Archive of Our Own

The first time it happens is over Till's bathroom sink.

Rain had started pouring on their way home from school, and neither of the boys had brought an umbrella, so Till had quickly dragged Ivan into his home and draped a towel over his head. You have a fever, he'd murmured, gently drying off the sides of Ivan's face, his cheeks and chin and the space right underneath his eyes. You can't go out in the rain.

Ivan was accustomed to going to school in such a state; it wasn't a sufficient reason to lose his perfect attendance (and he always recovered quickly from sickness anyway), but perhaps the real reason is that whenever Ivan showed up to class with a fever, Till would spend the whole day fussing over him. In the fifth grade, he'd carried around a box of tissues at Ivan's disposal if he so much as sneezed throughout the day. In the eighth, he'd lended Ivan his jacket during a field trip, even though it meant spending the next two hours shivering violently. In their sophomore year, when Ivan had come down with a particularly bad case of the flu, Till had spoon-fed him chicken noodle soup during lunchtime. It's exhilarating, the way the other boy knits his eyebrows together whenever he's so focused, always gazing up at Ivan with that look of concern and determination. Ivan never has the strength to protest, no matter how much he knows he'd better. He blames it on the lightheadedness, which he can never be sure is a result of illness or Till's hand lifting up to rest delicately against his forehead to check his temperature.

That rainy day had been no different. Till looked at him with that tender determination. The second Till had left him in the bathroom to go find the medicine bottles, Ivan was clutching the sink, coughing white petals down the drain.

Ivan can't say he'd been expecting it. He can't say he'd been very surprised, either.

Maybe something like this was bound to happen. He's been toeing a dangerous line for years, pulling at the ends of a string just so he could watch it stretch and strain before it snaps. Perhaps such a routine had been fascinating to him—a careless observer who fell far too in love with bearing witness to his own consequences to be gentle. In his head, he finds himself asking, Was it worth it? There was no reason to do all this, really. To cling to something for the sake of fascination. Excitement. To have something rotten and intoxicating twisting around in his stomach and his head and his chest when warm, calloused fingers brush against his forearm. There is no outcome at all to such a feeling. For Ivan, there can be no wedding bells nor promise rings nor baby carriages, and if he were ever granted even the press of lips or bodies, it would serve only to satisfy that creeping feeling beneath his skin for a moment before growing into something despairing.

Is this an outcome? Ivan supposes it must be. Something that he can feel between his lips and his fingertips, that he can delicately line up along his windowsill or chew up and swallow right back down before he has the chance to. Yes, this is a consequence. He finds he doesn't know what to do with it.

He recalls a morning in the first grade when all the kids were playing out in the park during a field trip. It had been spring, so all of the flowers were in bloom, and his classmates became quickly enthralled in crafting flower crowns for one another. Ivan remembers it vividly—the sharp edges of a boy with gray hair and a determined gaze, grinning ear to ear as he ardently laced a bundle of red flowers together.

Till would find this sort of affliction beautiful. Romantic, even. He would delicately weave each of the petals together just as he had that day, intertwining little tangible pieces of his love into something he could give, something he could share. And it would be beautiful, not just in the naive eyes of the one who weaved it, but in the eyes of someone like Ivan, who would always find foolish things to wish for.

(That's what love really is, after all. Till is everything that love is. Ivan, evidently, is not.)

The flower crown from that day in the garden had been crushed beneath Ivan's feet, and suddenly his life had begun. Now, he crushes his own white petals between his fingers and imagines he is once again on the other end of Till's violent bouts of passion. Till bruising bold brush strokes into his skin. Till smearing sweat and blood across his face like streaks of oil paint. It is a pity that the other boy had never cared quite enough to sculpt Ivan's bones, to leave him in a new shape, undeniable proof that he had ever been touched by Till's intensity. Instead, every single mark that had ever been beaten into his skin would eventually serve as a reminder that all evidence of Till is achingly temporary.

And if these petals can even be considered evidence, they all begin to rot within a week, littering Ivan's bedside table and windowsill and desk drawers—he tells himself he's decorating, making the most of this troublesome condition in the only way he can bring himself to, but really, he knows that's not why he keeps them around. When a few days pass and fresh petals eventually shrivel up, Ivan makes no effort to stop it. These things are simply inevitable. It brings him an inexplicable sense of comfort.

Unfortunately, this means his bedroom has become essentially unusable for its intended purpose, so he has instead migrated onto his bathroom floor for the time being, in part because it's easily among the more comfortable places where he's had to sleep in his lifetime, and in part because he initially found the idea a little amusing. However, it does subtract an hour or two from the sleep he gets each night, which is not ideal, but perhaps it is not the location that is keeping him up, but rather the fact that it is becoming harder and harder to deny that the illness is worsening much quicker than ever before. (Nothing in Ivan's life seems to ever follow a linear equation. Exponentials, in nature, are exponentially more consequential, and as established, Ivan has a very long and fruitful relationship with consequences.) He is very aware that he has never had a particularly healthy sleep schedule, but it never really did him any wrong until now—it makes school in particular a little hellish, with everything fading in and out of his senses in a way that is more reminiscent of walking through a dream than anything else. He is only waiting for somebody to wake him up.

Speaking of which:

"Ivan?"

Mizi's voice immediately snaps Ivan back to reality, and he looks up to see her leaning over his desk and smiling warmly at him. She's wearing her glasses today instead of her contacts, and she drops her purple satchel onto the floor beside them.

"Mind if I sit with you?"

Mizi always sits with him during homeroom, as neither of them has any other close friends in this class, but for whatever reason, she's been sitting at her own desk recently with a few other girls Ivan doesn't know very well. Ivan blinks himself out of his daze. "Never," he says, beaming up at her.

She pulls up a chair right next to him and immediately gestures up at his hair. "I noticed you're going curly again!"

Ivan tilts his head in curiosity for a moment before realizing what she's talking about. "Oh, right." He brings his hands up to flatten his hair self-consciously, but keeps his tone cheery. "It's been a little sloppy lately, I haven't been straightening it. I should get back into the habit…"

He's been neglecting his hair—he hasn't even washed it in the last three days, which he reasons is a little gross, but he finds he can't bring himself to care. He usually much prefers to keep his appearance tidy, hair well-kept and pin-straight, and perhaps that is why he's been getting strange looks all day. He's been straightening his curls since fifth grade, every day, even on weekends. It's honestly a miracle his hair hasn't all fallen out yet.

"No, I think it suits you! Feels more you, you know? Honestly, it's been so long I forgot what your hair actually looks like. You should let it breathe more often, that's much healthier," Mizi adds pointedly, nudging her elbow playfully into his side.

A warmth blooms in Ivan's chest at the same time as something sour swims in his stomach. "I'll think about it," he says through a soft chuckle.

"Anyways, though, that's not why I came over here," Mizi starts, with a sudden excited glint in her eye. "So—your birthday."

Ah, that's right.

"What are your plans? Should we throw a party? My house should be open, or we could go to the beach, but I guess it's a little cold for that… maybe we could do a game night, I love game nights, who are you inviting?"

His birthday isn't for another week, but he doesn't bother pointing that out to her—he's been chastised by enough people to plan things like this far ahead of time. "Uh, I don't know," Ivan says, glancing up at the clock. "I think I was just planning to go to the bookstore."

Mizi raises her eyebrows, then snorts out a laugh. "By yourself? Not for your eighteenth, Ivan. You can do that next year. This year, we can do a smaller get-together if that's more your speed, though. Maybe we could go out for ice cream," she suggests, leaning back in her chair as she ponders, "or to the movies…?"

She does this a lot. Pushes Ivan to be a little more fun, he supposes. Honestly, he usually appreciates it. "Game night sounds alright," he decides, half-heartedly.

"Game night it is, then! I'm assuming your dad won't be home?"

He is, in fact, on a month-long business trip, just as he is all year round. "This is his week off work," Ivan lies. "So my house probably wouldn't be best."

"Oh, that's fine, we can do it at my place. I have lots of board games and food, too," Mizi muses, absent-mindedly fidgeting with the blue ends of her hair. "About 5 p.m. should be a good time! So it'll just be you, me, Sua, and Till? Anyone else you want to invite?"

Ivan shrugs, then shakes his head. Mizi looks at him oddly for a moment, but it immediately grows back into a warm smile.

"Then it's settled," she says, looking proud. She points a playful accusatory finger at him. "You better show up. I promise we're much better company than the bookstore employees."

Ivan laughs easily, softening his expression just so. "I'm sure you're right," he affirms, just as the bell rings. Mizi lets out a soft exclamatory "oh!" and they both shuffle out of their seats. She slings her bag over her shoulder and reaches out to lightly touch Ivan's arm. (He thinks he sees her hesitate, for a millisecond, but her expression doesn't indicate any uncertainty.)

"See you around," she says sweetly, and then she is gone in the sea of students clamoring toward the door.

Ivan can absolutely hold off on puking up a garden for a few hours. It really isn't too big a feat; it's not constant, by any means. Or at least not yet. However, he's still not completely sure if there are any certain triggers for this type of coughing fit, perhaps because Ivan has been strategically limiting the amount of time he and Till spend together over the past few weeks. It's a safe assumption that being around Till for extended periods of time would only exacerbate his symptoms. Should he swallow the petals, then? Or take frequent bathroom breaks? He can always come up with some half-baked excuse at the last minute, if things get bad. But then again, Mizi would surely see through it. She is not nearly as empty-headed as others may think.

Hm.

At first, Ivan hadn't bothered taking precautions or avoiding Till or anything along those lines. That may make him careless, but truth be told, he initially could not find it in himself to be careful. Till's presence is precious, a constant in Ivan's life that he has worked hard to maintain. Giving that up had never seemed like a plausible option. Somewhere along the way, as everything became increasingly difficult to hide, it became the only option. (Truth be told, Ivan is a little awful at it. But then again, he's managed to cut about fifty percent of Till out of his life, so here's to happy mediums.)

When Ivan gets home from school, he gets about twenty seconds to sit down and start on his homework when his phone starts rapidly buzzing. He sees Till's name flash across the screen for a microsecond before he picks up halfway through the second ring.

"Yes?" Ivan answers, sitting up straight.

There is no response for a few seconds, only the faint sound of breathing, and then Till's tentative voice cuts through after a soft sigh—of relief or of defeat, Ivan's not sure. "Hey, can you, um. Can you pick me up?"

Usually, the two walk home together, but Till has guitar practice after school on Mondays and Wednesdays. He would normally be on the way home on his own about now. "What happened?" Ivan asks, already standing up to get his car keys.

"My dad's outside," Till says. He sounds annoyed, but it's muted, tired. He sounds like this with all things having to do with Urak, nowadays. Not even a year ago he was far more belligerent when it came to his father, but in this final stretch teetering on the edge between senior year and freedom, he must've finally grown exhausted. (It's strange. Ivan doesn't know what to make of it.) "I saw his car in the parking lot through the window. He definitely wants to take me somewhere and I don't wanna go."

Ivan fishes his keys off the table and beelines to the garage door without a second thought. "And you don't know where? He never mentioned anything about it?" he asks as he unlocks his car.

"No," Till confirms, and Ivan hears a door shut softly on the other side of the line. Ivan opens and shuts his own car door, swiftly buckling himself in.

"I'm on my way," Ivan says, swallowing hard. "I'll see you in five minutes."

"Pick me up around the back, I don't want him to see you." And then he hangs up.

As Ivan pulls out of his driveway, it dawns on him that this is the very thing he has been working most to avoid—spending extended periods of time with Till, let alone letting him into his house. He hadn't even locked his bedroom door on the way out. Damn it. He runs a cold hand through his hair and lets out a low sigh as he quickly stops the car right before it reaches the street. He stumbles out of the car and rushes back into his house, retrieves the key to his door that is very poorly hidden in Unsha's room (Ivan's known where his father has been hiding it for upwards of a decade, now), makes his way to the other side of the house to lock his bedroom, and returns to the car, out of breath. (He counts fifty-four seconds. Perhaps he should be an athlete.) He can't help but laugh a little at his own ridiculousness as he finally situates himself behind the wheel and heads down the road.

Ivan pulls into the bus loop on the other side of the school from the parking lot, scanning the windows from afar, and before he can even pull to a full stop, Till is suddenly rushing out one of the doors and making his way quickly to the passenger side of the car. Ivan unlocks the door at once and reaches over to open it, and then Till is tossing his backpack onto the car floor before shuffling into the seat.

"Thank you," Till breathes out, flashing Ivan a small but warm smile.

Ivan only nods, once, a little stilted. "Buckle up," he says as he starts pulling out of the school.

After buckling in, Till is still for a long moment. Then he leans his head against his window as Ivan continues down the road.

For some reason, it feels like this is their first time seeing each other in weeks, which is stupid because Ivan's been walking to and from school with Till nearly every day, same as always. They'd spent seventeen minutes walking together just this morning. (Of course, they never talk much in the mornings; Till is hardly able to form complete sentences any earlier than 8 am.) But conversation between them has been odd as of late. The words never go anywhere, but then again, Ivan never really searches for them.

Till begins rhythmically tapping his knuckles against the side of the door in tandem with Ivan's turn signal, and then he takes a breath before finally speaking.

"Y'know," he starts, tapping even louder now, "there was ice cream at lunch today."

Ivan glances at him curiously. "Hm?"

"They had strawberry." Till looks up from the window ever so slightly. He isn't one for strawberry ice cream, never has been, but it's Ivan's favorite flavor. "It was really good. You should've come by and had some."

A beat. Six seconds. Then Ivan only hums again in response.

Till sighs, quietly, easily mistakable as a puff from the car heater. "Where have you been?"

Ivan's been skipping lunch for about a month now. It's not like he'd ever had much of an appetite when it came to lunch, anyway—when he used to attend, he would mostly just have a bite or two of whatever Mizi or Till were eating. Besides, it wasn't too out of the ordinary for him to be occasionally missing from his usual lunch seat by the other three, but he supposes thirty-four days must be his longest streak yet. Ivan's hands tighten around the wheel. "I was at the library," he says.

"Doing what?"

"Homework." It's not a lie.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ivan sees Till open his mouth for a moment to respond, but then he closes it. Instead, he curls his legs up to his chest and slumps against the car door again.

Ivan wants to say, What, upset over some ice cream? Although he knows that's a little mean. He wants to say he'll sit with Till tomorrow, and the day after that, and then he can pretend to like strawberry as much as he so desires. Although that would of course be a lie. He wants to reach over and touch Till's neck, right where the sunlight peeking in from the window is touching, a small shining rectangle beneath his ear. Although he won't. So he keeps his eyes trained on the road ahead of him.

When they arrive at Ivan's house, Till immediately heads straight toward Ivan's room after getting out of the car, and before Ivan can even make it to the hallway, he already hears the sound of repeated rattling and a kick to his bedroom door.

"What?" Till mutters to himself as Ivan approaches, continuing his fruitless attempts to twist the knob.

"It's locked," Ivan clarifies. Till pauses for a moment, then looks back at him with a deadpan expression.

"No shit, Ivan. Why is it locked?"

Ivan shrugs. "It was a mistake. I locked it from the inside. I'll have to wait until my father returns to unlock it for me, I don't have the key."

Till narrows his eyes, but seemingly accepts the excuse. He sighs and heads back toward the living room, his backpack unzipped and hanging carelessly off his shoulder. Ivan follows, hands folded behind his back.

