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For as long as Ivan can remember, he’s never quite liked his reflection.
He sets a spoon in the tea, and as he begins to stir it, his reflection becomes warped; something unrecognizable. A smile perfectly sets itself on his face, and he continues to stir some sweet honey into the beautiful swirling tea, the edge of its warmth briefly brushing against his face and making him sigh and take a moment to breathe in the smell. The fragrance is almost heavenly, it reminds him a tad bit of cocoa, if he had to place his finger on it.
Ivan taps the end of the spoon on the tip of the cup, before setting it down on a paper napkin, cleaning it off. He hums a faint tune, similar to the Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker. It’s a composure that often occupies his mind, he’s quite fond of it. He’s had to listen to it plenty of times, like he was an actor in a play; though the spotlight wouldn’t be on him, of course.
He carefully picks the cup up, making sure to hold the saucer underneath it so if it were to spill, it wouldn’t stain the floor. He presses the porcelain cup against his lips, and he takes a quick sip as a test of taste—it tastes sweeter than it usually would, but Ivan’s fine with that—it’s his preference, or well, he thinks it is.
He’s never quite figured out what his personal ‘preferences’ exactly are, they range from what he’s told is good to what is not, or the teeniest bit of opinion he may hold about something. However, whatever Master Fyodor believes, he usually does too. It’s not a guarantee he will, though, sometimes he strays from the common belief that Fyodor may hold, but he still stands by the man’s side with the utmost loyalty.
His mind always wanders back to Master Fyodor…
He pauses as he realizes some of the tea running down his face, and the cup leaves his lips and makes a ‘clink’ as he places it back on the saucer and then onto the table. He picks up the napkin in his lap, dabbing his lips with it and then wiping up the tea that spilled out. Thankfully, none of it had gotten on his clothes, he guesses it would’ve stained if it had, and that wasn’t an issue he really wishes to try and resolve if it happens.
Ivan looks up, if a guest or one of his colleagues was in front of him, he would’ve struck up a conversation, but it’s only him sitting at this table. He’d been told to treat himself for once, and that’s what he’d been doing, but it felt almost aimless.
He wants to do something, but he isn’t quite sure what.
He fixes his posture, and his hand moves to pick up the cup once more, but his gaze only drifts to his reflection again.
His smile disappears, and he stares at himself.
His gaze seems like it’s lost, he isn’t sure why, as he doesn’t feel lost, but his reflection shows him being lost. He doesn’t trust it, so he closes his eyes as he picks the cup up and attempts to drink from it once again.
The taste doesn’t seem right, so he pulls away, staring back at it as there are a few ripples that distort his reflection, but he can still see his own gaze, his own face; it doesn’t seem quite right. He tries to adjust his jaw with his hand, or maybe blink a few times to see if he’s just seeing things, but it still doesn’t seem right. The reflection shifts a bit to the right, then the left, or maybe that’s his hand. Pushkin had asked him if he was doing alright before, and while Ivan was doing just fine, Pushkin wasn’t afraid to point out the slight shake his hands had. Ivan tried many things to fix it, but nothing seemed to work, so he’s learnt to deal with them, even if they can be quite bothersome.
The tea’s ruined again.
He’s been through a similar process like this around five times now, and he sighs to himself. He sets the cup back down, and he rubs his eyes. They feel a bit dry. He picks up some sugar instead of honey this time, and while the tea is already quite sweet, he decides adding some sugar wouldn’t harm anyone.
A sickening sweet taste on his tongue might be what he needs, a cure to his current ill that is being caused by his reflection, and he’d like a cure for it.
The sugar seems to almost melt into the tea, but Ivan stirs it anyway, it’s a habit, habits are hard to break. He taps the spoon, he cleans it off, and he presses the cup to his lips. The sweet taste fills his mouth again, and he relaxes. He thinks this is the cure he was looking for, and this time, he doesn’t make the mistake of spilling the tea, as he pulls away from the cup and clicks his tongue. His gaze avoids the tea itself, but he does smile at a framed painting on the wall. Master Fyodor says it’s The Appearance of Christ Before the People by a russian painter, and while Ivan has never been one to paint, he is always intrigued by what Master Fyodor may tell him. Another painting Ivan knew about was The Demon Downcast , if memory serves him right, Master Fyodor seemed to almost identify with it, but he became too busy before he could truly tell Ivan the story behind it. He does know, though, that it was also done by a russian painter, and he knew the painter’s name; Mikhail Vrubel.
He wishes Master Fyodor told him more, he wishes he could hear more tales about these painters and their works, but he supposes this lone tea party will be good for his time. He takes another sip of the tea, smile becoming bigger as the sweet taste seems to linger longer.
There we go.
He sighs again, but this time it’s out of… he thinks the word is relief, yes, that seems to be the word he’s looking for—clink—he sets the tea back down, and he sets his hands in his lap. They slowly intertwine after a moment, and he gets up as he looks up, right at the clock neatly placed on the wall. The clock’s hands carefully tick as they point to the hour, to the minutes, and that tells Ivan it’s—
3:34 PM.
He abruptly shoves the cup off of the table, and it shatters like a perfect mirror falling off of a wall. That was mostly on purpose. The cup was irritating him earlier, so surely it’d irritate Master Fyodor when he returned.
