Chapter Text
“Are you really going to talk about this here?” Sua hissed between her teeth, not sparing a glance at Till. “I’m trying to focus.”
“Please, Sua.” Till glanced around him, checking that the other students around weren’t paying attention to their discussion. Most of them were wearing headphones, gaze fixed on their school notebooks. Till would have been, too, if circumstances hadn’t been different. “You’re the expert here,” he pressed, and Sua snapped her head up at him, quirking an eyebrow.
“An expert? Since when?”
“Well…” A vague gesture in Mizi’s direction, who was currently looking for some books in the ‘Social sciences’ section. He thought it to be pretty much self-explanatory, but Sua stared at him, unimpressed. “Whatever, you know what I mean! You two have been dating since forever, so you must know shit!” he said a bit too loud; Luka, the librarian, shot him a murderous glare, and Till shut his mouth, despite the urge to yell louder just to piss the guy off. Damn, he hated that library; why did Mizi and Sua insist so much on going there all the time?
Sua tugged at the collar of her shirt, as if suffocated by Till’s stupidity. “Listen, I’ll help you out, but if I hear you say one more time that my brother is hot, I am blocking you,” she said with a menacing aura that suggested she might have done more than that —possibly murdering him.
Till opened his mouth, then closed it; he knew better than to argue with Sua. He gave her a quick nod, praying that she’d let him make it out of there alive. Fortunately for him, Mizi interrupted their conversation, coming back with a light step, three thick books piled up in her arms. “Hey, guys, I found the books I nee— what’s up?”
Her eyes darted back and forth between Sua and Till. Till peeked nervously at Mizi, but Sua was still in a one-sided staring contest with him. Eventually, she snapped her book shut and let out a resigned sigh. “Mizi, you have to help me out with this one.”
—
It wasn't long before they were kicked out of the library by Luka due to the noise disturbance Sua and Till caused. Sua cursed him on their way out, while Mizi was jumping in excitement. Before they even pushed the door open, Mizi was already doing an enthusiastic retelling of her and Sua’s love story. Sua clearly wasn’t keen on disclosing such personal information, but Till listened intently either way as they headed to one of the picnic tables near the library.
“So, you just told Sua you liked her? That’s it?”
“Well, it was more complicated than that,” Mizi chuckled nervously. “We’d known for a while there was something between us, but we only kissed when—” The rest of her sentence was muffled as Sua’s hand hastily clasped over Mizi’s mouth.
“Alright, that’s enough.” A faint blush spread on her cheeks; after she released Mizi, she cleared her throat, carefully avoiding Till’s gaze.
“Right, right, we’re on a mission! How to get Till to confess, right?”
Till's ears burned. He couldn't believe he was seeking advice, but what else could he do in this situation? Sua and Mizi were quite literally the only people he could turn to. Ivan would have normally been in, but, well, not this time. For obvious reasons.
Sua retrieved a pen and a sheet of paper, laid it flat on the table, while Mizi kept chattering —this girl was probably the biggest chatterbox ever known to mankind. “I know it can be stressful, but it’s not rocket science! When it comes to the one you like, you just have to take the bull by the horns, come out and say it!”
“I can’t,” Till muttered, looking down at the hands folded in his lap.
He and Ivan had been friends for as long as he could remember. Given that the raven was constantly intruding on his personal space, trying to get on Till’s nerves, it could have been up for debate whether Ivan actually liked Till or not. Still, that one thing was a fact: Ivan was Till’s best friend. They had spent so much time together over the years that he practically knew everything about Till’s life, and although he would never admit it out loud, there was no one he trusted more in the world than Ivan.
So, Ivan was Till’s best friend. It should have been simple, except that it wasn’t, because Till had started to view said best friend in a not-so-platonic lens. It had started out with small stuff, such as suddenly thinking to himself Ivan’s little snaggletooth was cute —which was ridiculous, because it had been there the whole time! Then, Ivan’s casual touches had begun to not feel very casual, especially when the skin Ivan grazed strangely prickled, and all his blood supply flew to his neck and face. For months, he had tried to dismiss the signs, chalking them up to a lack of sleep or stress or whatever, but they could no longer be waved off when he called Ivan hot during one of his games that usually bored him to death, and worse, in front of his sister, Sua.
