Archive of Our Own

Sua had found the lone, scattered page in an afterschool sunset. She thought it was trash someone forgot to throw out. She picked it up, just to dispose of it in the correct bin. It was a crumpled-up thing, covered in pencil marks and graphite that stained her hand. She should have thrown it out; she really should have. However, something stopped her.

That something was the picture drawn in the back. It was of a girl. A beautiful girl with long hair, and glasses. Her smile was wide, contagious. Flowers all around her bloomed. Sua wasn't sure what type of flowers those were. But they were pretty. It would be such a waste for such a nice drawing to go to the trash. Sua felt bad just considering it, eyes fixated on the beautiful girl engraved in the paper. She hesitated, of course, and absentmindedly turned the page over, searching for any excuse not to throw it out.

That's when she saw it.

It was a strange poem, scribbled in pencil and barely readable. Some words were crossed out, some were written, erased, then written again; the whole thing was barely even legible anymore. Sua wouldn't have been able to piece it together, were it not for the small handwriting at the bottom, which appeared to try and write one last time.

It told the story of a beautiful girl in a garden. Surrounded by flowers, the writer claimed, everyone could hear her laughter when they closed their eyes. Her brightness and sweetness could almost make you forget the death that awaited them beyond the garden. The writer wondered if she was real, or if, like everything else, she was just a false memory to cope with the pain.

Sua stopped in her tracks.

Something deep within her being was struck for a moment. A piece that'd fallen in her hand, from a puzzle she could have sworn she'd seen before. But left with nothing more than a single piece and a memory she wasn't even sure was real - she had to re-read the words.

She wondered if it was about a soldier, hallucinating on the verge of death, or if it was a symbolism for the Garden of Eden. The girl on the other side of the picture was beautiful; she believed the writer when they said that, 'from the flowers to the stars, everything in the garden envied her'. Surely, someone that beautiful could be someone's idea of the perfect woman. Strangely enough, Sua (who had never been religious) found herself understanding why someone would sacrifice godhood, life in paradise, for a chance to be with such a girl. Or was it…?

The bell rang.

Sua looked up from the drawing. Time hadn't stopped. It kept moving forward, and now she was late. She shoved the poem to the back of her mind, and the crumbled piece of paper inside her bag. Guilt rose inside of her, as she left the empty classroom. There was now way whoever wrote that had forgotten such a piece. It was a perfect picture with a perfect poem. Surely, the person who had written it hadn't abandoned it. It was a lost artifact, something that they would one day be scrambling to pick back up. They would come back to the classroom, worried and fretting because the best thing they've written fell through the pages and binders. They would probably mourn that they lost their magnum opus. Sua should feel guilty. In fact, maybe the artist was coming back to redo it, better than before. In clean writing and perfect portrait. And instead of letting them have it, share it with the world, here she was. Stealing it.

But Sua was selfish. More than she liked to admit. This was hers now. Her treasure, her own. She wouldn't be giving it up, not even to the author or the artists who had created such a thing. It wasn't stealing, if it was always meant to be hers.

· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·

The paper was shoved inside her planner. The one she carried everywhere, where she jotted down her appointments and her schedule. She wanted to keep in a place safer than there, but she worried someone else might find it. Just like her, they would steal it. Instead, she memorized it. Rolling the words of the poem inside her mind. She kept thinking what it meant, who it was for, what had compelled the writer to do it in such a way. She wondered, even when she was reading other books.

She didn't have an answer.

Was there a chance she could get an answer if she read more?

It was impossible though. There was nothing more.

In all her frustration, she tried reading other books. Romance, science fiction, even some esoteric and theological ones. None of them were good enough. None of them described the feeling she had felt when she read that poem. She tried other poems, it still wasn't enough.

She had all but given up on ever scratching that itch. To know, to listen, more about the mysterious muse that had haunted the writer. That's it, until she came across the notebook.

A kid who slept through class, who didn't listen, who spent all his days with his nose buried in a notebook. A troublemaker, that's what everyone called him. Sua didn't even bother to learn his name. It was only when she came across that same notebook on the floor, after he had received quite a beating from some older bullies, that she even noticed him.

To this day, Sua isn't sure why she got close. There was no reason to save the kid. She wasn't student counsel, she wasn't class president, she was nothing of worth. Only a bookworm who spent a little too much time in the library, with few friends and even fewer allies. If the bullies had turned to her, there was nothing she would have been able to do.

But still, she stepped in.

"Teacher, over here!"

And just like that those seniors scrambled to get away. Sua hadn't even really called a teacher. They had all the muscle and none of the brain, really.

"You really should stop picking fights with older kids," Sua said, picking up the notebook form the ground. "You can't beat them, you know?"

From the notebook fell papers. Loose papers, most likely. It wasn't her intention, but honestly, why was this kid so messy? Sua's faces went from pale to flustered, to back to pale, unsure of what to do. She wondered if she was going to get shouted at, perhaps even intimidated for destroying the boy's things.

But, despite, his looks…the boy didn't get angry. He didn't even seem bothered that Sua had left everything flow out of the notebook. Only…upset.

"…Sorry…" Was all Sua managed to say.

"…it was nothing worth keeping, I guess," the boy said. His eyes, however, betrayed his words. It surely was important. Why he didn't want to admit it was a mystery.

Despite herself, Sua kneeled down to pick them up. Just to be stunned by the paper.

She recognised the pattern on the paper. The same brand and design as the sketch had. It was distinct, perhaps because of how poor the quality was. Thin, almost see-through. Not something an artist would usually use. It was composition paper, hardly to the standard of what had been drawn on it. Most people in the school, and around Sua's circle, didn't use it.

So that's why the notebook had fallen apart.

But most importantly-,

"This…"

"Ah!"

It was a drawing. Of the exact same girl in Sua's paper. She couldn't help but stare, as the girl who she had only ever seen smiling, was not looking at the distance with a vacant look in her eyes. She looked sad. Solemn. Sua thought back to the garden the poem described, wherein death awaited the narrator. What was she looking at?

"She's pretty," Sua couldn't help saying. Unable to contain her curiosity, she followed. "Who is she?"

The boy stared at her. His eyes were wide, a bit perplexed. As if taken aback by her words. Sua quickly tried to hide her excitement, worried it might make the other uncomfortable. Not that it was warranted. Not even a second later, the boy's eyes sparkled, and a soft smile danced in his lips.

"Her name is Mizi," he said.

Mizi.

Sua loved that name.

· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·

Till was a strange deal. She couldn't figure him out completely.

He spent hours engrossed in his drawings, writing lyrics at the margins of pages, and humming tones and melodies as he ignored the world around him. He barely slept, almost always preferring to stay up until the late hours of the night to finish something he ended up hating. They usually spent their breaks in silence. Or their equivalent of silent. They would sit down next to each other, Sua would read books, while Till scribbled stuff while he listened to some loud annoying song, punk or rock. Sua wasn't sure, and she wasn't interested in knowing.

The good days were when he finished something.

"What do you think?"

Till had terrible handwriting, even worse grammar. But he had a talent for words. Sua had sneakily made fun of him for it, which prompted an off-handed comment about fixing it for him. This gave her beta access to her favorite lyrics and poems. 'Lyrics' Till called them, even though he never sung them.

"I write score, you know?" Was his answer, the one time Sua had commented on it. His face was all scrunched up, visibly angry. Although, by this point, she knew he was rarely angry at her. She could guess who he was angry at, though. "My dad won't let me get a guitar".

She had dropped the issue ever since.

Till did claim there was a score, and that if he ever got a hold of proper instruments, he would be able to play. Sua wasn't so sure. But then again, she had never seen him play. Maybe he was good. Maybe he was bad. Who knew.

But his poems (lyrics, he claimed) were beautiful.

Most of the time, they talked about that same girl. Mizi. In some form or another. That's his muse, Sua realized. And she couldn't blame him. If she could write, if she could sing, she'd sing songs for her from dusk till dawn. That said, she wasn't any closer to finding out what exactly she was. Till never answered her straight, vague on purpose, barely giving hints.

She kinda hated him for that. But if he gave her any answers, she was sure she'd hate him more.

