Chapter Text
Ivan is still staring at the news app on his phone as if the force of his gaze will somehow erase the photo of Luka, sitting at a local café with an iced coffee and what looks like a magazine, his throat covered in unmistakable hickies, when Sua calls.
He fumbles with his phone, almost dropping it onto the floor of his kitchen in surprise.
“Don’t say I told you so,” Ivan says as soon as he answers, before Sua can speak. The first time Luka had wandered into the dressing room on set for his makeup artist to tend him, bruises on full display, Sua had whipped her head around and stared at him like he was insane. She had told him later, privately, that this would happen.
And yet. He couldn’t stop himself from doing it again.
“I’m not that much of a bitch,” Sua says. “Listen, Ivan. I’m being serious this time. Now that the public is speculating about this, you need to really think about what you’re doing.”
“Sua,” he starts, but she interrupts him.
“No, listen. This has reached a point where if you continue the same as you have been, it won’t be fair to either of you. Frankly, it would be downright cruel to Luka, so you need to seriously think about whether you want to commit to a relationship or stop while you’re ahead, and have that conversation with him as soon as possible.”
Ivan falls silent. So does Sua, waiting for him to organize his thoughts. For once, he doesn’t bother protesting that there’s nothing to think about, that there is no unfairness or cruelty in what he and Luka are doing, because…
That look on Luka’s face as he lay in Ivan’s bed a month ago, so openly desperate and wanting. The way he had let Ivan suck more bruises into his thighs not even a week later, his fingers gently threaded through Ivan’s hair.
And then Ivan himself, wanting and wanting and wanting. He really is a cruel man.
“I don’t want to stop,” Ivan admits, voice dipping into a pained whisper, “But I don’t know how to be in love with anyone except Till.”
“Idiot,” Sua sighs, staticky through the phone. There’s a fondness to her voice despite the insult. “Of course you do. Haven’t you noticed? Lately…you’ve barely looked at Till.”
That gives Ivan pause. He wants to say it isn’t true, but as he thinks about it, the time he would have spent watching Till has been spent watching Luka; when he’s free, he isn’t nagging Till, he’s bringing Luka home with him, and he can’t even say they only have sex because they spent the entire night last week binge watching Psychopath Diary instead, and before that was Oh My Ghost. Two weeks ago Luka had been laid up on Ivan’s couch with a headache and Ivan had quietly read aloud from one of his poetry collections, and…
The look on Luka’s face that he knows so well, the one Ivan hasn’t wanted to think about despite the effort he’s been putting in to keep Luka’s eyes on him.
“Oh my god,” he says.
“There it is.” Sua is nice enough not to laugh at him. Ivan sort of wishes she would. “Check your email, the director said we’re having a PR meeting before any shooting starts. If you can’t pick us up today—”
“No, no, I’ll still drive you,” Ivan sighs, sliding a hand through his hair. “I’ll pick you up in an hour like we planned.”
“If you’re sure. Look, Ivan…” Sua hesitates for a moment before continuing, “I know I gave you a lot of shit, but…I’m sorry this happened. You’ve been happier lately, so…I don’t know. Just think about it.”
“I will, I promise. I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Alright. See you soon.”
Ivan stares at the dropped call screen on his phone after Sua has hung up until it goes dim, fading out to his lockscreen from inactivity. What a fucking idiot he’s been.
He doesn’t get to self-flagellate for long. His phone vibrates in his hand, lighting up his screen again, a text notification appearing on top.
Luka: Don’t worry about the photo. I have n…
With great trepidation, Ivan unlocks his phone again and opens the text client.
Luka: Don’t worry about the photo. I have no intention of telling anyone it was you. Sorry about all this.
What are you sorry for , Ivan wants to ask him. It was Ivan who sucked those bruises into Luka’s skin, after all. Back when Sua had warned him to be careful, that if he kept doing that then someone would inevitably take photos for the tabloids…
Some small part of him had wanted that, he realizes. For people outside of Alien Stage’s small staff and their friends to know Luka was seeing someone. That the distant and untouchable Luka was not so distant or untouchable after all, that someone is privileged enough to touch him, and that someone is Ivan.
The Message read ✔ 7:04am stares mockingly up at him from beneath Luka’s text. Ivan doesn’t know what to say; anything he could say feels as if it should be said in person, not over text.
