Chapter Text
Till’s week had been more than weird because even after all the revelations and new things that he learned, everything seemed to be the same with his group of friends, which made everything more weird. Even when he pretended that nothing had changed, he was a mess.
Till had no idea who this person was, but Mizi, whom he apparently no longer had a crush on, had confessed to her crush, which was mutual.
On the other hand, Ivan, who until a couple of days ago Till was convinced was into Mizi, confessed to him, telling him how he had a crush on him for years.
And it was driving Till insane.
The only little difference he felt was that Ivan was not following him around as much as he used to. It was not that he was actively avoiding him, but it was more like he was not looking for Till as much, and for some reason, that was starting to bother Till.
That was why he didn’t expect Ivan to be in the music room, to be fair, they as a friend group had decided to reserve the room in the school to practice, most of the time it was just Till who used it, but they all could use it. It was still a surprise when he noticed Ivan sitting down at the piano.
It was too late to pretend that he didn’t see Ivan there.
“Oh, you are here,” Till said, hoping that his voice didn’t show anything more than a little bit of surprise. “I thought it was empty.”
Another thing that started happening after their little chat.
Till is starting to get nervous around Ivan, not because he has feelings for him, of course, but because now he is constantly worried about accidentally saying or doing the wrong thing.
“You can use the room if you want, I don’t mind sharing,” Ivan said softly.
Till eyes followed the movement of his hands, his fingers moved gracefully along the piano, his long fingers moved quickly and without hesitation, Ivan was more than good, classically trained in piano since he was a little kid, and to this day he only played because his father demanded him to do it.
He was probably the best piano player in the school, and he had no desire to play. Till didn’t even know if Ivan would pursue music if it was not demanded of him.
It was annoying. Till thought it was unfair, why God made someone so talented and yet so unpassionate.
Unaware of his inner monolog Ivan spoke.
“Luka told me you are working on a new song with Hyuna.”
“You and Luka are close?”
Till was starting to get his guitar out of his case and he gave a quick look to Ivan, he was still playing the piano without lifting his eyes, he didn’t know what possessed him to ask about Luka instead of talking about the song directly.
Maybe because that was how much he hated Luka.
“Define close.” Ivan joked back but quickly answered. “But yeah, I think so.”
That reminded Till of how the conversation with Luka and Hyuna went, where they accused him of having a gay crush on this star that he was writing about, which was wrong, but Luka was that much of an asshole to tell that to Ivan, he could picture him telling Ivan about how he thought Till was writing about a boy.
“Did he say something about my new song?” Till decided to ask finally.
“He mentioned something about a star?” Ivan responded, and that was good, it seemed like Luka didn’t say more than necessary. “Maybe I’m finally being a good influence.”
“As if.”
He didn’t want to admit that the song was written entirely with Ivan’s influence, all the metaphors of the stars only existed because Ivan had shown the stars to him. It was even written in the same way Ivan used to write songs, even when that had not been intentional. Till usually went for shorter and more direct songs that were fast passed, this type of ballad was more Ivan’s style.
Till was concentrating on playing his guitar, but he still noticed when the piano stopped playing. He didn’t raise his eyes but he could feel Ivan moving as he had stood up from the piano and walked in Till’s direction.
“Can I?” He asked pointing to the music sheet of the song.
Till just extended the sheet without saying anything, because he knew that if he refused, Ivan would think he was hiding something and he didn’t want to be bothered by him, since Ivan was really insisting when he wanted.
So he played the nonchalant route, which didn’t take him very far.
Since it only took Ivan a couple of lines to let out a laugh.
“So Luka was right.” He said with a big grin on his lips. “You wrote about me.”
He is going to kill Luka. He already decided.
He couldn’t even lie and pretend it was not about him, even if it had been an accident. The song was in fact about Ivan, Ivan was the star of the song, and even when he had written it thinking of Mizi, it was undeniable that Ivan was there. Till also felt like an asshole, he had written it thinking that Mizi and Ivan liked each other, but now knowing that Ivan was in love with him made the song more complicated.
“I was wrong, I thought you liked Mizi.” Till admitted after a couple of seconds, there was no use in lying.
“And you are also wrong in saying that the star gets everything it wants.”
Ivan was pointing to one of the lyrics towards the end of the song, when the speaker of the song admits defeat, saying there is no competition with the star because the star gets everything it wants.
When Ivan didn’t elaborate on why he was wrong Till looked up to find that Ivan was already looking back, his dark eyes were looking directly at him, like he was staring at his soul, he smiled when he noticed he had Till’s attention, but Till could see the slight tension in his jaw.
“I never get what I want.” Ian’s gaze dropped down towards Till's lips before quickly looking away.
Till felt his stomach drop.
How did he never notice before that Ivan looked at him that way? was he that dumb or did he fool himself into believing that Ivan’s eyes looked at him in a friendly way?