From the bits and pieces she could decode, it was a garden. The girl, Mizi, lived in the garden along with the narrator. The garden was temporary, soon enough they would die. Who would die was a mystery, though. The narrator seemed to flip flop between decisions. It seemed like the narrator was certain death awaited them beyond the garden, but Mizi's fate was still up for debate. If Sua read between the lines, it appeared that they were sacrificing themselves to save the girl they loved. Their only hope was to see her smile one last time.

It sat heavy inside of Sua's mind. The poem would be given to after their lunch break, and it would take her a whole day and a half to finish editing it. It shouldn't take her that long, but that's how much she wondered. She would give the single-page poem back with at least three additional pages filled with commentary. It was scathing too. Correcting grammar, nitpicking words, suggesting here, cutting there, and perhaps a little too mean about the pace of the writing.

She'd edited stuff before, but people didn't like how cruel and nitpicky she could get about it. Till did. He took a careful look, asking her what she thought, and what she meant.

"How do you come up with these?" Sua asked. "Cages and gardens, and songs that don't make sense. It couldn't possibly come out of nowhere".

The poems were beautiful, but they sounded like the thoughts of a madman at the verge of death. Someone who'd lost hope, looking through a window that showed the last bits of sunshine. Till's home life was hell, she knew. An abusive father, and a mother who recently divorced him. They had little to no money, scrapping by with barely enough. It was a messy, but what Till wrote was far beyond it.

Till simply looked at the picture of the girl he had drawn.

"Dreams," he said, simply. "I dream about them…Well, they're more like nightmares, really".

Sua didn't, seemingly couldn't, understand what it entailed.

"Huh, so she's literally the girl of your dreams," Sua said.

"Ah? N-no! She's p,pretty but," Till started stammering, flushed as she tried to defend himself.

Sua wanted to continue to tease him. After all, falling for a dream was pathetic. Even more pathetic than falling for a drawing. A sketch, of a woman who didn't exist. Sua continued to look down at the picture in her hands; silent. She couldn't bring herself to say anything. Jealousy burned in the back of her throat.

"Sua?"

"So, you have seen her?" Sua asked. "For real? Like, in your dreams?"

There was a moment of silence. A beat. Then, she heard Till make a noise of agreement.

"Yeah," he said. "If…If I get colored pencils, I could draw a picture of her".

Sua jolted up, looking up towards Till.

"A picture?"

"You like her, don't you?" Till said, as if the words were easy to say. As if Sua being so infatuated with the girl inside the paper was natural. Normal. "I'm not that good at drawing, but I could make you a picture. A decent one at least, not, you know these sketches".

Sua wanted to scream. The drawings Till made were beautiful! The only thing that kept her sane. The so-called-sketch that he'd drawn of the girl in his dreams was what Sua fell asleep looking at when her mother's screams echoed in the other side of the door. When her sisters word's bit a bit too hard, an she wanted to cry. They were the thing that reminded her that daylight could be beautiful. That maybe, looking at the dawn one more time would be worth it.

Till drew the girl with care. Each stroke was gentle, curved. It was obvious he liked her, loved her. Enough that he spent hours upon hours trying to recreate her smile, and write poems of what she was like.

Yes, she was insanely jealous. She wanted to see her. She wanted more than a piece of paper to see her, more than someone-else's recollection of what she looked like, and more than scraps of what her laughter sounded.

But-!

"I love them," Sua blurted out. Her face reddened slightly. "She looks beautiful…no matter what".

Till just smiled.

"Yeah," he said, turning back to his notebook. He looked through the piles of notes that Sua had written for him. "She is".

· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·

Till scrapped together some pocket money, running errands here and there. He bought himself a sketchbook. One with better quality than the tracing paper folder he called a notebook. He also got enough for a box of colored pencil. Proper ones. Not those waxy things that left residue on the paper and only gave pale desaturated payoffs, even after multiple layers. They were actually good ones. From a brand that Sua didn't recognize, but it looked fancy. It wasn't a big box. It had the grand totally of 12 colored pencils.

Sua thought he was not going to be able to do much with such a limited palette. She obviously, and despite knowing better, had underestimated him. It took him days to finish. From morning to noon, until the time they went home, you could see Till working on the paper. Sua could guess what he was drawing. His eyes turned deadly serious whenever he was drawing his muse.

She gripped the handle of her school bag. She knew that Mizi was Till's. He was the one who had conjured her up in his mind, and the frames and fragments she knew of her, were only real through the lenses he had created. It was so stupid to be jealous of that. She wasn't even real. She'd fallen for a man's version of someone, she had no right to be upset about him being the only one who could see the true version of her.

But the heart is a foolish, incomprehensible thing.

"This is as close as I can get," Till said, handing her paper.

Sua's eyes widened.

Till's sketchbook, which he had gotten after hours upon hours of working and saving, had it's very first page ripped out. Sua stared down at the paper, unsure of how react. Till hadn't even hesitated. Sua hadn't even asked. Sua was a jealous, terrible person, who wished Mizi weren't trapped in Till's mind where only he could see her. But here was him. Casually giving her up. Fragments of what she couldn't see, bits and pieces that could have been hidden, freely given to Sua.

A pang of guilt shot up her heart. Yet, she still reached out and took, shamelessly, the picture before her eyes. Till's skill was undeniable. The colors popped so brightly, despite his limited arsenal. It all looked so lifelike, as if the girl could truly exist. As if, if Sua wanted to reach out her hand, she'd be able to touch warm skin instead of the cold paper in her hands.

It was Mizi, her white dress floating. She was wearing glasses, her wide smile contagious. Her blushing face was enchanting. Sua wanted to stare at it forever. She was standing in front of someone. Whoever else was in the picture, they were cropped. The back of the person's head left a few strands of deep black hair in the corner of the paper.

Her eyes zoomed in the bottom of the paper.

'My Clematis'.

"Clematis?" Sua asked. "Like the flower?"

"Wait, that's what it is?" Till asked, eyes wide and confused. "A flower?"

"You didn't know?"

"She's always singing the song," Till said, eyes softening up, as he looked at the picture. "Dunno what it means, though".

Till was strange. She wondered what his dreams were like.

"Sounds nice," she said. "I would love to listen to her sing…"

"She…doesn't sing all the time," Till said, eyes suddenly darkening. "You really don't wanna have them. They're nightmares, Sua".

Sua couldn't understand how it could be. A world where she could visit and revisit Mizi…it sounded like a dream come true. How could Till call something like that a nightmare?

She didn't say anything else, though. She simply stared down at the paper.

"Thank you," she said. "I like it".

Till smiled. Sua much preferred that smile, rather than that frown he'd been wearing.

· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·

"Sua! Suasuasua-, Sua!"

Sua turned when she heard her name being yelled across the halls. It was obvious who was calling her name. There was no surprise in her eyes, when she saw Till rushing to her. She wasn't sure why he was kicking off a fuss, but honestly, when did she ever? Till was mystery, truly. He almost stumbled face first into te floor, face flushed as he stammered. Unable to get out the words.

"Yes?" She asked patiently, almost unbothered and untouched by his frantic movements.

He was drenched head to toe in sweat. Still breathing heavily, Till looked up. Just how far and fast had he ran?

"Come with me!"

Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed her hand and began dragging her across the school's patio. Till wasn't the most athletic person in the school, but he was taller than Sua. And, for some reason, it seemed like he'd been possessed. Despite the fact that he surely shouldn't be this fast, here he was. Rushing and running to the point that Sua could barely keep up. She felt like she was being dragged around like a rag doll, rather than actually being led anywhere.

"Till! Hang on! I can't run this-!"

"Hurry!"

Instead of letting her rest, Till just pulled her harder. Her arm hurt, and she would absolutely be swearing at him once she caught her breath.

"Till, seriously! What's going-!?"

The loud slam of a body against the wired fence. Sua watched wide eyed as Till crashed into wire, breaking the impact that surely would have caused both of them.

"Look!" He said, eyes wide and smile bright. He looked like a child when he smiled like that. "I found her!"

"Found her? What do you mean by-?" Sua said.

