Chapter Text
2003, Ottawa.
Begrudgingly, Shane Hollander has come to accept that there is a clear line that separated his life into two sections: before Ilya Rozanov, and after Ilya Rozanov.
If he’s honest, he doesn’t think he can even recall a time when Ilya wasn’t an integral part of his life. For the past eight of his twelve years of existence, Shane’s entire being was an instrument that was, perhaps reluctantly, tuned to Ilya’s pitch — a satellite, hopelessly in constant orbit of Ilya Rozanov, magnetised by his insufferably persuasive charisma. Truly, Shane hated it, and yet he was completely helpless against it. After all, he was a mere mortal, and who was he to defy the laws of physics?
Like most defining moments of Shane’s life, it began with hockey.
The memory comes to him now through a blur of washed-out colours and faded faces, but one thing (or person, rather) sticks out to him distinctly. This annoying four year old at his learn-to-play programme that kept knocking him over every single time he managed to successfully stand up on the ice. Shane remembers the twelfth time being his last straw. He’d gotten so fed up with the boy, who was flaunting his prowess and sabotaging the rest of them to maintain his position as the fastest in class, that as soon as he spotted an opportunity to catch the boy off guard, he launched his helmet towards the back of the boy’s knees, sending him buckling onto the hard ice. Strangely enough, that seemed to have earned the boy’s respect for Shane.
“You have short arms but you throw okay. I’m Ilya. Tell me your name,” the boy says to him after class that day, and from then on, Shane’s life had been irrevocably changed.
“Shane! There is secret goal on the ice I cannot see? What are you looking at?” Ilya calls out from across the rink, and Shane almost smiles at how consistent twelve year old Ilya is to the four year old Ilya in his memories: demanding, obnoxious and weirdly observant.
“Nothing,” Shane says, finally returning to the present day. He decides that his mind drifting is probably a sign that he should stop goal practice for today. And after taking a quick glance at the giant clock on the wall, he realises that the time his mom booked out the rink for has pretty much run out, anyway.
Skating over to where Ilya’s standing, Shane watches as Ilya shrugs, a wide, crooked grin spreading across his face — a telltale sign that Ilya is just about to say something that’s definitely going to piss Shane off.
“Fine by me. If you slack off in goal practice, that only makes you easier to beat,” Ilya snickers, and Shane narrows his eyes. He was right. That did piss him off.
“Go away, Ilya,” he scoffs, taking off his skates. “Don’t you have any friends to terrorise in your free time?”
Following Shane into the locker room, Ilya makes himself comfortable on the bench, lounging as if he owned the rink. “Ah, but you see, no one else I know uses such big English words like you do. Talking to you is like reading. I feel smarter afterwards.”
“Terrorise,” Ilya repeats, the word clumsy and ill-fitting in his mouth from his thick accent, “Knowing you, I think that means some kind of annoy?”
Putting the last of his hockey gear into his assigned rented locker, Shane sighs and nods. “You feel smarter after speaking to me, but I feel dumber after speaking to you. That’s not fair.”
Ilya blows a raspberry, kicking Shane lightly in the shin. “The world is unfair, Shane. Get used to it.”
He trails after Shane into the rink car park, like a piece of gum on the sole of a shoe that simply won’t let go. Looking down at his watch, Shane estimates that his mom will come pick him up in approximately four minutes. Six, if she gets caught at the traffic light right before the rink. “What do you want, Ilya? Surely you didn’t come all the way here just to improve your vocabulary.”
At this, Ilya falters, instinctively hiding his left arm behind his back. “Can I… Maybe… Stay at your house tonight? If that is okay. With you and your family.”
Shane frowns. It’s unlike Ilya to be so shy about asking for something that he wants. And it’s not as if this would be Ilya’s first sleepover at his house anyway, so why the hesitation? Shane even thinks that his mom probably still has the toothbrush Ilya had used the last time he was over.
“I’ll have to ask my mom, but I doubt she’ll say no,” Shane says, eyeing the way Ilya shifts his left arm as far away from Shane as possible. “Dude, are you okay? You’re acting all weird.”
Just as Ilya’s about to answer, Yuna Hollander pulls up into the rink car park. She rolls down her window, with a warm smile on her face. “Hi Shane, how was practice? Do you need a ride home, Ilya?”
“Practice was okay. And actually, Mom, could Ilya stay the night?” Shane asks, as he slides into the passenger seat. Ilya hangs back awkwardly in the car park, flashing Yuna a sheepish grin.
