Chapter 1: Creation of a Ghost
Notes:
had this idea bc of this song Ghost Girl by yeonjun
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The first casualty of Ivan’s hyperfocus was always the kitchen.
Till stood in the doorway, arms crossed over his faded MCRN Donnager t-shirt, and took in the carnage. Every square inch of counter space was occupied by bowls, spoons, and an alarming array of half-empty ingredient bags. In the center of the storm stood Ivan, his dark hair slightly damp from a post-workout shower, his void-black eyes with their faint red rings narrowed in intense concentration at the sizzling pan before him.
“Ivan.”
No response. Ivan’s entire being was channeled into the delicate art of scrambling tofu.
“Ivan.” Till tried again, his voice a flat, grumbling monotone. “Did you have to declare war on every dish we own to make… what is that? A puke slushy?”
Ivan didn’t look up. “It’s a textured protein scramble with turmeric, black salt, and nutritional yeast for a savory, egg-like flavor profile.”
Till blinked. “So, puke slushy.”
Ivan's face falls tto a warm, easy smile. “It’s better than it looks, I promise. You’re welcome to some. I made plenty.”
“No thanks.”
“Come on. Just a bite.”
“I’d sooner die.”
“You skipped breakfast. Again. I could hear your stomach growling over my pre-workout mix.” Ivan gestured with the spatula to the mountain of tofu in the pan. “Try one.”
Till shuffled into the kitchen, navigating the mess like a minefield to get to the coffee machine. “My body runs on caffeine and resentment. It’s a finely tuned system. Your beige mush would disrupt the delicate balance.”
“Suit yourself. But the offer stands. It’s actually good for post-studying, too. Brain food.” The dark-haired man effortlessly slid a portion onto a clean plate and set it on the small, clear corner of the counter—a silent, persistent offering.
He’d been roommates with Ivan for two years, long enough to know the drill.
Public Ivan was the campus jock god, all polished smiles and effortless charm, a magnet for fans and admirers. To top it all of, his family's famously rich. A rich business major—now that has his admirers practically frothing at the mouth.
Private Ivan, however, the one only Till saw on the mess that was their shared dorm, was a gorgeous, focused, and deeply strange creature who could dissect the biomechanics of a free throw with the same intensity he applied to crafting the perfect vegan omelette.
His phone buzzed on the counter—a notification from Luka in the group chat, probably organizing some painfully trendy outing. Till ignored it. The last thing he needed after a brutal morning of post-exam exhaustion was to deal with Luka’s calculated social orchestrations.
He poured his coffee, a dark and sinister brew that smelled like productivity, and fled the culinary disaster of Ivan’s for the relative sanity of the living room.
Collapsing onto the couch, he pulled out his laptop.
A new instrumental track was open, a moody, atmospheric piece he’d been tinkering with for weeks. It was all swirling synth pads and a lonely, echoing guitar line.
It needed something.
A voice.
A melody.
But not lyrics. Words felt too heavy, too definite for the haunting vagueness of the music.
He plugged in his headphones, blocking out the distant sound of Ivan enthusiastically washing what sounded like every pot in the cupboard, and hit play.
The music washed over him, pulling him under. He was so lost in the soundscape he’d built that he didn’t hear the kitchen faucet shut off. He didn’t hear Ivan’s footsteps as he padded into the living room and dropped into the armchair opposite, plate of beige mush in hand.
Ivan ate, scrolling through his phone, a silent, content presence. Till, believing himself alone in his auditory world, absently tapped a key, looping a particular section of the track—a rising, ethereal crescendo.
And then, it happened.
A sound, so faint and hesitant that Till almost missed it. He adjusted his headphones, thinking it was a glitch in the recording.
It wasn’t. It was Ivan.
Ivan, staring at his phone, absentmindedly humming along to the music leaking from Till’s track. But it wasn't just humming.
It was a wordless, melodic vocalization, a soft, breathy sigh that perfectly traced the guitar line. Then, as the synth swelled, his voice lifted with it, a clear, haunting tone that was nothing like his speaking voice. It was ethereal, beautiful, and heart-breakingly vulnerable, a raw and unconscious expression that seemed to bypass his brain entirely and come straight from some hidden, secret place.
Till froze, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. He didn’t dare move. He didn’t dare breathe.
Ivan, completely unaware, closed his eyes, lost in his own world, and let the note hang in the air, pure and perfect and utterly devastating.
The moment stretched, thin and fragile. The music began to fade out. Ivan’s voice faded with it, dissolving into a soft sigh. He blinked, shook his head as if clearing a fog, and forked another large bite of tofu into his mouth.
The spell was broken.
And in a moment of pure, impulsive shock, driven by a mix of awe and horror, Till’s hand moved on its own. He silently pulled his phone from his pocket, unlocked it, and hit record.
The audio was rough, filled with the clink of Ivan’s fork on his plate and the distant hum of the refrigerator. But the voice—the voice was there. Till spent the next hour hunched over his laptop, eyes burning with exhaustion and adrenaline, cleaning the audio. He isolated the vocal, married it to the polished version of his track, and amplified it until Ivan’s otherworldly sigh became the centerpiece of the song.
He called the file ‘Ghost_Girl_MASTER.’
He created a throwaway SoundCloud account.
He uploaded it.
He copied the link.
A slow, deadpan smile spread across Till’s face. He looked over at Ivan, who was now meticulously organizing his gym bag by the door, back to being the perfect, polished jock.
Till typed out a text and hit send.
Across the room, Ivan’s phone buzzed.
Till ‣ [2:13 PM]
hey
Ivan ‣ [2:13 PM]
?
uh im literally still at the door
Till ‣ [2:13 PM]
listen to this
[Link: SoundCloud - Ghost Girl]
Ivan ‣ [2:14 PM]
since when do you send me your WIPs? feels like a trap.
Till ‣ [2:14 PM]
just listen.
Across the room, Ivan tapped the link.
He waited a second for the track to load, a slightly bemused expression on his face. And then, his carefully constructed public mask shattered completely. His eyes widened, the red rings within them seeming to darken with dawning, abject horror.
His head snapped up, meeting Till’s gleeful, triumphant gaze.
Ivan ‣ [2:16 PM]
what the
TILL.
WHAT IS THIS.
Till ‣ [2:16 PM]
sounds familiar, pretty boy?
Ivan ‣ [2:16 PM]
DELETE IT.
TILL. DELETE IT RIGHT NOW.
Till ‣ [2:17 PM]
why? it’s good.
Ivan ‣ [2:17 PM]
IT’S ME. YOU RECORDED ME. THAT’S ILLEGAL. THAT’S A WAR CRIME.
Till ‣ [2:17 PM]
it’s art. stop being dramatic.
Before Ivan could launch himself across the room, their phones buzzed in unison. Then again. And again. It was from their dumb group chat no one knew who even started (probably Mizi, she denies all allegations).
Disaster Gays & Co.
Luka ‣ [2:19 PM]
[Link: SoundCloud - Ghost Girl] You guys are terminally online, ever heard this? It’s kind of stunning.
A three-second pause. Then, the dam broke.
Mizi ‣ [2:19 PM]
OMG
OMG OMG
LUKA WHERE DID YOU FIND THIS
HOLY CRAP WHO IS THIS?? HIS VOICE IS UNREAL.
Ivan made a small, choked noise. Till typed three words out with trembling fingers, sending them into the digital void like a desperate prayer.
Till ‣ [2:20 PM]
never heard it
Mizi ‣ [2:20 PM]
ITS GOT LIKE 500 LISTENS BUT ONLY 3 LIKES INCLUDING MINE WE GOTTA FIX THAT
THAT VOICE IS EVERYTHING
OMG NEW HYPERFIXATION UNLOCKED. WHO IS GHOST GIRL?? IS IT A GIRL?? I MEAN IT SOUNDS LIKE A GUY ALSO SOUNDS ANDROGYNOUS I LOVE IT
BUT THE VOICE HAS THIS VELVETY ROUGHNESS TO IT
Luka ‣ [2:21 PM]
Right? The production is a little amateur, but the vocal tone is… haunting. In a good way.
Ivan ‣ [2:22 PM]
lol yeah weird
Ivan’s response was a full ten seconds later, each second an eternity of him staring at his screen, his thumb hovering, trying to mimic a normal person’s reaction. It sounded nothing like him.
Mizi ‣ [2:22 PM]
WEIRD?? ITS A GIFT IVAN ITS A GIFT FROM THE INTERNET GODS
I’m shazaming it. I’m googling the lyrics. There are NO lyrics. I’m obsessed.
Hyuna ‣ [2:23 PM]
It’s beautiful. Sounds like freedom.
Hyuna’s response was like a calm, clear bell in the middle of Mizi’s hurricane of excitement. It was simple, definitive, and it made Ivan flinch.
Mizi ‣ [2:23 PM]
YES HYUNA GETS IT
It’s giving “ethereal being trapped in a haunted music box” and I’m here for it.
@Till you’re a music guy. Analyze this.
Now.
Till’s head snapped up. Ivan’s wide, terrified eyes met his. Say something normal, Ivan’s look screamed. Fix this.
Till ‣ [2:24 PM]
production’s mid. vocal’s fine i guess. sounds like they recorded it in a bathroom.
He hoped the criticism would throw them off the scent. He hoped it made him sound disinterested, aloof.
Luka ‣ [2:25 PM]
Oh, harsh critic, Till. I think the rawness adds to the charm. It feels… intimate. Like you weren’t meant to hear it.
Luka’s words, perfectly aimed, landed like a dagger. Ivan visibly shuddered.
Mizi ‣ [2:25 PM]
INTIMATE YES THAT’S THE WORD
It feels like a secret. We have to find them. We have to support them. This is my new mission now.
Sua ‣ [2:26 PM]
Whoever’s spamming the chat, shut the fuck up. I’m in lab.
Ivan’s cousin, Sua, had finally been summoned by the notification storm. A new wave of panic washed over Ivan. Sua knew him better than anyone.
Mizi ‣ [2:26 PM]
SUA
SUASUA LISTEN TO THIS LINK NOW ITS IMPORTANT
Sua ‣ [2:27 PM]
Oh. It’s Mizi
Mizi. Alright, give me a minute.
Hyuna ‣ [2:27 PM]
down bad
A two-minute pause. The longest two minutes of Ivan and Till’s lives. They didn’t move, didn’t breathe, just stared at the three blinking dots indicating Sua was typing.
Sua ‣ [2:29 PM]
Yeah, it’s good.
The compression on the high end is kinda brutal. Whoever mixed it doesn’t know how to use a de-esser.
The voice is unique though. Haunting.
Till looked mildly offended at the critique of his mixing skills, even in his state of panic.
Ivan ‣ [2:30 PM]
haha yeah
It was all Ivan could manage. His vocabulary had apparently been reduced to “lol,” “yeah,” and “weird.”
Mizi ‣ [2:30 PM]
“UNIQUE” SHE SAYS. ITS A RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE IS WHAT IT IS.
I’ve listened to it six times. I’m learning the melody on my keyboard.
Ghost Girl, if you’re in this chat, I love you.
Luka ‣ [2:31 PM]
Wouldn’t that be a twist?