Till slings his bag onto the floor by the sofa, sending his notebooks skirting across the floor. He doesn't bother picking them up, just collapses backwards onto the cushions, limbs splayed out miscellaneously and taking up most of the space. Ivan sits down on the very edge of the couch, a few inches away from Till's socked feet, and they fall into a thick silence for many, many seconds.

There are always moments like this with Till. Sometimes, he will ask to come over after school only to lie there in Ivan's bed—not to sleep or talk, but just to lay in the carefullest silence—and Ivan of course follows suit, as he always does, in the same way he used to mimic Till's rhythmic table tapping during class or his wild hand-gesturing as he spoke passionately about something. However, this was the habit that stuck the most, perhaps because it immediately came so easily. A habit built directly into Ivan's nature, not something he spent years learning—no, it is an easy and comfortable thing to be perfectly silent with Till, to watch his chest rise and fall with each breath in the corner of his eye, counting the seconds between the start of every inhale and exhale. (Although, in a way, Till is always blaringly loud, the loudest presence of anyone Ivan has ever met. A good kind of loud, nothing like the deafening echo of cold streets or large, empty corridors; Till is tumultuous, he fills a whole room, he overflows—Ivan is more than content swimming in that silence, which isn't really silent at all, and is anything but empty.) Those are the moments Ivan is fondest of.

This is not one of those moments. It is an uncomfortable quiet, maybe because Ivan is growing increasingly convinced that he is going to spontaneously burst into a coughing fit. He stares straight out the window, hands folded carefully in his lap. He doesn't look at Till's reflection in the glass.

And then the silence is lifted.

"Hey." After getting lightly kicked in the thigh, Ivan turns away from the window. Till looks at him in a strange way, as if intensely examining him. Ivan resists the urge to squirm. "Okay, did you fail your math exam or something?"

"I don't care about math," Ivan says mildly, leaning back against the cushions.

Till furrows his eyebrows and scoffs. "Yeah, you do," he says as he sits all the way up, shuffling out of his haphazard position and situating himself upright, suddenly much closer to Ivan. "Is that why you've been all cooped up in the library? I wasn't gonna say anything, but—you've been acting weird. Like, significantly-less-like-an-asshole weird."

He looks genuinely concerned now, tilting his head to the right invitingly, his facial features taking a much softer shape than usual. Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Ivan only shrugs. "Fret not, my test scores are perfectly intact. I just haven't been sleeping well lately, I suppose." Again, not exactly a lie.

Till quirks a brow. "Or straightening your hair," he points out, brushing his index finger oh so lightly against one of Ivan's curls. (A wave of nausea passes right through Ivan like a freight train.) He adds, half-humorously: "Are you sure you're good?"

Ivan takes this chance to break into a smug grin. "What, you don't like my new look? Should I be pointier like you?"

"I'm not pointy," Till rebuts, pointily. Ivan grins even wider. "And no, you should, uh, keep it. It's—nice."

And just like that, another tense quiet falls between the six inches of space between them as Ivan's smile slowly drops, and this time, Till is the one to look away.

"I'm gonna take a nap," he says, oddly muted. "You should, too." He nudges Ivan in the arm lightly before lying back down on the other side of the couch and curling his legs in, and in an instant, the distance between them has grown infinitely.

Till doesn't take naps; he's far too restless during the daytime to even quit fidgeting for more than a few minutes, but Ivan doesn't point that out. Instead, he squeezes his eyes shut as a creeping, familiar feeling crawls up his throat. "I'll be alright, I'm not all that tired. I have to go to the bathroom," he tacks on, careful not to stand up too alarmingly before beelining straight to the hallway without a glance back.

A whole clump of petals and spit are washed straight down the drain, more than ever before. Ivan downs the sink water until the taste is gone.

He knows they're daisies.

At first, he couldn't have been sure. There are plenty of flowers in the world with white petals, certainly more than Ivan could name. Besides, he hadn't felt particularly inclined to find out.

One fateful morning, it makes itself incredibly obvious. Ivan has seen a daisy before—they're not easy to avoid. Especially on the field trip to the park during springtime every year in elementary school. Even all scrunched up and spit-covered and deformed, the bright yellow center is hard to miss. Hard to mistake for anything else.

Ivan has never bought into the meanings and symbolism of different flowers, although he could respect the concept for its intriguing presence in literature and art. He knows it's a common belief that the type of flower that grows in a hanahaki patient's lungs holds some significance to the nature of their affection, following the laws of the widely accepted flower meanings that date all the way back to ancient civilizations. However, any correlation between age-old flower symbolism and hanahaki disease had always, to him, seemed like a hoax.

But on that very same morning, he learns something interesting—flower symbolism is a direct product of hanahaki. The earliest, ancient studies and observations of the disease recognized a pattern in which types of people were afflicted with which species of flower. Through those patterns, the meanings attached to certain types of flowers were born. Red roses represent an intense, deep and devoted love, supposedly. At least, a few thousand years ago, that's what was believed to be the common denominator between all those afflicted with red roses. How any of this was surveyed, Ivan has no idea, and it can't exactly be proven—but there appears to be some semblance of truth to it, even today.

Against his better judgment, he looks up the meaning of daisies.

White Daisies

White flowers are the most delicate kind of flower. This color in daisies, specifically, primarily symbolizes themes of innocence, purity, and sincerity, making them popular for weddings or baby showers. Like their natural childlike beauty in appearance, they are most heavily associated with a true love that is pure and untarnished.

Something heavy stirs in the pit of his stomach. Ivan feels a sudden, intense urge to laugh.

It's all ridiculous, then, yes? Of course it is—hanahaki is severely under-researched, in part because of its complex psychological aspects as well as the fact that patients tend to refuse being surveyed or interrogated on such deeply personal matters. Ivan's sure that his case alone could disprove half of the findings on the disease. The epidemiologists would love him or hate him, whichever way you spin it. He would prove that hanahaki doesn't bloom from love, but from a deep-rooted animal instinct. To take and to obsess. A fierce dependency, desperate and indelicate and unkind.

Ivan knows the difference. In biological terms, love is an odd form of commensalism. Mutualism, if lucky. Or perhaps it is its own form of a symbiotic relationship—he is no expert on biology, nor on people, nor on emotions. But what he does know is that only one who has never been desperate enough to do what it takes to survive could mistake parasitism for love. Ivan will not make that mistake.

The next time he feels that tickling sensation squirming up his windpipe, he squeezes his eyes shut and imagines, instead, that they are weeds.

Invasive, revolting, noxious, a whole load of similar adjectives that couldn't be used to describe the contents of a bridal bouquet or the decor at a baby shower. Ivan gags, but keeps his mouth firmly shut so that when he coughs them out of his throat, the weeds sit there concealed in his mouth.

For one small moment, it is disgusting, and Ivan has to fight the urge to gag again, this time on absolutely nothing. The next, it is suddenly the most bearable the disease has ever been.

Ivan hums in satisfaction as he begins to chew.

It brings him an inexplicable sense of comfort, like this is how it was always meant to be. Ivan has always been a stickler for accuracy, a pretentious smart-ass, as Till would call him; if he has been afflicted with a flower of purest love, he will simply change it himself, correct it himself. As long as he keeps his mouth closed, he can convince himself that he has succeeded, that it is not petals between his teeth, but toxins—as he swallows the last bits of the weeds down, some foul part of him hopes that they'll regrow in his stomach until all internal stability is disrupted to the point of no return. If that is how he dies, at least it would be fitting.

(He pukes them up not ten minutes later, and when he sees the little chewed-up bits of white floating in the toilet bowl, he flushes them away before he can throw up a second time.)

Saturday rolls around, far too quickly. At the very least, his birthday falls on a weekend this year, meaning he doesn't have to spend another Valentine's Day at school. Before he leaves for Mizi's house, he makes sure to drink two full cups of water and straighten his hair. He puts on a jacket with large pockets, just in case.

He arrives at Mizi's door seventeen minutes late and, after stepping in, is immediately bombarded with streamers and confetti and an eruption of "Happy birthday, Ivan!" from three shouting voices as Sua stumbles to situate a pink plastic birthday crown onto his head.

"Now you're pretty like a real princess," she says with a giggle, then steps back as Till and Mizi crowd around him.

"Where the hell have you been? We thought we'd have to hunt you down," Till says, elbowing Ivan in the side. There's confetti in his hair, and he's wearing one of those pointy party hats.

"You are very fashionably late," Mizi says, already looping her arm through his and dragging him to the table. Ivan nearly trips on the way. "Come on—did you bring any of your own games?"

"I wasn't aware that was part of game night," Ivan says, eyebrows raised but a smile starting to tug at the corners of his mouth. This is the chaos he hadn't realized how much he'd missed.

Mizi laughs. "That's alright, we already have, like, three different versions of Clue thanks to our poor coordination."

Till and Sua, who beat them to the table, are already digging through the pile of games. Ivan takes his seat on the floor next to Sua, who is fishing out the deck of cards and insisting they play Egyptian Ratscrew (which she is oddly extremely good at, although always ends up getting her hand slapped completely red whenever they play), but Mizi and Till already have their hearts set on Jenga—which of course quickly results in them all throwing wooden blocks at each other, before the entire tower collapses onto a screaming Till.

There's not much to say about this part of the night. It's a good night, much better than Ivan was expecting. For an hour or so, Ivan completely forgets about his own impending doom or whatever it was he was worrying about and instead focuses on completely destroying his friends in Monopoly. As per usual, Ivan and Sua end up dominating the board by a lot, to the point where Till and Mizi end up whining and tugging at their sleeves until it's essentially turned into a team game (the girls on one team, himself and Till on the other). Somewhere into the game, Ivan begins to notice that Till has migrated from a good three feet away to about three inches away, and then his head is hovering right over Ivan's shoulder as he watches him play, until they are close enough for Ivan to feel the other's warm breath against his cheek. You should buy a hotel for that property, Till is muttering in his ear as he gestures to one of Ivan's cards.

Halfway through counting the money he owes Sua for landing on her plot, Ivan becomes hyper aware of the taste of his own breath—he waits for it to come, that strange, sour flavor, and he loses track of adding his hundreds more than once.

"You've been counting for ages. Quit stalling," Sua demands, holding her palm out expectantly.

When the taste does not come, Ivan hands her the money and smiles at her. "Patience is a virtue, Sua," he says pointedly, and Sua rolls her eyes.

He's on edge for the rest of the game. It's ridiculous, and he's acting like an overly anxious child, but it's impossible to ignore. Of course, he brought this on himself—if he hadn't been anticipating this situation for the last week, maybe it would've felt normal, insignificant, because it is.

"Get her ass already," Till says. His chin is fully resting on Ivan's shoulder, now.

"You're no help at all, you know," Ivan remarks as he shakes the dice in his hands.

Till lets out a hmph noise and then leans the side of his head ever so slightly against Ivan's neck, his nose searingly hot as it nests under Ivan's ice-cold ear. From across the table, Mizi pauses midway through whatever she was whispering to Sua and raises her eyebrows. Ivan exhales a puff of air; lemony, sour. Abruptly, he stands up.

"Sorry, I'll be back in a minute. Play for me," he says, dropping the dice into a startled Till's lap.

Ivan walks at a brisk but not unnatural pace to the bathroom after he hears a "Where are you going?" call after him. Unfortunately, it is a long walk from the living room, and so by the time he enters he's already started sputtering. He haphazardly shuts and locks the bathroom door, then immediately stumbles toward the sink.

This time around, it takes much longer to hack everything up. He coughs violently, sending spit flying everywhere in Mizi's sink, pounding at his own chest in attempts to dislodge the greenery in his airways. Eventually, it works, and he spits out another large cluster of petals and one medium-sized, perfectly formed daisy.

So they come out in full, now. Excellent. Ivan coughs weakly a final time as he picks up the saliva-covered daisy between his index and his thumb, holding it close to his eyes to examine it. Is this one larger than the ones from before? Should it be getting worse so quickly? Or perhaps it moreso has to do with the situation itself. He wipes the spit off with his sleeve for the hell of it and gives it a last look before he reaches for the faucet.

And then there's a gasp from behind him.

He sobers up in an instant. For five long, painfully silent seconds, he does not dare move an inch. On the sixth, he slowly glances back up at the mirror.

Mizi in the doorway, wide-eyed.

He must not have closed the door all the way.

Well.

"I knew something was wrong," Mizi starts, shaking her head slightly in disbelief. Ivan holds his breath as she takes a step forward. "Ivan—"

"I know," he says, quickly. He presses his lips into a tight line and shuts his eyes.

Neither of them says anything for a moment. Ivan can't think like this. Then there's the sound of the door shutting softly behind them.

A soft breath followed by Mizi's voice cutting through the silence, uncharacteristically gentle, as if worried he may break. "Have you told him yet?"

Didn't even have to ask who. That tracks. Ivan opens his eyes as he breathes a laugh. "No."

"Aren't you going to?"

He doesn't respond.

Mizi walks over to stand next to Ivan as he carefully fidgets with the daisy in his left hand, running his thumb between each of the gaps in the petals, over and over and over.

"I'm sorry," Mizi says. "For pushing you to come."

Ivan finally turns on the faucet with his empty hand to rinse out his mess. "That's alright."

"I knew you were acting weird, so I thought I should give you some space," she continues, pushing her glasses up with a slightly unsteady palm. "Which is why I haven't been… but then I figured— I don't know."

Ivan nods once, shifting on his feet. He zeroes in on the sound of the tap water that he's aimlessly swishing around in the sink. "It's really alright. I don't mean to ruin the party, we can go back out now."

Mizi reaches out to touch his shoulder a little too gently, the way she apparently does nowadays. That's all wrong. If she were behaving normally, she would've gripped his shoulder tight, thoughtlessly, because they're friends and friends can be thoughtless. He thinks, bitterly, that he would much rather go back to that. Then her voice cuts through, careful and hesitant as her touch: "You should tell him. Soon, right? Aren't… full flowers pretty severe?"

Ivan should really just walk out; Mizi wouldn't make a scene, anyway, never over something like this. "I don't see the point in that," he says.

She furrows her eyebrows. "You—?" she quickly leans further over the sink to get a better look at Ivan's face. He keeps staring down at the drain. "Don't you want to live?"

"Of course I do." He switches off the tap and meets Mizi's golden, glassy eyes at last. The quiet of the room hits again, at full force. "Telling Till won't change anything. He'll only drive himself crazy trying to fix something that can't be fixed."

A beat. They hold each other's gaze. Then Mizi shakes her head. "No, I don't think you understand. Till almost definitely feels the same."

Ivan only stares back at her for a moment before breathing one puff of a laugh out of his nose. "I am moved by your optimism," he says, smiling. "We can go back out now."

Mizi scoffs, looking almost affronted. Then all of her former hesitance evaporates in an instant. "Okay—Ivan, you know, I normally wouldn't say anything about this, but this whole time I honestly really thought it was the other way around. At least since high school started, which was ages ago."

"…What?"

"And I thought you knew because, well, you're smart," she continues, frowning. "And you are, so I have no idea why you're doing this."

Ivan blinks. "I'm not following."

Mizi lets out an exasperated sigh and leans in further, perhaps for emphasis. (At least she's returned to some semblance of normalcy.) "I've always thought Till had a thing for you. I mean, he's not exactly a subtle guy, you know? It was you"—she pokes him in the arm with her finger—"who I wasn't totally sure about. But if you're in love with him then there's no doubt in my mind—"

"I'm not."

Mizi stops in her tracks. "What?"

Ivan bites down on his back teeth for a moment before releasing with a calm exhale. "I'm not in love with him," he says.

At that, Mizi looks utterly bewildered. She opens her mouth, then closes it. Then opens it again, then closes it again. Then opens it a final time: "You— isn't that the whole point of hanahaki?!"

