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Ilya knew that Shane was Japanese, of course. It was one of many things that he knew about his husband, like his height, his birthday, his relative position in the NHL scoring race at any given moment, and the noise he made when he was about to come. He just hadn't thought about Shane being Japanese very much before they moved in together in Ottawa and could spend more than stolen moments together.
Ilya wasn't stupid. He knew that Shane's status as a role model was intensified by his status as one of very few elite Asian players in the league, and that it was part of why Shane put so much pressure on himself. As their relationship progressed, Ilya had become more attuned to the worst forms of chirping and locker room talk, the kind that crossed the line from smack talk to overt racism. But beyond that, Shane's identity hadn't seemed to matter all that much, even in the ways that Ilya's Russianness mattered. Shane had a Canadian passport, and spoke fluent English (and French!) with a Canadian accent. He was the captain of Team Canada at the Olympics, for fuck's sake. No one could say that he didn't belong.
In their first year of living together, it was largely the small things that began to show him that it did, in fact, matter. It showed in the mornings when Shane spent extra time in the bathroom, frustrated with his hair’s refusal to do anything but stick straight out from his head when it was at an awkward length between haircuts. It showed in the way that Shane’s skin tanned to a deep, gorgeous brown over the late summer months, even though he was fanatical about sunscreen application and fretted about skin cancer whenever Ilya’s shoulders burned.
He especially noticed signs in their kitchen. The cucumber salad that Shane would make when he was craving something crunchy, rather than give in and eat chips -- although the recipe was Korean, not Japanese, Shane had corrected. The unfamiliar ingredients like fish sauce and miso paste in their fridge. The chopped ginger that Shane kept prepped in their freezer. Chopsticks alongside forks and knives in their cutlery drawer, rarely pulled out but essential, according to Shane, for eating certain dishes. Ilya discovered that he liked eating Doritos with chopsticks, both to make Shane roll his eyes and to avoid getting the flavoring dust all over his fingers. Besides, it was good practice.
They often went to Asian restaurants of all varieties when on the road because, as Shane explained, most Asian restaurants easily supplied lean proteins and fresh vegetables. Ilya didn't mind. It was a nice break from the diet of McDonald's and hotel room service pasta that had sustained him for years on the road, to the chagrin of the Boston team nutritionist. He got to explore a whole variety of new noodle dishes and stretch his spice tolerance. Sometimes he ended up coughing with tears in his eyes while Shane laughed at him, like when he ordered a delicious but very spicy beef-basil dish at a Thai restaurant. He decided that his husband was allowed to laugh at him over this, even though Shane was always eating the blandest chicken stir fry on the menu.
Chicken stir fry was one of the few meals that Shane kept on rotation when he would attempt to cook for them, since the prep was minimal and the texture was predictable. But, of course, since he refused to use much soy sauce on the basis that it contained too much salt, the dish never tasted quite like it did in restaurants, even though Shane always attempted to make his “healthy” meals even healthier by asking the restaurant to withhold anything that could potentially make his meal delicious.
After one dinner where Shane was visibly frustrated, stirring the dry bits of chicken and limp vegetables around in their biggest pan, Ilya hadn't been able to resist needling him a little bit.
He’d walked up behind him in the kitchen and slung his chin over Shane’s shoulder, hooking his hands into his apron strings, and said, "Hollander. Is stir fry, not rocket science. You stir, you fry. It does not taste like the restaurant because you don't add all the things that make it delicious, like the sauce. And butter. Now can we eat?”
That didn't help with Shane’s frustration. He was quiet as they ate, Ilya wielding his chopsticks with relative ease thanks to his practice with the Doritos, and Shane remained snippy as they did the dishes. Ilya regretted saying anything. Perhaps it was not his place to comment, not about this. But the next time they had stir fry, Ilya’s portion, at least, was drenched in a teriyaki sauce that made the whole meal the most delicious thing that Shane had ever cooked for him. Shane had watched him eat a double portion with a small, pleased smile.
