Chapter Text
The verdict is back in the early hours of the morning: no break, but he’s definitely concussed, so they send him home with painkillers and tell Suguru he has to watch him closely.
Well. They don’t tell Suguru, specifically, but they say someone needs to watch him, and neither of them say any different. They live together. Who else would it be?
Satoru doesn’t even try to walk upstairs to his room. He collapses on the couch, amongst the pillows, pulls up a throw blanket over his body. Suguru stands in the doorway. “I’m gonna shower, okay?”
“Uhuh,” Satoru squeaks out. He can finally sleep, and he’s planning to do so for as long as his body allows.
Suguru disappears, and despite the thumping in his head, Satoru feels himself sink into the cushions, soft and all-encompassing, relief seeping through his bones. He’ll move upstairs again tomorrow, probably, when the light starts to filter in through the windows and it begins to hurt his head. Right now, he’s too exhausted, all his muscles wrung through, loose. He’s not sure whether it's the adrenaline wearing off or the painkillers or the concussion that they’ve told him he has, but–
He can’t keep his eyes open.
—
“Hey, you should move,”
That’s Suguru’s voice. Satoru squints up at him, and immediately feels like his head is being caved in by a sledgehammer.
“I know, God, he got you good,” Suguru– Satoru can’t tell if it’s a grimace, or a laugh. Maybe a bit of both. “I’ve shut the blinds in your room, okay?”
Satoru doesn’t so much move himself as he lets himself be moved, up the stairs, into his room, tucked away under the covers. His window is open, to keep the room cold the way Satoru likes it.
Suguru goes to leave, and through the scratching of pins and needles in his throat, asks, “where’re you going?”
“Optional morning skate,” Suguru says, which– that’s gotta be bullshit, they won last night– “I’m heading down to the rink,”
“Is everyone not hungover?” Satoru grits out. He doesn’t mean for it to be sharp, but past how unbelieveably shit he feels, it’s impossible not to.
“I doubt Yaga’s gonna be too harsh,” laughing, Suguru steps backwards out of the doorframe, “painkillers are on the side, for when you wake up properly,”
Satoru doesn’t wait to wake up properly. He fumbles in the dark for where he knows Suguru will have put the glass, gulps down the water and fumbles with the bottle through the glaring pain in his wrist. Stupid childproof caps, do they not know that Satoru can’t squeeze anything right now?
—
By day two, he’s bored enough and lucid enough to look at screens, just for a little bit. He catches up: watches the dirty fight Pez got in for him against Toji, gloves on, a proper whaling. Apparently he’s out for a couple of games for it, so Satoru figures he should really send a gift basket, now.
He finds out by himself that Suguru’s third goal of the night had been shorthanded in the wake of the penalty, pretty much unassisted coast to coast type of deal, a dirty little shot right over the goalie’s hip.
Suguru doesn’t celly after, in the video. Instead, his eyes are dark as he looks over at the bench, a twitch of his mouth and his glove, running his tongue along the bottom of his front teeth. Arrogant.
Satoru likes to tease him about it, the way he is on the ice. Sometimes, especially when the pressure is mounting and the whole show feels like being vacuum packed from the inside, he splits in two. He’s soft off the ice, quiet and calm. He’ll never say it out loud, but he’s gentle in all the ways that matter. In the locker room, his arm around Alek’s shoulders after a tough loss. Being shaken by Pez in the middle of a club on a roadie. Letting Satoru lean on him on the bus home, tucked away in the back seats.
Then he gets on the ice, and it’s like a switch flips. He’s definitely not gentle anymore – not that Satoru wants him to be! – he follows through on checks and he’s physical and defensive and he’ll absolutely go to war for the win. For the guys, too. Which Satoru didn’t not expect, but he– okay, in fairness, he didn’t know what to expect. Juniors is different. Was different. But apparently somewhere inbetween there and here, he’d learnt the importance of it, and Satoru loves to watch it from the bench where he centers the second line, Pez on his wing.
He’s more mature than Satoru on the ice. It’s okay, Satoru’s been told enough by the beat reporters and Yaga and Gakuganji, once. He’s swallowed it. NCAA hockey is different to NHL hockey, but Suguru was level-headed enough to take to it like a duck to water, to learn the team dynamics and slot himself in cleanly. Satoru was jealous, at first, because he stuck out like a sore thumb around everyone but Oaks for ages, until he scored a goal with Pez’s assist late in the third against LA. Then he was in. He had to work for it.
Suguru had slotted in like nothing, taken his place in the top six, on the top powerplay unit, in the second penalty kill. English is his second language, and he still is on better terms with most of the broadcasting guys than Satoru could ever hope to be.
Satoru likes him boyish, though. He likes having him in their kitchen and making fun of him for that one time he burnt eggs, even though he’s only done it once and he’s a way better chef than Satoru is. He likes him hyped up after a goal, bouncing up and down and shouting into his ears. He likes him off the ice, too, sometimes a little bit more.
He rewinds the video. Watches it again. Coast to coast, unassisted, fast, deke past the defence, slapshot, in. The cold determination, the satisfaction, after. Not a celebration, because they still had a game to win.
He rewinds it again, something warm settling in his gut.
—
He waits a couple more days before he finally calls Pez. He wants to sooner, but his head takes a while to come right, and he lets himself sink into it a little. They clinched. He needs to be on the ice in game one. So he takes his time.
Suguru shrugs when he asks about practice. He’s awful at talking hockey off the ice. It’s funny, most of the time, and frustrating when Satoru needs it.
So he calls his captain. “Hey,”
“Satoru. You okay?”
“Yeah, I-” Jesus, he doesn’t know how to do this- “I wanted to say thanks. For Toji. I saw the video.”
“Oh.” Pez breathes out a sigh of relief on the other end. “I thought you were calling to say the trainers had pulled you out,”
“You would have heard that, if it were true,” Satoru laughs, “come on,”
Perry hums, something soft. He’s the same on and off the ice, Satoru has learnt. He had an A when he arrived in New York, and got the C two years later, and he’s the same. Quietly determined, leads by example. Kind, and harsh when he needs to be. God knows Satoru has needed it a lot. “I would have done that for anyone.”
“You got thrown out the game.” Satoru bites out. It’s stupid, trying to wheedle out a confession that’s already there. “Would you?”
He breathes in and out in the time it takes him to respond. Satoru thinks he’s missed the mark. “Look– I know it’s easier sometimes for everyone to think of you as some idiot hotshot who only knows how to score goals-”
Satoru snorts, “oh yeah, that’s what I am, baby–”
“But you’re like. You are self aware.”
This is– this is too sincere. Pez can be sincere, he can be vulnerable, but Satoru’s only ever really seen it with Oaks, chin tucked down, hands on shoulders, on waists, out of sight of the reporters, the press. Using first names, full names. Satoru doesn’t have that relationship with his captain. “I– yeah. I’d hope so.”