He nearly flinches at the word. Is that the first time anybody's said it in these eleven months? Ivan certainly hasn't. "Don't raise your voice, you'll be heard," he says evenly.

"Explain to me what the hell is going on, then," Mizi furiously whispers, reaching out to grab Ivan's hand, and he lets it go limp in her hold. "What is this?"

"It's not—" he falters, realizing he has nothing to say at all. Mizi squeezes his hand encouragingly, to no avail. Ivan only stares ahead at his own reflection in the mirror. He spent a good hour this morning fixing his reflection, patting down his misbehaving hair tufts here and there, dotting his under eyes with concealer until he looked how he always does, and nothing like a diseased and deteriorating boy. (Or man, he supposes, as of today. That's a little funny.) But when he looks at his reflection now, that is all he sees. He wonders if Mizi can see it too.

A few more seconds pass by. Once she realizes Ivan is not going to say anything, Mizi sighs. "Then, can't you just tell him anyway? Promise me you will," she softly pleads.

Ivan doesn't reply for a moment. Instead, he squeezes her hand back and smiles again, turning to face her and pretending he can't see the thin line of tears growing along each of her lower eyelids. "Let's not keep them waiting," he eventually says. "Please don't tell anyone. We'll go back out, and you and Sua will finish crushing me, hm?"

"Ivan," Mizi starts, her voice catching slightly at the end, "Ivan. Promise me, please—"

"What the hell are you guys doing?"

His stomach drops as the door is swung open for the second time, and now it's Till standing in the doorway, eyes narrowed and party hat falling nearly sideways on his head.

Ivan only stands there and stares, dumbly. Mizi digs the nail of her thumb into the back of his hand, and he snaps out of it, quickly withdrawing his arm and turning to face the door.

"Girl talk," Ivan says, smiling wide. Mizi enthusiastically nods her head from beside him, blinking the tears out of her eyes.

Till raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Girl talk," he dryly echoes.

"Yes!" Mizi chirps at the same time that Ivan says, "Would you like to join us?"

"Sua is currently kicking my ass, so I'm gonna say no," Till replies, irritated. "I didn't ask to play this stupid fucking game, so would you guys please…" He suddenly trails off as something appears to catch his eye. He leans to the side, getting a better look. "Is—is that a flower?"

Ah. There's still a daisy in Ivan's left hand.

"Oh, that's right," Ivan says as he slowly lifts it higher. In his peripheral, he sees Mizi's eyes widen before quickly self-correcting. He hesitates for a moment, and then: "It's for you, actually."

Monumental save on his part, really.

Before anybody can question him, Ivan walks over to Till with trained ease and raises the daisy up to his ear. "May I?" he gallantly requests.

Till only stares at him in response, bewildered. "Uh," he says.

Ivan takes that as a yes and carefully slides the short stem of the daisy behind Till's ear. Then he takes a step back to get a good look before smiling even wider. "It suits you."

And it does, is the thing. Of course it does. Till has always looked good in white.

He expects to receive some grumbly, sarcastic comment in return, but instead Ivan is met with a soft pink that slowly fans out across Till's cheeks as he reaches up to lightly brush his fingers against one of the petals. His Adam's apple bobs.

"Um. Thanks," Till manages, a strange look in his eye, then he blinks rapidly and quickly looks away, "I'm, er, going back to that bullshit game now. So." He jerks his hand away from his ear, instead crossing his arms across his chest and trudging back out the door. "It would be nice if you guys would join us," he mumbles from halfway down the hallway.

There is silence for a moment. Then Ivan allows himself a soft exhale in relief. He spares a glance over at Mizi, whose eyes are still wide and shiny, but agitated now, too. She gestures wildly at the doorway.

"Didn't you see that?" she hisses, incredulous.

Ivan swallows. Then he follows Till out the door without a word.

Thankfully, things go back to normal relatively quickly once they both head back out. Mizi doesn't say anything and is notably very skilled at acting completely unbothered (not even Sua seems to notice anything out of the ordinary, although she appears to be much more focused on maintaining her obnoxiously long winning streak), aside from the constant glances in Ivan's direction from across the table that he ignores and never returns. But he himself is trying not to stare at the daisy that Till keeps tucked behind his ear for the remainder of the afternoon. It suits you, he thinks again, over and over. He smiles. It is just like Till to be, so thoughtlessly, everything that Ivan cannot.

Hanahaki is a rare disease. Everybody knows about it, of course—it has its presence in movies and manga, with everyone wanting to commercialize the hell out of it, and even Ivan can recognize that it's for good reason. It makes for an excellent romance story. Dramatic, poetic, easy to understand… and, as expected, always paired with a happy ending, as well as a whole lot of creative liberties taken for the sake of plot convenience.

It all plays out rather similarly. The lead character, usually male, will have been hiding his condition for many years prior from the laughably oblivious female lead. She's likely engaged to or otherwise enthralled with another man, some unlikable bastard who never treats her half as well as the protagonist does, and the disease only grows stronger as the couple grows closer and closer together, while the leads grow further and further apart. Eventually, the disease grows so severe that the protagonist must seek out some artificial cure—the doctors will offer him one, but at the cost of losing his romantic feelings for his beloved entirely. Like a lovesick fool, he will refuse. The stakes rapidly rise with the progression of the story until the climax, where the woman discovers his condition and, in a dramatic, tearful monologue, reveals it was always him whom she loved. In a sequence of flashbacks, the audience sees all of the moments that sealed her love for him that she'd been too blind to realize at the time, and just as the protagonist begins to grasp the endless bounds of her love, she pulls him in for a kiss. Thus, his disease is cured.

The actual logistics of hanahaki are not quite what they are in the major motion pictures. The reality, as Ivan knows through careful research conducted in the late hours of the night, is like this:

1. Up until a couple of decades ago, there had been no available treatment for hanahaki. To come down with it was a death sentence. Thousands of people passed from the condition every year with no way to combat it, with many taking their own lives to avoid the pain of suffocation.

2. When the surgery everybody hears about now (which is hardly older than Ivan himself) was first introduced, it was an incredibly risky operation. While the mortality rate has decreased by a wide margin over the years, initially, twenty percent of patients who went through with the surgery would have died in the process. (Ivan remembers reading about it when he was younger; rich people who would spend a fortune on the new hanahaki "cure", only to end up dead in a week, or with spiralling health problems for the remainder of their lives.)

3. Surgically removing the flowers from one's lungs does not remove the disease itself, but simply staves off the symptoms, forcing the disease into dormancy. If exacerbated post-operation (via, say, the patient remaining in proximity or communication with their object of affection), the condition will only reactivate, and at a quicker rate than before. Which is to say, aside from reciprocation, there is no cure.

4. No patient has ever survived hanahaki surgery twice.

In truth, it doesn't make for a particularly feel-good love story.

Of course, nowadays, the surgery is almost the most well-known aspect of the condition. Everybody knows somebody who knows somebody who had been unlucky enough to come down with hanahaki, or was at least rumored to be—if they disappeared without a word, it became something of a commonplace to assume they had undergone hanahaki surgery, especially if they had been acting particularly strange before their departure. (It seems those who would be least inclined to reveal their condition tend to be the ones who end up contracting it.) It became known as "uprooting," named appropriately for both its literal and figurative counterparts. Ivan has heard it with his own ears a few times, mostly from classmates and loud conversations at bus stops… he most vividly remembers an incident a few years ago when a popular girl in his grade had very abruptly stopped coming to school one day—she'd even been pulled from the school's database, with no explanation—and after weeks of her absence, her close group of friends finally let it slip that she had uprooted. It was all anyone would talk about for days.

From that very first week when all of this began, Ivan has wondered if he would end up like her.

Ivan is by no means attached to his home or hometown, certainly not in a physical sense. There are probably hundreds of places in the world where he would be much happier. Or, maybe not. It's entirely possible that nowhere would ever feel particularly special by any means. Ivan does, however, cherish his friends like nothing else, and to leave any of them behind would be a great pity. But of course, he'd still be able to visit them during the summer or call them during boring afternoons, and they're all bound to go their separate ways at some point, anyway. There's hardly any harm in speeding up the process a little bit.

However, there is one who would have to be cut out of his life completely, as if he'd never even existed. And that is a surgical operation Ivan doesn't have the means to survive.

There's a pounding at his door, early in the morning.

Sua never comes to his house. For all the years they've known each other, Ivan can count on two hands the number of times she's come over, and on two fingers the number of times she's come alone. Which is why, when he hears her voice cry out from the other side of the door, he is caught a little off guard.

"Ivan," she nearly shouts, something she also never does. "It's important, let me in, please."

He almost doesn't. He knows what this must be about—there is nothing Mizi knows that Sua doesn't, something Ivan would maybe find endearing if it also applied vice versa. But Sua is unrelenting, jamming the doorbell over and over again, and so Ivan takes pity on her and opens the door.

She jerks backwards, startled, and Ivan just stands there, observing her. She's in an oversized white tee—she'd slept in it, probably—and a pair of pink shorts he's never seen her in before. Why she's wearing shorts in the middle of February is completely lost on him, especially as she's shivering so violently that Ivan can hear her teeth chatter. (For obvious reasons, Sua has always been particularly susceptible to the cold.)

"Thank you," she mutters sheepishly, before crossing her arms and quickly pushing past him. Ivan follows her and carefully closes the door behind them.

"Would you like something to drink?" He asks. It comes out slightly cold, not on purpose. Sua doesn't respond, doesn't turn around to look at him, just leans against the wall nearest the door and pinches the bridge of her nose. Ivan waits and stares at the back of her head for a moment, then walks past her. "I'll make tea."

"You have to get surgery," she says, finally. Paying her no mind, Ivan continues on his path toward the kitchen and pulls a box of tea bags out of the cabinet, selecting a random flavor and making his way to the tea kettle. Sua marches over to him and stands in his way, determined. "Call the hospital. It's not too late."

Something burns behind Ivan's eyes. He dismisses the feeling, wills all of his focus into the wall in front of him, over Sua’s head. "I'll be alright." Ivan steps around her, but she grabs his arm firmly, nails digging into his skin.

"You need the surgery," Sua repeats, voice beginning to waver. "I know you won't tell him. That's fine. But please—"

Ivan jerks his arm away. "Leave, Sua."

"You're going to die," she snaps, suddenly shouting right in his face. Ivan nearly flinches. "And for the stupidest fucking reason. It is fully within your power to stop this. Stop this."

He pushes past her again and flicks on the faucet to fill the kettle. Sua exhales, sharp and shrill. "It won't fix anything," Ivan says, consciously calm.

"Yes, it will."

He plugs the filled kettle into the wall with haste, nearly missing the outlet. "If you're expecting me to just pack up and leave everything behind, you're sadly mistaken.”

"You don't have a choice." She emphasizes every word, drawing out the syllables and the spaces between them as if they’ll mean more that way.

He turns the kettle on. Keeps his eyes on the hazy reflection of the kitchen light on the metal, willing himself not to move a muscle. This way, Sua may give up. Or, at the very least, Ivan will maintain his peace. "My father would never allow it,” he eventually persists.

"He would if he knew you were dying.”

"He doesn't have the time to come home and spontaneously relocate us across the country."

"You're an adult now. You don't need him anymore. Move out."

"I could say the same to you, hm? I’m sure Mizi would greatly appreciate that.”

A beat of silence follows, aside from only the growing whir of the tea kettle. Ivan thinks, for a moment, that he has won—as cruel as it may be, Ivan always wins this way. Sua, for all her intelligence, is incredibly easy to upset, and when Sua is upset, she disappears easily as a ghost. (This is incredibly inconvenient, however, when the roles are reversed and it is Ivan who approaches Sua. Truth be told, most of the time, he does not really mean to be so harsh.)

To his surprise, this time, Sua only scoffs. Clicks her tongue, echoing loudly in such a hollow room. "You're acting like a child," she chides, scowling. "And you're out of excuses."

Ivan lets out a soft sigh through his nose. He drags his index finger against the marble of the kitchen counter, tracing the thin white patterns, as if they’ll lead him away. In his peripheral, he vaguely registers Sua moving to lean back against the sink, waiting. When Ivan speaks again, he keeps his tone carefully neutral. "You know why I can't," he says, hushed.

Sua softens instantly, her shoulders untensing and her face untightening, perhaps out of pity. She waits a moment before quietly responding, “Of course I do. But there are no other options.”

It is a futile conversation. An impossible one to put to an end, as well—normally, this is where Ivan would lie, and the conversation would be dropped, but he's not foolish enough to believe Sua would simply let him off the hook. She wouldn't leave him alone unless she saw him show up at the operating room himself with thousands of dollars in hand. And he can't exactly force her out of his house, not unless he carries her out (which he almost considers), and he most certainly won't be able to change her mind. Sua's mind does not change, no more than Ivan's does. This is precisely why they've never gotten along.

Before Ivan can think of a sufficient lie to tell (or an ample escape route), Sua has seemingly had enough of his silence and cuts back in, returning to her harsh tone. "If you don't go to the hospital, I will tell him."

He turns to look at her, at last. "No, you won't."

She raises her eyebrows. "What?"

"I know that you won't, because you and I both know how that would end."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sua insists, crossing her arms across her chest.

Ivan leers at her, heavy. "There's a reason people with this condition disappear without a word. There's a reason they are the ones who survive. Do not pretend that you don't understand why."

At that, Sua doesn't respond, just stares down at the floor with her fist over her mouth as if deep in thought. Or perhaps she's about to be sick. Ivan waits, and with every second that drags on, it becomes increasingly clear that they've hit a wall. But then he hears a small, shaky exhale, and then Sua looks up again, with welled-up but hardened eyes.

"Okay, fine." She speaks quietly, too quietly. "But if it gets worse, he will find out. He's not stupid. So if you're going to get the surgery, get it soon, while you can still be around him like everything's normal. That's what you want, isn't it? If you don't, your last moments with Till won't be good ones."

Ivan's throat goes incredibly dry. Sua holds his gaze. Then she reaches out to lightly touch his arm.

"I know you'll make the right decision," she says softly, shakily, but it is final. Ivan's not sure if he should be relieved. Almost perfectly on cue, the kettle shuts off, and Sua turns to it, wiping the tears from her cheeks. "I'll have chamomile," she murmurs.

They sit and drink at the kitchen counter for thirteen long minutes, without a word. Ivan stares down at his cup. If Sua ever looks at him, he doesn't see. He only hears soft sniffles here and there.

Eventually, after the sun has risen all the way, Sua gets a call from Mizi and leaves her cold, half-drunk tea on the counter. She says a quiet goodbye as she departs, already shivering as soon as she opens the door, and Ivan's head is in his hands as soon as she's gone.

"Do you ever think about death?"

Till looked up from his sketchbook in an instant, glaring incredulously. "What?" Then he winced as the August sun shone directly into his eyes, quickly putting his hand up to shield himself. Ivan grinned wide as he leaned back in the grass.

"Well, you know," he started casually, as though he was discussing the weather, "who doesn't, really? I'm just wondering what you think."

A beat of stilted silence passed through the air. Then Till pressed his mouth into a tight line and returned to his drawing, flicking stray tufts of hair out of his face. "It takes people and it ruins lives. I think the same about it that everyone does," he said, clipped.

"Hm," Ivan hummed.

Till's pencil stopped mid-stroke, and he looked up again. "What? You disagree?"

"You said 'everyone.' I just don't think any opinion on death is so unanimous."