Till also had to look away because he felt his cheeks start to burn up.
It was embarrassing that a simple look had that effect on him, he needed to put himself together before he said something stupid, but before he could even think of saying something else Ivan gave the music sheet back to him.
“The song is good, I think it will be a hit when you finally drop it.”
Ivan started to pick up his things and Till felt like he was frozen, unable to stop Ivan from leaving because he didn’t know if it had been something that he had said that made Ivan run away.
Till wanted to stop him, wanted to ask him what he thought of every part of the song, if he thought the star metaphor was well used, wanted to hear him play the piano a little longer, and just have his company for the rest of the day, before they ended in Ivan’s car playing Till’s favorite songs as they drove to Till’s house to drop him out.
But he didn’t do it, he watched in silence as Ivan took all of his things and started walking away.
He didn’t know why he felt incapable of it.
“Have a good afternoon Ivan.” Till ended up saying instead before Ivan walked out the door.
Ivan turned his head to smile at him before leaving.
It shouldn’t have bothered him so much.
Till already knew that Ivan had a crush on him, and he knew that even when he didn’t reject Ivan directly, Ivan was not waiting for anything back from him, because from Ivan’s point of view, Till was still into Mizi and was never expecting something back.
But it still shocked him to discover that Ivan wanted him in the first place.
A crush is something that Till didn’t put much thought into, at least that was how he felt about Mizi, he admired her, and maybe idolized her to an unhealthy level, but that was how he always thought crushes would be for everybody. He liked Mizi, but he didn’t want her.
At least not in the way Ivan wanted him.
Ivan looked hungry for him, but at the same time so resigned to never having him. That bothered Till and he didn’t even know what was bothering him so much in the first place.
Till never knew of somebody having a crush on him, it didn’t help with his self-esteem when he started puberty, seeing all of his classmates getting boyfriends and girlfriends while he pinned after Mizi who never looked at him that way. He had half convinced himself that he and Mizi were destined to be together since he didn’t see anybody else being interested in him.
But now he realized that Ivan had always been there. silently following him and being a good friend, and Till never realized.
It was driving him insane.
How?
He wanted to ask Ivan directly for a list of reasons why he had a crush on him, and what did he see in him that Till had never been able to see in himself. But it was not appropriate to just ask him.
Especially since he didn’t like Ivan back, he was not cruel, even if he thought that Ivan could possibly just answer him without any issue, he felt like that would be using him.
So there he was, in the middle of the night pacing around his room trying to make sense of all this mess. In the impulse of the moment he ended up picking up his phone and dialing a number.
“I’m sorry, I know is late.” He murmured the second he heard someone had picked up the call.
“Don’t apologize, did something happen?” Mizi said quickly to him, she was talking in a low tone, probably because of the hour, but she sounded worried.
It was not normal for Till to call her at almost three a.m. out of the blue. Now that he had that second to think about what he was doing, he realized how dumb he was. But since he had already woken up Mizi, the least he could do was ask.
Till hesitated for a second before asking. “Did you know Ivan had a crush on me?”
He chose to ask for had i nstead of have because that way, he could put a little bit of distance between himself and the topic. But he started to get anxious as the seconds passed, and Mizi didn’t answer him.
“Mizi?”
“... Did you know?” Mizi asked back softly.
“No.” Till was quick to confess, technically he did know, but he didn’t remember anything from that conversation, so it didn’t count. “I didn’t even know he was gay…”
“Are we not all gay?” Mizi raised her voice in surprise.
Till had to move the phone away a little bit because of the sudden volume increase.
“What?”
“I assumed since I am, so are Ivan and Sua, and I assumed you too…?” Mizi's voice started to take a confused tone as she kept talking.
Till took a second to realize that even if he liked Mizi and he thought he was obvious with his crush, all this time she had thought he was gay.
He didn’t know how to feel about that one.
“I am not.”
“No?”
“No.” He confirmed, even when he wasn’t that sure.
“Oh, okay,” Mizi murmured back,
He simply didn’t have the time to think about sexualities, not of others or himself, he had never questioned that about himself, and he didn’t have motives before. He could admit when a guy was attractive, but that didn’t mean anything, right?
And he clearly wasn’t good at guessing what sexualities other people were, since he didn’t think a thing of Ivan being apparently openly gay, and he had assumed Mizi was into guys even though he had never once seen her interested in one.
And Sua-
“Wait, you and Sua?”
“Did you actually not know?” Mizi sounded surprised.
That made so much sense.
Till was really dumb, how did he never realize?
Mizi had not been happy when he gave up his seat because she got to sit next to Ivan, but because she got to sit next to Sua. It had always been Sua, she was the one who seemed cold but was kind, the one with the beautiful dark hair and beautiful eyes.
He never even spared a thought in the possibility that all this time it was Sua the one that had captured Mizi’s heart.