His rice cooker beeps at him from across the kitchen.
Well. Heavy decisions should not be made on an empty stomach. Even if Ivan’s appetite has long left him, he sighs and stands.
What a morning.
The drive to work is painfully awkward because the radio gets two words out about Luka before Mizi frantically turns it off; conversation is somewhat stilted and Till seems befuddled by how awkward the atmosphere is.
And of course the studio where they record the majority of Alien Stage is a madhouse when they arrive. Luka’s agent is there, a harried looking individual only a few years older than Ivan, speaking in low tones with the director-slash-producer and Luka’s usual makeup artist.
Ji-ho, the makeup artist, is wringing her hands nervously and looks as if she hasn’t slept. The director looks as if she wishes the carryout coffee in her hand was something much stronger. Huddled in one corner of the room, Isaac and Dewey turn to stare at Ivan with matching expressions of pity.
“This seems a bit excessive,” Till mutters, commenting on the atmosphere. “Scandals like this come and go. With Luka’s pristine reputation, people will gloss over it in a week.”
“No, that’s exactly it,” Mizi refutes, glancing towards Ivan but not quite meeting his eyes. “He’s been in the industry for eleven years and he’s never shown any indication of, um, a partner, and he’s avoided talking about his type in interviews, so…”
“So the illusion of his availability has been cemented into his brand,” Ivan concludes for her when her voice trails off, staring at the water cooler somewhat vacantly. In his periphery he sees Till’s expression shift to realization, but then Ivan hears the director mention Hyuna by name and dread chills its way down his spine.
“I need to do a thing,” Ivan says abruptly, turning on his heel to leave the room without acknowledging the confusion he causes. He’s not hiding; he’s going to wait for Luka at the back entrance, where he will definitely enter from, and he’s totally not scared of Hyuna.
Her relationship with Luka still confuses Ivan a bit, but regardless, she is rather defensive of him and is undoubtedly aware, just as Sua is, that Ivan is responsible for this.
He checks his phone about a dozen times, or so it feels, in the longest ten minutes of his life as he loiters in the dim hall where the back entrance is.
When the door is finally pushed open, Luka’s figure blurred by the glaze over the window, the first thing out of Ivan’s mouth is an entirely unplanned, “What are you wearing?”
Luka looks down at himself in confusion as the door closes with a heavy thud. The hoodie he’s wearing is black, short sleeved, and has purple accents—and most noticeably, Kuromi is screen-printed over his heart, the hood itself shaped like her ears.
“A hoodie?” Luka half-asks, half-says, squinting at Ivan, who takes a moment to grapple with the fact a thirty year old man can be cute.
“Right,” Ivan says as Luka pushes back the hood. His pale hair is frizzing slightly from the humid heat and Ivan wants to put his hands through it.
Then he remembers the photo.
“It’s a madhouse in here,” he tells Luka. “Your agent was talking to the director and Hyuna’s probably on a warpath—”
“Are you hiding from her?”
“I’m not hiding,” Ivan denies. Luka looks amused. “And, listen, I should have been more careful. I’m sorry about this mess.”
“I’m the one who went out despite being too lazy to put on concealer,” Luka says, amusement fading. “And I never told you not to leave marks. In fact, I recall encouraging you quite vocally—”
“Still,” Ivan interrupts, face hot as he remembers that, yes, Luka had done so. He’d noticed Ivan’s dissatisfied glances after the old marks had faded and had told him it was fine.
But Ivan should have listened to Sua. He should have contented himself with the hidden bruises sucked into Luka’s thighs, the shape of his fingers on his hips.
“Luka, turn your fucking phone on!” Hyuna yells from somewhere down the other hallway before Ivan can keep talking. Luka clicks his tongue and grimaces.
“We should go,” Luka says. He sounds reluctant, but he still turns from Ivan to head down the hall.
His fingers brush against the back of Ivan’s hand, a deliberate gesture as he walks closer than necessary to get past him. The chill of his touch lingers and Ivan wants to grab onto his hand and keep him here, just for a bit longer; he wants to keep Luka to himself for just a while longer.
Instead he follows a half-step behind, knowing there is no more time. Ivan has to make a decision. He knows what he’s going to choose; he’s known since he hung up the phone with Sua, and part of him must have known long before that.