Till furrowed his eyebrows as if deep in thought before relaxing his face again and letting out a soft sigh through his nose. "I guess not," he hesitantly muttered. Then he shook his head. "Why are we talking about this?"

"Do you think there's anything worse than it?" Ivan asked as he aimlessly picked at a patch of dirt that had accumulated on his lower shin. He wasn't looking, so he couldn't have seen whatever emotion had surely aggressively flickered in Till's eyes.

"I—obviously!"

"Like what?"

"Fucking—I dunno, torture?" Then he repeated, harsher, "Why are we talking about this?"

"I think there is," Ivan said, toeing a dangerous line. "There are many things worse than death. I think they'd make it look not so bad, in comparison. Maybe it's not the worst thing."

"Death is terrible," Till spat quietly. Ivan was thankful he could not see his face.

"Well, of course, but…" He trailed off as he searched for the words. So many to say, yet none that he could. "You know," he finished, opting for the easy way out.

"I don't, actually."

"It isn't always something terrible, I would think, not when it is the better option."

"No," Till said, audibly teetering on the precipice of anger, "if there's anyone out there who cares about you at all, it always is. Always."

"Hm," Ivan hummed again, not in agreement.

Eventually, he dared look up, but Till was not looking back at him, nor down at his sketchbook. Instead, he was staring intently out at the sky with his eyes glazed over.

He eventually muttered, bitterly, "You don't get it."

And Ivan didn't, maybe. He certainly knew nothing about losing a mother, not that he ever had one to begin with. Till was surely more equipped to speak on this topic. But then again, Ivan was no stranger to death. The memories should've been fuzzy by then, but he remembered them as clearly as he remembered all else—little, curled up outlines of people, hardly any bigger than himself at the time, huddled together in the darkest shadows beneath an overpass in the midst of winter. Terribly thin, bony bodies taking obvious shape beneath an even thinner layer of battered clothing. Children, Ivan had realized under closer inspection. Without food or a fire or a carer.

It hadn't been an unusual sight. Ivan, before he was even known as such, had come across countless people in countless places who were firmly in the clutches of death, being crushed slowly but surely with no means of escaping but to finally be taken. He quickly learned that while they were all fighting to save themselves through survival, there were some who could only be saved through precisely the opposite. If you ever came across someone in such a state, the only way you could wish them any mercy was to pray they would be taken sooner rather than later. The absence of any stomach at all was much, much kinder than starving. Thankfully, that was something Till wouldn't ever understand.

"You're right," Ivan conceded, because there was no reason to get Till angry over this. Till seemed to loosen up a little bit at that as his shoulders released their tension, and after a moment he returned to his sketch, remaining only a little miffed. Till was perhaps as easy to calm down as he was to wind up.

Ivan could've left it there, but he pushed it along a little bit longer. "I suppose heaven isn't too awful, though, hm?"

Till actually snorted at that, sparing him a glance that wasn't quite an eye roll but might as well have been. "I know you don't believe in that bullshit."

He didn't, of course. But he hoped there was one, for his own sake. Maybe it would bring Till some comfort in a year or so, when all of this would be over.

A month passes. Ivan gets worse, very quickly.

He gives up on sleeping on his bathroom rug. When he returns to his bed, it doesn't take long for enough wilted petals to accumulate that he could knit a whole new blanket out of them if he so desires.

Ivan lies there for a long, long while, but cannot sleep. A whole weekend comes and goes. He does not leave his bedroom for anything.

Monday is when the consequences inevitably catch up to him. In a daze, Ivan bites the bullet and picks up the third call he's received in the last hour.

Till's voice immediately erupts: "Where the fuck are you?"

The volume is turned up so high that Ivan flinches. "I'm, uh," he scrambles to turn the volume down nearly all the way and weakly holds the phone up to his ear. "I've fallen a bit ill. I'm staying home today."

There's a scoff on the other side of the line. "Bullshit. You always come to school when you're sick."

Ivan swallows and immediately regrets it when an itching pain blooms in his throat, spreading all the way up to his head. He audibly winces, and Till must hear it, because he immediately sputters out, "Woah, wait, are you okay?"

"I'm alright," Ivan mutters weakly, painfully unconvincing. He speaks again, steadier, in attempts to rectify, "It must be a particularly strong case of the flu. I'll be back soon enough, there's no need to worry."

"No, I heard that," he says, voice rising in concern. "You're in pain. You wouldn't miss school for just the flu."

"Till—"

"I'm coming over."

Till hangs up before Ivan can even protest. He drops his phone onto his stomach and runs a hand down his face. He has to get up to lock the bedroom door. He pushes himself upright into a sitting position, but before he can even fully get up, he is hit with such a forceful pounding in his skull that he collapses again, hitting his head hard against the headboard on the way down and sending petals flying everywhere.

Shit.

He's nearly knocked unconscious by that alone, ears ringing far louder than before, but he manages to keep his eyes half open by making fierce eye contact with the red glowing digital clock on his nightstand.

8:32 a.m., it reads. Then 8:33. Then 8:34.

It should not take Till longer than 8:52 to make it to his house, especially if he runs. Which means Ivan has to get up in the next fifty-two minus thirty-four minutes to lock his door… which is eighteen, eighteen minutes…

"Ivan!"

His eyes shoot open.

At first, all he registers is a bright, red blur, fuzzy around the edges. And then it slowly smooths out into distinct lines—numbers, he realizes, reading 8:45.

When was Till meant to get here, again?

Then there's a hand against his shoulder, gripping tight, trembling. Then a familiar voice that trembles just the same. "Jesus Christ, what—?"

Oh, there he is.

"You're here early," Ivan rasps, working to tug the corners of his mouth into a smile. Everything's still fuzzy, distinct but muted, like a dream.

Till's face suddenly drops down into his line of vision, close, very close. He wears an odd expression, eyes blown wide and welled up with tears. He's breathing very heavily, perhaps from his run to get here. Arriving so quickly all the way from school really is impressive.

"Ivan, Ivan, stay awake," Till is saying loudly, too loudly, bringing his hands to Ivan's forehead and against his neck. For the first time, they feel ice cold to the touch.

"I am awake," Ivan mutters, reaching up to wipe the wetness off of Till's face. Always so dramatic. "Don't cry, I'm okay. Only a fever. Go back now."

It's hard to keep his eyes open. Something is probably wrong. Uh oh.

"Listen to me," a calloused finger swipes across the underside of Ivan's chin, tickling a little bit, "Have you gotten treatment? Pills or—or I don't know, something, anything?"

Pills? No. Ivan shakes his head as best he can against his pillow. "No pills. Pills won't help. Maybe ibuprofen. Please?" The tippity top of his head still stings. His chest aches, too, but the insides, like they are too full.

Till lets go of him immediately, standing up and out of Ivan's view, and Ivan shudders at the loss. Thankfully, a hand returns to his shoulder, gripping so tight that it kind of hurts. No, Till should leave instead. This is not good. Till can't find out. But if he's here, he must know already, right? Oops.

"Stay awake, okay? I'm calling an ambulance," says the hand, sounding rather distressed, and now its nails are digging into Ivan's shoulder.

"No, don't," Ivan says, loud and firm as he can muster, which only forces a few violent coughs out of him. They hurt, bad. Perhaps he should drink some water.

He hears the sound of a phone ringing, followed quickly by Till's faint voice. He's too far away now to make out what he's saying, but Ivan catches a few words: friend and please and most unfortunately, hanahaki.

"Stop," Ivan murmurs weakly, but it's no use. Everything is growing fuzzier, the red light of his alarm clock beginning to dance in his eyes like a little ballerina. Well, that's nice. At least she's having a good time.

His eyelids only grow heavier and heavier, and as he starts drifting away, he hears his name being called out again. He doesn't bother opening his eyes this time.

The next few hours blur together. His head pounds; the fluorescent lights and bright white walls of the hospital are an eyesore.

"Have you been properly allowing your lungs to clear themselves out?"

Ivan doesn't respond for a moment. Then he shakes his head. The doctor lets out a small sigh.

"If you feel anything start to come up, we strongly advise you not to resist the urge to cough or gag. It'll only speed up suffocation and gradually limit your airflow." She gives him a pitiful smile. "The next few coughing attacks will likely be more severe than normal, as your body is trying to get everything out of your system. Do you know how to call us? Please do so whenever you get the feeling your disease is about to act up. We're going to have to monitor you for the next few days, do you understand?"

Ivan scrapes his nails hard against his thighs. "I understand."

Till comes to visit the moment he is permitted to.

The door thuds loudly against the wall as he bursts into the room, and Ivan sees him wince at the force of it.

"Sorry," Till mutters as he very gently shuts the door behind him. Ivan only nods, wordlessly stands up from his seated position on the hospital bed and makes his way to the window.

It's dark, now, ten or so hours since Ivan was picked up by the ambulance, judging by the wall clock to his left. He had foolishly hoped that maybe Till would give up on waiting so long and just go home, but then again, Till would perhaps rather be anywhere but home. Ivan hears a shaky breath from behind him, then tentative footsteps. "So you're… feeling better?"

Till's faint reflection in the window is fidgeting with the sleeves of his gray sweatshirt, as if he has anything to be nervous about. Well, maybe he does. Ivan has never been the most comfortable presence.

"Yes," Ivan says. "I slept well, and I've eaten. Lack of nutrition and proper rest were the main issues."

Even in the blurry outline against the glass, Ivan can see Till's eyes glaze over. His fist clenches and unclenches. "Good, that's good," he says, calm, unnaturally calm. The question hangs in the air, thick and unignorable. Ivan wishes Till would just ask it already.

"You should've taken better care of yourself," Till continues, instead.

"The nurses have already given me all this talk, so there's really no need," Ivan says, turning around despite himself. "Arrive at the point, please."

Till's jaw clenches, and his tone grows immediately harsher. "Fine, then. How long have you had hanahaki?"

There's no reason to lie. Not now.

"Eleven months."

A beat.

Till bites his bottom lip and exhales sharply before putting his face in his hands, which are still covered by oversized gray sleeves. On any other day, Ivan would find the sight cute. Today, he finds it quite miserable.

After a moment, Till looks up again with glassy eyes. He remains silent, however, as if waiting. Ivan lets it be for about six seconds before speaking again. "If you're just going to stand there and stare at me, I'd prefer it if you would leave."

"I—" Till falters, Adam's apple bobbing. "I thought you would explain, maybe."

Ivan quirks a brow, feigning confusion. "Explain what?"

Till scoffs in disbelief and wildly gestures around at nothing in particular. "This, Ivan! All of this! Don't you have anything you want to say?"

Ivan flexes his hands. "Not really," he says, monotone.

Another sharp sigh, then a few more steps forward. "So, what's your plan, then." It's not spoken like a question, moreso a form of bitter chastisement. Almost like a challenge. Till maintains a hardened gaze, and Ivan matches it, unwavering.

"I'm sure I will work that out with the doctors once I have fully recovered."

"So you're not going to explain," Till concludes sourly. "You're not going to consult anybody else."

Ivan raises his eyebrows. "I don't see how that would help me in any degree."

"Are you at least going to tell me who you caught hanahaki for?"

"Seems unnecessary to go out of my way to do so," Ivan says.

Till's nostrils flare. Ivan can tell he's not angry, not yet, but approaching the threshold. "Are you going to tell them, then? That person?"

"Well, if they were to ask me, I suppose I would."

A beat, again.

"You're being difficult on purpose."

Ivan breathes a humorless laugh. "I don't know what it is you want from me."

Till furiously snaps back, "I want you to—" before cutting himself off. He takes a deep breath and relaxes his scrunched-up facial features before continuing, quieter. "I'm your best friend. I find you half passed out in some—fucked up garden that you've been coughing up for a fucking year, and I'm freaking out because I don't know what's going on or—or if you'll be okay, and now that I know you're okay, the doctors are saying they can't let you go because you're too damn sick to be left alone!"

His lower lip quivers ever so slightly. Ivan, for his own sake, unfocuses his eyes until Till is only a shapeless blur of colors in the middle of a sea of hospital white.

"I'm your best friend," the blur repeats, breathlessly. "I want you to fucking say something to me."

Ivan doesn't. Say something, that is.

Five seconds. Ten seconds.

Slowly, against Ivan's better judgment, Till's outline becomes clear again. His eyes, the first thing Ivan's own gaze always finds, are dull. Tired. Pleading.

Ivan's seen that look from Till a few times in his life—only in his very worst moments can Till ever be diminished. During the roughest patches with Urak, or the weeks most wracked with grief and nightmares over his mother. Never before has Ivan been the one to wear him so thin.

"You're going to have to be more specific," Ivan says, hushed.

Till holds his gaze for another moment, unreactive. Then he takes a long, deep breath, like he's preparing himself, or like a last-ditch effort. When his mouth opens, out it comes, slowly and warily.

"Are you in love with me?"

There's the question.

"I don't know."

It's not a lie. It's perhaps the most truthful he's ever been in the past year.

Something cold passes right through Till's eyes, maybe shock, maybe anger. And then he goes incredibly still. The soft ticking of the wall clock becomes unbearably loud, and Ivan counts nine ticks before Till moves again.

"I don't understand," he says, barely above a whisper.

Ivan smiles. "You don't need to."

Till closes his eyes as tears start glistening on his cheeks. He wipes them off almost immediately and looks toward the wall to his left, far away from Ivan. He speaks quietly, but surprisingly stable. “Have you ever been honest in your damn life?”

He's angry now. Ivan bites down on the inside of his cheek. “I have. I am," he says. "I am being honest.”

Silence again. Five ticks. Then a sharp exhale in disbelief.

“You still can't tell me,” Till mutters, stricken, more to himself than to Ivan. “Even now."

Ivan doesn’t respond. He doesn’t have anything to say, anything to explain. He doesn't know how to explain this. He just stands there pathetically in his itchy hospital gown.

Till takes an unsteady breath, then continues. “You know, Mizi and Sua visited. They told me everything.”

Ah.

Well, this was always going to happen, wasn't it?

Till takes an agonizing step toward him, and it’s Ivan’s turn to look away. “They told me you refused to talk to me about it. That you refused to go to the hospital. Were you planning on telling me before—?" he cuts himself off, voice beginning to quiver, and he inhales sharply before continuing. “That's why you were avoiding me, isn't it? Were you happy with just leaving without a word? Did you even think about how that would’ve been for me? No warning, no explanation? You were fine with that?”

Something clenches in Ivan's chest, tight. “As much as I may seem like it, I am not heartless,” he says, carefully mild. “I wasn’t 'fine' with anything, Till.”

“Then why?!” Till’s tone grows more airy and angry and desperate with each second, a stark contrast to Ivan’s own calm, level voice. (Ivan can recall many arguments between the two that sounded just the same way.) “Why didn’t you tell me?!”

Ivan swallows, and it's so incredibly loud in his own ears. “So that this wouldn't happen. I didn't want it to end like this.”

"Stop talking like that," Till demands, clipped. "Nothing is ending."

At that, Ivan can't help but breathe a laugh. Till flinches, slightly, then looks at Ivan as though he'd just been struck across the face. He's shaking, now.

"This isn't funny, asshole. Nothing is ending," he repeats, slowly, almost frantically.

"What do you expect to happen?" Ivan tightens his grip around the sides of his hospital gown. "Honestly, what do you think happens, even if I get the surgery? I'd have to leave, immediately, and I wouldn't ever come back. I wouldn't talk to you ever again. I'd be good as dead to you, and you to me."