“He. Toji’s a cunt,” Pez bites down around the word, bitter, and Satoru sort of shocks from it. Pez can’t see him from over the phone, but he still draws his shoulders up, like he’s been caught out.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t fight. You’re not an idiot. You’re annoying as fuck when you’re chirping, but that’s a skill that you kinda need on a team. Oaks even does it from in the net sometimes.”
“Great compliments, coach,” Satoru smiles, but he knows it’s watery.
“He can’t say shit like that to you,” Pez finishes. “And he’s not had what he should have had coming to him for a long time.”
“So you went for him with your gloves on.”
“And I wish I knocked him out,”
That stays in the air for a moment. Satoru adjusts his grip on the phone. His voice comes out small when he says, “you heard him. What he said,”
“Everyone did,” Pez says, and Satoru can’t, for the life of him, figure out what the tone is. Pity? Anger? Something else entirely? “You guys were pretty close to the bench when he said it.”
Satoru swallows. Cool. So everyone on the team knows he couldn’t handle a little chirp, that he flew off the handle about one comment. “Right.”
“You don’t fight.” Pez says, instead, “you’re a shitty fighter. But I trust you to know when it's worth it, and that was. I was returning the favour.”
“I– I got myself injured. Before playoffs,”
“You punched a guy who shittalked your mom-”
“I got you thrown out– maybe suspended-”
“They’re not gonna suspend me, they told me.” Pez says, with finality. “You’re our star player. The future of this team is with you.” He knew that. It’s stupid, because he knows that. It still sends a little shock through him. Pez carries on, “they can’t get away with shit like that on you.”
“Suguru has an A, not me,” Satoru blurts. He’s– he can’t have the C, it would be all wrong.
There’s a dry laugh from the other end of the line. “Suguru’s with you, isn’t he?”
—
If anyone asks, Satoru hasn’t got an ego problem.
He’s had this conversation with his teammates so many times. Ego problem implies he thinks he’s better than he is, and he doesn’t think that. He just is that good. And people get mad about him not downplaying it, or whatever. Sorry if he doesn’t want to lie to the press and say his accuracy needs work. It doesn’t. His stats tell the story, and if they don’t want to read it for themselves, fine.
Then he got accused of favouritism because he dared to defend the team’s decision to bring Suguru up into the NHL roster, accused of being blinded by his friend. And the two of them had proved everyone wrong pretty quickly on that count, too.
So Satoru doesn’t tend to listen to many people, is the point. He knows who matters: his captain, his team, his mom. Bring him back down to earth, to the stuff beyond the stats and the numbers thrown at him constantly.
The other people he has to listen to are the trainers. Kind of begrudgingly, but he still listens. He’s not an idiot, and he wants to have a long career. One worth talking about. Multiple cups and all. And that sort of requires rehabbing the injuries properly, taking your time, knowing when a battle is worth it.
For the first time since he got drafted first overall for the Angels, he feels like this battle is worth it. Like this one is worth pushing through. Playoff hockey is a marathon, not a sprint, but he can stick it out. He can go the distance. For the cup.
“Any headaches? Any migraines?” Lisa asks. She’s younger than the other physios, but she’s much more qualified, and Satoru thinks he remembers it being mentioned that she has another degree in sports psychology alongside all her other accolades. He trusts her.
“No.” Satoru says, sure about it. He has a low, dull ache at the base of his skull right now, but he’s sure that it won’t matter once he’s playing. Once the adrenaline kicks in. It’ll wear off with time, and he’s not going to get in stupid fights or have his helmet knocked off again. He’s not.
She sighs, because she knows him too well. “This is your brain, Gojo. If there’s any pain, even the smallest bit-”
“I’m good,” Satoru grins, knocking his fist against the side of his skull, “you’d have to hit me again to make it hurt,”
She nods, putting down her clipboard. “Let’s have a look at this hand, then.”
This is where lying isn’t enough. He knows it. He closes his eyes.
Satoru’s not religious, hockey gods or otherwise, but he thinks that the time to send a prayer is now. It’s not broken, but it’s sprained, and he needs to convince them he can play through it. Even though the scans show damage to the tendons.
He tilts his head to the ceiling, and takes a deep breath as Lisa does– something– to his fingers. Pushing them. It jolts right the way through his wrist, through his forearm. “Does this hurt?”
“A little.” Satoru says, because he’s not going to get away with saying its painless.
She flexes it again. “Where?”
“Localised,” Satoru says. He knows big words. He knows what a minor injury should be. How the patterns of pain should go.
Lisa drops his hand and picks up her clipboard, scribbling something down. “Look– if you’re not in pain, then it should be okay. But I’m still going to recommend you don’t travel for the first two games.”
He feels his stomach drop. “No– come on–”
“If you tweak it, you’ll break it,”
The thing is.
He doesn’t have an ego problem.
But the team doesn’t win without him. Case in point: the five-game losing streak whilst he struggled and when he was back home. Suguru can’t carry them alone. Neither can Pez, or Oaks.
“I’m not going to. I’ll be careful. Just let me play.”
She looks at him, like she’s thinking about being stern but can’t quite find the bite. “We’ll monitor it. But don’t expect to play,”
But his foot’s in the door. He grins at her. “Okay.”
—
“They cleared you?”
Suguru has his arms folded across his chest where he stands, leaning against the bench, surveying quietly. Satoru isn’t used to this: isn’t used to being the subject of Suguru’s critical gaze. Usually it’s reserved for the team when they’re playing badly, for an opponent when they crosscheck one of the guys a little too hard. For a goalie when they’re playing well.
Now it’s trained on him.
“Yeah,” Satoru swallows around a bite of his dinner. Rice and salmon, classic. Easy.
“There’s no way they cleared you.” Suguru scoffs, “what lie did you tell-”
“I didn’t!”
“You’re eating with your left hand.”
Stuttering, Satoru tries to come up with an excuse, even though he doesn’t need one. “It’s– obviously I’m not healed, but I can play-”
There’s that look again. And then it’s replaced by something worse, by the worrying of Suguru’s brow, the purse of his lips. The shit kitchen lighting does nothing for him. He looks tired, starting to get to the point where he can’t keep on the muscle he worked so hard to bulk up on in the pre-season. They all are, but Suguru’s here in his kitchen. “Satoru–” he bites his lip, thinks better of it, cuts himself off. But he’s here, so Suguru doesn’t get to just do that.
“What? What are you talking about?”
Suguru looks him up and down again. His hand twists in his opposite sleeve. “You’re risking your career for this. If it- if it breaks-”
“It’s not going to. I’m gonna be careful.”