Yuna gestures for Ilya to get in, and only then does he shuffle himself into the backseat. “Sure, as long as his parents know where he is,” she says.
Nodding enthusiastically, Ilya gives her his brilliant, mega-watt smile that he reserves solely for charming parents and a select few authority figures. “My mama told me to stay with you guys tonight. She says I should spend more time with my friends before the winter break ends.”
Shane turns to stare at him suspiciously, ignoring the warm glow in his chest from having Ilya refer to him as one of his friends. “Since when was I your friend?”
Ilya sniffs, crossing his arms as he sinks further into the plush carseat. “When you threw your helmet at me in hockey school, you signed a friend contract. Sorry, is for life. Cannot be broken.”
Not even the iron will of Shane Hollander could stop the soft upturn of his lip corners then. Partly because he’s pleased that Ilya remembers how they first met, and partly because the idea of having Ilya as a lifelong friend simply puts a smile on his face. He turns back to the front of the car, pretending to be deeply interested in the faint pattern imprinted on the leather dashboard and not at all hiding his expression from Ilya. Not in the slightest.
Yuna smiles at him knowingly but thankfully, decides to say nothing.
---
Later that night, Shane squishes his cheek into his pillow as he quietly turns to face Ilya, who’s lying on an air mattress that Yuna had set up right next to his bed. He watches as Ilya presses his fingers experimentally into the meat of his left upper arm, and Shane gets the feeling that Ilya’s hiding something from him. Friends don’t hide things from each other, Shane thinks, and we’re friends. He said so himself.
“Hey Ilya,” Shane whispers, and Ilya jolts, immediately withdrawing his hand as if he’d been burnt. He wears a strange expression on his face, one that Shane’s never seen on him before. One that makes him look older than he is, makes him look cagey and distant. Shane decides that he never wants to see Ilya make this facial expression ever again.
“What?” Ilya whispers back, eyes trained on Shane’s face.
Shane points to Ilya’s left arm. “What’s wrong with your arm? Did you hurt it in practice or something?”
Ilya snorts, his arms stretching behind to prop his head up on his pillow. “Always hockey, hockey, hockey with you, Shane.”
“Well if it’s not hockey, then what is it?”
Staring blankly at the ceiling, Ilya remains silent for quite some time. Shane almost thinks he has fallen asleep, when suddenly, out of the blue, he quietly says, “I like your family, Shane. Everyone is so nice and kind and friendly. Typical Canadians.”
“Even me?” Shane can’t help but ask.
“Even you,” Ilya confirms, like it pains him, “Especially you. I do nothing but terrorise you, and here I am, sleeping in your room. You are too nice, Shane.”
Maybe it’s because they’re both enveloped in the dark, but Shane does nothing to hide how happy that makes him feel. “Look at you, putting your new vocab to practice. Well done, Ilya.”
“Do I get a reward for using it correctly? Like maybe two minutes on your comfortable bed instead of this cheap air mattress?” Ilya cocks his head sideways, a cheeky grin on his face. Shane huffs, mumbling under his breath about how that air mattress was rather expensive thank you very much, and yet he scoots over to make space on his bed all the same.
Gleefully, Ilya climbs into Shane’s bed, dramatically groaning. “Ah, much better.”
“I’m counting to a hundred and twenty. Enjoy it while it lasts,” Shane mutters, pretending that he doesn’t notice Ilya’s arm crawling its way through the small gap between Shane’s neck and his bed, subtly hooking Shane closer towards him. He really isn’t smooth, that Ilya.
“Okay,” Ilya says, eyes glistening, “Good luck keeping count.”
Now it’s Shane’s turn to smirk. “Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen-”
His counting abruptly stops when Ilya leans over to press his lips against Shane’s.
Shane’s eyes widen, his eyebrows shooting halfway up his forehead. Staring into Ilya’s unblinking eyes, he holds his breath, the alien feeling of warm softness against his lips making him feel breathless and thoughtless all at once. Holy crap, he thinks, is my first kiss seriously going to go to Ilya freaking Rozanov? Well, if simply having closed lip-to-lip contact counts as a kiss. But quite frankly, Shane feels like if he even so much as opens his mouth, his pulsating heart might leap right out from between his lips. A beat too late, Shane shoves Ilya away, the panicked racing in his chest making his hands uncontrollably tremble.
