Chapter Text
Till was in the middle of guiding Ivan's hands into his pants when it all went wrong.
"Till," Ivan sighed, suddenly pulling away. "You don't want to do this."
Till felt as if his brain had just short circuited. He must've misheard or something. What the hell did Ivan know about what he wanted?
"I don't want you to fuck me?" Till said, flabbergasted.
"That's correct." Ivan said, scooting even further away, not making eye contact.
Fucking what?
"Ivan, if you don't want to have sex with me you can just say that." Till said, suddenly feeling self conscious. His right nipple was still sore from where Ivan had pinched it only moments ago. "I'm not going to force you or something."
"I'd be the one forcing you." Ivan said matter of factly. "Because you don't actually want to have sex with me."
Till couldn't help his reaction. His mouth hung open in blatant disbelief. "What are you talking about?" He said, trying his best to hold it together.
"You're straight." Ivan said, like that explained everything.
"You think I have been going on dates with you, and making out with you, and I'm straight?" What the fuck was going on?
"Yes." Ivan said, like that made any fucking sense.
"Wha- what the hell is wrong with you?" Till said. He wasn't straight. "Just the other week I fingered myself for the first time." It was something he'd never confess to normally, but Till was so confused it was like his filter was gone.
"Lot's of straight men are into pegging." Ivan said. He looked sad. Why was he sad? He was the one creating problems from nothing!
"But I was thinking of you?" Till said. This conversation was so weird. He could feel his dick softening as Ivan continued to look at him with a distant look in his eyes. "I douched myself for today and everything." Again, he wouldn't normally confess this, but what the hell was going on? Ivan looked like every word Till said was making him more upset. Why? "Why would I want to have sex with you if I was straight?" Ivan shifted from where he sat on the bed, awkwardly. His lips were swollen from where Till had bit them only moments ago. Till wanted to bite them again, but it was looking increasingly like that wouldn't happen.
Ivan looked away, an expression on his face like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Because I…tricked you." He said it like it greatly pained him to confess this.
"You…tricked me?" Till felt his mind reeling. He went over every interaction he'd had with Ivan in recent memory. All of them were normal. Or as normal as they could be with Ivan's weird ass. "What are you going on about?"
"You think you're gay, because I tricked you into thinking you're gay. You think you want to sleep with me but you don't." Ivan spoke as if he was explaining to a very small child that their dog had died. Like Till was very stupid for not understanding.
"How could you possibly trick me into thinking I'm gay?" Till sputtered. He was pretty much completely soft now, all the horniness he'd felt dissipating and being replaced with annoyance and confusion. It'd be one thing if Ivan didn't want to have sex with him, but what the hell was this?
"I annoyed you and harassed you for years until you finally gave in to me. I'm sorry." Ivan looked like he really regretted whatever it was he thought he did.
"I don't- You didn't harass me." It wasn't entirely true. Ivan had always been a nuisance; It just had never been in a way that made Till actually truly uncomfortable. "I confessed to you because it'd been on my mind for a while, not because you made me do it."
"It'd only been on your mind because I was bugging you all the time. You can't get with the girl you love-" Till cringed at the mention of his old crush on Mizi, "-so you're lonely and horny and your confused body decides you like your one other friend who happens to be a guy. But that's not real Till. And I can't take advantage of you like that."
Till gaped at Ivan. Just a few minutes ago Ivan had been sucking marks into his neck, and now he was insisting Till only liked him because he was Till's only friend? What was embarrassing is Till couldn't exactly argue he had other friends, because he didn't. But that didn't mean his feelings weren't real! "Wouldn't you harassing me make me less likely to think I like you? I'd have to really like you to look past it." Till said. It was more honest than he usually was. Apparently in moments of total insanity Till's walls collapsed. He'd have to remember this new realization about himself.
Ivan looked around the room, at anything but Till's face. "Stockholm syndrome is a real phenomenon." He said, looking guilty.