Ivan didn’t move. He didn’t scream. He simply stood by the door, his gym bag forgotten at his feet. The color had drained from his face, leaving his features stark and still. He looked at Till, and the easy warmth from the kitchen was gone, replaced by a void-like calm.
Slowly, deliberately, he bent down and picked up his phone. His movements were precise, economical. He read the newest flurry of messages, his expression unreadable. Then, his thumb moved, tapping the screen once. The chat notifications silenced. The room went truly quiet.
He finally lifted his gaze to Till. His eyes, usually so expressive in their weird intensity, were flat. "Delete it," he said. His voice was low, measured.
The triumph and mischief drained out of Till. "Ivan—"
"Delete the account. Delete the track. Now."
"It was just a prank," Till said, his own voice losing its defensive edge. "I was going to show you and then delete it. I didn't think—"
"Clearly." Ivan cut him off. He took a single, slow step forward. "You recorded me without my consent. You posted it. And now Luka has it. Mizi has it. Hyuna. Sua."
He said his cousin's name with a particular weight, a quiet devastation.
"It'll blow over." Till insisted.
Ivan’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "You don't get it. That wasn't for them." He gestured vaguely with the phone. "That was… "
Their phones buzzed again on the counter. A simultaneous, synchronized judgment.
Mizi ‣ [3:21 PM]
OMG YOU GUYS
I just shared it on the LICO University Official Facebook page!!!
It already has like a thousand likes??????
PEOPLE ARE ASKING WHO IT IS HOLY CRAP
I’m a genius lwk?
Ivan didn't flinch. He just stared at the screen, his shoulders squaring slightly, as if bracing for an impact only he could feel. He walked away from the counter and slid down the wall to sit on the floor, thumping his head back against it with a soft, dull thud.
Thousands. Thousands know now. Now they really can’t just brush it off.
“We’re doomed.” The dark-haired man mumbled to the baseboards.
Till sighed, slumping back on the couch. “Yeah,” he agreed, the reality of their situation finally settling in. “We really are.”
A moment of miserable silence passed.
“...So,” Ivan said, his voice small from the floor. “You really thought it was good?”
Till snorted. “Shut up and eat your beige mush, Ghost Girl.”
A beat of silence. Then, from the floor, a quiet, resigned sigh. “It’s technically a textured protein scramble.” Ivan paused. “...What do we do?”
Till looked over at him.
The absolute panic had receded, replaced by a look of overwhelmed calculation. This was the Ivan he knew—processing a problem, looking for a solution, even a bizarre one.
And then his face lights up.
“We control it.” Till said, the idea forming as he spoke. “We tell Sua it’s an art project we’re collaborating on. She’s knows this stuff. She can help us manage it. Make it so deliberately cryptic no one would ever trace it back to you.”
“No one, huh.” Ivan was silent, processing. “And cryptic?”
”We post more with weird code. We use catalog numbers instead of song titles. ‘G-4B-A’ for the first track. It’ll be full of nonsense, inside jokes no one else will get. Sua’s good with that.
“She’ll want payment.”
“Premium boba.” Till said. “We can afford that.”
Ivan let out a long, slow breath, then gave a single, resigned nod. He thumped his head against the wall one last time. “Fine. Pact.”
“Pact.” Till agreed.
The ghost in apartment 4B had just found its managers.
Notes:
just two dumb boys who can’t find the delete button
Chapter Text
The pact was sealed not with a handshake, but with the shared, shell-shocked silence of two men staring at their phones, watching Mizi’s "FIND GHOST GIRL" mood board gain likes in real-time.
“Okay,” Ivan said, his voice still hollow from the floor. “Operation… whatever this is. Phase one. The recruitment.”
He called his cousin on speaker. It rang twice.
“What.” Sua’s voice was flat, punctuated by the faint clinking of glassware. Lab. Always lab.
“Hey. So. Funny story,” Ivan began, his ‘polished’ voice slipping on like a well-worn mask.
“If this is about the weird ethereal moaning Mizi won’t shut up about, I’ve already heard it. The high-end compression is criminal. I have notes.”
Till looked personally offended. Ivan shot him a wild, silencing look.
“Right. Yeah. That’s… that’s actually it. See, it’s… an art project. Mine and Till’s.” The lie was clumsy, but he pushed on. “A collaboration. About… the performativity of identity in the digital age.”
Till mouthed ‘the what?’ Ivan ignored him.
A long pause. “You. And Till. Are collaborating on an art project about digital identity,” she repeated, deadpan.
“Yes.”
“The same Till who, last week, called your kombucha ‘fermented pond water’ and threatened to move out over a single misplaced dumbbell?”
“He’s a… nuanced individual.”
Another pause. “What do you need.”
Ivan took a breath. “It’s getting attention. We need to manage it. Discreetly. Make it deliberately cryptic. Lean into the mystery so no one would ever, ever, think it’s us. You’re good at that. The… crypticness.”
“The word is ‘obfuscation,’ Ivan. And my services are not free.”
“Premium boba,” Till blurted out from the couch. “Your choice. For a month.”
The clinking stopped. “Two months. A lifetime if it goes even more viral. Honey oolong milk tea with lychee jelly from that place across campus. Extra jelly.”
“A lifetime is cutting it.”
“No deal then.”
“Fine, fine!” Till cut.
“Deal.” Ivan sighed, not out of relief.
"I hope she dies by 25." Till murmurs.
A rather heavy glass clinks. "Not if you're going first."
"I'll set aside a part of my inheritance if I die first—happy?" Ivan says before the argument declines any further.
“Good. Send me the login. And don’t do anything else until I say so.” The line went dead.
Phase one was a go. Within an hour, the "Ghost Girl" SoundCloud account had a new, cryptic bio.
[𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚛: 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛_𝟺𝙱] 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚜: 𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎 | 𝚜𝚒𝚐𝚗𝚊𝚕: 𝚞𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 | 𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚢: 𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚐
The chaos of their new double life began immediately, underscored by the relentless pressure of their final year.
══════════════════
Ivan was sprawled on the living room floor, a fortress of business textbooks and financial printouts surrounding him. He was muttering to a spreadsheet on his laptop, his brow furrowed in a way usually reserved for national emergencies. “The discounted cash flow model is refusing to reconcile with the projected EBITDA margins. It’s a bloodbath. The terminal value is an outright lie.”
Till didn’t look up from his composition software, where he was ruthlessly deleting measures of a string quartet. His professor’s feedback —“Technically proficient but emotionally arid. Where is the vulnerability?” —was scrawled on a sticky note stuck to the screen.
“Just tell it you’re sorry and that you value its honesty.” Till grumbled, adding a dissonant chord that made his own teeth hurt.
“You can’t reason with a formula, Till. It’s math. It’s cold and it’s cruel.”
“Says the guy majoring in it.”
Their phones buzzed. Not the group chat. A slew of notifications from the university’s public Facebook page.
LICO University Official - Post [4:05 PM]
Anon ‣ [4:08 PM]
[Shared by: Mizi (Please find Ghost Girl!)] [Link: SoundCloud - Ghost Girl] Has anyone heard this?? It's all over my feed! Is this someone from our university??
Jia ‣ [4:08 PM]
OMG this is gorgeous??? Ghost Girl if you're here I love you
Kai ‣ [4:10 PM]
The mix is kinda rough ngl but the vocal tone is insane. Actually jealous.
Soobin ‣ [4:15 PM]
Studying for midterms with this on repeat. It’s like auditory Xanax.
Zhengli ‣ [4:20 PM]
@LICO University Official can we get Ghost Girl to perform at the fall fest??
Till’s stomach dropped. Ivan had gone very pale, his financial model forgotten. “Auditory Xanax,” he repeated, horrified.
Disaster Gays & Co.
Mizi ‣ [4:17 PM]
DID YOU SEE THE FACEBOOK POST
ITS EXPLODING!!!!!!
GHOST GIRL THEORY #17: What if it’s not a student? What if it’s a lonely self-aware robot in the university’s main server, composing music to feel alive?
Luka ‣ [4:18 PM]
@Till Your area of expertise, no? Could a machine compose something with such… palpable yearning?
Till’s blood ran cold. He quickly minimized the tab with his quartet, a flush of shame heating his neck. His own work was being called emotionally barren while this accidental, vulnerable recording was being praised for its feeling.
Till ‣ [4:19 PM]
doubt it. sounds too human. probably just some poser with a vocoder and a shitty reverb pedal.
A beat of silence. Too aggressive. He sounded defensive.
Ivan ‣ [4:20 PM]
lol yeah. def weird.
Ivan’s response was a full thirty seconds later. He was still staring at the Facebook comments, his thumb hovering over the screen like it was a live wire.
Mizi ‣ [4:21 PM]
NO WAY A POSER. THIS IS TOO PURE. TOO RAW.
GHOST GIRL THEORY #18: Okay, if it IS a student… what kind are they?
The voice has this… ethereal, tortured quality. Art student? 100%. Probably wears a lot of black. Probably has a tragically beautiful caffeine addiction.
Till glanced down at his own black MCRN shirt and the sinister brew of coffee next to his laptop. He subtly pushed the cup out of frame.
Hyuna ‣ [4:22 PM]
Or a philosophy major. Someone who stares out rain-streaked windows and thinks about the void.
Mizi ‣ [4:22 PM]
YES LMAO THAT TOO
They’re definitely a night owl.
This was recorded at like 2 AM, you can FEEL the nocturnal energy.
They survive on vending machine snacks and existential dread.
Ivan, who had meticulously meal-prepped his textured protein scrambles for the week, made a small, distressed noise.
Luka ‣ [4:23 PM]
An interesting profile. Though, the vocal control suggests discipline.
Perhaps a music student, hiding their talent behind a facade of ironic detachment.
Someone who thinks they’re above it all.
Luka’s words, perfectly aimed, landed like a dagger. Till flinched. Ivan visibly shuddered.
Till ‣ [4:24 PM]
or maybe they’re just some jock who got lost on the way to the gym and wandered into a recording studio. a fluke .
The moment he sent it, he knew it was a mistake.
Mizi ‣ [4:24 PM]
A JOCK??? TILL THAT IS THE WORST THEORY IVE EVER HEARD. SO BLASPHEMOUS.
Jocks don’t sound like that. They sound like they’re yelling about protein powder and zone defenses.
This voice has never even TOUCHED a weight machine. This voice reads poetry in a cemetery.
On the floor, Ivan looked genuinely offended. “I could read poetry. Have you forgotten my collection of literature?” He muttered to his textbook.
Ivan ‣ [4:25 PM]
haha yeah jocks are dumb
He sent it before he thought better of it.
Mizi ‣ [4:25 PM]
SEE IVAN AGREES. HE WOULD KNOW.
No, Ghost Girl is a delicate, brilliant enigma. A smol bean. I must protect them.
Ivan, who was 6'1" and could bench press Till without breaking a sweat, stared at the words ‘smol bean’ in abject horror. His face was a perfect mask of devastation.
Luka ‣ [4:26 PM]
‘Smol bean’ might be a stretch, Mizi. But the essence is there. A vulnerable soul, offering a piece of themselves to the digital void. It’s rather brave, don’t you think?
Till couldn’t look at Ivan. He could feel the secondhand embarrassment and panic radiating from him in waves.
Till ‣ [4:27 PM]
brave? its a song. go outside. touch grass.
