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Till sank down into the hard, scoliosis inducing school-issued plastic chairs. His legs hiked up on the plastic table where his textbooks were supposed to be. His eyes seemed laser-focused onto his phone as he was desperately trying to solve the day’s wordle. The only reason he had dared to assume this seating position in class was because school had just ended and he was waiting for his friends to come over to his classroom. The group had made it a routine to hangout daily after school at each other’s classes be it for a study session or just to laze around and gossip.
When audible chatters and squeals could be heard emanating from the corridor, Till knew that Ivan was probably on his way over. Till hardly looked up from his phone when Ivan’s image slowly came about, plopping down in the seat right beside his. It was only after Ivan had settled down when Till shifted his gaze from his phone to give an acknowledging “Hey”.
Seeing that Till was seemingly more engaged with that stupid Wordle that Ivan had unfortunately sent him rather than with Ivan himself, Ivan decided to up a notch of skinship with the boy. He stood up from his chair and made do with Till’s lap instead, earning a disgruntled groan from the boy below who still did not remove his eyes from his phone. Sitting in Till’s lap was step one. Step two was turning around so that his thighs locked Till in a position that forced a direct face-to-face contact with the younger boy. Step two earned a rather monotone “Hey, watch it,” with absolutely no spark behind the words. Ivan decided to launch step three.
Step three meant leaning in his head to close the distance between him and Till, with Ivan opting to rest his chin atop Till’s phone. “Till, stop being so rude,” Ivan coos, fingers nudging at the sides of the grey-haired boy. His eyes darted down to look at Till’s screen, immediately realising that Till was STILL stuck with the Wordle that he had sent him in the morning. Ragebaiting makes up a part of Ivan’s personality, especially ragebaiting Till. If ragebaiting Till meant that he would finally relocate his attention onto Ivan, that was what Ivan was willing to do. “Oh, you’re still stuck on this. You know, I got it on the second try.” Ivan flashes a coy smile, his snaggletooth creeping from the corner.
This statement obviously caught Till’s attention. In a bad way. His teal eyes snapped away from the screen and stared down at Ivan. Ivan knew an outburst of negative attention would come storming any second now. And he was right.
”Shut up! Instead of flaunting around can’t you give a hint or something? I literally just started solving this when school ended.” Till yelled, phone down as his hand flew over to and clasped itself on Ivan’s collar, tugging at it angrily. Ivan lifted his arms and playfully surrendered all while his smug smile hung on his lips. “Aww don’t get mad Till, I’ll help you,” he said as a conditional excuse began ideating in his head.
Till couldn’t help but tsk at his response, holding up his phone to Ivan’s line of vision, eyes practically begging for help, or so what Ivan would like to believe. “I’ll give you a hint if you pat me on the head.”
”What?” Till spat out, his eyes lasering holes into Ivans. “I said, if you want a hint, you’ll have to give me a pat on the head.” Ivan says again, tilting his head ever so slightly and flashing a rather flirtatious smile at Till.
”I would rather solve it myself.” Till huffs, turning his phone around and staring at the bunch of alphabets on his screen that genuinely made no sense.
F R E A K
Only A was in the right spot.
Till wrecked his brain hard and entered a second 5 lettered word.
S E D A N
The letter S was in the wrong position.
Till typed in the third word. He had originally wanted to type “aghast” but realised it contained 6 alphabets, and thus could only fill in “aghas” into the blanks. Just as he was about to delete “aghas”, he accidentally pressed the ‘enter’ button and the word was miraculously accepted. It seemed like he maybe didn’t need Ivan’s help at all!
A G H A S
Luckily for Till, it seemed that H and A were in the correct positions, while S had to obviously be positioned as the second alphabet by process of elimination.
Ivan was rather intrigued to say the least. Still seated in his favourite chair in the whole universe, he was graced with a rather peculiar sight of Till’s “hard in thought” face which he found to be the most handsome thing ever. His eyebrows were all so slightly scrunched while hints of annoyance brushed his eyes. Till wore his emotions on his sleeve, for whenever he was able to guess an alphabet correctly, his eyes would dramatically light up and a tiny smile curled across his lips. He was just SO adorable.
Unfortunately for Till, he was now stuck. Fortunately for Ivan, he was the first option that Till sought for. Till’s eyes awkwardly swept across Ivan’s face and onto his head. He clumsily lifted up his right hand and rested atop Ivan’s bed of jet black hair. A violent blush crept across Till’s face as he used his reddened hands to gently pat Ivan's head. Being the freak that he is, Ivan actually counts the number of times Till pats him, a grand total of 7. Ivan could not stop a shit-eating grin from forming over his face as the tips of his ears blushed.
