Archive of Our Own ^beta

“What am I looking at?” Till blurts, staring at the child-like specimen sitting smack dead inside his kitchen sink.

“Concerning that you wouldn’t know,” Luka remarks, “Do the void eyes not ring a bell?”

“Shut the freak up,” Till groans, as Luka’s eyebrows climb exponentially higher,

“And he censors himself already, impressive.”

“Yes, well, I’m in the presence of that… child, aren’t I? Whatever, where’s my freak?”

“Your freak,” Luka begins, as Till’s face reddens at the realisation of his slip-up, “Is right there, in the sink you keep glaring daggers into,”

“Hah,” Till deadpans, “That’s funny. So funny. Wow, Ivan, you got me. You’re so funny. Quit modelling, pursue a stand-up career,” He fake laughs extra hard for emphasis. The room stays silent. The child sneezes. It’s fucking adorable.

“Are you serious?” Till snaps, shaking Luka’s shoulders, “Listen here, you little twink—”

“Rich coming from you,” Luka interrupts, with a huff.

“Shut. Up. The joke’s dead, where’s my roommate?” He hisses, pulling Luka in by the collar.

Luka’s eyes trail up Till’s grip, “You should try this on Ivan if he ever comes back, he’d be into it.”

Till doesn’t bother to tell him how often he and Ivan had been prey to this exact position.

“If he ever comes back? Fine, you’re serious about the kid thing,” Till sighs, “How did it happen then?”

Luka blinks, languid, “Well, we’d just wrapped a shoot up. Ivan said he had to take a smoke break—”

“Ivan doesn’t smoke,” Till says, immediately. He doesn’t even think he can imagine it.

Luka’s eyebrow raises yet again, except this one seemed genuinely intrigued as opposed to mocking, “Oh? Alright then. Tell that to the Marlboro dozen in his glove compartment,”

What?

“That’s mine,” Till murmurs, as Luka tilts his head, “Guess he was curious then. Anyway, he didn’t show up after, so I went out to fetch the mutt, and I found a puppy in his stead.”

Till side eyes the child, “Sure. Okay. So, whose kid did you steal?”

“Did you just ignore everything I said?”

“I didn’t—” Till takes a ragged breath, attempting to collect himself, “If he were really Ivan, then Sua would know, wouldn’t she?”

“Sure,” Luka says, “Can I go now?”

“No.” Till snaps, “Until I confirm this, you’re the prime suspect for his murder.”

“Please, if I murdered him, I’d make it less implicating.”

Till dials Sua, unbeknownst to Luka’s tired groan, the blond man falls onto the couch, presumably taking his fifth nap since the morning.

"What did Ivan do now?” Comes Sua's voice.

Till frowns, “I call you for other things,”

“Sure. So, what did he do?”

The child sniffles, and Till immediately comes to the damning realisation that Luka left it in the kitchen sink. He scoops the kid up with an arm, years of working as a preschool teacher’s aide coming in handy. Luckily, the kid didn’t get wet.

The kid’s eyes widen slightly, his gaze shifting to Till, big crimson orbs staring at him. Till was very used to being the subject of its gaze, mind you, and he was equally used to snapping at Ivan to stop staring so intensely, squirming under the attention.

When the kid did it, though…

Fuck, he was so cute.

He resists the urge to sniff his hair when he hears Sua loudly clear her throat.

“S-sorry,” He stammers, keeping his voice low. The kid presses his ear to Till’s pulse. Till wants to die, “Do you uh, have pictures of Ivan as a child by any chance?”

“Why?”

“There’s a child here. Luka brought a child here. And there’s no Ivan.” Till says, as silence follows for nearly two minutes.

“Does he have black hair and red pupils?” She asks, slowly.

Till rolls his eyes, “Yeah, no shit—ake mushrooms.” The kid burrows himself under Till’s chin, and Till gives in to the urge to kiss his hair gently. Sue him.

“Then that’s Ivan. Shit.” Sua curses, “How did he— ugh, whatever. I’ll be there by tomorrow. Can you deal with him till then?”

“I can deal with him for as long as I have to,” Till says, immediately, his fingers weaving through Ivan’s wavy black locks, “I worked with kids for my entire adult life, mind you,”

“I know, but Ivan’s not the easiest to handle,” Sua murmurs, “Though I suppose if there’s anyone who could-,”

“It would be his sorry sap of a roommate since graduation, yes,” Till snorts, “Just tell me what to look out for, if he’s sensitive to anything.”

“Hates loud noises, he really likes being warm. He’s a bit of a smart-ass though,” Sua sighs. Till doesn’t respond; he didn’t doubt it.

“He’s quiet, very quiet, unless he wants to be said smart-ass. Basically, he only speaks when he needs to,” Sua says, “I don’t remember much beyond that,”

Till nods, it’s not like Sua was his blood relative or anything, but childhood friends were a lot closer to this Ivan than he was, “What does it mean if he’s digging himself into my neck right now?”

Sua pauses, “Oh.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve never seen him do that.”

“Not to his mother or father or anything?”

Sua laughs, scornful, “Especially not to them. Listen, I’ll check on him tomorrow, but I think you’ve got it from here, yeah?”

“I guess.” He states, before Sua hangs up.

He stares at Luka’s sleeping figure, and then at the child, still trying to bury himself further into Till’s neck.

Till chuckles, “‘S it warm in there or something?”

Ivan nods, “Mm,” He says, almost like it were a whisper.

“Cute,” Till mutters, despite himself, “Are you hungry, Iv?”

Ivan doesn’t say anything. Till takes that as a yes, “Okay then, I’ll get some mac and cheese going. Do you wanna wake Luka up, or should I?”

“Don’t like him,” Ivan says, instantly, “He keeps calling me a dog,”

“How dare he?” Till fake-gasps, causing Ivan to giggle. To giggle. What in the world was Sua talking about? Ivan seemed perfectly normal.

Till sets Ivan on the counter, walking over to the couch, “Oi, Sleeping Beauty, get up.”

Luka rubs at his eyes, “Am I free to go?”

“Yeah. Sua says his physical features add up,”

“What the fuck?” Luka asks, despite maintaining his impressively monotone tone, “How is that any different to what I said?”

“Sua’s more credible.” Till states, simply.

“Luka, if you leave now, you’ll probably get to sleep more,” Ivan suddenly pipes up, swinging his legs atop the counter.

Till and Luka pause, their heads swivelling towards Ivan.

“Wow, I took you home, made you meet your future hubby, and this is the thanks I get?”

“Future what?” The colour drains from Till’s face.

“That’s not true,” Ivan says, suddenly.

“What he said,” Till affirms, slightly delirious.

“Till’s going to be my future husband!”

Till blinks.

Luka claps his hands, “Okay, that’s my cue to leave. Dasvidanya.”

“You’re not even Russian,” Till mumbles, as Luka unapologetically slams the door behind him.

Ivan winces, and Till feels his heart pound almost immediately, “I’m sorry, he’s a bad person. I’ll make sure to tell him not to bang the door next time, okay?”

Ivan looks up, his eyes practically sparkling, “Not-Till ahjussi,” He says, testing Till’s not-name on his tongue.

Till frowns, “But I am Till. You can drop the ahjussi bit too.” He scratches at the end of his nape, “I’m not that old.”

Ivan giggles, “Silly, you’re Not-Till, you look a bit like him though. Or I guess, he’d look like you,”

Till was too tired for this: “What the hell, sure.”