“What the hell was that for?” Shane hisses, scandalised and feeling increasingly angrier at the way Ilya seems to be entirely unbothered by this whole event. As if this was just another Tuesday to him, and not a goddamn milestone in Shane’s life. Ilya gives him a lopsided smile, which only draws Shane’s attention back down to his lips — god, was that perfectly sculpted cupid’s bow seriously on my face just now? — and Shane begins to sweat from the sheer heat radiating from his cheeks, ears, neck and chest.
“You were keeping count, yes? How many seconds left?”
“Screw you, asshole,” Shane spits, turning to face the wall, “I’m going to sleep. Get the hell out of my bed.”
For a moment, Shane thinks Ilya will ignore his request just to annoy him, but he eventually crawls back onto the air mattress — much to Shane’s delight and disappointment.
“If it makes you feel any better, that was my first, too,” Ilya confesses into the silence of the room, and Shane didn’t think his heart could beat any faster until that very moment. He wonders if Ilya can hear it from all the way down on the air mattress. Scrambling to find an appropriate response, he ultimately chooses to pretend that he’d already fallen asleep. A cowardly move, but it’s all his flustered mind can accept at the moment.
Closing his eyes, Shane reaches his hand towards his face, the pads of his fingertips ghosting across his lips as he tries his best to mimic the feeling from before as best as he can. Admittedly, he’d never considered what it would feel like to kiss someone before. And he’d certainly never considered what it would feel like to kiss a boy. And absolutely not Ilya Rozanov, of all boys. But deep down, shamefully, a small part of Shane revels in the wonder of sharing that physical closeness with Ilya. It felt good, that it was him. Maybe there was always a part of Shane that wanted to kiss Ilya, and god, isn’t that a horrifying can of worms.
He buries his head under the covers, and prays to whoever’s listening that blissful sleep will come to him within the next twenty minutes, finally giving him a much needed break from his tumultuous mind.
---
When Shane wakes to the sound of his 9:00AM alarm, Ilya has already left.
Perhaps this is a good thing, because Shane doesn’t know what on earth he was going to say to him when he woke up today. Hi, thanks for being my first kiss. Hi, what kind of friends kiss each other? Hi, can you do it again please?
Brushing his teeth furiously, Shane sternly rejects the idea of that Incident (which he will now refer to it as such hereinafter) occurring ever again. Even if the very thought of it makes him clammy in the palms. Even if the very thought of it makes his stomach swoop like he’s falling from the balcony of a ten-storey building.
Actually, perhaps the swoop is because Shane is hit with the realisation that he’s going to have to see Ilya later this morning because of hockey practice. He feels sick, all of a sudden.
“Shane? Are you up?” Yuna calls from the staircase. “Breakfast is ready!”
“Coming, Mom,” Shane yells, slipping into his comfiest hoodie, the one that he loves the texture of. Chewing on his hoodie drawstring and rubbing the fabric between his fingers incessantly, he makes his way to the dining table, making sure to yank the hoodie string out of his mouth the moment he enters his mom’s view. He knows she hates it when he does that — she says its unhygienic and gross.
“Is Ilya still here?” Shane asks, and much to his relief, Yuna shakes her head.
“No, I didn’t see him at all. Did he leave?”
“Yeah. Weird,” Shane mumbles, shovelling egg white and veggie scramble down his throat. He really hopes he won’t see it again today. He knows he gets nauseous whenever he gets anxious. And boy oh boy, is he anxious.
---
“Thanks for the ride, Mom. See you later.”
Watching Yuna drive out of the rink car park, Shane temporarily wonders if today is the day he finally discovers the joys of truanting. He hears from others that it’s deeply rewarding. Okay, well, not phrased in that way. But alas, there is not a single bone in his body that feels like he has it in him to defy his mother. And he knows damn well she pays a stupid amount of money every year to make sure Shane’s being coached by the best of the best. She’s definitely setting Shane up for international tournaments, and probably intends for him to play on an AAA team later this year. Perhaps a questionable amount of ambition to place onto a twelve year old, but Shane knows his mom means well. Plus, it’s his dream as much as it is hers. Playing hockey professionally is all Shane’s ever wanted from the moment he first stood on ice. And he can’t let some stupid kiss from a stupid boy meddle with his future.
Fuelled with newfound determination, Shane storms into the locker room, bracing himself for the whirlwind that is Ilya Rozanov. But the hurricane never comes.
He’s skipping practice? Shane thinks, incredulous, as if he didn’t just contemplate the very same idea in the rink car park earlier.
“Hollander!” his coach yells from across the locker room. “You know where Rozanov lives, don’t you?”
