Chapter Text
Till slung his bag over his shoulder, following his mom into the house. It was empty from what Till could see so far, the windowsills littered with dust and the walls still had holes from the old owners. They hadn’t got a moving van, not with the little belongings they had. It wasn’t like the house would fit everything anyways, it was a small bungalow with two bedrooms, a kitchen, tiny living room and one bathroom tucked into the corner of the blueprints.
“Till, this is our new home,” Io said with a smile on her face, gesturing Till to come towards her. When he did, she gave him a brisk hug before pulling back with her hands tightly on his shoulders. “What do you think? Better than the last one?”
No. Not that Till would say that. He knew that their old house was larger, closer to the city, closer to his friends’ houses and his school. This place was a downgrade.
“Yeah,” Till nodded lightly, his expression scrunching into one of soft joy. “It must be quieter here, we aren’t next to a road this time.”
Io hummed. “Yes, the only bad thing is that there isn’t much good parking. But, why would we need to drive anywhere anyways? This place is really local from what I’ve heard.”
“Mhm.” A pause. “Which room can I have?” Till tilted his head, similar to that of a cat.
“Oh! Right, just what I was gonna say.” Io exclaimed, throwing up her hands from Till’s shoulders and quickly marching towards the hallway running through their house. It had four doors if you included the one they had just come out of, the kitchen which was connected to their living room.
Io stopped at the first door on the left, flinging it open with a little too much enthusiasm for someone newly divorced. Till suggested to himself that she was just happy to get out of the old house. The door hinges groaned high-pitched, squeaking as the door eased open. “This one's got the bigger closet,” she said, nudging Till inside with her elbow. The room smelled like old varnish and something faintly mildewed and stale—not terrible, just unloved for a long period. Sunlight bled through half-pulled blinds, striping the warped hardwood floor.
Till stepped into the room, his sneakers scuffing against the uneven floorboards. The closet door hung slightly ajar, revealing a dark interior that smelled faintly of cedar and mothballs. He ran a hand along the wall, paint chipped under his fingertips, leaving a dusting of pale blue on his skin. Who the fuck used paint that turned into dust eventually?
"It's... roomy," he said, because it was the kind of thing you said when you didn’t know what else to say.
Io clapped her hands together, the sound sharp in the empty space. "I’ll grab your bedding from the car. You start figuring out where you want everything." She disappeared down the hall before Till could protest, her footsteps quick and light. Left alone, he exhaled through his nose and dropped his bag onto the floor. It landed with a thud, sending up a small cloud of dust that caught in the sunlight. He sighed, shoulders sloping.
Fuck.
Till felt bad, not in the ‘I will cry’ way, just in the silence, how his stomach felt sinking when he realised how happy his mom was but he couldn’t mirror the same excitement. Not that he wasn’t excited, he just wasn’t fond of leaving behind everyone for the poor sake of change.
Till kicked his bag under the bed frame, a rusted metal thing that had probably been there since the house was built and no owner had been bothered to replace it time after time. He padded back to the doorway to analyse the room, the bed wasn’t where he’d like it–dead in the middle of some random wall.
The frame screeched against the floor as he shoved it further into the corner, the sound grating enough to make his teeth want to shatter. He could hear his mom humming outside, the trunk slamming shut with a muffled thump from where it sounded like miles away. The humming grew closer, the tune was familiar, something she used to sing when Till was little and couldn’t sleep. It made the knot in his stomach twist tighter.
Till turned toward the doorway just as his mother appeared, arms piled high with bedding that smelled faintly of lavender detergent. The same kind she'd used for years.
Io's humming cut off as she dumped the linens onto the bed. "Corner's a good choice," she said, nodding at the relocated bed frame. "More floor space." She didn't mention the awful scraping sound she had heard before entering the room; just shook out a fitted sheet with a snap, hurling it towards the old mattress.
—
School wasn’t bad, not in the way that Till had expected. He was prepared for people pointing, laughing, and whispering about the ‘new kid’, instead he got some awkward introductions and a few handshakes.
The one boy who stood out to him most was Ivan.
“Hi,” he tightly clasped Till’s hand with both of his, shaking it vertically with almost no properness. Suddenly, he let go—smoothing over his dress shirt with too much care. “I’m Ivan, I lead the student council. Come to be for any problems, ‘kay?”
”Uhm, yeah. I’ll remember that.” Till murmured, glancing off to the side. Ivan was intense, not in a threatening way, he just wouldn’t look away from Till. Till wasn’t even sure he’d seen Ivan blink at all in their entire interaction.
Ivan didn’t move though, his hand stayed patrily suspended in the air as Till looked at him with slight concern. Not enough for him to raise an eyebrow, mutter a ‘what are you looking at?’ to. His collar was buttoned up all the way–disturbingly presentable like the rest of him. His hair was dark, slightly messy but in a way that looked deliberate.. Maybe the ladies were into that?
Till hadn’t expected Ivan to follow him to lunch. His brain supplied him with the fact that yeah, Ivan did seem relatively popular. What kind of guy would want to sit with just the weird new kid from the city? Against all expectations–here he was, hovering ineptly at Till’s elbow like a lost puppy in his own home. Great. Till exhaled slowly out of his nose, fingers tapping phlegmatically against his thigh as he waited in the queue.
The cafeteria smelt like polish mixed with the almost sickly fumes of doenjang jjigae slowly being cooked. The sharp scent of garlic and onion softening heat announced itself as soon as you entered the room, overpowering the cheap lemon-scented disinfectant.
The school bell rang with a deep, resonant chime, not the electronic buzz Till was used to, but something that sounded like it came from an actual bronze bell mounted like a trophy somewhere on the premises. Ivan straightened immediately at the sound, and announced with eyes brighter than the fucking sun, "Ah! Lunch prayer," and before Till could react, Ivan had grabbed his wrist and was dragging him toward the center of the cafeteria.