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Till doesn’t look down.
A rule he made up a long time ago, and one he would have followed even if his eyesight hadn’t been messed up for good. Looking down means to acknowledge that it happened. Confirming that the aches he can feel are real.
Luckily, creating a mental catalogue of his injuries is something Till is good at by now. No eyes needed.
Starting with bleeding...
Till thinks.
...He’s probably okay on that front. He’d have smelled it by now. Unless it dried. Till wouldn’t put it past them to forget about the clean-up.
Pain in his jaw. The back of his head. Neck. Fingertips. Lower back. Left toes. A sting on his cheek. A heavy pressure on his chest.
His eyes.
Till grits his teeth.
The corners are raw. It hurts to blink. Whatever was dropped into them feels like it’s still there, a thick coating over his pupils preventing him from seeing clearly. Till should be grateful, he thinks. At least the complete blindness is gone now. Till doesn’t know what they were trying to do with his eyes. He doesn’t try to listen anymore when they talk over his head. Based on Urak’s reaction, they hadn’t gotten what they wanted.
For the better part of a week, Till had been shut inside a room with no one else for company. Twice a day, he’d hear the door open and a tray of food being slid towards him, and that would be it. Even after his vision had returned, Till had been kept inside the room, only the wall to stare at until they deemed his vision acclimated enough to interact with the real world again.
It’s been less than a day since he’s been brought to his own room. The nausea in his stomach from suddenly having depth perception again still hasn’t settled. He’d fallen asleep the moment his head hit his bed, and hasn’t left the room since he woke up.
He groans, chest aching and heavy.
Except.
Till frowns.
Even with the blur in his vision, there’s a strange squiggle of black that he can’t quite make out.
Till squints. Hair?
With a start, he realizes the heaviness on his chest is physical.
Till breaks his own rule. He looks down, and immediately curses out loud. “Are you sleeping on me?!”
“Mhm,” Ivan says, head on Till’s chest like it’s normal, and starts making snoring noises.
“Don’t mess with me!” Till forces himself up. Ivan somehow manages to keep their body connected as Till does, until his head is resting on Till’s shoulder instead. “Get off.”
Till pushes Ivan’s shoulders, making sure he puts force into it, knowing the steel wall Ivan can be when he wants to. Ivan isn’t as fragile as he pretends to be.
It would have worked, except Ivan moves back at the same time, so all that force Till put into his hands only propels him forward until it’s his head that collapses into Ivan’s chest.
Till doesn’t scramble up fast enough. Ivan’s hands drop to Till’s head to keep him in place. “Oh. You wanted to sleep on me?”
Like this, Till’s vision is obscured by Ivan’s shirt. “Let me up,” Till says, heartbeat quickening. He’s done with the dark. He’s done with it. He pushes at Ivan again. “Ivan, I’m not joking.”
“If you insist,” Ivan says, letting go.
“Ugh,” Till says, fixing the section of his hair that had flattened against Ivan. “How’d you know I came back, anyway?”
Ivan shrugs. “I come here when you’re not around.”
Till blanches. “What— How did you even get in?!” Their rooms get locked when they’re unoccupied. Their rooms get locked when they’re occupied, too.
Ivan ignores him. “But then, one day you were here. And you were sleeping. So I stayed and went to sleep, too.”
“I hate you,” Till says, falling back into bed. He’s too tired to deal with Ivan right now. His everything still hurts.
Ivan follows suit, lying next to him. “Are you sleeping again?”
“No,” Till says. “Shut up.”
Ivan makes fake-snoring noises again.
Till considers smothering him with his pillow. “Ivan,” he says warningly.
“Till,” Ivan responds, without a care in the world.
-
Till realizes, after he’s managed to chase Ivan out, that this is the first time Till has seen him in over a week. It’s not totally unheard of for Till to have gone this long without seeing him, but they’re usually able to see each other from a distance, at the very least.