Sometimes their adventures into Asian cuisine were a little humbling for Ilya. He would never get over his first time attempting to eat pho with chopsticks, in Chicago after a game. Shane was sitting across from him meticulously arranging his bites of chicken and bean sprouts on the strange, wide plastic spoon, before dextrously settling some of the low-carb noodles that this place offered into his spoon and eating his "perfect bite." Ilya was envious of his dexterity. Apparently Shane had grown up eating udon soup, which involved noodles that Shane described as even thicker and more slippery than the ones that were currently defeating Ilya.
Shane had chosen this Vietnamese restaurant for its health benefits, of course. He wouldn't eat all the noodles, he said, and even the broth was an indulgence, but he'd wanted something warm and light against the November chill. Bone broth was a superfood, apparently, whatever that meant.
Every time Ilya managed to grab enough of his full-carb noodles and tried to mimic his husband by arranging them on his spoon, they slid right back down into the broth with a plop, sending splatters of soup flying through the air.
"You can just use a fork and spoon. It's okay," Shane said, watching him with amusement.
"Oh, so you think I am a quitter?" he asked.
"I think you're going to stain your shirt."
Ilya stuck his tongue out at Shane and made another attempt to persuade the noodles to stay on his spoon, only to watch them slip ignominiously back into his bowl with a splash.
"Ow!" Shane said, and he reached up to rub at his left eye.
"What?"
"You splashed broth in my eye, you fucker!"
"Sorry."
This incident had prompted several months in which Ilya had eaten nearly every home-cooked meal with chopsticks, no matter the cuisine. Shane had rolled his eyes whenever he pulled out chopsticks to eat spaghetti, but secretly Ilya thought he looked a little pleased at the attempt, no matter how gracelessly Ilya ate. The practice certainly helped.
Ilya discovered a lot of things he liked that year. He discovered that he liked going to sushi restaurants with Shane, but only in coastal cities, because Shane was squeamish about freshness and food safety. The only exception to the coastal cities rule was, oddly enough, Denver, which had a restaurant that flew fresh fish in daily from Japan. He liked listening to Shane’s definitive opinions on how to maximize bang for your buck when eating sushi, even though they were millionaires who could order as much sashimi as they wanted.
He liked going to hole-in-the-wall Asian restaurants in Ottawa where Shane had been coming since he was a child, especially so he could watch the aunties coo over how tall and handsome his husband had grown. Shane took these visits very seriously, sometimes making Ilya promise not to post on Instagram and “blow up his spot.”
He liked winning Shane’s approval by learning to cook rice correctly in the rice cooker that sang a little song when it was finished. He learned to wash the rice twice and measure the amount of water up to his first knuckle.
He liked all of it, really. He liked learning all the little things that mattered. He loved sharing a life with Shane.
Sometimes the ways in which it mattered were not so pleasant, like when a drunk man in a bar initiated an infuriating conversation with Shane.
They were out in Nashville, a rare occurrence these days on a road trip, but Shane had scored a hat trick in their afternoon game and Ilya had insisted that they celebrate with the team, even if Shane hated the crush of Broadway. It wasn't Ilya's fault that Bridgestone Arena was right downtown. Even Ilya was finding the crowds a little overwhelming, if he was honest, but he'd stuck close by Shane the whole night, swaying in the crowd to the strains of whatever up-and-coming country band was currently playing in the bar they had chosen at random.
The bar was swarmed with tourists in the shiny, cheap cowboy boots and hats that they'd clearly just purchased on Amazon. Shane and Ilya had to wait and slowly press their way forward to reach the bar, jostled even with the advantage of the stature and musculature of professional athletes. There were many tiny blonde women with very sharp elbows.
They finally managed to step up to the bar, in an open spot between two barstools. Ilya was focused on flagging down the bartender, and didn't really register the drunk man sitting to their left until he started talking to Shane.
"Hey," said the man.
"Hey," Shane replied politely, and Ilya was barely tracking the conversation as he tried to get the bartender's attention. It was clear to anyone with eyes that he and Shane were together.
"You're hot, dude," the man said, overloud and slurring.
"I- uh. Thanks," Shane said, scooting a little closer into Ilya's side. That was when he really began paying attention.
"So, like, what are you?" the man asked, and at first, Ilya didn't realize what he meant. What kind of question was that to ask a stranger in a bar?
"What?" Shane replied.
"Wait, wait, don't tell me. Let me guess. I can always guess," the man said, then squinted at Shane like he was looking at a zoo animal. "Thai?"
