Chapter Text
Lovro sits in the back of his chemistry class, only partially listening as the professor describes the group project they will have to do. He perks up a little bit later when she instructs the class to get up and find a partner to work with. Lovro looks nervously around the room. He doesn't have any friends in this class, and wishes the professor had just randomly assigned him a partner.
So, imagine his surprise when Ivan Kovačić, the school's basketball star, walks up and stands in front of his desk. “Hey,” he says.
Lovro stares at him for a moment, trying to figure out if this is somehow a prank. “Hi.”
“Do you want to be my partner?”
Lovro looks away from Ivan to scan the room. He looks to see if Ivan’s friends are standing somewhere, recording. He is surprised to find that no one is paying attention to them. He can’t imagine why someone like Ivan would want to work with him, they’ve gone to the same school for years, and have managed to never speak a word to each other until now. Lovro notices Ivan raise his eyebrows at him, expecting an answer. Lovro has been silent too long, so he speaks up and says, “sure, I guess.”
Ivan smiles and pulls out the chair beside Lovro.
Lovro has always known that Ivan was very beautiful. He has shamefully admired him from afar on several occasions, but what he saw from afar was nothing compared to looking at him up close. Lovro tries to think if they’ve ever been this close before. No, he thinks, he would remember if they had.
“Why’d you choose me?” Lovro asks with a chuckle, attempting to sound far more nonchalant than he actually was.
“You seem interesting.”
Lovro tries, and fails, not to blush, “Oh.”
Ivan chuckles and reaches up to gently flick Lovro’s ear. Lovro flinches and looks around the room, still feeling like this is some sort of setup.
“What about your friends?” Lovro asks, “don’t you want to work with them?”
“No. They’re boring.”
“Okay,” Lovro chuckles awkwardly. He opens his textbook and listens to Ivan explain what they are going to do for the project. Lovro can barely focus on what Ivan is saying, feeling overwhelmed by his presence so close. He scans the curves of Ivan’s face, and the way his lips move together as he speaks. He is distracted by the soft brown of Ivan’s eyes, he doesn't think he's ever seen a color so warm and lovely.
“You should come over to my place later so we can work on this.” Ivan suggests.
“Oh, okay.” Lovro responds, shyly.
“You’re so timid,” Ivan laughs.
“Shut up! I am not!” Lovro exclaims, as he lets a small smile break free. Lovro sees a satisfied smile cross Ivan’s face. He thinks about how beautiful Ivan’s smile is. He’s seen him smile before, of course, but it is different seeing it directed at him, and caused by something he said.
The bell rings, and their moment is interrupted. Ivan begins gathering his things, and shoving them in his bag. “Want to come over to mine at around 17:00?”
“Sure.”
“Give me your number, I’ll text you my address.”
-
A few hours later, Lovro and Jakov are sitting on the floor of the school's gymnasium. They’re watching Ivan and his basketball friends running around, laughing and playing a quick game before the teacher comes in.
They look so happy, Lovro thinks. He can’t imagine himself being so overjoyed from the act of playing basketball. “Something weird happened to me today,” Lovro says to Jakov.
“What happened?” Jakov asks.
Lovro points to Ivan, “he came up to me in chem, and asked to be my partner for a project.”
“What?” Jakov asks, looking very puzzled, “really?”
“Yeah, I thought it was a prank or a dare or something,” Lovro laughs, “but I guess it wasn't."
Jakov scoffs, “This whole high school class system is ridiculous. Maybe he is starting to understand that and wants to expand his crowd.”
“Maybe he thinks I look smart and wants to get a good grade off me.”
Jakov raises his eyebrows. Lovro scoffs and shoves his shoulder.
Jakov laughs. “You are very smart bro, but I wouldn’t say people would automatically think ‘straight 5 student' when looking at you.” Jakov presses his lips together and looks at Lovro, trying not to laugh.
Lovro furrows his eyebrows at him, and Jakov puts his hands up in surrender. “I’m just saying, if you want to go off stereotype…”
Just as Lovro is about to snap back at Jakov, a basketball slams the wall right beside his head, a measly “watch out,” is called out by one of the boys. Lovro flinches away and sees Ivan running up to him.
“Are you okay?” Ivan asks, his eyebrows knotted together in concern.
“Yeah,” Lovro returns, awkwardly rubbing his hand up his arm in embarrassment.
“Sorry,” Ivan gestures behind him, “that idiot can’t keep control off the ball to save his life.”