Ivan looks the same as always, even with Till’s inability to focus his vision on anything lately. Some things Till can just tell, even without seeing clearly. Ivan definitely still has his dumb haircut, dumb teeth, dumb eyes that look like they reflect the light around them more than they absorb it.
Whatever. It’s not like Till wants to look at Ivan. In a lineup, he wouldn’t be the person Till would choose to look at first. Maybe the second, only by default, though, because he’s not sure how option number three would take it if he started looking at her without saying anything.
Mizi, however.
Mizi is the prettiest person in the entire universe, Till thinks. If this is as good as Till’s eyesight will ever get, then Till would happily use the rest of it just to look at her.
-
It becomes less of a passive thought and more of an all-consuming idea over the next day: Till doesn’t want to waste his eyesight on anything else.
First, is making sure he can use his eyes to whatever extent he can. He’s already blown his bangs out of his face for the fourth time that morning.
He can’t have any obstructions covering them if he wants to make as much use of his eyesight as possible.
So, he needs to give himself a haircut.
Acorn loans him his scissors, under the condition that he doesn’t leave them in the bathroom when he’s done. “It’ll get wet because no one here is careful, and it’ll rust,” he says, and Till nods.
He sets up camp in the sink farthest from the door and gets to work.
It should be easy. Really, all he needs to do is cut a straight line across his forehead, a little higher than it is now. Just above his eyes. As easy as drawing a straight line.
He lines up the scissors, trying his best to focus his vision on the angle of the scissors.
Okay. Done. Now, all he needs to do is—
His nose twitches. The scent of the harsh cleaning supplies used for the bathrooms make it itch.
Wait—
He sneezes, his grip on the scissors tightening in the exact moment he tries to move it away from his hair.
The result is... ridiculous. Instead of the bangs he wanted, they’re now cut at a slant, the bangs above his right eyebrow nearly reaching his forehead. On top of that, Acorn’s scissors apparently can’t cut human hair all that well. They couldn’t even snip off every hair that Till had tried to unevenly cut. There were strands that hadn’t been cut at all, scattered throughout the diagonal bang.
Till tries to fix it, but that only makes it worse. He ends up with barely any bangs at all, an uneven, shorn line of hair at the base of his scalp. His forehead feels itchy without the hair that used to cover it.
To make matters even worse, Ivan is the first person who sees the haircut, standing outside the bathroom right when Till is coming out of it.
Ivan presses his lips together tightly, eyebrows raising. Like he’s trying not to laugh.
Till drops his face into his hands. “I look stupid.”
Ivan pats his head. “Since when did you care so much about how you look?” He asks, which is a roundabout way of saying that he agrees.
Till groans louder into his palm.
-
Acorn asks him after, where his scissors went.
“In the bathroom,” Till says. “Oh. Sorry. I forgot.”
Acorn splutters. “Go get it, then.” He makes a scrunched-up face at the sight of Till’s hair, but doesn’t comment on it.
Ivan drops the weight of his head harder into Till’s stomach.
Till sighs. “Sorry,” he says again, gesturing to Ivan. “He won’t move.”
Acorn says, “Ugh.”
-
Till doesn’t follow Mizi around. That would be creepy and weird. But... when she’s around, even if it’s from a distance...
He can look at her. Her smile, her hair, her laugh. There are a lot of nice things to look at, when it comes to her.
On the contrary, he isn’t much of anything. His bruises have turned a gross, yellow and purple color now, so it’s a good thing that Mizi doesn’t look back.
He gets another idea, after watching Mizi play with Sua for a while.
He’ll draw her.
That way, once he's finished a few drawings, he’ll be able to look at Mizi all the time, even if it’s just from his sketchpad.
It’s not a bad plan at all. If only Ivan would stop distracting him from it.
Ivan pinches Till’s sleeve, messing up Till’s hold on his pencil. “Can you see better today?” He leans in, close enough that Till feels his breath on his cheek.
Till rolls his eyes. It hurts.
