Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

⛸️

The Zamboni is just finishing up its sweep. 

Taki watched as it slowly trundled its way around the rink, leaving an invitingly smooth, shiny surface of ice in its wake – unmarred by nicks and grooves from previous skates. He waits now for the big, slow vehicle to lumber its way back through the door in the far wall before making his move. The last time he stepped on the ice before the overhead buzzer sounded, he got snapped at by one of the rink’s staff members. 

The driver steers the Zamboni through the opening in the wall. An employee swings the door closed behind the machine and latches it. 

Wait… wait…

The employee walks off the ice. The two large digital clocks sitting high up on the walls on either end of the rink tick into the new hour, marking the official start of the public skate session. A single note, long and high pitched, echoes across the empty arena. His cue. 

He hops out onto the frozen ocean of white, his skates’ blades gliding like butter over the fresh surface. He’s the first one out here. He always is. Yudai’s constantly warning him against rushing straight out, claiming he’s going to pull something one of these days because he refuses to warm up long enough beforehand. But these are public skate hours. The rink is open to everyone during this time, meaning Taki’s only chance to enjoy pristine ice is right at the start before the bulk of people arrive. He can’t afford to waste precious time doing high knees or trunk twists.

He instantly adjusts to the familiar feeling of being on the ice. It's always like stepping into a different body – one that weighs nothing at all. He closes his eyes, breathes in the frosty air hanging over the rink, welcoming the cold as it fills his lungs and bites into his cheeks.

“Hey, Taki!” 

Taki twists around to skate backwards. Yudai is still outside of the rink with Jo, over by the long set of metal bleachers. He’s got one arm pulled behind his head in a tricep stretch, hip cocked to one side, his personal pair of pristine white skates on the floor next to him. Jo sits beside him, his skates already on, midnight in color just like Taki’s. He’s hunched over on the last bleacher step lacing them up, the crown of his raven head quivering as he pulls the strings tight. 

Yudai smiles at Taki and switches arms. “Show us your backspin!” 

Taki grins and pivots back around. Backspins were a tricky move for him for a long time, but lately, something’s been clicking. It's like his body finally figured out what it needed to do to get it to work for him. And with some practice, and pointers from Yudai, Taki would even say he's started to do them pretty well. His consistency isn’t 100%, of course, but it's still exciting to finally be jumping a hurdle that was frustrating him for months on end. He sets up for it, smiling to himself at the thought of getting to show off a little.

Before he can, Jo suddenly calls out to him. His normally soft voice is raised the rare few decibels to get his attention, but what makes Taki’s ears quirk is the note of warning he detects in it. “Taki!”

Taki tilts his head in confusion, spreading his legs to slow his body to a stop.

That’s when he hears the skates. 

The telltale sound of blades slicing across ice is not unusual here. It’s an ice skating rink. But there are certain flavors of blades-on-ice-sound that should warrant at least a gram of your conscious attention. Like right now, several loud, frantic footfalls landing in rapid succession usually indicate that someone is losing their balance, and all parties in the immediate vicinity should probably clear the area, because chances are they’re going down, and they might be taking you with them. 

Taki turns his head to peek behind him, where the sound is coming from, when another much louder, much closer voice he doesn’t recognize issues its own warning. 

“INCOMING!” 

It’s kind of useless, as far as warnings go, considering the impact happens exactly one second later. 

Something solid and heavy slams into the back of his legs at a high-speed pace. The room lurches sharply, both of his feet completely leaving the ground as whatever it is bulldozes right underneath his body, sliding out in front of him in a blur he barely sees. He gets glimpses of shifting ceiling lights overhead, bright white and nestled high in the rafters; registers his own pair of skates flopping cartoonishly high up in front of him as he pitches back, stray flakes of shaved ice flying from the glinting blades; and then his back hits the ground, hard, a startled “Oof!” punching its way out of his lungs. 

Surprisingly, no pain immediately follows. And by some great stroke of luck, he managed not to clock his head against the ice. The several silent moments Taki spends just laying there are mainly due to shock. 

“I’m so sorry!” 

Dazedly, Taki lifts his head up, staring down in front of him as best he can. 

Several feet away, a guy decked out in rental hockey gear is on his hands and knees staring at him, having slid to a stop an impressive distance from the impact zone.

Taki has seen hockey dudes here every now and then – sometimes passing them in the arena’s hallways, at concessions, or even in the bathroom. Sometimes they’ll be skating on the same rink, but it’s rare. The local hockey club usually practices in the additional rink on the other side of the building. Taki doesn’t know most of them, but thanks to all the time he spends here, he could probably identify most of them by face – even the kids. 

The person staring back at him, even with the headgear on, is someone he’s sure he’s never seen before. Or never noticed. Large dark eyes, full lips, a strong jaw. One of his eyebrows has a slit in it.

Yudai’s voice cuts in before he can formulate a response. “You okay?!” Taki twists to look back toward the bleachers. The older man is hanging on to the wall, looking one second away from running out onto the ice in his socks, to hell with the consequences.

Instead of words – those are still rattling uselessly around in his skull – Taki holds up an ‘ok’ sign with his fingers, trying for a reassuring smile he’s not confident isn’t wobbling around the edges.

“We told you not to rush out like that!” 

Taki twists back to the front, his dazed mind thinking Me? before he realizes he’s not the one being spoken to. Several other hockey players are converging on the one who knocked Taki over. Presumably they came from one of the openings on the adjacent side of the rink. They’re wearing actual hockey jerseys with their gear, the howling grey wolf logo on the front identifying them as part of the skate club’s local team. 

“Sorry,” the one on the ground says, looking up at them through the visor built into his helmet. Taki thinks absently that the mischievous smile on his face doesn’t match the word. 

One of the players turns to check on Taki, and Taki knows him. 

It’s Nicholas, one of the nicer people Taki’s ever met in a bathroom.

Which is more than you’d think.

One day, Nicholas came out of one of the stalls to find Taki standing in front of the mirrors, fussing with his overgrown hair that he hadn’t (and still hasn’t) found the time or money to spare on getting a cut. Nicholas stared at him, which made Taki nervous at the time. The guy had eyes that could cut glass, so Taki assumed he’d have a personality just as sharp to match. But then Nicholas wordlessly reached into his pocket and offered him a hair tie. 

The other man seemed content to leave it at that – a simple, silent exchange. 

But for Taki, the gesture prompted him to gush his heartfelt thanks, making Nicholas actually back up a step as he went on a TMI-loaded tangent fueled by practice exhaustion and one too many falls on the ice that day. He remembers prattling on about how he’d been at the rink for five hours at that point, and he couldn’t get his camel spin right, and his feet were really hurting, and his hair was being a bitch and kept getting in his way, and he didn’t have any more bobby pins on him, so thank you so much, you just saved my life. 

Nicholas silently took all of it in, and in the end, when Taki finally paused to breathe, he asked Taki if he wanted to go get concession stand chicken strips with him. And that was the start… well, what could have been the start of a nice friendship. They’re friendly, but not very close because Taki really only sees him in passing, because he practically lives on the ice. And maybe Nicholas does, too, just over on the other rink. The hockey player one. 

Seeing him, and so many other hockey players, over here is unusual actually, but he doesn’t have the mind to think about it much right now. 

“Hey, Taki, are you okay?” Nicholas skates over to him, genuine concern shining in his dark eyes. He’s not wearing a helmet, and his haircut that’s long in the back is starting to get long in the front, too. Black bangs fall into his eyes as he reaches a gloved hand down to Taki. “You’re not hurt, are you? That was a crazy fall.” 

Taki shakes his head and finally remembers how to speak Japanese. “No, no.” He takes Nicholas’ hand, letting himself be carefully helped up. He tries to appear nonchalant once he’s on his feet, as is the figure skater way after a fall. “It didn’t even hurt or anything.”

Another one of the hockey players slides over to them, and he’s recognizable too. He’s a newer addition to the team, plus Nicholas’ first roommate out of college. He’s still fairly fresh out of South Korea, having moved to Japan to work after graduating from university. He connected with Nicholas on one of those find-me-a-roomate forums and clicked over their shared ages, foreigner status, and interest in the sport of hockey. Taki knows all this thanks to the introduction Nicholas gave them one afternoon when they all found themselves in the same concessions line (smoothies this time).

The boy is tall, all gangly limbs and curly brown hair, with a rounded face and rounder eyes to match. Right now, those eyes are looking over him with concern. 

“Are you alright?” EJ asks in slightly accented Japanese. 

By now Taki feels like the question, in all its forms, is starting to get worn out. He smiles anyway, because he knows the other man means well. “I’m fine, EJ.” 

EJ’s face brightens, relief smoothing out the worry lines that appeared there. “Good.”

Taki can’t help but shift his eyes behind them. Even though he doesn’t need it, he’s expecting a fourth inquiry after his wellbeing from the boy who actually bowled him over (or bowled under him?) and then maybe a second, more formal apology. Only the guy’s no longer in the same spot as before. With the rink being as empty as it is, it only takes Taki a second to locate where he went.

It appears the unknown player has forgotten all about Taki and the spill he caused, occupied now with racing one of his teammates down the ice. Their skates kick up white flakes as they try to shove each other over the whole way around. Their mixed laughter bounces off the high ceiling. Taki feels his face scrunch. 

Oh. Okay then. 

“Um, so who is that?” he asks, nonchalant. “The one who knocked into me. Is he new, or…?”

Nicholas turns, following his eyes. “Oh yeah, that’s Maki. One of our defenders in training.”

A loud commotion rocks through the frigid air, and all three of them turn to look. The racing duo was so caught up in their roughhousing that they failed to bank at the curve and slammed against the wall. The plastic windowpanes tremble and clatter noisily as they both go down in a tangle of limbs and dramatic, laughter-laced screams. The collision looks pretty violent to Taki, but they treat it like it’s nothing, giggling on the floor of the rink. Maybe it’s all that protective padding. 

Nicholas looks back at him, face crumpling into something apologetic. (At least someone is.) “Emphasis on in training. Sorry about him.” 

“Oh no, it’s fine, it’s… good. Welcome to him then.” 

Maki. Taki’s already filing that name away. For what reason, he doesn’t really know.

⛸️

It isn’t that long before Taki sees Maki again. Two days later, in fact.

Members of the hockey team file onto the ice on the opposite side of their rink once again. 

Taki likes to think that, over the years, he’s pretty much perfected the art of falling in a way that feels safe and controlled. The fall from two days ago was neither. It should make him feel better that he wasn’t the one who caused it and that it was completely out of his control, but it really doesn’t. By the time he finally got around to attempting a backspin again, it felt all wrong because he was all psyched out.

Thanks to Maki. 

Who, by the way, stayed the entire rest of the free skate without acknowledging Taki once. It was more infuriating than it probably should have been. Taki's completely fine - uninjured, no cracked tailbone or shattered skull. No harm, no foul. (Maybe except for his backspin form. It suffered some harm.) 

For the most part, everything should be all good. And maybe it would be, if not for one small revelation.

Turns out hockey players are the absolute worst to share a rink with. 

Just when Taki finally started getting immersed in practicing yesterday, there came Maki and the others, zooming by like geologically-displaced road runners, going entirely too fast for a public skate if you asked Taki. The number of times his breath caught watching a hockey player weave between a group of friends or come dangerously close to clipping a kid was unprecedented. Not to mention the way his own body involuntarily tensed up whenever the loud scrape of skates came too close to him for comfort. The memory of the collision was still fresh in his mind, and each time he heard that sound, he felt sure it was going to happen again.

He was like Pavlov’s figure skater. It was no way to live. 

So for the whole session he was basically a jittery mess, something he hasn’t experienced since he first started skating. He hated it. It felt like he was regressing years all because of hockey players and their apparent need to travel everywhere at insane speeds. Speeds that generated wind that would actually ruffle Taki’s hair.

Why? What was the purpose of that?

Turns out that even Nicholas and EJ are very much similar menaces in a rink setting, despite their kind dispositions and gentle natures. They possess the same propensity for sharp stops and skating backwards, and they played their part in raising Taki's blood pressure beyond what was normal for his age all day yesterday. 