Shane was suddenly pressing very close to Ilya. "Uh, no," he said.
"Hmm. Wait. Filipino?" the man continued, ignoring Shane's visible discomfort.
"No," Shane said, and his voice was totally flat in the way that never boded anything good.
“You are Asian, right? I'm usually so good at this. Or, wait. Are you Mexican?”
Ilya still wasn't entirely sure what the fuck was happening, but suddenly he knew they needed to leave far more than they needed another drink.
Shane seemed to agree. Without a word, he grabbed Ilya’s hand and began pulling him urgently through the crowded room, headed towards the exit. They eventually spilled out of the crowded bar onto the neon-splashed sticky sidewalk, both heaving a breath as the chill of the December night replaced the overcrowded warmth of the bar.
"What the fuck was that?" Ilya asked as soon as they had caught their breath and began walking up the slope towards Bridgestone and their hotel. Shane was busy sending a text in the group chat to let their teammates know they had left together.
"It's not a big deal," Shane said, sending his text and sticking his phone back in his pocket. "People are weird."
"This happens a lot?"
"Not really," Shane said with a shrug.
"Not really is not no," he said, and brushed the backs of their hands together as they walked.
"Ilya, it's fine. Just drop it," Shane said, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. Ilya tried not to feel rejected and failed. Was he doing something wrong? Not being supportive enough?
"No, is stupid," Ilya said. "Maybe I go back, ask him what he is."
"Oh, I'm sure he'd be happy to tell you," Shane said with a small laugh, which was not the reaction Ilya had been expecting.
"What?"
"Y'know. He probably took a DNA test and would be happy to tell you all about it," Shane said, and there was an unfamiliar kind of bitterness in his voice.
"DNA test for... what?"
"Like, one of those tests that says 'you're 40% Irish, 30% German, 20% French, 2% Indigenous' or whatever. And then they talk about their great-grandmother being a Cherokee princess or something."
"What? Why?”
"Yeah, it's weird. It's, uh. You know.”
Ilya did not know. “What?”
“Like. A white people thing," Shane said, but he still looked hesitant, like he often was when naming things that were obviously true. No wonder, when it had taken him so long to say out loud that he was gay.
After a second, sure enough, Shane grimaced. “Maybe I shouldn't say that,” he said. “My dad said something about buying a 23andme kit for the summer. And you're… you're not like that.”
Ilya considered this. He didn't know much, but he knew that David certainly qualified as “a white people” in a way that Shane, despite being his son, didn't seem to count in the eyes of most people. Ilya knew that he, himself, was a white people in this country, although as soon as he opened his mouth, the accent made rude strangers treat him like a foreign idiot. But Ilya was not a stupid American asking stupid questions in a bar.
"I am Russian. Is different," he said, eventually.
"Sure, yeah," Shane said, but there was a false note to it that Ilya didn't know how to interpret. "Anyway. Sorry we had to leave."
Ilya shook his head. "Was bad anyway. Too many bachelorettes, I am so scared. Thank you for saving me."
Shane rolled his eyes, but he was stiff for the rest of the night in a way that Ilya didn't know how to fix.
Then came what Ilya thought was a random week in February, when he came home from therapy to find Shane halfway through a deep clean of the house. This was hardly unusual, despite the fact that they paid for a weekly cleaning service, except Shane had been in a good, lazy mood when he left that morning, still in bed with lingering kisses even though he was complaining half-heartedly that Ilya was keeping him from his run. Something must have happened while he was away, if Shane was stress cleaning. Then again, it often didn't take much.
"Why are you stressed?" he asked, carefully toeing out of his shoes and placing them in the shoe rack, as he had been trained to do by Shane's constant disapproving looks when he wore shoes in the house.
"Stressed? I'm not stressed," Shane said, and went right back to wiping at the baseboards with a damp microfiber cloth. The angle did give Ilya a truly spectacular view of his husband's ass, so he wasn't complaining, but he still wanted to know what had him deep cleaning.
"Right. Just wiping the baseboards for fun?" he teased.
Shane hummed and looked up at him, sitting back on his heels.
"Oh, no. I just, uh. Realized Lunar New Year is coming up. I always like to do a deep clean before the new year."