“I thought you were going to be blind forever,” Ivan adds.
“I bet you’d like that,” Till mumbles absent-mindedly. He’s more focused on getting the details of Mizi’s glasses correct than continuing this conversation. Round, but not perfectly circular. Thin rims. He makes sure not to press his pencil too hard on the page. It’ll be hard to erase if the weight is too heavy.
His eyesight has cleared up a little, but not back to what it was before. This is the first time he’s tried to draw since his vision returned. It’s not as easy as it used to be when Till has to hold the sketchbook closer to his face to get the finer details right.
(He wonders, briefly, if he’ll need glasses, too. If Urak would even allow it.)
Ivan rubs Till’s sleeve against his fingers some more. “I heard that if you hit your head against the wall, you can go blind forever.”
“That’s not true,” Till says. If it were, he would have been blind the very first time he’d been punished. He draws in another stand of Mizi’s hair. There’s a lock that falls out from behind her eyes when she moves. It’s pretty when it blows in the wind. “And don’t believe everything you hear.” The older kids were always filling Ivan’s head with dumb stuff.
“Kay,” Ivan says. He stands up. Till thinks he’s going to walk away at first, but no. Ivan decides to stand right in front of him. “What are you drawing?”
Till frowns. He cranes his neck to the side. And... there. Mizi’s still in his field of vision like this. “None of your business.” Couldn’t Ivan have just seen it from his spot next to Till? Ivan was such an idiot, sometimes.
“We can just go to Mizi if you want to talk to her,” Ivan offers.
“I’m drawing her,” Till says.
Ivan moves again, blocking Till’s view. Till tries to look around him again. Ivan follows his eyeline, taking steps to the right, and then to the left, and then ducking lower so he can keep blocking Till’s view. Till contemplates throwing his pencil at him, but there’s no guarantee that Ivan won’t steal it and take off running.
Asshole.
Ivan grins, bending down in front of Till and leaning in. “I like this game.”
“I’m not playing a game, idiot. Move already.”
“I want to play, too,” Ivan says, ignoring him and sitting down.
“Move.”
“No.”
Fine. Till closes his eyes. It makes him anxious again, the complete darkness, but he pushes the feeling down as best as he can. “I’m not going to waste it on you.”
“Waste what?”
“My eyesight.”
“You can’t waste eyesight,” Ivan says, but Till can hear the tinge of confusion in his voice.
“Yes, you can,” Till lies.
...It’s fine if he tricks Ivan, Till rationalizes quickly. For all that Ivan tries to trick him, this is the least that he deserves. It’s other kids that aren’t allowed to do it.
He hears Ivan hum. “Okay. What are you saving it for, then?”
“Don’t ask dumb questions.”
A rustle of clothes, and then silence; but Ivan hasn’t walked off yet. Till can hear his breathing still.
“Go away,” Till says. If Mizi’s walked away already, then Till is wasting his time sitting here with his eyes closed.
“No,” Ivan says. “I don’t want to waste my eyesight either.”
Till squints one eye open and sure enough, Ivan’s staring at him. Ugh. He doesn’t have time to waste like Ivan clearly does.
Mizi’s getting up now, hand-in-hand with Sua. He can feel Ivan’s eyes still on him.
Mizi or Ivan. Mizi or Ivan. Mizi or—
Who is Till kidding?
The choice is easy.
He gets up, ready to stalk off towards Mizi, when he trips over his pencil, and immediately falls flat onto the floor.
Till groans weakly, sitting back up. There are grass stains on his pants now. Ivan doesn’t even bother to ask him if he’s okay. Till stares at him, hoping to convey: Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!
It doesn’t seem to land. All Ivan does is cocks his head, looking back. “Is this a new game? Should I stare back?”
Till bites the inside of his cheek. You’re already staring at me, he thinks. “Do whatever you want.”
Ivan adjusts himself so that his hands are over his knees, and opens his eyes as wide as he can make them.