Scoffing, Suguru pushes away from the bench, walking the two steps it takes to cross the kitchen and stand over him. “That’s not how hockey works. If it was how hockey worked we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“It’s a cup run-”
“It won’t be a cup run if you tweak your wrist and you’re out in the first round-”
“We won’t get past the first round if I don’t play.”
The room goes cold. Satoru feels it: feels the air evaporate from around them. He knows immediately he’s said the wrong thing.
He has no idea what it was, though.
“Do you not trust us?” Suguru is saying, jaw set and hands balled into fists. “We’re your teammates-”
“I want to– I want to help. I can’t sit on the sidelines and watch you guys-”
“We can handle round one. It’s fucking- it’s Toronto-”
“And? They’re seeded above us–”
“And they’re shit in playoffs. Every year, they’re shit in playoffs,” Suguru bites out. “Come on, we watched them choke last year and laughed on the couch about it.”
Suguru’s anger folds away. Beneath the weight of it, of this. Satoru wishes it was anger instead of this: naked desperation to keep him away. “What if they’re not? They’re a good team.”
“Sit out the first two games. If they’re that good, then you can come back.” He breathes out, heavy, “you can bring us back.”
“If they want me to play, I’ll play,”
“I don’t want you to play. Satoru.”
He can’t really argue with it like that. When it’s said, plain and blunt, unavoidable. “I have to.”
Suguru’s upper lip curls. “Like you have to be an idiot about this?”
“No-” Before Satoru can really protest properly, he’s jumping back from his own chair, the shock of cold water from all the way down his neck to his lap. “What the fuck-”
The glass is smashed on the floor. He’s soaked. It’s only water, but Suguru is already walking out, moving through the doorway with his shoulders raised.
“Why’d you do that?!”
“I had to,” Suguru laughs, the fucker, and Satoru stands, seething in their kitchen and thinks. Okay, I get it.
—
Suguru’s not not talking to him. He’s on the ice, and Satoru’s got a no-contact jersey, and the drills are still butter smooth, connecting, tape to tape. That’s not the problem. The problem is that they get home, and Suguru won’t cook. He doesn’t linger in the kitchen. He leaves for his workouts without telling him.
They leave for Toronto in the evening. Yaga hasn’t confirmed the roster, yet, but the implication is that Satoru won’t be on it. He’s travelling anyway.
He’s had enough of Suguru being a dick, though. It’s stupid. He marches himself up to their usual seats on the plane, sees Jack sitting next to Suguru instead of him. “Can you move?”
Jack looks up, wide-eyed, and then looks a little like a bunny in the headlights as he glances back at Suguru. “I–”
“Why should he?” Suguru tips his chin up, and Satoru pushes his tongue into his cheek. Great.
“Because this is stupid and I want to talk to you,”
Finally, Jack throws his hands up. “I’m not getting in the middle of your domestic, man, sorry Getz.”
He turns tail and runs back to sit near the guys at the front, and Satoru flops down next to Suguru, who breathes out through his nose. “Why’d you scare him away?”
“I can scare who I want,” Satoru pushes his hair back, away from his forehead. It’s just been cut, way-too-short, but he can’t touch it from here on out, and having it long annoys him.
“Have you changed your mind?”
“You know I’m not on the roster anyway,”
Suguru hums, looking away from him out of the window. So Satoru reaches across and shuts the blind. He immediately turns back toward him– score. “What the hell was that for?”
“You’re not talking to me,” Satoru hisses out, and it’s stupid. It’s stupid how much he’s letting this affect him. They’re not even playing together, and in the five-on-five, they won’t be on the same line unless Yaga gets desperate, unless they need to carve out an opportunity with their bare hands playing more minutes than they should.
“I’m pissed at you,”
“I got that,” there’s no chill in the air right now. Satoru is willing to push until he gets what he wants. He’ll look down on them from the box in two days’ time anyway, and not be able to do anything. Here, he still has a little control. “What about? I said I wanted to play a hockey game and you threw water at me.”
“You still can’t use your hand.”
Satoru flexes his fingers, just for show, even though it hurts like a motherfucker. He can keep a straight face whilst he does it. There’s a moment where Suguru looks him up and down, then he reaches out and grabs his wrist, pulling it forward. This time, the shock bolts through him along with the pain, and he can’t suppress a hiss, face twisting.
“You proved your point, asshole,”
“No, I haven’t, because you still think it’s a good idea to play injured,”
“It’s the playoffs, everyone is injured,”
“I’m not.” Suguru says. “I have a minor sprain. Oaks is as healthy as he can be. Pez is good. We have a mostly healthy roster. You can afford to rest if Toronto fold under pressure, like they have for the last three years.”
“But then it’s Boston, probably-”
“You’ll be back by the time we go to Boston.”
“I’ll still be injured.”
“You’ll be injured less.”
They’re not getting anywhere. It’s so– why is Suguru arguing with him about wanting to play hockey? About wanting to be on the bench with the boys when they clinch, when they get through, when they– “can we stop not talking? I’m just going along with the trainers, and Yaga, I dunno why you’re being so pissy,”
“Because you’re lying to them about how much pain you’re in,” Suguru hisses out. “You’re being stubborn.”
“Because I want to lift a cup with you?”
“Because you want to lift a cup.”
“What the hell is wrong with that? This year could be our year,”
“Every year could be our year if you don’t end your career for a playoff run.”
“It’s hardly going to–”
“You don’t know that.”
Satoru would beg to differ. He knows. He’s young, not yet in his prime, not yet as strong as he knows he will be. His career won’t end here. He’s the best player in the league. But none of those things are– they’re not evidence. Suguru won’t accept them.
“What do you want from me? To prove I’m okay to play,”
“To be able to use cutlery without wincing,” Suguru says, deadpan, “that would be a great start,”
Satoru leans back in his seat, “stop avoiding me.”
“Okay,”
“Okay?”
“Yeah.”
—
The first game is fine. Not the crushing loss that Satoru knows he could have delivered, but they win game one in OT off a neat little wraparound from Suguru. He’d screamed in the press box, ran down to the locker rooms and launched himself into a hug with Oaks and Suguru and Pez.
Yaga is in a good mood, too, clapping Satoru on the back and shaking him from side to side. “You’re in for the next one, yeah?”
Satoru looks at Suguru across the room, who’s laughing with Jack, dimples on show and hair sticking to his face. He takes a deep breath.
“Yeah, okay,”
—
Satoru gets to practice ice early. He dodges a few reporters lingering in the hallways, in the stands. He knows they’ll want his comments, his thoughts, about game one, and about being in the lineup for game two, despite the initial assessment of his wrist being poor.
The air in the rink in Toronto is cold. Colder than at home, and it reminds him intensely of being in juniors, trekking across the country for games, sore from buses and long-haul journeys, breathing in the cold, cold air in the depths of winter and rolling out knots in his muscles from shivering.
