Work Text:
i.
Leo’s phone starts ringing, and it’s all he can do to finish his jump — his triple flip turns into a single — before skating over to his bag. He nearly slams into the barrier as he reaches down, trying not to think about messing up that jump. His normal ringtone is Still Alive, but what’s coming out of his phone is the preset ring for FaceTime, and there’s only one person who would FaceTime him at this time of day.
Even Coach Blaire knows who it is without even a word of explanation, because she gives a sharp sigh behind him. But he doesn’t turn or even hesitate in the slightest as he zips open the front pocket. “He was just here Friday,” Blaire says, voice dripping with disapproval. Leo is used to it. It’s not like she’s any more forgiving when Leo has been forced to go months without seeing him.
“He might need me,” Leo says with conviction.
Sure, his coach doesn’t mind when Guang Hong crashes their practices for a week or two at a time — she seems to like him well enough as a pupil or as Leo’s competitor, but as Leo’s friend? A distraction, she calls him.
Which Leo thinks is ridiculous. He has lots of friends.
Well, most of them are significantly more local and he can’t think off the top of his head of anyone else who he’s so willing to drop everything for. But that’s just what having a best friend means. And no one can fault him for that. At least, that’s what he tells himself at the spike in his heartrate when it takes an extra second of grabbing blindly through the pocket of his bag until he finds his phone.
“He can take a break to chat during practice,” Blaire says, obviously not understanding the time difference like Leo does. He hadn’t even realized she was still standing there, but he freezes with his finger hovering over the answer key. “After all, he can land a quad toe loop.”
Her words cut right through him, and he whips around to face her. She gives him a shrug that isn’t at all apologetic and skates away from him. He inhales a shaky breath and looks back down at his phone. He hesitates for half a second before answering it. When he does, it feels like a lifeline.
Instead of Guang Hong’s smiling face that he’s used to seeing, there’s just a grey pile of blankets. “Guang Hong?” he asks, biting back laughter. Just like that, he can shove his coach’s comments to the back of his mind. Guang Hong makes everything easier.
There’s a fifteen-hour time difference, and his mind is practically programmed to know what time it is where his best friend is — just as well as he knows his own time zone. It’s three in the afternoon in Denver, so it’s six in the morning for Guang Hong in Harbin.
Guang Hong groans and shoves the blankets down to his neck. The phone goes fuzzy for a second as Guang Hong flips over onto his stomach, bringing the phone with him. “I’m tired,” he tells Leo, burying his face in his pillow as he yawns.
Leo tries not to grin too much, knowing there will be hell to pay with his coach later if she finds out this conversation isn’t life or death. But there’s always hell to pay. And he got used to seeing Guang Hong every day — he holed up at Leo’s house after Worlds. They spent a week doing nothing and then a week of training. Even those two weeks weren’t long enough — Leo likes summers best. Guang Hong used to train summers in Canada, but for the last three years, he’s spent his time in Denver with Leo. And Leo prefers it that way.
“Me, too,” Leo responds.
“I know, I know — you’ve been training all day. But I just got back to China about sixteen hours ago and I’m still on Denver time. I couldn’t fall asleep until about three in the morning. And now I have to train.”
Leo laughs a little at that. Guang Hong rubs at his eyes with his free hand and then lets out another yawn. “Are you, like, calling to blame me for your jetlag?” Leo asked.
“‘Move your flight to Sunday,’ you said,” Guang Hong says, his sleepy imitation of Leo’s voice enough to make Leo want to burst out laughing. “‘Think of how much fun we could have spending Saturday by ourselves,’ you said.”
“It was fun.” He tries to sound defensive, but he just wants to laugh.
“It was,” Guang Hong admits, his stare looking a bit more intense now. “Y’know, I was checking Twitter at 2:00 am when I couldn’t sleep last night…” he says, his voice hesitant. Leo feels himself starting to frown, realizing that this is probably the real reason Guang Hong called.
He’d just tweeted something silly and incidental about being frustrated during the first hour of practice — he didn’t think it was something anyone else would take seriously, but of course Guang Hong would be able to see straight through it.
“How is training?” Guang Hong asks.
Leo wants to groan and change the subject — that’s certainly what he would do with anyone else who knows him well enough to ask that question. But instead he shoots a look back at his coach to make sure she’s distracted. By the time he turns back around, Guang Hong is blushing. He loses his train of thought for a full second, wondering what the hell he missed. But Guang Hong blushes so often that Leo usually doesn’t even try to understand why, so he just shrugs and says, “Not so great. Thought maybe I’d land a quad toe loop after all that work me and you did last week, but—”
“You will,” he insists. He crawls up in bed so that he’s sitting like normal. “Some things just take time.” He sounds so earnest that Leo believes it for a second.
