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Till isn’t a genius.
His grades were never the best, largely in part to the fact his dyslexia went undiagnosed until his very last year of high school; he’s good at what he likes, but that’s because he worked hard to teach himself music. It wasn’t as ‘natural as breathing’ the way it seems to be for Mizi.
But he’s never been stupid. He’s not the best at presentations, at exams, and sometimes social cues go over his head—but not nearly to the extent they would fly past Ivan’s in their childhood. Till had to practically hammer concepts like ‘personal space’ and ‘sarcasm’ into his skull.
Right now, though, Till sure feels like a dumbass. He keeps going over the past eight months—eight! Fucking! Months! Closer to nine, now!—in his head, trying to figure out when Ivan and Luka became, well, Ivan And Luka.
Sure, Till had noticed they seemed a bit friendlier with each other of late. Luka has even shown up to set wearing Ivan’s shirts before, but there was always some explanation—explanations that Till now knows were excuses.
But when did it start? Why? Till can’t fathom it. Luka is so… Luka. He doesn’t even feel like a human being half the time; he always has that distant, discomfiting smile on his face. Even when he’s in pain he seems oddly composed.
The most human Till has ever seen him was when Hyuna said that Ivan was the one he was sleeping with. It had been the first time he’d seen Luka angry off-stage; honest anger, not the admittedly convincing mask of it worn for a performance.
Till tries repeatedly—and fails—to see what Ivan does in Luka. His looks? Ivan isn’t such a shallow person; he’s the type of guy who doesn’t date casually, let alone sleep around. He turned down every confession throughout high school, not just from the girls but from the few of their male peers who’d mustered the courage to confess to him.
Every. Single. One. One of them had even been the captain of the boys volleyball club, widely considered by their year group to be one of the hottest guys in school.
And yet.
At the time, Till had been in the height of his miserable wallowing as he tried hard to pretend not a single part of him was anything other than happy for Mizi and Sua, who had started dating at long last, but he remembers asking Ivan why he turned every single confession down.
“None of them are my type,” Ivan had said with his usual smile.
“What is your type, then?” Till had asked without thought, scowling down at the remains of his lunch, only half-present in their conversation.
“That’s a secret,” was all Ivan had to say. Till remembers being annoyed by the vagueness, but then lunch had ended and Mizi and Sua were waiting for them, so he hadn’t bothered to ask again.
So. His type is, what? Sickly, creepily possessive older men?
Because Luka is possessive. Of Ivan’s attention, of his time, of him. Sure, it’s not like he tries to stop Ivan from hanging out with other people, but Till can see it. It’s in the way Luka looks at Ivan, how he’s always gravitating towards him, always close or outright touching him in some way; a hand on his arm, their legs pressed together when they sit…sometimes he shoves his hands under Ivan’s shirt to warm them up. It’s weird.
When Till tries to express that to Mizi and Sua when it’s just the three of them, they stare at him blankly before Sua says, “Ivan is the same way, though. To Luka and to a lesser extent, the three of us.”
“That’s Ivan,” Till says. “He’s just intense that way.”
“So it’s fine if Ivan is a creepy, possessive weirdo, but not Luka?”
“Ivan’s not that bad,” Till insists. Mizi and Sua share a look.
“Remember when my parents took Sua and I to London?” Mizi asks. Of course Till remembers. He still has some of the photos they had sent saved on his phone.
Sua groans.
“Ivan’s separation anxiety was disgusting. He was calling every six hours until I told him we weren’t going to die if he didn’t check on us constantly and if he kept calling I’d kill him.”
“And he still texted us…a lot,” Mizi adds.
Till wants to say Ivan wasn’t that bad, but it’s impossible to forget three days into Mizi and Sua’s week-long trip he had woken up to Ivan outside his apartment babbling something about Till dying. Or disappearing? Not existing? Everyone forgot him and Mizi and Sua existed? Ivan wasn’t very coherent. It was three in the morning. Till was just glad his dad was in Ulsan for business for a few days.
“He’s not as bad,” Till amends reluctantly. “He’s better about it than when we were teenagers.”
Which might not be saying a lot, but he’s still better than Luka, and he can do better than Luka, too.
Mizi and Sua share another look he can’t quite read. Whatever.
Things move on. Till tries and fails to get used to Luka And Ivan. Mizi and Sua invite Hyuna and Luka to their movie nights sometimes, which is also…fine.
It’s fine. Till will get over it. Ivan seems happy; that’s what matters, even if his boyfriend is a freak. He’ll eventually shake off the lingering hurt that Ivan never confided in him and that everyone except Till seemed aware of the Luka And Ivan situation long before him.
It’s fine.