Till shakes his head, breathing heavy. "That's not—"

"But it is. It's that, or I let the disease run its course. You can't change anything. This will kill me, in one way or another. Whether it be literal or not." The air grows thinner with each word. Ivan can feel everything closing in. Still, he holds his voice steady, not raising it, not faltering. "We won't ever see each other again. Please, accept that. It is the only thing I will ever ask of you."

Till just stares at him for a very long moment. His gaze is so heavy that Ivan cannot bear it, and the silence is grating against his skin, against the insides of his ears. He cannot take another one of these silences. “Don’t look at me that way,” Ivan pleads, quiet, for the sake of himself.

Something shifts. Till closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them again, he lets out the tiniest puff of breath. He speaks like the calm before the storm. "You haven't even let me give you an answer."

"What?"

"How are you so sure?" Till asks. His lower lip trembles before he presses his mouth into a tight line. "Did you ever ask me how I feel?"

And there it is.

Till can be so cruel, sometimes.

"You shouldn't do this," Ivan mutters, digging his nails into his palms and averting his gaze, because he has to.

"Shouldn't do what?" Here comes the storm, again. "You have never once asked me what I'm feeling, not about anything, not when we were kids, and not even now, you make decisions all by your fucking self and— and you don't even think to tell me when you do!"

Ivan knew this would happen. He really, really didn't want this to happen.

"Till," he starts, tentatively, afraid to tip them both over the edge, "I always know how you feel. I have known for my whole life. You're the easiest to read of anybody."

Till only glares at him harder, something fiery behind his eyes. With another step forward, they're now far too close. He speaks firmly, right in Ivan's face, shaking with anger. "Ask me. I'm begging you."

Ivan could search for the words. He doesn't want to. Instead, he searches for any wavering confidence in Till's face, any sign of a way out of this conversation. Perhaps he can stand here until the other gives up.

"Ask me," Till repeats, shriller and louder than before. Ivan still doesn't respond, because he won't let him do this. He can't.

Ivan watches something snap behind Till's eyes.

“Fuck you, Ivan,” Till sneers through his tears, and he looks like he might punch him. For a moment, Ivan is sure he’s going to. But then, all at once, Ivan is getting pulled forward by the collar, and Till’s face is on his.

Ivan stumbles backward at the force of it, but Till is relentless, and his warm hands are creeping torturously up Ivan's neck as he kisses him, over and over and over, with as much passion as he puts into everything.

Okay, okay. Okay.

It's as nauseating as it is invigorating, and Ivan lets it happen. Kisses him back, or at least tries to—Till kisses as erratically and aggressively as he punches, or maybe that's only a result of his anger, but it's perfect even as Till's tears wet Ivan's own cheeks, as Till's fingers slip into Ivan's hair and tug, as Till exhales fitful puffs of air through Ivan's mouth and into his lungs—

And then Till is pulling away before Ivan has the chance to properly memorize the feeling. But he doesn't go far—instead he holds Ivan's face firmly in place only inches away, close enough that Ivan can still feel the other's heavy breathing push against his eyelashes. They look right at each other, something heady hanging between them, and Ivan finds himself stuck in it, unable to move or speak or think. He's not sure if this is out of a dream or a nightmare.

Till's eyes remain irate, but his touch is so, so gentle, even as his grip tightens around the sides of Ivan's head. "I'm in love with you."

Things go spinning out of control, incredibly quickly. Ivan doesn't have the strength to stop it. Literally, because his body is weaker than usual and Till is closing the distance again and pushing him backward until his back hits the hospital bed and they're stacked right on top of each other. As Till swipes his tongue along Ivan's lower lip, pushing deeper still, Ivan wonders, distantly, if this is what being drunk feels like. (It's surely not. But his hands are buzzing as he absent-mindedly rests them against Till's back.)

Ivan has no idea how many seconds he spends like this, senseless. Out of his mind. He only knows it takes only three and a half for all of his reason to reaccumulate as a familiar feeling clogs up his ears and creeps up his throat, daring to erupt. In an instant, he is pushing Till off of him and craning his head over the side of the bed.

"What—?" Till starts, hair tousled and voice half an octave higher than usual.

Ivan doubles over and chokes. Not in the hacking way that he's done a million times before, but he retches. He vaguely registers the pain erupting in his throat, but he is far more disturbed by the fact that he cannot breathe at all, and there is ringing in his ears, and he must be suffocating, now.

"Wait, stop, stop," Till is sputtering out, sounding near hysterical as he thumps his hand repeatedly against Ivan's back. For a moment, when Ivan cannot even cough anymore, he wonders if he is going to die.

But then a particularly hard thump from Till sends everything flying right out of his throat and onto the floor to his right, and Ivan gasps for air, squeezing his eyes shut and lying fully back down against the hospital bed until the throbbing pain clears. And then he feels Till's eyes from above on him, intense as ever. He opens his eyes against his better judgment, and he realizes that Till is not looking at him, but at the floor.

Ivan leans his head over the side again to follow his gaze, and then he swallows.

Four full daisies. Large ones, covered in spit and blood, along with a cluster of petals bent and twisted every which way.

Till lets out a thin, shaky breath. He doesn't move, just keeps staring down at the floor, dumbstruck.

Ivan suddenly grows acutely aware that they're still halfway on top of each other, with Till sitting back on his knees that are still between Ivan's own. He lightly pushes against Till's shoulder, to no avail. "Get off, please," he mutters weakly. He nudges him again. Still no movement. "Till—"

"You don't believe me."

Till turns to meet his eyes, lips rosy and a little swollen. His facial features, which Ivan can usually make sense of quite easily, lack any shape that he can recognize. Ivan does not dare respond. What would he say, anyway? The evidence is right in front of them, in a slobbery, bloody puddle on the ground.

Till starts to speak again, chillingly faint. "You—"

And then the moment is finally shattered as one of the nurses comes right through the door, and they both hastily snap their heads to look as the woman's eyes go wide.

"I just came in to alert you that visiting hours are over," she says, glancing between the two of them. Their legs are still tangled together, and Till is still very much hovering over Ivan with how far forward he's leaning. Neither of them moves. She purses her lips. "And please do not join patients on the bed."

Briskly, Till untangles himself and gets up at last, now a little pink. Ivan might've felt embarrassed himself if his head weren't still reeling.

"Sorry," Till mutters, still standing by the bed. Then he looks back over at Ivan helplessly, as if he, too, might throw up. Ivan averts his gaze.

"Come, please," the nurse says, stepping aside and outstretching her arm to beckon him through the doorway.

Till doesn't budge. "Can't you make an exception?"

"I'm afraid not."

"But it's—it's an emergency, please."

The nurse raises her eyebrows and looks over at Ivan, who shakes his head. She looks back at Till, a sterner expression on her face.

"Young man, it's already five past. I would have to call security if you do not leave right now."

"I—" The words are caught in his throat as he spares a final glance at the mess on the ground. He wipes the tears off his face with his hoodie sleeve. "Okay."

If Till looks back at Ivan on his way out, Ivan does not see. He only stares down at his own trembling palms, willing them still, until he finally hears the door shut.

Ivan closes his eyes as soon as Till is gone. He breathes out a quiet hm, as if that's the thing he's been holding in for months.

After a moment, Ivan opens his eyes as the nurse approaches his bed for a check-in, and it's then that she sees what has accumulated on the linoleum floor. Her eyes go wide, and she quickly kneels down to pick up the pieces, shaking her head furiously.

"Oh, goodness," she's saying as she delicately places the daisies on Ivan's nightstand. Then she taps the side of Ivan's cheeks with the gloved hand that isn't freshly stained with his blood. "Open wide, please."

Ivan obliges, and the nurse gasps softly after getting a good look. She presses her lips together into a tight line.

"Sweetheart, why didn't you call us?" she asks, gently wiping the corner of Ivan's mouth.

"It happened right before you walked in," Ivan rasps before coughing again, and he winces at its force. His throat still itches, and he's still lightheaded, and the lights are still too bright, and his lips are still burning with the memory of what had happened only moments ago. He presses his own fingers to his mouth. They are much, much colder than Till had been.

He bites down on his back teeth, hard.

The nurse stands back and observes him for a minute. Ivan feels a little insecure under her gaze, as if she may burst out into a long, solemn lecture at any moment. But she only sighs and glances at the daisies, then at the door, then back at Ivan. "You know, I really don't mean to pry, sweetheart, but it's important for us to know if there's someone who you shouldn't be—"

"It's not him," Ivan says. He shouldn't have, honestly. Taking Till out of the picture would be one problem solved. Unfortunately, there is no version of Ivan who could ever even think of doing such a thing.

The nurse observes him a little longer, then nods. "Alright. Are you currently in any pain? Did you have any particularly severe choking or other difficulties in the process…?"

Ivan can't sleep that night.

Not that he ever sleeps all that much on any night. But despite the dizziness that hangs thick in his brain for hours, he is perhaps the most awake he has ever been.

He knows Till. He knows that a desperate Till is always the most reckless, most persistent, most like fireworks. If you put him in a desperate situation and get him all wound up, then some sort of explosion is bound to occur.

What sort of explosion was Ivan expecting? Certainly not this. The aftershocks are still ringing in his head, digging an endless pit in his stomach. He tries for hours and hours to name that pit. Is it regret? Does Ivan regret letting everything fall straight into him? Without any resistance, and hardly more than a few seconds of hesitation?

Does Till?

Ivan hopes he does, for both of their sakes. Because perhaps the most lamentable part for Ivan is that he hadn't gotten Till even angrier. Maybe then, he would've pushed him harder. Maybe then, he wouldn't have allowed it to end.

Now that it has, Ivan won't let it happen again. When Till finds a new way to try and mend the situation, Ivan will simply get him to give up.

(It's an impossible feat. Ivan will try anyway. There is nothing else to do.)

At 8 a.m. on the dot, Till is pushing through the door again, with a severe case of bedhead and his backpack hanging loosely off one of his shoulders.

"Hi," he says, out of breath. He quickly settles into the seat opposite Ivan's bed.

Ivan blinks. "Hi," he replies.

Till just looks at him—weirdly enough, not with anger, or even with sadness, but with something else. That same look he gets when he's painting something last-minute for an art project or playing a particularly complicated riff on the electric guitar. Like a fire has been lit behind his eyes.

Ivan resists the urge to squirm under his gaze. "I thought you had a history exam today," he says, because it is easy to say.

Till bends down to fish something out of his backpack. "I do."

"You already have a C in that class."

"Yeah, whatever, fuck that," he says as he pulls out a big blue notebook. His music notebook. "I had something I wanted to show you."

"At eight o'clock in the morning?" Ivan raises his eyebrows, easing up from the unexpected lack of tension. "I'm impressed. It's not like you to be so awake at such an hour."

Till shoots him a glare, but it lacks any real edge. He quickly flips through the pages of the notebook, and several loose pages of sheet music and colored pencil drawings go flying onto the floor, but he pays them no mind.

"Do you remember the, uh," Till starts, still skimming through his pages and pages of chicken scratch, "the song I wrote in, like, July? At your lake house."

For the past six years, Till has been coming to Ivan's father's lake house during every third week of July. He always does his proudest songwriting at that house, because 'the water helps me think,' he says. However, the last time they were there had been during one of Till's writing blocks, and he was only able to complete one song.

Ivan thinks for a moment. "I drew a sun on the back of it," he recalls as Till glances up at him again for a fraction of a second. "That one?"

"Yeah," Till says, finally stopping on a page. His Adam's apple bobs. "Do you… remember what you asked me?"

"No." Ivan pulls his blanket further up his chest. "Although I remember you spelled 'vicarious' incorrectly."

The tips of Till's ears turn a light shade of pink. "Okay, well, English isn't my best subject," he grumbles.

"Ironic for a songwriter."

"You—that's not the point." He sighs, drawn out. "You asked me if I liked Mizi again."

Oh, that's right. It had been one of those very Mizi-esque songs, cute, sweet. Lovely. Bursting with affection. He'd written dozens of that type of song throughout middle school, all dedicated to her.

"Yes, I do remember that," Ivan says. Till nods, glancing down at what Ivan assumes are the lyrics to that song, then back up at him.

"When I asked you why you thought that, you told me it was because the song was 'obviously a love song', but you said it in some—weird Ivan way or whatever and I," he pauses for a long breath, "I didn't know what to say because… because it wasn't supposed to be a love song. But then I reread it, and I realized that you were right."

Ivan's throat goes dry as the memory comes back to him; Till furrowing his brows and snatching the paper back from Ivan as he quickly re-scanned the lyrics, and then falling into a long, long silence. Ivan hadn't thought much of it at the time, especially after Till had broken the silence by muttering something about it being more of a work of fiction than anything else, but that maybe he'd been unknowingly inspired by feelings in his own past. And then he had picked up a pen and started rewriting it.

"But I didn't write it about Mizi," Till says, and now his face is pink, too. He looks down at his hands, folded on top of the notebook. "And it—it wasn't fictional. I wrote it about you."

Everything goes incredibly still.

"Won't you let me see the new version?"

"No! It's… it's not good. I'm scrapping it."

"Why's that? I thought it was quite cute."

"I just don't like it, okay? It didn't turn out how I wanted. Leave it alone."

"Oh, come on, don't be embarrassed. You're always cute."

"I—I don't—fucking leave it alone, Ivan. Please. I'm serious."

Ivan tightens his grip around the ends of the blanket and opens his mouth to respond, but all that comes out is a quiet, clipped, "I see."

Till doesn't say anything for a moment. Then he sighs and stands up, crossing the room in two strides to sit down at the foot of Ivan's bed and fold his legs criss-cross applesauce. Ivan tries to pull his own legs away and up to his chest, but Till gently places his hand over both of his shins, keeping them in place as he looks right into his eyes.

"Read it again," Till says softly as he holds out the open notebook.

When Ivan doesn't take it, Till instead places it on his lap, looking up at him with pleading eyes. Ivan shakes his head. "Till," he protests weakly.

"Ivan," Till echoes.

"Don't do this."

"Don't do what?"

"This," he says, and he hands the notebook back.

"Fine," Till says as he scoots in closer. "I'll read it out loud."

"Till," Ivan warns again, but Till pays him no mind as he begins to hum the first few notes. It seems all his sense of embarrassment has been briskly replaced with blind determination. Ivan reaches out to firmly grab his arm. "It is pointless. Stop."

Till only continues humming, louder now. And then he opens his mouth to start singing the lyrics.

Ivan does the first thing he can think to do. He leans forward, and in one swift motion, he grabs Till's face with both hands and crashes their lips together.

That shuts him up. Ivan feels the vibration of Till's exclamatory yelp against his mouth, but then he's quiet again as he lets the notebook drop between them and instead slides his hands onto Ivan's waist, holding him firmly.

It's much slower and chaster than last time, which gives Ivan the room to think. As thin arms wrap all the way around his waistline, pulling him even closer, it is all that he can think about: I am not like you. I am not like this. Ivan can feel each rise and fall of Till's chest against his own, growing quicker. I cannot be like you. Till's pulse flutters under the spot Ivan's thumb is now pressed against, along the side of his neck. When Ivan feels himself gently but surely being pushed backward, a slow-motion replay of yesterday's point of no return, he immediately aborts.

Their lips separate with a loud smack as Ivan pushes against Till's chest with his palm until they are an appropriate distance apart. Till's cheeks are bright red now, eyes blown wide. The taste of his toothpaste lingers on Ivan's lips. (Bubblegum, because Till doesn't like mint.)

"I will have another coughing fit if we keep doing that," Ivan says, mustering a small smile.

Till immediately leans back even further, now glaring incredulously. "I thought you—!" He stops to put his face in his hands. "Why the fuck are you kissing me if you still don't believe me, you moron," he mumbles bitterly through the gap between his palms.