He looks up to the stands now, empty save from a few dots of staff members, and sighs, cold air materialising in front of him. He skates a little aimlessly, for a while, tapping the puck from side to side, aiming slapshots at the net. At the bar. The sound is satisfying, in a way, the clang of the puck on the plexiglass.
He runs drills. The shooting stuff he can do by himself, anyway, feeling himself sink back into it. His wrist only twinges slightly, and he’s taped it up, just to be safe. This is good.
There’s a clatter from the other side of the rink, and Satoru snaps his head around to look, watching as Oaks stands behind the benches, looking a little guilty with the puck bucket at his feet. “Oops.”
Satoru watches for a moment, because Oaks is all decked out, even though he doesn’t have to be here so early. It makes him look so much bigger than he actually is, which he thought was fitting in a way. He’s the centre of it all.
“What’re you doing here?”
Oaks shrugs, “just fucking around, I guess.”
“Are you on tonight?” Satoru squints. He thought Oaks was gonna be in net for them tonight, and the thought of Alek being there instead makes him shiver. Alek’s not bad, bad, but there’s a reason he’s still the backup. He’s only a year or so older than him, and goalies mature slower.
Oaks grins and shrugs. Satoru’s close enough now that he can see the chip in his front tooth. “I’m dressing. Wanted to be out. Stretch, y’know?”
In Satoru’s first season Oaks had gone on early with Pez a couple of times, when they were debating who should be next to take the captaincy and everyone was under pressure. He’d seen them, fucking about on drills, Oaks checking Pez in open ice, half-assed without any of the proper gear on, laughs echoing around the rink.
He remembers, sort of, that Pez had said Oaks hadn’t always been a goalie. That he played defence when he was a kid, into his teens, that he’d only really become a goaltender by chance when he was playing for a team that had been plagued by goalie injuries.
But then he’d been good, so that’s where he’d stayed. Still, the last echoes of who he was before had come out, then, when he was balancing Pez out on the ice, opening himself up to questions about it.
“I’m not really doing much,”
Oaks skates forwards, slow so he doesn’t fall over. “Fine by me,”
“You’re a dick,”
Oaks snorts, tapping his stick against Satoru’s shins as he skates towards the net. “Who cleared you?”
“Was clear before the flight,” Satoru mumbles, even though it’s the truth and he doesn’t have to be embarrassed about it, “Yaga’s said he wants me on tonight,”
There’s silence between them for a moment as Oaks scoops a puck out of the net and punts it down the other end of the ice. “Do you want to go on?”
“Yeah, of course,” Satoru scoffs, because, come on, that’s obvious, “of course I wanna play.”
Oaks leans on his stick, shuffling on his feet. “Why are you out here so early, then?”
There’s the million dollar question. “I feel– I can’t be rusty, they need me,”
“We won without you, y’know,”
“You were in net,”
“Sasha will rise to it.” Oaks says. “You know he can, better than anyone,”
Sasha’s– Alek’s– “he’s young, though.”
“So are you,” Oaks shrugs. He squints, putting his mask down on top of the net. It dips under the weight as he pulls off his pads, and his mitts come off soon after.
“What’re you doing?”
“Spare stick, come on, you can laugh at me trying to score goals,”
“I don’t have one,”
“Yes you do, you have about five sitting behind the bench right now,”
“You don’t have to do this,”
Oaks shrugs, starting to skate back towards the bench himself. “Do what.”
“Cheer me up, or whatever.” Satoru watches as Oaks tips right over the boards to reach down and pull out his other gloves, stealing them to put on in place of his mitts. “Hey, those are mine, do they even fit?”
“Sure, good enough for ten minutes,” Oaks huffs, yanking out a stick.
“Oaks. Come on, I’m not soft.”
Oaks turns to look at him, then, eyebrows doing this– thing. “I know you’re not. That’s why I’m out here with you,”
“Nah– look, you don’t have to-”
“There’s no one else here.”
Satoru looks around, scours the stands. There are people around, there has to be. Equipment managers and beat reporters and–
But he can’t see anyone.
“Gojo. Come on, push me around a little. I can take it,”
Satoru feels himself flush, right the way under all his pads. He knows what this is, what Oaks is trying to do, but he can’t bring himself to fight it anymore than this. That would mean he has to say it, why this is bothering him, why the injury has him so cut up, why everything feels like it’s been tipped upside down. So he doesn’t.
Instead he shoves Oaks to the side as he laughs, and Oaks shoves back, weak because he’s a different type of athlete even though they play the same sport on the same team. They train differently, skate differently, live differently. Satoru will love him the same, though. Oaks bumps into him again, and Satoru lets himself go pliant, get knocked about a bit.
His shoulder goes up against the boards, and then Oaks almost falls flat on his face because he’s a goalie and he doesn’t know how to check. Satoru laughs so hard that he hears it echo in the rafters, and then Oaks finally lines up a shot at the net from the blue line.
The puck doesn’t go in. It’s not even close. Not one to be deterred, he lines up another shot and slams it, hard, so much that the momentum almost bowls his own feet out from underneath him. Satoru giggles again, quieter this time. “If I get injured, you can just play in my place. As a forward,”
Oaks makes an aw shucks gesture, “thanks for the vote of confidence, Prince Charming,”
“Oh, fuck off,” Satoru shoves him sideways, right as he lines up another slapshot. That one, due to Satoru’s intervention, goes in. “Does that count as a point for tonight?”
“Getting a head start,” Oaks laughs back. He has smile lines up to his eyes, crinkling. He’s had a head start, on everything else. Satoru lines up a puck and shoots it bar-down, and it goes in with a satisfying clink.
Oaks whistles. “I would’ve saved that,”
“No, you wouldn’t,”
Oaks shrugs, “I’ve saved more complicated shots than that,”
Satoru knows that. He’s had a front row seat to a lot of them, and he’s hugged him to thank him for every posted shutout and then some. It’s fun to rile him up, though, so he leans back on Oaks’ shoulder, rocking on his heels, and watches as another shot goes wide into the plexiglass. He swears under his breath. “I could’ve saved that one,” Satoru grins.
“Yeah, because it wasn’t in the net, asshole,”
“Does that matter?”
“Yeah, kind of,”
“I’d still be a great goalie,” Satoru huffs, “I’m plenty flexible,”
“Flexible! You should have figure skated!” Oaks snatches a puck off him as he’s lining up for a shot, taking off down the ice with it. With a laugh, even though there’s a ton more pucks right in front of him, Satoru follows. This time, before he can catch up and try to defend, Oaks aims a slapshot that actually goes in, and Satoru collides with him a second too late, sending him toppling to the floor because Oaks can be a brick wall when he wants to be. “You can’t even play defence,”
“I’m a forward!” Satoru splutters out, from the ice, and Oaks shrugs.