However, her eyes zeroed into what laid beyond the wired fence Till was hanging to. Across them, she could see her. Sua sucked in a harsh gasp of air, walking slowly until her hands met the fence.

It was far away, but it was still there. So close, yet so far beyond her reach. Pink hair that glistered against the setting sun, a laugh that - much like Till's poem had described - seemed to light up the air around her. Oh, she looked so beautiful. In a way that the poems could barely capture, making even the carefully rendered pictures she held in her notebooks pale in comparison.

"Mizi," she whispered. "It's her…"

"Isn't it amazing!?"

Sua looked at Till. He still held that same brightness in his eyes. Clear and uncaring of the world looking back at him. A wave of uncertainty rolled into her. The words painted in ink, so gentle in their love, made her wonder if perhaps it meant her own had withered before it bloomed.

"It is," she said, breathing out. "…are you going to…?"

Ask her out, she wanted to ask. But the words stopped in her throat before she could say anything. It hurt. If Till asked her out, she wasn't sure what ugly feelings might germinate in her heart. Thorns formed around her heart, as she watched her hidden words start to click in her friends mind.

"I don't think I could talk to her," he confessed, looking down to the floor. His cheeks were dusted in pink. "She's too pretty".

It still annoyed her. But it was manageable. A silent compromise. Not you, not me.

But, Sua couldn't help thinking as she watched the girl laugh from afar, I want it to be me…

· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·

Sua wasn't thrilled about having to ask her cousin, of all people, for a favour. He was a highly unpleasant person whom she'd much rather avoid. But he was the student council president. And that meant he had some say in the clubs' budget.

"It's rare for you to ask for anything," Ivan had the gall to say. "What has you so interested that you'd come ask me for something? A boyfriend, perhaps?"

Sua pulled a face. Disgust overflowed in her, the mere thought making her stomach churn.

"Gross, shouldn't have asked you for anything," she said, turning to leave.

She thought her cold-hearted monster of a cousin wouldn't do anything. It had been a long shot, something in the far-off chance it might work. Ivan rarely cared about anything. More than once she'd seen him smile while the world was burning down, and refuse to do anything because it felt "outside of the purview of his responsibilities as a student council".

Yet, she wasn't able to hide her surprise when Till came rushing in one lunch break with the widest grin he'd ever seen on the boy.

"The music club got a guitar!" Till cheered before Sua even had time to put her books away. He came running just when the school's bell rang; he was sweaty and all red in the face. His eyes twinkled, barely comprehending the world around him other than-, "-they're letting me borrow it!"

"That's nice, Till," she replied with her usual monotone voice. As she continued to put her things away, she wondered if he came running as soon as he found out. Had Sua been the only person to come to mind? "Did you bring lunch today or-?"

"Come!" He didn't even let her finish.

He rushed to the music room with Sua in hand. That was probably a 'no' to her question. Thats said, she had brought lunch and she wanted to eat it, thank you kindly. So, she wasn't a big fan of Till forcing her to spend her lunch break in a stuffy music room with a guitar. Specially since she knew Till had never touched a guitar. She was certain he'd spent the entire time trying to get the hang of how to even place a chord, or how to strum the strings in a way that didn't hurt the eardrums.

At least, that was what she assumed. She knew Till had never owned a guitar before. It was his dream, after all, to own one and make music. Sure, the boy had seen videos on the internet but that could hardly be classified as musically trained.

Yet, Till effortlessly flipped through the loose papers. It was so disorganized. Papers flew from here to there, falling and rolling across the floor. He was so desperate, as if the thing that he was searching from would disappear from her fingers. As if this had been what he'd spent a lifetime reaching for. What was his deal? It's not like the guitar would be gone after today. There was no need to be so frantic, was there?

Annoyed, she sat down, watching him ruffle through the papers until he picked out the one he wanted. He put it in front of him, and put the guitar strap over his shoulder with ease. Sua blinked.

Till's hand moved up and down the guitar's neck, while his fingers danced across the fretboard. It was a quick try, as if he was feeling the give, the strings, the board. Like a seasoned player holding a stranger's guitar for the first time. In that moment, the idea that Till had never played before completely vanished from her mind. His skill was not that of a novice. No one could deny that much, at least.

Sua assumed that with that level of skill, Till would definitely start playing rock, punk. One of those insane rifts she'd seen in tv sometimes.

Instead for the first few minutes he strummed a song. It was a soft song. A very sad song. His eyes stared at the music score with eyes that glittered emotion. It was sweet. Sua could drown in the sound, as imperfect as it was. It was clear it was missing a few instruments. Even as it was, she could tell it was a song bigger than life. Was this for Mizi too…? So far, she assumed that her own love was bigger than Till's, in magnitude at least she wouldn't lose. But this…It made it quite hard to come to the same conclusion.

Guilt came over her when Till finished the song. He wiped a runaway tear, caressing the paper like it the last connection he had to her. It wasn't. His dreams…didn't he have Mizi in hundredths of those?

How greedy he was.

(Sua hated herself for how jealous she was).

But soon, he handed her a music score.

"I don't know how to sing," she said, reading through the lines.

"Your mom forced you to do choir," Till quickly interrupted, tuning in the guitar.

Rats, she thought he wasn't listening when she told him.

"I'm bad".

"You're not".

"This is a duet".

"Skip those parts for now".

"You're insistent".

"So are you," Till finally looked up, finishing up his work on tuning the guitar. "I can't sing it. I tried. Fits you better anyways".

Sua sighed. Her eyes traced the lyrics. Then she blinked. Was this…?

"Oh my Clematis…"

She wanted to mess up the song on purpose so that Till would never ask her to sing again.

But she recognized the first word. Clematis. Didn't Till say something about Mizi singing about the flower? Before she realized it, the words that poured out come out flawlessly before she had the time to think. It was like second nature; instinct even.

The emotions filled her before she could form a coherent thought. In a haze, like she was pulled into a stage, her voice found the rhythm and the tone. It was a duet. She knew it was a duet. She knew it for the notes she was skipping in the notation paper, but more so from the heavy empty air that followed after her own voice. It was as distinct echo, something missing right by her side. It was strange. An incomplete puzzle; an unfinished melody.

When she looked up to see Till, whose guitar continued to guide her, he saw a faint twinkle in his eyes. Recognition, she realized. An image he'd seen before. Somewhere, perhaps far away. Perhaps long, long ago.

She wondered if he knew why the song felt so incomplete.

· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·

"Have you seen me in your dreams too?" She asked once.

Till stopped strumming the strings of the guitar, and then looked up. These days, they spent so much of their free time in the music room. Sua minded less and less, seeing as Till was actually good. She'd do her homework, while Till composed.

"I think so," he confessed.

"You think?"

"You look…different," he said.

"How so?" Sua couldn't help but ask.

"You're always smiling and laughing," Till replied. "At first I didn't think it was you".

Sua could understand that. The idea of her always smiling and laughing was foreign. It sounded made up. In fact, much like Till had said, her first instinct would be to assume it wasn't her.

"Is that why you started talking with me?" Sua asked.

Till shook his head.

"It was recent," he said. "Mizi too…And it's blurry. I don't remember much when I wake up".

He went back to playing his guitar. The strings hummed at a familiar melody. Sua wished she could know the name of the song. However, the wording of something made her perk up.

"Recently?" She asked. "Have you seen other people, then?"

Till didn't stop his strum of the chords when he answered with a very faint, "yeah".

It was the clearest sign that he didn't want to talk about that. Sua went back to her books, choosing not to probe anymore. Maybe if she were better at words, or people, she could ask all the questions she wanted answered. More about Mizi, more about these weird dreams, about the other people Till saw in them.

But she didn't. Her eyes went back to calculus.

· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·

She bumped into Mizi.

Not the drawing, not the one stuck in paper and ink. But the real one. The one who went to their school, yet Sua had never met before. With her bright fluffy pink hair, and a smile that was so wide and contagious, Sua could feel her own tugging at the corner of her lips. She was beautiful.