"Stockholm-? Ivan, you didn't kidnap me!" Till could feel himself getting a bit hysterical at the ridiculousness of this situation. "You were kind of annoying sometimes but I realized I liked you because-"
"Because what, Till?" Ivan said darkly. "You just wanted someone near you. That doesn't mean you want to have sex with a guy all of a sudden."
"No! It was because…" Till suddenly felt his words getting jumbled. He knew he liked Ivan– He's had multiple dreams of Ivan touching him where he woke up to dirtied sheets. He'd had brief embarrassing fantasies about them holding hands. He liked the feeling of Ivan's eyes on him. He liked being around him, and kissing him. As loathe as he was to ever admit it out loud, deep down he even liked it when Ivan harassed him, just a bit. But he couldn't really remember how he'd realized what he felt for Ivan was more than normal friendship. Ivan looked at him with a knowing look, as if to say he'd been proven right. Suddenly a horrifying thought occurred to Till.
"Ivan… do you… not like me?" Till asked, suddenly feeling very embarrassed. Ivan was just looking for a way out of this, as insane as it was, because he didn't like Till. There was no other explanation.
"Of course I like you!" Ivan said it as if Till had just accused him of mass murder. "I've liked you for as long as I can remember." Ivan's eyes were honest, but that just made Till return to his prior confusion.
"Then why are you trying to not have sex with me?" Till said.
"Because you're straight." Ivan said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Till felt like pulling his hair out.
"So are we not going to have sex?" The writing was on the wall, but he still had to ask.
"No. We aren't going to have sex." Ivan looked miserable.
"Are you… breaking up with me?" Till couldn't believe this was happening. They'd been together for only a few months, but as loathe as Till was to ever admit it out loud, he was the happiest he'd been in years with Ivan. He felt angry tears beginning to form in his eyes. This was so fucking stupid.
"I… No." Ivan said hesitantly.
"So we can't have sex, because I'm straight, but we can keep dating?" Till's voice was shrill in his astonishment. How did that make any fucking sense? Ivan was clearly a goddamn lunatic.
"Uhm… Well dating isn't that different from being friends. It's just forcing you to have sex with me would be crossing a line." Ivan was avoiding eye contact as he spoke, shifting from where he sat on the bed.
"I can't believe you." Till said, sniffling and wiping his eyes. "You are so… I'm leaving." He got up from the bed, adjusting his shirt so it didn't look like he'd just been in the middle of making out with someone. Ivan continued to look dejected, which was insane when this whole thing was his fault. "Don't… Ugh. Leave me alone for a bit, okay?" Till grumbled, sliding on his shoes. He didn't wait for Ivan's response before storming out of Ivan's apartment.
Till stormed into his dorm room, face flushed and eyes still slightly wet with tears. Fucking Ivan. Always making everything into such a huge fucking production. He was infuriating. Ivan was lucky they didn't share any classes, as different as their majors were – If Till saw him anytime soon he was going to murder him.
It was with those thoughts in his mind that Till furiously opened his phone.
r/sex
MY BOYFRIEND INSISTS WE CANT HAVE SEX BECAUSE I'M APPARENTLY "STRAIGHT"
u/tilltheend
hello. i (21m) have been dating my boyfriend (22m) for about three months now. weve known each other for basically our whole lives, and dating him has honestly been amazing. hes apparently been into me for most of the time hes known me, so over a decade, and even before we finally got together, he's been pretty much all over me. hes very touchy feely, he loves to rile me up, etc. he was also basically my gay (bi?) awakening, since i only was into girls before him. but im 100% certain i like him. we've been making out and stuff for a while now and finally i kind of hinted that i was ready to have sex with him, or at least go below the belt. we were in the middle of grinding and shit when i said this and all of a sudden he got really fucking weird. he said that i "dont want to do this" (as in ME! not him!), and when i was like why would i not want to do this thing ive been thinking about constantly and even prepared for, he said that im apparently straight and he'd be forcing himself on me. now obviously id never force him to have sex if he wasn't ready yet, but he looked like a kicked fucking puppy the whole time. and like i said, he is normally ALL OVER ME. i even said if he didnt want to have sex with me it was fine but he INSISTED he did want to its just he couldnt because i was apparently straight and only THOUGHT i was bisexual. i was so confused and angry he was acting like he knows how i feel that i basically just stormed out after he said he wasnt dumping me, which, also makes no sense?? if im straight (and im NOT!) why would he date me but we cant fuck???? is this biphobia or something? i dont know what the hell to do. how can i convince him im not just going through a phase and i really do like men, specifically, him? is this a normal thing for gay guys to do? does he want to have sex with me or is this some kind of insane ruse to get out of it?
