Chapter Text
Anastasia (Nastya) Levedeva - Sanchez
"Aside! Come on, move!" Tiger ran to the locker room quicker than they have ever seen him before.
The rest of the team - beside Klaus, who ran just after Twisting Tiger - just looked at each other and shrugged. When they got to the locker room, Tiger and Klaus were sitting on the bench, eyes glued to the screen of the phone Tiger was holding.
"Dude, what is it? You ran faster than when the ball went to our penalty box." North said, grabbing some water.
"Shh." Tiger silenced him, not even looking away from the phone. "We made it in time." he said to Klaus.
"What is more important than that we just won three to zero?" Joe tilted head and looked over his friends' shoulders. "Is this... Figure skating? Isn't it like... winter sport?"
"It's Test Skates, to choose representatives for the season." Klaus explained. "The best of the best."
"I'm the best of the best." El Matador cut in.
"Can you finally shut up? For five minutes?!" Tiger bursted out, looking at everyone, with a sharp grimace on his face.
Of course his teammates didn't, but at least tried to be quieter. Anyway, most grabbed their stuff and walked out, started talking normally - not whispering - when the doors of the locker room closed behind them.
What was surprising, El Matador stood behind Tiger and Klaus, looking at Tiger's phone, while cleaning his glasses. Seeing this, Shakes decided to also take a look. Spenza is probably already waiting for him... But a few minutes won't make much difference.
On the screen was a woman in a black dress, currently spinning on the ice, in a position he'd probably have to break a few bones to reach. She was holding her leg over her head, before dropping it and going into some choreo sequence or something like that. Out of spin he could have a better look on her face, and he couldn't shake off the feeling that he saw her somewhere before.
The girl moved as if she flew over the ice, and when she entered a jump, it seemed way too simple. But just as she landed it, Tiger let out a breath of relief, so it must have been much more complicated. For him it was hard to even say how many times she spinned in the air, not even speaking about telling apart particular jumps. Everything looked too similar, but commentators were saying different names.
"Who is it?" he asked finally, when the girl on the screen entered another spin.
"Anastasia Levedeva. My personal favourite among all ladies." said Tiger.
"Who's favourite she isn't?" Klaus scoffed. "First season as a senior she won every major competition. Only Olympic gold is missing, I root for her to get it!" he got excited as if it was about himself. Shakes thought he knew him well, but definitely not from this side...
"And that will be her Olympic free skate program." Tiger explained what exactly they're watching on the phone, with eyes still glued to the screen, as Anastasia stood up from the sit spin, now holding her leg straight up - but this time in front, not behind.
"Pff, I could do that too." El Matador scoffed, just being himself. Not that he couldn't even tell apart jumps or raise his leg like that.
"I bet you'd fall after only taking a step on the ice." said Tiger, first time glancing from the screen, raising his eyebrow at El Matador.
"Bet!"
"Sorry, El Matador, but you could never pull off a quad lutz." Klaus crossed arms and looked offended by El Matador's action. How dare he disgrace his second favourite sport?
"Quad- what?"
"Beautiful!" Klaus didn't answer El Matador, instead clapped his hands, as Anastasia landed the just-said quad lutz, and finished the program, one knee on the ice, other leg straight, arms and back tilted far back.
Shakes suddenly remembered where he may know her from, when there was a close up on her after the program.
It was after they lost a match to FC Barka, Riano just after a very short celebration with his team ran up to the stands and hugged some woman, even bringing her down on the field. He didn't pay much attention to it then, but it was definitely the same girl. They were very close, she even seemed to know his whole team. Could they be...? At least that's what he thought witnessing that moment...
Well, nothing easier than to ask.
"Is she... Riano's girlfriend?" he asked cautiously, rubbing his nape.
After this question, silence fell in the locker room. Everyone looked at him as if they couldn't process what he just said. He immediately felt how warmth spreads on his cheeks, even reaches his ears. Did he say something stupid?
Ugh, he should have checked on the phone instead of asking...
