Chapter Text
Till stares at the clock right above the blackboard, watching it tick on endlessly, taunting him. The classroom remains relatively silent, students tired from the school day as the teacher’s monontonous voice drones on about something mathematical that he couldn’t care less about.
His pencil finds the margins of his notebook—his notes looking like chicken-scratch—and he lets his hand take rein, letting it flow across the paper, creating circles and cubes and random disjointed facial features: eyes, lips, noses. Far more coherent than his letters.
The day had been a long drag to get through—Till had practically crawled to every class and he thinks he might’ve fallen asleep and started dreaming more than twice. Unfortunately, today is Monday, meaning tomorrow was Tuesday, meaning that he still has an entire four days to get through before he can catch up—or at least attempt to catch up—on some of the sleep insomnia will inevitably take from him this week. It usually never works, no matter how much lavender scent his mother sprays into his room and how hot of a bath he takes before he flops onto his bed.
Speaking of the weekend, his mind wanders off to Saturday night. He and the others—the others being Hyuna, Hyunwoo, and Dewey, who were seniors that graduated last year—are planning on doing another show together at their usual venue—a rundown warehouse at the outskirts of town that is basically in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Semi-monthly events are held there by Hyuna’s little group, primarily planned out by her friend Isaac. They’re always high energy and packed with people who Till thinks understand him better than anybody at the school ever could. He suppresses an excited smile at the thought of being sweaty and breathing heavily under less than ideal stage lights in front of people who truly appreciate his style and music. His hand itches for his guitar, which sits at home.
That’s really the only motivation he has for this week. Next week? Who knows.
The bell rings, loud and sharp, bringing him out of his stupor. Immediately the noise of zippers zipping and books closing and shoes rushing for the door sounds as the teacher rushes to finish his last sentence, punctuating it with a sad, frankly helpless clap of his hands as he says, “I’ll see you folks tomorrow. Be good.”
Till sits up from his seat, pushing in his chair with an ugly screeeeeeech as he throws his backpack over his shoulder. His legs all but bolt out of the door, excited to get out of the dull classroom as soon as possible, weaving in between people effortlessly thanks to his—admittedly—lanky frame.
When he steps out into the hallway, it’s an explosion of sound—voices overlapping into white noise as students walk to and fro—some heading home, some heading to extracurriculars, others simply loitering around with their friends.
On autopilot—making sure to keep his distance from the more dense crowds of people—Till walks to his locker, eager to slip his stupidly thick pre-calculus textbook away into the dark, rectangular abyss and storage of academic misery.
When he gets there, however, he pauses.
Slapped directly onto his locker door was a poster—bright and eye-catching. Bold letters and a studio-lit-like photo of its subject.
VOTE IVAN FOR COUNCIL PRESIDENT!
He can’t help the dramatic roll of his eyes at it.
Ivan’s photo looks professionally taken—probably shot by some photography kids, Till thinks. His round, black, buggy eyes bare into his soul—flat and lifeless. A calm smile—almost teasing—is on his photographed face, a snaggle tooth—which Till is so sure is fake—pokes out from under his upper lip.
Till takes the piece of paper by a corner, ripping it off his locker, the tape coming off with it. He spares it one final look before crumbling it up, promptly shoving it into the pockets of his jeans, saving it for when he comes across a trashcan. Must’ve been one of Ivan’s friends who put it up on his locker just to spite him.
Till doesn’t know Ivan—but he knows enough to not like him.
He’s in his grade, a senior. Straight A student, president of the school’s Key Club and valued member of the student council, the football team, and the fucking choir too. He’s tall and athletic and—okay, Till will admit it—a little above average in the looks department. The girls seem to like him, anyway.
All of this to say: the fucker is popular—and he also just happens to be best buds with some of the banes of Till’s existance.
He’s not sure what it is—popular kid groups are almost never made up of nice people, and he’s always found it strange. Till spends his school days getting paper planes and paper balls thrown at the back of his head from periods 1 through 3 and has a 50% chance of getting food chucked into his direction during lunch for no apparent reason. And every time he looks over, it’s always the same group.