“Not-Till hyung,” Ivan repeats, “I’m hungry,”

Ever the stickler for honorifics, isn’t he? Whatever, hyung was better than ahjussi. Till nods, sliding his pantry open and pilfering through its contents, “What do you like to eat, buddy?”

Ivan blinks, slowly, “What do I… like?”

Till only hums, continuing to shift through various pasta and instant noodle packets he hauled into an old packing box, “Dunno kid, you’ll have to tell me. Chicken nuggets? Mac and cheese? Uh, tteokbokki?”

“Cheese?” Ivan repeats, straightening up slightly.

Till chuckles, “Yeah, cheese. None of that radioactive crap either, mind you— Till’s special four cheese blend!”

Ivan’s mouth hangs in awe, and Till thinks he could probably get used to a kid who thought everything he did was a wonder, “I like cheese.” He admits, shy.

Till nods, “I’m aware.” He pilfers through Ivan’s obnoxiously varied cheese drawer in their fridge. Brie, Camembert, Ricotta….

“Where the hell are the kid-palate-friendly types?” Till sighs, frustrated, before backtracking immediately as he realised he dropped a no-no word, “F—udge, I meant, uh, hell-o.” His head swivels to Ivan, still swinging his legs in a different pace, “You didn’t hear that.”

“I did,” Ivan says, “But that’s okay, Till says it all the time.” His brows furrow at the same time as Till’s, but for entirely different reasons, “I tell him not to, because it gets him in trouble. He doesn’t like it when I tell him to stop doing things though.”

“Okay, I was really going to just let it go— but like, I have to ask, who’s Till?” Apparently Not-Till asks, letting out a low whistle as he finally finds a block of cheddar at the far end, nearly untouched. He throws it onto the counter before getting into their shredded stash.

Mozzarella, hooray. “Till’s my friend,” Ivan says, slowly, “I think. That’s what he says, anyway,”

“Do you not think you are?” Shredded Gouda that expired… yesterday. But there weren’t any signs of moulding, so. Till shrugs, tossing it onto the counter with the other cheeses, on the hunt for the last one.

Another sound of tiny legs slicing through the air, “Dunno.”

“Hm.” Pepper-jack or feta? Well, if he were with grown-up Ivan, feta would’ve been an obvious choice, what with the sheer handfuls Ivan dumped into his bowlfuls of rabbit food in the mornings. But kid Ivan? No, Till doesn’t think he deserves that level of torture, not if he could help it.

He begins to boil macaroni in a crock pot, “So this Till of yours, is he a classmate?” He turns back to see Ivan nodding idly.

Huh, that was interesting. Till and Ivan of the present certainly hadn’t known each other as long, only having met their senior year of university through mutual friends-turned-girlfriends at a party. Till would never forget how much it seemed like a set-up from Mizi and Sua’s end, what with them being practically shoved together in every direction.

Till, theoretically, couldn’t really complain. He’d obtained his roommate of around four years thanks to their meddling— and he may have gotten attached to Ivan, not that he’d ever say it to the raven haired man’s face.

He adds in a cube of chicken bouillon, watching it bubble whilst humming idly. He notices a pair of eyes burn holes through his pyjamas, and he turns, “What’s up, buddy?”

Ivan shakes his head, “You sing nice.”

“Thank you,” Till smiles, warm. He’d received compliments from Ivan’s adult counterpart for his voice as well, but usually only when Ivan was batshit drunk— the more common occurrence was Ivan staring at him far too intensely whenever he sang, “Do you like chicken nuggets, Ivan? I’ll pop some in the air fryer real quick,”

“I like broccoli,” Ivan says, matter-of-fact.

Till blinks, “Wait, you weren’t just saying that? Like, you actually like that stuff? You liked it as a kid?”

Ivan simply nods, “I like the burnt ones.”

So he’s always been a freak of nature. Till would say as much, but he most definitely wasn’t about to call a child a freak. Something tells him that if there were a child Till he were affiliated with, he would’ve been used to hearing as such regardless.

Till pops a quarter-bag of frozen broccoli florets into the air fryer, setting the timer real quick before he dumps a mixture of cream and shredded cheese blends into the crock pot. He reaches for the paprika instinctively, before pausing.

Typically, even considering Ivan’s absolutely laughable spice tolerance, he could handle paprika. You cannot be a Korean calling fucking paprika spicy, Ivan. He remembers chiding, to which Ivan would respond, It’s tolerable, better than black pepper, even. His fingers hover over the shaker before reaching for the garlic powder instead. Better safe than sorry.

“Kid, can you hop down? Or do you need my help?” Till asks, stirring through the bubbling mac and cheese.

“Help.” Ivan extends his arms towards Till, and Till coos, audibly. Whatever, nobody was here, who gave a fuck? It was normal to coo at a child, wasn’t it? Till scoops Ivan into his arms, and tries desperately to ignore the soft smile Ivan lets out the second he does. Fuck.

“I don’t really have a high chair,” Till sighs. It was a non-existent problem; both Ivan and he were quite tall, a high chair would’ve hindered them, if anything. “Tell you what, how about I feed you? We can sit on the couch, does that sound good?”

Ivan nods, a little too quickly. Till chuckles at the sight of his innocent enthusiasm, placing the bowl over a trivet atop the coffee table— typically reserved for lazy take out nights where he and Ivan spent their hours playing shitty dating simulators; Till, trying to chose the most genuinely attractive or reasonable choice (Like a sexy pair of characters that he just needed to fix), while the Grown Up and fully Mentally Developed Ivan would beg Till to continue the romance route for XXXShadowLord420XXX, as if the name alone wasn’t enough of a warning.

He sets Ivan over a cushion on the couch, propping him up further. He fills half of the spoon with pasta and a piece of broccoli, offering it to Ivan. Ivan pushes the spoon back to Till.

“Not together.”

Wow, he didn’t even want his broccoli cheesed up. Till shrugs, separating the two with ease before offering just the pasta to Ivan, who happily obliges to eat the spoonful this time.

“How is it?” Till asks, wiping parts of cheese sauce off of Ivan’s lips. Ivan hums, “Good. I like it.”

He looks up at Till, big and bug-eyed, “Thank you, Not-Till hyung,”

Till sighs, “Why don’t you just call me Till hyung, the other Till isn’t your hyung either, is he?”

“No, I’m a few months older,” Ivan giggles, “He hates it when I remind him,”

“Sounds about right.” Till grunts, “I don’t like it when my Ivan lords over those few extra months either,”

Ivan tilts his head, “Your Ivan? Oh, the big one?”

Till nods, wafting a piece of broccoli over Ivan’s mouth, who takes a bite, “What’s he do? Wait, what do you do?”

“Would you believe me if I said I made mac and cheese for other wayward kids wandering around my swamp?” Till jokes.

“This isn’t a swamp,” Ivan only says in response.

“I— sure,” Till sighs, “You need a better sense of imagination.”

“Till tells me that,” Ivan says, “You’re a lot like him.”

“Maybe because I am him, Ivan,” Till sighs, “At least, in some capacity. Anyway, I illustrate for kids’ books. Mostly fantasy, but I’m flexible,”

Ivan’s mouth makes an ‘O’ shape, “Can I see?”

“I don’t see why not. You are a kid, aren’t you?” Till gets Ivan to finish the last of the meal, setting the bowl aside to go and fetch one of the books he’d illustrated from a big bookshelf. Honestly, he’d need to pitch an adult turning into a kid as an idea to one of these publishers, he might just break the bank.

