Chapter Text
𝄞
“Sua? Seriously?” Ivan gapes, burning holes into Mizi’s bubblegum coloured bangs with his gaze. Said bubblegum-haired girl huffs indignantly at her best friend’s outcry.
“You’re acting like I just said I had a crush on her! Besides, how do you know her name anyway?” She asked, jabbing a flimsy plastic straw through her favourite boxed strawberry milk. Droplets of milk spurt out of the container from the pressure of her jab, resulting in Ivan’s school tie sporting a pastel-pink splotch right in the centre. Ivan barely reacts, his mind clearly occupied by more pressing matters.
“I’m acting like you said you had a crush on her because you definitely have a crush on her,” He says, rolling his eyes.
“When did I say—”
“You’ve literally twirled through every strand of your hair as you talked about the fifty shades of her purple eyes for the last ten minutes.”
“Is that not normal?” Mizi asks, feigning innocence as she swirls her straw against its circular barrier.
“Am I supposed to answer that question seriously?”
“Don’t,” Mizi pouts. “You still didn’t tell me how you knew her name.”
Ivan looks at her pointedly. “Remember all the times I came to you complaining about my beast of an older sister?”
“ No .” She dramatically gasps, raising her non-milkbox occupied palm to cover her shock. Ivan only nods sagely.
“You have truly terrible taste,” He laments.
“You literally like men, Ivan. That’s like, the worst thing about you,” Mizi sighs.
“That’s exactly why you don’t see me fawning over anything more real than pictures of emo boys on Pinterest,” Ivan rebutts, smug. Like being bitchless was something to be smug about. Mizi didn’t have the heart to tell him that, though.
“So, Sua,” Mizi says, deftly changing the topic while simultaneously managing to get back on track. Ivan groans, throwing an arm over his eyes as he sinks further into the bench they were sharing.
“Haven’t you gone on about her for long enough?” He complains.
Mizi narrows her eyes, “Hey, you usually love girl talk! You like, put sheet masks on us and play cheesy pop albums while begging me for the ‘deets’. You bake red velvet cookies and refuse to give them to me unless I’ve given you their social security number or bedroom preferences or something.”
“Yeah, see— I’m not exactly jazzed to hear about your bedroom preferences concerning my sister,” Ivan grumbles.
“But Ivan, Sua being your sister makes all of this so much better! I thought seeing her at that rager would be the first and last time we’d ever get to lock eyes amidst colourful LED lights and generic dubstep, but now, you can just set us up!” Mizi squeals before excitedly slurping down the last of her strawberry milk, the aggressive sounds of pulling up the last of her drink permeating Ivan’s thick silence as a response.
The boy only smiles, his expression infuriatingly unreadable. Despite having known Ivan throughout high school, Mizi often felt like she could never tell what Ivan’s true thoughts were. He hid things behind easy smiles and his protruding snaggle tooth. She’s learned to (sort of) read him through certain tells. A smile being his only response, for example? Reluctance.
“Ivan, if you don’t want me to go for it, then—”
“No. That’s not it, and you shouldn’t let me stop you from asking anyone out. It’s just that Sua and I aren’t all that close.” He says, waving off her sentence. Mizi frowns. That was another thing Ivan did, physically waving off any prodding question she had. She briefly wonders if Sua shared this behavioural trait of his.
“Ok, so, what do you say? You’ll set us up? Oh, wait, is she even into girls? Shit, what if I read it all wrong?!” She yelps, tossing away her now-empty box of strawberry milk in lieu of shaking Ivan’s shoulders, effectively shrugging his eye-covering arm off. He gives her an almost scarily wide megawatt smile.
“You don’t need to worry about that~” He sings. “Pretty sure she was into you too, if you claim that you two held eye contact for more than two seconds, that is.”
“Really?”
“Truly. Tell you what, I’ll work my magic if you take over introducing the new transfer student tomorrow. I’ve already got football practice and a robotics meeting scheduled,” Ivan says, that mega-watt smile of his staying as broad as ever.
Mizi snorts, “Please, you ask me to introduce new people every time I owe you a favour, why don’t you just lug off that job to anybody else? Luka’s never doing much.”
