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Ivan walked alongside his boyfriend as the two of them arrived at Till’s house. And as they walked inside he scanned the empty home. “You said your mom wasn’t home today?” He asked while taking off his shoes.
“Nope, we’ve got the place to ourselves today.” Till responded, and Ivan shot him a look with intention.
Following close behind him, Ivan spoke again. “So it’s just us.” There was a certain tone in his voice that was clearly trying to hint at doing a certain activity they hadn’t done in a while. But Till, unable to catch the hint, opened the door to his room and went straight to the small cage on top of his dresser.
“Well, us and him.” Till replied while opening the top of the cage. He lifted out a small black rabbit, with floppy ears and a little red bow tie around it’s neck. Ivan’s smirk dropped as his gaze fell upon the small creature in his boyfriend’s arms.
Ibanny, the bunny that Till adopted a few weeks ago that he seemed to be obsessed with. It had been sucking up all of Till’s attention recently, making Ivan feel like second place in Till’s heart. He hated the way that thing looked at him, with his smirk and cute little bow tie.
When he first got him, Till insisted that he and Ibanny looked alike. Ivan could see the resemblance, but he didn’t like how Till said that ‘you kinda look like him’ as if the bunny was somehow the original. Which was not true, Ivan was the original.
Ibanny was just an animal that had a crooked tooth that stuck out like Ivan’s, and fur the colour of Ivan’s hair, and thick eyelashes like Ivan had. He didn’t even understand how a rabbit could have such thick eyelashes.
But everything about this creature seemed to hypnotize his Till. Ibanny was practically stealing his boyfriend and he couldn’t do anything about it. Ivan wanted to be the one to take up the most space in his mind, not a bunny that looked similar to him.
Ivan didn’t like Ibanny, and the feeling seemed to be mutual. Because whenever Till tried to get the two near each other the rabbit seemed to have zero interest in Ivan at all, favouring Till instead. He wasn’t sure if Till had picked up on their dislike for each other though.
“Did you miss me while I was gone Ibanny?” Till asked and sweetly looked at his pet. The animal snuggled into Till’s arms as if to say ‘yes, he did in fact miss his owner’.
He sat down on Til’s bed while the other sat down across from him. “Ivan is here, say hi to him.” He spoke to the rabbit, placing Ibanny in front of him. Ivan looked down at the small creature that stared back at him with his black hole eyes.
Ibanny sniffed Ivan’s knee carefully before looking back up at him. “…Are you two just gonna stare at each other?” Till spoke up as he wanted the strange interaction between the two. Ivan didn’t say anything, while Ibanny looked back at Till and crawled towards him. “Why don’t you pet him or something?” He told Ivan, grabbing Ibanny and flipping him around to sit in front of him again.
Ivan glanced at Till before looking back at the bunny staring at him. He held out his pointer finger to it. Ibanny sniffed the tip of his finger for a second, seemingly getting familiar with it, and for a moment Ivan stopped completely hating him.
But that moment was rudely interrupted when Ibanny opened his mouth and chomped his tiny fangs down on Ivan’s finger.
“Ibanny!” Till grabbed the bunny and pulled him away as soon as he released Ivan’s finger. “We don’t bite people.” He scolded the rabbit while Ivan looked at his finger, examining the mini teeth marks in his skin. He changed his mind, he and Ibanny would never get along.
“I know you don’t like Ivan that much but you have to be nice to my boyfriend.” So he did notice the dislike they had for each other. “I’m sorry he bit you Ivan, does it hurt?” Till took his hand to see the bite marks on his finger, leaving Ibanny on the bed beside him.
“No, not really.” It did sting just a little, but having Till’s attention on him instead of Ibanny for a change felt good enough that he didn’t really care.
“Are you sure? He’s never done that before...”
“It’s fine, it’s not your fault he doesn’t like me.”
“I know… it’s just that he’s fine with everyone else but when it comes to you he just...” Ibanny looked up at Till and crawled into his lap, attempting to earn back his attention. Ivan looked down at the rabbit trying to regain his owner’s attention and frowned slightly.
Till glanced up at Ivan to see his expression and glanced back down at Ibanny nudging his stomach with his paw. “I get the sense you don’t like him either... Is it because he doesn’t like you?”
Ivan looked up at his boyfriend. “No it’s not that… I just…”
“You just what?”
“…You pay so much attention to him that you don’t really pay much attention to me anymore.”
