summary: As members of the 2026 Winter Olympics, they’re about to share the biggest stage of their lives — but they share a past, too. Under the bright lights, old memories resurface, emotions run high, and a few long-overdue truths finally come to light.
No Clean Exit 🏁
(Ilia Malinin x F1 Driver!Reader) [finished]
summary: They knew that being top athletes in different sports and chasing lifelong dreams would require sacrifices—but they never expected their relationship to be one of them. After a messy breakup, their paths haven’t crossed despite living in the same town. Yet the past has a way of catching up, and this time, there’s no clean exit.
When A Stranger Calls
(Ilia Malinin x Babysitter!Reader) [one-shot]
summary: when a stranger calls, you know better than to answer. but on the night before halloween, curiosity gets the better of you… and some masks are easier to recognize than others.
no like i’m actually scared for the ballerina one shot can we just get to the fun fics instead of angst ones please I CANT TAKE THIS I KNOW YOURE GOING TO MAKE IT GUT WRENCHING
I don’t have any fun ideas nonnie😔 my mind is only capable of coming up with angst and torture and eventual hard earned happiness
are u doing the brothers best friend story??? and if so i hope its SPICYYYY😋😋😋
hey, nonnie!
yes, i’m planning to write a mini series, but first I want to come out with the ballerina one-shot ☺️ you guys are thirsting for the spicy moments huh 😂 i’ll try my best!!!
summary: You were young, and the whole world was at your feet. At eighteen, you managed to start a rock band, escape your hometown, and begin chasing your dreams. You toured, gained fame, and did what you loved most — making music.
But life has a way of rewriting the script. Just as quickly as you rose to the top, you fell from it. You were kicked out of the very band you founded and, broke and defeated, returned home with your tail between your legs.
What you couldn’t stand the most, however, was the fact that your high school enemy had suddenly gained everything you had lost. And he reminded you of it almost every day, lingering around you like a ghost. Over time, though, once you grew used to his unexpected presence in your life, you began to wonder what you had really hated him for in the first place — and whether you still hated him at all.
content: enemies to lovers, angst, slow burn, hurt/comfort, strong language, shy ilia, mean and messy reader, reader has anger issues, anxiety, miscommunication, rock band, bassist!reader, reader has a 70s rockstar aesthetic, mentions of cigarettes, sex, alcohol and drugs, almost famous/daisy jones and the six vibes, happy ending, dysfunctional family, injury and blood
word count: 11,1k
author's note: This story has been living rent-free in my head for ages, but I never had the time (or brainpower tbh) to properly sit down and work on it. I wrote this chapter over the span of like a month, so if there are any inconsistencies, repeated bits, or random weirdness... no you didn't see that ❤️ Every scene was written at a different time and completely out of order. Also, English isn't my first language, so there'll probably be some grammar mistakes, awkward phrasing, and the occasional language-calque moment. I finally handed in all my uni essays (thank GOD), but my finals are coming up, so next chapters might not be here anytime soon. Btw, I was on vacation when Ilia did that Twitch stream and I couldn't watch it 😭 maybe next time though.
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You hated adulthood.
You hated your microscopic, cardboard-box of a room in your aunt’s house — your aunt whom you hated too, though you kept that part hidden if you wanted a roof over your head. You hated the snide clerk at the only record store in town, the one who never wanted to give you a discount on Bowie albums and who had deliberately spilled juice all over your copy of one of the first issues of “Rolling Stone’’, the one with Lennon on the cover, which you had foolishly lent him out of sheer goodwill.
You hated the bratty kids you had to babysit just to pay off the loan for your new bass guitar (the previous one, in a rather dramatic act, had been smashed directly over the thick skull of your former band’s lead singer). You hated your rusty old bike. You hated the fact you had never gotten a driver’s license and that now you were far too broke to do anything about it. You hated your job, the chemical taste of the ice cream you had to sell with a smile while wearing a pink apron you also hated. You hated the faulty waffle iron, the impatient customers, and your manager, who never stopped scolding you over something.
You hated many things, really — your entire life, yourself, and the cruel, merciless world surrounding you, so painfully different from the idyllic version of it you used to imagine.
But above all else, you hated Ilia Malinin.
Even though you hadn’t seen him since graduation day, after nearly four sweet years of drifting from city to city with your suitcase and playing gigs across the country, somehow you still saw him constantly — especially ever since the Olympics. The Olympics, which interested you about as much as last year’s snow, except social media algorithms had apparently decided to torment you with them. Overnight, Malinin was suddenly everybody’s obsession simply because he had humiliated himself in his own event.
And apparently, that was enough to make him the internet’s white boy of the month.
That part didn’t annoy you too much. You blocked all his Instagram and TikTok accounts and preemptively muted every figure-skating-related hashtag you could think of. What truly enraged you — what had soured your mood for weeks and poisoned your entire attitude toward the Winter Games — were the comments flooding your official profiles.
Do you know Ilia? You went to high school with Ilia? Guys I think they dated. Quad God and Y/N know each other?? Actual multiverse of madness.
You were perfectly aware that nothing ever disappeared from the internet, so it did not surprise you in the slightest when Malinin’s new fans dug up old photos of the two of you from your classmates’ abandoned Instagram accounts. You weren’t even standing together — while you, as usual, occupied the foreground, the loser’s silhouette lingered somewhere blurry in the background. Someone even unearthed a screenshot from Ilia’s Snapchat where, answering a classmate’s question, he had spoken rather unfavorably about your band’s music back when it had barely existed.
You were fairly certain that when your band had still been thriving, your own fans — the same ones who unanimously turned against you because of a ridiculous rumor spread by your former best friend, the drummer you had founded the band with — had probably left similar comments under Malinin’s posts. The thought comforted you a little. The two of you even had your own Wikipedia pages now, and it wasn’t hard for people to notice you came from the same town.
Back then, though, despite a few impressive accomplishments in his sport — a sport you had always considered painfully boring (all right, maybe not always and definitely not as boring as curling) — Ilia hadn’t been even half as popular as he was now. Ironically enough, it was his spectacular Olympic failure that had finally made him famous.
Who would have thought? That self-centered, cringe idiot who claimed he wrote his own poetry despite never reading a single assigned novel in high school and being physically incapable of writing an essay without a dozen spelling mistakes had somehow become the darling of teenage girls, while you had turned into a pariah in the music world. Actually, you had become an outcast everywhere. Out of nowhere, you were reduced to a mid bassist, people called you a whore, and every old friend you had vanished from your life.
The world, however, was full of surprises.
Mostly unpleasant ones — such as your sworn high school enemy, whom you despised with every fiber of your being despite having exchanged maybe a handful of sentences with him in your entire life (it had been more than enough), showing up at your workplace for the second day in a row. Yesterday’s visit had been accidental — he had taken his younger sister out for ice cream. Today’s, however, was undeniably intentional.
I could’ve gotten a job at a bookstore, you thought bitterly. At least then you would know for certain Ilia would never set foot there.
The first time, you had managed to convince the other girl working at the ice cream shop to serve Ilia and Liza while you busied yourself pretending to repair a perfectly functional slushie machine. You did not spare them a single glance.
Today, however, you were alone on shift. There was nowhere to hide — nowhere beneath the counter to disappear into, no back room to lock yourself inside. You had no choice but to face Ilia and that infuriatingly beautiful face of his, delicate and flawless as porcelain.
Damn, you caught yourself thinking, was he this pretty back in high school too? Had his nose always looked so… perfect? You could no longer recall. Every warm feeling you had once harbored for him in 9th and 10th grade had long since been consumed, replaced by a fierce and living resentment.
You scolded yourself for the observation almost immediately. You had no idea why thoughts like that were suddenly creeping into your mind. Maybe you had consumed one too many energy drinks that morning and something inside your brain was beginning to malfunction.
So when, after staring at you for several solid minutes — and that was not an exaggeration — Ilia finally approached the counter, you decided to pretend you didn’t remember him. Hopefully that would throw him off enough to stop him from trying any stupid tricks.
If he did try something, you would shove the steel ice cream scoop straight down his throat.
“What can I get you?” you asked politely, though the mockery underneath your voice was impossible to conceal.
Ilia adjusted the glasses sliding down his nose. He looked at you suspiciously, startled by how composed you seemed. The last time he had spoken to you — during graduation, no less — you had called him an idiot and flipped him off.
In front of his parents.
“Um…” He wrinkled his nose, visibly unsure what exactly he was supposed to do. Confusion and panic flickered in his blue eyes — your plan had worked; he genuinely thought you hadn’t recognized him. “Two scoops of vanilla. In a cup.”
“We’re out of vanilla,” you replied dryly, with professional calm. You did not even blink. You had always been very good at lying, almost as good as you were at getting on people’s nerves.
“There’s no vanilla,” you informed him in a detached, impeccably professional tone. You didn’t so much as blink. You had always been good at lying — just as you had always excelled at getting on people’s nerves, both deliberately and entirely by accident.
Ilia looked visibly confused.
“But…” he began quietly, pointing toward the gelato pan filled with pale, frozen cream. “I can literally see it right there.”
“That’s sweet cream,” you replied smoothly, tossing the portion scoop through the air with unnecessary flair before catching it again. “Forgot to change the label.”
“Okaaaay…” he said slowly. “Then I’ll take raspberry.”
A snort escaped you before you could stop it.
You immediately forced your face back into a perfect poker expression, praying Ilia hadn’t noticed the corners of your mouth twitch upward for a split second. You had no intention of revealing that you knew his last name, that you remembered him from school. That despite the three years that had passed since you both graduated from George C. Marshall High School, he hadn’t actually changed all that much.
The last time you had seen him in person, his hair had been darker, his features softer and more boyish, and he had possessed considerably less muscle. Practically none, in fact.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, clearly irritated.
“Nothing.” Your eye didn’t even twitch. “I choked on my own spit.”
“Right,” he said, unconvinced.
In a silence disturbed only by the soft hum of the ventilation system and the faint music drifting from the radio in the back room, you accepted his payment, took a paper cup, and scooped two generous portions of raspberry ice cream into it.
After serving your last customer, you had gone to eat a sandwich and forgotten to put your nitrile gloves back on afterward. You hoped Malinin would be gracious enough not to report you to your manager for violating sanitation rules.
Unfortunately, he had an entirely different complaint. The moment he tasted the ice cream, his nose wrinkled and his light eyebrows immediately drew together in displeasure.
“It’s melted,” he complained, puffing out his pink lips like a sulking child.
Back in high school, his expressiveness had always fascinated you. Ilia’s face betrayed every thought before he could stop it, his moods flickering across his features in exaggerated little performances that were, admittedly, sometimes funny. Not that you would ever confess that aloud. You would sooner walk barefoot over burning coals than openly admit that Ilia Malinin was actually pretty hilarious on occasion.
“And how is that my fault?” you frowned.
“I dunno. You work here, don’t you?”
“No shit, Sherlock.” You rolled your eyes. Annoying customers were nothing new to you. You had learned how to bite your tongue when necessary, even when someone pushed you dangerously close to snapping. But you had no intention of showing Ilia the same courtesy. “If it tastes bad, then don’t eat it. Toss it in the trash, throw it onto the fucking sidewalk, feed it to some random street dog, whatever. We don’t do refunds here…” Your gaze swept over him deliberately, slowly, from head to toe, before stopping at the yellow-and-black designer crossbody bag hanging from his shoulder. “Clearly Prada doesn’t either,” you added sweetly, venom dripping beneath the words.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. I’m just surprised you didn’t return the bag. It’s hideous,” you replied without hesitation, your face twisting with open disdain. “Though honestly, I can’t say I’m shocked. You’ve got absolutely zero sense of style.”
“Well, and honestly I’m not shocked your band kicked you out,” Ilia shot back instantly. “If you treated them the same way you treated everyone at school…”
“Don’t talk about my band, Malinin,” you warned, pointing the metal scoop at him like a weapon.
You knew perfectly well it was your own fault. You had started this whole exchange, after all. But that subject remained raw enough to make your stomach twist, and the last person you wanted discussing it was him.
“Ha. So you DO remember me.” Ilia grinned triumphantly, as if he had been waiting the entire time for you to finally say his name.
“Unfortunately,” you sighed theatrically. “Kinda hard not to hear about your Olympic flop.” You returned cruelty for cruelty by bringing up his free skate. You had no doubt it was a traumatic memory for him — just as traumatic as the moment your former best friend stabbed you in the back, dumped your belongings out of the band’s tour bus, and officially stripped you of your place as bassist.
At the mention of the Olympics, Ilia hit you with a cold Slavic stare — sharp and glacial enough to make you instinctively look away for a moment.
“Yeah? Well, funny, ’cause it was kinda hard not to hear about your sex scandal too,” he fired back.
“Oh my God, there was no scandal!”
Frustration erupted inside you like a storm finally breaking against the shore. You slammed both palms onto the counter hard enough for the cash register to nearly jump. Panic sliced across Ilia’s pale face, framed by long, bleach-damaged strands of hair falling messily around his rosy cheeks.
“It was all made up by that wangless prick Ian and that dumb talentless cunt who was literally jealous of me the entire time! Okay, fine, I almost sucked him off at a party once, but I was drunk and changed my mind, and how the hell was I supposed to know Penny had a crush on him? She never told me, and she literally had a new crush or situationship every other week. Then that fucker Ian got rejected and made up this whole story that we slept together and that I was supposedly in love with him. God, just thinking about those two makes me wanna throw up. A five-year-old could play the drum solo from “In the Air Tonight’’ better than Penny. And the fact she even picked Phil Collins? Please. She did that specifically to piss me off. Literally and metaphorically.”
“Wangless?”
“Seriously?” You clicked your tongue in disbelief. “Out of that entire emotional breakdown, that’s the word you focused on?” You gave him a meaningful look. “It’s eighties slang. Means no dick. Figured you’d know something about that.”
Scarlet bloomed violently across Ilia’s pale face. Even though your own anger burned white-hot beneath your skin and you had absolutely no patience for jokes, his sudden embarrassment amused you immensely. You loved tormenting men. It filled you with a strange, endless satisfaction — dark and intoxicating as spilled wine.
“What is actually wrong with you?” he asked, mortified. “Why do you keep insulting me? I literally just wanted to buy ice cream.”
As if to emphasize the point, he lifted the cup of raspberry ice cream now slowly melting in his hands. You suspected he would throw it away the moment he left the shop. Honestly, you couldn’t blame him. You had tried that flavor once yourself and it was genuinely disgusting, overloaded with artificial chemicals pretending to be fruit.
“And you bought it, so now get the fuck out and go practice your little spins or whatever,” you laughed humorlessly.
“I- no. You can’t kick me out,” he protested weakly.
There was not a trace of conviction in his voice. The confidence he radiated on the ice and during his Instagram lives — those same livestreams where, years ago, he used to mock you with irritating ease — had vanished completely.
“Oh, I can’t?” you scoffed. You took his pathetic protest as a challenge, and you had always been incapable of backing down from one. “Watch me.”
Quickly, you rounded the counter and marched toward him. Ilia immediately stumbled several steps backward, genuinely alarmed by you. As you got closer, you caught the scent of his expensive floral cologne — soft and elegant and maddeningly pleasant. You shoved him lightly toward the door with your shoulder, not hard enough to hurt him. Truthfully, you didn’t want to injure him; you just wanted him gone.
You could just as easily have grabbed the fabric of that ugly NF hoodie — the same one he had worn at the Olympics — and physically dragged him outside.
And you absolutely would have, if he pushed you far enough.
“You are actually insane!” he snapped, raising his voice. It did not impress you in the slightest. “You’re even worse than you were in high school, and honestly, I didn’t think that was possible. You seriously need help, like, professional help.”
“And you need to go train if you don’t wanna fall on your ass again at the next Olympics in Denmark or wherever they’re hosting it.”
“In France,” he corrected automatically.
“Don’t care.”
With a dramatic motion, you grabbed the handle and threw the door wide open. Cold March air swept inside like dark seawater flooding a shipwreck. “Goodbye.”
“You know what’s kinda funny?” He lifted his chin stubbornly, narrowing his eyes at you. “You always thought you were better than everyone else. You were sooo convinced you’d become this, like, huge star or something, and now you’re back in Virginia selling ice cream to my little sister and her friends. Any of your fans visited you here yet or-”
You shoved him outside with all your strength and slammed the door before he could finish speaking.
You knew his visit had not been accidental. He wanted to humiliate you. He wanted to savor your downfall, to force you to choke on the ruins of your own failed dreams — despite the fact that only a month earlier he himself had shared Icarus’s fate, flying too close to the sun before crashing brutally back to earth. Literally.
You still remembered watching the recording of his Olympic skate on YouTube, unable to suppress your laughter when he collapsed onto his ridiculous skater ass, snow spraying everywhere beneath him while confusion flashed across his face.
Okay. Maybe you hadn’t actually laughed, but you had felt satisfied.
Quad God my ass, you thought bitterly as you returned behind the counter.
You were lucky no new customers had walked in. Otherwise, you never would have been able to afford such a dramatic little performance.
Unfortunately for you, your manager, Carrie, had not missed the argument with Ilia. Sitting in the back office surrounded by paperwork and receipts, she had heard every single word. The security footage certainly did not help your case either — the camera had captured, in painful clarity, the exact moment you shoved a bewildered Malinin out the door.
“What the hell was that?” your boss demanded, practically vibrating with rage.
You hadn’t even recovered from the emotional hurricane that was your interaction with Ilia before being dragged into yet another confrontation — this time over your minor public act of aggression.
“How many times do I have to tell you that this is not how we treat customers here? Do you even know who that was?”
“A narcissist who bought ice cream flavored after his own last name,” you muttered before you could stop yourself.
You slouched deeper into your chair and pulled out your phone to scroll mindlessly through social media, utterly oblivious to the fury steadily consuming your manager. Up until now, Carrie had always overlooked your incidents with customers, and you genuinely believed she would let this one slide too.
You were wrong, and your dismissive attitude was not helping your situation in the slightest.
“What are you even talking about?” Carrie snapped, leaning over you. Lazily, you glanced up from the cracked screen of your phone. The moment you noticed the sparks of anger blazing in her darkened eyes, you realized this was serious. “How can ice cream even taste like someone’s last name? Are you high again? Because if you are, then I swear to God, I’m not giving you severance pay.”
“Of course not!” You shot up from the chair, shoving your phone into the pocket of your thrifted vintage jeans. The accusation struck directly at your pride. “I haven’t smoked weed in, like… four… three… okay, two months! That one time I just drank too much coffee. I would never come to work wasted or stoned, I swear! Who do you think I am, Mick Jagger?” Your voice climbed into a panicked pitch — something that happened so rarely it startled even you.
Carrie let out a long, exhausted sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose, silently counting to ten in a desperate attempt to calm herself down. Then she looked at you with pure, almost maternal sorrow, as if she were moments away from mourning your tragic little life.
You hated pity. You never knew what to do with it. The only response you had ever mastered was anger.
“I’m sorry, Y/N, but I can’t keep tolerating this,” she continued, quieter now. “Two days ago you called one of our regular customers a lobotomized string bean.”
Your lips parted automatically before snapping shut again while you searched the depths of your memory for the incident in question. Even though you had only been working here since mid-January, you had already gotten into more verbal altercations with customers than you could count. Not even drinking an entire kettle of chamomile tea before your shifts helped anymore.
“Because that moron blamed me for the ice cream prices going up!” you defended yourself once the memory resurfaced. “If he wants to complain so badly, maybe he should get a better-paying job or stop eating ice cream every day.”
Five minutes later, you stood outside the café-ice cream parlor stripped of your dignity, your job, and the stupid pink apron you had hated with all your heart mere moments earlier and now suddenly missed terribly.
Cold rain began drizzling from the heavy navy clouds hanging low above the city.
You wandered toward the bike rack at the end of the street only to discover, with mounting horror, that someone had stolen your bicycle. A few days earlier, you had lost the lock but convinced yourself the thing was old and rusted enough that nobody would even glance at it.
You had been wrong. Along with your job, you had lost your only means of transportation.
“Fucking amazing,” you muttered to yourself.
Tears burned at the corners of your eyes. Helpless and thoroughly humiliated, you sank onto the curb, burying your head between your knees while the rain poured down over you like cold grief.
When someone honked at you, you instinctively raised your hand and flipped them off without even looking. You already knew who it was. Before discovering your bike was gone, you had spotted his huge ugly Honda in the corner of your vision.
Eventually, though, you lifted your gaze from your battered cowboy boots. Ilia had rolled down the window and was staring at you with an expression balanced delicately between pity and amusement. If you had somehow forgotten why you hated him so intensely, the reminder arrived instantly.
Ilia loved feeding on your weakness and misery just as much as you delighted in his. In that regard, the two of you were painfully alike.
“Oh, you’re still here,” you sniffed weakly, making no effort to wipe the tears from your cheeks. They blended seamlessly with the rainwater. “Great.” Your soaked clothes clung uncomfortably to your skin.
“Yup. Saw you arguing with your manager and couldn’t miss a show like that.”
