Chapter Text
“I’m getting married.”
Teal eyes flick over to the other boy immediately, mouth firmly pressed as he searches for any sign of Ivan about to break out the hidden cameras. It feels like one of those live prank shows. Till as the unwilling victim – oblivious to the punchline that’s about to drop any second now, the silent cue for the random burst of laughter from a seemingly invisible audience.
Nothing.
He waits another second just in case.
Still nothing.
He takes a moment to look around for good measure, but everything looked… fine for the most part.
It’s busier than usual today, but it's the same quaint furniture, the same sounds of the coffee machine whirring, the frothing wand hard at work, the noises fading into the background. Patrons are ordering at the counter, a polite line forming behind the first one at the register. Most people are seated and drinking their coffee with a plate of pastry or cake in front of them, talking animatedly with their friends. Maybe not-so-friends for some.
For all intents and purposes, today is a seemingly normal, nothing out of the ordinary Saturday morning.
So then.
Back to Ivan and his cruel idea of a joke.
“Not funny,” he says as he pops the remaining half of a strawberry macaron in his mouth. “Zero out of ten, and I’d give it negative points if I could because it's so unoriginal. No additional notes.”
Next to him, Mizi and Sua have gone quiet, which gives Till enough confirmation to know that they must all be in on it. Really, he should have known it was a bit suspicious that Ivan had suddenly wanted them to meet out of the blue. He’s normally ridiculously busy around this time of the week, and Unsha’s been working him to the bone (not that Ivan would ever outwardly complain about it). These days, even on weekends when he should be having a well deserved break, he hardly sees the other boy anymore.
“It’s not a joke,” Ivan says slowly.
He looks at him again, closely, but Till genuinely couldn’t find anything out of place. His gaze is honest, his expression mildly concerned, albeit a bit worked up with the way he keeps rearranging his drink and lightly fidgeting with the hem of his stupidly expensive sweater worth more than what Till makes in a week, acting like he’s guilty of an unforgivable crime.
For better or for worse, Ivan seems to be telling the truth, but then again, that suggests something that Till refuses to comprehend.
Ivan.
His Ivan.
Getting married.
Till fights the urge to pinch himself in the hopes that this might be some sort of sick dream.
Mouth dry, he dares to ask, “I didn’t think you were dating anyone?”
And if he was, then Till should have been the first to know. What the fuck?
As a sigh leaves the other boy’s lips, Till’s impatience only grows by the second, filled with the desperate need to understand what’s going on. This whole thing has come out of nowhere. No hint, no warning, and he could only hope that there’s a reasonable explanation behind it. But then again, whether it’s something Till would accept, reasonable or not, might be a whole other issue altogether.
“It’s an arranged marriage. Something I stupidly agreed to back then.” He runs a hand through his perfectly styled hair, making it a little bit messy, but not overly so. “I didn’t think Unsha would remember, to be honest.”
Then Ivan offers a nervous chuckle to alleviate the tension, but it doesn’t really do much, and if anything, it probably made the vibes even more tense.
In Till’s fortunately limited understanding of Ivan’s clusterfuck of a father, it makes sense to him that he would pull a stunt like this. If Ivan had agreed to anything of the sort, then he’d bet Unsha had video, photo, and written evidence of the whole thing to back Ivan into a corner, exploiting the agreement for all its worth. He’s never shown any personal regard for Ivan outside of shaping him into the perfect corporate heir, and if he did care about his own son, then he did an extremely poor job of showing it.
Ivan would know this better than anyone, so in his head, Till calls bullshit, calling out Ivan’s shitty attempt at making light of the situation.
It honestly surprises Till that this is the first time he’s hearing about it, and naturally, he’s curious about the circumstances that led Ivan to agree to something like this in the first place. He makes a mental note to ask him about it later, but of course that’s assuming the raven would even tell him anything about it since it seems keeping secrets from your best friend is all the rage these days–
Till sighs, derailing his negative train of thought before he risks losing control of it.
Regardless of whether he’s pissed off at Ivan or not for keeping something like this from him, this is not something he can stand for, so he tries to push back, or at the very least, he attempts to knock some sense into the other boy.
“Ivan. He might be your father, but surely he can’t ask you to marry someone you don’t care about. Agreement or not. He’s just guilt-tripping you into accepting it. In the end, it’s still up to you.” His brows furrow, gaze drifting over to their other friends for backup.
Given their guilty expressions, it looked like they already knew about it beforehand, and Till is the only odd one out. It rubs salt on the wound, and he tries his hardest not to let his anger take over. But seriously, all things considered, did Ivan not want to tell his own best friend he was getting fucking married? “Also, when the fuck were you planning to tell me?”
His distaste is more obvious now, his voice dripping with acid.
The snark is unintentional, but he couldn’t help but feel hurt over being purposefully kept in the dark.
“I’m telling you now,” he mumbles, his gaze averted.
“Right.” Till fights the urge to roll his eyes. “And when did Mizi and Sua find out?”