Mizi ‣ [4:27 PM]
DON’T LISTEN TO HIM GHOST GIRL IF YOU’RE IN THIS CHAT!!! WE LOVE YOU!!! YOU’RE BRAVE AND BEAUTIFUL AND PROBABLY HAVE AMAZING BONE STRUCTURE!!!
Ivan slowly lowered his phone onto the textbook, as if it had burned him. He looked at Till, his eyes wide with a new, specific terror. “She thinks I have amazing bone structure.”
Till finally lost it.
A choked laugh escaped him, then another, until he was wheezing, tears pricking the corners of his eyes. “A smol bean,” he gasped, clutching his stomach. “With… with amazing bone structure!”
“It’s not funny!” Ivan insisted, but the corner of his mouth was twitching, a reluctant smile breaking through the panic. “She’s picturing some… some wife in a cathedral!”
“Stop,” Till begged, laughing harder. “She’s gonna start a fundraiser to buy you… I don’t know, a single, perfect orchid for your drafty garret!”
Ivan buried his face in his hands, his own shoulders starting to shake with silent laughter. “I don’t even know what a garret is!”
“It’s where smol beans with good bone structure live, Ivan! Keep up!”
They sat there for a minute, two idiots laughing in the face of total social ruin, bonded by the sheer absurdity of it all. The ghost in the machine had a fanclub, and they were determined to picture it as everything Ivan wasn’t.
It was the perfect cover, and it was absolutely, hilariously mortifying.
══════════════════
Phase two was where the domestic insanity truly took over. The first major hurdle was acoustics.
Their apartment had the soundproofing of a tissue box, and their new next-door neighbor was suddenly, inexplicably, very loud.
“I can hear Luka… vacuuming?” Till grumbled, hunched over his laptop. “Why is he vacuuming at 10 PM?”
“Probably post-exam stress.” Ivan said from the bathroom, which had been deemed the most sound-neutral room. He’d fortified the door with every towel and blanket they owned, creating a lumpy, fabric-based panic room.
It was during take four that the real problem started. The distinct, aggressive sound of a kettle whistling and the subsequent slurp of noodles echoed through the wall from Luka’s apartment.
Till hissed feedback through the bathroom door. “No! Stop! I can hear the noodle-slurping next door!”
Ivan’s muffled voice came back. “He’s doing it on purpose!”
“Just… try to project past it. Think of it as… an ambient challenge.”
Silence from the towel fort.
Then, a new take began. Ivan’s voice was a clear, piercing tone that cut through the noise from next door, not by overpowering it, but by existing on a completely different plane. It was a masterclass in focused intensity. Till stopped breathing, just listening. It was more than perfect.
He was about to tell Ivan it was a keeper when his own laptop chimed—an email from his composition professor.
𝚁𝚎: 𝚂𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚀𝚞𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚎𝚝 𝙽𝚘.𝟷 - 𝚂𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚍 𝙳𝚛𝚊𝚏𝚝
𝚃𝚒𝚕𝚕, 𝚆𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚌𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚊𝚕 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚐𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚒𝚖𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚍, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚜 𝚎𝚕𝚞𝚜𝚒𝚟𝚎. 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚐𝚒𝚛𝚕 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚞𝚕. 𝙸 𝚜𝚞𝚐𝚐𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚗 𝚝𝚘 𝚒𝚝 𝚊𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎.
𝙱𝚎𝚜𝚝, 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚏. 𝖴𝗋𝖺𝗄.
Till stared at the screen. The ghost has more soul. He let his head fall onto his keyboard with a dull thud.
He’d been upstaged by his own prank.
“Was it that bad?”
“No. You were… good. It’s my actual, for-grade work that’s the problem,” Till mumbled into the keys. “My professor told me to use Ghost Girl as a reference for ‘soul’.”
“Oh.” Ivan was quiet for a moment. “That’s… kind of messed up.”
“Tell me about it.”
══════════════════
“This part needs to feel… unresolved. It needs to hang there, like a question.”
Ivan, who had been staring at the waveform with the same concentration he usually reserved for his case studies, nodded slowly. “A delayed pass,” he said, his voice low and certain. “It’s… you draw the defense in, make them commit, but you hold the release a half-second longer than is comfortable. It creates tension in the structure.”
Till stared at him, stunned into silence.
“Yeah.” He didn't know what the jargon was for but that was exactly it. His voice being softer than intended. “Exactly like that.”
Ivan looked up, meeting his gaze for a beat too long, a faint, uncalculated smile before he looked back at the screen. “Okay. I can do that.”
They worked for another hour, until Ivan’s phone alarm went off. He flinched, grabbing it.
“Shit. My Financial Modelling TA office hours are in ten minutes. On Zoom.” He looked wildly around the towel-fortified bathroom.
“I can’t do it in there, the Wi-Fi is terrible.”
“Just do it here.” Till said, gesturing to the living room. “I’ll be quiet.”
Ivan gave him a dubious look but quickly set up his laptop at the coffee table, shoving Till’s audio interface aside. He ran a hand through his hair, and Till watched, fascinated, as the strangely focused creature of the towel fort smoothed his expression into the polished, easy-going mask of ‘Ivan the Athletic Business Major’.
The Zoom call connected. “Ivan! Thanks for hopping on. Having trouble with the problem set? ” a cheerful voice chirped from the laptop.
“Hey, Isaac! Yeah, just a bit hung up on the sensitivity analysis for question 3.B.” Ivan said, his voice effortlessly warm and engaging.
It was a complete transformation.
Till stayed quiet, fiddling with a synth plugin.
He listened as Ivan effortlessly discussed beta coefficients and regression analyses, his ‘uh-huhs’ and ‘right, right’s’ the picture of a dedicated student. It was a performance, and a flawless one.
Then Ivan, while explaining his thought process on a particularly complex formula, absentmindedly reached for the cup of tea next to his laptop. He missed, his hand closing around thin air. He didn’t break eye contact with the webcam, didn’t pause in his sentence about volatility projections, just patiently patted the table until his fingers found the mug. He took a sip, placed it down perfectly, and continued talking.
It was the most bizarre, endearing thing Till had ever seen. The intense focus was still there, just channeled into maintaining a facade. Till had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
The moment Ivan ended the call with a bright “Thanks, Isaac! You’re a lifesaver!”, the mask dropped. His shoulders slumped and he groaned, dragging his hands down his face.
“Wow, I feel like I've been called dumb in a conversation I wasn't even part of.”
“I think I just convinced him I understand convertible arbitrage.” Ivan finally let out a breath. “I do not understand convertible arbitrage.”
“You sounded like you did.” Till offered.
“That’s the problem.” Ivan mumbled into his hands.
Their phones buzzed again. Not the group chat. A notification that specter_4B had posted a new teaser. Sua.
[𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚛: 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛_𝟺𝙱] 𝚗𝚎𝚠 𝚞𝚙𝚕𝚘𝚊𝚍: 𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚘𝚐_𝚗𝚘. 𝙶-𝟺𝙱-𝙱 (𝚜𝚗𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚝_𝟶𝟷.𝚛𝚊𝚠) 𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚒𝚙𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗: 𝚜𝚒𝚐𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚐𝚝𝚑 𝚏𝚕𝚞𝚌𝚝𝚞𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐. 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚝𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚍. 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚎 𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜: 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚌; 𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚐; 𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚖𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚌.
The clip was three seconds long. Just a sliver of the new vocal take Ivan had just nailed, layered over a glitchy, distorted synth wave. It was haunting and incomprehensible.
LICO University Official - Post Comments [11:45 PM]
Anon Account ‣ [11:46 PM]
TURMERIC??? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN
Mizi (Please find Ghost Girl!) ‣ [11:47 PM]
IT'S A CLUE!!! IT’S A BOMB AND I AM DECODING IT!!!
Luka ‣ [11:48 PM]
‘Static; longing; turmeric.’ A mood, truly.
Ivan looked at the notification, then at the half-empty bag of turmeric on his kitchen counter. He looked at Till, a new kind of horror dawning on his face. “She’s weaponizing my cooking ingredients.”
“She’s a genius,” Till said, a grudging respect in his voice. The teaser already had fifty likes in just minutes.
══════════════════
It was past 1 AM. Ivan’s financial model was a mess of red error messages. Till’s string quartet was a barren wasteland of technical proficiency. The silence was heavy with academic failure.
Without a word, Ivan pushed his laptop away and went to the kitchen. Till heard the familiar, precise sounds of him cooking.
The rhythmic chop of a knife, the sizzle of something hitting a pan, the quiet hum of concentration. It was a different kind of focus than his singing or his Zoom call—grounded, methodical, and entirely for them.
Twenty minutes later, Ivan placed a bowl down on the coffee table in front of Till. It was rice, topped with perfectly sautéed mushrooms and greens, a deeply savory sauce, and a flawlessly fried egg, the yolk still runny.
“It’s called—” Ivan announced with grave seriousness, “—a ‘I-can’t-look-at-another-spreadsheet’ bowl.”
Till looked from the bowl to Ivan’s tired but earnest face. He grunted, picked up a fork, and took a bite. Holy fuck that was the best bite I've had in two years —no way he’ll admit that but he couldn’t stop himself from making a small, pleased sound.
Ivan’s posture straightened slightly, a flicker of that unpolished, genuine pride returning to his eyes. “The turmeric is for color.”
“Could've gone without the color.”
“Well? Comments?”
“It’s… good. I’ll give you that.” Till conceded, his voice barely a mumble around another mouthful.
Ivan retrieved his own bowl and sat on the floor, leaning against the couch next to Till’s legs.
Till pulled up a playlist—not his own work, not Ghost Girl, just a random mix of ambient post-rock.
They ate in a comfortable silence, the music and the good food carving out a small pocket of peace in their chaotic world. Till’s foot, clad in a ripped black sock, absently nudged Ivan’s shoulder. Ivan didn’t shrug it off, he just shifted his weight slightly, leaning into the pressure.
It was a moment. Simple and quiet.
Luka ‣ [1:23 AM]
Working late, neighbors?
The walls are thin. I could almost hear a… melody.
Very haunting. And something smells delicious.
Invite me over next time.
Ivan and Till looked up from their bowls. They’d been silent for twenty minutes.
Till ‣ [1:24 AM]
just my shitty string quartet. and instant noodles.
you’re hallucinating.
Luka ‣ [1:24 AM]
Of course. My mistake.
It must be so difficult to create something truly original. The pressure to be authentic must be… crushing.
They could hear a tiny laugh from the thin walls. He was playing with them.
Ivan’s phone buzzed first. A new email notification. His professor had moved up the deadline for his financial modelling project.
A second later, Till’s screen lit up—a politely scathing email from his composition professor asking for a “radical re-imagining” of his quartet, re-suggesting for the nth time he “try to capture the raw vulnerability of that ‘Ghost Girl’ piece everyone is talking about.”
Ivan let his head thump back against the couch cushion next to Till’s knee with a dull groan.
“We’re doomed,” he mumbled around a mouthful of egg.
“Completely.” Till agreed, shoving his phone away so hard it skittered across the coffee table. “My own professor is using my prank to fail me. That’s a new circle of academic hell Dante forgot to mention.”
“My financial model has a negative net present value. It’s mathematically suggesting I should pay someone to take this project off my hands.” Ivan sighed, a long, suffering sound. “And somewhere out there, Mizi is probably cross-referencing turmeric sales with student records. She’s got that look in her eye.”