And then, two months later, a Q&A livestream has Till wondering how much of Ivan he’s ever really known.
Till has never done a Q&A of any kind before. It’s honestly a bit nerve-wracking; he takes solace in the fact only Luka and Hyuna seem to have any experience in this regard, though Mizi takes to it quickly.
Hyun-woo and Isaac look over the submitted questions, filter out inappropriate ones, and then Hyun-woo asks. A lot of them are pretty basic questions that aren’t too stressful to answer; how it felt filming certain scenes, the creative process behind certain songs or sets…
There are probably a ton about Mizi and Sua’s relationship, but Isaac and Hyun-woo only voice a few; how does it feel filming with your actual girlfriend, was it difficult to do the scene where Sua was executed, did they write My Clematis together?
Sua is more reserved than Mizi, but Mizi knows just what to say to get her talking. Most questions for Till are about his creative process, and Ivan—sitting between him and Luka—has to nudge him back on track when he starts going off topic.
Then Isaac and Hyun-woo share a look over the laptop Isaac is hunched over. Isaac shrugs. Hyun-woo turns to Till.
“OmniscientEun-jae wants to know if you and Ivan wrote Cure together, and if it was awkward to film the kissing scene.”
Till coughs, face a bit warm. He hopes he isn’t blushing.
“We did write together,” Till answers after a glance at Ivan’s impassive face. “It was the first time in a while, actually—uh, before Alien Stage , it was either me or Mizi writing the songs, so it was nice to compose something with him again.”
“It had been a while, huh,” Ivan muses. Till can’t quite read the way he smiles. When was the last time Ivan had written a song, anyway? Excluding Black Sorrow.
It must have been as far back as their first year of high school.
“As for the kiss, um…” Till fights off a grimace, knowing he’s definitely a little pink. “It was a bit weird having my best friend kiss me and then pretend to choke me out, especially with Luka watching—” with everyone watching, really, but Luka especially now that Till is aware of their relationship “—but it wasn’t so bad. I think filming Round 2 was the worst; I didn’t really like having that machine hooked around my neck.”
“There you have it, OmniscientEun-jae,” Hyun-woo says towards where Dewey has the camera set up. “Anything to add, Ivan?”
“It was refreshing to write with Till again after so long,” Ivan says. “And Luka was super clingy later—”
“I was not,” Luka grumbles, sinking into the couch.
“Anyway,” Isaac clears his throat pointedly. Ivan flashes him a beguiling smile.
Till keeps his face carefully neutral as Luka leans his weight against Ivan as if their ankles aren’t hooked together under the table. There’s no reason for this to bother him.
“There’s a similar question for Ivan, actually,” Hyun-woo says, looking over Isaac’s shoulder. “BobaBo-yeon wants to know what the inspiration was when you were writing Black Sorrow. They were deeply moved by the performance.”
Ivan looks surprised and a little embarrassed, his smile more genuine as he glances at the camera.
“That means a lot, thank you. The inspiration…” he hesitates for a moment. “It came easy to me, but it was a bit difficult as well. I drew on my own unrequited feelings for someone to write it—”
What. What?
Till hopes he doesn’t look as shocked as he feels. Unrequited feelings? Ivan? For who? He almost misses the rest of Ivan’s words over the static in his brain.
“—ah, not Luka,” Ivan is adding. Till can feel the way his fingers are flexing into the couch between them. “We started to spend more time together after Round 3. And yes, he knows all about that matter.”
Luka’s smile isn’t the one he usually wears for the camera. It’s an honest, deeply satisfied expression.
“That person never saw him,” Luka says, and something about the way he’s smiling makes Till’s skin inexplicably crawl. “But I do.”
The next question is for Hyuna. Something about how functional the prosthetic she wears on set is compared to her others; Till doesn’t know. It washes over him. He functions on autopilot the rest of the Q&A, too busy wondering when the fuck Ivan was in love with someone other than Luka.
Was he lying? No. There’s no reason for him to lie, and even then Till can usually tell when he does. But who? Ivan doesn’t have friends outside of Till, Mizi and Sua—and more recently, their co-stars—so who could it have been?
It couldn’t have been Sua or Mizi. Ivan was vague in the past about his ‘type’, but he’s only ever been interested in their male peers. He never came out and said it directly, of course, but he took more than one volleyball to the face during P.E classes as punishment for his distraction, and he was always arguing with the girls about which idol or actor was more appealing.
But there is no one else. Till wonders, for the second time in as many months, how much he really knows of his best friend.
So. Till handles the situation remarkably well.
Case in point:
“Does he not trust me? At all? I thought we told each other everything!” He rants, aggrieved. Mizi slowly pulls his (fourth) glass of soju towards herself; he doesn’t notice.