“If Luka introduced someone to Anakt High, they would run the other direction five minutes into the tour,” Ivan chuckles, kicking aimlessly at the concrete path beneath them.
“You might have a point,” Mizi grimaces, remembering the way Luka looked… at anything, to be honest. “Alright, I’ll do it. Maybe it’ll end up being an emo guy with a soft side. Hah, wouldn’t you regret your choices then?”
“When pigs fly, Mizi.” Was all Ivan replied with before launching himself upright and offering her a hand. She accepts, dusting off her skirt once she’s standing.
𝄞
After gaining preliminary instructions from Ivan, which were useless considering the fact that Ivan didn’t even bother to read the new kid’s file, Mizi found herself in front of the room her best friend detested most. The door swings open right as Mizi’s halfway through her series of rhythmic knocking.
“Mizi, doing Ivan’s job again, I suppose?” A bored voice says, golden eyes flickering to Mizi’s outstretched ‘mid-knock’ gestured hand, prompting her to let it fall to her side awkwardly.
“Nothing ever escapes your intellect, does it, Luka?” She laughs, nervously fidgeting with the ends of her skirt.
Luka rolls his eyes. “I don’t require intellect to know why you’re here. Honestly, I don’t even know why he’s still in the council. We might as well give you the job.”
“Luka, you made Ivan the Vice President.” Mizi deadpans.
“Sadly, he handles all of his other responsibilities adequately. Or at least, better than any other simpleton in this poor excuse of a high school would,” Luka sighs. He drags his feet over to Ivan’s desk, pulling out his drawers as Mizi squeaks, “That might be an invasion of his privacy, don’t you think?”
Luka spares her a bored glance. “If Ivan cared about his privacy, he’d have given you the file himself. And even if Ivan did care about his privacy, I don’t really give a shit.”
Well, okay then.
The blond boy hands her a thin grey file before he pushes the bridge of his glasses up the slope of his nose, “Here, you’re set to greet him in about fifteen minutes at the main gate. Take him to homeroom and show him around at recess. We can’t have him missing out on lessons. Can’t have you two missing out on schoolwork now, can we?”
Damn, Mizi was sort of banking on missing most of her morning classes today, “I guess not.”
“Glad we’re on the same page. Now, get out.” Luka gestures to the door, his monotonous expression unchanged.
“Where are the other members of the council anyway?” Mizi asks, her eyes darting around the two other empty desks in the room.
“Hyunwoo’s in the bathroom, and Sua’s more absent here than Ivan is—”
“ SUA ?!” Mizi chokes on air violently, coughing up a fit as her knees give out, causing her to place a palm on Ivan’s desk for balance. Luka only raises an eyebrow.
“Our Treasurer, yes.”
“When does she come by this room?” She asks frantically. Luka’s monotonous expression turned into a slightly amused version of his monotony.
“That’s breaking student council member confidentiality.” He says, curt.
“That isn’t real.” Mizi scoffs, desperation bleeding into her tone.
“Listen, Mizi, I couldn't care less about your little gay hysteria right now. You’ve already taken a good chunk of valuable time that I could’ve spent deciding on our spring fundraiser activity.”
“You were just going to take a nap.”
“Get. Out.”
Mizi sighs. Guess she’d just have to pry more information out of Ivan then. She makes her way back out of the room, trying not to make eye contact with Luka so as not to accidentally get her permanently banned from entering the room.
The President wildly slams the door shut as she leaves. Mizi was too used to his sudden eccentricities to flinch at the volume, so it was sort of amusing to watch the students nearby stiffen in mild fear. She flicked through the criminally thin file and wasn’t all that surprised to find little to no helpful information. If Ivan’s in-person advice was useless, this file couldn’t have been any more reliable.
She makes her way to the school gates, on the lookout for a grey-haired boy. Her eyes dart around the grim concrete walls surrounding the outer courtyard. Her eyes land on a boy coincidentally sitting on the same bench Ivan and she were sitting on earlier. The boy’s hair was ruffled in that ‘effortless’ way, except for the exceeding amount of effort it probably took for them to style it to look like they ‘just woke up like that’. He was staring at his phone, earbuds plugged into it. Wow, it’d been a while since Mizi had seen wired earbuds.
She walks over to him, “Till, I presume?”