Soon enough, the truth was pushed so hard in his face he could no longer ignore it: he had a crush on Ivan. Terrible news, in fact. Had it been anyone else, it would have been embarrassing enough, but it was Ivan we were talking about here; the same guy who had gone out with all the girls who had shown the slightest interest in Till —admittedly, there were not many. If Ivan ever found out Till had a crush on him, he might as well have made fun of him the way he did when he had confessed to Mizi in 8th grade.
“You need to help me get over him,” Till shook his head, “erase those feelings, whatever.”
Mizi and Sua exchanged a look only they understood —call it the power of love. “I don't think that's what you need, Till,” Sua stated matter-of-factly.
“Then what?”
“You need to flirt with Ivan, test the waters, and see if he feels the same about you!” Mizi clapped as if to emphasize the genius idea she'd just had.
“Flirt?” Till choked out. He was already in unknown territory. He’d seen what flirting looked like in rom-coms or whatever, but there was no fucking way it could be applied to real-life practice.
He was about to protest, but Sua had already retrieved a pen and a piece of paper she laid flat on the table. “Let’s get started.” The pen paused, hovering over the paper for a moment as she pondered. “First, you have to learn how to make proper eye contact, and by that, I mean normal eye contact. You need to stop looking like you’re going to kill him —yes, exactly what you’re doing right now, stop.” After writing down her idea, she leaned over the table and reached out to the space between his eyebrows, where his face creased, and flickered her fingers.
Till’s frown deepened, and he swatted Sua’s hand away. “I’m perfectly capable of making normal eye contact, now what?”
Sua granted him a skeptical glance. “Whatever, forget about it.”
“You could compliment him!” Mizi suggested, and Sua resumed writing. “Compliments are important, and it will make him notice you in a different light.”
Till almost scoffed. “How am I supposed to compliment?” It wasn’t like he lacked any admirers who lined up to talk to him after every single game. Till couldn’t be alone with his best friend for two minutes, it was annoying as hell.
Mizi hummed, thinking. “On his appearance, for example. You could say he looks nice, or that his outfit suits him, things like that!” she cheered, as though it might have been that easy. “Oh, and you can also ask what he thinks of yours, too!”
“There’s no fucking way!” The outraged response was immediate, and a blush crept up on his neck again.
Ivan had never made a nice comment to Till whatsoever. The day Till had come to school for the first time with a crop top thrown over a long-sleeved mesh tee-shirt, along with smudged eyeliner, Ivan had stared him up and down for God knew how long, his expression clear as mud. It had been a full minute when he finally uttered, “Well, that's a new look.”
A new look. Not even a good look. Probably too alternative for a popular jock like him. Whatever. Till hadn't changed his clothing style for the sake of Ivan, anyway. As he’d grown more confident, he had purchased some accessories: silver rings and chains, a few chokers, and he had even gotten a new piercing for his eighteenth birthday. Ivan remained mostly uninterested, though sometimes curious. The most he’d gotten from him was a lingering and probing look on his spiked choker, which Till had no clue how to interpret.
“Okay, so we have number two,” Sua counted, promptly ignoring Till. “Number three, you should—”
“There will be no number three, because I’m getting out of there.” He slung his backpack over his shoulder with a huff.
“Where are you going? You don’t have rehearsal for another two hours.”
“Need to drop by the dorm and grab my guitar.”
It was a quick walk from here, and everybody here was fully aware, but Till wished nothing more but to erase this conversation from his long-term memory. Thus, no time was lost, and if Sua and Mizi said something, he didn't hear it, until he stumbled on the gravel, and nearly lost his footing —then, Sua snorted, and before she could make any comment, Till darted off into the wild.
Once he made it back in the dorms, he started to pace back and forth, finding it impossible to sit still. Now that he was alone, he kept rewinding the earlier conversation, which was enough for his inexperienced ass to get flustered. Flirting was bad enough of an idea in itself, but with Ivan being the target, it might very well be the end of the world for Till. He didn’t need to test the waters, he needed to go back to normal, when he didn’t turn into a bundle of nerves at the mere thought of Ivan.
