Chapter Text
Ivan’s bedroom was not at all indicative of his personality. The magnolia walls felt more akin to the room of an asylum than a cosy place of rest, undecorated and untouched, even though he had lived there his whole life. The bed, which was almost always made unless someone was sleeping in it, did little to express Ivan either and is hardly worth mentioning.
You could argue that perhaps the desk in the far corner suggested that Ivan was the studious type, but the only reason it was really in there was because someone was always occupying the dinner table, and he’d needed somewhere he could do his homework in peace.
The only thing that could be classed as decoration were the small trinkets given to him by his sisters, home-made gifts from birthdays littered his windowsill and desk, at the very least making the room look lived in. Natalya had made it a habit to sew him something new every year, whether it be an item of clothing or embarrassingly cute stuffed animal, he always kept what his sisters had given him. In a way, his bedroom better reflected his sibling’s habits more than his own.
Ivan wasn’t really sure why he never decorated his room. The only answer to that question he could really muster was… That he couldn’t think of anything he liked enough to put in there.
He’d spent most of his time in his room either writing or reading, scrawling away at his history homework and humming to himself songs from his MP3 player, memorizing short phrases of those long progressive rock songs that hardly made any sense but sent Ivan into a trance whenever he listened to them.
In hindsight, he’d taken those precious moments for granted. When all that crossed his mind were equations and mundane essay questions, that was when he felt truly at peace. Distracted from his own life, his own future. He wished now more than ever that he could go back to the way things were, when he had all the time in the world to scribble away at his desk, performing menial tasks that he’d only learned to love after he’d already finished them.
But now, he was eighteen years old and completely lost. A simple drop in the ocean of society, he felt swept away within the crowd, brushed to the side, and forgotten about now that his compulsory education was over. He wasn’t sure where he fit in with everything, and somehow, he’d ended up with no actual friends after secondary school. No solid plan either, or any meaning at all in his life.
Which, if you think about it, was impressive. Considering that everyone else in his graduating class seemed to at least have some sort of plan for the future, Ivan was quite unique in his position.
Yet here he was. By some miracle, a completely hollow shell of a person.
So, because he had no clue what he wanted to do, he’d decided to take a gap year, the obvious choice for lost and meandering souls such as himself. Today was the first day of September, when he’d usually be in school but was instead sat at his desk, quietly tapping on the polished wood as he softly hummed a complicated song to himself, hitting all the wrong notes but persevering as if he were making his own track along with the already existing rhythm.
He heard a knock at his door and paused his music, peering over to the hallway with little interest as Katya wandered in, that same look on her face as always was present. The one that made Ivan’s skin crawl.
The look of pity
“Ivan, I’m going to work now, alright? I don’t want to pressure you but, maybe try to do something more productive today. If you can.” She asked hesitantly, though she was talking to the wall more than her younger brother, not daring to make eye contact as she stared in his direction, but not at him.
Ivan’s eyes rarely strayed from her face, his understanding of eye contact almost comically bad as he purposefully tried to catch her gaze but failed miserably. He didn’t move from his desk as he replied, preferring to stay slightly hunched over, his fingers still tapping away despite the lack of music.
“Sure, would you like me to go out and buy anything? Do we have enough shopping at the moment or…” he asked softly, trailing off when he realized he wasn’t sure what they had in the house at that moment.
It suddenly occurred to him that he’d neglected to do any of his chores recently, but his sisters hadn’t said anything about it for some reason. Before school had ended, it seemed like they were always pestering him to get up and go fetch something from the shops, or do the dishes, hoover the carpet, et cetera. Why hadn’t they reminded him?
Katya faltered for a moment, face scrunching up into a new expression. She began fiddling with her fingers as she visually struggled to find the words to express what she wanted to say. Ivan waited patiently, already used to such pauses as these. Katya wasn’t as blunt as Natalya, she tended to tip-toe around sensitive topics, oblivious to the actuality that nothing she could say would help Ivan’s situation. She may as well just say what she needed to with no formalities required; it didn’t make any difference.
“When I say productive, I mean… You know, Vanya. Perhaps something that could help you decide what you’d like to do? In the future?” she clarified, finally piecing together a sentence in her head that she thought was worded nicely enough not to offend.