He could have said something to the rink staff about it, but he didn’t want to be that guy - or see Nicholas and EJ get reprimanded. He made his grumbled remarks to Jo and Yudai and held his tongue. The other public skaters seemed to find it completely normal anyway. Taki didn’t know how. All he knew was that by the end of those three hours, he hoped whatever prompted so many hockey players to suddenly show up over here to skate in the first place was over and done with; and that they would all return to their own rink and stay there. He could endure a botched session with grace as long as it was a one time thing. 

But he isn't so lucky, because now they’re back. It would be a fall-to-your-knees-in-despair-worthy moment if it wasn't confusing. 

Because it isn’t public skate right now. It’s private ice. 

Yudai and Jo booked back-to-back slots to practice for their upcoming competition and evaluation, respectively, and they were more than happy for Harua and Taki to join them today – the former who has a training session with his coach right after, and the latter who just wants to be here. One big private skate session – just the four of them and two full hours of ice to themselves. And potentially any other figure skaters who booked the same time slot.

The point is, just figure skaters. No chance of anyone in a jersey ruining the vibes this time.

Or that’s how it should be. 

“Uhh, what is this?” Harua asks, the pair of white skates on his feet audibly shearing the ice below as he spins to face the intruders. With his eggshell-colored fitted zip-up jacket and blond hair, he almost blends in with the rink.

Yudai frowns, propping gloved hands on his hips. “I don’t know.” 

The hockey players don’t pay them any mind, oblivious to the skeptical stares they’re receiving. It’s when one of them drags a huge goal post out onto the ice that it becomes apparent they intend to stay. 

“Should someone say something?” Jo pipes up, something in his tone making it pretty clear he doesn’t mean himself. 

“I will,” Harua immediately volunteers, pushing forward. 

“Uhhh…” Taki reaches out like he might stop him, a little afraid of what Harua might end up saying. It’s probably not obvious to anyone on the outside looking in, but there is a considerably large temper compressed into that tiny body of his. Taki isn’t thrilled about the hockey players being on the ice either, but there are nice people like Nicholas and EJ over there, and he doesn’t want them at the mercy of the Wrath of Harua™.  

But his protestations are too late, too weak, easily engulfed by Harua’s flame as the shorter boy launches words across the rink like a projectile.

“HEY!” Taki wants to shrink into himself as all hockey player heads swivel in their direction. Harua throws out his arms. “This is private ice right now!” The hockey boys glance at each other, then back at Harua, their movements slowing down. But it isn’t fast enough for Harua, his voice filling with even more impatience. “That means we paid for exclusive access to this rink, and there shouldn’t be anybody else out here!”

The silence they get in return is loud. Jo looks like he wants to dissolve into the floor next to Taki, reaching up and pulling the ends of his beanie lower over his ears like that’ll shield him from the awkward. Taki shares the sentiment. 

Over on the other side, the hockey players keep staring, exchanging unsure looks with one another. Someone else carries a stack of plastic cones onto the ice and starts arranging them in a line for what Taki assumes is some kind of drilling exercise, oblivious to what’s going on.

Harua scoffs and fires off some more choice words. “HEY! What’s the big deal? Get-” 

Yudai comes up and puts his hands on Harua’s shoulders, giving them a couple of quelling pats before easing the younger skater behind him.

At this point, one of the hockey players has finally lost enough patience to respond, annoyance coloring his tone. “Our coach booked this time slot for us, dude!”

“I think there’s been some kind of mistake!” Yudai calls to them in a far more placid tone. He glides closer to the center of the rink so they can hear him better. “This rink is reserved for figure skating practice at this time. Are you sure your coach booked it for now? Today?”

Taki feels a pull to go stand next to Yudai, so he does, pushing off with one foot to drift next to him - that way he isn’t the only one facing the considerably larger, more burly-looking squad of jocks. Taki’s imagination conjures up an image of the hockey players as a wild wolf pack, with scraggly grey fur and sharp teeth like the ones depicted on their jerseys, sizing them up and getting ready to pounce as soon as they catch a whiff of fear. 

In this battle for dominance of the ice rink, it might do their side some good to look like a united front, or whatever. 

“Pretty sure, guy,” the same player confirms, sarcasm dripping from his words. 

“But you guys can ask our coach about it when he comes out!” That’s Nicholas. He’s dressed in full hockey gear this time, but Taki recognizes him by his voice and his build. And his facial features are still mostly discernible through the clear visor, even far away. 

So they wait for the hockey coach to appear, which doesn’t take very long. Harua still crosses his arms and exhales an impatient huff in those sixty sections. 

The Wolves’ coach steps out onto the ice and glides smoothly over to the waiting team of boys without glancing up from his clipboard, donning a navy jacket and pants set that matches the colors of their jerseys, a cap on his head and a silver whistle around his neck. Nicholas goes up to him and says a few words Taki can’t hear from here. Nicholas gestures in their direction, and the coach’s eyes follow. He takes in their little quartet with a neutral expression, then lowers his clipboard and skates their way, moving as naturally as if he were walking. 

He meets them in the middle, turning his skates sideways to stop several feet away. He doesn’t say anything first, so Yudai takes it upon himself to repeat, “The rink is reserved for this time, sir.”

“Yeah, sorry about that boys.” The coach sweeps his eyes over them. Now that he’s closer, Taki can see he’s got a surprisingly agreeable visage. Kind-looking eyes set into a lightly tanned, slightly weathered face, a hint of crows feet at the corners. His beard is neat and close-shaven. Taki hears Jo and Harua skate up behind them to listen in and is glad when Harua keeps his mouth shut this time. “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to deal with something like this yet,” the coach mumbles, then sighs. “But, it can’t be helped.”

He steps back and lifts the whistle to his mouth. The sharp sound cuts through the chilly air, catching the attention of the hockey players. The coach turns to the side and raises his voice to address both parties. “Listen up!” His voice comes out in a booming tenor, and the contrast shocks Taki. “As some of you know, the usual hockey rink is undergoing renovations right now.”

Some of you has to mean the hockey players, because they don’t react over there. This side, however…

“No way,” Harua says lowly, dread in his voice like he can sense what’s coming. 

“We had a pipe burst. Carpets flooded. Rink overflowed. Not pretty. So here’s what’s gonna happen. The hockey team is going to use this rink for practices until the other one is usable again, but we’ll keep to one side and out of the way if it’s been reserved for figure skating. It’s just how we have to compromise right now.” Overlapping groans of displeasure rise up from the huddle of hockey players, heartfelt enough to be heard over here. So maybe they didn’t know exactly how this setup was going to go. Their coach sighs. “I know, I know. Please deal with it.” 

Harua grabs Taki’s arm and whisper-hisses near his ear. “They can’t do that. Can they do that? Money was paid.” 

“It’s already been okay’d by the rink owners and the staff up front.” The coach says this part to them, as if reading Harua’s petulant thoughts. He turns back to face them fully, and for his part he does look sorry. Probably isn’t any happier about the situation than they are. “It’s one of those things that’s out of anyone’s hands. We’re just going to have to share for the time being, but we’ll make it work. I’ll be sure to tell my guys to steer clear of you figure skaters. Okay?”

“Absolutely fucking– ” 

“Yessir,” Yudai cuts Harua off before his voice can rise to a detectable volume. “We’ll do the same.”

“Appreciate it.” The coach nods at them all, touching two fingers to the brim of his cap before returning to his own group of displeased skaters. That’s when Taki sees him.

Maki. The team's new defender in training.

Better known to Taki as the boy who bulldozed into him the other day, nonchalantly went on with his life right after, and who seems to be connected, in one way or another, to a good deal of the inconveniences in Taki’s life as of late.

Maki isn’t wearing a helmet at the moment, so it takes a few seconds of observation for Taki to be sure it’s him. It's his first time seeing him with his face on full display. He’s got a full head of thick black hair, pushed back at the front with a few comma strands falling over his forehead. His jawline looks much sharper without the obstruction, angular and strong, but it’s his eyebrows that make him recognizable as the same person from the other day. They’re thick and dark, and Taki can squint and make out the slit cutting through the edge of the right one at an angle. 

He’s more mature-looking than Taki would’ve thought. Swamped in all the rental gear yesterday, slipping on his skates, he thought the boy would be much younger. Still, he can’t get a sure read on exactly how old Maki may be. It’s possible they’re around the same age. 

If he does happen to be younger than Taki, however, then his lack of a proper apology after almost concussing him would be even more annoying. He watches Maki lean down to say something into the ear of another player. It looks like the same teammate he was racing around the rink the other day, but Taki’s not sure.

Without warning, Maki’s dark eyes lift to sweep over the small group of figure skaters, and Taki’s heart leaps, looking away before he can be caught staring. He has no idea if Maki noticed, but he refuses to pull his eyes away from the ice shavings gathered on the back of Yudai's blades to check. He wonders if Maki even recognizes him as the person he hit. Taki himself has been expending a considerable about of energy replaying the moment, but Maki may view the incident as completely mundane - something not even worth remembering.

Once the hockey team starts to disperse, Taki uses it as an opportunity to chance another glance over. Maki’s attention is on his coach as the man gathers them all up with another short, sharp blow on his whistle. It would seem he paid Taki no mind at all.

So maybe he doesn’t remember me, he thinks absently, moving with the others back to their side to begin their private session that’s not so private anymore. 

Taki’s aware it’s completely understandable - reasonable even. Their interaction was very brief. Pretty much nothing. Maki likely doesn’t even know his name. 

Taki’s also aware that he’s annoyed, just a little bit. But he tries to let it go.

⛸️

Harua’s skates slice noisily over the ice, the sound loud in the high, empty space of the rink. He sets up and launches off his right blade into a loop jump. Taki feels his mouth drop open as Harua’s lithe body climbs higher and higher into the air, seemingly uninterested in the laws of gravity. He brings his arms in tight as his body twists once, twice, three times in midair before making its descent. He lands on his right blade again, his free leg coming up behind himself to glide gracefully out of the move, arms out straight and back in a beautiful curve.

Taki’s clapping like a seal before Harua’s even come to a full stop, so impressed he forgets for a moment how cold his butt is. He landed on it after falling out of his sit spin and just never got back up. When Harua started practicing his triples, the floor in the center of the rink ended up being a great front row seat. 

Harua smiles widely at the applause, now coming from both Taki and Jo, the latter standing over by the wall, taking a break from practicing his own combinations. He was messing with his phone but looked up just in time to watch Harua nail his jump. 

“I’m gonna be the next Yuzuru Hanyu, bitch!” Harua declares loudly. The genuine elation in his voice keeps such a bold statement from sounding arrogant, if only slightly He's smiling wide, bunny teeth on full display, and there's a flush to his cheeks that’s probably equal parts cold, exertion and happiness.

“You’re gonna be the first Shigeta Harua,” Taki corrects him, getting one foot underneath himself and pushing up to stand. Harua nods, his cute face bright and determined, before skating over to the wall for his water bottle. Jo greets him with a silent thumbs up. 

Taki's motivation to practice is suddenly through the roof after that. He skates figure 8’s around their section of ice, trying to come up with something to work on. Seeing Harua nail his jumps makes him want to try some of his own, even though there's a marked difference in skill between them. 

Harua's got his triples, and he makes them look easy. Taki’s lucky if he can manage a single. He tells himself it's because Harua’s been skating since he was three years old – the closest thing to being born onto the ice as you can get. The other boy pretty much breathed split jumps and ate Y-spins since he could speak, and he has a healthy collection of medals and trophies from competitions past to prove it. For Taki to compare himself to someone whose blood is probably sixty percent frost is crazy, but he does it anyway. 

He mentally sorts through the list of jumps he knows and then narrows those down to ones he’s willing to try. There aren't many left. Without a coach, Taki’s knowledge of proper execution and jump safety is severely lacking, even after poring over a copious amount of tutorial videos from his saved Youtube playlists. That said, it isn’t recommended by professionals (or sane people) to freestyle your way through learning figure skating jumps. Taki knows this. It's common sense. Your whole body’s suspended over a hard, unforgiving sheet of ice with what are essentially knives attached to your feet. You go into a jump half-cocked, you’re basically asking to bust your ass. 