“He can’t be this stupid,” Hyuna doesn’t bother to whisper to Sua. “Right?”
They’re in a booth at her bar. Well. The bar she co-owns with Dewey. Till is usually a bit more reserved when he’s here, since it’s, well, a gay bar, and he might be the only straight person in this group.
But he has no inhibitions tonight. Ivan isn’t here; he’s playing phone-tag with his mother’s side of the family at Luka’s apartment. Fucking Luka .
No, Till, don’t think about Ivan fucking Luka. He grabs for his drink to wash the mental image away and blinks rapidly when his hand grabs air.
“You’re cut off for the night,” Mizi tells him, not unkindly. He can’t argue with her, so he just makes an inarticulate sound of protest, then grudgingly accepts the water Isaac has just arrived with.
He drinks one mouthful before turning to Sua, who is squashed between Hyuna and Mizi, looking perfectly content despite the fact she usually values her personal space. Hyuna’s resting her cheek on Sua’s head, her arm draped over her shoulders, fingers brushing against Mizi’s bare bicep.
“Sua, you and Ivan are always talking about shit,” he says. “Did he say anything? Does he not trust me? Does he think I can’t keep a secret? I can keep a secret.”
Sua stares at him. Hyuna looks up towards the ceiling, mouthing something to herself.
“This is painful,” Dewey says, manifesting behind Isaac. His expression is pitying.
“What, is this another thing that somehow everyone except me knew about?” Till can’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. Mizi and Sua glance at each other.
“Till,” Dewey says, very slowly as though explaining advanced calculus to a toddler who has never seen a number before in their life, “Think about it. Ivan is gay. Ivan is the kind of person who doesn’t sway from his decisions easily. Ivan has literally no other friends. Who would he have feelings for?”
Till stares at Dewey blankly. Mizi is mouthing something to Dewey (abort? Abort what???) and making a cutting motion with her hand; Isaac is looking at him like he’s insane.
“There’s literally no one,” Till says. Dewey closes his eyes. Isaac drags a hand down his own face.
“I feel sorry for Ivan,” Hyuna says towards the ceiling. “Like. Actually, genuinely sorry for him right now. No wonder he found something in Luka. Seventeen years of this?”
“Seventeen years?” Till all but shrieks. “Who the hell would he have known for—”
He stops. Stares vacantly at the space between Isaac and Dewey and the girls.
Who, aside from Mizi and Sua, has Ivan known for seventeen years?
Till laughs, somewhat hysterical. But nobody else is laughing. They aren’t joking.
“You’re serious,” he says. Dewey looks grim.
Till turns to Mizi and Sua. Mizi’s smile is more of a grimace. He opens his mouth. Closes it.
Then, “I think I’m about to throw up.”
Later—after puking his guts out because he drank far more than he usually does, after Isaac has forced water and painkillers down his throat and driven him home—later, Till woozily thinks that maybe he is a fucking idiot, after all.
Ivan used to steal his pens and pencils, all through middle school, just to annoy him. Or so it felt. When Till noticed, he didn’t say anything because Ivan always looked so pleased when he ‘returned’ them to Till, and Till just stopped keeping track of his pens because Ivan always had them, except after a certain point Till could never tell which were his or which Ivan had just given him.
Ivan, always chasing after Till and his attention. Ivan, who used to write such beautiful, honest music, who stopped writing—or at least, stopped sharing his pieces—because he ‘had no inspiration’. Ivan, who refused to talk about anything related to romance or sexuality in relation to himself, at least with Till.
Staring up at his bedroom ceiling, Till remembers mere hours ago…Luka saying, That person never saw him. But I do.
And long before that, the reticent look on Ivan’s face as he handed Till his sheet music and lyrics.
“In your gaze where I am seen…” Till rasps aloud to himself in the dark. Consume me. Yes, me.
He laughs. He laughs until he cries at the absurdity of it all, at his own stupidity. Even before that —the lyrics to Black Sorrow were gut-wrenching enough as is, but now Till remembers: dreaming of your glow, but I’m dreaming alone…follow in your light as a shadow…
He laughs so much he’s almost sick. Won’t you look at me? Ivan had written, and when he had sung it had made something ache in Till’s chest. I dream of it, the brush of your fingertips…eternally waiting to be your sunlight.
Till didn’t look. He never looked. But Luka did.
Luka saw Ivan. He saw everything Till had closed his eyes to for seventeen years, and now…
Now what?
There’s nothing to say about it. As Till lay heaving for breath, not understanding the tears burning at his eyes, he knows only one thing.
The hurt he felt at Ivan’s secrecy, the inexplicable unhappiness washing over him now—Till has no right to it. None at all.