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There's a finesse with which one has to approach a stray animal, especially one that is pretty frightened. Gentler, Till's mother used to say, every time he made grabby hands at another street cat, fingers hovering in front of its hissing mouth. Gentler, Till. It's littler than you are, so it must be more scared, too, right? So, you have to be more careful with it.
With time, Till learned to hold his palms steady for a sniff or two. Only when the cat lowered its head did he brush its matted fur. Slowly, of course. He always tried his best not to spook any of them. Especially after his mother passed. The sensation of the rough tongue licking at the pad of his thumb felt like another part of her he had been allowed to keep safe with him, regardless of the prickliness of the memory.
Till believes that Ivan is somewhat similar to these abandoned cats. When he tried to explain this analogy to Mizi and Sua last week, they had giggled. I guess Ivan is a bit like a well-groomed kitty, Mizi said, rubbing under her chin. One prone to clawing you if you get too close for its liking, surely, Sua piped in, arms folded across her chest. When they turned to her with their eyebrows raised, she had simply shrugged. You know, the ones that puff themselves up to seem bigger than they are. Well, Till did find himself eventually agreeing.
He is nodding now as Ivan squares his shoulders in front of him, gaining a few inches. On top of the inches that he already has on Till, that is. Greedy bastard. Just seconds ago, Till's index finger had barely grazed Ivan's cheek before landing on the wall behind his head. The impact was a little harder than he expected it to be, but he bit his bottom lip to hold back the inevitable wince. He's still biting it. He hopes Ivan doesn't notice. He needs all the ammunition he can get at the moment.
"Well, this is rather silly," Ivan says because he has the habit of having the first word, even in situations where that might put him at a disadvantage. He glances upward. Till follows his gaze to the little signboard that is meant to depict a stick figure wearing a shirt and pants. Okay, perhaps cornering Ivan right outside the third-floor boys' washroom wasn't the best idea, but Till was running low on options, alright? The guy is a tough fish to catch. Or cat. Okay, he may be losing the analogy here. That bastard's distracting him as always. "I can't tell what you hope to accomplish from this."
"I think you have an idea," Till mumbles, the pinky of his free hand catching on a loose, black stand. It's almost the end of the school day, which means whatever gel Ivan was using to keep his hair in place has begun to lose its stickiness. The piece of hair in Till's grasp is assuming the shape of a spiral. It reminds Till of the shells Ivan used to pick for him when they were little. The ones that held onto the sounds of the sea, even hours later. Some evenings, Till breathes into his own fist so he can hear the echoes of long-lost days. He wonders if Ivan still remembers how he liked the blue ones the best. "Don't say that you don't. If you say that, I'll know you're lying right away."
"You do claim to know a lot of things that you don't," Ivan says, lifting an eyebrow. It makes the mole underneath his left eye shift as well. It's fascinated Till ever since they were children. Whenever he blinked, it seemed to be in a slightly different location. Quite like a star. Hard to get a hold of. Till could never make his grip small and harmless enough to encase it whole. "It's an old habit of yours."
"Or maybe I just know a lot more than you assume. Maybe if you didn't underestimate everyone around you, you'd see that." Till lifts his fingers, pinching over the little black dot on Ivan's skin. It makes Ivan's eyelid quiver. Even the one that is moleless and alone. Drab as it is, Till still finds the fluttering of its eyelashes to be equally mesmerizing. From an artist's perspective, obviously.
It's no wonder the senior art students keep poaching him as the model. He has high cheekbones. A sharp jaw. A well-proportioned smile that Till has caught him practicing in rain puddles one too many times. Well, the others just have to deal with the fact that Till found him first. Way back, even. In kindergarten. It doesn't matter how that meeting went. They should get their delicately woven flower crowns crushed under a toddler's brazen, bare feet before they dare to make any sort of move on the guy.
"Yeah? What do you know, then?" Ivan asks, his breath warm over Till's nose. It smells a little like the rolled omelettes from the twin lunch boxes that Till had packed for the two of them. The same omelettes Ivan had chosen to eat inside the Student Council Room, like the traitor that he was, disregarding Till's entire effort. He bets none of the guy's fans think his breath smells like eggs. Well, luckily for them, only Till can get close enough to know.
Before, that is. Ivan has been eating his lunch by himself for the last couple of weeks, now. Maybe even the last month. It's not like Till kept track. It's not like he even cared. Still, he had continued the ritual out of the goodness of his heart. Because it's what his mother had done for the two of them while she had still been alive. She would have wanted Ivan to eat well, regardless of whether he deigned to speak to Till with his mouth full of rice or not.
