints as she looks at him. Her fingers have started tapping against the table, which never means anything good. “Hold on, is this because of that one Ivan’s ad that has gone viral–”
“It’s. Not,” Till hisses, far too loud, and several annoyed people turn around to see who’s causing the commotion. “I’m simply. Working on my attention span. Getting rid of the brainrot.”
Hyuna looks amused as she beholds the way Till’s cheeks and neck blush despite his curt words. When she licks her lips before speaking up again, Till flits his eyes around—desperately searching for a way out.
“Oh, I’m sure the last straw was the six-seven memes, right? Absolutely not the millions of people thirsting over Ivan as he shakes his hips for the camera,” she hums, hand under her chin, and Till closes his laptop shut with far too much strength than necessary. Nope, no, nope. He’s not doing this. Fuck this. Fuck Hyuna. Fuck Ivan, the cause of all his sorrows, while he’s at it.
Till grabs his laptop and backpack and stomps his way out of the library, tail between his legs and chin held stupidly high. Behind him, uncaring of where they still are, Hyuna yells, “You can’t keep running forever!”
Keeping on walking, Till turns around to flip her off; when he trips on his feet, her cackling fills the library until they’re both kicked out.
After a chase around campus that nearly costs him a lung, Hyuna finally gives in and leaves him alone, maybe finally remembering she too has classes to attend from time to time.
Considering it would probably be better to not show his face in the library for a while, Till settles down at the cheapest cafè on campus, pays for a coffee that tastes like burnt charcoal and tries to get back to work.
He’s barely managed to get through one slide of his coursework when his phone lights up with a new notification: Hyuna has sent him one, no, several videos.
The most reasonable choice would be to ignore these texts and go back to studying. Block Hyuna, while he’s at it. Delete his messaging app altogether, maybe. It would surely save him a lot of grievances. But by the time he’s considered the most safe course of actions to follow, he’s already clicked on the first of the videos.
He thanks the gods he’s wearing headphones when one of Ivan’s sultry raps starts blasting—it’s an edit of the latest forsaken clothing ad Ivan and his group made, and three different angles of Ivan’s waist and ass and back later Till hurriedly closes it, face crimson.
Now, a normal person would’ve actually followed through with their threats and blocked Hyuna. Till, however, clicks on the next video; he’s always been told his survival instincts are a little fucked in the head, anyway.
Waist, hips, a back arch, a choreo that looks borderline erotic, Ivan winking at the camera– Till watches all the videos in a cyclic daze of his jaw slacking at the sheer audacity of these edits, seeing red, closing them harshly, repeat.
By the end of it, he’s shaking. There’s an unbearable heat going through his whole body that he’s desperately trying to ignore. At least he didn’t have to witness the comments these indecent videos surely had, but it’s a pathetic comfort.
‘here’s what ur missing out on, xoxo,’ is all Hyuna said to justify his crimes. Till is still considering if sending her a picture of his hung corpse would be an adequate response when she sends him yet another video, this time with no caption.
Against self-preservation, Till immediately opens it. After all he’s seen, how worse could it be?
Wrong. Wrong. So fucking wrong. He should’ve known Hyuna always finds a way to outdo herself.
This edit is different. Instead of featuring various views of Ivan’s ass in tight leather pants, it’s a specific part of the ad Till had tried his damn best to wipe from his memory the first time he saw it—it’s Ivan and that bastard Luka dancing together and they’re so close, their bodies constantly on the edge of pressing against the other, predatory gazes in both their eyes. The edit zooms on a frame of Luka’s arm sneaking around Ivan’s middle; of course, their rabid fans had gone fucking crazy over this cheap fanservice.
“Uhm, are– Are you okay?” an unsure waiter beside Till asks. That’s how Till notices that the pen he was holding in his grip has snapped in half. There’s blue ink all over his clothes; and in his coffee. That goddamn video is still playing. Luka smirks towards the camera right as Till stumbles out an apology to the poor waiter. Fucking hell.
The second he drags himself home, Till resolves to delete all the apps on his phone for the next three months, lest he want to have an aneurysm and die and waste the money he already spent on the college tuition.
Before he can drag the messaging app towards the bin at the bottom of the screen, though, a new text comes in.
‘Tiiiiiiiill,’ Ivan sends, and Till already knows he’s fucked. ‘I get a free day next week!! Let’s meet up!’ he says, then forwards a pathetic gif of a puppy with the wettest eyes ever looking up at Till’s perplexed stare.