And has Taki busted his ass? Yes, many times. Has that stopped him from freestyling this shit? No, not at all. Not yet, anyway. He’ll happily keep taking pointers from Harua and Yudai about form and setup, listening to tips they garner from their own coaches, watching the way they hold themselves on the ice, and gratefully absorb knowledge by association. It's called working with what he’s got. And what he’s got is figure skating friends and hard determination. Maybe a dash of stupidity thrown in there, too. 

Fuck it - he's gonna try a Salchow. That and a Flip are the only two jumps he’s successfully done before. And the Salchow’s an edge jump, meaning he's gotta jump off the edge of his blade rather than his toe pick, so he hates it more, which means it’s probably the one he should be practicing. 

He stops to go over a mental checklist, but not before shaking his head to clear an image of Yudai’s flawless triple Sal out of his mind like an etch-a-sketch. He doesn’t need it distracting him, reminding him how far he still has left to go if he ever wants to be great like that. There’s something about being around such talented people that simultaneously motivates him and makes him feel inadequate - like he’ll never be able to get to where they are, but at the same time, watching them makes him want to try. 

Taki fills his thoughts with the repeated mantra that he will not bust his ass, he will not bust his ass...

Enter from a turn.

Sweep the blades.

Take off from the left blade with no assistance from the toe pick. That part’s important. 

He’s still in the middle of psyching himself up when a hockey puck comes skittering over and hits one of his blades with a dull thunk. The immediate sense of relief he feels should tell him something about how resilient his hard determination actually is, but he chooses to ignore that, glancing across the ice.

Sure enough: hockey players. They're filing onto the rink like a line of heavily-padded ducks. Someone dunked a whole bunch of black pucks out to practice with, which would explain how this one slid astray. Taki’s secretly grateful for the interruption, even a hockey-related one, because it’s saving him from having to do a Salchow (and from the very real risk it carries of busting his ass.) He looks over at Harua, and as expected, the blond is already staring across the rink with a set of narrowed eyes, a water bottle frozen at his lips.

Next to him, Jo blinks at the newcomers once, twice, and then, with a neutral expression and tone to match, he announces, “I’m going to the bathroom.” 

Taki sighs and bends down to retrieve the puck as Jo steps off the ice. Harua abandons his bottle and skates over to him, taking the puck from his hand. “Come on.” Taki doesn’t know what he’s got planned, but he’d sooner not let Harua go wreak havoc alone. Together they cross the red line at the center of the rink into hockey territory. One of the players notices their approach and breaks away from the rest of his converging group to meet them.

That player just so happens to be Maki. 

Taki stares at him as the distance between them shrinks. Now he guesses he’ll find out if Maki actually has any recollection of who Taki is. He glances at Maki’s jersey, which is a proper Chikuma City Wolves one this time, not a rental. They must have had one made for him. The name Hirota is emblazoned at the top in bold white letters bordered in red, right over the wolf logo. 

“Alright, I’ll just say it." Harua speaks first as they all stop a few feet away from each other, completely bypassing any kind of proper greeting. “We need the ice. We’re training for competitions over there.”

Taki’s not, actually, but he doesn’t say anything. It sounds better this way. 

“Yeah?” Maki speaks to them informally, which is an interesting choice considering this is their first conversation. He’s got no helmet again, and Taki finds himself staring at the lines of his face, a little transfixed. How does one go about acquiring a jawline that chiseled? And why does someone like Maki get to have one? “Well we’re training for a match. Besides, it’s public ice right now.”

His voice is smooth and deep. Now that Taki’s hearing him speak up close, he picks up on the way he clips his phrases off at the end, like he can’t be bothered to fully complete them. So comfortably casual. 

Harua blows out an exasperated huff of air, disturbing his light bangs. “Oh, come on. The place literally just opened. Can’t you all, I don’t know, leave and come back later?”

Maki looks down at him, unimpressed. “Can’t you?”

It’s a valid comeback, but Taki can physically see Harua’s temper flare because of it. “Okay, look–”

He gently touches his fingers to the back of Harua's arm, coming around and easing the puck out of his hand. They aren’t here for a fight. Well, at least Taki isn’t. He doesn’t know what Harua’s intentions were. “It’s fine. Let’s just go practice.”

Harua looks at him, and there must be something in Taki’s expression that has some of the irritation draining from his own. After a few seconds, he sighs and relents, throwing one final chafed look at Maki before pivoting and heading back to their side in a metaphorical ruffle of feathers. Taki’s equal parts surprised and relieved he complied so fast. Now that he thinks on it, Harua did complain to him earlier about not having a chance to stop and get coffee this morning before coming here, so maybe that has something to do with it. Insufficient energy to be catty. 

“Can we get our puck back, please?”

Taki drags his eyes back to Maki’s face. He drifted closer to Taki, holding a hand out expectantly, expression blank. Taki feels a shot of – something – at the fact Maki’s got a couple inches on him, which wasn’t as obvious when he’d been a few more feet away. 

Taki looks down and turns the puck over in his hands. Honestly, he's been wanting to say some things to the other man about that day, but now that he’s standing in front of him, he can’t think of anything that would even sound right - or like he hasn’t been obsessing over some small, stupid moment for nearly a week now. Maybe because it’s dangerously close to exactly what he’s been doing. Either way, he’s drawing a blank, and that's somehow even more frustrating. Rolling his eyes, he comes closer to slap the puck down into Maki’s palm with a little more force than necessary before turning to follow Harua without a word. 

“So is the attitude problem just a figure skater thing, then?”

Taki stiffens, his blades wobbling as he stops to look over his shoulder. “Excuse me?”

Maki’s holding his stare. He’s got long lashes, and Taki’s starting to think good things really do happen to jerk people. “I mean, no offense, but you guys seem like you suck to be around. Would it kill you to lighten up? We don’t wanna be here either.”

Taki almost chokes on his spit. He flounders for words, but the indignation clogs his throat like a stopper. It takes him at least a good five seconds to formulate something coherent. “First of all,” he finally gets out, spinning back around. “I don’t have a problem. I’m cool! I’m as cool as… as this ice!" Maki snorts, and Taki feels heat creeping up his neck. Thank God it's covered by his turtleneck. "Second of all… ho-how old are you?” This, at least, will be one answer to a burning question he’s had. And it will help Taki sort out exactly what degree of pissed off he needs to be right now. 

Maki crosses his arms over his chest, quirking an eyebrow – the slit one. “Nineteen.”

There you have it, folks. The offense is like a physical thing, forcing a prideful huff of air out of Taki as he stands up straighter, frowns a little harder. “Well I’m twenty, so maybe I’m not the one who should check their attitude.”

If Taki was expecting some kind of apology from Maki at this juncture, for speaking that way to someone older than him if nothing else, he doesn’t get it. What happens instead is Maki scoffs, so hard that for a half-second Taki thinks he’s coughing up a loogie, and rolls his eyes to the rafters. “Oh, please.”

Taki feels his mouth fall open. Is this guy actually Japanese? He shakes his head. “I guess I see now how you can knock someone over the way you did and just skate away like nothing happened.”

Now it’s Maki’s turn to look aghast, leaning forward like he didn’t hear him correctly. “That’s why you’re mad? I said sorry for that!”

So he does remember. Taki mirrors his crossed-arms stance. “Yeah, it was such a great apology. Two seconds and everything.”

“So you’re pissy because my sorry wasn’t sorry enough? Are you serious?”

Taki feels the heat threatening to escape the confines of his turtleneck and make it to his face. “Yes!” He has a right to be upset about it, dammit. He knows he does. But it almost doesn’t even matter at this point, because all he really wants to do now is put Maki in his place. He throws his arms out. “How did you even manage that? You had all this rink!”

Maki drops his arms. Up until now he’s been infuriatingly composed, confident, almost supercilious in the way he spoke – as if everything he's been saying is right without a doubt. But Taki can see some of that washing away in favor of exasperation, a frustrated little line forming between his prominent eyebrows. And Taki’s so not the type to get any sort of satisfaction out of making people angry – quite the opposite actually – but the reaction makes him feel like he’s finally starting to win something. 

“I was breaking in a new pair of skates,” Maki growls. “I tried to give you a heads up, man. And while we’re on things we should’ve done, why wouldn’t you just move? ”

“I thought you’d go around!” Taki fires back. And then a thought occurs to him. “Are you a new skater or something?”

The hockey player bristles at that, a muscle in his jaw working. “I’ve been skating since I was seven,” he says lowly, dark eyes bright with resentment and boring into Taki’s, who doesn’t back down.

“I can sure tell,” he drawls sardonically.

“Taki!” Behind Maki’s simmering frame, Nicholas steps out onto the ice through one of the low doors in the wall, waving at him. He comes over, and Taki pastes on a smile just in time. Nicholas slides to a stop and throws an arm over Maki’s tense shoulders. “Hey. How you doing?”

“Peachy,” responds Taki through clenched teeth. He gestures to the puck clutched tightly in Maki’s hand. “I was just returning that. Didn’t mean to stay, sorry. Hope you guys have a good practice.”

Nicholas smiles easily, oblivious to the tension hanging between them. “Thanks, man. You too.” 

Taki nods and turns to go without looking at Maki again, zooming back over to where Harua has clearly been watching. “Is that the one who ran into you?” he asks as soon as Taki’s within earshot. It scares Taki sometimes how easily he can deduce things like that, with just the little bit of information Taki gave him about the collision. But he can’t even be awed by his friend’s supernatural instincts right now. He's too busy steaming like a tea kettle.

“Yes.” Taki nods, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one’s nearby before launching into a brief, and rare, tirade. “He’s so rude. And he’s younger than me!” Harua’s already round eyes widen indignantly. 

“What?! Ooh, I’m gonna…”

Taki grabs Harua’s arm above the crook of his elbow when he actually tries to get past him. “No, no. That won’t help anything. Let’s just…” He sighs, feeling drained suddenly. Beefing with someone takes a lot out of you, apparently. He’s not used to it. “Let’s just leave them alone. I don’t wanna fight with him. I just wanna get this damn Salchow down.”

Harua’s lips quirk, and Taki smiles back, letting go when he feels the tension in the other boy’s bicep relax and disappear. “Well, I can help you with that. But!” Harua holds up a finger. “If he disrespects you again, just get in his face and tell him: ‘Get off my ice.’” He pauses. “‘Bitch,’” he throws in for good measure. 

“I don’t think I can ethically, but I will in spirit.”

“That’s good enough for me.”

⛸️

Apparently, the hockey team is having a match at the rink tonight, something neither Taki nor Harua were privy to.

When the two of them arrived at the rink with duffel bags slung over their shoulders, ready to get in some evening practice, a lot more people were milling around in the admissions area than usual. That was their first clue something was wrong. 

The second clue was the glimpse of the ongoing game they got with one look through the windows of the double doors that led to the rink. 

“So that’s why there was barely any space to park,” Taki said as the realization slowly sunk in. 

To add insult to injury, a big, blatant sign was hanging over the doors. WOLVES V PYTHONS. TONIGHT @ 8PM. Harua growled at it and immediately pulled out his phone, dialing Jo to let him know not to bother coming to join them after work. Only Jo wasn’t planning on coming to the rink after work. Jo was already at home, watching a drama in his pajamas, well aware that there was a hockey match tonight. Because Jo read signs. And Harua and Taki, evidently, did not. 

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Harua whined, his phone on speaker between him and Taki. 

“There were flyers everywhere…” Jo’s mild voice filtered through. Even on speaker it was hard to hear him with all the loud, overlapping conversations surrounding them, mixing with sounds from the game – the slicing of a dozen skates flying over the ice, the clattering of hockey sticks, the sharp crack of a puck being slapped around, the scuffling of bodies knocking into other bodies, and of course the rowdy crowd occupying the bleachers inside. Harua almost had to yell to be heard over all of it.

“I don’t pay attention to hockey information!” 

So that’s how they wound up where they are now: in the concessions area sharing a box of half parmesan garlic, half hot honey fried chicken. It's better than driving home hungry. And the unoccupied table they managed to find just so happens to be right next to the long, wraparound windows, providing them with a perfect view of the game.

