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Someone is humming.
It’s not a tune he recognizes, or, he doesn’t think it is, but it is not unpleasant either. It leaves a strange feeling in his chest, reminding him of days spent at Anakt garden. His head feels like it has been stuffed with cotton, and his body feels as heavy as lead, so he doesn’t try to move, he just holds onto the tune for as long as he can.
-
The next time he can register things, there are people talking. The words are fuzzy and he can’t make out what they are saying, but he recognizes the voices.
He tries to open his eyes, and the light overwhelms him immediately. The voices in the room change though, getting louder and sharper.
“Let me… …he’s… …can’t see… …now!…”
That voice, he definitely recognizes it. He tries to open his eyes again.
“…get… ….awake…!”
There’s sounds of shuffling and other things he can’t make out. There’s blurry shapes moving in front of him. His eyes are tired though, already drooping, and…
-
The next time he opens his eyes, he can see more than just a blur. He is on a bed in a room he does not recognize, and sat in the corner is… Mizi?
No, he"s probably seeing things. Her hair is too short and her clothes are too different, and Mizi was… she was missing, wasn’t she?
“Oh!” not-Mizi says, noticing him notice her.
“What…?” he tries to ask, but his mouth is too dry and it comes out as a croak. He tries to sit up, but pain laces through his shoulder and chest.
“No no wait!” not-Mizi says, standing up quickly, “You shouldn’t be moving, stay right where you are.”
She comes over to him, checking him for something, he’s not sure for what. Turning his attention to himself, he sees bandages, and tubes. IV tubes, that’s what they are. He recalls the white walls of Anakt garden. He recalls Till, hooked up and connected to many things on a day after he acted out too much. This reminds him of that, just much less… sterile.
He reaches out to grab it.
He does not get very far.
“What did I just say?” not-Mizi admonishes, taking his arm and guiding it away from the strange tubes, “We’ve worked this hard to keep you alive, don’t go wasting our efforts now. Here,” she presses a glass of water to his lips, “Drink.”
He does, and his throat feels a little less dry.
“Thank you,” he says.
She gives him a subdued smile. It reminds him of Sua, more than anything else. But Sua is…
not-Mizi’s expression falls, “Ivan?”
And he should be…
“Ivan!”
Sleep starts to pull at him again, dragging him away from any thoughts of death or destruction.
-
not-Mizi is sitting in the chair again when he comes back, she is reading something. She doesn’t notice that he is awake.
Ivan has to ask her something.
“I should be dead.”
He says it simply, like he is telling Sua which human history books are the most interesting or showing Till a new way he found to chain the flowers together. not-Mizi jolts and looks up at him with a frown.
“We went through a lot of effort to save you, so don"t you dare go throwing that away.“
Images of the stage come in flashes. He remembers losing. He remembers Till being there and he remembers his strength finally wavering as the shots pierced his back.
It was too late to do anything at that point.
“I should be dead,” Ivan says again, because his question still hasn’t been answered.
“Contrary to popular opinion,” not-Mizi says, “The way they kill contestants on the stage isn’t guaranteed to work right away,” she puts her hands on her hips in a very Mizi-like way, “You’re lucky we managed to intercept your… coffin? Body? Whatever,” she brushes it off like it was nothing, but something is clearly bothering her.
“Hyuna was injured,” she adds, like an apology, “So we couldn’t make it to the stage.”
Hyuna? She was older than them but didn’t she escape?
Wasn’t Mizi also-?
“Why aren’t I dead?” he asks, and then he remembers something even more important, “Till, where is Till?”
not-Mizi... or... is it actually Mizi? Ivan doesn"t understand how she"s here. Maybe she really was dead all this time, or maybe they both somehow escaped.
“Till is okay," maybe-Mizi tells him, "We rescued him too."
Ivan lets out a sigh of relief.
maybe-Mizi smiles, in a very Mizi-like manner.
Ivan tries his luck.
"...Mizi?"
The smile turns into a small "o"
"Right! Sorry! The hair is different, I know! It"s still me, though!"
"And you"re alive?"
"You are too," she tells him, "Despite all of your efforts to the contrary."
"And Till is alive..."
"He is! He’s been in here a lot, actually, since we got him back.”
That… confuses Ivan a little.
“Why?”
Mizi gives him an equally confused expression in return.
“Why not?” she says, “Actually, I’ll go get him now. I promised to let him know when you were awake.”
“Wait, you don’t…”
Mizi leaves the room, much to Ivan’s dismay.
He isn’t sure he’s ready to face Till right now, not after their last round.
His body decides to spare him though. He can feel sleep tugging at him again, and he lets it pull him back under before either Mizi or Till can return.
-
He wakes up again and the room is dark.
He turns his head slightly, and sees Till, asleep in the chair where Mizi had been last time.
Till is alive.
Till is here, free from the aliens.
They’ve both done it now, escaped to a place without harm. Mizi is even here, too, the one thing that had held Till back so many years ago. The only thing missing is-
Sua.
Even if they are safe, this isn"t the future they wanted, is it? There is no happiness for Mizi without her, just like there is no happiness for Till without Mizi, or for Ivan without Till. Really, if anyone should have been removed from the equation, it should have been Ivan, not her.
Ivan sighs.