“And what, you’re proud of yourself now?” you asked with pure venom. You didn’t even want to look at him — not now, not after losing your job. Babysitting local brats remained your main source of income anyway, but the tips here had at least been decent. “Probably as proud as you were after landing that stupid quad-something jump. You walked around school for a week acting like some kind of king and thought you were cool.” You wiped your reddened nose against the sleeve of your hand-crocheted sweater. “Trust me, you weren’t. When that film crew came to record you during computer science class, we all nearly died from cringe and laughed behind your back.”
That wasn’t entirely true.
Sure, Penny had never passed up an opportunity to mock Ilia, but in reality many of your classmates had been genuinely impressed by his achievements. A large portion of the students at your school figure-skated or played hockey themselves and saw him and his parents as role models.
You simply could not stand the fact that someone else was admired more than you back then — especially when that someone was a boy who openly looked down on you and always acted superior. A boy you had envied almost everything.
Correction: you still envied him. Provoking him had simply become the only way you knew how to survive that jealousy.
“You know more people have landed on the moon than can do a quad Axel, right?” Ilia replied smugly, studying you with open challenge in his eyes. “Last time I checked, I’m still the only one in the world.”
Curled up on the sidewalk, you suddenly felt small and exposed, so you quickly scrambled back to your feet.
“You know I literally don’t care, right? Someone’s gonna knock you off that pedestal eventually anyway. You know what people were saying during the Olympics? That you were an overscored jungle man with a god complex and zero artistry who robbed Japan of a medal. And honestly? They were right. Maybe if you’d actually gone to the Beijing, you wouldn’t have flopped this hard. But nah — instead you were sitting in French class crying your eyes out like a fucking baby. So, last time I checked, you are still a loser.”
That hit its target perfectly.
“And you know what people said about you?” he snapped back instantly. “That you’re an attention whore who got pissed because everyone only appreciated that Ian guy, so you hooked up with him on purpose just to destroy the band.”
“I’m not an attention whore, you are! You literally call yourself a god, and even after placing, what, eighth? tenth? at the Olympics, you still walk around acting like you won the whole thing. That’s actually pathetic. And I didn’t fuck him!” Your teeth clenched violently at the mere mention of Ian. “I might be bitchy, but I would never humiliate myself like that. Believe it or not, I only cared about making music, not having sex with groupies and doing coke every day. This is not the 70s anymore. And it was my band! I started it, I wrote the lyrics, I’m the one who asked him to join in the first place! Then people started obsessing over his voice and suddenly he lost his damn mind and wanted to be the center of everything. A literal raccoon digging through garbage would’ve been a better leader than him!”
“Why does that surprise you? I mean, honestly, it’s kinda how it always goes, right? The singer gets all the attention. Nobody gives a shit about the guitarist. Give it a few days and people won’t even remember you existed.”
“Like you’re gonna become some immortal legend yourself,” you snapped, your voice rising despite yourself.
His remark had struck deeper than you cared to admit — mostly because he was right. When your band had begun clawing its way toward popularity, Ian had become the center of gravity around which everything revolved. He stole every spotlight, every headline, every ounce of praise. Nobody looked at you. Nobody looked at Penny. Nobody looked at Dean.
Only Ian.
“Someone’s gonna break all your records eventually, and nobody’s gonna remember you either. And for the record, I play bass, you fucking idiot.” You pointed a finger in his direction. “Also, since when are you some kind of music expert? You literally mixed up NSYNC and One Direction and didn’t even know what Justin Timberlake looked like.” A dry laugh escaped you. A second too late, realization crashed over you.
You couldn't take the words back now. All that remained was to die of embarrassment. You slowly sank back onto the curb.
“That was forever ago and-” Ilia broke off mid-sentence. His eyes narrowed suspiciously as he studied you, as though he'd just caught you red-handed. “Wait.” A slow grin tugged at his lips. “How do you know about that?”
Your silence answered for you. You lowered your head, staring fixedly at the toes of your boots.
“Aaaah.” The sound left him with unmistakable satisfaction. He looked as though he'd just discovered a new continent… or solved some impossible equation. “I see.” His grin widened. “You watched my interviews.”
“I did not,” you denied immediately. The protest lacked conviction.
“Yeah, you did. Otherwise you wouldn't know that.” His smile turned downright triumphant.
“Just shut the fuck up and leave. Now.”
You sounded defeated. For the first time all afternoon, there was something almost pleading in your voice.
“Please,” you added quietly.
You looked at him with naked desperation written across your face, silently begging him to leave you alone. Your clothes hung heavy with rainwater. A traitorous part of you longed to crawl into the warmth of his car, but you refused to grant him that victory.
As though he'd somehow read your thoughts, Ilia — slightly thrown by the sudden softness beneath your anger, by the sorrow seeping through your words — offered casually:
“You seriously gonna stay out here?” He tilted his head. “I can drive you home.”
“I don't need a ride from you,” you snapped. The suggestion stung far more than it should have, mostly because you wanted exactly that. “Besides,” you added, “you probably can't even drive.”
You eyed him skeptically. To you, Malinin hardly seemed like the type who could stay focused on a road. Or survive rush-hour traffic into D.C. without losing his mind.
“Because I'm a figure skater?” His pale brows knitted together.
“No. Because you're the loser who just got me fired.” Your arms folded tightly across your chest. “And I probably wouldn't fit in there anyway. Your giant ego already takes up all the seats.” He rolled his eyes. “I thought the whole Olympic experience would've humbled you.” Your laugh was bitter. “Guess I was wrong.”
“For someone who supposedly doesn't give a shit about me,” he observed, far too smugly, “you sure talk about the Olympics a lot,” he paused. “Did you watch them?”
“Yeeaaah, totally.” Your sarcasm practically dripped from every syllable. “I watched every skating event, every hockey game, ski jumping, all that stuff. Couldn't tear myself away from the TV… well, actually, I did watch some hockey.” The confession slipped out. “I even went to a bar for the final.”
Ilia blinked.
“My dad and aunt are from Montreal, so I wanted Canada to take gold,” you admitted. “But, y'know, disappointment is basically a national tradition at this point.” You shrugged. “At least I got free beer and peanuts out of it, so whatever.”
Suddenly, the rain intensified, turning into a torrential downpour. You shuddered — a cold, unpleasant chill ran down your spine.
Ilia did not miss your discomfort, nor the way you trembled from the cold, huddled on the ground, stripped of your dignity, largely because of him. A wave of guilt washed over him, and his chest tightened painfully at the thought that someone was suffering because of his actions.
He immediately regretted having witnessed you lose your job — and even more that it was because of him that you had lost control of yourself in front of your boss.
“Look, I’m sorry I called you an attention whore,” he said quietly, genuine remorse woven into every word. “I don’t actually think that. I just said it to piss you off.”
You barely heard him through the relentless rain drumming against the sidewalk, soaking your face without mercy. You were certain your mascara had already bled down your cheeks in dark streaks, but you were far too stubborn to hide inside Malinin’s car.
“Yeah, sure.” You rolled your eyes. “Everyone thinks that. Even my mother. Well, especially her.”
“I don’t,” he insisted immediately, almost fiercely. “And honestly? That Penny girl always gave me this like, super fake, sneaky kind of vibe back in high school. One time she literally stole my buddy’s homework and signed her own name on it.”
The mention of Penny ignited something volatile inside you.
“Because she is fake and she hates literally everyone around her. Like, okay, I hate everyone too, but she HATES hates. Capital H.” You gestured wildly with your hands as you spoke, rainwater flying from your sleeves. “And she stole my homework too! I just let it slide because I needed a drummer and I genuinely liked her back then. Now I think I’d probably strangle her. Or shove her drumsticks so far up her ass she’d cough splinters.”
Ilia laughed softly. The sound was brief and bright and startlingly sincere, his blue eyes flashing behind his glasses for a fleeting moment like sunlight beneath icy water.
It irritated you that you noticed things like that. Worse still, you couldn’t stop the faint smile tugging at your mouth in response to his almost childlike, uncontrollable laugh. Suddenly, embarrassment crept beneath your skin when you remembered how viciously you had treated him at the ice cream shop.
“And I don’t actually think you’re some talentless jungle man either,” you admitted with a sigh. “I mean, that ugly brown Viking costume was tragic, but the performance itself was kinda cool. Not really my type of music, obviously, but… yeah. It looked pretty impressive, even though I don’t know shit about jumps and all that stuff. People online just hate for the sake of hating.”
Ilia’s lips parted in unmistakable surprise. He looked as if you had just informed him that aliens were real and had abducted his cats aboard a spaceship. Reluctantly, you had to admit those cats were adorable, despite your deep fear of domestic animals ever since your uncle’s furious short-haired cat clawed your arm bloody years ago.
“Oh. Really?” The cold wind had painted Ilia’s face pink, and suddenly it lit up with undisguised happiness. “Thanks. Wait- you seriously watched it?” He blinked at you in disbelief. “Like… actually watched watched?”
“Yeah,” you admitted, which only delighted him more. “On YouTube, because I don’t own a TV, but it still counts. God, don’t get so excited,” you tried to shut down his enthusiasm, completely unsuccessfully. He looked like a little kid on Christmas morning. “Ugh, I can’t believe I even said that. I take it back.”
“Well… you can’t, so…” Ilia fell silent for a few heartbeats, studying you with something painfully close to concern.
You were drenched, trembling from the cold, wet strands of hair plastered against your face, and above all else you looked impossibly sad. Guilt twisted unexpectedly inside him. He regretted lingering outside the ice cream shop just to watch your manager fire you through the window.
“C’mon,” he urged almost tenderly, his voice suddenly gentle as velvet, painfully different from the raised voices and sharp words from earlier. “Let me drive you home. You’re gonna get sick standing out here. And honestly? I don’t wanna talk to you in the rain.”
“And I don’t wanna talk to you at all, so I guess we already solved the problem,” you replied bitterly, though something inside you softened at his strangely sincere offer. Still, an annoying little voice in the back of your mind insisted this had to be some kind of trap. “Besides, it’s not your problem. I’ll walk.”
“To the other side of town?” He looked at you like you had completely lost your mind.
“No. My aunt’s place is like half an hour away on foot.” You shrugged. “I’ll survive.”
“Wait… you don’t live with your parents anymore?”
“Why the hell would I?” you replied coldly. “They don’t even wanna know me anymore.” Your voice sharpened like broken glass. “Why do you think I ran away right after graduation? I’d rather live in a cardboard box under a bridge than stay with them.”
It was no exaggeration; by the end of high school, sharing a home with your parents — especially your mother — had become a slow, merciless torment. You saw your overworked father only on rare occasions (and after discovering he'd been having an affair with his assistant, you no longer wanted to see him at all), while your drunken mother turned every day of your life into its own private hell. The day you told her you'd started a band and intended to release your first album, she flew into a rage so violent the entire neighborhood must have heard her screaming.
Though the memories of that night had begun to blur around the edges, the pain they carried remained painfully vivid.
Silence settled between you. Only the hum of Ilia's car and the relentless drumming of rain against the slippery asphalt filled the space. You had completely drifted away into your thoughts.
Ilia sensed the shift in your mood. You weren't just furious about the stolen bike, the lost job, or irritated by his presence anymore — a shadow had fallen across you, a strange haze of bottomless sorrow clouded your eyes.
"Just get in the damn car, Y/N. Please." His voice pulled you from the depths of your painful reverie.
You lifted your chin stubbornly and shot him a proud, defiant look.
"No." You shook your head sharply, sending droplets scattering from your hair. "You're gonna kidnap me and murder me."
"I'll do that some other time."
Eventually, you gave in. You were too upset, too exhausted, and far too soaked to keep fighting him, and Ilia seemed suspiciously determined. Besides, you had to admit he had a point. A few more minutes standing in the rain and you'd almost certainly get sick — and you couldn't afford to miss your second job, the one you needed to keep no matter what.
With your pride thoroughly bruised, you climbed into Ilia's Honda. You immediately soaked the entire passenger seat. To your surprise, he didn't mention it once, and for that, you were genuinely grateful. You suspected you might have burst into tears if you'd been forced to apologize — or worse, start another argument.
You gave him your aunt's address. He entered it into the navigation system and, a moment later, one of his utterly unhinged Spotify playlists began playing through the speakers.
You parted your lips, ready to tell him to turn off the NF song he'd skated to during the exhibition gala in Milan (you absolutely were not going to admit you'd watched that performance), but ultimately decided it would be rude to complain about his music while he was driving your ungrateful ass home.
The entire ride to the neighborhood where your aunt Andrea lived was painfully awkward. Ilia attempted several times to ask what touring had been like over the past four years before you got kicked out of the band, but every question earned little more than a shrug. You had no desire to talk about it.
When he finally pulled up in front of Andrea's house, relief washed over you like a wave. You didn't want to spend a single second longer in his company.
“Wait.” His fingers closed gently around your elbow before you could pull the door handle. You turned sharply and yanked your arm away at once, as though the warmth of his touch had scorched your skin clean through.
“What now?” you hissed, your foot tapping impatiently against the floor mat. You were convinced that if his music kept playing any longer, your ears would physically shrivel up and die.
“That’s it?” He narrowed his eyes at you, openly disapproving of your entire existence at this point. “No thank you? No thanks, Ilia, my dear high school buddy that I bullied for years?”
“I did not fucking bully you,” you snapped. “You were the one acting like a bratty little kid twenty-four seven.”
“No oh, Ilia, you saved me from the rain!?” he continued in a ridiculously high-pitched voice. You had no idea he could manipulate his tone like that.
You shook your head, irritation simmering beneath your skin like static electricity.
“Do that again and I’m knocking out those perfect little white teeth of yours,” you warned.
Mostly joking — mostly. You tried your best to sound deadly serious, but exhaustion dragged at every inch of your body. You had just lost your job, your clothes were still damp from the rain, and there was water sloshing inside your shoes every time you moved.
“Oh my God, why are you always so defensive?”
“Why are you so annoying?” you shot back immediately.
“I’m not,” Ilia argued. “I seriously don’t have anything against you. I genuinely wanted to help.” To your surprise, he sounded sincere. That alone threw you completely off balance.
“Yeah. Whatever. Thanks for the ride,” you muttered reluctantly, the words tasting unnatural in your mouth.
“Umm, no problem. Uh, see you around, I guess…” Ilia accidentally gave you the world’s most awkward side-eye before scratching the back of his neck, visibly unsure what else he was supposed to say.
You ignored his painfully clumsy attempts to keep the conversation alive and practically tumbled out of the car, narrowly avoiding a massive puddle stretching across the sidewalk. Without looking back even once, you marched toward aunt Andrea’s small, slightly dilapidated one-story house.
Later that evening, after finally drying off and soothing your nerves with greasy cheese pizza and several glasses of cheap wine, you sat cross-legged on the edge of the stiff mattress in the converted storage-room-turned-bedroom you temporarily called your own, lazily scrolling through your phone in a pleasant half-drunken haze.
You didn’t even know what possessed you to unblock Ilia’s social media accounts.
You absolutely did not follow him — God forbid. You just wanted the option to occasionally snoop through whatever he posted. You justified it by telling yourself that whenever you were in a terrible mood, you could simply browse the hateful comments under his pictures for emotional support. Back in high school, furious Yuzuru Hanyu fans dragging Ilia across Instagram and Twitter had always lifted your spirits whenever you were forced to share classes with that idiot.
At some point, sleep overtook you with your phone still pressed against your cheek. Before the screen dimmed into darkness, its pale glow lingered briefly across your face, illuminated by a photo of Ilia smiling sweetly into the camera, Olympic team-event medal gleaming in his hands like captured sunlight.
⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆
You hadn’t always been at odds with Ilia Malinin.
The resentment came gradually, spreading through you like venom beneath the skin.
Despite the fact that most people saw you as a cold, self-centered bitch, you weren’t the kind of person who disliked others for no reason. If anything, it was the opposite — you always tried to make a good first impression on anyone you met.
Back in 10th grade, Ilia fascinated you.
The two of you barely knew each other. You shared a few classes and occasionally passed one another in the hallways, nothing more. Even though he tried to act like every other stupid teenage boy, there was something oddly charming about him. He was weird, awkward, a little cringeworthy, and somehow endearing all at once.
You admired the fact that he figure skated.
Most people would have expected a girl who played rock music to think the sport was boring or ridiculous, but Ilia was different. When he stepped onto the ice, he worked harder than anyone. He devoted himself entirely to his passion, throwing every ounce of himself into it. There was something authentic about the way he skated — something rare. He was nothing like the boys you spent your time around, the ones whose lives revolved around raves, football games, and house parties where they got drunk off cheap beer bought with fake IDs.
As someone whose love for her own craft practically bled through her skin, someone obsessed with perfection in everything she created, you couldn't help but appreciate how much time and dedication Ilia poured into skating. Without hesitation, he had sacrificed his entire teenage life for it.
Sure, maybe he was a little strange. Whenever he actually showed up at school — which wasn't often during competition season, thanks to his individualized schedule and international events — he always seemed slightly disconnected from reality.
Your friends, especially Penny, thought he was a complete freak.
They filmed him in secret when some guys convinced him to do a backflip in the cafeteria. They laughed about him at parties when he lingered awkwardly in the corner, refusing to drink. They cracked up whenever he made embarrassingly obvious spelling mistakes or stumbled through reading his own poetry aloud in English class.
Though, if you were being honest, the poems really were awful. Painfully bad. The kind of writing that felt one step away from parody.
"He's not that bad." You defended him every single time, despite the fact that you'd exchanged no more than a handful of words with him.
Not because you knew him, because you wanted to.
Every time an opportunity presented itself, though, something stopped you. You could never figure out what. The feeling was entirely foreign to you. You had never been afraid of approaching people before, but something about Ilia made your stomach tighten and your palms sweat.
The opportunity presented itself of its own accord on a sunlit afternoon in March, when you happened to run into him at the skate park. You took it as a favorable twist of fate, especially since your presence there had been entirely accidental. You had never intended to go there in the first place.
Earlier that day, you had been sitting in your garage, surrounded by cables and tangled amplifier cords, practicing on the bass guitar your uncle from New York — a passionate musician himself — had given you.
For three weeks, you had been obsessively working your way through Cliff Burton’s legendary bass solo, "(Anesthesia) – Pulling Teeth". It was difficult, but not unattainable. You had been playing bass since you were eleven years old, and your ambition knew no equal.
For two relentless hours, you had replayed footage of Metallica performing in Chicago. Cliff Burton’s fingers drifted across the fretboard with an almost supernatural ease you desperately longed to master yourself.
Your wrists ached, your fingers burned, and your neck screamed in protest. Yet you had been doing fairly well, right up until your drunken mother burst into the garage and threatened to smash your amplifier and sell your bass if you didn’t stop making noise and wasting your life on stupid nonsense.
Afraid she might actually follow through on the threat, you left the house immediately. You knew better than to argue with your mom whenever she had already worked her way through several glasses of wine before six in the evening on a weekday.
Usually, you preferred her in that state. When she drank, she ignored you. She stopped reminding you that you were an ungrateful slut wasting your life wandering around music stores with teenage degenerates instead of focusing on school.
But when she became aggressive, the smartest thing to do was disappear, especially when your father wasn't home… which was almost always. His office was the closest thing he had to a permanent residence.
You had nowhere else to go. You felt uneasy sitting alone in the roadside bars where you hoped to start performing once you finally assembled a band. Your aunt was away in Florida. You couldn't play in the library.
And Penny had gone to the movies with her new boyfriend — a heavy metal fan a year older than her, who supplied the two of you with cigarettes you occasionally smoked beneath the school bleachers.
With no better options available, you decided to hide out at the skate park near school. You leaned your bike against a tree and settled into the grass. The teenagers weaving across the concrete on skateboards barely registered in your mind. Instead, you pulled out your notebook and disappeared into your thoughts, attempting to write lyrics for a new song.
Unfortunately, inspiration remained frustratingly out of reach.
“Yo, Ilia! Dude, can you chill with the show-off stuff for, like, five seconds?!”
The familiar name cut through your concentration. You looked up immediately, and instantly found yourself meeting Malinin’s gaze. He stood atop a ramp, staring at you with unmistakable curiosity.
The moment he realized you had caught him looking, his cheeks flushed red. He quickly turned away. Pretending indifference, you lowered your eyes back to your notebook and resumed scribbling. Your heart, however, had begun pounding twice as fast.
The two of you remained at the skate park until late evening — everyone else eventually left. The sun drifted slowly below the horizon. With AirPods tucked into his ears, Ilia spent the entire afternoon attempting increasingly ambitious tricks, most of which ended with harmless crashes onto the concrete. Your phone died, you could no longer listen to music, and the relentless sound of a skateboard slamming against the ground began driving you insane.
Eventually, you snapped.
“Could you maybe stop falling? Pretty please. I’m trying to focus here.”
Ilia didn’t hear you. He saw your lips moving and noticed the annoyed crease between your eyebrows, but that was all. Pulling out one earbud, he paused whatever song had been playing.
“Huh? Sorry, what was that?” he asked, slightly out of breath as he approached, his face unexpectedly flushed.
“Can you stop wiping out every five seconds? Or at least do it more quietly? I’m trying to write a song.”
Ilia froze. For a moment, he looked completely speechless, as though language itself had abandoned him. You sighed and began gathering your belongings.
“You know what? Never mind. I was about to leave anyway.”
“You’re Y/N, right?” Ilia blurted awkwardly, nervously running a hand through his damp hair. “Like... from school?”