Maybe it had been almost a month ago, when he desperately sucked more bruises into Luka’s thighs during their working hours; maybe even long before that, when Luka had first slept in his bed and Ivan had felt something like comfort in the cold of Luka’s toes against his shin and the softness of his hair under Ivan's cheek.
But the problem is that Luka knows Ivan is in love with Till. Everyone and their grandmother knows he’s in love with Till except, somehow, Till himself. So how—
“There you are,” Hyuna’s furious voice greets them both as they enter the break room; she tries to stand up and Mizi frantically pushes her back down, because Hyun-woo is kneeling to help replace her day-to-day prosthetic for the one used on set.
She gives Ivan a particularly nasty expression. He very pointedly pretends not to notice.
“Here I am,” Luka replies, perfectly calm.
“I warned you this would happen,” Hyuna says. “So why am I angrier than you are? Luka, this is your career—”
“You’re mad because you told him so, noona,” Hyun-woo interjects over the clicking sound of the prosthetic sliding into place. “But Luka has never cared about what the media says about him.”
The side door that leads to a meeting room opens. The director comes out with Luka’s agent and Sua hurries over with two fresh coffees.
“That might be true,” the director says as she accepts hers with a grateful nod. “But we still need to talk about this and do damage control if necessary. Luka, if your partner talks to the press—”
“They won’t,” Luka interrupts with a tone of finality. The director furrows her brow.
“You can’t be certain of that,” Luka’s agent, Ha-neul, says with worry. Ivan wants to laugh. He also wants to be anywhere but where he is, a half-step behind Luka; he’s the one responsible for the situation, but Luka wants him to stay out of it, so should he even speak?
Maybe Luka wants it to end. Maybe that’s why.
“I’m very certain,” Luka is saying. “It doesn’t matter who they are. Nobody is going to bother them, not even any of you, and they aren’t going to talk to any press.”
“Luka,” the director starts, but this time it’s Hyuna who interrupts.
“It’s Ivan. He’s fucking Ivan. ”
Almost everyone whips their head to stare at Hyuna, then at Ivan, with shock. Ivan doesn’t know what to make of the look on Till’s face, standing in the corner with Isaac and Dewey.
The director looks at him thoughtfully, not surprised like Ha-neul. Hyuna looks faintly guilty and Ivan has never seen Luka look so angry.
“Hyuna,” he seethes. “You—”
“No, you listen,” Hyuna sounds reminiscent of the way Sua had earlier as she stands, wobbling a little because the prosthetic she wears for her character values form over function. “You’re going to his place all the damn time, you think the press won’t start speculating about it soon now that they’re talking about you? Director-nim and Ivan’s agent should be aware. Just because you don’t care about what people say about you doesn’t mean you can—”
Ivan clears his throat. Hyuna glances at him, guilt tugging her mouth downward. She’d clearly forgotten he was right there.
“I don’t really care either,” he says. He means it. He’s never cared much about what the press says about him. “But uh, Luka and I never talked about it, so…”
“No shit,” someone mutters. He thinks it could have been Sua.
Luka is looking at him, expression indescribable.
“I admit I’m not that surprised,” the director says after a pause. “But if the two of you are aiming for discretion, please be more cautious in the future. This can be smoothed over as it is, but a warning would have been appreciated.”
“I didn’t think it would matter,” Luka says, looking back at her. Ivan already misses the weight of his stare. “I’m retiring soon anyway, so gossip about me is—”
“You’re what!?” Mizi almost shrieks, clapping her hands over her mouth in surprise after. Beside her, Hyuna winces at the volume, and Ivan feels just as shocked.
“You’re what?” He echoes. Luka doesn’t look at him. He appears and sounds as calm as he had been when he entered the room; as if he’s talking about the weather, not retiring when he’s only thirty.
“Retiring,” Luka says again. Hyuna, Ivan realizes, doesn’t look surprised. Neither do Hyun-woo, Isaac or Dewey. “Director-nim, we had this conversation when I signed the contract for this production, so I don’t know why you thought to be concerned about my future.”
“Alien Stage isn’t set to end for another year,” Ha-neul says, “A lot can change in that time.”