“So’s Getz, and he could play defence if he needed to,”
“Okay, come on, he’s different.”
“I know.” Oaks finally takes pity on him, and hauls him up by his good arm, “you two work well together.”
“Put your pads back on so I can have some proper practice,” Satoru scoffs, “that’s what you wanted, right?”
He rolls his eyes, letting himself be pushed as they make their way back to the other net. “Yeah, sure.”
Somehow, they end up playing catch until the others start to trickle in, with Satoru flicking the puck upwards into Oaks’ outstretched mitt, and the goalie diving in every direction until he falls flat on his ass.
Pez is first to arrive, tapping his stick on the ice in a sort of applause as he approaches. His smile is lopsided, looking straight at Oaks, who’s sprawled out on the floor with a puck still in his hand. “Don’t break our star goalie.”
“What about your star forward?” Satoru finds himself grinning, and Pez laughs, looking back at him.
“I think he’ll be alright.”
Satoru looks over his shoulder to see Suguru stepping onto the ice, stick posted up over his shoulder, the start of his patchy beard already coming in, and thinks yeah, I am.
—
Satoru’s helmet knocks against Oaks’ first, in game four. Someone else gets there quick, and Satoru can’t see enough to know who it is, but he can hear, “shut them out, baby!”
He knows when Suguru gets to him. He knows because he can let go, both of them screaming in each others’ faces.
“Clean sweep!”
“Your goal-”
“We got it at home!”
“Get a room!” Oaks shouts back at them.
—
“We know that the next few weeks will be tough. Keep your heads down, and we go again,”
“Yes Coach!”
—
Round two of the playoffs is Pittsburgh, which is closer to home than Toronto, but not by much. Satoru’s made a rule for himself to not look at who they’ll face if they win the series, just to not jinx it.
Suguru’s the opposite. He keeps up to date with every game, every stat, every point. They’re both handling the pressure well.
They take Pittsburgh in six.
—
He’s pulled for pre-game media in Montreal. They start away, again, which they will for the rest of these playoffs, but they knew that going in. They knew they were bottom seeds. They just needed to get in.
“Gojo, your injury after the fight with Toji had people speculating that you’d be out for the whole series versus Toronto, at least, and instead you made it back for game two,” a reporter says. It’s a little on the nose, but Satoru knew he couldn’t really artfully avoid questions about it forever. “Was the injury not as bad as you first thought, or has the rehab gone better than you expected?”
Satoru leans forward into the mic. “The trainers are very good at their jobs. It helped that we had a week and a half until playoffs started, I guess, too.”
Keep it vague. Answer as little of the question as possible, especially when it’s about an injury that the opposition could easily exploit. No one needs to know how much pain Satoru is in apart from himself and Suguru, and that’s only because he can’t hide anything from him. Montreal have a few heavy-hitting defensemen who would happily take a suspension if it meant taking out Satoru for the rest of the playoffs.
“Montreal play a very physical game,” another reporter says, “are you worried about the resurfacing of any injuries? Yours or others?”
“No.”
There’s a couple questions fielded to Pez, which Satoru zones out of, picking at a loose thread on his sleeve.
“Any more?”
“Yes. For Gojo,”
Satoru tries to make it look like he’s been listening the whole time. He’s pretty sure he fails miserably, given Pez’s snort from beside him. He hums.
“Earlier in the year, you lost your mother, which was a great loss to the hockey community. You’ve spoken about her being your inspiration, and said that winning the cup would be as much about cementing her legacy as much as your own. Is that something that puts more pressure onto you, in this run?”
“There’s always pressure–” Satoru starts on autopilot, then he swallows. Stops. Why should he answer this? He knows the headline they want. The cup stopped being about her as soon as he knew he’d never be able to hand it over to her after, but of course he wants to do it for her. It’s not like how they’re thinking, though. It’s about him. It’s about making this worth it. “Do you know her name?”
There’s silence. The reporter chuckles, like this is all a joke. “What?”
“My mom. Do you know her name.”
“Is that– you haven’t answered the question.”
Satoru’s heard enough. “She won a gold medal. She’s a better hockey player than I’ll ever be, and you don’t know her name.” He stands up from his stool, despite all the frantic gesturing from their poor PR girl. Whatever. This is her job. “So I’m not answering questions about it anymore.”
Pez stands with him, and they walk out together. He doesn’t ask questions, and they don’t talk about it, and the PR girl doesn’t follow them, but there’s staff crawling everywhere, and Satoru feels like he might just crawl out of his own skin.
“Why did you do that?” Pez says, when they’re sort-of alone, in one of the corridors, his voice low. The guts of the stadium in Montreal are falling apart, and no one would know it from the outside. “It’s going to be more of a story, now.”
“Every article calls her my mom.” Satoru stops. He’s realising it now, all at once, even though he should have much earlier. “But she won Olympic gold. She was better than me. Like, more physical, everything, and it didn’t matter. And I hate it.”
Pez presses his lips tight together, and puts his hand at the back of Satoru’s arm. “Because you’re in the show, and she wasn’t, man.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I’m not saying it is, but you’re you. They’re going to ask, and they like seeing you pissed off. So now it’s only gonna get worse.”
“I feel guilty,” Satoru blurts out, “I feel like. My dad lost his wife, and I’m worried about hockey. All I can think about is hockey, even when it’s my mom and they’re asking about community.”
“Kid-” Pez grimaces, because Satoru doesn’t have this relationship with his captain. The kind where they can talk about this. And Satoru knows that this is all he wants to say, right now.
“It’s okay,” Satoru says. “Let’s go win a hockey game.”
“Gojo-”
“She’d want me to win.”
—
They do not win game one. It’s the worst they’ve played in a while, and Suguru goes down the tunnel nine minutes in under concussion protocol, so the rest of the game sucks. It’s a grind. They lose in double overtime, and Satoru looks up into the rafters and tells the hockey gods to fuck themselves.
Suguru is kept out for game two, which sucks even more, because they lose again, and Satoru tugs at the rings around his neck and watches the clock tick down. Two goals to one. No overtime needed. And Suguru watches from up in the box, removed from everything. It feels so wrong, like he’s missed an important plot point in a movie and now he’s lost because everyone is speaking a different language.
Suguru has the window seat on the plane, and Satoru watches him breathe. It had been scary for a minute, there, but he’ll be back for game three, and everything will be okay again.
He reaches out and tucks his hair back behind his ear. Suguru’s eyes flicker open. “You okay?”
Satoru nods. “Just need to win. And that’s easy, yeah?”
Suguru laughs. It’s low and it vibrates straight through Satoru’s ribs, where he got slammed up against the goal posts in the dying stages of the third. He reaches up for the rings on instinct, just to check that they’re still there.
“Easy.” Suguru murmurs. He reaches out and pats the inside of Satoru’s thigh, bro-like. Light. “With you, yeah. It has to be.”