“And you're that figure skater kid. Like, from school.” A faint smile tugged at your lips. “I didn’t know you skated too. I mean, on board. Shouldn’t you be at the rink or something?”
“Day off,” he explained, bending down to retrieve his board.
“What are you listening to?” You pointed abruptly toward his phone. You had been curious ever since noticing him skating with headphones. It was practically an occupational hazard — you always needed to know what people listened to and whether they had good taste.
Ilia hesitated. He knew perfectly well you were planning to start a rock band. The entire grade knew. Besides, you were impossible to miss in the hallways. You laughed twice as loudly as everyone else, your vintage clothes stood out from a mile away. You never backed down from older jocks. And whenever teachers weren't looking, you stuck Aerosmith stickers to the backs of classroom chairs.
“Why do I feel like you're about to roast my entire playlist?”
“Because I probably am. C’mon.” Without permission, you snatched his phone and opened his Spotify playlist titled “Skate Sesh”.
You scanned the endless track list. “Please tell me you don’t listen to Juice WRLD. And Eminem? Wow. This is worse than I thought.” You continued scrolling. “Well, at least you've got Nirvana. Guns N’ Roses. Ooh, The Beatles. Metallica!” Your eyes lit up. “You know I actually tried learning one of their songs today? Maybe there's hope for you after all.” Then you froze. “Wait.” You brought the screen closer to your face.
“What now?”
“What is ABBA’s “Angeleyes” doing next to Kendrick Lamar?” Instinctively, you looked up, straight into his bright blue eyes. Almost luminous beneath the fading evening light. The sight threw you off balance for a second. You cleared your throat and quickly resumed scrolling. “The Weeknd. A$AP Rocky. Jim Croce?” You nodded approvingly. “Respect for Jim, but how do you even skate to this?”
Then your eyes widened.
“Oh my God! Fleetwood Mac.” You looked genuinely delighted. “I love you, dude.” The words escaped before you could stop them. For a brief moment, you seemed like the happiest person alive. Your fight with your mother, your worries, your frustrations — all of it vanished.
You jabbed the play button beside “Dreams” with such force that Ilia briefly worried for the safety of his screen.
“Uh... I only know, like, one Fleetwood Mac song,” he admitted. He handed you his second earbud. You accepted it gratefully.
“But you've heard “Silver Springs”, right?” You stared at him expectantly. “RIGHT!?”
“Uh... yeah. Totally. Of course.” He sounded profoundly unconvinced.
For the next hour, the two of you sat together sharing music. Night settled over the skate park, the air grew colder — neither of you cared. You completely lost track of time. It felt as though eternity stretched out before you.
You forced Ilia to save every rock playlist on your profile. You also extracted a solemn promise that one day he would skate an exhibition program to Led Zeppelin or Depeche Mode. In return, you had to promise to stop insulting NF.
After that day, you barely spoke for weeks. Being around Ilia made you self-conscious again. And he resumed passing you in the hallways without a word, as though nothing had ever happened. Because, technically, nothing had. You had run into each other, you had talked about music, that was all.
And yet, for you, those hours meant something. You simply didn't know what.
By the end of sophomore year, you noticed he kept looking at you. Not exactly staring, more like side-eyeing you. Every time you walked past him, you'd catch him glancing in your direction with blank expression. You assumed he was judging you, just like half the school did — the people who mocked your music taste, your clothes, your attitude.
You had no idea it was simply a nervous habit he had whenever he felt stressed.
Eventually, it started getting on your nerves — mainly because, despite how few words had ever passed between you, something within you had already started leaning toward him. One afternoon during band practice in Penny's room, you mentioned it. The next day, while the three of you stood in line at the cafeteria, Penny turned toward him.
"Quit staring at her, creep."
You immediately jabbed her in the ribs with your elbow, but it was too late. Offended, Ilia muttered something under his breath and looked away.
He didn’t dare so much as glance at you for the next several days.
The distance between you only widened when your geography teacher assigned you, Penny, and Ilia to the same group project. Together, you were supposed to build a model of tectonic mountains. Both you and Ilia seemed quietly radiant at the prospect of spending time together. Penny, however, was anything but enthusiastic — she was positively outraged.
"I seriously can't believe we have to do a project with that Russian quad-jumping fucko. Maalin? Maleenin? Whatever his name is. I can’t even pronounce this shit" she said as the two of you lingered by a row of lockers after class. Penny had never cared much for discretion; her voice rang through the hallway. "He's so lame. The guys at the music bar are gonna think we hang out with those stupid, weird rink kids. We are so cooked."
You listened to Penny with a steadily growing fury. You were busy transferring books from your backpack into your locker — perhaps if you had bothered to look around, you would have noticed Ilia standing just behind you, hearing every cruel word hurled in his direction. Penny was fully aware of his presence — that was precisely why she had said it. Your silence only convinced Ilia that, just like your friends, you mocked him too. He quickly slipped past the two of you.
Perhaps if you had noticed him then, if you had made him understand that you did not share Penny’s opinion, everything might have unfolded differently.
"Don't call him that," you warned after a long moment — though, to your misfortune, Ilia was already gone. You slammed your locker shut, its metal door covered in stickers and crookedly cut-out photographs of your favorite rock bands.
"Why not?" your friend snapped.
Her prejudice toward Ilia was beginning to grate on your nerves. You could not understand her point of view. As musicians devoted to rock music, weren't you supposed to embrace people who were different? And the very fact that Malinin spent his days on the ice instead of playing football or basketball like most of the boys at school seemed impressive to you.
Maybe he had... questionable taste in music, but that was nothing that couldn't be fixed.
"Because he's not lame or stupid. And figure skating is, like, one of the hardest sports in the world. It's honestly kind of badass that he does it."
Penny snorted.
"Oh my God. Do you have a crush on him or something?" she threw at you, half-joking, half-serious.
"Maybe." The confession slipped free before you could stop it. "He's polite. And very... pretty."
Penny stared at you in horror.
"But... he looks like a porcelain doll! In a bad way. He's not even your type!" she exclaimed, paying no attention whatsoever to the students streaming past in hurried currents.
You frowned, irritated that Penny presumed to know your type. You had never talked about boys around her. Until now, they had hardly interested you at all; your priorities had been your bass guitar and the feverish search for both a guitarist and a vocalist for the band.
"What are you talking about? He's exactly my type."
Penny gave you a look. "No, he's not."
"I mean, sure, I love the whole rockstar look on guys. Bell-bottoms, denim jackets, smudged eyeliner..." You shrugged. "But Ilia has something else."
"Like what?"
You hesitated.
"I don't know. Something... kind of majestic?"
Penny immediately gagged.
She shook her head with such dramatic force that several black strands escaped from her thick, loosely braided plait.
"Majestic?"
You punched her lightly in the arm, your cheeks turning scarlet. Embarrassment rarely found its way to you. You were the sort of person who refused to be intimidated by anyone. Ilia was the exception.
"Shut the fuck up."
"I'm serious. Majestic?" she repeated in disbelief.
"He just does, okay? He's got that really pretty, delicate kind of face. Almost feminine." Your gaze drifted somewhere far away, wrapped in thought. "And his eyes are insanely beautiful."
"Oh my God." Penny grimaced theatrically. "What the fuck? Ew. EWW. You've got to be shitting me. I cannot believe I'm hearing this from you."
You crossed your arms and leaned your weight against the locker.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Y/N, look at yourself. You literally look like Jimmy Page's long-lost child."
You rolled your eyes.
"And?"
"And Ilia Malinin looks like he belongs in some fantasy movie where he talks to fairies and woodland creatures. Geez, I can't fucking believe you are thirsting over some cringy figure skater."
A dry laugh escaped you.
"Well, maybe opposites attract."
Penny pointed at you accusingly.
"No. Absolutely not. I refuse to watch this happen."
"I was actually thinking about asking him to Spring Formal."
"You? At a school dance?" She barked out a laugh. "Don't tell me you'd slow dance with him to Olivia Rodrigo too."
"Oh, shut up."
"No, seriously. Come on. Malinin looks like a strong gust of wind could snap him in half. Besides," Penny continued, "dating him would completely ruin your image. Once we finally put the band together, you'll have, like, a thousand better options."
"A thousand?"
"Easily."
She nudged your shoulder.
"Girl, find yourself a hot guitarist or something."
Two days later, you learned that Ilia — having obtained the teacher’s permission, though without consulting either you or Penny — had switched project groups.
The news struck you as oddly unsettling. When your geography teacher had announced the assignment, pairing the three of you together to build a model of tectonic mountains, Ilia had seemed genuinely pleased by the arrangement — pleased, and perhaps a little intimidated. Still, you said nothing about his decision. You assumed he simply preferred working with his own friends, which, in all fairness, was perfectly normal.
The reasons to worry emerged gradually, they revealed themselves mostly in the ways Ilia began avoiding you. He sat on the opposite side of the room in classes you shared. He slipped past you in the hallways and the cafeteria as though you were a stranger. By the end of the school year, the two of you had not exchanged a single word.
Your disappointment carried a bitter aftertaste — you truly liked Malinin. Every day, you nurtured a frail, steadily fading hope that maybe he would talk to you first. Maybe he would ask you to hang out. Maybe he would invite you somewhere.
Instead, he acted as though you did not exist. He spent his time exclusively with people from his rink and with his girlfriend. After Spring Formal — which you ultimately skipped because you had no one to go with — you discovered that Ilia had started dating an older girl from the drama club, a figure skater herself.
You could not stop comparing yourself to her.
The final drop spilled the cup at the beginning of summer. Your parents had gone out to dinner with friends, while you sat on your bed testing a new custom bass pick engraved with your name in elegant, slanted lettering.
Eventually, you set the bass aside. You lacked both the patience and the energy to practice Cliff Burton’s solo. You had been trying to master it for months, and it still refused to yield. There was a reason "(Anesthesia) – Pulling Teeth” was considered one of the most difficult bass pieces to play.
You could manage the first half reasonably well, but the second half was where the composition truly bared its fangs. The tempo surged toward a relentless two hundred beats per minute. Burton attacked every note with a raw, almost violent intensity. The bass line unfolded across two strings in thick, chord-like phrases, pulsing alongside the rhythm while the wah pedal drenched the sound in sharp, unpredictable bursts of color.
For you, it had become a true test of your abilities as a bassist. And to make matters worse, heavy metal had never been your natural habitat. You were a rock musician at heart.
Accepting defeat, you decided to occupy yourself with something less painful to your fingers. You started scrolling through your phone. After logging into Instagram, you absentmindedly browsed your friends’ posts. Penny had gone to Chicago with her brother for a few days, and the rest of your little friend group had gone off to a music festival — one they hadn’t invited you to, of course. Not that it would have mattered; your mother would never have let you go anyway, convinced you’d spend the entire weekend getting high and sleeping with strangers.
You were just about to close the app when you noticed that Ilia was live. You had followed him the very evening after your encounter at the skate park, and from time to time you checked what he posted — usually short clips from ice practices.
Without thinking much about it, you joined the stream. His face appeared on the split screen. Alongside him were Josh and Derek from your school, as well as another skater named Jacob, whom you did not recognize.
You happened to tune in just as Ilia mentioned that someday he wanted to start making his own music.
“Yo, maybe you should join Y/N’s little rock band,” Josh snickered. “You could be, like, the next Freddie Mercury or something.”
The remark immediately soured your mood. Only a few days before summer break, Josh had run into you at the school copy center while you were printing flyers advertising your search for a vocalist.
It was hardly a secret that the two of you disliked each other. Once, he had stepped on your foot on the school bus, and you had loudly chewed him out for it. You had already been in a foul mood after another fight with your mom, and cramps from your period had left you with little patience for politeness.
Josh, however, clearly still held that outburst against you.
Ilia ran a hand through his sun-bleached hair and leaned back in his gaming chair.
“I mean... maybe. If I find out she doesn’t hate me,” he murmured.
“Y/N? That chick who hangs out with all the metalheads?” Derek chimed in. “Dude, she hates literally anyone who doesn’t listen to David Bowie. She laughed at my Travis Scott merch.”
You snorted. There was some truth to that. Sure, you occasionally mocked your classmates’ taste in music, but you did not hate everyone— that was Penny’s specialty. She openly despised anyone who did not belong to your subculture.
“Yeah, she’s kind of a total bitch,” Josh added, making no effort whatsoever to censor himself despite the fact that half the school was probably watching. “Wait, Ilia, didn’t you once say that Y/N basically stalked you at the skate park and then straight-up grabbed your phone and went through your playlists without asking?”
“Yeah... I mean, something like that happened,” he said quietly.
A surge of fury blazed through you. You could hardly believe what you were hearing — that he had just openly lied and, with breathtaking audacity, painted you as some kind of obsessive lunatic.
“Dude, what the fuck. She’s actually insane,” Derek laughed, barely able to contain himself, his curly head shaking from side to side.
“Okay, guys, chill,” Ilia said. “Chat’s gonna cancel us.”
His voice was serious. His face, however, radiated pure amusement. He was clearly fighting back a laugh.
Eventually, he cleared his throat and glanced at the chat.
“What are your plans for next season’s programs?” he read aloud. “I don’t wanna spoil anything, but they’re gonna be, like... more me, I guess? If that makes sense.”
“Eva’s asking if you’ve landed the quad axel in practice yet,” Jacob interrupted. Of the three boys, he seemed by far the kindest. He was also the only one who had not laughed while the others insulted you.
“The only thing I’ll say,” Ilia replied, “is that I may or may not have already done it. For now, only my parents know whether I landed it.” A smug grin spread across his face. “And QuadGoddess.” He winked at the camera.
A moment later, he glanced at the chat again.
“Oh, yeah. Who’s QuadGoddess?” His lips curved upward. “My girlfr-”
You left the stream. Then you logged out of the app entirely before he could finish the sentence.
You rarely cried. This time, however, your eyes stung with gathering tears. You did not understand what you had done to deserve Ilia’s hostility. As far as you knew, you had done nothing wrong. You had not earned the ridicule, the public humiliation.
From that day onward — through your junior year and all the way to graduation — you could not stand the sight of Malinin. You envied his success. You envied the warmth of his relationship with his parents. You envied how effortlessly everything seemed to come to him. You envied the silver platter upon which life appeared to serve him every opportunity, while you fought tooth and nail merely to assemble a band and carve out a future for yourself.
Most of all, though, you felt rejected. Judged. Dismissed without cause. The hatred you carried toward him had been born from unrequited affection.
And although four years had passed, and those feelings had been shoved deep into the furthest corners of your mind, they were not dead. Somewhere inside you, they still lingered.
That self-centered, cringe idiot who claimed he wrote his own poetry despite never reading a single assigned novel in high school and being physically incapable of writing an essay without a dozen spelling mistakes had somehow become the darling of teenage girls.
LMAOOO IM DYING😭😭😭 iliabots bully him harder than any hater could…
I could’ve gotten a job at a bookstore, you thought bitterly. At least then you would know for certain Ilia would never set foot there.
ONCE AGAIN DYING
Every warm feeling you had once harbored for him in 9th and 10th grade had long since been consumed, replaced by a fierce and living resentment.
ooh I KNEW it!! you don’t hate someone like that unless they broke your heart😤😤
“Ha. So you DO remember me.” Ilia grinned triumphantly, as if he had been waiting the entire time for you to finally say his name.
look at him all happy like a schoolboy because his high school crush remembers him😏
Okay, fine, I almost sucked him off at a party once, but I was drunk and changed my mind, and how the hell was I supposed to know Penny had a crush on him?
she’s so funny🤣🤣😭😭😭😭
“It’s eighties slang. Means no dick. Figured you’d know something about that.”
Ilia… go home at this point😭
“What is actually wrong with you?” he asked, mortified. “Why do you keep insulting me? I literally just wanted to buy ice cream.”
fr, she’s too mean ☹️☹️☹️☹️
Are you high again? Because if you are, then I swear to God, I’m not giving you severance pay.”
no further comment…
“And I probably wouldn't fit in there anyway. Your giant ego already takes up all the seats.”
well..👏👏👏
Like, okay, I hate everyone too, but she HATES hates. Capital H.
self-aware queen
They filmed him in secret when some guys convinced him to do a backflip in the cafeteria. They laughed about him at parties when he lingered awkwardly in the corner, refusing to drink. They cracked up whenever he made embarrassingly obvious spelling mistakes or stumbled through reading his own poetry aloud in English class.
okay come on 😭😭😭 my poor baby.. he was clearly bullied!!!!
"I was actually thinking about asking him to Spring Formal."
OMGGGGGG
“Wait, Ilia, didn’t you once say that Y/N basically stalked you at the skate park and then straight-up grabbed your phone and went through your playlists without asking?”
miscommunication at its finest… he thought she hated him and ran his mouth in self defense 😭😭😭
me everytime she opened her mouth to roast him…
this was such a good one!!! I went through all the emotions reading it! the characters are so entertaining and I’m super excited for the next chapter!! 🤭❤️
can i just say i didnt know you got down like that 😳👉👈 for the longest time i always thought you would write the nastiest smut if you really got down to it but this whole time i was convinced this was a PG13 space so i kept it to myself 😔 like i'm ashamed to say my goonette ass considers that one of your best works so far so uhh THANK YOU I GUESS 🤪
glad you enjoyed it, nonnie 😼
yeah, I haven’t really written detailed smut until now, not because I shy away from it, but because in my series there was always so much going on that by the time the sex scene came around, I was kind of lazy and just wanted to get through it 🤣😭 and honestly, I don’t think all the details would’ve contributed that much to the story anyway so I kept it pretty brief!!
however… a one-shot that’s been building up for that sole purpose? yeah, I’m trying my best to write it with as much detail as I can 😝
holy shit wait what- *lemme go read this surprise fic drop???*
when I made the poll about Ilyusha’s Dazed photoshoot, I promised one of my mutuals I’d write a one-shot based on her request if I got outvoted… and she pitched a ghostface!Ilia idea 👀
I literally couldn’t stop thinking about it and the moment I woke up I locked in. by the evening, it was ready! 🤣😭
summary: when a stranger calls, you know better than to answer. but on the night before halloween, curiosity gets the better of you… and some masks are easier to recognize than others.
word count: 6,7k
author’s note: @amori1i pitched me an idea about ghostface!ilia and… I just had to do it 👀 it’s june, but who needs halloween for a ghostface fic? 👀🔪 english is not my first language, so I hope you guys keep that in mind.. any feedback, questions, writing tips and criticism will be appreciated! this one-shot contains sexual content, MDNI!
Smacking your hands together, you correct your posture, a bright smile stretching across your face. Apparently, explaining fractions and percentages to a ten-year-old who isn’t even remotely interested requires a lot more energy than you bargained for.
“If your brother gives you eighty dollars for your birthday and you spend twenty-five percent of it on candy, how much money do you have left?”
“I don’t think he’d ever give me that much,” Liza replies, her tone dead serious as she shrugs. “He’s given me fifty at the absolute best.”
You stare at her for a second, your mouth slowly opening in disbelief before you let out a quiet laugh.
“Liza, we’re doing math, not fact-checking your brother.” Raising an eyebrow, a smile tugs at your lips. “Just pretend that, suddenly, he became incredibly generous.”
“I don't think he would.”
“Liza…”
“Can we please take a break?” she exhales, collapsing onto the couch with full force and shutting her eyes tight.
You’re just about to remind her that you’ve already taken three breaks in the past two hours. But before you can even open your mouth, her eyes blink awake, a soft, pleading expression washing over her face.
“Can you make pancakes for me?” she murmurs, her lips forming a pout. “I’m hungry.”
She’s using that innocent, puppy-dog expression she always deploys to get exactly what she wants. Even though you firmly remind yourself not to cave in every single time, you find yourself nodding anyway. You set the math book aside and stand up from the couch.
Liza lets out a cheer of victory, yelling a loud "thank you!" after you as you trot toward the kitchen. You aren't even slightly annoyed that she managed to manipulate you yet again.
You’ve been babysitting Liza for almost two years now, occasionally slipping into the role of a tutor whenever she has a hard time understanding math topics or memorizing new vocabulary words in French. You genuinely like spending time at the Malinin household. Both of her parents are incredibly fond of you, trusting you to look after their daughter while they spend long hours over at the ice rink. Things are great—almost perfect—if it weren’t for him.
Currently, he is downstairs in his bedroom playing Fortnite while you start beating the eggs. The faint, muffled sounds of his shouting and frustrated exclamations reach your ears, twisting something tight in your stomach.
Babysitting Liza is easy, but pretending you don’t have a massive crush on her older brother is agonizingly hard. You can’t seem to contain yourself around him. Even the simplest interactions, like a brief conversation, make your heart rate pick up just enough for a wave of warmth to spread throughout your entire body. Especially when his fingers accidentally brush against yours.
Pushing those thoughts to the back of your mind, you exhale softly and begin rummaging through the kitchen cabinets for the flour. Just then, your phone buzzes in your pocket. It’s Jackie, your roommate. She’s probably looking for her top—the exact one you're currently wearing, considering half of your own clothes are piled up in a laundry hamper at home.
You almost decide to ignore it, but you ultimately swipe your thumb across the lock screen anyway.
“Hi, Jackie.”
“Are you busy?” There’s a distinct edge of frustration in her tone, bordering on absolute panic.