"He has a girlfriend and I don't?!" El Matador shouted, looking just as surprised as the other two in the room, but because of a different reason.
Tiger and Klaus, after another moment of silence, burst out laughing, probably at both of their teammates' words.
"She's his sister!" Tiger shouted through laughter, trying to calm down. "Don't you see the resemblance? They have the same eyes." he quickly searched up the photo of them next to each other, on Anastasia's Instagram. Photo of them both holding gold medals with caption: 'Golden siblings 🔥😎 (I'm better, but don't tell him 🤪)'.
"But... You said she is 'Levedeva'. And she represents Russia, while Riano is from Spain. His surname is 'Sanchez'. It's pretty confusing." he defended himself, still feeling his cheeks burn.
"It's because their father is Spanish, and their mother is Russian. They probably have double nationality, so can represent one of these countries. Also, on Wikipedia they have double-barrelled surname. Anastasia once spoke, that because her name is Russian, she prefers using mother's surname, and Riano father's. The whole story. Not that confusing."
"No, if you're a fan." he scoffed, still trying to save his face in all this.
"So she's single?" El Matador asked such an important question, that everyone in the room rolled their eyes.
"Yeah, waiting specially for you." Tiger snapped back sarcastically. "What? Are you considering playing badly in our next match with Barka just to endear her?"
"No, I'll become her favourite striker." he answered, looking at his nails and their perfect manicure.
"And then Riano will accidentally foul you." Klaus said definitely too lightly, taking what he meant.
Shakes didn't say anything more. Just took his back, said goodbyes and walked out of the locker room. As soon as the doors closed behind him, he took out his phone. There were already a few notifications from Spenza, asking where he is, and if he's close to the cafeteria he may grab something for him. He just quickly wrote that he'll be out in five minutes.
Slowly walking down the corridor, he switched to Instagram, first checking Riano's profile, as he was following it already.
And yes, there were some photos of them together. She was even mentioned in his bio! How has he never seen that? It was just before his eyes.
He clicked to her account, and first was surprised that she has over a million followers - okay, maybe being a celebrity himself he shouldn't be surprised, but he wasn't into figure skating and had no idea how many people were interested in it.
But what surely was impressive, were the medals she had listed in bio. It seems she was in sport since the 2017/18 season, and even since then was successful.
Only when he switched to the look through the posts he felt a bit uneasy, that he was checking her out like that. But it's public information, she publishes them herself, so it's nothing bad. Just first three posts and he already met with words he doesn't understand.
There was a video with the caption: 'Another cantilever with the Queen of it' and a tag of probably her friend also into figure skating. The name of the move said nothing to him, but watching the video of two girls doing it side-by-side said enough: He'd break his spine, knees and a few more things before doing it. He looked down and raised his t-shirt a bit, looking at his abs. But if these girls are doing it, with a bit more flexibility he would be able to do it too, right? His core muscles wouldn't betray him... Right?
"What am I doing?" he scolded himself, pushing t-shirt down and shaking his head. But then he looked back at the phone and couldn't just turn it off.
There was something about how she moved on ice that was really eye-catching, maybe even a bit hypnotising. She was so graceful, making everything look easy (actually a bit too easy, he was a little afraid that El Matador might want to try it all himself). He was never interested in this sport, but just might get into it a little bit... At least to be able to tell apart jumps... Or no, just name them for now. Telling them apart is definitely impossible, he looked at the videos of two named 'lutz' and 'flip' and they looked the same.
Interesting if Riano can see the difference... She's his sister after all.
"I can't believe I'm down bad since I heard she's actually not his girlfriend..." he muttered to himself, leaving a follow before closing the app.
He opened the calendar and added a new event: in four days, to write to Riano if he'd like to hang out after the match. Just to not seem suspicious by writing so early (or at leasts that's how it looked in his head. He just didn't want to write it at all to look stupid or something, in four days he'll definitely have the courage. Definitely.). Hopefully Anastasia will also be there. He won't mind hanging out with them both.