Guang Hong’s bedroom is familiar sight for Leo; he’s only visited Guang Hong in China twice, but he’s FaceTimed him hundreds of times. Thousands, maybe. Leo can see the pink curtains behind him and the well-stocked bookshelf. Guang Hong is a great skater and ridiculously smart and doing it all a year and a half younger. Leo is a little jealous sometimes. His coach is right — Guang Hong can land a quad toe loop, no problem. By the time the season starts back up, he’ll probably have another quad down.
“Thanks,” Leo says, looking away from the screen again. “I wish you were still here, you know.” Guang Hong is flushed again when Leo looks back. He knows Guang Hong blushes all the time, but this seems a little much, even for him. “Are you, like, sick?”
Guang Hong smiles wryly. “I wish I was still training with you, too.”
Every part of Leo feels tight with something he can’t describe. The feeling comes over him more and more often now.
“LEO!” his coach screeches from halfway across the ice. “I swear, if you aren’t back out here in thirty seconds—”
“I’m coming,” Leo calls back. It’s not like he murdered someone — can’t he talk to his best friend on the phone for five minutes?
Guang Hong laughs uproariously, and Leo feels his gaze pulled back to the screen. He doesn’t often laugh like that — but Leo loves whenever he does. But when Guang Hong finally stops, there’s something contemplative about his face that Leo can’t read. “Well…” Guang Hong says.
“I guess I got you to get up from bed, at least.”
He smiles. “Yeah, thanks. I guess I should get ready for practice now.” He still doesn’t seem too happy about it, but he stretches his free arm over his head. As always, there’s something elegant about him, even wearing a faded pink t-shirt.
“You’ll text me?” Leo asks.
Guang Hong lowers his arm, staring at him. His hair falls in front of his eyes, and Leo’s throat goes dry. “Yeah,” Guang Hong says.
Leo grins. “And sorry about the jetlag.”
“Sure you are—”
“LEO,” his coach screams again, interrupting whatever Guang Hong was going to say.
“Bye,” Leo says unceremoniously, hanging up on the call. The last thing he sees is Guang Hong doubled over in laughter.
ii.
He fumbles for his phone. He isn’t sure how long it’s been ringing, but the mere fact that it is ringing is Guang Hong’s major concern. For everyone else on his contact list, Guang Hong has a very strict Do Not Disturb setting on his phone. But not for Leo.
He answers the call, despite that his body feels half-dead and his head seems to be full of fog. He briefly considers that he might be dreaming, but he just sets his phone face up on his bed as he reaches for the light. He nearly knocks over the lamp as he hears, “Guang Hong?” coming from his phone. He finally manages to click on the light, blinking angrily as it burns his eyes.
“Yeah,” he grunts, sitting up in bed, just upright enough to lean against his headboard. Then he finally picks his phone back up.
The sight of Leo’s wide, ecstatic grin is enough to make him lose all his anger — to be honest, it melts everything away and Guang Hong feels the wind knocked out of him. Is this a dream? he wonders idly, staring at Leo. He’s had better dreams about Leo, and he wishes he were having one of those — but, he supposes, you can’t plan your own dreams out.
“Guess what?” Leo asks excitedly.
A quick glance at the clock tells him that it’s two in the morning, Harbin time. He’s gotten all of three and a half hours of sleep, which is the only explanation Guang Hong could possibly come up with to explain why he only just notices that Leo’s hair is pulled back in just that way that makes him look impossibly better than usual.
Leo’s face falls a little. “Look, I know I woke you up from a dead sleep, but—”
“Oh,” Guang Hong says, everything finally computing in his brain. I’m awake, he assures himself, feeling a blush creep over his face. He tugs his blanket up to his chin with his free hand and then focuses on Leo again. “What’s going on?”
Leo seems to be practically bouncing from excitement — which concerns Guang Hong a little because of that small but important detail that he’s standing on ice. And holding an iPhone. “I did it,” Leo declares.
“What?”
Leo’s grin is wider than Guang Hong has ever seen, and the sight makes him grin, too. “Guess who finally landed a quad toe loop?”
Guang Hong nearly drops his phone. “You did?” he says so loudly he would be in danger of waking up the whole house, if it weren’t for the fact that there’s several guest bedrooms between his bedroom and his parents’. “Oh my God, Leo, congrats!”
Leo launches into the tale of exactly how he did it. And how he proceeded to do it five more times. Coach Blaire even grinned at him — something she usually saves for competitions when she considers his mental state to need more encouragement. His descriptions of finally managing a quad toe loop are admittedly a little more whimsical than Guang Hong would’ve gone with, but the sight of him grinning and excited makes him happy too. Especially because it’s something he’s been working so hard on.
It’s only May — Worlds was only about six weeks ago. Leo is going to have the whole summer to become an even better skater. Guang Hong knows the world’s eyes are on focused on other skaters after last season, but he knows that if Leo has already managed a quad toe loop, he’ll be a new and even more impressive skater next season. And they’ll never see it coming.
