Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Ivan wakes up with his heart lodged in his throat, and sweat beading down his spine.

He’s greeted by his bedroom ceiling; it is large and tall, ostentatious. Ivan had it painted to mimic a galaxy of stars, a bittersweet reminder of a ruined night, and his first love. His heartbeat drums in his ears, an almost painful, but familiar, deafening, and he slowly sits up, waiting for it to settle. The wall to his left is one large, industrial-glass window that blesses him to the most glorious sights of the sky. The vast, inky night is the same one he closed his eyes to, still illuminated by a thin, crescent moon—the Cheshire cat’s smile. 

With a lurch, he feels a sudden, excruciating squeeze in his chest. Tightness; pain.

Blindly reaching for his phone, the egregious numbers ‘03:56’ stare back at him. He’d barely managed to fall asleep at ‘01:30’, and will undoubtedly be left feeling dead on his feet tomorrow if he doesn’t manage at least another hour. 

He becomes aware of an uncomfortable dryness in his throat, like he hasn’t had a drink of water in days. There’s a tightness, too. Pain. Again. 

There’s something else, buried—familiar but not; like agony dressed in Love’s favourite shade of red.

Feeling; feelings. (Always feeling.) Or, something; nothing. (But, always, something.) 

His face is hot, skin scorching, knuckles flushed red. Had he woken up from a nightmare? But Ivan has no recollection of it, not even in blinks and snapshots, and he has a near perfect memory. He’s never forgotten anything, especially not his nightmares. 

Taking in a few deep breaths, he shakily climbs out of bed and heads for his kitchen, footsteps light and soundless. The cold, marble floors send a chill up his spine, raising the hairs on the back of his neck, the coolness of the room felt through his sweat-soaked sleep-shirt. 

The ‘clink’ of the glass against a clean dinner plate in the dish rack makes his head throb sharply, the following sounds of the rushing water worsening the pulsating headache behind his eyes. 

God, did he catch some nasty virus? He’s screwed if that’s the case, and he’s too sick to work or attend college. 

He greedily swallows the cool water, soothing the dryness in his throat and some of the throbbing in his skull, but the tightness in his chest only expands, throat swelling like it’s being clogged. More, and more pain. Again, and again, and again. He downs another glass carelessly, water dribbling past his lips, and down his chest, Adam’s apple bobbing like satiating a deadly thirst. He heaves, glass empty, fills it again—again—but the hurt doesn’t subside; the pressure doesn’t ease. It grows, against his ribs, snaking around his oesophagus. 

Squeezing. And pain, again.

Feelings; feelings, or something, maybe nothing. (Always something.)

Coughing vigorously, he fills a fourth—or wait, maybe fifth? sixth?—glass of water, taking smaller sips and walking back to his room, trying to ignore the strain behind his eyes. He all but collapses, the glass nearly slipping from his fingers. 

‘That wouldn’t be good,’ he thinks absently, reaching for one of his two plain, soft pillows and wrapping his arms around it, cuddling it close to his chest. It isn’t warm like a human body, doesn’t have a body’s angular limbs, or protruding joints, or solid skeleton. Ivan doesn’t want a human body, though—doesn’t sleep well next to them. Well, maybe…but—

The tightness returns with a vigour, as does the pain, effectively cutting off Ivan’s train of thought. It feels like there are claws dragging against the inside of his throat; beast’s claws, something you’d only read about in fables. It makes perfect sense, Ivan figures, for someone like him to know monsters so intimately he bears the imprint of their touch on the walls of his throat.

His morbidity stays leeched to him even as he’s hacking gutturally, trying to dislodge whatever—those claws, maybe—is in his windpipe.

It’s a lot of pain. Again, and again, and again. Feelings; a feeling. Or something. (Never nothing.)

His coughing fit persists until there’s a line of pink saliva drooling past his lips, the pain unbearable, coughing and coughing until a small, bloodied clot is hacked out onto his grey sheets. Ivan stares at it, half-convinced it was part of his lung. He switches on the reading lamp at his bed-side table, and catches a swash of pastel purple; a desaturated violet. He picks up the half-bloodied, half-purple clot, and soon realises it’s a petal.

A delicate, violet purple.

Coughed out of him.

…

What. The. Fuck?

༻᯽༺

“Are you doing alright, Ivan?”

Ivan threads his fingers through his hair, flashing Mizi his signature, picture-perfect smile. 

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he asks, cocking his head to the side, propping up his elbow against the table and cupping his chin in his palm.

Mizi flushes, waving her arms in front of her face with a mild franticness. “Oh, no, it’s nothing,” she says. “It’s just, you seem a little—umm…zoned out?” 

“She means you look like shit,” Sua, by her side, bluntly informs him, wrapping her arms around Mizi and peaking over her shoulder. Mizi leans into the embrace, the tips of her ears as pink as her hair when Sua presses a kiss to her shoulder. 

It stirs something deep in Ivan, ugly, like the colour of his blood or the reflection in his pupils caught by the camera flash.

Still, his smile doesn’t flinch. He relaxes his stance, meeting Sua’s pale eyes, gently tapping his index finger against his cheek. 

“Sweet as ever, Sua,” he teases, casually casting his gaze to the large clock hanging on the wall of their classroom. Their professor should be strolling in within the next few minutes. “But I’m fine, just a little short on sleep.” 

“If you want, I can grab you a quick energy drink from the vending machine before class starts.” 

Ivan shakes his head, flipping open to an empty page in his music-sheet notes as more students start to pour in. 

“I’ll be fine,” he promises. “Besides, my agency is pretty strict about what I put into my body.”

Mizi frowns, but doesn’t argue. 

“If you’re sure…” she trails off, turning her head to press a kiss to Sua’s cheek. “I’ll see you guys for lunch at 1?” 

They both nod, Sua returning her hug before Mizi heads off to her class with a final wave over her shoulders. Ivan, accustomed to sleep deprivation—granted never was it because he woke up with petals in his lungs—pushes through his fatigue, straightening his posture and lifting his chin the moment their teacher walks into the room. 

Sua’s gaze lingers on his face as she takes the seat by him, pulling out her own materials. 

“You’re good?” she asks in a low voice as they wait the last few minutes for the class to start.

Ivan cocks an eyebrow at her, feigning shock.

“Are you actually worried about me? You? The Sua, who only ever has eyes and a heart for Mizi?”

Sua scowls, eyes narrowing in a glare. “Never-mind then, you bastard.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Ivan dismisses the concern. “But really, just a bad night’s rest, is all. I’ll just clock in earlier tonight to make up for it.”

Sua’s frown eases, a heart of concealed anxiety put to rest. The familiar expression of mild annoyance that she wears whenever Mizi isn’t around returns. 

“Just don’t let Mizi worry too much,” she tells him, to her usual charade of hiding how deeply she cares. 

Ivan laughs, friends with her long enough to read between the lines. 

“I won’t.”

༻᯽༺

Ivan stares at the information he’s scrawled into his notebook blankly. 

• Dry Throat
• Thirst
• Coughing Fits — Coughing Blood & Petals (Flowers?)
• Petals: Purple & Red (so far—maybe tulips?)
• Triggers: Unknown

It isn’t much, honestly, but he gives himself grace considering the absurdity of the situation. Surely, someone having petals come out of their throat isn’t a common occurrence. Thankfully, he’s only had one other coughing fit since his first, shortly before walking up to his college gates. The petal had been red, this time, in the familiar shape of a tulip’s, though Ivan, admittedly, isn’t well versed in botany. He’d washed off the blood and pocketed the petal, having decided to keep them in a vase until he has a better understanding of what is happening to him. He isn’t sure if he should be comforted that he hadn’t actually coughed up his lung, or terrified that there’s a garden growing inside of him that’s using his organs as fertiliser. 

