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Everything had happened so fast. Too fast. All Till could see through the mist and rain were white-clothed guards dragging a limp body away, it too clothed in white. Unlike the guards, however, the coat was stained a deep crimson.
Till didn’t register the hands reaching for his arms, pinning his arms behind him as they slid a white collar onto his neck. Beep. Like he would even attempt to escape after what had just happened. He couldn’t anyways, when all he could hear, feel, see was death.
Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.
His heartbeat jumped in his chest erratically. His head lulled slightly, and he winced at the pain that coursed through his neck. His collar was so tight. Too tight. He reached to claw at his neck, desperate to get the choking feeling away. To stop feeling. Then his fingers touched his neck. And he recoiled. Shit.
His hands weren’t smooth like Ivan’s, they were slightly more calloused, especially at the fingertips. Ivan’s fingers were long and lithe, while Till’s were typically bruised and battered from his guitar or Urak. Nonetheless, at the feel of fingertips at his throat, even if they were his own, Till froze up, body physically unable to move or squeak out a single sound. He could already feel the sting of the imminent slap across the face. But it never came. Years of learning to ‘keep still, don’t move’ were the only things that kept him from bolting away the moment he saw two hands extending towards his neck instead.
Till couldn’t feel. He couldn’t process anything except for the feeling of two hands stuck on his neck, choking his windpipe. He was stuck on an empty stage, under the rain, alien cheers falling on deaf ears. All he could see was red. Red eyes fixated on him, a strange mix of adoration and longing. Red slowly filtering into his vision as black spots flickered across his vision. Red painting the ivory skin of the person in front of him, down his face, down his neck, staining his white cloak, until all he could see was red, red, red.
It took a minute for the colours to recede when he finally felt the fingers uncurl from his neck. Somewhere between the stage and the large, empty room he was now unceremoniously dumped in they had changed him into a new costume, touched up his makeup, changed his microphone. He didn’t even know how long had really passed. “You have half an hour.” Years of disobedience had taught him that the voice left no space for questioning. Till wanted to scream. He wasn’t sure if the pain in his neck was phantom, but he couldn’t scream. His voice could barely even leave his throat, and he cringed. Right. The final. He sang a note or two, but his voice was cracked and harsh.
“Ivan.” The name was raw on his throat. “Why.”
There was so much he wanted to ask. Why choke me? Why kiss me? Why die for me, when we both know you could have won the whole thing? Realistically, Till knew the answers to the first two, however deeply buried inside himself they were. But the last one… Till was slated for failure. From the moment that he heard Mizi—his beautiful, precious light—was gone, he’d given up. It was just by some damned miracle that he was still standing here, recovering, breath still wheezy at the thought of him.
You should have just let me die. I wanted to. I still…
He couldn’t finish that thought. Despite everything that had occurred just a few weeks before, he didn’t feel the glaring need — or want — for a bullet to pierce his neck anymore. In fact, the thought of the sting just made him recoil, made him recall… Oh.
A pale white face flashes across his mind — fitting, seeing as it’s almost ghostlike in its nature — a familiar snagtooth cutting past his lower lip and blood, oh so much blood, pouring down, down, down. Was this what Mizi had felt back then? Watching her beloved partner smile at her one last time, heart shattering, never to be repaired with a Sua-shaped hole in it.
He couldn’t recall the expression he had had back then. Urak had never trained the obedience that always keeping a smile on your face required into him. But he knew what had run through his head then, eyes blown impossibly wide. No. Not him. Not him too.
The ghost of his lips still lingered on Till’s. They were surprisingly warm for the icy rain that had poured down around the both of them, soaking Till’s core, shaking the already unsteady hold that he held over his own body.
It’s you. Why is it always you? Every time I come back, you’re just there, waiting. It’s so damn FRUSTRATING.
Why did it hurt so much? He’d never seen Ivan like that, as something more than a friend, then an acquaintance, then a competitor. It shouldn’t hurt more than watching Mizi disappear off the face of the Earth. He shouldn’t be sitting in a room, trying to remember everything about a boy who his heart doesn’t sing for.
Fuck you for making me feel this.
Fuck you for your stupid morals and your stupid ideas.
Fuck you for always doing these stupid, stupid things.
Stupid, because he’d done this before.
Fuck me, for not following you when I could have.
When I should have.
It is sort of his fault, when he thinks back at it. There had been a point, when he could have chosen the black-haired boy over what he has. Over the overwhelming wave of loneliness that washes over him right now, over people leaving his life as soon as they had entered. Chosen life, chosen freedom, chosen a world where parting is not as sorrowful as this one.
They were also under a falling sky, that first time. But instead of pouring, soaking, stagnant rain that descended from the heavens, the sky was instead lit with fire, red and yellow streaks painting the heavens like a burning wildfire. The red was almost a picture of liberation, and for a moment, he could see past the walls of endless silver rain. So he ran. Ran and ran and ran until a point where he could see past tomorrow, see a future for himself.
But then Ivan’s hand had reached out to him, and he had recoiled. Because in that moment, past the flash of hope that adrenaline had given him, he’d seen darkness. And when darkness was the total absence of light, he couldn’t help but to seek it, to stay close to the only one who could provide him guidance. So he’d shaken his head and turned, unable to bear the look on the other’s face.
“Five minutes.”
The robotic voice echoed through the empty room. Till subconsciously thanked the aliens for shaking him out of his stupor. No, that wasn’t right. The incessant ticking in the background just reminded him of the sickening beat that was pounding through his head right now. His hands shook as he desperately tried to recall the song that he had learnt barely a week ago.
“5.”
The stage was so bright. Too bright. The stark contrast of the already exploding neon lights against the pure white stage that haunted his memories exploded in his already bursting heart. Too much. Make it stop. Please. Stop.
“4.”
He could already hear the cheers outside. Undoubtedly, the senseless noise would devolve into cheering and overeager waving of lightsticks. He closed his eyes and took a breath.
“3.”
“Calm down, Till.” The words had been developed as a pre-show ritual, seeing as it was the only way to get him to take a breath against the adrenaline that was already building in his veins.
“2.”
A heavy base throbbed against the stage and the crowd’s screams levelled up so much that even Till winced, fixing his in-ears a little. It helped though. The screaming was a ready distraction from the uncharacteristic silence that had fallen during Round 6. He needed it.
“1.”
The starting music beat against his ears as his eyes looked up at the saccharine yellow eyes of his opponent. In that moment, he saw a black fringe and deepset eyes of such vivid red. But then he blinked, and they’re gone, replaced by the smirk that painted itself across Luka’s face.
“Oh, in a blink, gone, blink, gone.”