When they collided, Sua's books sprawled all around, and the girl was quick to help her pick up her things and hand them back to her. 'Mizi' was chatty, she started talking with Sua almost immediately, jumping from topic to topic, uncaring for the time between classes slowly slipping out of their hands. It was like a whirlwind, and Sua was a lone paper plane.

She drank up their interaction like a dying man. It was like the drawing hid in her notebook had come to life. She hoped the look she was giving the girl wasn't coming off as creepy. She felt like it was. But she was too immersed by her bubbly laugh to care.

It didn't. Or if it did, Mizi was too naive to realize as much. The girl had happily offered her social media info, telling her that if she needed anything she could reach out.

'I'm new! So, I want to make friends! As many as I can! We can go shopping together soon!'

Mizi went back to her group of friend. Hyuna, the most popular girl in the entire school, happily welcomed her in.

Sua couldn't wait. When the bell rang, signaling for their break, Sua rushed to the break room.

"Till-!"

She was so excited to tell someone, anyone, what had just happened.

Just to find Till already in the room, the hypnotic sound of a desperate guitar echoing among the four walls.

It was a haunting sound. The guitar sounded like it was weeping, the strums were rough and desperate. The kind of sound that stunned you in place. The song - a poem that Sua had read before - was some strange incomprehensible begging turned music.

'Don't leave me', 'you were all I wanted'.

The vivid description of someone's eyes going cold, light fading from them. The person singing claimed they were left standing alone, still reaching out to the person in front of them. Till's voice was hoarse, something between a cry and a heave. As if the mere idea of saying those words were destroying him.

For a second, Sua couldn't move. Entranced by the sight before her. The sound; the lyrics. It was overwhelming how suddenly the emotion washed over her.

Even when Till finished, turning back to her with a weak smile, she couldn't find her voice.

Faintly, she recalled pink hair, adorned in hues of blue at the tips. A beautiful voice, and sharp pain shooting up her name.

'Is this what she felt?'

The thought was gone as soon as it popped in her head.

Fading and fading, until all there was, was the lingering sentiment of nostalgia.

"It's a good song," Sua managed to say. Till smiled at her.

Part of her wanted to ask. The inevitable question that always circled back to it all.

But the answer was set in stone.

This too, was written for Mizi. Just like every note, every lyric, every stroke that had come before. Till, much like herself, felt undying crippling devotion to a girl he'd only ever met in his dreams.

As much as it pained her, it was only him who could put all her yearning and hopelessness into words. Her feelings felt bigger than words, bigger than anything she'd ever felt before. But it was in Till's music where she found herself. Like a distorted mirror, but a mirror nonetheless.

Everything she'd ever felt, inked in paper. Finally materialized, finally painted in the lyrics he was holding.

'Don't leave me', 'you were all I wanted'.

It was so unfair.

"I talked to Mizi, you know?"

At her words - blurted out in jealousy - Till didn't gawk. He didn't look hurt or pained. Instead, he beamed.

She wanted to scream. Say this proved she loved Mizi more. That her love was bigger than his. That this meant Mizi belonged to her. But the echoes of that haunting guitar music rang in her heart. So ugly and true to her heart. It's like Till had direct access to it, extracting her feelings.

They were too similar in that sense. Maybe, she wanted to cry in helplessness, that meant he did love her the way Sua did.

It was infuriating.

· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·

Sua would kill for a song. A proper song. The type you could listen to on repeat again and again. She would never say it though. It was embarrassing. And without incentive, Till didn't seem like the type to record anything proper.

However, she knew something that would drive him to do so. It boiled her skin to even think about it. But she needed it.

"I have friend," Sua told Mizi, one time they were hanging out. They had starting going to coffee shops and the mall on the weekends. They were sacred to her now. "He makes music".

"Music?" Mizi asked, eyes glimmering with curiosity. "What type of music he makes?"

"Strange music," Sua replied honestly. "Good, but strange. Do you want to come hear it?"

"Oh?" Mizi said, leaning forward. "At school?"

Sua's ears turned bright red, and her cheeks heated up. Shyly, she nodded. That was enough to have Mizi smiling widely, from ear to ear.

"I'll be there!"

It almost caused Till to have a heart attack. Which was kinda funny.

"You didn't tell me anything!"

"Sorry," Sua said, unpalogetically.

Mizi sprawled inside the music room, which at this point had become Sua and Till's special hideout. Her hands were shifting through the pages upon pages of music and sketches. The ones that didn't have Mizi, of course. The ones that did, were secretively hidden in Sua's books. Till was kind enough to give them up. There was another pile though, which he refused to hand her, not even showing it to her. Curiosity filled her regarding them, but he assured her they weren't Mizi related, so she chose to drop it.

"You were right, Sua," Mizi said, looking through the music notes. "It's strange! I don't really get it, but it sounds really pretty".

Sua could tell Till was dying on the side. Embarrased and trying to hide what he could. There were certain songs he still thought weren't ready and he'd probably prefer to keep hidden as long as he could. Plus, it was a little weird to show the unaware muse all the music he was writing without her knowledge.

"This is my favorite," Sua went on to show her the poem about the garden and the beautiful girl who soothed it's inhabitants. It still didn't have music to go with it.

"Hmm, I don't really get it," she replied. She instead, picked another poem from the pile. It was the song Till had forced her to sing. "This one is nice though!".

"Sua sang that," Till said, interrupting the two girls. "I recorded a sample, want to hear?"

Suddenly, Sua was the one blushing.

"No!"

"Yes!"

Till didn't care for Sua's embarrassment. He was readily showing Mizi her singing. God, if she had known this would happen, she would actually out some effort into her singing!

"Sua's so good!" Mizi cheered. Till nodded by her side.

"It's supposed to be a duet," Till clarified. There was a sparkle in his eyes. And no, no, no, this wasn't why she had invited Mizi-! "You could sing the other half. I'll mix it".

"Really!?" Mizi beamed. Sua could only blush by her side, trying to tug at her arm. She truly hoped Mizi would stop. But she was too caught up by Till's idea. "Yes! You have to send it to me A-S-A-P! Where do I stand? You just need-!"

Before her crush could continue, the door was abruptly opened. It put a dam on the excitement. Sua couldn't decide if it was for better or for worse. Specially when she looked up to see who had opened the door. Her face inmediatly fell.

"Ivan!" Mizi called excitedly.

Great, Sua could only sigh internally. This doofus.

"What are you doing here?" Sua asked, uninterested.

"Searching for the cheer captain," Ivan replied with one of those cold, fake smiles of his. "Couldn't find you anywhere. Hyuna said you disappeared".

"I was just with my friends," Mizi replied as excited as always. Ivan simply raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Can't you check with Luka about this? I'm busy!"

"Hardly seems the senior-priority business here," Ivan said, pointedly looking at the papers she was holding. He simply shrugged. "I'll see you afterschool then".

He closed the door. Mizi let out a loud groan, as she rested her head in Sua's shoulder. She was warm, Sua noted. And she smelled like strawberry pound cake.

"He's so mean!" She complained, and Sua could hear her complain about her stupid cousins for forever. "He knows I wanted to eat ice cream after school! Now I have to be stuck in boring captain meetings, ugh".

"You can go after you're done," Sua said.

"My friends will be gone by that time, none of them stay for after school stuff," Mizi bemoaned.

"We can go with you," Sua said, a slight blush spreading through her cheeks. "Till and I stay behind to study and write. Right, Till?"

Sua had been so preoccupied with the way that Mizi's hair swayed as she talked that she had completely forgotten to check up on Till. When she finally looked up, she was startled to find Till staring off into space. There was a light blush in his face, eyes wide, and bated breath.

It was coincidentally, his eyes were staring off close to where Mizi was sitting. Huh, a little bit late for that reaction, wasn't it? Not that he could blame him for such a reaction. She had more or less looked that way when she first met Mizi.

His eyes snapped back into focus, and his hands reached for the pen nearby. She watched as Till fell into that familiar trance. She'd seen it so many times it was hard for her to get mad about how they'd been basically left hanging.

(Not that she ever cared if Till stopped talking, paying attention at only the paper. He was quiet by nature, but she wasn't exactly talkative either. The first few times there had been an awkwardness about it, but soon their mutual silence became soothing. A quiet calm in the middle of the raging storm that was each of their lives. Sua quite enjoyed it).