“What does big Ivan do?” Ivan asks, as Till rummages through his extensive shelf, the one Ivan himself had organised extensively, complete with limited copies and memorabilia. It almost felt like a shrine.

“Big Ivan? He’s a model. That guy who brought you here, the meanie, that’s Luka. He’s like, a guy from the same company.”

“So they’re friends?” Ivan’s eyebrows scrunch together.

“I don’t really know what they are.” Ivan and Luka had a way of getting on each other’s nerves in a way nobody else quite could, that sort of things would require them to also implicitly understand things about each other nobody else could. It sort of made Till’s blood boil if he thought about it too much.

He plucks one of his original works off the shelf, “The author didn’t describe much of how the characters were meant to look here, since the book’s about the bugs the little boy likes more than the boy in itself.” He hands Ivan the book, “I figured you’d like bugs, big Ivan sure does.”

Ivan stares at the cover, colourful centipedes drawn in digital crayon to give them less of an imposing stature. The author, a massive entomophile, has yearned to spread her appreciation of creepy-crawlies through the book, hoping to get kids behaving in a gentler manner to the creatures, to maybe even a develop a fascination for them. Thanks to Till baring witness to Ivan’s one too many rambles over certain bugs that caught his interest, his knowledge on the subject matter had apparently delighted the author, choosing to work with him almost instantly.

(“It’s so great to hear that your partner’s a fellow lover of these little guys!” She’d said, excitedly looking through Till’s little doodles of the bugs Ivan had. taken pictures on his way to work.

Till scratched at his nape, “My roommate,” He attempts to correct.

She looks back up at him, “Sure. Anyway, I’m satisfied. Promise you’ll involve him in your process? I’m sure his input would help!”

“Yeah, you don’t need to ask— he sticks his nose into all my projects whether I have anything to say about it or not,” Till huffed, “When he heard I was signing up as candidate to illustrate this one, he compiled my portfolio himself,” He tapped at the café’s round table rhythmically, “To be honest, I kinda wanted to get picked for this one for personal reasons as well.”

“Oh?”

“When I heard of your story, I couldn’t help but think about how much he would’ve loved reading a book like this as a kid.” His eyes softened, “He thought he was weird for having such an interest. It would’ve made him feel less lonely, I’m sure there are other kids who’d feel more ‘normal’ with this book, relating to this little boy or something,”

She smiled then, gently, “That would be ideal. I’m sold.”)

Ivan flips through the book, his eyes raking through each page, thumbing over the illustrated bugs once, twice. He looks at the little boy in the book, peering at a moth’s wings through a magnifying glass. He pauses.

“He looks like me.”

Till blinks, “Huh?”

“He looks like me,” Ivan repeats, pointing to the little boy’s big, bug-like eyes. Obsidian, a strikingly crimson pupil. Jet black hair, “Is it me?”

Till frowns, how has Ivan literally never mentioned this to him? Didn’t he rake through this book like a gazillion times? He literally had a signed copy. There was no way this child noticed when both he and a very adult version of Ivan didn’t.

“It might be, I did think of you a lot when I was reading through it,” Till admits, “Is that… okay?”

Ivan nods, before he smiles, slow and wide, “I like it.”

“I do too,” Till smiles, “You’re a pretty special kid, y’know that?”

Ivan points to himself, almost disbelieving, “Me?”

Till tilts his head, mildly concerned, “Why does that surprise you so much?”

“Nobody’s ever…” Ivan’s voice trails off, tracing a finger over another page with the boy in it, lying next to a grasshopper atop a patch of dewy grass, “I like this,” He echoes quietly.

Till’s heartbreaks. That’s it, fuck his damn fake nonchalance. He presses a kiss over Ivan’s hair, another to his cheek, “You’re the most special boy. I’ll draw you in a dozen other books to prove it, ok?”

Ivan leans into Till’s space as Till props him over his lap, “But you haven’t met Till,” He whispers, like it’s some grand secret.

Till looks at him, incredulous, “Jesus kid, what did that Till do to you?”

“He punched a boy two times bigger than him,” Ivan says, his eyes growing more animated, “The boy was kicking a cat that Till usually fed at school. Nobody else stopped him, but not Till.”

“Stupid,” Till tsks, disappointed but unsurprised. He had most definitely done the same thing as a child. In fact, he’s pretty sure he’d still beat up a guy two times bigger than he was currently over an abused cat— except, he’d probably have a better shot now. Experience and all that.

“He is crazy,” Ivan almost agreed, yet his tone holds too much awe to be considered affirmation, “He’s always like that. Nothing he does makes sense. He’s so weird,” He looks back up at Till, “Sometimes, I wonder what he thinks about me,”

“If he’s anything like me, not pushing you away was probably a great sign,” Till chuckles, ruffling Ivan’s hair fondly.

“He gets angry, annoyed, pouty, teary,” Ivan hums, thoughtful, “But he’s never pushed me away.”

“He probably likes you~” Till sing-songs, relishing in the five year old’s ears turning bright red.

“He does not.”

“He does.”

“He does nooooooooot!” Ivan sticks his tongue out, “If he does, then you and Big Ivan would be married by now, right?”

“W-What?!” Till’s voice grows hoarse, “What do we have to do with this?”

“You said, if my Till were anything like Not-Till hyung, he would like me. But then that means that Big Ivan is like me, and—”

“Okay, whoa, let’s take a breather,” Till ignores how hot his face felt, “That’s not… Ivan, you’re experiencing a puppy crush. Big Ivan and I are adults. It’s different.”

“A puppy crush?”

“It’s like, when you like someone as a kid, for the first time. It’s fun and cute and feels like forever, but,” Till cringes at the thought of his own experiences regarding the phenomenon. “When you’re older, you’ll find something new. Something more real,”

Ivan regards him for a moment before shaking his head, resolute, “No.”

“No?”

“I’ll never feel like this again,” He says, like he were stating a fact, “Nobody will ever be Till.”

Till knows this was about some kid version of himself that wasn’t even the actual past version of himself, but he couldn’t help but wonder what the heck he did to obtain such a devoted believer in a kindergartener. A treacherous part of his mind wonders about Big Ivan’s feelings on this matter. Was he as devoted? If so, who was the fortunate individual to be the recipient of such a flurry of emotion?

“What about you?” Ivan asks, suddenly.

“What about me?” Till asks in response.

“You said I’d feel something ‘real’ when I get older. Do you feel something more real?”

Curse kids and their undying curiosity.

Till flounders around the point, “I-It’s not that important. I’ve had a couple of crushes here and there, nothing that serious. And then—”

And then there was Ivan. Patient, grounding, a clingy motherfucker. An utter dork, draping himself over Till most mornings like an overgrown puppy, unruly curly hair tickling his nape. Ivan, who gently messages Till’s wrist as they ache after drawing through the night. Ivan, who always knew how to handle Till, even at his most tired, his most enraged, hopeless, burnt out.

Ivan, who bakes a burnt Basque cheesecake every time Till announces a new project underway. Ivan, who’s always the first in line to buy each of Till’s new releases, who suspends shoots the second Till pathetically tells Ivan that he misses him during his worst days— misses the man he literally sees every night.

Ivan, with his soft lips, thin waist, sculpted chest, broad shoulders. Ivan, with a soothingly deep voice, an undignified laugh that would rival melodies strung by Orpheus himself. Ivan, his home.

“And then?” Ivan repeats, blinking rapidly.

God, what was the question again?