Feeling a painful scratch in his throat, he presses the heel of his palm against his Adam’s apple, forcibly swallowing what he’s assuming is, absurdly and likely accurately, another petal. 

On the bright side, the discomfort distracts him from his hunger. He’d already texted Mizi beforehand that he wouldn’t be able to make it despite his earlier promise, and had turned off his notifications afterwards to stay focused. It’s a long-shot, but he’s hoping there might be a book at their college’s vast library that’d give him even a modicum of insight into his current predicament. If not for the thrumming pain and burn in his chest, Ivan would’ve just let whatever this is continuing to happen to him without much care, honestly. As it stands, the pain is quite unbearable, especially when he’s coughing out the petals, and the discomfort rarely eases. 

It’s already hindering his day-to-day life, and Ivan’s in trouble if it winds up interfering with his career and academic performance. 

He glances at the first pile of books he’s come across that might contain relevant information. Most are medical textbooks that detail rare illnesses going back centuries, with a few that have more to do with flowers and their environments, and after the disappointing lack of information he’d come across in a quick internet search, physical books are his next best bet. 

The thing when it comes to researching a disease(?) that’s unheard of, is that Ivan has no clue where to start. The most he can narrow his research to is diseases where coughing is a predominant system—which, frankly, doesn’t narrow much at all—or the lungs are afflicted. As for the botanical books, he doesn’t think they’ll be much help whatsoever aside from expanding his limited knowledge of flower meanings and types of soil.

Ivan’s a hard worker, though, always has been. If he has to start from point 0, then so be it. 

He’s heavily engrossed in his research, pouring over each book with hyper-focus, his surrounding environment fading to white noise the sharper his concentration. It’s unusual for Ivan to not be aware of his surroundings, even when he’s dedicating all his efforts to his task at hand, but the difficulty of this particular chore demands all the attention he can give it, not to mention the drag in his muscles from his restless night. 

That’s why, when an unexpected voice approaches him as he’s reading up on sarcoidosis, Ivan jumps out of his skin. He whips around and watches in amazement as Till’s—who he hadn’t noticed walk in and call out to him numerous times—expression morphs from irritation to extreme concern comically fast. It speaks to how uncharacteristic it is for someone to manage to sneak up on Ivan. 

“Ivan, are you okay?! I’ve been calling out to you for, like, a minute,” he rushes out in poorly concealed panic. Whatever face Ivan was wearing is instantaneously replaced by a dopey, teasing expression, a staple flush colouring his cheekbones. 

“Till!” he cheers, standing up to pull him into a hug. Till’s thin, bony body tenses, spine straight and arms awkwardly held to his sides. Ivan ignores the tickle in his throat, squeezing him harder until Till shoves him off with an aggressive, “Fuck off!” 

Ivan does, pressing the heel of his palm against the base of his throat when the beginnings of that intolerable tightness returns. His expression remains skilfully mirthful, taking all of Till in like seeing him for the first time, again—a habit he will never kick if he can help it. 

Till is just so beautiful, and Ivan’s only human. (Or, well, close enough.) 

“Would you stop staring at me like that?!” he barks, face flushing a deeper red when the librarian sends him a scathing glare. 

“You’re just too pretty, Till. I can’t help it.”

“One day your tongue is going to rot off from all the bullshit you spew, you know,” he seethes. 

Ivan’s retort is cut off by a sudden, uncomfortable choking. He has to swallow hard and clear his throat twice. He apologises, lying about a dry throat, briefly glancing at the research he’d been doing—insurmountably bleak and disappointing. If only it was something as simple as a dry throat. 

“Hey, bastard, seriously, are you okay?”

“Hm?” Ivan innocently blinks at Till. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’re distracted.”

Regurgitating what he’d told Mizi and Sua earlier, Ivan makes an offhanded comment about his lack of sleep, and feeling tired.

“Is Unsha overworking you again?” 

Ivan’s heart skips a few beats at the wrinkle by Till’s brows, the oxygen redirected to breathe life back into that deep, inescapable cloying melancholy he’s too familiar with, instead. With a sudden rocking forward, a dry, pained cough escapes him, his breath knocked out of him for a second time. 

“Jesus fuck, are you sick?!”

Ivan waves a hand in front of his face, reaching blindly for his water bottle and swallowing a few thirsty gulps to stall the coughing fit he can feel trying to claw its way out of his chest. Beasts claws, again; the animal native to the garden flourishing in his organs. 

“No, no, I choked.”

“On what?” Till raises a sceptical eyebrow. 

Licking his teeth, Ivan winks at Till, answering, “On your beauty.”

He has the joy of seeing Till’s gorgeous, sun-kissed skin bloom a ferocious blood red, expression twisting from embarrassment, to outrage, to disdain. He roughly shoves Ivan, knocking into his shoulder, and not for the first time, Ivan makes a grim wish that Till would hit him harder. A love punch that’d leave a bruise, and then a few ten or hundred more. Till’s too soft, so he’d hide them so that those marks were his. Anything and everything Till is willing to give him, even if it was a bullet wound lodged between his eyes, Ivan will open his arms too. With a smile. Without an ounce of regret. 

Those claws are climbing higher, digging themselves deeper, and Ivan has to casually lean against the library desk when he feels himself lose some strength in his legs. 

“You fucking asshole, don’t pull shit like that.” 

“Ah, but how else am I supposed to know you care?” Ivan pouts, tone light. 

He sees something flicker in Till’s eyes—worry, or maybe pity, (not the kind Ivan manufactures to manipulate Till’s sensitive heart, but real pity)—and thinks, ‘shit.’ Has this bizarre disease already planted its roots (ha! literally) in Ivan’s brain? He’d bled a little too much truth in those words. 

“Ivan you know—”

“So why’d you go out of your way to find me, my sweet, beautiful Till?” Ivan interrupts with a faux flutter of his lashes. “Don’t tell me you missed me? It’s only been a day since we’d last seen each other, honey.”

A day too long, Ivan doesn’t say. 

Expectedly, Till blush returns with a vigour, unintelligible words spluttered out of him for a few seconds. He doesn’t lash out, though, taking in a deep breath until all that’s left of the proof of Ivan’s successful attempt at agitating him is a deep pink hue across his cheeks and the base of his neck. 

“Why’d you skip lunch?” he asks. “Mizi said you weren’t looking good this morning, and she’s right. If you aren’t feeling good you shouldn’t be skipping meals.”

The mention of Mizi fills Ivan with bitterness and pain. Not that metaphorical, lonely heart’s wailing, but literal pain. He barely manages to hold back a desperate cough, blinking away the water gathering in his eyes. 

“Sorry, I’m just a bit busy,” he says. “Tell Mizi I’ll be good as new tomorrow.”

“Ivan seriously—”

Ivan unceremoniously gathers the remaining books he hadn’t had the time to look over, slinging his bag over his shoulder, and cutting Till off. Luckily, he’d already checked out the books when he’d picked them up, aware of how unlikely it was he’d get through all of them before his next lecture. If he isn’t out of the library soon, he’s bound to stain the carpeted floors with blood and flower petals, and the last thing he wants is for Till to think he’s any more of a freak. 

“Where the fu—”

“You know I hate not being able to monopolise you to my liking, but something important came up, so I have to go,” Ivan says with flawless composure. Or, well, as flawless as one’s composure can be trying to swallow down flower petals while oxygen is being squeezed out of their system. 