"I know that you're full of shit, for example. I know that you're talking this much because you're nervous," Till says, raising his own eyebrow. He thumbs Ivan's cheek, stretching the slightly oily skin between his fingers, almost sighing in relief when he spots a couple of acne scars. Ivan lets out another breath, and Till feels his fingers ripple along with it. "You're all shaky, for one."
Till still remembers the summer Ivan had shown up a head taller than Till, his face littered in little bumps, too small to be mosquito bites. He had spent the whole afternoon sticking the entire packet of the Jjokani bandages Mizi had gifted him on Ivan's cheeks and chin. Unbeknownst to Ivan, the little bunny's pointed grin had matched his, at least before Ivan had learned to fold his evenly, like an origami square, that is. Till wants to induce enough joy in Ivan to make his edges crumple again.
"Hmm?" Ivan says, tilting his head. He leans further into the wall. Till's weight moves forward on its own. Their noses brush, and Till feels his skin grow warmer underneath his collar. He swallows back a whine. "Hadn't realized. I did have a bit of a cold over the weekend. It must still be lingering. You should stay away, you know. What they say about idiots may not quite be true."
Bursts of spittle fly out of Ivan's lips with the force of the last word. Till's eyes cross, following their path, losing them somewhere on his own shoulder. It takes him a few seconds to refocus his gaze on Ivan's lips, which look wetter than they did before. A bubble of spit is quickly dissipating on his lower lip. Till watches it disappear before turning his eyes back up to meet Ivan's.
"O-kaay, so we're going to trade insults. Fine. I think you have a big head. The biggest, in fact. That middle school enough for you?" Till asks, pressing his hand harder against the wall. He lifts his leg and pushes his knee against the concrete surface for good measure. It makes the whole act infinitely less attractive, but he's going for practicality here. He has to cut off any and all escape routes.
As soon as he's stabilized himself, he tugs on Ivan's cheek, pulling it outward. It doesn't look like it anymore, but the guy is still a little chubby in the face.
"Hooow flaaaattering," Ivan surmises, mouth struggling in Till's hold. The end of his long tooth pokes out of the side of his lips. It makes his tone infinitely more biting. Till wouldn't have it any other way. A polite Ivan is perhaps the hardest to bear. He doesn't know how their classmates handle him. The falsity of his gestures makes Till's skin itch.
"I thought you might think so," Till mutters. He releases Ivan's cheek, choosing to instead place his free hand over the left side of Ivan's chest. Under his breath, he takes count. One, two, three, four. Five, six, seven, eight.
Back when they were still little, Till often lost his breath. When all the lights went out. When he heard the door slam. When someone let out a sudden laugh. Living with a man like his father could make the best of men afraid of any kind of raised volume. Even one that resulted from happiness. In such moments, Ivan would sit with him and put Till's palm over his own heart. Over its unchanging, steady rhythm. One, two, three, four. Five, six, seven, eight. Back when the clock felt a little difficult to keep track of, Till counted time in the units of Ivan's heartbeats. Today, the seconds seem to arrive a little faster than before.
"A-Anyway, your heart tells quite a different story, too," he says, suddenly conscious of the weight behind every thud on the insides of Ivan's ribcage. Their impact on him renders him a little off-kilter. "Mhm? How do you explain that, genius?"
"The most reasonable explanation is the atypical situation we find ourselves in. Certainly, it would unnerve even the most heavyhearted of creatures," Ivan notes, his eyes fixated somewhere around Till's chin. The distance between them is so little that he doesn't have many options, as such. Till's own eyes barely lift above the circle of Ivan's mouth. For the same reasons. Yes. "And I'm merely a high-school student. You should go a little easy on me, Till. Have fewer expectations, perhaps. Lest I disappoint you further than I clearly have."
"I didn't say you disappointed me," Till says, poking Ivan's ribs with his blunt fingernails. Once, Ivan tried drawing guitar strings on their chipped surfaces to get Till to stop biting their edges. Maybe if they resembled what you loved the most in the world, you would stop chewing on them so, Ivan had reasoned, after Till had gotten angry. To this day, Till hasn't told him that he was off in his guess, if only by a little. Till does love the guitar. Loving it the most, however, is impossible, given the existence of other, much more frustrating entities. "I'm not your teachers or your classmates or your father, remember? Use a different word, maybe."
"Disillusion? Disenchant? Dissatisfy?" Ivan suggests, raising a finger with each new term. Till tries to keep staring at him unblinkingly. He loses the battle around the fifth or the sixth syllable, thanks to an itch in the corner of his left eye. "Has anyone ever told you that you resemble one of those little dogs that try to bark up a storm every time they encounter a dog twice or even thrice their size? I must say, you do share their disposition."