“I uh, felt it. That’s all. You’ll get it when you’re my age.” Till’s face probably rivalled the shade of red on a tomato, “Don’t you need a nap?”

“So, where is the little guy?!” Mizi practically yells, shoving past Till at the front door, her eyes darting across every surface, “Wow, Till, this place is even cleaner than usual!”

“We actually thought it’d be a dump now that Ivan wasn’t there to clean up after you,” Sua says, swiping a finger over the kitchen’s counter, her eyebrows mildly turning up when there wasn’t a foreign substance powdered over her fingers as a result.

Till scratches his head, mildly sheepish, “Yeah, well, there’s a kid in here— can’t exactly have him living in filth. Hygiene and stuff, you know how it is.”

“Oh, Till, you’re so good with kids!” Mizi claps her hands excitedly, despite still not making eye contact with Till, continuing to search for Ivan desperately.

“I’d hope he is, considering how he used to work with them constantly,” Sua huffs.

“I still kinda do,” Till takes pity on Mizi once he finds her looking behind the living room’s curtains, “He’s in the bathroom.”

“He can go potty?” She asks with wonder.

“Mizi, he’s five years old, not five months old.” Till chuckles, as Mizi’s eyes widen.

“Oh, really? Sua just said he de-aged, we weren’t sure of the details.”

“Didn’t I say he was a toddler? I swear I mentioned that,” Till’s bros furrow. Sua simply shrugs. The bathroom door creaks open, and Mizi practically pounces to the front.

“Wait, he’s bad with—” Till and Sua simultaneously start.

“Aren’t you just the cutest thing!”

Ivan slams the door back shut.

“Surprises,” Sua finishes, with a sigh. She glances at Till, “How did you know he was bad with them?”

Till walks towards the bathroom door, tentatively knocking at it, “It’s me, Iv. You can come out now.”

“He’s a bit young to know all about that, isn’t he?” Mizi whispers, hushed. Sua giggles at the joke, resulting in Mizi beaming as if she’d won another tennis competition. Till rolls his eyes.

He looks back at Sua, “He’s been here two days. Every time a delivery guy comes over with my order, he magically needs to go to the bathroom urgently. Doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.”

Ivan tentatively opens the door, his tiny head turning towards the pair of women currently staring him down. Sua, with mild disbelief, as if she were only believing what Till had been saying right at that moment, while Mizi’s eyes light up instantly.

“He is so adorable!” She squeals.

“I thought you said I could come out now,” Ivan pouts at Till. He raises his hands, giving Till the signal to lift him up, which Till happily obliges with.

“They’re nice people,” He points at Sua with his free thumb, “does her face ring a bell?” Mizi watches their exchange with a certain glint in her eyes. Sua continues staring at Ivan, almost piercing.

Ivan regards her, “You look like Sua.” He says, “But she looks like a lot of people,”

“You brat.” Sua clicks her tongue, "I see some things never change. God, you are cute though.” Mizi nods enthusiastically, shaking Sua’s right shoulder with unbridled glee, as if she were holding herself back.

They’re seated on the living room couch, and Till busies himself with plating snacks and drinks. A plate full of cookies, shortbread for Sua and double chocolate chip for Mizi. These were the last of Ivan’s leftover batch, Till realises, his stomach churning with an unnamed sensation. It had been two nights since his Ivan’s disappearance, and whilst Till was most certainly getting accustomed to his ‘new normal’, he couldn’t help but miss the smell of Ivan baking a fresh batch of something or the other whenever they had guests over.

He quietly slaps himself over the cheek. He couldn't be lamenting over his roommate only being gone for three fucking days. Although not knowing when exactly he’d be back wasn’t exactly settling his growing anxiety.

He steeps the jasmine tea just like his mother used to, gently pouring them in through the cherry-blossom adorned teapot Mizi herself had given Ivan for one of his birthdays. He adds in a cube of sugar into Mizi’s cup, something Sua had once called ‘the closest thing to a deal-breaker’. He chuckles to himself at the memory.

He hears the girls amicably chat with Ivan once he makes his way back to the trio, settling onto the carpet next to Ivan after laying the tea tray on top of the coffee table. Ivan immediately attempts to clamber onto Till’s lap, and Till tries biting down a wide smile.

“He’s really taken a liking to you, hasn’t he?” Mizi coos, “I think that’s adorable,”

“That’s two times now,” Sua sighs, “But she’s right, it’s a pretty sight.”

Till shrugs, despite his palpitating heart, “I guess. So, what were you guys talking about?”

Sua takes a sip of her tea, letting Mizi take the reins mid-cookie bite, “Ah! So,” She covers her mouth, “We were just asking Ivan how he likes it here, and like— trying to figure out how different he is from like, our Ivan’s child self.”

“And trying to figure out the cause while we’re at it.” Sua puts her cup down. It rattles, ripples of tea disintegrating at the rim, “I mean, he can’t be in this state forever.”

“What’d you figure out?” Till asks, brimming with curiosity. He snags one of Sua’s shortbread cookies. Ivan watches with rapt attention, and Till huffs, holding it out to him.

Ivan bites it from Till’s hold, “It’s not sweet enough,” He mumbles, covering his mouth while doing so. Whether he learnt that through mirroring Mizi, or whether he just had freakish manners out the womb, Till doesn’t think he’ll ever know.

“Right? I keep telling Sua she has such bland taste—”

“Hey, I like shortbread too,” Till frowns.

“At least some of us don’t add sugar to tea,” Sua sulks, “think of your ancestors.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. You’re both terrible.” Mizi waves him off, “Try this one Ivie, I know you love chocolate!” She holds out her half-eaten chocolate chip cookie before giggling to herself, “Wait, I’ll give you a fresh one.”

He gingerly accepts the second cookie from her hands, staring at it contemplatively, before he looks towards Till, handing him the cookie with an expectant gaze.

Till blinks rapidly, “You want me to feed you?”

Ivan nods. Mizi coos. Sua raises an eyebrow.

Till mercifully obliges, wiping falling crumbs off of Ivan’s chin and clothes as he feeds him newer bites, the girls watching them with growing interest.

“You know,” Sua starts, “he’s never been the clingy type.”

“Really? He hasn’t let go of me since I picked him off the sink,” Till says, swiping a streak of gooey chocolate from Ivan’s right cheek, “You said something like that earlier when I called you too, but I swear, he doesn’t let go of me.”

“I can see that.” Sua’s gaze stays fixed on Ivan, whose eyes were currently sparkling thanks to the sheer excess of sugar infiltrating his bloodstream, “I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised, age wouldn’t deter his obsession with you.”

“Obsession? With me?” Till blinks rapidly, “Kids just tend to latch onto the first person they see.”

“Technically, he saw Luka first,” Mizi pipes.

'“He saw Luka first,” Till shakes his head, “Enough said. Besides, mentioning age implies that” He flushes slightly. “He would be obsessed with me. Like. Like my Ivan’s—”

“Your Ivan?” Mizi teases with a growing grin.

Ivan’s eyes widen, “So you and Big Ivan are married?”

“N-No!” Till practically screams, “We’re just friends, best friends,”

“Who sleeps in the same bed every night?” Mizi giggles.

“He told you that?!” Till’s eyebrows shoot upward, beneath his hairline, “That’s just— we get nightmares. He’s a sleep cuddler, I run like a furnace, and he’s as cold as ice. It’s just efficient.”