“It’s okay.” Lovro tries to keep his features normal, as if he isn't currently fighting for his life not to scan Ivan’s muscular, sweaty body up and down. He keeps his gaze trained on Ivan’s face so as not to look lower. Ivan is breathing heavily, and he has beads of sweat dripping down his brow. Lovro feels lightheaded.
“Ivan!” one of the boys on the court shouts, “stop flirting with your girlfriend, and get back out here!”
Lovro immediately blushes, the tips of his ears feel so hot he thinks they may burn off. He sees a flash of something like embarrassment cross Ivan’s face before he says, “sorry again,” and runs back to the court.
“What an asshole,” Jakov scoffs. He looks at Lovro and notices that he actually looks upset, “hey, are you alright?” Jakov asks, concerned.
Lovro tries to force the flustered expression off his face. He forces out a slight smile and responds, “yeah, I’m going to go smoke.”
He starts gathering his things and stands up.
“Wait,” Jakov grabs his arm, and stands up too. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, fine.” Lovro tries to pull away, desperately needing to get out of this room.
“Alright, I’ll come with you.” Jakov grabs his things, and follows Lovro out of the gym. Just before they walk out, Lovro turns around to look at Ivan one last time. Ivan was already watching him, standing in the middle of the court as the game went on around him. Ivan is looking at him questioningly, with a subtle frown on his lips.
One of the guys on Ivan’s team throws the ball to Ivan, and it hits him straight in the chest. Ivan looks away from Lovro, stumbling backward, shocked at what just happened. “What the fuck bro, pay attention,” Lovro hears Ivan get yelled at by his friend as he turns the corner and walks out the door.
-
Lovro has been sitting in Ivan’s living room, discussing chemistry with him for about ten minutes before Ivan lets out a loud and dramatic sigh. Lovro looks up from his book and chuckles, “what?”
“I can’t concentrate,” Ivan stares at the ceiling with a frown for a few seconds, before a smile suddenly takes over his face, “Let’s go for a hike!”
“What?” Lovro asks, “why would we do that?”
“Come onnn,” Ivan begs. “It’ll be fun. I promise I’ll focus better once we get back.”
Lovro hesitates, “okay, I guess.”
Ivan smiles and jumps up, “it won’t take long, there's a little trail behind my house.”
“Alright,” Lovro responds, confused, but follows him out the door nonetheless.
Once they start walking on the trail, Lovro is glad to be outside. It was becoming hard to breathe sitting in such close quarters with Ivan, all alone.
“Sorry about earlier.” Ivan breaks the silence.
Lovro blushes, he tries to feign ignorance, he doesn't want Ivan to know how upset the comment made him, or how close to home it hit, “what do you mean?”
“What my friend said in the gym.” He looks at Lovro and sees Lovro putting on a confused expression, pretending he has no idea what Ivan is talking about. “Calling you my girlfriend,” Ivan adds.
Lovro pretends to be shocked, like he only now just remembered. “Oh,” he laughs, “no, don’t worry about that.”
Ivan still looks at him sheepishly, not buying Lovro’s unaffected performance. “I just thought maybe you were upset, because you left right after, but he was just joking. He’s an asshole, he’s always saying stuff like that.”
Lovro really wants to move on from this topic. He can feel his face heating up, and is struggling to keep his voice steady, “relax, man, it’s no big deal. I was going to leave anyway.”
“Okay,” Ivan replies. A few seconds later, he changes the subject, “why do you never talk to me?”
Lovro feels whiplash going from one difficult subject to another so quickly. “What do you mean?” he asks.
“We’ve been in classes together for years, and you always avoid me.”
Lovro pauses, looking at Ivan. He was worried that Ivan was upset, but is relieved to see Ivan looking back at him with a lazy smile. Lovro looks away and back toward the path, “I don’t avoid you. And you never talk to me either.”
“Only because I thought you hated me!”
“What?” Lovro laughs, “why would you think that?”
“Becuase you always quickly look away when we make eye contact, and it seems like you are always going out of your way not to talk to me.”
“I don’t do that.”
Ivan rolls his eyes, “yeah, okay.”
Lovro looks back to him. “Even if I did do any of that, which I didn’t,” He adds, raising his eyebrows.
“Of course,” Ivan responds with a smile.
“It was only because I thought you hated me.” He enunciates the words ‘you’ and ‘me’ extra hard.
“Why?”
“I don’t know, we don’t exactly run in the same crowd.”
