Archive of Our Own

Fuma is so absorbed in the task of putting his newest Pokémon cards away in their binders that he almost doesn't notice the vibration of his phone ringing. He has to dig it out from under a pile of clothes on his bed, and when he sees the caller ID, his stomach swoops as he hurries to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Fuma! How are you? I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time.”

Fuma is not sure there exists a good time to receive a personal phone call from your team's general manager, especially when the season hasn't even started. It's unlikely that he was traded, and even more unlikely that they're terminating the contract renewal he signed in the spring, but that’s not stopping irrational fear from crawling up the back of his throat.

“Not at all, Mr. Yates,” Fuma says politely. “I'm well, how are you?”

“Please, I told you to call me Dylan,” Mr. Yates says. “I have a question for you, Fuma. Or, really a favour to ask, if that's all right.”

“Of course.”

“The Hurricanes are sending Riki Maus down, and I was wondering if you'd mind a new roommate. Do I recall correctly that you have a two bedroom?”

Fuma’s guest room is more of a glorified storage room with a bed, but it does exist. It would technically be fine for a rookie who's playing for the Wolves until he gets called back up to the NHL. But he doesn't remember when he would have mentioned the room to Mr. Yates or—more likely—someone in the lower ranks of player personnel staff. He wants to go back in time and shove a hockey sock in his mouth.

“I do,” he says slowly, trying desperately to think of a way out of this even as Mr. Yates says precisely the thing Fuma was expecting next.

“Perfect! I thought since you and Riki are both from Japan, he'd feel right at home.”

Fuma hums noncommittally. It's not that he has anything against Riki, seeing as they've never even met. He was excited when the Carolina Hurricanes drafted him—it's cool to see a player from Japan with a real chance of making the NHL, especially since that’s only happened once before. But Fuma has always gracefully dodged the mostly-unspoken expectation of older players to host younger ones who are bouncing between leagues, thankful that his fellow alternate captains were willing. There's a reason he lives alone in an apartment he found on his own and not in the team-arranged housing near the arena. He enjoys his privacy. It keeps him sane.

“You know we value your experience and leadership in the room,” Mr. Yates continues, hammering the nails into Fuma's coffin. “And since you're both defencemen I'm sure you'll spend some time paired up on the ice. It'll give you a head start on building that chemistry. What do you say?”

There's only one thing Fuma really can say without making this weird and uncomfortable. “I'd be happy to.”

“Great! So you'll meet him at the practice rink tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” Fuma echoes, unable to keep the alarm from his voice. He didn't sleep an extra day when he crashed after his flight, did he? He's pretty sure training camp starts the day after tomorrow.

“Unless you need more time to get things in order?” Mr. Yates asks. “He flies in this afternoon, but we can put him up in the hotel for an extra night or two. I'm sorry for the short notice, we just weren't sure where he'd be starting the season, and I didn't want to disturb you while you were visiting family if it wasn't necessary.”

That's actually more consideration than Fuma expected, and he doesn't want to seem ungrateful. The extra time won't be make or break; he might as well be as agreeable as possible.

“I appreciate that, sir. Tomorrow sounds great. I'm excited to meet him.”

“I heard he's excited to meet you, too,” Mr. Yates says, which is either very interesting or very polite. Probably the latter.

Fuma hangs up a minute later in a daze. He surveys his half-unpacked suitcase and its accompanying mess, then looks back down at his Pokémon cards. He sighs and sets them aside. Apparently he has company to prepare for.

—

It turns out that Mr. Yates was not being polite when he said Riki was excited to meet Fuma. Riki practically barrels across the player lounge when Fuma lets himself in, unceremoniously abandoning the staff person who was presumably showing him around.

“Fuma Murata, oh my God, it’s such an honour,” Riki says, skidding to a stop and holding out a hand. Fuma takes it, and Riki shakes effusively. “I used to watch your highlights on the bus to school. I was so excited when the Canes drafted me and I realized maybe we’d get to play together. Who would have thought that the only Japanese players would end up on the same team? I can’t believe it’s taken this long for us to meet.”

Riki looks like every other rookie Fuma’s ever met: a twenty-year-old kid with gangly limbs and stars in his eyes, wearing a Chicago Wolves branded zip-up. His hair is cut short and bleached blond, as if his junior team just played a tournament. But then he beams, revealing deep and adorable dimples, and Fuma’s heart trips over itself.

Fuma drops Riki’s hand, thrown. If there’s one thing he doesn’t do, it’s acknowledge when his teammates are attractive. But this isn't even really about that, he reasons with himself. He’s never had the starry eyes directed at him before. There’s no such thing as a Fuma Murata highlight reel, but it’s cute of Riki to act like there is.

“Do me a favour and never mention your school bus again, you’re making me feel old,” Fuma says, smiling back at Riki. “Welcome to the Wolves, Riki. I’ve seen you play, you’re gonna be a beast out there.”

“You have?” Riki breathes. He coughs, then says, “I mean, of course, thank you. You can call me Maki, by the way. All my friends do.”

“Maki it is,” Fuma says easily, only to be rewarded with another of Maki’s huge smiles. His dimples are truly lethal. Fuma scrambles to continue the conversation instead of staring. “Did you have a good flight in?”

Maki nods. “Yeah, it was chill. Hotel had pancakes at the continental breakfast, too, which was sick, and then Jessica picked me up and has been showing me around. This arena is sweet.”

The Chicago Wolves split their practice time between Allstate Arena, where they play their games, and the Rosemont Ice Arena, which is a new building with the kind of amenities that make it hard for Fuma to believe he gets to call this his workplace, even after five years on the team. It’s easy to slip into gushing about the gym and the café and the sauna together before Jessica steals Maki away to do whatever other orientation things she needs to do with him. Fuma makes himself useful by taking Maki’s duffel bag and suitcase out to his car.

“You didn’t have to carry my stuff for me,” Maki says when Fuma meets him back by the arena doors. He's bouncing on his toes with pent-up energy. Watching him is already making Fuma tired.

“No sweat,” Fuma says. “Do you wanna grab lunch or just head home?”

Fuma is proud of himself for not tripping over that one—it’s weird to think of his place as home to anyone else. Maki’s eyebrows furrow in thought. “How far is it?”

“Only ten minutes,” Fuma says. “I like sleeping in.”

Maki laughs. “Sick, me too. Let’s go straight back, I’m still pretty full from breakfast,” he says. Fuma nods and leads the way toward his car as Maki keeps talking. “Thanks so much for letting me stay with you, by the way. I’m so excited to be here, you have no idea. Or maybe you do? I mean, of course you do. I’m bummed I didn’t at least get to play a preseason game with the Canes, but I’m sure I'll get called back up.”

Fuma is taken aback by the sheer audacity required to say something like that out loud. Playing even one game in the NHL is a rare accomplishment; it's one thing to believe you can do it and an entirely different one to say it like it's a foregone conclusion. Fuma is torn between telling this kid to be more humble and being glad that he might not be here for long. It’s an uncharitable thought when they haven’t even gotten in the car yet.

“It’s no trouble at all,” Fuma says, unlocking the car. “My guest room was just sitting empty.”

“Still, it’s cool of you,” Maki says. He lasts the time it takes them to get in, get buckled, and Fuma to put the car in reverse before he starts talking again. “Where did you grow up again? Was it Shizuoka?”

Fuma glances from the rearview mirror to Maki’s face in surprise. He wasn’t expecting Maki to know that. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“Oh, shit!” Maki exclaims, and Fuma whips his head around to check that he’s not about to run into something. He’s not. “Sorry, I just realized we could totally speak Japanese.” He switches languages in his next breath. “That’s gonna be so fun. Sorry if I’m terrible, though. I was born in Tokyo, but then we lived in Germany for a couple years, and then Japan again before we moved to Canada when I was fifteen and I got drafted by Vancouver. The Giants. Not the Canucks. Obviously.” Maki laughs at himself. “Anyway, I speak Japanese with my mom most of the time, but still, it gets rusty. What about you?”

Fuma is so busy wondering if his car or apartment will ever be silent again that it takes him a second to realize that Maki is expecting an answer, and then another second after that to figure out what the question might be. “Um, I have a couple friends in Chicago that I speak Japanese with?”

“Really? That must be nice,” Maki says. “I just have one Japanese friend, and he still lives in Tokyo. That’s Taki. His name is Riki, too, but we’ve known each other since we were, like, five, so Taki and Maki kinda stuck.”

“That's cute,” Fuma says. “And your Japanese doesn't suck at all.”

That comment clearly bolsters Maki, and he fills the entirety of the ten minute drive with idle chatter that only requires Fuma to give one or two word answers. He only falls silent when they turn into the parking lot, staring out the window at the tall brick building with interest.

“This looks nice,” he says.

“It's pretty decent. The building has a gym and the location can't be beat,” Fuma says, aware he sounds like a realtor but unable to stop. “I'm on the third floor, so it's quiet, too.”

“Sick,” Maki enthuses, an attitude that continues the entire time they're hauling Maki's stuff inside and up the elevator, and then only increases when they're inside the apartment. “Bro! This is so cute!”

Maki abandons his suitcase by the door in favour of heading straight over to the balcony on the far side of the living room and peering out the windows. Fuma watches as he turns and lights up at the sight of the kitchen, then visibly schools his face and wanders back through the room slowly, scanning the knickknacks on the mantle of the fireplace and the art hanging on the walls in apparent fascination.

It's not like Fuma has never had guests. He originally picked this apartment because he knew the sleek, shiny bones of the place wouldn't embarrass him when he had teammates over. But this is different. Maki's actually going to have to live amongst all the little things Fuma's built up over the years to make the place his—the cozy blankets on the couch, the art Fuma bought because his ex got him into going to galleries and thrift stores, the shelves full of books Fuma wishes he had time to read and video games that are the reason he doesn’t. Fuma feels possessive over it, defensive even though Maki hasn't done anything but grin at him.

“So cute,” Maki repeats. “And it smells nice in here. What is that, lemon?”

“Close. It’s bergamot.” Fuma gestures at the diffuser on the island. It was originally a gift from his friend Yudai that Fuma only broke out when Yudai was coming over, but then he realized he liked it, and now it has a permanent home.

Maki hums. “This is different than I expected. Do you have a girlfriend?”

Oh, so he's just gonna… ask that. Fuma stares for a moment before gathering himself to quip back. “What, because I own more furniture than a recliner and a TV?”

Maki grimaces. “Um, I mean, you said it. All respect to the single dudes on the Canes I've hung out with, but…”

Fuma laughs. “I don't have a girlfriend. I just spend a lot of time at home and like it to be nice,” he says. “Do you want to see your room?”

Maki nods enthusiastically, and Fuma leads him back down the hallway to the other side of the apartment, silently hoping he didn't miss anything in his frantic cleaning and reorganizing.

It's a pretty basic room, half taken up by the queen bed. There's a yoga mat and weights shoved into one corner and a bookcase stuffed full of Fuma's hockey memorabilia and Pokémon collections—plushies, figurines, and card binders.

“Sorry about the plushies,” Fuma says, shoving into place an Eevee that's trying to make an escape back to its original home on the bed. “There's nowhere else for them to go.”

“No, they're adorable,” Maki says, picking one of the smaller ones up. “Who's this?”

"That's Mightyena. It was released in Ruby and Sapphire as part of the Hoenn region. I like it because it's Dark-type, and I got the plushie because it looks—”

Fuma cuts himself off before he can embarrass himself, but Maki is nodding. “Like a wolf!” he finishes.

“Yeah,” Fuma says. “I got it when I signed here after college.”

Maki hums, his eyes fixed on Mightyena. “You must be a good luck charm,” he tells the plushie. He spins around and crosses the room to tuck it in front of the lamp on the bedside table, as if it's guarding it. “Gonna put it over here, and maybe the luck will rub off on me.”

That's so ridiculously cute of him that Fuma short-circuits for a moment. Fuma is starting to think maybe his first impression of Maki was unwarranted. Sure, he has the energy of a self-centered hockey bro at first glance, but he hasn’t been acting judgmental or disinterested or even all that obnoxious. He's loud and chatty, but the more he talks, the more Fuma thinks it stems from nerves.

Being a bit cocky isn't a crime, anyway. Many people would even consider it an asset for a hockey player. They're going to be living together; Fuma should at least make an effort to be friends with him.

“Do you want something to drink?” he asks. “Water, juice, tea?”

It's not until Maki says, “Tea sounds good,” that it occurs to Fuma that he might not even have juice or tea. He keeps his panic internal as he leads the way back to the kitchen and puts on a kettle to boil.

“Can I ask you about the other guys on the team?” Maki says. “I met, um… Socks? But no one else was really around yet.”

Fuma pauses in his contemplation of which cupboard is most likely to have tea in it, turning to Maki with interest. Socks is Alexej Sokol, a Czech defenceman that spent the last few games of the playoffs out with a torn MCL. Last time Fuma texted him, he was still home visiting family and bitching that they kept babying him because of his injury. “How is Socks? Did he mention his knee?”

“Yeah, he was meeting with the trainer when I saw him,” Maki said. “Said he’s cleared to skate.”

“Oh, great, that’s good. What else do you want to know?” Fuma says as he casually opens and shuts three cupboards in succession before finding a box of Yudai's favourite tea. Thank God.

“I dunno, just like, who’s cool, who you think I might get paired up with, what weird goalie rituals I shouldn’t interrupt,” Maki says. “Shit like that.”

“We’ve got a goalie tandem, Mikhail Kovalchuk and Brock Massey,” Fuma says. “I don’t think I have to tell you not to touch their stuff, they’re both as superstitious as they come. Massey in particular doesn’t appreciate anyone talking to him while he’s got his headphones on before a game.”

“Got it,” Maki says. “What does he listen to?”

“Medical podcasts,” Fuma says.

Maki laughs. “Huh. Don’t know what I expected, but that seems about right.”

Fuma opens the cupboard with his dishes and hits upon his second hurdle: he only has two mugs, and both of them are slightly embarrassing. There’s an Eevee one he always uses and a rabbit one his ex bought him because he claimed it looked like Fuma. Nicholas thought he was hilarious even though he was extremely wrong. Fuma takes them out of the cupboard, cursing his own lack of interest in anything kitchen related. At least he has more than one.

“As for who you’ll be paired up with… honestly, maybe Socks,” Fuma muses as he drops tea bags into the mugs. “Or Linsy, he could keep up with your skating. Or could be me. Honestly, we’ve been pretty weak on defence, we’ll have to see how it goes.”

“For sure,” Maki says. “You made it to the second round of the playoffs last season, right? Where’d we fall down?”

They pick apart the Wolves’ playoff shortcomings until the water boils. Fuma pours for both of them, adding in Maki’s requested sugar before he slides the rabbit mug across the island to Maki.

“Cute mug,” Maki says, spinning it around to inspect the rabbit more fully. He seems to genuinely mean it. “Taki’s boyfriend would love this.”

There's a loaded pause as Maki fixes his eyes intently on Fuma and goes unnaturally still. It's obvious that he's trying to find out if Fuma is chill with Taki having a boyfriend, which almost makes Fuma laugh out loud from the irony.

“Yeah?” Fuma says, measured. “Is he a big fan of rabbits?”

Tension visibly releases from Maki's shoulders. “Yeah, Harua likes anything cute. He's kind of got a nose like a bunny, if I'm honest.”

Maki keeps talking about Harua and Taki, informing Fuma all about how they met and how long they've been together. He sounds incredibly fond of both of them. It was pretty bold of him to talk about this after knowing Fuma for less than an hour, and Fuma honestly can't tell if Maki wanted to know for himself or because he's a dedicated ally to his friends. Either way, he admires Maki for it. He wouldn't want to live with a homophobe, either, for obvious reasons, but he was planning on never bringing it up and living in ignorance.

“Sorry, I keep rambling,” Maki says. “Enough about my friends. What about yours?”

Fuma hesitates, thinking of Yudai and Nicholas and their extended circle of friends. But while he can admit that it's nice to know the guy who will be sleeping on the other side of the wall from him isn't a bigot, Fuma still doesn’t want to say anything about himself. He’s too aware of the slippery slope it would be. Mentioning his extremely queer friends would make it too tempting.

“My best friend on the team is probably Singer. Brandon Singh,” Fuma says. “He was captain last year, probably will be again if they don't need him on the Canes. Good guy.”

“Yeah? What kind of captain is he?”

Fuma considers that for a second, trying to pick the best word to describe Brandon. “A wholesome one,” he decides. “Never angry, always optimistic. Works hard but doesn’t take himself too seriously. Sets a good example for rookies like you.”

“Sweet. It’s nice when the room has a more chill energy,” Maki says. “Makes it more fun. Not that I don’t take it seriously, but it’s also a fun game, you know?”

Fuma knows. He wouldn’t still be here if he didn’t get that thrill every time he steps out on the ice. Sometimes the trade-offs he has to make in his personal life start getting to him—when he misses his mom or when his boyfriend breaks up with him. But at the end of the day, it’s worth it. It’s a dream he never really thought he could achieve, or as close to it as he’ll ever get, and it’s terrifyingly temporary. The older Fuma gets, the more likely it is he’ll get injured or the team will run out of space on the roster for him. Fuma has to appreciate every second he gets here.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Even more fun when we win.”

“Hell yeah,” Maki says, lifting his tea in a cheers motion.

That turns the conversation back to the team’s record last season and what pieces need to be there to make a run for the championship this year. Fuma barely notices time passing until he realizes his tea is gone and his social battery is blinking red at him.

“I'm sure you'd like to get settled in,” Fuma says in the next lull of the conversation. He takes Maki's empty mug from him and puts it in the sink along with his own. “I'll just be in my room, let me know if you need anything.”

“Sure thing,” Maki says, beaming at him. Fuma wonders if Maki's face ever hurts from smiling so much. “Thanks again, Fuma.”

Fuma nods and makes his escape, only to turn back when he's halfway down the hall. “I almost forgot,” he says, reaching into the pocket of his jeans. “These are for you.”

He holds out his extra set of apartment keys to Maki. Maki reaches for them, moving slowly enough that Fuma almost snatches them back before Maki can touch them. It's harder than he expected to give up control over his private space like this. This was always where he didn't have to worry about hiding parts of himself away. No matter how accepting and genuinely nice Maki seems, it's going to be an adjustment knowing someone else can come and go as they please.

Their fingers brush when Maki takes the keys. Fuma promptly shoves his hand back into his pocket, rocking back on his heels.

“Thank you,” Maki says. “I promise not to lose them.”

This time when Fuma escapes, he makes it all the way to his room. He lies down on his bed and gets all of two minutes of blissful silence before he hears Maki shuffle into his own room and start humming to himself as he unpacks.

Fuma blinks up at the ceiling in resignation. He really is never going to know peace again.

But, he thinks as the image of Maki's dimples pops into his mind and he absently rubs the spot on his hand that Maki touched, maybe it won't be all bad.

—

It doesn’t take long for Fuma to realize that whatever cockiness Maki possesses is entirely warranted. It’s a testament to the depth of the Hurricanes’ pool of defencemen that they couldn’t use Maki’s talents. He outskates half the guys at training camp on the first day, and he only proves himself more and more as they head into the preseason.

Midway through the second period of a game against the Iowa Wild, Maki steals the puck so deftly the other team’s star center keeps skating for a few feet before he even realizes anything has happened. By that time, Maki has already hauled ass back up the ice with it, finding the lane Fuma opens up for him easily and passing the puck straight onto Fuma’s stick like it’s nothing. Fuma sauces it to Ari Venäläinen, who buries it in the back of the net.

The goal horn goes off as they crash into each other in a celebratory hug. Preseason games don’t mean anything, they’re just warmups for the real thing, but Fuma’s getting used to this already: Maki slamming into his side and whooping into his ear with whichever forward they just set up for a goal on Fuma’s other side. True to Maki’s words in their first conversation, playing with him is fun.

Their head coach leans down to shake them both by the shoulders when they crowd back on the bench next to each other. “That’s it, boys!” Harts enthuses. “Can’t wait to see more of this.”

Maki elbows Fuma in the side and flashes him a wide grin, his mouthguard hanging out the corner of his mouth. Fuma holds up his gloved fist in answer, and Maki bumps it.

The roster solidifies around them as the preseason draws to a close, a few more guys sent down from the Canes knocking some others down into the ECHL. They start the regular season on the road in Cleveland. Something slips during that first game, their passes refusing to connect, causing giveaway after giveaway. It’s a poor showing, the kind of mediocre effort that would have been more understandable in the preseason, but nothing that they can’t bounce back from.

Except they don’t. By the time they swing back into their home state, they’ve lost two games to the Monsters and eked out an overtime win against Grand Rapids. Fuma and Maki’s ice time is slowly being cut back, the d-pairings shuffled around to try and get something going, and Fuma can’t even blame Harts. He would bench them, too. They win in Rockford, but it’s another close one.

“What’s up with you?” Singer asks Fuma after the game. They’re tucked into a corner of the visitor’s locker room, Singer leaning over from his own stall. “You know we won, right?”

Fuma shrugs. “Yeah, it’s nothing.”

“Bullshit,” Singer says. “You’re thinking about that goal against in the third, which is weird, because you don’t usually let shit like that get to you.”

“Who says I’m letting it get to me?” Fuma asks.

Singer looks pointedly down at the hockey tape Fuma is flipping over and over in his hand and then glances across the room at Maki. He’s sitting at his own stall, legs straight out in front of him, staring into the middle distance. Tyson Wilcox, a rookie Maki’s age, says something to him, and Maki manages a weak smile in response. Singer looks back at Fuma with a raised eyebrow, and Fuma winces.

“You’re not supposed to carry the whole team, you know,” Singer says, cutting to the core of it in the easy way that makes him a good captain. “Neither of you are.”

He claps Fuma on the knee and leaves him to it. Fuma knows he’s right, but it would be easier to believe if it hadn’t seemed like maybe they could. Fuma needs this season to go well, and for those first few weeks, it seemed like it would. They’d just clicked. Sure, the team wasn’t perfect, but if he and Maki could be brick walls to give their goalies a break and rack up assists for their forwards, then what couldn’t they do? They’d had the kind of energy that bolsters an entire team. Fuma’s pretty sure he wasn’t imagining that.

It would be nice if the problem was just that the other teams had figured them out. They could change up their strategy to compensate for that. But even in practice drills, they’re slipping, and that’s frustrating. Fuma wants so badly to show Harts more of what he asked for, and not being able to figure out why he can’t is driving him crazy.

Fuma’s never been very good at leaving work at work, but having to literally drive Maki home with him makes it even worse. The first couple weeks as roommates were tentative, both of them settling into separate routines but making the occasional effort to hang out in the living room and shoot the shit. After their somber return from the road trip, that stops entirely, and the only thing they do together is put their game tape on the TV and pick it apart.

The home opener is two back-to-back games on Saturday and Sunday. Harts still puts Maki and Fuma out on the starting lineup together, and it’s fine, but that’s it. Just fine. Not their best. Not even close to electric. Their mediocre performances follow them home like a dark cloud.

They have a day off after that. Fuma wakes up an hour before he meant to and is already running plays in his head before he can even roll over to try to go back to sleep. He gives up and goes to the gym instead, noting that Maki’s bedroom door is open and his running shoes are missing from the entryway. He resolves to actually have a conversation with Maki when he gets back. About something that’s not work. Maybe they can have breakfast together.

But when he gets back, Maki is in the shower, and Fuma retreats to his ensuite to do the same, and then he just… can’t make himself go out there. He doesn’t want to make nice with his rookie. He wants to curl up on his bed and play Pokémon and forget the rest of the world.

He’s an adult. He can do whatever he wants.

Fuma surfaces from his Pokémon haze some number of hours later at the sound of someone knocking on the door. Maki yells, “I’ll get it!” a moment later, and Fuma goes back to his game, assuming that Maki ordered himself lunch from DoorDash or something.

Then he hears the distinct sound of Yudai’s voice cooing, “Who are you, cutie?”, and he drops his Switch and launches himself out of his bedroom at record speed.

“Oh, I, uh… thought you were DoorDash?” Maki is stammering as Fuma slides across the apartment in his sock feet.

“Yudai!” Fuma says before Yudai can open his mouth. He puts a hand on Maki’s shoulder, mostly to stop himself from slipping on the slick hardwood. “This is Maki, my new teammate.”

He puts a slight emphasis on the last word, widening his eyes at Yudai to underscore the point. It’s obvious Yudai understands what he means, but unfortunately that does nothing at all to stop Yudai from slowly looking Maki up and down, much the same way he assessed Nicholas when Fuma first introduced them.

But Fuma was dating Nicholas, and Maki is literally just Fuma’s roommate. Fuma needs to nip this in the bud before Yudai gets any more ideas.

“He’s staying with me while he’s in Chicago,” Fuma explains, still worried about what Yudai is planning to say next. “Maki, this is my friend Yudai.”

Yudai gasps. “Excuse me? I’m your best friend.”

“Yes, of course,” Fuma says as Yudai lets himself the rest of the way into the apartment and kicks off his shoes. Apparently he thinks he’s staying a while. “He’s my best friend, and we’re gonna get out of your way.”

Fuma takes Yudai by the elbow, trying to steer him toward Fuma’s room, but Yudai shakes him off. “I came all this way to make sure you weren’t dead, and this is how you treat me?” He shoots a wink at Maki, and Maki giggles. Fuma has to stop himself from sighing aloud. Yudai charms unwitting men like breathing, and Fuma needs him to stay far away from his rookie.

Yudai ignores Fuma’s second attempt to herd him off to his bedroom and heads toward the kitchen instead, Fuma and Maki trailing after him. “Have you eaten anything today?” he asks. “Anything other than a protein shake.”

The honest answer is no, but Yudai doesn’t even give Fuma a chance to say it before he’s opening the fridge and making an affronted noise. “Look at this! Nothing but empty shelves! Are you starving your poor roommate?”

“No!” Fuma protests.

“I mean, it’s not like it’s his job to feed me. Obviously I can order food,” Maki says. “And we were out of town. I was gonna go to the store tomorrow.” He pauses, then adds in a tiny, proud voice that Fuma’s never heard before, “I can cook.”

Yudai lets the fridge door fall shut, turning back to Maki with a high-pitched noise of delight. “I bet you can!” he coos. He skips the two feet to Fuma and drapes himself over Fuma’s back, chin hooked over his shoulder. “Do you think you could teach this guy, because…”

Fuma huffs and switches to Japanese in an attempt to rein Yudai in. “Get off me before he gets the wrong idea,” he mutters.

“What wrong idea?” Yudai asks in loud and affronted Japanese, shoving his cheek against Fuma’s. “The idea that I looooove you?”

“Uh,” Maki says slowly, his eyes round, and Fuma’s stomach immediately drops. Obviously Maki also speaks Japanese, which he proves by continuing: “I think I’ll just, um. Be in my room. Waiting for my DoorDash. If you need me.”

“Oh, no need to hide!” Yudai says before Fuma can even attempt to get them out of this hole. Instead, Yudai digs it deeper. “I’m gonna make Fuma take me out.”

Maki nods like that makes perfect sense. “Oh, yeah, of course. Have fun.”

At least that gets them away from this situation. Fuma will take it.

Yudai spends three minutes fawning to Maki about how nice it was to meet him and then another two protesting about Fuma wearing that—perfectly normal sweatpants, thank you very much—out of the house before they actually leave. He manages to hold himself back until they’re by the elevator at the other end of the hallway, which is honestly longer than Fuma predicted, before he says, “Well, well, well. If I knew you were radio silent because you were shacking up with a hottie—”

“Stop it,” Fuma interrupts. “He’s twenty, we’re not shacking up.”

“Oh, sorry, I forgot you became geriatric when you turned twenty-three,” Yudai says. “At twenty-eight, you’re practically rolling in the grave. Couldn’t be me, but you stay safe.”

Fuma rolls his eyes. “He’s also my teammate.”

The elevator doors slide open, and Yudai raises his eyebrows at Fuma as they step inside. “So?”

“So I’m supposed to be mentoring him, not hitting on him.”

“Sure, sure. Just seems like a shame,” Yudai says. “He kinda seemed like he would be down.”

“He did not,” Fuma says. “He’s nice, and he told me of his own volition that he has queer friends, but that doesn’t mean I can go there. There’s a reason I’ve never hooked up with a teammate.”

Yudai’s eyebrows shot up again at queer friends and stayed there. “You’re really saying nothing to dissuade me right now.”

“It’s not a good idea, Yudai,” Fuma says. “Do we have to talk about how homophobic hockey culture is again, or…?”

Yudai wrinkles his nose. “Ugh, no, thanks.”

The elevator doors slide open in the parking garage, and Fuma leads the way to his car. Yudai is uncharacteristically quiet for the time it takes them to get buckled in before he says, “That’s part of why I worry about you, though. I just want you to be happy. And to eat real food that tastes good and let yourself see the sun instead of holing up with your Pokémon when your job stresses you out.”

Yudai really is ridiculously good at reading Fuma. They hadn’t spoken in person since before Fuma went back to Japan for a month, and Fuma has been leaving his texts on read for most of the month after that. And yet here he is, all the way in Rosemont, fussing over Fuma because he knew exactly what Fuma was doing.

Fuma sighs. “Do you want to get tteokbokki?”

“My favourite?” Yudai says, putting a hand to his chest. “Fuma-san! You do love me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Fuma says. “I’ll drive you home after, too.”

“What if I want to come back here with you and make friends with Maki-chan?” Yudai asks with an exaggerated pout.

“Not a chance,” Fuma says. “What would Euijoo say?”

“He loves when I make friends for us,” Yudai says, smirking in a way that makes Fuma put the car in gear and start driving just for an excuse to stop looking at him. He does not want to hear about Yudai and his boyfriend picking up thirds. “I think Euijoo would like Maki, anyway. You should bring him out to meet everyone some time.”

Fuma has never introduced his friends to anyone on the team. Against his will, Fuma pictures Maki sitting amongst his friends, laughing and getting along with them in that easy way he seems to have with everyone. The thought of his two worlds meeting like that makes something twist in his chest, and he abruptly shoves the image out of his head.

“Yeah, maybe some time,” he says. “Tell me what you’ve been up to. How are your students this semester?”

It’s a relief to let Yudai’s excited chatter and dramatic stories of student exploits fill the silence. For a while, Fuma doesn’t need to think about his rocky start to the season, or the parts of himself he has to hide away every day, or the rookie sitting alone back at his apartment. He can just be Fuma, a regular guy out for lunch with his best friend. It doesn’t fix everything, but for now it’s enough.

—

Whoever created the league schedule this season decided to frontload the Wolves’ long distance road trips. After a week of practice, they fly out to Austin to play the Texas Stars. Fuma spends half the flight sleeping and the other half being intentionally present, meditating on how this time he’s going to play his best. If he thinks hard enough about it, it’ll come true.

Things don’t go completely wrong until the third period. They’re holding their own, tied up at 1-1, when Socks takes a penalty. Stopping the Stars from scoring a go-ahead goal on the man advantage is crucial this late in the game, and Fuma is honestly a little surprised when Harts sends him and Maki out with the rest of their penalty kill unit.

It starts fine: Singer wins the draw in the defensive zone and passes to Maki, who chooses to skate it into the Stars’ end instead of icing it, which makes sense this early when they’re trying to run out the clock on the two-minute penalty. Fuma follows his lead, looking for an opportunity to score. If they can get one shorthanded…

But it also means the Stars are in hot pursuit, and when Fuma tries to get in position to receive Maki’s pass, he ends up in a scramble for the puck against the boards. He loses, and nobody manages to catch the Stars on the backcheck, and then the puck is sailing over Massey’s glove and into the back of the net.

Fuma’s stomach sinks. It shouldn’t have been that easy for them. He should have been more confident that they could kill that off. He should have found an open lane and received the puck from Maki and scored the fucking shorthanded goal himself. He can see how it should have played out, how it would have in the preseason. The regret written all over Maki’s face mirrors his own.

Singer tries to rally them, and they do their best to shake it off, but it lingers. They don’t catch up, and the Stars score an empty-net goal to close out the game.

The post-game interviews with the media are dismal, and the disappointed stare Harts fixes the team with in the locker room after is even worse. “We’ll break that down tomorrow at morning skate,” he says. “Early curfew tonight, boys.”

The team nods and mumbles their agreement. Harts turns toward Fuma and Maki. “You two.”

“I’m sorry about that kill, I should—” Maki starts.

Harts holds up a hand. “Save it. I only wanted to tell you that I know that magic from preseason came from somewhere. I need you to get it back. Preferably before we play them again tomorrow.”

Maki looks sideways at Fuma, uncertain. Fuma sets his jaw and nods, and Maki’s face clears as he looks back at Harts. “You got it, Coach,” he says.

The problem with that task is that Fuma doesn’t know what else they can do. He wishes he did, that the confidence he’s trying to project for Maki came from somewhere. Maybe if they review the tape, figure out why it fell apart…

He suggests as much to Maki in the hotel lobby. The rest of the team spread out after the bus back from the rink, some heading straight back to their rooms and some heading out to destress at a nearby bar before curfew. Maki followed at Fuma’s heels, waiting for him to take the lead.

“I mean, yeah, we could. Probably should, eventually,” Maki says. His hair is damp from his post-game shower, short strands plastered against his forehead, and he pushes it back nervously. “But, um… do you think it’s actually gonna help at this hour?”

Fuma wasn’t expecting Maki to argue, but he can’t deny that he has a point. “What else can we do?”

Maki fidgets, shifting from one foot to the other. “I was thinking… Do you think maybe we haven’t been playing as well because we haven’t really… hung out? Maybe we should go for a drink or something.”

Fuma thinks of what Mr. Yates said to him on that first phone call about bonding to build their on-ice chemistry. It feels like a hundred years ago now, but he wasn’t wrong. Fuma and Maki haven’t really been using their roommate status to bond at all. Fuma's been avoiding it, and he shouldn't have been.

“Maybe,” Fuma agrees. “Worth a shot.”

Maki’s face lights up, only to fall a second later. “Wait, fuck. I forgot that I can’t drink here.” He groans. “So dumb. In Vancouver I was legal last year.”

The correct thing to say here is probably that they can go out and not drink. But Fuma knows himself, and he knows how awkward they’ve been, and he thinks that might actually set them back. They need something to ease the way.

“Here,” Fuma says, digging his hotel room key out of his pocket and holding it out to Maki.

Maki’s eyebrows furrow. “What’s this?” he asks as he takes it.

“My room key,” Fuma says. “303. Tell Wilcox to swap with you, and I’ll be back in twenty.”

“Where are you going?” Maki asks.

“To get beer,” Fuma says, determined.

Thirty minutes later, Fuma and Maki are sprawled out on a bed in Fuma’s hotel room—their hotel room, now that Maki’s suitcase is dumped at the end of the other bed, where Wilcox’s was earlier. Maki is inspecting the label on his beer bottle like he’s never seen alcohol before, which Fuma knows isn’t true. Right? It can’t be. He just said it wasn’t.

“This is pretty good,” Maki says. “Never had this brand before.”

That makes more sense. Fuma was relieved to find Sapporo at the closest grocery store; he vastly prefers Japanese beer. “What shitty North American beer were you drinking?”

“I dunno, Molson Canadian? Or whatever was in the keg at parties?” Maki says. Fuma wrinkles his nose in distaste, and Maki laughs. “I know, it kinda sucked. The older guys on the team were so hype to get me drunk on my nineteenth, and I had to be like…” He affects a grimace and a thumbs up. “Thanks, guys! I love it!”

Fuma laughs. “They didn’t want to give you actual liquor?”

“Oh, no, that, too,” Maki says. “Just the most unholy, disgusting mixed drinks. The beer was better.”

“Rough,” Fuma says with another laugh. “So your birthday is during the season? Bet you wished it wasn’t.”

Maki nods. “February 17,” he says. “And maybe a little, but it was fun. When’s yours?”

“December,” Fuma says, the lie jumping to his lips automatically. He hates making a fuss about his birthday. He prefers to pretend it doesn’t exist. “The 18th.”

Maki stops halfway through lifting his beer to his mouth, then continues to take a sip with his eyes fixed on Fuma. “It is?” he says when he’s swallowed. “I thought it was in the summer.”

“Nope,” Fuma says.

“Pretty sure that’s what it says online,” Maki says doubtfully.

Fuma shrugs. He hadn’t expected Maki to know his birthday, but he’s not about to admit to the lie. Fucking with people about things that don’t matter is one of life’s small joys. “Must be wrong. Why would I lie?”