“No, I’m just making pancakes for Liza.” You glance back at the living room. Liza has already turned on the TV and is watching an old Russian cartoon about a wolf and a bunny on YouTube. She has made you watch it numerous times—even Ilia joining the two of you on rare occasions—but you can never seem to remember the exact title. “What’s up?”
“I’m fucked,” Jackie exclaims. Her brows draw together as she dramatically buries her head into a pillow for a few seconds before looking back up at the camera. “My Halloween costume just arrived, and it’s two sizes too small!”
“Oh.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do?! How am I supposed to get a cool costume when Halloween is in three days?!”
“Let’s not panic yet.”
“Ugh.” Groaning, she sits up on her bed, staring miserably into space without blinking before letting out another exclamation. “And it’s not just my costume! We have to get a new one for Lulu, too! I have to match with my girlfriend!”
“Okay, okay,” you say, trying to calm her down while your mind scrambles for alternatives.
Before you can think of anything, she notices the top you're wearing, her eyes narrowing as she probably prepares to scold you for stealing yet another piece of her wardrobe. You quickly cut her off. “Umm… what about… Velma and Daphne from Scooby-Doo? You’re already a redhead, so you wouldn’t even need a wig!”
“Cartoon characters?!”
“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”
“No.” She shakes her head firmly, not bothering to give you a proper reason for the rejection. “I want something hot.”
“What about that one lesbian couple from Yellowjackets?”
“Van and Taissa?”
“No, the one with your name.”
“Jackie and Shauna.” She hesitates for a second, the tip of her tongue sticking out as she thinks. The expression immediately reminds you of a certain person, his intensely concentrated face floating right up into your mind. “Lost potential. We should’ve at least gotten their make-out scene.”
“Yeah, I agree.”
“But no, I feel like most people wouldn’t get it, and I don’t want to spend the whole party explaining it to them!”
Both of you go quiet for a moment. You continue mixing the batter while she sighs heavily, trying to brainstorm new ideas. Then you pause, looking back at the screen with an excited face.
“Billy and Sidney!” you exclaim, dropping the spatula and leaning in toward the screen. “It’s hot and it's obvious! And you can get the mask literally today—pretty sure I saw it in the shop right down at our cafe corner.”
“Ghostface?”
“Yeah! Don’t tell me it isn’t perfect!”
“I mean yeah, for you it’s the ultimate fantasy,” she smiles, her eyes crinkling as your brows furrow.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, come on.” She rolls her eyes. “Every time we watch the movies and Ghostface comes on screen, you get all intense and excited. And then you end up disappointed when he guts the victims instead of dicking them down… it’s quite cute, actually.”
“I mean…” Licking your lips, you shrug, not bothering to deny the allegations when they are perfectly true. “It is hot. Ghostface is hot. When you know there’s no real danger involved, of course it’s… exciting.”
“Oh wow, who would’ve thought getting a call from Ghostface would be your ultimate roleplay fantasy.”
“Obviously, it depends on who’s behind the mask.”
“What about a 5’9" fake blonde Russian guy with blue eyes?”
“Jackie!” you gasp, your heart leaping into your throat. You glance around the kitchen frantically before backing off to peek into the living room, praying no one is around to hear her—especially him. “I swear to God, I’m gonna kill you.”
“Who knows, maybe I even did you a favor.”
“It’s not funny!”
“Alright, alright,” she sighs, waving you off through the screen. “I’ll call Lulu and we’ll figure something out.”
“Okay. Do tell me about it later.” You wave back, extending your fingertip toward the screen. “Bye, Jackie.”
“Wait, is that my top you’re wearing?!” She squints at the camera, her eyebrows drawing together in a furious line.
Before she can level any further accusations, you quickly press the red button, ending the call.
You don’t even realize that the background noise from downstairs has completely faded. The only sound left in the house is the muffled audio from Liza's cartoon playing in the living room, the unfamiliar Russian words not even registering in your brain anymore.
Then you hear a soft meow. Your face immediately lights up as you look down and spot Mysti’s shiny, jet-black fur. Crouching down, you scoop her up into your arms. Her body instantly relaxes against you, and you gently kiss the top of her head.
“There you are. I haven't seen you all day.”
It’s almost as if she understands you, letting out another quiet meow as she snuggles deeper into your embrace. You take a seat on one of the barstools pulled up to the kitchen island, stroking her soft fur with one hand and scrolling through your phone with the other, occasionally dropping soft kisses onto her ears.
Then, a movement catches your eye. You look up from your screen and freeze as your eyes meet his.
Ilia is wearing a simple blue sweatshirt, his headphones hanging loosely around his neck. He gives you a tight, polite smile as he heads toward the fridge, clearly on the hunt for something to drink.
“Hi.”
“Hey,” he replies, pulling out a carton of apple juice just as you suspected. He closes the fridge door with his elbow and holds the carton out toward you. “Do you want some?”
“No, thanks.”
“Are you making pancakes?”
“Yeah, Liza asked me to.”
“Cool.” He offers you a sheepish smile, his blue eyes briefly darting down to the cat curled up in your lap. “She really likes you.”
“Yeah,” you smile down at Mysti, brushing a fingertip over her long whiskers. Her bright green eyes stare up at you with pure curiosity. “She’s really affectionate.”
Ilia lets out a sudden laugh, his eyes crinkling at the corners. The sound makes something flutter in your stomach. Your chest tightens at the sheer sight of him—his messy blond locks falling perfectly across his forehead, his cheeks slightly flushed.
“Mysti is not affectionate,” he says, putting a heavy emphasis on the word as he shakes his head. “If I want to cuddle with her, I literally have to bribe her with food.”
“Maybe she just doesn’t like the high-pitched voice you use with her.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Just a little bit,” you grin, offering him a playful look. He doesn’t even look remotely annoyed by the jab; if anything, his smile widens.
“Would there be some pancakes left over for me?”
“Oh, yeah,” you nod quickly. “For sure.”
“Good. I love your pancakes.”
“Oh.”
Your eyebrows rise slightly. You open your mouth to say something—anything—but the intense way he’s staring at you makes your palms go instantly sweaty. Instead of actually thanking him, you just press your lips together, offer a tight smile, and abruptly bury your face back into your phone screen to hide your blushing cheeks.
“Are you still playing Fortnite?” Liza suddenly barges into the kitchen barefoot, her hair messily slung over her shoulders.
“No, I’m done streaming.”
“Did you lose again?”
“Liza,” he groans, rolling his eyes dramatically. You bite the inside of your cheek to contain the chuckle escaping your throat. “Did you finish your math homework?”
“Why do you care? It’s not like you ever want to help me anyway.”
Leaving the siblings to bicker, you slide down from your chair. The batter is ready, and it’s time to start cooking. Sensing the conversation is over, Ilia quickly disappears back downstairs into his room to resume whatever he was doing, leaving a heavy weight of disappointment hanging in your chest.
Thankfully, Liza is there to keep you company. She happily chatters away from her spot at the island, asking you questions about your university studies and your friends. But at the mere mention of Jackie, your mind flashes straight back to your earlier phone call. A tight, nervous knot forms in your stomach as your imagination vividly places him behind that Ghostface mask.
The night before Halloween, when Tatyana asks you to stay with Liza overnight, you don't have the heart to turn her down. Both parents are forced to fly out for a last-minute change of plans, and Tatyana mentions that Ilia is out of town staying with a friend. The newfound information leaves you both disappointed and relieved.
“I’m a little sleepy,” Liza mumbles after spending hours watching movies with you. Being the cool babysitter you are, you've let her stay up way past her bedtime.
“Okay,” you reply softly, removing the almost empty bowl of popcorn from her lap. “Go on up to bed. We can finish the movie tomorrow.”
“Okay.” She yields easily, getting up and giving you a quick kiss on the cheek. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Liza. Sleep tight.”
She walks lazily toward the stairs. Before she disappears, you slip back into your authoritative role and yell out for her not to forget to brush her teeth.
Once she's upstairs, you settle back into a comfortable position on the couch with Mysti curling up by your legs. When you pull the cat up into your arms, she doesn’t even protest, her warm body beating faintly against your chest. You scroll through Instagram, and a small smile forms on your face when you notice Ilia has liked your recent story—a photo of you helping Jackie put up Halloween decorations.
Time passes in a blur. At some point, you drift off to sleep with your head hanging uncomfortably over your shoulder.
You're jolted awake by the distinct, sharp ringing of a phone. Mysti raises her head from your stomach, ears perked. You sit up, blinking against the darkness of the living room, where the glowing television screen is the only source of light. It’s the house landline ringing. When you glance at your phone's lock screen and find that it’s almost 2:00 AM, your eyebrows furrow. A trace of panic settles in your chest as you wonder who could possibly be calling this late.
Stepping over to the receiver, you pick it up.
“Hello?” you answer, your voice a little groggy from a dry throat.
There’s heavy silence on the other end of the line, lasting just long enough to make you uneasy before a voice finally speaks. It’s a man’s voice, and you don’t recognize it at all. He sounds middle-aged, but it definitely isn’t Roman. You feel Mysti’s tail brush against your leg, her face nudging your ankle for attention.
“Hello,” the man says.
“Yes?”
“Who is this?” he asks.
You pause for a second, unsure of how to handle a stranger calling a house where you're babysitting. “Who are you trying to reach?”
“What number is this?”
“What number are you trying to reach?” Impatience slips into your voice. You wait for a response that never comes. Ultimately deciding it’s time to end the weird interaction, you snap, “I think you have the wrong number. Bye.”
You slam the phone back onto its cradle, your eyelids still heavy from your nap. Moving into the kitchen, you flick the lights on and pour yourself a glass of cold water. Mysti watches you with curious eyes, and you just offer her a shrug in response.
Then, the landline rings again.
You freeze, glass halfway to your lips. Suddenly, a realization hits you, and a wave of recognition washes over your brain. Your voice is filled with a mixture of amusement and annoyance as you pick up the phone. “Hello.”
“I'm sorry. I guess I dialed the wrong number,” the voice says.
“So why did you dial it again?” you answer, effortlessly recalling the exact script of a movie conversation you’ve seen multiple times over the years. You practically know it by heart.
“To apologize.”
“You're forgiven. Bye now,” you chuckle, a relaxed, easy tone slipping into your voice. “Okay, this was funny, Jackie, I admit it. But you’re not coming over to finish what you started, so just let me sleep now. Bye.”
“Wait, wait, don't hang up.” There’s a sudden flash of panic in his almost monotonous voice, and you silently scold yourself for not realizing how good her voice changer app actually sounds. “I’m not Jackie.”
“Right, sure.”
“And I’m here to finish what I’ve started.”
The voice drops lower, shifting into a deeper, menacing register that inadvertently sends a shiver straight down your spine. Your throat goes dry for a second. A sudden rush of blood hits your face as your brain scrambles to make sense of the situation.
Deciding you're done playing into her prank, you end the call with a hard press of the button. You immediately reach for your phone, dialing Jackie with mild irritation, ready to chew her out for feeding into your secret fantasies only to ultimately disappoint you.
She immediately answers. The image on the screen blinks slightly as a heavy, flushed redness covers her face. Even through the speaker, you can hear a chaotic wave of background noise—familiar voices mixing together and music thumping.
She’s drunk, you realize instantly.
“Hey!” Jackie waves at the camera, blowing you a sloppy kiss before giggling. “How’s the babysitting going?”
“Are you drunk?”
“Yeah! Wes bought extra wine and we decided to celebrate early.” She proudly raises an empty bottle to show you. “I hope those cute pajamas you’re wearing aren’t mine, by the way.”
“They’re not.”
“Good, because you’d have gotten into big trouble.”
She chuckles, her words slurring slightly. You stare frozen at the screen, desperately trying to decide whether she’s being real right now or just putting up a incredibly good act. Before you can figure it out, someone snatches the phone away from her hand. A very drunk Wes waves at you, immediately assuming you must be bored out of your mind and loudly wishing you could be there with them. The conversation drags on for a painful two minutes before you finally beg him to give the phone back to Jackie.
“Hey, Jackie,” you say, trying your absolute best to sound casual, but the doubts are eating you alive from the inside out. “Have you, by any chance, mentioned that Ghostface thing to anyone?”
“Ghostface what?”
“You know.” You shrug, watching her confused expression through the screen until it slowly relaxes into sudden realization.
“Oh, that thing,” she emphasizes, letting out another giggle. “No. Why?”
“You swear you’re telling me the truth?”
“Yeaah…?”
“So if I happened to ask if you called the house landline a few minutes ago, you’d say no, right?”
“No,” she hesitates, her eyebrows finally drawing together. “I mean, yeah, I'd say no. I didn’t call you. Honestly, who has time for you—”
“That’s rude!” Wes yells in the background.
“Yeah, Wes, you’re right,” she shakes her head, rubbing her palm over her face to wake herself up. “Okay, what’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
You lie. Before she has a chance to press you for further details, you end the call with a quick, rushed "bye." Her confused voice fades instantly as the call cuts out, leaving you staring frozen at the kitchen wall.
Could this really be what you think it is? What you imagined all those nights ago sitting right here at this kitchen island?
You shake your head violently, trying to brush the thoughts aside. That’s impossible. It's surely just a delusion you’re feeding yourself. It isn’t something Ilia would ever do. And even if he did, you definitely wouldn’t be the person he’d choose to do it with.
You’re almost angry at yourself for even daring to hope, conclusively deciding that it’s just a cruel pre-Halloween prank made by god knows which neighborhood teenager. You’re about to turn around and leave the kitchen when the landline suddenly erupts into another loud ring.
Your patience snaps. Walking over, you rip the receiver off the wall and bite out the words with sharp irritation. “Okay, what the fuck?!”
“Why don't you want to talk to me?”
“Whoever you are, get lost, because this isn’t funny anymore!”
“It’s not meant to be funny.” His voice sounds dead serious, causing your heartbeat to pick up instantly. “It’s meant to be… exciting.”
Suddenly, you are mentally transported right back to that afternoon in the kitchen. The heavy emphasis he places on the word exciting forms a tight knot in your stomach.
You hadn’t realized it back then, but it hits you now—how quickly he had appeared upstairs in the kitchen right after your conversation with Jackie. How the muffled sounds of his streaming coming from his bedroom had faded away long before you even finished your conversation.
Could he have… heard you?
Your mouth hangs wide open in pure disbelief, your heart thumping wildly against your ribs. Glancing around the dark kitchen, your mind races with thousands of chaotic thoughts. Desperately trying to push the sheer panic aside, you grip the phone a little too tightly. You lick your dry lips, desperately scrambling to say something—anything—but he beats you to it.
“Do you like scary movies?”
“Yeah,” your voice comes out incredibly quiet, almost pathetic in a way that does absolutely nothing to ease your frayed nerves.
“What's your favorite scary movie?”
“Um… I don’t know.”
“Come on.” The deep, raspy voice brushes intimately against your ear, and the vivid image of him standing somewhere in the dark behind that mask is just enough to make you instinctively press your legs together. “You have to have a favorite.”
“Scream,” you reply.
This time, a tiny spark of confidence bleeds into your tone. You change the script, intentionally throwing a wrench into the familiar dialogue, completely unequipped for whatever direction he is about to steer this conversation into.
“Scream, huh?”
There is a brief, loaded pause on the other end of the line, followed by a low chuckle that vibrates directly through the phone and straight down to your core.
“A classic,” he murmurs. “So you like masked guys? The ones who get up close and personal? Who track your every move, listen to your breathing, and take exactly what they want?”
Your breath hitches, your grip tightening on the plastic receiver until your knuckles turn white. You lean back against the kitchen counter, your heart hammering against your ribs so violently you’re certain he can hear it through the line. Looking down, you notice that Mysti has slipped away into the shadows, leaving you completely alone.
“Maybe,” you breathe out.
“In the movie, the girl always fights back. She doesn't just give the killer what he wants,” he says, and you can practically hear the smirk in his voice, the sheer confidence radiating through the speaker. “But you aren’t the girl in the movie, are you? And we both know you’ve been begging for this call.”
You pause, completely unsure of how to reply. It is impossible to ignore the tight knot twisting in your stomach or the lump forming in your throat that feels entirely impossible to swallow.
“Are you gonna fight back?” he asks, his voice dropping to a low, demanding rasp.
“No,” you choke out. The sheer intensity of the situation sets your body on fire.
“You wanted Ghostface. You wanted him to come for you,” he rumbles, the digital distortion of the voice changer adding a dangerous edge to his words. “Now he’s on the line. What are you going to do about it?”
“I’ll let him take what he wants.”
Your reply comes out soft, almost innocent, completely stripping away any remaining defense. The line goes dead silent for a fraction of a second before he slams the phone down, ending the call.
A light sweat breaks out across your skin as you stand there, staring into the sudden, suffocating silence of the dark house. You wait for a few agonizing seconds, your chest heaving up and down, before you take your cell phone and redial his number.
Leaving the kitchen with slow, cautious footsteps, you hold the phone to your ear, desperately trying to hear the faint sound of the ringing on his end. Suddenly, you stop dead in your tracks.
The muffled sound of a phone ringing isn't coming from somewhere outside. It's vibrating from downstairs.
You take a deep breath, swallowing hard as your mouth waters with sheer anticipation. The ringing gets louder with every step you take, your heart rate picking up a frantic pace as you reach the bottom of the stairs and look down at his bedroom door handle.
When you push the door open, the pale moonlight softly pours into his room, casting long shadows across the floor. The ringing sound is completely clear now. It’s coming directly from inside his walk-in closet, vibrating through the quiet space and straight into your ears.
You walk toward it, your knees feeling weak. Stretching your palm out toward the closet handle, you briefly close your eyes, bracing yourself for the revelation.
But before your fingers can even touch the handle, the bedroom door behind you shuts with a loud slam.
You shriek, the phone slipping from your trembling hand and clattering loudly against the floor. You spin around instantly on your heels, your breath catching in your throat. There, standing right in front of the closed door, completely blocking your only exit, is the figure draped in a heavy black cloak—staring directly at you through the familiar, hollow eyes of the Ghostface mask.
He’s holding a knife at his side, the metal shining dangerously under the moonlight. He takes a step closer, your heart thumping wildly against your ribs as he steps directly in front of you. The sudden scent of his familiar cologne surrounds you, and any lingering doubt you might have had washes away in an instant. Instead, that intoxicating feeling rushes back over your body—the tight, deep ache between your thighs, and the intense shiver running straight down your spine.
“I didn’t lie,” the voice says. It escapes his throat, but it isn’t distorted anymore. It’s completely him, his familiar softness still present as an undertone beneath. “I’m here to finish what I’ve started.”
You watch his gloved hand raise toward your face, the rough texture of his thumb brushing slowly down your lower lip. You look up at him with a dazed, almost blurry expression, already entirely drunk on his touch. Your body moves instinctively when he nudges you backward toward the bed. The backs of your knees hit the edge of the mattress just as a sharp metallic clink echoes through the room—the knife falling harmlessly to the floor.
He pushes you down onto the bed. The mattress dips deeply beneath his weight as he climbs on top of you, hovering over your frame as he uses his knees to push your legs wide open. You oblige him instantly, letting him settle flush between your thighs, your head throwing back against the pillows in sheer anticipation.
His gloved hand reaches for your face again, gently brushing a few stray strands of hair away from your forehead, the distorted features of the mask still staring down at you.
“Aren’t you gonna remove the mask?” you murmur, your hands coming up to touch his face.
Before you can reach the rubber, he stops you, catching both of your wrists in a firm grip and pinning your hands securely over your head with just one of his.
“No.”
His reply is short, leaving no room for argument. His body presses down harder against yours. When you shift your hips instinctively to feel him even closer, an inadvertent, low groan escapes his throat.
You hear him yank the leather gloves off his hands with his teeth, tossing them aside. A second later, you feel his bare, warm fingertips brushing beneath the hem of your thin pajama shirt. Your entire body trembles under his direct as his palms slide upward, brushing over your nipples. A soft, desperate moan escapes your throat, your eyes fluttering shut as he unbuttons the short-sleeved top with agonizing slowness. When he's finally done, the cool air of the bedroom hits your bare chest, making your skin prickle with goosebumps.
His hand travels further down. When he finally releases his grip on your wrists, your limbs stay exactly where they are, pinned by the sheer weight of the tension. He tugs down on your shorts with a sudden, newfound impatience, removing your panties next with a rush of heavy urgency.
You sit up slightly, shifting your arms out of the unbuttoned sleeves to remove the shirt completely. You lay entirely naked in front of him, your hair a wild mess against the pillows, your eyes dark and drunk with desire, your lips wet from nervously licking them in anticipation.
“Ilia,” you murmur his name like a plea, like a quiet prayer. “I want to see your face. Please.”
It’s as if your words undo something deep inside him. He pauses, haunching slightly back on his knees. Your arms come up, reaching out to pull back his black hood. The moment your fingertips graze the edges of the face mask, his hand doesn't shoot up, he doesn't catch your wrist to stop you from pulling it off, catching the edge of the rubber and peeling the mask off him completely.
The familiar, striking blue eyes immediately lock onto yours. His blond hair is a wild mess, his lips are flushed just as red as yours, and his breathing is heavy and intense. It takes your breath away to see the mask come off, revealing the boy you’ve craved for almost two years. You reach up, brushing a few stray strands of hair away from his forehead, a soft, breathless smile tugging at your lips.
