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We are beings of love, reads Ivan’s book, yellowed pages and hardcover spine, something he stole from the library's restricted section. We want what we’re made of.
He is twelve, and he knows little beyond the tall walls of Anakt Garden and the feel of Till’s head on his shoulder, the world, how his hair tickles Ivan’s chin.
He stares at the sun, eyes hardly squinting, then turns to Till and says, “You’re napping at midday.”
The dark circles on Till’s face look more prominent today. Yesterday, he threw a huge tantrum, and they took him away for a whole day. Now he has a bruise on his right cheek. It’s large and red and angry, something Till touches from time to time, as if proud—a reminder of his resilience, Ivan guesses. They have practice in forty-five minutes, and Till still looks like he sees the stars.
A scowl settles on his face like second nature, an exoskeleton in itself. “I can do what I want.”
“Okay,” Ivan agrees. Till can punch him one day and rest his head on his shoulder the next—it’s all the same to him. “I like it when you're domineering.”
“What does that mean?”
Ivan smiles. He’s been practising it on the surface of any reflecting body he can find.
Till swats him in the head, and he blinks at him.
“Talking to you is like—” he pauses, looking through the mental list of insults he has reserved for Ivan. At eleven, Till is learning every word he can use against him. “You know what it’s like! You know what you’re like.”
“I really don’t,” Ivan tells him, and it’s true. Nobody sees themselves better than the eyes of those around them. Ask any kid running in the distance what he’s like, and they’ll spin you a fairy tale; Oh, I know Ivan, he’s this and that and this—clever, handsome, all the big words. Depending on who you ask, maybe you’ll get a variety of answers—he’s helpful if you ask Minsu over there, and he’s helpful if your name is Till if you ask Sien; and if you particularly ask Sua, he’s a weirdo. Mizi might shrug in his direction and tell you he’s amazing, but chances are, she’ll say that about the kid who pushed her off the stairs, too.
Till scoffs at him and puts his head down again. Ivan tries to breathe slowly and feel less, in the way Till isn’t let in on the well-kept secret of the universe that, like every other kid around them, Ivan is made of flesh and bone, and the blood in his veins is what keeps him alive. Nobody likes being disenchanted, but that’s how knowing him usually goes.
“You think too hard,” Till tells him. It’s an excerpt of something he was already blabbering about. “I bet you’re thinking something like, ‘Oh, look, I’m Ivan, twenty per cent cooler than everyone around me!’ Except you sit in a corner and think you’re so cool and mysterious when all you do is read stupid books from the restricted section of the library nobody visits.”
He doesn’t say anything to that, because it’s kind of true, and also—he hates agreeing with Till. He’d do anything Till likes, but agreeing with him is like pulling teeth. Being around Till immediately means you have to pose yourself as a threat to be noticed. He knows two things like the back of his hand: to fight, till he’s worn and his breath rags and knuckles mottle, and to love deep and easy. Ivan knows how to pick his battles—he can take the brunt of his punches and pretend they’re holding hands. Silver linings.
“You don’t know everything,” is what Ivan says. He flips a page of the book without really reading anything and catches things in brief. The matter is beyond his expertise; he's skirting uncharted territory.
“You don’t want me to know everything,” Till accuses him blindly.
He shrugs and tries to look at Till. He knows that if he pokes the bruise, he’ll get a jump and Till won’t talk to him for a day, so he keeps his hand tight around the book. It takes two weeks, give or take a few, to heal a bruise. Maybe if he’s particularly lucky, twelve days.
Ivan pokes his unblemished cheek and says, “Say what you like.”
Till slaps his hand away. He’s almost red. Maybe it’s the afternoon sun getting to him. “You’re so—so difficult!”
“Really?” He asks dazedly. “I thought you liked difficult.”
Till has a habit of picking his nails when he’s trying to say something. After being scolded for it, he decided he’d never let it go. Ivan thinks it’s cute. His eyebrow twitches when he’s mad too.
“Forget I even tried to be around you,” he bristles, getting up, patting the dust off his pants and scowling down at Ivan. “Race me to the practice hall.”
Ivan raises his hands in mock defence. He knows how to be the princess locked in a tower the prince scales after defeating the dragon. Till doesn't have the attributes of a prince exactly, deep dark circles and the attitude of an aggressive jellyfish, but Ivan thinks it's his selling point. “I can’t run very well, you see—”
Till tackles him to the ground. The world spins on its axis, and Ivan laughs still his chest hurts.
To love is to see. We only see a little beyond ourselves in the eyes of those who know us best. Sometimes the person you’ve seen the least is yourself. How scary is that?