Sua was right: practice wouldn’t be for a while, and he needed to find a way to kill time. Standing in the middle of his small room, he stared at his guitar case, which was leaning against his desk. He let out a frustrated sigh, crouching to the floor, and raked his black painted nails through his silver hair.The music studio where his band rehearsed wouldn't open until after their reserved time slot, but maybe he could ask the receptionist to open early, if the room wasn't already occupied. Getting some extra practice wouldn't hurt, after all.
Right at that moment, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Till checked the notification, blinked when the devil's name appeared on the screen: 'Ivan 💖💗💓'
(No, the hearts were not Till's doing. The bastard would constantly steal his phone and add them back after Till deleted it. After months of fighting over the contact name, Ivan pretending that he had never figured out Till's fourteen different passwords and that he definitely wasn't the perpetrator, he was forced to yield to Ivan's stubbornness. What an asshole.)
Do you want me to pick you up after rehearsal?
Till frowned. The question wasn't strange per se, because Till always needed to hop on the bus to get to rehearsal. It was fine, and he didn't really care, although he hated that the bus was so crowded on the way back, but Ivan often offered to drive him home when he could. Till, at first, had refused, reluctant to depend on Ivan, but the raven always came to pick him up either way. Stubborn bastard, just like he said. Till had probably been in this car more than Sua ever had, since she had a dislike for being seen in proximity of Ivan —typical sibling relationship.
But the Summer semester had just begun, and for some reason, Ivan's football coach had changed their practice days, one of them now overlapping with Till's rehearsal on Wednesday. Damn him, Till would have to deal with the stinky, sweaty crowd every single week from then on.
dont you have practice??
He swiftly put his phone on flight mode, deciding that Ivan must have mistaken Wednesday for Thursday, and that unless he could magically split in two, chances of him showing up were close to zero —although, you could never be so sure with Ivan.
He grabbed his guitar, left his apartment as quickly as he'd entered it, had to run after the bus like an idiot, slumped down onto one of the seats, completely out of breath, trying to ignore the looks he had earned from a few people.
Now he was in for a 25-minute ride, so he blasted music in his ears. Music he had been composing himself, to be more specific. He'd picked up an old draft from a few years back, and decided to work on it again on a whim. It had appeared like a necessity to do so; an outlet for Till’s overwhelming… confusion. The piece was not so bad, but it required a few adjustments, and changes in terms of lyrics, too.
His fingers impatiently tapped his knee in rhythm to the music, wishing he could be in the studio already.
—
Till didn't even have to convince the reception guy to access the studio. All it took was showing up and saying hello for the keys to be handed out to him. Till made a mental note to do it more often from now on.
For roughly an hour, Till worked on his composition by himself. Time passed in a blur, and he jolted when the door opened to Dewey and Isaac, his eyes, however, remaining fixated on his sheet.
“Hey Till— Oh, where's Ivan?” Isaac greeted, and only then did Till look up, his frown deepening at the unwelcome inquiry.
“Where do you want him to be? He's got practice.”
“Oh? Guess even he wouldn’t miss practice for his emo boy”, Dewey said as he walked to Till. Isaac didn’t seem to care for the conversation, simply flopping down on a stool and unpacking his bass guitar.
Till winced at the nickname. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Although they remained friends, Till could tell Ivan acted more distant with him on campus. From the outside, one could think that they were totally normal childhood friends, and that Ivan wasn’t a freak who climbed up his window to his dorm room at least twice a week. Ivan had an image to maintain, that of the perfect prince. Till did wonder if that worked so well, since Ivan insisted that he attended each of his matches. Undeniably, his teammates had taken note of this; he’d seen the way they’d glance at him with a barely contained smirk, the way they’d snort at him when they thought Ivan didn’t notice.
With Till’s bandmates, it was a bit different. Ivan was still his pleasant, agreeable self in their presence, — Till had even suspected the raven came for the sole reason to get on his nerves— but there was a gleam in his eyes, when he attended their rehearsals, that didn’t exist when he played football. He truly got along with his bandmates, especially Isaac, and Ivan had become a regular, silent observer that they had all gotten used to.