It isn’t five minutes later that he’s keeling over the toilet, a few tiny, white, blood splattered petals gathered in his palms. 

…how large is the garden growing inside of him?

༻᯽༺

Ivan’s standing in an alleyway. 

The walls on either side of him are made of brick and cement, cracks and fissures lining every inch, crawling to the tops of the buildings that cage him. Dumpsters full to the brim and reeking of rot sit beside him, roaches and rats running along the ground. It isn’t an alien setting, but it isn’t warmly nostalgic, either. The sky is dark, artificial lights casting a harsh, white glow that illuminates the decrepit environment. 

Ivan’s tense, an unease he cannot shake off. It’s uncomfortable and unfamiliar. He has no control over his rapid pulse, and his breathing is laboured, like he’s run a marathon though he doesn’t feel exhausted. 

Something is watching him, he realises. Staring at him, observing.

Looking through. 

He takes a step forward, not realising he’d been eerily still until he does move. A single, simple step forward, but the moment his foot touches the filthy ground, he feels a chill run up along his body, and the soft sound of something crunching underneath his foot—bare foot. 

Why isn’t he wearing shoes? Whatever he’s stepped on is wet, slime seeping between his toes, something hard but brittle crushed. He feels his stomach flip violently, a strong, staggering rush of nausea threatening his balance. The scent of iron and ammonia butchers his sense of smell, clogging his throat with an acrid must. 

He dares lift his foot, gagging at the sight of the large, long smothered centipede he’d killed. Barefoot. (Why isn’t he wearing shoes?) 

The liquid is blue—violet, actually; purple hyacinths—and a sharp, uncomfortable pain tells him he’d cut open the bottom of his feet, like the skin split on large shards of glass, or discarded razor blades. The blood of the centipede imbues itself within him, the injuries in his feet a perforation it understands as an entrance. Into Ivan—through. 

He feels an overwhelming, strong urge to try moving forward again. Before the blood reaches his heart, before it finds the cavity that sits there, empty forever, and settles there like its promised residence. Would it be easier, to be filled and full of poison, than to continue to exist, hollow? 

(Wasn’t he always fated to be the perfect host to the most gruesome parasites? Why else, when the deities made him, did they take their fingers and carve out that void? And so his blood will be dyed a deep shade of violet, and with certainty, Ivan will know, he could never be whole and human.) 

“What are you doing?”

Ivan startles, looking around helplessly for the source of the echoing voice. It surrounds him, like it’s coming out of the walls, making it difficult to pinpoint.

“Over here,” the voice says. It’s coming from the far end of the alleyway, where the shadows envelop the light. Ivan takes another step forward, and feels the wounds in his feet stretch with an all encompassing pain. He can feel the blood of the centipede swimming in his veins, anxious to reach his chest. To reach his heart. 

Ivan doubles over from the pain, with barely enough strength to keep from collapsing. 

“How pathetic,” the voice mocks. Soft, barely heard footsteps approach him, until a small, sordid, sullied, kid comes into light. The glare of the lights momentarily reflect a startling red pupil in void-like eyes, and Ivan immediately knows this is him. No younger than ten, before his adoption, when he still lived in the slums. 

“Wha—”

Ivan’s throat closes up, taking away his voice. He claws at his neck, but it continues to swell until his airways are blocked, and he can’t breathe. The kid—him—continues to approach Ivan slowly, face uneasily neutral. Without urgency, without a lick of distress, even as Ivan falls to his knees, face blue. The wounds at the bottom of his feet rip open, leaving him in a puddle of blood, but Ivan cannot scream. Cannot breathe. 

“What are you going to do?” kid Ivan taunts, forcefully grabbing the dying Ivan’s face between his hands. He reveals the hand behind his back, and in it is a beautiful, large, red heart, blood so thick and viscous pouring out of its veins it glimmers black. Ivan rocks forward instinctually, forcing himself out of the child’s grasp, trying to grab it; take it. Rip open his chest cavity, and force it between his ribs, to give himself a second heart—a beating, bleeding heart, where that void sits. (Before the poison reaches it. Before the parasites find their home.)

The kid holds it just out of reach, tutting, like a mother scolds her son. 

“You know whose heart this is,” the kid whispers with disdain. “And yet, you cannot help wanting it.”

Ivan glares at kid him. Whose heart is it? Did it matter? Ivan cannot die, like this. Cannot let himself be taken and transformed into something irreversibly inhuman. Not yet. Not this soon. 

With desperation, he tries to move, again, but he cannot stand, cannot let his feet touch the alley floors. Spots are clouding his vision, consciousness fading in and out. Still, he is relentless. Reaching, and trying, clawing the ground, bleeding out, dying—still, reaching for that beautiful, bleeding red heart. The alleyway setting melts away, until all that is left is darkness, save for a single, illuminating light focused on the kid, and the heart. Whatever ground beneath Ivan gives out, but even as he falls, even as he dies, he cannot help a final, frantic reach. 

“You’re a leech, Ivan.”

༻᯽༺

A week has passed since Ivan first coughed up a flower petal, and after dedicating most of his leisure time trying to figure out what, exactly, is wrong with him, Ivan’s come up with nothing. Fortunately, other than the occasional coughing fit, Ivan’s been mostly fine. He’s barely filled half a jarful of petals, and hasn’t seen any new shapes or colours, as of the moment. Sleep has been increasingly difficult, and he often wakes up in a cold sweat, but no matter how hard he tries, he has no recollection of what he knows, certainly, are nightmares. 

Still, Ivan’s spent the last 7 years balancing his demanding career alongside his education, and has more than enough practice functioning on a poor sleep schedule. Aside from the first two days, where he was still adjusting to this new predicament in his life, Ivan’s successfully managed to perform perfection and ease without arousing any suspicion. 

The pain that accompanies the coughing fits is still excruciating, but Ivan’s learning to find it manageable, and believes that, so long no new symptoms arise or things get worse, he’ll be fine. It’s like being diabetic, or something. An inconvenience, but nothing intolerable. 

At least, that’s the logic Ivan’s choosing to adopt. He’d considered a hospital visit, but Unsha wouldn’t be happy if he went for an appointment and the following morning there would be headlines about model, and upcoming idol, Ivan, being diagnosed with some rare, flower disease. 

It’s not like he’s dying.

“There you are.”

Like Pavlov's dog reacting to the ring of a bell, the sound of Till’s voice makes Ivan perk up instantly. He turns his head to the door, where Till and Mizi walk in, greeting them joyously. 

“We were looking for you to grab lunch. What are you practising?” Mizi asks curiously.

Ivan, who’d been resting his fingers against the piano keys, gestures to the sheet notes he started writing a few days ago. Writing music always served as a good distraction for Ivan, who found it difficult to express himself without lyrics and a melody in the background. 

“Something new,” he says. 

“Ooh, how’s it going?”

“I have a rough sketch of the lyrics in my head, but I’m still trying to find the base melody before I start adding in other instruments and polishing the words.” 

Till absentmindedly looks over Ivan’s shoulder to read the sheets with an appreciative hum. Ivan straightens to better feel the brush of Till’s warm breath against his nape, stomach dipping dangerously. He turns his head, purposefully leaning in so that, when Till turns to face him, they’ll be nose to nose. 

“Want to hear what I’ve got so far?” Ivan asks, delighted when his plan works and Till’s nose brushes against his, before the boy inevitably flinches backwards with a burning red face. 

“Fucking hell, don’t get that close!” he yells, hand over heart. Ivan's throat tickles, and he clears it to kill the feeling. His time with Till is limited enough as it is, he will not have it be squandered any further because God decided to make him half-plant.