Maki narrows his eyes. “I dunno, why would you?”

Fuma shrugs again and drinks his beer. After a moment, Maki appears to let it go and takes a swig of his own. They both finish their bottles in silence, and Fuma opens new ones for both of them.

Maki takes a sip of his new beer and sets it down on the side table before slumping down. “Okay, what are we gonna do about how much we suck?” he asks. “It’s so annoying, because it’s not even like we’re bad, we’re just not good. And I’m trying to be really fucking good, because I want to actually make it to the NHL. And I want to set this team up to win the championship, obviously. That would go a long way. Plus, we have all the pieces on the team right now, and I don’t want to let anyone down.”

Fuma tilts his head. “Are you thinking about all of that on the ice?”

“Yeah, what else would I think about?” Maki asks. “I know it’s only October, but every point matters. What are you thinking about?”

Fuma almost says something flippant about blocking shots or getting pucks deep. But then he actually considers it. “I guess I’m also thinking about how much I want us to win the cup this season,” he says. “I’d like to get at least one before they decide not to re-sign me.”

Maki blinks. “What does that mean?”

Fuma shrugs. “What I said. I’m not delusional, I know I’m lucky to get a new contract every year.”

It’s only become more true with every passing season. Fuma was lucky to get scouted from the University of Michigan, and he was lucky to play well that first season in the AHL, and he’s lucky that he’s kept it up long enough to achieve veteran status by playing over 260 professional games. But the A is a developmental league, and rosters are capped at six veteran skaters. Fuma’s days here are numbered, and he knows it.

He would have thought all of that was obvious, but Maki is looking at him with an uncomprehending expression. “Sure, but the Wolves are also lucky to have you? You could have left for a league in Europe where you’d be paid better.”

Fuma shakes his head. It’s not like it’s never crossed his mind, but he’s not interested in starting his whole life over somewhere else, and besides that… “I’m not that good.”

“Pretty sure you are,” Maki says. “Even the NHL, have you asked your agent to get you professional tryout contracts for training camps? You could have a two-way contract if you wanted.”

Fuma snorts. Maki’s faith in him is cute, but it’s not realistic. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t even want to try? Haven’t you ever wanted to play in the NHL?”

“Of course,” Fuma says. “That’s every hockey kid’s dream. But I’m not a kid anymore, and I didn’t move somewhere with a strong hockey program early enough, so… that ship sailed. And besides, I've worked my ass off for years, and at the end of the day it doesn't matter, because my best will never be good enough.”

Maki frowns. “Lots of guys play their first NHL game when they’re, like, thirty.”

“Yeah, white guys,” Fuma says. “Not me.”

Maki’s frown doesn’t disappear, but his face does shift to something more thoughtful. “I get what you mean, but I still think there’s time,” he says after a moment. “I don’t think it has to be like that or that you should, like, be so down on yourself.”

Fuma shrugs and drinks more of his beer, wishing desperately for the alcohol to kick in a little more. Maki sounds like he’s pitying Fuma, and Fuma doesn’t like the idea of that at all. It’s honestly something Fuma’s made his peace with. Maybe he just needs to prove that to Maki.

“It’s not a huge deal,” Fuma says. “I have a plan for when I’m done here.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“I’ll move back to Japan and open a hockey school,” Fuma says. “I got a degree in education because that was always my plan. I was gonna do it straight after university. I want there to be better opportunities for kids’ hockey development in Japan, so…”

Maki is nodding along. “That’s really cool,” he says. “But you have more time here first. We’ve gotta get you a Calder Cup.”

That much Fuma can agree with. “Sure, but I’d still prefer to do it sooner rather than later.”

“Well, yeah,” Maki says. “Me, too.”

Maki leaned into Fuma’s space to emphasize his points when he was arguing about Fuma’s potential, but he slumps back down again, looking haunted. It’s way too somber for a face that should always be smiling.

“Stop looking like the weight of the world is on your shoulders,” Fuma says. “Hasn’t Singer given you the lecture about it not being all on you?”

Maki snorts. “Yeah,” he says. “He gave you that one, too?”

Fuma nods. “He’s not wrong. You can’t play your best game when you think you’re the only one playing.”

“True,” Maki says. “Just wish I could turn my brain off.”

That’s more relatable than Fuma wants it to be. “So we’re both overthinking it,” he concludes. “And talking it to death probably isn’t helping.”

“Probably not,” Maki agrees.

“Okay,” Fuma says, straightening up. “New rule, then. Let’s stop talking about work. We have to actually bond and learn to trust each other, and then the game will come. Right?”

“Right. Definitely.”

It’s easy to say and much harder to actually do. They both fall silent. Fuma sticks a fingernail under the label of his beer bottle and peels it back, then smooths it down again, trying desperately to coax his brain into coming up with something to say. When he glances at Maki, he finds that he’s picked his beer back up and is fidgeting in much the same way. Maki looks up, and they make eye contact for a long moment before both of them look away.

Maki huffs a laugh, and Fuma can’t help but match it. This is absurd. He should be able to think of something to talk about, but everything that crosses his mind seems so banal.

“Okay,” Maki says in a determined voice. “Bonding.”

“Yeah,” Fuma says.

Maki takes a swig of his beer, as if steeling himself, and then turns his whole body toward Fuma, legs tucked up under him. “I’m gonna tell you something totally not hockey related at all.”

Fuma nods. When Maki doesn’t immediately say anything, he adds, “Right, that was the goal.”

“Right,” Maki echoes. “So, um. I’m pansexual.”

Fuma’s eyes widen involuntarily, his heart kicking into high gear. Of all the things Maki could have said, that’s close to the last one Fuma expected, and the panic that’s taking over him is entirely disproportionate. He’s worked so hard to separate the parts of his life and his identity in his head that hearing something like that here, in this shitty hotel room paid for by the Wolves, feels wrong. He can’t comprehend just saying it, especially to a teammate.

“It means that I’m attracted to all genders,” Maki continues when Fuma can’t force the things he knows he should say out of his mouth. “Or, like, the person, not the gender or, uh, body or whatever.”

He looks at Fuma expectantly, shades of worry starting to creep onto his face. Fuck. Fuma is totally fucking this up.

“I know what it means,” he says.

“Oh,” Maki says uncertainly. “Cool.”

“And I appreciate you trusting me with it,” Fuma adds quickly, finally able to string the words together in the right order. Maki brightens at that. “But please be careful who you tell things like that. It’s hard enough being Asian in this sport, I don’t want you to make it even harder for yourself.”

“Right, of course,” Maki says.

Fuma exhales slowly, trying to slow his racing heart. He takes a sip of his drink in an attempt to steady himself just as Maki continues, “But I knew you were chill because you’re dating Yudai.”

Fuma nearly chokes on his beer. He coughs, spluttering out, “Yudai? No. No, I’m not doing that.”

“You’re not?” Maki asks, perplexed. “Then…”

“He just acts like that,” Fuma says. He was making a solid attempt to block that whole interaction out, but of course he shouldn’t have. He knew what it looked like. “The second time we hung out, Yudai asked if I wanted to go dancing, and somehow I ended up shirtless and covered in glitter with Yudai grinding on me.”

“Uh,” Maki says, eyes wide and suspicious.

Fuma huffs, realizing what that sounded like. “The second time we ever hung out,” he emphasizes. “I’m trying to say he’s like that with everyone. Just like…” He waves a hand. “A lot.”

“Uh huh,” Maki says. “Yeah.” He nods, gaze dropping from Fuma’s face to his body and back up again. He nods again, just once, and then takes a sip of his beer. “When was that?”

“When was what?”

“The second time you hung out,” Maki clarifies. “Like, how long have you known him?”

“Oh, uh, must be five years now?” Fuma says. “He’s my mom’s friend’s friend’s son, and he’d moved to Chicago a year before me, so my mom sent me his number and insisted he was a nice boy I should make friends with. I texted him out of obligation, but then he was…” He pauses, trying to think of the word.

“Fun?” Maki suggests. “The shirtless glitter grinding sounds fun.”

That wasn’t where Fuma was going with that—the word he was searching for was more like persistent—but it’s not wrong. “Yeah, he’s fun. And it turned out that my mom was right that it would be nice to have a friend who understands what it’s like being so far from home.”

Maki nods. “Moms, am I right? They always know what you need.”

Fuma hums agreement. It’s true, but he can’t help but think of the thing his mom couldn’t have known, the part that was just as important in a different way: that he and Yudai are both gay.

Yudai was unapologetically so from the start, much louder and prouder about it than Fuma, and Fuma had found that intimidating at first. But then he learned that Yudai knew his fair share about what it was like to be part of a hypermasculine sport from his time running marathons, and now Fuma is sure that he’d still be twice as repressed if it wasn’t for the talks they had about how hard Yudai worked to unlearn that. It was what Fuma needed at the time, and it’s still the safe place he can retreat to.

Guilt stabs Fuma low in his belly. Here he is, with the ability to give Maki something like that, and he’s panicking and telling Maki to be careful instead.

“It’s also, um,” Fuma says before he can lose his nerve. “It’s nice to have a friend who understands what it’s like to be gay.”

“Oh,” Maki says. “Because you’re…?”

“I’m gay,” Fuma says. “Yeah.”

“That’s cool,” Maki says, nodding. “Super cool. Queer solidarity, am I right?”

Maki holds up a fist, and Fuma blinks at it for a second before he bumps it with his own. Fist bumping is not where he thought that would go, so entirely different from the rare other times he’s come out to someone, but…that kind of makes it nice. Of course it’s different. It’s queer bonding with a teammate.

“Okay, see? I was right to tell you,” Maki says. “You had the right vibe.”

“What vibe?”

“Um… the gay vibe?”

That makes Fuma’s heart rate accelerate all over again. The idea that someone can tell, even if that person is someone who uses the word pansexual to describe himself, is terrifying. He doesn’t want to be giving off gay vibes. He works hard not to give off gay vibes. He can’t be failing at that. He’s not. Is he? No, he can’t be.

Maki, unaware of Fuma’s internal spiral, keeps talking. “So you’re not dating Yudai, but do you have a boyfriend?”

“No,” Fuma says. He means to leave it at that, but somehow more words make it out of his mouth. “I did, but we broke up a while ago.”

“Me, too,” Maki says. “I mean, I’m not dating anyone, not that I ever had a boyfriend. I haven’t actually, like, dated someone since high school.”

“That’s kind of surprising,” Fuma says, his brain-to-mouth filter still apparently broken by the panic. “You seem like you’d be in high demand.”

Maki’s cheeks immediately colour a soft shade of pink. He ducks his head and then glances up at Fuma, lips pressed together to hold back a pleased smile. Fuma’s heart lurches. He probably shouldn’t have said that, but it’s nothing that’s not obvious.

“I dunno,” Maki says. “I was pretty busy playing hockey. Actually, I think I might be bad at making friends. Never really had any great ones when I played for the Giants, so I’m trying to do better here, but I don’t think I’m doing a good job.”

Fuma blinks in confusion. He hasn’t noticed Maki struggling to fit in on the team at all, and it’s not like he hasn’t been paying attention. Singer or one of the other As would have mentioned it, too, if they noticed.

“I mean, Wilcox is cool, it’s nice to have someone here my age,” Maki continues. “And I’m friendly with Matthew.”

It takes Fuma a second to place the name. “Matthew Seok? The trainer?”

Maki nods. “Did you know he’s from Vancouver? And he’s wicked funny.”

Fuma hadn’t known that even though Matthew has been on the Wolves’ staff for at least two seasons, which just seems like more evidence Maki isn’t as bad at making friends as he’s saying.

“But I guess I just don’t know how to get, like, close to anyone,” Maki continues. “What do you think I should do?”

Fuma can’t help the laugh that escapes him. “Sorry,” he says to Maki’s affronted expression. “I’m really not the best person to ask about this. But I don’t think you have to worry. Everyone likes you.”

Maki purses his lips in doubt, looking down at the beer he’s holding in his lap. “Okay, but… do you?”

Fuma frowns. “Of course,” he says. “Really, all you have to do is be yourself.”

This time Maki laughs, loud enough to startle Fuma. “Oh, wow. That’s what my mom said.”

“Moms,” Fuma says, nodding. “They’re always right.”

Maki laughs again. “Yeahhhhh. Yeah.” He takes a sip of his beer and then sighs. “I miss my mom.”

Fuma leaps at that topic of conversation. It feels way safer than anything to do with sexuality or making friends. “Yeah? Tell me about her. She must have been cool to move with you to Vancouver?”

This is definitely the right thing to say. Maki is obviously close with his parents and his brother and sister, and Fuma doesn’t have to say much at all to encourage him to keep talking about them.

“And then Pandy—oh, Pandy is our dog, we have a dog and two cats,” Maki is saying ten minutes and two new bottles of beer later.

“Full house,” Fuma observes.

“Yeah,” Maki says. “Pandy is such a little shit disturber, I love her. Last year we got her a cake for her birthday, and she—actually, I think I have a video, hold on.”

He digs his phone out of his pocket and flips through his gallery for a minute. “Okay, here,” he says, shifting closer on the bed so that he’s pressed up against Fuma’s side, practically in Fuma’s lap. Fuma is so distracted by the heat and weight of Maki’s body against his that it takes him a few seconds to actually focus his eyes on the video Maki is showing him.

In the video, Maki is holding a small dog with round eyes and a long snout. She’s wriggling in Maki’s arms and he’s laughing, his whole face scrunched up as she reaches up to lick his cheek. “Pandy,” Maki in the video says through his laughter, pointing to what must be a dog-appropriate cake on the floor in front of them. “Pandy, no, look.”

Pandy proceeds to wreak total havoc, knocking the cake over and running in circles around Maki, but Fuma barely notices. He’s too busy looking at Maki’s dimples. They’re almost as devastating as in real life.

“Cute,” Fuma murmurs, tearing his eyes away from the phone screen as the video ends, only to discover that Maki’s actual dimples are right there. He’s smiling fondly down at the phone. Fuma can feel the warmth of his breath against his cheek.

Fuma should move, but he doesn’t remember how to control his limbs. Maki looks up at Fuma and seems to realize how close they are, his eyes widening the slightest bit, but he doesn’t move back, either. Maki swallows, tongue slipping out to lick nervously at his lips, and Fuma’s eyes track the movement. The moment stretches on, the tension between them thickening.

“Have you ever kissed a guy before?” Maki asks, the words tripping out of his mouth.

Fuma blinks, jerking backward slightly. “Uh. Yes.”

Fuma didn’t move far enough at all. Maki sways closer, eyes dropping obviously to Fuma’s lips. “Oh,” he murmurs. “Right, duh. It’s just… I haven’t.”

That information does something to Fuma that he can’t acknowledge, a flood of heat in the pit of his stomach that he can’t address. He’s not looking at Maki’s lips anymore, but it doesn’t matter. The image of them slightly parted, pink and plush and kissable, is seared into his brain.

“I mean, I messed around with a guy once,” Maki continues. “But we didn’t, uh, get around to kissing.”

The heat in Fuma’s body flares as he pictures Maki in scenarios that he absolutely shouldn’t. He can’t believe how fast this escalated from cute family stories to… whatever this is. He has to put a stop to it. “It’s not that different from kissing a girl,” he says, working to keep his voice measured and indifferent.

Maki hums doubtfully. “I dunno about that,” he says. His eyes flick up to meet Fuma’s. “Maybe we should try it. We’re bonding, right? Kissing is great for bonding.”

For a split second, Fuma actually considers what it would be like if they did. In the next, he’s reaching out to forcibly take Maki’s beer bottle out of his hand.

“No more of this for you,” he says, shifting backwards to put distance between them. “We’re not kissing. That’s such a bad fucking idea.”

Maki pouts at him. “Why? It’s not like there are any other guys I can kiss.”

Fuma shakes his head. “You can’t go around hooking up with teammates,” he says. “It’s so dangerous for us. What if someone—”

He can’t even finish the sentence. It doesn’t matter; it’s clear from the way Maki’s expression drops that he knows exactly what Fuma means. Fuma feels nauseous, a sick combination of relief and regret twisting in his gut. He can’t help but wish… If things were different somehow, he would…

“Yeah,” Maki mumbles, putting even more space in between them. “You’re right. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Fuma says, getting to his feet and busying himself clearing up their abandoned beer bottles. “But it’s getting late. We should get some rest. Game tomorrow.”

Maki nods, dragging himself up as well. He sways a little, then steadies and flashes Fuma a smile. “This was nice, though,” he says. “Thanks, Murs.”

Fuma nods. He appreciates Maki’s use of his nickname, a clear attempt to put them back in the mindset of teammates, but it doesn’t quite work. He can still feel the ghost of Maki’s breath on his cheek.

“No problem, Mousey,” he says in return anyway. “Let’s crush ‘em tomorrow.”

“We will,” Maki says confidently.

They get ready for bed in silence save for some final murmured good nights. Fuma lies awake in the dark for a long time, mind jumping around to different parts of the conversation on repeat. He can hear Maki tossing and turning in the other bed, and he wonders if Maki regrets anything about what he said or did. He hopes not. He hopes they really did manage to bond, that it makes a difference for their game and that they don’t slide back into their awkwardness. He hopes they can keep this tentative friendship up, even if it can’t be anything more than what it is.

Because it can’t. He knows that.

He still falls asleep thinking of how Maki’s body felt pressed against his.

—

The magic is back. The Wolves win 4-1 the next day, and Maki is named first star of the game for his one goal and two assists. Fuma is second star with three assists, and they cross paths in the tunnel as Fuma is returning from his acknowledging loop on the ice and Maki is going out for his. Maki grins wide, holding up a fist for Fuma to bump. Fuma thinks of his smile in that video with Pandy and then of his face close to Fuma’s and then, promptly and definitively, of nothing at all. He fistbumps Maki and keeps walking.

It’s good. All they have to do is hang onto this, and that means not overthinking it. When Maki sits next to Fuma on the plane home and asks what Fuma is doing, Fuma doesn’t get annoyed by the interruption to his gaming time. He tells Maki all about his Pokémon game and tries not to think anything about how nice it is that Maki seems genuinely interested. When Maki is watching game tape in the living room, Fuma doesn’t join him in picking it apart. He gets him to turn it off and show Fuma his favourite anime instead, and he tries not to think about the space between them on the couch.

And when Maki finally cracks and complains about Fuma’s kitchen having no supplies other than a high-end blender and a shitty silicone spatula with a cut in it, Fuma doesn’t defend his “sacred smoothie zone,” as Maki deemed it. He drives them to a nice kitchen supply store and lets Maki pick out all the equipment and dishes he wants. He tries not to think about how they might look to someone happening upon them bickering in the aisles about the colour of the dish sets and the merits of stainless steel versus nonstick cookware. Like a couple, like two men building a home together instead of the roommates and coworkers they are. That they have to be.

Through it all, they keep playing well. The Wolves cement themselves solidly at the top of the division rankings over the next few weeks. Maki has an insane ability to read the ice, and Fuma’s game has never been better than it is when they’re working together to create opportunities. Fuma wonders, sometimes, what he’ll—what they’ll do when Maki is called up, and then he forces himself not to think about that, either.

Fuma almost manages to forget Halloween entirely. Because the Wolves usually play weekend games, it’s nearly two weeks after the actual date by the time they have a Friday evening free for the team’s annual Halloween party, which Kiara Wheeler, wife of alternate captain Ryan Wheeler, takes it upon herself to host with great enthusiasm. Fuma went his first season and was almost immediately overwhelmed. He’s only put in a short appearance, usually without a costume, every year since.

But this time, Maki was so obviously excited, and Fuma couldn’t bring himself to disappoint him. He let Maki pick out his costume, and he drove him over to Wheelsy’s cozy suburban house. Now he’s tucked himself into a corner of the basement, next to the wet bar that’s decorated to look like a potions lab with bright green mood lighting, to have a silent meltdown.

He clutches a cup of the non-alcoholic punch in one hand and his phone in the other to text Yudai.

You were right, he sends.

Across the room, Maki is in the middle of a game of flip cup. He’s facing away from Fuma, bent over slightly to shout encouragement at a woman on his team—Aiden Edwards’s new girlfriend?—as she attempts to flip her cup. The lighting on that side of the room is multicoloured, shifting to the beat of the song on the sound system, colours playing across the muscles of Maki’s back.

Fuma’s phone vibrates in his hand, and he tears his eyes away from Maki. I know! Yudai has responded. About what?

I’m in fucking trouble, Fuma answers. He follows it up with a picture he took shortly after they arrived of Maki posing with Socks, Venny, and Coxy. The four of them are dressed as Greek gods, nobody more devastatingly so than Maki.

Maki’s toga is knee-length, and the top of it is a mere strip of white fabric stretching diagonally across his muscular torso. He’s waxed bare, his skin shimmering with oil or highlighter or something Fuma can’t look too hard at. There are glittery-gold laurels in his hair, and he’s even wearing strappy sandals. He complained that he was freezing the entire way to Wheelsy’s house, turning the vents in the car to blast warm air on him even though the temperature outside is barely below freezing. Fuma chirped him about it to distract himself from how badly he wanted to touch him.

Yudai sends Fuma back a long string of laughing, blushing, and fire emojis. Oh wow, you are. A moment later, he adds, Wait, what are you wearing? Not in a sexting way 😘

Vampire costume, Fuma texts back. Maki lets out a loud cheer and throws his hands in the air after successfully flipping his cup. His toga slips off his shoulder, and Fuma’s eyes track his movements as he adjusts it. Fuck. Fuma drinks some of his punch even though it’s not alcohol and won’t help him deal with this.

Pics!! Yudai demands.

Fuma sighs and slips in the fake fangs Maki bought for him so he can take a selfie, angling the camera to capture the undone top buttons of his white shirt and the tasteful blood dripping from one corner of his mouth. Maki had applied it, leaning in close with his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Fuma’s only saving grace was that Maki hadn’t been wearing his costume yet.

And maybe that he’d promptly made a huge mess, getting fake blood all over Fuma’s neck, and then laughed uproariously about it. He tried to convince Fuma to keep it, but it was immediately itchy, and besides, Fuma insisted he was a classy vampire.

Cute! Perfect for biting a certain sexy Greek god!!

Not doing that, Fuma texts.

🥺🥺 But sweetieeeeee. You could at least tryyyyy. What if he’s just a repressed lil guy like you?

Fuma weighs his options as he watches Maki commiserate with his team after their apparent loss. He hasn’t told Yudai what happened in Austin, too busy carefully ignoring it and also considerate of Maki’s privacy. But Yudai is a locked vault, and Fuma really does try not to bottle things up when it comes to his best friend. He’s not great at it, but he tries.

He’s pan, he told me.

Yudai sends a string of exclamation points and then tries to call Fuma. Fuma rejects the call, but he might as well tell Yudai all there is to know before Yudai somehow finds Wheelsy’s address and comes to personally drag the information out of Fuma.

And then he wanted to kiss me and I told him no.

omfg. when was this???

When we were in Texas, Fuma answers.

The indicator that Yudai is typing is on, but Maki is bouncing across the room in Fuma’s direction. Fuma locks his phone and shoves it into his pocket. “Murs!” Maki says. “Murs, come play. Angela is bowing out, so we need another for our team.”

Fuma shakes his head. “I’m not drinking.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Maki says, grabbing Fuma’s hand and tugging him toward the table. “We just need you to flip.”

Fuma lets himself be propelled along, joining the rest of Maki’s team. “Yo, Mursy,” Aiden says. “We never see you at these things. You know how to play?”

Fuma shrugs. “Nah. What am I supposed to do?”

Fuma lets them demonstrate how to flip the cup for him a couple times before he nods and they line up to start the game. Maki is next to Fuma, his arm pressed against Fuma’s as they crowd together to fit at the table, which is fine. Nothing worth dwelling on. Fuma’s busy playing flip cup.

Fuma flips his cup on his first try every single time for the next three rounds, to raucous cheers and exclamations of surprise. “Rigged!” Socks insists when Fuma’s team beats them again, this time with Fuma as the last to drink and flip. “So fucking rigged, how are you so good at this!”

“Beginner’s luck,” Fuma says.

“No fucking way,” Venny argues.

“It is, it is!” Aiden insists loyally. “We just taught him!”

“They did,” Fuma agrees. “Here, if you need to win so bad, I’ll drink and flip for everyone on my team. No way I do it five times in a row, right?”

There’s some cross-talk and arguing about that, but it’s such an out-of-pocket offer that the other team takes Fuma up on it. Fuma catches Maki’s eye as he lines up in front of his first cup of punch and shoots him a wink. The corner of Maki’s lips twitch up in amusement.

Socks’s girlfriend Erika counts them in. “Three, two… go!”

One minute later, Fuma has flipped all five of his cups before the other team has even done two. His team is laughing and slapping his back as the other team stares from him to their untouched cups in dismay.

“Beginner’s luck my fucking ass,” Socks says.

Fuma drops the act. “I went to college for four years, unlike some of you losers,” he teases. “Did you really think I don’t know how to play flip cup?”

Everyone bursts into laughter and ohhhhh, Mursy, got ‘em! Maki puts an arm over Fuma’s shoulders and shakes him. “That’s my fuckin’ partner!” he crows in delight.

Fuma desperately wishes there was a word for being someone’s defense partner that wasn’t actually partner, because now he’s thinking of what else that could mean, and he shouldn’t be. The usual satisfaction that comes from fucking with his teammates is flooding through him, but there’s something else sitting warmly in the center of his chest. It takes him a second to realize that he’s specifically proud of having shown off in front of Maki.

Fuma wants to melt into a puddle underneath the table. He’s no better than a college kid with a crush.

The teams disperse, celebrations over and the game done. But Maki is still clinging to Fuma, his body solid against Fuma’s as he leans his weight onto Fuma’s back. The heat of him is bleeding through Fuma’s cape and shirt. Fuma’s skin is crawling, sweat building under his layers, the competing urges to pull away and to lean in keeping him stock still.

“Have you been drinking?” he asks Maki.

“Nah, nothing alcoholic,” Maki says, voice low in Fuma’s ear. “Kiara gave me a threatening look and said minors weren’t allowed to drink. She’s scary and it’s her house, so…”

So this is just Maki being clingy of his own volition, not alcohol-fueled at all. That same warmth in Fuma’s chest is spreading through his body, insisting that this is good, this is what he wants, while his brain screams that it can’t be happening here, that there’s danger in it. Nobody is looking and nobody would think twice, and there’s no way Maki actually means anything by it right now, but Fuma can’t.

“Socks is sulking over there,” Fuma says, nodding toward the couch that Socks has slumped onto. “You should go cheer him up.”

Maki scoffs. “He’s fine, Erika’s got him,” he says dismissively. He doesn’t move.

The loud music and chatter somehow amplifies in Fuma’s ears, the overstimulation he’s been tolerating abruptly not tolerable in the least. He can feel everywhere his clothes are touching his skin, worse where Maki is. He carefully slips out from under Maki’s weight.

“I’m just gonna…” he tries, but the words get stuck on the way to his mouth. He avoids Maki’s gaze. “Outside. For a minute.”

Maki nods, and Fuma makes his escape up the stairs to the ground floor and then out the front door. The cold air is a welcome shock, the night a silent and still contrast to the noise inside. Fuma takes a deep breath, his exhale fogging in the air as he leans against the side of the house.

That wasn’t graceful or subtle at all. Fuma should have stayed over by the drinks. He should have insisted on staying home. But he can’t not participate in team events just because he can’t stop thinking about Maki in ways that he shouldn’t. He can’t keep letting things get tangled up like this.

He takes another slow breath as he fumbles to undo the buttons at the cuffs of his shirt and roll the sleeves up, the action helping ground him. After another breath, he pulls his phone out of his pocket. Yudai has been busy in their text thread.

omg wasn’t that weeks ago?

I checked your team schedule and it WAS. You’ve been holding out on me!!!

And you didn’t kiss him?? Why not!

Fuma

Murata Fuma

Answer me

Unless you’re kissing him??

Please tell me you’re kissing him.

Fuma has to lock his phone for a second before he can even think of responding to that. His brain gives him a flash of a reality that can’t exist, one where Maki declares that’s my partner! and then kisses him in front of everyone and nobody cares. A nauseous sort of desire sticks in Fuma’s throat. It takes him a second to swallow it down.

I can’t kiss him.

Yudai must still be by his phone, because his answer is prompt. Why not?

You know why not, Fuma texts. Yudai reacts to his message with a thumbs down, and Fuma rolls his eyes. He’s just going to be leaving, anyway.

It’s a reminder to himself just as much as to Yudai. This is all temporary. Maki will be in the NHL as soon as the Hurricanes have space, and then the brass will wake up and realize what they’ve been missing out on, and Maki won’t be back. Fuma will carry on here for as long as he’s allowed, everything sorted into its neat boxes in his head, the confusion Maki caused forgotten.

Ugh! That’s all the more reason to have some fun.

Fuma shakes his head. Maybe that should be convincing, even would’ve been five minutes ago, but the cold air is clearing his mind, and he knows it’s not. He can’t take risks like that for something casual. It was hard enough when he tried to take the risk for something serious with Nicholas, and that didn’t end well.

Fuma doesn’t answer Yudai’s text. He stays outside long past when his skin stops crawling and he could probably stand to be inside again, trying to convince himself to go back in and failing.

The door creaks as it opens, and Fuma straightens as he looks over to see Maki slipping out. “Hey,” he says, pulling the door shut behind him. “Do you wanna head out?”

It’s been almost half an hour since Fuma ran away, but that’s still less than two hours that they’ve been here. “Don’t you want to hang out more?”

Maki shakes his head, wrapping his arms around himself to brace against the cold. “Nah, I’m good.”

Fuma frowns. It’s obvious that Maki’s only saying this because he knows Fuma was overwhelmed, even if he doesn’t know exactly why. Fuma doesn’t want to ruin Maki’s good time with his own shit. “You sure? I’ll come back in with you.”

“I’m sure,” Maki says. “Coxy’s messy drunk already, and Kiara caught him with the tequila. Vibes are kinda off.” He shivers, violently enough that Fuma hears his teeth clack. “Jesus, it’s cold out here. How have you not frozen?”

“I’m not half naked,” Fuma says. He’s pulling off his stupid little vampire cape and wrapping it around Maki before he can think twice about it. He does up the clasp at his neck for him, tugging it around Maki’s front and then rubbing Maki’s arms over the fabric. Maki’s breath audibly catches, and Fuma stops, glancing up at him.

This was a mistake. He can’t look away from Maki’s eyes. His hands are still on Maki’s biceps. The moment stretches on, Fuma’s mind tangling itself up again, and this time Fuma can’t blame it on the intensity of the room. The air is still and calm around them, the only heat coming from their bodies.

“And…” Fuma says, talking past the feeling of his heart beating in his throat. “It’s not that cold.”

“Ah, fuck off,” Maki murmurs.

Fuma laughs. “C’mon then,” he says, dropping his hands and taking a step back. “Let’s go home before you freeze to death.”

Maki blinks as if coming out of a stupor and then nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Let’s go.”

Fuma leads the way to his car in silence. He doesn’t think of what it would have been like to lean in and kiss Maki, to give in and slip his hands underneath the cape to finally touch Maki’s skin. He doesn’t think about how easy it would’ve been, because that’s a lie. Nothing about this is easy, no matter how much he wishes it was.

—

Things are normal after the Halloween party. Fuma is very careful to make sure that it stays that way: he still hangs out with Maki, spending most nights when they’re at home on the couch eating whatever Maki made for dinner and watching anime, but he makes sure there are no lingering looks or unnecessary touches. He drives Maki to the rink every day and trains with him, running drills until they could do them in their sleep. They continue to play beautiful hockey, much to Fuma’s relief and the satisfaction of their coach. Fuma is doing exactly what he’s supposed to as Maki’s roommate and mentor, nothing more and nothing less. It’s a tiring balancing act, but necessary for the sake of Fuma’s sanity.

Everything is totally normal, which is why it’s such a surprise when, a few weeks after the party, Fuma finds Maki crying in the living room.

It’s early on a Thursday morning, and Fuma is five minutes into his warmup in the building gym when he reaches for his water bottle and realizes he doesn’t have it with him. He stops the treadmill and takes the stairs back up to his apartment to keep his heart rate up. He beelines to the kitchen, spotting his water bottle right where he left it on the counter. He’s so focused on his task that he’s reaching for it before he even registers a sniffling noise.

He looks up to see Maki staring up at him from where he’s sitting on the edge of the couch in his running clothes, his eyes shiny and his cheeks wet. Fuma’s heart drops.

“Sorry,” Maki says quickly, scrubbing at his splotchy red face with the sleeve of his hoodie as he stands up. “Sorry, I’m just gonna—”

Maki tries to duck past Fuma, no doubt heading for his room, but Fuma steps into his path. “No, no,” he says, taking Maki by the arm and guiding him back to the couch. Maki goes easily, sitting down heavily next to Fuma, which makes Fuma even more concerned than he already was. “Are you okay?”

Maki sniffles again, and Fuma kicks himself. He rarely cries and has always been bad at talking to others when they’re crying, but even he knows that was a dumb question. Obviously Maki isn't okay. He tries again. “What happened?”

Maki shakes his head. “It’s stupid.”

Fuma can’t help the surge of relief at that. If Maki thinks it’s stupid, it's unlikely someone died or anything like that. He thought as much from Maki trying to run away, but it's good to confirm.

“I doubt that,” Fuma says as gently as he can.

“No, it really is,” Maki insists. “My sister sent me a video of Pandy, and I—” His voice cracks, and he puts his face in his hands. “Fuck, sorry.”

“Don’t be. Take your time.” Fuma waits, watching Maki with concern. He wants to touch Maki, to put a comforting hand on his back or something, but he can’t quite get his limbs to move. It would so clearly cross a line he drew in his head.

After a moment, Maki emerges from his hands. “It’s a cute video,” he says, voice still wavering. “Pandy, um, tucked herself into my bed. My sister thought it was funny. But… I just…” He shakes his head and chokes out, “I miss her. I miss my family, and I don’t have any friends here, and I’m so—”

Maki sniffs hard again, and Fuma’s limbs get over their hesitation. He puts an arm over Maki’s shoulders, and Maki immediately leans into Fuma’s side. He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m so fucking lonely,” he finishes. “Like, all the fucking time.”

Fuma can’t speak for a moment. His chest is hollow with regret. He had no idea Maki felt anywhere close to lonely. He thought Maki was doing well here. Maki is constantly smiling and laughing, which is why it’s so strange and unsettling to see him like this.

“I’m sorry,” Fuma manages finally. “I thought… Haven’t you been hanging out with Wilcox?”

Maki shrugs minutely, dabbing tears from his eyes with his sleeves. “He’s kind of an asshole,” Maki says. “The other day he told Linsy to stop being a pussy, and then I realized he’s, like, always saying shit like that. Which isn’t a surprise, but I don’t really wanna hear it more than I have to. Like, pussy today, homophobic slur tomorrow, you know?”

Fuma makes a sympathetic noise. It’s a problem he knows well, one he mostly deals with by telling his teammates to shut up when it goes too far and putting his head down otherwise. He’s never going to be able to change hockey culture on his own, and he doesn’t want to try. But he knows how hard it can be to live with it, and it's even harder to speak up, especially since Maki doesn’t have the kind of authority Fuma does to fall back on.

“And it’s not like I just gave up,” Maki says. “I thought maybe it would be cool to ask Matthew if he wanted to go for coffee or something, but he said he doesn’t have a lot of time outside of work to spare, which is totally fair. He was so fucking nice about it I can’t even be that mad, but. I dunno, it just…” He inhales shakily. “It sucks. Wilcox is a jerk, you and Matthew don’t like me enough to hang out with me when it’s not your job, and I can’t even pet my dog about it.”

Maki’s voice gets more hysterical as he goes on, and the hurt in Fuma’s chest sharpens to match. He should have realized this was happening. Maki even told him before that he was struggling to make friends, and Fuma thought he did a decent job being supportive. He wants so badly to go back in time and say the right thing, or to say something that will fix it now, but he knows that’s impossible. He can’t change Maki’s circumstances.

But there’s one thing Maki said that Fuma knows definitively isn’t true. At least he can tell Maki that much.

“I like you. I like hanging out with you.”

Maki makes a doubtful noise, pulling away from Fuma slightly. Fuma lets his arm drop, withdrawing to give Maki space. “Then why have you been avoiding me?” Maki asks, his voice unfathomably small. He’s staring at the rug at his feet instead of looking at Fuma. “I’m not stupid. You’re always finding excuses to lock yourself in your room or to go talk to Singer at the rink or whatever.”

