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The strangest statistic in Till’s life, as it relates to the interpersonal relationships of the people around him, is that it takes nearly two years for Mizi to meet Ivan.
It’s not as though Till had been actively trying to prevent them from meeting. In reality, it had all just been a matter of coincidence.
Every time Mizi was free, Ivan would be busy and unavailable, and whenever Ivan looked like he had downtime, and the shitty, printed-out calendar they had taped on their fridge had nothing listed for the day, Mizi would be drowning between work and classes.
And... if Till thinks about it, there may have been a small, small (read: immeasurably small) part of the whole thing that may or may not have been a result of his own machinations.
But that’s not his fault.
Truthfully, the thought of the two of them meeting at any point before this...
It would have been too embarrassing.
The first time Till met Mizi, almost two years ago now during a class assignment, he thought that she was the prettiest person he had ever seen. He’d never had a crush before then, barely even registering the other girls around him before her, so he hadn’t even known that that’s what it was until embarrassingly late into it. There was no hopes of it going anywhere, either, what with Mizi having a long-term girlfriend, but that piece of knowledge from Till’s brain took way too fucking long to make its way down to his heart.
Till has no doubt that Ivan would have immediately sniffed out Till’s feelings if all three of them were in the same room and teased him mercilessly.
In conclusion, no way in hell would Till let them meet.
And besides, Ivan had been going through something personal around the same time, something that he didn’t want to talk about. Till was the one more prone to nightmares than Ivan was, but for a short period, Ivan was the one having nightmares constantly, shoving his way into Till’s bed more nights than not.
Till hadn’t particularly minded, but the optics would have been all off if Till tried to introduce his friend-slash-crush and his... Ivan, while Ivan was clearly dealing with something.
In any case.
It’s all for the best that Till had finally gotten over the crush on Mizi. He still remembers now how he used to think about her. It’s not like he had any experience in anything like kissing, or even holding hands with anyone who wasn’t Ivan, who didn’t count. The most risque thing he could think about as it related to her was the way that she would call his name.
She’s one of the few people on this planet who says it so nicely.
Ivan never said it as nicely as that. Then again, things had always been a little different where Ivan was concerned.
Till’s imagination wasn’t so different from real life, either. It was always images of her calling him in class, or running into each other at the grocery store.
Till, she would say, smiling. She would notice him walking into a room and call out, Till! I’m glad you could make it!
“Till,” Mizi says frantically. “Your apartment is shaking.”
Till blinks, coming back to himself. “What?”
Mizi’s hands are on his, trying to pull him up. “Come on, come on, come on,” she says, growing increasingly harried. She’s muttering something under her breath, something about ‘earthquake’ and ‘getting outside’.
Till registers their surroundings. Sure enough, the apartment is shaking. Not light tremors either. If Till hadn’t already been sitting, he’s sure that he would have lost his balance almost immediately trying to walk anywhere, let alone to the front door.
Till sighs. He knows what this is. Gently, he pulls his hands back from Mizi’s and places it on her shoulder. It’s supposed to be comforting, though Till isn’t sure exactly how much he’s succeeding in that. He’s tried to take cues from Ivan on how exactly the whole ‘comforting other people’ is supposed to go, but Ivan’s preference for comforting Till always involved a lack of understanding of ‘personal space’ so. There’s that.
The shaking gets so bad suddenly Till has to clench his teeth to keep it from chattering. “We’re fine,” he says. “It’s just Ivan.”
“What?”
“Ivan,” Till calls in the direction of the kitchen. He cups his hands around his mouth. “IVAN. CUT IT—”
The shaking stops.
Till sighs again. “Sorry,” he tells Mizi, who is staring at him with her jaw dropped open. Her face doesn’t move for a few moments. Till says, “Um.”
“What do you mean that’s just Ivan?”
TIll doesn’t get a chance to answer before Ivan himself comes out from the kitchen, balancing multiple plates on either hand. He had insisted on cooking for this whole thing himself, with some stupid, asshole-y excuse of ‘You bring people over so rarely, we have to impress them’ as if Till would have otherwise gotten them takeout. Asshole.