“Yes. I had some things I hoped to discuss with you,” the director sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We can still talk about that, but not now. Let’s focus on what we need to do at the moment. We’ll cut today in half, so we’re only going to shoot the hallway scenes with Mizi-ssi and Hyuna-ssi, then pick up with the rest tomorrow. Okay?”
Nobody is going to say no to cutting their workload in half for the day.
“Great. Luka, you don’t need to be here, but I do want to talk to you later so I’d appreciate it if you stuck around,” the director adds as she heads towards the hallway.
“I was planning to,” Luka assures her.
“I’d like a word before I start making calls,” Ha-neul says. They sound the way Ivan feels: completely wrung out and in need of a four day nap.
Luka glances at Ivan once before he follows them toward the meeting room, talking in hushed voices. Ivan feels it lingering. Should he not have said anything, before? Should he say more? He needs to talk to Luka alone, but he doesn’t—
“Okay,” Till’s voice breaks through the quiet as the meeting room door shuts behind Luka and Ha-neul, “What the fuck just happened?”
Ivan turns to him. Till looks back, confused anger sharp on his face.
“You…? And Luka?” Till presses. A strange defensiveness bristles through Ivan at the way Till say’s Luka’s name, as if he disapproves. As if he has the right to disapprove of anything Ivan does after all this time, especially in this regard.
Ivan has never really let himself be angry at Till. Right now, he’s close to it.
“What about it,” he says, tone carefully neutral. Isaac and Dewey inch away from Till. Mizi leans against Hyuna, Sua drifting close to them, eyes flicking between Ivan and Till.
“I don’t get it. You’ve never even talked about dating before, let alone…a guy like…” Till struggles, shaking his head. “How long has this even been happening?”
Ivan remembers. Recording Round 3 had taken a toll on him; the director had asked Ivan if he could write the lyrics to Black Sorrow, since he had such a read on his character. They were all given this opportunity, and Ivan’s feelings had bled into the music far too much.
Drinking at Hyuna’s party hadn’t helped. Taking Luka to his bed hadn’t either, but he’d still done it again and again, and at some point it stopped being about distracting himself.
“Eight months,” is what Ivan tells Till. Eight months, one week, three days since the night Ivan first got to witness Luka in the throes of pleasure, since the first time he woke up with Luka’s face pressed into the dip of his throat, his icy fingers splayed over Ivan’s waist.
“Eight months!?” Till’s voice pitches higher, indignant and angry for reasons Ivan can’t understand.
“Okay,” Mizi speaks up, raising her voice slightly, and instantly Till’s mouth clicks shut as he turns to her. As expected, his anger melts away, his whole face softening with affection. A sunflower turning towards the sun. “Before this gets, um, heated – Till, Sua needs to do something for director-nim, so could you come help me with changing into my boots?”
“Of course,” Till doesn’t hesitate to say. For once, Ivan doesn’t have to fight with petty jealousy at the way Till acquiesces to Mizi, even when it means spending ten minutes on the floor helping her lace her boots.
Right now Ivan can only be grateful for it. He mouths a thank you to Mizi when she and Till are leaving and she gives him a sympathetic smile as she ushers Till out before her.
Hyuna heaves out a sigh when they’re gone, slumping against Sua casually; the younger girl staggers under her weight but seems to place a stabilizing hand against Hyuna’s lower back.
“What a goddamn mess,” Hyuna mutters.
“I feel like I should be saying that,” Ivan says. She gives him a chilling look.
“This is your fault.”
“I’m aware,” Ivan agrees, and that seems to surprise her. Because he needs to know, he adds, “Is Luka really planning to retire?”
Hyuna hesitates. She glances towards her brother, who purses his lips and glances away.
“Ask him yourself,” she says. “Sua, can you help me find my stylist?”
“Sure,” Sua agrees, because of course Mizi had lied about her needing to do something for the director.
Isaac and Dewey crowd in on either side of Hyun-woo.
“We’re going to go, too,” Dewey says. “Not because we have any reason to. Just, y’know. Good luck, man.”
“Thanks,” Ivan says weakly, watching them all leave. He collapses onto the couch when they’ve all gone, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling as he tries and mostly fails to organize his thoughts.