Till grits his teeth, struggling to keep his focus on the rattling on the other side of Ivan's ribs. Gentler, he reminds himself. Gentler. He has to keep his palms soft and outstretched. He has to pay close attention to all the ways Ivan is being unmade. Or else, he'll get misguided by annoyance again. Gentler. "None of those were the right words. Try again."
"Dishearten? Dismay?" Ivan rattles off, his entire right hand spread open. He shakes it out. "Dispirit?"
"Again. A different prefix, maybe. Smartass."
"I'm touched you know what that is," Ivan says before his eye twitches at the light pinch Till delivers right under his right pec. Till pinches him again for good measure. Ivan sighs, his foot kicking outward, bumping the side of Till's. Till bumps his back. Ivan takes the blow without any further retaliation. "Listen, language has never been your strongest suit, and I believe we are both aware of the same. I'm just touched you were paying so much attention during those tutoring sessions."
"Ivan," Till mumbles. He dips his head, suddenly feeling the strain in his craned neck. His forehead lands against the curve of Ivan's shoulder. Counting down the seconds, he drags it closer to Ivan's stiff neck. "Ivan, come on."
Ivan sighs again. His foot taps on the ground once, then twice. In a much quieter voice, he says, "Hurt?"
Till bites his tongue to push back the instinctual denial. They spend so much of their time saying no to each other, he realizes, his entire body seems to repel the urge to say yes. He feels little like a cat spooked by the suddenness of headlights himself. Having spent so much time trying to drag the core of this subject into the brightness, he doesn't know what to do when it is already out there for both of them to see. His left leg twitches, urging his lower body to break out in a run again. His fright remains the same whether the stars are present to overlook it or not. He pushes his entire weight on his foot to keep it in place.
"Why haven't you been coming to movie nights?" he asks, kicking Ivan in the shin to take his attention away from the fragility of the words. He buries his nose in the gap in Ivan's shirt right above the knot of his school tie. At least the bastard still uses the same mint body wash. Till needs to seek the solace of one unchanged thing. At least one. "You've never missed so many in a row before, so what gives, huh?"
For a second, Ivan doesn't move. Then, absurdly, he huffs. "Movie nights? This is about movie nights?"
"Yes?" Till hisses, pushing the edge of his nose into Ivan's clavicle, just to feel him shudder. Weakling. "You were there when we watched the first part of the Scream series, and then you didn't bother to show up for Part Two or Part Three. That's just not right, you realize? You can't just abandon the series midway? I'm pretty sure it breaks some sacred code of movie watching."
"I can't just abandon the series midway," Ivan repeats, albeit a touch slower than Till. Entirely unnecessary, if Till has anything to say about it. "That's the issue here?"
"Yes," Till says, pulling his head back to glare Ivan in the eye, a gesture made more complicated by the fact that the guy seems determined to stare past Till's head. Curse tall people, seriously. This is what Till was afraid of the day Ivan became able to see beyond Till's face. The day other people came into his view. The day he came into view for other people. There is too much to worry about now. "It's dicor-cort-eous or something."
"Or something," Ivan echoes, blinking. Does he need to do that so much?
"It is. It absolutely is," Till insists, hand moving up to grip the edges of Ivan's collar, rumpling it a little. So much for being careful. Still, a wrinkle or two will do his pristine exterior some good. An added touch of naturalness, one might even call it. Serves the guy right. "Plus, the movies are a-annoyingly spooky without your background commentary, alright? Is this some far-fetched prank where you want me to have nightmares about mysterious killers in masks? It's not enough to be haunted by your all-too-perfect presence in school?"
There's not much space for him to go anywhere, but Ivan still manages to take a step back. Till feels like he should take this newfound gap between them personally.
"A prank?" Ivan says, hand coming up to brush a strand of hair out of his eyes, tucking it behind his ear. He makes it look so effortless. So clean. Till is all too aware of his own scraggly hair. He attempts to run two fingers through it, only for them to get stuck in the middle. "Must everything be so childish to you, Till?"
Till lets out a snort. It's an ugly, jagged sound. Too close to a sob for his liking. "Childish? That's rich, coming from you. I'm not the one avoiding the other because I'm suddenly too cool to hang out with them." He tears his fingers away from his hair, pointing them at Ivan's face. "What? Did your soccer player friends invite you to their a-awesome mixers or parties or something? Is that where you've been for the last two weekends, while I've been w-waiting for you at home?"
"Too cool?" Ivan's shoulders shake, emptily. No laughter emerges from his throat. It's like he's bare. Bare of any substance at all. "You think I'm avoiding you because I believe I'm somehow superior to you? Gosh, Till, you really don't know anything. If you did, you wouldn't be worrying about something so…"
Ivan pauses, seemingly lost for words. His left eyelid droops lower than the right. The ends of his lips do the same.
There it is. A failed smile.
