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Till, unfortunately, has friends.
Nobody really talks about how much of a pain your friends can be until it’s literally biting you in the ass. Sure, he loves them, and sure, he’d give up his guitar for them, but what they’re asking of him right now? No. Way.
“I don’t get why you’re so against it!” Mizi puffs out her cheeks like she always does when she’s frustrated. He’d have found it cute, maybe, if he were still in elementary school. “It’s just one show!”
“One show is too much.” He argues, just for the sake of it. Hyuna glares at him as if she can tell what he’s doing. “Maybe a half, I can handle.”
“Till!” Mizi whines.
Hyuna deems that her reason to butt in, “Till, it’s just a theater show. You can handle sitting still for, like, an hour or two listening to music.”
And listen, Till doesn’t have anything against theater kids! Really, he doesn’t. Look at how he’s friends with three of them — Mizi, Hyuna, and Luka — but that doesn’t mean he’s willing to do charity work. He can barely handle those two on a good day! He can’t fathom how obnoxious a whole room of them would be, much less a whole stage of them.
“I respect your opinion,” He says, carefully choosing his words and raising his hands in surrender. “Unfortunately, I don’t give a fuck.”
“Till.” Hyuna levels him with a glare enough to send Luka running with his tail in between his legs. Fortunately, he isn’t Luka. “I’ll do your homework for a day.”
“Five days.”
“Three days.”
“You see, I’ve been meaning to get into theater anyways!” He grins, grabbing the ticket and pamphlet out of Mizi’s hands. He laughs, “What show is it anyway? I’ll be there.”
“You do know Hyuna doing your homework won’t exactly raise your grades too much?” Sua deadpans, somehow finding her way to the group.
“Who cares?” Till sticks out his tongue. “I just need something to pass something.”
“I forgot you don’t have any sense of—” Sua’s snarky response is cut off when Mizi kisses her cheek.
“You’re done with choir practice?” Mizi asks. Hyuna and Till fake gags behind them, the only thing that they can seem to agree to do together.
“Yeah.” Sua pecks at Mizi’s lips. “The play’s tomorrow, right?”
“Yup! I can tell it’ll be a good one already,” Mizi beams.
“What a great way to say that shit hit the fan in the last rehearsal,” Hyuna butts in, as she starts to push the group across the hallway and out of school. She seems eager to leave before Luka can find himself out of the student council meeting.
“Well,” Mizi scratches her head. “Bad things happening just before the show is a good sign! It means it’ll be phenomenal. So, Till, you have to go!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Till says begrudgingly. “You didn’t answer my question. What’s the play?”
“It’s Mamma Mia this time!” Mizi grins.
And that, my friends, is how Till finds himself in what Mizi exclaims to be the best seat in the house!, sitting beside Sua, and watching a bunch of his schoolmates singing and dancing around the stage.
He begrudgingly admits it’s not as bad as he had expected — fortunately for him, all were pretty good singers and dancers, and the way they wove the scenes together was cohesive — and he even finds himself a bit inspired for a song to write. Beaches, young love… He wishes he’d brought something to write on so he could scribble his thoughts down.
(It also helps that the boy Mizi is paired up with is pretty hot. Sua balks at him when he voices that to her, but, well, not everyone has good taste.)
Mizi finishes her scene with the three possible dads — played by Dewey, Isaac, and Luka, which was pretty funny — and a new song immediately starts up, music picking up. The lights work to zero in on the boy that Mizi’s character is going to marry, and, holy shit, he’s shirtless.
He starts singing — something about not being jealous before they met — but shit he’s so… Till fears he can’t even think too much about the words that form in his head. Something about the way the boy’s hair is slicked back from the beach water, his muscles, the way he’s flexing his muscles. He can’t even look at the other boys with how enraptured he is with the beauty — his jet black hair, his abyssal eyes, his toothy grin, his smooth voice…
The boy catches his eyes, and he winks at Till, making a point to flex his pecs before continuing on his stage routine.
“Shit man.” He embarrassingly whimpers. He wishes he could look away, really, he does. But then the boy combs his hair out of his face, showing off more of his body. Shit, man, indeed.
“You’re so embarrassing,” Sua hisses from beside him. “You’re red from a wink? Really?”
He wishes he can defend himself, but he can’t.
Instead, he turns to glare at her, but, well… “You’re red from seeing your girlfriend in a bikini—!”
Let’s just say the two decide not to mention this to anybody else.
The rest of the play goes by without a hitch (if the raven haired boy looking at him for far too much for it to be considered natural is considered “without a hitch”), and Till finds himself holding a bouquet in the backstage after it. He’s supposed to give it to Mizi as courtesy, but she’s quite literally drowning in flowers.
“Sua! Till!” She grins from beneath her flower coffin. He feels guilty at the idea of giving the bouquet to her. “How was the show?”
“It was great,” He admits with a smile. “You did well.”
“You were amazing,” Sua says, grabbing some of the bouquets out of Mizi’s hands and giving her’s to the pink haired one. She pecks Mizi on the lips. “Good job!”
“Thanks, you two!” Mizi beams. She seems to zero in on Till’s bouquet. “Oh, uh, are those for me?”
Till panics, and he blames it on that for his lie, “Oh, no! It’s for, um,” He looks around. Where the hell is Isaac and Dewey when he needs them? Even Luka would be fine!
“Me?” He hears a voice say to his side, and he turns to look at the boy who said it. The voice was soft, deep, and holy shit he’s hotter up close.
“Um. Yes. Yeah.” Till short circuits and hands over the bouquet of tulips to the boy. Said boy is the one he’d been shamelessly ogling while watching the play.
“Thanks,” The boy laughs, carefully thumbing the tulips. “They’re pretty. I didn’t get any flowers today, so this helps me cheer up.”
“What?” Till asks, genuinely concerned. “You did so well up there! Why did no one give you any?!”
The boy laughs, “It’s fine. It just makes this one much more important for me.” He looks at Till as he says that, and he feels a fluttery sort of happiness forming in his stomach as a result.
“I’m Ivan, by the way.” He extends a hand, although it’s palm up.
What a weird way to do a handshake, is all Till thinks of as he places his hand on the other’s. “I’m Till.”
“I know,” Ivan says with a soft smile, bringing Till’s hand to his lips in a soft, chaste kiss. “I’ve been a fan since freshman year. Your songs are phenomenal.”
It was hard to say that Till hadn’t completely combusted on the spot.
But, well, there’s always more time to work on that. Ivan’s sure he can ease Till out of his shell one day. They always have more time.
—
“You can come out now,” Hyuna sighs, taking off her makeup.
Isaac, Dewey, and Luka file out in a line, and the group peers over at Till and Ivan interacting.
“Did Ivan seriously not get any flowers?” Dewey asks, incredulous. “Doesn’t his fan club make sure he’s drowning in it every time there’s a play?”
“Yeah.” Sua sighs, face palming. “The bastard lied, he ran away from everyone who tried to give him flowers that weren’t Till.”
“Don’t talk about your brother like that,” Mizi chastises softly, kissing her with a giggle. “He worked hard to gain the courage to talk to Till like that!”
“Tell me about it!” Dewey groans. “He’s been pining from afar for so long, it’s painful to think about!”
“20 bucks says they’re gonna date by next week.” Hyuna drops instead of further commenting on her friend’s painful pining.
“50, they’re gonna go on a date right now.” Sua grins.
Let’s just say the group starts handing money around once the two walk out with hands intertwined as if they don’t even realize it, and talking animatedly with each other.