"He'll be off to his own world for a few hours, we just have to remind him to go to class when the bell rings," Sua explained, her hands tracing another of the poems.

Till had written it in a daze like the one he was in, a few weeks back. It was about a woman, who after living her whole life trapped in a 'monotonous garden' was finally able to be free. However, it led her to live a life of recklessness. Partying, drinking, putting her life at risk and fighting with strangers. The poem flashed back and forth between perspectives, one paragraph describing her life in the caged garden, and the other her fever dream of a life after.

It wasn't Sua's favorite, but there was something quite tragic.

"You sure are close, aren't you?" Mizi said, looking over Sua's shoulder. "How so?"

She was enveloped by the sweet scent of Mizi's perfume, which was utterly overwhelming. Her heartbeat sped up inside her chest. She truly hoped Mizi couldn't hear it. Sua's face was already so red and hot.

"A-are we? I never thought about it," she replied, trying not to focus on the way that Mizi's breast were pressing on her back. "We just kinda fell into each others company…"

"Hmmm, you like music too, Sua?"

She didn't have a particular opinion on it. At least, not until she met Till.

"I do," she said.

"Then, we should sing together," Mizi said with a beaming smile.

"Eh? Where's that coming from?"

Mizi turned her head, it now rested comfortably in Sua's arm. She looked up, eyes filled with mischievousness and brightness. Sua was taken aback by how beautiful her smile was.

"I want to make music with Sua too," Mizi said with a hum. "If Sua likes music, I also want to make things Sua likes!"

Sua tried to hide her smile. But the way Mizi's grin grew wider, she had the suspicion that it had't worked at all.

· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·

Not all of Till's songs were good or completed. Some were a few sentences written at the margins of his drawings. Beautiful. But hardly something more than a title. Most were only three or four paragraphs long. Things he wrote in or between classes, and promptly threw it in the unorganized pile he called a notebook. Sometimes he would Frankenstein all of those pieces into a single thing. Sua, who knew the process, could tell when it happened. It was quite ugly, seeing so many pieces of different stories stitched together with the world's flimsiest thread. But, it was even more frustrating to realize it somehow worked. And to someone who hadn't seen the process (like Mizi) it sounded fairly good. But sometimes the music arrengement was simply missing something. Either Sua thought it was overly complicated, or Till hated it. More often than not, it was the latter. Sua was quickly finding out how overly critical of his own work Till was. She'd be impressed, if it weren't tiring.

'It's perfectly fine,' she would say. 'You should just record it as is'.

' No, there's something missing, still'.

It was a pain to deal with.

Sua wanted to say 'My Clematis' was the first real song he created, where everything fell into place. To which, Till simply shook his head.

"It's not my song," he said.

"We sang it," Sua conceded. "But you still wrote it".

"Not really," Till said once more. "I'm just borrowing. Until it finds it owners".

Sua simply rolled her eyes, feeling like it was only another excuse for Till not to take the compliment. She ouldn't be too mad though. They had sung the song, and Till had burnt it into a CD. He was kind enough to even make the cover. A drawing he made, poorly scanned with the library's appliances and printed the same. The paper was cheap, the ink had smudged. It cost double to print in color, yet Till still used the brightest pinks and purples to draw what looked like a pair of girls in a scenario; a galaxy right before them. It brought forth a strange wave of nostalgia inside Sua. The mp3 file sat in her phone, as it did in Mizi's phone.

Mizi was the most thrilled of both. It seemed like her eyes kept sparkling, as if enamored with the idea of performing in front of a crowd with Sua.

As it stood, the two of them had grown close, specially after the recording. Mizi would pop in sometimes. She didn't seem interested in Till's drawings or his poems or music. Yet, she would entertain it for Sua's sake. Although, the days she came over, were days Sua wouldn't pay attention to Till's music all that much either. Her eyes were too focused on Mizi.

"What's that?" A familiar voice asked.

The three of them were sitting in the shade of a tree, in the green area of the school. Mizi had her head resting on Sua's lap, while Sua herself was listening to her talk about some gossip that was happening in her cheerleading squad. Till sat cross legged across them, scribbling away in his notebook, until the voice talked.

Sua already dreaded the conversation. Mizi was holding a new copy of their song, after Till managed to scrap enough money to buy a second blank CD. Of course that asshole was the first to notice it.

Mizi, though, was more than happy to answer.

"It's a song!" Mizi replied cheerfully. "I made it with Sua!"

"Huh, is that so?" Ivan asked, looking back to his cousin with interest. "So, that's why you submitted that application to the student council?"

"This and that are different," Sua said, shooting Ivan a glare. She'd rather not deal with her complicated cousin in such a lovely day.

"Had I known my precious little cousin wanted an excuse to form a band, I would have done more you know?" Ivan said with that sarcastic tone of his. The type that screamed he wanted a repayment of some sort for what he did.

Unfortunately for him, Sua had nothing to offer him.

"It's not a band," Sua replied, looking away. "Till just wanted a voice for his songs".

"Till?"

Shit. Maybe she shouldn't have mentioned him.

Her eyes landed on Till, who was still busy writing something in his notebook. He was quite focused. Hands in the air, motioning at the chords of a guitar as he mouthed some of the lyrics to a song. Sua didn't recognize the poem.

She'd assumed that because Till was (pretty much) ignoring them, Ivan would drop it and then move on to why he was actually here. There was nothing the scheming bastard did that he didn't benefit from.

But much to her surprise, Ivan walked past Sua and Mizi and looked over Till shoulder.

It was only when the large shadow blocked the direct sunlight that Till's notebook had been receiving, that Till finally looked up. His eyes wide, staring straight up, while Ivan's stared straight down.

For a strange, almost surreal second, it seemed like time had frozen still. The sound of the wind rustling through the leaves of a tree, and the cicada chirping - all silent for a moment. Sua blinked, curious as to why Till was so shocked to see Ivan.

"Mr. Problem Child, it seems," Ivan said with that characteristic smile of his. "You have quite a reputation, you know?"

Sua sucked in a harsh breath. Till's frown deepened, as he stopped his fingers in the air.

"Takes one to know one," Till replied, harshly. "Who are you, even?"

Till was amazing at many different things. Art, music, poems. But he was also lacking in quite a few aspects. Academically was one. The other, was his inability to know anyone outside of their little bubble. Sua stared, wide eyes and confused. How could you not know Ivan? She could feel Mizi laughing in her lap.

Ivan didn't let the irrationality of that question affect him, though. His smile simply broadened. It was creepy and weird, so obviously fake. Sua could feel the dread overcome her.

"Ivan, student council president," Ivan said. "I believe you're in violation of the dress code".

Sua looked the other way as Till tried to argue in his own defense. Mizi quickly covered her legs with her sweater to hide the fact that she had pulled her skirt far above the knee-length requirement.

Ivan wasn't the type to gain enemies for such petty reasons. Most of the time, he would ignore it. Unless a teacher was present, of course. He'd give a stern warning, if he thought it appropriate, but always with that charming and fake smile of his. The type that Sua utterly hated. She had no idea how he did it, but he'd managed to maximize his likeability to the general scholastic public.

The only person he hadn't managed to pull into his magnetic personality field, was Sua. Because Sua could see through the fakeness of it all. And for some reason, Ivan found that amusing. Amusing enough that he'd go out of his way to purposefully annoy her from time to time.

But there was a line he wouldn't dare cross. And that was, namely, appearances. He still looked like the model student, even when he was being a menace.

Now, however…

"What's that?"

"Hey! Give that back!"

She watched as Ivan took the notebook from Till, flipping through it with ease. He acted familiar, too familiar for someone who he had just met. It was strange to see him so focused on getting on Till’s nerves, when there was nothing to gain from it. Although, judging by the strange glint in Ivan's eyes, she could guess.

"Ivan just a found a new chew toy, it seems," Mizi hummed, interested.

Sua had to agree.

· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·

Till found an old CD. It was some obscure band that no one could name. The name was complicatedly written, in an illegible font. The music was loud and chaotic, and the lyrics were an incomprensible mess. Sua found it weird, trying too hard to be edgy, even.