“This is going to be your year,” Guang Hong says when Leo eventually stops recounting his story.
“Yours, too,” Leo insists — something that Guang Hong never would’ve expected, since it seems like Leo is singularly focused on his own accomplishments. It takes him by surprise, that fierce look in Leo’s eyes and that grin still wide on his face. He looks even more gorgeous than usual.
Guang Hong feels himself blushing.
“You know, I couldn’t have done it without you,” Leo says softly, grin fading into a soft smile.
“You could’ve,” Guang Hone insists, voice dropping, too. “You’re talented.”
“I do better when you’re around.”
I love you, Guang Hong wants to say. He wants to say it a thousand times. He wants to say it so badly that his throat feels like it closes up. He’s wanted to say it for what feels like forever, but Leo is shining and bright and happy and painfully, obviously not in love with him.
Then Leo laughs to himself. “Damn, I can’t believe I finally did it.”
“I’m so happy for you,” Guang Hong manages to choke out; and he means it, too, because he always wants to see Leo as happy as he is now.
iii.
Leo had just fallen asleep when he wakes up at the sound of his phone ringing. He thinks about not answering, but he glances at the screen and sees the selfie they had taken at the Grand Canyon just a few weeks ago, plus the name Guang Hong bold across the screen. He smiles involuntarily, instantly feeling a little less tired.
He rolls onto his stomach to answer, propping his phone against the headboard so he can reach over and flip on the light. Guang Hong is grinning, presumably sitting on the lounge at his rink, because Leo can see a few skaters through the glass behind him. “Happy birthday!” Guang Hong announces when Leo gets back in frame.
He laughs, rubbing at his eyes. “You’re, like, thirty minutes early.” He glances over to confirm the 11:34 glow of his alarm clock.
His grin fades. “No way, I did the math wrong?” He sounds just as shocked as Leo feels — Leo has never seen him make a mistake like that before. Leo watches, more amused than he should be at the way he can practically see the gears spinning in Guang Hong’s head as he calculates. Then he frowns.
Leo laughs again, louder this time. “You’re still practicing, right? Maybe you’re burnt out.”
The camera shifts as he curls up, propping his feet on the chair and resting his chin on his knees. “I just wanted to be the first one to tell you happy birthday, before you check social media and you have hundreds of messages from your fangirls.”
“I think you way overestimate how many fangirls I have.”
He immediately blushes red at that. “Maybe you’re underestimating.”
“Well,” Leo says, ignoring his statement because the sight of him curled up and blushing is already distracting enough for reasons he can’t even formulate, “you know what this means, right? You have to distract me for the next half-hour.”
He laughs. “Till you turn twenty?”
“It’s the only way for you to guarantee that you’ll be the first one to wish me happy birthday.”
So Guang Hong launches into an update on his practice that day and perfecting the performance aspect of his short program — it’ll have nothing on yours, obviously, and you manage to do it all yourself, he says, causing Leo to have a blush almost rivaling one of his. He’s perfecting his quad Salchow, and Leo tries to be happy for him instead of thinking about his lone quad toe loop.
It’s August and they’ve just finished spending their fourth summer in a row together. Guang Hong just left ten days ago, and it already seems too quiet around the house without him. Practice is less fun without him around. Coach Blaire is more focused now than ever — the Grand Prix series is almost here, and Leo comes home every night bone-tired. He blares music and texts Guang Hong in case he can find any time to text back during his own practices. So Leo curses the time difference day in and day out.
He longs for hot summer nights of finishing practice, finding a new food truck for Guang Hong to try (or, if that doesn’t work, at least getting ice cream), of late movies (either really good or really bad, is Guang Hong’s only stipulation). He longs for Sundays with Guang Hong sitting shotgun in his car asking, Are you going to take me somewhere new? And he asks it with a grin on his face and a look in his eyes that makes it impossible for Leo to do anything but say yes.
Leo even misses getting yelled at for talking during practice, and he misses Guang Hong’s intense, analytical eye during Leo’s jumps and his programs. His easy compliments about Leo’s choreography and that look in his eyes that always accompanied the word ‘perfect’ that he threw around so easily that sometimes Leo even believed it. Even if he didn’t always believe it, hearing Guang Hong say it made it seem possible, and sometimes that was all he needed.
He tells Guang Hong that, during their half-hour of talking. He doesn’t tell him all of it. He leaves out some of the parts, like how good it felt when he accidentally reached for Guang Hong’s hand or how good he thinks Guang Hong looked in his free skate costume. He barely likes to think about that, because he doesn’t need anything else that’s confusing.
But Guang Hong is still blushing furiously when he’s done talking. Leo knows he should’ve kept the conversation on training, but he really does miss Guang Hong so much that it’s painful.