The boy’s eyes snap up to meet hers, sharp teal piercing through whatever she was about to say next. Intimidating. Till, taking note of her widened eyes, softens his expression, looking apologetic, “Ah, sorry. You just…” He flounders slightly, at a loss for words.
“Said your name when you weren’t expecting it? I don’t blame you at all,” Mizi giggles, confidence returning quickly at the sight of the guy seeming more normal, “I’m Mizi!”
Till’s brows furrow, “I was told I’d be on tour with—”
“Ivan? Student Body Vice President? Yeah, he’s got a lot going on right now, unfortunately, so as his best friend, whom he now owes a massive favour to, I’ll be filling in. Hope that’s fine,” she says, trying not to envision Ivan handing her Sua’s number after all this was said and done.
“And by a lot, do you mean those flyers talking about a spring festival?” Till asks, sticking a thumb towards the messily stuck-up posters covering the walls surrounding them.
“Among other things! He’s also captain of the football team, in the music club, and the robotics club, an after-school tutor, and he volunteers at a cat shelter two days a week!” Mizi beams with pride. She doesn’t know how Ivan does all the things that he does, but she knows she’ll always hype him up to the best of her abilities.
Till only stares at her boredly in response, “Right.”
Alright, not the reaction she was hoping for. “Right,” She echoes, awkwardly, “Is there a reason why you mentioned the spring festival?”
At the mention of the festival, Till’s eyes finally sparked in recognition, “Yeah, I wanted to ask if there was any music showcase or something at these kinds of things? At my old high school, they’d usually have one of those.” He explains, his eyes distractedly darting around the hallways as Mizi led him inside while they were talking.
“Well, I don’t really know what exactly the council has planned as of yet, but I’m sure you could ask Ivan about it later. Though, to my knowledge, we haven’t really ever had musical showcases at these,” She muses, thoughtfully.
Till raises an eyebrow, “Didn’t you mention a music club?” So he was listening.
“I did! I’m in it too, but Hyuna leads it. There’s like, a few people in it, we actually have two more spots open right now if you want to—”
“No, I mean yes, I’d like to join, but like, I meant—” Till sighs, frustrated, “If you have a music club, why don’t they perform at school events? Isn’t that like, the most bare minimum thing you could expect from them?”
Mizi blinks, “Well, you’d have a point. To be honest, we usually just go to karaoke bars on Fridays and have jam sessions in the music room.”
“None of you have ever thought about actually performing?” Till asks, incredulous. Mizi feels like she’s starting to lose hold of this tour.
“It’s not that we haven’t thought about it. It’s just that in order to sign for these things, the entire club would have to be willing to participate, and Ivan and Luka are sort of wild cards in that department,” She murmurs.
“But they quite literally signed up for this!” Till spouts in disbelief.
“To be fair, I sort of begged Ivan to join. Have you heard his voice?”
Till mutters, “How the fuck would I have heard his voice?” It falls on deaf ears as Mizi blabbers on.
“Besides, Hyuna and I needed a minimum number of people, and so, I just roped him into it. He doesn’t even attend karaoke nights,” She admits begrudgingly.
“Maybe if he didn’t sign up to do a million things, he’d have time to actually cater to your damn club. Ugh, whatever, I’ll talk to him about it. I was—” He stops mid-sentence, his voice suddenly trailing off as he stares at his shoe-laces in silence. Mizi wonders if she should ask, before ultimately deciding that it was best not to pry into a person she barely knew, despite how badly she wanted to.
“Well, regardless of his answer, just know that the music club is indeed open for applications! Just pop by the music room after school today,” She exclaims, encouragingly.
“You guys seriously have an application process for what’s essentially just a bunch of free-for-all sessions and karaoke?” Till asks, warily.
“Of course we do, Hyuna calls it a vibe check.”
“Oo-kay,” Till says, “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks, Mizi.” He gives her a small, soft smile. Distantly, Mizi thinks it's far more genuine than anything she’s seen on Ivan’s face when they were on school grounds.
“Anyway, if we’re done with all that, let me finally get to show you around! We’ll circle back to class for lunch, we’re in the same class by the way, so that’s pretty convenient.” She says, flashing her smile at Till. He only nods in response. Good enough.