u/lalaland
dude. youre boyfriend has got some massive internalized homophobia. he probably thinks hes some kind of sexual predator for liking a straight guy for so long lol. idk what advice to offer but hope it works out because jesus
u/tilltheend OP
i know i was "straight" for most of the time he knew me, but is it that hard to believe i just hadnt realized i liked guys yet? i even initiated. he couldnt manipulate me if he tried tbh but he seems convinced he brainwashed me into wanting his dick
u/radiorebel2689
you should just say yes youre straight but lots of straight guys have gay sex. see how that works out for you LMAOO
u/augestine992
maybe youre just ugly
u/tilltheend OP
i hope your fucking house burns down you fucking asshole
u/breatulu
dude he totally wants to fuck u but is being weird LMAOOO. is he a jealous person? u could force his hand lol. maybe itll override his weird internalized homophobic tendancies
u/communistsasuke
he wants that cookie so effing bad
u/polyphonic
or maybe youve created a situation where he feels uncomfortable expressing that he doesnt want to have sex. have you reflected at all? you might be the problem
u/breatulu
do u srsly think if someone didnt want to have sex the excuse theyd come up with is "you are secretly heterosexual" 😭😭😭 omfg u ppl r so annoying his boyfriend is clearly a bit crazy
u/polyphonic
calling someone crazy for expressing boundaries is incredibly ableist
u/breatulu
please go outside and get off the sex subreddit since clearly u dont have any
u/zeepzlorp
can u imagine converting a straight guy and then not hitting thats actually nuts
u/cloudydaze31
your boyfriend sucks man u gotta dump him. just weird behavior
u/tilltheend OP
i'm not doing that. hes great in basically every other way i swear to god. just hes being insane about this for some goddamn reason
Till finished typing his response and had to use all his willpower to not throw his phone across the room. God fucking dammit. Of course strangers on the internet weren't helpful, he'd know they wouldn't be deep down, but who the hell was he supposed to talk to? He couldn't talk to Ivan since he was the one being weird, and as loath as he was to say it, Ivan was right about one thing; he didn't exactly have many friends.
When he thought of it that way, Ivan's assertion that Till only liked Ivan because he was his only friend sounded almost logical. Almost.
Till dug his hands into his eyes in frustration. He was not about to talk to Mizi, his former crush, about his sex life. He may have gotten over her, but it was still weird being around her at times, and Sua would probably murder him. Sua was also out – they weren't really that close. Did he really have no guy friends he could talk to about this? Luka existed, he supposed, but Luka had always made Till uncomfortable, and he'd rather eat lava than talk to him one on one about most things, nevermind his sex life. That only left…
Till opened his phone, closed his reddit post which now had several hundred upvotes, and several replies saying he was obviously lying – which, no the fuck he wasn't – and pulled up Hyuna's contact. God, was he seriously going to talk to her about this? Maybe he should just figure it out himself. Or maybe someone would actually reply with something helpful on Reddit.
At the top of his phone screen, a notification popped up.
"There is a new reply to your post: " 'MISSION GO TO FIRST BASE: FAILED!' "
Good advice from the internet? Yeah that wasn't going to happen.
With great effort, Till hit the call button.
It rang four times and Till was starting to feel like stabbing something when finally Hyuna picked up.
"Yeobosaeyo?" Hyuna said.
"You know I don't know Korean." Till sighed, already feeling like this had been a bad idea.