Ivan nodded, not having the capacity to argue or talk back so early in the morning. He knew she only said these things because she was trying to support him, and he was grateful, but he also wished she realized how useless her words were.
“I’ll try.” He said simply, no vigour behind his words at all, but a steady, practiced smile remained present on his face.
Regardless, Katya seemed satisfied with the answer, as her face relaxed and soon formed a cheery smile of her own. Ivan liked that expression on her much better.
“Alright, just try your best Vanya. I best be off now, so I’ll lock the door behind me. You have your keys, right?” she asked, suddenly speeding up her words as if she were in a hurry, straightening her work uniform and checking her watch like the perfect caricature of a working adult.
Ivan nodded, pulling his set of keys out of his desk drawer, and jingling them in front of his face. Katya stepped forward and gave his shoulder a tight, reassuring squeeze before leaving for the day.
With Natalya already on her way to school, Ivan was alone.
He started his music again, tapping at his desk in an introspective daze as he let all his thoughts wander past his mind, thinking of a lot of different topics but not stopping to flesh out any of them fully, just making short remarks to himself and tapping along. His chest sunk whenever something negative crossed his mind, but he kept going, as if punishing himself by wasting time like this, sat at his desk at home when he should’ve been at school- or university. Honestly, he should’ve been anywhere but here, doing something useful with his time.
After about two or three songs had passed, he sighed and pushed himself out of his seat, the grating noise blocked by the blaring guitar in his ears as he got up to finally get dressed, his mind suddenly bored of doing nothing, his whole body aching and screaming at him to find some sort of stimulus, to qualm the helpless feeling in his chest and at least try.
Even though September had only just begun, Ivan pulled on a thick jumper and wrapped a scarf around his neck, still freezing as always despite the decent temperature outside that came with summer having only just ended. He stretched his neck and it cracked with a satisfying pop, still aching afterwards thanks to Ivan’s terrible posture and many hours spent sat down. But that wouldn’t matter soon, he’d stretch his muscles today for sure.
He wandered into the kitchen, still bleary-eyed somehow despite being awake for quite some time, wincing as his bare feet hit the cold tile and soon retreating back to his room to put some socks on. How was it that the kitchen was always so cold no matter what temperature it was outside?
He went through his morning routine on autopilot, putting some rye bread in the toaster and eagerly anticipating the loud machine’s ting as he set about making tea in the meantime. He opened the fridge in his usual lazy manner only to be startled by the lack of milk on the door shelf. After a quick double-check, he sighed, realizing his earlier suspicions that he’d have to go out grocery shopping had ended up true.
The toaster made a noise and Ivan took the butter out the fridge instead, settling for just toast and nothing else, eating quickly knowing that if he sat down for too long his body and mind would begin to feel heavy again.
He set his used plate in the sink for now- a chore to come back to- and retrieved his keys and wallet, along with anything else he figured he may need to go shopping. He eyed the door intently as he slipped his shoes on, unsure of when the last time he went outside was. He was pretty sure it had only been a couple of days, which wasn’t too bad.
A wall of slightly warm air greeted him as he stepped outside, the sun still not fully risen and just barely peeking over some of the taller houses down Ivan’s road, creating shadowy patches on the pavement in the shapes of rooftops. Ivan locked the door and strolled down the street, constructing a solid shopping route in his head as he went.
A weird feeling clawed at the back of his mind with each slap of his feet against the hard ground, growing louder and louder the closer he got to the busy town square.
A tiny voice whispered to him enticingly, urging him to drop everything and walk away, burn all his bridges and get the next bus to a completely new town, where he could start again completely. It wouldn’t matter if he was eighteen already. It wouldn’t matter if he had no skills either, he’d be a blank slate. Maybe he could use his big body to his own advantage and become a tradesman or a builder, assume a new identity and finally start living like a normal adult, instead of pretending to be a weak child like he was now. Seriously, sitting at his desk all day, as if he was still in school! The memories of the way he’d spent his whole summer made him sick to the stomach.
Now the voice was taunting him, reminding him of all his mistakes and lack of experience, prodding and poking at the most sensitive parts of him, sending a fire into his legs that begged him to run far away from this place.