"Because you don't listen to me," Ivan says.

Till looks up, still a little flushed. "I'm not the one who isn't listening."

"I am listening." Ivan straightens out his hospital gown where it had been mussed moments ago. His fingers tingle as they do so. "You can't fix this, Till."

"But you can," he counters, instinctively reaching out to grab Ivan's hand before realizing himself and pausing midway. For a long moment it hangs there, awkwardly, trembling slightly. Something clenches in Ivan's chest when Till retracts, instead folding both his hands into his lap. He whispers, small, "Why won't you?"

Ivan shakes his head. "You don't understand."

"Then make me understand." Till's gaze is unrelenting, searing right into his own. Ivan holds his breath.

What is there to understand? What is worth saying? When Ivan sees a slight quiver in Till's lower lip that he tries to press away into a tight line, he thinks, anything. Anything at all.

"It isn't even a matter of whether I believe you or not," he says.

Till furrows his eyebrows. "Okay," he says, slowly, hesitantly. "What does that mean?"

Ivan can only stare helplessly, clutching tight at the blanket. Till doesn't say anything, doesn't take pity on him; he waits, quietly, eyes a little glassy. It's miserable, seeing him so still.

"I don't…" Ivan tries, keeping his breath as even as he can. "This isn't what you think it is."

Are you in love with me? Those are the very words that ring in his mind, buzzing against his skin until he feels ready to burst. His grip on the blanket tightens even more.

"You and I," he continues quietly, "are not the same."

At that, Till only scoffs, exasperated. "Fucking—obviously, Ivan. You think I don't know that? What—"

"This isn't what you think it is," Ivan says again, much louder, and Till immediately goes quiet. "You think this is a disease born out of love. In most cases, I'm sure that's true. But there is something I am fundamentally missing, and I don't ever find it, no matter how hard I look." He pauses, searching for concision. "This is something different. There is something terribly wrong. With this, and with me. Do you understand? I—hm. You need to leave."

A beat.

Till looks frozen in time, like a photograph taken in the split second between when a punch is thrown and when it lands. Ivan waits for it to land, waits for the consequences.

This time, when Till reaches out, he does not hesitate, and he does not retreat. He grabs Ivan's hands with both of his own, and then he holds them. Ivan's heart stutters like it always does in the worst moments.

"You're wrong," Till whispers, leaning in closer again, until Ivan can smell his bubblegum breath. "Listen to me, okay? I have no idea how any of this got put in your head, but I know you, and I know you're not some twisted exception to the rules or, or anything like that. There is nothing wrong with you, and if there was, I wouldn't… I wouldn't be here. Okay? Do you get that?"

"You should leave," Ivan repeats, hands beginning to tremble, but Till only tightens his grip, because he does not understand.

"No. Listen," he persists, and Ivan feels sick to his stomach. "You're not any less of a person than the rest of us, and no matter what you think, you are not—"

"That wasn't a request, Till. I need you to leave," Ivan immediately cuts in, coldly, jerking his hands away. Till flinches, as if struck—Ivan pays it no mind. "I am dying, faster every day, especially with you here. It is far too risky for me to be around you. I shouldn't have let this play out. Just—go. Please."

Till has asked Ivan to leave countless times over the past ten years. Some would be followed by many days of silent walks to and from school. Some wouldn't even last twenty seconds before there'd be a teary-eyed wait called after him, with Till tightly tucked into his arms only a moment later. Till was always the one who'd say the word, and Ivan was always the one who'd oblige without a second thought. They've stuck to their roles quite well.

Now, Till looks nothing short of distraught, staring with big, glazed-over eyes that rapidly look back and forth between Ivan's, like he does not recognize them. Ivan cannot blame him.

"You're doing this to yourself," he whispers like jagged glass.

"So leave me," Ivan whispers back. "Before either of us makes another mistake."

Everything hangs dangerously in the air for a moment. Then, as Till finally stands up and fishes his bag off the floor, Ivan has the terrifying desire to do just that. To make just one more mistake. When Till disappears through the door, head hung low and sniffling softly, Ivan suddenly wonders if he already has.

The next time the door opens, it is a flash of pink, and then a shrill voice.

"Ivan!"

Mizi is rushing to his bedside in an instant, throwing her arms around him and squeezing, thankfully not too hard. "I was so worried," she mutters into his shoulder. Ivan weakly returns the hug and curls his fingers around the ends of her hair, the way he always does when embracing her.

In the corner of the room, Ivan watches Sua gently close the door before turning to make careful eye contact with him. She doesn't move toward him or greet him in any way, only stands there and looks. Her shoulders droop inward, curled in on herself, and her gaze is thick with something, maybe guilt. Or maybe concern, or maybe defeat. Either way, she looks about to diminutively burst with it. Ivan looks right back, instinctively trying to offer her a smile, but he finds he can't bring himself to.

"Hello, Mizi," he says as Mizi pulls back and blinks the tears out of her eyes. "As you can see, I'm doing just fine."

She shakes her head, speaking quietly but insistently. "I can't believe you, I thought… I don't know what I thought, but you can't…" She shakes her head again. "What happened?"

"I made some mistakes," Ivan says, letting her take his hands gently. "I'm sorry for worrying you."

"No, it's…" She furrows her eyebrows. "Well, it's not fine, but if you're fine, then I'm glad, it's just—what's going to happen to you?"

He makes a very expert effort to not glance over at Sua. "I'm figuring that out."

Unfortunately, Sua's hunched-over form emerges into his view anyway, and Mizi gives her room to step closer. Sua takes the space next to her that is nearest Ivan. "What did the doctors say?" she asks, gazing at him oddly like he is far, far away.

Ivan gives her a look. "What do you think?"

Her jaw ticks. "I think you'd better figure it out quickly."

"What did Till say?" Mizi hesitantly asks him. Ivan is silent for a moment, then he shrugs.

"Nothing worth mentioning." He pauses. "I have a feeling he may not be back for a while."

The girls look at each other. Mizi's face falls after a second, her big golden eyes welling up, and Sua lets out a quiet sigh. She's the first one to look back at Ivan, and he can see that her eyes are welling up, too.

"You know what I'm going to tell you," she eventually says, blinking the tears away. "And I don't want to fight."

Mizi squeezes his hands tighter. "Ivan," she whispers, pleadingly.

Ivan wouldn't be surprised if they'd rehearsed this beforehand. As they both gaze at him with something heavy, Mizi's hands slightly trembling and Sua's breath losing its rhythm, he feels his stomach sink lower and lower.

The two of them have been tense, lately. After his birthday, they'd suddenly stopped walking together on the way from fourth period to fifth for almost a full week—that's the easiest way to tell if they've been fighting, if they avoid each other like the plague for three to ten days before falling right back together like nothing ever happened. Although this time, even after they stopped avoiding one another, they hadn't quite fallen back together the way they typically do. Even Ivan could see the stiltedness, as if they were both toeing a line neither of them would dare cross… maybe they'd fought, maybe they were just on edge, but no matter which way you spin it, Ivan's situation had most definitely thrown a wrench into things. In one fell swoop, it was no longer only his burden to bear.

The thought makes him a little sick. And as the moment drags on, he finds he cannot stand it any longer.

He chews on the inside of his cheek. Then he says, finally, "I will get the surgery."

Sua immediately sighs in relief, crumpling down a little bit, reaching out to grip his shoulder tight. Mizi, on the other hand, takes a very large inhale of relief and retracts her hands, pressing them to her heart.

"I'll have to alert my father," Ivan quietly continues. "I don't know where I'll go."

"We'll help you," both girls immediately chime in. (Ivan breathes a laugh at their effortless congruency.) Sua stands up straight again and pulls out her phone. "I, um. I made a list of universities I thought you might be interested in, in all sorts of places, all away from here," she says as she glances up at him with a small, melancholy smile. "You'd get into all of them. I can send them to you, only if you'd like, though, of course."

Ivan looks over at Mizi, who still appears a little distraught, staring downward at nothing in particular. Then she furrows her eyebrows, but doesn't say anything.

"I would appreciate that," Ivan says to Sua, although he knows he will not use it. "I assume they all have decent high schools nearby as well?"

Sua nods as she pockets her phone. "Yes, but I figure you don't even need to graduate to get into college if you wave your credit card in their faces."

Ivan grins. "Where's the fun in that?"

"You'll call every week, right?" Mizi asks suddenly, looking up at him again. She carefully rests her hand on his leg, covered by his blanket.

"Of course," he says. "We're friends."

Mizi doesn't continue for a moment. Then, "And Till?"

It goes uncomfortably quiet. Ivan bites down on his back teeth.

Sua turns to face her, reaching out to touch her shoulder. "Mizi—"

"You'll never talk to him again, right?" she asks, like she already knows the answer. Her gaze wavers. "Did he want you to do this?"

"He's…" What, exactly? "He'll be fine."

And he will, is the thing. Ivan is simply the one who tried the hardest to keep Till within arm's reach—he secured that place long ago, before anybody else could have had the chance. And so, when he gives that place up, it surely won't go unfilled. It is how these things go. Till has all the love and care in the world to give, and just as much to receive. If there is any degree of permanence Ivan holds within him, it is one single water molecule in a vast ocean; there was always going to be another. One who wouldn't even have to try to take that place. Ivan can only hold on to the selfish hope that it won't be stolen immediately.

"That doesn't sound like him," Mizi ventures.

Ivan opens his mouth to respond, before realizing he has nothing to say. He closes it again.

Sua's hand still hovers midair, a few inches away from Mizi's shoulder. Then she instead curls it into a fist and puts her knuckles over her own mouth, looking down at the floor with glassy eyes.

Mizi takes in a breath. "When we told him, he…" she pauses, searching Ivan's face. He hopes she does not find anything. "Something happened, didn't it?"

"Mizi," Ivan warns. She purses her lips, gazing at him hopelessly, with something sharper behind her eyes, but does not say anything more.

It is Sua who speaks next. She takes her hand off her mouth and tucks her arms over her stomach. "We'll figure it out," she mutters as she turns to Ivan. "We will."

There is no figuring it out. But perhaps that is not worth mentioning. Instead, he only nods and says, "Of course."

Mizi grabs his hand again, squeezing tight, and her skin is a little colder than usual, either from the cool March air or because she tends to run cold when afraid. He chooses to believe the former.

Sua sniffles, faintly. Then she leans down and delicately brushes Ivan's hair to the side before planting a featherlight kiss on his temple.

"It'll be alright," she whispers.

She smiles sweetly, assuringly, but the look in her eyes gives her away. She, too, hasn't the faintest idea what any of them are going to do.

Ivan dreams of Till straddling his hips and reaching an entire arm down his throat.

It's a strange, disorienting sensation; not necessarily a bad one, although one wrong move and Ivan's sure he'll suffocate. He stays incredibly still as he blinks the tears out of the corners of his eyes.

"Don't choke," Till mutters, curling the fingers of his free hand tight around Ivan's hair. When the other hand reaches all the way through the trachea of his lungs, Ivan has to suppress the urge to whimper.

There's a slow drag of fingers on the inside of his chest, searching, until they finally grip at the roots of the flowers. "Hold still, okay?"

And then they pull. The hospital bed from beneath them shakes at the force of it, and a sharp pain erupts in Ivan's ribs, threatening to burst out of his chest. He instinctively bites down hard on the elbow lodged deep in his mouth, but Till does not stop pulling and pulling and pulling, and Ivan tries to tell him that it's no use, but he chokes on the words.

"No, I've got it, listen to me, I've got it," Till is desperately chanting like some mantra as he pushes against Ivan's shoulder for leverage and digs his nails into his skin. "I've—"

There is a deafening rip, and suddenly everything goes quiet. Ivan stops breathing. Till, wide-eyed, pulls a clump of weeds out of his chest.

His hand—now covered in spit and mangled roots and little streaks of blood—trembles. "I don't understand," he whispers.

Put it back, Ivan yearns to say, but his whole throat is overgrown with the things, now. His chest is stuffed full. Till does not notice because he is preoccupied with shakily pressing his forehead to the dead weeds in his hand.

"Cheer up," he says. "Cheer up."

Ivan suffocates.

You're not any less of a person than the rest of us.

Things aren't so simple. Some people are born capable of certain functions and tasks, or of certain feelings. Others have to learn. Some can only ever learn to fake it.

One thing he will miss about this place is the spring.

Ivan has had an interesting relationship with greenery as of late, but he has always been fond of long walks through the park in March when the earliest flowers are in bloom. Perhaps because he finds it aesthetically pleasing, or because he cherishes many memories of tussling with another through beds of flowers in elementary school, or because he is very partial to the early spring weather.

He knows, of course, that the season exists elsewhere. Unfortunately, Ivan has a feeling that once he leaves, any other version of it will make him feel terribly sick. He would much prefer spring not be the only familiar thing to remain with him for the rest of his life.

After being trapped in a small white room for days, this final walk in the park is quite pleasant. He will savor it while it lasts.

Tomorrow, he will be gone. Uprooted. A rumor.

He approaches a patch of daisies, right where they can always be found on this path, beside an old wooden bench. They are still only little white buds, as daisies do not bloom until May. Ivan had been planning to power walk right past them, but instead, he finds himself a little frozen. He's stood in this very spot before, many times during field trips when he was young. He and the other children would be taken to this very park every year around this time, although typically later into the season, and this had been previously one of his favorite spots.

Ivan hasn't thought about this spot in a while. For the last few months, he has tried very hard not to.

In the first grade, he'd been ordered to this bench by a teacher with a very stern glare and the shirt sleeve of a battered, gray-haired boy gripped tightly in her hand. Ivan had quietly and obediently sat down where she pointed, and after a few futile attempts at resisting, the other boy had joined him with a small sniffle. The teacher demanded that they apologize to each other at once, starting with the one who had thrown the first punch. A long silence had fallen between them before a small voice to Ivan's left finally spoke up.

Sorry for hitting you, the boy mumbled, not meeting his eyes.

I am sorry also, Ivan had replied, too preoccupied with staring at a stray tuft of hair standing upright on the other's head to make proper eye contact, either.

The teacher had nodded, sharp. Good. Now, you two are to stay right here on this bench until the end of this visit. Understood?

Once she left, a couple minutes had passed without either of them bothering to say anything to one another. The boy curled his knees to his chest with a sharp, shaky breath, and Ivan only stared out at the trees, counting every branch that he thought would not break under the weight of a climbing child.

Ivan remembers it clearly. He'd been counting the fifty-sixth when the boy did something unexpected—he'd suddenly dropped down onto his feet and picked a small flower from the ground. White with a little yellow center.

There had been tiny tears in the corner of his eyes when he outstretched his arms toward Ivan, a small offering, cradling the flower delicately in his hands.

Here, he said, looking up at Ivan timidly. It's a sorry gift. When Ivan hadn't responded, he only pushed his cupped hands even closer with big, pleading eyes. Please take this one.

The boy confused him. To this day, he still does. In the eyes of someone like Till, there is so much meaning in small, seemingly inconsequential things; in an old blanket that is now many sizes too small that he refuses to let go of, despite the fact that it would serve him no real use; in well-intentioned smiles sent his way (of which Ivan always means to be kind, easy smiles) that he often bitterly claims are "too symmetrical" to be sincere; in a crushed flower crown that led him to dive immediately headfirst into a fistfight, as if its destruction hadn't been inevitable.

That day in the park was the day Ivan had first realized that it was his job to play along. That this was his chance to learn.