Like Ivan’s practiced it, he sets down each dish on the table easily, no slip-ups or food spilling out of the sides. Wait. Did he practice it?
Then Till notices.
Ivan is wearing an apron, the same one that Till had tried to burn and throw out on multiple occasions, only to somehow find it back in the kitchen like Till had never touched it. It’s a white apron, with red text in the middle that reads KISS THE COOK. Till doesn’t even know where Ivan had gotten it, whether it was a gag gift from someone or something Ivan had gone out and bought on his own. On its own, this is cringe-inducing, but at the very least, it’s a level that Till still finds livable. But no. Ivan had gone one step further and taken a Sharpie to it, and above the printed text had written: ‘TILL SHOULD’.
Till hisses, face burning, “I told you not to wear that shit.”
“But I like it.”
“Take it off,” Till snaps. This is so fucking embarrassing.
“Maybe if you listened to what’s written on it, I wouldn’t have to wear it so much.”
“STOP FUCKING AROUND.”
Ivan bursts into laughter. “Fine, fine. I’ll stop joking. Be right back,” he says, walking back towards the kitchen.
Till drops his face into his hands. “I’m so sorry,” he tells Mizi again. He should have known better than to think that Ivan would keep his promise to behave.
There’s no answer for a moment, making Till look up.
He pauses.
Mizi’s face has lost all his color.
Till sits up, alarmed. “Mizi?!”
Mizi’s voice shakes when she says, “Till. Till, his shadow.”
Till frowns. “Um. Are you feeling okay? You look a bit—” He cuts himself off. It would be rude to tell a girl she looks a bit weird, wouldn’t it?
“I’m fine,” she says. “It’s Ivan. Didn’t you see it?”
“See what?”
Mizi’s mouth twists. She speaks quieter than before, though no less tense, “Ivan’s shadow. It took up the whole room when he walked in. It... It didn’t look natural. Didn’t you notice?”
Till has no idea what she’s talking about. “We can reschedule this if you feel bad,” he tries.
“I don’t feel sick,” Mizi insists again. “Look at it when he comes back.”
“Uh, okay. Sure.”
“What are you guys whispering about?”
Speak of the devil. Ivan comes back into the living room, the apron blessedly gone. He smiles at them both. “Anything interesting?”
Till glances at Mizi, who gives him a pointed look back. Her hands are fists in her lap. Till frowns.
As promised, he takes a glance at Ivan’s shadow as he gets closer.
It’s... certainly big? The width of it seems to take up the entire wall, getting bigger and longer the closer Ivan gets. Parts of it seem to flicker, disappearing and reappearing at will. But Ivan’s shadow has always been like that. Even as kids, though it used to be Till that had the height advantage back then. Ivan had since grown taller and filled out, where Till’s height capped in high school and his build had mostly remained scrawny. Ivan’s shadow simply reflected that.
He looks back at Mizi, who is still staring at him. He shrugs, and she deflates.
Ivan sits down next to Till, poking him in the forehead as he does. “What are you doing?”
Till slaps the hand away. “Your fingers are freezing.”
“You know I run cold.”
“And? Go put on a sweater before you get sick.”
“I was wearing an extra layer, but someone made me take it off.”
“Don’t put on the apron.”
Ivan waves his hand. “It’s almost summer. You’ll be grateful for my cold skin when you come into my bed in a few weeks.”
Till wonders if it is possible to die from mortification. Sure, he sometimes liked to press himself against Ivan when the heat got too sticky and the fan was doing absolutely nothing for him on summer nights. Ivan never complained about it. Sue him. He pinches Ivan’s thigh as hard as he can. “What the fuck are you saying in front of guests?”
The fucker doesn’t even flinch. Casually, he turns to Mizi.
“Till’s friend,” he says.