He heard a group of teenagers coming around the corner and ducked into an alley, preferring the shrouded shelter of bricks to the excited voices. As they rounded the corner he wiped his clammy hands on his trousers, and then his scarf suddenly felt much too tight around his neck, suffocating him in a blazing and agonizing heat. He grasped at his neck, the fabric was soft to the touch, and it helped to steady him in that moment. Relief washed over him as the voices echoed away and his breathing calmed. He hadn’t even noticed how hard he was panting until he’d stopped for a moment to take a break.
This was just silly. He couldn’t be getting this worked up over shopping, could he?
He tried to remember Katya’s words of wisdom; all the encouragement she’d given him over the years had sort of muddled together in his head a bit- but one did stick out to him more than others.
“Ivan, no one cares what you look like walking down the street. You’ve seen weirdos before, haven’t you? Do you think about them after they’re gone? No, I bet you’re only just remembering some of them now that I reminded you...”
Advice that blatantly rude honestly shouldn’t have been as comforting as it was to Ivan, after all, it did sort of insinuate that Ivan was also a ‘weirdo’. But the prospect was undeniably true. He hardly thought of the people who had made bad impressions on him, so why would others care about what Ivan did?
Although it didn’t fully calm Ivan’s nerves, his little mind exercise did perk him up a bit, and he was able to stand up and carry on into town with little more than a lump in his throat after his short break. He knew he shouldn’t have felt proud over such a small feat, but his chest swelled a little regardless.
He made it to his usual supermarket and went down his list of shopping items, thankful that it was so busy he’d blend in with the crowd and go unnoticed. It was still awkward when others needed to get around him or asked him to move out of the way, and the busy capacity meant he often was in people’s way, but it was manageable at least.
He left the shop with two full bags of shopping that dug into his hands as he walked, but ironically enough the physical pain helped to distract him from his inner thoughts, and so his nerves were at ease as he set out once again. His mind now felt empty as he walked, his overthinking earlier having completely exhausted him to the point where he wanted to sit down, allow himself to rest for the second time that day, and unravel from the innate stress of existing in public.
Then, Ivan somehow found himself in the local park. It was tranquil for once, the usually chaotic play area now a ghost town thanks to school being back in session, so much so that Ivan found himself noticing the pleasant tweet of the birds nesting in high-up trees. It was a sound that he would usually block out with music, but right now, it soothed his nerves incredibly.
The thwack of his feet against the stone paths that outlined the park felt a bit too loud now with no voices to muffle the steps, and it made him want to sit down even more, as he had soon grown tired of the repetitive sound of his own steps.
As he neared the park benches, he noticed that they were all vacant except for one.
Ivan couldn’t help but take in the lone figure sitting on the bench curiously, feeling as though this other man, who was alone and seemingly in a daze, was a kindred spirit of sorts.
He also looked a bit strange, but not in the way Ivan did. Ivan knew that he himself stood out a bit to others, with his tall and wide stature and round face, his big nose that turned down a little at the end and cast a shadow on his face, his pale skin that only burnt in the sun, and white hair that never did darken with age like his sisters always said it would.
But this other man was strange because he was essentially Ivan’s opposite, an observation that fascinated him.
He was short and small, with long ash brown hair and inky black eyes, slanted and somewhat regal-looking; unlike Ivan’s round and downturned eyes that made his face look too young for his own liking. He sat on the bench with one leg up and the other stretched down on the path, a strange position to be sitting in in public, but the man looked much too lost in thought to care about that at all. His ponytail was a bit messy, flyaways sticking up and swaying subtly in the breeze, reminding Ivan of his sisters after a long day of work or school.
Ivan’s head was frankly too empty now for him to make any good decisions, and so he decided to sit next to the man due to his pure fascination, setting his bags down by his feet and looking in the same direction as the stranger, wondering what he was so enthralled with.
The man in question didn’t even seem to notice Ivan’s presence until the shopping bags rustled as he set them down, and then he immediately jumped out of his own skin at the sound, his head whipping around to get a good look at his new bench-mate.
Ivan saw the man open his mouth to speak from the corner of his eye, and then stop himself, his hands grasping the bench they both cohabited tightly as he now seemed very uncomfortable.