Fuma opens his mouth, ready to protest, and finds he can’t. The pain in his chest sinks into his stomach, stabbing him in the gut. He really thought Maki hadn’t noticed. He didn’t even think he was doing so much that there was something to notice.

“I’m sorry. That’s not… That’s about me, not you. I like you,” he repeats, a desperate edge to his tone. He likes Maki too much, if he’s honest, but he can’t say that. “I just haven’t lived with a teammate in years, and I’m so used to being alone that I’ve made a total mess of it. I really didn’t mean for it to come across like that.”

Maki glances sideways at Fuma. “Huh,” he says slowly. “I guess you seem so much like you have it all together that I assumed it had to be intentional.”

Fuma snorts. “Me? Together?”

“Yes?” Maki says uncertainly.

Fuma shakes his head. “Let me tell you a secret,” he says. “I miss my family, too. Don’t tell Yudai, but my mom is actually my best friend.”

Maki is looking at Fuma fully now, surprise written all over his face. “You don’t really talk about your family, though?”

Fuma shrugs. “It’s kind of… hard. My parents are so far away, and there’s nothing I can really, um… do. About that. Maybe it would be different if I could see them more often, but I can only afford my flight home every summer. And it’s my own fault for moving far away in the first place. My parents support me, but it’s not like it was their first choice to have their son move to the States to play hockey and then never come home the way he promised he would.”

Maki has stopped crying entirely, no longer sniffling or tearing up. He's looking at Fuma like he's seeing him with new eyes. It encourages Fuma to keep talking.

“I miss Shizuoka, too. I miss always being able to see Mt. Fuji and being able to order green tea and know it’ll actually taste good. And fuck, I miss good seafood. Sometimes I think I’d kill for quality sashimi. I should never have moved to this stupid landlocked state.”

Maki laughs at that, and Fuma smiles wryly at him. “I guess I’m just trying to say that I get it,” he says. “It sucks.”

Maki takes that in for a moment before he speaks again. “I’m really close with my mom, too,” he says. “I mean, I guess I kinda mentioned it before, but I really can talk to her about anything. Like, when I figured out I was pan, she was the first person I told. I know she’s always there to support me, and I guess I just…didn’t realize how much I was leaning on that support.”

Fuma nods in what he hopes is an understanding manner. He's not sure if he manages it, because even the thought of coming out to a parent has Fuma's pulse spiking, his body threatening to break into a cold sweat. It must be nice for Maki to have felt comfortable doing that. Fuma’s never had the guts. He’s never had a relationship serious enough to make it worth the potential rejection.

He’s saved from having to respond normally to that by Maki asking, “Does it ever get any better?”

Fuma considers it, trying to remember how he felt when he was Maki’s age. He’d been halfway through university, living his dream, trying to soak up every minute of an experience he thought would end after two more years on his student visa. He had his own struggles with fitting in on his team and making friends, but he’s always been a more solitary person. He doesn’t think the loneliness or homesickness ever hit him as hard as it’s hitting Maki.

Still, this has an obviously correct answer. “I think so,” he says. “I think you get used to it, and you find things you’d miss here, too. I miss my friends in Chicago when I’m in Shizuoka for the summer.”

Maki nods. “I guess that makes sense. Just kinda feels like I’ll never have a friend again.”

“You will,” Fuma says firmly. He’s sure about that; he can’t imagine people not wanting to be friends with Maki, to be near him and soak up his positive energy. “I’m your friend. And… I’ll introduce you to my friends.”

He should have offered to do that way sooner. The guilt at having neglected it is gnawing at him, even though he had good reason. He likes having his friends separate from his work life, and introducing them to Maki is the opposite of keeping everything in its proper place. But Fuma lost sight of the way that, Fuma’s attraction to him aside, Maki already doesn’t fit neatly into the box with everything else hockey-related. It’s the same way Fuma stands out on a team of men who grew up in North America or Europe.

Besides, Fuma can't get Maki’s tear-stained face out of his head. He'll do whatever he can to try to prevent Maki from being that sad again. Even now, Maki’s face is cautiously brightening. “You will?”

Fuma nods. “They’re all foreigners, too,” he says. “And they’ll definitely like you.”

“You’d do that for me?” Maki says, still hesitant but undoubtedly hopeful.

“Of course,” Fuma says firmly. He thinks about adding something encouraging, telling Maki everything will work out or to hang in there, but it all feels so trite. Instead, he squeezes Maki’s shoulder and says, “I was gonna go run on the treadmill for a bit. Wanna come with?”

Maki thinks about it for a moment before he shakes his head. “I think I’d rather run outside,” he says. “Clear my head.”

Fuma raises an eyebrow. It’s properly cold outside these days, especially this early and especially for someone who’s already complaining that Chicago winters are too cold for him, but he understands the urge. “Okay,” he says. “But you’re always welcome to come join me in the gym. I’d be happy to work out with you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, thanks,” Maki says, flashing Fuma a smile. It’s not his usual big grin, barely a suggestion of his dimples on his cheeks, but it’s something. It makes Fuma feel like maybe he’ll be able to fix this thing he accidentally fucked up.

—

Fuma sends an SOS in his friends’ sporadically-used group chat as soon as Maki leaves on his run, asking them if they can clear their schedules on his and Maki’s next evening off.

Please, he adds after a second. I really think he could use some good friends.

He leaves his phone in his room while he goes to finish his workout, intent on getting out the excess energy and emotion that built up in his body. By the time he’s back, he has a slew of messages cooing about how Fuma must really love them to be saying they're good friends out loud (Yudai), exclaiming over Fuma introducing them to a teammate for the first time ever (Nicholas), asking where they’re planning to go to hang out (Euijoo), drooling over Maki’s roster picture (Yuma), and agreeing to make sure they’re free (all of them).

There’s also a separate text from Nicholas. Seriously, this is weird for you. You okay?

Fuma responds to that one first. Yes, but Maki wasn't, so… just trying to make up for not being a good friend to him.

Nicholas reacts with a heart emoji before Fuma has even switched back to the group chat. Fuma replies to Euijoo’s message, idk. Any ideas?

We could hit a bar? Nicholas suggests.

Can’t, Maki is 20, Yudai says.

omgggg a babyyyy, Yuma chimes in.

Yudai reacts with a thumbs down. You’re one to talk.

Dinner then? Euijoo says. We don’t have to drink.

Nahhh let’s do something more interactive~, Yuma texts.

Like what babe, Nicholas asks.

Idk! Yuma says. Then, a second later, Bowling??? I always say you see a man’s true character when he’s wearing janky borrowed shoes.

When the hell have you ever said that??? Yudai asks. Yuma reacts with a thumbs down.

Bowling is cute! 🤠🎳 Euijoo messages. Let’s do that!!

That’s how they find themselves at a bowling alley on a Tuesday night, wearing janky borrowed shoes and watching Nicholas slowly bait Yudai into a fit of rage.

“Want me to set up the bumpers?” Nicholas asks when Yudai bowls a ball that slips into the gutter at the last second. “We can! There’s no shame in it.”

“No, screw you,” Yudai says. He hasn’t been bowling badly at all, but Fuma has never once seen him take second place gracefully. He lines up his second shot, which veers into the gutter on the opposite side this time. He turns around, a storm on his face even before Nicholas makes a sympathetic noise. He puts up a warning finger. “Don’t even.”

Nicholas makes a face like who, me?, only to hop to his feet when Yudai is collecting his ball and crowd up behind him. “Here, let me show you,” he says. “Your stance is all wrong, you have to—”

Yudai elbows Nicholas in the ribs. “I know how to bowl!”

“I love when they do this,” Yuma says, leaning across the table to talk to Maki. “Yudai is so easy.”

“I can hear you!” Yudai calls from where he and Nicholas are locked in a battle of trying to step on each other’s feet.

“I know, sweetheart!” Yuma calls back. He rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, and Maki cracks up. Fuma’s chest feels light. Maki has been laughing a lot this evening, and that’s exactly what Fuma wanted to see.

Maki was so nervous on the way there that it made Fuma nervous as well. Maki was stressing about his outfit while Fuma tried ineffectually to tell him it didn’t matter, and by the time they arrived, he'd almost convinced himself it might be better if they turned around and went home. But Nicholas fixed Maki’s problem by immediately complimenting Maki’s style and asking where he got his hat, and that was enough to break the tension. Since then, Fuma's friends have been just as welcoming and curious and fun as he knew they would be.

Yudai manages to pry himself away from Nicholas and bowls his last ball, unfortunately only managing to knock down the three pins at the edge.

“Thought you knew how to bowl?” Nicholas says with faux innocence. Yudai levels him with a disgusted look and then excuses himself to the bathroom.

To Fuma's surprise, Maki gets up from his chair at the same time as Yuma. He wonders for a second if Maki forgot whose turn was next, but Maki lingers by Nicholas after Yuma has already smacked Nicholas's ass and passed by on his way to pick up his bowling ball. He leans down slightly to whisper in Nicholas's ear, and Nicholas listens attentively, a smile slowly spreading across his face.

It's a strange sensation for Fuma, watching his teammate talk to his ex. It should be disorienting, two parts of his life that he’s kept carefully separate for so long finally colliding, but to his surprise, it doesn’t feel bad at all. The fact that he doesn’t feel weird about it is almost weirder than the situation itself.

Nicholas and Maki go off somewhere, giggling to each other, and return with one of the ramps kids use to direct the ball when they can't throw yet. They're both leaning against it when Yudai returns from the bathroom.

Maki grins wide at Yudai. “Thought this might help on your next turn?”

“Ohhh,” Yudai says, the word culminating in an annoyed growl as he stalks toward them. “Not you, too!”

Thankfully for Nicholas and Maki, Euijoo gets in between them and Yudai, stopping him short of picking up a bowling ball with murderous intent. “No weapons for you,” he says gently, taking Yudai's hands and steering him back to their seats. Yudai is still seething, his face pink, but he lets Euijoo guide him into a chair on the other side of the table from Fuma, and he wraps his arms around Euijoo when he sits on his lap.

Yudai glares at Nicholas and Maki over Euijoo's shoulder before shifting his gaze to Fuma. “Your roommate is a menace,” he mutters.

Fuma shrugs, unable to tear his eyes away from Maki. He and Nicholas are losing their shit, feeding into each other's laughter as they practically hold each other up. Fuma keeps waiting to feel weird about that, sure it's going to happen any minute now, but the feeling never comes. He's just… pleased. It feels good to see two people he likes getting along, even if it's at Yudai's expense.

“You encourage it,” Fuma points out, managing to spare Yudai a brief glance. “Wouldn’t be funny if you didn’t react.”

Yudai huffs and busies himself with squishing Euijoo’s cheeks like his own personal stress ball. Nicholas and Maki recover from their laughing fit, and Maki skips back over to the table and flops back into the chair next to Fuma. Fuma smiles helplessly at him.

“Having fun?” he asks.

Maki beams. “Yeah! This is great!”

“Everyone being nice?” Fuma asks. Then, considering, he adds, “To you?”

Maki laughs. “Yeah, definitely. It’s nice to see Yudai again and actually get to talk to him. I still can’t believe he’s an economics professor.”

Fuma snorts. It's a good thing Yudai is too wrapped up in Euijoo to be listening, because Fuma knows exactly the aggrieved rant that comment would trigger. “And your reaction to learning that was to antagonize him?” he teases.

“Looked fun,” Maki says, shrugging unrepentantly. “What’s he gonna do, lecture me about supply and demand?” Fuma laughs, and Maki grins. “It’s cool to meet Euijoo, too. He and Yudai seem like a great match.”

Fuma glances over at Euijoo, who’s still patiently letting Yudai knead his face like playdough. “Mhm,” he says. “They really are.”

“Euijoo gave me, like, five recs for places I should go to try to meet people,” Maki says. “He said he’d go with me, too.”

That sounds like classic Euijoo, earnest and attentive to a fault. Fuma isn’t surprised that he took Fuma’s request seriously enough to do homework about it. “Gonna try any of them?” he asks.

“Maybe,” Maki says. He leans closer, his shoulder brushing Fuma’s, and Fuma forgets what he was going to say in response to that. He leans into Maki in return, tilting his head to hear Maki’s lowered voice. “So, uh… question.”

Fuma hums, his traitorous heart beating far too quickly.

“Nicholas and Yuma are, like, dating, right?”

Fuma follows Maki’s gaze to the two in question, watching as Nicholas lifts a bowling ball and flexes, showing off while Yuma blatantly feels up his arms. He snorts a laugh. “Yeah.”

“Right, okay, I thought so,” Maki says, straightening slightly. Fuma is still intensely aware of the scant distance between their arms. “But then Yuma was flirting with everyone, including me, so I thought I’d check.”

That makes an ugly, irrational feeling, the kind Fuma would have expected when Maki was talking to Nicholas, twist in Fuma’s chest. It takes all his willpower to ignore the intense urge to ask Maki if he wanted Yuma to be flirting with him.

“To be honest,” Maki continues, saving Fuma from his own thoughts, “I thought Nicholas and Yuma were kinda scary at first. But turns out they’re really nice, too.”

Fuma nods. He knows what Maki means—Nicholas is always meticulously put-together and has an intimidatingly pretty face, and Yuma’s many piercings and tattoos can make him look standoffish. But they’re both quick to smile and very sweet when they’re not being menaces, so Fuma wasn’t too worried about it.

There’s a crashing sound as all the bowling pins fall, and Nicholas and Yuma whoop happily. “Strike, baby!” Nicholas crows, throwing his hands up as he turns back toward them. “See, Yudai? That’s how it’s fuckin’ done.”

“You little—” Yudai threatens, trying to stand up and failing, Euijoo’s weight keeping him securely in his chair.

Euijoo pats Yudai’s shoulders reassuringly and shoots a look at Nicholas. “Nichol,” he whines. “Stop teasing him!”

Nicholas says something in response to that, but Fuma doesn’t hear it, because Maki says, under his breath, “Wait… Nichol… Nicole?” and then looks at Fuma with wide eyes, like he didn’t mean to say that at all.

Fuma raises his eyebrows. “Nicole?” he prompts, suspicious that he knows exactly where this is going. There’s a particular lie he told his teammates in the aftermath of his breakup, a cover story that brought him equal parts relief to have shared something true and guilt to have lied about something that matters.

Maki’s cheeks colour slightly. “Uhhhh,” he says. “I may have been, um, asking what people knew about you… and Edwards mentioned you had an ex named Nicole.” He cringes. “That was before you, y’know, told me. About you.”

The sick feeling fades, replaced by something lighter and fizzier. Fuma tilts his head. “You asked people about me?”

“Well, yeah,” Maki says. “It’s not like you really talk about yourself, so…”

Fuma probably shouldn’t be so pleased by that. It’s a totally normal thing for someone to do when faced with a new roommate. But in combination with the fact that he already knows Maki wanted to kiss him… It paints a picture Fuma can’t help but like, even though he’s the one who’s been drawing back from it at every turn.

“I didn’t know Nicholas was your ex, though,” Maki says quietly. “He is, right?”

Fuma nods, and Maki wilts. “Ugh, damn. Sorry, is it weird that I’ve been mostly sticking with him tonight? I feel kinda bad now.”

“What? No, not weird at all,” Fuma says in alarm. "You don’t have to feel bad. I brought you here so you could make friends, including him. I’m glad you’re getting along.”

Maki studies Fuma’s face for a moment. He must read Fuma’s sincerity there, because he nods. “Thank you,” he says after a second. “I know this wasn’t easy. Your friends are really cool, so I get why you’re protective of them.”

Fuma shrugs. “It wasn’t a problem.”

Maki presses his lips together and shakes his head. “I know that it was,” he says firmly. “Just let me say thank you.”

Maki puts a hand on Fuma’s thigh and squeezes, and Fuma’s mind goes blank. It takes him a second to reboot enough to respond. “You’re welcome.”

Maki smiles at him, giving his thigh one more squeeze before he gets to his feet and goes off to talk to Yuma. Fuma sits there, staring after him, unable to move. His thigh is tingling where Maki was touching it, his heart thudding against his rib cage. He can’t believe the intensity with which his body is betraying him.

“You know,” Yudai says, drawing the word out too long. Fuma looks over to see that both Yudai and Euijoo are looking at him with amused expressions. Yudai’s gaze drops pointedly to where Maki’s hand just was. “This is basically a triple date.”

That did, in fact, occur to Fuma earlier, when they’d all arrived and Fuma was faced with the reality of his coupled-up friends. He usually deliberately ignores that he’s the odd man out, and he was certainly intentionally pretending he never thought of the triple date thing. He feels as though he’s been riding a dizzying rollercoaster through his emotions, up and down, nervous and excited and jealous and happy, all of it tied to a desire it’s getting harder and harder to ignore.

Euijoo smacks Yudai in the shoulder. “Stop meddling,” he chastises. “This is a wholesome friendship night.”

Fuma nods emphatically. That’s true. Wholesome friendship was the goal, and it’s undoubtedly been accomplished. Fuma should be counting this night as a win. He is counting it as a win.

If it aches a little to see Maki smiling and laughing with his friends and to know it’s not quite under the circumstances that Fuma really, truly wants? That’s fine. It’s nothing Fuma can’t tolerate.

—

Fuma does what he always does when he’s faced with something he doesn’t want to think about: he throws himself into hockey. It’s not as easy as it could be, not when Fuma is also taking special care to hang out with Maki as much as Maki wants, but Fuma manages. If he’s tired from extra gym time after grueling practices and long monitoring sessions after playing intense hockey games on back-to-back nights, then he can’t think thoughts that aren’t allowed about Maki. That’s exactly how he likes it.

It’s a non-descript Thursday evening, and Fuma is on his way home from the rink after an extended personal training session and massage. He double checks the time as he’s heading up the elevator, satisfied to see that he won’t be late for dinner. Maki checked in at practice that morning to be sure Fuma would be home for it, as he often does, and Fuma promised he would.

The apartment is pleasantly warm when Fuma lets himself in, a welcome change to the cold drafts in the building’s hallways. It smells good, too, sweet vanilla floating through the air. Fuma wonders if Maki decided to switch out the diffuser scent.

Fuma wanders into the kitchen to find that’s not the case. Instead, it’s clear Maki’s been baking: all the available counter space is covered in dirty dishes and what looks like half the contents of the pantry. Maki is at the center of the chaos, facing away from Fuma and inspecting something on the counter that Fuma can’t see.

Maki can be a bit chaotic in the kitchen, but this is more of a mess than Fuma’s ever seen him make. Fuma lingers quietly for a moment, looking around the room for further clues, and realizes that the rarely-used dinner table is set. Interesting.

“What’s happening here?” Fuma asks.

Maki whirls around in surprise. “Oh, fuck, you’re early,” he says. “Taki, I gotta go.”

“Good luck!” a distant voice says from Maki’s phone where it’s propped up on a container of flour. Maki picks it up and ends the call he was on, then frowns down at the screen.

“Okay, you’re not early,” he says, looking up at Fuma and smiling wryly. “I’m behind. But only a little!”

Fuma blinks slowly at him. “Behind on… what?”

“I made you a present,” Maki says. He steps to the side and gestures to neat rows of canelés on a cooling rack. Fuma stares at them, uncomprehending. Maki made those? For… him?

“And dinner is almost ready, too,” Maki continues. “It’s the steak you said you liked last month. I just need to boil the udon noodles to go with it, and then we can eat.”

Fuma did like that steak. Maki did something with the seasoning that Fuma’s literally had dreams about since. But what reason does Maki have to be making all of Fuma’s favourites? Next he’s going to say—

“I made that salad you’re obsessed with, too,” Maki says. “Didn’t want you to get on me about the lack of vegetables.”

“You have to eat a well-rounded meal,” Fuma says automatically. “Maki, what…”

Maki smiles at him. “Happy birthday,” he says.

There’s a long, awkward silence, both of them staring at each other. Maki’s smile slowly slips off his face as Fuma blinks at him. “It’s not…” Fuma starts, and then he abruptly snaps his mouth shut, the memory of that night in Austin coming back to him. Maki asked when his birthday was, and Fuma lied. “Oh. It’s December… 18th?”

“Which isn’t your birthday,” Maki concludes. “I fucking knew it. But I just thought, you know, what if it is and I didn’t do anything? I’d feel terrible.”

Fuma’s heart is melting. This is one of the sweetest things anyone has ever done for him. There are canelés. Fuma loves canelés. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “You didn’t have to do all this. Even if it was my birthday, I wouldn’t have expected…”

Fuma gestures helplessly. Maki shrugs. “Well, too bad,” he says, tucking his phone in the pocket of his black gingham apron and coming over to Fuma. He spins him around by the shoulders and starts herding him toward the dinner table. “Sit down. We’re having dinner.”

“Wait,” Fuma says, trying to turn back around and unable to get out of Maki’s grip. “I want to eat a canelé.”

“No, they’re too hot,” Maki says, pushing Fuma gently into a chair. “You can wait.”

Maki takes both the plates with him when he goes back into the kitchen, leaving Fuma alone to stare at the rest of the meticulously set table. Maki found the nice placemats and cloth napkins, and there’s something sparkly strewn over the tablecloth. Fuma reaches out to pick one up and discovers it’s confetti in the shape of silver script spelling out ‘happy birthday’. It’s the kind you can buy at the dollar store, totally incongruous with the more mature vibes of the table settings and the candles neatly arranged in the center.

Fuma puts his face into his hands for a moment, overwhelmed by how charmed he is.

It takes until Maki turns off the bright lights of the kitchen and returns with their plates loaded with food for Fuma to realize exactly how romantic this set up is. The only light left is the soft lamps from the living room and the flickering of the candles. When Maki sets down the plates and sits down across from him, it’s easy to imagine they’re in a fancy restaurant instead of at Fuma’s dining room table. Maki is even dressed up a little, apron removed to reveal a dark blue button down, the hint of a silver necklace peeking out from undone buttons.

Fuma has no idea how he’s supposed to stop himself from having the thoughts that aren’t allowed in this situation. He wonders if Maki did that on purpose. He must have. It seems impossible that it would be accidental.

Fuma looks down at his plate instead of considering what Maki’s goal might be. “This looks amazing,” he says. “Thank you for the food. Let’s eat.”

Maki waits for Fuma to dig in first, which Fuma does, making appreciative noises. The steak is somehow even better than the last time, and the sauce on the noodles has the exact combination of umami and spice that Fuma loves. Fuma heaps praise on Maki, drinking in the sight of his pleased smile.

“Wait, so,” Fuma says, a thought occurring to him halfway through chewing a bite of steak. He swallows and continues. “I know how you knew I like all of this, but have I ever mentioned canelés before?”

“Ah, no,” Maki says. “I, um—”

He cuts himself off, and Fuma raises an eyebrow. “You what?”

Maki grimaces awkwardly. “I asked Nicholas for your favourite.”

“Oh,” Fuma says. He was expecting something weirder from Maki's reaction, but that's so unbearably thoughtful that Fuma has to take a sip of his water to recover. “Did you tell him why?” he wonders aloud as he’s setting his glass down.

“Yes, I—” Realization dawns on Maki’s face. “That jerk. He knows when your birthday is, doesn’t he.”

Fuma bursts out laughing, unable to help himself. That’s such a deeply Nicholas thing to do. “Yeah, he does.”

“Wow,” Maki says, shaking his head. “Fuck, and there’s rum in canelés, and he made me jump through hoops to get him to buy some for me, even though it was his idea. Oh my God. I’m not grateful for the new friend anymore. I’m gonna block him.”

“Sorry,” Fuma says, the effect of the apology lost in his inability to stop snickering. “Nicholas does have personality traits that don’t involve fucking with people, but…”

Maki sighs. “Ugh, no, I know. He’s cool, he’s been really good to talk to about stuff. I won’t block him.”

Fuma nods. He wonders what Maki is talking to Nicholas about, but he doesn’t want to press. It’s enough to know that Fuma’s efforts to introduce him to his friends are paying off.

“Actually,” Maki says after a few minutes of companionable eating. “I was kind of wondering… I mean, you really don't have to tell me this, it's none of my business, but…”

“What?” Fuma asks, curious what has Maki nervous rambling.

“It's just, since Nicholas is so cool, and, um, you're still friends and everything. I wondered. Why did you break up?”

Fuma winces involuntarily. His first instinct is to dodge the question, but he kind of feels like he owes Maki. It’s not that long of a story, anyway.

“He didn’t really love being a secret,” Fuma says. “And how often I’m out of town on the weekends was hard, too, plus being gone for weeks in the summer… I don’t know. It sort of felt inevitable.”

“How long were you together?”

“Not quite a year,” Fuma says, unable to keep the edge of bitterness out of his tone. It was his longest relationship, and they didn’t even get to celebrate their anniversary. Fuma doesn’t have a lot of regrets when it comes to Nicholas, not that he hasn’t made peace with, but that one still stings a bit. It was the one time he let himself think maybe he could have something long term, and it crashed and burned.

“That sucks,” Maki says.

Fuma shrugs. “It is what it is.”

“And it sucks,” Maki repeats.

Fuma hesitates for a second before he nods. He looks down, rearranging his food on his plate as emotions he hasn’t examined in a while float up to the surface. He doesn’t talk about this much, doesn’t really have anyone to talk about it with other than Yudai, but he finds words coming to him without invitation.

“Nicholas deserved better,” he admits. “We used to joke that he’d make a great WAG, especially because I actually met him at Massey’s ex-girlfriend’s art show opening. He said he would design cute playoff jackets. It was funny until we actually made the playoffs, and then… it wasn’t so much.”

“Oh, fuck, yeah,” Maki says. “Did the WAGs actually make jackets that season?”

Fuma shakes his head. “No, we didn’t make it out of the first round. I wasn’t exactly happy to lose, but…”

“It would have sucked if he couldn’t be there when you won.”

“Yeah,” Fuma says. “It wasn’t fair to him.”

Maki hums sympathetically, and they both go back to eating. Fuma’s almost forgotten the last thing he said when Maki says, “Or to you.”

“Hm?”

“It wasn’t fair to you, either,” Maki says. “It’s not fair that this sport is so…” He makes a frustrated noise. “It must have been hard for you to keep him a secret.”

Fuma ducks his head. It’s not that it wasn’t hard, but he’s been keeping his life separated into pieces for so long that it didn’t feel like it. It felt too easy sometimes, which was something Nicholas never really understood.

“But I mean,” Maki continues thoughtfully, almost as if to himself, “I guess it’s easy to never talk about it, when that’s what you’ve always done. I know I came out to you pretty fast, but like…that was different. It’s not like I could bring it up to the room or something. Not the way some guys do when they got laid the night before or whatever.”

Fuma nods, taking a moment to appreciate that Maki understands without Fuma having to explain. “To be fair, I don’t think I’d do that even if I did pick up women. Sometimes we learn way too much.”

“Fuck, true,” Maki says, groaning. “Remember that girl Venny met up with in Grand Rapids?”

“Wish I didn’t,” Fuma says.

Maki laughs. “Same,” he says. “But sometimes it can be cute. Like, when Aiden first met Angela and he was down bad as fuck? I’ve never seen a guy stare into the distance and sigh so much before.”

Just like that, the conversation shifts easily to something less fraught, both of them laughing and cringing at gossip about their teammates as they eat. Somewhere in the course of the conversation, Maki’s leg bumps against Fuma’s under the table. He moves it away, but Fuma can still feel the ghost of it, and instead of putting more distance between them, he lets his good mood buoy him into knocking his leg into Maki’s in return—just once. Once isn’t playing footsie.

And it’s not really footsie when Maki shifts so their ankles are pressing together, either. He smiles at Fuma, a small, hesitating thing, and Fuma smiles back and continues their conversation like nothing is happening.

Their ankles stay like that, resting against each other, until the food is gone and the conversation comes to a lull. Maki stretches his arms over his head, shaking out his limbs, and then says, “Okay, ready for dessert?”

Fuma perks up. He’s full, but never so full that he can’t eat a canelé. “Absolutely.”

He misses the warmth of Maki’s ankle against his when Maki gets up. He stands as well, following Maki to the kitchen even as Maki gives him a look. “I was gonna bring it to you.”

“Sue me for being excited,” Fuma says. “I didn’t even know you could bake.”

Maki grimaces slightly. “I’m not sure I can, these were kinda complicated. You have to let me try one first in case I totally fucked it up.”

The canelés look fine, but Fuma obeys anyway, watching as Maki picks one up and takes a tentative bite. He inspects the inside of the cake as he chews, squinting in the dim light, before he finally hums in satisfaction. “I think it’s good!” he says, mouth still half full. “Here.”

He holds out the rest of the canelé to Fuma, and Fuma leans in before he can think twice about it, opening his mouth expectantly. Maki’s eyes widen, but he gamely feeds Fuma. Fuma’s lips brush Maki’s thumb as they close around the canelé, and Maki takes a sharp breath in. Fuma’s eyes flick up to meet Maki’s and get stuck there, both of them holding their breath. Fuma is so, so aware of how close they’re standing in this dimly lit kitchen. Maki’s fingers are still hovering by Fuma’s mouth.

Fuma looks away. He bites down on the canelé in his mouth, the coating cracking in the satisfying way he’s obsessed with and the custard flooding Fuma’s mouth with sweetness. It’s perfect.

And Maki made it for him. Fuma can’t get over it.

When he risks making eye contact again, Maki has dropped his hand back to his side and is watching Fuma, nerves obvious on his face. Fuma slowly chews, savouring the canelé and trying to figure out how to properly thank Maki. In the end, all he manages is, “It’s really good. Thank you.”

Somehow that’s enough to make Maki beam at him. “You’re welcome,” Maki says softly. “I was hoping you’d like it.”

Fuma nods. His heart is beating far too fast. “I think I might eat three more right now.”

Maki’s smile somehow gets even bigger. Fuma’s body is betraying him the same way it did in the bowling alley, but this time he can’t remind himself they’re in public. He’s consumed by the urge to walk Maki back against the counter and kiss his dimples and then his mouth, and there’s nothing stopping him from doing it except himself. He knows exactly what Maki would taste like: rum and vanilla, sweet on Fuma’s tongue.

Fuma clears his throat and takes a step backward, putting him closer to the sink. The dishes. The kitchen is a wreck. Fuma can do something about that. “I’ll do the dishes first,” he says. “You shouldn’t have to worry about these.”

“I’d say no, but since it’s not actually your birthday, be my guest,” Maki says, amused. “I’ll still help clear up, though, get some of this put away.”

“Oh, you don’t have to.”

Maki puts a hand on Fuma’s arm as he slips past him, briefly squeezing. “I know,” he says cheerfully. “Might as well make it go faster.”

Maki flips on the kitchen lights, and Fuma starts to fill the sink, gathering and stacking the closest dishes. The bright lights and straightforward task don’t shock him back into reality as much as he wants them to. His mind is still sitting at the table with his ankle pressed against Maki’s, watching candlelight flicker across his face. He can still taste canelé, his lips still burning where Maki touched them.

It’s not a good idea, he reminds himself as he scrubs a frying pan clean. He has to reach for the reasons, but each scrub of the pan brings them back. Maki is temporary. Fuma is his mentor. Their careers are on the line. It would never work out.

Maki comes up behind Fuma, reaching around him to slip a measuring cup into the sink, and all of Fuma’s rational thoughts go flying out of his head, replaced by forbidden ones. Fuma can feel the extra height Maki has on him, the way he cages him in with one hand resting lightly on Fuma’s waist, there and then…

Not quite gone. Maki lingers, and Fuma imagines he’s planning to stay. He thinks about how easy it would be to tilt his head to the side, to expose his neck in invitation for Maki to kiss him there. He thinks about Maki gripping his waist firmly, pressing him against the counter and holding him there. He thinks about Maki slipping one hand into his pants, reaching around to find Fuma hard and waiting.

In reality, the only point of contact is Maki’s fingers. The heat Fuma can feel is radiating from Maki’s body, not pressed up against him. Maki ducks his head closer, his breath warm on Fuma’s neck when he murmurs, “You know…”

Fuma waits, but Maki doesn’t say anything else, and neither of them move. The moment stretches on until Fuma makes a questioning noise, high in the back of his throat, too close to a whimper for comfort.

Maki swallows audibly. “Nothing,” he says, stepping away.

Right. Nothing. Because Maki knows just as well as Fuma does that’s all this can be.

Fuma goes back to washing the dishes.

—

Fuma seals the events of his not-birthday away in his head and gets on with his life, desperate for things to remain perfectly normal. He thinks Maki might be doing the same, because he never brings it up again, and he seems a little more distant. It’s hard to tell if that’s intentional or just a natural result of Maki having more friends to spend time with and the holiday season keeping both of them busy, but either way, it’s for the best.

There are some big roster changes in January, a Hurricanes trade that includes one of their guys on a two-way contract and then a couple call-ups of forwards to cover injuries. That means the Wolves, in turn, call up some guys from the ECHL, and all of it together means they have extra-intense practices as they adjust to their new lines. Maki and Fuma are still playing together more often than not, creating that magic they cracked the code on, but Fuma can tell Maki is starting to get antsy. He would be, too, if they were over halfway through a season he expected to spend in a different league.

The Saturday after a midweek back-to-back in Colorado is unseasonably warm for late January in Rosemont, the sun streaming pleasantly through the windows and turning the snow on the streets to slush. Maki crows about the concrete of the sidewalks finally being visible and leaves for a run while Fuma is still making his coffee, kitted out in a beanie and gloves and a sweater layered under his windbreaker. Fuma tells him they’ll make a Midwesterner of his weak West Coast sensibilities yet, and Maki cheerfully flips him off on his way out the door.

Fuma is expecting Maki to be back, complaining about his frozen limbs, within twenty minutes. He doesn’t think much of it until he realizes thirty minutes have passed, and then he can’t stop checking the time. By the time Maki comes back through the door just over an hour later, Fuma has talked himself out of going to look for him multiple times. And thank God he did, because Maki was not freezing on a street corner, and Fuma was definitely not worried. He listens to the sound of Maki shedding his outerwear in the entryway, resolutely ignoring the feeling of relief it brings.

“Dude!” Maki says when he turns the corner to see Fuma sitting on the couch. “You’ll never guess who I met.”

Fuma squashes down the urge to ask Maki where he’s been like an overbearing parent. That’s the last thing he wants to be. “Who?” he asks instead, perfectly measured.

Maki shoves his phone in Fuma’s face. Fuma blinks and takes it, squinting to focus on the picture Maki is showing him.

“This absolutely adorable cat,” Maki says as he sits down next to Fuma. “Her name is Yuki, and she has a jacket. Look at how small that jacket is!”

There is, in fact, a white cat in the picture, wearing an admittedly cute purple jacket. Fuma is distracted from that, however, by the man holding the other end of Yuki’s leash in the background of the picture. He’s not so much cute as arrestingly beautiful, with high cheekbones and a sharp jawline, the tips of his ears and the apples of his cheeks pink from the cold.

“Cute,” Fuma says. “Who’s the guy?”

“His name is Jo,” Maki says happily. “And he’s also from Japan! I stopped because I heard him talking to Yuki in Japanese. He transferred here a couple months ago for a temporary work project. He’s living with one of his cousins, that’s why he’s out in the suburbs. He brought Yuki on the plane in one of those bubble backpacks, have you seen those? He showed me a picture. So cute.”

Fuma is not surprised at all to learn that Maki apparently dragged Jo’s entire life story out of him. This Jo didn’t know what he had coming when Maki stopped to talk to him.

“Definitely cute,” Fuma agrees, handing Maki back his phone. “How long is he staying?”

“The project is two years,” Maki says. “I got his number so we could invite him out with Nico and the other guys. We were talking about how much it sucks to move somewhere you don’t know anyone.”

That’s a sweet and completely reasonable thing for Maki to do, but Fuma gets irrationally stuck on Maki getting this attractive guy’s number. He tells himself firmly to stop. It’s good that Maki made a friend. It’s great, even.

It’s just that it’s different from Maki being better friends with their teammates, because that’s hockey. It’s different from Maki making friends with Fuma’s friends, because Fuma introduced them. He knows them. He doesn’t know Jo. He doesn’t know if Maki thinks Jo is attractive. He doesn’t know if Maki was standing out there in the cold for an hour flirting with him.

He probably was. It was a perfectly crafted meet cute, after all. Why wouldn’t Maki flirt with Jo and get his number so he can ask Jo out for dinner and play footsie under the table and kiss him at the end of the night? He should get to do those things. Fuma wants Maki to be happy.