”I’ve already given you your head pat. Now give me a hint.” Till weakly demands, removing his hand from Ivan’s head.
Ivan hummed softly while taking a quick look at Till’s screen to see how well Till had advanced in the puzzle. “The letter ‘S’ is in the second spot.” Ivan states.
”That doesn’t count, I already knew that.” Till replies pointing at his guesses. “It’s obvious from elimination.”
”I didn’t know you knew that. You could be lying, Till.” Ivan states flatly, but the expression he wore says another story.
”That’s bullshit. You’re just trying to trick me into doing more favours.” Till spat back and retracted his phone. He attempted to push Ivan off from his legs as they were beginning to feel numb but the black-haired individual showed no signs of budging. “Get off, my legs are numb.”
”How about you sit on me instead and I give you another hint?” Ivan asked, flashing a rather sheepish smile. This was a smile he knew that Till would never say no to.
Till on the other hand actually considers and began weighing his options. Sitting on Ivan was a step above sitting on the hard plastic chairs, and he would earn a hint as well. This seemed like an obvious win-win situation for him. So he nodded, much to Ivan’s pleasure.
Ivan’s plan was going rather smoothly. He exchanged places with the teal eyed boy, positioning Till so that he was facing him and while conveniently resting his arms right on Till’s hips. He peered over at Till’s phone before providing him with another hint, as promised. “There’s a ‘P’ in there.”
”There’s a ‘P’? HOW?” Till questions, shooting a suspicious look at Ivan as if accusing him of lying.
”I’m being honest. Try typing in a word with ‘P’ in it.”
Till eyes glossed over Ivan’s lips before he types in another word.
P L U S H
Ivan was right. P had somehow belonged in this 5 lettered word, and so did S, H and A. What the fuck. This word didn’t even seem like it belonged in the dictionary.
Till stared incredulously at Ivan. Firstly he had two chances left at guessing the word. Secondly, which fucking word had a P as the first letter and S as the second one? This word made no grammatical sense at all.
Seeing Till’s apparent confusion, Ivan knowingly chuckled as he raised a finger and pointed at the screen. “Why? Too difficult? Need another hint?” He jested.
”...What would you want me to do if I asked for another hint?”
”How ‘bout you give me a peck on the cheeks?” Ivan taunts, playfully pointing at his own cheek. Till flushes, hands raising up to cover Ivan’s mouth hoping to prevent any more nonsense from spilling out. Till was flabbergasted at the mind-boggling request.
”That’s too much!” Till half-yells, hoping no one else was near enough to hear them. “And pretty gay too.”
”I am gay though.” Ivan replied, voice muffled by the hands imprisoning his mouth. He decidedly chose to lick Till’s fingers, causing the younger boy to retract them almost instantly.
”Why would you want a peck on the cheek from me though?” Till questions, wiping the finger that Ivan licked on Ivan’s uniform.
”Can’t bosom buddies just give each other friendly pecks every once in a while?” Ivan retorts, batting his eyelashes innocently and pouting his lips at Till.
Till could never understand the ever complicated system that wired itself in Ivan’s mind. But he really wanted to complete the Wordle puzzle though. He relents at the options placed in front of him. It’s just a friendly peck Till reminds himself, replaying Ivan’s words in his mind like a mantra.
He really wanted to finish the Wordle. Not kiss his friend obviously.
Reluctantly or not so, Till cups his hands around Ivan’s cheeks. Ivan’s eyes instantly dilated themselves, clearly not anticipating that Till would have taken up his offer to give him a friendly kiss on the cheek. A visibly tomato reddened Till lowers his head, his lips ghosting over Ivan’s cheeks. Ivan swore his heart palpitated out of his chest, he clenched his fist as tightly as he could to prevent himself from acting out.
The moment Till’s lips came crashing into contact with his cheeks was brief, but had a rather long-lasting effect on Ivan. Sirens rang through said boy’s ears as a system failure blasted across his brain. Red bloomed itself across his cheeks and fingernail imprints embedded themselves into his palms. Ivan was clearly not okay.
Till had to call his name for a number of times before finally opting to shake the black-haired boy into consciousness before Ivan’s brain returned to its normal functionality. He awkwardly cleared his throat, “Ahem, the last alphabet is on the top row of the keyboard.”