He turns back to look at Till again. He watches the rise and fall of his chest, and listens to the faint sound of his breathing.
Till is alive, he thinks, Till is here.
With that reassurance, he falls back asleep.
-
In the morning, he is woken up with a sharp slap to the face.
“Wake up,” a familiar voice says, “Come on, wake up. You’re not going to get better if you don’t have anything to eat.”
Ivan opens his eyes, a blurry, gray-haired figure is looming over him.
“Good morning Till.”
A glass of water is shoved into his face.
“Drink.”
Ivan drinks.
Then Till reaches over to the side table, grabbing a bowl of weak soup broth.
“I can-“ Ivan starts, making a move to grab it, before realizing just how much it hurts to move his arm.
Till glares at him.
“Don’t even try it,” he says, “Apparently you’re too weak to do fucking anything right now without making things worse. So don’t.”
Till then shoves a spoonful of soup in his face.
Ivan glances back at him.
“Are you sure it’s okay for me to-?”
“They didn’t shoot you in your stomach, did they? Eat.”
Ivan doesn’t actually know where they shot him. In his back? His shoulder? He sometimes finds himself short of breath. Did they hit a lung? Did they aim for his heart?
“I don’t know, did a vet take a look or-?”
Till’s expression hardens.
“They said you were fine to eat! So eat!”
Ivan hesitates.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Till shouts in frustration, and flings the spoon to the other side of the room. The liquid flies off, spattering across the floor. The spoon hits the wall and clatters to the ground.
Ivan closes his eyes, and waits for the rest of Till’s anger to come pouring out.
Nothing happens.
Tentatively, he opens his eyes, and Till is just… standing there. He’s looking over at the spoon, on the floor. His expression is empty.
“Till?”
His eyes snap back to Ivan, then to the spoon, then down to the bowl, then back to Ivan.
“I’m going to get Mizi,” he says, leaving the room in a huff.
Ivan blinks in confusion.
-
Mizi comes in a few minutes later, a new spoon in hand. She sits by the bedside wordlessly, and offers another mouthful of soup.
This time Ivan eats it without question.
Mizi has a strange expression on her face, it’s one Ivan doesn’t recognize from their time in Anakt garden, or even before the show. Mizi doesn"t say anything, humming a tune that Ivan doesn’t recognize.
“What’s that song?” he asks, between mouthfuls.
“O-oh,” Mizi says, “I guess- it’s something Hyuna sang a few nights ago. I just had it in my head.”
“Hyuna… is she the one who was a year or so older than us?”
“Yeah… she’s from Anakt Garden too.”
“It’s a nice song,” he says, “It’s different.”
Mizi nods, offering him another spoonful.
Ivan thinks back to all of Till’s music, which was also always different. They could perform their assigned repertoire beautifully, but it got boring quickly. Till would hum half-tunes as he came up with things in his head. Sometimes Ivan would sit with him as he did. He missed being able to do that.
Mizi lets out a small hm.
“What did you do to upset Till this morning?” she asks.
“I have no idea,” Ivan says, “I asked if it was alright for me to be eating, then he threw the spoon and just… stopped. And left.”
“Hm,” Mizi says again, like she is thinking.
“What?” he asks.
“I’m not sure,” she says, “Maybe I need to talk to Till.”
Mizi keeps prodding him with more broth. Despite how hungry he felt when he woke up, his appetite has almost vanished now.
Mizi sighs.
“Try just a little more,” she says, and then adds, “For me, if nothing else?”
Ivan reluctantly accepts another spoonful. And then one more. The bowl is only half empty at that point.
“Mizi!” someone calls her, and a head pokes through the door that Ivan doesn’t recognize, “Hyuna’s gone down to-“
“I know, I know,” Mizi cuts them off, “I’ll be there soon, give me a minute.”
Mizi turns back to him.
“I need to go,” she tells him, “But I’m leaving the bowl here. Just ask someone if you want more later.”
Secretly, Ivan is relieved that he doesn’t need to eat any more of it. The food isn’t… terrible. But it is plain, and Ivan really doesn’t have any more appetite. Mizi leaves him in the room. Alone.
He drifts in and out of consciousness for a little while after that. A man comes in at one point to check his wounds and change his bandages.
He doesn’t move much on his own. It takes all of his effort to hold himself upright, even with the help of the… vet? Could he call another human that? What sort of medical staff do these people have anyways?
He is quick to fall back asleep once the stranger leaves. Tired out from the very limited amount of moving he had to do. When he comes to his senses again, Till is sitting in the chair. Staring at him.
Blearily, he looks over to Till.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Making sure you aren’t dead,” Till snaps, then scoffs and looks away.
“Am I still at risk?” Ivan asks, because he thought he’d survived, or that maybe this was just one prolonged dream before he dies, “Am I going to die?”
“…Maybe,” Till grumbles, “You’re barely alive right now,” his eyes flick to the ever-present bowl of soup, “And you aren’t eating.”
“I’ll eat, then.”
The broth is cold at this point, but Ivan manages a few more spoonfuls.
“There,” Ivan says, “Now I’ll survive.”
Till says something else under his breath, but Ivan doesn’t catch it.
“Hm?”
“I said you’re an idiot,” Till says.
“You’re the only one who ever seems to think that,” Ivan teases.