Ivan looks at the shattered pieces, and the porcelain almost shows him a glimpse of his reflection, but he brings his foot up and stomps on it before it could even dare to do so. He picks up the handkerchief that was lying next to it, and he crouches down as he begins to clean the spilled remains of the cup. Some of the sharper shards of it graze his skin, but he doesn’t particularly register that, scooping the shards of the cup and wrapping them up neatly in the handkerchief. It may leave some cuts on both the hand-sewn pattern and his hands, but nobody will know about this little mishap.
He disposes of the mistake into the trash, making sure to get any remaining shards on the floor with his hands and let them join together—even if they were broken apart. He then opens a drawer, picking up a roll of bandages.
Originally, he’d leave his cuts to bleed, but he remembers Master Fyodor suggesting he start bandaging them up at the very least to prevent infections. Ivan has listened to that advice ever since, hence why he’s bandaging up now! It’s very important he stays in good health to do his part in the upcoming plan.
After his hands are wrapped up, he moves over to the other drawer, pulling out an almost identical handkerchief—Master Fyodor always seems fond of having one nearby, which is why he probably shouldn’t have used it, but it was more convenient than the napkin—speaking of the napkin, he should throw that away before he forgets. He lays the new, neatly folded napkin down where Master Fyodor usually sits, then picks up the napkin he’d let fall to the floor. He throws it away, it can join the shards, no use for it now.
Ivan’s attention then returns to the rest of the porcelain pieces, five cups, five saucers, and one tea kettle. Perfect, you can barely even notice one’s missing! Nobody would pay attention to that anyway, well, Ivan thinks nobody would, maybe he’s wrong. Who knows!
His hands feel a bit shaky as he traces the edges of two cups, these two will probably work well, they have a nice pattern, a nice color, a nice feel, and he can just manage to ignore his reflection in it. He moves over to the radio, tapping it slightly before picking it up and putting on a more open area in the room, that way he could hear it loud and clear.
As he taps it, he hears a knock on the door, and he stands straight up, spine perfectly aligned, or well, Master Fyodor says it is.
On the topic of Master Fyodor, Ivan moves over to the door, opening it and bowing slightly.
“Welcome back, Master Fyodor!” He steps to the side as Fyodor enters, “Would you like some tea?”
“Of course.” Familiar eyes that remind him of blood in a different light meet his, and Ivan can’t particularly find himself being able to describe his own eyes. Nor is he quite sure he wants to know, if he looks at Master Fyodor’s eyes for too long, he might be able to describe them, but he doesn’t want to. So, he only looks Fyodor in the eyes for a split second, before he turns around and moves over to the porcelain tea set.
He hums a tune to himself once again. He knows Master Fyodor is still looking at him as he hears the chair creak, but as long as he isn’t directly looking at Master Fyodor’s eyes, he will be fine. Yes! That’s for sure!
He picks up the teapot, the tea had been brewed quite a bit ago! Ivan’s proud of himself for preparing, if he says so himself, mostly because it means less work and more opportunity to talk to Master Fyodor. He carefully pours the tea into the cup, avoiding looking directly at it and instead focusing on the beautiful pattern that lined the teapot’s edges. It was somewhat floral, yet it also looked like roses with thorns, and Ivan can’t help but cherish that pattern. His hands make the grasp on the pot a bit shakier than it’d usually be, but he blames it on the cuts, and he puts it down when he believes the tea is close enough to the top, but not enough to spill if you took a small sip. He carefully slips his fingers underneath it, before lifting it up, using his other hand to support the cup and keep it still.
He looks at the tea, it looks good, he sees his reflection for a moment, then he looks back up at Master Fyodor as he walks over and sets it down in front of him.
“Thank you.” Master Fyodor looks at him.
Ivan’s smile feels a bit strained as he looks back, nodding a bit. “You’re welcome.”
“Would you like to have some tea with me?” He leans forward a bit, and Ivan focuses more on the way his fingers wrap around the cup’s handle, the way he lifts it to his mouth, and the way he closes his eyes and begins to drink.
“...Yes!” Ivan steps back, returning to the porcelain tea set and picking up the teapot again.
It’s just silence between the two once the tea starts pouring, this time, he decides to watch it go into the cup, he doesn’t want to burn himself. He puts one hand on the cup after a bit, even when it feels a bit warm, and he swishes the tea as it pours in around, smiling as his reflection becomes warped again. He stops pouring when he hears a—clink.
Master Fyodor probably tilts his head, maybe to get a better look at the tea set, it’d explain what he says next, “There’s one less porcelain tea cup.”
“Oh, yes, it wasn’t a very good one.” Ivan replies, putting the teapot down and scooping up his own cup, and turning back around, walking over to the table and putting it down, before pulling out the second chair—right across from Master Fyodor—and sitting down. “It was like finding a rotten apple in a fresh batch, very faulty.”
“Did you throw it out?”
“No, I wouldn’t throw out porcelain.”
There’s a hum.
“Then are you implying it rotted away, like a wilting flower, then?”
“Yes.” Ivan picks up his cup, looking at his reflection in the tea instead of Master Fyodor, “It most definitely decayed.”
That porcelain tea set never did find its missing cup.