— An excerpt from a book so well guarded, you’d think it’s about the makings of a tragedy.
“Your teeth,” Ivan begins. “They look dirty.”
Till gives him a long look. He’s trying to figure something out, with Ivan stretching the corners of his mouth.
Undeterred, he asks, “Can I clean them?”
Till looks at him like he’ll gag. It makes his heart skip a beat.
Till’s mattress is rougher than his, but infinitely warmer. He doesn't exactly know the science behind it, but he squiggles beside him and thinks it doesn't really matter. His mattress can be made of star matter or space clouds or snot; who’s he to dictate the feel of Till’s mattress?
He breathes shallowly. Ivan thinks he has a broken nose somewhere, and presses himself to his arm. There’s the remnant of the bruise from last week, where Ivan smudged some ointment he beguiled from the nearest adult who would pinch his cheek. Getting it on Till was a separate endeavour, but he was oddly receptive when Ivan mentioned the last fistfight he lost.
He spreads the blanket—it’s getting colder around here, and Till still hasn't learned the wonders of a blanket—makes sure to leave the feet out, because Till hates the feel of it. He sleeps like he still has something to prove; all tosses and turns and weird wiggles in the dead of the night. It keeps him awake, and it feels wonderful.
When he peeks open his eyes, he’s met with the burning intensity Till is staring at him with. It’s the warmest thing he knows.
“What,” Till drawls, “the fuck are you doing here again.” That’s a bad word. He’s always been so crass—someone needs to keep up with the profanities to throw at the handlers, between the two of them.
“Sleeping,” Ivan truthfully replies. He really was, after immortalising every detail of Till’s face in his brain.
“You have your own bunk.”
“Yours is warmer.”
“You just want to poke your cold toes at me,” Till blearily says. Even half-asleep, he wants to act as if he can't see Ivan. “And you stick your cold hands down my neck when you wake up.”
“But Till,” he diplomatically starts, “I only have your best interests at heart.”
“You don’t have a heart,” Till bristles, and then mellows. He's made of all the weariness that he burns to warm himself. “Get away from me. Sleep on that side.”
He says that each time, wraps his arms around Ivan, and begins snoring. Sometime in the night, he’ll shove Ivan to the wall (he likes that kind of manhandling). In the morning, he’ll put his leg on his face (it feels wonderful). The best part is when he drools all over Ivan’s pillow (he stole it from Till last week). It’s the only time he touches Ivan without being burnt. When he wakes up, he forgets all about it.
It's amazing.
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
Till vaguely gestures. “The collars. Nobody knows how to do it.”
He beams and winds his arms around Till’s shoulders. “Is Till calling me special?”
“Get off me! No,” he shouts. Nobody bats a lid. In the distance, Ivan spots Mizi and Sua running around with something that vaguely resembles a flower crown. He looks back at Till and smiles. “Fine. Keep your secrets.”
He lays his head on Till’s shoulder and hums. “Isn’t it nice? You’ll just have to keep me around.”
It’s not entirely correct. Quarter parts true; Ivan just keeps himself around. A step behind, maybe two, enough for both of them to get by. Any closer, and Till will have to make space for him. He knows to not push his luck.
Look closer: it’s within you. Closer still, and you’ll crave it. It’s the beginning of any tragedy, the stuff of every love song.
— An excerpt.
“You like him,” Sua points out one Tuesday. The third day of the calendar on Till’s bedside. A few steps ahead, he sees Mizi dozing off.
“You’d have to be more specific than that.”
Sua’s brow twitches. “You.” She points a finger at his sternum and says, “Like Till.”
She's not exactly interested in psychoanalysing his feelings for Till. It’s Sua—everyone knows her name begins with Mizi. She's been seeing Till around Mizi all week, because he’s been trying not to get confinement, and it’s enough for her to grimace at the sight of him.
Ivan raises a brow. “Everyone likes Till.”
“I somehow doubt that,” she deadpans. “What I mean is you want to sniff his toes or something. That kind of—thing.”
“I have.”
“You have what?”
“Sniffed his toes,” Ivan says, like she was the freak for not knowing he’d voluntarily sniffed Till’s toes. “He sleeps with his toes poking out. It's not particularly an achievement.”
Sua’s collar beeps red. It's almost a natural reaction to being around him. “Keep that to yourself.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “What I'm trying to say is—you're. In love.”
Ivan scrunches his nose. It sounds outlandish, that she says it. It's not love. It's whatever Till spares a glance at. Rebellion. Obsession on a good day. A tumour in his heart. Something starved kids latch onto, mistake it for something kind and lovely, because they've never learned better, and willingly fall apart.