“I like it better when we’re only one year apart,” Guang Hong says then.
Leo is shocked when he glances at the clock and sees that it’s already 11:57. He feels a small sense of impending doom and admits, “I don’t want to be twenty.”
Guang Hong lifts his head from his knee, then there’s another couple seconds of the camera being blurry as he shifts to sitting more conventionally. By the time the camera focuses again, he looks concerned. “Why not?” he asks.
Leo sighs, burying his face into his pillow for a second. When he looks up again, Guang Hong seems to be biting back a half-smile. “Twenty sounds so old for a skater. I’ve been working my whole life to be a figure skater, and how many years do I even have left? Look at Yuri Plisetsky — I mean, look at you. I’m behind.
“You aren’t behind. You choreograph your own programs, Leo — that’s amazing. I mean — only Viktor does that. I can’t even tell you how much I admire you for that.”
Leo stares at him intently. That perma-blush on his cheeks, hair tousled from practice, his brown eyes wide and full of concern. “I want to skate with you again,” he whispers. Because he misses him. And because those words mean a lot, especially from someone as talented as him.
“Soon.” His voice is just as soft.
They stare at each other for a few more seconds that feel impossibly long to Leo before Guang Hong finally breaks eye contact. Leo gasps in a breath, not sure when or why he stopped breathing. The magic feels sucked out of the air. It really is getting harder to think about anything but skating and him, especially after their summer together. It only ended a few days ago but it feels like another era.
“Happy birthday!” Guang Hong suddenly announces, grinning triumphantly.
And just like that, everything feels normal again.
iv.
Guang Hong’s coach gives him that look when his phone starts going off, but he doesn’t give her anything more than an apologetic smile as he skates quickly to the opposite side of the rink, grabbing his phone off the top of his backpack and sliding to answer it.
Leo’s grinning when the call connects. That’s about all Guang Hong notices, though, because Leo is in bed. Shirtless. His phone must be propped up on something, because Guang Hong can see every inch of his skin.
Guang Hong nearly drops his phone. His mouth pops open and his cheeks instantly flame up.
The fact that Leo sleeps shirtless has caused Guang Hong no end of pain and torture during their summers together. It’s hard enough to form a coherent thought around Leo under normal circumstances, let alone when he looks like that.
All the evidence indicates that Leo spends more time in the gym than Guang Hong does, because he’s basically a work of art, even just lounging in bed. Guang Hong only vaguely registers that Leo is saying something, because he’s a little preoccupied drinking in all of Leo’s tan skin, not knowing how long it’ll be until he sees Leo like this again.
“Guang Hong?” Leo asks, picking up his phone and bringing it closer to his face.
Dammit, Guang Hong thinks. Not that his face is a bad sight — because it’s definitely not. But he gets to see Leo’s face quite a lot, especially compared to the amount of time he can see him shirtless. He tries not to pout in any way that’s visible.
“Is this, like, a bad time?”
“Oh,” Guang Hong says, sounding like a moron even to himself. “No, sorry. Um, I was just practicing. Obviously. So, uh, a lot on my mind. What’s up?”
Leo laughs. “Well, they just release the Grand Prix placements — you haven’t heard yet, have you?”
“Oh my God, no — tell me!”
“You’re in Skate Canada instead of Skate America this year, but we’re at the Cup of China together again!”
Guang Hong is disappointed at first, because his senior debut competition was at Skate America last year, and he still hasn’t ever had as much fun as he did then. But he knows that he could’ve had zero placements with Leo. That combined with that grin on Leo’s face makes him smile, too. “I’m glad we have one together,” he says.
“I wish you’d be at Skate America, though.” He looks at his computer again. “Phichit will be there, though, so that’s cool.”
Guang Hong nods, trying not to be jealous of all that time someone else will get to spend with Leo. Meanwhile, he’ll be stuck in China trying to find some way to try to livestream it. All those people will get to see Leo’s final, official short program and free skate and his costumes before him — and they’ll get to see him happy and smiling and hopefully getting gold two years in a row.
Guang Hong knows he’s way too into Leo, but it’s too late now.
“Who am I stuck with at Skate Canada?” Guang Hong asks.
Leo looks back at his computer as he reads, “Otabek, Chris, whoever qualifies from France, Seung-gil, Emil, and JJ.”
Guang Hong makes a face that makes Leo laugh. None of them like JJ much — who does? — but Leo is more forgiving of him than most.
“That should be a good group, though,” Leo says. His constant positivity is usually welcome, but Guang Hong finds himself spiraling a little. The Cup of China is months away. It’s hard to find time to talk when they both spend so many hours practicing, especially since that fifteen-hour time difference makes everything significantly harder than it has to be. And it’s only getting worse as their competitions get closer.
He finds himself sighing.