“Okay,” Ivan says. “I will.”
Till squints.
“You’re losing,” Ivan says casually.
“I’m not,” Till snaps. “Stop talking. You’re trying to distract me.”
Ivan grins. Keeping his eyes open, and without breaking eye contact, he blows straight into Till’s eyes.
Reflexively, Till shuts them, feeling water well up in them now that they’re closed.
“I win,” Ivan says, sounding pleased with himself.
Till rubs at his eyes, hissing when that intensifies the burning. “You’re so stupid,” he says, blinking at Ivan. The tears in his eyes finally spill over his cheeks.
“You look stupid,” Ivan says back. “Look, you’re really crying again.”
“Shut up.” Till frowns. “Wait. Did you even blink yet?”
“Nope,” Ivan confirms.
“What— Close your eyes!” Till snaps. “You already won.”
“Obviously,” Ivan laughs.
It makes Till feel strange, hearing it. He doesn’t remember the last time he laughed at something. He doesn’t remember the last time he heard Ivan laugh, either.
It’s not bad to hear, all things considered. It would have been worse if Urak had messed with his hearing. He wouldn’t be able to hear anything at all, Mizi or otherwise. Maybe-blind is probably the best he could have asked for.
Maybe it’s that thought that makes him tell Ivan what he does. “If I were blind forever, I’d never have to look at Urak again.”
Ivan knows about Urak. Till doesn’t mention him by name often, but apparently Ivan’s owner knows him. At least enough for Ivan to recognize the name even without Till there.
Ivan tilts his head. “So you do want to hit your head on something.”
“I told you not to believe that,” Till grumbles. He should have known Ivan wouldn’t take it seriously. Though, Till supposes he wouldn’t know how to react to a comment like that, either. It’s been a floating thought in his head since he’d been shut in that room. He’d never see Mizi again, if he really had lost his vision permanently, but at least he’d be able to hear her voice. More than that, he’d be able to imagine that when his head was facing hers, she’d be looking at him, too.
... He’d never see Ivan again, either. That wasn’t the end of the world, but— Till had gotten used to it. Looking around, and seeing Ivan there.
Ivan says, “If you never want to see Urak again, we can leave.”
Till scoffs. “Nevermind. You don’t know anything.”
“I’m not joking,” Ivan says, but Till knows better.
“We can’t leave. We have to compete when we’re older,” Till reminds him. It’s still years away, but he already knows he’s going to qualify. That’s why they’re all here in the first place. He pauses. “Wait. Why are you including yourself in this?”
“Cause I’ll come with you if you leave,” Ivan says simply. “I know more than you.”
“Screw you,” Till says.
Ivan smiles. “We can just come back to compete afterwards, if you want.”
“That’s dumb. If we leave, we should just leave.” But... he can entertain Ivan a little, he thinks. In a smaller voice, he asks, “But, um. If we did leave... where should we go?”
Ivan shrugs.
Till frowns. “You don’t know?”
“How should I?”
Because Ivan always knows things he shouldn’t. It was strange, actually, how often older kids managed to trick him into believing things. “If you don’t know, then it’s a dumb plan,” Till says.
After a moment, Ivan asks, “Do you really want to compete?”
“Yeah,” Till says, but in reality, it’s more complicated than that. He doesn’t have much of a choice either way.
Urak has had previous seasons playing sometimes. They edit out the sound of the cheering on the televised versions, but Till can see the lights when the camera pans. The faces of the aliens. If he dies before his head hits the ground, he’ll see them cheer. He tells Ivan as such.
Ivan says, “But that’s if you lose.”
“I guess.”
“Aren’t you trying to win?”
“Saying I want to win is different from actually winning.” Till does want to win. He’s competitive. He won their talent show at Anakt Garden. He knows he could win. But he also just spent this whole week hobbling around with wobbly vision because he spent the better part of the week before that tied to a gurney with his eyes bleeding. There’s also Mizi. If Till goes up against Mizi, what is he supposed to do then?