Fuma is just worried because Maki might be too reckless. It would be easy to get caught up in this beautiful man and make a mistake that could end his career. Fuma should warn him.

Except that he shouldn’t, because he’s not an overbearing parent, and Maki didn’t say he was going to do any of those things. He only said he was going to introduce Jo to their friends, because Jo needs friends just as much as Maki does. Fuma has to be supportive of that. He can’t let his own emotions get in the way.

“That’s good, the guys are always excited for new blood,” Fuma says. He hesitates for a second, then asks a question that’s been lingering at the back of his mind. “Have you been feeling better these days? Less, um… lonely?”

Maki looks surprised that Fuma is asking, which is fair. For all that Fuma thinks about the time he found Maki crying, he hasn’t brought it up before. “Yeah!” he says, recovering quickly. “Yeah, I’ve been fine. It really helped to go home for Christmas, even though it was only two days.”

Fuma nods. He expected as much—while he was gone, Maki spammed Fuma’s messages with about a thousand pictures of his pets and his family and the Vancouver skyline. He wasn’t sure if it backfired once Maki had to come back, the dark days of January these past few weeks enough to drag anyone down, but he’s glad to hear that’s not the case.

“I think you were right,” Maki says after a beat. “You just have to have things here you miss, too.”

Maki’s gaze lingers on Fuma long enough for Fuma’s heart to trip over itself in its effort to leap to the conclusion that Maki is talking about missing him, even though there are a million other things and people Maki could mean. Then Maki looks down at his phone and says, “Aren’t you usually in the gym at this time?”

Fuma snaps back to reality. “Uh, yeah,” he says, getting to his feet. “Will you be ready to head to the rink in an hour?”

“Yep,” Maki agrees. He’s still looking at his phone as he stands up and wanders toward his room. He’s probably off to text his new hot friend Jo. He’ll have to craft the perfect opening message, maybe make a reference to something they laughed about together or tell him how nice it was to meet—

No. Fuma escapes out the door and down the stairs to the gym, where there are no cute boys and nothing to think about except his workout.

—

Maki’s birthday falls on Tuesday night, conveniently before a day the Wolves have off. Inconveniently, it’s also the night of a fundraising dinner for a charity Fuma is involved with, so he has to beg off the team’s plans to take Maki out on the town and get him good and drunk for his twenty-first.

Maki assures him it’s okay, that he knows Fuma isn’t really a bar-hopping guy anyway, but Fuma is regretful enough about it that when the fundraiser is over, he briefly considers texting Singer to ask where they are. He lingers in his car, thumbs hovering over his text thread with Singer as he imagines the excited look on Maki’s face when Fuma surprises him, then changes his mind. He won’t be any fun to hang out with. He’s exhausted from hours of schmoozing with donors in his stuffy suit, and all he wants to do is take it off and lie down.

He does exactly that, taking a quick shower and wrapping himself in his fluffy bathrobe before flopping down on the couch. He turns on a mindless show and scrolls on his phone instead of watching it. He’s only sort of paying attention to the time and wondering when Maki might get back. There isn’t really a point in waiting up for him, not when he knows Singer and the other guys will make sure he’s safe, but… still. Fuma would feel better if he knew when Maki was home.

Then again, that might be completely pointless. There’s no guarantee Maki is coming home at all. He could pick up a lucky girl in one of the bars. He could text Jo and take a cab to his place after the last bar; they’ve hung out a few times in the past couple weeks, and Fuma has carefully felt nothing about it every time. Either of those things would be a fun way to celebrate turning twenty-one. Fuma couldn’t fault Maki for them.

And he shouldn’t be thinking about it. He should be going to bed.

He doesn’t. He changes the show to something only slightly more engaging and keeps lying on the couch, watching it.

The sound of the door closing jolts Fuma out of a doze. He fumbles to check his phone—not quite 1 AM. Great. He can crawl into bed and get a decent night’s sleep.

He barely has time to think about getting up and going to his bed before Maki is grinning down at him. He’s taken off whatever layers Fuma is sure he was wearing, leaving only a tight tank top. There’s a strip of bare skin above the waistband of his underwear, visible above his low-slung jeans. Fuma blinks, wondering vaguely if he’s actually dreaming.

“Fuma,” Maki croons, flopping down directly on top of Fuma. He wobbles, nearly falling off, and Fuma automatically wraps his arms around him. Maki giggles. “You’re awake. Hi.”

“Hi,” Fuma says. He is definitely wide awake now. Maki is a solid weight on top of him, and he smells like warm cologne and the sharp scent of alcohol. “Did you have fun?”

“Yesss,” Maki says, wriggling to get comfortable on top of Fuma. “But I missed you.”

Fuma has half a second to wonder if telling Maki he missed him too would be weird before Maki slips a hand up the sleeve of Fuma’s bathrobe. “You’re so cozy,” he says appreciatively. He squeezes Fuma’s bicep. “Wowww, and so ripped. You’re so unfair.”

Fuma laughs. “Am I?”

“Yes,” Maki says. His other hand comes up to play with the collar of Fuma’s robe, tugging gently. “And it’s so sexy when you wear this robe around the house.”

Fuma’s brain short-circuits. That’s not something he ever expected Maki to say. “It… It is?”

Maki pushes himself up slightly and looks down at Fuma with a serious expression. “Yes,” he says gravely. “And your glasses, too.”

Fuma scoffs. There’s definitely not anything sexy about his thick-lensed glasses.

“I’m serious!” Maki insists. “So hot.” He taps Fuma’s nose, his finger sliding down to press against Fuma’s cheek afterward. He leaves it there for a second before gently dragging it down, over Fuma’s chin and down his neck to his chest, his gaze following. He lingers there, staring at the gap in Fuma’s robe where his chest is exposed. “You’re, like… lickable.”

Fuma laughs incredulously. Maki must be wasted to be saying things like that out loud.

“Like, sometimes I know I shouldn’t be looking,” Maki continues, “but I can’t help but see. And then I can’t stop thinking.”

Fuma should stop this. He should get Maki a glass of water and pour him into bed. But his skin is burning where Maki touched it, and he can’t resist.

“Oh?” Fuma asks.

“Yeah,” Maki murmurs. “When you’re all sweaty after a workout, I think about licking the sweat off your collarbones.” He slips both hands into Fuma’s robe, pushing it back so it falls off Fuma’s shoulder. “And sometimes I think about it in the showers, like… if everyone else was gone, and I could just watch the water run down your body.” His fingers trail a slow path down Fuma’s torso, and Fuma shivers. “And then I’d follow those water droplets with my mouth… and I’d get on my knees for you…”

Fuma isn’t laughing anymore. He wants what Maki is saying too badly for it to be funny. Maki looks up to meet Fuma’s gaze, and Fuma holds himself still, looking back at him. He feels a little drunk himself, swept up in the picture Maki painted, in the idea of Maki on his knees on the rough tile of the locker room showers, looking up at Fuma. Fuma could drag a thumb along the pout of his lower lip, slip it into the warmth of Maki’s mouth…

Neither of them move. After an interminable moment, Maki makes a quiet noise in the back of his throat and buries his face in Fuma’s neck.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, muffled against Fuma’s skin. “Sorry, you’re just so…”

Maki’s skin is warm where Fuma’s hands are resting on his waist. Maki shifts slightly on top of him, and Fuma’s hands slip a little lower, his fingers catching the waistband of Maki’s underwear. He can’t stop thinking about how Maki could have seduced anyone he wanted with this stupidly sexy outfit, but he didn’t. He came home to Fuma. He doesn’t want Maki to be embarrassed about this. “It’s okay,” he says.

“Fuck, Fuma,” Maki breathes, and then he’s licking a stripe up Fuma’s neck. Fuma groans, half surprise and half naked desire, and lets his head fall back. Maki does it again, his teeth catching on Fuma’s earlobe and tugging. Fuma makes another choked-off noise. His whole body is on fire, his mind buzzing with static.

“Maki,” he says as Maki’s tongue teases the outer shell of his ear. His hands flex on Maki’s back, pulling him closer even as he thinks about how he should move him away. “Maki, we shouldn’t.”

Maki scrapes his teeth over the soft skin of Fuma’s neck instead of answering. His hand, still tucked inside Fuma’s robe, moves up to thumb experimentally at Fuma’s nipple.

Fuma trembles. He can feel Maki’s hard cock against his hip, and it’s making his own start to show interest. He feels out of his mind. “Maki,” he tries again. “You’re drunk.”

Maki’s tongue traces a path up Fuma’s neck, slowly this time. “So what?” he murmurs against Fuma’s jaw.

“So we shouldn’t,” Fuma says.

Maki groans, low and annoyed in the back of his throat. It goes straight to Fuma's dick, despite his best intentions. Maki presses kisses along Fuma’s jaw, ending behind Fuma’s ear. “Please,” he murmurs.

It takes all Fuma’s willpower to shake his head, leaving none to stop him from saying, “Try again sober.”

Maki pushes himself up to look at Fuma, shifting so his thigh is pressed firmly against Fuma’s cock. “But you want me now,” he says, grinding against him.

Fuma gasps, and Maki’s mouth curls into a satisfied smirk. His lips are just as pink and plush and tempting as they were when they drank together in Austin, but this time Fuma's desire is tenfold. He desperately wants to get a hand on the back of Maki’s neck and drag him down to kiss that smirk off his face.

He doesn’t. He tightens his grip on Maki’s waist and pushes him away instead, sliding out from underneath him and using the element of surprise to sweep Maki’s feet out from under him, picking him up in a princess carry. Maki squeaks, his arms coming up to wrap around Fuma’s neck.

“That’s enough,” Fuma says sternly, taking a second to wait for his knees to stop doing an impression of spaghetti before he starts walking. “You’re going to bed.”

“Holy fuck,” Maki breathes. “Fuck, I told you you’re unfairly ripped.”

Fuma ignores that comment and the way Maki starts ghosting his fingers over Fuma’s still-exposed shoulder and arm, sending tingles through Fuma’s whole body. He carries Maki straight to Maki’s bed and puts him down on it.

“Good night,” he says, turning to go.

Maki reaches out to catch Fuma by the wrist. “Nooo,” he whines. “Fuma, please stay.”

Fuma can’t help himself. He hesitates, and Maki jumps on the moment of silence.

“I could make you feel so good, I swear,” he promises. “Let me show you.”

Fuma wants to. He wants to crawl on top of Maki and press him into the mattress, to slowly strip Maki out of his clothes and put his mouth everywhere on Maki’s body. He wants to give in to this thing they keep coming up to the edge of, the desire he’s never truly been able to ignore.

But he doesn’t want it like this. He has to be the responsible one, to remember all the reasons he’s been holding back. He can’t let Maki wake up in the morning and regret this.

Fuma carefully detaches Maki’s grip from his wrist. Maki lets his hand fall to his side, a wounded look on his face that makes Fuma’s chest hurt. “Good night, Maki,” he says gently.

“Night,” Maki mumbles.

Fuma uses everything he’s learned in his many years of denying himself to force himself to walk away. Even so, he stops at the doorway and turns around. “Maki…”

Maki looks up at him, a question on his face that Fuma can’t answer. He’s not even sure what he was planning to say. An apology, maybe—for letting it get that far or for stopping it, Fuma couldn’t say. He can’t find the words, and he’s not sure they would help.

The moment stretches on. Fuma pushes down the part of himself that’s screaming at him to go back, to take Maki’s face between his hands and kiss him until neither of them can breathe. Instead, he says quietly, “Happy birthday.”

Maki offers him a small smile. Fuma somehow makes himself turn away.

—

Fuma wakes up early the next morning feeling like he barely slept at all. Even so, he immediately rolls out of bed and heads straight into the kitchen. There’s a part of him that’s screaming that he should go back to bed, that he should hide from Maki for as long as possible, but it’s no match for the rest of him. He had a plan for this morning, and now he has to execute the plan, no matter what happened last night.

Once his preparation is complete, Fuma sits at the kitchen counter and plays Pokémon on his Switch. When he hears Maki get up and go into the bathroom, he stands and starts heating the frying pan.

Maki is in the shower for so long that Fuma is almost done cooking by the time he finally wanders into the kitchen. He stops a few steps into the room, and Fuma looks up to see him blinking blearily. He has to bite back a sympathetic laugh: Maki looks like a poster child for the perils of a hangover. His dark hair is a towel-dried mess, and there’s a distinctly hungover pallor to his face.

“Am I hallucinating, or are you wearing my apron and making… pancakes?” Maki asks.

Fuma is, in fact, doing both those things. “For your birthday,” he says. “Because you, um… did so much for mine.”

He means for it to come out lightly, like an inside joke they can both laugh at, but he sounds painfully sincere instead. Maki is still blinking at him, expression more inscrutable than it’s ever been.

“There’s hot water for tea,” Fuma says, looking back down at the pan and prodding at the edge of a pancake. “You should hydrate.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Fuma sees Maki wince. “Yeah.”

Maki shuffles in Fuma’s direction, and Fuma’s heart rate picks up. Is Maki going to touch him? He hovers near Fuma’s shoulder, close enough to put a hand on Fuma’s back or, knowing him, drape himself over Fuma entirely. He could duck his head into Fuma’s shoulder and lick his neck again.

The dangerous thing about that thought is that Fuma knows he would let him. He devoted at least an hour of the time he spent lying awake last night to thinking about the door he left open when he said try again sober. It’s clear in the light of day that it wasn’t just a moment of insanity brought on by his hands on Maki’s skin and the feeling of Maki on top of him. He wants Maki just as badly when he’s hungover and drowning in his giant hoodie and sweatpants.

Maki reaches for the cupboard and gets down a tea bag for himself, shuffling a couple feet away to retrieve the bunny mug from the next cupboard over. Of course. Because Maki isn’t going to lick Fuma in the kitchen. Fuma flips the pancake over.

Maki pours water over his tea bag and then puts both hands on the edge of the counter and drops his head down with an emphatic, “Ugh.”

This time, Fuma’s sympathetic laugh slips out. He reaches over and ruffles Maki’s hair affectionately, an automatic motion that he doesn’t realize might be a bad idea until it’s already done. Maki makes another noise, low and pathetic, and glances over at Fuma and quickly away again. He looks pained in a way Fuma can’t quite interpret. The ambiguity is disconcerting on a face that usually telegraphs every emotion.

“You good?” Fuma asks.

There’s a long, drawn out pause before Maki says, “Yeah, I’m good.” He straightens up, hands dropping away from the counter as he turns toward Fuma. “And you… Are you good? I wasn’t too much trouble last night?”

That’s a loaded question. Fuma lifts the edge of the pancake with his spatula and makes a show of inspecting it to delay responding. He can’t tell if Maki is asking because he remembers what he did or if he’s just assuming he was a mess when he got home. If he doesn’t remember, Fuma can’t possibly bring himself to explain it. If he does remember, then he might be deliberately talking around it because he’s thinking better of it. And if Maki wants to move swiftly past what happened, then that’s what they’re going to do.

Fuma lets the edge of the pancake drop back down. “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” he says. There, that was good. Teasing, just like normal.

Maki groans and picks up his tea, taking it with him to go sit at the counter. Fuma checks the pancake again, willing it to cook faster. Or maybe slower. What was his plan here? He needs to figure it out quickly.

Fuma hears the tell-tale sound of skates on ice, tinny through phone speakers. “Watching the Canes highlights?” he asks.

Maki hums in the negative. “Game tape.”

Fuma turns around, incredulous, his panic overridden by the need to stop something so ridiculous from continuing. “Seriously?”

“Mhm,” Maki says, eyes fixed on his phone. “I had that stupid turnover last game.”

“What are you talking about? That was nothing worth obsessing over.”

Maki looks up at Fuma with a frown. “Everything is worth obsessing over. I have to be perfect, or I’ll never get called up.”

Fuma shakes his head. Trust Maki to be thinking about that while his head is no doubt trying to turn itself inside out. “A week ago, you were playing in the all-star game,” he points out. “I think you’re doing fine. 94% of AHL all-stars go on to play in the NHL.”

Maki tilts his head slightly, an amused smirk curling up the corner of his lips. “94%?” he echoes.

“What? It was in the press release,” Fuma says.

“Which you read because…?” Maki teases.

Fuma huffs instead of saying because you were in it. “I’m telling you there are eyes on you, and they like what they’re seeing. I promise.” He turns back to check on the pancake once again and, deeming it done, takes it out of the pan and straight onto a plate. He puts the plate down in front of Maki with one hand and takes Maki’s phone away with the other, locking it and emphatically placing it facedown. “Here, have a pancake and stop worrying.”

Maki looks down at the pancake, and a bolt of realization hits Fuma.

“Wait. Shit. We don’t have any syrup.”

There’s a beat as Maki looks up and meets Fuma’s eyes. Fuma wishes the floor would open up and swallow him. Why didn’t he remember that pancakes need syrup?

But then Maki bursts out laughing, his whole face brightening with it. “Dude, it’s chill,” he says. “I’ll just grab the peanut butter and jam.”

Fuma laughs, too, part embarrassment and part relief. Maki gets up to get himself the peanut butter and jam while Fuma pulls out the pancakes he was keeping warm in the oven and adds another two to Maki's plate.

Maki digs in and groans happily. Fuma hides his smile in his coffee cup. Things feel properly normal for the first time since last night. All Fuma has to do now is make sure it stays that way.

No problem at all.

—

The Iowa Wild are in town on Thursday night, and the arena is buzzing. Like most players, Fuma loves home games; he always feeds off the energy that Wolves fans bring to the arena, and it’s easier to settle into his routine. That’s doubly true when it’s an opponent in their division. Over halfway through the season, they’ve played them often enough that there usually aren’t many surprises.

This time, from the moment the puck drops, there’s a sizzle of potential in the air. Wilcox wins the faceoff and passes to Venny, who drives it into the offensive zone. There’s a struggle over possession by the net, players piling up into a tangle, and an opposing winger slips out with it.

Fuma promptly knocks the winger off the puck before he can exit the zone and passes it back to Wilcox, who takes a shot that bounces off a defenceman’s shin. Maki picks the puck up and barely has to glance around to see the opportunity to dish it out of traffic to Fuma.

There’s a split-second where it feels like time slows down and the options present themselves to Fuma. Wheelsy is open, stick tapping on the ice, but there’s a defenceman skating to cover him. Another opposing player is skating toward Fuma, too, leaving an opening that Fuma could try to shoot the puck through.

It would be safer to pass to Wheelsy; he’s quick, he’s closer to the net, he might be able to knock it in. But Fuma knows the Wild’s goalie is weak on his left side. He takes a risk: he shoots.

The puck is buried top shelf, the goalie’s glove too slow to block it. Fuma’s arms are going up in celebration even before he fully processes that it went in. Maki slams into his side, his arms wrapping around Fuma and shaking him, his familiar whoop of celebration loud in Fuma’s ear. Venny and Wilcox and Wheelsy pile in a second later, and Fuma basks in it—in the beauty of something working out even when it seemed like it wouldn’t.

Starting the game with a goal like that less than a minute in puts the Wild on their back foot, scrambling to catch up. The Wolves keep them on the defensive, limiting their shots on goal, and Kovalchuk is solid in net when he needs to be.

The longer the game goes on, the more physical the Wild get with their play. They’re becoming desperate as the second period nears its end with the score the same, and Maki exploits it by driving through a check, forcing the skater who was on him to take a tripping penalty in his attempt to steal the puck. Maki smirks a little as he’s skating back to the bench for a line change, and Fuma bites back his own answering one.

Singer scores on the powerplay, giving them that extra bit of breathing room, but nobody takes it for granted—least of all Maki. With ten minutes left in the third, he executes the kind of perfect Riki Maus play that ends up on highlight reels. He gets out in front of an unsuspecting winger on a breakaway and undresses him like it’s nothing, passing the puck over to Venny and then receiving it again right in front of the net, just in time to fake out the Wild’s goalie and slip it home.

Maki skates straight for Venny after his celly, so this time it’s Fuma crashing into Maki for a hug. “Fucking beauty,” he shouts in Maki’s ear, patting his helmet with his glove. Maki’s grin at him is blinding.

In the end, they shut the Wild out 3-0. Fuma is buzzing with adrenaline along with the rest of the team as they line up to knock helmets with Kovalchuk, and the locker room is full of excited chatter afterward.

“Who’s coming out tonight?” Wheelsy shouts over the cacophony, and an answering chorus of cheers and agreements goes up.

“Fuck yeah,” Aiden enthuses. “Mousey’s birthday celebration 2.0, baby!”

Aiden thumps Maki hard on the back. Maki laughs and crows, “Let’s fucking go!”

Fuma isn’t always one for going out after a game, preferring to wind down at home. But he’s contemplating riding this high into the celebration even before Maki finds him post-shower, shirtless and damp and still grinning that infectious grin.

“Come to the bar with us?” he asks. “I talked them out of the club, knew there was no way you’d come dancing with these idiots.”

Fuma laughs and nods. “I’m down,” he says. He’s rewarded with a cheer from Maki.

The outing to the bar isn’t anywhere near as intense as Maki’s birthday—at least, from what Fuma hears about it from the other guys. Maki asks for a soda when Singer offers to get the first round, and he’s immediately beset with teasing about how bad the hangover must have been to have him swearing off alcohol so quickly.

Fuma gets a beer. He’s content to stick to the edge of the group, nursing his drink slowly as he watches the chaos around him unfold. Maki is at the center of the crowd, right in the thick of things with Venny, Massey, and Singer. He’s glowing, even though he sticks to soda as the other guys get steadily more drunk. Every now and then he’ll look up and catch Fuma’s eye, flashing a grin that feels like it’s just for him—a little softer than the smile he gives the rest of the guys, something more private.

Eventually Fuma’s beer runs out, and the guys have moved on from recapping Maki’s birthday to trying to recreate it by ordering shots. Even though the thrum of adrenaline is still coursing through Fuma’s body, he can feel his social battery quickly reaching zero. He manages to extricate Maki from under Aiden’s arm and pulls him aside to where they can hear each other without yelling.

“I’m gonna head out now,” Fuma says. “You staying a while longer?”

Maki shakes his head. “I'll go home with you.”

That’s easier said than done. The other guys make a fuss when Maki and Fuma try to make their goodbyes, but eventually they manage to escape into the freezing February night. Maki immediately shivers and yanks his beanie down over his ears, attempting to hide his face in the collar of his jacket.

“You couldn’t have parked closer?” Maki whines.

“Nope,” Fuma says. The wind is sharp, cutting through Fuma’s layers, but he’s not about to admit anything about it being cold. It’s kind of nice, anyway; it clears his mind from the effects of the beer and the overstimulating environment. “You know I don’t cater to West Coast wimps.”

Maki pouts, but he moves on quickly once they’re in the car. He chatters the entire way home, still obviously riding the high. It reminds Fuma of that first drive back to the apartment, Maki filling every second of silence—and yet this time couldn’t be more different. Maki’s talking because he's comfortable with Fuma, not anxious, and Fuma isn’t wary or annoyed at all. He’s just fond.

Maki is still rambling as they head up the elevator and into the apartment. “It seriously felt like he was standing still,” Maki says, taking off his coat and shoving his beanie into the sleeve before hanging it up. His hair sticks up straight, and Fuma’s hand twitches with the urge to smooth it down for him. “And I just—” He makes a dramatic whooshing noise and mimes passing the puck. “And Venny sent it back like”—another whooshing noise—”and that goalie didn’t even have time to blink.”

It’s about the third time Maki’s reenacted his goal since they left the bar, and yet Fuma still finds his enthusiasm adorable. If he didn’t already know he was down bad, this would do it.

“Yeah, you were all right,” he says flatly. “I guess.”

Maki narrows his eyes at Fuma. Fuma presses his lips together, barely holding back a smirk.

“I'll show you all right,” Maki threatens. Fuma is about to scoff when all six-feet-something of Maki crashes bodily into him. Fuma stumbles, unprepared, and then braces against the tackle. Maki cackles with glee as he tries unsuccessfully to wrestle Fuma to the floor.

“Is that all you've got?” Fuma asks, doing his best to get Maki into a headlock. Maki just laughs harder as they rough house, their socks slipping on the hardwood floor. An answering laugh bubbles out of Fuma. He feels giddy, delighted just as much by Maki slipping out of his grip as he is when he gets his hands on him, caught up in the push and pull.

Maki shakes off Fuma's grasp again, this time backing up into the hallway to put space between them. There's a calculating look on his face, hands spread out at his sides, and Fuma braces for Maki to tackle him again.

This time, though, Maki goes in low, and before Fuma can react, his stomach lurches as his feet leave the ground and Maki tosses him over his shoulder like it's nothing.

“Oh, fuck,” Fuma says. “What are you doing? Put me down.”

“Nah,” Maki says cheerfully. Fuma wriggles, but Maki's grip is firm on his waist and thigh.

Fuma doesn't mean to—he really, really doesn't—but his whole body is buzzing, his heart racing, and then Maki lets go of his thigh for a second to smack him on the ass, and Fuma can't help it. He gets a little hard.

This is more of that embarrassing college kid with a crush shit. Fuma prays fruitlessly that Maki won't be able to tell, even as Maki starts to walk and Fuma's problem gets worse. Fuma is not light, but Maki's making it seem like he is, and that's stupidly sexy.

Maki deposits Fuma on a bed—Maki’s bed, Fuma realizes as soon as the world is right side up again. Maki promptly crawls on top of him, arms braced on either side of Fuma.

“What are you doing?” Fuma says again, voice embarrassingly breathy.

Maki's eyes drop to Fuma's lips. He leans down a little, and Fuma's breath catches. Maki stops, eyes flicking back up, a smirk playing at his lips.

“Trying again sober,” Maki says. “You said I could.”

For all Maki's words are delivered in a delightfully Maki-branded combination of cockiness and whining, his expression as he meets Fuma’s gaze is uncertain. The moment hangs between them, both of them waiting for Fuma's verdict.

Fuma could stop this. If he turned this back into a wrestling match, Maki would go with it. But he's thinking of Maki's firm hands on his body, of Maki's tongue tracing up his neck two days ago, of Maki drinking soda all night in anticipation of this. His whole body is screaming at him to pull Maki closer, and Fuma is tired of resisting.

Fuma lets himself give in. He lets his hand slide up Maki’s arm to the back of Maki’s neck. He lets it rest there as he drops his gaze to Maki's lips and tilts his chin up, an invitation.

Maki moves in slowly, brushing their noses together before he fits his lips against Fuma's. Both of them inhale sharply and pull back to look at each other for a split second before they go back in for more.

On the rare and fleeting occasion that Fuma let himself think of kissing Maki, he pictured an intense collision, an explosion of need full of frantic hands and bodies. Instead, it's a slow exploration, a careful stoking of the fire between them with every brush of their lips and tongues.

Fuma wonders if Maki kissed a guy in the time between now and that conversation back in October. It doesn’t matter, but he hopes not. He hopes he's the first man to get to hear the way Maki moans into his mouth when he gets a hand on Maki's ass, the first man to scrape his teeth over Maki's lower lip and arch up into him, the first man to get to have Maki's tongue in his mouth and Maki's thigh pressed up against his cock at the same time.

Maki wrenches himself away from Fuma's lips. He's breathing hard, his face flushed. “Fuma,” he breathes. “I've wanted you for so long.”

Fuma brings both his hands up to cup Maki's face, thumb stroking over his cheekbone, and leans up to kiss him again. Maki whimpers, small in the back of his throat, and Fuma feels heady with power.

“Me, too,” Fuma murmurs against Maki's lips.

Maki pulls back again. “Since when?” he demands.

Fuma is too far gone to say anything but the truth. “Since I met you?”

“Fuck,” Maki groans. He kisses Fuma hard this time, shoving his hands unceremoniously under Fuma's shirt. “Can I… please let me…”

“Yeah,” Fuma agrees between kisses. Even so, he doesn’t fully cooperate with Maki’s attempts to remove his clothes, instead fumbling to drag Maki’s shirt over his head. Now that he has his hands on Maki, he wants them everywhere. He wants to strip him bare and look his fill, to take him apart in whatever way Maki will let him.

It takes them a while to get all their clothes off, preoccupied as they are with kissing and mapping each other’s bodies with their hands. Eventually they manage it, every article of their clothing thrown to far reaches of the room that Fuma can’t even comprehend right now, not when they have all this bare skin pressed together. He can’t stop kissing Maki, has to tear himself away to ask, “What do you want?”

Maki makes a questioning noise, blinking down at Fuma like he’s surfacing from a daydream.

“What do you want?” Fuma repeats. “You have me now, so what are you going to do?”

Maki looks overwhelmed. “Fuck, I don’t know. I’ve never done this before,” he says. He winces and hurries to add, “I mean, I’ve had sex! But, like… This…” He traces his fingers down Fuma’s side, following them with his eyes, and Fuma shivers. “This is not the same as jerking a guy off in the bathroom at a party.”

Fuma reaches for Maki’s hand, threading their fingers together and then using his body weight to flip them over, catching Maki’s other wrist and pressing him down into the bed. “No, it’s not the same,” he says firmly. He hates the idea of some other guy with his hands on Maki, even though it’s not like it was recent. “I’ll take care of you better than that.”

Maki’s lips part slightly in disbelief, one eyebrow climbing up. “Are you a little jealous?”

“No,” Fuma says.

“Liar.”

Fuma kisses him, gratified when Maki chases his lips, arching up into Fuma as he pulls back far enough to say, “You must have ideas. You were telling me about them before.”

Maki lets his head fall back against the pillow with a groan. “Don’t remind me. That was so fucking embarrassing.”

“I didn’t think so,” Fuma says. “I liked it.”

“You did?” Maki scrunches up his face in doubt. “I was literally slobbering all over you.”

Fuma laughs. “That’s not how I remember it.”

Before Maki can argue further, Fuma ducks his head to mouth at the skin below Maki’s ear. He tugs at Maki’s earlobe with his teeth, and Maki moans, letting his head drop to the side. Fuma licks over his exposed skin the same way Maki did to him, tracing the cords of Maki’s neck with his tongue as Maki squirms underneath him.

“Seem to remember you saying something about liking my muscles,” Fuma murmurs in Maki’s ear. “You can touch them if you want.”

Maki makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Yeah, I want,” he says, tugging his hands out of Fuma’s grip so he can push at Fuma’s arms. Fuma lets him roll them back over, lying still as Maki leans down to trace the definition of Fuma’s biceps with his tongue. It’s not exactly sexy, except for all the ways that it is: that it’s Maki, that Maki keeps making noises like licking Fuma’s arms is the best thing that’s ever happened to him, that he keeps pausing to look at Fuma like he wants to eat him alive.

Maki moves on from his arms quickly, turning his attention to Fuma's collarbone and then his chest, sucking tiny pink marks into Fuma's skin. He takes particular care as he makes his way lower, his hands coming up to play with Fuma’s nipples as he outlines Fuma’s abs with his tongue.

Fuma feels every touch like a brand, trembling with the effort of holding back from pushing Maki lower or pulling him back up—anything to stop the intense vulnerability of having Maki's attention so focused on him. He’s not used to it, both because it’s been a while and because Nicholas was almost always content to let Fuma do the majority of the work. He doesn’t know how to deal with it, but he wants to. He wants to be patient with Maki, to make this good for him.

Maki traces his tongue down the dip of Fuma’s hip and stops short of his cock, instead digging his teeth in at the top of Fuma’s quads. Fuma groans, reaching down to tangle his fingers in Maki’s hair as Maki sucks at his skin.

Maki pulls back to admire the deep red mark he left. “I’m obsessed with your thighs,” he says, leaving no time for Fuma to respond before he's pushing Fuma’s legs wide and latching back on, this time to the soft skin of Fuma’s inner thigh.

Fuma gasps, his grip on Maki’s hair tightening involuntarily. Maki hums approvingly before finding another spot and sucking a mark there, too.

Fuma’s thighs are littered with hickeys before Maki finally turns his attention to Fuma’s cock. He glances up at Fuma, meeting his gaze as he carefully licks up Fuma’s length, his tongue on display. The visual is enough to make precum bead at the tip of Fuma’s cock. Maki licks it off curiously, humming at the taste.

“Fuck, Maki,” Fuma chokes out. He feels dangerously close to the edge already, and it’s a weird combination with the way his skin itches from the discomfort of having had Maki’s attention solely on him for so long. He fumbles to get a hand on Maki’s arm. “Come back up here.”

Maki lets Fuma move him so their faces are level, but he pouts. “You don’t want me to suck you off?”

Fuma shakes his head minutely. “We can take care of me later.”

“Sure, but I wanna do it now,” Maki argues.

Fuma hums instead of answering, reaching down to wrap his hand around Maki’s cock. Maki gasps, his hips jerking into Fuma’s grip, whatever further argument he had lost entirely.

“I have a better idea,” Fuma says, playing with the tip of Maki's cock and watching as Maki bites back another moan. “Do you have lube?”

“Um, yes, yeah,” Maki says. He gestures. “In the drawer.”

Fuma lets go of Maki's cock so he can shift out from under him, sitting up to reach the indicated drawer. When he turns back, bottle in hand, he's bowled over all over again at the sight of Maki waiting for him. He's leaning against the wall at the head of the bed, his cock hard against his belly and his eyes dark and fixed on Fuma.

Fuma drops the lube next to Maki's hip as he crawls into his lap and kisses him. Maki’s hands grip Fuma's ass, his mouth hot and eager against Fuma's. “Does this,” Maki starts, but the rest of his words get lost in Fuma's mouth until Fuma starts kissing his jaw instead. “Does this mean you're gonna fuck me?”

Fuma shakes his head. “Not tonight.” He would love to spend hours working Maki open on his fingers and then fucking him slow and relentless, just like he deserves, but they don't have that kind of time—especially if this is Maki’s first time bottoming—and Fuma doesn't have that kind of self-control. Instead, he says, “You’re gonna fuck me.”

Maki inhales sharply. “I am?”

“Mhm,” Fuma says, picking up the lube and flicking the cap open. He pours some on his hand and uses it to slick up Maki's cock, eyes fixed on Maki's face the whole time so that he doesn't miss the way Maki's head drops back on a moan, his chest heaving with every breath.

“Not if you keep doing that, I'm not,” Maki chokes out.

Fuma wouldn't mind if Maki came just like this, except that he knows he can make him feel even better. “Don't you want to come between my thighs?” he asks. “I thought you were obsessed with them.”

Maki swears, and Fuma smirks at him. He shifts out of Maki's lap, arranging them on their sides on the bed instead. Maki crowds up behind him, hand wrapping around Fuma's hip as Fuma adds lube to his inner thighs and then squeezes them together.

“C’mon,” Fuma says, reaching back to guide Maki closer. Maki pushes his cock between Fuma’s legs, and they both groan.

“Jesus,” Maki breathes, his forehead pressed against Fuma's shoulder. “You feel so fucking good.”

“So do you,” Fuma says, dazed. He feels small in Maki's arms in a way that's overwhelmingly hot, especially paired with the feeling of Maki's cock sliding between his thighs, brushing up against Fuma's balls as he thrusts shallowly, like he can't help it. “You can fuck me harder, you don't have to hold back.”

Maki obeys, fucking Fuma's thighs in longer thrusts. He mouths at Fuma's neck as he does, his hand slipping down from Fuma's hip to wrap around his cock.

Fuma gasps, the pleasure coiling in his gut and spreading through his body almost too much to stand. “You don't have to…” he tries, but Maki shakes his head.

“Let me,” he says into Fuma's ear. “Want to.”

He tightens his grip, jerking Fuma off fast and a little too dry, the friction a contrast to the smooth glide of Maki's cock between his legs.

Fuma twists his upper body in Maki's arms, struck by the intense urge to see Maki's face, and reaches up to cup the back of Maki's head. He can't seem to close his mouth, involuntary moans punched out of him with every thrust. Maki leans in to kiss him, sloppy and uncoordinated and so fucking good.

Fuma wasn't expecting it to be like this. He was expecting to let Maki use him, to get off on making Maki feel good. He wasn't expecting to feel out of his mind, like Maki is turning him inside out.

Maki shudders and gasps Fuma’s name against his lips. Fuma breaks off their kiss just enough to say, “Yeah, baby. That’s it, you’re doing so well.”

Maki whines, thrusting harder. A moment later he comes, wet heat against Fuma’s thighs. Fuma captures his lips again, stealing the moans right from Maki’s mouth as he shakes through it. The hand on Fuma’s cock relaxes, but Fuma doesn’t mind. He’s too busy watching Maki fall apart.