“Fine.” Sua crosses her arms before giving Mizi a look. Mizi nods, a wide smile as she implicitly understands what Sua was trying to communicate. She looks at the toddler currently staring at Till in some sort of new light.

She holds her hands out, “Ivan, what if we hugged for a while— you’re just too cute!”

Ivan immediately shakes his head, clinging to Till’s arm and burying his head into Till's chest. Till tries, and miserably fails, to keep the pathetically wide grin off his face, “Sorry, Miz, I think he’s shy.”

“Sure. Let’s call it that.” Mizi smirks, as if she had confirmed some sort of theory of hers, “Anyway, we think this whole thing must’ve happened because of some sort of,” She looks to Sua to find the right wording.

“Trigger,” Sua continues, “This must be some way of helping him or reach some sort of epiphany,”

“Me?” Till frowns, “What would this have to do with me?”

“Did you two get into any kind of a fight recently?” Mizi asks, continuing to stare at Ivan helplessly, clearly begging for the child’s attention.

“No.” Nothing out of the ordinary at least.

Till hesitates, “But.”

“But?” Sua raises an eyebrow.

Till fiddles with his fingers, “He has been sort of… off, the last few days. Before this whole thing started, I mean. Like his smiles felt uh, faker. He hasn’t baked in a good while, that’s never a good sign.”

“He never bakes when you two have a fight,” Mizi hums, “You sure you didn’t say anything?”

“I think I would know if I did,” Till snipes.

“Till and I fight all the time,” Ivan says, picking at the crumbs of cookies on the carpet.

“You’re fighting with him as a child?” Mizi asks, knitting her brows disapprovingly.

Till shakes his head, “He’s talking about the Till he knows, the one that’s his age. This version of him apparently knew me as a kid.”

“What do you mean by this version?” Sua snorts before Mizi sharply nudges her hip. Sua hisses slightly, before her eyes widen, “Oh—”

“What are you guys not telling me?” Till’s eyes dart between the two of them, suspiciously.

“Nothing!” Mizi waves her hands wildly. Sua simply picks her teacup back up, taking a loud and long slurp of her tea in lieu of answering.

Ivan blinks slowly, as if in thought, “Maybe you forgot me,” He says, uncharacteristically timid despite his monotonous expression. Oh dear, Till didn’t think he could handle Ivan seeming upset in any facet.

“As if I could ever forget a kid like you bothering me all the time,” Till teases, pinching Ivan’s cheek, “Tell you what, I think Big Ivan might’ve left another pack of sweets of some sort in the storage closet, d’you think you could check?”

Ivan nods obediently, waddling out of the room towards his designated destination. Till waits for him to round the corridor’s corner before meeting the girls’ gaze, “I forgot him, didn’t I?”

“Pretty much,” Sua shrugs, as Mizi glares at her girlfriend half-heartedly, “Ivan asked us not to tell—”

“Well, if his child self is here, clearly their history has something to do with it,” Sua interrupts, giving Mizi a sidelong glance. Mizi sighs, defeated.

This was certainly news to Till. His brain begins turning to mush the second he attempts to recall anything before his mother’s passing back in high school, so it was entirely possible that Ivan was someone he lost in the shuffle. That being said…

“Why wouldn’t he tell me? Why didn’t seeing him trigger any memory?” Till pinches at his brows, frustrated.

“He was going to, when you first met. But he realised you had no memory of him,” Mizi begins, before Till quickly raises a hand up to shush her.

“That explains why you two were practically shoving us together at that party,” Till mumbles, “I just thought you wanted to save me from my future as a homeless guy making less than minimum wage in the big city.”

“Killing two birds with one stone!” Mizi exclaims, a meagre attempt to be placating. Sua nods sagely.

“He was so shy,” Sua snorts, “It’s like, he changed so much since that age, but the second he sees Till, he’s all insecure about everything again.”

“I think he’s really similar though,” Till argues, “Same picky eating habits, same tendency of being blunt as fuck, same sweet tooth, same impressively low sense of worth— which is insane by the way, he’s literally a model.”

“He’s only similar because he’s with you.” Sua notes, “You make him… what would the word be, regress?”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Mizi says, “More like, you make him like, be able to show you a version of him that’s less repressed?”

Till shrugs, “I still think he holds himself back in a lot of ways. This would sort of explain things, I guess.” Guilt pricks at him as he stares on at Baby Ivan’s retreating figure, “Do you think he felt like how this Ivan did?”

“Do you really remember nothing?” Mizi asks, frowning.

“I-” Till’s voice cracks, “Believe me, if I could, I would. It’s not exactly easy for me to just magically remember how things were before Mom,” He gestures with his hands, “Y’know.”

“Yeah, we know,” Sua mumbles.

“Sorry, Till. I think I got too caught up in all this,” Mizi’s eyes glitter with sympathy. “Anyway, those things might not even be related. I mean, why would the universe want to remind you of your past now of all times?”

“I don’t know,” Till sighs, “All I know is that this kid needs to be given as much care as I can provide, and just hope that my Ivan,” He flushes at Mizi’s teasing smirk, “T-that is to say, adult Ivan, will be back,”

“I don’t know, you seem to be loving him as a toddler far too much,” Mizi says, a certain mischievous edge to her voice, “You sure you want your complicated Ivan?”

Till throws her a look, “I’ll tell him you said that when he’s back,”

Her eyes widen, “But I was joking! I’d never— don’t tell him, please!”

Her head whips to Sua, “I was joking, I promise.”

Sua’s eyes soften, her palm kneading Mizi’s thigh gently, “We all know you love Ivan.” She glances at Till, warning, “She was joking, right, Till?”

Till only nods, his mind elsewhere. He thinks about the lack of baked goods in their abode, the lack of classical music playing through their boombox at eight in the morning, and Ivan’s stupidly lopsided smile.

Fuck.

“I really want to know when he’ll be back,” Till whispers, shakily, “I just. I need a time frame, but I don’t know. I need,” He scrunches his eyelids tightly shut, “Him.”

Mizi pinches at the ends of her skirt, “Maybe, third time’s the charm?”

“What?”

“I’m saying,” Mizi points at the shelf of kids’ story books behind Till, “It might just be a three-night thing, maybe he’ll be back tomorrow!”

Till blinks rapidly, “But that doesn’t make any sense. What was it all for?”

“That’s for you to figure out,” Sua says.

He stares at his murky reflection through his cup of steeped green tea resting next to one of Ivan’s many magazine front cover shots.

“All tucked in?” Till asks, handing Ivan the teal bunny plushie he’d just gotten back from the dry cleaners. Ivan sniffs the plushie before nuzzling into it, and Till desperately claws at the edge of the dresser to quell his cuteness aggression, “His name’s Till-bun.”

“Till-bun?” Ivan’s eyebrows scrunch together.

Till nods with a tired sigh, “Ivan insisted on the name. He used to hug that thing to sleep all the time.”

“Used to?”

Till flounders slightly, “U-Uh, let’s just say he found a new thing to suffocate.”

Ivan tugs on the bunny's left ear, “Mizi noona says you and Big Ivan sleep together.”

“Uh.”

“So you’d hug him, but you won’t hug me?” Ivan blurts, pouting.

Till blinks very slowly, processing what he’d just been asked.

“I hug you plenty,” Till narrows his eyes, “Do you realise how much I’ve coddled you?”

“Just like him then?”

Probably more than him, actually.

“Wow, never took you to be the jealous type,” Till shakes his head with an easy smile, “I thought only I was capable of feeling that way between us.” He winces at the memory of him sulking every time Ivan would talk about whatever new model he was working with for two long back when he first started his modelling gigs. God, he sure hopes he’s mellowed out since then.