“Nah,” Till says, “Hyuna agrees with me too now, and it’s your own damn fault.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah it is, cause you decided to be an idiot on live television.”
“Do people here normally watch the show? I thought they would be against the principle of it.”
Till shakes his head.
“Only the ones infiltrating the stage really do, and some of the newer recruits. A lot of the old folks around here think it’s weird. Or upsetting. Hyuna’s also from Anakt Garden though, so she understands.”
“Hm.”
“I mean it’s nothing we hadn’t seen before, and I bet your owner let you watch all the latest recordings so you knew what to expect, but now…”
“Hm?”
Till is silent for a moment, like he is deciding whether he wants to share something.
Then he mumbles, “I watched our performance. It was weird.”
Ivan doesn’t say anything. It’s his fault, if anything, that it was weird.
“I’m sorry,” he tells Till.
“You should be,” Till grumbles.
“I don’t regret it though.”
Till glares at him.
“The kiss… well it was dramatic, and I know you didn’t want it, but if I was going to die-”
“I don’t care about the fucking kiss,” Till hisses, “Or- that’s not- I don’t know,” he shakes his head, “But what were you thinking?! Attacking me? I don’t get it. Obviously you were going to lose.”
“Yes,” Ivan says, “That was the whole point.”
Till glares at him.
“Well that’s my stupid fucking problem with it then,” Till snaps back, “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Really?” Ivan tries to reason with him, “If anyone had to die, it’s better if it was me, because Mizi might have still-“
“Shut up!” Till cuts him off, “You’re wrong. It’s not better.”
“Till,” Ivan says, his voice straining a little, “You hardly cared about me before this.”
“So what!?” Till says, “You think it makes it okay?”
“I thought you were smarter than this,” Ivan says, “I cared, Till. I didn’t want you to die.”
“That still doesn’t make it okay!”
Ivan sighs.
“Till,” he says, and he really doesn’t want to have to explain this, “It wouldn’t have hurt you, when I died, not nearly as much as it would have hurt me if you died.”
“You don’t fucking know that.”
“Yes I do.”
Till’s voice turns abruptly into a screech, “No you don’t!”
Ivan blinks, startled.
Till stares back at him, seemingly also startled at his own outburst.
Till’s breaths are coming quick, too quick, Ivan thinks. Belatedly, Ivan notices how he’s tensed up, how his hands have balled up into fists.
“Till-“ Ivan tries to calm him down.
“Fuck you,” Till hisses, “You weren’t fucking there and you don’t fucking know what it was like.”
“I don’t-”
“Shut up,” Till says, “You’re so fucking stupid and I hate you I hate you I hate you-“
The last part comes out as another screech.
Till swings his fist at Ivan’s metal bed frame, and an awful CLANG reverberates through the room.
There is no one here to stop him, Ivan realizes, no one with collars or sedatives to subdue him.
There is only Till, curling in on himself, cradling his hand. He’s still breathing heavily, stumbling back until he runs into a supply cupboard. Then he winds his fist back, hitting the concrete wall that reinforces the room.
This time, there is only a hard thwack, no reverberation. Ivan sees Till’s expression wince, he hears him hiss in pain.
“Till,” Ivan says, because at this point he’s going to hurt himself, “Till you need to stop.”
Till’s head snaps back to Ivan, and belatedly Ivan realizes that this might have been a mistake. Till storms back towards Ivan, all his fury directed at him. He looms over him with a snarling expression, fists clenched.
Then he pauses.
Blinks.
The expression drops, just like it did when Till chucked the spoon across the room. All of the tension seems to leave him. Till stands there, breathing heavily, eyes wide and unmoving.
Then he rips himself away from Ivan’s side, sinks down to the floor, and screams.
Ivan doesn’t know how to deal with this at all.
He waits until Till stops. Till doesn’t get up right away, his breathing still ragged. Ivan counts tiles on the ceiling and tries to suppress any worry or fear. Slowly, Till’s breathing gets less pronounced, hopefully returning to normal and not a result of Till somehow injuring himself. Ivan can’t see him from here, he can’t move. All he can do is wait.
“Till?” he calls out cautiously, when the sounds have gotten faint enough that Ivan is concerned.
“Yeah?” a rough voice calls back. Ivan hears shuffling and then Till standing again, within his line of sight, “What do you want?”
“Are you okay?” Ivan asks.
Till uses his uninjured hand to rub at his eyes.
“No,” Till says, then glares at Ivan’s reaction, “What did you think I was going to say?!”
“I don’t know…” Ivan says.
“That’s cause you’re an idiot,” Till says, wiping at his eyes again, “A confusing idiot, who’s finally fucked up on live television so everyone knows it now.”
“It wasn’t a-“
“Shut up.”
“…right.”
Ivan doesn’t push it any further.
Instead he changes the subject.
“You know, I am still a little bit hungry,” he says, extending a peace offering, “Maybe you could…?”
“Yeah sure whatever,” Till grumbles, still wiping at his eyes. He picks up the bowl, makes a face, then says, “This is cold. And disgusting. I’ll go heat it up again.”
“You can’t get anything better?” Ivan asks. He adds a sweetness to his voice that he usually uses to get extra permissions from his alien caretakers.
Till seems thoroughly unimpressed.