"Really? How embarrassing. What would your mother say?" Hyuna said, in a tone of voice that made it obvious she did indeed know that. Till grit his teeth.
"She'd probably say she didn't have time to teach it to me." He said, jaw clenched.
"Touché." Hyuna said. He could hear her smirk. Fuck, was he really going to tell her about this? "So why the call? You're not the type to just hit me up for a chat for no reason." Hyuna said. Till considered just hanging up right then and there, as the enormity of what he was going to tell Hyuna of all people began to weigh on him. But people online had been useless, and he really didn't know what to do.
"So you know how Ivan and I are… together?" Till began, hesitantly.
"Uh, yeah. Ivan only practically mauls you every time you're together. It's seriously gross to witness." Hyuna said. He could picture her rolling her eyes in his mind's eye.
"Well. We've never…" He had to just say it. It couldn't be that hard, right? He'd already told a bunch of strangers on the internet, what was one more person? "We've never had sex. Before."
"Uhm…okay?"
Till felt like bashing his head against the wall. Why the fuck would he start with that? He rushed to try to explain himself, face hot. "We've never had sex before and today I tried to initiate it and Ivan said no which there's nothing wrong with him saying no right like I respect consent and all that but the thing is he said the reason he was saying no was because I'm straight and I don't actually want to have sex with him. But I'm not and I do. Not straight. And I do want to have sex with him. And I don't know what to do because this situation is so fucking insane." Till's heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest having finally explained the situation out loud. Fuck fuck fuck he shouldn't have told anybody. He should've just… actually what the hell should he do in this situation? It was so ridiculous and stupid. Ivan was so fucking annoying. What the hell was Till supposed to–
"Uhm. Wow." Hyuna's voice interrupted Till's train of thought. Then all of a sudden she started hysterically laughing. Till wanted to hang up and throw his phone in the microwave. Fuck Ivan for putting him in this situation. And fuck his life. Seriously.
After what felt like minutes but was probably only a few seconds, Hyuna's laughter died down. "Sorry," She said, voice still breathless from her giggling. "It's just so ridiculous."
"I fucking know that." Till said through gritted teeth. "You think I don't know that? Just tell me what the fuck I'm supposed to do."
"How the fuck should I know?" Hyuna said. "I have never been in anything resembling your situation."
"Use your imagination." Till hissed.
There was a long pause on the line as if Hyuna was actually seriously thinking it over. "Well, do you think he meant it?" Hyuna finally said.
"What?"
"Do you think he seriously meant it when he said you're straight so you shouldn't have sex?"
"He looked genuinely like I'd just told him his dog had died. He was all miserable and mopey and shit. Ivan jokes around but not about–" me. Not about Till. "-- that kind of thing."
"Hmm…" Hyuna hummed noncommittally. What, did she not believe him? "Well I don't know Ivan super well. But if he's saying crazy shit like that maybe something else is going on? Like on a deeper level."
Till thought this over. He had said he would be forcing Till, and that he'd manipulated him into thinking he was gay. Was that how Ivan saw himself? As some sort of master manipulator? Ivan was good at lying to people, that was true, but Till couldn't really seem to think of a time Ivan had manipulated him – at least, overtly enough for Till to notice. Back when they were little and Ivan had only recently been adopted from Korea he had stolen Till's shit and pretended to find it, but Till had been fully aware of what was happening. Also, that had been at least 15 years ago. What was it that someone had said on Reddit?
"Could he have… Internalized homophobia?" Till said hesitantly. He wasn't even sure what that really meant honestly. Ivan hadn't seemed to ever have any shame about being gay, but maybe Till was missing something?
"Maybe." Hyuna said.
"He said he… he said he tricked me. Into thinking I'm gay." Till mumbled.
"Well did he?"
"No!" Till yelled, before becoming embarrassed at how loud he was being. "No he… how would you even do that? I didn't just randomly decide to experiment or whatever. I really thought about it. A lot."
"But does he know that?"