They're tuning into it because, well, it’s better than watching a nearby father try to get his daughter to stop wailing over her fallen basket of cheese sticks.

According to the scoreboard, the Wolves are up, 1:0. They seem to be playing pretty well, based on what little knowledge and understanding Taki has of the sport. Obviously, the main objective is to get the puck into the other team’s goal while keeping the other team from getting the puck into their goal. Simple. As long as the Wolves are managing that, he figures they’re managing well. 

Right at that moment, Nicholas – Taki knows it’s him thanks to the name WANG emblazoned across the upper back of his jersey – deflects a shot someone from the other team tries to take at their net, stealing control of the puck and smacking it towards his nearest teammate. That teammate being someone with the family name NAKAKITA. The puck flies between several pairs of legs and reaching sticks and makes it to him somehow, and then Nakakita takes off.

Taki realizes he knows who he is. This is the player who was racing Maki around the rink on that first day. Taki saw him in passing glances on the shared ice thereafter. He can envision the man’s face without the mask. He’s the one with the curling smiles and shaggy hair, who cackles loudly and doesn’t look where he’s going, who always gives Taki mini heart attacks with how close he skates at insanely such high speeds - faster than even the average hockey player, he'd wager. Even with his features mostly shrouded by distance and the helmet-mask combo, that speed is what distinguishes him. It’s almost chaotic, most definitely a hazard; but here during a match, it’s being put to good use. 

Nakakita pushes the puck over the red line into the other team’s territory, skating so fast it’s almost like he’s sprinting, a blur the Pythons can’t catch. Because most of the Python team’s members were playing offense down by the Wolves’ net when it looked like they were close to scoring, it left only the Pythons’ goalie and one other player to defend their own goal now. The Python that lunges at Nakakita is impressively agile for someone of his giant stature, extending his stick toward the puck, but Nakakita doesn't seem to be shaken by the move or the several inches the guy has on him. He maneuvers the puck so that it slips behind the Python’s stick, twisting to meet it when it whizzes out behind the larger man.

Nakakita takes it and flies past the goal, slapping his stick against the puck on the way and sending it careening toward the corner of the net. The goalie tries his best, attempting to use the oversized padding on his knees and arms to block the shot, but the puck is moving too fast. It gets through a gap and the Wolves score. 

Cheers erupt from the crowd, which is mostly a sea of navy and red because it’s a home game. Nakakita pumps a fist above his head as the buzzer rings out. He zooms around the back of the goal, letting momentum carry him back to his team with no visible worry about clipping the wall despite how heart-stoppingly close he comes to it. The other Wolves receive him with enthusiastic slaps on the back, chest, arms - anywhere they can reach. Taki can hear their whooping from here. 

He doesn’t think his eyebrows have come down from his hairline for a while. “Wow. He’s pretty good.” 

Harua was watching, too – Taki would even go so far as to say he was immersed – but the other man instantly pretends otherwise, scoffing and biting off the nugget of chicken that’s been sitting on his toothpick for a while. 

Taki looks back out at the ice and finds himself searching for a particular player without meaning to.

Is Maki in this game? 

Nicholas said he was in training, so he wonders if that means he's allowed to play in the matches or if that comes only after he’s officially been given the position. Taki scans the players on the ice and even the ones gathered on the benches alongside the rink, waiting for their turn to be subbed in. There’s a lot of them, and they’re all dressed exactly the same, so it's a little bit like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Taki gives up almost immediately. It isn’t that important. That is until his eyes land on one of the jerseys, and the name there instantly stands out to him as familiar. HIROTA. If he thinks back, he can almost see it on the jersey Maki was wearing last week at the rink, the day they were standing close enough to each other for Taki to be able to count the moles on the other man’s face as they told each other off.

So Maki is one of the six Wolves players in the game, but he’s been hanging back near the goal with Nicholas the whole time, so Taki didn’t even notice him.

Whether Taki wants them to or not, his eyes linger on the defender, interested despite himself to see what he’ll do as the next round begins.

The Wolves seem to be sticking to their plan of keeping two players – evidently Maki and Nicholas – hovering around their net with the goalie, while giving the other three more range to move around. The round plays on. The Pythons are pressing into the Wolves’ zone. The puck is currently in possession of a Python player, but the Wolves are making it hard for him to keep it. A player with the family name MURATA is doing his best to wrestle it away with BYUN’s - so, EJ’s - assistance, the two of them attempting to gain back control of it before it can get knocked into their goal. 

Another Python skates near, open for his teammate to pass to him. In response, Maki comes away from where he was lingering around the net and crowds into the guy’s space, trying to block him off. Taki thinks it’s not unlike covering someone in basketball. Maki’s probably hoping to discourage the double-teamed Python from passing the puck to anyone. Or, if he does manage to pass, he’s hoping to intercept it. The man tries to get in front of Maki, nudging him with his shoulder while more Python players crowd around Murata and EJ. With more of them, the Pythons manage to get the puck away, and someone slaps it toward the Wolves’ goal.

The puck goes skittering past Maki and the man he’s guarding. They both jump to intercept it. 

Maki’s stick touches it first, but the Python is there right after, stealing the puck and swinging around to take it back toward the Wolves’ net. Maki doesn’t let him get far, chasing after him with long strides until he’s close enough to knock into him from behind, sending the Python flying into the nearby wall.

Taki blinks at the jarring sound of the guy’s body colliding with the barrier. It shakes the plastic windows. The crowd reacts. With him out of the way, Maki smoothly steals the puck back and breaks out of their zone, getting some distance from the Wolves’ goal. He barely gets it passed off to EJ before someone runs into him from the side and almost knocks him over – another Python attempting to stop them from scoring. 

It may also be a little bit of revenge for his teammate.

“Why are they so… rough?” he hears Harua say. 

Maki’s unaffected, absorbing the hit like it’s nothing. Could be how sturdy he’s built, or the gear. EJ passes to Nakakita. Murata blocks someone who tries to intercept him. There aren’t enough people guarding the Python’s goal. The Wolves win another point. 

A yell erupts from somewhere on the ice. 

Taki looks around at the players’ faces to see if someone’s maybe been injured. He wouldn’t be surprised with all the body-slamming going on. He really can’t imagine playing this sport. He gets enough self-inflicted injuries from figure skating as it is. Having to worry about getting a concussion not just from slipping on the ice, but from some big, jacked guy coming at you full speed just to get a little plastic puck away from you is insane.

Taki thinks, if it were him, he’d go bald from stress before he ever made it to the NHL. 

He finds where the commotion’s coming from. One of the Python players is standing in the middle of the ice, yelling and pointing – straight at Maki. Taki can tell from the man's jersey number that this is the same person Maki knocked into the wall. And then, something unexpected happens.

The man tosses his hockey stick aside, taking off his gloves and throwing them onto the ice as well. He moves in closer toward the Wolves team, toward Maki, fists raised. He’s squaring up.

Taki stuck another piece of chicken with his toothpick, but shock has him forgetting about it for a moment. “Does he want to fight him?”

“I don’t even know why they let them do it,” mumbles Harua around a mouthful of chicken, so casually that Taki’s head swivels to him, eyes wide. 

“This is allowed?!”

“Welcome to the barbaric sport known as ice hockey, where every now and then you get a free boxing match interlude.”

Back on the ice, Maki throws his arms out and moves forward like he’s keen to take the other man up on his offer, but his teammates quickly get in between them. The peeved Python is still shouting. The string of words is unintelligible from here, underneath the noise of the crowd, but it's clear he's pissed. He’s up in Nicholas’ and Murata’s faces now, but the two of them stand their ground in front of Maki – even as Maki taunts the guy right back from behind them, grinning around insults. He certainly seems to be enjoying this more than the Python, who’s gone red in the face at this point. 

Murata has a firm hand on Maki’s shoulder, and Nicholas has a palm to his chest, keeping him held back. EJ and Nakakita have also pulled up on either side of them, watching the Python player like he might take a swing, which it seems like he very much wants to do. 

Harua sighs. “Why even do this? Just play the game.”

Thankfully, the situation deescalates before it can come to blows. The Python’s teammates eventually pull their guy away once they see there’s no fight to be had, dragging him back to their side of the rink. The Wolves do the same with Maki, and Taki exhales a breath, relieved but he doesn’t know why. 

Before the next– quarter? Round? (“They’re called periods,” Harua sagely informs him.) Before the next period, the Wolves do get hit with a penalty, apparently for Maki running into the Python player. It results in some required time in the penalty box. 

“That sucks.” Taki frowns, telling himself he’s more disappointed for the team than specifically for Maki. In all honesty, he's probably witnessing the brat’s karma in real time. “Why didn’t that other guy get a penalty? The one who ran into Maki?”

“That wasn’t a charge. What Maki did definitely was,” Harua explains before downing the rest of his radioactive-looking fruit punch. Taki narrows his eyes at him suspiciously. 

“Okay, I feel like you know more about hockey than you care to let on.”

In response, Harua balls up his napkin, tosses it into the empty, grease-stained box between them and hops off his stool. “You ready to go?” 

Taki eats the last piece of chicken off his toothpick. “You don’t want to see if they win?” he asks around chews. He doesn’t know why. He already knows what Harua will say.

Predictably, Harua makes a face at him. “It’s already past nine, and there’s still two more periods to go.” 

“Oooh, yeah okay.” That changes things. He kind of wanted to stay and see how things played out, but he has to wake up early to get in a skating session before the couple of online courses he’s taking. He isn’t curious enough to risk missing rink time. “I’ll just find out from Nicholas tomorrow, maybe.” 

“You know they’ll be here,” grumbles Harua. 

⛸️

The next day at the rink, Taki's wandering around in search of one of those markers that can draw directly onto the surface of ice. 

He’s seen people use them plenty of times – mainly hockey coaches (to mark plays or whatever they do) and also figure skating coaches to help their students visualize the path they need to follow to perform a move correctly. Harua’s come into possession of one on a few different occasions, but Taki doesn’t know from where, and right now he wishes he’d asked. 

He wants to start marking his own jumps. If he’s going to do them, and do them right, he has to make sure that he stays conscious of his form. Make sure he’s entering a jump the right way, the same way, every time. Taki’s here alone this morning, which means he doesn’t have Harua to be his pocket-sized form-corrector (a role Harua enthusiastically assigned to himself); and without a coach or a trainer, he’s got no choice but to do it himself. 

His blade guards clack along the rubber floor as he walks around aimlessly. He has no idea where these markers are. They aren't just laying around, and it’s not like ice rinks have much going on in the way of storage. There’s lockers and locker rooms, a room to order and be fitted for skates, and a few offices for the coaches. Taki doesn’t think he’ll find what he’s looking for in any of those places. Maybe in one of the offices, but he’s not keen on approaching any coaches or staff to ask just yet - just in case he’s not technically allowed to use them. They’ll be onto him then.

Which means his already limited options are down to almost nothing. He checks uselessly behind the bleachers. No marker. Obviously. Maybe he can get Yudai to ask his coach for one once he shows up for practice later. 

He walks to the end of the bleachers just because, already planning to venture outside of the rink and ask the people who work the admissions counter up front if they know anything. He’s getting ready to turn around when a door comes into view, tucked away behind the very end of the bleachers. Taki stops, glances around. No one’s nearby. It’s so early into the morning public skate that there’s barely anyone on the rink. He carefully approaches the door, like any minute someone might call out and tell him to get away from there. 

It’s probably not even a big deal. It looks like nothing more than a storage closet. Probably only flat mops and disinfectant wipes in there – hardly anything he’d get reprimanded for peeking inside at. Taki notices once he’s closer that the door’s slightly ajar, and he doesn’t know if that means someone’s inside or someone’s coming back soon. He steps even lighter just in case it’s the former. 

The door makes no sound as he carefully pushes it open – and freezes where he stands. 

The light is on. That’s the crazy thing. 