When he looks back at Leo, he catches Leo staring hard at him. Leo flinches a little at being caught and says, “After Skate Canada, you should stop by and spend a couple days here training— or just relaxing. I miss you.”
Guang Hong feels another round of blushing coming on. He wonders if Leo has any idea how this kind of stuff sounds — how much Guang Hong wants to read into every word, to find even a shadow of hope that maybe Leo could possibly like him as more than a friend. But then Leo launches into who’s going to be at Skate America without lingering at all on his own sentiment, and Guang Hong sighs again.
v.
Leo is running on the treadmill when his phone starts buzzing. At first, he’s just annoyed that his music stopped mid-song, but then he sees Guang Hong’s name pop up on the screen. There’s a different selfie of them, now — from that day they went to the Rocky Mountain National Park last summer. Leo smiles fondly as he turns off the treadmill and answers the call. At least he’s somewhere that he’s unlikely to get yelled at by his coach.
Guang Hong is in the lounge at his rink again, this time just standing there. The phone rotates as Guang Hong turns around, and he wonders if he’s checking to make sure there’s no one else around. It makes Leo paranoid and he finds himself glancing around to confirm that he’s also the only one in his gym. By the time he looks back at his phone, Guang Hong’s face is back in focus, but he doesn’t like as happy as usual.
Leo glances at the clock; it’s not quite 5:00 pm yet, which means it’s before 8:00 am for Guang Hong. It’s unusual for him call at this time unless he’s on his way to the rink and just wants to chat, which certainly doesn’t seem to be the case here.
“What’s wrong?” Leo asks.
Guang Hong reaches up to ruffle his hair, looking agitated. “I shouldn’t have called,” he answers with a sigh.
Leo has barely recovered his breathing from his run, and the stress from seeing his best friend like this certainly isn’t helping. He wipes the sweat off forehead. “Talk to me,” he says.
Guang Hong is staring at him intently. “Some guy just hit on me on my way to the rink.”
Leo nearly drops his phone. “Like he did something to you?”
He looks horrified. “Did I use the wrong expression? He just flirted with me on the subway, but—”
His momentary relief is replaced with new horror. It feels like he’s reaching a new level of breathing difficulty as he interrupts, “Oh my God — that’s gross. I can’t believe he would do something like that to you.”
Guang Hong looks at something in his hand and it dawns on Leo that it might be the guy’s phone number written down on a scrap of paper. He clenches his teeth together as Guang Hong looks back up. “Gross?” he asks, voice so carefully controlled it sets Leo on edge. He’s never seen Guang Hong like this.
“That some guy would just hit on you? Yeah — I mean… no one wants that, right?”
“I mean, I’m gay,” Guang Hong says, sounding offended. Angry, even.
“I’m gay, too, but that doesn’t mean—” Leo breaks off, realizing what he just said. Guang Hong’s eyes go wide and Leo feels his own widening. They’ve been best friends for years but they’ve never once talked about anything even tangentially related to sexuality or even romance in general. Leo has never even considered how odd that is until right now.
Leo has never dated anyone — he’s never really wanted to go out with anyone, but he knows the only people he finds remotely physically appealing are men. He’s just never said it out loud before. Even though he knows his mother wouldn’t care, he’s never told her — or anyone. Not even Guang Hong. Especially not Guang Hong.
“Look,” Leo starts again, seeing a blush creeping up Guang Hong’s face, “I just — I just don’t like that you were, like, uncomfortable because some guy asked you out on the subway.”
“Who said I was uncomfortable?” Guang Hong shoots right back. He looks down at the paper in his hand again, and Leo wishes that he could reach through the screen, grab it, and tear it into a million tiny pieces.
He suddenly realizes that he’s pissed off. Leo doesn’t get angry very often, but he knows that he hates whatever random guy in Harbin thinks that he can just date Guang Hong. Does that guy know anything about Guang Hong — that he’s a world-famous figure skater, his hair-trigger blush, the way he can land his quad Salchow almost one hundred percent of the time now, or that he’s read a million books in both Chinese and English? Or did that guy just take one look at Guang Hong’s face and just hit on him based on some superficial bullshit?
“You can’t go out with him,” Leo says without thinking. His head is spinning — there’s no way he could form a coherent thought even if he wanted to.
His eyebrows shoot up. “Why not?”
“Because…” He trails off, rubbing a hand on his forehead; his brain isn’t working right but he just knows that he hates this whole situation.
“Why not?” Guang Hong insists.
Leo has never seen him like this — so worked up and angry with such an ice-cold expression on his face. Leo doesn’t know what he’s saying wrong but that doesn’t stop him from continuing to talk. He knows it might dig him deeper into this hole but he’s never felt like this — so confused but so furious over what should be nothing —and he just needs to flush it out of his system. “Because! He’s just some random guy who probably only cares that you’re hot—”
He breaks off and Guang Hong is flushed crimson.