“No,” Till says, flatly, turning to leave, “It’s not like Anakt, or whatever you had with your owner. Can’t waste food.”
“Hmph,” Ivan pouts, but Till is already gone.
-
“So what is this place anyway?” Ivan asks, after he’s finally finished eating.
“Mmmph?” Till responds, digging into a bowl of something that smells a lot more appetizing than his own plain food, Till swallows, frowning, “Has no one told you!? You’ve been here longer than me!”
Has he? Originally Ivan thought Till had been rescued at the same time as him. Even still…
“Regardless, you’ve been awake here longer than me.”
Till frowns.
“But you said earlier… I thought…”
“I’ve picked up bits and pieces. It’s some sort of resistance? Rebellion? With… just humans?”
Ivan hasn’t seen a single alien here all this time, and he’s been receiving medical treatment. It’s been very strange to have humans attending to his health, rather than something like a veterinarian.
“Mostly humans. There’s a few aliens here too. Some of them are captives, maybe? And others are helping out, they might be from other organizations though, I’m not sure.” Till pauses, “That was what Mizi told me, I think, but she’s new here too.”
“Huh.”
“But yeah, mostly humans. It’s kind of strange, to be honest. Better, though.”
“Mm.”
Ivan thinks for a minute, then asks, “How long has this place been around?”
Till shrugs.
“Dunno. You’d have to ask one of the others. All the stuff here is pretty worn-down, so maybe a while? Or it came from somewhere else.”
Ivan nods.
“Oh!” Till says, “Also if you’re talking to others, you might want to be careful mentioning Anakt garden or Alien Stage. Especially since you were so popular. People can be assholes about it.”
“Alright,” Ivan nods.
“And,” Till continues, like he’s reciting something from memory, “You should go to Hyuna if you need any help. She can… make sure you don’t ruffle feathers. or whatever.”
“Really?”
“I don’t know!” Till says, “That’s just what Mizi said. And you actually care about not upsetting people so I figured you should know.”
Ivan nods.
“I assume you’ve already managed to get into a fight then.”
Till huffs.
“Not my fault,” he says, “Just some idiot who didn’t know what they were talking about.”
Ivan decides not to pry further. He’d really rather not risk agitating Till and setting him off again.
“What about this Hyuna you keep mentioning, she escaped, didn’t she?”
Till shrugs.
“I think so. I don’t really remember hearing about it in Anakt. But I wasn’t close with her now or then, so I don’t really know.”
“I just remember that one day she was gone,” Ivan says, “No one ever said why. I wonder how she found her way here…”
Ivan lets his thoughts trail off into things that could have been, while Till doesn’t make any move to respond, instead going back to his own food.
Ivan’s energy is finally waning again, and he feels sleep pulling his consciousness back under. It’s alright though, he thinks, he could stay here for a while.
-
He wakes up a few times throughout that night. Once when someone he doesn’t know comes to check on him. Another time when Till tries to sneak into the room, but bumps into a table or something and lets out a series of loud expletives instead. And then another time when he can hear someone humming, can feel fingers curled over his almost-numb hand.
The last one might have been a dream, he thinks, but it was a nice, dream, regardless.
He wakes up again to Mizi in the morning.
“Good morning sleepyhead,” she says, “I brought some breakfast.”
This time, she spoon feeds him some more weak broth, and a little bit of rice for substance. It’s not much, but even still, it almost overwhelms his appetite.
She sets the dishes aside, leaving a little extra behind.
“Tell Till that the rest is for him,” she says, nodding over to a figure in the chair on the other side of the room. Till is still there, still sleeping. Ivan hadn’t even noticed him.
“You aren’t going to wake him up too?” Ivan grumbles, still a little groggy and grumpy from having his sleep disturbed, “He’d probably love it if you fed him breakfast by hand, you know.”
Mizi scoffs a little.
“Till can feed himself,” she says, then her eyes shift, a little uncomfortable, “Also, I know he… well… was a certain way about me. But I thought that you two…?”
“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Ivan cuts her off, “It’s not like you and Sua.”
She looks confused.
“Not even…? With your round…? I watched the footage after the fact. I probably shouldn’t have.”
Ivan grimaces.
“Till didn’t want that,” he says, “He doesn’t care about me like that. He only cares about you.”
“O-oh,” Mizi says, “Well I don’t…”
“He knows,” Ivan says, “I don’t think he really intended to do anything about it, what with you and Sua being how you were and-“
Mizi’s face is slowly falling, now that Sua has been brought up, and Ivan pauses.
“Are you alright?” he asks, then adds, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s- it’s fine,” Mizi sighs, “I can handle it.”
Ivan nods, unsure of what else to say.
“You got really lucky, though,” Mizi says, quieter, “Don’t… make sure you don’t let that go to waste.”
Ivan blinks, confused.
“Because Till is still here,” Mizi adds, sounding slightly annoyed that she has to spell it out, “You both are.”
“That isn’t the same.”
“No,” Mizi agrees, “It isn’t. But you still care about him, and he still cares about you.”
“He doesn’t, though,” Ivan says, “That’s why I threw my match in the first place. I couldn’t have lived with it if I won. But Till could.”
Mizi looks at him, her expression inscrutable again.