Maybe—the point is this: Ivan doesn't quite know how to love. Still, he shrugs, because it’s easier to reaffirm something she knows well; “In love. With—Till.” What can you call something you don't know?
There he is, Till, behind the tree Mizi is snoring on, hurt and aching and incredibly in love. Unwanted love grows something morbid in the heart—but there can't be any such tumours in Till, Ivan knows it. If he were to carve his heart open, he’d only find an extra chamber of love beating life into him.
“You’ve always made things so much worse for yourself,” she says, following his trail of sight. Sighs some more. Squints at him like he's five. “It doesn't have to be that hard.”
“It’s not,” he snaps. It's moments like these she frays on his nerves. Some days he's stung by the sheer likeness she has with him, but he hates this, the difference. “Stick to what you know.”
She furrows her brows. “Like you know better.”
“You don't know anything.”
She scoffs. It's unnerving. “You’re so tragic. Did you know that?”
I don't think I’d know how to be loved; he thinks instead, and watches her stomp away.
The next day, Ivan returns the book. It’s dog-eared and half-read and hurts his head. Nobody can outlive the weight of something so big—and he’s living off the dictionary definition of love. You can’t recover from the findings of something like this. It belongs in the restricted section for a reason—they can’t let everyone know what they’ve missed. This kind of self-help will nearly wreck someone.
Its title is nearly scraped off, like the secret to some conspiracy. Ivan leaves it, and begins looking for Till.
“What’s taking you so long?”
Ivan smiles lopsidedly. “It might come as a surprise, but I need you to hold still.”
“I am still, you prick.”
He says nothing to that. It's a little uncanny that Till came to him at all—these days, his bunk is often empty. Their quarter is quieter, now that it’s only him and Till. The other two bunks have long been emptied, something that happened over a fortnight last month. Till can't sleep in the quiet, the nights he is here; Ivan’s tried learning to snore, to murmur in his sleep, but they’ve settled on sharing the bunk because Till’s stopped pushing him down. He can put his ears to his pulse and pretend he’s near Mizi’s heart. Who’s Ivan to decide his heart his own?
“You don't take this long,” Till says. “Usually.”
It's true: he's taking his time. Maybe even longer than necessary. He thinks he can grow old like this forever. Hands on Till’s neck, his pulse beneath his thumb.
“Usually,” Ivan agrees. “I didn't know you were in a hurry to see her.”
At that, Till flushes so bright that he can make it out even in the dark. “I’m not going to see her,” he weakly says.
The collar clicks loose. Till lets out a deep exhale, and leans into the wall. Whatever light through the little window above them, finds its way on his face.
It's quiet. When he looks at Till, his eyes hurt.
“You…” he trails off. Scowls. Softens. “You’re going to make it, right?”
Ivan raises a brow. “Make it to what?”
“The—you know what. The stage.” He closes his eyes. Ivan wonders if he could count each fringe of his lashes this close. Most meteors crash in the proximity of a star. The gravity of something so bright that when you come around, it pulls you in and consumes you.
“A lot of us will,” Ivan says. This is safer. No use in reminding Till of what he knows like second nature. There are eighteen in the fiftieth class. Eight of them are going to be pitched against each other. They look between Sua and Ivan, call them stars burning the way that would ignite anyone on stage—but he knows Sua the way a person would know a mirror. You must look at the heels of people in love; they are the meteors, falling stars, headed towards a crash landing.
“And those who don't?”
“Less competition?” He absent-mindedly replies.
“You’re being a freak again,” Till tells him. Jabs him, even. It's sweet.
He smiles. “I think it’s my charm.”
“Fuck off.” Till lays his head on his shoulder, and his heart beats in his ears. “Don’t wake me up.”
It’s a matter of who gets to play Atlas, now; drown in his clothes and drag his heavy shoes. Here lies the world on his shoulders, tangibly alive.
“I want—” Till starts, bruised and battered and all broken bones. He stumbles over his words, and leaves it there instead.
He wouldn't have to—want, that is—if Ivan had his way. He’d wake, and everything on the tip of his tongue would come to life. He’d pick a pencil, put it on paper, and any dragon or princess or gaudy tower would come real. If he liked, he’d be the prince of some tale, or someone promised a rescue, or the villain of his own story. It would all end in happily ever afters, rose showers and gentle kisses. He’d never have to sing in his life. Everyone he’d love would love him two-fold. There is nothing to want in a place where you have everything.