“The ‘I will solve this with sheer force of will’ look?”
“That’s the one.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the weight of their absurd situation settling over them like a fog.
“So,” Ivan said, his voice small from his spot on the floor. “This is our life now. Academic ruin, public anonymity, and a cryptically-managed viral sensation based on your war crime.”
“Don’t forget the part where we’re being psychologically tortured by a blond sociopath who lives next door and apparently only eats soup,” Till added, gesturing with his fork toward the wall.
“And we owe my cousin a small fortune in boba.”
“A lifetime supply, Ivan. She specified ‘lifetime’. She’s planning to outlive us just to collect.”
“Her greed sickens me.”
Ivan turned his head to look up at Till, his cheek squished against the couch cushion. The red rings in his eyes seemed to glow in the dim light. “...The egg is good, though, right?”
Till looked down at him. The campus jock god, future business tycoon, and ethereal vocal sensation was currently on the floor, covered in a fine layer of financial despair, seeking validation for his cooking while the world crumbled around them. It was so profoundly, stupidly Ivan.
A snort escaped him. “Yeah, Ivan. The egg is good. The egg is… the only good thing in this personal dumpster fire.”
“Okay. Good. That’s one thing.” He nudged Till’s leg with his shoulder. “And your track wasn’t… you know. It was good. The music part.”
Till’s laughter subsided into a soft huff. “Yeah, well. Your… delayed pass… or whatever. That was okay too.”
“It was more than okay,” Ivan said, his voice dropping back into that low, serious tone he used when he wasn’t thinking about being perceived. “You know it was.”
Till did know. He looked away, suddenly very interested in a loose thread on his ripped jeans.
“Admit it, Till.”
“Whatever. Don’t let it go to your head, pretty boy. You still sound like a haunted teakettle.”
“A teakettle that’s your muse, apparently.”
“Shut up. Eat your… protein scramble.”
Ivan’s smile widened. He complied, taking another bite. “We should probably figure out what we’re doing tomorrow. Before Mizi starts a cult.”
“Tomorrow,” Till said, slumping further into the couch, his foot nudging Ivan’s side again.
“Tomorrow we panic. Tonight, we finish this—whatever this is.” He gestured vaguely between their bowls, the quiet apartment, the two of them.
“The ‘I-can’t-look-at-another-spreadsheet’ bowl?”
“That. Yeah.”
The ghost was in the machine, the world was going insane, and they were most definitely doomed.
Notes:
lmao im sleep deprived pls forgive typos or wrong formatting
Chapter Text
Their pact with Sua had forged a bizarre new normal. “Ghost Girl” was no longer a mistake; they were now a meticulously curated entity.
The first test of this new reality came with a crackle of static from the university PA system.
Till was slumped over a plastic table in the student union, mainlining coffee. Across from him, Mizi was meticulously dissecting a vegan breakfast burrito. Luka was scrolling through his phone with a look of detached amusement, and Hyuna was speed-reading a psychology textbook, her brow furrowed in concentration.
“Good morning students of LICO University.”
A voice, smooth as polished obsidian, flowed from the speakers overhead. It was a voice designed for boardrooms, for calming shareholders, for reading the terms and conditions in a way that made you actually want to listen.
“This is Ivan, from the Business Leadership Club, with your morning announcements...”
Till didn’t look up.
Mizi, however, froze mid-bite. A piece of tofu fell from her fork, forgotten. Her head tilted, her green eyes narrowing at the ceiling speaker as if she could physically see the sound waves.
“Huh.”
Luka glanced up from his phone, his pale yellow eyes flicking with mild interest. “ Huh?” He echoed, a classic Luka tactic—prompting others to do the talking.
“...a reminder that the deadline for the annual innovation grant is this Friday. Proposals must be submitted via the portal by 5 PM sharp.”
“Luka,” Mizi interrupted, not lowering her finger from its accusatory point at the speaker. “Does Ivan’s voice sound… weirdly familiar today? Like, wow? Did he always sound this… velvety? It’s got a new… I don’t know…”
Till’s blood ran cold. He slowly lowered his coffee cup, the ceramic clicking a soft, nervous percussion against the table.
“It’s the PA system.” Luka interjected.
“No, it’s different! This is literally the first time I’ve been compelled to listen to an announcement!"
“Eh.” The blond shrugs, gaze flicking from the speaker to Till’s oddly frozen face. “Not really. It makes even Professor Urak’s droning about neoclassical economics sound vaguely melodic. It’s an aural illusion.”
Till feels himself sigh of relief.
“...and finally, best of luck to all the teams competing in the intramural finals this weekend. Go… sports.”
“No, it’s not that,” Mizi insisted, leaning forward and lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper that carried perfectly across the table. “It’s the timbre . The emotional resonance.”
“Timbre…” Luka repeated.
“What if Ghost Girl is secretly a business major?! It’s the perfect cover! A wolf in sheep’s clothing! A siren in a suit!”
“Didn’t we just establish ghost girl is a tiny ‘smol‘ bean.” Till unhelpfully supplies.
“That was yesterday! The possibilities are endless, Till! He could be a 6-footer jock for all we know!”
His eye twitches. “Definitely, not.”
At that exact moment, the subject of their discussion slid into the empty seat next to Till, his smile a blinding, perfect veneer. “Talking about me?” He asked, his voice—his normal, speaking voice—sounding jarringly casual after its amplified doppelganger.
Mizi’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. “Ivan! Your voice! On the PA! It was—it was beautiful!”
Till drove his boot hard into Ivan’s shin, sending him a sharp look.
The dark-haired man’s smile didn’t slip, but the light behind his eyes flickered and maybe died a little at Mizi’s observation.
“He’s sick. He has a cold.” Till announced, his voice a flat, bored grumble that brooked no argument. “Congested. Sinuses are all messed up. Makes his voice all... deep and weird and fake-radio-announcer-ish. Right, Ivan?”
Ivan blinked.
“Right. Yeah. Sore throat. Probably caught something, uf, vile from the free weights at the gym.” He cleared his throat, producing a painfully forced, cough.
“All scratchy. See? He can barely talk.” Till pats him almost a bit too roughly on the back. Ivan wants to simply evaporate.
Mizi looked from Ivan’s flawlessly clear complexion to Till’s permanent scowl. Please don't connect the dots, they both silently prayed to the unseeing gods above.
“Aww. That’s rough.” She frowns, her shoulders slumping in profound disappointment. “Well. Feel better, I guess. It’s a great cold voice. Very… marketable?”
Luka took a slow, deliberate sip of his tea, the steam fogging his glasses for a moment, there was a slight smile spreading across his face as he cleaned them on his shirt.
The moment the group dispersed, their phones lit up in a synchronized frenzy.
Disaster Gays & Co.
Luka ‣ [10:10 AM]
Whoever designed this 8 AM seminar hates joy and sunlight. And students.
Mizi ‣ [10:11 AM]
The sunlight is a lie. It’s a grey soup outside.
Perfect ghost weather ☁️👻
Hyuna ‣ [10:12 AM]
Lmao just saw isaac from the finance lab staring into a puddle like it held the answers to the universe. Looked crushed.
Ivan ‣ [10:12 AM]
don’t say his name pls
I have a 30-page model due for him tomorrow
and it’s currently a digital dumpster fire
Till ‣ [10:13 AM]
your model has more drama than a reality show.
just pick a number and stick with it.
Ivan ‣ [10:13 AM]
This is why you’re not in business, Till.
“just pick a number” is how companies collapse
Till ‣ [10:13 AM]
sounds exciting. more exciting than whatever a “WACC” is.
Luka ‣ [ 10:14 AM]
WACC sounds like the noise mating ducks make
Ivan ‣ [10:13 AM]
It stands for "weighted average cost of capital" you uncivilized monkeys
Mizi ‣ [10:14 AM]
oh
@Ivan
feel better soon! your announcement voice was chef’s kiss today mwa mwa 😘👌
I’d pay to hear you narrate a raunchy novel lol
Ivan ‣ [10:15 AM]
thanks. and no thanks on the novel part
dying. might go lie down
Till ‣ [10:15 AM]
Mizi.
he sounds like a chain-smoking frog. you’re hearing things.
Mizi ‣ [10:16 AM]
NO I TRUST MY EARS TILL.
MY EARS ARE FINELY TUNED INSTRUMENTS.
IVAN’S SICK VOICE HAS A CERTAIN JE NE SAIS QUOI... A FAMILIAR... SOULFULNESS...
A DEEPNESS. A DEPTH.
Ivan stared at his phone in abject horror, his thumbs hovering over the screen as if it might electrocute him.
Ivan ‣ [10:17 AM]
lol. thanks again? i guess?
Luka ‣ [10:17 AM]
Alright ladies and germs
Luka ‣ [10:18 AM]
new business proposal
podcast: Ivan’s Ailments:
ep 1: The Velvet Frog. i’d subscribe
Mizi ‣ [10:18 AM]
!!!!!
OMG EPISODE 2: THE CONGESTED CROONER
Till ‣ [10:19 AM]
the hell is a crooner
Mizi ‣ [10:19 AM]
wait no episode 2: phlegm & philosophy
no wait that’s ep 3
Mizi ‣ [10:19 AM]
THIS IS THE BEST IDEA YOU’VE EVER HAD LUKA
Till ‣ [10:19 AM]
episode 4: the sound of him not shutting up about it
Hyuna ‣ [10:20 AM]
From a purely psychological standpoint, the human voice is a primary indicator of subconscious desires and repressed states
Till ‣ [10:20 AM]
Whoa, who let the psych major out
Hyuna ‣ [10:20 AM]
Ivan what is your larynx trying to tell us
Ivan ‣ [10:20 AM]
it’s telling me it wants to secede from my body
Luka ‣ [10:20 AM]
see? compelling content. the people want to know
Ivan ‣ [10:21 AM]
the people need to mind their business it’s a cold. it’s mucus.
it’s not that deep
Mizi ‣ [10:21 AM]
IT IS DEEP IVAN Your suffering is ART
Till ‣ [10:21 AM]
can we get to the part where he loses his voice entirely
Ivan ‣ [10:21 AM]
i’m going to drown myself in the bathroom sink bye
He slammed his phone face down on the table as if it were radioactive. “I’m going to change my major to mime,” he whispered, the words dripping with utter despair. “I will communicate only through interpretive dance. It’s the only way.”
“Too late. Your voice, even fake-sick, is too powerful,” Till deadpanned, not looking up from his own phone. “It’s a curse. You’ll just have to live with it. Or die with it. Whatever.”
══════════════════
The next casualty of their ghostly war was textile-based.
Till stood in the stark, fluorescent-buzzing silence of the laundry room, holding his favorite white band tee—a relic from a now-defunct band.
It was no longer white.
It was a distinct, dusty rose hue. A single, crimson sock from Ivan’s gym bag lay in the bottom of the dryer like a guilty criminal, a splash of color in a hamper of black and whites.
A cold, dead calm settled over Till.
Revenge, he decided, was not a dish best served cold. It was best served neatly folded.
Later that evening, Ivan opened his top drawer. His entire collection of expensive, performance-fabric boxer briefs was gone. In their place was a meticulous, almost architectural pyramid of origami swans. Each swan was crafted from a single pair of his briefs, the folds impossibly precise, the beaks sharp and defined.