“I just wanted to see your beautiful face up close,” Ivan admits shamelessly. “Besides, you’re the one who leaned over my shoulder.”

“S-Shut up!” 

Mizi giggles, drawing Till’s, and by consequence Ivan’s, attention. 

“I’ll never get tired of seeing you guys flirt,” she teases. Till lets out a string of denials, but Ivan only winks and smiles. It probably still stings a little, when Mizi makes comments like that, knowing Till was in love with her for the better part of their first two years in college, when Ivan first introduced them. He never pursued her, Mizi and Sua having been sweethearts and in love long before Till came into the picture, but it’d taken some time for his feelings to pass.

“Whatever,” Till deflates with a long sigh. “Why won’t you just play the notes, you annoying bastard.”

“If you want to hear my beautiful playing, all you have to do is ask, sweetheart.”

“You literally—! I’m j-just—!” he takes in a deep, calming breath. “Ugh, fine—fuck, just play.”

“Yeah, c’mon, I want to hear it, too!” Mizi cheers.

“Of course.”

It takes Ivan a few seconds to fall into focus, elegant fingers sitting on the keys and his friends waiting with subtle eagerness to hear him play. Ivan’s been told there’s something mesmerising about watching him play, when those masterful expressions he’d practiced in the mirror for years falls away. 

(“You look…more human,” Mizi tells him. “It’s beautiful.”) 

Ivan’s been told he’s a prodigy from the moment of his adoption, when Unsha first demanded he take up a classical instrument to maintain appearances of wealth, and elegance. He isn’t the same sort of genius someone like Till is, with a remarkable and envious talent for all things creative, from visual arts to electric guitar, but there’s something uniquely exceptional about Ivan’s skills and talent that makes it impossible not to fall for the way he manipulates sound so that it plays to his tunes.

Especially when he sings. 

Dancing across the piano keys, deft fingers turn the awkward beginnings of a developing melody into something an amateur ear would swear belongs in operas or billboards. Ivan hums vague vocals that’ll eventually become the backdrop of a masterpiece, and Till and Mizi watch him with an appreciation and awe that will always thrum beneath the skin of anyone blessed enough to hear Ivan’s music acoustic and raw. 

A gaggle of students pauses by the open door to the room, listening in with blushing pink faces and stars in their eyes. Ivan doesn’t waver, long-since accustomed to the unwanted attention, index finger resting on the final note. He re-wears his mask of frivolity and gaiety, his serene, intense expression hidden away, facing his friends. 

“Incredible as always, Ivan,” Mizi compliments sincerely. “I can’t wait to hear the final peace.”

Expressing his gratitude, he then turns to Till expectantly, eager to hear his feedback.

“What did you think, Till?”

“You don’t need me to tell you you’re talented,” Till ‘tsks’, “you just like the ego boost.”

“But I do,” Ivan insists. “This is new, and still rough. C’mon, tell me.”

With shy reluctance, Till admits, “It was good, Ivan. I think it’s still too early for me to offer any real critique, but I’m sure it’ll be a hit like everything else you make.”

Brightening up comically, Ivan springs up from the bench and wraps his arms around Till in a tight, bone-crushing hug. He chooses not to acknowledge the way Till stiffens and fights him off, savouring the feeling of Till’s bony body pressed against his. 

“Thank you, Tillie!” he elates, pressing a sloppy kiss to his cheek before being effectively pushed off. 

“Stop doing shit like that!” Till screeches, wiping his cheek ferociously. His embarrassment is only exacerbated by Mizi’s amused laughter. 

“I’m not dirty, you know,” Ivan complains with a pout. (Not any more. Not that they can see.)

“That’s not the point, asshat,” he grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest. “Whatever, we initially came to get you for lunch. Sua’ll be pissed if we’re any later.”

“But I planned to keep working on this before my next lecture. Besides, I’m not hungry and—”

“Ivan, you’ve barely been eating with us the last week,” Mizi interjects, worried. “It isn’t healthy to skip meals.”

Ivan decides not to argue. Hopefully, the food will ingest whatever petals might be trying to vomit themselves out of him.

Besides, he gets extra Till time, and nothing (nothing) could ever top that. 

༻᯽༺

He’s surrounded by water, and it’s cold. 

Looking around, Ivan realises he’s in a clearing. Everlasting, plain field of dewy, green grass. There’s not a single flower in sight. He’s never been here before.

The sun is setting, casting a warm, orange glow, not a cloud in the sky. It isn’t beautiful—Ivan cannot call this beautiful. There’s something wrong, and it isn’t until he realises that he cannot feel even hints of a breeze that he understands why. 

This isn’t Mother Nature’s landscape.

He’s standing at the centre of a shallow lake. He knows this is the deepest the lake goes, the water sitting a little above his waist. It’s small; so small Ivan could swim from one end to the other in less than half-an-hour, and the water is ice-cold. 

At first, Ivan assumes the tinge in the dark waters is a reflection of the sky—orange fading into red—enchanted by the colour. ‘How dark,’ he thinks, ‘how beautifully dark.’ 

The water starts to rise, slowly, but when Ivan tries to float above it, he realises his feet have sunk into the ground, trapped, the water rising slowly. He feels no sense of urgency, no threat to his life. He bides by, eyes wandering the landscape, wondering what stretches beyond its horizon. 

And then, the water reaches his chest, and Ivan feels the most damning, killing pain he’s ever felt in his life. Nothing compares to the unprecedented agony, not a week of starvation, or the sharp sting of a rock being bashed into his head, or Unsha’s daunting blow. He blindly grasps where the pain is the most intense, only for his hand to reach through his skin, through his ribs, and find his heart. 

He stares down in horror at the gaping hole in his chest, through his flesh, exposing his heart. His hand comes back, coated and thick and stained, his heart massacred and ruined where it sits inside him. 

The lake is a deep, dark red—darker than the sky—and it dawns on him that it’s his blood that’s dyed its water. From a chest ripped open at its centre, from a heart riddled with holes, and cracks, and butterfly stitches coming apart. A broken heart, broken forever, and bleeding out. 

And he’s sinking. The water isn’t rising, Ivan is being pulled in. 

No, no, he cannot feel his toes, cannot feel his feet. He stares down, and the shadow of his silhouette in the water seems to melt with it. Soon he will be absorbed—this lake will be him, will bubble with his skin, his flesh and organs and blood. His heart will be its centre, but Ivan will not know Mother Nature’s sweet whispers of life’s cycle. This is not her landscape. 

The water in the lake starts to overflow, seeping into the soil, and from the weeds, flowers bloom. They’re familiar, their names coming to Ivan’s mind vividly. Purple Hyacinths are the first blossom, dark green stems and long leaves before the petals bud and unfold. Red Tulips follow, then bushes of Hemlocks, and soon the clearing becomes a field of flowers. 

Ivan cannot appreciate its beauty. It’s feeding off his blood, off his pain—it is too blinding, so blinding he only remembers he’s melting when he looks down and realises his legs have washed away with the water.

Ah, he’s dying. 

With a tortured scream, a second, more intense wave of pain bursts out of Ivan’s chest and three full, flourishing flowers bloom from his heart, stems climbing for the sky. 

The last thing he sees before this landscape licks its lips clean of him are the petals’ pretty colours, and the vast red sky. 

༻᯽༺

Ivan wakes up with the names of flowers on his tongue. 

Purple Hyacinths. Red Tulips. Hemlocks. 

—the infection in his lungs.

