Chapter Text
Ilya first sees him on a Tuesday.
He is walking to his morning lecture, coffee in hand, doing nothing wrong, when he rounds the corner of the humanities building and stops.
There is a boy sitting on the steps.
This is not unusual. There are many boys on this campus. Ilya has seen most of them and been interested in none of them, or at least not in any way that required him to stop walking.
He is a busy person. He has places to be.
He stops walking.
The boy is sitting on the steps with a girl, loud, red-haired, talking with her whole body the way some people do, hands everywhere, and the boy next to her is laughing.
That's the thing that stops Ilya. The laugh. It's not polished. It's not the kind of laugh people do when they know they're being watched, the controlled, attractive kind. It's too big and a little ridiculous and it sounds like it surprised even him, like something got through before he could decide how to react to it. His head is tipped back slightly. The girl next to him says something else and he shakes his head, still smiling, and looks down at his hands, and even from across the quad Ilya can see that he is a little pink in the face.
He is not performing anything. He is just sitting there, with his friend, on a Tuesday morning, being completely unaware that Ilya Rozanov has stopped walking.
Ilya starts walking again. He is fine.
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"You are acting strange," Sveta says, that evening.
"I am acting normal."
"You have been quiet since this afternoon." She is sitting cross legged on his couch eating his food, which is a thing she does with the confidence of someone who has decided long ago that his apartment is also hers. "What happened."
"Nothing happened."
"Ilya."
"Sveta."
She looks at him. He looks back. This is a contest he has never once won in the 12 years of knowing her and he is not going to win it now, so he picks up his own food and looks at the television instead, which is off, which means he is staring at his own reflection in a black screen, which is not the strong move he intended.
"I saw someone," he says, because it is easier than the alternative.
Sveta is quiet for exactly one second. "Okay," she says, in a careful voice he doesn't like.
"On campus. It was nothing."
"You said you saw someone, not that you saw nothing."
"It was both."
"Those are different things, Ilyusha."
He does not answer. On the black screen his reflection looks exactly as calm as he is trying to be, which is useful, except that Sveta is looking at him and not the screen and she has always been able to read him in ways that feel slightly unfair.
"Who was it," she says.
"I don't know him."
The careful silence again. Then: "You don't know him."
"I don't know his name. He was sitting outside the humanities building with a girl. Red hair. Loud." He pauses. "He has a stupid laugh."
"A stupid laugh," Sveta repeats.
"Very loud. Ridiculous." He picks up his drink. "I noticed it. That's all."
Sveta does not say anything for long enough that he looks over at her. She is looking at him with an expression he has seen before, usually right before she says something that makes him want to leave the room.
"What," he says.
"Nothing," she says.
"Sveta."
"I said nothing." She turns back to the television, which is still off. "What did he look like."
Ilya tells her. He keeps his voice level. He is descriptive in the way of someone relaying neutral information, which is what this is.
Sveta nods slowly when he's done, like she is filing things away.
"What," he says again.
"Nothing," she says again. "I'm just listening."
He does not like this. He does not say so.
"You should talk to him," she says, after a moment. "If you see him again."
"I don't know that I will see him again."
"Mm," Sveta says.
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He sees him again four times that week. He does not talk to him.
This is not avoidance. He wants to be clear about that, at least to himself, because there is no one else he is going to be clear to about this. It is not avoidance. It is simply that the moments are never right.
The first time he is crossing the quad with headphones in and it would be strange to stop someone with headphones in.
The second time he is with a group of people and Ilya is alone and the math is wrong.
The third time Ilya is almost close enough and then he laughs at something on his phone, that same too big laugh, and Ilya's brain goes briefly offline and by the time it comes back Shane has turned the corner.
The fourth time he is at the gym. Ilya leaves the gym.
Ilya: I need a different gym.
Sveta: why
Ilya: no reason
Sveta: ilya
He puts his phone in his pocket and goes home and does not think about it.
"You left the gym," Sveta says, when she comes over that evening, uninvited, the way she always does.
"The gym was busy."
"It's the closest gym to your apartment."
"I will find another one."
She sits down on his couch. She looks at him. He sits in the chair across from her because the couch no longer feels safe. "You are nervous," she says, like she is identifying a species of bird she has not seen before.
"I am not nervous."
"You. Ilya Rozanov. Are nervous about a boy."
"I am not nervous. I simply did not feel like going to the gym today."
"You go every day."
"Today I didn't."
"Because he was there."
Ilya picks up his phone. There is nothing on it. He puts it back down. "I don't know what you want me to say."
"I want you to say you're nervous," Sveta says, and she is smiling now, not unkindly. "I have known you for 12 years. I have never seen you nervous about anyone."
"That's because I'm not nervous."
"Okay," she says, easy, like she has already won. "Okay, Ilyusha."
"There is a coffee shop I've been meaning to try," she says, after a moment. Casual. Looking at her nails. "Come with me Saturday."
"I don't like coffee shops."
"You like coffee."
"I like coffee I make myself."
"You make terrible coffee and you know it." She stands up, stretching. "Saturday. Ten o'clock. Wear something nice."
"Why."
She is already heading to his kitchen. "Because it's a nice place," she says, from the other room. "Do you have anything to eat in here or did you forget again—"
"Why do I need to wear something nice to a coffee shop—"
"Do you want eggs or not."
Ilya looks at the ceiling.
"Fine," he says.
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He wears something nice.
He tells himself this is because Sveta asked and it is easier to comply than to argue, which is true, and has nothing to do with anything else, which may be less true but is not something he is examining.
Sveta looks him over when he arrives at her door and nods once, satisfied, in the way of someone whose plan is coming together. Ilya notices this and says nothing because asking would require acknowledging that there is a plan, and he has decided not to.
"What's the place called," he says, as they walk.
"Hollander's," she says.
"Mm," he says.
They walk. The morning is cold and bright and Sveta talks about her seminar and Ilya listens and responds in the right places and does not think about anything in particular. He is a normal person having a normal Saturday morning. He is completely fine.
Sveta holds the door open.
He walks in.
And there, behind the counter, in a green apron with his sleeves rolled up, is Shane Hollander.
Ilya stops walking.
Sveta, behind him, very quietly says nothing at all.
Shane hasn't looked up yet. He's writing something on a cup, head bent, and the morning light is coming through the front windows and catching in his hair and Ilya stands in the doorway of this coffee shop that is apparently named after him, because of course it is, because this is Ilya's life, and feels the floor do something complicated under his feet.
"Keep moving," Sveta says, low, right behind his ear. "You're blocking the door."
He does not move until Sveta puts both hands on his shoulders and physically pushes him through the doorway.