Ivan actually looks sad by this. Lovro worries he might have said something wrong. “Yeah, I guess. I always liked you though.”
Lovro blushes, he is glad they are having this conversation while walking, so he doesn't have to look into Ivan’s eyes. “You did?”
Ivan nods. Lovro looks to him and smiles.
Just as Lovro is about to change the subject, in an attempt to discuss something lighter, Ivan freezes. He is looking ahead into the trees with an expression of terror on his face. Lovro follows his gaze and can’t find what he’s looking at. Lovro looks back to Ivan and sees the moment only lasted for a second. Ivan is now looking back at Lovro, with a much calmer expression on his face.
“What was that?” Lovro asks, concerned.
“Oh, nothing.” Ivan walks on like nothing happened.
Lovro nervously chuckles and jogs a few steps to catch up to Ivan and grab his arm to stop him. He turns Ivan to face him and asks again, “No, seriously, what was that? You looked terrified.”
Ivan blushes and looks down, “you’ll think I’m crazy.”
“No, I won’t.”
Ivan scans Lovro’s face for a few seconds before he sighs and begins, “I have hallucinations sometimes.”
Lovro is shocked, he doesn't know how to react to this, “Oh?”
“They’re no big deal. They just happen sometimes, they’re only for a split second before they’re gone.”
Lovro furrows his eyebrows, “that sounds serious.”
Ivan chuckles, trying to dissolve the tension. “It’s not. I think I’m just stressed from school and basketball, I haven’t been sleeping much.”
“Well still, don’t you think you should see a doctor or something, just to make sure you’re alright?” Lovro is not sure why he cares so much, but he is finding that he in fact cares a lot. He wants Ivan to be healthy and okay. He’s not usually even the type of guy to try to convince someone to see a doctor, he's always brushed off even the worst of his own sicknesses as no big deal.
“No, I’m okay. They’ve been going on for months now and nothing bad has happened yet,” Ivan laughs, “so it’s probably fine.”
“Are you sure?” Lovro asks, furrowing his brow in concern.
Ivan laughs, “awe, I didn’t know you cared about me so much!”
All concern is dropped from Lovro’s face and is replaced with embarrassment. He walks ahead past Ivan, “shut up.”
Ivan follows him, “no it’s sweet, I feel such whiplash. I went from thinking you hated me this morning, to now knowing how much you care about me.”
Lovro whips his head around to glare at Ivan, only to find Ivan standing behind him, holding his fingers in the shape of a heart. “You’re so annoying.” Lovro brushes past Ivan to walk back in the direction they came, he feels a spark of electricity in his shoulder from the spot he brushes against Ivan.
“Awe, we’re going back already?” Ivan asks.
“Yes, we need to work on the project.”
“Alright.” Ivan sighs, trailing behind Lovro.
They walk in silence for a minute before Lovro finds the courage to ask the question that has been on the tip of his tongue. “What made you talk to me today?” He looks to Ivan who is now walking beside him, “if you thought I hated you.”
Ivan smiles to himself, looking down at the ground. “It took months to summon the courage.”
“What!” Lovro shouts, shocked that Ivan has thought about this so deeply.
Ivan blushes, “I thought the chemistry project was the perfect opportunity that I couldn’t pass up.”
Lovro feels overwhelmed with affection. He had no idea that Ivan had felt so strongly about him. He wasn't even sure that Ivan knew his name before today. He doesn't know what to do with all of these feelings Ivan is bringing up, so he makes a joke to deflect, “my friend told me you were probably just using me for my smarts.”
Ivan barks out a laugh before clapping a hand over his mouth, “sorry,” he mumbles beneath his hand, shaking his head and trying to restrain himself from laughing further.
“Go fuck yourself,” Lovro scoffs, shoving Ivan’s shoulder.
-
About an hour later, as they are both working on their parts of the project in silence, Lovro asks a question that has been on his mind, “what did you see?”
Ivan doesn't look up from his notebook, still scribbling notes in the margins, “what?”
“Your hallucination, you looked so afraid, what was it?”
Ivan’s pencil stills. His face pales a little bit, and his whole body goes rigid, “nothing.”
Lovro furrows his brow. “You can tell me.”
Ivan looks up at him briefly, before returning his gaze to the notepad, resuming writing, but this time his movements are more stilted than before. “Just drop it,” he says firmly.
Lovro wants to push it more, now even more curious as to what he saw. Something tells him not to push Ivan, though, so he lets it go.