Then, he suddenly decided to speak.
“Uhm- can I help you?” he asked, and the question suddenly made Ivan feel very insecure, finally snapping him out of his compulsiveness and grounding him in reality.
He searched for the right words to say, not even bearing to look at the man as he was stared at intently, the weight of that inky black gaze pushing on him like the world pushed down on Atlas.
“I…” as he began to reply, he soon realized that he truly had no excuse for sitting there, since every other bench was free anyways, and promptly decided to just tell the truth, “I don’t know why I sat here. I’m sorry.”
With that pathetic admission, Ivan’s brain short-circuited and he decided to just get up and leave, immediately standing up straight and bursting into a quick power-walk.
He then stopped just as quickly as he’d started when he heard a shout from behind him.
“Hey- wait! You forgot your bags!”
The man had quite a thick accent, something assumingly East-Asian judging from his appearance. Ivan seriously debated just leaving his shopping there and running, but then he remembered that he currently wasn’t employed, and that money was sparse, so he pivoted around and went back for his bags.
Still not looking the man in the eyes, he replied.
“Uhm, thanks. Bye.”
It came out as a pathetic and unsure mumble. He was much too embarrassed now to even pretend to be confident.
“You can sit down if you want to. It’s no trouble, I was just wondering if I maybe knew you from somewhere. But I don’t think we’ve met.” The man stated, and Ivan’s gaze instinctively trailed up to the other man’s eyes at the offer, finally making eye contact with the mysterious person for the first time.
The deep colour made something in Ivan’s stomach pool with heat as he felt entrapped immediately, inclined to keep staring by some unnatural force as he stopped all movement to just stumble and look intently. His mouth went dry at the way the man’s pupil colour and irises almost blended into each other, a sight that brought only one thought to Ivan’s mind:
Beautiful
The other man’s eyes widened at the contact, and it occurred to Ivan that he might’ve been feeling the same thing he was, but he hastily shoved that thought to the back of his mind.
The man broke contact first, and the action reminded Ivan that he was terrible with eye contact, sending another wave of embarrassment over him. He’d probably overdone it again.
He finally sat down on the bench once more, and then they both just stared off into the distance and blatantly away from each other as they anticipated someone ending the silence.
“Do I look like someone you know?” Ivan asked, finding the courage somewhere in him to break the ice.
“What do you mean?” the stranger replied back, and Ivan could’ve sworn he saw him cock his head from the corner of his eye.
The thought of seeing that made Ivan smile slightly.
“You said that you thought I could’ve been someone you know earlier...”
“Oh, that… Well, I meet a lot of people. I own a restaurant, it’s called Emei Garden, you might’ve been there before? A lot of people in town have tried my cooking at least once, so I figured you might’ve been a customer.” He elaborated, and Ivan glanced over at his legs as he resumed his earlier sitting position.
“We might’ve ordered from there, I’m not sure. It’s that Chinese restaurant, da?” Ivan asked innocently, and instead of clarification he found himself listening to a faint chuckle.
“Did I say something funny?”
“No, it’s nothing really… It’s just, I’ve never seen someone who looks and sounds so Russian before. You even said da.”
Ivan’s smile curled up even more at the comment, suddenly amused by this strange man and the even more peculiar things he found funny.
“I won’t tell you my name, then. It’ll make you giggle even more, and you’ll be falling all over the floor.” Ivan promised, and as soon as he finished his sentence, the man was eagerly looking at Ivan’s face in anticipation.
He didn’t even need to ask for Ivan to get the message.
“Ivan. Ivan Braginsky.” He answered, and the sentence was immediately followed by a burst of giggles from the man beside him.
“I shouldn’t even be laughing honestly…” the man huffed between laughs, “Mine’s just as stereotypical: Yao. Yao Wang.”
That was the most Chinese name Ivan had ever heard…
Ivan felt a giggle erupt from his own chest at that, turning to look at Yao as they laughed together, awkwardly wheezing as if they’d known each other for years and not just minutes.
And then, Yao asked something that made Ivan’s breath hitch.
“Hey, Ivan. Are you looking for a job right now?”