༻᯽༺

Ivan doesn’t have a strong opinion about his career as a model. He was 14 when one of Unsha’s associates within the industry made an offhand comment about how Ivan could walk miracles on runways. His upcoming ‘birthday’ gift was a Valentine’s themed photoshoot for a popular clothing brand his guardian had vague ties with, and Ivan hadn’t protested because—well, aside from not having a real say—he didn’t think much would come of it.

The modelling industry was lucrative and unstable, and Ivan still hadn’t hit his second growth spurt. He wasn’t unattractive by any measure of the word, but it wasn’t as if there’s a short supply of handsome teenagers eager to step foot into the world of catwalks and magazine covers. Ivan had a heart that’d fallen for rhythms, tunes, and the sweet songs of a star fall—not the glitz and glamour. 

He’d underestimated himself, however, and the shoot had blown up momentously. Within a week, the streets of South Korea were plastered with posters of Ivan in sweater-vests and hoodies, and Unsha had Ivan sign with an official agency before he could take his first exams as a high schooler. A harsh belt to his lower spine and Ivan obediently agreed to juggle his academics and pursuit of music alongside his modelling, his career continuing to prosper. For all Unsha was a terrible parent, he was an incredible agent, and when Ivan had started showcasing his musical prowess to his fan base through covers and short, 30 second scrap writings through his social media, he’d been comforted knowing how much easier gaining notoriety would be for someone with his background. 

That is to say, he doesn’t particularly enjoy being a model, and he especially hates photoshoots. It’s rare that he isn’t dealing with a pretentious photographer, or other entitled models, and they’re always incredibly hectic. People can’t stop bustling, Ivan never has less than five outfit changes, and he’s always left with spots clouding his vision from the headlights and obnoxious camera flashes. 

He especially hates when he’s refused the luxury of dressing privately. Sometimes, if there are too many changes and not enough time, he’ll have no choice but to be manhandled the way little girls play dress up with their barbies. Even on the occasion where he’s working with the same stylists, he’s bound to meet the pitying gaze of a softened heart who’s a little too curious to know the blemishes he manages to hide so flawlessly in an armour of clothes and disarming smile. 

He’s currently stuck in one of those shoots, and accompanied by his continuously disturbed sleep—he has been having nightmares, but can only remember their tail-ends and the lingering, disturbing fear and emptiness that takes hours to fall dormant—and the lingering aches, fatigue and pain of this flower illness he’s contracted, he’s feeling more exhausted than usual. By the time he’s being fitted into his thirteenth, and final, outfit of the late afternoon, he can barely maintain scraps of the charming persona that usually comes so easy to him. 

“Are you okay, Ivan?” the makeup artist asks as she finishes the last of his retouches. “You’ve been a little out of it, today.”

Ivan waves her off with what he hopes is an assuring smile. “I’m fine. Just a little tired, I suppose.”

“Well alright. I’m done here so you can head over for those last shots. Just, take care of yourself.”

With a sweet smile, Ivan flirts, “Anything for you, sweetheart.”

The woman blushes, giggling at Ivan to ‘stop being a tease, and head out already.’ Ivan obliges her request, taking a calm, steady breath and hoping to breeze through these last shots. 

Unfortunately, whatever higher power that has it out for Ivan has been working overtime, as of late, and it isn’t fifteen minutes later that his vision starts to go in and out. Ivan sways on his feet, losing his balance, knees shaking with the effort to stay upright. The photographer immediately calls for a break, and Ivan’s ushered to one of the benches and handed a sandwich and glass of water. 

“I’m sorry,” he says to the creative director. “Sorry, I’m just not my best self, today.”

“Ivan you’re a doll to work with,” the man sweats off, “having an off day is normal. And aren’t you a student, too? You should give yourself some grace.” 

Ivan has never known grace. It’s something sweet and simple that he can’t afford—especially not the last week—but it’s a nice sentiment, and he’s grateful for the man’s compassion. It’s always a toss up if the person in charge is cut of the same cloth Unsha is. Ivan’s dealt with his fair share of directors who refused to let their models rest, even if they had to whip the soles of their feet to wake themselves up.

It’s another few minutes before he feels well enough to get back up, and, thankfully, manages to get through the last photos without further delay. 

Gods, he needs rest. 

༻᯽༺

Unsha isn’t fond of corporal punishment. 

He’s someone who Ivan would first and foremost describe as a capitalist. Money rules his logic, and the desire for power and influence drives his motivations. 

He isn’t necessarily cruel (though Ivan’s friends—Till especially—would firmly disagree), but he isn’t kind, either. When he’d adopted Ivan, his first words to him were, “I like your eyes. You look like you’d make a good pet for my wife.”

Exceeding Unsha’s expectations, however, Ivan had proven to be infinitely more valuable than any ‘pet’, promising Unsha a legacy that would polish his title in the business and entertainment industry so it’d glint, shiny enough to blind the poorer man. He gave Ivan freedom so long as he didn’t hurt his pockets, and survival seemed so easy when all Ivan had to do was bow his head on occasion. 

Unsha didn’t like to dirty his hands, if he could help it, and Ivan didn’t like being in hot water if he could help it, either. 

That didn’t mean he didn’t slip up, and Unsha—with coins for pupils—isn’t against corporal punishment, either.

He’d tell a young Ivan, by taking a cane to his back as the boy stifled his cries of pain, that, though it was crude, and ‘lower-class’, it was effective, efficient, and memorable. 

“You will not forget this lesson,” he’d say with a deep, throaty bellow, whipping Ivan until he drew blood. “That is the power of pain, Ivan. That is the power of a scar.” 

Unsha was not a patient man, either. He had a temper that was quick to set off so long as money was involved, and Ivan had been at the receiving end of those impulsive outbursts a few-too-many times. 

Fortunately, he was rarely home, either, often on business trips and vacations, spreading his influence and showing off his affluence like true, nouveau riche scum. The older Ivan was, the less and less he interacted with his agent in person, having his subordinates explain and instruct Ivan on any jobs, interviews or shows he’d been signed for. 

Unfortunately, Unsha had spontaneously returned from one of his trips two weeks earlier than scheduled, and the first thing Ivan’s greeted with when he walks into his living room is the brutal, open palm of a man over 6 '7 and at least 150kg. It’s unexpected; the shock, and Ivan’s continued fatigue, depleting all his strength as he’s knocked to the floor, cradling his throbbing cheek. He can feel where one of Unsha’s rings split the skin, and wetness runs down his lip and chin, the taste of iron sitting on his teeth. 

“What is this I'm hearing of you delaying a shoot?” Unsha asks, voice threateningly steady. 

Ivan doesn’t hesitate to fall into an apologetic kneel, bowing his head.

“Sorry, father,” he says, feeling some of the blood from his nose trickle into the back of his throat. It tastes like the aftermath of a petal coughed into his hands. Blood has never been such a familiar sweetness. “I haven’t been well lately.”

“And why is that?”

‘Because flowers are growing in my lungs.’

The thought makes Ivan’s throat tickle. He has to cough softly before replying. 

“I might have come down with something,” he explains.

“Get up.”

‘Maybe I was Cinderella in a previous life,’ Ivan thinks when he obeys unquestioningly. His blind obedience never fails to make Unsha smile. ‘The sort of person who follows through on every command, harmful to them or otherwise.’ 

Unsha scrutinizes him, looking up and down, clicking his tongue with a dissatisfied nod. 

“You look unpresentable,” he scolds. “You better clean yourself up before you go to college tomorrow. You will remember not to show up anywhere looking this unprofessional ever again. I will not have my trophy scuffed.” Fixing his cuff links, he adds, “And you will keep in mind that if I ever hear of you wasting precious time ever again, trust it will not end with a backhand. Now go wash your face, you know how tedious blood is to clean.”