“You know,” she says, her voice soft, “I felt that way about Sua, too. I didn’t throw my match though, I couldn’t- I just couldn’t do that to-”
“Sua felt the same way,” Ivan cuts her off, “She didn’t want to live without you.”
Mizi looks at him, a little surprised.
“I assumed as much, but how do you…?”
“She wanted to throw her match,” Ivan tells her, because he and Sua had come to an understanding, in their final days of Anakt garden, “I warned her against it.”
Mizi’s looks away, her gaze a little unfocused.
“Hm… I don’t know if I could have forgiven her, if she had.”
Ivan doesn’t say anything to contradict her. He doesn’t actually know if Sua was trying to die during her match. If she was, then she was being a lot subtler than Ivan about it, and taking an even bigger risk. Their scores were so close, at least Ivan had made it certain that he would lose.
“You know,” Mizi says, looking down, “At the start of the competition, I really, really wanted both of us to win.”
Ivan nods. He understands. He didn’t really want to die, but he didn’t want to lose Till either.
“I know how the show works,” Mizi says, sounding almost angry, “I’m not stupid, I knew I couldn’t save everyone.”
She pauses for a moment.
“I just thought, if I had to choose, if I could save anyone, it would be Sua. I had to try.”
“I understand,” Ivan says.
“Hyuna told me later, that they wanted to rescue us in that round,” Mizi’s voice is getting watery, “They couldn’t though, they still hadn’t found a way around the complex’s security.”
Mizi wipes her eyes.
“I don’t- I don’t blame them, honestly. And I get it, because I was part of your rescue mission. We were supposed to get to you and Till before the end of the song. But then Hyuna got hurt, and we didn’t make it to the stage in time.”
Her breath hitches.
“All I remember is hearing the song end through the speakers. I could hear the crowd going crazy and I didn’t even know who won. I only knew that one of my friends was dead, that Hyuna was dying, and I hadn’t even made it in time.”
She chokes out a sob.
“After I was rescued, I realized that I could save all of you, not just Sua. I still cared about you, and I had a second chance, but it wasn’t enough. I had failed again.”
“Mizi…” Ivan says, “Mizi I’m sorry. I really am.”
Mizi shakes her head.
“You’re not, though,” she says, trying to wipe the tears from her face, “I watched your performance. You don’t understand. You don’t regret it at all.”
“I…” Ivan hesitates, “No I suppose I don’t.”
But he didn’t think his actions would hurt her this much either.
Mizi stares at him for another moment, her eyes sad. She looks over to Till, who has slept through all of this.
“You know,” she says, quiet, “I think I’m starting to agree with him.”
“Hm?” Ivan asks, “About what?”
“About you,” she says, with a small smile, “You actually are kind of an idiot.”
Ivan scowls.
“He got you too, did he?”
Mizi, still a little subdued, laughs.
“You can’t fool me anymore.”
“Well let him know that if he keeps calling me that, then this idiot is going to knock him down a notch as soon as I can move again.”
Mizi laughs, a little louder this time, and takes a step away from him.
“You can tell it to him yourself,” she says, gesturing towards Till, still asleep in the chair beside him, “I should go now, but you can keep him company.”
She leaves the room.
“Oh!” she calls back, popping her head in the doorway, “And make sure he eats!”
“I can’t believe that that’s my job,” Ivan grumbles.
-
It’s not long after that that Till begins to stir.
“Wwwgghhh” he says, groggy, “Ivan? You’wake?”
“Yes, Till.”
Till blinks again. Then looks over at his breakfast.
“Did n’one feed you yet?” he yawns, “Stupid of’em to just…” he yawns, “leave… the tray.”
“That’s your food,” Ivan says, “Mizi was just here, if you had been awake, she could have spoon fed it to you too.”
“Mizi… was… what?” Till says. Ivan watches the gears turn in his head as Till’s face slowly turns red, then frowns, “Shuddup,” he says, “Don’t make stupid jokes like that.”
“Sorry,” Ivan teases.
“No you’re not.”
Ivan sighs.
Till finally gets up, and grabs the tray.
“Are you sure you got enough food?” Till asks.
“Yes,” Ivan says, “But if it makes you feel better, I can have whatever’s left of yours.”
Till stares down at the bowl.
“Let me rephrase that. I"ll have whatever"s left, only after you’ve eaten some.”
“…fine.”
Till starts to eat.
“So did Mizi have any news?”
“Not really,” Ivan says, “I accidentally brought up Sua, which, well…”
“Hm,” Till says, “You didn’t fight, did you?”
“What? No. Have you?”
Till stops eating and thinks, “Not about Sua,” he eventually says.
Ivan wishes he could be surprised.
“What do you do all day, anyway?” Ivan asks, “How do you have the energy to fight with people if you’re here all the time?”
“I’m not here all the time. Sometimes Mizi drags me down to the bar or something. It’s very loud there.”
“Sounds like a good spot for a photoshoot, great for your stage persona,” Ivan says, “We should call your publicist. Get some candids.”
“Shut up,” Till makes a face, “We’re out of that now.”
“Yeah,” Ivan says, “And your stage persona wasn’t really a persona anyways, it was just you acting out.”
“Well sorry that I wasn’t a prissy and pampered little human like you were,” Till hisses, “I didn’t have a perfectly crafted image, but at least I wasn’t a coward.”
“No. Instead you wasted your energy on things that didn’t matter.”