They walk through the hallways, stopping at every room briefly so Mizi can give him the ‘inside scoop’ about them all. Till, for the most part, does a terrible job at pretending to be remotely interested.
“...And this is the art room!” Mizi says, feeling her patience beginning to run dry with carrying the conversation. However, at the mention of the art room, Till’s eyes finally lit up. He looked around, staring at the easels, tubes of paints in a bin and stacked-up chart paper, bathed in sunlight.
“It’s nice,” He says, staring at the stocked-up paint bin.
“Do you draw?” Mizi asks, curiously. Till nods, “Been drawing before I’ve been speaking.”
“Ah, an artist in every form, then,” Mizi says, causing Till’s ears to turn red, “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Whatever you say. Ah, look at the time! It’s already one… I should drop you off at class, shouldn’t I? Or would you rather go to the cafeteria?”
“Got my own lunch, thanks,” Till says, before turning around to walk off on his own.
“Till?! I need to walk you to class!” Mizi hollers.
“Don’t worry about it!” Till hollers back, not looking back.
Wow, what an interesting guy.
𝄞
She walks over to the cafeteria, unsurprised to find Ivan standing close to the lunch line, his usual fake smile on full display, surrounded by all sorts of students. Some were fellow football players, miscellaneous classmates— people who just wanted to bask in his presence.
It didn’t really get any better once Mizi arrived; the flock only increased in size between the two of them. Ivan gives her a wary side glance, handing her the extra tray he’d received before finally shuffling their way to their usual table, the crowd slowly dissipating as they made their way through to their usual table, with the two other usual occupants already sitting there. Hyuna smiles widely as she waves them over to the table, while Luka simply pokes at his food, disinterested—nothing out of the ordinary there.
“Hey, you two! I was just thinking about how this table felt a little too quiet for comfort,” Hyuna says, patting the seat next to her for Mizi to slip into. Ivan slides in next to Luka, much to the latter’s dismay.
“And now I’m thinking about how unbearingly loud it’s about to be”, Luka grumbles, ignoring Ivan’s wide-eyed-and-smile combo being shot his way, “It’s too early for your bullshit expressions Ivan, turn it off,”
“I can’t turn it off, it’s who I am,” Ivan argues.
“Then find a way. So, how was not doing your job again?” Luka asks, pointedly. Thankfully, Ivan had the decency to look somewhat guilty, scratching the back of his neck.
“Ah, well, you see. I had a lot of stuff to catch up on—”
“Till was great!” Mizi interrupts, winking at Ivan after he threw her a grateful glance.
“Till? Weird name,” Hyuna hums, thoughtful.
“There’s a girl called Mizi sitting right beside you.” Luka deadpans.
“Yeah, but Mizi’s cute!” Hyuna exclaims, resulting in Mizi choking on her food, flustered. Hyuna smirks before aggressively hitting her back to help her out.
“He wants to join the music club,” She wheezes, between coughing, “Said he was upset that we weren’t doing anything for the spring festival.”
That gets Luka to look up, “Oh? And what was he proposing we’d do exactly?”
“Well, a showcase, I guess. I mean, now that I think about it, it is pretty weird how the music club isn’t performing at a school event, sort of seems like the ideal opportunity.”
Luka narrows his eyes, “We’d need every member to participate for that to happen, and we all know this guy—” He points his thumb at Ivan, “Would rather succumb to his suicidal urges than to actually commit to anything.”
“Hey, I commit to plans. I just need a good reason,” Ivan rebuts, his ever-present and frankly unnerving smile persisting.
“Is committing to the club you signed up for not a ‘good enough reason’?” Luka asks, propping his elbow up on the table.
Ivan looks down at his food, “Well, the club isn’t exactly my priority. And performing— I guess, sure. I can do that—”
Mizi gives him a starry-eyed look of wonder, “You will?!”
“—If the new kid asks me himself,” Ivan finishes, with a grin. Luka rolls his eyes as Hyuna snorts, “Knew there’d be a catch.”
Mizi shakes her head excitedly, “Shouldn’t be a problem, he said he would!”
The table grows quiet.
“He… did?” Ivan asks, his brows furrowing. Usually, the fact that Ivan refuses to take any new students on a tour due to his ‘busy schedule’ tends to up his intimidating factor by a wide margin.