This is a trick. Till should say no. Till should acknowledge that he’s been acting really weird about his best friend lately and that he has to get normal before they see each other again. Till should tell Ivan to spend his once-in-a-blue-moon free day relaxing at a spa—a spa? Till frowns. People would get so fucking weird about that. He should go somewhere else where clothes are involved. Skiing sounds better—and not slouching at Till’s ass dorm. Till should get a grip.
‘Please? :((’
Goddammit.
“Quit your job,” Till mumbles against Ivan’s chest at some unspecified hour in the night.
The rise and fall of Ivan’s steady breathing stills for a fraction of a second, then he chuckles. “What?”
“Quit your job,” Till repeats, this time with a frown. Ivan’s hand comes to press against his furrowed brows, but he swats it away. He has to be focused to pitch it.
“Your producers suck and have no artistry whatsoever and your choreographers are even worse. Don’t get me started on your fucking stylists. You sleep an average of three hours a day to practice and you don’t even like your groupmates. The idol industry is a scam to make disgusting sums of money thanks to an overworked pretty face– They treat your body like a piece of meat! It’s not like I care but you should have some more dignity, you know? And your fans are even weirder. They’re talking about licking your armpits and bearing your children and they’re shipping you with Luka of all people, for fuck’s sake. Doesn’t it weird you the fuck out? You don’t even need the money,” Till rambles, his voice getting more animated the further he goes.
You wouldn’t have caught him blurting out a single word on this topic while sober– But Till from a few hours ago made the disastrous decision to open a beer, and then another, and then fall on the bed half on top of Ivan and drink some more cans, and here he is now. Blabbering about how Ivan should get a fucking normal job that doesn’t have him appearing on the news one day and the other too. One that doesn’t involve stripping on a stage, too, preferably.
In the dim, shitty light of Till’s room, Ivan eyes gleam red, wide as sausages after his outburst. He grins, a pathetic all-teeth thing, though even more pathetic is the jump Till’s heart makes at the sight.
“You’re so funny, Till,” Ivan hums, lowering his face to nuzzle against Till’s cheek. Till protests, annoyed, but doesn’t shove him away. “I’m serious, though,” he grumbles.
“You’re being silly,” Ivan sing-songs, biting his earlobe in a way that makes Till squeak and completely ignoring his words. “How would I even quit? I’m under a contract for the next three years.”
As if Till didn’t already know that. He frowns even more, hiding his upset face right in the middle of Ivan’s chest—it’s warm, and soft, and Till could fall asleep right there. He tries not to think too much about it.
“Does my fame bother you, Till?” Ivan keeps pressing. He sounds amused, like he’s just found a new toy to play around with.
“Shut up,” he barks, but it comes out muffled thanks to the fact he’s still pressing his face against Ivan’s pecs. “Just, hell, train your damned fans to keep their thirsting under check, it’s embarrassing to witness. And learn to have some self respect or some shame, damn it,” he mumbles. Till can feel Ivan’s sharp eyes studying him, their weight pressing against his neck, his shoulder blades, his head.
“I think you have drunk too much,” Ivan says in the end, and Till shoves him until Ivan is laughing at his pathetic attempts at revenge. His petty chuckles rumble in his chest, vibrating under Till’s ears.
In the silence that follows, Till counts the beats of his heart—takes it as some sort of proof. Proof that Ivan is there, and he’s real, and that no matter how faraway he may seem sometimes, how inexplicable, fleeting as smoke– Deep down, he’s too flesh and blood and muscles, and a heart that speeds up under Till’s curious touch. He wonders– If they stay like this some more, will their hearts start syncing up their beats?
After a while, Ivan starts speaking again, low, telling Till about some sort of romance drama that’s going on between his coworkers that he thinks will end tragically—Till prays it will, so maybe they’ll finally disband. As he talks, Ivan wriggles under him, trying to find a more comfortable position, maybe, and Till has to regrettably move and lay beside and not on top of him; not without grumbling about it first, of course.
Till tries to pay attention, really he does, but soon Ivan’s words start getting confused and muffled, a comforting background noise as Till puts his focus on what lies in front of his gaze.
Ivan’s slender fingers, absentmindedly drawing lazy shapes on Till’s thigh, his curated nails. His arms, bare in a way it’s rare to see them, courtesy of the heat in Till’s room—they’re big, grown muscular over months of relentless training. Dizzily, Till thinks back to that one person he saw saying that they’d want to bite Ivan’s arms—regrettably, he has to admit that they were not so wrong.
And then his gaze slides lower, falls on the sliver of exposed skin between Ivan’s t-shirt and the band of his pants like a compass finding north. Falls on what has been invading his thoughts more and more these days, the unwanted visitor Till found no way to kick out of his own mind.