Till loved it.

He started modeling his style around them. Or as much as he could, given what little lee-way the school uniform allowed. Out of school, he was a little more successful. But, in Sua's opinion, it was quite ugly still. Not that she would say it out loud.

He called it 'punk', or something. Sua had half-hearted argued it was closer to 'Emo'.

Whatever it was, it was slowly tinting some of the songs he was writing. Sua thought she'd hated them, and hated she did some of them. She tried not to let it show, given that Till was a sensitive soul. Despite how much he put on an act of aloofness and uncaringness, a single harsh criticism from Sua would send him in a spiral of self doubt, loosing his train of thought on how to fix it.

And, to be honest, Sua hated it.

She disliked how much her words could affect Till's creative output. Sure, she hated some of the things he wrote, specially the 'punk' music that sounded more like auditory pollution than music, or even the cringey 'Unknown' song (which she had to try really hard not to pull a face about when he showed her). But there was also songs she had assumed she would hate, based on the sound of it, -just for the lyrics to take her away. The sheer emotion and longing that came from them was hypnotic. If Till had stopped, just because she thought it sounded incoherent, she would have been robbed of such a beautiful sound.

His experimental nature was talent on its own.

And, anyways, what she enjoyed the most was the heart of his music. Despite it all, every time she came back to those lost poems, she could feel an earnestness. A real, human attempt to describe a feeling.

'I don't like anticipating my face in a red flush'.

Sua was bad at words herself. People confused that with an inability to feel.

'I don't like that anyone would die to feel your touch'

They couldn't be more wrong. Sua felt. She felt, perhaps too much. Emotions bubbled up and remained trapped inside her. No one understood the feeling.

Till's music could though. Where she was shy and unable to say anything, he was loud and eloquent. His written poems touched a part of her world and finally conveyed them in ways she could explain. Sadness, pain, happiness and…

'Everybody wants you'.

Love.

'But I don't like a gold rush'.

They were sitting in the bleachers. Sua was, as always, reading a book. Or she was supposed to. She was more interested in the view. Till, on the other hand, was sitting next to her. The club's guitar in his hands. He'd been able to rent it out - trusty thanks of her cousin, who was practicing for a game, just as Mizi trained with the rest of the cheerleading squad. The sun blazing up in the sky, and the wind bringing a soft breeze. They were standing at the very top, far enough they could see the entire field. Although, to Sua, only one thing was worth focusing on. She lowered her book, so that her eyes could look, while she hid her smile. 

Till kept strumming along with hypnotic rhythm.

'What must it be like-'

Mizi's training outfit was far cuter than the official uniform. Less revealing for one. But it was less…produced. It was just her. In safety shorts and a shirt that had a white loop-eared bunny in the very front. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, with some loose strands were already coming apart. She was so good, cheering and jumping, from here to there, to the beat of the music. 

'-to grow up that beautiful-'

Every time she jumped, her hair would sway from side to side. Her sweat would trickle down from her forehead, and her smile would beam up the crowd. Oh, what a lovely thing she was. Mizi always shone bright, yet it seemed like whenever she performed, that brightness went up and up. It was blinding, in a way.

'-with your hair falling into place like dominoes'

She was the center of attention. Everyone looked at her, taken aback by how pretty she was. While Sua couldn't blame them - she was the same, taken in by the gravitational pull that was Mizi -, it didn't stop the bitterness growing inside her heart. Why was she so pretty? Why must she share Mizi with everyone else? Why was everyone else so in love with Mizi?

Shouldn't Mizi be something only Sua knew of? Something she hid in the pages of her notebook. Away from prying eyes, away from even the author who created her.

'My mind turns your life into folklore'.

She wondered if Till felt the same. He must. The words he was singing, the enchanting music that manifested all of Sua's darkest feelings, were coming from him. He was probably mourning the fact that Mizi had escaped his pages and became the world's. Just like Sua herself did.

'I can't dare to dream about you anymore-'

"Sua!"

A voice took her out of her trance.

There, in the middle of the field, was Mizi. Bright, beautiful, golden, Mizi. Instead of hiding away, she laid in the center stage. As if begging for everyone to look at her.

But in turn, Mizi looked at nothing else but Sua.

Her smile wide, her arms waving, calling for Sua to look. Look at her. Oh, what a silly request. Sua had never looked at anything but Mizi. Sua's own cheeks flushed, she loved how hard her heart was pounding, she loved how much she loved Mizi. Shyly, she waved back. Mizi acted like Sua had just cheered. She beamed up, jumping and calling her name louder and louder until Sua had no choice but to let out a nervous laugh.

She really was perfect.

Her eyes turned to the side, accidentally meeting Till's.

'Cause it will never be…'

She froze into place.

His eyes were looking at the field. Glazed over, as if dissociating. A forlorn look that conveyed just how heavy the grief he was carrying was. In a second, the dozen -probably hundreds - of pages of writing flashed through her eyes. All those songs, all those ballads, all those poems and secret confessions. All aimed at the person standing in that very same field.

Sua was overcome with jealousy over the world loving Mizi. But she at least had the solace that Mizi would only ever look at her.

Till did not have that.

He was the only one capable of putting into words her own feelings. But she had never stopped to think about his. Guilt arose in her. Not because she was taking away Mizi from him. No. She felt guilt for not feeling guilty at all. She wouldn't give her up. Not to the author who had conjured her up, not even to Till. 

Mizi was hers. Only and truly hers.

Sua knew she was an evil, truly evil person.

She didn't deserve Mizi. She didn't deserve Till.

But she greedily kept her.

· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·

"How does the garden story end?" She once asked.

They were outside the school. Sitting (although, loitering might be the better word) in a chain restaurant after an outing. Till had wanted a new CD. Why he didn't just buy it online was a mystery to her. It should have been easier, but Till never liked the easy way for some reason. Something about physical media, and it feeling more real. She couldn't say se understood.

But every time he said something like that, he got that distant look. One she was quite familiar with.

"You don't want to know," was his answer.

It was the most direct answer she'd gotten from him yet. He usually avoided the topic altogether, or shifted Sua's attention to something else. It piqued her curiosity.

"I do-," she wanted to reply. But before she could, Till shot her a look. It was a melancholic look. One fueled with nothing but absolute misery and despair. It was the clearest way for her to know, Till wasn't lying. He really meant it. "…did she die?"

"Who?"

"Mizi," Sua said. Her mind wandered back to the poems. Death awaited the people in the garden, that much was certain. As beautiful as the imagery was, and as lovesick the author always described the girl in front of them, there was the ever looming presence of death hanging around the corner.

She had hoped they escaped. That it had a happy ending.

Till's vacant eyes told her the truth though: there was no such thing.

"No," Till said. Sua sighed in relief. But it was short lived. "Worse".

She stopped pressing. She felt that, if she truly knew what had happened, she would be devasted. That said, curiosity gnawed at the back of her mind. Till could feel her anxiety; he always could.

From his crossbody, he took out something. It was a notebook. Different from the one he always carried at school. It was all black, and the pages were mostly torn and ripped. Some scribbles covered the entre page. He flipped through the pages too quickly for Sua to see the entirety of it. Red flowers, she could vaguely find. But it was mostly black and black scribbles and ink .

It was a turmoil, too big for Sua to comprehend.

Till took out three pages.

Sua dreaded them.

She waited until she was back home to read them.

The narrator described the pink haired girl crying on a stage. Her beautiful, everlasting laughter, finally stopped. What had once been the center of their hope, their last strand clinging to sanity, vanishing from between their fingers.

What followed was grueling. Sua felt like throwing up.

[Witch]

Sua wanted to cry. Reach out from the other side of the paper and console her.

'You aren't a monster, you're the most beautiful, kindest person ever'.

But there was nothing she could do.

The lingering feeling of impotence washed over her long after she'd finished the poems. It drained her. She couldn't think of anything else. Her mind kept reeling, thinking, trying to process what she had just read.

She had caught nothing but a fleeting glimpse of it.

Till no doubt had seen more.