”There’s literally 10 alphabets on the top row.” Till complains, he didn’t even contemplate trying each alphabet on the top row. He gently jabs a finger on Ivan’s chest, “Can’t you just give me the answer?”.
”If you want the answer then you’ll have to earn it.”
”Okay what other dare do you want this time.” Till questions lamely. It was presumably clear that he gave no shits about the Wordle anymore, he just wanted an excuse to maybe kiss Ivan again. But Ivan, with his visibly haywired brain, was too overwhelmed to notice this fact.
”Be my boyfriend,” Ivan blurts out before clasping his hands over his mouth. He blames this slip-up on his partially functioning brain. As he quickly reformulates an excuse in his mind, he is interrupted by the look Till has on his face.
A frantically blushing Till has his mouth hanging agape, his phone long since abandoned. He tried to hide his face by covering himself up with his collar, but that proved useless as the blush crept across his arms, neck and ears. He was nothing but a personified tomato at this point. Behind the veil of his uniform collar, he sheepishly asked, “You…want to date me?”
Ivan sucked in a mouthful of air as he tried to clarify his thoughts from his words. “I mean…yeah. I’ve liked you for a while already.” He lifts his hand to rub his eyes, gracelessly ruffling his own hair before settling his hands at the hem of Till’s shirt. He begins to add on, “You don’t have to reciprocate you know, I’m fine with bei–”
”Why didn’t you just ask me?” Till interjects, voice muted as he was still hiding behind his hands.
”...What?”
”You could have just asked me to be your…boyfriend.” Till replied.
”You like me?” Ivan asked, incredibly shocked. “I thought you liked Mizi?”
”That was years ago dude!”
”You called me gay!” Ivan rebutted.
”So? You are gay. I like both women AND men.” Till refuted, pulling his hands down from his face. The accidental confession had wound up into a weird conversation of their sexual identities.
Seeing that Till’s hands were finally separated from his face, Ivan took the chance to encapsulate them into his own. He stared fondly into the pair of teal eyes. Till’s sexuality didn’t really matter to him to be honest. As long as Till liked him, it was all that mattered. “So…you like me?” Ivan asked, softly and more gently this time as he leaned his forehead in.
”Yea…actually…for a few months already.” Till shyly replied, unconsciously leaning in as well until their foreheads touched. Butterflies swarmed his stomach as he quickly envisioned the next step. A kiss, to the lips. Finally.
Yet before they could proceed with their intended action, Mizi’s voice cut through the bubble that they belonged in. Till instantaneously jumped and instinctively pushed Ivan away. This was the only time Till realised that he felt unappreciative of Mizi’s presence.
”Finally,” Sua deadpanned as Mizi stood beside her violently shaking her shoulders and pointing at the pair. Mizi was half squealing something incoherent, half screaming a series of “ohmygod”s and “iknewit”s.
Till sputtered out a mix of “thatsnotwhatitlookslike”s and “you’vegotitwrong”s, occasionally turning towards Ivan for help. Ivan on the other hand was too busy shooting death glares at the girls for interrupting something that could have been more.
Mizi rushed over to the boys in an attempt to give Till a congratulatory hug, only to be interrupted by Ivan pulling Till away, clinging onto him. His arms wrapped around his waist while Sua held Mizi back. “Mizi, don’t. You don’t know what Ivan would do to you.” She warned.
Ivan childishly stuck a tongue out at the female duo, firing accusatory glares at Sua as she pulled Mizi away and out of the classroom to give them space (and to also save her eyes for she didn’t know how much longer she could last seeing Ivan cling onto Till like that).
”So I take it that we’re boyfriends now.” Ivan finally said when the coast was clear. He rested his chin on Till’s chest with his arms still tightly wrapped around his torso.
”Yea…we’re b-boyfriends I guess.” Till replies, stuttering on the word ‘boyfriend’ with his cheeks aflamed.
”Can we continue from where we left off?” Ivan daringly asked, raising his lips to give small, light pecks across Till’s cheeks. Till could only nod in response, shyly leaning down and clumsily connecting their lips together.
Till’s phone laid depressingly on the ground. It had fallen off from his grasp in the midst of all the chaos. Yet on the screen, a green, 5 lettered word was displayed across the screen, it seemed that Ivan had helped him to complete the Wordle when Mizi walked in on them almost kissing.
Fucking Pshaw what kind of word even was that?