"Hi."
"Hi," he whispers back.
The corner of his lips lifts into a small, boyish smile. The sheer absurdity and thrill of the moment catch up to you, and a quiet chuckle escapes your throat. But before you can say anything else, Ilia leans in, crashing his mouth onto yours with a sudden, full force that knocks the remaining breath completely out of your lungs.
He pushes you flat down onto the bed, his weight pinning you to the sheets as his kiss turns deep and messy. While his mouth claims yours, his hand works its way down, sliding smoothly between your thighs. A sharp, desperate moan escapes your throat, your eyes shutting tight as his warm fingers find you already completely slick and aching for him. He doesn't make you wait, sliding two fingers deep inside you with a firm, rhythmic stroke that makes your hips instinctively arch off the mattress.
He breaks the kiss, trailing a path of open-mouthed kisses down your jawline, neck, collarbone. His free hand cups your breast, his thumb sweeping over your hardened nipple, gently squeezing and rolling the peak until you're whimpering against his shoulder.
You grip his broad shoulders, your fingertips tangling deep into his soft hair as the friction of his fingers inside you drives you to the absolute brink. Then, he shifts his weight, dipping his head down between your legs. He hooks his hands under the backs of your knees, pulling your legs up and wrapping them over his shoulders, opening you up completely.
Any remaining stillness in the bedroom is utterly shattered. You unravel completely in front of him, your head tossing back against the pillows as he uses his mouth and tongue with an unhurried precision. The room is filled with the wet sound of his kisses, the breathless, ragged moans escaping your mouth, and the low, vibration of his deep groans whenever your body twitches against him.
By the time he finishes, you are completely undone. Overwhelming pleasure crashes over you so hard that tears prick the corners of your eyes, your chest heaving violently up and down as you ride out the heavy waves of your release.
Your eyes are shut tight against the intense aftershocks, your limbs heavy and useless. In the quiet, you hear the rustle of fabric as Ilia stands up beside the bed, shedding his clothes. When you finally blink your eyes open and lean up on your elbows, the sight before you makes your mouth go dry. He stands completely stripped in front of you, his broad shoulders and lean chest glistening under the pale moonlight filtering through the window.
He climbs back onto the mattress. Hooking a firm hand around your ankle, he slides you slightly down the bed to his level, instantly crawling back over you and crashing his lips onto yours again. You wrap your legs tightly around his waist, your hands flying right back into his hair as you feel the hardness of him pressing directly against your inner thigh.
Before you can raise a hand to touch him—to try and return the favor and give him what he just gave you—he leans back. The sudden loss of his lips against yours feels almost painful. He stretches his arm toward the nightstand, rummaging through the drawer for a brief second before pulling out a small square wrapper. You watch him roll the condom on in the dim light, excitement and anticipation bursting through your chest.
When he settles back between your thighs, you open your legs wide for him in a welcoming, desperate invitation. You bite down hard on your lower lip, your eyes locking directly onto his blown-out, dark blue gaze. He lets out a low groan at the sight, and the exact second he hovers his weight over you, he pushes inside you in one deep, smooth motion.
A loud, breathless moan tears right through you.
"Ебать," Ilia groans softly, his voice entirely strained as he buries his face into the crook of your neck, freezing as the tight warmth of you closes around him.
You blink up at him in the dark, your mind a bit hazy. "Huh?"
"Nothing, love," he murmurs against your skin, silencing you with a deep kiss.
His hand comes up to cup your burning cheek, his thumb stroking your skin before his palm slowly trails down your arm, finally locking tightly around the curve of your waist. He holds your hip up as he continues to thrust into you, his rhythm locking in a relentless pace.
He doesn't stop there. As the pleasure builds, the composure he usually keeps completely breaks. He continues murmuring low, rough Russian words against your skin—words you can't decipher but know are praise from the tone of his voice. He whispers things into your ear that you never thought you'd hear from his lips, his breath hot and ragged.
Hooking his hands securely under your waist, he lifts you up just enough to deepen the angle completely. You throw one leg over his shoulder, choking out breathless, broken noises as he hits exactly the right spot with every single push. His heavy chain hangs down from his neck, brushing against your bare chest with every movement—a vivid, physical detail you had imagined a thousand times over in your head, now finally real.
His skin is burning hot against yours, his palms roaming possessively over your hips, your waist, and wherever else he can reach. When you feel the familiar, overwhelming tension building deep in your lower stomach again, you instinctively tighten around him.
That completely undoes him.
A loud, choked groan escapes his throat right below your ear. He quickens his pace before your body finally snaps, a second climax shattering through you. He lets out a ragged cry against your shoulder, his body shuddering violently as he buries himself deep inside you one last time, spending himself completely as you hold him tight.
For a long time, the only sound in the room is the heavy, synchronized sound of your breathing. Ilia collapses softly against you, his chest rising and falling against yours, both of you completely spent. Your limbs feel entirely numb from exhaustion, a deep, heavy satisfaction settling over your skin.
It takes him a few seconds to regain his strength. Slowly, he lifts himself up on one arm, looming over you as he looks down at your face. With his other hand, he carefully reaches down to remove the condom, tying it off and tossing it into the small trash can by the nightstand before pulling the blanket up over both of your naked, cooling bodies. A lazy, soft smile stretches across his face, his blue eyes warm.
"Did I fulfill your ultimate fantasy?"
"Didn't Tatyana teach you it's rude to eavesdrop on others?"
"Jackie really did you a favor." He laughs, recalling your conversation word for word before leaning down to kiss you once again. It’s sweet this time, slow and unhurried—nothing like the desperate hunger and burning passion you experienced minutes ago. You capture his face in your hands, trailing your fingertips gently down his jawline, smiling right through the kiss.
"So," you murmur, your voice a little raspy as you trace a lazy finger over his forearm. "Staying with a friend out of town, huh?"
He lets out a soft chuckle, his chest vibrating against you. "I was supposed to, but then my mom texted me saying they had to fly out, and she mentioned you'd be staying overnight with Liza." He presses a quick, warm kiss to your neck. "I had to come up with a plan in approximately four hours. Luckily, the shop right around your favorite cafe corner still had a Ghostface mask left."
"How did you even know what my favorite cafe is?"
"You often bring pastries from there when you come over," he admits almost shyly, smiling down at you as he tenderly caresses your hair. "I just assumed."
"Did you really eavesdrop on my whole conversation with her?"
"Maybe," he says, a sudden trace of playful cockiness bleeding into his voice. "How often do you actually steal your roommate's clothes?"
"How often do you put on a whole roleplay act for girls?"
"Never." He shakes his head firmly, abandoning his smirk to snuggle deep into the crook of your neck. "It's strictly reserved for you. That 5’9" Russian guy really likes you, too. And for the record, I'm not a fake blonde."
His last words are completely muffled against your skin. You let out a laugh, gently hitting him on the shoulder as a comfortable warmth spreads through your chest. For the next few minutes, the bedroom falls into a stillness, the two of you simply basking in each other's presence and the lingering heat under the covers.
Then, the quiet is interrupted by a very familiar voice right at the bedroom door, followed by the distinct sound of tiny claws scratching against the wood.
Ilia tilts his head up, both of you snapping your gaze toward the door at the exact same time.
"That's Mysti."
"Yeah," you agree, a smile tugging at your lips. "I think she's here for me."
"Did Liza feed you lies that my own cat hates me?"
"No, but I think it's pretty obvious she likes me better."
"Fair enough," he huffs playfully. He shuts his eyes tight and heavily replaces his head back onto your chest, anchoring himself to you. "Sorry, Mysti, but it's my time for cuddling now. Go away."
The other side of the door goes quiet for a single minute. But when the black cat starts meowing even louder, you nudge Ilia’s shoulder. He lets out a dramatic sigh, finally pulling himself up and grabbing a discarded shirt to throw over his head. You quickly slip back into your pajama set resting on the floor beside the mattress.
The moment Ilia cracks the door open, Mysti immediately slips through the small gap like a shadow. She wastes no time, leaping straight onto the bed and padding over to collapse directly against your side, purring like a tiny engine.
Ilia stands by the edge of the bed, crossing his arms as he stares down at the cat completely taking over his spot, then looks up at you with a betrayed expression.
"Don't look at me like that," you giggle, reaching over to stroke Mysti's soft fur as she purrs even louder. "I told you she likes me better."
Ilia lets out a dramatic sigh, shaking his head as a smile breaks across his face. He climbs back onto the mattress, carefully maneuvering his frame around the cat so he can slide under the covers next to you.
what’s tge next project for us IM SO EXCITED FOR EVERYTHING YOU DO I LOVELOVELOVED THIS ONE
thank you nonnie!! 🫂
I’m planning to write a mini series with Ilia x best friend’s sister reader!! I feel like I want it to be a lighthearted summer romance, so i’ll try not to torture you all too much 🥰
I also have a one-shot idea with ballerina reader, which i reckon will end up being around 20k words 😭 but I don’t really feel like splitting it into a series… 🤔
I’m also finishing up the semester and my final exams end in a month, so I was thinking about holding off on starting a new series until i’m done, that way I can give you all quicker updates!! meanwhile, I was thinking I could take some requests? or I could just write the ballerina one-shot? 👀
I’ve also lost a bet regarding ilyusha’s new photoshoot, so I owe one of my readers a one-shot based on their idea!
to sum it up I literally have no clue what to start with 🤣😭
i am here once again to tell you just how good your depiction of ilia is 🩷❤️ like you write him *perfectly* you got my heart beating so bad for him like sTAWPP (pls dont stop)
nonnie 🥹
i’m always happy to hear that i’m doing his personality some justice 🤍 it’s what makes him so unique and lovable 🥰 he’s a special guy!!
summary: As members of the 2026 Winter Olympics, they’re about to share the biggest stage of their lives — but they share a past, too. Under the bright lights, old memories resurface, emotions run high, and a few long-overdue truths finally come to light.
summary: Long before they meet again on the Olympic stage, they were inseparable despite the miles between them, sharing the same dreams and feelings neither of them ever put into words. But as life moves forward, the path they once walked together slowly disappears into the woods.
word count: 15,8k
author’s note: they’re back! let’s explore their friendship and what led up to everything that unfolded at the olympics 👀 this is a prologue to the OUTW series, but it can also be read as a standalone! 🥰 english is not my first language, so I hope you keep that in mind.. any feedback, questions, writing tips and criticism will be appreciated!
taglist: @loverboyseb @polksea @jmgrule @kokoiinuts @scuderiapng @ficionalmanenthusiast @slvt4subchratt @enyosmoon @renjisturns @sinistersnakey @sollis-occasum @prettyraspberry more in the comments!
masterlist
2024 U.S. Championships
“You totally cheated!”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Oh, shut up.” You elbow him in the side, his casual smile only igniting the flame of anger threatening to burst through your chest. The cards you’re holding crease beneath your fingertips as Isabeau’s voice faintly registers in the background. “You’re such a liar!”
“Guys, it’s just a game,” Amber sighs, glancing between you and Ilia as she shakes her head in disapproval. Judging by the look on her face, she definitely regrets accepting Isabeau’s invitation to play card games in your room. She snatches the cards from your hands, shuffling them seamlessly into the rest of the deck before neatly sliding them back into the box.
Isabeau gets up from the floor and trots toward a suitcase overflowing with clothes, rummaging through it as she mutters something about Monopoly. “Besides, I don’t think Ilia is even capable of pulling something like that off.”
“Are you calling me dumb?” Ilia asks.
“Uh, not exactly.” Amber cringes, an apologetic smile lighting up her face. “You’re just not… sly?”
“Bold of you to assume he knows the meaning of that word,” you huff, the sarcasm in your voice impossible to miss. You turn to him, a playful smirk dancing on your lips. “He might have to look that one up in the dictionary. Struggles of being a bilingual boy, right?”
“At least I can speak more languages than you,” he shoots back, sounding entirely convinced he just made a point. It only makes you chuckle, while Amber bites her lip to keep from laughing.
“Knowing certain words and phrases doesn’t mean you speak the language, Ilia.”
“Oh, I see where this is coming from.” The tone in his voice and the curl of his lips are enough to make you glare, anticipating exactly where this is headed. “Someone’s just salty because they lost.”
The smirk on his face feels like a physical slap. Any other time, you’d reply with a sarcastic comment—which is exactly what he expects—but instead, you lunge forward and tackle him to the ground.
One second he’s smiling, and the next he’s trying to fight you off as your hands find his sides, tickling him right where you know he's most sensitive. Amber yells at the two of you, her voice strained but not actually angry enough to separate you, secretly enjoying the scene. Isabeau looks completely unfazed, clearly used to your constant bickering. By the time you finally succeed and laughter spills from Ilia's mouth as he struggles to make you stop, she already has her phone out, shoving the camera right in your faces as she commentates.
“So, guys, this is usually how it ends when we play card games,” she speaks to her invisible audience. “The cheating allegations never go unpunished.”
“Okay, stop!” he barely manages to gasp out through his laughter. The smile on his face is impossibly wide, making it impossible for you not to mimic it.
You remove your hands but stay hovering over him, pinning him to the ground with your legs on either side of his waist. You give him a second to catch his breath. When you look down at him expectantly, an eyebrow arched, he sighs, a soft smile stretching across his face.
“Alright, fine. I cheated.”
“Told you.” You glance back at Amber with a celebratory smirk, finally climbing off him to stand up and smooth down your messy hair.
Ilia stays on the ground for a moment, breathing heavily, his chest heaving up and down as highlighted strands of hair fall across his forehead. His cheeks are flushed, and his pale blue eyes practically sparkle under the dim lights of the hotel room. A familiar feeling washes over you—that specific softness you've reserved exclusively for him for more than a year.
Extending your hand, you help him sit up. The moment he's on his feet, he wraps an arm around your shoulder and quickly kisses your cheek—the sweet, apologetic gesture he always resorts to after he's annoyed you.
“I’m sorry. I promise to never cheat again.”
“Don’t make promises you can't keep, Ilyusha.”
Isabeau flips the camera toward her own face. “Guys, can you believe Ilia is actually slick enough to cheat at a card game?”
“I’m constantly underestimated,” he protests, sighing with theatrical disappointment. He drops back onto the floor next to you, his hand immediately diving into an open bag of chips resting in the center of your little circle. He crams a handful into his mouth, muffling his words through a crunch. “Should we play another round?”
“No!” the three of you yell in unison.
A few minutes later, Amber calls it a night, mentioning something about needing her beauty sleep before her free skate. When Isabeau inadvertently starts yawning, Ilia takes it as his cue that it’s finally time to leave.
It’s almost 2:00 AM when you finally decide you've had enough screen time, your eyes heavy with the sheer exhaustion of the day. You’re about to set your phone on the nightstand when it buzzes. Across the room, Isabeau snores softly, shifting onto her side with a faint, protesting grunt.
You unlock the screen to find an Instagram DM from Ilia.
Ilia: You should get some sleep
You: you should mind your own business
Ilia: I’m not the one competing tomorrow!! 🙄
You: boo hoo i’m a champion of usa i’m better than everyone i’m a quadgod!!
Ilia: What are you even yapping about at this point 🤣🤣
You: you’re right, rn i’m not at my best form
You: im tired 😔
Ilia: Then sleep 😜
You: then stop bothering me???
Ilia: Fair enough 😁
Ilia: Sweet dreams
Ilia: I’m sure you will crush it tomorrow
Ilia: 😍😍😘😘
You: thanks ilyusha
You: ❤️
Ilia: Byee
Ilia: Love you
Those last two words never cease to make something flutter in your stomach. A smile stretches across your face as you lock your phone and slip it away. Closing your eyes, you can’t help but think about whether he actually means it like you want him to, a tightness in your chest resembling hope.
2024 World Championships
You watch with teary eyes as he finishes his free skate. His hands fly to his face, covering his disbelief as he collapses onto the ice, a massive smile stretching across his face as the weight of realization finally sinks in. Dasha is right next to you as you keep chanting his name along with the rest of the crowd. A subtle smirk dances on her face as she offers you a napkin. Of course, she doesn’t actually have one when you reach for it—she's just trying to tease you as you watch your friend shatter the world record, who’s sitting alongside his father in the Kiss and Cry.
It’s only after the medal ceremony that you finally find him, the gold medal hanging heavy around his neck. You sprint up to him, his arms opening wide the moment he sees you approaching. He lifts you completely off the ground as you hug him tightly.
“Oh my god, Ilyusha!” Cupping his face, you press a quick kiss to both of his cheeks, eliciting a loud laugh from him. “Congrats! You were amazing! Like, literally breathtaking!”
The sheer excitement radiating from you is impossible to miss. Your eyes sparkle as your fingers trail down from his face to the heavy gold medal resting against his chest. Your thumb brushes over the smooth surface of the metal, the weight of it in your hand making the whole moment feel suddenly, undeniably real.
You look up from the medal to meet his eyes, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him slightly as your voice rises. “Oh my god, you’re a world champion!”
“Thank you.” His smile softens, his voice becoming shyer the way it always does when you praise him. Yet he completely basks in your compliments, his cheeks flushed a deep red. “I saw you in the stands.”
“Really?” you ask, your lips curling into a smirk. “I didn’t notice.”
“‘Go Ilyusha!’?” His eyebrows wiggle, his voice teasing as he nudges you affectionately. “I thought you needed gold glitter for your makeup.”
“You thought I was going to put actual craft glitter on my face?”
“Glitter is glitter! I didn’t know it was different for makeup,” he defends himself, throwing a casual arm around your shoulder as he leads you toward the locker room. “Don’t throw away that banner, by the way. I’m taking it home with me.”
“Isabeau wouldn’t let me anyway. We put so much effort into it.” You look down at your clothes, then at your hands, specs of glitter still stuck to you despite all your efforts to scrub it off. At least you have it easier than Isabeau, who spent hours washing her hair trying to get rid of it after she accidentally knocked the glitter jar off the shelf. The hotel room carpet still sparkles under the lights, and for a second, you feel a twinge of guilt about creating a further mess for the cleaning staff. “So much effort that it honestly deserves to be hanging on your wall.”
“That is exactly what I’m going to do.”
“Ilia, I was joking.”
“Well, I’m not.” He stops just outside the locker room door, an amused smile playing on his lips. His hair is a messy disaster after the skate, and without thinking, you reach up to push the stray strands back into place. Ilia goes quiet, looking down at you softly as you fix his hair. “Should we go out into the city?”
“It’s pretty late.”
“It’s not even 11:00 PM.”
“By the time we go back to the hotel and you get ready, it’s going to be midnight.”
“I love a midnight walk.” Rolling your eyes at his suggestion, you watch as he tugs at your arm to convince you, his lips forming a pout. “And I’m hungry! I’m craving nuggets. McDonald’s has them, no?”
“I’m not going out at midnight in an unknown city,” you scold him, gently shoving him away. “We can just order your tasteless nuggets at the hotel.”
“Alright,” he sighs in defeat, his shoulders dropping before the realization hits him. “Hey! They’re not tasteless!”
“Yeah, whatever, Ilyusha.” You nudge him forward, forcing him toward the locker room door. “Go and change. I’ll see you back at the hotel.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
You ride back to the hotel with Isabeau and Dasha. Dasha spends the entire ride trying to figure out the settings on her new iPhone, while Isabeau patiently explains every single question she has, even the ones that sound incredibly silly to you.
You’ve just gotten out of the shower when you see a message from Ilia. He’s already waiting for you in his room, having ordered his nuggets along with a pizza for you.
“I’m going to Ilia’s room for a bit.” Your hair is still damp as you slip on your shoes, glancing over at Isabeau, who is rereading her favorite book, Six of Crows, for what seems like the hundredth time. “Don’t you want to come?”
“Did he invite me?”
Her question takes you entirely aback. Her sudden, scrutinizing stare makes you feel a little uncomfortable. “Well, no, but you don’t need an invite. We’re all friends.”
“Yeah, we are friends. Me and Ilia.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” You don’t miss the pointed emphasis she puts on me and Ilia, clearly suggesting there's a distinction to be made.
Raising an eyebrow, Isabeau looks back at you as if you’re being dense. She rolls her eyes, letting the book drop onto her stomach. “It means exactly what you think it means.”
“You might want to elaborate on that one, Isa.”
“Everyone can see that you two like each other.” She sounds frustrated—not because you two might have feelings for each other, but because neither of you will actually acknowledge it. “Like, who acts like that around just friends?!”
“Like what?” You huff, rolling your eyes, hoping she doesn’t notice how much you secretly enjoy her implications.
“For starters, he’s incredibly touchy-feely with you.”
“He’s just an affectionate person!”
“He doesn’t kiss me or Amber on the cheek after he rage-baits us, though.” She raises an eyebrow, clearly satisfied that she just made a point. “And you two talk, what, every single day? You don’t even talk to me every day, and I’m your best friend!”
“Sounds like you’re just jealous.”
“Oh, don’t you even try to change the subject.” Squinting at you, she reaches behind her, grabs one of the many pillows on her bed, and chucks it at you—unimpressively missing her target even from a short distance. “I just don’t understand why you can’t even admit it to me!”
“Admit what?”