A note, written on a torn piece of sheet music, complete with spiky handwriting, sat.
Next time, it’s a fleet of paper airplanes. Out the window.
— T (hreat)
Ivan picked up the most intricate swan, turning it over in his hands. The absurdity of it was so profound it bypassed anger entirely. A slow, unexpected, and utterly genuine smile spread across his face.
He found Till on the couch, scowling at his laptop as if it had personally insulted his entire family.
“Explain.” Ivan held up the swan.
Till didn’t look up. “It’s a swan. Cygnus olor . Congrats. You passed basic ornithology and shapes.”
“I know what a swan is.”
“Again, congratulations.”
”Till, you folded my underwear into origami.”
“Your pink underwear.” Till corrected, finally meeting his gaze, his eyes glinting with a dark triumph. “That bled all over a favorite shirt. That shirt has seen more concerts and suffered more beer spills than you have brain cells. It had historical significance.”
Ivan stared at the shirt-swan with a look of pure, unadulterated confusion. He poked it with one finger. “You… folded it.”
“Yes, we’ve established that.” Till grumbled, not looking up from his screen.
“No, I mean you really folded it. Like, with the creases and everything.” Ivan picked it up, turning it over in his hands as if inspecting a play. “How long did this even take you? You could’ve just thrown it at my head. Way more efficient.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m just saying. This is a way weirder flex than just being pissed.”
“I am pissed.”
Ivan placed the swan back on the table, carefully positioning it like a trophy. “A-plus for effort. It’s the most… constructive tantrum… I’ve ever seen.”
Till finally looked at him, utterly unamused. “The only point is that I will turn your entire wardrobe into a goddamn origami zoo if it happens again. I’m thinking giraffes next. They’re tall. Annoying. Remind me of you.”
Ivan’s smile was a quick, easy flash. “Noted. And… sorry. About the shirt. I’ll buy you a new one. Or ten.”
Till grunted, going back to his screen. “Whatever. Just keep your violent, color-bleeding socks to yourself, Ghost Girl.”
══════════════════
The pressure finally forced them all to the library. Ivan had just managed to open his disastrous financial model when his phone lit up, vibrating against the wooden table.
LICO Lions Basketball ‣ [3:29 PM]
Dewey ‣ [3:29 PM]
yo ivan u comin? coach is askin
Ivan ‣ [3:30 PM]
Stuck in the library. Can’t make it.
Hyunwoo ‣ [3:30 PM]
libary? since when do u no how to read
my sister’s over there too. u guys having a secret study date or smth? 😏
Ivan ‣ [3:30 PM]
Very funny. Big project due. And no.
Jacob ‣ [3:31 PM]
Dude. This is the third time this week. Coach is pacing. He looks like a volcano about to blow.
Dewey ‣ [3:31 PM]
for real. he just made us run lines cuz ur not here to run point.
my legs are jelly
Ivan ‣ [3:31 PM]
I’m sorry. I’m buried. Tell him it’s an academic emergency.
Jacob ‣ [3:32 PM]
He says your academic emergency is gonna become a very physical emergency tomorrow at 6 AM. Be here or you’re gonna be the new defensive drill dummy for the rest of the week.
Hyunwoo ‣ [3:32 PM]
enjoy getting posted up by freshmen for 2 hours. tell hyuna i said hi
Ivan dropped his head into his hands with a soft thud. Right. Basketball. The thing he’d now missed three practices for because he was too busy being one-half of a digital ghost.
“It’s garbage.” Ivan announced to the silent, dusty room. He wasn’t looking at anyone, just staring at his laptop screen as if it had personally betrayed him. He shoved the device away. It slid precariously toward the edge of the table.
“Complete, utter garbage.”
“What is?” Hyuna asked, not looking up from her psych textbook.
“My entire future.” Ivan murmurs, his voice flat. “My pitch for the innovation grant. It’s a biodegradable phone case infused with… with calming essential oils.” He dropped his head into his hands. “It sounds stupid when I say it out loud. My father’s going to ask why I didn’t just propose another crypto-currency.”
Mizi swiveled in her chair from the whiteboard, where she’d written ‘NEOCLASSICAL ECHOES IN THE MODERN AGE’ and then just drawn a large, spiraling question mark. “Calming oils? Like what? Lavender?”
“Mostly. And a bit of bergamot.”
“I’d buy it.” She replies, nodding seriously. “My phone gives me anxiety.”
“It’s a phone case that smells.” Luka said without looking up from his phone. He was the only one not pretending to work.
”Now it sounds even stupider.” Ivan takes a deep calming breath.
“You’ll be fine. Just say that you’re targeting people who need therapy. They’ll throw money at you.” Hyuna reassures him.
Ivan groaned. “The financials are a nightmare. The cost of the oil alone—”
"—Is why you charge two hundred dollars for it." Luka interrupted. "Call it artisanal. Problem solved."
“My art history paper is also garbage.” Mizi announced, tapping her pen against her board. “It’s supposed to be on ‘Neoclassical Echoes’ but it’s just three pages of me asking ‘what does that even mean?’ in slightly different wording.”
Till, a dark cloud emanating from the corner, let out a low, humorless laugh from behind his headphones. “Welcome to the garbage club.”
“What’s your garbage?” Mizi asked.
He pulled one headphone off. It rested around his neck, leaking a faint, distorted guitar riff.
“Prof. Urak. Says my new piece has the emotional depth of fork.” He made air quotes, his voice dripping with contempt. “Said it sounds like a ‘hardware malfunction.’”
“A fork is useful.” Ivan muttered, still correcting his formula. “Your music is just… aggressively neutral?”
Till’s head slowly turned toward Ivan, his expression deadly. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. ‘my-spreadsheet-has-more-personality’. At least I’m trying to make something. You’re just… moving numbers from one imaginary column to another.”
Ivan huffs. “Those imaginary columns paid for that obscenely expensive synth plugin you ‘forgot’ to tell me you put on my credit card last month. So you’re welcome.”
“Eh, touche.”
Mizi clasps her hand together as if the mention of something has given her an idea.
“Synth! Thanks for reminding me! You know what else has a coherent emotional narrative?” Mizi blurted, a dreamy look on her face.
Ivan’s spine went rigid. He stared intently at his laptop screen, trying to telepathically merge with his financial model. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Think about anything else. Think about WACC. Think about—
“Ghost Girl!”
Ivan’s soul briefly left his body.
He could feel the eyes of the entire study group shift toward him, a phantom weight. He kept his own gaze locked on a cell formula, praying his face wasn’t doing anything suspicious, like betraying the fact he was the spectral entity in question.
“Please don’t.” His voice strained.
“Seconded." Till grumbled from his corner of angst.
“That’s what my paper should be about.” Mizi continued, undeterred. “The neoclassical echoes in their song. It’s timeless. It’s aching.”
“She has a point,” Luka said, a sly grin spreading across his face. He didn’t even look up from his phone. “It’s more compelling than a smelly phone case.”
The casual dismissal of his life’s work was the shock Ivan needed. A new wave of defensive determination hit him. He pulled his laptop back, his jaw set. “Forget it. I’m starting over. I’m pivoting.” His mind raced for the most business-sounding nonsense. “I’ll… I’ll make it a subscription service. For the oils. You get a new scent every month.”
Luka nodded, a flicker of approval in his otherwise bored expression. “There you go. Now it’s a lifestyle brand.”
“Go get that bag.” Hyuna cheered monotonously, still absorbed by her textbook.
Buoyed by the pivot and the familiar rush of a new, utterly fabricated idea, Ivan bent over his work, his focus intense. He was Ivan of the Business Leadership Club, not Ivan the Accidental Ghost Singer. He could do this.
Absent-mindedly, lost in visions of artisanal, subscription-based phone care, he began to hum. It was a soft, airy, completely unconscious thing—a perfect, haunting melody.
At that exact moment, Mizi, having given up entirely, shoved her earbuds in and hit play on the newest Ghost Girl snippet.
The faint, ethereal melody leaked into the air.
Without thinking, lost in the numbers and the minor triumph, Ivan hummed along. A soft, perfect, unconscious counterpoint to the melody from Mizi’s earbuds.
A sharp kick connected with his shin under the table. Again.
Ivan jolted, the pen skidding from his hand. He looked up. Till was glaring daggers at him. Mizi had pulled one earbud out and was staring, her head tilted. Hyuna had glanced up from her textbook. Luka’s eyes were still on his phone, but the smirk had widened a fraction.
He thinks he sees his life flashing before his eyes. Do they—? They know.
They all know. His life is over. He'll have to change his name. Move to a remote village. Maybe somewhere with no extra data charges. Svalbard? He'll have to herd reindeer in Longyearbyen. Do they have boba there? They don’t have boba there. They have fermented shark meat and 24-hour darkness. Can he survive off of that—
And then a thought. His dark eyes widen. His father—
Till’s textbook slammed shut with a crack that made everyone jump.
“Ivan, calm down. Mizi’s music was just too loud.” He snapped, his voice sharper than intended.
Ivan froze. A hot flush crept up his neck. He offered a weak, strangled noise that was supposed to be an apology but sounded more like a stepped-on mouse.
Luka looked up, removing his reading glasses with a deliberate gesture. His gaze drifted lazily between Ivan’s flushed face and Till’s defensive scowl. “Mizi, could you lower your music for a bit?”
“Oh, right. Sorry!”
Mizi was pocketing her buds with an unreadable smile—Ivan wasn’t sure, maybe it was just her regular smile and he’s being deluded by the thought of almost being caught. He’s too busy decoding the 2 milliliter tilt it held.
“Back to studying it is.” Hyuna had murmured. Ivan just stared at his formula, the numbers blurring.
His phone buzzed on the table. A private message.
Luka ‣ [4:32 PM]
Wow Ivan. Didn't know you could carry a tune like that
Luka ‣ [4:33 PM]
seriously.
You and mizi's creepy playlist were weirdly in sync
Ivan didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. Luka heard him—
Luka ‣ [4:34 PM]
kinda funny
Ivan ‣ [4:34 PM]
what? no it wasn't.
i was just humming nonsense.
He held his breath. The typing bubbles appeared. And disappeared.
Ivan ‣ [4:34 PM]
it was just some random noise. Nothing specific.
you know how it is when you're concentrating.
Luka ‣ [4:35 PM]
…okay?
it was just an observation dude. you good?
The casual dismissal was somehow worse. Ivan had shown his hand. He scrambled.
Ivan ‣ [4:35 PM]
i'm fine. Why wouldn't I be good?
it's just a weird thing to say, that's all. "weirdly in sync."
it’s just a coincidence.
Ivan ‣ [4:36 PM]
the human brain just looks for patterns where there aren't any. it's a known psychological phenomenon.
The bubbles appeared again. Ivan stared, waiting for the axe to fall.
Luka ‣ [4:36 PM]
Lol alright Freud my bad.
Must’ve been the library hvac finally giving up
Luka ‣ [4:37 PM]
Forget i said anything
But Ivan couldn't forget. He saw the sentence not as it was written, but as it could be read: I see you. The ghost was everywhere—in his own paranoid, over-correcting texts, in the silence after Luka's last message.
The library’s silence was no longer studious. It was accusatory.