“Mizi,” she introduces. Her eyes are still wide. To Till, it looks like she’s trying to figure something out. He can’t blame her, really. Ivan is the most confusing person Till has ever met, too. “And you’re Ivan.”
“The one and only.”
“Till told me before that you guys have known eachother since you were kids.”
“Mhm,” Ivan confirms. “I grew up with him. Best friends from diapers.”
Which. Isn’t really true.
Firstly, Till met Ivan when they were four and five, respectively. Till is pretty sure you’re out of diapers by then.
Secondly, it’s not as though they were friends immediately. Mainly because Ivan had grown a habit of biting him whenever Till came too close. If anyone bothered asking Till, which no one does, he would say that it took months before he finally gave up on getting Ivan to leave him alone. Till remembers thinking at some point: Whatever. It’s not like the bites hurt that much.
Till ended up being the minority on the ‘letting Ivan get away with whatever’ front. No one other than him had really even liked Ivan. Till was the only person Ivan hung out with, and Ivan made it a point to shoo any other kids away that tried to talk to them. Once, in middle school, Till had even heard the teachers commenting on it, how their hearts would stop whenever they saw Ivan, and that he was ‘creepy’.
It still pisses him off to think about now. Who says that about their own students?
Not to mention, Ivan had been with Till when he’d heard that. Till remembers that he had immediately glanced at Ivan’s face when it happened, ready to attempt to comfort him if he looked even a little hurt by what they’d heard. Except, Ivan had looked perfectly fine, and even laughed when Till asked about it.
(“Aw, were you worried about me?” Ivan had asked, shit-eating grin on his face.
Till pushed him.
What an asshole.)
But, even though Ivan had said he didn’t care about what other people thought about him, when Till thinks about how he’d feel if someone was saying that about him...
After all, no one had really liked Till either. Till was awkward, still is awkward, and Ivan was-slash-is the only person who could stand him after all these years.
For better or for worse, Ivan had been right about one thing. Till had grown up with him.
Mizi says, “That sounds nice.”
Ivan’s smile grows. Mizi flinches. Till frowns.
Ivan’s smile, when he wants it to be, can get a little weird. “Your grin is too fucking big,” Till had once told Ivan, because it’s true. Sometimes, Ivan’s smile is so big, it looks like it stretches all the way up to his eyes. It doesn’t actually do that. Just looks like it does. The few times Ivan smiled like that at Till, Till had punched him in the arm and told him that this is why he never had any friends.
“Cut it out,” Till says under his breath.
Ivan glances at him in fake innocence. “Cut what out?”
Till rolls his eyes.
Ivan turns to Mizi. “Please, start eating. I went all out for a friend of Till’s.”
The meal is somewhat... stilted.
Till is hyperaware of it, and despite his attempts, the cadence of their conversation doesn’t seem to get any better as time passes.
The worst part of it is, he doesn’t even think he can fully blame Ivan for it. He might anyways, just because he doesn’t think any of it could possibly be Mizi’s fault, with how nice and sociable she always is, but he can’t tell where else the disconnect could be if it’s not Ivan being strange and off-putting. Then again, the only other option left is that the problem is Till himself.
Which... makes a depressing amount of sense.
It’s been so long since he’s hosted someone, especially considering Mizi is one of a very small list of people (“able to count on the fingers of one hand” kind of small) he regularly talks to outside of Ivan. He sighs quietly.
Somehow, all three of them make it through the meal in one piece.
Ivan offers to start washing up the dishes while Till sees Mizi out.
“Let me help,” Mizi offers, despite how uncomfortable she had seemed this whole time.
“No need,” Ivan says. “I’m sure you have things you’d like to say to Till. Let me give you some privacy.”
He says it knowingly, but Till has no idea what Ivan could possibly ‘know’.
Whatever.
TIll leads Mizi to the front door, giving her a moment to slip her shoes back on.
“Thank you for coming,” Till says, which he thinks is the right thing to say from a functioning-person-in-society standpoint.
“Thanks for having me,” Mizi says, stepping out into the hallway. She stands there for a moment before saying, “Till?”