"He should! I told him that I–" He was not going to share that he'd bought a douche in preparation with Hyuna of all people. Telling Ivan had been embarrassing enough. "I did some things. That I thought made it pretty clear that I was serious. About. Fuck I don't know. About being gay?"
"You should just talk to him about it." Hyuna said it like it was easy. As if Ivan wasn't avoidant as fuck.
"I fucking tried that. He didn't want to talk in a way that made any sense." Till said bitterly.
"Well if he's not listening to you, maybe you just need to get more obvious." Hyuna said. She sounded so uninterested in this conversation. Till imagined her painting her nails or something as she spoke to him about his stupid boyfriend problems that made no sense. Goddamnit. Why was Ivan doing this to him?
"More obvious…how?"
"Like you could just fuck yourself on a dildo in front of him or something." Hyuna said it with no shame, as if she was talking about the weather.
"WHAT?" Till sputtered, cheeks heating. "I'm not going to– What the fuck?"
"Listen. If you can't talk to him for some unfathomable reason, you can force his hand. I don't know him super well but he's always all over you. Maybe he'll get jealous of the dildo and fuck you instead." Till could hear her barely contained laughter. She couldn't possibly be serious. Fuck this. Fuck Hyuna. And fuck his life. "Actually, making him jealous might be the move. Flirt with a guy in front of him and see how that goes."
Till was going to bash his phone into smithereens. "I am not doing that."
"It's up to you. You called me for advice, man. And you're the one insisting you can't just talk about it like normal people."
"I'm hanging up." Till bit out.
"Good luck!" Hyuna said cheerfully, right before Till ended the call. God she pissed him off sometimes. Absolutely none of her advice had been helpful. Talk to Ivan… Yeah right. He'd fucking tried that and Ivan had just spouted bullshit that made no sense. Although, they'd both been emotional and horny. Maybe he could try again…?
His phone – he was really starting to hate this thing – dinged with a notification.
It was a text from Ivan.
"Goddamnit." Till muttered, opening his DMs with Ivan and turning off notifications as quickly as possible. He unfortunately wasn't fast enough to avoid glimpsing at Ivan's messages.
Ivan: Are you mad at me?
Ivan: I'm sorry.
Ivan: Please don't hate me.
Thankfully he didn't have read receipts on, so Ivan wouldn't know he'd seen them. Till groaned. He didn't want to talk to Ivan about this. He didn't want to talk to anyone, quite honestly. How was he not supposed to be mad? Ivan was being absolutely ridiculous. And nobody was giving even remotely helpful advice. Reddit was unhelpful, and Hyuna had suggested he… that he…
Till threw his phone across the room, watched it clunk against the floor, undamaged thanks to his protective case. Fine. If Ivan wanted to be weird and insane, Till would be weird and insane right back.
He was going to show Ivan he was gay – bisexual, whatever – or he was going to die trying.
"He's not answering me." Ivan said, frowning at his phone screen. It'd been nearly an hour since he'd texted Till, and he'd done nothing but stare at his phone, waiting, morose, while Sua tried to study. His cousin was being predictably unsympathetic about the whole thing.
"Maybe because you're fucking harassing him. Jesus." Sua said, not even glancing up from her biology textbook.
"I'm his boyfriend." Ivan said, miserably.
"Not for long after that stunt you pulled." Sua said, flipping to the next page, pen poised over her notebook as she took her notes. They were always exceptionally neat. Ivan huffed.
"Like you're so perfect." He said, rolling his eyes.
"I have made mistakes in my relationship, but I never told Mizi she was delusional about being a lesbian." Sua said, finally looking up from her book. "What you did is insane."
"But it's true!" Ivan said. Why was everyone acting like he was crazy? "Being bisexual is like, a trend right now. He doesn't know what he's talking about. I don't want to make him do something he'll regret."
Sua slammed her book shut, seeming to finally accept she wouldn't be able to focus with Ivan here. "Let's say you're right. You're some straight boy's 'experiment.' One he's stuck with for three months for some unfathomable reason." Sua said, doing air quotes around experiment. "What are you going to do when he decides to experiment with another guy?"