With a final bow, Ivan heeds his guardian’s demand. The entire time he’s cleaning up, his only thought is how he’s going to explain the bruising and cut to Till.

When he’s finally managed to clean the last of the blood, the image of Till’s concerned face like a tattoo in his brain, he has the worst of his coughing fits yet. 

There are stems and leaves attached to petal clusters, for the first time.

Wiping the blood spilling down his chin, Ivan’s fascinated and alarmed by the escalation. 

“Ha,” he laughs with a subtle hysteria. What is his life?

(The universe laughs at him, too. Ha. Ha. Ha.)

༻᯽༺

Ivan’s in the orphanage. 

The space is decrepit, mould lining the ceiling and spiderwebs decorating the dust-lined corners. It’s midday, the sun shielded by the grey clouds, naked tree branches shaking. Slush and sleet covers the grounds, a light snowfall. Ivan can feel the breeze through the cracks in the wooden walls, the smallest snowflakes sneaking in. There’s a section in the corner where the wood is hanging off by a few splinters, the dampness of the snow staining it a darker brown. Winter’s heart beats at its strongest, before Spring steals its breath. Like it knows it’ll soon be killed, and wants to make sure the world never forgets its touch. Ivan likes the snow. 

They have a guest—someone important, because they’d warned the kids for the beating they’d be put through if he made any trouble. Ivan was tucked away upstairs; they’d only taken him in a few months ago, and he wasn’t ‘trained’ to the orphanage’s standards yet. Obsequium 4 was notorious for grooming perfect, docile children that would commit murder if their guardian demanded so. It wasn’t operating legally, but the authority of law in these parts of town was flimsy at best, and the children they kidnapped or took in were the scum and sewage of the slums. No one would bat an eye if they were killed, and some people argued that places like Obsequium 4 did good, cleaning up the streets and so that useless kids who stunk the roads and stole from local markets would be given purpose. 

The air smells like petrichor and something foul. Ivan can’t stop picking the skin on his ankles, irritating the healing scabs, and forming new ones. It stings, and he’s bleeding, and the wind continues to brush up against him through the walls like an uncomfortable caress. 

He can hear the adults talking; the customer has a voice that Ivan can feel vibrate through the walls—it’d terrify a regular child, probably. Ivan couldn’t be sure. Is it regular to pick your skin until you bleed? To do it again, and again, like the sting and the colour of your blood could distract you from how bleak everything is? 

Ivan considers it regular. The other kids at the orphanage do not. 

“I was told this was an impressive establishment, but I’m disappointed,” the voice says. “Are these all the children you have?”

Isn’t this…isn’t this the day of Ivan’s adoption?

The worker mentions Ivan without naming him, informing the man that he’s still defective, fresh blood that hasn’t been dyed blue. Ivan stares at his ankles, wounds red. 

(Proof. It is red. It has always been blue.)

When he’s called down, Ivan’s certain. The customer is Unsha, and he is to be taken away that night. Is God giving Ivan an opportunity to change his fate? 

His name is called a second time. He’ll be beaten if he doesn’t go downstairs, and when he does, Unsha will look into his eyes, and decree him the perfect pet. 

His eyes!

Without a lick of hesitancy, Ivan wrenches the loose piece of wood, fingers brushing over the jagged edges. He braces himself, and with a violent motion, aims for his left eye. 

He’s anticipating the pain, confident he’s better suited to die young and blind than attempt a survival he knows will never be fulfilling. He’ll never know Till, never meet his eyes, and so will never be left with that deep, brutal impression that’ll keep him moving forward despite the stretches of despair and apathy that weigh his soul. It’ll be his only regret. 

Except, none of that happens. Instead, his limbs are yanked by an invisible force, and against his will, Ivan starts climbing down the stairs the way he did the first time, close enough to brush against the railing, arms at his sides. He stares at his hands, and with a jolt, realises there are vines attaching his limbs together, guiding his movements. 

The stinging from his ankles ceases, and his eyes move to see the skin up to his calves has turned to oak. 

“This is Ivan,” the director says, with bloodless lips and empty sockets for eyes. 

Unsha is the only person who looks normal, looks human. It’s laughably ironic, yet, Ivan thinks, perfectly suitable. The Unsha he knows, who’d sacrifice a village to maintain his wealth and power, is wickedly human. 

(But then what about people like Sua, or Hyuna, or Mizi? What about people like Till, so human and so lovely it makes red hearts weep?)

Unsha looks him up and down, and all Ivan can do is play the part. The oak has climbed up to his waist, making it impossible for Ivan to move forward on his own. If not for the vines that disappear into the ceiling, he’d be frozen still. 

Soon, all Ivan will be is a wooden doll.

How ridiculous, to think God was giving him any sort of opportunity. 

Ivan’s destiny was set in stone before he could take his first breath. 

A hand reaches for his chin, tilting his head up. Unsha smiles, teeth stained brown from cigar smoke, a single, gold tooth glinting—the perfect cliché of a crooked businessman. 

‘I like your eyes,’ he will say, because Ivan’s destiny was set in stone before he could take his first breath. The oak has reached his neck. 

“I like your eyes,” he says, as Ivan fully transforms into the perfect puppet—a marionette, held up by vines. 

Because Ivan’s destiny was set in stone before he could take his first breath. 

༻᯽༺

Anakt Garden of Arts is a private, relatively small college. They have approximately a thousand or so students specializing in numerous branches of the arts, from music to creative writing, and operate like a more advanced, less restrictive, specialised high-school. They have a council of juniors and seniors who maintain things, keeping the clubs in order, organising and funding major events, and enforcing policy. 

Ivan is acquainted with some of the council—Sua had, at one point, been the most promising candidate for council president, before she’d opted out to focus more on her performance—acting as a pseudo member during some of the hosted events due to his notorious status. 

He’d even call himself almost close enough to be friends with the treasurer, Luka, who—despite being, admittedly, incredibly beautiful—is one of the weirdest people he’s ever met in his life and often given a wide berth for it. Considering Ivan has, on numerous occasions, ‘pranked’ Till by stealing his unwashed t-shirts to use them as pillowcases until the boy would finally notice and demand he return them, the fact that he has such a strong opinion of Luka’s eccentricity says a lot.

“What the hell is the point of this prank, anyway?” Till once asked him, yanking his well-worn and loved band t-shirts out of Ivan’s hands. Ivan still has another two. “You always return the clothes the same way you took them.” 

Ivan had shrugged, said something along the lines of how entertaining it is to see how long it takes him to realise. He knows how audacious he’s allowed to be with Till, always pushing past the boundary just enough to rile him up, but never enough to actually be pushed away. He knows exactly where the borders of Till’s circle are drawn, and has always existed right at the edge.

Even he knows admitting to Till that his scent is one of the few things that takes the edge off the fear that lingers when he has nightmares was…peculiar. But, if that made Ivan a freak, Luka was the sort of degenerate that would make devils cringe. 

He was also incredibly rude. The reason Ivan says almost friends is because, aside from star athlete and performer, Hyuna, and, to a lesser degree, her brother and the nurse’s apprentice, Hyunwoo, Luka treats anyone he interacts like they’re NPCs, or, if he feels something other than absolute disinterest towards them, even affection, dirt. 