It doesn’t matter if it’s dim and a sickly yellow shade. It’s more than sufficient for Taki to make out EJ pressing Nicholas back against the far left wall of the supply closet, between a rack of old rental skates and a light switch. They’re both in their hockey uniforms minus the gloves and helmets and excess padding. Even with the shitty lighting Taki can tell they’re disheveled – their clothes bunched and twisted in places, their hair frizzed and messy. You couldn’t even fit a sheet of paper between their bodies, that's how close they are, oblivious to everything but each other. 

EJ’s mouthing along the curve of Nicholas’ jaw and down his neck, his hands raking down Nicholas’ body and pushing the ends of his jersey up to grip at his waist. Taki can audibly hear EJ sucking marks along the other man’s skin, the same way he can hear Nicholas' breath hitching because of it. From his vantage point, Taki can even see Nicholas’ face a little. His eyelids are squeezed shut like he's in pain, fingers twisted tightly in the chestnut ends of the taller man’s hair, which he uses to guide EJ’s mouth back up to his own. 

The way they kiss is frantic and messy. Starved, Taki thinks in his scandalized stupor, is also a good word to describe it. Like they’ve been waiting all day to do this even though it’s barely past 9am. It’s when EJ hikes one of Nicholas’ legs up around his hips, and Taki involuntarily gasps at the same time Nicholas does, that Taki decides it’s high time he makes his escape. 

He eases away from the door, heart pounding and uncomfortably warm. Suddenly the layers he’s wearing feel like too much. Someone whines inside the room and Taki forces his brain not to automatically try and decipher who it is by voice because he does not wanna know. He would close the door for them, but he doesn’t want the potential sound to alert them to his presence more than he wants to help them out. 

Once he’s backed far enough away, the only indicator he was ever there are the rapidly-fading clacks of his blade guards as he hightails it back the way he came.

He's moving so fast that he forgets to remove them before hopping onto the ice, immediately slipping and falling as a result. He drags himself back over to the entrance, takes them off, tosses them on top of his bag, and gets back out there, so desperate to distract himself with skating that he barely even registers his throbbing knees. 

He tries to disappear into his own little world, one where he’s fully immersed in considering the aerodynamics of a quad axel - something he's nowhere near even being able to attempt - when in reality he's focusing most of his energy on not tripping and eating the ice whenever a flash of his friends’ tongues passing between each other’s mouths comes to his mind unbidden. 

Eventually the two culprits come out to practice with the rest of their team, but Taki resolutely tries to mind his own business. He’s resorted to doing rocking horses for the past minute, because the repetitive forward-backward movement is the only thing his frayed brain-to-body synapses will allow.

“Hey, Taki!”

He looks up, past the thin throng of skaters traveling around the rink. Nicholas is looking right at him, one hand raised above his head, a couple of his teammates standing around him. He waves him over. Taki has the sneaking suspicion this first-time occurrence is due to the distinct lack of Harua by his side. 

He presses his lips together and glances at the person standing to Nicholas’ left. EJ.

Right.

At least from here they can’t see the way Taki's arms go rigid.

He’s dreading this but can’t think of a good reason to refuse fast enough, so he cuts though the middle of the rink to get to them, conscious of the fact he’s going against the flow of skating traffic, however light, and making sure to give other people a wide berth.

Nicholas greets him with one of his nice smiles. “How you been? How’s practice going?” 

“Yeah, good. Really, really good.” Taki can’t really look at him, or EJ, who’s right beside Nicholas as always – and well, Taki guesses now he knows why. EJ’s also looking at Taki, with his big eyes and innocent smile as if he didn’t have Nicholas pinned against the storage room wall like he owed him money not twenty minutes ago. Both of their lips look extra pink, a little swollen. It isn't overly noticeable. Taki would probably think he was imagining it if he didn’t know, but he does know. He does know. He tries to distract himself, racking his brain for something to say before he fucks up and tips them off. Something. Anything. “Oh, uh, the game. How did the game go last night?”

“Great!” EJ answers sunnily, exchanging a proud smile with Nicholas. “We won five to three.”

Taki’s eyes widen, pleasant surprise temporarily flushing some of the mortification out of his system. “That’s awesome! Me and Harua actually caught some of it, but we had to leave because it was getting late.” He turns to address the shorter guy who’s been standing off to the side but clearly listening, his dark, curious eyes trained on Taki. The name on the jersey he’s wearing reads 'NAKAKITA' – the team’s bullet on blades. “You were really good by the way. Super fast.” It doesn’t sound enough like the compliment he wants it to be, but the man beams like it’s the best one he’s ever been given, exposing rows of cutely crooked teeth.

“Thank you!”

“This is Yuma, by the way. I don’t know if you’ve met. He’s our right wing forward,” Nicholas tells him. 

Taki doesn’t know what those words mean, but he gives Yuma a polite nod. Yuma. It feels nice to finally put a proper name to the face. Taki’s not sure if shaking hands is something they should do since it feels kind of old and reserved for a business setting, but his hand comes out anyway because he doesn’t know what else to do in the silence that follows.

Yuma laughs – a playful, musical sound – and glides forward to accept it. His hand is large and his grip is sturdy. He casually hooks one ankle in front of the other while they shake, like the surface beneath his feet isn’t slippery as hell and he isn’t balancing on blades that must be less than half a centimeter wide. “You’re Taki, right?”

“That’s me.”

They let go and Yuma tilts his head at Nicholas, clasping his hands behind his back. “Nico tells us how good you are.”

“Oh. No. I’m–” Shock forces a nervous laugh out of him. “I’m really not.”

“He’s being modest,” Nicholas says. “No way I could do all those moves and spins.”

Taki shakes his head fast, waving his hands for good measure, like he can waft the undue compliments away. “No, I mean. Yudai-kun’s way better than me. Harua too. And Jo.”

It’s then that another guy comes out onto the ice, and Taki is momentarily distracted. 

Whoa. Arms. 

They’re absolutely bursting out of the short sleeves of his well-fitted t-shirt, and Taki can say with at least 80% confidence that one well-angled punch from this man could probably kill him. 

Nicholas notices he’s staring (hopefully he doesn’t know why) and follows his gaze behind him. “Ah, Fuma,” he says, smiling.

The muscled man looks up, and the round, boba-like eyes he blinks at their little group creates a juxtaposed image Taki isn’t prepared for. Between the four of them, his general idea of the average hockey player is starting to lean away from rough and intimidating and toward cute and friendly. Odd.

Nicholas gestures to Fuma as he approaches them. “He’s our center. We really rely on this guy for all of our plays.”

Fuma’s eyes meet Taki’s and, scratch that, he’s still a little intimidating. He’s just so– large. And he doesn’t smile. Those boba eyes barely blink. They just stare. 

“Nice to meet you,” Taki greets, ducking his head. Fuma grunts.

“And you’ve met Maki.”

Taki freezes, slowly lifting his head. There, right on Yuma’s other side, stands Maki. Taki doesn’t know where he came from or when exactly he showed up. Maki’s regarding him with a strange expression that Taki imagines would be more sour if he weren’t in the presence of his peers. Them, at least, he probably has basic respect for and sense enough to behave around.

Nicholas is looking between the two of them with the same smile, so Maki probably didn’t tell him about their spat. Taki nods stiffly. 

Yuma looks up at Maki. “Taki was telling us he saw our match yesterday with a friend.”

Some of the subtle tension smooths out of Maki’s face. He lifts an eyebrow, the slit one – that thing really is distracting – and regards Taki with barely-perceptible surprise. “Really?” Taki hears the suspicion in his voice, like he doesn’t believe it. Like he doesn’t know why Taki’s even here right now.

Taki sneers in his mind, even as he smiles unassumingly, suddenly really happy to be here if it displeases Maki even a little bit.

“Yeah. You almost got in a fight.” He adds that part mostly to prove to Maki that yes, he actually was there last night, but he can’t deny the zing of satisfaction he feels when the subtle jab makes that same eyebrow tick as the rest of the hockey team bursts into laughter. 

Even Fuma laughs, hearty and loud. His toothy grin and eyes that fold themselves into shiny crescents get him sorted right back into the cute category of hockey players in Taki’s mind. For some reason he feels even more proud of himself. 

“I barely checked that guy,” Maki defends himself, his smile obviously fake. Taki notices, with some surprise, that it makes these deep dimples appear in his cheeks. He didn’t even know Maki had them. They don’t do a lot of smiling around each other.

“Guess the refs didn’t see it that way.” Taki shrugs, just over-the-top enough that everyone else sees it as more lighthearted teasing, as opposed to the cutting jibe he actually means for it to be. It’s gratifying, taking his shots without Maki talking back for once. 

Of course the youngest hockey player sees right through him. As everyone else dissolves into more laughter, Maki gives up on trying to look amused. He scoffs instead, softly, looking Taki up and down. But he stays quiet. 

“We’ll be working on proper checking today.” Nicholas leans across to give Maki a playful punch in the stomach. “Get it ironed out before our next away game.”

“I should let you get to it then. I’ve gotta be getting back, too. Have a good session!” Taki says, figuring he should take his exit while he’s still got the high ground. He looks at each of them in turn. “Nicho. EJ. Yuma san. Fuma san.” When he gets to Maki, he pauses to make sure his tone is extra sickly sweet, his smile twice as saccharine. “Maki.”

🏒

“He seems nice,” Yuma comments as Taki skates away from them. Fuma grunts, which is his version of agreement.

“Yeah, he’s a good kid,” Nicholas says. EJ nods alongside him. 

Maki watches Taki make his way back to the other side of the rink, traveling in these lazy, waved lines, smoothly switching from one foot to the other. “Yeah. Real sweet.”

⛸️

“You still thinking about signing up for the skating show they’re doing here?” Yudai asks. “I remember you mentioning it.”

Taki pitched in on booking private ice with him today before the other man's coaching session this afternoon, even though doing so costed him about a month’s worth of savings.

Lately Taki’s been giving a lot of thought to how he might garner more practice outside of public sessions. Tagging along to his friends’ private sessions, despite everyone’s reassurances, is starting to feel a lot like mooching; and even though this hobby isn't exactly cheap, he’s an adult - technically. He’s got a job (although part-time), and he’s got an apartment (although shitty). If he’s sacrificing his time to skate anyway, maybe he should start sacrificing money, too, so that at least it's more worth it. 

He never gave himself much space to consider it before, but the thought of figure skating one day becoming more than a hobby has been invading his thoughts a lot lately. He always just skated because it was fun, but why couldn't he compete one day? Taki asks himself that, only to come up with a dozen reasons right after.

There are so many steps to take before a skater can start competing for real, and so many tiers to climb before they're even taken seriously. For Yudai and Harua and Jo, making it to the top in this sport seems like an attainable goal, because they've already been after it for a long time. But for Taki, so many leagues behind, looking up from the very bottom, it doesn't even seem possible. 

Not for the first time he wonders if he waited too long to decide what his dream is. The window of opportunity for a figure skater is small. Many renowned professionals saw their first international stages as teenagers. He's already twenty. It may not quite be too late to start, but it's getting there. 

“I don’t even know what I'd show,” he tells Yudai, following him over to the side wall as Yudai steps out of the rink for a water bottle. 

“Do one of your freestyles.” The other man shrugs, uncapping a fresh bottle with a crack. “You make up a ton of them. You could be an actual choreographer at this point.”

Taki’s shaking his head before he’s even done talking. “Those aren’t any good. I mean, they’re not meant to be seen by anybody. I just make them up to be silly. I’m probably not even doing half the moves right.” In a real showcase, he’d have no composition points to speak of. 

Yudai looks at him, the bottle paused at his lips. “You should consider getting a private coach. And a choreographer.”

Taki swipes a gloved hand under his nose, which is starting to leak from the cold and heavy breathing. He uses it as a reason to avert his eyes from Yudai’s imploring ones. He doesn’t like when he brings this up, even if he was just thinking something similar himself. He feels like sometimes Yudai can tell. “You know I can’t afford that.” 

“I thought that’s what you’ve been saving up for.” 