Ivan’s cheeks squish against the engulfing pillow under him, “‘M not jealous.” His voice comes out muffled against it. He stays quiet for a moment before timidly raising his voice, “Will you remember me?”

“What?” Till snorts, “Of course I will. I don’t think it’s that easy to forget your roommate’s age-regressed self.”

“You didn’t remember me last time,” Ivan mumbles, and Till immediately frowns.

“You heard that?”

“Will Till forget me, too?”

Ah.

Ivan fiddles with the bunny’s red bow. Till feels his heart sink, fuck, he should’ve been more careful. He slips under the duvet, engulfing Ivan with an arm, “He might not,” He says, “But even if he does, I promise you, it wasn’t your fault.”

Ivan purses his lips, “I don’t… want him. To forget.”

Till thinks back to his and Ivan’s first meeting. Mizi and Sua claimed that Ivan was shy, always confused Till greatly. He seemed confident and suave as ever, effortlessly so. He was always so good at that, wasn’t he? Putting on a face. Not that the Till of then knew of this particular skill of his.

How did Ivan feel? Was it lonely, remembering for the two of them? Till hugs Ivan a little tighter.

“I don’t know about your Till,” He begins, his tone as gentle as possible, “But something… happened to me when I was a teenager. And I ended up forgetting a lot of my childhood because of what happened, does that make sense?”

Ivan shakes his head.

Till lets out a shaky breath, “Let’s just say that if it were up to me, I would’ve never forgotten you, Ivan, not even for a second.” He recalls something at that moment, “Hey, remember when I showed you that book? That was you in there, right?”

“Mm.”

“How could I have drawn you if I didn’t remember you? You’re always in my heart, and you always will be.”

Ivan considers this, before burrowing himself into Till’s chest, the bunny trapped between them, “It’s not that bad,” He muses, “I think I can live with you forgetting me for a while if it means you get to hug me every night— if we get to be together forever then,” He looks back up at Till, “I wanna be like Big Ivan when I grow up.”

Together forever. Hah, that made them sound like they had some sort of fairytale ending— something Till could certainly attest to not having. Happily ever afters certainly didn’t exist; life just keeps throwing whatever bullshit it can at you at any given point, but he would be damned if he ruined Ivan from believing in one so ardently.

“You’re right, I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you. Sounds good?”

“Sounds perfect,” Ivan yawns, splaying a tiny palm over Till’s face, “You can turn off the lights now.”

Till obliges, “Good night, kid.”

His reply comes in the form of a soft snore. Till lies a featherlight peck atop his messy mop of hair.

Till wakes up to an empty bed and the sound of sizzling pancake batter. He launches himself out of bed almost instantaneously, practically bolting to the hallway, gripping onto the kitchen walls to catch his breath.

Standing there, clad in his obnoxiously frilly Kiss the Chef apron, was Big Ivan himself. Till resisted the urge to take it up on the offer. The urge he doesn’t bother resisting, though, was the one involving him immediately wrapping his arms over Ivan’s middle, burying himself into Ivan’s shoulder, practically inhaling the scent of vanilla and coconut body cream lathered over his body.

“Good morning to you too,” His Ivan chuckles, slightly delirious, “Did it get too sweaty under the covers?”

Till wanted to kick him in the shin.

“You’re finally back,” Till opts to murmur instead, “Fuck, I missed you so much,”

“… I don’t recall going anywhere,” Ivan says, confusion leaking through his tone.

Oh, right, “How much do you remember about the last three days?” Till asks, suddenly.

Ivan squirts maple syrup over the now plated pancakes, “I don’t know, it’s sort of hazy,” He admits, “It’s kind of like that when life’s uneventful, I guess.”

Till shakes his head, “Do you remember what you ate yesterday?”

Ivan’s brows furrow. Till wants to kiss the space between them, “Uh.”

Till busies himself with filling up two glasses, one with orange juice, one with cranberry, “You might need to sit down for this.”

Ivan sits on one of their dining table chairs, “So, can you explain my sudden memory loss?”

“Something like that.” Till slides into the opposing chair, “Do you smoke?”

Ivan’s eye twitches imperceptibly, “How did you—” He pauses, “That’s the last thing I remember. Reaching for the glove compartment.”

"Only you would call it a glove compartment and not just a glove box,” Till sighs, “Never mind that for now, since when did you smoke? You can barely handle paprika, but a Marlboro’s fine?”

“To be fair, it was a Marlboro Vista Summer Burst,” Ivan argues.

Till rolls his eyes, “What happened to a Starburst?”

“I have those too.”

“Ivan.”

Ivan clicks his tongue, “The maple syrup’s soaked them.” He reaches for the squeezy bottle, layering his soaked pancakes in more syrup. “If you must know, I was merely curious.”

“Bullshit. I checked the car, half the box was empty,” Till sighs, “This isn’t like you.”

“What if it is now?” Ivan tilts his head, “What would you say to that?”

“That you don’t need lung cancer on top of your incoming diabetes diagnosis,” Till snaps, grabbing the squeezy bottle as Ivan reaches for it again, “Back off.”

“I’ve been stressed.” Ivan cuts into his pancake neatly, a perfect triangle, the bread knife in his right hand.

Till stabs his pancake with his fork, knife abandoned, “Yeah, no shit.”

“I was testing out a reasonable coping mechanism,” Ivan states, “It didn’t exactly work, but I suppose I didn’t have anything better.”

“For what?”

Ivan shrugs, “Work’s been piling up.”

Fine. “You’d regressed into your five-year-old self for three days,” Till says.

“I see I’m not the only one who’s been smoking as of late,” Ivan props an elbow over the table, “What, is this a new book pitch?”

Till whips his phone out, “You were always pretty photogenic.”

Ivan stares.

“Generative AI’s come a long way.”

After Till had called Sua, Mizi and Luka to testify as witnesses to the incident, complete with evidence of the baby clothes Till had bought, the drool-stained Tillbun, the empty cookie tins and the cheese drawer, Ivan finally looked somewhat convinced, albeit seemingly in something of a daze.

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t seem to ask Till much about any of it once he had come to terms with it. Pretending as if it were just some wacky happenstance they had put behind them. Excuse him, Till had very much so not put any of that behind him.

‘Happily Ever After’, his ass. He should’ve broken the reality to baby Ivan when he had the chance, that he’d really grow to be the most emotionally constipated bastard known to mankind.

He is so goddamn selfish, he thinks, tapping over the Ctrl+Z button while working on his drawing tablet for what seemed like the eight hundredth time that afternoon. Doesn’t he ever think of me?. Is closure a foreign fucking concept to him? No, pretending like it never happens suits him too well, doesn’t it?

His phone rings obnoxiously, jerking his palm as he fucked his line up again. Jesus. Maybe today just wasn’t the day to work on any sort of drawing. He rolls his chair over to the other side of his home office, picking his phone up from the display case.

“Yo,” He greets, picking at the eraser shavings stuck under his nails.

Sua’s voice responds blandly, “Are you and Ivan gonna be at Primrose’s tonight?”

Till blanks, “Uh. Sure. Yeah, totally.”

“You don’t remember.”

“I don’t remember,” Till confirms, a sharp, awkward chuckle accompanying the affirmation, scratching at his nape, “Remind me?”

“Hyuna wanted to be filled in on the whole Ivan baby magic thing at the bar,” Sua says, “She sent it in the group chat.”