So, when he runs into him the morning after he hadn’t had the energy to so much as straighten his hair—a habit Unsha’s wife instilled into him shortly before he was enrolled in middle-school, to which he religiously followed since—and the boy doesn’t so much as turn his nose snidely, Ivan knows he must look a worryingly awful. He’d woken up and immediately started retching over the side of his bed, a cluster of Hemlocks spat on the floor. His left cheek bone was swollen, the cut scabbed a deep crimson, eye bags darker than the purple bruising trailing up his brow bone, and his hair looked like something a bird would mistake for its home. 

But Ivan hadn’t any energy in himself to do more than shower, and crudely bandage his cheek. He’d have taken a day off, but, with a near perfect attendance, was worried that would arouse more suspicion than if he’d shown up. After years of mastering his princely facade, he was confident he could, at least, pull off being ‘fine’.

He’d underestimated how much the exhaustion of dealing with Unsha would amplify the fatigue and pain he’s been feeling for the last month. Seems he can barely pull off alive. 

“You…” Luka trails off, light, gold eyes lingering on Ivan’s face. “Should you be here?”

Ivan smiles, a row of pretty white teeth. 

“I know this is the first time you’re seeing my natural hair, but c’mon, does it really look that bad?” he jokes.

Luka isn’t polite enough to laugh. 

“Seriously, Ivan. Go home.”

“I’m not sick,” he lies.

This thing only continues to escalate as the days pass, and it isn’t as if Ivan can just fall off the radar, hoping it’ll eventually clear itself up. He hasn’t coughed up any full, blooming flowers, yet, but he guesses it’s only a matter of time. He wakes up every night in a cold sweat, heart gripped with trepidation and horror, leaving him with an anxiety that refuses to rest. It feels wrong to call them nightmares; nightmares have never left Ivan with such a suffocating dread, and it worries him that he can barely remember what it is that leaves him so drained, and terrified. 

After filling his first vase to the brim with petals, he’d bought another six, and kept them hidden deep in his closet. He isn’t sure why he’s preserving what he can, at this point. After four weeks of failing to find anything concrete about what was happening to him, Ivan accepted his fate. He’ll live sick forever, his body will deteriorate. He’ll probably have to give up living, but then again, is that so different from how he’s gotten by so many years?

(Maybe he keeps them as proof. Something tangible. So Ivan’s sure that this curse is real. That it isn’t in his head. That he hasn’t lost it. Not fully. Not yet.)

“You look like a strong gust of wind from withering away.”

“You're exaggerating.”

“And what happened to your face?” Luka points to the gauze he’d taped on. “Did you think that was large enough to hide the bruise? Because I can see it fade at your temple.”

Ivan feels his smile strain. 

“I tripped.”

“And you think bruising will heal by plastering on a bandage?”

“I used a salve. I also got cut.”

“You got cut while tripping?”

Damn, this sleep deprivation is muddling Ivan’s senses. He’s usually a lot sharper than this.

“Yeah, I did,” he nods confidently.

“You’re so full of bullshit it’s impressive.”

Ivan shrugs.

“Seriously, were you jumped, or something?”

“What am I, a thug?” Ivan laughs. So melodic. So perfect. “I had a nightmare, and fell off the side of my bed. Hit my face against the corner of my bedside table, and didn’t have the time to get ready like I usually do.”

Aren’t the best lies the ones that hold a little truth in them?

Luka’s still sceptical, but, seeing as they both have class in a few minutes, has no choice but to drop it.

“Go to the nurse's office if you don’t plan on going home,” Luka tells him with a curt nod. He pushes his glasses up his nose, giving Ivan a final once over. “Seriously.”

“I’m fine,” Ivan swears. 

He is.

He always is.

༻᯽༺

No matter how much Mizi and Sua hound him, Ivan sticks to the story he told Luka earlier. They can glare at him all they want, he’s not flinching. 

“Ivan you look like you’ve been sucker punched,” Sua insists with a deep furrow to her brows. 

“You guys are overexaggerating,” he counters lightly. “I’ll be healed up in less than a week.”

“I thought you gave up fighting in high-school,” Mizi pouts. 

“I did not get into a fight,” Ivan reiterates for what he feels is the 100th time, doing his utmost not to lose his smile. “I did fall off my bed and hit my temple against the table corner.”

“Even if that were true,” Mizi argues, “I haven’t seen your natural hair since our middle school field trip, and I don’t think Sua’s seen it, ever. N-Not that it looks bad, or anything,” she quickly tacks on, “just that it’s uncharacteristic enough to make us worry, especially with that injury.”

“I’ll have it checked out at the nurse station after my afternoon lecture in music theory,” Ivan placates with zero intentions of following through. Honestly, Unsha’s usually a lot more careful. And from the poorly concealed look of suspicious worry Mizi’s wearing, it seems she has an idea of the real origins of the injury. Mizi knew him when Unsha was a lot more relentless, and though Ivan never confirmed her assumptions, never hid how doubtful she was of Ivan’s promise that his home life was the safest environment he knew. 

It wasn’t necessarily a lie, but Ivan’s threshold for comparison is homelessness and orphanages that preferred wooden paddles to standard alarm clocks. 

“Like hell you are,” Sua scoffs. “And do you seriously think we’re going to believe with that big ass plaster that still can’t properly hide the extent of the bruising that you fucked up your face from a graze.”

Ivan bites his tongue, trying not to grimace. God, if he can’t even these two, what chance does he have of successfully deceiving Till?

“Hey!” 

Even with most of his thoughts occupied with figuring out a way to successfully dodge the interrogations and concern his way, Ivan’s heart can’t help the way it backflips whenever he hears the boy’s beautiful voice. 

The fact that strong upheavals in his stomach and a growing swelling in his throat has started to accompany those backflips as of late is of little concern to Ivan, who would endure the pain of having his nails pulled off all his fingers a thousand times over if it meant Till remaining in his life, forever. 

Ivan tries to rest his cheek sneakily on his palm to hide as much of the injury as possible, but the exasperated look Sua sends him tells him he’s doing a poor job. Well, considering her earlier comment about how extensive the bruising was, it wasn’t as if Ivan thought he’d have much success, either. 

“Why do you guys look so— holy shit, what happened to you?”

Till has a strange sense of personal boundary. Usually, when Ivan touches him—often, inappropriately—his body locks up like he’s been dunked in ice, and it takes him a few seconds to re-calibrate and start fighting Ivan off, skin flaming red. That being said, there are moments, when he lets himself bask in the moment, that touch between them lingers, and Ivan does everything to burn the imprint of Till’s fingertips into his skin. In case it never happens again. In case…just in case. 

The other times are when Ivan is hurt. 

Long, slender fingers adorned with bandages and a few chunky silver rings—half, of which, Ivan had bought his best friend as gifts—reach for Ivan’s face and forcefully turn his cheek, a solid pressure that still touches him carefully. 

Ivan feels his stomach jolt violently, a sudden, painful scratching in his throat making itself apparent when Till carefully brushes his fingers against his forehead, dragging its pads across his temple and below his brow bone. 

“Ivan, what is this?”

Ivan worries if he speaks, he’ll throw up a bouquet in the process. 

“Tell me,” he presses on. “It’s got to be bad if you didn’t even have the time to do your hair.” His free hand casually runs through Ivan’s curls, tugging on a few strands, carelessly to the way the simple action steals Ivan’s breath away. His heart stops for a few too many beating seconds, the familiar feeling of leaves and petals scratching the walls of his throat threatening to rob him of the very little oxygen left in him. “I haven’t seen your curls since Unsha first adopted you.”

Despite himself, Ivan opens his mouth to take in a deep, long breath, and the moment he does, collapses into a violent coughing fit. He draws the attention of everyone in the room, clamping his hands over his mouth, knocked onto the floor as his body desperately rejects the flowers rotting inside of him. 