Every rustle of a page sounded like Luka’s smirk. Every tap of a keyboard was a footstep coming closer to the truth. Ivan’s own breathing felt too loud, a tell-tale heart pounding a rhythm of pure, uncut panic. He stared at his financial model, the numbers now a meaningless sea of hieroglyphics. He knows. He has to know. Why else would he—
His phone vibrated again, a sharp, invasive buzz against the wooden table.
He flinched so hard his knee slammed into the underside of the table.
This time, it was Hyuna who shot him a look of pure annoyance. “You’re gonna break the table.”
“Sorry—”
It wasn’t another message from Luka. It was from a new group chat that had been created.
Sua has added you and Till to “Operation: Boba Extraction”
Ivan’s blood ran cold.
Sua knows. Of course she knows. She knows everything. She’s probably hacked the library’s ventilation system to analyze his hum’s acoustic properties. We’re finished. She heard. Somehow. She’s omnipotent. She’s a God. That must be it. She figured it out. We’re dead. We’re so—
Sua [4:38 PM]
[Use Data to View Photo]
He tapped it. A picture loaded into the chat.
It was a slightly blurry, poorly framed photo of the front of the boba shop across campus, taken through what looked like a rain-spattered window.
Sua [4:38 PM]
Come.
I didn’t bring my wallet.
The sheer, breathtaking normality of it was a bucket of ice water. Ivan blinked, the world snapping back into a less terrifying, more familiar focus.
The ghost receded. This was just Sua. This was just the terms of their pact. Right. She thinks it’s a project with a weird ethereal machine moaning.
Before he could type a response, another message popped up.
Till ‣ [4:39 PM]
no wallet?
wow. shocking. a crisis. what else is new.
Sua ‣ [4:39 PM]
My presence is your payment. The math isn’t mathing, Ivan.
Get over here and make it math.
Sua ‣ [4:40 PM]
I’ll be getting extra jelly for every fraction of a minute you two delay.
Till ‣ [4:40 PM]
Not my wallet. Not my problem.
A sound escaped Ivan then, a choked, half-hysterical snort that was part relief, part utter exhaustion. It was the most un-polished, un-Ivan-like sound he’d made in public all day.
He looked up from his phone. Across the table, Till was watching him, his usual scowl softened by a fraction of something that might have been understanding. He gave a single, almost imperceptible shake of his head, as if to say, Get it together.
Ivan took a deep, shuddering breath. The panic wasn't gone, but it was now boxed up, compartmentalized next to his failing financial model and his origami underwear.
A problem for later. Right now, the problem was a missing wallet and a lifetime supply of honey oolong.
He typed back, his fingers still slightly unsteady.
Ivan ‣ [4:41 PM]
fine. But I’m using “family emergency” if Isaac ever asks why I didn’t finish my work.
He stood up, shoving his laptop and his existential dread into his bag. The ghost could wait. Sua’s boba apparently couldn't.
Notes:
lmao this is basically an indirect rant for final year stress (im not a business nor music composition major tho so forgive the inaccuracies of whatever academic struggle they're going through im in a completely different department😭👍🏼)
Chapter Text
Till’s latest composition, a sprawling, angry thing, had just been returned with another terse email from his professor that feels suspiciously like an underhanded slap.
𝚁𝚎: 𝚂𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚀𝚞𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚎𝚝 𝙽𝚘. 𝟷 - 𝙵𝚒𝚏𝚝𝚑 𝙳𝚛𝚊𝚏𝚝
𝚃𝚒𝚕𝚕,
𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚎𝚌𝚑𝚗𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚏𝚒𝚌𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚢 𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎. 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚍𝚎𝚙𝚝𝚑 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚙𝚘𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚜 𝚊𝚕𝚜𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎. 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚊 𝚌𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚙𝚘𝚘𝚗𝚜. 𝙸 𝚍𝚘 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛.
𝙰𝚜 𝙸 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚘𝚕𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞, 𝚛𝚎𝚙𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍𝚕𝚢, 𝚊 𝚙𝚒𝚎𝚌𝚎 𝚖𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚊 𝚜𝚘𝚞𝚕. 𝙶𝚘 𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚗 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 '𝙶𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝙶𝚒𝚛𝚕' 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚊𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗. 𝙵𝚒𝚐𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚍𝚘𝚗'𝚝.
𝙱𝚎𝚜𝚝, 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚏. 𝚄𝚛𝚊𝚔.
The words, damning and not even trying to be professional anymore, burned behind his eyes. The ghost was quiet on SoundCloud, but it was screaming in Till’s head.
He closes his laptop only for his phone to blow up.
Disaster Gays & Co.
Mizi ‣ [3:14 PM]
OKAY. EPIPHANY. We've been idiots. We got so hung up on the 'Girl' in the name we didn't actually LISTEN.
Hyuna ‣ [3:15 PM]
Listen to what?
Mizi ‣ [3:15 PM]
THE VIBES. But specifically, the vocal timbre.
That low end?
The warmth underneath the falsetto?
Mizi ‣ [3:16 PM]
That's a tenor. A really, really good one. We're not looking for a 'smol bean.'
We're looking for a guy with a secret velvet voice.
Till looks over to Ivan, who had been taking a sip of water, choking as he read the message.
Luka ‣ [3:17 PM]
Ooh, I like this. The ultimate campus mystery. the jock with the choir boy's pipes. The contrast is delicious.
Mizi ‣ [3:17 PM]
EXACTLY. It's someone who hides it. Someone you'd never expect.
Ivan ‣ [3:17 PM]
can we focus on something else.
like maybe the fact that my financial model has a negative net present value and my will to live is depreciating faster than a new car
Till ‣ [3:17 PM]
sounds like a you problem. my problem is that my music has the emotional range of a teaspoon.
Ivan kicks him by the knee, mouthing You're not helping.
Mizi ‣ [3:18 PM]
UR BOTH TRAGIC. AND WRONG. The only problem is we’re all stressed and we need to NOT be here.
Till ‣ [3:17 PM]
I'd rather be anywhere else but here in this plain of existence too tyvm
Mizi ‣ [3:18 PM]
Group hang tonight. My place.
We’re ordering disgusting amounts of food and watching something so dumb it will reset our brains.
Ivan ‣ [3:19 PM]
Can’t. I have a… thing. A club thing.
Till shoots him a questioning look, Ivan shakes his head in response.
Mizi ‣ [3:19 PM]
LYING IS A SIN IVAN I saw Dewey from the team an hour ago. He said you’ve been skipping for a week. You’re coming. That’s final.
Ivan ‣ [3:20 PM]
…I’ll bring snacks.
══════════════════
The walk to the boba shop was a special kind of torture. Till shoved his hands deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched up around his ears like a defensive shell. Next to him, Ivan walked with a forced, casual posture that looked about as natural and relaxing as a heart attack. It was exhausting just to look at him.
The silence between them was a physical thing, thick and suffocating. Till couldn't take it anymore.
“You’re being weird.” He finally muttered, staring at a crack in the pavement instead of looking at him.
“I’m not being weird. You’re being weird.” Ivan shot back, his voice tighter and higher than its usual easy-going pitch.
A scoff escaped Till’s lips.
“I’m always weird. You’re usually… weird too but in a different way. You’re all…” Till made a vague, fluttering gesture with his hand, trying to encapsulate the entirety of Ivan’s frustratingly polished persona. “Ivan-shaped. Right now you’re like a poorly rendered CGI Ivan. All the parts are there, but it’s glitching. Badly.”
Ivan stopped walking so abruptly Till almost passed him. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Till stopped a few paces ahead and turned, crossing his arms. “It means you flinch every time someone says ghost. You even sweat bullets, I mean, you look like you’re waiting for a damn sniper shot right now.”
He could see a fine sheen of sweat on Ivan’s temple right now, under the streetlight. He flicks a finger over it. “See. Sweaty.”
“I get panick-y, okay?” Ivan’s voice had a desperate edge to it. “It feels like I'm being forced to fake two faces and one of them is starting to melt like crazy.”
The raw honesty of it threw Till for a second, but he recovered quickly, falling back on the plan. “We had a pact. Sua is handling it. You are supposed to be handling it. So handle it.”
“I am handling it.” Ivan insisted, but the sharp, brittle edge in his voice betrayed him. He started walking again, quickly passing Till. “Just drop it.”
Fine. They're fine.
Till followed wordlessly behind him.
They collected the others and crammed around a small table in the noisy shop. The group’s chatter was a welcome buffer, a loud, distracting wall of sound against the silence that had hung between them on the walk over.
Till watched Sua, with the terrifying efficiency of a mob boss collecting a debt, slide her empty cup across the table until it tapped against Ivan’s knuckles.
She said nothing, just raised one expectant eyebrow.
Ivan sighed, the picture of resigned duty, and was already pulling out his wallet. Till rolled his eyes so hard he saw his own brain but got up to join him in the inevitably long line. The things he did for this stupid ghost.
When they returned with Sua’s honey oolong with extra lychee jelly, Mizi was watching them with deep fascination. “Okay, for real,” she said, as they sat down. “Why do you two always buy Sua’s boba? Did you guys lose a bet or something?”
Hyuna nodded. “Yeah, what’s the deal? Is it, like, a rich people thing? A cousin thing?”
Ivan, placing the drink in front of Sua, was smooth, but Till saw it—the slight delay in his response, the micro-calculation happening behind his eyes.
“It’s an investment,” Ivan said, the lie rolling off his tongue with practiced ease. “She’s tutoring me in… Statistical Analysis.”
Statistical analysis. Till almost choked on his own violently caffeinated drink. Of course. Perfect, boring, believable fake Ivan.
All eyes turned to him. Shit. He hadn't prepared a cover story for himself. “She’s tutoring me, too.” The words felt clumsy and dumb as soon as he said them.
“You? Tutoring?” Mizi almost burst. “With what?”
“The history of corpo jingles.” He nodded to himself. “It’s a critical analysis of auditory capitalism.”
He sees Ivan take a deep sigh of defeat. “He’s joking. It’s statistical analysis for me. For Till, it’s… auditory compression techniques. For his compositions.” He smoothly, and somewhat desperately, attempted to course-correct, making it sound just technical enough to be vaguely believable.
“They’re terrible students.” Sua took a long, satisfying sip through the fat straw, saving them both. “It’s a lifetime commitment, really.”
Till didn’t miss the way Luka watched the entire exchange over the top of his book, a deeply amused smirk he'd been wearing on his face for days. He knows, Till thought, sinking lower in his chair. He absolutely knows they were full of shit.
Disaster Gays & Co.
Mizi ‣ [5:02 PM]
EVERYONE TO IVAN AND TILL’S. MY PLACE HAS A… SITUATION. IT IS A CRIME SCENE.
Hyuna ‣ [5:03 PM]
what kind of crime scene
Mizi ‣ [5:03 PM]
The kind involving blonde hair dye, a broken sink, and my roommate’s tears.
It looks like a diarrhea massacre here. We’re relocating.
Ivan, Till, your place.
Luka, bring the good popcorn.
Till ‣ [5:05 PM]
absolutely not.
this is a designated zone of suffering
Ivan ‣ [5:06 PM]
Too late. I already said yes. I’m making wings.
Till ‣ [5:06 PM]
what
YOU TRAITOR.
An hour later, Apartment 4B was under siege.