Of course, he hadn't been very good at it at first. As he'd stared down at the daisy in Till's hands, he had no idea what he was meant to do, how he could even begin to accept this kind of gift. But even Ivan could recognize that the boy was only growing more and more upset with each passing second, and so he'd quickly accepted it in the only way he knew how; he scooped the flower out of the other's hands, brought it carefully to his mouth, and swallowed the thing whole.

The same way he'd reacted to most things Ivan did from ages six to twelve, Till gasped, eyes blown wide with tears, before punching him in the face for the fourth or fifth time that morning. That was how things were back then, and while they are most certainly different now, it is true that some things never change. There are simply some parts of Ivan that Till won't ever understand. Ivan has known this for a very long time.

He stands there and stares at the bench for another twenty-seven seconds before he finally pulls his phone out of his pocket and calls the first number on his contact list. It is answered halfway through the very first ring.

Till is wearing Sua's coat. That's the first thing Ivan notices—Sua has always been one for fuzzy, bulky coats that are multiple sizes too big for her, meaning they fit Till near perfectly. (Oddly enough, it is not uncommon for them to swap wintery attire; perhaps their mutual hatred of cold weather is easy grounds of which to bond over. Ivan finds it both parts endearing and very puzzling, as the two never used to even talk to each other.)

The second thing he notices is that the sun shines brighter as Till emerges into his view. At the very same time, everything goes much, much colder.

It is not long before they are right in front of each other. Luckily, with Ivan sitting down and Till towering over him, it is incredibly easy to avoid eye contact. He waits for Till to say something first.

A moment passes. Nothing. Then, "Are you going to look at me?"

"No," Ivan says as he tilts his head to look at him.

Till does not laugh. His eyes are dull, yet filled with so much that Ivan immediately has to avert his gaze before it becomes unbearable. "Sit down," he mutters.

After another moment, Till obliges. He hesitantly sits on the opposite edge of the bench, as far away from Ivan as possible—he's nervous, that much is clear with the way he lowers himself so slowly, as if the bench will shatter if he is any less careful. (Considering how their last time meeting ended, it is likely not the bench that he is afraid of shattering, but Ivan himself. Ivan resists the urge to say something awfully snide in return.)

He cuts straight to the point. "I'll be leaving tomorrow."

"I know," Till says, still as a statue as he stares down at the ground. "Sua told me."

"Ah."

Silence.

A bunch of little pebbles are kicked across the concrete path by the soles of Till's sneakers. The last time they'd both sat here, neither of their feet had been able to reach the ground. Now, Ivan has to curl his legs a little bit underneath the bench in order to sit comfortably, and Till can anxiously bounce his leg up and down from where his toes are planted in the dirt. Funny how things work like that.

"Where are you going?"

"Back to Korea, upon my father's request," Ivan says. "I'll get the surgery there."

Till's grip tightens on the edge of the bench. Ivan can tell because the whole thing creaks as he does. Then he looks up at Ivan, hopelessly.

"I can't even call you, can I?" he chokes out, clearly trying and failing to keep his voice steady.

Ivan feels his hands begin to tremble where they're folded on his lap as he shakes his head. Till laughs, but it is not a laugh Ivan can recognize.

"So this is it, then," he mutters bitterly. He wipes his face with his coat sleeve and takes in a long, shaky breath. "I won't know you ever again."

"You'll always know me," Ivan says. "Here I am. This is who I will always be."

"No one stays the same forever."

"But I will." He smiles, fondly. "There is no changing after you."

Till's eyes go very, very wide. "Don't—don't say that," he stammers, clutching his own arms tightly.

"It's only the truth. I'm quite tired of lying."

A beat.

"Don't leave," Till whispers, so delicately that it's hardly audible against the soft gusts of wind that blow his hair in every which way. Ivan, ever the coward, can't bring himself to respond.

The morning sunlight disappears behind a cloud, and everything falls gray for thirty-seven long, quiet seconds. The three feet of empty space between the two of them has never stretched quite as far as it does now. Ivan digs his nails into his palms just as far.

When the sun reemerges and he can feel its warmth return and spread against the nape of his neck, Till bites the bullet, with a hesitance that is unfamiliar and terribly, achingly gentle. "Can I touch you?"

Ivan doesn't say anything for a moment. The question throws him, because Till does not ask for permission, not ever. Then he nods, and the other boy is suddenly tucking himself against his left side, leaning his head on his shoulder and looping their arms together. His hair smells the same as it always does. Ivan allows himself to rest his face against it.

"This is okay?" Till ascertains, timid. "I'm not… you're not gonna start choking again?"

Ivan breathes a laugh against the top of his head. "I'll try my very hardest."

"Hey. I'm being serious."

"You’re not going to hurt me, Till."

Till hesitates for a moment, then breathes out a soft, "Okay."

Another silence, but it's not quite as terrible. It is soothing, almost like a lullaby, as if here is where Ivan will fall into a deep slumber and never wake again. He would be perfectly content with such a fate. Everything will end here in this moment, anyway. After this, he won't ever wake again, not really.

Or perhaps everything up to this point has been a dream all along. That would be just as plausible.

"Y'know," Till suddenly starts, pushing in even closer, "that wasn't the only song I wrote about you. It wasn't even the first." When he feels Ivan stiffen, he cuts in again harshly before the other can protest. "No, don't—don't say anything, this is the last time I'll ever get to say this. Please let me say this."

Ivan swallows hard, but obliges. After an unsteady inhale, Till quietly continues.

"I couldn't ever get myself to show them to you. I was worried you'd say something. Like how you did before, about me writing a love song, or—or whatever," he says as he restlessly flicks at a stray piece of lint on Ivan's coat sleeve. Ivan stays incredibly still. "I dunno, I just… I didn't want you to think it was like that. Because I really didn't mean for it to be like that."

He sounds almost ashamed of himself, in the same way a small, contrite child might sound confessing their wrongdoings to a parent or a priest. Something sickening sinks lower and lower into Ivan's stomach. He wants to say something terribly cruel, so that Till would have no choice but to punch him, and then maybe he would stop talking like this—maybe he would yell, maybe he would wish they'd never even met, maybe he would push him and shove him and tell him to just fucking leave or he would never let him go and force him to stay or kiss him senseless until his lungs are filled up with weeds or, at the very least, say nothing at all.

"But I, um. I never stopped writing them because they come stupid easily, honestly, which is. Weird. And maybe I knew that, I don't really know what I thought, but I guess it didn't feel all that weird because… all I did was write about how I've always been feeling."

"You are digging yourself a hole that you cannot get out of, Till—"

"Because I've always," Till persists, grabbing firmly onto Ivan's hand, "always felt like this. Like I can't help but come right back to you. In everything—my lyrics, my drawings, I've always had so many pages of just you, did you know that?" Ivan's breath hitches, and Till's ranting only picks up in speed. "And I—I've always loved it when you're sick because you're too feverish to think twice about leaning on me, about letting me help, and I've always hated the way girls talk to you when they like you and how you let them and—and honestly, I've always wished I were the only one who knows anything about you at all."

There is a long, torturous pause.

Till untangles himself only to fully face Ivan, whose head is pounding too much to even think about looking away, or moving at all. His eyes shine with tears and something profound—determination, exasperation, resignation… Ivan cannot be sure. All he knows is that it is slowly picking him apart into bits.

"And you know what, Ivan?" Till leans in further, as if to share a secret, and their knees press against each other. "Maybe I am. Because I'm the one who knows that your real laugh's nothing like your fake stupid perfect one," he declares, gaze suddenly piercing and unrelenting, "and I know that you grind your teeth together when you're nervous because I'm the one always close enough to hear it, and I—I know that your eyes go a little wide when something tastes sweet and that you mumble in your sleep and that you button your shirts from bottom up for some fucking reason and that your voice goes deeper when you're tired and that you match my breathing when we're alone because I breathe all weirdly on purpose to see if you'll follow me and you always do and it makes me want to write a million songs about you," he says all in one breath, leaving him heaving for shaky intakes of air before he can continue, "it always has, even when I was twelve and terrible at writing lyrics and honestly thought you hated me and that maybe I hated you too because I thought that I should've, but really I just liked you. I think I must've liked you all along."

Ivan does not dare breathe. His ears ring as Till wipes the tears off of his cheeks.

"And I must've loved you for even longer," he says, a small, sad smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. His hand trembles in tandem with Ivan's where they're still laced together. "Not just in that way, but. You're my family. And no one in the whole world's ever cared for me the way you do. Nobody's ever made me feel like… like I'm secure, or like I even have a home or—or anything, not like you, not since I was fucking five and my mom would sing me to sleep every night and. You know, I think she would've thanked you. For looking out for me all this time."

Till takes a deep breath in as he lowers his face down until it is buried in Ivan's stiff shoulder. "I'm sorry I never said any of this. I should've. Maybe I was waiting for you to say something first," he says, muffled by the fabric of Ivan's sleeve. "I don't know. I just love you."

The quiet that follows is suffocating.

Eight, ten, twelve seconds.

Ivan considers himself an expert at counting. He's always been an expert. Ten bites of bread to be strong enough for three days. Six wooden sticks to maintain a small fire. Seven-hundred and thirty-eight steps from the river to the nearest shelter. Twenty-two school children running around a park in early May. Eight punches. Four and a half seconds for Till to go from sadness to anger every time in the following five years, without fail. Two hearts in Ivan's nightmares, one always in his mouth, and one that is still beating by the end. Eleven months of waiting for a similar end. Four-hundred and eighty-nine words all said in the last three minutes, each bringing him a little closer to drowning.

He counts instead of thinking. Things are easier that way. So now, when Ivan suddenly becomes far too aware of many things all at once, he counts them, one at a time. One, his body is abnormally warm. It itches. Two, Till's nose feels sharp where it digs into his shoulder. (He is stuck at two for a long moment—it's hard to think of much else.) Three, his coat sleeve is growing damp from tears. Four, his jaw aches.

Five, his jaw aches because he's grinding his teeth together.

I know that you grind your teeth together when you're nervous.

Six, the rise and fall of his chest perfectly matches the rise and fall of Till's.

Something inside of him stirs.

Seven, he can feel his own hair against his own temple; eight, he can feel every part of himself; nine, Till can, too, and he can see and hear everything that Ivan has done, and he remembers those things. He catalogs those things.

Ten, Till is lifting his head. His eyes and nose are puffy and pink, and some of his hair is stuck to his wet, shiny skin. He leans in close.

"I really want to kiss you," Till whispers, so faintly that Ivan would not hear if their faces weren't hardly three inches apart.

Ivan could tell him no. Ivan could tell him yes. But as warm breaths tickle the skin of his face and long fingers press into the crook of his neck and teal eyes sear straight into his, he cannot tell him anything, because there is a daisy in his throat.

He turns his head the other direction immediately, coughing as quiet and closed-mouth as he can manage because he cannot bear another violent hacking fit. Till's hand clutches tight at his shoulder, but Ivan pays it no mind, far more focused on pressing his fist hard against his mouth in desperate attempts to keep everything in as he gags.

By some miracle, he succeeds. The coughing slowly comes to a halt and Ivan finds he is regaining his ability to breathe. He clutches his neck with both hands, holding incredibly still for seven seconds before daring to slowly open his mouth. He cups his hand up to his chin, but before he gets the chance to spit it out, the hand against his shoulder has suddenly migrated to his cheek.

Ivan's head is being quickly pulled in the other direction, and before he can even react, Till is closing the distance between them.

It is more like falling than anything else. Till's mouth falls into his, for a microsecond. It is so fleeting that Ivan does not realize what has happened until Till is pulling away.

Pulling away with a stolen daisy between his lips.

Ivan's eyes go incredibly wide. The hand against his cheek moves down to the nape of his neck, trembling but gripping tight, as if bracing for something. Then Ivan watches in horror as Till slowly tilts his head up, allowing the flower to slip fully into his mouth.

"Till. Till. What are you…?"

Till only glares at him with teary, desperate eyes as he closes the daisy behind his lips and swallows it down.

Ivan's heart stops.

Till does not flinch from the taste. Aside from a single bob of his Adam's apple, he doesn't even move, as this is a challenge. As if this is a dare.

He looks achingly beautiful like this; determination has always painted Till in the most breathtaking colors. It's incredibly disarming being on the other end of it. Ivan blinks once, then twice, head reeling.

"I don't care how you feel about me," Till says at last, breathless and unsteady and fierce. He presses his thumbs deep into Ivan's skin, right below his ears. "I don't care if it's wrong, or—or fucked up." A pause, before his voice drops all the way down to a shaky whisper: "I don't want it to ever stop."

The hands slip from behind Ivan's neck, quickly replaced by arms wrapping all the way around, pulling him in. Till's face nestles into the crook of his neck.

"Don't stop," he begs into Ivan's bare skin, hoarse. "Please. Please, I want it, all of it. I need you."

Ivan can only stare ahead at the trees, dumbfounded. His stomach churns. He hears its sound echoing through the walls of his skull as he dares bring his hand up to rest against the back of Till's head, gripping loosely to his tufts of gray hair. Till presses his lips to Ivan's collarbone and heaves a sob.

Spit it out! Till had cried while punching him in the jaw all those years ago. Why'd you do that? What's wrong with you?!

"I don't care if it's wrong," Till says again, a whisper. Like seven-year-old Ivan on that fateful morning, his breath smells ever so faintly of daisies.

Ivan waits over the sink for thirteen hours.

Once upon a time, petals only came once a week. Then once a day. Then once every couple hours.

Ivan stares straight ahead at his reflection in the mirror. Aside from a faint strip of warm light shining across his left eye and cheek through the crack in the bathroom door, the room is completely dark, and his legs shake with exhaustion. He lets out a sharp, frustrated sigh and drops himself back down onto the floor for the fourth time, leaning back against the bathtub.

Nothing. Not even a faint taste. Not even a single cough.

He pinches the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes shut.

All he sees, of course, is Till. Till with shoulders trembling from heaving sobs, Till with a smile that knows it's a goodbye, Till with anger in his eyes and Ivan's face in his hands and a flower on his tongue.

I don't care, he hears ringing in his head, over and over and over. I just love you. I don't care.

The feeling that twists and turns around inside of him is not the one he has grown so familiar with. It is worse in many ways. One, because he feels his heartbeat in every plane of his body. Two, because it will not go away, not after bathing in ice cold water or scratching at his skin or any of the usual techniques. Three, because it almost feels good.

Ivan breathes in and out, hyperconscious of its rhythm, hyperconscious of the lack of another's to instinctively mimic. Apparently, he has a habit of doing so. Apparently, Till is an expert on such things, and even more of a fool than Ivan had previously believed. Apparently, Ivan's heart stutters at the thought.

It makes me want to write a million songs about you, Till had said.

Ivan presses his own fingers to his neck, right where Till's had been as he stared right through him and swallowed his feelings whole without so much as a grimace.

He waits for that sensation in his throat. Still, it does not come. This sensation is something else entirely.

When Mizi answers the door, her eyes immediately go wide.

"Hi," Ivan greets, before she can say anything. "Are you alone?"

"I don't understand," Mizi says once they are sitting down on her bed. She has a big, stuffed jellyfish sitting in her lap, staring at Ivan with beady eyes. Ivan stares right back. "Why are you still here?"

"Well, don't sound so excited," Ivan teases, looking back up at her. "But in all seriousness, I wasn't sure where else to go."

She furrows her eyebrows. "Was your flight canceled?"

"I canceled it."

"Ivan," she says, furiously leaning forward, "don't tell me—"

Ivan holds a hand up, stopping Mizi in her tracks. He smiles. "No need to fuss, I didn't go back on my word. The disease has simply," he pauses, searching for the right word, "vanished."