Taki kind of admires that Yudai says what he’s thinking, always, and doesn’t give a fuck if it’s a sensitive topic or not. Most people have a sense of delicacy when discussing things like money. Not Yudai. Taki likes to think it’s because they’ve known each other for so long, but in reality, the older man is just like this. He recalls Yudai telling him that, on his first day with a new coach, one of the very first things he asked the man was how much money he made from coaching, just because he'd been curious. The man must not have been bothered by his bluntness, seeing as he's still coaching Yudai to this day. 

“I’m gonna do it. One day. I just want to be sure.”

“Sure of what?”

“You know, that I actually... want to invest in this. That I'm serious about skating."

“Taki.” Yudai puts the bottle down on the bench he’s standing by and approaches the wall between them, placing his hands atop it, looking him in the eyes in the way he does that keeps Taki from looking away. “You’ve been at this long enough to know you’re serious. You don’t invest in your own pair of expensive ass skates and show up here six days a week, enduring screaming kids and hockey bros, if you’re not serious.” He smiles when Taki does. “You don’t fall on your ass three hundred times and keep coming back if you’re not serious. Come on.”

“It's more like five hundred at this point.” 

“See?” 

Taki looks down at the floor of the rink, at the frosted lines their skates have cut into the ice. He wants to be like Yudai. Throw himself toward a goal, all in. Put everything on the line. Pour everything that he is into trying to make it work. Bet on himself. Believe in himself. And be confident that the investment will be worth it in the end. 

But... what if it’s not? What if he starts and can’t see it through? What if he starts and there's not enough time? If, in the end, he's just too old to start from scratch and make anything out of a career path like this?

“You should really think about it,” Yudai continues, pulling him from his thoughts. “At least getting a coach, if nothing else. It really makes a difference having someone checking your form and correcting you. Making sure you’re doing things right and also making sure you're safe. And they’re essential when you start doing more advanced jumps, trust me." His expression pinches apologetically. "Sorry I haven’t been able to help you out and give you some pointers in a while. I just haven’t had much time these days.”

Taki nods his head fast. “I know. It’s fine, I don’t want you to. You should just focus on yourself. Preparing for your competition is more important.”

Back when they first met - when they were both kids, but Yudai was cool and older and already so impressive in Taki's eyes even though he could barely do scooter pushes - Taki latched onto him almost instantly. He always had a million questions for the other boy - how to keep his balance on the ice, how to do this or that move, if Yudai could teach him. And Yudai? Yudai was always so kind, so accommodating, never arrogant or impatient – just like he is now.

But now his skating goals are very... Olympic-aligned. It was bound to happen that he would have less time for Taki eventually as that reality started to become more and more real for him. 

So Taki never likes to ask him for too much anymore, or for anything at all, because his world is expanding far beyond this rink. Far beyond Taki. 

"Well, I do have some time right now," the older man muses, propping his hands on his hips and regarding Taki thoughtfully.

“No, I don’t want to distract you.”

“Taki, please. If I listen to Requiem: K. 626: Lacrimosa one more time, I’m gonna puke. Help me take my mind off it. My coach doesn’t have to know I practiced nine and a half hours today instead of ten.”

Taki feels his lips lift, tempted by good memories of the past. What could be the harm? “Okay.”

Yudai instantly looks way too excited, clapping his hands together. His eagerness has Taki thinking there might be a little harm, actually. “Okay! What are you working on?”

Taki shrugs, jacket rustling. “Jumping?”

“Ooh. Feel like learning a Lutz?” Yudai asks, eyes sparkling.

Taki gives him a wry smile. “You mean do I feel like breaking my ankles today?” 

“It’s not that bad.” 

Easy for him to say, with his mile long legs and enviously flexible joints and ability to pick up moves just by looking at them. “Yeah, I don’t think so.” 

“Okay,” Yudai relents. “How about your Flip jump? You were doing pretty well with that one, right?” 

Taki makes a face. “Sort of? I’ve managed a single a handful of times. I know I’m messing up on the takeoff, though.”

“Let me see.”

A couple minutes in, and Taki knows where that mild sense of trepidation he got earlier came from. 

Yudai is wonderful and knowledgeable and always willing to help.

He’s also an intimidating hardass when he’s teaching you something.

It’s been so long since he’s seriously monitored Taki’s skating technique that Taki forgot about this particular side of him. But he remembers it now. 

“Keep your eyes up,” Yudai instructs, arms crossed and expression serious as he tracks Taki’s form around the ice. “You’re looking at your feet all the time and it’s messing up your posture.” 

Taki sets up for the jump again, taking a breath in through his nose to steady himself. Despite what Yudai just said, he can’t help glancing down, just for a second. Just to see if his feet are in the right positions. Yudai notices immediately, of course. 

“Taki…” It’s a warning tone, low and drawn out. Very coach-like. “Eyes up.”

Taki huffs and forces his eyes forward. Screw it. He forgoes thinking about his feet or anything much at all and throws himself into the jump. He doesn’t get very much height, and he underrotates. Barely half a single spin, he thinks, before clunking awkwardly back down onto the ice, arms flying out to steady himself. 

“It’s because you’re not leaning on your inside edge enough,” Yudai calls, before Taki can even wonder where he went wrong.

Taki approaches the wall, flexing his feet inside his skates to try and dissolve some of the ache in them. “It feels like I’m gonna fall before the takeoff.” 

“You’re not gonna fall. The skates are made for this. There’s hundreds of skaters who do the exact same move you’re trying to do. Trust that and get on that edge.”

Taki hesitates, leaning on his right leg and tilting his left skate inward so that it’s tipped onto its inside edge. It bends his ankle at an awkward angle, and it seems highly unnatural to have to transfer all his weight to it in this position when his other foot won’t even be touching the ground. He knows other people do it, but it feels impossible for him.

“Taki, just go for it,” Yudai pushes, noticing his hesitation. “The worst that could happen is you do it wrong, which is still a hundred times better than not doing it at all.”

He takes a deep breath in, then out. A powdery puff of breath blooms out of his mouth. The air feels colder, pressing in through his fitted clothes. It’s probably because there aren't that many people here right now – less bodies to warm up the space. 

He turns his back and skates away from the wall, making a loop around their half of the rink to build up speed. After a few moments, he raises his right leg behind him so he’s only skating on his left foot, and then turns so he’s skating backwards. He tries to ignore the fear that comes with leaning onto the inside edge of his blade at this speed, arms rigidly out for balance. He's hesitant, only very shallowly leaning on the edge, but he's on it. And he's not falling.

He bends his left knee and brings his right foot down, kicking off the right toe pick to launch himself into the jump. Immediately he can tell this is more height and speed than he usually gets when practicing this jump. He can admit he probably half-asses it more than he should, sticking to the safer side of things, going through the motions instead of throwing himself into it each and every time. He's trying harder now that he's being watched, especially since it's Yudai. The consequence is that this feeling is somewhat new to him. 

And terrifying. 

Taki instinctively spreads out his arms like they’ll lend him some balance, but that only works when his feet are on solid ground, not in the air. He’s thrown off kilter, and a brief bolt of panic shoots through him as he loses control of his body. He lands too slanted and falls, skates slipping sharply out from underneath him with a harsh scraping sound. He manages to catch himself with his hands before he loses his front teeth. Cold seeps through the material of his skating gloves but doesn’t bite thanks to the insulted material.

“You okay?” Yudai calls from over on the sidelines.

“Yeah,” Taki forces out, heart hammering in his chest. It happened so fast. He pushes himself up to his knees, wiping ice flakes off the front of his pants and jacket. 

“Good. Try again,” Yudai instructs. “Keep your arms tucked in the air.” 

Taki pushes himself up on one foot, adrenaline from the fall shaking through his body. He chooses that moment to glance over, and there are a handful of hockey players watching him. He didn’t even notice their presence earlier; or maybe he's just getting used to them.

He recognizes Nicholas and EJ, Yuma and Fuma – and ugh, Maki -- among them. Taki averts his gaze, embarrassment from the spill making his face heat. 

He goes for it again, but now he feels rushed. As a result, he jumps before he’s ready and is rewarded with a puny amount of height and a half-rotation. 

Yudai doesn’t have any perceivable reaction. “Again.”

Taki gets a little more height on the next try, but still a half-rotation only. 

“Again. Try to use your arms for some momentum.”

This time he manages a complete rotation before landing, and it feels clean enough. There. He did a single. That should be that.

Only, Yudai seems to think he’s capable of doing a double, and he tells him as much. 

“Again.”

Taki thinks he’s crazy, but he tries anyway. There’s something about Yudai that makes Taki not want to disappoint him. He sets up again and kicks off his toe pick with gusto. Somehow, he pulls off one-and-a-half rotations, but he steps out when he comes back down. In a competition, that would cost him points. 

“Again. Squeeze everything tight.”

They continue on like that – Taki trying the jump and Yudai suggesting some modification and asking him to do it again – for what can’t be more than five minutes but what feels like an hour to Taki. He tries to stay focused. His legs are getting tired, his breathing is labored, his heart is thunking against his ribs, and blood is rushing to his face, heating up his frozen cheeks. He needs to lock in and do a good jump, because in a second his body won’t let him jump at all. 

He sets up once more, thinking of nothing else but form and execution. His muscles are tired but very warmed up at this point, and they at least flow through the repetitive movements easily now. 

“Concentrate,” Yudai orders, as if reading his mind. “Remember the sequence. Instead of thinking of it as individual parts you need to do one after the other, think of it all as one flowing motion. Turn… and set… and, hap!” 

Taki slams his toe pick into the ice, closing his eyes (which he really shouldn’t do) and clenching his legs and core and everything as he tucks his arms in tight and twists. One time. Two times. And he’s back on the ground. He lands on his right foot, and the blade wobbles on impact - but he doesn’t fall. He pinwheels his arms and spins out a couple times to maintain his balance. Despite the wonky descent, Taki’s mouth drops open as he finally comes to a stop. 

A double. Has he ever done a double before? He doesn’t think so. It was a double right? 

The turns felt fully rotated, but he isn’t sure. Things are more disorienting in the air. He spins to face Yudai for his input, and the other man is wearing the biggest smile on his face, looking the proudest he has since they started.

Guess that answers that question. 

“There you go!” Yudai screams, somehow more excited than Taki is when he finally catches up. Yudai starts clapping enthusiastically, the sound echoing around the space, somehow loud despite the muffling effect of the gloves. “Waaaah!”

The clapping escalates to the point Taki realizes it isn’t just coming from Yudai anymore. He whips his head toward the other end of the rink. The small group of hockey players are standing around on their side, their own practice session forgotten for the time being. They're all looking at Taki. Clapping for him. 

Taki beams, breathing heavily. He ducks his head, administering a quick, appreciative bow to the group, flushing from the praise. When he straightens back up, his eyes find Maki automatically, surprised to see that even he's clapping. It's more reserved than the others – he’s not grinning like Nicholas and EJ, or bouncing on the balls of his blades like Yuma, or whistling like Fuma - and really, it might only be performative, but it doesn't stop a warm feeling from blooming behind Taki's ribs, despite everything.

Pride. Accomplishment.

He forces his gaze from Maki and glides back over to Yudai. The taller man is leaning over the edge of the barrier to greet him with a high-five. “I told you that you could do it. You should include it in your program.”

“Maybe. If I can get it down,” Taki replies, still breathless. His head is spinning, and not just from all the turns. He can’t believe his body actually allowed him to do that. He thought he was leagues away from being able to do any double jump.

“But you are doing the show now, right? Come on. This was a sign.”

“Maybe,” Taki repeats, even though the smile he exchanges with Yudai is more knowing than before.

“And hey, if you can do a double, you can do a triple, right?” Yudai lifts a brow suggestively, scarily ambitious as always.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Jeez, can’t I bask in this for five minutes first?” Taki steps off the ice under the guise of fetching a drink of water, but it’s really because his body’s trembling all over from adrenaline and exertion, and he needs to sit down before his legs give out from under him. 

If he’s being honest, he doesn’t foresee a triple jump anywhere in his immediate future, but the thought that he will eventually be able to do one - one day - doesn’t seem as crazy to him as it did yesterday. Nothing does. 

And that's exciting.