“That you like him!” She sits up abruptly, her expression turning serious as she looks at you with a mixture of confusion and exhaustion. “You're, like, hopelessly in love with him! It’s kind of disgusting sometimes.”
You go silent for a few seconds, pressing your lips together. The weight of her stare feels heavy, so you avoid her eyes, focusing instead on the bag of snacks in your hand. You don’t even like these snacks; you only bought them because you know they're his favorite.
“I do think I love him,” you murmur. Your voice comes out much softer than intended.
The face Isabeau makes—her lips quivering in a theatrical, overly emotional pout—makes you roll your eyes instantly. “Okay, stop.”
“See? That was disgustingly sweet.” She pretends to shed a tear, wiping away invisible traces from her eyes.
“I don’t want you mentioning it ever again.”
“Yeah, I don’t really understand you two,” she sighs, collapsing back onto the bed to stare at the ceiling. “But I’m pretty sure he’s head over heels for you. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. Actually, I’m not just pretty sure—I’m completely convinced.”
“Okay, Isa, thanks for the insight. Bye!”
Before she even has a chance to reply, you shut the door behind you. Clutching the snacks tightly in your hand, you sprint down the hallway toward the stairs, suddenly way too impatient to wait for the elevator.
Ilia is waiting for you in his room, on a call with one of his international friends. You hear his faint, rapid Russian before you even enter, quietly slipping inside without knocking so you don't interrupt him.
He notices you immediately, motioning for you to sit on the bed before his eyes fix back on his phone screen. He’s wearing a red T-shirt with a Spider-Man print on it, his hair still damp from the shower just like yours.
“Ну всё, давай.”
(Alright, see ya.)
“Сливаешься ради своей девушки?” Judging by the tone of the voice on the other end, you get the distinct impression the friend is teasing him, even though none of the actual words register to you.
(Ditching us for your girlfriend?)
“Заткнись, Саша,” Ilia snaps, his voice dropping as his expression shifts into something serious. “Она может услышать. Она учит русский.”
(Shut up, Sasha, she might hear you. She’s learning Russian.)
“Вот видишь, она ради тебя русский учит, а ты думаешь, что вы просто друзья.”
(See? She’s learning Russian for you, and you think you’re just friends.)
“Отстань, Саша, давай.”
(Leave me alone, Sasha. Bye.)
Ilia quickly locks his phone, tossing it onto the nightstand. He flops down on the bed next to you, immediately tearing open one of the bags of snacks you brought for him.
“Cool shirt,” you say, gesturing toward the graphic print, accepting a gummy bear when he stretches out his open palm toward you. “Looks good on you.”
“Aw, thanks.” He smiles, stuffing a handful of gummy bears into his mouth.
“Bet it would look better on me, though.”
“And here I thought you were being sweet,” he sighs, shaking his head in fake disappointment, the way he always does when he realizes your compliments have an ulterior motive. “For someone who constantly claims my taste in fashion is bad, you always want my stuff.”
“I do not!” you huff, rolling your eyes. “I liked your cap once and you gave it to me. I didn’t even ask for it!”
“You didn’t ask for it, but you begged for it with your eyes.”
“Oh, shut up.” Nudging him hard with your shoulder, you purse your lips. “And your taste in fashion is indeed really bad.”
“Can’t you stop bullying me even on a big night like this?”
“Aww, are you like, sad about it?” you mock him playfully, wrapping an arm around his shoulder as you snuggle into his side.
The warmth of his body feels perfect against yours, the scent of his fresh soap bringing a rush of familiar comfort. You close your eyes, your voice softening into something more serious. “Alright, Ilyusha. I swear I won’t make fun of you for the rest of the night.”
“Right. Because I’m your champion.”
“You are.”
You softly agree, and when he rests his head against yours, a familiar warmth floods through you. You stay like that for a couple of minutes, neither of you saying a word because, at this point, the silence between you is entirely natural. You recall Isabeau’s words from earlier, her outside confirmation bringing a small smile to your face.
When the food finally arrives, instead of putting on a movie, you just eat comfortably in the quiet, occasionally talking about whatever random topic he happens to hop onto.
It’s way past midnight when you finally decide to leave, having already agreed to grab breakfast with Dasha in the morning. Before heading out, you congratulate him on his historic win one last time. He subtly pulls you into a lingering hug, whispering a sincere thank you for always supporting him.
Just as you're about to open the door, your hand resting on the handle, his voice stops you in your tracks.
“Wait.”
“What is it?”
Instead of answering, Ilia grips the hem of his shirt and yanks it off in one swift motion. Heat instantly rushes to your face, and you try your absolute best not to stare at his bare torso. With his hair all messy and unruly, he looks almost ethereal under the dim hotel lighting.
He extends the red Spider-Man shirt toward you. You just stand there, completely lost for words, making no move to take it.
“Don’t look at me like that.” He rolls his eyes subtly, though a soft smirk tugs at the corner of his lips. “It’s clean. I put it on right after I showered.”
“Okay,” your voice comes out much quieter than you intended. You finally reach out and take the fabric, clutching it tightly between your fingertips. “Thanks for the generosity, Ilyusha.”
“It’ll look better on you anyway,” he teases, his signature smug expression returning. “Now go and get some sleep. Goodnight.”
“Sleep tight, Ilyusha.”
You leave the room with the biggest smile stretched across your face as you begin to think of a possible future with him with a newfound confidence.
Back in your room, Isabeau is already fast asleep, her book still balanced precariously on her lap and her cheek squished deeply into her pillow. You gently lift the book, placing it on the nightstand, and pull the blanket up to fix it for her.
Right before you slip into your own sheets, you pull off your shirt and slide into the oversized one he just gave you. You snuggle deep under the covers, a content smile dancing on your lips as you breathe in the faint scent of his soap.
April 2024
“I don’t understand!” you sigh, covering your face with your hands before looking up with a thoroughly exhausted expression.
Ilia’s reflection stares back at you from the iPad screen. In the background of his room, the ‘Go Ilyusha!’ sign you made for him back at Worlds peeks into the frame.
“How do I even pronounce it?!”
“You don’t pronounce it!”
“Then what purpose does this little 'b' even serve?” You throw your hands up in disbelief.
“It’s called the soft sign, and its only job is to make the letter before it sound soft,” he explains patiently, gesturing wildly with his hands. He demonstrates it a few times, pronouncing a couple of Russian words that you, of course, don't know the meaning of.
“Okay, I think that’s enough Russian lessons for today.”
“But we just started.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Sighing, you close the notebook you’ve been using to practice writing the Cyrillic alphabet, which is filled with little notes and pronunciation tips from Ilyusha. “I’m tired.”
“You are so impatient,” he huffs, shaking his head. “How on earth did Dasha ever teach you how to skate?”
“Which should make you think that I’m not the problem here.”
“Oh, so I’m the problem?” He raises his eyebrows in a teasing pout, subtly spinning around in his gaming chair. “I’m a great teacher. Maybe you just don’t possess the skills it takes to be bilingual.”
“Oh, so I’m stupid?” It shouldn’t get to you, but it does. Your voice sounds dead serious, and for a split second, you catch a flash of genuine panic settling in his pale blue eyes. “Alright then. Bye.”
Before he can even attempt to protest, you slam the button on the screen, ending the call.
Of course, he immediately tries to call you back, but you ignore it. You know perfectly well that you’re being childish, but lately, you are almost always irritated. Whether you're at the rink, at home, or on a call with Isabeau or Ilia, your fuse is incredibly short. Your mom says it’s because of the stress. Dasha says it’s just hormones.
But none of that is true.
The truth is, you are still profoundly disappointed and angry with yourself after Worlds. Your short program had been brilliant, but your free skate couldn’t have gone more horribly. You popped the very first Axel, and the moment the panic settled into your chest, everything went downhill. You had been one of the definitive favorites for the gold medal, yet you finished ninth—the worst free skate you’ve ever put on the ice, even including your junior years. In the Kiss and Cry, you hadn't shed a single tear. But back at the hotel, you completely broke down in the shower, waiting until you knew Isabeau couldn't see you. You hadn't wanted to ruin her celebratory night.
Your phone buzzes against the desk, cutting through your thoughts.
Ilia: Can’t you at least reply back????
Ilia: Why do you do this lately?
His messages twist something painful deep in your stomach. Guilt creeps in, and your fingers reluctantly find the keyboard.
You: i was just joking, no need to be dramatic ilyusha
Ilia: You hung up on me after I made a joke and im the dramatic one?
You: well it’s pretty clear i wasn’t offended by it and you’re just trying to make it out as something serious when it’s not
You: you should know by now when i’m actually mad or not
He doesn’t reply after that. You don't think much of it at first, until the entire day goes by without hearing another word from him. You send him a few random reels just to get the conversation going again—a subtle sign to indicate that everything is fine—because you genuinely don’t realize what was so horrible about how you acted. Yeah, maybe it’s annoying when you hang up on him when the irritation gets to you, but it doesn’t mean anything. At least, not to you.
It’s almost midnight, and you are still tossing and turning in your sheets, trying to find a sleep that refuses to come. Eventually, you let out a heavy sigh and unlock the phone resting on your nightstand, quickly typing out a text message and ignoring a few typos along the way.
You: are you like really mad at me? because I didn’t think much of it when I hung up on you. yeah it’s a little childish but it means nothing. sorry if i overreacted or something
You wait a bit for his reply, but it doesn’t come. Not until after you finally drift off to sleep and wake up to a string of texts the next morning.
Ilia: I don’t really know what to think when you do that
Ilia: I hate it
You: okay ilyusha, i won’t do it again
You: pinky promise?
You: 🤙
Ilia: 🙄
Ilia: Fine
You: ayyeee
You: yk you’re my best friend it takes more than your mediocre joke for me to get offended
Ilia: Yeah Yeah
Ilia: Best Friend
You type out a response telling him all about your plans for the day. He replies by filling you in on his new ideas for his upcoming short program.
Across the room, the closed Russian notebook stares back at you from your desk. When he suggests video chatting later that evening to resume your poor progress with the language, you type back a quick acceptance, a small, relieved smile hitting your lips.
May 2024
It isn’t until May that you’re finally able to see him again. He’s doing a show in New York, and since your aunt happens to live there, she happily offered to let you stay at her place while you planned to meet up with your friend.
You can’t make it to the actual show, but you arrange to meet him in the park. You spot him first, sneaking up behind him as he looks around, clearly wondering if he’s waiting at the right spot.
“Hi, Ilyusha.”
His eyes widen in surprise, and then he immediately pulls you into a tight hug, lifting you slightly and eliciting a loud laugh from you as his arms wrap securely around your back.
“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” you say playfully, shoving him away so you can actually take in the sight of him.
Not much time has passed since Worlds, but he looks a bit different. You’re not even sure how that's possible in the span of barely two months. Maybe it’s the length of his hair, or maybe a fresh round of dye. He just stands there, smiling at you, holding both of your hands in his.
“You are blonder than ever,” you note. “And your hair really has grown.”
“And you cut yours.” He gently slips his fingers through your hair, smoothing out the stray pieces.
You tug at his arm, forcing him to follow you to one of your favorite little cafes that you discovered a couple of years ago. As you walk, he looks around the street.
“Do they have nuggets?”
“Oh my god.” You cover your face with one hand, peeking out in pure embarrassment. “Please do not mention nuggets while we are in there.”
“I’m hungry!”
“Are you even aware that other food exists?” Raising your eyebrows, you look at him like it's a challenge. “We are going to eat cinnamon rolls, and you are going to drink hot cocoa because your ass cannot handle coffee.”
“You drink lattes with, like, two spoons of sugar and some type of flavored syrup!” he counters, looking thoroughly amused. “Does that even taste like coffee? You’re a fake coffee fan.”
“And you can’t even name five Black Sabbath songs,” you shoot back, gesturing toward the graphic T-shirt he’s wearing. “Talk about being a fake fan.”
“I’ve kind of missed our IRL banter,” he murmurs.
“You mean you missed me bullying you?”
He rolls his eyes, playfully pushing your face away with a wide smile. At the cafe, he’s happy to discover they actually serve sandwiches. Even when you insist, he refuses to get a cinnamon roll, claiming he doesn't crave sweets. Yet, right in the middle of your conversation, you notice his eyes drifting repeatedly toward your plate.
“Here, you beggar. Try it.” Taking a generous piece with your fork, you extend it toward his mouth. He leans in and takes the bite, a bit of the melted ice cream running down the corner of his mouth. “How is it?”
“Really good,” he says, emphasizing the words.
When he eyes the plate for another bite, instead of reminding him that he could just order his own, you let him share yours. The two of you spend the next minutes passing the single fork back and forth.
It’s not the kind of thing you do with regular friends. It’s certainly not something you’d do with a guy you were just friends with. Throughout the entire conversation, you find yourself staring at his pale blue eyes, your cheek resting against your palm. The pure softness of his expression, the sheer gentleness of his presence, twists something intense deep in your stomach.
That’s when it fully hits you. For the first time, you aren't afraid to admit it to yourself: you are utterly, hopelessly in love with your best friend. And the way he keeps casually brushing his fingers against yours, the way his eyes constantly linger on you as you walk down the streets of New York, makes you think the feelings might not be one-sided after all.
“Stay with me tonight.”
“What?” You squint back at him, abandoning the ice cream cone in your hand that you were just about to take a bite from. “Why? Are you still afraid of being in a hotel room alone?”
“Oh, shut up.” He rolls his eyes, immediately regretting that specific childhood memory he chose to share with you late one night. “Are you seriously still milking that?”
“Of course I am.”
“Back to what I was saying,” he mutters, his voice a little muffled between bites of his sandwich. “Stay with me. Let’s have a movie marathon.”
“I promised my aunt I’d help her bake cookies tonight. My cousin is having a bake sale tomorrow.”
“Oh, come on! I’m leaving tomorrow!”
“Yeah, and if you keep behaving yourself, I might come see you before you leave, too.”
“So funny,” he shoots you an unimpressed look. “Seriously, though. We might not see each other for months after this.”
“Very good. You’ve annoyed me enough for one day.”
“I’m blocking you the second I get back to the hotel room.”
“Why don’t you do it right now?” You playfully wiggle your eyebrows at him. “Aren’t you afraid I might beat you to it?”
It takes him a few seconds to try and come up with a clever comeback, but he can’t. After he spends a moment hesitating, opening his mouth and closing it again, you laugh and hit him playfully with your shoulder.
It’s only after a few minutes that you realize he actually seems a bit down about his rejected invitation. When you impulsively decide to spend the night anyway and casually mention it—acting as if the mere possibility doesn’t make your heart race—his face instantly lights up. Before you can even change your mind, he’s already rambling about which snacks you guys need to buy and which movies you have to rewatch.
Things, however, do not go according to plan.
Within the first twenty minutes of Harry Potter playing in the background, you both realize you’re really not in the mood to watch it for the thousandth time. The next hour is spent trying to choose something new, and by the time you give up, you’re already out of snacks, and Ilia doesn’t see the point in watching anything anymore.
“Let’s just talk,” he shrugs, plopping down onto the mattress with a loud thud. He rolls onto his side to face you, his cheek squished against his palm. “What are your plans for the summer?”
“Rot on my bed, watch Desperate Housewives, and eat ice cream.”
“You do that anyway. You don’t need summer for that.”
“Yes, but this time I’ll do it without feeling guilty,” you note pointedly. “And what about you, Lutz boy?”
Using his old nickname to tease him, you lie down next to him. Your faces are suddenly too close for comfort, the proximity making the moment feel intensely intimate. The way his pale blue eyes lock onto yours sends a wave of warmth throughout your body, a quiet, heavy feeling settling deep in your chest.
“First off, I’m gonna get my license.”
“Right. It’s about time. I’d like to have a personal driver.”
“I’d happily be one for you.”
The soft, sincere tone he uses doesn't indicate that he’s joking at all. For a few seconds, you both fall completely still, basking in the comfortable weight of each other's presence. One minute his eyes are locked onto yours, and the next, they drop subtly to your lips.
Something frantic rushes through your veins, a sudden panic settling in as you feel your palms go sweaty. Before your face can give your feelings away, you abruptly roll onto your back, staring straight up at the ceiling while your heart thumps violently in your chest.
“It’s hot in here,” you mumble, quickly sitting up to go turn the AC on.
He doesn’t answer. When you swiftly change the subject and go back to discussing summer plans, he engages in the conversation, but he's noticeably less enthusiastic this time.
It’s almost 2:00 AM by the time you come out of the bathroom, wearing his oversized T-shirt and pajama pants. You find him fast asleep on the bed, curled up right in the center while hugging a pillow. The way his body is folded makes you realize he’s probably cold, so after turning off the AC, you slip beneath the sheets right next to him, gently fixing his blanket.
You try your best to keep your distance, acting as if you’re terrified to even feel the touch of his body. But Ilia keeps turning and twisting in the sheets, eventually resting his legs right against yours. Your throat goes dry for a second, your heartbeat getting louder and louder when you feel the crown of his head press against your back.
You’re supposed to be used to his touch, but it feels entirely different this time. It feels heavier, more intimate—like it's crossing a line that can no longer be brushed aside.
“Ilia,” you speak up gently, repeating his name a little louder when he doesn’t hear you the first time. “I’m gonna fall off the bed.”
“Mhm…”
Instead of rolling over to his side of the mattress, he stretches an arm out and wraps it securely around your waist, flushing your back firmly against his chest. You could swear that your breath stops completely, the sharp exhale you finally let out piercing the quiet silence of the room.
Suddenly, everything is just too much. His arm heavy on your waist, his head buried behind your shoulder, his limbs tangled completely with yours, the air in the room turning suffocatingly tight—your heart is thumping so hard you can practically feel it in your eyes. You try to handle it, but one moment you’re laying perfectly still, and the next, you’re pushing him aside with your elbow, entirely too overstimulated to think it through.
“Get on your side, loser,” your voice snaps, sounding way more frustrated than you intended as you desperately try to maintain the playful tone you always use with him. “Hug your pillow. It’s hot in here.”
He doesn’t answer you, but you feel him shift, rolling heavily over onto his side. When you glance back a few minutes later, you find him sleeping right on the very edge of the bed, his back turned completely to yours.
A sharp pang of guilt hits you, but you don't do anything to fix it. You just lie there in the dark, eventually falling asleep while replaying the pressure of his arm around your waist over and over in your head.
June 2024
“Meh, I don’t like him.”
“What?” Isabeau looks at you as if you’ve just confessed to a major crime, her eyebrows drawing tightly together. She yanks her phone back, shoving the screen right into your face. “How can you not like him?! Look at him! He’s, like, perfect!”
“I don’t know, Isa. His eyes seem a little weird and his forehead is way too small.”
“Right. Because you like big-foreheaded guys.”
The smug tone in her voice is absolutely impossible to miss. You shoot her a dirty look, praying your mother, who is currently washing dishes just a few meters away, didn’t catch that. You really don’t feel like discussing your romantic life with your mom, especially when it involves Ilia.
Isabeau is visiting you for a few days before the two of you are scheduled to leave together for a summer skating camp. For whatever reason, Ilia isn’t able to make it this year, which automatically makes the whole trip feel a lot less exciting—even if you desperately try to pretend otherwise.
It’s late at night when she brings him up again. The two of you are lying side-by-side in the dark, whispering and giggling about anything and everything, trying to keep your voices down to be considerate of everyone else sleeping down the hall.
“So, still no confession from him?”
“Obviously I would have told you if there was.”
“I don’t know, you kind of like keeping secrets.” Even though the room is pitch black, you can feel her rolling her eyes when you nudge her with your elbow. “What?! You barely even confessed your feelings to me!”
“I just don't like talking about my feelings out loud.”
“Why?”
Her question comes out entirely innocent, making you pause. You aren't completely sure how to explain it because it barely makes sense to you, mostly because you try so hard not to dwell on it.
“I guess I’m scared,” you murmur into the dark.
“Of what?” her tone softens. “He loves you.”
“Of fucking up? Of the distance? Of things ending badly?” You let out a heavy exhale, burying the lower half of your face into your pillow. “Maybe it’s just better if we stay friends. I can’t afford a heartbreak right now, Isa.”
“But aren’t you suffering anyway by burying your feelings?”
She has a point. You don’t reply, simply letting her words sink heavily into the quiet room.
“You’re scared of a heartbreak, but you don’t even know if you’ll actually have to deal with one,” Isabeau continues gently. “It’s like worrying about a problem that doesn't even exist yet. I really think you should give it a shot.”
“Oh, wow,” you say, sounding a little impressed as the corner of your mouth lifts into a genuine smile. “You’re really mature for a seventeen-year-old.”
“Girl, you’re barely nineteen, shut up!”
Ignoring her whining, you chuckle softly, wrapping an arm around her waist as you snuggle into her side. She smells faintly of flowers, her familiar scent bringing a wave of comfort. “No, really. Thank you for the insight.”
“Should I knock some sense into him, too?”
“Yeah, please don’t.”
“I just don’t understand what he’s waiting for, ugh,” she groans, tossing her head back against the pillow. “He’s the guy! He has to make the first move!”
“That’s a bit of a sexist approach.”
“Is that so?” You can practically see the smug smirk on her face. “Go ahead and confess to him first, then.”