—
They win game three at home and then get shut out embarrassingly in game four, which means that they head back to Canada and every game is do or die, and they have to do it on the road.
“Sink your teeth into it, boys,” Pez growls, from the center of the room. “Every fan in those stands tonight wants your blood and you are going to give it to them, blood, sweat, tears, all of it. We are not leaving this year without the cup, you hear me?”
There’s cheers, and whoops, and sir-yes-sirs, and Oaks is grinning listening to his friend, and Suguru is sat with a straight face, with his eyes trained on Pez, and they’re here.
They’re here.
They win four goals to three.
Then, at home, six to two.
Game seven rolls around, and they’re in the tunnel, and Suguru bumps shoulders with Satoru and whispers, “for twenty-three.”
“For twenty three.” Satoru grins. “Let’s make her proud.”
—
Game seven is horrible. The score stays at nil until there’s five minutes left in the third, a slapshot that gets past Oaks and has Suguru ducked down on the bench with his head in his hands.
They usually play on separate lines, but coach looks at them both now and tells them both to get out there. It’s still too early to pull Oaks, and none of them want to, anyway, so it’s up to them: Suguru on Satoru’s wing, fast enough to keep up, smart enough to read the play and center it.
Satoru thinks he has a shot from the slot, and then he gets bodied. In a split second, he makes the decision: he knows where Suguru is, just behind and to his right. Halfway down to his knees, he plays the puck, and then he skids into the boards and his wrist explodes in pain at the same time that the crowd explodes into boos and gasps.
Suguru’s there, in an instant, pulling him from his knees and into a hug. His body is singing with it: they’re even, just one more. There’s one minute and forty-two seconds left on the clock, and there’s one minute and forty-two seconds between them and a stanley cup final.
“ONE MORE!” Someone shouts, and the best part of it all is that it could be anyone, it could mean for any of them. Suguru grins at him. He’s sweaty and shining with it, and he still has his mouthguard in when he speaks because he’s a freak who actually cares about his teeth.
“One more. It’s gotta be you, two-three,” he whispers, glove pressed to the bare skin of Satoru’s neck.
Satoru nods, willing, right through the pain blooming behind his eyes. They spend one shift on the bench before Yaga barks at them both to get over, and with one second left on the clock, Satoru buries a breakaway goal, top shelf, and turns to scream at Suguru, who’s already right there, gloves thrown into the air, embracing him and jumping up and down as the whole team follows.
Oaks is last, from the other end of the ice, but he worms his way into the center, grabbing at Satoru and ruffling his hair. “Filthy, kid! We did it!”
“We did it!”
—
He doesn’t tell anyone about his wrist when he gets off the ice. He just landed on it funny, there’s no need to tell anyone about it when all they’re going to do is worry about him. He leans back in his stall for a long time, holding it by his body and waiting for the pain to subside. At least he doesn’t have to talk to the media.
Suguru collapses into the stall next to him, towel wrapped around his waist and flushed with victory, still. He’s grinning. “Come on,” he says, in Japanese, softer than he has the right to be in this moment, “hurry up and we can go home.”
Satoru grins despite himself and tries to move to undo his laces, except his hand sings with pain the moment he tries to move his fingers, and he winces. Suguru sits up and pays attention immediately, which Satoru hates. “You’re hurt?”
“Tweaked my wrist,” Satoru whispers back, which is more than he really wants to admit, but he can’t hide anything, especially not from Suguru. “It’ll be fine tomorrow.”
Suguru looks at him, steadying. “Is there a reason you’re still dressed?”
Satoru opens his eyes, hazy, and blinks up at the ceiling. The lights are blurry, and he squints up at the writing above their stalls. Persevere. Funny. “No.”
“You need to see the trainers.”
“No.” Satoru sits, bolt upright all of a sudden. “No, they can’t.”
“Can you get your jersey off?”
“Yes.”
Suguru watches him with folded arms. It’s not as daunting as it could be, because Suguru’s shoulders are much narrower without his shoulder pads. Without his armor, Satoru thinks, dizzy and warm thinking about it. “You sure?”
Satoru shrugs, and holds his hand carefully as he pulls his jersey off of his head. Then his elbow pads, on his bad side, and then he tries to use his bad hand to take off the other elbow pad, and he can’t do it without hissing through his teeth at the sensation. It feels like someone’s put tiny little needles all the way through his veins and then taken a magnet and tried to pull them all back out through his skin again.
Suguru winces in sympathy and pushes Satoru’s hand away, working on his elbow pad and then leaning down to pull at his laces. Satoru tries to kick him off, but it’s half-hearted. He watches the knobs of his spine move under his muscle, under his skin.
Satoru kicks his skates off, and Suguru stops there, thank God. His sweat is drying on his skin, but he doesn’t think he can face showering here. He roots around for his suit shirt, for his tie. It’s not like he’s gonna put it back on, but he can wrap it around his bad hand as an excuse for keeping it still.
“I’ll drive,” Suguru’s saying. “Let me get dressed, and we’ll go.”
“Thanks.” Satoru says, looking at his own legs, the tape around his socks. “Thanks.”
Suguru shuffles around a bit, in his dress shirt and his boxers. “You need the tape undoing, too?”
Satoru sighs, and admits defeat.
—
Okay. So it turns out that actually, his wrist is not better the next day. Or the day after that. Suguru looks at him like he’s a charity case and cooks their dinners whilst they wait for the Western Conference to wrap up.
Suguru makes him see the trainers. Lisa doesn’t try to convince him to not play, but they X-ray it. He can move it. He can get dressed himself and he can like, use a fork, and he tries to tell her that it feels fine, but that might be an exaggeration.
It hurts like a motherfucker.
The playoffs last year were a grind, but not like this. He tapes his wrist, or the trainers do, along with his knee and his back. Everything hurts, all the time.
This is what a playoff run is, though, at its core. If Satoru just– quits– now, then he’s leaving the team out to dry. He’s leaving them to lose, to get swept– whatever. He just needs to get through a few more games, that’s all. They’re all carrying injuries. It’ll be fine. The only reason they can force him off for is a concussion. He’s not getting concussed, end of discussion. He’ll kill anyone who tries.
The thing that sucks most about it is that it’s his dominant hand. He can barely use his phone, and his stickhandling is worse, but adrenaline in a game cancels it out. Sort of. Enough to push through, anyway.
He has to get to the locker rooms earlier, is the thing. It takes so long to put on his gear when he can't use one hand. His fingers are set in this permanently bent position and stretching them out makes it feel like there’s something searing hot travelling straight down the ligaments of his wrist. And he can’t tie his own skates.
The first couple of practices, one of the trainers does it, but Satoru is particular, and he hates it. He usually has them tight, but not too tight, and it’s a balance. He needs to be able to move his ankles.