“Like you didn’t waste energy by cowing to your master’s every whim? ‘Oh look at me I’m Ivan and all the aliens love me because I spend ten minutes every morning worrying about my eyelashes.’” Till scoffs, “God I forgot how annoying you were.”
Ivan smiles, reminded of all the times in Anakt garden where it was just them. They haven’t had a chance to just be like this, not since graduation.
“I’ve missed you,” he says, unprompted.
Till turns and looks at him like he’s grown a third eye.
“You still make no sense,” Till says, then goes back to his food, “I don’t know why everyone else doesn’t notice that either.”
“People like you more when you’re nice to them.”
“Is that why I always want to punch you?”
Ivan pouts.
“I’m nice to you all the time, you just never notice.”
“Since when?! You started arguments, stole my stuff, and fought with me almost every day growing up. How is that nice?”
“I took your collar off sometimes.”
“Yeah, well… sometimes,” Till grumbles, “And sometimes you would just watch me, like a creep. Just because it wasn’t all terrible doesn’t mean a lot of it was.”
“You really think I wasn’t kind to you?”
“Yes? Or… I don’t know. You never made any sense anyway.”
Ivan supposes it makes sense. It never mattered, after all, if Till was angry or upset at him. No one else listened to Till, no one else cared. And Ivan didn’t really care either, so long as he had his attention.
Till gathers up his dishes.
“I’m going to put these away,” he says, “Do you need anything else?”
“No. I’m probably going to fall back asleep soon anyways. So don’t worry.”
-
The days all pass relatively similarly after that. Till stays in their room until Mizi drags him out, providing Ivan company as he drifts in and out of sleep, and making sure Ivan is eating.
Till is still as rough and abrasive as he usually is, but Ivan’s not used to getting this much attention from him. It"s unsettling, in some ways. He doesn"t know what to do with it.
Till is still Till, though, and Ivan is careful not to set him off. Till usually storms off when it happens, but sometimes he’ll just go back to sitting, with an eerily vacant expression that reminds Ivan too much of their last round together, and nothing Ivan does can get him back to the present.
So they stick to safe topics, like the food today, or the latest gossip that Mizi’s passed along. It’s easier than talking about their round, or what happened afterwards. He seeks out most of that information from Mizi instead.
Only Ivan was rescued after their round, he"s told, snatched away from the aliens before his body had fully shut down.
Till wasn’t so lucky, Till had been left to believe he was dead, up until his round with Luka, where he was rescued.
“Please don’t be too hard on him,” Mizi tells Ivan, after Till’s 2nd breakdown in as-many days, “He’s recovering too. He thought he’d lost all of us.”
Ivan can understand, he’s not sure how he would feel if he’d been the only one left of his cohort, when all was said and done. But Till had already been so distraught by Mizi’s disappearance when they’d had their round, it’s hard to see how he could have been affected any more.
Mizi has a recording of Till’s final round, she’s offered to show it to him.
Ivan declines.
-
Slowly, he recovers.
One day, he’s able to sit up, the next, he can stand. Each day he takes a few more steps, guided by Till. With each excursion, he travels further and further, until finally, one day, a vet - or doctor, that"s the human word for it - clears him to walk on his own.
He still can’t go very far, and often needs to sit down to catch his breath, but it’s progress.
Even Till, who’s been hovering like a hawk throughout his recovery process, finally seems to be comfortable giving him space, his strange obsession with Ivan finally fading as Ivan returns to life.
Left with nothing much to do, Ivan ends up exploring much of the humans" compound. He wanders, looking for all the little places that he probably isn"t allowed to be but don"t have anyone to stop him. He"s always gotten a little thrill out of that.
At one point, during his walks, he sees a rather familiar head of golden hair.
He stops.
“Luka?” he asks, a little incredulous. He didn’t expect Luka to be here as well,
The person - definitely Luka - turns to him, looking just as surprised to see him.
“You’re alive,” Luka says.
“So are you,” Ivan comments, “But Mizi said- well… I thought Hyuna didn’t like you.”
Luka hums.
“She doesn’t,” he says, “But she hasn’t killed me yet.”
“Why did they rescue you, then?”
“Hyuna’s not the only one who makes decisions,” Luka says, “And I was tired of being ignored by the rescuers.”
“You had everything though,” Ivan says, “You had already won.”
“You had everything too,” Luka responds pointedly, “You could have won. Why did you give that up?”
Ivan is silent. But he understands.
“I threw my match because of Till,” he eventually says, “I wanted him to live.”
Luka laughs a little when he says that.
Ivan turns and frowns at him.
“You say that,” Luka says, “And yet Till lost, in the round against me.”
Ivan has gathered as much, from what Mizi told him.
“I know that,” he says, terse.
“Till would have died, if the rescuers hadn’t arrived when they did.”
Ivan stays silent. He doesn’t want to think about that.
Luka hums.
“He could have stood a chance against me, you know. I had already won once. I was old news.”
“The crowds loved you,” Ivan mumbles, “You were never going to die.
“Categorically untrue,” Luka argues, “The crowds love novelty. Something similar but not quite the same. They were getting bored, and really it should have been you facing me, but you had to pull that stunt in your last round…”
Luka looks off, almost wistful.
“You seem disappointed,” Ivan remarks.