There’s a moment of stillness when Maki slumps against Fuma, fully spent. His eyes are closed, his expression blissed out. Fondness surges in Fuma’s chest. He impulsively kisses Maki’s cheek, a brush of his lips that’s entirely too soft for the moment.

Maki blinks his eyes open and smiles at him, dimple sinking into his cheek where Fuma’s lips just were. “Holy shit,” he breathes.

“Good?”

“So fucking good,” Maki says.

He’s sliding down the bed before Fuma even processes that he’s moving. He presses his hands to Fuma’s hips, urging him onto his back and holding him down. “Don’t move,” he demands.

Fuma couldn’t even if he wanted to, caught up as he is in staring at Maki, in the swell of pleasure in his gut when Maki licks his own cum from the crease of Fuma’s groin and then moves upward, tongue teasing at the delicate skin of Fuma’s balls.

“Fuck, baby,” Fuma chokes out, hands automatically going to Maki’s hair.

“Say that again,” Maki says, breath hot against Fuma’s cock.

“What?” Fuma says, his head swimming.

“Baby,” Maki says. He takes Fuma’s cock into his mouth as far as he can, and Fuma chokes back a moan.

“Yeah, baby,” Fuma gasps out. Maki hums in approval, sucking harder, and Fuma loses all control he had over his words as he tips closer to the edge. “You’re so good for me, feels so good, baby, baby…”

Fuma’s voice goes embarrassingly high-pitched as he comes, saying the endearment over and over. Maki chokes a little as Fuma loses control and thrusts up. When he pulls back, Fuma’s cum slips out of his mouth and down his chin, making him look obscene.

“Fuck, baby,” Fuma says again, at a loss.

Maki grins, wiping his face with the back of his hand as he shifts up the bed. “You came so fast,” he marvels.

Fuma shoves weakly at Maki’s shoulder. “Whose fault?”

“Mine,” Maki says smugly. “I’m just saying, we need to do that about a million more times. I need more practice.”

Fuma has seen time and time again on the ice the magic that happens when Maki is focused on something. He shudders to think of what Maki could do to him with even a little more practice. He’s already dangerous with his mouth and his hands, almost too much for Fuma to handle.

“Come here,” Fuma says, getting a hand on the back of Maki’s neck and pulling him in. Maki goes easily, settling his body against Fuma’s, and Fuma kisses him, licking the taste of himself from Maki’s mouth until he can’t taste anything at all.

Fuma wants to let himself have this moment. He wants to sink into the feeling of Maki’s lips against his, their limbs tangled together, making out lazy and sweet because they don’t want to stop touching each other. But at the edges of his consciousness, his worries are already sneaking back in, whispering to him that he’s going to regret this, that none of the reasons he was resisting it have changed.

He pushes his fears away and pulls Maki closer. It’s already done. He doesn’t want to regret it. He wants to stay here, kissing Maki and ignoring the rest of the world, for as long as he possibly can.

—

Once Fuma has already ignored his better judgment, it gets easier to keep doing it. Fuma’s ever-present panic is no match for how badly he wants to kiss the smug look off Maki’s face and let Maki’s constantly wandering hands find what they’re looking for. He doesn’t want to say no to Maki, so he doesn’t. He wants to flirt with him and have sex with him and let him sleep in his bed, so he does.

They crash into each other over and over in the two weeks that follow, and Fuma does nothing to stop it, desperate to have his fill while he still can. It’s all he can do to focus at work when he knows that as soon as they get home, he’ll be able to drag Maki into his bed and touch him.

The problem is that they only have scraps of time—just enough to jerk each other off or, once, swap blowjobs. The time they spend on the team bus to Grand Rapids is so excruciating that Fuma considers breaking his own unspoken rules in order to let Maki switch rooms with Wilcox so they can have sex. Instead, he lies awake in the hotel room making plans for their next day off, hoping against hope that Maki won’t be called up before they get there.

Miraculously, he isn’t. Their morning off starts according to Fuma’s plans. He gets up early, slipping out of bed while Maki is still sleeping, and takes a long shower. He means to sneak back into the bed and wake Maki up with kisses. But Maki catches him getting water in the kitchen and promptly drapes himself over Fuma, whining about waking up alone until Fuma kisses the complaints from his mouth and guides his hand between his legs.

“Holy fuck,” Maki breathes. His fingers slide between Fuma’s ass cheeks and over his entrance, where it’s still slick with lube. They catch on Fuma’s rim, and he tugs a little, his eyes fixed on Fuma’s face. Fuma bites his lip, glasses sliding down his nose as he looks up at Maki through his eyelashes. His mouth falls open on an exhale when Maki easily slips a finger inside him. “Is this for me?”

Fuma nods and lets Maki’s wrist go in favour of bracing himself on the kitchen counter behind him and spreading his legs. This isn’t how he planned for this to go, but when Maki slides his finger deeper, adding another alongside it with no resistance at all, Fuma can’t bring himself to care.

“That’s why I got up early,” Fuma tells Maki, stuttering over the words when Maki pulls his fingers halfway out and pushes them back in. “Wanted to shower and get ready for you.” He smirks. “Sorry.”

“M’not mad anymore,” Maki says. He captures Fuma’s lips in a searing kiss as he takes his fingers out and fumbles to peel Fuma’s briefs down his hips. He lets them drop to the floor, and Fuma kicks them away before wrapping a leg around Maki’s waist. Maki slides his fingers back into Fuma, the angle better without Fuma’s underwear restricting him, and groans along with Fuma. “Fuck. How could I be mad?”

Maki’s fingers fill Fuma up so much better than Fuma could himself. He’s good at this, curling his fingers differently on every steady stroke in until he hits a spot that has Fuma jerking in his arms, a jolt of pleasure radiating through his body. Maki wraps a firm arm around him, hips pressing Fuma against the counter to hold him up, and repeats the movement.

It forces a moan from Fuma’s lips, one hand scrambling behind himself on the counter as he cants his hips up, trying to fuck himself harder on Maki’s fingers. Maki gives him what he wants, thick fingers spreading Fuma wide, stroking deep inside him. He’s so focused on Fuma, his neglected cock visible through the boxers and Chicago Wolves t-shirt he’s still wearing. Fuma is suddenly abruptly aware of what they must look like: Fuma naked on the kitchen counter, so desperate for Maki to fuck him he’s nearly panting for it, his own cock leaking on Maki’s shirt where it’s trapped between them.

“Baby,” Fuma says, the word coming out on a breathy moan as Maki fucks his fingers into him again. “Baby, take me to bed so you can fuck me.”

The expression on Maki’s face somehow gets more intense. Fuma should have expected that. Maki goes so crazy for Fuma calling him baby that Fuma thinks he might be addicted to saying it.

“What if I want to fuck you right here?” Maki asks, raising a challenging eyebrow.

Fuma shakes his head incredulously and drops his leg from Maki’s waist. He nudges Maki’s hands away, biting his lip as Maki’s fingers slip out of him and he gives Fuma just enough space to turn around. Fuma braces himself on the counter and looks over his shoulder to see Maki staring at his ass, slack-jawed.

“Well?” Fuma asks.

Maki is spurred into action, stripping his clothes off and leaving them pooled on the kitchen tile. Fuma's mouth fills with spit at the sight of his hard cock, curving against his belly. He feels out of his mind with how badly he needs it, as if the last time he got off was months ago instead of from a lazy handjob last night. He's too aware that every time Maki touches him might be the last time, that this has an expiry date only the Hurricanes' general manager can determine.

Maki wraps a hand around Fuma’s hip, and Fuma bends over farther. Maki guides his cock to slide between Fuma’s cheeks, and they both moan.

“C’mon,” Fuma encourages. “That’s it, baby. You can fuck me.”

Fuma thinks briefly of his original plans, of the lube and the condoms by his bed, of his intent to make Maki lie back while Fuma carefully lowered himself onto his cock. The thought is there and gone, erased by the first press of Maki's cock inside him, stretching him wide.

Fuma wouldn't have minded if Maki pushed into him all at once, but Maki goes perilously slow. Fuma drops his head forward, glasses sliding down his nose as he resists shoving his ass back on Maki's cock. Maki’s never had sex like this before, and they're already doing it in the kitchen. The least Fuma can do is be patient.

Maki doesn’t make it easy, drawing out and pushing back in with slow rocking thrusts until Fuma is, to his own distant embarrassment, whimpering with every movement.

“Please, baby,” he finally begs. There’s a stutter of Maki’s hips before he thrusts in hard. Fuma groans, his hands slipping off the edge of the counter as he’s shoved forward. His hand knocks into his water glass, and he catches it before it falls over, pushing it safely to the back of the counter as he moans. “Yes,” Fuma gasps. “Yes, like that.”

“You want it hard?” Maki asks.

“Please,” Fuma repeats, the word lost on a moan as Maki pulls back and fucks in hard again. “Yes, harder, baby,” Fuma demands, even as Maki repeats the movement over and over again. He wants to feel it tomorrow, wants bruises on his hips where the counter dug into them, wants the slap of their skin together to echo in his mind for weeks.

Maki obeys, and Fuma takes what he's given, turning himself over to the sensation. He savours the feeling of each stroke, tucking the way it feels to have Maki deep inside him away for later.

Maki is rambling, low words telling Fuma how good he looks and feels, the sound of his voice washing over Fuma. Maki reaches around to grip Fuma’s cock, and everything goes molten, the already urgent pleasure building and building as Maki matches the rhythm of his thrusts to his strokes of Fuma’s cock.

Fuma doesn’t want to come first, too sure he won’t be able to take Maki fucking him after and too desperate to feel Maki come inside him. He lets go of the counter with one hand, ending up shoved farther onto it in his efforts to wrap his hand around Maki’s and keep it still on his cock.

Maki’s thrusts slow, and Fuma shakes his head emphatically. “Come for me, baby,” he demands. “Fill me up, I want it.”

Maki swears. “You’re not fucking fair,” he chokes out, his hips stuttering as he curves his torso over Fuma’s back, trapping him against the counter. He moans and sinks his teeth into Fuma’s shoulder as he shoves himself deep inside Fuma one more time and comes. The bite stings, tipping Fuma close to the edge despite his best efforts, especially combined with the hot pulses of Maki’s cock inside him.

Fuma lets his hand drop from Maki’s, and Maki’s grip tightens. “Please,” Fuma begs, sensation building as Maki scrapes his teeth over Fuma’s skin and starts to jerk him off. “Oh, fuck, baby.”

Fuma tries desperately to hold on, to make this last even a few more minutes, but it’s useless. It only takes a few strokes before Fuma comes, too far gone to care even a little bit about the mess he makes on the kitchen cupboards.

They both go boneless after, slumped over each other on the counter. Maki’s weight is solid on top of Fuma, both of them breathing hard. Tingling aftershocks spread through Fuma’s body as the absurdity of the situation filters back in, and a laugh bubbles up out of him.

Maki is laughing, too, even as he audibly pouts. “Hey,” he whines, shoving his face into the crook of Fuma’s neck. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Fuma says, pushing himself and Maki up until he has space to turn around. He looks up at him, vision blurry over his crooked glasses. “I just.” He swallows down another laugh. “I had plans that weren’t this.”

“So did I,” Maki says. His smile comes into focus through smudged-up lenses as he straightens Fuma’s glasses for him. “You’re not special.”

Maki ducks down to kiss Fuma, deep and somehow toe-curling even after a mind-numbing orgasm. Maki is joking, but Fuma does feel special when Maki kisses him like that.

They linger in the kitchen until not even Maki kissing him can distract Fuma from the mess they made. They clean up the worst of it from the kitchen and their bodies before curling up under the covers in Fuma’s bed. Maki snuggles himself into Fuma’s arms and makes a content noise. Fuma closes his eyes and pulls Maki closer. He'll miss holding Maki when this is over, so he has to enjoy it while he can.

“You looked so good getting fucked,” Maki says dreamily after a few minutes. Fuma opens his eyes to see Maki looking up at Fuma. His tone takes on a more serious edge when he asks, “Did I make it good for you?”

Fuma drops a kiss on his mouth. “Yeah, you were amazing. Top marks.”

“Okay, good,” Maki says, pleased. “I wasn’t sure since I’ve never done it before, and it’s not like I know what it feels like to get fucked either, so… yeah. That’s good. It looked… I really want to try that next time. Bottoming, I mean.”

“Yeah?” Fuma asks curiously. “Are you sure?”

Maki sits up slightly, an affronted expression on his face. “Why wouldn’t I be? Do you think I’m not gay enough for it or something? Because trust me, I—”

“No, of course not,” Fuma interrupts before Maki can get going, genuinely baffled by how quickly Maki leapt to that conclusion. “That didn’t cross my mind at all.”

Maki snaps his mouth shut. “Good,” he says after a second. “Because this”—he waves a hand between the two of them—”isn’t an experiment to me.”

That speaks to a personal history of internalized homophobia and panphobia that Fuma can vividly picture the shape of. But it also tugs at something deep down that Fuma's been trying not to think about and so thinking about often. This might not be a sexuality experiment for Maki, but it is just a waypoint for him. A developing ground, just like the AHL.

But Fuma doesn't want to acknowledge that out loud. He takes Maki's words at face value instead. “I know that,” Fuma assures him.

Maki frowns. “Then why are you doubting me?”

“It’s not doubt,” Fuma says. “I was asking sincerely whether you were sure because it’s a big thing to do for the first time, and I don’t want you to rush into it.”

Somehow that explanation makes Maki frown deeper. “It doesn’t feel like a rush to me. I trust you. I’d be down to do it today, even.”

Fuma’s stomach flips. He wants to, and he knows that Maki wants it, but every time he thinks of it, he can't help but worry. It would be so easy for something to go wrong, for them to both be so caught up in the moment they forget to be careful and Maki gets hurt, even just a little bit. They've been nothing but full speed ahead these last few weeks, and that's partially Fuma's fault. He wants Maki so badly it scares him, because he knows this is nothing but temporary. Maki will be called up, hopefully soon, no matter how much Fuma wants to keep him here. Fuma would never forgive himself if he did something to compromise that.

His reticence must show on his face, because Maki tilts his head in confusion. “Did Nico not like bottoming?”

“Huh?” Fuma asks, more baffled by the sudden presence of Nicholas in this conversation than anything before. “Um, no, he did.”

“Then why can't I?” Maki says with a pout. “Do you not want… If you’re not into it, you can just tell me.”

That would be the easy way out of this. It would also be the kind of lie Fuma doesn’t want to tell. “No, it’s not that. It’s just… This is a really crucial time for you at work. We're coming up on the end of the season, and eyes are on you, and I don’t want you to risk getting injured or anything.”

Maki looks stricken. “Oh my God, did I hurt you? You can't get injured either.”

“No, no,” Fuma says quickly. Any soreness he feels now is entirely what he wanted. “No, I'm fine, I promise.”

Tension bleeds out of Maki's shoulders, panic once again replaced by confusion. “Okay. So… do you really think you’d hurt me?”

“Not on purpose,” Fuma says. “You just need to be careful. I want to take care of you. That’s why I… I wanted you to fuck me. I prepared all of that because I wanted it to be good for you.”

“It was,” Maki says. “It really was. But I’m pretty sure fucking me would also be taking care of me. You have no idea how much I’ve been thinking about it.”

Guilt sticks in Fuma's throat, because he does know, at least a little bit. Maki has mentioned it, usually in the middle of sex, dirty words whispered in Fuma's ear. But Fuma wasn't thinking about that when he was lying in that hotel bed fantasizing or when he was in the shower carefully opening himself up for Maki. He was thinking about what he thought was best for Maki, not what Maki wanted.

Even so, he's not sure he would have done anything differently.

“Why don’t you tell me what you were thinking about, baby?” he asks. “We can start from there, and then… maybe next time…”

Maki lights up, eager hands wandering over Fuma's body as he starts talking. Relief washes over Fuma at the easy shift away from argument territory. This arrangement will end eventually, but at least he hasn’t fucked it up just yet.

—

The Wolves notch an easy win against Rockford in a matinee matchup that weekend. While it’s likely the Wolves will make the playoffs, they’re neck-and-neck in points with both Rockford and Iowa, the three teams battling for the third-in-division ranking. Staying in the top three will ensure they get a coveted bye, and therefore a much-needed break, before the division semi-finals.

The two points from this win help with those efforts, and so everyone is in a good mood after the game. Fuma is standing in front of his stall, half-dressed after his shower and talking to Singer—or, really, being talked at.

“Hailey seriously won't stop cleaning, man,” Singer complains in the tone of baffled affection he often talks about his wife with. “I've told her a million times the house is clean enough, but she's, like, terrified her mom will see a speck of dust on the mantle or something.”

Fuma makes a sympathetic noise, deeply glad he doesn't have in-laws to worry about coming to visit. “I dunno, man, sounds like you've gotta get better at vacuuming,” he jokes.

Singer laughs. “Yeah, totally! I'm really perfecting my technique. I've figured out—”

Fuma doesn't comprehend what Singer has figured out because he's distracted by the sudden and familiar weight of a shirtless Maki pressed against the bare skin of Fuma's own back. He's immediately caught between the urge to lean back into him and the awareness of exactly where they are.

“Whatcha talking about?” Maki asks, hooking his chin over Fuma's shoulder and wrapping his arms around him.

Singer starts his story over, clearly glad for another interested audience member. “Oh, man, my wife's parents are coming to town for her birthday, and she's so stressed it’s making me stressed.”

It's good that Fuma has already heard this, because he's not listening. All his focus is on Maki's hand sliding up his abs and making its way across his chest. He cups Fuma's pec, thumb brushing idly across his skin. Fuma stays perfectly still, not wanting to draw attention to it. It's not out of the norm for Maki to be touchy-feely in the locker room. Fuma doesn't want to make it weird.

Maki hums in response to something Singer said, the soft vibration loud in Fuma's ear. Fuma thinks of the bite mark Maki left on his shoulder, the one Maki is covering with his body right now. Fuma has fielded a number of sly comments about his new girlfriend thanks to the myriad of marks on his body over the last few weeks. That's easy enough, a lie Fuma's accustomed to, but it's different having the person who left them there in the room. Touching him. Fuma feels transparent.

Maki is talking now. “Yeah, like, don't they get along?”

“Exactly!” Singer says. Fuma's brain whites out as Maki’s fingers trace the definition of his chest, minute movements that are probably not even visible to anyone else. A subtle tease, just for Fuma. Fuma can be okay with that. He’ll tease Maki right back later, when they're alone.

But then Maki pinches Fuma's nipple, sending a shock of sensation through Fuma, and the panic Fuma was trying to suppress seizes him.

“Ba—bro, stop,” he says, shrugging Maki off. His heart is doing flips in his chest. He thinks he might actually be sweating.

Neither Maki nor Singer are perturbed. Maki beams at Fuma, unrepentant, and Singer barely pauses to make an amused face in the middle of waxing poetic about vacuuming. Singer doesn't seem to have clued in at all that Maki was essentially feeling Fuma up in front of him, but if he had, and if Fuma had called Maki baby instead of catching himself, they would be screwed. Singer knows Fuma better than anyone else on the team; he could pick up on the vibe if he wasn't so focused on Hailey right now.

To be fair, Fuma tells himself, Singer is always focused on Hailey. It's fine. He gives Maki what he hopes is a stern look and abandons him to Singer in favour of turning away to finish getting dressed.

Fuma is mostly calm by the time Maki meets him out in the hallway to the parking garage. He's letting it go. It was no big deal, just like the smack to the ass Maki gives him as they head out. Fuma doesn't even flinch. It's normal teammate behaviour. Nobody would think twice about it.

But they aren't normal teammates. That's the thought playing on loop in Fuma's head when the apartment door closes behind them and Maki immediately pushes him up against it and kisses him. Fuma kisses him back, caught up in it like he always is, but he's also thinking about what would've happened if Singer found out.

Maki makes a noise into his mouth, and Fuma thinks about the look of shock Singer would have on his face after learning that Fuma is gay. Fuma pulls Maki closer, hands on his ass, and the Singer in his head says, All this time? Maki untucks Fuma's shirt so he can shove his hand underneath it and thumb at Fuma's nipple again, and Singer makes a scandalized face. And now with the rookie? Bro…

Maki pulls back from the kiss to look at Fuma. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” Fuma says automatically.

Maki makes a doubtful face. He untangles himself from Fuma and takes a step back. “I can tell you're distracted.”

Fuma winces. “Sorry. It's really not a big deal.”

He leans in to kiss Maki again. He thinks for a second that he’s gotten away with it, but then Maki pulls away again. “Are you sure?”

Fuma curses Maki's natural stubbornness and every single person who taught him emotional intelligence, even though Maki is right to push. Fuma knows they should talk about this, even if it's the last thing he wants to do.

“It's fine, it's just. I almost called you baby in front of Singer.”

The corner of Maki's mouth curls up in satisfaction. “I know,” he says. “You should've.”

Fuma almost chokes on his own tongue. “No, I shouldn't have, are you crazy? He can't know. And there were so many other guys in the room, too.”

Maki’s smile drops. “They wouldn't have figured it out from that. The guys call each other babe and sweetheart and shit all the time.”

Fuma shakes his head. “That's not at all the same thing. I don't do that. And I especially don’t say it the way I was going to say it to you.”

There's a pause, surprise flickering across Maki's face before landing somewhere soft and warm. “Oh,” he says, reaching to take Fuma's hand. He gives him a coy look. “And what way is that?”

Fuma lets Maki thread their fingers together and then squeezes hard, trying to ground both of them. He wishes he could make light of this, but he can't. Now that he's talking about it, he finds he needs Maki to understand the sinking feeling he has in the pit of his stomach.

“Maki, I'm serious,” he says. “People would notice if I acted like that, and we can't risk it. Not at all, and especially not for something temporary.”

“Temporary?”

Maki looks like a kicked puppy, his hand going slack in Fuma's grip as he stares at Fuma. Fuma's stomach twists with guilt. He knew this conversation would eventually catch up with him.

“Let's sit down,” he says, letting Maki go and reaching down to unlace his shoes. This isn't the kind of conversation he wants to have in the entryway.

Unsurprisingly, Maki vibrates with nervous energy as they're taking off their jackets and shuffling over to the couch. He sits down with his thigh pressed against Fuma's, leaning into his space.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asks.

Fuma shakes his head. “I just think… Maybe we should slow down. This has been moving so fast, it isn't sustainable.”

“Because we can't keep our hands off each other?” Maki asks doubtfully. “Isn't that a good sign?”

“Maybe,” Fuma hedges. “If we didn't have to worry about keeping it a secret, sure. But…”

Maki wrinkles his nose. “I guess,” he says. “I don't like it, but. Yeah. I can try to be more careful. Chill out a bit.”

He pauses, giving Fuma a long look. Fuma avoids eye contact in favour of studying the point where their thighs touch.

“What did you mean by temporary, though?” Maki asks.

Fuma picks a loose thread off Maki's dress pants and flicks it onto the floor. “You're going to get called up,” he says, still not looking up. “Raleigh is not exactly close by.”

“So?”

That makes Fuma look at Maki, if only so he can see if Maki looks like he's joking. He doesn’t. “So… long distance is a whole thing.”

Maki shrugs. “I don't think it would be a big deal. We would figure it out.”

Fuma wishes he could have that kind of blind optimism. But the way his relationship with Nicholas slowly fell apart over months of too-short phone calls and increasingly desperate attempts to schedule time to meet up between Fuma's road trips and Nicholas's work schedule makes it impossible.

“You might think that now, but it's hard. I couldn't make it work with Nicholas.”

Maki balks, his face going stony. “I'm not Nicholas.”

“I know that, but—”

“And we won’t be like that,” Maki says over Fuma. “I’ll work hard so that we're not.”

He speaks with the easy confidence that only someone who's only ever had things go his way can have. Fuma can tell he doesn't really understand, even though he thinks he does, and Fuma can't blame him for that. He's twenty-one. He’s never had a real relationship. When he came out to his parents, they accepted him without question. He’s been on a sure and steady course to achieving the career dream he’s had since he was a kid. His life is undoubtedly charmed, so of course he thinks everything will work out. It's Fuma's job to tell him when he's wrong.

“You've never dealt with something like this before, but I have,” Fuma says. “I'm trying to tell you that it hurts, and I don't want to hurt you.”

Maki shakes his head. “You won't. I'll be fine, and I'll make sure I don't hurt you, either.”

“You can't promise that. We wouldn't be able to help it,” Fuma says, desperate to get Maki to understand how impossible what he's saying is. “We’d both be travelling all the time, so we would hardly ever see each other, and we'd start resenting each other for it. And you're right, you're not Nicholas, so we'd have to be twice as discreet when we did see each other because your career is on the line.”

“So we'll be discreet,” Maki says, as if it's simple. Frustration burns in Fuma's nose. “It's your career on the line, too. I'm not trying to fuck that up.”

“I know you're not,” Fuma says, working to keep his voice measured, “but it's not that easy.”

Maki scowls. “I think it is. We'd just have to try.”

That hits Fuma hard enough that he would snap at Maki if he was able to formulate words past the bloom of hurt in his stomach. As if he hasn't been saying that trying wasn't enough.

Fuma's barely recovered from that blow when Maki hits him with another one. “Is this because you're thinking of us as casual? Like, just hooking up? Because I'm not. I like you so much.”

Fuma's stomach swoops again, a riot of butterflies trying to fly out his mouth and getting stuck in his throat instead. It's one thing to know how Maki feels and another entirely to hear it. Maki is looking at him with so much nervous hope that Fuma thinks he might collapse under the weight of it.

“I like you, too,” he says helplessly. “It's not casual. It's just…”

“Temporary,” Maki finishes, annoyed. “Right.”

Maki is pressed right up against him, not moving at all, but Fuma feels him slipping away. He can't see a way to grip onto him. “I'm sorry,” he says. “I just don't think there's a way that we could…”

“Right,” Maki repeats. “Because you're scared of letting yourself have nice things. I get it.”

Fuma takes a sharp breath in. The words are a knife edged with truth, stabbing into his gut and straight through the butterflies’ frantically flapping wings.

“Sorry,” Maki says. “I just wish you would spend less time taking care of other people and a little more time letting people take care of you.”

It's unspoken but loud and clear that by people, Maki means me. Fuma presses his lips together, biting back the part of him that wants to get defensive. “I'm sorry. I'll try to be better about that.”

That seems to appease Maki slightly. “Okay, good,” he says. “Because I don't think I can accept that this is temporary. I'm going to do my best to change your mind.”

Fuma winces, reaching out to put a hand on Maki's thigh. He wants so badly for this argument to be over, to give in and let Maki have what he wants, but he can't let himself.

“Maki, don't push this,” he begs. “Can we please just make the best of the time that we have?”

Maki puts his hand over Fuma's, studying his face for a long moment before he leans in.

When Maki's lips meet his, it's not the soft kiss Fuma was expecting—instead, it’s immediately dirty, Maki licking into Fuma’s mouth with an edge of desperation that Fuma can taste. He hates that he’s the one who put it there, but it doesn’t stop him from kissing back just as intensely.

It's not lost on Fuma that Maki didn't agree, and maybe this is his first attempt at trying to change Fuma's mind. But Fuma’s always been good at avoiding his problems. He's grateful for the chance to get lost in Maki's body and pretend for a while.

—

Everything Fuma knows about Maki has him braced for big gestures, dramatic attempts to get Fuma to see things his way. He spends a lot of time nervously anticipating the moment that he has to throw up his walls and resist again.

It never comes. Over the next week, the only thing Maki does that's out of the norm is make a concerted effort to give Fuma space at the rink—no more touching him in the locker room or smirking over at him when no one else is watching.

It's more effective than the big gestures would have been. Instead of Fuma being able to guard against it in the big moments, it's as if Maki is worming his way under skin bit by bit, trying to show him how easy it could be. And it's true. It wouldn't even be hard, if everything could stay exactly like it is.

But it can't. Soon they won't be going home together and living in the picture of domestic bliss where Maki cooks for Fuma and they abandon their show in favour of making out on the couch. Fuma can't forget that. He clings to that reminder in the moments where Maki looks at him with so much naked desire and affection that Fuma wants desperately to tell him he's changed his mind.

So Fuma carries on, doing his best to savour their time together and waiting for the moment everything changes for good.

In the middle of an uneventful home game against the Milwaukee Admirals, Fuma takes a check into the boards directly on his shoulder. He skates away from it fine, more worried about backchecking than about the pain. He'll shake it off, like he has a thousand hits before.

But as the game goes on, it takes more and more effort to focus. Fuma’s shifts blur together, and when he tries to lift his arm to pat Maki’s helmet after Maki scores, pain radiates out from it. He quickly puts his arm back down and tells himself it wasn’t that bad. He just pulled a muscle. He’ll ice it after the game, and it’ll be fine.

It only takes another shift out on the ice before Sarah, one of the assistant coaches, leans down to talk to him as he’s settling back onto the bench. “Murs, what’s up with your right shoulder?”

Fuma shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says. Off Sarah’s doubtful look, he shrugs and immediately regrets it when the pain makes him wince. “Might’ve pulled something.”

“Better go get it checked out,” Sarah says. Her tone brokers no argument, but she must be able to tell Fuma is considering it anyway, because she adds, “We’re up by three, Murata. Go.”

Fuma goes. Once he’s sitting on a massage bed instead of focusing on playing hockey, he can tell the pain is worse than he thought, even before Matthew asks him to take off his gear so he can see what the damage is.

“Your range of motion’s not looking too hot,” Matthew says unnecessarily—he's helping Fuma peel off his undershirt because Fuma can't manage it on his own without shooting pain. “Ah, yeah, looks a bit swollen, too.”

That's a slight understatement. Fuma's skin is bright red and tender, especially on the top of his shoulder. Even he has to admit it doesn't look good.

“What do you think happened out there?” Matthew asks.

“Got checked pretty hard maybe ten minutes into the second,” Fuma says. “Guessing I hit the boards wrong.”

Matthew nods and moves on with the examination, but Fuma imagines he can see the disapproval at not getting checked out right away rolling off him in waves. It's probably not even true—Matthew would be used to that behaviour from hockey players. But Fuma hasn't been able to look at Matthew since November without getting annoyed because he's thinking of Maki's sad face, and it's even worse when his shoulder hurts and Matthew keeps touching it.

“I think it’s a sprain,” Matthew says after what feels like hours of prodding and making Fuma test his range of motion further. “But we should go get an X-ray to make sure it’s not anything worse. I’ll drive you to the urgent care. You can shower first if you promise me you’ll keep your shoulder as still as you can.”

“Promise,” Fuma says immediately. He can’t think of anything worse than waiting around for an X-ray dripping in sweat.

It’s harder to shower than he expected, but he manages it. The game is still going when he’s dressed, so he tucks his car keys in the pocket of Singer’s jacket and texts him from Matthew’s car to ask if he’ll drive Maki home. He’s pretty sure Hailey is at the game, so Singer will have a way to get home from there.

Thinking about logistics like that is a mediocre distraction from the pain. He wonders if Maki will be worried. Probably. He thinks about texting him, too, but with nothing certain to report, he can’t figure out how to string the words together. He wishes Maki were here instead of Matthew and then mentally shies away from the thought, startled by the force of his feelings.

“Sorry you have to cart me around,” Fuma says, still trying to distract himself. “You were probably ready to go home after the game.”

“It’s no problem,” Matthew says, glancing away from the road at Fuma. “I’d worry, anyway.”

Fuma makes a doubtful noise. Matthew probably doesn’t even think about work when he’s at home, if his work-life balance is so strict. “Still. I’m sure your girlfriend misses you. You have a girlfriend, right?”

In Fuma’s experience, asking the guys about their girlfriends is a surefire way to get them talking. He’s hoping Matthew will be the same so that Fuma can focus on him instead of how much it hurts, but Matthew doesn’t say anything for a long moment. He flips on his turn signal at a light, the ticking of it loud in the silent car.

“I don’t,” Matthew says eventually. “So really, don’t worry about it. I want to make sure you’re okay.”

They’re both quiet after that. Fuma wishes again for Maki and his constant chatter and then fervently tries to think about anything else.

By the time Fuma is finally dropped off at home, outfitted with a sling and prescription painkillers, his energy is totally drained. The X-rays were good news, no apparent bone damage, but they won’t know for sure how bad the sprain is until he can get an ultrasound. When Fuma pressed, Matthew and the urgent care staff agreed that it seemed like at least a moderate sprain, which would probably take six weeks to heal. If it’s actually severe, it'll be months, especially if he needs surgery.

It’s a far cry from the “couple days” that Fuma wanted to hear. And over nothing but a run-of-the-mill hit. Fuma wishes he were more surprised. It feels inevitable that his season would end like this.

It’s late enough that Maki should be asleep, so Fuma tries to be quiet when he lets himself in. He turns lights off along the way to his bedroom, and then stops in the doorway, emotion flooding his chest.

Maki is in Fuma’s bed, slumped over asleep with his phone in his hand, bathed in the yellow glow of the bedside lamp. For a second, Maki is overlaid in Fuma’s mind’s eye by the memory of Nicholas in that exact spot, having drifted off while trying to wait up after a game Fuma wouldn’t let him attend in case people asked questions.

Fuma feels like the other shoe has dropped straight onto his aching shoulder. He’ll recover from this injury, but there’s always the next one. He recovered from Nicholas leaving him, but now there’s Maki. He never learns.

Fuma should wake Maki up and send him back to his own bed. He should never have let this get this far in the first place. But the damage is already done. Fuma turns off the lamp and gets into the bed next to Maki, carefully rearranging the pillows so he can prop himself up to keep his shoulder elevated. Despite his best efforts, Maki stirs and rolls over toward him.

“Fuma?” he asks blearily. “Are you okay?”

Fuma feels a bone-deep tiredness coupled with the urge to cuddle in close and let himself be held. It’s not a combination he likes. He puts a hand in Maki’s hair, petting soothingly. “I’m okay,” he says. “Go back to sleep.”

Maki slings an arm over Fuma’s waist and snuggles into him. “Good,” he murmurs. “Was worried.”

“I’m okay,” Fuma repeats. Maki hums, already drifting off again.

Fuma stays awake for a long time, listening to Maki breathe and trying to convince himself he didn’t lie. Even if he’s not okay now, he will be, and that has to count for something. It always has before.

—

Maki fusses over Fuma the next morning. He insists on seeing the injury for himself, speculates on how bad the swelling looks, won’t let Fuma open his own bottle of painkillers, and makes Fuma’s breakfast smoothie for him. Fuma slept poorly and is in too much pain to bother resisting. If it makes Maki feel better to fuss, then fine.

“I just took drugs, so I shouldn't drive, but I can get us an Uber to the arena for morning skate,” Fuma offers as he sips on his smoothie. Maki turns from where he’s blending his own and looks at Fuma like he has two heads. Fuma frowns and waits until the blender stops to explain, “I’m coming, too. I have to meet with the medical staff.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Maki says. “But I can drive us. I drove your car home last night.”

Fuma stares. “You… did?”

Maki nods as he unscrews the blades from his smoothie cup and replaces it with the travel top. “Yeah, I have my licence. I guess I never mentioned it because it's not like I have a car here? I like it when you drive, anyway.”

Fuma is disproportionately unsettled by this information. He wasn’t expecting to learn something new about Maki, and now he’s wondering what else he doesn’t know. How many things will he never learn because he won’t think to ask Maki before he’s gone?

Fuma knows he’s being dramatic, but he can’t stop. He slumps his way into the passenger seat of his own car and watches Maki competently drive them to the arena, reeling the whole time.

The day only gets more miserable from there. Fuma doesn’t get to participate in morning skate because he has to meet with Matthew and the other trainers before they cart him to the ultrasound that confirms it’s a moderate sprain and then to an appointment with the team doctor, and then back to the arena to talk about his recovery plan.

“Six weeks,” Fuma says forlornly, staring at the papers he brought back to the apartment with him. “It might as well be months.”

“Nah, six weeks means you’ll be good to go for the playoffs,” Maki enthuses. He stuffs his face full of pasta and chews as he adds, “And then we’ll kick everyone’s asses and win the Calder and you won’t even remember this stupid shoulder sprain.”

Fuma holds back a derisive snort. He prods at his own bowl of pasta, unable to bring himself to take a bite. What would be the point? He doesn’t need to carb load before a hockey game. “If we’re still in them when I’ve recovered, sure,” he says dully.

Maki scoffs. “We will be.”

Maki’s relentless optimism usually cheers Fuma up, and he might even be right, but it’s cold comfort right now. Fuma eats his pasta so that he can take another of his heavy-duty painkillers on a full stomach and so that Maki will go take his pre-game nap without fussing too much, and then he lies down on the couch and reads about other people who have had shoulder sprains in random Reddit threads.