Till watched the chaos from his corner of the couch, Ivan was distributing plates of wings. Luka was pouring his gourmet popcorn into a bowl. Till just fumbled with the remote, wishing he were anywhere else.
Mizi stretched her arms over her head with a groan. “Ugh, I probably shouldn’t have had that second milk tea. Ivan, where’s your bathroom?”
The question, so simple and innocent, hit them like a painfully physical blow.
Till watched, in what felt like slow motion, as Ivan nearly dropped the wing platter.
The hallway. The bathroom itself was fine now. It was the goddamn hallway, leading directly past their bedroom door. The door currently barricaded with a mattress, pillows, and every blanket they owned—a pathetic, desperate attempt at a more soundproofed recording booth.
A single glance would reveal their entire operation.
“No! No bathroom!” The words exploded from Ivan, far too loud and sharp. Till winced. Smooth.
Mizi flinched. “Whoa, okay. Chill. Is there like a line? I can hold it.”
Think. Think of something. Till’s mind raced, landing on the dumbest possible excuse. “Biohazard! A biohazard. A huge one. A… plumbing biohazard.”
“A… plumbing biohazard?” Hyuna repeated, instantly intrigued. “Like a fungal growth? You got a mold problem too?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Yes. Fungus. Mold—black mold.” Ivan nodded, his voice straining for a calm that was clearly failing. He set the wings down like they were live explosives. “The toxic kind. We’ve sealed it off for everyone’s safety. It’s basically Chernobyl in there.”
“We’re waiting for maintenance.” Till added, his voice an octave too high. “They said… next next week. Maybe.”
Luka’s eyes narrowed. He glanced between their pale, panicked faces. “You’ve been without a bathroom for a week?”
“Yes.” Till knew they were so unbelievably screwed.
“Where do you shower? Where do you—you know.”
“The gym—“ Ivan said, a little too quickly. The lie was so transparent it was painful. “We use the gym facilities. It’s—fine. Builds character.”
“We’re very character-built.” Till deadpanned. He could feel the dampness under his arms now. He, who refused to even lift Ivan's stupid chrome dumbbells, was now a gym rat. Fantastic.
Mizi looked deeply skeptical. “You’re telling me Mr. Fancy-Pants-500-Thread-Count, Ivan, here showers at a public gym?”
“I’m embracing a simpler life.” Ivan said, he could feel the imaginary tear he just shed.
“That’s so dumb?” Sua, who had been quietly observing the entire meltdown, took a slow sip of her take-out boba. “The nearest gym is a twenty-minute walk. That’s an inefficient use of time for basic hygiene.”
Her calm, logical tone was more terrifying than any accusation.
“We… jog there.” Till tried, desperation in his eyes. “It’s part of a routine.”
A beat of deeply suspicious silence hung over the room. Till could practically hear the cogs turning in everyone’s heads.
Finally, Mizi shrugged, though her eyes still held a glint of curiosity. “Okay, you fake himbos. Hyuna, your place is on the way home, right? I’ll just suffer.”
She plopped onto the couch, mercifully dropping it. Ivan and Till simultaneously deflated, the tension whooshing out of them. They shared another look, this one of sheer, relieved exhaustion. They’d both survived. Barely.
Luka, however, didn’t look away.
He studied them for a moment longer. “A plumbing problem, and mold to boot?” He mused quietly, to no one in particular. “How… convenient.”
Till's feet were twitching to kick something, or in this case, someone.
“Let’s just start the damn movie.” He muttered, sinking into the farthest corner of the couch and feeling utterly drained.
══════════════════
The three-seater couch was a crime against personal space, holding five people hostage. Luka was a dramatic, sprawling pile of limbs on the floor. The air was thick with the smell of garlic, gochujang, and the distinct scent of a movie that had a 3% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Till was pretty sure the zombies were better actors than the humans.
Luka, from his throne of throw pillows on the floor, passed judgment. “The real problem is that none of these idiots would last a day. They’re prioritizing drama over survival.”
“Okay, but for real.” Mizi said, gesturing at the TV with a chicken wing. “Which one of us would actually survive a zombie apocalypse?”
“I think—”
“And don’t say you, Luka.” she cut him off. “We all know you’d be the first to betray us for a can of beans.”
“I would be an invaluable asset.” Luka continued, ignoring her. “I’m resourceful, pragmatic—”
“You’d push Hyuna into a horde to buy yourself three extra seconds.” Till stated flatly.
“Three seconds is a long time.” Luka defended.
“Heh, worth it,” Hyuna said, patting him with tragic solemnity. “Live with love, Luka.”
“He’d definitely eat expired beans for sure—”
“—I heard that, Mizi. And I would, if they were the last beans.”
“Wait, if Luka's the obvious antagonist, is Ivan a secret villain then?” Mizi mused.
“Ivan? A villain?” Hyuna snorted, she pointed over at his cheeks. “With that sweet, sweet baby face and the cute li’l snaggle tooth? No way.”
“Ever heard of serial killers luring you in with charm?” Luka countered.
“Oh gods.” Mizi gasped, her eyes going wide as she looked at Ivan with new, horrified fascination. “You think he’d have, like, fermented bodies in a basement?”
“He’d definitely have a spreadsheet for it.” Sua muttered under her breath.
Ivan, mid-bite on a wing, looked up. “I am both flattered and deeply disturbed by this conversation.”
“Okay, Till!” Mizi leans forward, eyes searching for the grey haired man tucked on the opposite corner. “He's your roommate.You'd know him best.”
Till hadn't planned on saying anything.
“Ivan would be the self-sacrificing idiot.” The words just fell out of his mouth. He countered, pointinh a bone at him. “He’d be all… capable. Making his weird protein scrambles out of canned goods.”
“It’s called being resourceful.” Ivan defended, though he was smiling. “And how is that self-sacrificial?”
“The second you get bitten? You’d give a stoic speech and wander off to die alone. Total martyr.”
Ivan looked oddly touched, before shaking his head. “That’s… a little dramatic, even for me.”
“It’s the white polo shirt. It does something to a guy’s brain. Makes him want to die nobly or something.” Till replied, but there was no bite to it.
Ivan nudges him in response. The contact was warm, brief, and sent a stupid jolt through him.
“What about Till then?” Hyuna asked.
Mizi answered immediately. “Oh, he’s definitely the main character! The one left alive at the end. All broody and hardened by having witnessed all our deaths.”
“Till, a main character?” Luka laughed. “He’s the guy pissing in a bush and accidentally ends up being patient zero.”
“Is that how you see me?” Till asked, deadpan.
“Mad cow.” Luka confirmed with a nod.
“Absolute zero survival instincts.” Sua chimed in.
“—would try to reason with the zombies about the inherent nihilism of consumption.” Hyuna nodded.
“I would not—I’d probably just lie down though.” Till muttered. It was the truth. The path of least resistance. “Seems easier.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” Ivan cut in, his voice so sure it left no room for argument.
Till turned to look at him, genuinely surprised. “Why, can't believe I'd just take it as it is?”
Ivan held his gaze, his expression serious. “I think you’d fight. You’re too stubborn to quit.”
Too stubborn to quit.
Till could only stare back. The words landed somewhere deep in his chest, a direct hit. Nobody had ever looked at him and seen a fighter. He wasn't even sure Ivan was right, but the certainty in his voice felt like a revelation.
The unexpected truth of it hung in the air between them.
“Okay, me!” Mizi chirped, violently shattering the moment. “I volunteer to be the heart!”
“No way,” Luka chuckled. “You’re the wild card. You'd burn the whole place down if your girlfriend died. You'd have everyone thinking ‘oh gods, sweet little Mizi could never,’ but you would. Loud and proud.”
Hyuna smirked. “She’d use the expired beans as Molotov cocktails—”
“I would—if Luka hadn't betrayed us for said beans!” Mizi shot back, pointing at Luka.
“Again, It’s for survival.” Luka almost lunges a throw pillow at her.
A dry, quiet voice cut through from the corner. “Am I the girlfriend?”
Everyone turned to Sua, who was meticulously aligning Ivan’s expensive coasters into a perfect fractal pattern. She didn’t look up.
Mizi’s jaw dropped. Then she launched herself across Hyuna’s lap to wrap her arms around Sua’s neck. “OF COURSE YOU ARE! We’d have a beautiful, tragic romance! We’d hold hands as the flames consumed us!”
Sua endured the hug with the patience of a saint, patting Mizi’s arm twice. “I’d expect nothing less.” A barely-there smile touched her lips.
“And Hyuna?” Ivan asked, laughing.
Till squinted at her. “Hyuna’s the only one who’d actually be working on a solution.” The image was clear. “She’d be in a hidden lab somewhere isolated.”
“—Hyuna in a lab?” Luka interrupted. “She’d have a cure synthesized before the rest of us found a working can opener.”
Till nodded. “Definitely developing the antidote while the rest of us are just smashing things with sticks.”
“Like a bunch of apes?” Ivan mused.
“Apes are smart.” Luka countered without looking up from his popcorn. “They use tools. They’d probably be better at this than we are.”
“They’re also the cause of, like, half of all weird plagues.” Hyuna added thoughtfully. “Remember that Simian Flu outbreak from 2001? Apes. It’s always apes.”
Till stared at them. Head in hands. “Isn’t that a fucking fictional disease from Planet of the Apes?”
══════════════════
The movie’s soundtrack was painfully cheesy. Mizi groaned, grabbing her phone. “Okay, this is hot garbage. This sounds like my ringtone from 2005. Can I please put on something decent?”
“Please do.” Hyuna agreed, adjusting her glasses. “It’s actually starting to give me a headache.”
“My ears are begging for mercy.” Luka added dryly.
“Yes, save us, Mizi!” Ivan said, a little too enthusiastically, clearly grateful for any distraction.
Maybe she’s moved on from the whole Ghost Girl thing, Till thought, a flicker of hope in his chest. Maybe it’s just one of her moody playlists.
Mizi queued up something on her phone. A soft, ambient melody floated into the room. It was pleasant, inoffensive. For about thirty seconds, he actually believed they were in the clear.
Then the instrumentation shifted. A familiar, minimalist beat kicked in.
Till’s ears pricked up. He knew that beat. He’d programmed it himself.
His head snapped toward Ivan a half-second. He saw the exact moment Ivan recognized it too—a slight stiffening of his spine, a flicker of wide-eyed panic before he forcibly smoothed his expression.
Then came Ghost Girl’s voice.
Ivan’s voice.
He watched Ivan’s easy posture go. His shoulders crept up towards his ears. He was staring straight ahead at the movie, but it doesn't seem like he was seeing it. He was just trying to remember how to breathe.
Till’s own gut clenched in sympathy. On pure instinct, he knocked his knee against Ivan’s. A quick, sharp tap. A jolt. A reminder. Play it cool.
“Hey.” He muttered under his breath, the word for Ivan’s ears only. “Breathe.”
For a terrifying second, nothing happened. Ivan remained a statue. Then, a subtle shift. He hears a deep exhale. The rigid line of Ivan’s shoulder, pressed against Till’s, didn't pull away. Instead, it went slack. Ivan’s entire frame seemed to slump, his weight leaning ever so slightly into Till’s side.
It wasn't a dramatic move. Just a silent, desperate press of his arm against Till's. A wordless plea. Till held still, letting him. He was still staring blindly at the screen, his breathing shallow, but he was holding on. To the contact. To Till.