🏒

“Hey, Nicholas,” Maki hears himself say. Taki steps off the ice to grab a water bottle from beside the tall skater who’s been coaching him through his jumping technique. The last one he landed looked pretty cool – not that he’d readily admit that to anyone, least of all Taki. “What level is he in, by the way?”

“Hm?” Nicholas looks over at him. “Taki?”

“Mm.”

“Taki doesn’t take formal lessons,” Nicholas answers, adjusting his right glove before taking up his hockey stick again to get back to practicing. “He’s all self-taught.”

Maki pushes his lips out, glancing back over at the man in question. He looks happier than Maki’s ever seen him. Not that he’s ever seen him when he isn’t concentrating on skating or yapping at Maki like a miffed Maltese. Maki can see the pink flush on his face from here, and he’s babbling at the other guy between huge gulps of water.

“Hm.”

⛸️

Today he's at the ice rink at quite literally at the ass crack of – not even dawn, just the ass crack of day. And it's only technically a new day because it’s past midnight, but there’s no light in the sky yet because it’s 4:30 am. The security guard who let him in looked surprised to see him. The rink has public skate during this time on the weekends, but it still must be rare that he witnesses anyone actually take advantage of it. The man proceeded to look even more shocked when Taki presented him with an extra cup of coffee, insulated and steaming through the drink hole in the lid. 

Since he’s spent all the money he can spare on private sessions for the time being (a grand total of one time), this is the next best option to rack up ice time on an uncrowded rink. With it being the day before Shūbun no Hi, the majority of rink-goers won’t be here even during normal hours today. And most of the more serious skaters who would sacrifice sleep for an early-morning practice session will also choose to take a rest for the national holiday – or so he hopes. He really would like to have one peaceful skate where he doesn’t have to worry about little kids in their plastic training skates or hockey players in their bulky gear; both parties who seem like they compete for the title of who can have less inhibitions.

So while he can, Taki moves freely around the ice, enjoying the blissful quiet that’s only broken by the soft shearing sounds of his skates over the smooth surface. It’s a familiar comfort – one he has the rare luxury of getting completely lost in.

Eventually, he does acknowledge the fact he needs to practice something. It would be such a waste to have fought through the pain of dragging himself out of his warm bed at this hour for nothing.

Almost immediately he dismisses the idea of trying a Flip jump again. He hasn't attempted another one of those since landing one in front of Yudai. Taki knows he needs to practice if he wants to get better at it, but he also doesn't want to “taint” the most successful one he’s ever done by eating the ice the next time.

It's stupid, but maybe he's a little scared. Scared that before had been a fluke, and he actually won't be able to land another double again. Ever. Because maybe he's not cut out for this after all, which would be a terrifying thing to have to face and accept. 

He shakes his head, trying to rid it of the toxic thought, but it sticks to the corners of his mind like tar despite his effort. He tries to thinks about something else.

Like how he wishes he could do moves like a Biellmann or an I-spin. Even with all the warmup in the world, he's not sure he'll ever be flexible enough for those. Once again, the seemingly natural flexibility that both Harua and Yudai possess is a source of great envy for him. It looks to take them no effort at all to pull a leg straight up behind or in front of themselves and hold it there. Jo shares some of Taki’s pain in that area, at least, always complaining about how tight his muscles feel.

But still, the last time Taki checked, Jo’s spiral is nearly perfect. Much higher and straighter than Taki’s. 

He glides around for a while, trying to decide what to do, classical music flowing through his wireless earbuds. He hates classical music, actually, but he figured maybe it would help him feel more graceful or something. There has to be a reason so many professionals use it as music for their programs. 

He holds one-foot glides and does backward crossovers - simple thing to wake up his mind and muscles. At some point he lowers himself into a sit spin, just because it's something. Yudai can do a pretty flying sit spin, but no way in hell Taki’s ready for that. The walls may not have eyes, but he would know exactly what kind of wipeout occurred here today if he were to attempt it. 

His thighs are burning from the squatting position, but he manages to get one leg extended out front of him before pushing himself up and raising his arms above his head to transition into a layback. He has to concentrate with all his might not to tip backward and fall on his ass for this one, trying to focus on keeping his core tight and not on the twirling lights overhead starting to make him dizzy. He always wonders if his back is arching enough when he does these alone. It’s hard to know without anyone to check his form. He slows to a stop and goes for his phone in his jacket pocket, sniffling from the cold. Removing one of his gloves, he unlocks the screen with fingers that are already beginning to go numb, turning to go prop it on the wall so he can record himself and watch it back. 

And there's Maki, standing a handful of feet away and staring at him.

Taki yelps, hopping backward and almost slipping. He regains balance by lurching forward to put his hands on his knees, cheeks reddening from more than just the cold. 

“What are you doing here?” he squawks, removing one of his earbuds and stopping the music. 

Maki blinks at him. He’s wearing an oversized red and black sweater, loose-fitting pants and knee pads. “Uhh, it’s a public ice rink?”

“I mean what are you doing here now? It’s like 5am.”

Maki gives him a funny look. “I’m thinking… the same thing as you?” There's a beanie pulled over his hair that hides his eyebrows from view, but Taki can tell from the way his face shifts that they’re doing expressive things under there. “Practice?”

Right. Was that a stupid question?

He recalls Nicholas mentioning an upcoming away game the week before. Had that already happened? He has half a mind to ask Maki about it, but doing so would prolong this interaction, and it's already gone on longer than Taki would prefer. It may be childish, but he doesn’t want Maki to think he’s interested. He can just ask one of the others later. “Okay. Fine. Have fun then," he says flatly before skating away. 

He imagines Maki has a lot to say after the last time they spoke, and there's no one here but the two of them. It's the perfect opportunity for him to shoot his mouth off like he did before, now that none of his teammates are around to reprimand him for it. But the younger man doesn’t hurl any unsavory choice words at Taki’s back like he half-expects him to. It could be a byproduct of the early hour, Taki speculates to himself. Must be sapping his energy. 

It's a relief. Despite the caffeine buzzing its way through his own system, he doesn’t have the energy for fighting either. He’s resolved to use this time to practice hard - for an entire three hours (because that’s usually as long as he can last before he starts getting really hungry). The next time he meets his friends, they’ll instantly be able to see his improvement – that’s how locked in he's going to be today. He doesn't have time for hockey boys, especially ones like Maki. 

He puts on a random Andrea Bocelli song and gets to it.

*~*~*~*~*

Taki is so done with the Ina Bauer. Why is it even a thing? Oh, some German skater invented a trick in the 1950s and everyone was so impressed they decided to make it an official figure skating move and name it after her? Give him a break. It’s stupid. 

(He’s not really mad at Ina or her move. He’s mad that he just spent almost an hour trying to do it and isn’t any better at it than when he started. He might be worse, actually.) 

He sets his sights on something else. Something so good it’ll quell the frustration of wasting forty-five minutes of practice time with nothing to show for it.

The Flip jump.

It's fine. It's no big deal.

He just has to remember how proud he was of himself when he did it last time; and how proud other people were of him. He holds onto that feeling as he slides into the set up. He did it once, he can do it again. 

Maki’s here. Taki doesn’t know if he’ll be watching this time. Taki has purposely not looked over at the other side of the rink once, intent on blocking the other man out completely. But if he can do this... well, it would be nice to be able to show off. Given the kind of foot they got off on, Maki should be hard pressed to give Taki any kind of positive acknowledgement, so there had to be something about his jump that genuinely impressed the hockey player. If he can manage to pull that kind of reaction out of someone who doesn’t even like him a second time, it just might be enough to repair his ego before he goes home today. 

Easier said than done. 

Taki lands roughly, the impact rocking up his leg. He swings the other leg down to try and catch his balance, turns once, and falls to the floor, skates slipping sideways out from under him.

He doesn’t check if Maki saw. Who cares what Maki thinks?

Taki pushes himself up, the Bocelli song in his ears rising into a dramatic, triumphant-sounding crescendo. 

Oh, shut up, Andrea.  

The next ten (count them, ten) attempts don't go over well either. Double or single (he’ll take either at this point) - they're all a wash. Taki tries not to let the fear that he was right - that before had been a stroke of dumb luck after all - creep in and overtake him, channeling his energy instead on being pissed. He growls as he falls out of yet another attempt, almost getting tripped up by his toe pick this time.

Not too much later, he's doubled over trying to catch his breath, exhaustion finally starting to catch up with him. That's when he detects movement at the edge of his vision. It's Maki - waving his hands at him. Taki almost, almost managed to forget he was there.

He straightens up and removes his earbuds, eyeing the other man suspiciously, breaths still coming short and fast. “What?”

“I have a suggestion,” Maki offers, far too casually. They’re a good distance away from each other, still on opposite sides of the rink, but Maki’s voice carries clearly across the barren air between them. Taki can see he’s got a goal post set up behind him. In addition, a black duffel bag is lying flush against the wall, and a bunch of hockey pucks litter the floor on his side. Small blue cones are positioned in intervals down the ice. 

Taki feels the way his noise scrunches. “Really?” 

Maki looks offended, but only mildly, releasing a short burst of laughter so dry it could be considered a cough in some cultures. “Wow. What? You think just because I don’t do pirouettes on the ice that I don’t know about ice skating? I live here just as much as you do, man.”

“We don’t do pirouettes."  

“Whatever. Wanna know what I think?”

Does he? Taki watches him skeptically, sweat collecting behind his ears underneath his knit hat. “Why do you want to help me?”

“Why would you want to turn down free help?”

Because we hate each other? is Taki’s initial thought. But that’s not exactly true, is it? If they hated each other, they wouldn’t be talking right now. If they hated each other, Maki wouldn’t have openly clapped for him the other day. And even though Taki maintains the belief that his irritation with the other boy is greatly justified, and even though sometimes he wishes he were better at holding a grudge, what Taki feels when he looks at Maki isn’t hate. It's some mild to moderate irritation at worst. And sometimes he gets this weird feeling like a rock lodged in his stomach at the thought of speaking to him that’s probably some form of dread.

Whatever it is that exists between them, while a far cry from anything positive, it simply doesn't run as deep as something like hate. Honestly, Taki doesn’t even think he’s capable of feeling something that strong.

“I don't think you could say anything that could help me,” he finally replies. “This is figure skating, not hockey.”

“It’s all blades on ice,” Maki answers, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “And a jacked-up jump is just as obvious to us as it is to you.”

Taki can feel his annoyance levels flaring up, jumping mild and going straight into moderate territory. The botched practice so far already has him on thin ice, so to speak. “I landed the jump before, in case you forgot.” Eventually, he’s going to have to stop riding that one success so hard, especially since he hasn't been able to duplicate it, but that day is not today. And Maki is not the person he's gonna lose face in front of.

“Yeah, I did. It was cool." Taki feels his tight expression relax in surprise. Maki looks caught off guard, too, his mouth falling open while he blinks wordlessly at Taki, like he's got some sort of explanation for it. Maki clears his throat and moves on quickly. “But, uh, now you’re struggling again. Right?”

Taki scoffs, not appreciating the read when it's from him. “It’s all part of the process, okay?” 

“Sure." The hockey player's nuanced expressions are difficult to see from here, but Taki thinks he detects an eye roll. "But I think you’re taking it too slow. It’s like you think for a whole minute before actually doing anything.”

Either he’s exaggerating or he’s actually been watching Taki for minutes at a time. Taki doesn't know how to feel about that. “It's called making sure I’m doing it right." 

“The only way to know that is by actually doing something.” Now he sounds like Yudai, and whereas Taki appreciates it coming from him, he can’t say the same about Maki. 

“I am doing something," he snaps. "But I can’t just do it.” Maki tilts his head, and Taki hates that the imagery that comes to mind is puppy. He frowns and glides closer, because he’s getting tired of calling across the excess space between them. He stops far enough away to still be on his side of the rink, but close enough to make out the dimple Maki's slant-mouth expression pushes into his left cheek. “There are a lot of things we need to be conscious of. For instance, the set up and the landing are both really important. But there's also form, power, execution, body control - the list goes on.”

“And all of that should matter... more than the jump itself?” Maki says it slowly, as if he's the one on the right page and Taki's yet to catch up.