Fuma doesn’t have to get dressed in his suit and go watch the game from the press box, cleared to stay home and rest if he wants, but he does anyway. It’s a mistake, because the Wolves lose in an overtime heartbreaker, and so instead of spiralling about internet horror stories, Fuma is spiralling about all the ways he could have helped if he was on the ice. It’s nothing he’s going to say out loud, not when it’s more self-pitying than constructive, but it makes for an excellent soup to stew in.

Maki is uncharacteristically quiet in the car on the way home, no doubt stewing on the game himself. That just compounds Fuma’s misery, because they would normally dissect the game together, but of course Maki is too respectful to make Fuma do that when he wasn’t playing. Fuma is grateful for that and annoyed that he has to be grateful and then annoyed at himself for being annoyed.

“Hey,” Maki says, looking over at Fuma while they’re waiting at a red light a few blocks from the apartment. “When we get home, do you maybe want me to help you wash your hair?”

“What?” Fuma asks in surprise. “No, it’s okay.”

Maki shrugs and looks back at the road. “Okay. I just thought it might be difficult to do on your own. And it might feel nice if I did it?”

Fuma hums, actually thinking about it now, and Maki continues, buoyed by the lack of an immediate second refusal. “Plus, I could run you a bath. I always find them kind of soothing. But no pressure. Maybe you’re not into baths, I dunno. I just thought…”

The light turns green, and Maki lets his sentence drop off into silence. Fuma considers it as Maki drives. It was hard to wash his hair with his non-dominant hand when he had that quick shower right after he was injured, which is why he didn’t try to wash it today. His hair already feels a little greasy, and it’s only going to get worse.

Besides, it's obvious that this is Maki trying to take care of Fuma, and Fuma promised he would try to let him.

“I’m into baths,” Fuma says. “That sounds nice. Thank you.”

Maki flashes him a smile, bright in the quickly-passing light of a streetlight. “Sweet, of course, no problem.”

Maki beelines straight to Fuma's ensuite when they get home. Fuma follows slowly and hovers in the doorway while Maki turns on the water and checks the temperature with his wrist. He's being so thoughtful and caring that Fuma can barely stand it.

The water itself is warm and relaxing once Fuma is in it, but Fuma is too tense to let it do its work. There's something about being naked in the bath while Maki sits on the edge dressed in his shirt sleeves and dress pants that makes Fuma's skin crawl with vulnerability.

Maki flips open the shampoo and Fuma says, “Wait. You should get in here with me.”

Maki hesitates, glancing at Fuma's shoulder doubtfully.

“This bath is stupidly big, there's space. You won't hurt me,” Fuma insists. “And if you're behind me, that'll be a better angle to wash my hair.”

“If you're sure,” Maki says.

Fuma nods and pulls out the big guns. “Come be my pillow, baby.”

He's rewarded by a big smile and Maki standing up to shed his clothes. Fuma breathes a quiet sigh of relief and shifts forward to make space for Maki to get in the bathtub behind him.

“Relax,” Maki murmurs, guiding Fuma to lean his weight against him with a soft touch to his uninjured shoulder. Fuma lets him, closing his eyes and trying hard to relax.

But saying yes to this turns out to be yet another mistake Fuma made today. Maki's body is solid behind Fuma, legs bracketing him in, and his fingers are gentle in Fuma's hair as he carefully pours handfuls of water over it and then starts massaging in the shampoo with slow, firm circles. Pleasant tingles spread through Fuma’s body, a contrast to the throbbing in his shoulder. Unwanted emotion swells in Fuma's chest, that same intense urge he had yesterday to curl up in Maki's arms and cry.

He fights it back, desperate to stay strong. It would be so easy to give in, and that’s freaking him out. He doesn’t want to rely on anyone else, no matter how good it feels in the moment.

Maki rinses Fuma’s hair, careful to block the suds from getting in his eyes, and then gives him the same treatment with conditioner. By the time he’s finished, Fuma feels flayed open, tender to the touch. Maki keeps running his fingers through Fuma’s hair, even after he urges Fuma to lean his head back on his shoulder.

Fuma feels more than hears Maki’s soft sigh. “You scared me yesterday,” Maki murmurs. Alarm shoots through Fuma, but Maki stops Fuma from lifting his head to look at him. “I was worried things were way worse than they turned out to be.”

“I’m sorry,” Fuma says helplessly. “I’m okay.”

Maki hums. “I mean, you’re not, but that’s okay. You’re human. I just think that maybe… in my head you were sort of unstoppable.”

Regret stabs at Fuma’s stomach. That’s the impression he works hard to give off, the one he wants Maki to have of him. He wishes Maki never had to see him like this.

“But I like knowing you’re not,” Maki muses softly. “I like that you’re real. Did you…”

He trails off, and Fuma opens his eyes to look at him sideways. “What?”

Maki breathes a laugh. “Promise not to judge me.”

“For what?” Fuma asks.

“Ugh,” Maki says. “Fair question. Okay. Did you know that when I was sixteen, I would rip clips I found of you and edit them together? For, like, dumb social media videos.”

“What? Me?”

“You, yeah,” Maki says.

Maki was sixteen five years ago, so Fuma had just signed with the Wolves for the first time. It wasn’t like he was subject to the kind of coverage NHL prospects get; Fuma is pretty sure he barely even gave post-game interviews to local media his first season. “There can’t have been enough content for that. How long were these videos, ten seconds?”

“There was content if you dug,” Maki says. “And you were the only Japanese skater in a pro league in North America, so… of course I dug. I’d just started playing in the WHL, and you were doing exactly what I hoped I’d be able to do. I thought you were so fucking cool. I still think that. If anything, I think you’re even cooler now that I know you.”

Fuma snorts, and Maki huffs. “Of course you’re laughing, but it’s true. The fact that you can’t take a compliment doesn’t make you any less deserving of it. You’re still cool, even though you’re also stubborn and set in your ways, and you isolate yourself because you don’t want to be a burden, and you’re always putting everyone else’s needs before yours because you don’t think you deserve to come first. It drives me crazy that I can barely get you to accept thanks for it.”

Fuma opens his mouth to respond and finds that he doesn’t know how, and even if he did, he can’t. The emotion that’s been pressing at Fuma’s rib cage claws its way up his throat and refuses to be swallowed down. He’s horrified to realize that his face is burning and his eyes are pricking with tears—not because he’s hurt or because of the persistent pain in his shoulder, but because Maki is making him feel so devastatingly seen. He does do those things for those reasons. He didn’t realize Maki knew that about him.

Fuma tries to take a breath to stop the tears, but the inhale is shaky, and Maki immediately shifts in alarm. “Oh my God, are you crying? I’m sorry, I was saying those are good things.”

Fuma laughs, the sound coming out wet. “I know,” he says. Trust Maki to list Fuma’s flaws and then say they’re good. He means it, too, which only makes Fuma’s chest ache more.

“I mean, like, they’re the things that make you you!” Maki says, still rushing to explain himself. “Along with your massive fucking heart, and how hard you work, and just… I don’t know. I’m glad I’ve gotten to know the real you.”

Fuma is so deeply touched and pathetic and in pain and overwhelmed by all of it. He has no idea what he did to deserve Maki. “I know,” he says again, his voice rough. “I'm fine.”

Maki wraps his arms around Fuma’s torso tighter, holding him that little bit closer. “I’m saying you don’t have to be fine,” he says, quiet but fierce. He presses a kiss to Fuma’s temple, lingering there. Fuma closes his eyes tight and breathes deep through his nose, trying to hold back the tears.

“It’s just…” Fuma tries when he thinks he’s got it mostly under control. “My shoulder. The painkillers wore off.”

Maki is kind enough to let him get away with that excuse. “Can you take more soon?” he asks. “Should we get out of the bath?”

Fuma nods and sits up, shifting forward so that Maki can get out first. Maki moves slowly, careful not to knock into Fuma, and then offers Fuma a steady arm to hold onto as he gets out. Fuma accepts it, unable to look directly at Maki even though it’s not as if Maki didn’t already see Fuma’s emotions loud and clear.

They dry off, and Maki drains the bath before taking down Fuma’s favourite robe from the hook on the door. “C’mon,” he says, holding it up, and Fuma obediently turns so Maki can gently put it over his arms and wrap him up in it, carefully tying the front closed. He kisses Fuma’s forehead when he’s done, and Fuma has to swallow another lump in his throat.

“I’m gonna…” Fuma mumbles, shuffling out of the room and in the direction of where he left his painkillers in the kitchen. Maki disappears into his own room for a minute, emerging in soft pajama pants and a t-shirt while Fuma is finishing the cup of water he poured himself. He hovers awkwardly, watching Fuma, looking for all the world like a lost puppy.

“Did you eat after the game?” Fuma asks, the thought striking him suddenly. Normally the kitchen is where Maki heads first when they get home, but he obviously didn’t do that this time. Fuma didn’t even think about it, which only makes him feel more guilty.

“Yeah, had a protein shake at the rink,” Maki says.

“You should eat real food, too,” Fuma says. Maki cracks an amused smile at Fuma giving advice he ignores half the time himself, and Fuma rolls his eyes. “I’m just gonna go to bed, anyway.”

Maki shrugs, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I dunno, I’m not really hungry. Will it bother you if I go to bed with you? Like, will it be uncomfortable?”

Fuma frowns. “No, but… isn’t it still kinda early? Don’t you want to stay up longer?”

Maki shakes his head. “No. I just want to be with you.”

That hits Fuma right in his tender insides. He doesn’t have the strength to even begin to resist it, so he doesn’t try. He nods and lets Maki trail after him to his bed, where Maki insists on arranging Fuma’s pillows himself and checking three times that Fuma is comfortable and his shoulder is adequately supported before he finally settles down and snuggles into Fuma’s side.

Fuma still feels unsettled by letting Maki comfort him, something deeply ingrained in him insisting that he should be resisting care. But as his meds start to kick in, a haze settling over him and sleep threatening to pull him under, he can’t help but think about how nice it is to have Maki pressed up against him. It's nice to know that even after seeing Fuma at his lowest, there’s nowhere else Maki would rather be than here with him.

—

When Fuma wakes up, Maki is still curled into a comma next to him, one hand resting on Fuma's stomach. He looks peaceful, dark eyelashes pretty against his skin and his features slack with sleep. For a minute Fuma just looks at him, fondness taking root in his chest. He wishes he could freeze this moment.

But the dull ache in his shoulder and an insistent growl from his stomach urges him to move. He tries to ease himself out from under Maki's hand, but Maki stirs, fist gripping Fuma's robe and his eyes blinking open.

“Sorry,” Fuma whispers. “Go back to sleep.”

Maki hums in the negative. “M’up,” he says. “M’gonna make you breakfast.”

Fuma protests, but Maki won't hear it. He follows Fuma out of bed and hovers close as Fuma washes his face, a look of concern on his face. Fuma has to shoo him into the kitchen just to get a minute to breathe and put his compression bandage on by himself.

When he makes his way out to the kitchen, Maki is already busy making smoothies and eggs. He stops when he sees Fuma. “Do you need help with your shirt?”

Fuma's recovery plan, reinforced by strict orders from Matthew, says that today is devoted to doing absolutely nothing, so Fuma isn't planning to leave the apartment. He vaguely thought he'd just go shirtless, maybe throw on a zip-up hoodie later, but he nods and lets Maki follow him back to his bedroom to get a shirt anyway. If Maki wants to carefully ease a t-shirt over Fuma's arm for him, then Fuma might as well let him.

They eat their breakfasts in relative quiet, scrolling on their phones. Fuma tries to clear their dishes away when they're done, but Maki swoops in to stop him. “I’ll wash these,” he says, taking them over to the sink.

As Maki starts running water, Fuma catches sight of the time on the stove clock. “Hold on,” he says, “shouldn't you be heading out for practice soon?”

Maki follows Fuma's gaze to the clock and then shrugs. “I was thinking I wouldn't go.”

Fuma frowns. “Why wouldn't you?”

Maki turns off the tap. The silence of the room is suddenly deafening instead of companionable. “So I can stay here and take care of you.”

Fuma stares at the slope of Maki's shoulders, so shocked that he can't speak for a second. Professional hockey is not the type of job that's flexible when it comes to team commitments. Fuma’s seen guys taken off the roster for a game because they were ten minutes late to practice, though admittedly that was with coaches much tougher than Harts. It never even occurred to him that Maki would consider not going an option.

“What? No way.”

Maki turns around and gives Fuma a look, jaw set in determination. “It's not up to you.”

“Pretty sure it shouldn't be up to you, either, if that's the kind of decision you're going to make. What are you gonna tell Harts?”

Maki shrugs. “That I'm sick, a stomach bug or whatever.”

Fuma shakes his head. “No. No, you're not lying to our coach or our medical staff for me. You know how much of your career rests on what people think of your character.”

“It'll be fine,” Maki argues. “They're not gonna find out, so it's not a big deal. I want to make sure you're okay.”

“I can survive on my own for a few hours,” Fuma says, failing entirely to hide the incredulous hysteria building up in his throat. “You have work to do. You have to get your ass to the rink.”

Maki scowls. “Don't talk to me like you're my dad.”

“I'm your A!” Fuma bursts out, stunned that Maki is somehow still arguing this. “If you don't go, I'll call Harts myself.”

There's a thick silence as they stare at each other, Maki's expression darkening by the second. He opens and shuts his mouth a couple times before letting out the kind of frustrated groan a teenager might make when their mom told them to go to their room.

“Maki, come on,” Fuma says. This entire scenario feels surreal. “I'll be fine. I managed injuries on my own no problem for years before I met you.”

“Okay, but I'm trying to tell you that you don't have to,” Maki snaps. “I can help you. Like, you literally needed help just to put on a shirt this morning.”

Fuma's face goes hot with frustration. He knew he shouldn't have been so indulgent with Maki, but how could he have predicted that Maki would try to do something like this?

“You can't miss practice just because I might need help getting dressed,” he says, trying to sound reasonable and landing on thoroughly annoyed instead.

“Can't I miss it because I care about you?”

Fuma opens his mouth to snap that of course Maki can't, but then he registers the look on Maki's face. Underneath the determined set of his jaw is a look of panic, like he’s trying desperately to keep the situation under his control, to stop Fuma from slipping away from him. Fuma remembers it well from countless disagreements with Nicholas.

The fight goes out of Fuma, leaving only exhaustion. He wishes they could live in the world Maki is trying to create, where taking a sick day to care for his boyfriend is something doable. But they don't. That's not the kind of life they chose.

“No,” he says, resigned. “No, you can't.”

Maki opens his mouth, no doubt intending to protest, but he stops when Fuma stands up and adds, “I wish you could.” He makes his way around the kitchen island, not wanting the physical barrier between them anymore. Maki watches him warily, letting Fuma take his hand when he reaches for it.

“Then why—” Maki starts, stopping again when Fuma squeezes his hand.

“Listen,” he says. “Imagine you're in Seattle and you have a game against the Kraken tonight. What would you do, fly across the country because I'm injured? You can't get used to dropping everything for me. That's not how this works.”

“That's a different scenario entirely,” Maki protests. “I'm here right now.”

“It isn't,” Fuma says, squeezing Maki’s hand again in an attempt to ground himself. “It's the same scenario where our jobs take priority, which is what will happen every time. That's what I was trying to tell you when I said it would be hard.”

Maki presses his lips together, visibly struggling with that. “Okay,” he says after a moment, his voice clipped. He tugs his hand out of Fuma’s. “Maybe you're right. But why are you talking about getting used to things when you’re the one who thinks this is temporary? You said we should ‘make the best of the time we have’.” His voice goes low in a bitter mockery of Fuma's tone. “What if this is me trying to do that?”

“It's not,” Fuma says. “This is you trying to change my mind when I asked you not to.”

“I never agreed to that,” Maki says, as if it’s a gotcha instead of something Fuma is well aware of. “You said you were going to try harder to let me take care of you, but have you even been doing that much?”

“Would I have been in the bath with you last night if I wasn't?” Fuma asks, exasperation sticking in his nose. “Letting you take care of me now will only make it worse for both of us later. I'm an idiot for letting it happen as much as I did.”

“Oh,” Maki says, face screwed up into something twisted and bitter. “Okay. So you regret me.”

Fuma shakes his head, incredulous at the leap in logic Maki is making even as his gut flips with guilt. “Why don't you get that I'm trying to make sure you don't regret me?”

Maki crosses his arms in front of his chest. He’s so close to Fuma that they almost brush Fuma’s chest, too. “That's not your choice.”

“Fine, no, it's not,” Fuma snaps. “But I told you not to push because I'm the one who's going to get left behind here.”

Maki is shaking his head, but Fuma can't listen to him try to argue that they can somehow make this work. Not again.

“Don’t make this about me not being willing to put in the work,” Fuma says, louder than he intended. “Not when you haven't tried to understand where I'm coming from at all.”

“How am I supposed to understand if you don’t fucking tell me?” Maki demands, matching Fuma’s volume. “You don’t talk to me about your feelings.”

“I’ve been trying to talk to you. I’ve been telling you that I can’t do this.”

“And you’re lying!” Maki shoots back. “To yourself and to me. Just look at last night. You cried because of something I said and then tried to pretend it never happened.”

Fuma feels himself losing grip on his emotions, the accusation putting him on shaky ground. It’s true, but not the way Maki means it, and it’s so beside the point it makes Fuma want to scream.

“I wasn’t pretending anything. And it wasn’t what you said.”

“Don’t give me that, I know it wasn’t just your shoulder,” Maki says. He scoffs, looking up at the ceiling and shaking his head before making eye contact with Fuma again. “You know, sometimes I think we never even got past you thinking of me as part of your job. Everything is always about what you think is best for me. Like, what even was that with you not wanting to fuck me even though I asked for it? What are you so afraid of?”

“Why wouldn’t I be afraid?” Fuma snaps, a flood of desperate anger overtaking him. “I’m going to have to let you go!”

“I’m trying to get you to hold on! Even when it’s hard, you’re worth it to me!”

Fuma takes half a step backward, Maki’s words slicing into his heart and burying themselves there. He wants so badly to believe Maki, to find the shred of truth in his argument, but how can he when Maki has made it obvious time and time again that he doesn’t understand?

Maki drops his arms to his sides, his eyes searching Fuma’s face with the same desperation Fuma feels. “Why am I not worth it to you?”

Fuma almost chokes on his shock, nausea clogging his throat at the idea that he ever made Maki think something so wrong. He doesn’t even have a chance to reply before Maki’s face is crumpling and he’s turning away.

“You know what,” Maki says, his voice rough, “I think I’m done letting you use me as an excuse to hold yourself back.”

Fuma finds his voice too late. “Maki—” he tries.

But Maki is already leaving. He doesn’t even bother to grab a jacket as he shoves his feet into his shoes and heads out the door. Fuma is left alone in the silence, just like he asked for.

—

The silence of the apartment only gets more oppressive as the day wears on. Usually Fuma is happy to have time to himself, even prefers it, but this is different. This feels like the walls closing in, each minute crawling by while Fuma sits on the couch and waits for Maki to return, torn between dread and anticipation.

Fuma tries to distract himself, but his options are limited when he's supposed to rest, and none of them are engaging enough to stop him from going over and over the fight in his head. Sometimes the him in his head makes his points in smoother and more delicate ways, and sometimes he resorts to shouting, to throwing himself at Maki's feet and begging. The Maki in his head is, similarly, both more and less reasonable.

It keeps Fuma trapped in an endless cycle of anger and sadness and worry, mentally drafting apologies he hopes Maki will listen to when he gets home and then wondering if there’s even a point. No matter how many times he tries, he never imagines an ending to the conversation where they’re both happy.

The clock ticks past the time when practice would end, and Fuma gets up from where he was staring blankly at the TV, feeling an urge to look busy even though there’s no way Maki will be home sooner than another twenty minutes. He moves the dishes Maki left in the sink into the dishwasher and then thoroughly wipes down the counters and backsplash, as if this will prove to Maki that Fuma wasn’t a listless mess for the last few hours.

That task takes all of five minutes. Fuma wanders back into the living room and starts straightening the shelves. He considers dusting and then discards that as too much. He sits down, then gets back up and rearranges an entire shelf of video games by title.

He checks his phone. Five more minutes have passed. He gets back up and goes to get a rag to dust.

He checks his phone again after he dusts the shelves. Ten more minutes have passed. Maki could be home any minute now. Fuma’s uninjured arm hurts from the repetitive motions of cleaning, but he starts dusting the TV anyway.

He’s being ridiculous. He’s not even usually a stress cleaner. He just feels so useless and on edge, like he’s been sent out in the dying seconds of a game when the team is three goals behind, and all he can hope to do is stop the other team from scoring on an empty net. Except in his current situation, all he can manage is wiping away some dust, and not even very well.

Fuma finishes fussing over tiny dust specks in the grooves of the TV’s edges and checks his phone again. This time, he doesn’t even register the time, because there’s a text from Maki on the screen. He reads it once, heart leaping into his throat, and then swipes the phone unlocked to read it again.

Going to Jo’s for dinner.

Nothing else. No indication of when he’ll be back. No apology. A period at the end, glaring when Maki usually punctuates his texts with emojis and nothing else. There are hours still before dinner time, so this is nothing but what it looks like: avoiding coming home to Fuma.

Fuma sits down on the couch heavily, trying to convince himself that this isn’t a death knell for a relationship he killed himself. Maki didn’t have hours to do nothing but dwell on their fight the way Fuma did; he probably needs to process, and it makes sense that he would want to do it with someone else. That he’s doing it with Jo, the one local friend he has that wasn’t Fuma’s friend first, is only logical.

But there’s no logic in the jealousy gripping Fuma’s throat. It’s only right that Maki should leave him and seek comfort from someone else—he should get himself a normal boyfriend who’s cuter and more understanding and easier to handle than Fuma. That’s what Nicholas did. Fuma likes Yuma, is now friends with him in his own right, but that only means that he knows well all the ways he doesn’t stack up against him.

Fuma tosses his phone onto the coffee table without responding to Maki’s text. He slumps backward on the couch, pain shooting through his shoulder when he leans too much of his weight on it. His painkillers have worn off again, and the ache is just another reminder that Fuma has been right all along. He’s slowly falling apart, every day bringing him closer to the moment he’ll be too old and broken, and the Wolves will find someone better. Meanwhile, every day only brings Maki closer to his full potential, his whole life stretching out in front of him. Maki deserves to find someone better, too.

With no set time to anticipate Maki’s return and a suspicion that it might not be until late that night, Fuma is overtaken by exhaustion. He can’t take more painkillers yet, so he gets an ice pack instead and cocoons himself in blankets on the couch, turning the TV on to a mindless show.

At least the TV is crystal clear. No dust on the screen at all. He laughs out loud at the thought, feeling ridiculous.

Fuma barely lasts ten minutes, only just managing to remember to take the ice off his shoulder before he passes out.

He wakes up with a start hours later, blankets tangled around him and his shoulder screaming. The bright afternoon light has shifted to the dull grey of a late winter evening, casting the apartment in shadows, and the streaming app is paused, asking if he’s still watching. Fuma fumbles blearily for the remote to tell it yes, desperate for noise to fill the silence.

It’s late enough now for more painkillers. Fuma considers taking them on an empty stomach and going back to bed, but he tells himself not to be stupid and forages in the fridge instead. There are leftovers from the last dinner Maki made, and Fuma heats them up, trying desperately not to think about Maki eating dinner with Jo and complaining about Fuma.

The food is good, because Maki’s food always is. Fuma chokes it down in front of the TV and chases it with his painkillers, and then checks the time reflexively. It tells him nothing, because he doesn’t know what Maki’s intentions are. Probably to stay with Jo, even though Jo lives with his cousin. He probably doesn’t even have a spare room, because that would be Jo’s room. Maki could sleep in his bed with him, could—

Fuma forces himself to stop thinking about that. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t own Maki. He thinks instead of the bitter way Maki said, I think I’m done, and tries his best to harden himself against it. It doesn’t work at all. He still feels raw with regret, even as the painkillers make his mind fuzzy and turn his insides to a distant, dull soup.

He dozes on the couch for a while, listening for the door and pretending he’s not, until it reminds him too much of waiting for Maki the night of his birthday. That’s not going to happen again, and Fuma shouldn’t be waiting for it. He turns off the TV and takes himself to bed instead.

Fuma thinks for a few minutes that he’ll sleep fitfully here, too, but it seems sleep was only waiting for him to give up and turn on a video on his phone before it drags him back down. It feels like he opens his eyes a minute later, but the pitch dark room suggests otherwise. Fuma’s heart skips, jolting him into wakefulness as he reaches out to the other side of the bed, wondering if his hand will brush up against Maki.

It doesn’t. He turns his head to look properly at the empty space next to him and pushes down the disappointment, picking up his phone to look at the time. It’s the wee hours of the morning, well past when he assumed Maki would be home. But maybe he just didn’t want to disturb Fuma?

Fuma can’t help himself. He drags himself out of bed and out into the hallway, looking straight toward Maki’s bedroom.

The door is wide open, the bed empty.

So Fuma’s worst fears are coming true, and Maki is still at Jo’s. Okay. That’s fine. Fuma is… fine.

He just needs some water for the dryness in his throat. He keeps shuffling toward the kitchen, ignoring the crushing weight in his chest. The motion-activated lights that are mounted underneath the cupboards come on when he walks into the kitchen, and Fuma’s eyes catch on something that wasn’t on the counter the last time he looked. He turns toward it, curious, and finds a familiar piece of stationary—a pale yellow notepad bordered by playful Eevees that Fuma bought and promptly never used, instead consigning it to neglect on the bookcase in what became Maki’s room.

There’s writing on it, scrawled across the page in thin chicken scratch. Fuma isn’t wearing his glasses, so he has to pick it up to read it, the pen scratches resolving into distinct lines when he brings it close to his face.

Hey—

Got called up. I’m flying out tomorrow morning.

You were right.

Sorry.

—Maki

Fuma drops the notepad onto the counter, his stomach turning, his heartbeat thundering in his ears. So much for Fuma’s worst fears having anything to do with Jo. He momentarily forgot about this: the worst fear of all, the one he always knew was inevitable.

He wasn’t expecting this to be how he found out. He could never have dreamed up a note like that, surrounded by adorable, incongruous Pokémon. But the moment itself is one he prepared himself for time and time again. He knew it would happen, and so it’s fine. It’s for the best that they don’t have to rehash their argument, that Maki declared himself done in advance. All Fuma was ever going to do was hold Maki back, anyway.

He wanders back to his bedroom in a haze, water forgotten. He finds he can barely even look at the bed, images of Maki curled up next to him on his side of the bed not even twenty-four hours ago shoving their way into his mind unbidden.

Barely a month into a relationship Fuma never should have allowed, and Maki had a side of the bed.

Fuma is such a fucking idiot. He knew better, but he’s realizing now that he never wanted to be right. He tried so hard to stop this from happening to him again, and in the end he couldn't help but hope.

He makes himself lie down and then stays awake for a long time, waiting to feel anger or regret or even plain old sadness. Anything that makes sense. But all he feels is numb.

—

There are text notifications on Fuma’s phone when he wakes up the next morning, and for a heart-stopping moment, he thinks it might be Maki. It turns out to be Nicholas instead, three consecutive texts that Fuma probably should have been expecting.

u okay?

saw the wolves post about you… gave u a full day to explain what upper body injury u have to ur friends

time’s up!

Fuma knows that Nicholas still follows the Wolves on social media—he’s the only one of Fuma’s friend group that knows more than nothing about hockey, and he’ll sometimes text Fuma about game results. Fuma should have remembered that the Wolves would be posting about his injury.

Fuma only considers not responding for a second. That would make Nicholas more concerned, and then Fuma would no doubt have to deal with him at his doorstep.

I’m fine. It’s a shoulder sprain, six weeks recovery.

He stares at his own text for another minute, considering, and then taps out another one.

Please don’t tell anyone else, though. I don’t need the guys worrying. I’ll tell them later, promise.

The benefit of Fuma’s particular history with Nicholas is that—unlike, say, Yudai—Nicholas will actually keep something like this to himself. Even so, Fuma can feel the judgment in Nicholas’s answering ‘Ok’ through the screen. It doesn’t improve his mood in the slightest.

He wonders if Maki texted Nicholas about getting called up. He doesn’t want to talk about it, though, so he doesn’t ask. He pulls up the Hurricanes’ schedule instead.

They’re playing the Blue Jackets in Columbus tonight. That makes sense: Maki would have been able to take a short flight this morning with plenty of time to meet the team for morning skate. Fuma considers texting Maki some sort of encouragement, but everything he thinks of sounds trite. Maki probably doesn’t want to hear from him, anyway. If he cared about Fuma’s encouragement, he would have woken him up last night.

However true that may be, it doesn’t stop Fuma from composing a million texts in his head throughout the day. He’s still doing it even as he puts the game on that evening, not bothering to pretend to himself that he’s not going to watch it. He starts typing a text as he’s watching Maki do a solo lap of the Hurricanes’ side of the ice at the beginning of warmups, thinking about him reading it in the locker room before puck drop. He doesn’t get past good luck before he erases it and shoves his phone under a pillow. This isn’t about him and his gnawing desire to be part of Maki’s life. He can’t ruin Maki’s big moment.

The Hurricanes lose, but Maki plays a respectable game. He doesn’t look like he’s struggling to keep up or overwhelmed at all. He looks like he belongs.

Fuma wishes desperately that he could congratulate Maki after the game, that he could call him and hear his voice crowing about how it felt to finally be out there in the big leagues. Instead, he makes do with the same twenty-second post-game interview that everyone in the world gets to see. Then he turns the TV off, carefully removes the shirt Maki put on for him, and takes a long overdue shower.

The hot water and soap doesn’t exactly make Fuma feel new the way he wants, but he does feel marginally more centred afterward. Prepared enough to sleep alone in his bed and wake up to a new day, one where he’ll actually go to the rink and see people.

The days that follow are so boring that they blur together, a haze of time spent going to video sessions for games he didn’t play, watching practices he can’t participate in, getting in lower body workouts that leave him exhausted and feeling like he didn’t do enough at the same time, and putting on a positive face for his teammates.

He goes out with the team for dinner after their game on Friday, knowing that if he doesn’t, Singer will worry. Socks asks him how Maki is doing, and Fuma acts like a normal alternate captain who’s happy that his rookie is getting his time in the show. He tells him that Maki is loving it, that he’s getting pretty good ice time. The Hurricanes have already been eliminated from playoff contention, and it seems like they’re using the opportunity to give Maki a really good look. Maki’s living up to his potential, just like Fuma knew he would.

He’ll probably be sent back down for the playoffs and then on the Hurricanes roster for good at the start of next season. Fuma tells the table that he’d put money on it, and everyone laughs. No one bets against him, because everyone knows Riki Maus just as well as Fuma does.

Fuma watches all of Maki's games. He can’t stomach the idea of Maki scoring his first NHL goal and Fuma having to watch it on a replay, not when Fuma’s not doing anything other than being pathetic.

His shoulder starts feeling better early the next week, enough that he’s sure it must be healing faster than predicted, but Matthew tells him they have to be careful not to push it too soon. He’s allowed to start PT, but otherwise he’s not supposed to use it for fear he’ll reinjure it.

On Wednesday evening, Fuma is standing in his kitchen, staring into his near-empty fridge. He ate a full lunch at the café in the arena after his PT session, but he hasn’t had anything since then, and he knows he needs to eat. He keeps thinking about restarting his meal service and then thinking about Maki’s cooking and then trying to think about anything else, and the thought spiral does nothing to get actual food in his house. He could order delivery, but even making that much of a decision feels exhausting.

Protein shake, Fuma concludes, pulling a milk container out of the fridge. It’s better than nothing.

He begrudgingly follows Matthew’s orders, awkwardly using his left hand to pour milk into the blender cup and then open the container of protein powder. He’s not even sure how the fumble happens: one moment, he’s spooning powder into his cup, and the next, the cup is tipping in slow motion. He reaches to catch it with his injured arm and recoils in pain, succeeding only in redirecting the spill all over him, the cup clattering to the floor.

Fuma stands there, blinking and clutching his shoulder, his front drenched in milk and dregs of unmixed protein powder. It pools on the counter and drips onto the floor. Some of it splashed up, dotting his glasses with specks of liquid. He looks down in time to watch the cup roll its way directly into his foot, milk soaking into the toes of his sock.

Somehow, that’s what pushes him over the edge. All the emotions he’s been refusing to feel for a week slam into him, and he makes a pained noise.

Here he is, standing in the kitchen, in front of the counter where Maki fucked him barely three weeks ago and where he found that terrible note last week, and he can’t handle it anymore. It fucking hurts. It hurts that this is all he’s amounted to: twenty-eight, injured, left behind, unable to think of anything but the things he can’t have. The Hurricanes lost 5-1 against Montreal last night, and all day Fuma’s been thinking about how Maki is probably beating himself up for a goal Montreal scored when he was on the ice. He wants so badly to tell Maki it’s not his fault. He wants so badly to tell Maki a lot of things.

Fuma is so lost in feeling sorry for himself that he belatedly registers the sound of someone knocking on the door, only turning his head in that direction when he hears the familiar sing-song of Yudai’s voice calling out, “Helloooo, lovebirds. Everyone better be fully dressed, because I’m coming in!”

Fuma’s snort at that comes out more like a sob. Yudai comes around the corner and stops in his tracks when he sees Fuma. Fuma snort-sobs again, bringing his left hand up to cover his mouth in horror. Of course Yudai would walk in and see him like this.

“Oh, honey,” Yudai says, coming toward Fuma with his arms outstretched. “What happened to you?”

Fuma tries to avoid Yudai’s offered hug, concerned with Yudai getting milk all over him, but Yudai refuses to be deterred. “My right shoulder,” Fuma warns as he gives up and lets Yudai gather him in, the words coming out watery. “Sprained.”

“What? Noooo,” Yudai coos, careful with his hug. “When did that happen? Why didn’t you tell me? And where’s that roommate of yours?”

Fuma hides his face in Yudai’s neck for a second, feeling more pathetic than ever. Yudai is petting his hair, and it’s making him want to cry for real instead of answering a single one of Yudai’s questions. He sniffs hard and tries to straighten up, but Yudai holds him in place.

“Maki’s gone,” Fuma says into Yudai’s shoulder. “He left me.”

That prompts Yudai to pull back and hold Fuma at arm’s length, a baffled expression on his face. “He left you? I didn’t know there was anything to leave? I was joking about the lovebird thing.”

Fuma laughs, a hysterical sound that bubbles out of his throat. Right, of course. Fuma didn't tell Yudai anything, because Maki was right. Fuma never talks about his feelings. He makes for a horrible friend and an even worse boyfriend, and Maki is lucky he left when he did.

“Why are you here, anyway?” Fuma asks instead of addressing any of that. “I’ve been texting you back. I didn’t need a wellness check.”

“Uh huh. I see now that that was calculated,” Yudai says dryly. “Nicholas sent me some cryptic bullshit about you needing a friend. So I thought, huh, weird, guess I’ll go check if that's true, and… here you are.”

“Here I am,” Fuma agrees miserably. Of course it was Nicholas. Fuma knew that he was pushing his luck trying to keep his injury a secret for as long as he did. He just couldn't bring himself to do anything about it.

Yudai regards Fuma for a moment before nodding once, a no-nonsense expression on his face. Fuma braces himself to be lovingly bullied into talking about his feelings—Yudai can be gratingly parental, but at least it’s better than pity or sympathy or any other too sweet emotion that Fuma doesn't deserve.

“You go change,” Yudai says. “I'll order us some food, and then you’re going to tell me all about it.”

Fuma is too defeated to argue. He shuffles in the direction of his bedroom, grateful for the time alone to gather himself. When he comes back in fresh clothes, the kitchen is clean and Yudai is sitting on the couch waiting for him. He pats the space next to him, and Fuma sits down.

“First thing’s first,” Yudai says. “How bad is the shoulder injury?”

“Not that bad,” Fuma says honestly. “I should be fine in time for the playoffs. They start in late April.”

“I know when they start,” Yudai says, even though Fuma clarified because Yudai was giving him a blank look. Fuma rolls his eyes, and Yudai makes a face at him. “That’s good. Please try not to grievously injure yourself, I’m not ready for you to move back to Japan.”

“I’ve been trying,” Fuma mumbles.