“Have you dated guys before?” Leo asks suddenly, the second the thought occurs to him. He doesn’t even know why he says it, but as soon as the words are out, the possibility of Guang Hong having dated random people without Leo being aware of it is way too much to handle. He hates himself for never even bothering to ask about this aspect of Guang Hong’s life, because being blindsided like this is way too much. He almost starts shaking, just thinking about him being with other guys.
He doesn’t understand why, but he can’t handle even the thought of it.
“Leo,” Guang Hong says sharply, and for the first time, Leo thinks he knows exactly what that blush on his face means. He’s probably thinking about his past boyfriends.
And Leo feels like someone stabbed him straight through his chest.
“I shouldn’t have called you.” Leo’s eyes go wide at that sad look on Guang Hong’s face. Then he sighs and adds, “I’ve got to go to practice—”
The phone shuffles and Leo knows he’s about to be hung up on, so he exclaims, “Wait.”
Guang Hong pauses, looking pained. “Bye, Leo.”
The screen goes black, and his phone slips out of his hands onto the top of the treadmill. Leo was so engrossed in their conversation that he completely forgot where he was; now he looks around and everything in the gym looks so normal. Too normal. For the first time in his life, he feels like breaking something.
He’s disgusted with himself. He knows he said absolutely everything wrong, and he can’t be in here another second longer. He runs out of the room, not even bothering to tell his coach when he leaves the rink for the day.
+1.
The first thing Guang Hong does is leave the rink, without even bothering to tell his coach. He furiously wipes a stray tear out of his eyes and starts walking back to the subway.
He calls his mother along the way, glad for once for her completely passive disinterest in his life; even when he asks for permission to spend an exorbitant amount of money on an international flight departing in just a couple hours, she agrees with the minimal amount of questions. Is it that American boy? she asks, but doesn’t give anything more than a hm of disapproval when he admits that it is about Leo. But she even goes so far as to send a car for him. That gets him to the airport quicker than he expected, and he books his flight on the way over. He eliminates all the flights taking longer than twenty-four hours, finally finding one that’s only twenty-one, with layovers in Seoul and Los Angeles.
Texts from Leo keep popping up, but he ignores them all. Eventually he turns his phone off and tosses it onto the seat next to him.
There’s something he has to say in person.
***
Leo hasn’t heard from Guang Hong in hours and he’s going crazy. He sent him at least a dozen texts after their FaceTime conversation, without a single word of response. There isn’t even a read receipt to let Leo know that Guang Hong is still alive.
He spent his evening telling his mother the story again and again, but she gave him one of her usual cryptic smiles and said, Everything always works out in the end. That response just made him frown. He went running for another hour that night, hoping that maybe if he wore his body down enough, he’d be able to sleep.
He turned up the volume of his phone all the way and curled up in bed, but he was barely able to close his eyes. When he woke up, he doubted that he managed more than an hour or two of fitful sleep. And his phone still contained exactly zero new messages from Guang Hong.
Now it’s morning. Leo has texted Guang Hong another four times. He’s devolved into just pleading for a response — any response — but all of his messages are met with more, damning silence. He checks social media again, just to make sure that Guang Hong didn’t post anything that might give him a clue, but to no avail.
He walks into the rink as always — his mom urged him not to go today, but the thought of sitting around waiting for the possibility of a text is too much to bear. He puts on his skates, feeling the tiniest boost of his confidence — even if it’s just for a millisecond, he knows that skating is something he can do, and it’s something that will always allow him to see Guang Hong in some capacity.
He calls Guang Hong — just a regular call, not FaceTime for once — before going onto the ice. His phone goes straight to voicemail. Just hearing Guang Hong’s voice in his answering machine message fucks Leo up all over again — even if it’s in Chinese and he can’t understand any of it. But the beep indicating that it’s his turn to talk is universal, and he leans against a wall and takes a deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” he says. It’s hard just to get words out of his throat. “I know I fucked up somehow — and, look, you’re amazing and you can date—” He breaks off, unable to get the sentence out. It was hard enough to text those words, and he can’t bring himself to say them. “Look, can you just call me back? Or text me? Even if you never want to talk to me again, can you, like, tell me? God, that sounds dumb. But please.”
***
Guang Hong walks into Leo’s rink like he belongs there. He pauses for a second in front of the familiar glass doors to the ice, taking a deep breath. It turns out that spending almost a full day traveling will make you so tired that you feel invincible — or, at least, too tired to care about consequences. He’s relieved to see that Leo is the only one on the ice. He pushes the doors open, stepping forward slowly.
He thinks Leo is about to try a triple axel, but it turns into a double and still his landing isn’t clean — his hand catches against the ice. He skates to the edge, obviously frustrated with himself. He leans his forehead on the barrier, and Guang Hong’s heart clenches.