No matter what he does from this point on, he’s already made it halfway across the bridge to his own death. That much, Urak’s made clear.
Ivan has a strange look on his face. “Do you want to lose?”
Till runs his tongue over his teeth. What he wants is to look away and pretend like he never started this conversation. “No,” he says eventually. “I don’t want to do that either.”
“Then when we’re competing, why don’t we just go up against each other?”
“How does that make sense?”
“It makes sense,” Ivan says. “If we compete against each other, all you have to do is look at me forever. Then, you’ll never have to look at Urak again.”
Till thinks about it for a moment. It doesn't not make sense. But then he thinks about it some more. Hold on. “Do you think I’ll lose to you?!”
Ivan smiles. “Why not? I just beat you in a staring game?”
Till feels his annoyance rise. “Because you cheated.”
Ivan hums.
Idiot.
“We’re getting even right now,” Till declares, sitting up straight. He moves his sketchbook and pencil to the side. This isn’t a horrible use of his eyesight, he reasons. Beating Ivan is worth it. “Look at me. And don’t cheat. Or I’ll get mad.”
“Ooh, I’m scared,” Ivan says. His eyes don’t close. Maybe Ivan’s owner tested his eyes, too.
“You should be.”
“I really am,” Ivan says.
Till reaches over and pinches Ivan’s arm as hard as he can.
“Are you trying to make me lose?” Ivan asks, grinning. Wide. All his teeth showing. The corners of his mouth are red— The air in Anakt isn’t that dry, but maybe Ivan is just sensitive to it.
Till blinks. His vision wobbles briefly, before settling back to normal. He says, “You should smile like that more often.”
Ivan’s smile drops. “You lost.”
Till frowns back. “Why’d you stop?”
“Aren’t you mad?”
“About what?”
“Losing.”
Till waits to see if the usual annoyance will emerge, but suddenly, he can’t seem to make himself feel it.
Another plan starts forming in his mind. He picks his sketchbook back up, and flips to a new page. “Smile again,” he commands.
“No,” Ivan says. “Why?”
“I want to see something," Till says.
“So your eyes do work.”
“No, I— That’s not what I meant. Smile.”
Ivan stretches his mouth wide, as if to show off all his teeth for inspection. In that position, he breathes out a noise that vaguely sounds like, “But why?”
Because, Till thinks. Ivan’s big smile, not the annoying one... It wasn’t bad to look at, either. There’s no harm in using that for his eyesight, too.
Instead of saying that, though, Till pushes him. “What are you doing, moron? That’s not smiling.”
Ivan stops.
Till sighs. “Nevermind.” He’ll have to remember to draw it from memory later, when Ivan isn’t here to question him for it.
Ivan lets out an exaggerated sigh, as though Till was the one who tired him out, and curls back up against his side.
Mizi’s gone now, somewhere outside the range of Till’s field of vision.
Till looks down at the top of Ivan’s head. His vision blurs again. He takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes.
-
(Till forgets about drawing Ivan’s smile that night, too distracted by Ivan’s numerous attempts at annoying him again. Then, sometime later, Till ruins their escape attempt, and Ivan decides to come back to Anakt Garden with him, and Till can't bring himself to look at Ivan for weeks. Till’s sketchbook falls to the wayside, and the reminder that he had made to himself gets buried under... everything else.
That is, until almost twenty years later, when Till can't sleep, and the memory will come back to him with the wind. He'll pick up his notepad and finally start to draw. The image of Ivan's smile from back then is faded, considering Till's already-blurred vision from back then and time having taken the finer details from him. But he does his best, and draws the small child Ivan had been, smiling at him during a made-up game of staring at each other.
Once he's finally done, he tears the page out and places it inside a box with all of his other drawings of Ivan. He puts this cherished memory to rest, and lies back down. Sleep doesn't come any easier, but the night doesn't seem as daunting anymore.)