Chapter Text
His hands were still shaking when he made it outside.
It had been naive of him to think that leaving his father and brother at home when he left for the airport meant leaving them at home.
"You will win this, or you will not come home."
thissh-click.
If it could be that simple.
He ran his thumb over the rough wheel of the lighter for the fifth or thirteenth or fortieth time. The pad of his thumb was raw with it, and the click of the wheel hissing under his skin and refusing to spark drove into the side of his head like his father's voice over a bad connection.
thissh-click.
You will not come home.
thissh-click.
He did not need to be told. He needed the victory, he needed his place in the draft, he needed to be first in the draft. It was maybe his only escape hatch, a leash-free release onto another continent; four-thousand miles between him and Alexei's heel, four thousand miles between him and the stranglehold of his father's expectations, and his disappointment, and the anchor of his disgust.
The lighter clicked again, caught, blew out under the wind. He could have shattered it on the ground in that moment, but he needed it. The cigarette between his lips trembled where he held it, and his lungs were so cold in his chest that the chilly air barely registered. He took a breath around the cigarette, pushed his frustration—and everything else—down into that pit under his ribcage and turned his shoulder against the wind to try again.
thissh-click.
He heard the approach of footsteps and ignored them. He knew the sound of his coach's footsteps, and these were not them. He knew the way his teammates walked, and this was too soft. Some other player, stepping outside for air or for the same thing he'd escaped the stifling confines of the locker room for, or security, or an organizer, or someone's parent. It didn't matter.
"Ilya Rozanov?"
A voice he knew, but one he'd never heard say his name. He tilted his head and watched Shane Hollander take the last few steps to his side.
You will beat him.
In the year leading up to this moment, Ilya had been subjected to hundreds of clips, dozens of full games, hours and hours in front of a screen watching this boy play. He had tried to plant a seed of hatred in his stomach when his coach had told him this boy's name. He had watched the videos, and analyzed the clips, and leaned close to observe the way Shane Hollander moved. He had tried very hard to hate every clever play, every impossible score, every display of skill.
But Shane Hollander moved like poetry moved.
This was his biggest competition. His only competition. There would be a draft in six months, and they would be standing side-by-side in the photographs, one way or another.
Hollander had his arm held out straight in front of him as he drew closer, smile chiseled uncomfortably onto his face. Ilya watched his eyes and his chest, measured the distance separating them. It wouldn't be the first time another player had approached him to take his measure, and it wouldn't be the first time Ilya had declined to engage.
"I wanted to introduce myself," Hollander said with that smile clinging awkwardly to each syllable.
Ilya parsed the words, translated them. Experience told him to just look at Hollander's hand and roll his eyes, and turn away, but Hollander's expression was so open and earnest that Ilya reached across his body without exactly meaning to and took Hollander's hand in his.
"You're an amazing player to watch," Hollander said, but Ilya barely heard the words as the ground shifted underneath his feet and the entire world tipped sideways.
In the tender web between thumb and forefinger, a sharp needle stabbed deep into the muscle, and then heat flushed over his palm like he'd been scalded. He looked up sharply, but Hollander's expression didn't shift. His eyes flickered away from Ilya's to settle somewhere to the left of his face.
Hollander's grip was firm; he squeezed once, and then he pulled his hand back like hadn't felt the seed at all.
In the aftermath of this silent devastation, the tremble in Ilya's hands grew. He bit down on the sensation of roots digging through his skin like he could rip them out with his teeth, and brought the lighter up again.
thissh-snap-fwoom.
He cupped his hand around the delicate flame and set the cigarette into it. His eyes searched his own palm for damage, but he couldn't see anything past the glow. Perhaps it wasn't what he thought. Maybe it had just been a static shock.
He heard the faint crackle of the paper catch beneath the whistle of the wind, and he drew air through the cigarette, coaxing the ember to life.
The first unpleasant burst of bitterness at the back of his throat soothed the tremor in his hands, and he let the smoke warm his lungs.
"I'm not sure you're supposed to smoke here," Ilya's soulmate said.
Ilya looked at this boy who may have just killed him and said, "Okay."