“Mhm, and you know what’s crazy? I told him all about how insane you are—”
“Do you mean ‘insane’ like him-being-male-Barbie-insane or ‘insane’ like him-being-not-right-in-the-head insane?” Luka asks, blandly. Hyuna hides a growing smile with her palms.
“Male Barbie. Anyway, he didn’t even care! Isn’t that crazy!” She exclaims, waving her arms wildly.
“So crazy,” Luka echoes, with clear disinterest.
“You know, you complained an awful lot about Ivan and Mizi bringing noise to the table, but you seem to be doing most of the talking,” Hyuna teases, relishing in the mortified flush it brings to Luka’s ears.
Ivan seems to be lost in contemplation, staring ahead at nothing in particular. He finally looks up, meeting Mizi’s gaze. “He sounds interesting.”
“Oh, he is! He’ll be there this afternoon, actually, so you’ll all get to meet him. Ah, well, I guess you won't, Ivan,” Mizi laughs.
Ivan stares at her, “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Don’t you have football practice today?” Mizi reminds him.
Ivan blinks, “No, that was tomorrow.”
Huh, she could’ve sworn Ivan said something about practice today.
“Uh, alright then, that’s cool! Maybe we could duet Black Sorrow again!” She says, clapping her hands together in anticipation.
“Ivan sings Black Sorrow like, every time. Pick something else out of your emo ass playlist once in a while,” Luka groans.
“What would you have me sing, Luka? Should we sing Rewrite the Stars together?” Ivan says, his shit eating grin coming back in full force.
“Hah, not with you I won’t.” Luka snarks.
At that response, Hyuna’s eyes sparkle mischievously, “So you’d do it with me?”
“Of course I would,” Luka states, nonchalantly, before stabbing his fork through the last piece of pasta on his plate. Hyuna’s eyes widen, and Mizi honestly couldn’t tell why. Was it not obvious?
“So you tell me to switch it up, but you don’t tell me what to switch it to. How are we supposed to move past this? What should I sing?” Ivan pleads, shaking Luka’s arm violently.
Luka swats his hand away, “ I Kissed a Girl .”
Mizi and Hyuna erupt with laughter. Ivan’s smile only gets two inches wider, slightly strained.
𝄞
“D’you set up the speakers?” Hyuna huffs, tuning her bass guitar in frustration. Mizi shoots a thumbs up at her, trying not to flush as Hyuna replies with a “Good Girl.”
Luka walks into the room, bored as ever, “Why did I even sign up for this stupid club?”
“Because you have a big fat ego and an unfortunately equally beautiful voice to inflate it even further.” Hyuna recites, as if she’s gotten far too used to saying it. Luka shrugs in agreement.
“You have a point. When are we starting anyway?” He asks.
Hyuna sighs with relief as she finally finishes the tuning process, “Whenever that new kid gets here, probably.”
Luka scoffs, “How do you even know if he’ll show up—”
“Is this the right room?” All three of their heads snapped to the door, staring straight at Till, who was currently awkwardly positioned against the door frame, a shiny red electric guitar slung across him.
“Till! You made it!” Mizi greeted, waving at him excitedly. Till raises his hand up in lieu of waving back.
“Yeah, I said I would,” He says. Hyuna clears her throat, shoving past Luka to get to face the other boy.
“Hey kid, I’m Hyuna, and I’m about to make you a star,” She says, jazz-handing wildly despite maintaining her ridiculously attractive composure.
Till looks at her, slightly befuddled, “Good to hear.” He looks behind Hyuna, catching Luka’s bored expression, “Are you… Ivan ?”
Luka stares at Till, unrelenting, “If I ever identify as Ivan, then that would be the first of many signs pointing to me being a victim of psychiatric assault.”
Till stares at him, blankly, at a loss for words. Hyuna pinches the space between her eyebrows. “That’s Luka, you’ll get used to him.”
“I don’t know if I want to get used to him,” Till mutters under his breath, resulting in Mizi letting out an ugly snort.
“Bold thing to say to your Student Council President,” Luka drawls, a lazy smile rising at Till stiffen in response.
He opens his mouth to retort, “Bold of you to assume that I give a fuck about your— oof !” Till gasps as Ivan crashes into him from behind. “Watch where you’re going moron!” He snaps, whirling around to face Ivan.