She looks at him seriously. So seriously, that Till finds himself straightening up to listen to her.
“Yes?”
“I just wanted you to know that, that you can call me if anything happens. If anything feels wrong.”
Till blinks. “What?”
She looks over his shoulder. He can see her eyes catch on something, but when he turns back to look, there’s nothing there.
When he turns back, she’s looking at him again. She seems to steel herself. “Just promise. You’re an important friend to me, you know?”
Till’s throat dries. His face starts to heat up. Even though he is one hundred percent over his crush, heartfelt sentiments like this, towards him, are still an extreme rarity.
“Okay,” he promises for her sake. He doesn’t particularly understand what she’s talking about, but— “Please rest once you get home. I think you might be catching a cold,” he says.
She nods. “Sure. Just don’t forget you promised.”
“Right,” he says. “Then, uh. I’ll see you?”
She swallows. “Yeah,” she says. “I’ll see you.”
After another exchange of goodbyes, Till finally shuts the door.
“Boo.”
Till proceeds to nearly jump out of his skin.
Ivan laughs from his current position directly behind Till, where he had somehow snuck to completely in silence.
Till whirls around. “You piece of shit—”
“So,” Ivan interrupts, leaning close to Till’s face. “What did your friend think of me?”
“Get away from me,” Till says, and watches Ivan listen to absolutely no words of that to lean in closer.
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“Her name is Mizi,” Till reminds him. Ivan’s eyes flash. For a moment, they look completely black.
Trick of the light, Till realizes when the light starts to flicker above them. Damn it. He doesn’t think they have any spare light bulbs.
“Mizi, then. What did she think of me?”
“She thinks you're a freak,” Till ends up saying. It’s not true, but it’s what Ivan deserves to hear.
Ivan lights up, as though this is the answer he wanted to hear.
Knowing Ivan, it probably is.
“Did you even finish the dishes yet?”
Ivan nods. “Obviously. We wouldn’t want another animal to get into the apartment again, do we?”
That had been something. There were fucking claw marks all over their furniture. Till hadn’t even been able to figure out what animal it was, though Ivan insisted he chased it off for good.
It had been yet another thing that had coincided with ‘Ivan Going Through Something’ and ‘Till’s Crush on Mizi’. In other words, another reason that Till had been completely justified in keeping the two of them meeting until his crush was dead and gone. Too many things happening at the same time was never a good thing.
“Yeah,” Till says. He pushes Ivan off him, finally. “We need light bulbs.”
“Since when?”
Till doesn’t bother with an answer. “Also, Mizi wasn’t feeling well today,” he says. “So. So we should get a card for her.”
“Right,” Ivan says slowly. “A card.”
Till flushes. Is he wrong? “Isn’t that what people do? A Get Well Soon card. Or something.”
“That’s what people do,” Ivan confirms. “We can even sign it together. So it’s from both of us. Like married couples do.”
“I’m being serious,” Till says.
“So am I,” Ivan says, smiling. It’s all soft-looking, nothing like the one he’d shown Mizi earlier. Till scoffs. Pulling out the big guns to sell his lies. Till sees right through it. “Come,” Ivan says. “We can go get a card right now. So you can give it to her while she’s recovering.”
He steps back towards where his shoes are.
As he bends down to slip them on, Till takes another look at Ivan’s shadow. It still looks big, but it still doesn’t explain why Mizi had seemed so alarmed by it. Probably the sickness, Till concludes.
And besides, Ivan was right; Summer is fast approaching. The sun is brighter and hotter than it had been in weeks, and Till is way too prone to burning.
Ivan’s shadow will be useful to hide in.
Ivan raises an eyebrow at him. “Well? Do you want to go barefoot? I wouldn’t recommend it, but.”
“Shut up,” Till says, putting his thoughts out of his mind. Useful or not, Ivan is still annoying.
“Oh. While we’re shopping, I think that we should invest in another apron, just in case you want to burn the one we have again—”
“Shut up.”