You go completely silent, because both of you know that there is absolutely no way you are doing that. Sensing that you don’t want to talk about it anymore, Isabeau swiftly changes the subject, launching into a detailed description of her new skincare routine instead.
It’s around 7:00 AM when the phone on your nightstand starts buzzing. You roll over, changing sides and trying to ignore it, treating the sound like a fleeting piece of a dream that will eventually disappear. But the vibration doesn’t cease. Finally, you stretch your hand out with a quiet groan, thoroughly annoyed that someone has interrupted your sleep.
You blink sleepily at the screen, your eyebrows furrowing as you read his name on the display. Glancing over at Isabeau, who is still softly snoring next to you, you quietly slip out of bed. You trot into the bathroom and close the door behind you before sliding the answer bar.
“What on earth could you possibly want at seven in the morning?” your voice comes out raspy and thick with sleep.
Unlike you, he has clearly already started his day. Judging by the look of him, he’s been up for at least a few hours. He is breathing heavily, his cheeks flushed a deep crimson as he beams at the camera, his teeth on full display.
When he doesn't immediately answer, you prompt him again. “Hello??”
“I just landed a backflip.”
“What?”
“I just landed a backflip on the ice.”
The words slowly sink into your sleepy brain, and then your eyes snap wide open. Completely forgetting about Isabeau sleeping just behind the bathroom wall, your jaw drops in utter surprise.
“Oh my god.”
“Yeah,” he says, his chest heaving. “I did it.”
“Holy shit.” A breathless chuckle escapes your throat, your smile suddenly matching his impossibly wide grin. “That’s fucking insane, Ilia. You’re unreal.”
He grins even wider, a proud smirk tugging at his lips. “Keep the compliments coming, please.”
“Please show me.”
“I don’t have a video of it yet.”
“Then do it right now.”
Your voice rises with pure excitement. He nods, immediately skating over to hand his phone to his father, throwing out quick instructions as he skates back toward the center of the rink. You are completely awake by now, the sudden rush of newfound energy draining out any exhaustion you felt just seconds ago.
Roman chuckles through the speaker when you let out a loud exclamation of awe after Ilia launches into the air and lands the backflip perfectly. The three of you spend the next few minutes laughing, you and Roman already joking about a possible front flip coming somewhere in the near future.
July 2024
“Oh, fuck off!”
“Come on, that was so easy!”
“How was I supposed to know it was in Ukraine?!” You throw up your hands in frustration. The distance between your pin and Ilia’s on the map stretches across the entirety of Europe. Playing Geotastic with him is all fun and games until he starts completely destroying you in every single round.
“There was literally a sign with the town name on it!”
You pause, squinting at him through the computer screen. He has a thoroughly smug expression on his face, raising his eyebrows in a mocking way when you don’t answer right away. You purse your lips, desperately trying to come up with a decent excuse.
“Well… I don’t know Ukrainian.”
“Neither do I. They use the Cyrillic alphabet, which you know, by the way.”
“Well, I don’t know every single town name in Ukraine, okay?!”
“Whatever you say, princess,” he mocks, the smirk never leaving his lips. “You’d think the amount of times we’ve played this would actually make you better at it.”
“It’s my own fault for skipping geography lessons in school. I take full responsibility for it,” you admit with a dramatic shrug of your shoulders. “Should we go for another round? I’m feeling generous today. I’ll let you gloat.”
“Woah, very tempting.” The corners of his mouth pull down in mock surprise. “Thanks for the offer, but I actually gotta go now.”
“Oh, wow. You’re blowing me off once again.”
“We’ve been playing for an hour!”
“Oh, so you’re already bored of me?”
“I really have to go, let’s argue about it later.”
“Bold of you to assume there will be a later.” With a sigh, you reach out toward the screen, taking in the sight of him one last time before ending the call.
He’s wearing a light green T-shirt and he looks really good—so good, in fact, that for most of the game, you were staring at him instead of the map. You love the way his face gets focused, his tongue poking out just a bit the way it always does when he’s deeply concentrated on something.
“Alright, see you later, Ilyusha. Should we finish that movie tomorrow?”
“Sure, I’ll be free around 5:00 PM.”
“I have practice at that time,” you say, shaking your head. “Maybe later tonight?”
“Nah, I can’t,” he shrugs. “I have plans.”
“What plans?”
“Woah, you’re so nosy.”
“I mean, you’ve been a pretty busy man lately,” you note with a casual shrug, trying your best not to beg for details—even though you are dying to know what kind of plans he’s been making recently. He’s probably just trying to land a quintuple jump and keeping it to himself as some kind of massive surprise, you conclude. “Okay. I’ll text you later, I guess. Bye, Ilyusha.”
“Bye, take care.”
Waving you off with a warm smile, he waits for you to cut the feed. You go on with your day, meeting up with some friends and hitting the rink for a late evening practice session. You don’t hear from him again until the next day, and when you do, he doesn’t mention the movie at all.
You don’t remind him either, simply letting it slide and trying not to give it too much thought.
August 2024
“Are you gonna come down to eat, or are you gonna rot on that bed for the whole day?!”
“I’m coming, Mom!”
“Hurry up or I’ll take your iPad away!”
“You can’t do that,” you yell back, sliding off the mattress and reaching for your phone instead of the iPad. “I’m nineteen!”
Slipping into your house slippers, you trudge lazily down the hallway, your thumb habitually scrolling through X for any new updates. You’re halfway down the stairs, completely absorbed in the screen. One second you’re looking at a teaser for the new season of Outer Banks, and the next, your thumb freezes.
The screen displays a photo. A girl with bright blonde hair has her arm wrapped securely around his neck. Their cheeks are pressed together, wide smiles putting all of their teeth on display. He’s sitting in front of a bonfire, and she is tucked comfortably on his lap.
You stop dead in your tracks on the steps.
A sudden, vicious weight gnaws at your chest, making it hard to draw a full breath. Your eyes desperately search for the context you pray isn't there, completely tuning out the background noise of your mother reminding you that your food is getting cold.
@skatingupdates: Ilia with his girlfriend via a friend’s IG story. 😍
The panic sets in, a suffocating weight pressing down on your lungs as your heart thumps violently against your ribs. You can physically feel yourself getting sick to your stomach, the world tilting precariously around you. Trembling, you lock the phone, the screen going dark as you grip the wooden railing tightly, anchoring yourself as if you might collapse onto the steps at any given moment.
A sudden, white-hot anger burns through your veins, closely followed by something much larger, much heavier—a devastating ache you have never experienced before, but one you recognize instantly. It’s the exact heartbreak you had been so terrified of.
“I swear to God, I’m not letting you in the kitchen!”
From the floor below, the sound of a chair scraping against the tile cuts through your panic. Your mom rushes out of the dining room, but she pauses the second she spots you frozen halfway down the stairs. The annoyed expression on her face immediately softens, as if she completely forgot what she was lecturing you about in the first place.
“What happened?” she asks, looking up at you.
“Nothing.” Your voice comes out raw, sounding entirely helpless.
Suddenly, holding back the tears feels harder than anything you’ve ever achieved in your entire life. Your throat burns with the effort of choking them down.
“What do you mean by nothing?” This time she uses that strict, perceptive tone mothers always resort to when they know something is wrong. “You’re on the verge of crying.”
You freeze, opening your mouth to brush her off, but a tear rolls down your cheek. You silently swallow a sob, a wave of intense embarrassment and shame seeping into your pores as your mind frantically scrambles to construct an excuse. You can’t tell her the truth. You can’t admit that you are crying over a boy who was never even yours.
“I think… my favorite character is dying,” you lie, your voice cracking as you barely manage to mumble the words out. A quiet, pathetic sob escapes your throat. “The blonde guy from Outer Banks. JJ.”
Your mom stares at you for a beat, looking at you as if you have completely lost your mind. She lets out a heavy sigh and shakes her head, her face settling into a look of mild disappointment.
“And here I thought something terrible had actually happened,” she says, rolling her eyes but letting out a soft chuckle. “Get down here and eat, you silly girl.”
The ten minutes you force yourself to sit at the table feel like an eternity. It’s exhausting to keep up an appearance and smile as if the hole in your chest isn’t deepening with every passing second. Your appetite is completely gone, yet you force yourself to eat, chewing each bite as if you’re about to throw up at any moment. Ultimately, you excuse yourself, running up the stairs before your mom can force you to sit back down and finish the food on your plate.
The moment you close the room door behind you, you collapse against it, sliding down to the floor as the tears stream down with full force. The air in the room feels tight, the energy draining from your body as you eventually crawl onto the bed. Closing your eyes, you wish you could go back in time. You wish that you hadn’t fallen for him. You wish that you hadn’t convinced yourself he had feelings for you. You wish you hadn't let yourself get carried away by the fleeting hope, rewriting his every text, every look, and every soft tone into proof that he loved you back.
Between your quiet sobs, a notification noise pierces through the room. Tilting your head up, you hesitate, but eventually reach out to take the phone from the nightstand and unlock it. It’s an Instagram DM from him.
Ilia: Hii
Ilia: What are u Up to?
Anger flares within you. The sheer audacity of the message leaves you breathless. How could he act as if nothing has happened? Surely he always lurks online, and surely he must have known that whatever his friend chose to post would be seen by others. Did he really hide this from you? All those extra hours you thought he was spending at the rink to land quintuple jumps—was he actually going out on dates with her? Why wouldn't he mention it? Why would he make you believe there was something going on between you two, only to reduce you to a disposable friend who didn’t even deserve the right to know he had a girlfriend?
The rest of the day is spent between crying and cursing his name, and then cursing yourself for crying over him like this when he doesn’t deserve it. Ultimately, you decide to reply. You want to show him that it doesn’t bother you, that he means nothing more to you than any of your other friends do.
You: I binge watched Severance
His reply comes sooner than you expect. It only takes him two minutes to text back.
Ilia: Is it any good?
You: yeah but I don’t think it’s your cup of tea
Ilia: You said the same thing about succession
You: dude you only watched half a season
Ilia: Because I was busy and then I forgot
you: right right you’re so busy lately
The implications behind your words seem completely lost on him. Unable to wait any longer, you go onto X and screenshot the post you saw a few hours ago—the one that made your entire world crumble. You send it to him, quickly typing out a message before he even has a chance to react.
You: now when where you going to tell me your loser ass finally pulled a girl?
He leaves you on 'seen' for a few minutes. He must be scrambling for an excuse.
Ilia: Ah shit I didn’t know he posted it
Ilia: I was going to tell you when things would get official
You: it seems pretty official to me
Ilia: HaHa yeah I guess it is
You: ayeee congrats loser
You: 🥳🥳🤪🤪
You: but honestly
You: fuck you
You: genuinely confused why would you hide it from me??
You: you literally update me on every single trivial detail and you chose to exclude me when it actually mattered???
Ilia: Yeaah fair enough
Ilia: I guess I just wanted to make sure things were really serious before I started yapping about her..
You: horrible excuse
Ilia: Aww are you mad?
You: that you finally pulled someone before me?
You: a little
Ilia: Will you forgive me if I apologize?
Ilia: 🥺
You: only if you tell me everything about it
You type out the words through blurry vision, and then you proceed to ask him about her. You spend the next twenty minutes listening to him swoon over his new girlfriend, because you are just friends, and that’s what friends are supposed to do. That’s what you would happily do if you hadn’t fucked everything up by catching feelings for him.
He has been going out with her for almost two months, you learn. Their friends introduced them to each other, and they go to the same university. You try so hard not to, but ultimately you stalk her social media with teary eyes, scrolling through her pictures as insecurities eat you from the inside out. She’s an artist, drawing beautiful portraits when you can barely even pick up a pencil. She plays piano and sings, she bakes and cooks, she speaks four languages, and she has cats—just like him. She’s nothing like you.
It’s late at night when Isabeau calls you. It’s obvious that, at first, she’s just testing the waters to see whether you have seen the post yet. But when you beat her to it and tell her that you know, she just listens. She lets you cry and ramble over the phone for hours, never once trying to turn it into a joke, even if just to soothe your pain.
September 2024
With summer finally over and your first competition starting in just a week, you are busy enough to successfully block him out of your mind for a while. His own competitive season had already kicked off with the Lombardia Trophy—the Challenger Series event you were originally supposed to compete in. Ultimately, you had decided to switch to the Nebelhorn Trophy instead, sharing the ice with Isabeau. Maybe it was an attempt to avoid running into him, or maybe it really was just a necessary schedule change on Dasha’s advice.
“I think you should take a day off,” Dasha tells you one afternoon after a grueling practice session. She eyes you up critically as you sit slumped on the ice barriers, heavily wiping the sweat from your forehead with a damp towel. “Don’t come to the rink tomorrow.”
Your brows knit together in immediate protest. “Why?”
“Because you’ve been pushing yourself way past your limits lately, and I don’t want you burning out before the season even starts.”
“I’m fine, Dasha. Seriously.”
“This isn’t up for debate.” Her voice cuts through your arguments, turning strict. Her sharp eyes narrow slightly as she raises her eyebrows. “I’m your coach. You do what I tell you.”
“But—”
“Hush,” she snaps gently, snatching the towel right out of your hand as she motions toward the exit gate.
You don’t argue further, stepping off the ice and letting the sheer weight of your physical exhaustion crash over you the moment you begin unlacing your skating boots.
The nap you take immediately after a hot shower hits you hard. When you finally blink yourself awake, you find a string of unread messages from Ilia waiting on your screen. The two of you haven’t spoken since Wednesday afternoon, when you had half-heartedly agreed to play Geotastic with him after he spent days begging you to. It is Friday evening now.
Even though you try so hard to maintain a safe, guarded distance, it feels like he refuse to let you go. Does he honestly expect things to just stay the same? It feels deeply unfair. Unfair to you. Unfair to her.
The two of you were originally supposed to meet up back in August. Back when you foolishly thought he might actually confess his feelings this time. Back when you were naive enough to let yourself hope. But ever since he got a girlfriend, he hasn't once acknowledged the summer plans you had made together, and you certainly haven't dared to remind him. It wasn't like you actually wanted to see him anymore, anyway. God knows you would give up just about anything if it meant never having to face him and his new reality.
Ilia: Hiiiiii
Ilia: Are you busy??
Ilia: Thought we could do something together
Ilia: We haven’t talked in a while
The texts had been sent almost three hours ago. By the time you finally type out a reply, casually asking what kind of plans he has in mind, he is already offline. And by the time your phone finally buzzed with his late response, you are already tucked into bed, far too exhausted to engage in a draining conversation with him.
Without even opening the DM, you lock your phone and set it face-down on the nightstand, quietly telling yourself that you’ll reply tomorrow.
2024 Skate America
You see him for the first time after months in October. You’re dragging your suitcase up the hotel stairs when you hear a rapid flow of words, and before you can even whip your head around to see if you recognized the voice correctly, someone attacks you with a hug. You almost stumble, balancing yourself against the railing.
“Oh my god,” he says, instantly switching to English. When you pull away, he’s smiling at you with a wide grin, his eyes almost sparkling as he takes in the sight of you. His hair is longer now. He’s wearing a black hoodie and sweatpants, and the faint scent of his perfume brushes against your nose just enough to make something flutter in your stomach. “I’ve missed you!”
Despite the anger, despite every emotion he put you through over the summer, it’s impossible not to mimic his smile. He pulls you into a quick hug again and you can’t help but giggle, wrapping your arm around his back as your fingers grip the fabric of his hoodie.
“So did I, Ilia.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you arrived?”
“Uh… surprise?” You smile sheepishly. He immediately takes your suitcase, insisting on carrying it. The walk to your room is short, and he keeps talking, telling you all about his plans for the day before he has to compete tomorrow.
“Cool sweatshirt.”
You look down at the Ferrari print and raise an eyebrow, already anticipating where this is going when he looks at you with innocent eyes. Unlike him, you don’t find it difficult to read his actions—not when he’s always so painfully blunt about them.
“Yeah, don’t expect me to show that kind of generosity.”
“I didn’t say anything!”
“Giving me those puppy eyes isn’t gonna work.” Sighing, you start unzipping your suitcase. Instead of giving you time to unpack and rest, he flops down on the chair in front of the bed, bouncing his knee. He keeps staring at you as if he’s waiting for you to start a conversation. “Do you want something? I mean, besides my sweatshirt, which I’m not giving up.”
“Not everyone has ulterior motives like you,” he sighs, shaking his head in fake disappointment. “Maybe I just missed spending time with my best friend.”
“Let me unpack and maybe I’ll hang out with you later.”
“I can help.”
“Yeah, no.” You swat his hand away when he starts digging into your suitcase, glaring at him. He purses his lips, retreating back with an annoyed expression. “Ever heard of privacy?”
“Knowing you, you’ll take hours to unpack and then you’ll be too tired to do anything!”
“You’re already annoying me.”
“You’re always annoyed with me. You barely reply to me anymore.”
His tone suggests that he’s not joking. Your eyes meet, and the look he gives you twists something in your chest. Despite everything, despite the voice screaming in your head, a softness washes over you. Pressing your lips together, you pause for a few seconds, unsure how to respond. It’s as if he’s waiting for your reply. Finally, your voice comes out softer.
“That’s not true.” You shake your head firmly. “I’ve just been really busy with the season coming up.”
“But you always made time for me.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes I can’t,” you almost snap, your voice rising slightly. But then you exhale, debating whether you want him to know or not, whether he deserves to know. “I was working on my quads.”
“And?” The excitement rushes into his voice, and when a subtle smirk tugs at your lips, a smile breaks across his face, his eyes widening in realization. “Oh my god!”
“It’s just a Salchow.”
“For now.” He gets up from the chair to nudge you, subtly pulling you into a hug. You’ve always craved his touch, but this time it makes you uncomfortable because you know it doesn’t belong to you—it’s reserved for someone else. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks, Ilyusha.”
“So you were landing quads the whole time, huh?” The relief is evident in his voice, his smile soft. “And I thought you hated me.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, though? I would have given you tips.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you had a girlfriend?” you can’t help but retort, trying hard not to let the resentment slip into your voice. On the rare occasions he has mentioned her, he never suggested introducing her to you, and you never asked either. The way he pauses and glances at you makes the air in the room feel suddenly tight. You quickly crack a joke, not wanting to touch a topic there is no getting back from. If you don’t hold back now, you might not be able to hold back at all. “I would have provided your loser ass with some quality advice.”
A chuckle escapes his throat and he rolls his eyes, not even slightly mad at you. After making you promise to meet him in the hotel restaurant in an hour, he finally leaves, warning you that he’s going to come back and get you if you try to ditch him. You wave him off, locking the door with a smile on your face. You’re supposed to hate him, but he’s making it impossible, and that fact drives you insane.
After you finish unpacking, you take a quick shower and walk down to the hotel restaurant, keeping your promise.
2024–25 Grand Prix Final
You see him again two months later. It is early December in Grenoble, France, and he has just turned twenty. The birthday present you bought for him is neatly tucked somewhere deep in your suitcase, wrapped in plain paper.
Back in the summer, he had talked endlessly about coming to France a few days early to celebrate his twentieth with you and a few of his friends. But ever since he got a girlfriend, he hadn't brought it up again. Instead, he celebrated at home in Virginia with his family, sending you a picture of a cake his girlfriend had baked for him. You had jokingly texted back about him saving a piece for you, but he didn't even mention the possibility of you visiting.
Between the demanding season and your university classes, both of your schedules have become impossibly tight. The phone calls and video chats are rare now—maybe once every two weeks, usually whenever he feels like boosting his ego by beating you at Geotastic or trying to show you a new movie or anime you have absolutely no interest in. Back home, the notebook you once used for learning Russian lies untouched on your shelf, a thin layer of dust collecting over the cover because you haven't had the heart to open it in months. He still jokes about your slow progress with the language, yet he never actually offers to help you practice anymore.
“Aw, thanks,” he smiles warmly after ripping open the paper, squeezing your shoulder in gratitude. “I really like it.”
“Yeah, it’s a little ugly,” you shrug, masking your feelings with casual indifference. “I knew it was your style.”
He ignores the jab, actively searching the bottom of the empty gift box as his eyebrows draw together in confusion. “Where’s the birthday card?”
“There isn’t one.”
“But there’s always a card.” His brow ridges upward, his tone suddenly heavy with genuine disappointment. “I was looking forward to reading it.”
“You’ll be fine, Ilyusha.” You shrug again, offering him a flat, sheepish smile.
He asks you to go check out a nearby pastry shop with him, but you politely decline, lying that you’ve already made plans to head out with Isabeau and Amber. The following days pass in a blur of morning practices and high-stakes competition, and he doesn't spend any further effort trying to carve out time for you. He handles the pressure flawlessly, winning the men's title, while you end up sharing the ladies' podium with Isabeau and Amber—the latter deservedly taking the gold from you after a stunning free skate.
The day after the event, the three of you wind up walking through a shopping mall.
“This dress is so cute,” Amber says, holding up a shimmering, metallic gold dress on a hanger. Her eyebrows wiggle suggestively as she holds it against your frame. “You should totally try it on.”
“I don’t know,” Isabeau murmurs, squinting at the fabric and touching it gently. “I feel like it’s one of those pieces that looks way better on the hanger than on an actual human body.”
“It’s way too short for me,” you reply, turning your back on the rack as you continue down the aisle. “And it’s… a little slutty.”