When Guang Hong takes another few steps forward, he isn’t as careful to keep his footsteps silent. Leo whips around to face him, the angry look on his face instantly melting into shock and then relief. Guang Hong feels the relief, too — he didn’t realize how pent up he’d felt on those three planes, but just the sight of Leo is enough to make him feel right again.
Suddenly Leo is skating over to Guang Hong so quickly it looks like he’s flying over the ice. Guang Hong takes the last few steps forward to meet him where the ice ends. What he doesn’t expect is the way Leo barrels right into him, knocking the wind out of him as he wraps him into a tight hug.
Guang Hong hugs him back, breath catching when he feels Leo bury his head into Guang Hong’s shoulder. Leo is about three inches taller to begin with, not including the additional height from wearing skates, but he bends all the way down. Guang Hong can feel his heavy breathing in his hair and it makes him shiver. He and Leo have hugged tons of times, but it’s never felt like this.
“Am I dreaming?” Leo asks.
Guang Hong snorts. “I’m the one who’s been traveling for a full day.”
“I was so worried,” Leo says, pulling back from him. Guang Hong drops his arms, but he already misses the feeling of Leo’s body against his. Nothing has ever felt quite so comforting. “I thought maybe you hated me.”
“Sorry,” Guang Hong mumbles, staring into Leo’s brown eyes and trying to find the strength to say the thing he crossed an ocean to say. It was easy to have courage buying a plane ticket and running across airports and sitting next to an annoying British family. It’s a lot harder to have courage here, with his best friend staring at him like he’s the sun.
“I’m sorry. I said a lot of stupid shit — and, like, I don’t even know why. Maybe it came across like I don’t like that you’re—”
“Leo,” Guang Hong interrupts. Leo stops instantly, and Guang Hong feels himself blushing brighter red than he thinks he ever has. He reaches for Leo’s hand, and Leo easily grabs his — like it’s second-nature, an expectation instead of something strange. The gesture gives Guang Hong that last push he needs. He looks back up at Leo’s confused face and finally says, “I love you.”
Leo’s jaw drops. His eyes are wide, and a blush starts creeping up his face, too. He looks completely and utterly disarmed — it throws Guang Hong off, too, because he’s never seen Leo look quite like this.
“I’ve loved you for ages,” Guang Hong explains, “and then when you got so pissed off after I told you about — well, after we talked. I thought maybe — maybe—” But he can’t say it aloud — he can’t admit that he’s hoping that maybe Leo could feel the same way.
Leo is still completely frozen in shock, other than inhaling a shaky breath, and Guang Hong can’t stand it another second. He steps onto the ice and launches himself at Leo, putting his hands on either side of Leo’s face and leaning forward. It feels odd being on the ice in his sneakers, but he holds Leo’s face in his hands and it’s the closest they’ve ever been — just inches apart. Leo’s eyes are wide, but he doesn’t flinch away.
Then Guang Hong leans forward and presses his lips softly against Leo’s.
To his shock, Leo reacts almost instantly. He wraps his arms around Guang Hong’s waist, pulling them even closer together. His lips move against Guang Hong, his mouth opening slightly. Guang Hong is already too far gone to think about anything, and deepens their kiss. Leo gives a shocked noise but responds fervently. It’s all Guang Hong can do to just hang on to him, standing on his toes to make up for their height difference and threading his fingers through Leo’s hair.
There are too many things to feel — Leo’s silky hair, Leo’s hard body pressed against his, Leo’s soft lips, Leo’s hands on his back. He wishes he could feel Leo’s hands on his bare skin, but he knows he might not be able to handle that. But he can’t help but press himself closer and closer, every inch of his body feeling like a livewire, and then suddenly they’re falling. Literally. Guang Hong forgot about the ice until he crashes on top of Leo, who fell flat on his ass.
Guang Hong sits back against Leo’s legs and laughs. It takes a few seconds, but Leo joins in. He collapses fully onto his back, one arm behind him, propping his head up from the ice. Guang Hong settles into sitting on Leo’s legs, trying not to think too hard about the fact that he’s quite literally straddling him.
Once they’re both done laughing, Guang Hong flushes and asks, “Should I, um, get up?”
Leo brings his free hand up to rest against his hip. “No way.” They stay like that for a minute, and then Leo quietly admits, “God, I was really a basket case without you.”
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
“You really love me?” he asks, grinning.
Guang Hong blushes again in record time. He wracks his brain for something profound to say but then he ends up just saying, “Obviously.”
Leo grins, looking more beautiful than Guang Hong has ever seen. “I think I’m in love with you, too,” he says, after a few seconds of deliberation. He brings both his hands over his eyes and gives out a shaky laugh, like he’s shocked himself. “It should’ve been obvious ages ago, probably. I wanted to slap that guy who hit on you—”
Guang Hong is frozen in place for a minute. He’d come all the way to America on the hope that maybe Leo was a tiny bit attracted to him, but he never in a million years would’ve dared to even hope that Leo might feel the same way. So he leans forward and gently pulls Leo’s hands away from his face. Leo blinks, looking back at him. So quickly that it startles Guang Hong, Leo props himself up on his elbows and kisses him again.
