(Priest Ivan x Prosecutor Till)

Ivan was born in the winter of 1994, in a narrow apartment that smelled of liquor and mildew. His father, a bitter man who drank more than he worked, raised him in silence punctuated by fists and scripture recited through clenched teeth. His mother died when he was young; the details were never spoken of in the household, only the image of her portrait burned into his mind, watching from the wall with eyes that never looked away.

He grew up in the slums, a child who rarely spoke. At school, he learned that his quiet nature unsettled others; his odd phrasing and tendency to stare too long made him an outcast. Ivan responded by practicing: standing before mirrors, forcing smiles, rehearsing how to laugh, how to tilt his head just so. Bit by bit, he learned to pass. He could charm teachers, soothe peers, and pretend at normalcy. Inside, however, sorrow and resentment rooted deep.

At sixteen, after another night of blows and accusations from his father, Ivan snapped. He strangled the man with his own belt, the act startling in its swiftness. He buried the truth in silence—until years later, when he whispered it into the ear of a prosecutor who should have been his enemy.

After his father’s death, Ivan was sent to a Catholic boarding school, his crime unseen, his grief and guilt mistaken for discipline. There he found structure, ritual, and something dangerously close to absolution. He studied scripture, excelled at choral singing, and charmed priests with his devotion. By his early twenties, he had taken vows and donned the cassock, stepping into the role of Father Ivan—young, brilliant, and unusually magnetic. Parishioners found his sermons stirring, his smile comforting, his presence a balm. He became the sort of priest people trusted with their darkest confessions.

But Ivan was never satisfied. The sorrow never left him, only deepened into fatalism. Death seemed to follow him like a shadow. Parishioners went missing; neighbors whispered. Over the years, seven murders were linked to him, though never proven. Always he emerged untarnished—his alibis plausible, his words slippery as smoke. The authorities pressed, but his calm never cracked. He quoted scripture to investigators as though every question were a test of faith, not fact.

Behind closed doors, Ivan carried obsessions. Chief among them: Prosecutor Till. He had noticed the man years ago, during a routine case unrelated to his own. The quiet steel behind Till’s timidity fascinated him. Ivan began to follow his career from a distance, a silent guardian—or perhaps a predator circling his prey. When the homicide task force placed Till on his case, Ivan almost laughed at the providence.

Now, standing in his dim church with cigarette smoke curling around him, Ivan knows the game is reaching its climax. He’s the prime suspect. Till is the one pressing him for answers. And Ivan—calm, smiling, deliberate—wants nothing more than to see how far he can pull the prosecutor into his orbit before everything burns.