He wishes Sua would come back, but at the same time, he’s grateful that he has a few minutes alone. He needs to brace himself for the ordeal of not only having a Serious Conversation with Luka—something they’ve both actively avoided—but also the fact Luka might not even believe what he has to say.
When the meeting room door opens, Ha-neul exits first, phone already held to their ear. They don’t spare Ivan a glance, distracted by the call, but Luka is only looking at Ivan when he re-enters the room.
Luka is usually looking at Ivan these days, and Ivan…
Ivan meets his gaze head on.
“Everyone else left,” Luka comments, his quiet voice carrying across the room.
“To give us privacy, I guess,” Ivan affirms. He stands, careful not to hesitate, his legs oddly stiff. “Though I’d rather not talk in here.”
“Me either. Come on, then,” Luka waves a hand towards the door leading to the hallway. Ivan wants to take it in his own, but he refrains and simply follows Luka, once more a half-step behind.
They end up in the same changing room they’ve fumbled around in several times, and this time Ivan locks it for a new reason.
“I’m sorry about Hyuna,” Luka says as soon as the lock clicks. Ivan turns, bewildered, and Luka is frowning at the floor where he stands. “She shouldn’t have said what she did.”
“I was about to say it myself anyway,” Ivan tells him. Luka blinks up at him, thrown off.
“Why would…” he pauses, narrowing his eyes at Ivan. “Because of Till?”
What?
“Did you think you could make him jealous?” Luka asks, taking on a cold edge. “Because I was fine with what we’ve been doing, but that—”
“It didn’t even cross my mind,” Ivan hurries to interrupt. It hadn’t. “There wouldn’t have been a point. He…”
Ivan swallows back the words he doesn’t want me regardless. No matter how true the words are, it’s not an easy thing to say aloud.
“Then why would you?” Luka still sounds somewhat terse. “I said I would handle it.”
“Maybe I,” Ivan starts, then stops. There is no maybe about it. “Part of me wanted everyone to know. Not just…that you’ve been seeing someone. That it’s me.”
Saying it out loud, Ivan realizes just how true it is. Luka was not touched by a nameless, faceless stranger in a crowd; it was Ivan. He wants to look people in the eye and tell them Luka is his.
Ivan gave himself to Till seventeen years ago and has waited seventeen years for Till to give even a fraction of himself to Ivan in turn. Now, Ivan wants to give himself to a man who wants him.
“You can’t say that to me,” Luka says tightly, his face taking on that distant expression he wears in interviews. His carefully crafted mask. “Not when we both know you’re in love with Till.”
Neither of them have acknowledged this directly before. Only Sua has ever dared to say it to Ivan’s face; everybody knows, but nobody ever verbalizes it.
Ivan gives a rueful smile.
“Yeah,” he admits. “I am. I won’t pretend otherwise. Maybe some part of me will always feel that way. But, Luka…”
He takes a step closer. Luka doesn’t move. Ivan’s heart threatens to beat out of his chest, his throat tight.
“I can’t say it’s love right now, but it feels like it could be,” Ivan feels almost breathless. When did the room get so warm? “And I want to try that, with you. I want to keep this feeling. I want it to grow. I want you –”
“Stop, stop. Wait.”
Ivan immediately stills at Luka’s words. Luka’s gaze is flickering from Ivan, to the wall, the floor, Ivan again, and he looks paler than usual.
Did I misread? Ivan wonders fearfully as Luka licks at his lower lip. Ivan tries not to focus on the flash of his tongue.
“Before you say anything like that,” Luka says, voice shaking in a way that Ivan’s never heard from him before, “I need you to – do you know why I said I planned to retire?”
“No, but,” Ivan hesitates, looking over Luka with worry. “You aren’t…sick, right?”
“No sicker than I’ve always been,” Luka sighs, which doesn’t ease the fearful concern that starts to twist in Ivan’s chest.
Luka levels his gaze on Ivan fully. After a moment, he says—calmly, factually, “I’m going blind.”
He says it as if it’s nothing. Like, I have a cold, though Ivan knows even a cold can put Luka on bedrest because of his heart and immune system.
“You’re what,” Ivan says numbly.
Luka looks entirely unbothered for someone who just announced that he’s going blind, and it isn’t long before Ivan finds out why.