Oh gods, this kid really shouldn’t be crossing Ivan of all people, lest he be ready for mental suicide. Mizi flinches, “Till, you probably shouldn’t raise your voice…” Her voice fades as she catches Ivan’s expression, which—
Dear Anakt, spare this boy.
“Woah, aren’t you feisty?” Ivan chuckles, tilting his head slightly, “You must be Till. Apologies for not being able to take you around school earlier, I tend to get preoccupied with more pressing matters. In fact, I was just on my way back from said matters, so you’ll have to excuse me for rushing into you like this.” His charming smile only gets wider, as if daring Till to respond.
Till narrows his eyes at Ivan, seemingly processing his identity before it hits him, “Oh. You’re Ivan.”
Ivan raises an eyebrow, “Is that all you have to say?”
“I’m not the one who needed to apologise, so what more is there for me to say?” Till snaps, irritated.
Ivan only blinks, momentarily stumped, before his smile returns with a certain level of practised ease. He deftly ignores Till, looking at Mizi instead, “Should we go ahead and start?”
Till gapes at the man, before seething, “Did you just ignore me?”
“I didn’t think there was ‘anything more to say’. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,” Ivan says, airquoting the phrase he lifted from Till’s response. Till looked like he was definitely going to worry his pretty little head about it. Mizi laughs awkwardly, attempting to diffuse the spark lit in the room.
“So, Till! What song would you like to audition with?” Hyuna asks, swinging an arm around Till’s shoulders languidly.
Till’s grip on his guitar strap tightens as he considers the question, “It’s an original,” He says, fidgeting with the strap slightly.
Hyuna brightens, “ Ooh, giving yourself brownie points for creativity already! Luka can set your guitar up with the amp,” Luka groans but gets up anyway as Hyuna continues, “Get yourself ready to sing, uh– what’s the song called?”
“The title’s… a work in progress,” Till admits sheepishly.
Hyuna nods, “Take your time with that,” she says, understanding the struggle of the creative process all too well. Mizi thinks there’s nobody better to lead their merry rag-tag group, she always seemed the most experienced and level-headed of the lot of them.
Till walks towards the microphone, adjusting its height accordingly. He taps on its grill tentatively before he starts.
Mizi feels her jaw drop slightly as the boy in front of her quite legitimately belts his heart out. To say that Till sounded like he was born for the stage would be a vast understatement. His voice was aggressive, passionate, and gritty. She finds herself glancing at the other members, eager to note their reactions. Hyuna’s eyes were lit up as she whistled in cheer, Luka’s calculating gaze was sharp as he stared ahead at the performance, the only indication of his enjoyment being the mild rhythmic tap of his fingers against the table behind him.
Mizi then turns to Ivan, reeling at his reaction. Ivan’s jaw seemed to hang ever-so-slightly open, his eyes blown wide as his nails dug into his palms. Mizi doesn’t think she’s ever seen Ivan let his blank facade down so openly. Well, it’s not like anyone else was looking at him. But still!
She doesn’t even notice as Till strikes the final chord for the song, heaving slightly. The room erupts with Hyuna's appraisal, except that she doesn’t really hear much of it. She was more focused on Ivan’s expression, shuddering through the motions before eventually almost forcing itself into normalcy.
His eyes meet Mizi’s, “He’s pretty good, huh?” He says, slightly breathless.
You couldn’t take your eyes off of him.
“Pretty good?! I’d say he has the makings of a goddamn rock star!” Hyuna exclaims, slapping Till’s back heartily, resulting in Till’s prideful smile straining heavily in pain,
“Thanks,” He wheezes, “Did I make the cut?”
Hyuna laughs, “Of course you did, rookie! Hell, you’re putting me to shame with that on-stage attitude of yours,”
Ivan clears his throat, “I suppose weekly karaoke nights are about to get a lot more colourful.”
“What would you know about weekly karaoke night?” Luka asks, raising an eyebrow in challenge.
“I’m about to find out,” Ivan says cryptically.
“Does that mean you’re showing up from now on?” Mizi asks, excitedly. Ivan shrugs, a carefree smile playing at his lips, “Probably,” He says, refusing to elaborate.