The little notebook filled with torn pages and blotches of dark black ink suddenly made so much sense.

He had to watch Mizi lose herself like this. Was that why he was so content just watching her be happy? Is that why he held no greed for her, like Sua did? Ugly feelings arose her. They engulfed her completely.

She had no idea how Till was able to live with these nightmares in his mind. Sua would have lost it.

· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·

The music room was empty. Mizi had some boring council meeting. It was a rare instance when Sua and Till were completely alone in their little room. These moments had grown fewer and fewer. Neither had realized. Not until they were left alone, and there was a second neither knew how to react. These days, Sua was attached to the hip to Mizi. Something her cousin found amusing enough to come bother her about it. She still didn't understand that. Thankfully, Till was enough of a weirdo to attract his cousin's attention away from her precious Mizi-time (at school). So, it had been a while since they had the room all for themselves.

It felt so big now. It had felt so cramped last time.

Yet, it didn't take long for them both to fall back into that sweet, lulling rhythm they had before this craziness started. Sua sat down and did homework, while Till started tuning the guitar.

She didn't feel like using the desktop, however. She'd grown used to siting on the floor. Mizi would always come and lay on her lap, after all. This time, there was no Mizi, sadly enough. Instead, she sat behind Till using his back as her own backrest. He didn't even twitch about it, perhaps used to the skin ship both Mizi and Ivan showed. Their terrible habits were rubbing off on them.

Sua started doing her homework. Math homework. She liked it. Integrals were repetitive, once you knew the trick to them. Change a number here, sum things there, multiply and substitute. It was easy, it was predicable. She knew numbers.

Her pencil stopped as she realized Till was playing a new song. She'd heard the melody before, but this was the first time he was singing the lyrics he'd wrote for them. At least to her. The ease with which he sang gave away that this was something he'd done before. The first time he sang, he would hesitate when matching the lyrics to the chords. He would still work out the kinks of the entonation and enunciation. Changing things like 'slow' to 'low' or 'old' to 'all', so things would flow better. Changing the timing so a word fell right on time with a chord progression.

But this time around, he was strumming with ease. His voice was soft, uncaring if he or Sua could parse the real lyrics. It was a sign this was something he'd sang before. Multiple times in fact. Yet, this was the first time Sua was listening to it.

Meaning, this was a new song.

Sua closed her eyes, a smile playing in the corner of her lips. She let the familiar sound of a guitar fill her up. Till's voice might be soft, but she could still make out perfectly the lyrics. It was such a beautiful song, too. She hummed along with it, loving every bit of it.

The lyrics talked about a person falling in love. Or so Sua imagined. Truth was, it was filled with nothing but vague snippets of interactions that made little sense. The only tangible thing it described was the feelings.

Something about meeting them and blushing, and surrounded by the color red. She guessed red was a stand in for the color of love. Quite on the nose, and a little direct for Till's style. She still hummed along. It made her think of meeting Mizi. She also felt that way.

Hmm. She looked back down to her notebook. It was packed with numbers. Multiply here, substitute there, carry the two and then…

The flush in their cheeks, rust between telephones after hours of talking, and red lips. Such a deep color. Mizi's lips were such a beautiful color. Although, not quite as scarlet as Till implied.

The color red kept being described in a myriad of things, she realized. In different shades and tones. From scarlet, to red, to burgundy, wine, garnet and blood. Huh. Why red? Was it because it was the color of love? But Mizi was always such a beautiful pink color, red was more like…

A flash in her mind.

She stopped the scratch of the pencil on paper. There was a ringing in her ears, as she felt the blood drain from her face. 

A single image that destroyed everything. The beautiful atmosphere, the peace she'd been living in, suddenly shattered. No.

No.

It couldn't possibly be.

Her eyes turned to the sketchbook Till always carried. It laid next to them. With shaking hands, she reached for it, flipping it open in a random page.

Anemone. Bright red anemone flowers framing the page. Mizi was always a beautiful Clematis flower. A deep purple color.

She immediately stood up. Till lost his balance, stumbling and stopping his song. He looked up to Sua, confused. If this had been any other circumstance, perhaps it would have sobered her up and made her ashamed of her behavior.

However, as it was, she couldn't control her face. It was burning red, and she couldn't hold back.

"Ivan!?" She all but yelled, feeling crazed. "The song is for Ivan!?"

She hoped, she truly did, that Till would pull a face. For him to say gross. To say anything. She even hoped for him to confess to their unconfessable truth. For him to look at him blank and say "I love Mizi, she's my muse, she's my everything". That would be fine, that would be understandable. It would make sense in Sua's mind. Mizi was Mizi, of course Till liked her. That made sense, that was-

But instead of that, Till blushed. His cheeks bright red, as he looked away, and stammered.

Her mind went blank.

She needed to know when. How. How many of the songs she loved were secretly for Ivan. Why. When.

Sua felt like her brain was about to explode.

What was wrong with him?!?!

· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·

If there was one thing Till knew, was the color red. He could recognize it anywhere; he had dreams drowned in that shade.He’d seen red, he’d seen scarlet, crimson and wine. None of them were right. Too bright, too red, too something or else. No. 

This was the first time he recognized it. 

As he stood on the other side of the hallway, eyes fixated in the figure laughing a joyfully as child would, Till had the feeling he had finally found what he'd been searching for all along. And at the exact same moment, he lost it.

· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·

He remembered. Vaguely, not clearly except for the fleeting memories that clung to the back of his mind after a particularly awful dream. Those nights he woke up drenched in sweat and barely being able to breath. His throat aching, as if it had been destroyed from the inside out, heaving and barely coherent.

The first few times he'd stumbled out of the bed, terrified and knocking everything over. His mother came into the room, trying her best to calm him down. She reassured him that it was only a dream, that there was nothing to fear.

He had the vague feeling it was more than that. But he didn't want to bother her more than he already did. He stayed quiet, giving a light nod. Next time she asked, he answered the dreams had stopped.

They had not.

He coped the only way he could. By writing. First it was the garden. Such a terrifying place. Everything looked beautiful, pristine, filled with a peaceful air. But he knew. He knew what awaited beyond the walls. He'd seen, he'd felt, the stage that swallowed them. The gunshots, the blood.

He wrote so much. He hated all of it. The nightmares were consuming him. He wasn't sure what to do with it all. It was a baggage he never asked for, yet he carried everywhere. He's still not sure what would have happened, had it not been for Sua.

At first, he assumed that her interest was spectacle. She'd met him being bullied. Perhaps she was only staying close to protect him, and only asked about his writing to keep him from going crazy. But that was simply not who Sua was. If she did not care for something, she'd never entertain it.

Although, to be fair, she cared for Mizi.

Till could tell at first glance. Mizi was but a fragment of his dreams. A very small part of them. He didn't mind sharing those parts of his dreams with Sua. It helped ground him. See them as anything but the terrifying, grotesque blood bath and trauma they'd always been. They could be beautiful. They could bring a smile to Sua's face.

They didn't have to be nightmares. They could simply be dreams.

That's what they were with her, at least.

But in the darkness of his room, different dreams appeared. That shade. That color red.

He never imaged he'd see them in real life.

Why wouldn't he?

Sua was real, if distorted. Mizi was real, as dazzling and bright as she had been in his dreams. Why wouldn't the red eyes that haunted his dreams be real too?

Ivan.

He didn't know what he expected of the man come to life. His dreams were a jumbled mess. Flashing scenes of empty red eyes, looking at him as they fell. The scent of blood, the rain drenching him from head to toe. The laughter of the garden. Flowers that bloomed and a everlooming presence. The pressure of hands bigger than his own wrapped around his neck and the cut of air.

Pain. Sadness. Anger. Grief. It was confusing.

Where he could see the memories of Mizi (from beginning to end) clearly and without blurs, the red in his dreams evaded him. Mizi was always laughing in the garden. The red simply stared. Till couldn't tell why he stared, or if the eyes reassured him or scared him.

Who could ever be such a presence?

Ivan. Ivan was the answer.

Till expected the man to be someone shrouded in mystery. To be an everlooming terrifying presence that swallowed everything he touched.