4 kids. Marty, Laurent, Freddie, and finally, Ivan. Laurent was often the one actually initiating all the trouble, followed close behind by Marty. Three of them would always be laughing, snickering and chuckling as if they weren’t even trying to hide their actions and thoughts towards him, and Ivan’s eyes always seemed to creepily linger on him every time. It was easier for the past 3 years with Hyuna and the others to back him up, but without them, he feels defenseless. Exposed. Hyuna isn’t there to throw up a fist and intimidate them with her physique, and if Till tried it, he’s sure it wouldn’t have the same effect considering his statue. If they were popular, you’d think that’d mean they were nice people, right? Wrong. Till can’t really name a single, nice, decent popular kid that he’s ever interacted with—
“Hey Till!”
Okay. Well. Maybe except for one.
“Oh—hey!”
Mizi comes bounding up to him, dressed in the bright red blazer and white polo of the student council—her name embroidered onto the left side in white stitching. Her matching red-plaided skirt stops barely before her knees, followed by a pair of white socks that cover the rest of her legs and a cute pair of slightly platformed dress shoes that make her seem taller than she actually is.
She’s holding a stack of flyers in her hand. Handing him one with a smile on her face, he looks down at it.
It’s another student election poster—this time for Mizi. She’s making a heart with her hands, head tilted to the side as she winks at the camera, her hair done into perfectly big, pink curls. The glare on her glasses does little to take much away from the clarity of her bright eyes.
‘Vote Mizi for Student President!’ is typed in round bubble letters, the page’s border decorated with simple red anemone flowers—their school’s symbol—and miscellaneous swirls and lines.
“Have you voted yet?”
He looks up at her, taking a second to compare her to the photo of herself on the flyer—still as cute and perfect as always. Not that he’d ever say that to her face.
Not again, anyway.
“Not yet,” he says. He itches at the inner corner of his eye, careful not to disturb the eyeliner, “I didn’t even know voting was open.”
“It started today, silly!” she punches him lightly in the shoulder, “did you not hear the announcements this morning?”
“Guess not.” Till doesn’t really pay attention to anything.
She sighs, but before she can get on his case further, he speaks.
“I’ll vote for you tomorrow. Promise.”
In turn, Mizi gives him a bright grin.
“Alright! Sounds good.”
The two of them engage in casual conversation as he posts the flyer onto his locker with tape that Mizi was carrying around, effectively replacing the previous poster with a candidate that Till was much more happy to promote.
They have known each other for years—since they were babies, really. They went to the same elementary, the same middle school, and well, now the same high school.
Mizi has always been bright and bubbly. Their parents teased that she balanced Till’s constant annoyance and anger out—placating him with hugs and smiles and positive thoughts. She was Till’s opposite. She was everything Till wasn’t.
It stayed that way—just the two of them—until they became three with Sua late into middle school. Quiet and just a little intimidating, Mizi was able to break down her walls the same way she did with Till’s—though he and Sua never really were close. Their only link was Mizi, and they came to a quiet agreement that they were perfectly okay with that arrangement.
Or, well, Till was okay with it until they became a duo and he became an outsider.
He had confessed to Mizi in eighth grade, only to come face to face with the fact that the pink-haired girl had feelings for Sua. He didn’t—still doesn’t—have an issue with that—but he was still heartbroken, and ever since then there has been a strange wall between Mizi and him, and he never really spends time around the couple now—both to save himself some lingering heartbreak and to spare her from the ‘dating Till’ accusations and questions she gets, given the fact that her and Sua being in a relationship isn’t public knowledge.
He notices the way her face stiffens whenever questioned.
The pair slowly leisurely make their way out of the building, passing by students that wave at Mizi and ignore Till’s existence—just the way God intended.
The crowd of students starts to thin out as they get closer to the exit, and the girl lets out a groan of frustration and nerves, her hands gripping the flyers as she anxiously shakes herself.