Before Mizi gets the chance to squeal with delight, a delicate knock interrupts them, prompting everybody to turn towards the door.
“Sorry for getting here so late, I had matters to attend to,” A soft voice pierces through whatever coherent thought Mizi would’ve had at that moment. Black hair, lavender irises, a gentle smile.
Sua.
“Ah, I was beginning to think you wouldn’t show at all, noona,” Ivan greets, his smile bordering on mischievous.
The smile wipes off almost instantly, “I was told that you made your presence in this club sparse,” She says, her tone icy.
“What kind of brother would I be if I didn’t show up for your audition?” Ivan asks, feigning an innocent head tilt.
“A half-tolerable one,” Sua mutters.
“I’m Mizi!” Mizi blurts, cutting through whatever tension seemed to thread between the siblings in lieu of grasping a sliver of Sua’s attention.
Sua’s gaze almost instantly softens, frustrated wrinkles disappearing the moment she lays eyes on Mizi, “I’m aware,” she says, almost shyly.
“Y-you are?” Mizi stutters. Sua was aware of her presence?!
“I’ve uh, seen you around campus before, with him,” She says, hesitantly, as if she didn’t even want to mention Ivan.
“Plus, I’ve talked about you loads,” Ivan adds, wagging his finger in reminder. Sua ignores him, continuing to keep her attention solely on Mizi.
“So, I was told that there would be auditions held today. Are they already over?” She asks, slightly frowning.
“Well, we did induct a new member just now, but we still have one more spot left open if you’d like to try out,” Luka says offhandedly.
Sua nods, “Yeah, I would.”
Luka tilts his head in the direction of the makeshift stage. “Do you have an instrument?”
Sua shakes her head, “I just sing.”
“She can play the piano too,” Ivan pipes up. Sua sends him a withering glare, but says nothing else in response. Mizi looked between the two of them in confusion. Was Ivan trying to provoke her? She quells any curiosity she has on the matter the second she hears Sua test the grill.
“This is Sweet Dream,” Sua says, before adding, “An original.”
Mizi’s breath hitches at the sound of Sua’s dulcet tone filling the room, beautiful falsettos coupled with an almost ethereal lingering feeling that the song provided. It was haunting, gorgeous, and captivating. Mizi doesn’t see anything other than Sua, doesn’t bother looking in any other direction.
It’s just her.
The song finally comes to a close, and Mizi finds herself clapping aggressively as Sua’s voice fades to silence, “You were amazing–no, better than that!” She yells, admiration bleeding through her. She can hear Hyuna and Till praise her, but it honestly barely registers. Sua seems to react the same way, a polite smile at the two others before it gets more genuine at Mizi.
“You really think so?” She whispers. Mizi nods enthusiastically, “Of course! We have to sing together one of these days, the world needs to hear you!”
Sua’s face flushes a pretty pink, almost as vibrant as Mizi’s bubblegum hair. It suits her. They both continue staring at each other, affection brimming through their gaze alone, until Luka coughs into his fist, bringing the girls back to reality. Till stares at them curiously, but for the most part, remains silent. Hyuna teasingly looks between the two while Ivan doesn’t really seem to care about their display, scrolling through his phone instead.
“Is this you?” Ivan suddenly asks, thrusting his phone screen towards Till. Till blinks in mild surprise, staring at whatever it was that Ivan’s screen displayed.
“Why are you asking?” Till narrows his eyes in suspicion.
“I wanted to follow you, obviously,” Ivan says, seemingly distracted by whatever was on the screen, which Mizi assumed was a social media profile.
“You don’t like me, though,” Till says, frustrated.
Ivan lets out a confused noise, “When did I say that?”
“I thought it was obvious,”
“Well, I don’t. Accept my follow request, please,” Ivan says, “I hope you like bunny memes, I’ll probably send you a lot of those.” Without waiting for the grey-haired boy’s reply, he walks towards the door, briefly pausing at Sua.
“D’you bring your own car?” He asks, boredly.
“Of course I did,” She says, curt. Ivan only nods, waving at Mizi before heading out the door.
“What the fuck is wrong with that kid?” Till manages, his voice coming out slightly strangled.
Mizi was beginning to think she knew exactly what was wrong with that kid.
𝄞