“Good,” Yudai says mildly. “So that brings me to my second question: you and Maki.”

Fuma waits, but Yudai just stares expectantly at him. “Is that a question?” Fuma says eventually.

“I’m afraid so,” Yudai says gravely. “You should be grateful I’m letting you choose where to start instead of demanding to know when you finally took my advice and slept with him.”

Fuma winces. That’s as good a place as any to start, anyway, much as it hurts to think about. “The first time was a couple days after his birthday.”

Yudai’s eyebrows furrow as he processes that. “Hold on,” he says. “February? Two months ago?” He slaps Fuma on his uninjured shoulder. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“Not quite two months,” Fuma says, unable to help himself.

“Oh,” Yudai says, his eyes going round and a knowing smile spreading across his face. “Oh, are we counting the days? Are we celebrating month-a-versarys?”

“I know. Stop looking at me like that,” Fuma says. “I knew it was a bad idea, but…”

“I’m not saying that,” Yudai says. His teasing expression turns thoughtful as he studies Fuma. “I’m just… hm. I’m surprised. I kinda thought Maki was nursing some feelings for you, but I wasn’t expecting you to let yourself go there. But I think it’s good that you did. I’m proud of you.”

A lump forms in Fuma’s throat, and he has to look away from Yudai. “You shouldn’t be,” he says. “I fucked it up.”

“Did you? How?” Yudai asks.

Fuma is glad that Yudai didn’t immediately tell him that wasn’t true, but being asked to explain himself is almost as bad. This way, he can’t even distance himself from his feelings by being defensive. He has to lay out the facts one by one, watching Yudai’s face go on a journey as he tells him how all the good parts were coloured by Fuma’s knowledge that it was temporary, how Maki vehemently disagreed with that even when Fuma tried to explain that he knew it couldn’t work from prior experience, and how Maki insisted he was going to change Fuma’s mind.

Yudai gasps when Fuma says that Maki tried to skip work to take care of him. “Oh, you hated that.”

“I fucking hated that,” Fuma agrees, feeling known. His memory of the fight is vivid from hours of mentally reviewing it, despite the painkillers and emotions clouding his mind, and he relates it to Yudai as accurately as he can. He stares at the floor the entire time, sure he'd be unable to stomach whatever expressions Yudai is making as he talks.

“Okay,” Yudai says when Fuma finishes. “That definitely sucks. But you still haven’t told me how you fucked it up.”

Fuma snaps his head up to look at him. “That’s what I’ve been doing?” he says in disbelief. “I pushed him away, and he left, and now he doesn’t want anything to do with me. He left me a note instead of saying goodbye.”

Yudai opens his mouth and then shuts it. “Wait. So he went to practice and learned that he was being sent to the big leagues, and then he left you a note? Where were you?”

“Asleep,” Fuma says. “He went to Jo’s after practice, and I thought he was coming home after that, but…”

Yudai shakes his head. “That little rat,” he says. “Where’s the note? I wanna read it.”

Fuma hesitates, and Yudai holds up a finger. “Nuh uh, don’t tell me you threw it out. Where is it?”

Fuma relents. “I threw it on the bed in his room.”

Yudai immediately goes to find it, returning a moment later making sad tutting noises. “Oh, this is so tragic. This paper. Wow. He really wanted to have a main character moment.”

Yudai sits back down next to Fuma, the notepad in his hands. Fuma has to force himself not to look directly at it—he’s already spent too much time staring at that note, reading intentions into the scrawling pen marks. After a moment of contemplation, Yudai says, “Okay, how are we going to fix this?”

Fuma frowns at him. “What do you mean, fix it? It’s done.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Fuma studies Yudai’s face. He seems perfectly serious, which doesn’t make any sense. “You just called Maki a little rat?” Fuma says uncertainly.

“Yeah. This”—Yudai holds up the notepad—”is little rat behaviour. But you love him, so.”

Fuma balks. “Uh, I would not go that far.”

Yudai shrugs and waves a hand. “Semantics,” he says. “Fine, you like him. You want him so badly that you stepped out of your comfort zone for him. You miss him. Right?”

Fuma swallows hard. He nods. If he lied, Yudai would just say more uncomfortably true things until he gave in.

“So fight for him,” Yudai says simply. “Hold onto him like he asked.”

“I can’t,” Fuma protests. “He doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“Have you tried?”

Fuma is pretty sure his face is betraying the answer, but Yudai waits until he actually shakes his head before he continues.

"No, because Maki was a little bit right, wasn’t he?” Yudai says. “You don’t let yourself have nice things.”

His words fall heavily into the space between them. It’s nothing Fuma doesn’t know. Nothing he hasn’t wished fervently wasn’t as true as it is. But knowing it doesn’t mean he knows how to stop.

“What would be the point of trying now?” Fuma asks plaintively. “What would it accomplish—a few weeks together while he’s here for the playoffs? A few months happy, at most?”

“Sure,” Yudai says. “You know I’m a fan of living in the moment. Do you regret sleeping with him? Would you take it back if you could?”

Fuma presses his lips together. “No,” he admits.

“There you go,” Yudai says. “But I also think you’re making up bullshit right now. Can I be real with you?”

“Was that not what that just was?” Fuma asks.

“I can always be worse,” Yudai says. He puts the notepad down on the coffee table and turns his whole body toward Fuma, reaching to take his hands. Fuma lets him, making wary eye contact. “Are you ready?”

“Hit me,” Fuma says.

“You need to stop punishing yourself just because things didn’t work out with Nicholas,” Yudai says. “You can have more than one chance, babe. You deserve it, even.”

Fuma does feel like he's been hit, somewhere deep down and aching inside him. He thought he'd moved on well enough, but now he's aware it left scars, a fear of getting back on the ice that has him hypervigilant, afraid of making any moves that could leave him vulnerable.

But what is he supposed to do when the dangers are real? When they already all but happened?

Yudai shakes Fuma's hands gently but emphatically, breaking him out of his spiral. “So stop telling yourself mean things about how Maki hates you and never wants to see you again. His note said you were right. That means he's probably ready to listen now, but the ball is in your court.” He pauses. “Or the puck is in your net. Or… whatever the fuck.”

Fuma raises an eyebrow, amused in spite of himself. “So he scored on me?”

Yudai smirks. “Didn't he?”

Fuma pulls his hands out of Yudai's. “Shut up,” he says. “You're the worst.”

“I'm the best, and you know it,” Yudai says loftily. “Will you promise me you'll at least think about calling him?”

That's an easy promise. It would be harder for Fuma to not think about calling Maki. But he knows what Yudai means, and that… He's not so sure he can convince himself that he really does deserve another chance.

“I'll try,” Fuma says. “If you promise me that we don't have to talk about this anymore.”

“For tonight, fine,” Yudai agrees. “The food is almost here, anyway. I’ll go meet the delivery guy in the lobby, and you can pick out a stupid movie for us to watch.”

Fuma nods, relieved. Yudai gets up, but a swell of emotion in Fuma’s chest has him catching Yudai’s wrist, stopping him. Yudai looks at him expectantly, and Fuma swallows past yet another stupid lump in his throat. “Thanks, Yudai.”

Yudai smiles at him. “Call me yourself next time,” he orders.

“I will,” Fuma agrees, grateful for the knowledge that even if he doesn’t, Yudai won’t hold it against him.

Fuma allows himself to turn off his brain for the rest of the night, focusing on the food and the movie and Yudai. But in the back of his mind, Yudai’s words bury themselves like a seed ready to take root—if only Fuma decides to water it.

—

Fuma sits on the uncomfortable chair in the press box he now thinks of as his, strategically posted up behind a couple beat reporters with their laptops out. The crowd at Allstate is rowdy tonight, reacting dramatically to everything that happens on the ice as the Wolves and the Wild trade goals, still locked in an intense battle for points to keep them at third place in the division.

Fuma should be locked in, too, but his eyes are focused on the tiny screen of his phone, propped on his lap and streaming the Hurricanes game on mute. It’s been a week since his emotional conversation with Yudai, and while Fuma has made good on his promise to think about it, he hasn’t been able to bring himself to do anything else.

But he still hasn’t missed watching a single one of Maki’s games. They’re playing the Blue Jackets again, this time at home in Raleigh, and Maki is on the ice.

Fuma’s eyes track Maki’s tiny figure as he intercepts a pass in the defensive zone and dishes it up the ice to his teammate. He hauls ass after it, sticking to his man like glue. He’s been playing more defensively than he usually does since he joined the Hurricanes, no doubt coached to go back to basics while he settles in, but Fuma can tell something has shifted in this game. He’s hungry for it, probably spurred on by their last loss against this team.

So he’s not all that surprised when Maki gets involved in the offensive push, shoving his way into a battle against the boards behind the net and coming out with the puck on his stick. He passes to a winger posted in front of the net, who tries to shoot it low. The Blue Jackets goalie only just slides in front of it, the puck bouncing off his leg pad, and Maki is in position to get the rebound, flicking the puck up and over the goalie’s legs.

Fuma exclaims under his breath and fumbles his phone, sending it clattering to the floor. The beat reporter in front of him turns around in concern, and Fuma says, “Sorry, sorry,” as he leans down to pick his phone back up. His heart is racing, pure joy flooding his veins.

On the screen, Maki is celebrating with his teammates, the camera zoomed in on his huge smile as the graphics tick the score up to 3-1 Hurricanes. A banner across the bottom declares RIKI MAUS FIRST JAPANESE PLAYER TO SCORE IN NHL GAME. Fuma smiles helplessly at his phone as the feed changes to a replay of the goal.

Fuma watches Maki slide on his knees in celebration, arms thrown up high and mouth open in a shout of happiness. The replay cuts off, switching to Maki on the bench, his teammates reaching over to give him extra head pats and fistbumps. Fuma’s stomach flutters with longing. He knows what it’s like to be next to Maki in moments like that one, and he misses it intensely.

An idea starts to form in Fuma’s head, sprouting from the seed Yudai planted and fueled by an offhand comment Yudai made that stuck in his brain. Maki had his main character moment when he left that note. Maybe Fuma needs to answer it with his own TV-drama-worthy gesture.

It’s been eating Fuma up that he hasn't been there to support Maki through his first stint in the NHL, even from a distance. He wants to be with him for all his big wins, for his firsts and his seconds and everything else. He wants to be there to hold him and comfort him when he loses and when he’s hurt, whether it’s something as small as a goal against or as big as the empty feeling of homesickness.

Texting or calling Maki now, after weeks of silence, doesn’t feel like enough. Fuma wouldn’t know what to say. He’d overthink it until he eventually gave up. But if Maki were in front of Fuma… he wouldn’t be able to chicken out.

The idea unfurls, growing the roots and leaves of a plan. It might be the stupidest plan Fuma has ever made, but that doesn’t matter. He wants to do it anyway. It could go horribly, but Fuma’s done letting the fear of failure stop him.

Maki wanted to try—so Fuma will try.

—

“So,” Nicholas says, voice raised to be heard over the chatter of thousands of people filtering into the arena, “this is what I was missing out on, huh?”

It’s Saturday night, and they’re at UBS Arena in Long Island, standing a few rows back from where a gaggle of enthusiastic Hurricanes fans have pressed themselves and their signs up against the glass in anticipation of warmups. Fuma paid an eye-watering amount of money for last-minute tickets in the lower bowl much higher up than this, but as soon as Nicholas saw the fans gathered, he dragged Fuma down closer, insisting that they needed to be sure Maki saw them before the game.

Fuma still can’t believe he’s actually doing this. He can’t believe he went through with purchasing the flight and game tickets, even though he deliberately chose the next possible game—a mere two days later—so he couldn’t back out. He can’t believe Nicholas agreed to come with him and text Maki to arrange a meetup after the game so that Fuma could surprise him. He could have easily refused to get involved, but he was nothing but enthusiastic about the idea.

It’s also a free trip to New York for him, of course. But now that they’re here, Nicholas nudging Fuma in the side and flashing him a wry smile, Fuma is thrown back to two years ago, when he would have had a panic attack at the sight of Nicholas in a hockey rink, even if it had nothing to do with Fuma. He certainly wouldn’t have been standing next to him in the stands of an NHL game, where there are eyes and cameras everywhere. Even now that he can truthfully say Nicholas is a friend and both of them are here to see Maki, who Fuma has every reason to be close friends with, Fuma is nervous.

He does a terrible job of stopping his guilt and regret from showing on his face, and Nicholas’s teasing expression drops in response. “Oh, Fuma, I didn’t mean it like that,” he says. “It’s fine, I promise.”

“I know,” Fuma says, trying to sound like he believes it.

Nicholas squints at him doubtfully. “I mean, it wasn’t fine before, but it is now,” he clarifies. “I’m happy to be here with you. I’m excited to drink some beers and listen to you trash-talk the Islanders. I’m glad that now we can enjoy this thing that you love together.” His face goes soft. “That was all I ever wanted to do.”

Fuma swallows hard. He knew that, of course, but it’s different to hear it here. There’s no way they could ever have done something like this back then, and now it has an entirely different shape from what it would have been. But it’s not a bad shape at all. Not for the first time, Fuma finds himself overwhelmingly grateful that Nicholas refused to let the end of their relationship be the end of their friendship, too.

“Me, too,” he tells Nicholas sincerely. “We’ll have fun.”

“Yeah, we will,” Nicholas agrees. He leans in close and murmurs, “And we’ll get you your man.”

Fuma’s stomach flips with nerves and anticipation. Nicholas moves back out of Fuma’s personal space, grinning at him. Fuma shrugs one shoulder in response, not trusting himself to speak, and Nicholas grins wider.

“No doubt in my mind, dude,” he says. Fuma makes a face at him, and Nicholas laughs.

The game clock buzzes and starts counting down from sixteen minutes as players skate out onto the ice for warmups. Fuma automatically scans the ice for Maki’s bright red 72 and tenses up when he finds it. Nicholas follows his gaze and whistles lowly.

“What a cool looking guy,” he says before sticking his hand in the air and waving it.

“Ah, don’t,” Fuma says, unable to help himself. He stops short of grabbing Nicholas’s arm and physically making him stop. This was the entire point, he tells himself sternly.

“What?” Nicholas says. “Do you think he’ll hear me if I shout? Hey, Maus!”

“He won’t,” Fuma says, which is true—Nicholas’s voice doesn’t stand a chance over the sound of skates and music and the crowd. But against all odds, Maki chooses that moment to scan the stands as he’s looping the ice, and he does spot Nicholas’s frantically waving hand. His face lights up, and he skates toward their side of the ice, lifting a hand to wave back.

And then his eyes slide sideways to land on Fuma and go wide. Fuma steels himself and waves, and Maki promptly loses an edge, going down hard on his ass.

Fuma bites back a laugh. Next to him, Nicholas is showing no such restraint, full-on guffawing at Maki. Maki recovers, getting to his feet and shooting a glare up at Nicholas before smiling at the kids who are waving and banging against the glass in front of him. He shows off some fancy stickhandling, bouncing a puck on the end of his stick before flicking it over the glass to an excited kid and then repeating for another one. Every so often, he glances up at Fuma like he can’t believe his eyes.

It’s cute. Maki is always unbearably cute.

Maki gives Nicholas and Fuma one last look and throws them a salute before he skates off to actually warm up. Fuma can’t get a read on his expression at all, and it makes anxiety buzz under his skin. He touches Nicholas’s elbow, gesturing for him to head back up to their seats.

“I think that went well,” Nicholas says as they sit down. “Surprise definitely accomplished, and he didn’t look upset to see you.”

“You don’t think so?” Fuma asks.

“Nope,” Nicholas says. “If anything, he looked happy.”

Fuma is not so sure about that, but he clings to it anyway. Nicholas looks at him for a long second before he says, “I’m going to get us drinks. You look like you need one.”

That, Fuma can’t deny. Nicholas returns with beers and nachos just before the lights go out for the pre-game ceremony, and Fuma accepts both gratefully. The pomp and circumstance of an NHL game is easy to get caught up in, enough that Fuma manages to push his anxiety aside enough to make good on what he said to Nicholas and have fun.

It reminds him of the first NHL game he attended. It was a Detroit Red Wings game that he dragged a few of his teammates to his freshman year, and he was blown away by the sheer energy in the air. He grew up a Red Wings fan, idolizing Nicklas Lidström, and even though Lidström was long retired, actually seeing the arena he’d watched on terrible quality streams as a kid felt amazing in itself. He and his teammates spent the whole game cheering on the Red Wings and booing the other team and shooting the shit with each other, and that’s exactly what Fuma and Nicholas do. They get more than a few dirty looks from Islanders fans, but that only makes it more fun.

It feels good to be here with Nicholas. It feels like closure.

They leave a minute before the end of the game—the Hurricanes solidly up by two goals, so Fuma doesn’t feel too stressed about it—to try to miss some of the crowds as they make their way to the gate where Maki told Nicholas he’d be able to meet him. A Hurricanes staff person Fuma vaguely recognizes greets them with a smile.

“Murata, right?” she asks, confirming Fuma’s suspicion that she must occasionally work with the Wolves. Not often enough that Fuma remembers her name, unfortunately. “Riki asked me if I could make sure his friend didn’t get lost, but he didn’t say it was you.” Her eyes flick to Nicholas. “Or that there were two of you?”

“We’re surprising him,” Nicholas says, sticking a hand out for her to shake. “I’m Nicholas.”

“Cassie,” she says, taking his hand. Fuma offers his as well. He tells himself sternly that Cassie isn’t reading anything into this. Players have friends. It’s allowed. “He’ll be excited to see you, I’m sure. This way.”

She leads them down into the bowels of the arena, through more than a few twists and turns, until they’re in a nondescript cinderblock hallway. “Okay,” she says. “Hang tight here, and I’ll make sure he knows where you are when he’s done.”

As soon as Cassie is gone, Fuma lets out a long breath. Nicholas puts a reassuring hand on Fuma’s back. “It’s gonna be fine,” he says. “She didn’t think anything was weird, and she was right. Maki’s gonna be excited.”

Fuma nods, concentrating on his breathing. Without the distraction of the game, the reality of what he’s doing is hitting him hard. What if Maki really doesn’t want to see him? What if when he said Fuma was right, he meant that they’d never work together, and he’ll be upset that Fuma is trying to revive something dead? What if Maki gets mad at Nicholas for trying to facilitate this? He seemed fine on the ice, but what if he thinks Fuma messed with his game by showing up during warmups?

Fuma should have just texted him like a normal person. Why did he think he needed to make a grand gesture?

Fuma keeps startling every time someone comes around the corner and it’s not Maki. He’s sweating, wondering if Maki will decide not to show up at all. This way can’t be the only way out of the arena. He could leave without them ever knowing.

And then, all of a sudden, it is Maki. Nicholas pats Fuma’s back a few times excitedly, and all of Fuma’s thoughts fly out of his head. He holds his breath as Maki spots them and jogs the rest of the way down the hall. His hair is post-shower wet, sticking up like he hurriedly towel-dried it, his skin still red with exertion below his Hurricanes shirt.

Maki is whole and real and in front of Fuma. Fuma has missed him so much his entire body aches with the urge to reach for him. He doesn't, too scared Maki will push him away.

“How are you here?” Maki asks. His eyes haven't left Fuma's face. “Don’t the Wolves have a game tonight?”

Against all odds, Fuma manages to nod. Even more improbably, he finds his voice to say, “It’s not like I was going to be able to play, so I begged off this weekend's road trip.”

There's a pause, both of them staring at each other, and then, horrifyingly, Maki's lower lip trembles and his eyes go glassy with tears. “You… you did?”

Fuma doesn’t have a chance to respond before Maki is hugging him, his arms wrapped solidly around Fuma’s torso and his body warm against Fuma’s. Fuma collapses into him. He barely spares a thought for who might see this. He’s too relieved that Maki doesn’t seem angry after all.

“I’m so sorry,” Maki says into Fuma’s uninjured shoulder. “I… I was…”

“Shhh,” Fuma murmurs. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Maki says, sniffing hard. “I was unfair. I sh-shouldn’t have backed you into a corner, you were injured and stressed and…”

He trails off, shoving his face more firmly into Fuma’s shoulder. Fuma pulls Maki in closer, a little choked up himself. “I’m sorry, too,” he says. “You were right.”

Maki shakes his head. “No, I—”

Fuma squeezes him tightly. His awareness of where they are hasn’t slipped so much that he wants to rehash the fight here. “You were,” he says. “Later, okay? I promise.”

“Okay,” Maki says. He doesn’t stop hugging Fuma, and Fuma can’t bring himself to be the one to let go. They linger there for another minute, holding each other, until Nicholas coughs pointedly.

Maki pulls away and wipes his eyes with the cuffs of his shirt. Thankfully, however much of his pink cheeks are from crying blends into his post-game flush.

“You,” Maki says to Nicholas. “You jerk.”

Nicholas beams smugly. “You were surprised, weren’t you?” he teases. “That was some fall on your ass.”

Maki punches Nicholas in the shoulder and then goes in for a big hug with him, too. “So you didn’t have a work thing in New York?” he asks when he pulls back.

“Nah,” Nicholas says. “Fuma is funding my dream last-minute NYC vacation right now.”

Maki looks at Fuma again. It’s like all the air gets sucked out of the hallway when their eyes meet, replaced by the tension that comes from all the things they could say to each other, that they desperately need to. But there’s no time, and this isn’t the place.

“Sounds super fun,” Maki says. “I wish I could join you, but I have to get on the team bus. We’re flying out tonight.”

Fuma nods. He’d surmised as much from the Hurricanes’ schedule and because Maki was apologetic that he wouldn’t have more time when Nicholas told him he was coming to the game. Fuma didn’t think that Maki would try to weasel his way out of work again, but he’s relieved to be right.

“That’s okay,” Fuma says. “I just wanted to come support you and tell you that, um. I’m proud of you. I saw your goal.”

It feels too boilerplate, like something anyone could say. Fuma is startled when Maki tears up again. “Wait. You were watching?”

“Yeah, of course,” Fuma says. “Every game.”

Maki sniffs and looks up, gathering himself. His voice is steady when he says, “They, um. They told me they’ll send me back down for the playoffs.” He makes eye contact with Fuma. “So… we’ll talk when I’m home?”

Fuma nods. “We’ll talk.”

All told, they probably see Maki for ten minutes, just long enough for Maki to ask about Fuma’s shoulder and for them to chat a little about the game and what Nicholas and Fuma are going to do for the rest of the time they’re in New York. It’s fleeting, but it doesn’t hurt as much as Fuma thought it would to watch Maki leave. In fact, it barely hurts at all. The Hurricanes play their last game of the season in a week and a half. Fuma will see Maki again soon enough.

“You gotta put your moon eyes away,” Nicholas says when Maki has rounded the corner and disappeared. “People in space can see how down bad you are.”

Fuma scoffs and shoves him. “Don’t tell me that, you know it freaks me out,” he complains.

Nicholas laughs. “Fine, maybe it’s just me who can see it. I’m a Fuma Murata expert, after all.”

Fuma huffs, but he doesn’t deny it. They turn to head back in the direction Fuma is pretty sure they came from. After a moment, Nicholas adds, “It’s kinda nice, actually.”

Fuma gives him a sideways look of confusion.

“Seeing you like that, I mean. I can tell Maki makes you happy,” Nicholas explains. “I don’t know all the details of whatever went down when he got called up, but I’m glad you’re gonna work it out.”

“Maybe,” Fuma says. He feels better now that he’s seen Maki and traded brief apologies with him, but there’s still so much they’ll have to work through. There’s every chance whatever attempts they make to reconcile will fall apart. He still doesn’t know what Maki meant when he said Fuma was right in his note—even if he’s not upset with Fuma for coming here, that doesn’t mean he wants to try to make this last. “I hope so, anyway.”

“I’m pretty sure,” Nicholas says. “Trust me, you make him happy, too. I’ve heard enough yearning speeches about you from him to know.”

Fuma rolls his eyes. “Please. He was not giving speeches.”

“Oh, bro,” Nicholas says on a sigh, “you don’t even know.”

—

Fuma returns home with a Maki-shaped light in his heart and a New York-shaped hole in his wallet. The days that follow drag. Maki sent a single text the day after the game, thanking Fuma for coming and reiterating that they’ll talk when he’s back in Chicago. Fuma responded in kind, and they both left it at that. As much as Fuma wants to talk to Maki properly, he knows the conversation deserves to be had in person.

Fuma works hard to distract himself, focusing on PT and filling his free time by hanging out with the team and taking the train into the city to see his friends, but he’s still glad every night that another day is done, bringing him that much closer to the moment he’ll see Maki again.

Just shy of two weeks later, Maki texts Fuma his flight details. Fuma immediately tries to get out of his overlapping PT session with Matthew so that he can go pick Maki up from the airport, but Matthew insists that Fuma won’t regret coming in. Fuma can’t exactly explain to Matthew why he’s sure that absolutely will not be the case, so to the rink he goes.

“Okay, great,” Matthew says when Fuma has finished his last reps of his final exercise. Fuma hops off the massage table before Matthew can say anything else, and Matthew laughs. “Where are you going in such a hurry?"

“Home,” Fuma says truthfully. With any luck, Maki will already be there.

“Well, give me one second to tell you the good news,” Matthew says. He pauses, and Fuma frowns impatiently at him. “You’re cleared for contact.”

Fuma’s jaw drops. “Already?” he asks. He’s been feeling back to 100% for days, but he was behaving and not arguing with anyone about it. This news is so good it’s suspicious. “It hasn’t even been five weeks. You said six.”

Matthew nods, beaming at Fuma. “You have your full range of motion, you’re looking strong, and the doctor said your last scans were good. You can report to practice like usual tomorrow.”

“No no-contact jersey?” Fuma asks.

“No no-contact jersey,” Matthew confirms.

Fuma feels like he’s dreaming. He doesn’t have to constantly worry about his shoulder anymore. He’s going to be able to play in the playoffs. With any luck he’ll contribute to a Calder win, and then maybe the Wolves will sign him again for next season after all. The only thing that could make this moment better is if Maki was here.

There’s a knock on the partially-open door, and as if conjured by nothing but the force of Fuma’s will, Maki pokes his head inside.

“Hey,” he says. “Sorry to interrupt.”

Fuma makes an aborted move toward the door, nearly tripping over his own feet when he stops himself from throwing himself bodily at Maki. Thankfully, Matthew is turning to look at Maki and doesn’t see it.

“Maki!” Matthew says. “I heard you were joining us again, but I wasn’t expecting to see you until tomorrow. How was it up there?”

“Amazing,” Maki says, coming the rest of the way into the room. His eyes are fixed on Fuma. Fuma blinks back at him, still not sure this is real. Maybe he should try pinching himself. “But I’m happy to be back. Gotta get that Calder, right?”

“Hell yeah,” Matthew agrees. “I was just telling Fuma that he’s cleared to play, so our chances just went up by two elite defencemen.”

“Really? That’s great!” Maki enthuses. “You feel good?”

“I… Yeah,” Fuma manages. He wants to argue with Matthew about his use of elite, but what comes out instead is an embarrassingly out-of-breath, “What are you doing here?”

“Came to pick you up,” Maki says. “Is he okay to leave?”

It takes Matthew a moment to realize that Maki is addressing him, which is fair given that Maki hasn’t looked away from Fuma once. Fuma is similarly unable to stop staring. He only catches Matthew looking back and forth between them slowly out of the corner of his eye.

“Um, yeah, man,” Matthew says. “We were done. I’ll see you both tomorrow?”

“Yeah, see you,” Maki agrees, already turning to go. Fuma stares after him for a second before getting his ass in gear to follow.

“Thanks, Matthew, I appreciate it,” he says quickly as he’s leaving.

“You’re welcome,” Matthew says, a little bemused.

Fuma will worry about that later. He’ll have to thank Matthew properly for all the work he put in for Fuma’s recovery, especially when Fuma wasn’t easy to deal with. But right now everything in his body is screaming at him to get Maki back home where he can apologize properly and, with any luck, kiss him.

“Why didn’t you go straight home?” Fuma asks when he catches up with Maki. “I would’ve been there soon.”

“Didn’t want to wait to see you,” Maki says. Fuma’s chest fills with happiness so light he thinks he might actually float away. He can’t take it. He grabs Maki’s wrist and pulls him to a stop so he can throw his arms around him.

Maki hugs back, hard and fierce. It’s brief, not nearly enough. Fuma can’t look directly at Maki after. When he glances at him for a split second, he meets Maki’s eyes, and they both quickly look away again. Butterflies riot in Fuma’s stomach: college kid crush shit, just like always.

They power walk to Fuma’s car in unspoken agreement after collecting Maki’s bags from where he left them in the player’s lounge. Fuma is pretty sure this will be the longest ten minute drive of their lives no matter what, but it’ll be worse if they try to do it in silence, so as soon as they’re buckled in, he asks how Maki’s flight was. True to form, Maki fills the time by rambling about the minute details of his trip, ending with a story about the toddler sitting next to him on the plane who was fascinated by basically everything about Maki.

“And then I just, like, watched thirty minutes of Bluey by myself because she refused to take her headphones back,” Maki says. “It was a pretty good distraction, actually. I thought I might try to nap, but there was no fucking way that was gonna happen. I’ve been wired since New York.”

Even now, Maki’s knees are bouncing on the other side of the car. Fuma knows exactly what he means. The closer they got to today, the more restless he felt.

“I have, too. I thought I was going to vibrate off Matthew’s massage table this morning,” Fuma offers.

He chances a glance at Maki and sees that Maki is smiling at him, his dimples on full display. Fuma resolutely looks back at the road and keeps his eyes there. He can’t let Maki’s dimples kill him now, not when he’s survived this long.

The building’s elevator has never been so slow in Fuma’s life. By the time they’re finally inside the apartment, the tension between them is so thick it’s hard to breathe. Fuma can’t help but think of all the times they arrived home together and Maki pushed him up against the door and kissed him. Maki is looking at him like maybe he’s thinking about that, too.

But not talking is what got them into this mess, and Fuma can’t let that happen again. There are things he’s been desperate to say.

“We should—”

“We need to—”

They both stop, exchanging amused grimaces. “Talk,” Maki finishes. “We need to talk.”

Fuma nods. “Let’s go sit down,” he suggests.

“Yeah,” Maki agrees. But they both linger in the entryway, still looking at each other. After a moment, they both laugh, the tension breaking slightly, and Maki leads the way to the couch. Fuma sits down next to him, careful to keep a good half a couch cushion between them.

“I’ll go first,” Maki says before Fuma can even begin to straighten his thoughts into something coherent and more practical than I missed you so much, I want to kiss you so bad, please tell me I haven’t ruined this forever. “I’ve written a million texts I never sent you. Taki got so sick of me making him proofread that he didn’t talk to me for, like, two days. I gotta use all that wordsmithing for something.”

Fuma nods, amused and curious and hesitant all at once. Maki shifts closer on the couch, completely negating Fuma’s efforts to give them both space. Fuma can’t bring himself to mind, not when Maki is reaching out to hold his hand and looking at him with sincere eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” he starts. “I’m sorry for everything I said to you, and for being such a coward and leaving that note. Jo told me off when I came back and said I hadn’t woken you up to tell you I was leaving, and he was right to. It was just… I felt so fucking awful, because I kept thinking about how if I’d said I was sick and hadn’t gone to practice that day, they would have called someone else up. It was like getting decked in the face with just how right you were.”

Fuma makes a quiet sympathetic noise. He wanted Maki to understand, but that’s not the method he would have chosen. Maki gives him a wry smile.

“It’s not like I thought you were going to rub my face in it, but… I dunno, I don’t think I was ready for the reality check. I was still so mad at you, so sure that there had to be a way, that you were just being unreasonable.” He huffs, shaking his head. “But the more time passed, the more I realized that you were right about more than just me getting called up. You were right about everything.”

Fuma’s stomach sinks. This is exactly what he was afraid of—that he made his point so well that he fucked himself over and missed his chance.

“All you ever did was support me and try to protect me,” Maki continues, “and I repaid you by not listening to you most of the time and doubting you the rest. I missed you so much, and I knew it was my own fault you weren’t talking to me.”

Fuma shakes his head. He has to at least try to bring Maki back around, even if the fight will be an uphill battle. But when he opens his mouth to protest, Maki squeezes his hand.

“Wait, one more thing I wanted to tell you, and then you can say whatever you want to say, I promise,” Maki says. “Thank you for everything you did for me. For letting me be part of your life, as my teammate and as…” He trails off, shrugging. “You always make me better. The Canes GM told me my first day with the team that I’d been playing so well with you that they were looking for the opportunity to call me up. I wanted to tell you about it so, so badly. I should have just texted you, but I thought I’d blown it entirely.”

“You didn’t,” Fuma says, unable to keep quiet and let Maki talk anymore. This is sounding too much like a goodbye. His chest is aching at the thought of Maki in Raleigh, alone and convinced it was his own fault. “If anything, I did. I kept pushing you away. I was scared, so I told you it would never work.”

“Which makes total sense!” Maki says, hurried and emphatic, like the words have been trapped inside of him. “You’ve done this before, you’d know.”

The irony of Maki finally agreeing with what Fuma was desperately trying to get him to understand isn’t lost on Fuma. “But I haven’t, not really,” he corrects. “I told you this in New York, and I meant it: you were the one who was right.”

Maki frowns. “I was?”

“Yes,” Fuma says. “We can’t know how it will go without trying it, because you’re not Nicholas.”

Maki's face flickers through a rollercoaster of emotions in the span of five seconds, starting with shock and landing on unbridled joy. The next thing Fuma knows, Maki’s hands are fisted in Fuma’s sweater and his lips are on Fuma’s.

They’re gone just as quick as they came. “Sorry, I—”

Fuma doesn’t let Maki finish. He drags Maki back in with a hand on the back of his neck and crushes their lips together. His fingers slide up, tangling in Maki’s hair—it’s long enough now for Fuma to fist his hand in, so he does, using his grip to move Maki where he wants him, deepening the kiss. Maki moans softly into his mouth, and Fuma swallows down the sound. He missed this so fucking much. He can’t believe he hasn’t lost it.

“You want to?” Maki says against Fuma’s lips. Fuma makes a questioning noise, his brain not processing at all. He’s too busy scraping his teeth over Maki’s lower lip, making him whimper. A moment later Maki pulls away, and Fuma almost whimpers himself. “You want to try it?”

“Yeah,” Fuma says. Maki makes an overwhelmed noise and kisses him again, almost derailing the attempt Fuma’s brain is making at coming back online. He puts a hand on Maki’s shoulder, pushing him gently back and doing his best to ignore Maki’s pout. “Wait, I wasn’t done. I still owe you a huge apology.”

“Oh, no, it’s okay,” Maki says, shaking his head. “It was me, I—”

“Maki,” Fuma interrupts, cupping Maki’s cheeks. “Baby.”

Maki melts into Fuma’s touch, his eyes fluttering closed. Fuma takes a moment, just looking at him and thinking about the months he spent resisting him. He’s so grateful that Maki kept pushing, that he didn’t stop until Fuma acknowledged how happy Maki makes him. Until he finally let himself have what he wanted all along.

“Maki,” Fuma murmurs, waiting for Maki to open his eyes again before he continues. “You’re worth it to me. I’m sorry I ever let you think that you weren’t.”

Maki makes a tiny noise in the back of his throat, his eyes wide with disbelief. It makes Fuma want to keep being brave, to make sure there’s no doubt in Maki’s mind how Fuma feels.

Before Fuma can say anything else, Maki says, “So, does that mean… Are we boyfriends now?”

Fuma nods. “It scares me, but I think we can call this what it is. I want to let myself fall in love with you.” He pauses, stroking his thumb gently over Maki’s cheekbone, and then admits, “I’m halfway there already.”

Maki kisses Fuma hard. “Me, too,” he breathes against Fuma’s mouth, pushing him down onto his back and climbing on top of him. He lingers for a second, staring into Fuma’s eyes, their noses brushing together. “God, me, too.”

And then they’re kissing again, intense but unhurried, luxuriating in the truth of their feelings being at the surface, infused in every press of their lips together. Maki licks into Fuma’s mouth, and Fuma meets him halfway, their hands wandering over each other’s bodies, pulling each other impossibly closer.

Fuma doesn’t know the exact shape of where they’ll go from here. He’s still afraid that it will all fall apart, strained by distance and time and secrecy. But he wants to give it a chance to go differently. He wants to hold onto Maki—his funny, stubborn, caring, unbelievably hot rookie—for as long as he possibly can.