Taki recoils like the words slapped him. “Wha- You... You don’t know anything. It does matter because in figure skating, things have to look good or there’s no point in getting on the ice. Everything leading up to the big move is just as important as the move itself. It's all a performance.” Maki’s still looking at him like he’s trying to come up with a way to argue, so Taki gives up. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You chase a puck around and tackle people to the ice. It’s the opposite of pretty.”

“We don’t tackle people.”

“Whatever.” Taki throws the word right back to him, mimicking his tone from before. 

“Hey. We’ll happily leave being pretty up to you, thanks.” Taki bites the inside of his cheek, the rest of his retort freezing in his throat. “All I’m saying,” Maki continues, like he doesn’t know how that sounded. “Is that in hockey, when we’re in the middle of a play, we don’t always have time to think about every little move, and we might be better off because of it. Sometimes you gotta turn off the brain and trust the body. Take it from me. After a certain number of drills – or jumps, whatever – it just knows what to do.”

“Turning off my brain before I throw myself into the air sounds like a recipe for a concussion.”

“Concussions build character.” It sounds like it could be a joke (and Taki hopes it is), but he isn’t in the mood for one. His muscles are aching with nothing to show for it, there’s a catch in his chest every time he breathes in, and now he has to hear about his sport from someone who knows nothing about it. His mood takes another sudden, sour dip, and he lets it take over his words.

“Spoken like a true jock."

Maki sucks his teeth. “I’m just trying to help you out.”

“I didn’t ask for help.” 

Maki raises his stick from the floor and waves it at him. “Fine. Keep struggling.”

“You–” But Maki’s already turned away from him, going back to taking shots at the goal from different angles with the pucks that are scattered across the floor. Taki hates that for as long as he’s looking, he doesn’t miss a single one. “Ugghh.”

The worst part is - he does keep struggling. 

*~*~*~*~*

Another thirty minutes later Taki’s coming down from yet another popped jump. This is shitty attempt # he doesn’t even know what. His legs are running on fumes at this point, lactic acid burning its way up and down his thighs.

He doesn't try to seek out Maki. It's just that when he turns his head, Maki happens to be in his line of sight. The rink is big, but it somehow doesn't feel that way when only two people are occupying it. Maki picks that moment, too, to pause in the middle of gathering pucks back up and look over. Their eyes meet, and several seconds pass, and then Maki proceeds to flash Taki a very neutral-looking thumbs up, his expression almost hilariously blank.

"That one wasn't bad," he calls out. Taki squints his eyes, trying to decipher if he’s being sarcastic or not. Some of the tension from earlier loosened as the minutes ticked past, but Taki really didn’t expect them to be talking anymore.

Still, he picks up nothing about the other man that indicates his words are a dig and sighs, hands finding his hips as he tries to regulate his breathing, too tired to look for a fight where there isn't one. “Yes, it was.” 

Maki shrugs. “Looked impressive enough to me.” 

A brand new flush settles over Taki's body on top of the one he’s still trying to cool down from. He removed his hat a while ago and is glad his hair is long enough to cover the tops of his ears, just in case they’ve suddenly gone a brighter shade of red.

What is this guy'sdeal? Two weeks ago, he’s disrespectful as hell, and now he’s dolling out compliments and unsolicited advice? 

It's suspicious, but fatigue has finally beat any remaining hostility out of him, and it’s truly not in Taki's nature to continue down the path of being a dick unprovoked.

“What are you working on?” If they have to talk about anything, he doesn’t want it to be his epic fail of a practice session. “You said you were here to practice, too. What are you practicing?”

“Oh. Well.” Maki gestures vaguely. “Stickhandling and positioning, mostly. Gotta get even sharper if I’m going to be a great defenseman. I mean, I’m already good," he says smugly. Taki has to fight the urge to roll his eyes and blow up the truce. "But you know, great. And I need to improve my passing technique in general.”

“Sounds challenging.”

“What?”

“...What?”

“No, I just thought I detected a hint of sarcasm.”

“Well...” Taki trails off, letting the silence fill in the blanks. But Maki's openly staring, waiting for him to go on. Fine. If he wants him to be honest. He searches for a way to put it delicately, voice rising in pitch. “I mean... it’s no triple Flip."

If he’s being really honest, it’s not even a double Flip.

Hell, it’s not even a sit spin or a backspin. But they're in some sort of a ceasefire right now, so he doesn't add onto it. 

Maki nods slowly, tongue coming out to trace the side of his open-mouthed smile. He looks Taki up and down and then jerks his head at him. “Come on.” 

“Excuse me?”

“C’mere. Since you think it’s so easy.”

“I don’t– no, I can’t. I need to keep practicing.”

Maki skates over to where his discarded hockey stick is laying, bending to scoop it up without breaking speed. He spins and stops in a spray of ice, locking eyes with Taki and silently beckoning him over with his fingers. 

Taki exhales his breath in a whoosh. Why? Why is he doing it? He doesn't like Maki, or have time to entertain whatever this is. But he allows his feet to carry him over anyway, stopping once he's a little past the halfway line. Maki comes to meet him, turning his skates sideways to stop a second before colliding with him (again). Taki doesn’t flinch this time, but he does eye the fine coating of frost now covering his black skates with distaste. "Seriously?"

“This is your hockey stick,” Maki says, ignoring the complaint and moving in closer than Taki feels is necessary to hand the stick off to him. He gets a whiff of sweat and something musky before the hockey player backs up again. “There are many like it, but this one is yours.” Taki takes it with a roll of his eyes. It’s lighter than he expected. “Now, this is the objective.” Maki points at the goal post set up on the far line. “Get the puck in the goal.”

Taki stares at it blankly, and then up at Maki. “Is that all?”

“And to do that,” Maki continues. “You have to make sure you keep control of the puck.” 

“I feel like all of this is very obvious.”

“Allow me to demonstrate.”

He skates away and Taki sighs, already sensing he made a mistake agreeing to this. He looks on as Maki heads to the side wall and bends down to grab another hockey stick out of the duffel bag. Taki’s eyes dip entirely of their own accord, trailing down the broadness of Maki's back and lower before he can stop himself. He looks away quickly, shifting on his skates and exhaling in a way he hopes is perceived as impatience. 

Maki returns to the center with the extra stick, oblivious. He makes a show of sliding a stray puck towards himself. “Observe.” 

Taki watches, unimpressed, as Maki guides the puck around this side of the rink, weaving around the few cones he’s got set up and taking, in Taki’s opinion, an unnecessarily convoluted route to reach the goal. To his credit, his skating is clean - smooth and comfortable in a way that makes Taki sure he was being honest when he said he’s been skating since he was seven. His hockey skates produce a quiet slicing sound that melts into more of a swish whenever he makes a sharp turn or changes directions.

When he finally, finally does strike the puck into the net with a sharp crack, he follows up with a brief celebration, hands shooting up above his head as if there were an audience cheering him on in the stands. As if there were anyone here for him to impress when it’s just Taki, who decidedly isn’t. 

Maki stops celebrating and looks at him expectantly, obviously waiting to be praised for that oh-so-visceral display of pushing a plastic disk into a net with a stick.

And look, Taki's not knocking how impressive it can be. The hockey game he witnessed was proof enough of that. But this isn't that, and he doesn't feel like awarding Maki with the reaction he's fishing for. 

“Impressive,” he drawls, voice like a metronome and expression dead to match. Maki's smile fades but not completely. Enough of it remains for the dimples to still be present. He takes up a new puck and skates next to Taki, sliding it over in front of him. 

“Please.”

I needed a break, Taki tells himself when he puts the flat end of the stick on the ice and wonders yet again why he's entertaining this. Entertaining him. He flexes the muscles in his legs to test their recovery progress. They respond with a dull burn, a slight tremble still lingering in them.

He tries to mimic the way he’s seen other hockey players hold the stick without looking like he’s thinking about it too much. He brushes past Maki and guides the puck carefully towards the goal. The puck somehow feels slippery - tricky to push forward in a straight line - but once Taki moves to skate beside it, it becomes much easier to handle. He slowly coaxes it over the ice and taps it into the net. 

Facing Maki, he crosses one foot behind the other and sticks his toe pick into the ice, dipping into a curtsy like a figure skater might do after finishing a program. Their own version of a celebration.

“Ta-da,” he drones as he comes back up. 

Maki’s got his arms crossed, that same partial smile on his face. "Yeah, no.”

“No?”

“You were going like two miles an hour!”

“So?” Taki gestures behind him. “Puck. Goal. Objective achieved.”

“And what happens when you’ve got three other guys on your ass trying to steal the puck from you?” 

“I ask them nicely to let me have this one?”

“You don’t score. Not with a shot like that."

"A shot like what?" Taki asks, exasperated. He's still not seeing what he did wrong here.

"So slow my grandma could make it.” 

Taki groans, dropping his head back. “Oh, give me a break. This is the first time I’ve held a hockey stick in my life. And in case you haven’t noticed.” He spreads his arms wide to indicate all the empty space around them. “We’re not in a game.”

“Oh no,” Maki shakes his head, pointing his stick at Taki. “You don’t get to say it’s easy when you’re not even doing it right. Try going around the cones. And moving faster than a drunk turtle.”

Taki blows out air, debating dropping the stick to the ice and leaving, but something keeps him there. It's an excuse to procrastinate a little longer on practice, yes, but there's also something else - something competitive and proud. He wants to prove he’s better at this than Maki’s clearly expecting him to be. 

He knows he may not be a particularly polished figure skater, but he’s a great ice skater if nothing else. Some days he feels more at home on the ice than off it. 

He sweeps up another stray puck and pushes it toward the line of cones, picking up easy, familiar speed. He almost loses it rounding the very first cone and has to slow down a lot to guide it back toward himself before it slides too far away. Getting around the next cone is more frustrating. He has to keep moving the stick back and forth on each side of the puck to make it go where he wants it to, which feels awkward and unnatural and requires that he constantly adjust his stance. Now that he thinks about it, Maki did the same thing effortlessly in the game, and three times faster. 

The clacking of the stick against the ice is loud. The damn puck won’t turn like he wants. One of his skates hits a cone, knocking it askew. A frustrated growl rumbles low in his chest. 

“Having trouble there?”

“I got it.” Taki mentally shoos Maki's smug tone away, poking his tongue out in concentration. Things like Flip jumps and Salchows do their best to defeat him, and rightfully so. They are worthy opponents. He won’t give the stick-puck game the satisfaction of having a similar effect. 

Alas - he rounds the last cone at a record slow pace and hits the puck toward the goal too hard from too far away. He misses. The puck clacks against the wall. Taki glares at it like it’s done him an offense. 

“Now imagine doing all that while also having to keep the puck away from me.”

Maki’s voice sounds closer. Taki spins around, and he’s right there behind him. Taki drifts backwards, trying not to look like he’s escaping.

This close, he’s very aware of how broad Maki is. Strong and proud of it, always standing with his shoulders back like he wants people to notice. Taki finds himself forcing casualness into his voice. “Yeah, right. That's enough hockey for me today. Or forever.”

“Come on, let’s go a couple rounds." Maki grins playfully. "I promise not to rough you up too bad.” He takes up a stance, knees bent and hockey stick poised in front of him like at any moment he might charge. Taki’s body tenses, heart stuttering, as if bracing for an impact.

He shakes his head. “No, really. I have to get back to practicing.”

He wouldn’t think someone as… square as Maki capable of looking so softly disappointed, eyes and lips rounding at the edges when they turn down. “Really? We got time.” 

Taki examines his expression, trying to figure out what changed since the last time they spoke, back when he was sure Maki would steal Taki’s ¥118,000 skates when he wasn’t looking and yeet them into the nearest dumpster given the chance. He pushes the hockey stick against the younger’s chest gently. It’s expectedly solid, and also information Taki prefers not to have. “I don’t. But thanks for the lesson. I guess.” 

He waits for Maki's fingers to wrap around it before he lets go, brushing past him to return to his side of the rink, reminding himself the whole way over that making progress means overcoming distractions. That includes impromptu hockey lessons in the middle of practices. 

And annoying, confusing hockey boys with crooked brows and wicked smiles.