What?
"He can't do that." Ivan said on instinct.
"Why the hell not?" Sua said, voice dripping in exasperation.
"Because–" Ivan began, but then quickly felt himself at a loss for words. 'Because he's mine' was too possessive. Till didn't belong to him, so much as he allowed Ivan to be around him, and Ivan made do with that. ‘Because he's straight’ also seemed to fail, because that was the whole point of experimenting, wasn't it? Straight guys experimented, and discovered they didn't like men, and returned to their easy, heterosexual lives. Which is what Till was sure to do the moment he actually tried gay sex.
"Because nobody will do that with him." Ivan settled on, because he had to say something. It wasn't true in the slightest and he knew it. Till was the most gorgeous person he'd ever laid eyes upon. The fact Till had chosen Ivan as the focus of his homoerotic delusions was a miracle in and of itself.
Sua's expression showed she also knew it wasn't true. Although Ivan sort of doubted she thought as highly of Till as he did.
She sighed, a sigh he'd heard from her all his life; weary and like she wanted to strangle him. "If you're okay with Till letting some other man all over him, then sure, keep pushing him away or whatever." Sua opened her biology textbook back up. "I don't care. And I am trying to study." She returned to taking notes, clearly done with this conversation.
Meanwhile, Ivan felt as if the entire world was collapsing. Some part of him swore the ground beneath them was shaking. Another man, touching Till? Because he refused to do it? He felt his stomach clench in a way not dissimilar to how it felt before throwing up at the very notion. He didn't know how he could possibly deal with it if it actually happened. If Till was going to try to be gay either way, then wasn't it better if he tried with Ivan and not someone else? Or was that just Ivan's usual selfishness rearing its ugly head?
"Do you really think he would–"
"Yes." Sua interrupted, not even glancing up at Ivan. "Now go. Away."
Clearly more than an hour was Sua's limit for tolerating Ivan. Not that he'd really expected anything else. Head swirling with jealousy and shame, Ivan decided to listen to Sua and go back to his apartment.
He closed the door to his apartment his parents paid for quietly, before throwing himself on the couch. Face buried in a pillow, he contemplated screaming, but held it together. He took out his phone, fingers instinctively moving to open his folder full of photos of Till, but then stopped himself. He didn't deserve to look at them. Instead, he lied there, staring at his phone home screen for hours, hoping Till would call him.
His prayers went unanswered.
Three days passed like this. Ivan woke up, checked his phone, went to class, ate lunch, went back to his apartment, and slept, all without so much as an acknowledgement of his existence from Till. It took all of his willpower to not bombard Till with more messages. As much as Ivan knew what he was doing to Till was wrong, he was still too scared to actually drive Till away entirely. So he stared at his phone, resisted the urge to look at photos of Till, and went through the motions, until finally, as he was preparing to go to bed, on the fourth night since they'd spoken, his phone dinged.
Ivan practically dove onto his bed where his phone was, nearly dropping it a few times before he opened the message. It was indeed from Till, but it wasn't what Ivan expected.
Ivan had been ready for a long string of messages cursing him out. A phone call that would consist of nothing but Till yelling at him. He'd been prepared for that. What he got was neither of those.
It was a video of some sort. The thumbnail showed Till, sitting on his bed in his dorm room. Another text came, making his phone ding.
Till 💖😚🤩😳: watch this and then come over
Ivan wanted to ask a thousand questions. Why was Till sending him a video? Was Till mad at him? Was he going to get dumped? Was the video a video of Till announcing to Ivan that they were over?
Ivan decided not to voice the questions, at the risk of enraging Till further. He would watch the video. And go over to Till, as he'd been told. He could do that.
Ivan pressed play on the video, and was met with Till's face. He hadn't seen Till in three days, but it felt like a lifetime. He was so beautiful. He was the most gorgeous person Ivan had ever had the good fortune of laying eyes upon. He was–
He was taking his clothes off.