Dewey didn’t bother to grant him an answer. Instead, he peeked at Till’s paper sheets, losing his leather jacket in the process —his silver chain caught on the zipper as he hung it on the coat rack behind them. “Working on something new?” He leaned closer, but Till hastened to stuff the sheets in his bag, regretting it as soon as he did — his sheets would be badly crumpled.
“How about you mind your own business, Dewey? Go tune your guitar so we can get started already.” He picked up his guitar in a huff and went to adjust the microphone that stood in the center of the studio. When the door creaked open again, Till swiveled to face the newcomer. “Ivan—” He stopped right in his tracks when it was Acorn who stepped in, unimpressed.
“I’m Acorn,” he deadpanned. Silence fell upon them shortly before another figure appeared behind him, wearing a red jersey, number 13. “And I brought Ivan with me.” Dewey and Isaac exchanged a look; the blonde burst into laughter, and even Isaac couldn’t suppress a snort.
Till shot them both a glare before turning to Ivan. “What are you doing here?” he asked haughtily, as if he hadn’t been expecting to see him seconds ago.
Ivan shrugged. “Coach is sick, and practice got canceled. I rang at your door, but you’d already left, and I couldn’t join you on your phone,” he said, faking a beaten puppy look.
Just go home, he almost retorted, but he turned his back instead, busying himself with his guitar. Sua's words had gotten to him despite himself, and now making eye contact might as well equal dying on a battlefield.
Still, he risked a glance in his direction when he was fully certain Ivan’s stare was no longer boring holes into his skull. The raven had settled down on the bench at the back, his usual spot, his school notebook open in his lap as he was most likely reviewing the content of his previous class —the perfect, model student, to sum it up. Till refrained from letting out a sigh of relief, made a quick scan around the room: Dewey was plugging his guitar into the amp, Acorn was sitting at the drums, and Isaac had already tuned his bass.
“Alright, what song should we start with?”
—
Till bombed their rehearsal. It was an absolute disaster, and nearly an hour in, they had to call it a day because Till was on the verge of throwing his guitar out of the window —or on Ivan, it would have been more effective as a stress relief.
Till was the lead guitarist and singer. He sang most of the songs alone, though he occasionally dueted with Isaac. He knew the songs by heart: they’d been practicing for weeks. Yet, he kept messing up the lyrics, and playing the wrong chords. An utter disaster, in other words.
“What’s up with you? You had no problem, last time,” Isaac gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder.
Till groaned in response, and retrieved his phone from his bag next to Ivan, doing his best to ignore the raven’s steady gaze. He swiftly deactivated flight mode, clicked his tongue impatiently when his phone lagged and he landed in his parameters. He meant to go back to his home screen, tapped on ‘Accessibility’ instead. Damn, he really needed to change his phone, this thing was a pain in the ass.
“I dunno, today wasn’t the—,” he almost choked on his saliva when he noticed Ivan taking out the crumpled sheets of paper to smooth them. He was also taking his sweet time to read, treating it like a novel or one of his school textbooks. “What are you doing?” Panic surged in Till. He fumbled with his phone, swore out loud when it fell to the ground with a loud thud, and snatched the sheets from Ivan’s hands. Why did Ivan, out of all people, have to see that?
“I thought I would put those in your folder,” Ivan simply said. “I didn’t know you were working on a new song.”
Till inhaled sharply, swallowing back not very nice words in his throat. Whether he intended to reply or not didn’t matter, however, because a voice stemming from his phone resonated in the studio. Till wondered if he had accepted a call from someone, but he recognized neither Sua, nor Mizi, nor his mom’s voice. It took a moment to dawn on him that it was his device’s voice assistant. Assuming he’d only activated Siri by accident, he paid it no mind at first. But it did not stop talking, and his phone buzzed incessantly with notifications he had received while his phone was on flight mode.
“New texts from Ivan, sparkling heart, growing heart, beating heart. On my way to the studio,” the monotonous voice reported. Till reached out for the phone, tapped on the screen. Successfully came back to the home screen, this time, but every time he clicked on an icon, all it did was read the app name out loud. “Instagram. Pinterest. Candy Crush.”
“Uh, what is going on?” Acorn intervened, and Till would gladly grant him an answer if he knew what the fuck his phone was doing. Frantic, he tapped on the screen again, until he pressed on a new incoming notification from Sua.