Luka gives a soft laugh and then smiles. Ivan can understand how he charmed so many people with it.
“Till could have won, too, if you hadn’t pulled that stunt in your last round.”
Ivan watches him carefully.
“You said that Till lost.”
“It wasn’t one of his better performances,” Luka says, “He wasn’t all there. Nothing like his usual energy. Boring.”
“You think he was boring?”
Luka scoffs.
“The audience thought he was boring.”
Ivan considers the difference.
“You should have let him win the usual way,” Luka continues, “You did want him to live, right?”
“Yes,” Ivan narrows his eyes, “Why?”
“I thought I made my point clear already.”
“He didn’t lose your round because of me. He never cared about me.”
“Like how you never cared about Mizi? Or about Sua?”
“That’s different,” Ivan says.
“Not different enough,” Luka responds breezily, “All you did was make him depressed,” he pauses, then sighs, “He wouldn’t even respond to me on stage. Boring.”
Ivan glares at him now.
“He probably lost because of you then, if you were messing with his head.”
Luka shrugs.
“Maybe so.”
“I thought you said you wanted to lose.”
“Sure,” Luka says, “But I couldn’t lose to that.”
Ivan grits his teeth at that. He can’t afford to get into a fight while he’s recovering. But Luka-
“Ah,” Luka tuts, stepping back out of arm"s reach, “You want to hit me, don’t you?”
“You hurt Till,” Ivan says, tersely. It’s all he can say, really. He doesn’t know how to fight back against this.
“I’ve hurt a lot of people,” Luka counters, still wearing that light smile, “Talk to Mizi. Or Hyuna. They’ll tell you.”
Ivan steps forward. Luka takes another step back.
“At least I do it intentionally,” Luka says.
That’s the tipping point. Ivan lunges at Luka. Or, he tries to. Instead his legs nearly give out underneath him. There’s a sharp pain in his side that probably isn’t good.
Luka looks down at him, writhing on the ground. The playfulness has left his face, leaving nothing left but a carefully neutral expression.
“I’ll go get someone,” he says.
Luka doesn’t return after that, but medical staff do show up. He’s led back to his room and given a thorough check-over before being allowed to collapse into bed, exhausted.
-
Till is there shortly afterwards.
“You got into a fight?!” he exclaims.
“Is that so surprising?”
“Yes!”
“It was with Luka, if that context helps.”
“Yeah I know that already,” Till says, “He’s a weirdo too. And Mizi really doesn’t like him so… I guess it makes sense.”
Till pauses.
“Was he flirting with you?” Till asks, “That’s what he pulled on Mizi during her song. And I think he… tried something like that with me? I don’t remember my last performance very well.”
Ivan blinks.
“He wasn’t flirting, we were talking about you, mostly.”
“Bleh,” Till makes a face, “He isn’t into me too, is he?”
Ivan pointedly ignores the acknowledgement of his own feelings.
“No,” he says, and Till looks visibly relieved.
“Good,” Till says, and then, “What did he say, then?”
“He said,” Ivan pauses, taking a moment to figure out how much to say, “Actually, I have a question I want to ask first.”
“Fine.”
“If, during our round, I hadn’t… done what I did-“
“Kissed me?”
“Yes, that. If I had only sung the song, and then died, would you have cared this much about me still?”
Till’s expression sours.
He doesn’t answer though.
“That’s a stupid question,” Till says.
“Do you think you could have won the final round?”
“I don’t fucking know!” Till exclaims, clearly agitated by the question, “You were going to win anyway, it doesn’t matter.”
“I didn’t win.”
“Yeah because you threw it!” Till exclaims, “And I-” he cuts himself off.
“You what?” Ivan says, prodding at the wound.
“I didn’t realize,” Till finally says, “How much it would hurt.”
Ivan frowns.
“You didn’t care about me.”
“Would you quit fucking saying that!?”
“You didn’t care about me, at least not until the end of that round.”
“Shut up,” Till says, the anger draining from his voice in an instant.
“I wouldn’t have done it like that, if I realized it would make you care about me.”
“Shut up!” Till yells, “What part of that don’t you understand?”
Ivan understands.
He doesn’t say anything. Arguing with Till when he’s like this doesn’t help
“Stop… looking at me like that!”
“Like what?” Ivan asks.
Till screams in frustration and storms out of the room.
-
When someone steps through the door again, he expects it to be Mizi.
Instead it is Luka.
“What do you want?” Ivan asks, an air of moodiness still lingering from his fight with Till.
“Are you still mad at me?” Luka asks, sounding offended, though Ivan doubts he really means it, “I came to see if you were alright. That was a pretty bad fall earlier.”
“I’m fine,” Ivan grits out, “I just want to be left alone.”
“Is that why Till is so moody?” Luka asks, “He chucked his tray across the cafeteria about ten minutes ago, there wasn"t even anyone to provoke him this time.”
“Why do you care?” Ivan asks.
“I don’t,” Luka says airily, “But Till was putting up such a fuss, I figured someone had to make sure you weren’t dead.”
“Get out,” Ivan says.
“Fine, fine,” Luka laughs, stepping out the door.
-
Finally, finally, Mizi arrives at his room.
“Did you and Till have a fight again?” she asks.
“Yes,” Ivan grits out, “Why?”