Before, he’d never noticed just how small Ivan’s waist is, compared to the rest of his built body. If Till were to put them on top of each other, their waists would be around the same size– But Ivan is taller than him, fitter, his shoulders wider. And yet.
When sometimes Ivan grabbed him by his hips despite Till’s spluttering and hissing, his hands used to be able to almost encircle Till’s waist entirely. And Ivan’s hands are bigger than his own, sure, but Till has longer fingers; he finds himself wondering if his hands could, too, envelop Ivan’s middle body like that. Completely enwrap him, until he had no way out of Till’s hold, his fair skin pressed against Till rough fingers.
“–And the deal seemed pretty favorable, so I sold them the rights to my spit to turn it into a skincare product,” Ivan voice breaches through his mullings, and Till stills. What the fuck?
“What the fuck?” Till yells, sharply turning his face towards Ivan and almost headbutting him. Ivan is staring down at him with a sly grin, his eyes almost closed in their amusement, giving Till a front row view to count all of his long eyelashes, if he so wished. When did Ivan get so close?
“I knew you weren’t listening to me,” Ivan pouts then. Till’s face immediately burns up and his throat closes, as if terrified that Ivan could have somehow guessed what was going on in his mind.
“Leave me alone, I was just falling asleep,” Till grumbles, a flimsy excuse he hopes will be enough to make Ivan desist. His fingertips are itching to reach for Ivan, but instead he closes his hands in a fist and furrows his head against Ivan’s side—Till closes his eyes, and prays Ivan won’t point out the frantic beats of his heart.
Ivan huffs, a fond thing that rearranges all of Till’s internal organs in a pathetic mush; god, what is even happening to him?
“Sure, Till,” Ivan says, but he doesn’t call his bluff. “Good night,” he hums instead, and throws a blanket over them, not asking Till to move from their awkward position. Despite the adrenaline and embarrassment coursing through his body in waves, before Till realizes it Ivan’s calm breathing lulls him to sleep.
A long yawn escapes Till’s mouth as he drags his feet towards the small kitchen of his dorm– He would’ve really liked to sleep more, but he’d been woken up by the cold spot by his side. The thought immediately makes him frown. Is Ivan allergic to sleeping in or something?
At the very least, it seems that he is making breakfast. The rich smell of warm broth envelops Till and lures him to the kitchen, making him ignore both the freezing floor under his naked feet and the headache that throbs between his temples.
Ivan is turned towards the mini-stove, tending to a steaming pot of whatever he’s cooking up for them, but without even looking back he chirps, “Good morning, Till,” as soon as he rounds the corner. His freaky radar or something, Till grumbles between himself– There’s no way of catching him off guard.
Getting closer, Till groggily rubs the sleep away his eyes and settles his now more lucid stare on Ivan’s figure– And he stops on his tracks so harshly he almost falls face down on the floor.
Last night, he’d failed to notice that the shirt Ivan put on to go to sleep was Till’s shirt– Holy fuck. It’s no wonder it looks so small on him, hugging his sides tightly, leaving out a thin strip of his skin by his hips.
Till shakily moves forward and steps on something wet—did he just fucking drool?
Later on, hidden in a dark cocoon of shame in his room, Till will try to reason that his actions were simply a consequence of his hangover– Of alcohol and sleepiness mixing up in his system and reducing him to a brainless mush of primal instincts. But truly, there’s nothing he can say to justify what he does next.
Wobbling forward, Till’s sweaty hands grab onto something to steady himself– Something that just happens to be Ivan’s exposed waist.
Ivan freezes under the unexpected touch, but Till is too busy admiring the softness of the skin under his touch to notice his sudden stillness. “Till?” Ivan croaks out, and his voice wavers, but Till pays him no mind.
Experimentally, Till gently pinches his side, and Ivan yelps.
“What are you making?” Till groggily asks, his gaze still focused on the body held between his hands. He opens his hands fully, palms pressed against skin, and watches with wonder as his fingers that circle Ivan’s waist manage to connect—is he starting to drool again? That must be the, the– Ah, what did Ivan say he’s cooking?
“I’m– It’s sundubu-jjigae. I–” Ivan’s voice wavers. He swallows, and then goes, “I thought it could help. With your hangover.” Yeah, the stew, it’s that thing’s fault if he’s drooling, obviously.
“Mhm,” Till hums in approval, rubbing his nose against Ivan’s shoulder blades. “It smells good.”
Ivan doesn’t reply to the compliment, a rare thing to come from Till. He’s slightly shaking under his touch, Till dizzily notices; he makes sure to hold his grip tighter, then.
