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So the reason that Keiichi doesn't have his gloves is that they're still on the dryer at the rink, and the reason that he doesn't have any gloves—like just normal-people wool gloves or whatever—is that those're in the pockets of his other jacket, which he isn't wearing because he doesn't wear it constantly, whatever Rou says: and it's fine, obviously, because he's got ice in his blood, this is his season, he doesn't get cold. Sure, it's brisk out on the pond-ice—Tomakomai brisk, scraping the underside of zero—but that's not a problem. He'd walked home soaked after they lost dad's net, hadn't he? Barely even had a fever the next day.
The second time Keiichi drops his stick, Rou turns and gives him a look of confused disdain that Keiichi would bodycheck right off his face if they weren't already short on men for the scrimmage on Friday. Keiichi picks it again with a scowl—tucks it under his arm to crack all his knuckles, flex his fingers, work the stiffness out of his palms—and then he's off, stripping Rou of the puck easily and then handling away from him, daring him to take it back. He toe-drags; Rou reads it right, but he can't do anything about it except drop to a knee and sweep in vaguely the right direction, and Keiichi gives him a sharp little slash on the stick, nothing mean, just to say nope, not like that, before he skates away. That's the plan, anyway: except the shock of the slash runs up the stick-shaft into his numb fingertips and then his stick is clattering to the ice again, bouncing off the toe of his skate and spinning out away from him.
This time, Rou doesn't even bother turning to stare him down: he just watches the stick spiral off across the ice. "Honestly," he says, in his stupid southern accent, and Keiichi can't exactly say my hands are cold, not to Rou—not to pretty soft cityboy Rou—so he just has to eat it. He tries to crack his knuckles again but they won't go, and when he tries to unzip his pockets to warm his fingers up for a second he can't even pull the zipper right. Rou drifts away from him, not even looking back, and picks up his stick before he can get to it.
"That's a penalty," Keiichi says, as Rou comes gliding back: upright, long stride, the way he skates when it's just for pleasure. It comes out in the voice Kouichi always calls whiny, so he glowers at Rou to make the point.
"Not if we're on the same team," Rou says, with the smugness of a recent convert. "Come here."
He's already arms-length away, so Keiichi's not sure where he's supposed to come to, but before he can complain about it Rou is pulling off his own hockey gloves—his grandpa's old Coopers, with the long cuffs—and dropping them on the ice. He reaches out, and Keiichi instinctively lifts his hands to defend himself (don't get jerseyed, that's rule one), but somehow nothing connects: somehow Rou is grabbing him by the wrist, hauling him in, and then Keiichi's hands are between Rou's, pressed palm to palm between Rou's bare glove-warm fingers.
He jerks back instinctively, but it doesn't matter: Rou just glides with him, maintaining distance, not even bothering to meet his eyes. They're not touching anywhere except the hands, and Rou's gaze is locked downwards as he rubs them together slowly, like he knows exactly what he's doing: a little painful, a little perfect. Rou's hands are a little smaller, a little softer, the calluses still new: his nails are neatly shaped, his fingers long. Between them Keiichi's fingers look clumsy, knuckles busted, joints swollen from hard use.
It isn't exactly pleasant; that shock of warmth never is. Pins and needles, the sharp ache of warming up too fast: Careful what you wish for, all that shit. (Keiichi hasn't been wishing for this: hasn't been wishing for anything except a better wrist-shot, even if sometimes when he's trying to sleep at night he ends up thinking what it would be like if they were friends, if Rou would lean his head on Keiichi's shoulder the way he sometimes will with the girls in their class, if he'd let Keiichi slip a hand into his hair and see if it's soft to the touch or bleach-fried, stiff with product; if he'd let Keiichi lean back against him, maybe, after practice when he feels like he might fall asleep at his desk.) He should say something, like what the fuck, man, but somehow it sticks in his throat: they're close enough that their breath is a single, shared cloud, and Rou's lashes are long and dark.
After a moment, Rou lifts their joined hands a little and then bends his head to blow into them, soft. His face is placid, easy, slightly smiling: nose and cheeks a little pink, maybe, just from the cold. "Honestly, where are your gloves," he says, mildly chiding, and suddenly Keiichi can hear the affection in it where he couldn't before. His heart does a thing that makes him think of getting hipchecked low along the boards, no call.
"At home," Keiichi says, through a dry mouth, like an idiot. This is what Rou does to him: makes him sound stupid.
"Stupid," Rou says, with the corner of his mouth lifting into a smile.
It's warm.