"You and I both know I don’t check those,” Till mutters, putting her on speaker so he could scroll through his messages. Sure enough, Hyuna’s text was reacted to with enthusiastic thumbs up and hearts by the rest of them.

Wait, the rest of them?

“Ivan agreed to this?” Till asks, dubious.

“Why else would he react with a heart emoji?”

“He reacts to everything with a heart emoji. He once hearted a message where Mizi talked about her cheap goldfish from a carnival that died after an hour out of instinct.” Till pauses, “Didn’t he tell her to eat it? Some sort of twisted coping mechanism or whatever he called it,”

“I think he did,” Sua says, annoyance bleeding, “I don’t know what goes on in those two’s heads when they’re together sometimes,”

“They’d make a good sitcom couple,” Till snorts, “Stereotypically gorgeous idiots who are really just weird and weirder together,”

“And gay,” Sua adds, “An intriguing concept to pitch indeed,”

“Not in the world of children’s books,” Till huffs.

“Speaking of a pitch, did you tell Ivan about that apartment listing? The two-bedroom in the city centre, that’s where you wanted you two to move to, yeah?”

“I wanted it to be, yeah,” Till sighs, “But…”

“But?”

Till spins himself around in his rolling chair aimlessly, “Our relationship’s been… tense. Ivan’s been really weird about this whole thing. He never mentions it, and whenever I do, he finds a way to divert the conversation. It’s like the last thing he wants to do is talk about anything,”

“Pretty on character,” Sua points out, “He’s been talking about it quite a bit with Mizi, though, seemed curious, according to her at least.”

Till slaps a hand over his forehead in agony, “Yeah, he would, wouldn’t he? Bet they yucked it up real good.”

“I don’t know about that,” Sua says, her voice eerily monotone, “I think he’s probably embarrassed.”

“I’m aware. Doesn’t change the fact that this is something we need to be talking about,” Till rubs at his temples. “Whatever, fuck, I’m probably taking up your time. Yeah, I’ll be there tonight, it’d be nice to finally talk about the insane thing that happened to me to someone willing to listen. I can’t speak for Ivan’s attendance, though.”

“Why don’t you just ask him?”

Till sulks, “Why don’t you?”

He hears Sua’s nails clip tap against her screen for the next two minutes, “He’s coming, says he could use a drink. Honestly, you two are impossible.”

“Love you too,” Till deadpans, as Sua only hums before hanging up.

Ivan says he could use a drink. Great, just great.

This was going to go swimmingly.

Red Primrose was the bar Hyuna had taken all of the others out to at one point, once they had eventually all turned legal due to an employee’s discount she held as a bartender in the past. Years of her infectious and charismatic personality around the place with fellow staff and patrons had led to the employee's discount to slowly but surely turn into drinks on the house in place of her newfound ownership of the place.

As such, their group schedules hangouts were almost always reserved for that location. Much like the one currently taking place.

“Ugh, you must’ve been so fucking cute!” Hyuna bemoans over her glass after Till had finished recounting the gist over those particular days, nudging Luka sharply, “Why didn’t we go see him when we had the chance?!”

“Well, I already did,” Luka shrugs, “Trust me, children lose their novelty after a few hours or so,” He looks at Ivan, “Some sooner than others.”

“For your information, I’ve been told that I was adorable,” Ivan smirks.

“Was.” Sua mumbles.

Ivan continues relentlessly, “Honestly, I wish you’d have found me instead, noona. Who knows, maybe I would’ve camped at yours for a while instead,”

Till frowns into his cup, “Gee, thanks.”

Hyuna shakes her head, “Nah, Till’s way better with kids than I am. I mean, I’m pretty good, don’t get me wrong— but like, it’s not just any kid, it’s you. So between the two of us, Till’s probably the better choice,”

“Besides,” Sua drawls, “Baby Ivan would’ve rather stuck his head into a toilet than leave his precious ‘Till hyungie’”

“Technically, I was Not-Till,” Till’s voice drops lower, “hyungie,”

Ivan takes a generous swallow of his beer, opting out of responding. Unfortunately for him, that just gave Mizi time to pipe in.

Mizi nods, “He really was!” Her head whips to Hyuna, “Unnie, Ivan was so attached to Till.”

“Which one?” Luka asks. Hyuna snorts, a lighter nudge against Luka as he gently smiles at her outburst. Till’s gaze slides to Ivan, who was noticeably interested in his dwindling glass of beer.

Mizi rolls her eyes, “Obviously, I’m talking about the baby. He was all over Till! But that wasn’t even the cutest part. Till doting on him was so-”

“Till what?” Ivan suddenly interrupts, raising an eyebrow. Till flushes slightly, a mixture of mortification and rage. Oh, so this was where he wanted to show his interest? Figures.

Mizi’s eyes glint as she meets Ivan’s, “He was so caring. He’d indulge Ivan constantly, he’d kiss his hair—”

“He’d kiss his hair,” Ivan repeats, hollow.

“He’d wipe the crumbs off his mouth, he’d speak so so gently, Gods,” She looks at Till, “He was really lucky, to have you.”

“Really lucky,” Ivan had turned into a parrot now, apparently. He had also downed his first glass.

The conversation seemed to have shifted after that, moving on to whatever the rest of them were doing at work and other related anecdotes. Iva,n however, was noticeably silent. Till watches as another two empty glasses are added to his previously downed one, frowning.

“So,” Hyuna clinks Till’s glass, “Sua tells me you’ve been working on something based on all this craziness.”

Luka nods, solemn, “Monetising the situation, I suppose that is the best thing to come out of all this.”

“You’re terrible,” Till says, despite knowing Luka was probably joking. Probably, “It’s not about that. I just figured it’d be something fun for kids to read about, but I’ve been having second thoughts lately.”

“Really? What’s up?” Hyuna asks. Till tries not to notice Ivan’s intense gaze searing through his already short hair.

“I don’t really know how to end it,” Till admits, “Ivan— er, baby Ivan, he was satiated knowing his story would end ‘Happily’. But it hasn’t really, like, ended, has it? And what would that ‘Happily Ever After‘ even look like?”

“You make a good point,” Ivan drawls, his face slightly flushed from the alcohol, “You’re the character left to deal with the aftermath in this story, so it’s your ‘Happily Ever After’ you need to write about, but you don’t exactly have one, do you?”

The table falls into an uncomfortable silence. Heat flares through Till, not fluster, pure anger. It was impressive how Ivan could so quickly bring out one or the other.

“I miss when you were egregiously blunt, instead of whatever the fuck this petty passive aggressiveness is supposed to be,” Till hisses, gripping his cup tightly.

“I bet you do miss him.” Ivan’s grin turns especially cruel, a particular tick to it that Till was unfortunately accustomed to during sporadically rough days, “You see, Till, there is an ending that would be ideal. It may not exactly be rooted in reality,” He twists his wrist, “Unfortunately.”

“And what would that be?”

“I-I don’t think asking him that’s such a good idea,” Mizi blurts, “Ivan seems really drunk, maybe we should just call it a day and revisit this some other time-”

Sua looks at Ivan, a rare look clouding over her that Till couldn’t quite place, “Mizi’s right. Ivan, revisit this tomorrow. Sober.”

“But he won’t!” Till splutters, “He won’t say jack shit once he’s sober.” He steels himself, “If this is the only way I’ll get Ivan being honest, I’ll take it,”

“You all make me sound so callous,” Ivan rolls his eyes, “Dramatic.”

