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Till is about six years old when Ivan is inflicted on him.
You rarely realize you are about to ruin your life in the moment that it happens, and it goes the same for Till. Mama is sad, the way adults are sad but try to hide it, offering Till a walk in the park and cookies after, and Till goes without asking about the glass on the floor or why Papa left again, because the polite thing to do when your mother is sad is to pretend she isn't.
So they go, Mama on the bench watching, and Till goes, on the swing and down the slide, throwing up sand in the air and plucking flowers just to keep his mother looking, keep looking, if she keeps looking at him having fun then they don't have to go back, not yet.
And that's when it happens.
Till runs, squealing, around the bend of the jungle gym—if he goes fast enough, he can land on the merry-go-round and it'll spin without pushing—
And there's the boy.
He's poking at a line of ants, dragging his stick through them, unblinking, as he watches them scramble to refind their way, barely managing to get themselves together before the boy breaks the line again in four places.
"You're messing with them." Till says. The boy looks over his shoulder. His fancy shirt is neatly-pressed, sand clinging to the edge of his sleeve. A disoriented ant crawls across his cheek.
"You're not supposed to play with bugs." Till touches his finger to the boy's cheek and the ant crosses over from him to Till. Till sticks his finger in the sand, letting the ant join the rest of its colony. "You're lucky they're the black kind. The red ones bite, but they can still get stuck in your ear, you know."
He crushes a flower, sticky nectar clinging to his palm, and lets the ants take it far away.
The boy blinks at him, once. The tip of one tooth peeks out of his mouth.
"Are you lost?" Till asks, crouching down to meet the boy eye-to-eye, the way Mama does, it's easier to talk like this instead of keeping your neck up. "Shy? Are you with your Mama?"
The boy blinks again, before pointing somewhere in the distance, to a lady in her own fancy clothes, scrolling through her phone.
"That's your Mama?" They don't look alike. The boy has dark hair, and the lady has hair that kinda looks like the leaves that dry up on trees, straight as twigs while the boy's curls on his forehead. "My Mama's over there."
Till looks around the corner to point, and his mother is there, still watching, waving, calling for him.
"I think we gotta go." They still have to clean up.
Till stands up, brushing sand off his shorts, then seals his fate.
"I like you." Till declares. "Do you want to be friends?"
The boy stares. And stares. And stares.
Till lifts up a hand.
"High-five if you want to be my friend."
The boy stares. And stares. And stares and stares and stares. His eyes kinda look like flowers, this close, red and torn up.
Slowly, he touches his hand to Till's.
"You forgot to simplify." Ivan says in lieu of a hello or good morning or any other greeting a normal human person with friends would. Ivan has the audacity to take the seat in front of him, waving cheerily at the old librarian passing by who nods back at him, no chance of getting him kicked out now.
"I miss when you didn't talk." Till tells him instead of bashing Ivan's head in with his textbook. A remarkable display of self-restraint, really. Detention for assaulting the student council Vice-President would just mean more time stuck with Ivan. Till's getting better at foreseeing the consequences of his actions.
"Then who else would talk to you?" Ivan smiles pleasantly, pinched at the edges like something delicately, elegantly, meticulously crafted. They had a lesson on it once in class, a painting made by some old sad man, of a woman— if it really was a woman, they talked about that in class, too, what she really was, who she was meant to be— how he painted her for years and years and until now, centuries after he’s dead, no one really knows if she is smiling, what is she smiling for.
"Don't do that." Till yanks on his cheek. "It's freaking me out."
There are a few things Till now knows about Ivan Choi.
He likes sweets. The easiest way to bribe him is with the promise of a hot hotteok after class, swap jellies with him during lunch, strawberry for lime, a slice of his Mama's Black Forest cake, hold the cherry liquor, extra whipped cream, just help me get through the readings and I'll give you my piece.
His hair used to be curly, before he got the fugliest bowlcut sometime between the summer of preschool and first grade. The only ones with photographic evidence are Till and Sua because Mama kept scrapbooks and Sua is smart enough to secure any blackmail she can get against her brother.
And he wasn’t just an ugly kid. He was a weird kid. He ate Till's crayons. He licked the snot out of Till’s nose. One time, Till gave him flowers and Ivan stepped on them. Crushed them under his tiny, dainty little feet because Ivan at eight years old still didn't like to wear shoes.
Till shoved him. Ivan punched him back, laughing the entire time, pudgy cheeks red as his eyes.
Ten years later, and Till still hasn't forgiven him.
He's an insufferable prick. A sanctimonious insufferable prick, strange and off-putting and upsetting even to his own flesh-and-blood sibling, and whatever skinwalker persona he puts on for the general public to keep himself from being incarcerated, institutionalized, or shot on sight, Till isn't falling for it. Not anymore.
"Everything freaks you out." Ivan laughs. "Maths, girls, and me. I'm surprised you leave your house at all, if everything is so frightening."
"Because none of those things make sense." Maths is gibberish Till is convinced a bunch of old, bored guys made up because they had nothing better to do, girls are objectively terrifying, and Ivan is an incomprehensible thing playing at being a highschool heartthrob for the fun of it.
“What are you even doing here?” Till asks instead of maiming him. “Don’t you have student council shit? Practice? Cram sessions, a company event?”
“You seem to know my schedule quite well.” Ivan sighs dreamily, chin on his knuckles. "Have you been stalking me? I'm flattered."
“Not everyone is as depraved as you.” Till hisses, nails leaving indentations on the pages of his textbook. “I don’t know how you even have the time to harass me when you have so much bullshit going on.”
“It’s called time management, Till. You’d understand if you at least tried to be more organized.” Ivan tilts his head, gesturing at the spread of books, papers, and stationery scattered on the table. “You make time for what you prioritize.”
“I’m prioritizing my sanity.” Till builds a wall between them of textbooks, reference notes, and pad paper, relying on his erasers and pencil lead to defend him. “I know you have to put in extra effort to convince people you’re a regular person, but some of us actually, you know, struggle. Like real people do."
"Must be nice." Ivan puts his fist to his mouth, muffling a yawn.
Till squints at him.
"You fucker." Till grabs at the collar of Ivan's varsity jacket. "Have you slept?"
There's a dab of concealer under each of his eyes, a touch too dark for his complexion.
"And you're even mooching off Mizi to cover it up."
"You know her foundation?" Ivan whistles, impressed. "That's creepy, Till."
"Shut. Up." Till shoves his things into his backpack, so much for cramming for his finals. "We're leaving."
"I have practice."
"Cancel it." Till hauls him out of the library by the collar, ignoring the students whispering as they pass by, screw them. "Call out, I don't care, aren't you Captain?"
They get to the parking lot with surprisingly no bullshit, Ivan quiet the whole way, until they reach Ivan's annoyingly pristine, eyewateringly expensive, and probably illegal car, letting Till manhandle him for the keys tucked inside his right uniform pants pocket as expected.
"Till—"
"You're not driving." Till opens the passenger door for him and gets into the driver's seat, counting the seconds— one Mississippi, two Mississippi— until Ivan gives in and gets in.
"Till—"
"You piss me off so much." Till starts, knuckles white on the wheel. "If you keel over and die, I'm not coming to your funeral."
"Till."
"What?"
"If you wanted to take me home so badly," Ivan breathes like a person this time, stuttery and uneven. "you could have just said so."
Till drops his forehead on the steering wheel, horn blaring.