As it is, Ivan raises his brow, and smiles. He’d snuck in some bread from breakfast today, now in Till’s hand. The collar is new, blinking green. His face is blotchy; there's a black eye on the right, a split lip, and his hair is tangled. Ivan thinks he's lovely.
Still, he pokes Till’s bruise, earns himself a swat and a scowl, and prods, “What do you want?”
This is easier, he thinks, letting Till breathe. Pick his own battles. Anything else, and he’ll think it's a personal attack. He likes this—control? Autonomy. Ivan gives what he can.
“I want,” Till begins again, eyes darting everywhere and lips dry, “I want something better. Nicer. To wake up without feeling like—like my entire body is beaten into someone I don't even know. I want to sing like I’m fucking tone-deaf. I want to shout at the top of my lungs and hear my voice right back at me. I want to be a, a—” he pauses, running a hand through his hair, “a person. Or something. I guess.”
“Okay—okay,” Ivan dazedly says. It’s a lot to work with. Suddenly, his mind’s racing his heart. Have his palms always been this sweaty? “I’ll try.”
Till looks at him, and for the first time, he thinks, reeling: I want this.
The vents are out of the question. Till is terrible at climbing. They patrol every two hours, and he’s gambling on Till’s sensibility. Are there guards outside? How many? Collared? Blind? How long does it take for the alarm to go off?
If they’re particularly lucky, they’ll have fifteen minutes to go off the radar after the alarm till they’re gunned down. At worst, they’ll be gunned down before the alarm. But Till is a good runner—he’ll catch up. They won’t break his legs, or sprain his joints; he’s a valuable asset. An important investment. Urak’s name echoes far and beyond. He’ll launch search parties, set a bounty so large Till will suffocate. They’ll have a week.
A week, at best, and he doesn’t even know where to go. Till needs a place where people speak back to him. He’s heard of rebel bases—it’s not exactly difficult to miss it, if you get your hands on a newspaper. Most likely, they're underground.
Beyond this, they are free. They’ll have nowhere to go. The lines on the palms of their hands can hardly guide them anywhere. For most of history, haven't they only condemned them?
“I hate them,” Till tells him once, after disappearing for days. There are a few contusions all over his face, a split lip, and the hurt of every year he’s lived. “I hate them, and I hate that you don’t get it.”
What’s there to get when they all bleed the same? But it’s not untrue. Ivan doesn’t get it, not the way he does, that kind of ire. Everything he feels comes back to Till—and he hates them, so Ivan replies, “I hate them too.”
If you look at me, I’ll get it, is what he really means to say. My eyes blink in tandem with your heart. He means: I think I’m made of everything you’ve thrown away.
Till averts his gaze, as if it’s too much to bear. Not for the first time, he looks at Ivan, and decides to spare himself the heartache.
This is the last time he’ll unfasten Till’s restraints. The last time he’ll free him. They’ve had a lot of last times this week—yesterday was the last time Till would get to admire Mizi from a five-mile radius, Tuesday was the last time they’d eat the special (saltless, borderline uncooked) porridge, and today the last time they’d see a blue sky and a green patch of grass. This is the kind of beginning that starts with the end.
Fifteen minutes to run so far they’ll make it alive. A minute or maybe two to escape the surveillance—they’re changing the guards. Till stirs, nose scrunching and eyes squinting—he’s never seen a meteor shower. Ivan takes his hand, the thrum of his heart under Ivan’s fingertips, and runs.
“This is batshit insane,” Till shouts, grinning the most he has in a lifetime. All that due joy is catching up to him. “You are batshit insane and—and—how the fuck did you—?”
Ivan is too busy dragging him across the wasteland, drunk on adrenaline. A bead of sweat is rolling from his brow and his ankle is hurting, he’s thirsty and the most alive he’s ever been. Maybe they’ll lay somewhere and Ivan will tell him everything, the constellations and stars and the planets they’ve never seen. Make up a dot in the sky and call it Earth. They’ll join hands, and the world won’t be slipping from their fingertips. One of them will have to learn cooking, and neither of them knows anything beyond saltless, undercooked porridge. They’ll have to learn everything. The beginning and the end and the in-between.
The sky is rejoicing and the stars are dancing. He can’t breathe, and the world is in his hands.
But of course: theirs is not a lesson in love and hurt. No books in the restricted section warn you of the love that cages you, or how to live without the heart. It must be written in a falling star somewhere, that Till realises he’s forgotten his in the cage, lets go of the only key he has, and when he turns away, he never looks back again.
So—Ivan follows. Tragedies like theirs all end the same.
and no, don't look back now;
neither yesterday nor today
exist for me
— Blink Gone, [translated] Alien Stage - VIVINOS: FINAL