Mizi blinks. "Vanished," she echoes, as if her mouth has never closed around the syllables before. She blinks again. "So you're cured?"

"I believe so," Ivan says.

For a moment, Mizi doesn't say anything. She appears to be deep in thought, staring slightly downward at nothing in particular, expressionless. "So…" she looks up at him again, frowning suspiciously. "So then, why are you here?"

"My father is very upset with me for ruining his plans for no reason, so I don't really want to go back home," Ivan explains, shrugging. "I wouldn't know what to say to Sua. And I'd rather not face Till right now."

Mizi's frown deepens. "What exactly happened between you two?"

"A lot."

"What did he say?"

"A lot."

"But did he say anything that would've…?"

"Well, I'm still here, aren't I?" Ivan says. He breathes a laugh. "It's only that I, uh. Well. I don't know where things go from here."

A beat. Then all of a sudden, Mizi lets out a sharp sigh of relief and practically collapses forward onto him.

"Oh my god, so you're really okay," she muffledly rasps into his chest, slurring the words. "Thought you were pulling my leg or, or something, I don't know, oh, Ivan, you really scare me sometimes, y'know that?"

Ivan struggles to keep her held up in a comfortable position, gripping onto her limp arms tightly and awkwardly. "Yes, I've been told I have that effect on people," he mutters atop her head.

Mizi lifts herself back up and looks right at him. Her long hair sticks a little to the fabric of his shirt. "I was worried I was wrong about him for a second there. But you guys just had to talk it out a little, yeah?"

"Well, not exactly. Or, I'm not sure. Or." Ivan shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. "I don't know what to do with all this," he confesses, quietly. "So I'm just here to think, really."

Mizi seems to understand the sentiment. She almost always does. "Alright, then," she says as she picks up her stuffed jellyfish and puts it into his lap instead. "I'm sure you'll find your answer. Mr. Stings-A-Lot will help you think."

Ivan smiles, properly situating the thing so that it's not sitting lopsided. "What a kind gentleman."

He ends up laying there on Mizi's bed, staring up at her ceiling of glow-in-the-dark sea creature stickers for a long, long time. Mizi joins him, of course, and after a few minutes of quiet she starts telling him about her graduation plans for the four of them and about a little lost snail she'd found on the side of the street and about what Hyuna's been up to. Things that he could easily tune out, if he wanted to. He wonders if she does that on purpose—Mizi is much more deliberate with the things she does than anybody ever seems to realize. Ivan has always appreciated that about her.

When she inevitably starts talking about Sua is when Ivan's mind finally starts to wander.

Mizi and Sua have been dating for a year. Before that, they weren't exactly together, but they certainly had something going on that he and Till both often raised eyebrows at but never really talked about. And then something happened one autumn, and the two didn't talk for three whole months—Sua had been very visibly upset, walking around like she wasn't strong enough to hold her own weight and growing more and more snappy and burying herself in schoolwork. Mizi, on the other hand, had been behaving fairly normally, until a fateful Saturday morning when she'd gone out for coffee with Ivan and suddenly burst into tears.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," she choked out, wiping her cheeks with her wrist. "I, um…"

Ivan raised his eyebrows, leaning over to observe her coffee cup and feigning a very puzzled expression. "Is the drink that terrible?"

Mizi looked up at him and let out a wet, breathy laugh. "No, I… hah, you really crack me up, Ivan…" A sniffle. "Sorry, I'm fine…"

"You don't seem fine," Ivan said, taking a sip of his own frappuccino. "I assume this has to do with Sua?"

Mizi pressed her lips into a tight line and didn't say anything.

"Alright. If you'd rather I forget about this, then—"

"I kissed her," she whispered.

Ah, Ivan thought. He raised his eyebrows again. "And you haven't before?"

"Well, I— I have, but…" she buried her face in her hands, shoulders trembling in tandem with her breathing. "I really shouldn't have this time. And now everything's. Messed up."

Ivan leaned forward to rest his forearms on the table. "I'm no expert on these things, but have you considered apologizing? Or perhaps getting her a gift…?"

"It doesn't work like that," Mizi said into her palms. "She doesn't work like that."

"From what I've observed over the years, she very much does."

"You— you don't know what happened."

"That's true," Ivan conceded, leaning back in his chair. "But I must say, Mizi, I think you're both being silly. You want her back, don't you?"

Mizi lifted her head, staring down at her abandoned drink in the middle of the table. She blinked the tears out of her eyes. "Of course I do."

"Then, as they say," Ivan carefully pushed the cup toward her, "go and get her."

Soon after that, things started going back to normal. The two aren't perfect by any means, if the three breakups they've had since officially getting together are anything to go off of, but they are certainly happier than they'd been for the first half of high school. They've finally begun to figure out what exactly they mean to one another, Ivan supposes.

Never before has Ivan considered he may end up in an even remotely similar situation to Mizi and Sua's. On one hand, he's always figured that it'd only be a matter of time before he grows curious enough to go and find himself a significant other of his own, but he's never imagined any of them would mean all that much, let alone last all that long.

Above all, Ivan has never considered that he and Till could ever end up in this sort of context.

Mizi is in love with Sua. Sua is in love with Mizi.

Till is in love with Ivan.

Ivan, for a million reasons or perhaps none at all, cannot be sure what he feels. And yet, a disease does not simply cure itself.

There's an answer, here. A conclusion. Ivan is afraid to come to it.

Mizi suddenly sits up, startling him out of his thoughts. She must be done talking now. She taps his shoulder lightly. "Have you finished your thinking?"

Ivan sits up as well, raising his hand up to flatten his mussed hair. He gives a half-shrug. "I suppose I've done enough of it for today," he says. "Thank you for having me over."

"Of course." She tilts her head to the side, sympathetic. "Still haven't figured it out, though, huh?"

Ivan smiles and shakes his head. "I'm afraid not. Honestly, I still don't know where I should even begin."

"Well then, Ivan, what do you want?"

He pauses to think for a moment, although he does not need to. The answer is already on his tongue. "The same thing I've always wanted."

Mizi just looks at him for a few long seconds. Then she gives him a small, warm smile as she nudges him in the shoulder with her own. "Then go get him, why don'tcha?"

Ivan waits out by the gate, like he does every morning.

He rests his hand atop one of the fence posts, right on the spot where the white paint has almost completely faded—many years of Ivan's right palm pressed against this very spot has left its mark. (Strangely enough, that little patch of brown remains one of the few pieces of physical evidence of Ivan's presence in Till's life. He cannot help but take the utmost pride in it.)

Till's big red door does not open for twenty-one minutes, which is extremely late, even for him. Normally, Ivan would immediately dive straight into a discussion about the importance of punctuality that would last the duration of their walk to school—more for his own entertainment than any real concern, of course—but he figures that would be a little tone-deaf this time around. Especially when Till is stumbling out in some wrinkled band t-shirt and jeans instead of his uniform and proceeding to just stand there, incredibly still, staring down at his feet. As if he is afraid to look up.

What would he have seen if Ivan had really left?

Ivan could call out to him, but he, too, finds himself frozen. He's learned the hard way as of late that Till is not quite as predictable as Ivan's always considered him to be. He doesn't know what the other might do, what might happen if Ivan calls his name now. It forces him back to square one—quiet observation.

After a long moment, Till falls back into the door and slides down until he's in a haphazard sitting position, burying his face in his hands. He looks small like this, especially in the deep shadows of the morning. While in many ways Till is bigger than all else, it's not as though Ivan hasn't seen him in such a state—the most jarring difference is that, since the very beginning, Till has always remained within an arms reach. Perhaps Ivan has a way of gravitating indefinitely toward him, whether he is bigger than the whole sky or as small as a child tucked carefully into his chest. It is inevitable, being pulled into Till's orbit. Yet still, though he has stood in this very place at this very distance hundreds of times, Ivan has never felt further away.

Suddenly, there is a loud bang against the door and Till jolts forward. Urak. Till's head furiously snaps up as he slams his forearm back into it in retaliation. His voice comes out shaky and raspy: "Jesus, I'm fucking going, I'm—"

Then he meets Ivan's eyes.

Their breaths catch at the same time, Ivan thinks. Till's gaze burns right through him like a spear, eyes blown wide like a deer in headlights, and Ivan can only stare back like a fool who has no idea what to do with himself.

For what feels like an eternity, they are caught in a standstill. An impasse. A scene where all else abruptly falls away, leaving only two subjects in a sea of white.

The door bangs again, but Till pays it no mind, doesn't even flinch. Ivan bites down on his back teeth and, at last, raises his arm to offer a small wave and an even smaller smile.

The spell is shattered, and in an instant, Till is sprinting across his front yard and practically leaping onto him.

Ivan nearly loses his footing, but manages to keep them both upright and carefully return the embrace, willing his heart rate to slow down as Till clings to him bruisingly tight.

"I'm sorry," Ivan says, and it feels strange coming from his own mouth. "I'm sorry, Till."

Till mutters right in his ear where the side of his face is tucked, completely out of breath, "Did it work, did…? Are you…?"

"Yes," Ivan confirms as he attempts to drop his backpack off of his shoulders, but it proves to be difficult with the death grip Till has around his torso. Ivan lightly taps the back of his shoulder. "Till, your father might see—"

Suddenly, two palms are shoving against his chest and Ivan is once again stumbling backward, this time away from Till, who is now glaring. He shoves him again, harder this time, and Ivan stifles a yelp as he nearly loses his balance.

"You're so," Till starts, shoving him one more time for good measure, "fucking stupid."

Ivan steadies himself and pretends to brush dirt off of the front of his uniform, right where Till had touched him. "I did apologize."

Till glares harder. From up close, Ivan can see just how sunken his eyes are—not that his undereyes aren't essentially permanently purple, as he barely gets any more sleep than Ivan does, but it's glaringly clear that they're much darker than usual. Did he sleep at all last night?

"I'm mad at you," Till snaps, scowling, though it lacks its usual edge. Perhaps because his voice trembles slightly and his shoulders slump low.

Ivan steps back onto the sidewalk from where he was pushed onto the road and nods, once. "I understand."

"Do you?" He's shivering a little, from the cold. It's endearing. "Do you understand? Because I—I thought you were. I. I thought I was going to have to…"

The rest is left unsaid. Till presses his lips into a tight line. Before he can think twice about it, Ivan is reaching out to lightly brush a knuckle against his cheek.

"I know," he mutters, offering a small smile. Till leans into his touch, ever so slightly, and a strange feeling begins to burn behind Ivan's eyes. "I did too."

Till lets out a sharp puff of air from his nose as he reaches up to gently grab Ivan's wrist, pressing his hand fully against his face, eyes glistening. Only this time, it's not so miserable. It is something else.

"Will you forgive me?" Ivan asks, rasps, because his throat has gone incredibly dry.

"No," Till softly replies, in a way that means, yes.

They only look at each other for a long moment. Ivan isn't sure how many seconds, because he is too preoccupied with counting each of Till's eyelashes. Some are stuck to each other, some dotted with tiny tears, as they always seem to be as of late. (He tries very, very hard not to look directly into Till's eyes.) Ivan loses track of counting, however, when Till suddenly starts blinking rapidly and shoves Ivan's hand away, as if realizing himself.

"Okay, don't do anything weird in front of my dad," he mumbles, cheeks a little pink, although a small grin tugs at the corners of his mouth.

Ivan quirks a brow. "I did try to warn you," he says, tucking his buzzing hand into his jacket pocket. Then he adds, pointedly, "And you started it."

Till rolls his eyes, still clearly fighting back a big dumb smile. The sight feels almost nostalgic—it's been quite some time, hasn't it? "You're such a child," he says, without any bite at all, in a tone Ivan has never heard from him before. It's almost akin to the way he sounds when he speaks of the ocean, or how he used to speak of Mizi, once upon a time. A soft endearment. The kind of thing that would show up in Ivan’s nightmares. The ones where Till cradles him like he's something precious.

"Mm," Ivan replies, without anything else to say. He finds it inexplicably difficult to conjure up any words at all, like they are stuck in his chest.

That strange, burning feeling only intensifies. A beat passes.

Till's eyebrows suddenly furrow.

"Woah," he says as he blinks once, bewildered. Concerned. Then he quickly steps in close again, raising his hands up to Ivan's face, though hesitating before they can make contact. "Hey, wait…"

Ivan feels something in his throat. For one frightening moment, he believes it's another flower. But as the edges of his vision start to blur and a weight accumulates along his eyelashes, he abruptly realizes that it is not a daisy. It's a lump.

He cannot stop the tears that spill from his widening eyes. Till inhales sharply through his nose and immediately presses his thumbs against Ivan's cheeks. He gently wipes the wetness away, his voice just as gentle as he soothes, "Ivan, hey, what…?"

"I'm," Ivan tries, before quickly shutting his mouth. He's thrown off by the way his voice catches at the end, a sound he's wholly unused to hearing from his own lips. Till appears to be just as addled, eyes blown as wide as Ivan's while looking almost afraid, like he doesn't know what to do with himself. Like he wasn't aware this was a possibility.

He grips Ivan's face tighter, looking rapidly between each of his eyes. "Did I say something? I'm sorry, Ivan, don't… I don't…"

The way in which Till gazes at him now makes Ivan's ribs rattle. He turns his head in the other direction, blinking, breathing as quietly through his nose as he can muster. But before he can gather his bearings enough to think of something to say, Ivan is being carefully pulled into another embrace.

Here, Till holds him. Ivan stiffens. Then, after a moment, he heaves a big, unsteady breath and presses his face into Till's shoulder.

This scene has played out countless times between the two of them, but never this way. Ivan owns very few shirts that haven't ever been soaked with Till's tears. Till, on the other hand, whether it be his clothes or skin or memories, has remained completely untouched by Ivan's. Ivan had intended to keep it that way, but then again, Till has always had a knack for ruining his plans.

Till has always had a knack for loving him in ways he isn't prepared for.

"I don't want it to stop either," Ivan whispers, shakily, so quiet that Till might not hear it. A part of Ivan hopes he doesn't.

Till's hands tremble where they lightly rest against his upper back. A soft sigh is exhaled along the side of Ivan's neck before Till presses his cheek into it. "I won't," he promises, holding Ivan tighter.

Ivan swallows, hard. The lump only grows. "You always make the most foolish decisions."

Till breathes a laugh. He raises a hand and tangles his fingers delicately into Ivan's hair. "Then I guess you'll just have to live with it, asshole."

June comes quickly.

The ceremony will happen in thirty-four minutes from now, and Ivan and Till have just gotten off the phone with a very squeal-y Mizi, who demanded they all show up early so that they can have a proper photoshoot. They are, of course, already running late.

The sun shines through the window of his bedroom, painting the side of Till's face in a golden light. His hair looks less gray and more of a light blue like this, and he aggressively pats down at it to get it to stay flat. An impossible feat. Still, he tries anyway, tongue jutting out slightly out as it always does when he's focused.

Something writhes in Ivan's chest. It's been twisting and turning all week, like a stifled urge. He hadn't been able to put his finger on it until now. "I love you," he says, all of a sudden.

Till pauses halfway through situating his graduation cap on his head, letting it fall haphazard on mussed hair. Ivan sees his eyes widen in the mirror.

It hangs there in the air for a moment. Ivan lets it be, because he finds that he means it.

Till turns around and walks over to the bed, where Ivan sits with his hands folded in his lap. He leans down to press a warm, featherlight kiss to his lips.

"I know," Till says. He smiles.