—

There’s no time at all for Fuma and Maki to settle into their relationship before they’re thrown into the intensity of playoff preparations. The Wolves ended up finishing fourth in the division, so they don’t get a bye, instead going immediately into round one against the Rockford IceHogs. They beat them handily with two straight wins in the best-of-three, but it still feels like they barely take a breath before round two is on them.

Playing against Grand Rapids, the division leader, presents more of a challenge. They’re long, grinding games, chipping at each other to push the games to overtime. After game four, the series tied 2-2, Maki crawls into bed next to Fuma, kisses him briefly, and then promptly curls up to go to sleep. Fuma is about to roll over and do the same when it hits him that that’s all they’ve done for at least a week. Maybe longer. He’s been so focused on nothing but hockey that he’s not even sure.

The playoffs have to be the worst possible time to start a new relationship. Maki is probably resenting him already.

“Baby,” he says tentatively.

Maki cracks open an eye to look at him, humming in question.

“Have I been… I mean, I’m sorry that I’ve been so focused on work that I haven’t been paying enough attention to you,” Fuma says. “I didn’t mean—”

Maki puts a hand on Fuma’s arm to stop him. His eyes are wide open now, and he’s pushed himself up so he’s looking down at Fuma. “No, no way,” he says. “Honestly, I’ve been kinda worried that I’ve been too locked in.”

“Oh,” Fuma says. “Really?”

Maki nods. “But this round is almost over, right? I was thinking… let’s kick their asses and then go on a date on our day off.”

Fuma laughs, surprised and relieved and endeared. “A date?”

“Yeah,” Maki says. “A real one, as boyfriends. But, like, don’t worry, nothing romantic. It’ll totally look like a friend hangout from the outside.”

Fuma raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t love it about himself, but the reassurance does make him feel better about the idea. “Sounds like you’ve got it all planned.”

“Mhm,” Maki says, leaning in to kiss Fuma again. “So don’t worry, okay?”

Fuma kisses back. “If I can’t, then neither can you,” he says when they break apart.

“Deal,” Maki says.

They do kick Grand Rapids’ asses in game five to end the round, and Maki really does have it all planned out. He gets them tickets to the Pokémon Fossil Museum at the natural history museum, a new exhibit that Fuma saw an announcement for but thought he’d have to wait until the fall to go see. Fuma is pretty sure he never mentioned the exhibit to Maki, and so despite Maki’s claims that the date wouldn’t be romantic, Fuma thinks Maki planning this for him is more romantic than any more traditional date ever could be. It’s less difficult than Fuma expected to spend the entire day not thinking about hockey at all.

The team was hoping to play Iowa in the division finals, since they know them so well, but instead they have to make the trek to Texas. It makes Fuma think of that first road trip early in the season, what feels like forever ago, when he and Maki lost their spark on the ice and then found it again. He’s not sure which way this time will go.

Maybe it’s the long plane ride or the intensity of the Texas hockey fans, but the Wolves get shut out in the first game. The loss must scare the team, because everyone gets quiet and intense, and then they play like there’s a fire lit under their asses. The Wolves win the next three games, though Texas doesn’t give them up easily—the final game of the series goes to a grueling triple overtime.

By that time, May is almost over. Fuma and Maki slip into old bad habits, bringing work home with them and obsessing over who they might be matched up with for the western conference finals. When they find out it’ll be the Henderson Silver Knights late on a Thursday evening, they spend the next few hours watching game tape and dissecting Henderson’s game, until Fuma abruptly realizes it’s past midnight.

He grabs the TV remote and unceremoniously shuts it off. “That’s enough,” he decrees. “Let’s go to bed.”

Maki frowns at him, reaching to try to take the remote from him. “But—”

Fuma doesn’t let him finish. He tosses the remote away and meets Maki’s mouth in a kiss so intense he startles himself with it. Maki kisses back just as fiercely, hands tangling into the back of Fuma’s hair.

“Oh,” he says when they pull back, breathless. “You meant bed.”

Fuma laughs and nods. He leans in to kiss Maki again, but Maki stops him with a hand on his cheek. “Have I told you how sexy your playoff beard is?” he asks, fingers trailing along Fuma’s jawline.

“No,” Fuma says, surprised. He’s never thought a beard particularly suits him. He capitulates to the tradition of not shaving during the playoffs because it would be strange not to, not because he actually likes it or feels particularly superstitious about it. “Is that because it looks good or because we’re winning?”

Maki hums thoughtfully. “Both?”

Fuma laughs and kisses him again, just as intense as before. He’s almost forgotten the conversation when Maki pulls back and says, “No comment on mine?”

Fuma pauses, tilting his head. The truth is that even Maki’s patchy beard doesn’t stop him from thinking Maki is one of the hottest people he’s ever had the privilege of looking at. But it’s much funnier to ignore the question in favour of kissing him again, so that’s what he does.

“Hey!” Maki protests against Fuma’s lips, laughing. “Come on!”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to,” Fuma teases.

Maki pouts. “But I know you think I’m sexy,” he complains.

Fuma hums and kisses the pout off Maki’s face. Maki doesn’t let it go, whining in between making out, still begging for Fuma to compliment him even as Fuma kneels between his legs to get his mouth on Maki’s cock. Maki runs his mouth the whole time Fuma is sucking him off, though it gets a little incoherent near the end, and when he’s finished in Fuma’s mouth, he drags him up to lick the taste of himself from Fuma’s lips.

Fuma is close by then, desperate for Maki to touch his cock, moaning into Maki’s mouth when he finally does. Maki strokes him slow and torturous, pulling back from the kiss to rest their foreheads together.

“Tell me the beard is sexy,” Maki says.

Fuma bites his lower lip, shaking his head minutely. Maki huffs, and Fuma smirks at him. A second later, Maki speeds up the pace of his hand and Fuma gasps, tipping closer to the edge.

“C’mon,” Maki whines. “Admit it, babe. Admit my sexy beard is about to make you come.”

Fuma shakes with laughter and need, gasping out a denial even as his body betrays him. Maki’s hand is too sure and practiced, and it only takes a few more strokes for Fuma to come.

“That was not because of your beard,” Fuma says when he can formulate words again.

“Sure,” Maki says. “Whatever you’ve gotta tell yourself.”

Fuma laughs and lets himself slump against Maki, cheek pressed to his shoulder and Maki’s arms around him. He feels warm and content, the stress of the playoffs temporarily forgotten.

The stress relief serves them well as they head into the next round. The Wolves are decidedly the underdogs, every talking head convinced that, since Henderson finished first in the Pacific division and has been cakewalking their way to the conference finals, the Wolves don’t have a chance. They’ll be lucky to win one game. They should be grateful to be taken out of the running by a team that has all the pieces to win the Calder.

It’s a brutal slog, playing game after game with a chip on their shoulders. They take the series all the way to game seven, back in the Silver Knights’ arena, their fans booing every time the Wolves touch the puck. The odds are stacked against them, the clock running out on a tie game. They’re exhausted, struggling to keep their heads in the game, looking desperately for chances to get the puck in the net. None of them want to go to overtime.

And then Maki buries a one-timer in the back of the net with a minute left in the third period. It’s such a beautiful goal, so sorely needed, that it has Fuma sincerely considering kissing him on the ice. He’s not alone in the feeling—as soon as they’ve run out the clock on the last few seconds of the game, Wheelsy is tossing off his helmet and kissing Maki himself, a big smacking one to Maki’s cheek just before the entire team piles onto the ice to celebrate winning the western conference finals.

It’s surreal, not least because the shocked silence of the stands as Henderson’s fans filter out is deafeningly derisive. There’s a whole official ceremony with the conference trophy, but it doesn’t really sink in what they’ve done. Even the next day, when they’re boarding the plane back home from Nevada, Fuma is only thinking of how much work there is left.

Maki slumps into the seat next to Fuma on the plane and leans against him, a steady weight pressed against Fuma’s shoulder. “One more round,” he says.

“One more,” Fuma agrees, leaning his weight back against Maki and thinking about how nice it is to have him here. Fuma was right that it’s hard dating in the middle of all this, especially when it’s new. But Maki was also right, because they’ve been leaning on each other just like this, making it work in spite of the odds.

And now they’ve made it. They’re in the Calder Cup Finals. It’s a huge win, farther than Fuma has ever made it before, but there’s still a gnawing feeling in his gut, an insatiable need for more that he knows Maki feels just as intensely. Fuma is so unbearably lucky to have someone who understands next to him.

In another stroke of luck for the entire team, they’re matched up with the Cleveland Monsters for the finals. It’s a boon to be up against a team they’ve already played a few times this season, though it doesn’t matter hugely when the shape of their respective teams has gone through the gauntlet of four rounds of the playoffs already. Wilcox is out for the series, told sternly that he can’t play on a messed-up knee unless he wants to fuck over the rest of his career. Kovalchuk tore his hamstring in game five against Henderson, so they’ve only had Massey in net. He’s been solid as hell, but it’s definitely a blow to have to rest all their hopes on only one of their equally-talented goalie tandem instead of trading them off to keep them rested.

Thankfully, the Monsters have their share of injuries to even the playing field, and playing in Cleveland cuts down on travel, which is nice. Cleveland wins the first game, but the Wolves edge them out in a nailbiter to take the series back to Chicago tied. Chicago wins both their home games, but Cleveland tightens up their game back on their own ice. They score a goal early on and then spend all their energy playing defensively, shutting down the Wolves’ chances to prevent them from winning the cup. The game ends a frustrating 1-0.

That brings them back to Allstate Arena for game six. The Calder Cup is once again in the building, but this time it’s their building. With any luck and a whole lot of grinding, they’re three twenty-minute periods from winning it all.

“All right, boys,” Singer says, calling the locker room to order. The buzz of anticipation and pre-game rituals settles as they all turn to look at him. “I don’t have to tell you what’s at stake here. You know how close that Cup is. You know how close we are to sinking our teeth into it. That last game—we didn’t need to win that one. Let’s leave that behind us, because we’ve got a barn full of fans out there ready to watch us win.”

Fuma thinks of Nicholas and Yudai and Yuma and Euijoo and Jo, who have been spamming the group chat with game reactions for two months now, and who he knows are somewhere in the crowd because Nicholas bullied them all into getting tickets to game six. He thinks of his parents back in Japan, who learned years ago how to use a VPN to stream games and are up early this time, too, supporting him even though they don’t fully understand his obsession with this game. He thinks of Maki’s parents, who flew in before game four and are in the stands wearing matching Maus jerseys. Maki was so excited to see them. Fuma knows how much he wants to win in front of them, and he wants it for him just as badly.

“We’re going to do it for them,” Singer declares. “They know how good this team is. They know we’ve crushed the odds every time. We’re going to do it again now, together, the same way we won all those games before. The same way we did three days ago, with these fans screaming down the house.”

Fuma feels Singer’s words in his bones. He doesn’t have any doubt that they can do this. This is their fucking house. He thinks of the kid whose family has season tickets, who Fuma has been watching grow up in snapshots as he hangs over the tunnel and high fives the players as they walk onto the ice. They could take this to game seven and win it in Cleveland, but Fuma doesn’t want that. He wants to win here, in the city he’s worked hard to make feel like home for the past six years.

“I know you’re tired. I know it’s hard. But if you can’t do it for you, do it for the guy next to you. Do it because you’ve done it before,” Singer says. “And most of all, do it because it’s fucking fun to play, and it’s even more fun to win. Wolves, lemme hear you howl!”

Singer’s speech is met with howls and stick taps. Fuma finds Maki’s gaze from across the room, and Maki’s lips curl into a smirk as their eyes meet. Fuma smirks right back. He knows Maki’s thinking the same thing he is: hockey is always fun when they play together.

This series is almost certainly the last time they’ll play on professional ice together. Maki will move on to bigger and brighter championship battles, but he only has this one chance to win the Calder Cup. Fuma might be back to try again, but the AHL is everchanging, and he knows this team is something special. He knows playing with Maki, especially, is something special.

If this is the last time, then they’d better fucking make it count.

The Wolves start out on the offensive, successfully managing to score an early goal so the Monsters can’t use the same tactic they did in the previous game. But the Monsters answer it with a goal a few minutes later, and the first period ends in a tie.

The second period is fast-paced, the Wolves scoring only for the Monsters to tie it up again twice over. One of the Wolves’ fourth-line wingers takes a stupid penalty when he’s driving toward the net, and then the Monsters score on the powerplay to make the score 4-3 for Cleveland.

Cleveland has exactly what they want: they’re ahead, and so they shift back into that defensive lockdown that the Wolves couldn’t crack. It’s just as frustrating now, especially as they get into the third period. The game clock ticks down threateningly, the crowd getting more restless as Cleveland shuts down chance after chance.

They’re down to double-digits on the clock, less than a minute before the final buzzer. But they only need one goal to keep this game going, and it only takes a second to score a goal. They have to keep working. Fuma thinks back to Singer’s speech, to doing it for the fans, for his teammates, for Maki. He can’t let this slip away, not when they’re so close.

And then—twenty seconds on the clock. Cleveland loses a faceoff in the neutral zone, Singer taking the puck toward Cleveland’s net. His man loses him, lagging a little behind, and Maki is hauling ass ahead of his, too. Singer passes across the ice to Maki, and Maki skates around a Cleveland forward, protecting the puck as he looks for a chance.

Fifteen seconds. Fuma sets himself by the blue line, watching as Maki tries to tip one in and Edwards scuffs the rebound. Cleveland tries to clear the puck out of the zone, but Fuma stops it from crossing the blue line and passes it back in to Venny. Cleveland try to knock Venny off the puck, but Maki gets involved, slipping out of the board battle with the puck and—

Ten seconds. The action slows down in front of Fuma’s eyes. Maki might have a chance, might have an opening that he can see from his angle. But Fuma also has a lane wide open in front of him from the confusion of the puck battle, traffic in front of the net that’s blocking Cleveland’s goalie’s view of what’s going on. Fuma taps his stick on the ice, and Maki doesn’t hesitate. He sends the puck flying up to Fuma.

Five seconds. Fuma doesn’t hesitate either: he shoots from the point, the puck blasting through the air and past all the skaters in between him and the net. It hits the back of the net, and the crowd erupts along with the sound of the goal horn.

Adrenaline floods Fuma’s veins as his line piles in to hug him. Maki shakes him, bouncing up and down on his skates, and then leans in to smack a kiss on Fuma’s cheek. Fuma is too elated to do anything but grin helplessly at him in response. It’s not over. Tie fucking game, and on that perfect assist from Maki.

There’s still a chance. They can still win.

They take intermission to regroup, to settle into the idea that they can make this happen. But it becomes clear only a few minutes into overtime that it’s going to drag. Both teams are playing too conservatively, too afraid of being the first one to give up a chance and lose it all.

Twelve minutes in, Wheelsy finally gets a really good look on an odd-man rush. The whole arena collectively takes a breath in as he shoots, the puck right on target—but the Monsters’ goalie makes what anyone would have to admit is an amazing glove save, and everyone exhales on a groan.

Next to Fuma on the bench, Singer is grumbling. “Let’s get this fuckin’ done,” he says as Harts taps their line to go on. He slips his mouthguard back into his mouth and lines up for the faceoff in the offensive zone.

Singer wins the draw to Fuma, who skates it in deep along the boards and then passes up to Edwards. Edwards shoots a one-timer that rebounds off the goalie’s pads, and Singer is in front of the net to get his stick on it, flipping the puck up and into the net.

The crowd explodes with sound, louder than Fuma has ever heard it. The whole team is on their feet, throwing themselves over the boards, the ice immediately littered with helmets and sticks and gloves. For a moment, Fuma just stands there in shock, his brain not quite caught up to reality.

Then it sinks in: this is it. This is the sound of success, of deafening cheers celebrating something Fuma has dreamed of since he was a kid. This is the fucking game Fuma loves finally loving him back, finally rewarding all the hard work it took to get here.

He takes it in for one more breath, and then he tosses away his gloves and helmet, skating into the fray. Maki is looking for him, reaching back to drag him deep into the tangle of their teammates. Fuma throws his arms around Singer and screams in his face, wordless because there aren’t any words for this kind of incandescent joy and relief. Singer screams back.

There’s all sorts of ceremony and celebration after that: families shuffling onto the ice to celebrate with them, the league brass awarding them the Calder Cup, Singer passing it to Fuma for his victory lap. They take picture after picture, screaming happily into camera lenses and trying to sound coherent when they give reporters quotes for their articles. The locker room floor ends up soaked in champagne from a few too many popped bottles sprayed across the throng of celebrating bodies.

They make a thousand happy memories that night, but Fuma thinks what he’ll remember most is what it feels like after, when he and Maki have stumbled drunkenly home from the bar the team ended up at in the early hours of the morning. They shower together, washing away the sweat and alcohol, and then fall into bed. Neither of them makes a move toward having sex. They just lie there, wrapped up in each other, exhausted and happy.

Maki wriggles himself in closer, face pressed against Fuma’s shoulder. Fuma can feel him smiling. “We did it,” he whispers into the silence. That, too, is the sound of success. Quiet and just for them.

Fuma presses a kiss to the top of Maki’s head. For once, he isn’t worried about anything at all. He has everything he ever wanted.

“Yeah,” he whispers back. “We did.”

—

“Cheers to having Fuma in Chicago for another year!” Yudai says, holding his glass of beer up.

Fuma smiles as the group echoes Yudai’s cheers, clinking their glasses together over the table and drinking. He still can’t believe that he actually signed a contract extension. Mr. Yates even joked that he wished they could ink him for three years, just to be sure he wouldn’t go anywhere. Fuma laughed and assured him, probably too seriously, that there wasn’t anything to worry about.

“Cheers to seeing this brat play at United Center next season!” Nicholas adds, elbowing Maki in the side and holding his glass up again.

Maki’s cheeks are flushed pink—whether from the warmth of the restaurant or the alcohol or embarrassment, Fuma can’t say. “You don’t know I’ll be in the NHL,” he protests.

“Shut up,” Nicholas says genially. “Yes, we do.”

“Hmph,” Maki says, but he’s grinning as they all toast again. For a second, Fuma is thrown back to the way Maki beamed at him the first time they met, when Maki seemed so confident that he’d be back in the NHL in no time and Fuma judged him for his cockiness. Now he knows Maki was all bluster, and that, even if he wasn’t, every bit of it would have been earned.

It’s the last night before Maki flies back to Vancouver to spend the offseason with his family. Fuma will be spending the next few weeks in Chicago resting and building an offseason routine with a trainer here before he flies to Japan to spend a month with his parents. They have plans to see each other before Maki reports to Hurricanes training camp in September, but the months before that are already stretching out in front of them.

Fuma’s doing his best to believe that they’ll both put in the work to make this last. They’ve promised to talk every day, and they already blocked off days for long distance dates. And if that’s not enough, if things fall apart anyway, then Fuma knows he’ll be okay. He won’t regret any of it.

“Congrats again on the big trophy thing,” Yuma says. “It was cooler to watch than I thought.”

The table bursts into loud exclamations of added congratulations and agreements about the excitement of the game. It devolves into overlapping conversations, Nicholas giving a verbal play-by-play of Fuma’s game-tying goal to an enraptured Maki while Yuma wonders aloud to no one in particular if Singer is in an open relationship. Fuma is about to answer that question with a definitive no when Euijoo’s voice cuts through the cacophony.

“Hey! Jo has something to say!”

They all quiet down and look at Jo. “Oh,” Jo says, shifting uncomfortably where he’s sitting between Yudai and Euijoo, his ears slowly turning pink. He straightens in his seat and leans toward Maki and Fuma. “Just, um. Congrats. And I’m gonna miss you, Maki.”

Maki puts a hand over his heart. “I’ll miss you, too, Jojo. We’ll text, I swear.”

“Thanks for, y’know,” Jo adds, gesturing around the table. “Introducing me.”

“Of course!” Maki says as everyone coos at how cute a flustered Jo is. Jo’s ears are bright red now, and when he slumps back in his seat, Yudai accosts him with palms to his cheeks, squishing his face.

Three months ago, that was the kind of exchange between Maki and Jo that would have made Fuma perilously jealous. Now, all he’s thinking about is how much he appreciates Maki’s warm heart and their friends’ willingness to take in new additions with open arms. And what a thought—that these friends are theirs, not just Fuma’s, a crossover of Fuma’s work and personal lives that he would have thought impossible less than a year ago.

“Hey, question,” Yuma says, distracting Fuma from his ruminations. “Do you get to take a mini trophy home? I think it would be so cute if it was, like, palm-sized.”

Fuma laughs and launches into an explanation of Cup rings, which leads to them looking up past teams’ rings and critiquing their ostentatious designs. From there the conversation wanders from a weird art exhibit Nicholas recently reviewed to an increasingly-demanding client Yuma had at the tattoo shop to the annoying managers on Euijoo’s latest architectural project. Fuma soaks it in, content to be here with good conversation and good food.

As content as he is, though, he’s also hyperaware of Maki’s ankle hooked around his under the table. There hasn’t been as much time for sex in the last week as they would have liked, what with all the team Cup celebrations and Maki’s parents being in town. Fuma is grateful their friends were able to take time to celebrate with them, but he’s ready for dinner to be over. He has plans for Maki at home.

Maki isn’t making it any easier for Fuma. His hand keeps sneaking onto Fuma’s thigh and sliding up to tease at the crease of his groin before Fuma firmly links their fingers together and removes it—only for it to return again a few minutes later.

Even when he's not trying to grope Fuma, he's leaning into his space or putting a casual arm over the back of Fuma's chair. It’s nothing anyone would think anything of, but Fuma knows every touch is loaded, every glance that passes between them buzzing with potential. Fuma wants to drag Maki to the bathroom and kiss the tiny smirks he keeps tossing Fuma off his face.

Despite Fuma’s impatience, they linger well past when the food is gone. Yudai orders one more round of drinks and then ends up putting his head down on the table halfway through and moaning about his alcohol tolerance. Nicholas giggles incessantly at him and asks the server for the cheque, which Fuma already surreptitiously paid. It earns him a chorus of protests and thanks as they all stand to leave, exchanging hugs and promises to call.

Fuma barely contains himself until they make it home. As soon as they're inside, he pushes Maki up against the inside of the door and kisses him. Maki kisses back, his hips arching up into Fuma’s thigh and his teeth nipping at Fuma’s lips.

“You're a menace,” Fuma says against Maki’s mouth. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you to keep your hands to yourself?”

“You liked it,” Maki says, dragging a hand down Fuma’s torso and palming his cock over his jeans. “You’re just as desperate for it as I am.”

Fuma’s already half-hard cock is confirmation enough of that. He kisses Maki again, letting himself grind into his touch. “I, uh,” he says between kisses, “have a surprise first.”

Maki’s hand pauses, and he pulls back from the kiss. “You do? Is it sex-related?” he asks. “Please say yes.”

Fuma forces himself to take a step back. Instead of answering, he threads his fingers through Maki’s so he can lead him into his bedroom. “Sit,” he says, directing Maki to the bed. “And close your eyes.”

Maki obeys. Fuma looks at him for a moment, soaking in the sight of Maki in his room, on his bed. It still feels unreal that Fuma can have this. That Maki is here with him. That Maki is his. Fuma is so fucking lucky.

Maki makes a small noise, somewhere between inquisitive and impatient. Fuma shakes himself out of it and goes to get the surprise.

“Okay,” Fuma says when he’s ready.

Maki opens his eyes and takes in Fuma’s outfit, his eyebrows furrowing. “A Canes jersey?”

Fuma turns around, looking over his shoulder to watch the moment when Maki sees his own name and number emblazoned across Fuma’s back. It’s worth it—Maki’s eyes go wide with shock, his jaw dropping.

“Oh, fuck,” he breathes. “Where did you get that?”

“I ordered it,” Fuma says. “While you were still playing there. I’m gonna need it to cheer you on.”

It might be too much for him to ever wear to an actual game, but it’s nice to imagine that he could. And it’s nice to wear right now, with Maki looking at him like he wants to devour him whole.

“You look so fucking good with my name on your back,” Maki says, reaching for Fuma like he can’t possibly wait to get his hands on him.

The deep tone of his voice makes warmth curl low in Fuma’s belly, and it takes effort not to step into Maki’s outstretched arms. “One more thing.”

Maki lets his hands drop. “There’s more? I’m gonna die,” he laments.

Fuma grins and holds out one of his own hoodies, a lightweight athletic one in Chicago Wolves grey. Maki takes it, shaking it out. Fuma sees the moment when Maki spots Fuma’s number underneath the Wolves logo on the front: his face goes soft with recognition, and he looks up to meet Fuma’s gaze.

“For me?”

Fuma nods. “To take with you. You can wear it when you miss me.”

Maki’s expression somehow gets even softer. “I already miss you,” he says, promptly shedding his t-shirt and yanking the sweater on instead. It fits tighter on Maki, hugging his body instead of hanging off him loosely. Fuma can’t stop looking at his own number on Maki’s chest. The surge of possessiveness that grips him is more intense than he expected, and he’d expected to feel pretty crazy.

Fuma gives in to it. He pounces on Maki, knocking him onto his back and crawling onto the bed on top of him, kissing him hard. Maki surges up into the kiss, hands on Fuma’s waist and then wandering up his back, tracing the numbers on his jersey as they kiss.

“This is totally a sex gift,” Maki says against Fuma’s mouth. He lets his head drop to the bed and quirks an eyebrow up at Fuma. “You’re gonna let me fuck you while you wear it, right?”

Fuma quirks an eyebrow back at him. “If you want,” he says. “Or… if you still wanted me to fuck you…”

Maki’s eyes go dark, and he drags Fuma back down into a long, filthy kiss. “Yes,” he says into Fuma’s mouth. “Yes, please.”

Maki’s hands slip under Fuma’s jersey and then into Fuma’s pants as they make out, gripping his ass and dragging him down so Maki can rub himself off against him. Fuma groans into Maki’s mouth and yanks at Maki’s pants, trying unsuccessfully to undress them both without stopping either kissing Maki or putting any distance between their hips. That quickly gets too frustrating, and Fuma rolls off Maki to strip off his jeans and underwear, Maki doing the same next to him.

They crash back together, limbs twining together and hands everywhere. Fuma licks up the side of Maki’s neck, reveling in the way Maki moans and tilts his head. He digs his teeth in behind Maki’s ear, and Maki grabs Fuma’s ass again, dragging him closer as he makes tiny noises in the back of his throat, grinding up against Fuma as Fuma keeps worrying at the skin between his teeth. Fuma will probably regret the dark red mark he leaves there tomorrow, but right now he doesn’t care.

When Fuma kisses Maki again, Maki’s hand comes up to cup Fuma’s head, and he rolls them over so he’s on top, knees bracketing Fuma’s torso. He grins down at Fuma, and Fuma thinks of Maki on top of him on the couch on his birthday, of him tossing Fuma down on his bed and looking at him with so much hope and uncertainty before the first time they had sex. His chest swells with emotion, and he drags Maki into another kiss.

Maki licks into Fuma’s mouth as he works his hips against Fuma's. The friction is so good, making helpless moans slip from Fuma’s mouth, but it’s not nearly enough.

Maki pulls back with a gasp, eyes wild with need as he drags his cock over Fuma’s. “Want you to fuck me like this,” he says. “Wanna kiss you the whole time.”

Fuma nods frantically, the idea making need surge through his body, his cock getting impossibly harder. “Yeah, baby,” he says, letting his hands slide down to Maki’s ass, guiding the way Maki rolls his hips. “I’m gonna open you up for me. Gonna make you feel so fucking good, okay?”

“Yeah,” Maki breathes, not resisting at all when Fuma rolls them back over. Fuma retrieves the lube from the bedside table, only to get distracted from his task by the sight of his number on Maki’s chest again. He shoves the sweater up and drags his teeth over Maki’s skin. He leaves mark after mark all over Maki’s torso, unable to help himself—Maki makes the most perfect little gasps and moans when Fuma works his skin with his mouth, his skin blooming into beautiful red marks in the shape of Fuma’s mouth. He can’t stop thinking about Maki looking at them in the mirror tomorrow, when there are miles and a country border between them, and knowing that Fuma was here, that he belongs to Fuma.

“Please,” Maki says when Fuma is sucking a mark into his hip crease. “Please, want you inside me.”

Fuma digs his teeth in, and Maki groans, his cock leaking. Fuma leaves off in favour of fitting his mouth around the head of Maki’s cock, tasting salt and feeling the weight of him on his tongue.

“Please,” Maki gasps out, spreading his legs wider. “Want you.”

Fuma can’t resist anymore. He’s done making Maki wait for him. He pulls off and slicks up his fingers, rubbing over Maki’s entrance as he sucks his cock into his mouth again. Maki groans and jerks his hips up, but Fuma gets a hand on his inner thigh and holds him firmly down as he slides a finger inside him.

Maki moans. “Oh, fuck, yes. Feels so good, keep going.”

Fuma hums around his cock, carefully moving his finger inside Maki. It’s easy, Maki opening up for him so well, and Maki squirms against his grip, trying to get more.

“C’mon,” Maki demands, sounding as impatient as Fuma feels. Fuma slides another finger inside of him, and Maki groans his approval. His fingers grip Fuma’s hair, curling at the top of his head—not pulling, just holding there as Fuma fingers him and bobs his head on his cock. “Fuck, you look good like that. Can see my name on your back, and it’s… fuck. I’m so fucking lucky, holy shit.”

Fuma keeps going, eventually adding more lube and another finger, working Maki open for him. He can feel Maki’s eyes on him the whole time, watching him with the same intense focus he’s always had when they have sex. It still makes Fuma feel vulnerable, but that doesn’t bother him as much as it used to. Maki’s already seen him at his worst, and he still wants him. Fuma doesn't need to hide the messy parts of himself away from Maki anymore.

Fuma doesn’t relent until Maki is right up against the edge, writhing underneath Fuma. He pulls Fuma off him by the hair with a gasped, “Stop, stop,” and takes a deep, shaky breath. “Don’t wanna come like this. Wanna come with you inside me.”

“You sure you’re ready?” Fuma asks.

“So fucking sure,” Maki says. He pulls Fuma up to kiss him. Fuma lingers there for a moment, cupping Maki’s cheek, before he sits back on his heels and strips off the Hurricanes jersey. Maki pouts at him, and Fuma laughs.

“You won’t even be able to see the name,” he says as he arranges himself on his back. Maki’s eyes follow his movement, lingering on Fuma’s cock hungrily. Fuma adds more lube to his hand and wraps it around his own cock, gasping at the first touch of his hand, slick and wet. “Besides,” he adds, breathy as he strokes himself, “I want you to come all over me, not the Hurricanes logo.”

Maki wastes no time climbing on top of Fuma, knocking Fuma’s hand away from his cock and bracketing him in. “Okay, fair,” he says, leaning down to kiss him.

Maki’s kisses are so distracting that Fuma forgets that he made topping for Maki such a big thing in his head. He forgets to be worried about hurting Maki, or losing Maki, or having feelings for Maki that are too large for the boxes Fuma built in his mind. There’s none of the fear he couldn’t put down before. There’s only the all-encompassing feeling of Maki reaching behind himself to guide Fuma’s cock to his entrance and push back onto him, his body opening up for Fuma’s cock easily.

Maki breaks away from their kisses with a soft gasp, pressing their foreheads together. Fuma breathes through the desperate need to move, to give Maki what he’s been asking for for months. He can’t stop thinking about how no one else has ever done this with Maki. No one else has ever felt this tight heat around them and known there’s nothing between them at all.

“You feel so good,” Fuma chokes out. “Is it good, baby?”

“So good,” Maki murmurs. “So full. Like you’re filling up my whole body.”

“Yeah,” Fuma says. “You’re all mine.”

Fuma looks down, bringing his hand up from where he was holding Maki’s waist to touch his own number on Maki’s chest, right over Maki’s heart. Maki puts his hand over Fuma’s, holding it there as he starts to rock his hips backward, fucking himself shallowly. Fuma spreads his legs and bends his knees for leverage so he can help, punching a moan out of Maki as he slides in deep.

Every time they fucked before this was tinged with desperation. Even when Fuma had given in to Maki, he was still holding something back. This time, he lets it go completely. He lets himself move entirely without thought, building that slow and relentless rhythm he always pictured fucking Maki with, watching Maki’s face the whole time. He drinks in every minute shift of Maki’s expression, the way he bites his lip and gasps and moves to meet Fuma’s thrusts. It’s like executing a perfect play, like flying down the ice and knowing when he looks back, Maki will be right there to receive his pass.

Fuma leans up, capturing Maki’s lips in a sloppy kiss. Maki tries to kiss back, but he’s too distracted by Fuma’s cock inside him, and he keeps breaking away from Fuma’s lips to gasp and moan. The longer it goes on, the less work Maki does and the more he whines, and so Fuma gets his hands on his ass and holds him still, fucking into him faster.

“Oh, fuck,” Maki moans, his hands fisting in the sheets on either side of Fuma’s head. “Fuck, Fuma.”

“Yeah,” Fuma says, “that’s it. Let me make you feel good.”

Maki swears again, trying to kiss Fuma and ending up licking over his cheek and down to his jaw. He breathes heavily into Fuma’s ear. Fuma is caged in, completely surrounded by him, overwhelmed by the heat they're building together.

Maki’s cock is trapped between them, and Fuma works a hand into the space to wrap around it. Maki moans, loud in Fuma’s ear, and pushes himself up enough to make it easier for Fuma to stroke his cock as he fucks him.

“Fuck, I’m getting so close,” Maki says. “Are you close? Do you think we could come at the same time? Is that insane? You make me so fucking insane, anything seems possible.”

It is objectively a little crazy, but Fuma gets it. He’s so caught up in this, in Maki, that he thinks maybe, instead of absolutely not.

“Don’t come until I say, then,” Fuma says. “Tell me if you’re going to.”

“Oh, fuck, are you gonna try?” Maki asks. He swears again, rambling about how much he loves the feeling of Fuma inside of him, how he wants it harder, how he can take more, please. Fuma lets his words guide how he fucks him, until eventually it’s not even really the words, but instead the cadence of them washing over Fuma. He lets himself get swept away by it, lets himself tip closer to the edge instead of trying to hold back and focus on Maki.

Maki’s words trail off on a sob of pleasure, and he licks into Fuma’s mouth. Fuma kisses back as he fucks him, feeling like his body is smouldering with heat, his whole world narrowed down to Maki’s ass clenched around his cock, Maki’s cock hard and leaking in his hand, Maki’s tongue in his mouth, Maki, Maki, Maki.

“Please, can I,” Maki gasps against Fuma’s mouth. “Please, I don’t think I can stop, please, Fuma, please…”

Fuma nods, his hand working Maki’s cock. “Come for me, baby.”

Maki loses it when the first syllable has barely passed Fuma’s lips, coming hot and wet all over Fuma’s chest. Fuma only lasts a few more thrusts, the heat in his body coalescing into a cascade of pleasure as he comes buried deep inside, filling Maki up.

It’s not quite perfectly in sync, but it’s pretty damn close. Close enough that they shake through it together, lips meeting and hands dragging each other closer as they collapse into each other. Close enough that Maki buries his face in Fuma’s neck and laughs, weak and incredulous.

“I didn’t actually think it would happen,” Maki says. He lifts his head and grins at Fuma. Fuma’s breath catches at the sight of his dimples, the reaction objectively ridiculous after everything they just did. “So fucking romantic.”

Fuma shrugs a shoulder. He’s done saying no to the things Maki asks him to try. “You asked if we could,” he says. “Thought I’d find out.”

Maki presses a gentle kiss to Fuma’s shoulder, then his neck, his jaw, his mouth. Fuma kisses back, soft and lazy, slowly petering out until they’re just lying together.

They’ll have to move soon, clean up and pack the last of Maki’s things and get ready for one more sleep next to each other before Maki leaves. There will be countless worries to deal with in the future: navigating a long distance relationship, finding time for each other with their busy schedules, figuring out the balance being out privately and still needing to hide publicly. It'll be hard work, but Fuma has no doubt that it will be worth it. Maki will always be worth it.

For now, though, Fuma lets himself live in the moment. He brushes a strand of hair out of Maki’s face and pokes his cheek where his dimple usually is. Maki makes a tiny annoyed noise and rubs his cheek against Fuma’s chest like he’s trying to burrow his way to Fuma’s heart. As if he isn’t there already.

“How are you feeling?” Fuma asks. “Did you like it as much as you thought you would?”

Maki hums happily. “Worth the wait,” he says. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Fuma hides a smile in the top of Maki’s head. “Yeah,” he says. “Me neither.”