After two days of torture, they know who their opponent in the finals is.
LA.
And with them, Toji Fushiguro.
—
Game one. Set. Match. Whatever.
Satoru’s wrist is strapped up completely. The trainers know better than to try and tell him he can’t play, this deep into the post-season. It’s his first Stanley Cup Final: he’s not going to miss it for the world. His whole body could be broken and battered and he'd still find a way.
There’s talk of him missing games one and two. But they’re both in LA, and they need to win on the road, and if they lose both games, this series is over before it even starts.
All the odds did not have them here. Satoru knows that. Their team isn’t particularly deep, despite having a great backup goalie and a really, really good starter. Their defense is shallow past the first line, and their offense depends mostly on three players: him, Suguru, and Perry.
The opening faceoff is him against Toji. Satoru grits his teeth and chews on his mouthguard, focuses on the puck. There's nothing to say to each other. One of them is going to come out victorious, best-of-seven, best of the best, Stanley Cup winners. Against all odds, Suguru and Satoru are here, and Satoru is going to win this cup. Toji can get his hands on it over his dead body.
The puck flies out, the game begins, and Satoru's legs burn as he sinks into his shift. They're physical, but that's fine, he's fast, faster than anyone, and he can deke and drop pass and make the difference all by himself. He's back on the bench, and he's watching Suguru do the same on the second line, a neat shot attempt into the goalie's glove, a hit on one of Toji's bastard teammates that has the whole arena roaring, drowning out everything else. Almost everything, at least, because all Satoru can hear whenever he's on the ice, or the bench, or even in the box, is Toji's incessant chatter. About everything and nothing.
They lose game one, in overtime. Satoru tips his head to the rafters when the puck goes in, top shelf and bouncing off Oaks' glove. Fucking fuck. That's not the way to set the tone, and everyone knows it. Satoru walks in the room after and feels like punching walls, and Pez sighs through his teeth.
"That means nothing," Suguru is saying, all of a sudden. He was last off the ice, Satoru is realising, now, last through the tunnel. He's standing in the centre of the room, shoulders set, being a Captain. "Someone had to lose game one. Turns out it was us. Big deal. We go again in two days, and we know how they play, and we win. There's no other option. We need one game here, then we go home, and we absolutely pummel them until they have nothing left by the time we're back here. We're not gonna sit here and cry about it."
A couple of shouts of agreement go up into the air. Oaks whistles. Pez stands from his stall, clapping a hand on Suguru's shoulder as he walks past. "And for fuck's sake, we need to fix the powerplay. Everyone's here early tomorrow and leaving late."
Satoru looks at Suguru leaning down, head between his knees. From this angle, he can't see the A stitched into his jersey, but— he wears it well.
Satoru has been Captain of most of his junior teams. He'd be niave to say that that fact was because of his leadership. He's just been the best player. Suguru has learnt how to lead. He's always been good at it, wore the C in college, giving speeches, the whole shebang. With a startling clarity, Satoru realises that one day, maybe soon, Suguru will be his Captain again. Maybe he'll wear an A, like they did in junior, like they did when they played together as teenagers.
Partners in crime. Like Sukuna and Kenjaku, like Romeo and Juliet. Their numbers in the rafters in New York, in Madison Square Garden, side-by-side forever, like theirs in Edmonton. Except they're better, actually.
Suguru tilts his face so he's looking up at him, blinking slowly. He's exhausted, between the twenty-five minutes of ice time and the physical play and all the travel. "Give me a second," he says, quiet, in Japanese. "I'll get your laces."
Satoru couldn't do this without him. He realises it all at once, an avalanche through his body, pain crashing through his shoulders and his lower back and his hand. No one else would do this with him. No one else.
"Okay." He says, still in Japanese, because he wants to keep this moment private even in the controlled storm of the locker room. "You okay? Sixty took a big run at you in the third."
"It's the finals." Suguru says, tapping at Satoru's feet. He lifts his leg so Suguru can start undoing the laces, fingers working. "It's gonna hurt."
"It's gotta. To be worth it." Satoru grins. "But we're gonna do it together."
"Together," Suguru murmurs, pulling off the first skate. Despite it all, he's smiling too.
—
"What would it mean to do this for your mom?" Someone asks, before game 5 in LA, after a win that has left them even, two games for two.
Pez shuffles beside him, head tilted away so Satoru can't see his expression.
"It would mean everything." Satoru says.
—
They win game 5 in overtime. Game six is a blowout loss, not a shutout, but might as well have been, in their own fucking barn. They're three for three, and the series goes to seven. Which means, for the third time, they board the plane to fly to LA.
Suguru sits next to him, and his face is grim, jaw set and eyes fixed on Satoru's hand.
"Everyone's exhausted," he mumbles, in their language, which means he doesn't want to be overheard.
"Are you not?" Satoru replies. He knows it's the wrong thing to say as soon as the words leave his mouth. Suguru grimaces.
"Of course I am, but I want to win more. Are you tired?"
Satoru is tired. His whole body aches, dull and incessant. He wants to collapse. "No. I want to lift the cup."
"Exactly." Suguru says. It's quiet for a bit. Then it breaks with a sigh, "it's gonna be you and me."
"Yeah."
"We have to make the difference."
"I'll get you a hat trick. And then you can have the Conn Smythe."
"Satoru, I'm serious."
"So am I."
"We're going to have to— to carry this team."
Satoru knew that, but when he says it, or even thinks it, people call him arrogant. It's why he doesn't wear a letter. It's why people debate if he'll ever have a captaincy at all. It's why all the commentators say he's an immature player. When Suguru says it, it's different, he supposes.
"Will you hand the cup to me?" Satoru blurts. "When we win, will you give it to me?"
Suguru looks at him as if he's grown a second head. "Why would it be anyone else?"
—
The game is tied at one. It has been since two minutes into the second period, and there's three minutes remaining in the third. The goal was Suguru's, assisted by Satoru. It doesn't make a difference, though, that it was them. The numbers are the same.
In fairness, it's not for a lack of offense. The game has fast derailed into a battle of goalies, both Oaks and LA's seventy-five standing on their heads. Their powerplay is zero-for-three, and LA's is one-for-one.
Coach barks at Satoru to go, so he does, finding the puck against the boards, turning to try to see where Pez is-
He doesn't see it before it happens. His vision whites out and there's a cry of pain, and his body crumples against his will. The whistle gets blown.
When Satoru can see again, Toji and Pez are being pulled apart by the refs. The stripes blur in his vision as he stumbles to his feet. His ribs protest at the movement. His back, fuck, his shoulder. At least his hand didn't get trapped in the impact.
One of the trainers is by his side in seconds. "Are you okay?"
"I didn't hit my head, look at the replay," Satoru says. He cannot go off now. He'll miss the rest of the game. They'll lose.