“You’re young! Get your ass out while you still can,” Amber laughs, shoving your shoulder playfully.
You roll your eyes at her remark, continuing to scan the racks for something appropriate for an upcoming post-event banquet you've been invited to. As much as you want to skip the gala entirely and fly straight home, your primary sponsorship obliges you to attend. Even Dasha is coming along to keep an eye on things.
“Just borrow one of Dasha’s dresses then, since there isn't a single thing in this mall you actually like!” Amber huffs.
“Because none of these are appropriate for a formal event!”
“You say that about literally every single dress I show you!”
“Hey, guys.”
All three of your heads snap toward the familiar voice. Ilia is standing at the end of the aisle, smiling at the group as if the four of you hadn't just had breakfast together a few hours prior. He’s wearing a pair of mismatched jeans and a slouchy sweater, holding a few shopping bags of his own.
“What are you guys shopping for?”
“Dresses,” Isabeau replies. Her tone is noticeably harsher than the polite voice she usually uses around people. Sometimes it feels like she is angry at him on your behalf, even more than you let yourself be. “We’re currently debating whether this gold dress is too slutty for a formal banquet or not.”
Ilia blinks, his eyes drifting down to the gold fabric before shifting to look at you for a long second, as if he's mentally imagining you in it. “I don’t think it is. It’s pretty.”
“With all due respect, I am absolutely not taking fashion advice from you,” you retort, eyeing his oversized sweater with a look of pure judgment.
You completely ignore the small, disappointed drop of his face as you deliberately turn your back on him to face the racks again. “What are you even doing here, anyway?”
“Actually, I’m trying to choose a present.”
“For who?” Amber asks, idly browsing through a row of skirts.
He hesitates for a fraction of a second, his posture shifting as if he's suddenly too shy to admit it out loud. “My girlfriend.”
Something violent and sickening churns deep in your stomach. Without a word, you snatch the gold dress right out of Amber’s hand, grabbing it alongside two other random ones Isabeau has been carrying for you.
“I'm going to change,” you mutter, marching toward the fitting rooms.
You duck into the furthest stall, lock the door, and lean heavily against the mirror. You try your absolute best to beat the tears back, swallowing hard against the lump in your throat, but you ultimately fail. As the tears begin to stream quietly down your face, ruining your makeup, you look up and see nothing but your own crushing insecurities staring back at you from the reflection. You can’t help but compare your face, your body, and your life to hers—that familiar, ugly feeling of inadequacy gnawing at you from the inside out.
You spend fifteen minutes in the stall breathing through the panic, wiping your face with a rough paper towel until your skin is pink. When you finally step out of the dressing room, you are incredibly lucky to find that he is already gone.
You settle on a simple, structured black dress—the safest, most invisible option available. If Amber notices your tightly clumped, damp eyelashes when you hand her the rejected gold hanger, she doesn't say a single word. Isabeau simply steps up beside you, tightening her arm firmly around your waist in silent, protective support, squeezing you close as the three of you leave the store to continue walking through the mall.
January 2025
The new year starts with complications.
A few days before you are scheduled to fly out for the U.S. National Championships in Wichita, Kansas, you start coughing. It’s a deep, rattling sound that leaves a burning ache in your chest, but you stubbornly ignore it. You tell yourself it’s just the cold rink air, that it will go away on its own if you just don’t pay attention to it. When Dasha insists you see a doctor, you refuse.
You keep pushing until your body makes the choice for you. Mid-program during a morning run-through, the rink abruptly tilts. The air refuses to enter your lungs, your vision goes entirely black, and you collapse onto the ice.
When you wake up, the blinding white lights of a hospital room are staring back at you, and your terrified parents are hovering over your bedside. The doctor’s diagnosis is sharp and unyielding: severe acute pneumonia. The following morning, US Figure Skating officially announces your withdrawal from the championships.
Because your oxygen levels are sluggish, the doctor decides to keep you admitted for a few days of continuous monitoring and IV antibiotics. The boredom settles in like a heavy fog. Even when your mom generously brings your iPad from home per your request, you can barely bring yourself to care about the screen.
It’s late evening when your phone begins to buzz on the bedside table. It’s Ilia.
You decline the call immediately. You barely have the physical energy to breathe, let alone the mental stamina to defend yourself against the lecture you already anticipate. But he doesn't stop. The phone rings again. And again. On the fourth consecutive try, your nerves give out, and you swipe to answer.
“Hi.”
“Why aren’t you answering me?” The demand in his voice is sharp with frustration. “I just saw the news on Instagram. Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were sick?”
“Which question do you want me to answer first?” you murmur, your voice reedy and thin.
“No, seriously.” It’s abundantly clear he is in no mood for whatever jokes you might try to pull. “You have pneumonia, you’re withdrawing from Nationals, and I have to find out from an Instagram press release instead of you? And now apparently you’re hospitalized?!”
“Will you stop yelling?”
“I’m not yelling!” he exclaims, though his voice is distinctly louder than his usual easygoing tone. “I’m just confused why you wouldn’t tell me about something this huge!”
“I was tired and I forgot, okay?” you snap.
The harshness of your tone instantly backfires, triggering a violent coughing fit that tears through your chest, physically proving your point for you. You pull the phone away, gasping for shallow pockets of air until the spasm finally passes. “Just wish me a get well soon and be done with it, okay?!”
The line goes dead silent. For a second, you contemplate just hanging up on him, but before your finger can reach the screen, he speaks again. His voice has completely dropped, coming out much softer.
“I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not upset,” you lie, adjusting your position on your side, pressing the phone tightly against your ear.
“How are you feeling?”
“Not so great.” You stare at the IV line taped to the back of your hand. “But it’s fine. It’s just pneumonia. I’ve had it like three times in my life already.”
“But you’re literally in a hospital bed.”
“Yeah, well, that's just my mom being overbearing.”
“How long are they keeping you there?”
“Probably two more nights.” You let out a heavy sigh, already craving the familiar dent of your own mattress instead of this rigid hospital bed that feels harsh underneath your body. “It sucks that I can’t compete. But it is what it is.”
“Yeah. I was really looking forward to seeing you there,” Ilia says quietly. “But your health is the top priority.”
You don't tell him that you feel a crushing grief for the exact same reason. You don’t tell him that you had been counting down the days to Nationals just to see him, because it would be a lie. Instead, you let the silence hang.
The conversation barely lasts five minutes. The heavy weight of his real life quickly pulls him away, and he mentions needing to go pick up Liza from a friend’s house.
“Take care of yourself.”
“You too.”
The silence stretches out over the line, thick and suffocating, as if both of you want to say something else but have completely forgotten how to speak to each other. Ultimately, you press the red button and end the call.
You place the phone back on the nightstand and pick up your iPad, desperately searching for a distraction before sleep can claim you.
These days, your conversations with him rarely cross the twenty-minute mark. Days turn into an entire week without a single word, until he randomly decides to send you a stupid Instagram reel, or you feel the obligation that it’s your turn to text and ask how he’s doing.
What hurts the most is that whenever you do text him, it feels like nothing has changed at all. It’s still the exact same Ilia. He still laughs at your jokes, still gets defensively whiny against your mocking comments, and still fills your lock screen with trivial, mundane details about his day that you never even asked for.
It is agonizing to watch him slip away further with each passing week, but it’s not like you are putting any real effort into stopping it either. You don’t want to. More than that, you can't.
You can no longer bear the torture of pretending to just be his friend when your heart violently picks up at the mere mention of his name. You can't handle the pathetic way your eyes prick with tears every single time he takes hours to reply to a message, your mind immediately painting vivid, agonizing pictures of him laughing with her.
You have become completely pathetic, and the realization makes you angrier than the illness ever could.
2025 World Championships
“Did something happen between you and Ilia?”
“What?”
You snap your head away from the mirror, the mascara wand in your hand almost falling as you draw your brows together. Amber shrugs in response, continuing to fix her hair, while Isabeau stays silent, observing the situation.
“Why would you ask that?”
“I don’t know, you used to be closer.” There isn’t an accusation in her tone, just sincere interest—maybe even worry. “It’s like there’s a distance between you two.”
You don’t reply straight away, fixing your eyes back on your reflection in the mirror. You open your eyes wide as you apply the mascara, pretending her observation doesn’t concern you.
“Yeah, I guess we kinda fell off,” you shrug, a nonchalant voice escaping easily from your throat. “We’re busy and growing up, so yeah... it just happens.”
She doesn’t press any further, and being the good friend Isabeau is, she swiftly changes the subject, slightly panicking over her curls, claiming she just can’t get them right. Currently, you’re all in Amber's room, with clothes and makeup products scattered all over the floor and table as you get ready for the ISU banquet.
Two days ago, you ticked off one of the goals on your mental list, claiming the World Champion title with a personal best, skating to Belle from Notre-Dame de Paris. You had left the ice with eyes sparkling. Dasha hugged you with a smirk on her face as you spotted your friends in the stands, cheering for you and holding out signs with your name.
Winning was special because you achieved one of your lifelong dreams in the city you grew up in, surrounded by your family and friends. Everyone was there to witness it. Isabeau and Amber kissed your cheeks, your mom hugged you with teary eyes—everyone was there except for him. For whatever reason, he had decided to stay in the hotel the evening before his free skate. The thought of him not being there for you hurt, but you quickly brushed it off, focusing on the moment ahead of you.
You only saw him later in the hotel lobby. It almost felt like he was waiting for you, pulling you into a tight hug before he pinched your cheeks.
“Aye, Miss World Champion,” he muttered, the corner of his lips lifting. He extended his hand to ruffle your hair, but you slapped it away.
Instead, he reached for the medal hanging from your neck, caressing the lanyard. The way his fingertips brushed against your exposed skin made shivers run down your spine. “Congrats. I knew you could do it.”
“Thanks, Ilyusha.”
“Now I can’t brag about my superiority, can I?”
“You absolutely can’t.”
Both of you laughed, hesitating afterward as if you didn’t know whether to stop the conversation or keep it going. Exhaustion crept into your body, and you took a few steps toward the elevator, suddenly feeling like even your gear bag was too heavy in your grasp.
“I’ll go rest now,” you muttered, offering him an awkward smile. “I’m really tired.”
“Sure.”
He smiled, backing off a little. Then he stopped, as if he realized he had forgotten something, and touched your shoulder the moment you turned your back on him.
“I wanted to be there.” His voice was low, almost apologetic, as the expression on his face went soft. “But... you know, things didn’t work out.”
“Oh, it’s fine, Ilia,” you lied through your teeth. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I watched you, though. Your quad lutz is almost as perfect as mine.”
“You shouldn’t be bragging the night before you compete.” With a teasing smile, you backed away, ready to call it a night. “Goodnight, Ilia.”
“Goodnight. Sleep tight.”
With a soft smile and a little wave, he backed off, waiting by the elevator until you got in before he started climbing up the stairs. The moment the doors closed, you exhaled, recalling his attempt at an apology. Heat rushed to your skin as you remembered how his fingers had brushed just right against your chest, unable to ignore the sudden fluttering in your stomach.
May 2025
You last see him on the Stars on Ice tour. Mostly, you hang out with Isabeau and Amber, and he sticks with the guys, rarely engaging in a private conversation with you. It has become natural over the months. With his calls nonexistent and only a few conversations a month, he has been reduced to being just your teammate. The thought doesn’t hit as hard as it did a few months ago. Maybe you matured; maybe you really outgrew him.
You have stuff going on yourself. Having turned 20, you decided to move into your own place—a one-bedroom apartment closer to the rink and university. It's in a calm neighborhood with lots of flower shops and pastry cafes nearby, perfect for a morning stroll or an evening walk.
The first night at your new home, you scroll on your iPad, coming across a snippet of his interview. With freshly dyed hair and his usual impossible smile, he looks good, a familiar softness washing over you. Suddenly, you have an urge to call him, to fill him in about the new chapter in your life that you're so excited to start. Your fingers hover over the call button, but ultimately you decide against it, typing out a quick message instead.
You: hey
You: how are you?
You stare at the screen, the last message from him having been sent almost two weeks ago. He takes his usual time to answer, the notification piercing through the room almost three hours later.
Ilia: Good
Ilia: I’m on a vacation 😁
Ilia: What are you up to?
Even though you feel like replying instantly gives away your desperateness, you still do, your mind racing with possibilities about his vacation that you don’t dare to ask about.
You: nothing really, just chilling at home
You: that’s great! where are u?
Ilia: Currently in Cuba
You: oof I love Cuba
You: tell me you tried Cuban sandwich
Ilia: I did
Ilia: it’s Overrated
Ilia: 👎
You: dude-
You: no comment
Ilia: 🙄
Ilia: I didn’t enjoy it
Ilia: But I really enjoy it here
Ilia: It’s beautiful
You: yeah, cuba’s great
You: have fun 😝
Ilia: You too
Ilia: Knowing you another series is waiting for you on the ipad 😂
You: haha yes
He doesn’t open the last message, clearly too busy to engage in a conversation with you, or just not having the desire to. The excitement dies within you, and with frustration, you throw the phone further onto the bed. Slipping your shoes on, you convince yourself that a late evening walk will take things off your mind a little.
When you check Instagram at night, he has left you on read. And even though he keeps posting about his vacation, never once does he text you to tell you about his time spent there. The days swiftly go by, and suddenly it turns to June, and you realize you haven’t heard from him in a month.
August 2025
@ilia_quadg0d_malinin: Woah 🔥🫨
You stare at his comment under your latest post with a mildly annoyed expression. It’s from a photoshoot you did with Teen Vogue, featuring clothes and hairstyles drastically different from your usual style. You hit the heart button to like the comment, not bothering to actually reply. You can’t even recall the last time you had a real conversation with him. Maybe it was back in June, or July. You’ve completely lost track. Nowadays, you're only reminded of his existence when he sends you random reels on Instagram—the kind you always just scroll past, but that he somehow seems to enjoy.
“Should I put it here?”
You look up from your phone to find Garrett gesturing toward the corner of the room. Not a single muscle on his face is strained; he looks completely unbothered while holding up one end of the couch, waiting for your instructions. When you asked him to help you move some furniture around the flat, he had happily agreed, taking his shirt off as if it were just an obstacle he needed to get out of the way.
You met him two months ago in a cafe down your street. He struck up a conversation with you, not because he recognized you as a world champion figure skater, but simply because you two lived in the same building. You soon found out he was a hockey player—the captain of his university team—and when he jokingly suggested going skating together, you actually agreed, later showing him the jumps and spins he asked to see with widened eyes.
Gradually, you became closer, and when he finally invited you up to his apartment one late evening, you went, fully aware of the unspoken invitation. Spending time with Garrett is effortless. Things are uncomplicated, light, and entirely casual—exactly what you need. He helps just enough to take things off your mind, but he doesn’t complicate your life the way a normal relationship would. The summer has been great.
“Your phone is blowing up,” Garrett notes.
“It’s probably Isabeau.”
“When am I finally gonna meet this best friend of yours?”
“Soon,” you tease.
He sighs in fake annoyance, and you nudge his shoulder, playfully tugging at his dark curls. He is nothing like Ilia; the two of them are drastically different in both looks and personality, but you genuinely enjoy his company. Eventually, you pull your eyes away from the TV show you two are watching and pick up your phone to reply to your best friend.
Isabeau has sent a voice note alongside a cropped screenshot from X. You don’t even need to press play to understand the context. The post is from one of Ilia's fan pages, updating everyone that he and his girlfriend have unfollowed each other, speculating a breakup.
You wait for the familiar ache in your chest, the sudden spike of adrenaline or hope—but nothing comes. You feel entirely detached, just surprised by the fact that it doesn't mean anything to you anymore, unlike how you would have reacted months ago. Without a second thought, you lock the screen and toss the phone onto the coffee table. Instead of dwelling on it, you snuggle closer into Garrett, who happily wraps his arm around you, tucking your head securely beneath his chin.
2025–26 Grand Prix Final
Being assigned to different Grand Prix events, your paths don't cross with his for months, finally seeing him after more than half a year in Nagoya.
He greets you warmly, his face lighting up when he catches sight of you at the practice rink, but he doesn’t greet you any differently than he greets anyone else. The soft spot that seemed to be reserved exclusively for you for years has completely vanished. His hair has a warm tone of honey blond now, almost glowing like gold under the lights. You try hard to fight it, but the feeling that resurfaces in your chest—a tight, suffocating knot that threatens to burst—is impossible to ignore.
“How’s your hockey boy?” Amber chuckles, wiggling her eyebrows as you both start warming up for practice. “Should I be anticipating meeting him at Nationals?”
“I’m not seeing him anymore.”
“Why?”
She stops in her tracks, looking at you with genuine confusion. You shrug, tightening your ponytail as you skate around her.
“He wasn’t content with being casual,” you say, your voice completely stripped of emotion.
“Oh. I thought you liked him.”
“I did, but I’m not looking for a relationship right now,” you reply, shaking your head. Your eyes subtly dart over to Ilia, who is quietly watching the practice from the boards, giving tips to Mone that she didn’t really ask for. “I have to focus on the Olympics.”
“Right.” Amber nods in agreement and starts gliding backward, preparing to launch herself into the air for a Lutz.
When Garrett had started hinting about taking your casual relationship to the next step, you had subtly brushed him off until you couldn't ignore it anymore. Eventually, you sat him down and explained that you weren’t looking for a commitment, that your mind was fully focused on the Olympics ahead of you. He understood, but he didn’t want to continue whatever it was you two were doing if it wasn't going anywhere, so you called it quits.
You never mentioned the existence of another person. You never mentioned him. You could barely even admit to yourself on those late nights when you couldn't sleep that you still had feelings for Ilia. Despite the lack of real contact for months—aside from stupid Instagram reels and the obligatory "good luck" and "congratulations" texts before and after competitions—you couldn't help but still crave more of him. It was a vicious cycle. You would wake up feeling entirely indifferent to his name, only to go to sleep with your eyes shut tight, imagining that the fingers slipping underneath your shorts belonged to him.
Months of exhaustion eventually led to a simple truth: there was no clean exit.
Later that weekend, you watch his historic free skate with Isabeau at your side from your hotel room, your throat going dry as you watch him land a seventh quadruple jump flawlessly.
“Holy shit,” Isabeau mutters beside you, her hands flying to her mouth. “He’s insane.”
“Yep. He is.”
You have mastered the art of masking your feelings. Not even your best friend is aware that you are still in love with him, fully convinced that whatever teenage infatuation you used to have has dwindled over the years. You don’t wait up for him to return to the hotel to congratulate him in person. Instead, you simply reshare the official post the ISU made onto your Instagram story, settle comfortably into your bed, and close your eyes—promising yourself that you will see him tomorrow.
January 2026
Shortly after you win Nationals, securing your place as a two-time national champion alongside him—as he effortlessly snatches his fourth consecutive title—the official Olympic team list is finally released to the public. You had known it was coming, of course. Dasha had spent the last three weeks relentlessly mocking you for even harboring a shred of doubt, but when the official announcement is put out, everything suddenly becomes real. The tears prick your eyes.
“I’m so emotional,” Isabeau gasps, her voice cracking through the phone speaker. Her tear-streaked face blurs slightly on the FaceTime screen as you blink rapidly, desperately trying to fight back the flood forming in your own eyes. “We’re Olympians. We actually did it.”
“Yeah.” Your voice is barely a whisper, thick with swallowed tears.
“We’re gonna have the absolute best time in the village.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you just gonna agree to everything I say, or are you actually gonna contribute to this conversation?” One of her perfectly shaped brows shoots up, a dramatic spike of annoyance in her tone that finally breaks your trance. You let out a chuckle. “You’re being so nonchalant, it’s criminal!”
“I love you too, Isababy.”
Blowing her a kiss, she presses her lips to the screen in response, waving you off frantically before hanging up to call the rest of her friends. You set the phone facedown on your mattress, collapsing backward to stare up at the ceiling. A slow, radiant smile spreads across your face, warming you from the inside out. All the early mornings, the bruised hips, the suffocating pressure—it was all worth it. You made the team.
Then, a notification chimes through the room. Your heart takes a familiar little leap before you even look at the lock screen. You grab the phone, your expression blank as you read his name.
Ilia: Congrats 🥳
Ilia: We both made it
Ilia: Can’t wait to experience the olympics with you 😍
You wanted to hate him for it. God, you wanted to hate him so badly for how easily he seemed to navigate the space between you, for how effortlessly he had drifted away. But staring at the screen, you knew you couldn't. Despite the space that had stretched out between you, no matter how brief or casual the messages were, you couldn’t help but look forward to hearing from him. No matter how much you tried to harden your heart, a part of you still wanted him back.
You take a second, your fingers hovering over the keyboard as you think of a quick reply, matching his lighthearted energy.
You: congrats to you too Ilia
You: ❤️
You: yeah, can’t wait either 😝
His response comes almost instantly, the typing bubbles barely appearing before the text pops up.
Ilia: We’re gonna have So Much fun together
Ilia: 😎😎
You: yep, absolutely!!
You lock the screen and press the phone against your chest, letting out a quiet breath. In barely a month, you are going to spend almost three weeks with him. The thought sends a wave of mixed feelings through you, your stomach churning with a volatile mix of intense excitement and an unpleasant, anxious dread.
It is definitely going to be a very interesting three weeks.