Guang Hong melts into him, too preoccupied by the feeling of his lips to be concerned about the fact that he’s very on top of Leo and very much enjoying it. After another couple minutes, he can no longer deny that the chill of the ice is seeping into the fabric of his pants, and he knows that Leo must be even worse off. So he reluctantly pulls back, appreciating how Leo seems to pout a little at his absence.
After carefully extricating himself from Leo’s lap, he offers his hand to him. Leo gets up with the practiced ease of a figure skater whose fallen millions of times during practice. He skates over to the edge and has yanked off his skates by the time Guang Hong makes it back.
“What were your plans for the night?” Guang Hong asks.
Leo thinks about it for a second. “I mean, I was planning to call you like twenty more times until you got so annoyed you had to answer.”
Guang Hong grins. “Well, we can do better than that.”
***
He skips practice the next day.
They both do.
Leo is lying on his bed on his laptop, googling things to do in Denver. He’s lived here for ten years but unless Guang Hong is visiting, he spends most of his time at the rink or at home. He briefly considers spending the whole day recreating all the things they did last night, but he feels himself flushing at just the thought. He shoves his laptop onto the bed next to him — Guang Hong’s side of the bed — and reaches to the floor to grab a semi-clean shirt to pull on.
That’s when Guang Hong emerges from the bathroom, where he’d been taking a morning shower. “How long are—” Leo starts, but breaks off when he looks up. Guang Hong is shirtless, only wearing sweatpants that are low on his hips. Despite the fact that Leo has seen him shirtless for the vast majority of the last sixteen or so hours, he certainly still looks good enough to be very distracting. He finally tugs a t-shirt over his head, allowing Leo a little more mental competence. “Um, how long are you staying?” Leo finally manages, feeling himself blush at the exact second Guang Hong does.
“Well, technically I bought a one-way ticket,” Guang Hong admits. Leo’s eyes widen. “I didn’t know if you were going to kick me out!” he explains frantically, blushing even redder.
“Did you really think that?” Leo asks.
“Yes.”
Guang Hong takes a few steps across the room and Leo crawls to the end of the bed to grab his hand. “How long?” He doesn’t say anything more, but they both know what he means: How long have you been in love with me?
Though Leo thinks maybe the more accurate question would be: How long did you have to suffer through this alone while I was a complete moron?
“Since I was fifteen,” he admits, voice barely above a whisper and cheeks tinged pink. “Since that first summer I was here.”
“Guang Hong—”
“Can I ask you a question?” he interrupts, leaning his hands onto the bed on either side of Leo. And Leo understands that he doesn’t need or want comforting for those years; Guang Hong looks so casual with a smile playing at his lips because of whatever he’s planning to say.
“Sure,” Leo breathes as Guang Hong leans even closer to him.
They were both virgins until last night, and Leo suspects there’s quite a lot there’s still left for them to try. Leo starts to lean into him, but then Guang Hong launches past him onto the bed, reaching for Leo’s laptop. “Are we finally going to go skiing?” Guang Hong asks eagerly.
Leo laughs and collapses on his back next to him. “We are not going skiing.”
“Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do in Denver?” He’s lying on his stomach and his ankles are crossed in the air. Leo glances at what he’s googling just long enough to see the word skiing, which brings on another round of laughter. “Hiking is pretty boring after a while. And I’m, like, very comfortable on ice and snow, in case you didn’t know.”
“Your mom would never let you come back here. And our coaches would kill us. We have to survive long enough to see each other at the Cup of China, you know.”
Guang Hong groans, defeated, and closes the laptop. He buries his face into the comforter. “But first we’ll see each other after Skate Canada?” he asks, voice muffled.
“Definitely.”
He rolls over until he bumps up against Leo. He slings his arm casually across Leo’s chest, and Leo once again marvels at how quiet, blushing Guang Hong manages to be so undeniably cool about everything, while Leo still feels like a mess. But with a soft, content sigh, Leo leans down and kisses the only part of him he can reach — the top of his head. Guang Hong tilts his head up and presses his lips to Leo’s, just for a second. “I’m going to miss you,” Leo breathes.
Guang Hong’s hand tightens against Leo’s shirt, and his face is bright red as he presses his face into Leo’s side. “You have no idea,” he mumbles against Leo, then he sits up. Louder, he says, “So we have to go somewhere far away from this house in case Coach Blaire decides to kill you for skipping.”
Leo grins. “We can go anywhere you want. Like, as long as it doesn’t involve extreme sports.”
Guang Hong laughs.