"No concussion protocol," is the reply, "are you okay to stay in?"
Satoru takes a couple of steps forward. It hurts. Badly. Fucking Toji, dirty player, he's lucky he didn't take an elbow to the head.
If Satoru needs assistance to get to the bench now, coach or Pez will send him down the tunnel. He can't go, not yet. He takes another couple of steps. This is pain he can ignore. He nods. Skates to the bench. Suguru stares at him.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes," through gritted teeth.
Then Pez, "attaboy, Gojo, stay in it."
"Give me one shift," Satoru hears himself saying, and Suguru is over the boards, skating to the faceoff dot, twirling his stick between his palms.
There's two minutes and ten seconds left on the clock. Satoru needs Suguru to turn and shoot and bury it, to end this with the iron hot.
The faceoff goes their way, and then there's a struggle, and Toji's elbowing at Suguru, saying something, jawing off again, and he just turns and swipes.
It's not pretty, the way Toji crumples. The whistle blows because it's definitely going to be a slashing call, and then it devolves into a brawl, all out and messy, everyone leaning over the benches and chirping too. For a moment, Satoru thinks it might be the kind of fight where the benches empty out, where they all go for blood.
His chest is tight when they call the penalty, Suguru ejected from the game for slashing, intent to injure. Toji needs help to get up and back to the bench. And of course Satoru thinks he deserves it, but now there's a penalty kill to get through without their best two-way forward.
—
Suguru's waiting in the locker room, body collapsed in on itself, crumpled like a ragdoll. He knows what's happened, because there's no way he doesn't. The room is suffocating. The cheers for the opposite team echo through the halls. Pez is crying, Satoru is pretty sure.
He has to sit next to him. He wants to kill him. His stupid— he's usually so calm. He never takes stupid penalties, never chirps anyone no matter how vile they're being, and God, they're so awful to him, sometimes. They're awful to Satoru, too, but less. It's maybe because of the accent, maybe because he looks more normal, maybe because he was born here. None of that should be relevant, but God knows it is.
Usually, Satoru knows all of this and takes this into account when he thinks Suguru's done something stupid, and it helps him make sense of it, flatten it out in his mind. If someone had called him a slur because he body-checked them, he'd swing, too. And he has. Except this is the finals, and no matter what, lifting the cup was the one thing that was more important. If they skated out there with that, if they did that together, then no one calling Satoru a princess or a loverboy or a fag or whatever would have a leg to stand on ever again. Because, like, so what if he's all of those things? He's a fucking stanley cup winner, so they'll have to respect that, if nothing else.
Suguru ruined that for them. Clear cut. And no one is saying it out loud.
He looks up from his stall, and—
He doesn't look guilty. He doesn't look like he feels bad about doing what he did, about costing them game seven, about destroying their chances of holding the Stanley Cup. Satoru's blood boils.
"What the hell was that?" He says, in English, which is maybe cruel, but he can't bring himself to speak Japanese right now. Not in front of everyone. There's a murmur from Oaks, a "Gojo, not the time," which goes in one ear and out the other.
"What?"
"Swinging for Fushiguro's knees with two fucking minutes left on the clock, that's what. Are you fucking insane? We're not on a golf course."
Suguru looks like he feels bad then, cowering a little, nervous and twitchy. "You didn't-"
"I don't fucking care if I wasn't there. Why would you put us on the PK with two and a half minutes left in game seven," Satoru hisses out, leaning right over him. "You're smarter than that. That's something I would've done as a rookie-"
"He took a run to injure you, I was sticking up for you-"
"I don't need you to!" Satoru blurts out. The whole rest of the room is silent, watching them go at it. "I needed thirty seconds, he barely fucking hurt me-"
"I'll bet you a thousand dollars right now that your ribs are going to be broken when the trainers x-ray them-"
"Right, fine, and I'll win," Satoru shouts. "You're the central point of every kill, you're our best two-way player and you thought that was going to work out for you? Why not let someone else answer for it?"
The only sound in the room is the peeling back of tape, the sound of breathing. No one else dares to speak, not even when Suguru risks a glance at Pez across the room. No one is getting in Satoru's way because they all know he's right, even if they're not going to man up and be direct about it like he is.
Suguru grits his teeth. In Japanese, he replies, "you didn't hear what he said."
In English, because everyone else deserves to know, Satoru snaps, "I don't give a fuck what he said about me, or you, or whatever. You grit your teeth and you play. Fuck."
Finally, he lets himself collapse into the stall, strings cut. The pain is a dull thud, now. His mom would be so fucking disappointed in him, for letting this happen. For shouting at a teammate in the room after. But Satoru can't bring himself to care, can't bring himself to think too hard about it.
He failed to bring the cup home for her, and now the loss feels cruel, something that maybe just happened, instead of being meant to happen to, like. Satoru doesn't even know. There was supposed to be an upside. And there isn't. It's just him.
When he looks up, Oaks is standing over him, half of his gear off. He's so skinny without all of the goalie pads, and it looks so uncanny, weird, after watching him mould himself into a fortress for sixty minutes. His face is face serious and stern.
Satoru glances back at Suguru, who's staring down at his skates, determinedly not looking anywhere else. Satoru goes to open his mouth and say no, he can go home, but Oaks raises an eyebrow and lets his hand come down heavy on Satoru's shoulder. "Toro, come on. Leave it."
Satoru can't stand disappointing Oaks the most out of everyone on the team. Maybe it's a goalie thing, and maybe it's just a teammate thing. But he nods. He tries to bend down to do his skates, and hisses in pain.
Oaks squeezes at his shoulder. "Wait for one of the trainers, kid."
Satoru nods. He lets one of them do it, but he pushes through pulling his own jersey and shoulder pads and everything else. He can't let anyone else do that for him. He can't bring himself to. And every second is painful and getting worse.
He barely makes it to the back of the plane, struggling to walk after sitting for so long, in his stall, in the bus. Oaks is almost as bad, anyway, struggling with the weight of Satoru's body. They're all particularly battered, and Satoru only just escaped having to go through the trouble of being X-rayed.
Suguru sits up near the front. Satoru can see the crown of his head, tilted towards where Pez is speaking to him.
It should be them together. He shouldn't be back here, away from him after the biggest loss of both of their careers. But he's still so angry, and he doesn't regret what he said, because it was true. Suguru should be able to hear it. He knows he still respects him, loves him, but—
But this is so much harder alone.
—
It gets harder, later, when Suguru drives back to their apartment alone and Satoru gets coralled into Oaks' car with Brooke and wonders how long he can get away with staying there and hoping things will go back to normal.
Oaks has to hold all of his weight as they walk into the house. He takes painkillers, and still can't sleep. But in the morning, it'll be fine. Suguru will understand, and they'll fix it. They always do.
—