paratoxinz
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If the band were to be entirely forgotten, their music wiped from history, their names faded into obscurity, Ivan would make it through to the other side of it. Academically, he’d exceeded expectations. He had the right connections in the most dull of occupations. Fulfillment did not always pay the bills. He could withstand whatever soul-crushing future awaited him, a passionless existence, so long as he had something to keep him above water. Till had proven time and time again with every bandage and rejection letter and song that he wrote that he would not, could not, do the same.
How hard could it be, asking the crowd to ensure that Till would never have to?
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Till wants to be a star, and Ivan wants something he can’t have. The pair’s musical act, Unknown Sorrow, catching the eye of bigger industry names, may be the solution to both. That is, so long as anything built on sudden fame and spontaneous decisions can last.
Ivan’s heart warns him that it won’t.
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“Why do you like me, Ivan?”
Ivan blinked, expression blank. He leaned forward, lessons temporarily forgotten. He blocked out the sun that wished to burn her, forcing himself into her line of sight.
“Why do I like you?” For only a moment, Mizi feared more than anything that he could not answer, same as any other boy that had come before. But just as easily as the thought had crossed her mind, Ivan beamed at her and said, “Well, I admire your curiosity.”
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Or: Mizi, Ivan, a tutoring lesson, crushed flowers, and the woes of heteronormativity.
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A woman gasps that Mizi has yet to face, her voice light and angelic.
“I am so sorry,” the woman says, ashamed. “Entirely my fault, I'm so sorry. Are you alright? I feel awful.”
Mizi’s head and heart both pound, leaving her to catch her breath and calm her nerves. She looks at her hands, at tainted fabric, at the stain on the floor.
“It's okay,” she swears, though something in her argues otherwise. “I'm fine. You didn't mean to.”
Then she looks up to meet her eyes, and a dread steadily blooms within.
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Mizi sees a familiar looking stranger at a party. Hyuna catches on as to why it wrecks her.
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“It's hard to move in,” Sua explains. A small smile forces itself on her lips. She tucks a strand of hair behind one of her ears, pearls dangling from her lobes like planets overtaken by everlasting tundras. “It's a bit itchy, too. But I think it's too late to change it.”
Not that they ever cared what she thought, no matter how much sand was left in the hourglass, slipping through her fingers and set to bury the other alive. At least in death, they'd leave her alone, find boredom in her rotting corpse as it was to be destroyed and scattered across the garden. There'd be nothing left to admire, after that. Certainly not her heart, a selfish black hole. Certainly not her mind, poisoned and melancholy, a bitter syrup.
“Next round will be better,” Mizi says. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Sua’s mouth goes dry. “I believe you.”
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With Round 1 on the horizon, Sua is forced to confront herself (and whom she adores most).
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Summary
“Maybe you don't have anything to smile about.”
Ivan can insist it’s untrue all he likes. His brain can run through a list of small, fleeting lights in the vast darkness: the books he was permitted to read, the sound of Till’s recorder shrieking throughout the garden and the things he drew, the spectacle he'd once witnessed whilst held dangling above the world with one wrong move promising a quick and early demise. Ivan still knows, above all else, that there was a reason he often only had himself for company.
He also knows that it takes one to know one, and that Till is the most rowdy and bitter out of all in the garden. To catch him in a good mood was rare. To be the cause of it was something Ivan never seemed to manage, try as he might.
“I guess you don't either, then.”
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After doing poorly in image-making training, Ivan sets out to the pond to practice only to be bumped into by Till, who has stronger opinions on the whole situation than he may think.