Ex's to Lovers

Chapter 75

In Which Alfred Finally Asks Ivan

Ivan didn't take failure well, so he was sulking in a rather terrifying way after speaking to Alfred. The dark and threatening aura he was excluding was keeping most of his classmates at a fair distance. Naturally, all of them assumed that somehow Alfred and Ivan were fighting again, for no obvious reason at all, but Alfred was known for doing dumb things for dumb reasons, and Ivan seemed to follow Alfred wherever he went. The fact Alfred had been floating around school like a paper husk of himself the past few days only helped convince Thier classmates that Ivan and Alfred had a lover's spat. 

This was all for the better, especially when Alfred flung open the door to the classroom, crashing into the room (late) and announced loudly in front of the whole class in a desperate voice;

"Ivan! Go out with me again!" 

Since most of the classmates assumed they had been fighting, they interpreted this to mean that Ivan had threatened Alfred to break up, and Alfred didn't want that. No one assumed that Ivan might have meant it, since the two were clearly in love with each other. The students began to whisper amongst each other, and the teacher looked a cross between amused and irritated at the interruption during the class. 

Ivan stared straight ahead with the look of one exercising deep self control.

"Alfred," he said steadily, betraying nothing, "It is the middle of class."

Alfred, who had neither noticed nor cared, deflated a little, unsure if that was a rejection or not. Alfred took a  hand from his pocket, where there was a small box he'd been just about to pull out before Ivan refuted him coldly.  Thankfully, Mathew had provided him with a tip on what to do if he was rejected. Alfred sheepishly took his seat with a half-hearted apology to the teacher, and a blaze in his eyes.

He would just have to ask Ivan again, after class. Unfortunately for Alfred, Ivan immediately disappeared from class as soon as it finished, leaving Alfred alone to interrogate Ivan's friends. 

"Is he hiding from me?" He demanded of Ivan's friend Eduard, gripping his shoulders tightly. "Is this his way of trying to say no?"

Eduard looked flustered.

"That-! I-"

Alfred didn't let him finished, suddenly shaking him back and forth by the shoulders.

"He thinks he can hide from me? Just try it Ivan! I know him better than anyone, I'll find him!"

And he suddenly released Eduard and ran off, leaving Eduard flustered and a little dizzy.

"Wait!" Eduard tried to call after him, "I'm supposed to tell you that Ivan wanted to meet you by the old music classroom!"

But Alfred was already gone, harassing other people in the same way, but not actually listening to them, therefore never getting the message. In the end, the one who came to get Alfred was Ivan himself.

" That jerk Ivan is hiding somewhere and I'm going to find him!"

Alfred ranted to Mathew, who looked like he was regretting ever being born as Alfred's twin, which was exactly how he was feeling.

"Al, Ivan is-"

"You're the one who said to just bug him until he says yes!" Alfred defended without even hearing what Mathew was trying to say. "I'm not stopping until he says yes!"

Then suddenly, Alfred became aware of Ivan's looming presence, where Ivan had been glaring at him sharply for the last five minutes while Mathew gave him a sincere apologetic look over his shoulder. Alfred, of course, had not noticed Ivan at all in his ranting, and only became aware when Ivan grabbed him by his collar and dragged him off like a mother cat with a kitten, which only made Ivan sulkier. He near threw Alfred away once he dragged him to a place private enough.

"Alfred."

He said only a word and it would have been enough to make any person with a brain freeze. Unfortunately, Alfred was la king in that department. Frustrated by his earlier failure, and urgent to try again before Ivan cut him off and rejected him, Alfred threw himself down on one knee. If he used the poor brain that he left rotting in his head, he might have realized he was very clearly proposing, but as before mentioned, Alfred tended not to do that. Instead, he fumbled getting the box out of his pocket and loudly made his declaration.

"Ivan, please go out with me again! For real, this time."

Ivan flowered down at Alfred, and if he didn't know exactly how skilled Alfred was at turning a mountain into a molehill, he would have been tempted to turn him down, just to pay Alfred back for all the frustration he'd caused. But Ivan was done playing games, so he answered seriously for once. 

"It has been real for me a long time, Alfred."