"What?" Till says, feeling his lips tremble. His hands soon follow suit, from where they are gripping the fabric of Ivan's shirt. The world feels a lot wobblier like this. When he has to stay balanced by himself without taking the support of someone else's back. "Why'd you stop? Something so insignificant? Something so unimportant? Is that what you were going to say?"
He remembers feeling so small once. Dressed in a black suit too tight for him because his father couldn't bother getting his size right, even during such a time. Staring at his mother's powdered face in the wooden coffin that had shut too soon. All of it had been too soon. He remembers big hands shaking his, telling him how he had to be strong for his father. Well, the joke had been on them. He had always had to be strong in front of his father, but for reasons none of them would have liked to guess. He remembers Ivan's thumbs poking at his cheeks, how that's when he realized how much they ached from all the smiling funerals somehow demanded from the living.
That's not your usual smile, Till, Ivan had said, and it had been such an inappropriate thing to say, among all the so-very-appropriate things the adults had said to him all day, it had made Till giggle. I can't smile normally, silly. I'm sad, you know. Ivan had nodded, looking so serious in his little black tie. For once, their black shoes had matched. What would you like to do, now that you are so sad? Would you still like to come over to watch movies later tonight, as we had planned? Or is that not a proper post-funeral activity? Eager for any sign of normalcy that wasn't his father's heavy hand on his shoulder, Till had nodded and let Ivan drag him along.
If you ask Till today, he won't be able to recall the title of the action movie they had watched that faraway evening. But he still remembers the way Ivan had stayed still, even as Till wet his entire shoulder with tears. The way he remained unshaken by the entirety of Till's grief.
Perhaps Till has relied on the steadiness of Ivan's form longer than either of them has realized. Perhaps there is a limit to that rigid generosity, after all.
"No," Ivan says, then. He straightens his spine, eyes finally aligning with Till's. Red, Till realizes. The color of defeat. Desire. "I wasn't trying to imply that. Of course not."
"Then?" Till asks, voice raspier than he would like. Not for the first time, he wishes for the evenness of Ivan's tone. It's not a contest, and yet, Till somehow often feels like he is on the losing end. "What were you going to say?"
"I just thought that perhaps you had grown a little tired," Ivan tells him, swallowing. His Adam's apple juts out further at the motion. Till traces its shape with his eyes. "That perhaps you'd like a change."
"In the middle of a movie series?" Till says, knocking his forehead into Ivan's chin, hoping it hurts. He tries not to think about how this means Ivan's lips are inches away.
"You keep saying that like it means something," Ivan says, the words leaving a tingling sensation on Till's skin.
"Anyway," Till mutters. "I never asked for a change. Did I?"
"No," Ivan says, quickly. His hand lifts, hovering a few inches away from Till's head. Till lowers his head, beckoning the touch. Even so, Ivan hesitates. "I assumed. I shouldn't have. I realize, now."
"Mhm."
"What would you like me to do to amend this assumption?" Ivan asks, starting to brush through Till's hair, untangling the knots he encounters. "Can you tell me?"
It is so simple. And yet Ivan waits. For Till. I do well following clear instructions, Ivan likes to say as part of his self-introductions on the first day of classes. It's part of the same tirade where he says he dislikes ignorance and disrespect. Bullshit. Still, there is a little truth to it, Till knows. A little. Maybe the answer really is not so simple to figure out.
Grabbing Ivan's wrist out of the air, Till presses his pulse against his own cheek. The bravado is shattered by the shakiness of his following exhalation. "Come back to move nights," he whispers, bridge of his nose dragging down the side of Ivan's forearm. "To everything. Please."
"Okay, Till," Ivan says, his shoulders lowering. His hand turns, palm facing Till's face. Till buries his face further in his grasp. "Okay. You don't need to say all that. I'll come. Of course."
He feels Ivan's forehead dip, brushing against his. They stay like that for a few seconds, every last bit of distance between their bodies having been eliminated. All touch reduced to a single point of contact.
There's a finesse with which one has to approach a stray animal, especially one that is pretty frightened. Gentler, Till's mother used to say, every time he made grabby hands at another street cat, fingers hovering in front of its hissing mouth. Gentler, Till. It's littler than you are, so it must be more scared, too, right? So, you have to be more careful with it.
Between them, it is hard to say who exactly might be more frightened. Till would still nominate Ivan. Perhaps Ivan would say the same for him. Perhaps it is too much to play the part of the human, approaching another kind of creature. Perhaps they are both the same kind of creature, nursing the same kind of wounds. Perhaps all Till has to do is press his forehead against Ivan's, the same gesture millions of creatures before them have repeated in front of one another, not needing any other language.
Understanding may be a little too much to achieve in the moment. At least they arrive at a quiet place. Together.