At least he had been close, he just had gotten the wrong sibling.
“I think I just don’t pay attention to that stuff…” Till passed a hand though his face tired. “Ivan told me you confessed and went well.”
It made sense now, that was why Ivan knew, it was her sister all along.
“Yes.” He could practically hear the smile in her voice.” I and Sua are dating now.”
“Congrats.”
Till knew that his voice had to show how his mind was somewhere else.
Maybe he should have put more thought into his sexuality growing up, Hyuna once had called him emotionally constipated, and now he was starting to think that maybe she was right. But who could blame him when he grew up with his father, who was a man who was allergic to showing any type of feeling that wasn’t anger and disappointment?
Till grew up knowing that the only way he could connect with his feelings was by writing songs about them, but he never allowed himself to feel those feelings first.
So when it came to romance he went with what everybody told him he was supposed to do, he found the cutest girl and developed a crush on her. Mizi was cute, he thought girls were cute in general, and Mizi was the perfect example of femininity with her long pink hair, cute outfits, and inviting smiles, he liked the idea of having someone like her by his side, but did he even like that?
He remembered that night in Ivan’s house, where they shared a bed, he remembered how he thought Ivan looked beautiful that morning. Even used the word cute to describe him, even when that was the concept he usually only associated Mizi with.
Till might be dumb, but he was not blind.
Ivan was good-looking, there was no denying that, but did Till find him cute?
Was Till attracted to Ivan?
“Why are you calling Till?” Mizi’s voice shook him, he almost dropped the phone. “Don't get me wrong, I love talking to you, but why?”
Her voice sounded tired, but still kind, and Tlil couldn’t help to feel guilty. If he had been in the right state of mind he would have never called her this late, he barely even called her at all, it just showed how much he was losing his mind with all of this.
“I can’t stop thinking about this whole situation…” He confessed slowly. “I was driving myself insane over the fact that you had a crush on somebody because I had the biggest crush on you and now Ivan has a crush on me. It’s confusing.”
Mizi didn’t seem to mind the part when Till told her that he had liked her in the past. Maybe she knew all this time and he had fooled himself into thinking she didn’t know.
“Does Ivan having a crush on you change things for you?”
And that was a good question because it never did, Ivan confessed years ago and it didn’t change a thing for Till, because they were friends first, and that was what he cared about. It didn’t change his friendship with him.
“No. He is still my friend.” He murmured.
But he was lying.
He knew deep down, that he could feel it changing, he couldn’t see Ivan the same way as he used to do.
“Then there is nothing to worry about Till, he’ll understand that you don’t like him back.” Mizi tried to calm him down. “He doesn’t hate you, just as you didn’t hate me for liking girls.”
“I know…” He murmured back. “Thanks, Mizi, I needed to let it out.”
It was true, he didn’t hate or resent Mizi for liking girls, he knew it was just something that happened, nothing personal, and he also knew that Ivan would never hate him just because he didn’t like him back, especially since he hadn’t like him back for years now.
“Maybe you should write a song to process your feelings, I heard from Hyuna you are planning on making an album”
Did Hyuna say that to everybody?
“It’s a good idea. Thank you.”
“Have a good night Till.”
All that Mizi said was reasonable, she really had helped him and calmed down, he even had gotten a confirmation that it was Sua the one she had a crush on, he should be able to fall asleep more easily now because, after all, he didn’t like Ivan back, he was not going to hate him for that so there should not be anything else worrying him.
But the problem was.
Till can’t stop thinking about Ivan.
He tried to do what Mizi had suggested, he started writing the song, trying to put into words his conflicted feelings but he didn’t even know what he was saying anymore. His words meshed together and in the end, it didn’t look like words, but he didn’t let go of his pencil until the sun rose up in the sky.
Till some point in the night, he had fallen asleep, he stretched his arms as he stood up from his desk, and he paid no attention to his alarm going on at some point in the room, his back was killing him and his hands were covered in pencil stains. Maybe he should have gotten to bed at some point after the call but he didn’t and now he was going to have a shitty day with his aching body.
Tiredly he looked down at the paper sheet that he had been writing on last night.
Oh.
Oh no.
He had written a song about his feelings, a song that ended being about Ivan, a whole song dedicated to him, but he couldn’t even read most of the words, because, at some point in the night, he had started drawing him.
On top of the confused words that were his feelings were dark lines that made up a drawing of what seemed to be a face, but the clearest part of the drawing was the eyes.
Dark eyes were looking back at him in the charcoal of his pencil, those eyes so peculiar that always seemed to be following his moves, eyes so dark and so deep that he would recognize them anywhere even in his shaky sketches.
And that was enough for him to realize it.
Till put his hands on his head and kept himself from panicking.
There now was no point in denying the truth, because maybe, just maybe. He liked Ivan back, and he had no clue what to do with that information.