“The last speech is on Wednesday… I’m not ready—”
Till chuckles at her antics, giving her a friendly pat on the shoulder as they continue walking, “You’ll be fine. Your other speeches were good—plus, people like you, so…”
Part of the choir and student council alongside Ivan, as well as a member of speech-and-debate, Mizi is generally well-loved by her peers and praised by the faculty on a regular basis. She’s popular, just like Ivan, but she’s not an asshole to Till.
Even if she’s judged and looked at sideways every time she’s with him—the angry ‘emo’ kid who wears dramatic, ‘gay’ eyeliner.
Mizi sighs dramatically. She adjusts her glasses to sit on her face, looking properly dejected, “Yeah well… Ivan’s really good too, y’know?” she looks up at him, mouth taut in a hard expression, brows furrowing. He tries not to focus on the way her half-way pouting face looks perfectly framed by her large, pink curls, “I was trying to talk some people into voting for me and like, already more than half of them voted for him just from today,” another noise of distress. She takes hold of his arm by the elbow and shakes it violently, whining, as they pass through the doors, “Till, heeeeelp meeee—”
Before he can snort and question how exactly a person like him is supposed to help a person like her—a force slams straight into Mizi’s shoulder, sending both of them stumbling back a few steps before they fall straight onto their asses on the concrete.
Mizi’s flyers go all over the ground, and people start looking at all the commotion. His eyes catch a blur of multiple pairs of shoes bolting past them, the sounds of jostling and brash laughter echoing down the hallway just behind them. A pair of white shoes steps atop one of the flyers, a dirty print left right on Mizi’s face.
His head snaps up at the offenders, and he freezes when he recognizes the one with white shoes.
Ivan.
He’s dressed in straight blue jeans and that red and white letterman jacket that he seemingly always has on, the number fourty-nine stitched nice and big on the back. He skids himself to a stop, turning around, still halfway running on the balls of his feet as his head turns back and forth between the two fallen victims on the ground and the people running off with a black backpack—who Till quickly realizes is the rest of Ivan’s little friend group.
Till quickly forces himself up, ignoring the way his lower-back aches with the fall and trying his best to balance himself and steady his stupid legs. He sends Ivan the meanest look he can muster, preparing to yell at the fucker because what the fuck—
“Hey—”
Before he can get any more words out, the bastard runs back to them, dropping onto his knees with an ugly scratching sound against the concrete, eyes wide in slight panic as he hurriedly gathers Mizi’s flyers.
“Oh God—” he mutters, “I am so sorry—” he looks up at her, breathing heavily. His normally perfect hair is tousled, strands of inky black breaking up his lightly tanned skin.
Till bites his tongue and settles back to the ground, joining them in gathering the papers, trying his best to beat Ivan’s current score of six papers. His hands seem shaky with adrenaline and energy.
The jock continues, clearing his throat, “I’m so sorry, Mizi. I didn’t see you—” he looks over at Till, eyes still wide with what almost looks like genuine concern as he hands Mizi the flyers he’s collected, “—or you. It’s my fault, really.”
He tries not to squirm under the other’s gaze—or punch him.
Till doesn’t accept his apology, or really say anything. He keeps his gaze steady on the other in a quiet challenge as Mizi accepts the apology for the both of them, smiling and laughing politely.
“Again—I’m so sorry,” Ivan pushes himself off his knees, sparing a second to dust himself off before quickly shuffling backwards into the hallway.
“It’s fine, Ivan,” Mizi reassures him. She’s a much better person than Till is, because he would’ve stayed quiet throughout the whole interaction before flipping him off, “Thank you for helping—”
“Of course!” He waves his hands in hurried dismissal, “I’ll talk to Laurent and the others—” he runs off. He looks back over his shoulder, yelling, “Good luck by the way!”
Till rolls his eyes. Fake-ass.
Mizi lets out a huff as she gets up, and he follows suit. She straightens the flyers as best as she can, and she looks back down into the hallway, an ever-pleasant smile on her face.
“That was nice of him!”
Till mutters.
“Bare fuckin’ minimum.”