Confused, Shane nods.
He hands Shane a set of locker keys. “Do me a favour and pass him his stuff from his locker. He didn’t clear it out before he quit, the lazy rascal.”
Shane feels as though the ground had been swiped from under him.
“What do you mean, ‘he quit’?”
His coach shrugs, already turning his attention back to his clipboard. “Called this morning to say he’s done with hockey. Whatever. If he wants to waste his potential, that’s his problem, not mine. A damn shame, though.”
At this point, Shane feels nothing but absolute fury, vibrating in and out of his skin in waves. The nerve of that dramatic asshole, to toss aside hockey over one petty fucking kiss. What the hell is he thinking?
Pushing past his team mates, Shane ignores the indignant squawk of his coach as he sprints out of the locker room. Quit? How dare he quit, when he’s quite possibly the only hockey player in this class with skills worth remembering? How fucking dare he?
Shane feels like he’s operating on autopilot, running as fast as he can to Ilya’s apartment, as fast as his feet can take him. He ignores when his muscles scream in protest, he ignores the offended shouts of passers-by that he undoubtedly shoulder checks pretty roughly as he squeezes past them. That’s all background noise to him. The only thing on his mind is demanding an explanation from Ilya. He wholeheartedly believes he’s owed one.
As he impatiently jams the close button of the elevator, he desperately hopes that nobody else enters from another floor, because he truly does not think he can handle pretending to coexist with others and be polite company at the moment. He hunches over as he waits for the elevator to reach the fifth floor, heaving violently to catch his breath. He feels dizzy and numb and exhausted, but nothing compares to the burn of utter betrayal sitting in the pit of his stomach. If their eight year long friendship was built on a foundation so brittle that it could not even withstand a momentary, chaste pressing of the lips, if hockey — if Shane — meant that little to Ilya, then Shane wishes he’d never picked up that helmet all those years ago.
The elevator doors open, and Shane stumbles out into the corridor, beelining straight towards Ilya’s front door. He slams both of his fists against the wood, ignoring the pins and needles prickling in his palms.
“Ilya!” he screams, his throat much more hoarse than he anticipated, “Ilya fucking Rozanov, you open this damn door right now! Ilya!”
He thinks about screaming one more time, when a nearby door opens. Startled into silence, Shane whips his hands behind his back.
“What’s going on out here, kid?” the man asks, clearly upset at the commotion. If Shane were thinking straight, he would sincerely apologise for being a nuisance and leave the premises before the man calls the police on him, but Shane still feels crazed, adrenaline from the run here pumping through his veins and making him stupidly brave.
“I’m trying to get my friend to open his door,” Shane says, before furiously knocking the door a couple more times, each progressively more and more violent.
“Are you sure you got the right door?” the man asks, a weary expression on his face as he leans his shoulder against his doorway. “I saw that family move out about an hour ago.”
“What?” Shane breathes, and it’s like all the fight has suddenly left him.
“Yeah, they were loud as hell when they were leaving, too. Woke me up. Dunno what kind of language they were yelling at each other, but it sounded pretty intense.”
“Oh,” Shane says, because that’s all his mind will allow him to say right now. He can’t tell what’s worse: losing a friend without ever getting to say goodbye, or feeling like you were nothing but a stain in his clothes that he couldn’t wait to get rid of as soon as he got home. The first sob that wrenches its way out from Shane’s chest makes him jerk like he’d been suckerpunched in the sternum, his ribcage shuddering in his chest as he desperately gasps for air that simply refuses to enter his lungs. The numbness in his fingers and toes are slowly but surely travelling up his limbs, and he hears himself fall before he feels it, all sensation in his body delayed by a few damning seconds. His hoodie feels wrong, now, the fabric suddenly much too abrasive against his skin, uncomfortable and itchy and suffocating. He cries, and he cries, and he cries, and Shane doesn't think he's ever felt as young as he does in this very moment. He just doesn’t understand — what did he do that was so wrong? Was Ilya disappointed that Shane was his first kiss? What about him was so revolting that it warranted not only quitting the team, but also leaving behind absolutely no trace for Shane to follow?
“Kid, hey— You have to— C’mon, kid. Breathe—”
At the back of his mind, Shane decides that this rueful, unexpected day in 2003, a day that will change Shane Hollander forever, is the day that a third line has been drawn, splitting his life into not two, but three sections: before Ilya Rozanov, after Ilya Rozanov, and, unfortunately, recovering from Ilya Rozanov.