Till frowned a little and looked down at the bunny in his lap. “Oh… I didn’t know you felt that way.” He looked back up at Ivan. “I’m sorry, it’s just that he’s so needy that I end up giving him so much attention…”
“It’s fine Till, I understand. He just wants someone to pay attention to him. And I see that he’s very attached to you.” Ivan stood up from the bed and grabbed his bag, swinging it over his shoulder. “I think I’ll just go home now, and you two can be alone. I have to study anyway.”
“Ivan wait-” Till tried to speak to him as Ivan left the room and closed the door behind him. He felt a little bad but he was sure Ibanny would cheer Till up for him.
—————
A couple of weeks passed and Ivan hadn’t talked to Till much since then. Things had just been a little awkward between them since that day. Till did ask him to hang out last week, but Ivan declined saying he was busy with homework. He didn’t want to hang out if Till was just going to be with Ibanny the whole time.
Ivan was hanging out with some of his other friends on the football team during lunch when he got a text. He pulled out his phone seeing a new text message from none other than his boyfriend.
~~~
Till: Do you want to hang out at my house after school??? My mom isn’t home tonight ;)
Ivan: Sorry, I have practice after school and it might take a while.
Till: I don’t mind waiting for you
Ivan: Are you sure? I’m sure you don’t want to leave Ibanny waiting for you for so long.
Till: He’ll be fine and I actually have something to show you
Ivan: Okay, if you insist.
~~~
Ivan put his phone back in his pocket. He had expected Till to want to go home immediately to see Ibanny but that didn’t seem to be the case today. He wasn’t sure what Till wanted to show him either, but he hoped it wasn’t something that had to do with Ibanny.
—————
Ivan checked his phone as he left the changing room after practice. Till had texted him earlier to tell him that he would be waiting on a bench in front of the school. Sure enough, as he exited through the front doors he spotted the familiar head of gray hair sitting sideways on a bench.
His face was buried in his sketch book that rested on his knees, with headphones in his ears blasting rock music like always. Ivan smiled to himself at seeing him, he swore Till was always cute. He walked up behind him, dropping his hands onto his boyfriend’s shoulders.
Till flinched and whipped his head around to see who was behind him. “Don’t do that.” He pouted and ripped the headphones out of his ears before dumping his things into his bag. “Come on, let's go.” The other started walking in the direction of his house while Ivan followed right behind him.
The two walked in silence for a while, awkward but also comfortable silence, before Ivan spoke up. “So… what is it you want to show me?” He asked a bit hesitantly.
“You’ll just have to wait and see until we get there.” Till responded teasingly.
“Okay… Is it a surprise?”
“I guess so.”
“You guess so? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll see, just wait.” Ivan wasn’t sure what was up with his boyfriend or why he was being so secretive about this so-called surprise. However, he chose to trust the process.
There was another brief silence between them before they finally reached Till’s house. Till unlocked the door and Ivan followed right behind him as they walked to Till’s room. He half expected there to be something there that would be the surprise but there wasn’t anything there.
Until his gaze fell upon Ibanny’s cage. It looked bigger than it was the last time he saw it, and this time it wasn’t just one ball of fur in the cage. Till walked towards it and lifted out a bunny with fluffy gray fur and a green bow tie that matched Ibanny’s.
“I got Ibanny a friend.” Till held out the rabbit to Ivan, gesturing for him to take it. Hesitantly he reached out his hands and took the small animal into his arms. “I know that Ibanny is really needy, so I thought that if I got him a friend then maybe we could spend more time together…” Till looked down, his face slightly flushed.
He had to stop himself from grinning at the other’s reaction. “I thought you were starting to like him more that me.” He teased a little.
“No! That’s not true, I still love you…”
Ivan pressed a kiss on top of Till’s forehead. “I love you two.” He answered back lovingly.
The moment was quickly spoiled though when the heard the sound of the cage clattering. They both turned their heads to see Ibanny smacking the side of the cage with his paw to get their attention.
Till sighed and took Tillbun from Ivan to put him back in the cage with Ibanny, petting the furry black rabbit before closing it. He quickly went back to Ivan now that Ibanny had his companion back.
“It’s just us… so did you want to… you know?” Till’s face flushed a deeper shade of red as he hinted at a certain activity they hadn’t done in a while.
“Yeah, let’s.” Ivan pushed him onto the bed, making Till squeal before silencing him with a kiss.
He was glad that things had gone back to the way they were before. When Ivan took up the most space in Till’s mind. As it should be.