When Till gets home, his house is filled with the sounds of the TV running and his mother in the kitchen, humming a random melody as she cuts up vegetables. She looks up as she hears the door shut close, calling out from where she stands behind the counter.
“Welcome home, buddy!” Till makes his way over to her, receiving his routine kiss on the cheek. It used to be a head kiss, but he’s gotten taller than her over the past few years.
He hums, eyeing the carrots as she scrapes them into a pot of boiling… something, with the back of a knife, “Hey, ma.”
Despite their height-difference now, he still looks like her. He always has. The same pale complexion, the same gray hair, the same green eyes and the same sharp facial features. The same sort of style too. Most of what Till is wearing—a homemade black ribcage shirt, red faded ripped jeans and spiked accessories and jewelry—are hand-me-downs straight from her.
She still keeps elements of her younger punk youth—she’s wearing a loose, stretched out gray shirt with a flashy punk band’s logo on the chest, and her nails are painted black, though the polish has been chipped off quite a bit on some of her nails. She still wears her ear and facial piercings like they’re part of her character rather than her outfit. Till is hoping for a septum piercing like hers… one day.
“How was school?” she asks, turning away from him to focus on the stove.
“Fine, I guess.” He never really knows how to answer that question.
“You always ‘guess,” she nudges him in the side with her elbow, “Did you go to school or nah, huh?”
“I did, I did,” he says, putting his hands up defensively, “I went to school.”
She hums, half-approving and half-suspicious of him, “Anything fun happen today?”
Till moves to lean against the counter, picking at his already short nails. He bites at them when he’s nervous. He knows it's a bad habit. His mom has been getting on him to paint his nails to see if that’ll prevent it.
“Eh… well, Mizi’s running for student president this year… voting’s already open.”
She side-eyes him, nodding, “Mizi? That’s wonderful!,” she smiles as she sips from a wooden spoon to taste test whatever is stewing in the pot, “She’s a perfect fit. Who else is running?”
Till huffs, crossing his arms. He scratches at the back of his neck.
“Ivan,” he says.
“Ivan…?” she looks up towards the ceiling as if thinking, “Ivan… Ivan, Ivan… isn’t that…” she waves to finger in recollection, “Isn’t that Sua’s… couuuusin…?”
Oh. Right. He also kind of forgot about that.
Sua and Ivan are cousins—though Till always thought they looked more like siblings—same skin (though Ivan was noticeably tanner, probably due to football), same black eyes (though Sua’s looked a little more lively) and the same, dark, pin-straight hair. Though, from what he remembers with the little, sparing interactions he has with Sua, they aren’t on the best of terms—if any terms at all, really. Which Till supposes makes sense, Ivan is an asshole and Sua isn’t. Till almost never sees them together past choir practice.
Till and his mom share a few more words. She tells him to vote tomorrow for the student council elections to ‘help build the community,’ and he assures her he’ll do just that. Nevermind that he knows nobody else on the ballot for any other positions other than Mizi and Ivan for president.
“Alright, kid,” she gestures to a nearby door with the jerk of her head, “Go change your clothes and do your homework. I’ll call ya when the food’s ready.”
Till nods, stretching as he makes his way into his room.
Till votes the next day.
Or at least, he tries to.
The gym is filled with people—and if Till is to be honest, he wasn’t even sure there were this many people at Anakt. He recognizes a few faces as he walks around—he’s pretty sure that girl over there is in his English class, and that that group of boys were the ones that can never seem to shut the fuck up when Mr. Smith tells them to.
He attempts to navigate his way into the voting line—which is hard to find, because apparently people are incapable of lining up properly—but he eventually finds what seems to be a spot in it. He tries to not feel guilty about the fact he probably just cut in front of like thirty others. As he looks around, there’s students dressed in the red leadership blazers and polos, walking around like security and handing out flyers and talking to people. Till keeps an eye out for a familiar head of big, pink hair as the line slowly moves forward.
Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Mizi. He zeroes in on her. She’s dressed in the same outfit as yesterday, only that her short plaid skirt has been traded out for one that goes just past her knees. She has her hands clasped behind her back in a small show of professionalism and composure as she looks up, talking to—
Oh.
Well.
Ivan is standing next to her, letterman jacket gone now, favoring the same red blazer and white polo. He looks down at Mizi as she talks to him, nodding and smiling in response to whatever she’s saying. His tousled, tired, out of breath look from yesterday is gone, and he looks like the poster boy for some fashion brand as he stands there, arms crossed and face polite.
He guesses he might’ve been staring for too long, as Mizi suddenly looks away from Ivan, catching sight of him almost immediately. She smiles and waves enthusiastically at him, bouncing up on her tiptoes to make herself more noticeable—and the sight almost makes Till’s heart skip a beat.
Almost.
Ivan’s eyes follow hers, and he sees Till too. He waves—relaxed but not half-heartedly—and Till spares him a bitter glance before focusing back on Mizi, waving back.
He sees her turn to her opposing candidate before she quickly makes her way over to him, pulling him in for a brief hug.
“Hey! You came!”
Till smiles down at her, and—oh okay, her grateful smile makes his heart definitively skip a beat.
“Sure did,” he says. He looks back up at Ivan from across the gym, raising an accusatory brow in his general direction as he speaks to Mizi, “What’s up with him?”
The pink-haired girl looks back, blinking as if processing before turning back to him, “Ivan? Nothing really—he was just asking how I was. He was apologizing again for yesterday. He says sorry to you too.”
Apologizing? Again? He’s good at seeming kind-hearted, that’s for sure.
Till hums, flat and mocking, “As if,” he spits out, more to himself than anything.
Mizi rubs a comforting hand on his shoulder, bringing Till’s attention back down to her, “Till… I know you don’t really like Ivan, but—”
“I don’t like Ivan because he’s an asshole, Mizi.”
She continues, unbothered, “—he seems like a genuinely nice guy? Earlier today at nutrition he saw me hanging up my flyers and offered to help.”
Till nods. A prickle of annoyance runs up his spine.
“Yeah—and his buddies also throw food at me at lunch every other day and he looks at me like I’m a freak. Very kind of him.”
Mizi sighs, “Yeah, well, his friends aren’t really nice—but he’s not his friends, y’know? And maybe… maybe he’s just got a staring problem?”
He rolls his eyes.
“He has a staring problem for me specifically—because he thinks I’m weird and gay.”
Till immediately regrets that last bit.
He sees the way Mizi’s expression falls at the way he spits out that last word like it's an insult—and maybe to other people it is. To Till, it still feels like one—but to Mizi, it’s not.
He shakes his head, swearing under his breath.
“Shit—sorry… I didn’t mean that—it just came out.”
She nods, a sad smile of understanding on her face, “I know. Apology accepted.”
He looks up just past her head at Ivan. He’s shifting his weight almost nervously, his dark eyes flitting over at the two of them every few seconds before he looks elsewhere. Another person comes up to him—Marty, it looks like—and slaps him on the back, which seems to bring him out of his stupor. Quickly, the nervous energy is gone from his body as he greets his friend, pulling him close with the echo of their hands hitting for a quick chest-bump. That energy seemed more in line with the Ivan Till knows.
Mizi taps him on the arm to get his attention, and she starts to move, being led by the wrist by some other leadership kid, “I’ll see you in fifth!” she says. She’s promptly dragged away to some place Till probably isn’t allowed to enter.
He nods before stealing himself to focus on the line in front of him—still moving slowly. He tries not to think about how Mizi looked like a slapped-puppy when he said what he said.
Gay—there’s nothing inherently wrong with the word, Till thinks. Mizi is gay. Sua is gay. Hell, at the punk events there’s so many gays. They’re still good people—and yet, whenever the word is directed at him, it bothers him to no end.
To be gay is to like the same gender. Till does not like the same gender. It’s always been girls. It’s always been Mizi. Even if she doesn’t feel the same.
He thinks about that as he drops in the ballot sheet.
Mizi.
It’s always been Mizi.