“New text from Sua. Hey Till, it’s Mizi!! We couldn’t finish our discussion earlier, so Sua and I thought we’d send you some tips to flirt with the person you like!”
What. All heads snapped to Till, and even Ivan’s eyes ever so slightly widened in surprise. The guitarist tried to turn down the volume without much success. Attempting to turn his phone off ended similarly, that is to say it failed miserably.
The voice went on, and for a while, Till was frozen in place, while everybody else gathered around him, listening with the utmost attention. “Number one. Compliment their appearance when you see them, and ask them what they think of yours. Number two. When you speak to them, maintain proper and normal eye contact, open brackets, Sua insists, close brackets. Number three. When you’re around them, do your best to put yourself in physical proximity to them and orient your body towards them. Number four…”
To add to his humiliation, but to avoid another catastrophe, Till screamed, covering the device assistant’s voice. He grabbed his bag, abandoned his plugged guitar on the floor, stormed to the door without further ado, and pulled for ten full seconds instead of pushing. That earned him snickers from Dewey and Acorn. Till would have shot them a glare if he weren’t in such a haste to leave.
Oh, he was going to kill Sua next time he saw her.
—
There was a chance he might not survive the drive home in Ivan’s car. He hopped in the passenger seat as soon as Ivan unlocked the vehicle with his key. Ivan set the guitar down on the back seat before getting into the driver’s seat. “You left your guitar in the studio,” Ivan stated matter-of-factly, as though Till’s dumb ass may not have noticed.
“No shit.”
No answer. Till’s whole body tensed; Ivan wasn’t being his irritating self. By now, he would have normally bugged him about Till’s new song, or worn an infuriating know-it-all smug, but today, he gave Till none of that. Definitely not normal. Oh, Till was so screwed. Ivan started the car without a word, put some music on to fill the awkward silence. Till didn’t dare touch his phone, lest the voice assistance started to spout shit again. There was heavy traffic, and thus, thirty five minutes were spent without a single word uttered on Ivan or Till’s part.
Only when Ivan finally parked at the bottom of the dorms’ building did he speak. “So,” he began, and Till braced himself for Ivan’s rejection, demonstration of humiliation or whatever, “who do you have a crush on?”
He jerked his head toward Ivan. What was he saying, now? “Sorry, what?”
“Is it the girl who sits next to you in Contemporary music class?”
“What? No, why the hell would I like Hyuna?” He grimaced, recalling the way he’d caught her kissing the librarian, Luka, a few weeks back when they thought no one was in there.
Ivan hummed non-committally. “Who, then?” Seeing that his question elicited no reaction from a flushed Till, he went on, “You could have gone to me for advice, you know.” Till scoffed, but a lump had lodged in his throat, which incapacitated him from talking. “I could teach you, you know.”
Well, he didn’t know anything, if not that he didn’t appreciate the turn this day took. He blinked once. Then, he blinked again, because the first time didn't help register the words, somehow. “Teach me what, now?” he croaked. As much as he tried to sound detached, he highly doubted he succeeded in that.
“How to flirt,” Ivan replied as though they had been discussing the weather.
Till got his mouth working again, a vague sense of irritation mixed with something undecipherable swelling in him. “I don't need to be taught, Ivan, I can flirt perfectly fine, thank you,” the lie came quick. Of course, Ivan would tell him this, because he was so much more experienced than him. The heartthrob of campus, and Till was painfully aware he’d probably had his fair share of girlfriends, even if Ivan had mainly remained secretive about it —except for the ones who had shown interest in Till, that is.
Ivan shrugged, a smile tugging at his lips, but then, it hit Till that their gaze had not met even once. “I was simply offering. Is she a lesbian, too?” It was hard to miss the obvious reference to Till’s embarrassing past crush on Mizi that had consumed him during all his primary and middle school years.
No, he's straight. “Thanks for the ride, see you later.” The wind whipped his burning face as soon as he stepped out of the car. He was about to stride to the building entrance, when Ivan rolled down his window.
“Your guitar,” he pointed out. His grin hadn't left.
Till turned on his heels to fetch the instrument, slammed the door hard and dashed to the dorms to put as much distance as possible between him and Ivan.