“I’ve been going blind my whole life,” he tells Ivan. “People with my condition usually lose most, if not all, of their vision by their twenties. I’ve been lucky, but I started learning braille in middle school. KSL too, since I started to lose my hearing in one ear. I’m lucky it wasn’t both.”
Looking at Luka’s calm face, Ivan realizes that it wasn’t his imagination: his pupils have been growing paler over the months, a cloudiness bleeding into his eyes.
“So,” Luka takes a breath, watching Ivan closely, “You say you…you might be able to love me. That you want me. Now think about what I just told you. Can you say you’ll want me in two, three years? When I won’t be able to see? Disregarding how difficult I am already, can you say you’ll want me then?”
“You aren’t difficult,” Ivan says instantly, though it’s a lie and they both know it. Ivan is just as bad as Luka, is the thing, so Luka only gives him a long-suffering stare.
His immediate answer is yes, but Ivan still takes a moment because Luka won’t believe him otherwise.
Luka’s sickliness had been something Ivan took into consideration when he decided to choose him. He’d seen Luka with the flu several months back; it hit him harder than anyone Ivan has ever seen. At first he’d thought Hyuna was exaggerating when she told him Luka needed someone nearby, so could he get his ass over there while she’s at work?
But then he’d seen Luka in bed, mumbling incoherently, unable to stand without help. Ivan changed Luka’s bedding when he threw up all over himself and then on Ivan, helped him take the most unsexy shower of their lives, and made sure his hair was dry and he’d taken his medication, and he’d still thought…
“Fuck my life,” Ivan says aloud without meaning to. Luka frowns at him and Ivan quickly backtracks. “Not – I just, I should have realized I was past the point of having any normal feelings about you when you threw up on me and I still thought you were pretty.”
Luka blinks rapidly, closes his eyes, and tips his head back, lifting a hand to cover his face.
“Please shut up. I’ve spent the past five months convincing myself that I was hallucinating you.”
Despite everything, a smile tugs at Ivan’s mouth. He reaches out for Luka’s cold hand the way he’d wanted to earlier and Luka peeks at him through his fingers.
“I don’t know what will happen,” Ivan says honestly. “But I still want to try. Even knowing you’re going blind…that doesn’t change what I want.”
“And what you want,” Luka starts, lowering the hand from his face to glance down at their joined ones, “Is…me. This. Not the way we’ve been going until now, but…”
“I want you,” Ivan says again. This time Luka doesn’t stop him from shifting closer still, leaning downward, voice pitching lower as if in secret as he confesses, “I don’t want to wait another seventeen years for someone who might not even look back at me when I can give myself to you.”
Ivan is close enough to hear the hitch in Luka’s breath and see the blood rise to suffuse his face with pink.
“You can’t say that sort of thing to me,” Luka says. It’s not the first time he’s said something like that and not just today; Ivan leans back, frowning.
“Why not?”
“Because I want this more than you do. If you change your mind—”
“I won’t,” Ivan interrupts. Luka’s mouth thins, stubborn.
“You could. What if Till changes his mind?”
Ivan gives a short, painful laugh.
“Ha! That won’t ever happen. Luka, I waited almost twenty years. Till…he won’t ever see me the way I’ve wanted him to. But you do.”
Luka is quiet. Ivan squeezes his fingers, warmed now by Ivan’s own body heat.
“You see me,” his voice dips into a whisper and Luka’s pale pupils seem to shake as he brings his eyes back to Ivan’s.
“I see you,” Luka murmurs back, leaning closer. His voice trembles as he lifts his free hand to Ivan’s jaw and Ivan shivers and leans into the cool touch. “Till is blinder than I’ll ever be. What kind of fool would take their eyes off you? And now…”
Luka smiles. It’s one of the most honest ones that Ivan has ever seen from him, a beautifully tender thing that he wants to keep close to his chest.
“Now I’m the one who gets to keep you,” Luka sounds almost like he had when he was delirious with fever all those months ago. He pulls Ivan down and Ivan goes willingly, sinking into Luka’s mouth and touch.
Luka’s hand slides to his nape. It feels heavy with the weight of his want and it makes something swoop in Ivan’s gut, a dizzy giddiness overtaking him, because…
I get to be his, Ivan thinks with satisfied pleasure, and he gets to be mine.