He didn't pull away until the song faded. Ivan slowly straightened up, the color returning to his knuckles. He chanced a glance at Till, who gave a barely perceptible nod. Okay. They're okay.
The movie eventually sputtered to its conclusion on a cliffhanger so absurd it left the room in a stunned, hilarious silence. The credits rolled, and a comfortable exhaustion settled over them.
Mizi was the first to break it, stretching with a groan. “Okay, my brain is officially empty. Mission accomplished.”
“Congrats. Does that mean we’re allowed to kick you all out now?” Till mumbled, slouching further into the couch. He was emotionally spent.
“Not a chance!” Mizi huffed, pulling out a skincare case.
“I'm going to pretend that wasn't a make-up kit you just pulled out.”
“Now for phase two. Rehabilitation.”
“Sounds depressing.”
“Oh shut up. We're starting with you.” Mizi waves him off. “Till, your whole—vibe.” She began, assessing him with a critical eye. “The misunderstood musician thing. It’s working for you. But you could elevate it.”
“What does ‘elevate it’ mean? Am I being gentrified?”
“It means she thinks you're ugly.” Luka interjected without looking up from his phone.
Ivan, finally feeling back on solid ground, couldn't resist. A slight teasing curve on his lips. “No way. Till and ugly in the same sentence?”
Till’s head snapped toward him, a familiar scowl forming. “Watch it.”
“No!” Mizi insisted, swatting at Luka. “I mean his skin is good, but it could be dewy. Hydration is key.” She brandished a bottle of something expensive-looking. “Hyuna, Sua, you’re in. Luka, your skin is annoyingly perfect, so you can just sit there and be judged.”
“I accept my role as the benchmark of beauty.” Luka said, tossing another piece of popcorn into his mouth.
What followed was a surprisingly peaceful takeover. Mizi, a true skincare connoisseur, talked Hyuna through the benefits of hyaluronic acid. Sua even allowed her to pat on moisturizer with the patience of a cat sunbathing.
Then Mizi turned back to Till, zeroing in on his eyes. "Okay, but the real masterpiece is this. How are your lashes so stupidly long? And the way your eyes are just—naturally-framed like that. It's not fair."
She leaned in, her thumb swiping gently under his eye. She examined her finger. “Huh—is this really just your face.”
Mizi tried to wipe it again with a little more force. “Why won’t it come off? You have, like, a permanent, perfect smokey eyeliner.”
“It’s genetics and sleep deprivation.”
Ivan had been quiet since Mizi stared tampering with his face, but he could feel the dark haired man watching.
Not just looking, but studying. The weight of his dark gaze was a physical thing. Till kept his eyes shut, suddenly hyper-aware of his own face.
“Something on my face, pretty boy?”
The words, when they came, were quiet. Awed. “It’s pretty.”
Ivan didn't even look like he registered his own words.
They hung in the air, soft and devastating.
Till’s eyes snapped open. He slowly turned to look at Ivan, his brain struggling to process the word. Pretty. His cheeks felt like they were burning—he was sure they were burning. "...What?"
He calls Ivan a pretty boy, and it's fine. But Ivan calling him one?
That's untouched territory.
If he hadn't processed his words earlier, he definitely has now. Ivan looked horrified. “I—” He gulped, his eyes darting around the room. “I mean. It’s—symmetrical.” He was short-circuiting, every ounce of polish gone. “It frames your—it’s a good—efficient use of facial real estate.”
He just compared Till's face to fucking real estate. What a day.
He was digging the hole deeper with every strained, robotic word.
Mizi’s eyes lit up with unholy glee. She zeroed in on Ivan’s crimson ears. “Wow. ‘Efficient use of facial real estate.’ Is that what they’re calling it in business class these days, Ivan?”
“That's—” Ivan looked over to Till, who had his eyes screwed shut, refusing to look at anyone. He was not gonna get any help from him. Ivan looked back at Mizi’s cat-like grin. “—It’s an objective assessment of symmetry and framing!”
Luka, from the floor, let out a low whistle. “An ‘objective assessment.’ Did you run a cost-benefit analysis on his cheekbones, Ivan? Calculate the ROI on those eyelashes?”
“I bet he made a spreadsheet." Hyuna added, nodding sagely. “Columns for ‘symmetry,’ ‘aesthetic efficiency,’ and ‘personal feelings I am repressing.’”
“There’s no spreadsheet!” Ivan insisted, his voice cracking slightly. Till winced.
“Just say you think he’s pretty, we all heard you the first time.” Mizi said, forefinger and thumb smugly on her chin.
“It’s not—I didn’t— Can we please talk about anything else!” Ivan pleaded. He flailed a hand vaguely toward the silent, black screen of the TV. “Like—like the new Ghost Girl catalog number they just dropped! catalog_no.G-4B-C! The one with the layered hums and the... the faint sound of a microwave beeping in the background! We should... analyze that!”
Oh boy. Till peeped an eye open, only to close it again. He feels Luka’s smirk widen into something truly predatory even in the darkness.
“Oh.” The blond said, his voice dripping with faux admiration. “Look who’s up-to-date on all the latest spectral releases. Refreshing the feed every five minutes, are we, Ivan?”
“Nope.” Hyuna said, shaking her head. “Sorry. This.” She gestured between Ivan’s flushed face and a still-frozen Till, “is way more interesting than analyzing microwave sounds.”
“Way more interesting.” Luka agreed.
“I hate all of you.”
Disaster Gays & Co.
Mizi ‣ [11:47 PM]
ok but. NEW theory. what if it’s not one person. what if it’s a DUO? a collab?
like, one person makes the music the other is the voice. a partnership.
Luka ‣ [11:48 PM]
Now that’s a compelling narrative. The musical genius and his secret weapon.
Hyuna ‣ [11:49 PM]
Collaborative anonymity huh
Sharing the burden of a secret can def strengthen a bond
Luka ‣ [11:49 PM]
or become a deal-breaker
Ivan ‣ [11:50 PM]
going to sleep. don’t blow up my phone.
Till ‣ [11:50 PM]
seconded. stop trying to reverse-engineer this whole thing and go the fuck to bed.
Mizi ‣ [11:50 PM]
//pouting
hMP
Till’s just jealous it wasn't him who came up with ghost girl
Oh, he wished he didn't for all the trouble it's worth.
The door clicked shut behind Luka, finally leaving them alone in the sticky, post-hangout stillness of their apartment. Till felt the easy comfort from the couch evaporate, replaced by the heavy, familiar weight of their shared secret hanging in the air between them like a bad smell.
The cleanup began not with a wordless dance, but with a series of stilted, awkward motions. Till picked up a half-eaten wing from the windowsill, holding it up like a piece of forensic evidence. "Who the hell left this here?"
Ivan glanced over from stacking cups. "That was you. You said it was 'too spicy for your delicate constitution' and abandoned it."
"...Right." Till looked away, tossing the wing into a bag. Idiot. Of course it was him.
"Well, the couch is permanently sunk in on one side now." Ivan noted, wiping down the table.
"Luka's asscheeks, maybe." Till muttered, the image immediately regrettable. "He was camped out there all night."
"He was the only one on the floor, Till."
"Oh. Right." A beat of silence. Shut up, Till. Just shut up. "Still."
Another stretch of quiet filled the room, thick and charged. The only sounds were the crinkle of the trash bag and the clink of glassware, each one too loud.
Till reached for a discarded plate at the same time Ivan did. Their fingers didn't touch, but the air between them crackled with the near-miss. They both pulled back as if shocked.
"You—" Till started, then stopped.
"Go ahead. You look like a startled cat." Ivan muttered, not looking at him, suddenly very interested in a water ring on the wood.
Till finally tied off the full trash bag with a sharp, plastic rustle. The noise was satisfyingly final. He had to say something. Anything to break this.
"Today was... awkward, but nice, I think." The words felt tentative and stupid the second they left his mouth.
“It was.” Ivan replied, his voice equally soft. He was scrubbing at a non-existent spot on the counter with a dedication it did not deserve.
“Yeah.” Till sighed.
“Yeah.”
Till snorted, a weak, breathy sound. "This is so awkward."
“It is.” Ivan chuckled back, the sound a little more genuine this time.
For a moment, it seemed like they might actually find their way back to something normal. The frantic energy of the movie night, the zombie dynamics, and the brutal teasing over Ivan's "efficient use of facial real estate" began to dissipate, leaving behind the comfortable, worn-in silence of a shared space. They were just two guys cleaning up after their friends, surrounded by the familiar, greasy evidence of a good night. It felt almost safe.
It was then that both of their phones, left beside each other on the coffee table, lit up simultaneously. A single isolated buzz.
Then another.
And another.
Till’s eyes snapped to them. A cold dread, separate from the earlier social anxiety, washed over him. They were both physically and mentally done with the close-call Ghost Girl theories for the night. This couldn't be good.
Ivan’s face tightened. He stopped his frantic scrubbing, his hands braced on the countertop like it was the only thing holding him up. Till stopped moving entirely, his eyes locked on the glowing, buzzing screens.
Without a word they both walked over.
Ivan picked up his phone. Till leaned over his shoulder, his own forgotten in his hand, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Operation: Boba Extraction
Sua ‣ [12:01 AM]
Open your email.
Now.
Now. Idiot 1. Idiot 2.
Sua ‣ [12:02 AM]
I just forwarded it to you both.
Do not panic. (Panic.)
Sua ‣ [12:03 AM]
This is not a drill.
Ivan’s thumb trembled as he tapped the notification. The screen lit up his pale, horrified face. The color drained from it completely. He went perfectly still, staring at the screen as if it had turned to ice in his hand.
Till read over his shoulder, his own breath catching in his throat, lodging there. Any last trace of a smirk dissolved, replaced by pure, unadulterated shock.
“Holy shit.” Till breathed, the words barely a whisper. It wasn't a question. It was a verdict.
There, in stark, professional font, was the email Sua had forwarded. It wasn't a campus blog or a fan theory. It was a goddamn record label.
𝙵𝚆: [𝚄𝚁𝙶𝙴𝙽𝚃] 𝙼𝚎𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚁𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 '𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛_𝟺𝙱'
𝙵𝚛𝚘𝚖: 𝙰&𝚂 𝚁𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜 𝙻𝚊𝚋𝚎𝚕
𝚃𝚘: 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛_𝟺𝙱@𝚜𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚌𝚕𝚘𝚞𝚍.𝚌𝚘𝚖
𝚂𝚞𝚋𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝: [𝚄𝚁𝙶𝙴𝙽𝚃] 𝙼𝚎𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚁𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 '𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛_𝟺𝙱'
𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛_𝟺𝙱,
𝚆𝚎 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚢 𝚒𝚖𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚛𝚊𝚠, 𝚑𝚊𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚚𝚞𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚟𝚘𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚗𝚘𝚟𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚍𝚞𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝚆𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚋𝚎 𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚍𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚞𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚙𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚊𝚕 𝚏𝚞𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝚆𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚋𝚎 𝚊𝚟𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚋𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚏 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚘𝚍𝚞𝚌𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢 𝚖𝚎𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚔? 𝙿𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝚕𝚎𝚝 𝚞𝚜 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚖𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚢𝚘𝚞.
𝙱𝚎𝚜𝚝, 𝙰&𝚂 𝚁𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜
Notes:
have a great day :>
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