You’re literally the most dramatic drunk we know.

“Ignore them,” Till grabs Ivan’s by the wrist, “Let’s take this outside.”

“Whatever you say~” Ivan sing-songs, his eyes glued to Till’s bruising grip.

Till drags them out into the crisp and frigid autumn air, “Well? Out with it. What’s your grand suggestion?”

Ivan shrugs, “You clearly enjoyed doting on that child, and he enjoyed soaking in your undivided attention— certainly more than whatever he was getting from his version of you in his timeline.” He looks to the side, “A prudent ending would involve you two getting to live on. It results in the least pain for both parties moving forward.”

Till balks at him, “Are you stupid? Do you not think the kids reading it would notice the fact that ‘Big Ivan’ would essentially disappear forever if that were the case?”

“He’s a tertiary character, do you really think they’ll remember him after spending so long with our protagonists?” Ivan gives Till another one of his more condescending smiles.

“How dumb do you think kids are, seriously?” Till huffs, before pausing, “Wait, you said, ‘unfortunately’. What did you mean by that?”

Ivan looks at Till like he’s stupid, “Ideally, that would be the ending. So y’know, that didn’t happen. Hence, it’s unfortunate. Did I really need to spell it out for you?”

“What, you think I’d want you to stay as a child forever?” Till asks, praying, praying that this was all just some sick, drunken spiel on Ivan’s end.

“I suppose children are pretty expensive long term,” Ivan chuckles, “But he’d be worth it right—”

“Are you seriously jealous of yourself? What is with you and your versions being jealous of yourselves?” Till cross-questions, incredulous.

Ivan doesn’t respond.

(“Till’s my friend,” Ivan says, slowly, “I think. That’s what he says, anyway,”

“Do you not think you are?”

Another sound of tiny legs slicing through air, “Dunno.”)

Huh.

( “I think I can live with you forgetting me for a while if it means you get to hug me every night— if we get to be together forever then,” )

Was that his line of logic? Did Till do something to make him think—

“I’ve done something, haven’t I?” Till looks at Ivan, determined, “I’ve done something to make you think this wasn’t forever?”

Ivan gives him a befuddled look, “What are you talking about?”

“I-I,” Till attempts to gather himself, before ultimately failing, “I did something, before all of this. Something that made you think I wasn’t going to be around anymore, that’s why you stopped baking, right? That’s why you’ve been so… off.”

Ivan shuffles his feet.

“That’s why you’re convinced I’d prefer a child version of you over the you I’ve been spending the last couple of years living with, who I’ve known since I was a child. Thanks for not reminding me, by the way,”

“Mizi told me you’re aware of that now,” Ivan sighs, “I didn’t want you to know.”

“Yeah, I figured that one out.” Till rolls his eyes, “Why?”

“Because it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to forget someone you knew at five years old, Till.”

“Exactly, so why bother not telling me?”

“You’d turn it into a guilt thing,” Ivan shakes his head, “You’d have killed yourself over not remembering— because it wasn’t just about you forgetting under normal circumstances, you don’t remember anything. And I didn’t want to make it sound like I held it against you,”

“But you did,” Till guesses.

Ivan gives Till a look, “I never blamed you, not for a second. Not when you’ve been nothing but…” His gaze flits away, “Everything. You’ve never stopped being everything. Not then, not now.”

Till’s breath comes out ragged. He steps forward, tilting Ivan’s face towards his own. Ivan’s nose was tipped red from the cold, his hands shaking ever so slightly, but Till wasn’t so sure it was from the cold. Ever the furnace between them, he links their hands together with his free hand. Ivan melts into his palm.

Eventually, Ivan speaks.

“Spent.” He says, quietly, “You’ve spent four years living with me.”

“….Why are you emphasising my tenses right now?”

Ivan smiles at Till, except it isn’t calculating or cruel. It felt heartbreaking, “These have been the best four years of my life, give or take the one in preschool.”

“Why are you speaking like those years are over?”

“I saw the listing.”

The listing?

“The… apartment listing?” Till asks, before his eyes dart wildly, “Wait, which one, because uh, I may have overestimated our budget before Sua had to take a look at our income balance sheets—”

“Why would mine matter?” Ivan tilts his head, “I can cover the rent without you.”

“Okay, asshole, the whole point was that I could pull my weight and then some thanks to my career finally doing well,” Till grumbles.

“What?” Ivan blinks rapidly, “I feel like we’re in two different places right now. What are you talking about?”

“The apartment, duh,” Till raises an eyebrow, “I don’t really get why that’s gotten you this worked up though, if anything, isn’t it like… the opposite of ruining our,” he gestures between them, “Forever?”

Ivan pauses. His mouth gapes open, before closing, opening, and closing again. His face turns a brilliant shade of red.

“I see.” He says, oddly terse, “I do.”

“What?”

“I want to move out with you,” Ivan says, quickly, “I don’t care where, I accept, I want that, yes.”

And then it clicks.

“Did you think… I wanted to move out, without you?” Till asks, incredulous laughter slipping past his lips.

“You’re the one who said your career was going well,” Ivan argues, despite his meek tone, “I just— there were only two bedrooms in the listing and our current place has three, my room, yours, and the home office. I just assumed you were downsizing because-”

“Ivan, we haven’t touched my room in forever. I’ve slept in your goddamn bed for the last three years; there was no point in looking for another three-bedroom place when I could just be looking into places with better locations and bigger room sizes.”

“Y-yes, well,” Ivan flusters, “I know that. Now.”

Till didn’t say anything, his own face swimming in shades of pinks and reds as he was beginning to process everything that they had been saying.

“Till,” Ivan starts, “When you said forever…”

“Ignore that,” Till’s face grows impossibly redder, spreading to his neck and probably down his spine too if he were being realistic, “It’s just something you said when you were a kid,”

“What did I say?” Ivan’s eyes soften.

“You mentioned our ‘Happily Ever After.’ To you, at least, to kid you, it was being together forever. He said he wanted to be you when he grew up, if that was your future.”

Ivan leans in, a tentative peck over Till’s lips, “It’ll take a while,” Another kiss to Till’s open palm, “But he’ll get there,”

“We call that a slow burn, in the business,” Till jokes, his heart far too fuzzy to think of anything more coherent or meaningful to say at that moment.

“And I guess I’d call it slow baked,” Ivan teases in tandem, “Look at us, so career oriented.”

“You’re a model.”

Happily Ever Afters? Till stands by his belief. Such a thing was a childish concept.

Ivan places the rack of ribs over a tray, barbeque glazed and paired with various banchan. Till splits two bottles of soju open.

“Shouldn’t you have made, like, American side dishes to this thing?” Till asks, staring at the assortment of food over their table in a mixture of awe and befuddlement.

Ivan shakes his head, “We already had these in the fridge.”

“Then why didn’t you just get a bowl of ramyeon or something to eat this with?”

Ivan sighs, “I was trying something new, sue me.”

“But this took you forever!” Till groans.

Ivan only smiles, “Good things take time.”

Well, Till couldn’t argue with that.

Maybe that was a better thing to believe in. Give it time, kid, you’ll get there.

Baby Bug Boy’s Big World

#1 Best Seller in Children’s Books on Anakt Publishing

Reading Age: 3-6 years

Language: Korean

Publisher: Anakt Publishing

15000 ₩ Add To Cart

Preview

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To Ivan,

We have all the time in the world.

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It was a day, just like today, yesterday, and the day before that…..

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