Chapter 3

"What hentai do you watch?"

"W-Why the fuck would I tell you that!?" Till wheezes.

"I told you what I watch. It's only fair, Till."

"I – I didn't even want to know in the first place!" Till exclaims, glaring at a passerby until the woman finally walks away. "Can you just pick me up already?"

"Only if you tell me."

Till heaves a frustrated growl. He glares at the concrete sidewalk for several seconds, wrestling with his pride. He needs to get home before Io finds his suspiciously stiff boxers. Any other day, he'd tell Ivan to fuck off and hang up, then walk home. But he doesn't have time for that.

And so, Till holds the phone close to his mouth and looks around, before whispering into the speaker, "I don't know. C-Cross-dressing, I guess."

Ivan's swift inhale carries over the line. Till can hear him swallow heavily. "The girl or the guy?" he asks after a long pause.

Till's face feels warm. "T-That isn't part of the deal. You said you'd pick me up if I told you."

"Please, Till," Ivan manages, breathing shakily into the receiver, "you have to tell me. You have to."

What the fuck is even going on? This is freakish even for Ivan, and that's saying something. The dude was just talking about Till's phlegm yesterday during ceramics class.

Till scuffs the tip of his sneaker into the concrete. He could lie, but Ivan always knows when he isn't telling the truth. So, Till tries to fight his blush as he whispers, "The... The guy, alright? A-And the girl calls him cute, or, or whatever." He releases a deeply embarrassed sigh. "Happy?"

Silence.

"I'm going to crash the car," Ivan declares abruptly, making Till sputter.

"What?! Pay attention to the road, you fucking freak!" Wait. Till's eyes widen. "Were you on your way this whole fucking time?"

"I think," Ivan replies, sounding dazed. "The last five minutes are hazy. On a completely unrelated note, have you ever considered wearing a skirt? And if so, how short?"

"You need a lobotomy," Till tells him honestly.

"I'd let you poke my brain with a sharp tool as much as you want," Ivan says without missing a beat.

Till stares at his phone for several seconds. He can't take this anymore. "I'm hanging up now. And blocking your number."

"Till –"

Till doesn't hear the rest. Stupid fucking Ivan. He's probably going to use this against Till somehow, most likely when he least expects it. Forty years from now, they'll be old and wrinkly and still somehow close, and Ivan will bring up Till's cross-dressing hentai fetish in front of Ivan's trophy wife and their, like, fifteen void-eyed children.

Then, Till will be the one that gets arrested for corrupting the youth, because Ivan is some mafioso with the police in his pocket in this scenario.

Ivan pulls up a few minutes later in his too-nice-for-a-seventeen-year-old-car. Till silently opens the door and settles inside, not even fighting the seatbelt rule. He clicks it in place, then resolutely stares forward, arms crossed over his chest. His face still feels warm, fucking great.

Ivan opens his mouth.

Till quickly interrupts him. "Not a word. I'm fucking serious, Ivan. I'll jump into oncoming traffic. Don't test me."

"My lips are sealed," Ivan says, checking the rearview mirror before he pulls back onto the road.

The first thing Till does when they get home is throw open the passenger door and bolt upstairs to his room. Ivan is stuck parking his car in the garage, so he can't follow Till inside and corner him.

With the air of ripping off a bandaid, Till opens his bedroom door and steps inside. His laundry hamper is conspicuously empty. Till enters all five stages of grief at once, which is a little impressive, because he usually gets stuck at 'anger' most of the time.

"Fuck," he mutters, pulling at his hair. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

There's no time to curse himself after his initial outburst. He has to apologize to his poor mom. He has to. She had to gingerly pick up his stiff boxers, put them in the hamper, and then wash and dry them knowing what he'd done. She probably doesn't even care that much. Till tends to be dramatic. He can admit that.

Io is in the kitchen cooking dinner when Till approaches, hanging his head like a repentant dog. "Mom."

Io turns around and beams. "Till! I thought I heard you come in. By the way, what did you do to your brother? He looked –"

"Forget about Ivan," Till says, unable to take it anymore. "You did the laundry today, didn't you?"

Io blinks at him. "Laundry? No, I don't think so."

Till goes numb all over. "What."

Io offers him one of her warm, motherly smiles. "If your laundry is missing, then Ivan probably washed it. I asked him to help around the house today. You don't mind, do you?"

Ivan.

Ivan saw his. His stiff boxers. The embarrassing ones with a pink heart over the ass.

Till falls to his knees. His world is crumbling. This is genuinely the end of the line for him. On a list of things that signify the end times, Ivan doing Till's laundry and coming across his jizz-stained underwear is probably at the very top. Red alert. This is not a drill. This is so fucked up.

"Till?" Io frowns, her face wrinkling with concern. "Are you alright?"

As ever with Till, the despair and humiliation don't last long before they morph into anger. Till finds his feet and takes a deep breath, rallying his strength. He doesn't win fights with Ivan anymore, but his fist needs to make contact with Ivan's stupid face. This is his fault. Never mind the fact that he was just being helpful. He's such a freak, and this can't be a coincidence.

"I need to talk to Ivan," Till says.

He turns sharply on his heel, walks upstairs, and finds Ivan in his bedroom. The door is open, because Ivan is not a cagey youth who hides away. Somehow, it makes Till angrier. Ivan's room is so neat, tidy, and sparsely decorated. He doesn't hang posters up like Till, nor does he leave dirty laundry on the floor.

"Till," Ivan says, looking up from his laptop. He's sitting at his desk, clearly feigning innocence. "What brings you to my room today? Willingly, at that."

"Cut the bullshit," Till snarls, vibrating with poorly-concealed restraint. "I know you saw it."

Ivan has the audacity to look confused. "Saw what? You didn't post anything on instagram last I checked, but I'm sure your sixty followers would appreciate –"

Till walks forward and grabs Ivan by the collar of his stupid shirt, jerking him close until their faces are only a few inches away. "The boxers. Don't act innocent! How many pictures did you take, and who did you send them to?"

Ivan's snaggletooth protrudes over his bottom lip around a giddy smile. The sick bastard loves when Till gets violently angry. "I'm hurt that you'd think I'd blackmail you like that."

"You're so fucking full of shit," Till hisses, shaking him for good measure. He hopes Ivan's brain rattles in his skull, crippling him for life. "You saw them."