“He was acting out at dinner. He told me to bring you your meal instead. He only does that when you two are fighting.”
“It’s his fault for not being able to control himself.”
Mizi frowns at him.
“What did you even say to get him this upset?”
“Nothing that isn’t true,” Ivan says, “He didn’t care about me before our round, he just doesn’t want to face that fact.”
Mizi’s frown deepens.
“I cared about you back in Anakt garden.”
“Till didn’t though, he never even noticed me.”
“Are you sure?” Mizi asks.
“Yes,” Ivan says, exasperated, “Don’t you see how differently he acts now? He was never like that back then.”
“Yes,” Mizi says, “But I don’t think that means he didn’t care.”
“What does it mean, then?” Ivan asks.
Mizi sighs, “I don’t know, exactly,” she says, “But believe me when I say he cares, we all do.”
-
Mizi leaves, and bumps into someone in the hall. He can hear her voice, saying something quietly, and then another voice, one he really doesn"t want to face right now.
Till steps into the doorway. Pauses. Then enters the room.
He stares at Ivan.
“I don’t want you to die for me,” he announces.
Ivan frowns.
“But you said-“
“I don’t know how I feel about you,” Till snaps, “and I don’t understand how you feel about me. But I didn’t want you to die because of it.”
“But you don’t-“
“I do care about you,” Till says, “And you’re an idiot if you haven’t realized that by now.”
“Fine. But you never cared about me before,” Ivan counters, “How was I supposed to know-”
Till swings his fist.
There’s another clang as it hits the side of the bed.
“If you’re going to break the bed, then I’d suggest an alternative-“
“Shut up!” Till shouts, “Can you not shut up for one second?”
“I thought you said you cared about me,” Ivan bats his eyes, deliberately provoking him now.
“That’s not how I meant it and you know it,” Till says, “You never make any sense and you never listen.”
“I’m listening right now.”
“No you- I thought you died, Ivan.”
Till gets right into his face, snarling.
“You really think it didn’t affect me? Even if you hadn’t done what you did, you think I wouldn’t care?”
He grabs Ivan’s hair and keeps his head trained on him.
“You’re still as out-of-control as ever,” Ivan quips.
“And you’re still as much of an asshole.”
There’s a tremor in Till’s voice, and up this close, Ivan notices a tear halfway down his cheek.
“Look at me,” Till says, “Look at me!”
It’s funny, Ivan thinks, because he’s wanted this attention for so long. It only took nearly dying to get here.
“I should have done this sooner,” Ivan muses, “It only took my death to finally get your attention away from Mizi.”
“Yeah well Mizi was nice, unlike you. And that’s a shit way to get my attention.”
Ivan shrugs, unconvinced.
“It worked though.”
“Yeah,” Till hisses, “So stay the fuck alive.”
-
Till doesn"t storm off after that. Instead he moves to the chair, and refuses to look at Ivan.
If Ivan says anything, he only gets one word responses. If Ivan asks for help, Till will do what he asks and nothing else.
The sour mood from their fight lingers, made worse by their proximity to each other.
"You can leave, if you want," Ivan tells him.
"I"m not going to," comes a terse response.
Till isn"t looking at him anymore, instead he"s doing... whatever this is.
Ivan watches Till, who pointedly doesn"t watch him. This is something that Ivan is used to though, something that he knows how to deal with.
He watches Till, taking in everything about him, until finally exhaustion overtakes him and he falls asleep.
-
Someone is humming.
Ivan blinks his eyes open blearily, and looks over to the side. Till is there, looking off somewhere absentmindedly, his hand sitting steadily on Ivan’s wrist.
Suddenly, Ivan is hyper-aware of the fingers at his wrist, of his face heating up, of his heart pounding in his ears.
It’s only then that he notices.
The melody Till is humming has increased its speed since he woke up, it lines up eerily well with the pace of Ivan’s own heartbeat.
Oh.
Ivan stares at Till, and a realization slowly begins to dawn on him.
Till looks back, and notices him staring.
“What?” Till asks, sounding offended that Ivan has even noticed him.
“That song,” Ivan says, “What is it?”
“That- what?” Till’s face goes red, “It’s nothing, I’m just bored. Making stuff up. You’ve seen me do it before.”
Ivan pauses.
“You cared about me,” Ivan says, “Before I died.”
Till stares at him for a moment, a strange look in his eyes.
“Yeah,” Till says, sounding dumbfounded, “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for the past month.”
Till watches Ivan cautiously.
“I’m not kissing you,” Till says abruptly, “If that’s what you want. Not even if you die again.”
Ivan wasn’t expecting Till to want to kiss him. He has never expected Till to love him back, never even expected him to look his way.
He supposes Till does love him, though, even if it’s different to what Ivan feels. It still stings, but perhaps this is better than nothing at all.
He supposes Till must have always loved him, though, if Ivan’s “death” had changed Till this much, even if neither of them had realized it at the time.
Ivan thinks about the relief he felt, when he was dying, when Till had looked at him in surprise. He had been so sure back then, that Till would survive it.
He doesn’t understand the way Till is looking back at him now.
“I didn’t think you would care about me,” he says, “I wouldn’t have done it, if I’d known.”
Till huffs.
“Too bad for you then,” Till says, “Because I did. I do.”