Instead, he was met with an annoying giant who seemed to find thrill in irking every single cell in Till's body. He would steal his notebook, wanting to read more about the songs he wa making. Till only ever dared share the same he shared with Sua - the ones where Mizi was the main focus. He would never show them the ones where he spoke of a confusing boy who followed the author around.

Ivan wasn't terrifying. He wasn't scary. He was a weirdo, who liked to annoy Till. Who liked stars and hated crowds. He would flash fake smiles, just to escape into the little music room they had started using a a hideout. Ivan who would use that as an excuse to have as many snacks as he wanted. He preferred sweets, but he'd never seen anyone devour a bag of chips as fast as Ivan did after football practice-…

And goddamn.

Before he knew it, his pages were scribbled in notes. Words pointing out everything he'd noticed. Sketches filled with that color red. Not quite scarlet, not ruby, nor blood. The pencil, his favorite colored pencil, the one he was running out of - already so short he had sharpened away the name - called it maroon.

The same came out so easily from his lips. He hadn't even registered he was singing it, until Sua was getting up from her seat and yelling at him.

"Which ones-?" She choked out, looking over the papers around him. "-which ones are bout him?"

She had a terrible look in her eyes when she said it. Like just mentioning Ivan was staining, tainting whatever she'd heard before. Till couldn't understand it. He knew they were cousins, so maybe knowing some of the songs he'd been writing were directed to a cousin would be weird but…was that realy enough to look like someone had stepped on her food?

He tried to look for anything in the pile. Sua recognized them all. She had helped write them, in some cases. Her addiction to books, novels and poems made it so that the structure wasn't a complete mess from head to toe.

Till picked out one of the papers. Hesitant. He handed it over to her.

"This one…" he said slowly. "…this ones defintely about Mizi-"

Sua's eyes bulged. He feared they might pop out of her head.

"And the rest!?"

Till looked away, feeling his cheeks burn. He had never put much thought into how much he wrote. Quantity was never his objective. It was more like; whenever he had a thought, he was itching to put it down somewhere. Make sure that he could trace it back. It never dawned on him how much he was writing, really.

And he never put into perspective just how much of it was about Ivan.

Now, as he sat on a floor, surrounded with nothing but love songs - from both his past and this life - he felt the ever blooming shame in his heart grow. He looked at the floor, eyes forming in the corner of his eyes, face flushed beyond recognition.

"…sorry," he managed to mutter. Not that it helped much.

Sua was livid.

"What do you see in him?!" She asked.

Her tone was one of clear disgust, mixed in with genuine confusion. She wasn't asking just because it was weird, but because she was, in her own way, trying to get to the bottom of the situation. Till could feel her care, even if she didn't understand him.

"'I mean-," she continued, clearly exasperated. "-you went from Mizi to-! Him! Did you hit your head!? Do you need to go to the hospital?"

Till had never seen Sua so visibly worried about him before. It would be touching, if the cause of it all weren't him simply liking her cousin.

"I mean-," Till finally found his voice in the middle of the flurry of emotions he was feeling, "-Mizi's pretty. Really pretty-!" Till wanted to argue that Ivan was also pretty, but he had the feeling that would just send Sua into another rant. "…But you didn't fall for Mizi just because she's pretty, right?"

Sua froze in place.

"I wish I had a pretty love like yours," Till said before he could think. He hid his face, looking at the floor and hoping no one would catch sight of his own tears. "The way you love Mizi-, and the way she loves you -, it's so dazzling. It's like everything they've ever written about love in movies, and songs and-!"

Till could only pause. He watched as Sua moved. From where he was sitting, all he could see where her shoes. She sat down in front of him. Pictures of the garden flooded his mind. A pair of girls, surrounded by all white. Their laughter echoing through the place. They shared a flower crown with each other. It was so beautiful.

"…I wish I had that," Till confessed. He closed his eyes, and the picture of a flower crown, thrown to the ground. A boy looking over with indiferent eyes, stepping on it. "But I don't. All I have are these ugly, useless feelings".

"Your feeling are not useless, Till," Sua said. Hesitant, Till looked up. His eyes, full of tears, met Sua. She was back to her usual self. Calm. Collected. Only a light hint of understanding present in her eyes. In her hands, one of the music sheets he had written. "They're beautiful…Ugh, I just think they're wasted on Ivan".

Till couldn't help the laugh that spilled when Sua pulled a face.

Sua eased when she finally saw Till laugh. She laughed too.

"Can't we just pretend they're not about him?" Sua asked, eventually.

"Not all of them are about him," Till argued.

"I'll take that as a 'none of them are about him'," Sua decided. Till couldn't help laughing.

· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·

Till laughed as he pulled Sua’s hands. Sua was still running behind him, feeling her cheeks flush from how much she was running. Her dress had been so pretty. So, so pretty. Perfectly tailored, with her hair done in such a way that it framed her face just the right way. He-ah had been the one who did her make-up, and the memory of her sister’s disgusted look as she finished up still rained in her mind. She’d said she looked pretty. That she should go out and enjoy her prom. 

But she had been so certain she wouldn’t. 

Mizi was busy, talking to people Sua didn’t know. The entire party was miserable. Still, she had to go. It was her mother’s wishes for her to go. That’s why she was in such a pretty dress, why her sister did her make-up, and why her hair was done in such a fancy way. A pretty doll for her mother; a thing she could live vicariously through.

Yet, Till showed up.

He’d taken one look at her, and grabbed her wrist. 

“This place is boring,” he’d said. “Let’s ditch!” 

They had run out. Ivan was already waiting outside. She couldn’t understand why. Mizi had followed soon after, telling Ivan to start the car. 

Sua should have been livid. She should have been angry. She should have gone back and done everything just as her mother asked. Follow the tightly delineated path her family had drawn for her.

But with the starry sky shining behind them - she only picked up the pace. 

They sat on the park. Sua took off her high heeled shoes, and sat on the grass with Till. Mizi was laughing, saying how much more fun it was to spend time with her friends. She also took off her heels.

They were drenched in sweat. The music blasting out of Ivan’s car was a mess. All things she hated, punk or rock, things that would get in trouble if she listened them at home. The snacks that were shoved in her hands were greasy and sugary. The type that stained her dress, and smudged her make up.

”Hey, Ivan, get your own milkshake!” Till complained next to her. 

Sua took a huge bite out of her hamburger. Mizi was complaining about how much work she had to do to set up the prom, and how no one helped her out. Sua fed her fried and told her she’d done amazing. 

The starry sky above them shone so bright. Sua wondered if Till’s dreams had as beautiful of a sky as this one. 

“Sua, look! A shooting star!” 

She seriously doubted it. 

· · ───•⋅⊰ ꥟ ⊱⋅•─── · ·

"This place is packed," Sua complained.

"I know! I can't believe Till got us tickets!" Mizi cheered.

"Real nice of him," Hyuna agreed, following close by.

"It's the least he could do," Sua said simply, walking over to the stage. "I wouldn't show up otherwise".

"Yeah, right?" Mizi easily agreed. But Sua could feel her cheeks heat up with the way she was grinning at her. "I mean, we already went to all the concerts in the area. I was thinking we'd have to break the bank to get to this one".

"Wah?! All the concerts in the area?!" Hyuna asked, looking at the pair of girls. Behind her, her friends Dewey and Isaac followed. They looked equally shocked.

"That's crazy! Unknown sold out everywhere, didn't they!?"

"Sua is a VIP member of their fan club," Mizi boasted proudly. The stage was getting their light dimmed out. The show would start soon. "I think she abuses the privilege a little too much".

"Because you're the cousin of the vocalist?" Hyuna grinned.

"That guy's never helped me out, ever," Sua said with a huff, and a dismissive look in her eyes.

"Come on, he's the muse for your favorite band," Mizi laughed.

"He ruined my favorite band," Sua said, turning her head away. "It was much better when Till was singing the songs".

"Didn't take you for a rock fan, Sua," Isaac said, blinking, interested.

"I like the lyrics," she said. She looked up, just as the lights came back. "They speak to me".

She smiled.

Standing in the middle of the stage was her best friend.