Under his outstretched hands, Ivan’s skin is warm, and Till can almost feel it pulsing under his touch. It looks so pristine– Till wonders how strongly he’d have to press down to paint those hips in shades of purple and green, mixing up on Ivan’s fair skin, to leave behind a mark that would show that his hands had been there—his own personal unblemished canvas, bruises like abstract art, like a memento.
Lost in his thoughts, Till’s face wanders against Ivan’s back and his lips settle on his shoulder, right where the worn t-shirt ends. There, his skin is so soft it makes Till frown. How can he have such smooth shoulders?
“Do you moisturize there or something?” Till grumbles, keeping on nuzzling against him. Ivan lets out a shaky breath. Till’s rapacious gaze drinks in the sight of his neck slowly turning red.
“What?” Ivan mumbles. He hasn’t touched their breakfast in a few minutes now—is he sure he isn't burning it down?
“Who the hell moisturizes their shoulders? You’re a freak. Nobody even needs to see them,” Till complains, and then bites right under Ivan’s neck to drive the point home.
Ivan squeals, and the sound fries the last two of Till’s remaining brain cells. He has to, no, needs to hear him make that sound again.
“Till–” Ivan tries after a while, his tone placating but his words shaky. “It’s. Breakfast is ready, you should sit down.”
As reply, Till burrows his nose in between Ivan’s shoulder blades and tightens his grip around Ivan’s middle. Ivan wheezes. Is the guy okay?
“Till.” He sounds more serious now, even if his words still carry a light tremor.
“Mhm?” Till answers, rubbing his cheek against Ivan’s back.
“Get off,” Ivan orders.
“No,” Till says, digging his heels.
“No?” Ivan stumbles over his words. He sounds taken back.
Under Till’s pout, Ivan’s back rises and falls ridiculously as he takes one of the longest breaths ever witnessed in human history—seriously, is he going through some sort of asthmatic attack?
But he supposes Ivan’s doing okay afterall, because then he suddenly spins around and grabs Till by his underarms.
“What the fuck–” Till splutters and hisses, trying to wriggle out of Ivan’s hold—fuck him and his stupid height and stupid long arms, his feet are not even touching the damn floor—but to no avail. Ivan wears a stupidly concentrated stare as he manhandles Till to a chair near the kitchen table and makes him sit there; Till tries to keep his mind focused on the outrage of this action and not on Ivan’s arm muscles in full display.
As soon as Ivan lets him go, Till kicks him in the shin, but somehow Ivan doesn’t even protest and simply grabs a steaming bowl and hands it to him.
“Here. Eat this. It’s not heavy on the stomach and great for hangovers; you definitely need it. Now eat,” he says, stern, and Till doesn’t even find it in himself to argue back.
Mind still clouded over by the remains of alcohol in his system and the morning’s discoveries, he picks up eating without making a fuss. Ivan gets a bowl of his own and sits down at the opposite end of the table from Till, and they both eat in silence for a while.
Between one bite and the other, some sort of conscience starts growing back in Till’s brain. By the time he’s halfway through the stew, he’s lowered his gaze, refusing to meet Ivan’s growingly amused eyes– He recovers fast, the bastard.
“So,” Ivan starts, dragging out the vowel, his fingers toying around with his chopsticks; Till’s face immediately bursts into flames. “Shut up,” he mumbles, but it’s weak.
“And to think you always complain about me being clingy,” Ivan hums, relentless, laying his chin on his palm. “But I guess it makes sense, you always used to hug your plushies to sleep when we were kids.”
Till lets out a noise of protest but only a high-pitched squeal comes out. “I have no idea what the hell you mean,” he growls.
“Aw, but it’s sweet how you get more affectionate when you’re all sleepy–” Ivan gets cut off by Till throwing his chopsticks at him; he evades them elegantly, a sly smirk eased on his face, but Till still somehow manages to get drops of stew all over his face.
Till fumes in his seat as Ivan chuckles– How is life so unfair? Till sits there humiliated and with soup dripping down his face and Ivan still hasn’t choked over his stupid breakfast in front of his eyes as a small payback from the universe. Ugh.
“You have something on your face,” Ivan muses, and Till is ready to curse at him, but then Ivan grabs a napkin and reaches over across the table to clean his cheek.
As he moves, his shirt rides up, all the skin from his waist to the hipbone exposed. Till’s eyes zero in on Ivan’s side; somewhere inside his chest, something explodes; if anybody in this moment were to ask him of the Seven Wonders, he’d start listing off the muscle fibers that make up Ivan’s waist.
“Can I bite it?” Till blurts out, terribly serious.
Ivan’s hand abruptly stops wiping against Till’s face. His cheeks are slightly red—Till should bite them too, later. “What?”
But Till is quicker– Ignoring Ivan’s words, he lunges.