“Ivan what’s going on?!” Till panics, getting on the floor with him, Mizi crouched by at his other side. Ivan’s eyes water, the bruise on his face throbbing as he continues to hack whatever it is his body is trying to expel. He feels the petals fall into his hands, crumpling them in a tightened fist held behind his back while he keeps the other one firmly covering his mouth to hide the blood.

“Ivan, Ivan, are you alright? Are you sick?” Till asks hurriedly, fretting over him—touching him. Ivan feels a second coughing coming on, and stands up abruptly. 

“I think I’ll go to the nurse station now, actually,” he says, words muffled by his palm.

“L-let one of us—”

“No, no, it’s just a flu. You know, I haven’t been sleeping well, I’m just going to rest for a bit. You guys have class, so…” Ivan dismisses Mizi with a shake of his head. He shuts down any further protesting by walking off. 

He turns the corner before anyone has the chance to follow him, staring forlornly at the cluster of petals held in his hands, blood seeping through his fingers. He feels a piercing headache reverberate in his skull, staggering against the wall trying to steady himself. 

Maybe he should follow through on what he said and actually get some rest. 

He can’t risk being so close to getting caught, again. 

༻᯽༺

Hyunwoo is the only person in the nurse’s office when Ivan stumbles in, and so he is the only one to witness Ivan, the moment he manages to carelessly slide the entrance door shut with a ‘bang’ that automatically locks it close, fall to the floor, wheezing for air. 

“Holy shit, Ivan, are you—”

He’s cut off by the guttural, expectorating episode Ivan has, having lost too much strength due to the earlier one to barely stay upright. Hyunwoo kneels by him the way Till did earlier, and the feeling of his hands against Ivan’s back—too warm to be Till’s hands, palms too large, and yet gently thumbing his lower spine the way Till did, touching him the way Till did—worsens the pain in his lungs. 

Ivan does not register Hyunwoo’s shout of concern when blood sprays past his lips and onto the floor, a vivid red smear. He can do nothing but cough, shake, and cry until, finally, and whole, hyacinth bud is spat onto the floor, withered leaves and a thin, dying stem attached to the young flower. 

“Is that…” Hyunwoo’s words trail off. He shakes his head, ignoring the bizarre scene to help Ivan onto his feet and into a cot, where the tired boy collapses with a thump, all that’s left of his energy depleted out of him. He’s too tired to fight off Hyunwoo’s care, and with a stab to his pride, lets Hyunwoo clean and handle him, watching tiredly as the boy goes so far as to wipe the floor where Ivan coughed out his blood and petals, tossing away the flower along with the paper towels. 

“Firstly,” he eventually turns to Ivan, “are you feeling any better? Do you feel another coughing fit coming along, or the urge to throw up, or anything?”

Ivan clears his throat, but his voice is still strained and rough when he asks, “Water?”

“Oh, of course, here, here.” Ivan is handed a cool bottle from the mini-fridge, the liquid soothing the pain in his throat. 

“Thank you.”

“So…”

Ivan supposes he can’t play dumb in this scenario, can he?

With a sigh, he explains to Hyunwoo the bare bones of the situation. He supposes, of all the people to be exposed to, Hyunwoo is the best bet. He and Ivan are acquainted, so it isn’t as though he’s bearing himself to a total stranger, but maintaining a respectable distance that Ivan isn’t worried about his being too pushy. He’s also of an upright character, and is unlikely to spill what happened to anyone so long as Ivan asked. 

“And you’re telling me that you’ve just been living with this for the past, what, month, and haven’t seen a single real doctor?” It's a rhetorical question, but Ivan nods anyway.

“I’d never expect one of the top students in Anakt to be so stupid.”

Ivan frowns.

“Well that’s not nice.”

“Get up, Ivan.”

“I’m sorry?”

Hyunwoo fishes out his phone and shoots someone a text, walking to the coat hanger behind the door to grab his jacket. 

“You heard me. We’re taking you to the hospital.”

“No.”

“This isn’t a discussion.”

Okay, so maybe Hyunwoo isn’t the best bet. Perhaps he’s a bit too much of an upright character to not be pushy about a scenario like this. 

“You can’t make me.”

“I can. This is an emergency if I’ve ever seen one, and I will notify higher authority if it means getting you checked out.”

“You can’t do that, either,” Ivan protests, rushed. His hand subconsciously finds the plaster on his cheek, eyes looking off distantly. “You’d be causing me more trouble than you think.”

Hyunwoo pauses his movements, giving Ivan a long, contemplative once over. 

“Okay, pray tell me, why haven't you gone to the hospital?”

“Doctors are scary.”

“I’m going to call—”

“I can’t let my guardian know,” Ivan admits with a dismayed grimace. “He wouldn’t be appreciative to know his cash-cow is sick.”

It’s the most bitter Ivan’s let himself be about the situation, but it feels good. For someone to know even this much feels like it’s taken off some of the clawing emptiness that keeping it in has let fester for this long. 

Hyunwoo’s expression falls into one of pity and empathy. Ivan doesn’t like it. Doesn’t need it.

“You do know you’re an adult, right? He wouldn’t be notified.”

“But I’m popular,” Ivan shrugs. It’d sound conceited in any other situation, but Ivan does himself no good with deluded humility. “The likelihood of someone noticing me in the hospital and headlines being made is too much of a risk, and Unsha would be notified about any private doctor I call into my house.”

When silence befalls them, and Hyunwoo looks no less concerned, Ivan continues to explain that, considering he can’t find anything about the disease online, worrying does no good. He lies, says he’ll be fine, and that the occasional coughing fit wouldn’t kill him. He makes it sound pretty, all wrapped up in a bow—not a disease, but a gift from God to this special little soldier who’d been infected with rot for so long, He decided to plant seeds in his lungs so a beautiful garden can flourish where the decay once festered. 

Ivan is fine.

“Okay, how about I take you to Hyuna, and I’s clinic? It’s extremely private, and where Hyuna got the special treatment for her leg. They manage to diagnose her when tens of other doctors couldn’t, so there’s a chance they have an inkling about what’s happening to you,” Hyunwoo offers.

Well, Ivan says offers, but he knows he has no choice otherwise Hyunwoo will call the ambulance on him, Ivan’s pleas be damned. 

“I left my stuff with Mizi and them,” Ivan explains. 

“Just wear my jacket, I’ll text Hyuna to tell Mizi to grab your stuff, and they can hand it to me. Let me first take you to my car.”

Ivan has to use Hyunwoo as a crutch for the short distance, knees still threatening to give out on him. He stares through the car’s window aimlessly as he waits for the boy to retrieve his things, and wonders if he’ll finally get an explanation to what’s going on with him.

“Are you ready to go?” Hyunwoo asks, tossing Ivan’s backpack to the back seat as he pulls out of the campus car park. 

Ivan nods, still looking off. 

What could possibly lead to someone growing flowers in their lungs?

༻᯽༺

Ivan stares at the diagnosis, expressionless, eyes a deep, black void. 

Hanahaki Disease. Terminal. Categorised by flowers being coughed or vomited out of patient. 

“Is that even possible?” Hyunwoo asks the doctor, reading and re-reading the ‘causes’ section with pure and utter disbelief.

The doctor nods solemnly, “I’m afraid it is.”

The universe is mocking Ivan. God is laughing at him, and Ivan can hear it with a terrible, tantalising glee. His gift from the deities. His blessing.

(To know that he is not void. HA. HA. HA)

Hanahaki Disease. Terminal. Categorised by flowers being coughed or vomited out of patient. 

Cause: A deep, long-lasting unrequited love.