There is a beat, then another. Time slows all at once, and Till can practically see the gears turning in his head, deciding whether to lie to Till or not, except the silver-haired boy would know immediately. Ivan would know better than to lie to Till of all people.
Just above a whisper, he mumbles, “Two weeks ago.”
“Two weeks ago,” Till scoffs.
The other boy eyes him carefully. “I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d be like this.”
“Well,” Till looks at him pointedly. “If anyone found out their best friend was being forced into an arranged marriage that they don’t want to be in, and it seems the whole world and their dog seems to know it except you, then I’d like to see them react any differently.” He crosses his arms over his chest.
“It’s my fault,” Mizi cuts in. “Ivan wanted to tell you sooner, but we just… didn’t know how to break it to you. It’s a lot to take in. Especially since–” In the corner of his vision, he doesn’t miss how Sua gives her hand a small, warning squeeze. Her golden eyes widen slightly. “Ah. You know–”
Till spares a quick glance over at Ivan. The other boy is too observant for his own good, and he’s certain he probably saw it too, but he hopes he’s too preoccupied to notice.
But just in case, before Mizi can say anything else that’s possibly irreversible, Till interrupts, “Assuming you can’t do anything about it, what happens now?”
“The wedding is in a few weeks,” he explains.
His words feel like a punch right to his gut, his stomach sinking in the worst possible way.
“A few weeks?” Till lets out a sharp breath. “You can’t be serious.”
If he had to hazard a good guess, it’s probably so Ivan had the least possible amount of time to find ways to back out of it. It wouldn’t be too far-fetched for classic fucking Unsha of all people.
“I am.” The other boy slowly wills himself to meet Till’s eyes, before he unfortunately continues with words that he wishes he didn’t have to hear in his lifetime. “And I wanted to ask you if you’d like to be my best man.”
A laugh, dry and humorless, escapes his throat. Or maybe it’s a choked sob. Either way, it makes no difference. “You’re really asking me that?”
“You know I wouldn’t want anyone else,” Ivan says, and there’s a certain glint in his eyes that Till has always found impossible to say no to.
The gnawing pit in his stomach digs deeper, carving its way to his soul. It lodges itself right next to the heart that has Ivan occupying most of it — not that the boy was ever aware, and Till thinks it doesn’t matter anymore anyway.
It’s too late now.
“And if I say no?”
The words leave his mouth before he could think about them, and the raven across him bites his lip, his head lowering. Till regrets the momentary lapse in judgment, not intending to make the other boy feel bad about a situation that he had no control over, but he was feeling far too many things in such little time.
He’s angry and sad and confused, with no one to take it out on but the bearer of the news.
Right next to him, Sua looks like she’s about to say something, but Mizi tugs at her shirt, shaking her head subtly as a warning to prevent her from intervening.
Meanwhile, Ivan opens his mouth, then promptly closes it back again, seemingly feeling like forever before he clears his throat and admits, “I didn’t think that far ahead.”
“You didn’t think that far ahead,” Till repeats with a sigh.
“It would mean a lot to me if you were there,” the other boy says quietly. “Please, Till?”
He holds Ivan’s gaze — desperate and yet oh-so-gentle. Till knows Ivan wouldn’t be mad at him if he stood his ground and said no, but deep down, Ivan would be disappointed, even if he doesn’t show it. Especially when he doesn’t show it.
Till wants to scream.
Fuck this.
Fuck Ivan.
And fuck Till’s inability to say no to him.
“I’ll do it,” he mumbles without a second thought, because in the end, he is weak for anything and everything that Ivan does, and even if everything about this is wrong and messed up, maybe the least he can do is be there.
He thinks that it’s not too late to try to find a way out, and he’s confident that somehow, they’ll work it out like they always do.
On the table, Ivan’s phone lights up with a phone call, the screen displaying a name that Till doesn’t recognize – Ri – and he only needs one guess to know who it is based on Ivan’s resigned expression.
“I have to take this,” he mumbles before heading outside and placing the phone against his ear. Mouth pressed in a firm line and brows slightly furrowed, Ivan continues the conversation. Till isn’t that great at reading the mouthed words, but he can already tell that it’s not a pleasant one, or maybe he’s just seeing what he wants to. Who fucking knows anymore?
In his head, he pictures Ri as some sort of devil incarnate sent to Earth to make Ivan’s life a living nightmare. Hate is far easier, but at the same time, he’d probably feel a little bit bad if she turned out to be someone really nice and kind and caring and probably everything that Till is not.
To preserve his sanity, he tries not to dwell on it, otherwise, he’s bound to lose his mind.
But then of course, there’s the elephant in the room.
He can’t see it, but he feels the heavy gaze of his two other friends on him, pity probably all over their faces. A huge part of him doesn’t want to look back to confirm, so he keeps his eyes on Ivan to remain in blissful ignorance, thinking about a million other places that he’d rather be, and pretending like he didn’t just find out the person he loved is going to get married to someone that isn’t him.
Sua breaks the silence. “I’m sorry, Till.”
He swallows.
Then, as practiced from all the years of hidden affection and pure adoration for his best friend, Till lies through his teeth.
“It’s fine.”