"Is February," Ilya said. "What is lunar?"
"Not western New Year. Lunar means the moon, that's the basis for the calendar that a lot of Asian cultures use. You know, like, year of the rabbit? Year of the dragon?”
"Ah, yes," Ilya said. That sounded vaguely familiar. "Like Old New Year."
"What’s that?"
"For Russia, New Year is January 1st and also January 14th, from old Orthodox Calendar."
"Oh, I didn't know that," Shane said. “Anyway. Japan mostly does New Year on January 1st, I think, but my mom's family started celebrating both dates when they moved to Montreal. The Chinese community there is a lot bigger than the Japanese community, so they kind of picked it up from neighbors.”
Ilya considered this. He realized, to his chagrin, that he knew very little of Shane’s family beyond David and Yuna. Were his grandparents still living? Did he have cousins? He would have to ask, at some point. But first things first.
“What is the animal for this year?" he asked.
"Well, 2018 was the year of the dog, and 2019 was the year of the pig," Shane said. "So 2020 will be the year of the rat."
"Hmm. Dog is much better."
"You would say that. Also, um. We're both 1991 babies, so we're both goats."
Ilya shook his head. "That is no good. How do I complain to the calendar people? I want to be a dog."
"Oh, so you're saying you're not the GOAT?" Shane said with an impish smile.
"What?"
"The GOAT. You know. Greatest Of All Time?"
Ah, yes. This was familiar.
Ilya walked over to him quickly, reaching down to grab at his hips and swing his husband up into his arms. He then proceeded to tickle him by very gently and briefly swiping his hands up to the ticklish spot below Shane's armpits, before pulling back because Shane was sensitive and would not hesitate to throw elbows.
"We must take the internet away from you. You learn too many stupid things," Ilya said, and the way that Shane was squirming against him got them both distracted for a fairly long time.
Afterwards, when they were still sweaty and breathing hard, tangled together in the sheets, Shane's mind went right back to cleaning, because of course it did.
"Well," Shane said. "I wanted to wash the sheets anyway."
"Ah, very good reason to have sex," Ilya teased.
"Shut up. Shower?"
Ilya nodded, offering his husband a hand to pull him out of bed and not letting go as they made their way into the shower. Shared showers were a domestic indulgence, a reminder that they lived together now. As much as Ilya loved a shower blowjob, he loved when Shane washed his hair almost as much.
Shane seemed to be thinking as he lathered soap over his chest, the little perplexed line between his eyebrows making an appearance.
"Oh, uh, also. You don't have to do this if you don't want. But, um. You're not supposed to wash your hair on the first day of the new year," he said.
"Not wash my hair?" Ilya asked. That did not sound like his husband.
"Yeah, it's like. You wash all your luck away, or something. Anyway, I know it's not your culture, so you don't have to do it if you don't want to."
"We have practice. You, Shane Hollander, want me to not wash my hair after practice?”
Shane nodded. "I know it's a little gross. Just for one day. The rest of the time, please wash your hair," he said. "Also, again, you don't have to do it if you don't want to do it. It's stupid."
"No, I will do it," Ilya said, a little thrilled as always at being included in the formerly hidden parts of Shane's life. "Okay, so. Cleaning, not washing my hair. What else do we do?"
"Um. My mom will probably want to do a big trip to the Asian grocery store sometime this week. She usually makes me come with her, if I'm free. And we don't have a game the day before the new year, so."
"I can come too?"
Shane blinked at him. "Do you want to?"
"Of course! I will push the cart."
Shane smiled at him and then leaned in to press an achingly gentle kiss against his lips. Ilya glowed with the knowledge that he'd done something right, even if it seemed so simple. He wanted to know every part of his husband.
The grocery store was honestly a little overwhelming. It was clear that everyone was doing a big shopping trip before the new year, and the aisles were narrow and overcrowded with boxes covered in script that Ilya could not decipher. He didn't know how to tell the characters apart and differentiate the languages, let alone what half of the ingredients in the store were meant to do. He felt too big and in the way as he waited with the cart, while more experienced shoppers darted around him to grab their groceries from the shelf. Out of place.
Still, it was easy to follow Yuna Hollander around the store as she methodically worked through her list, inspecting produce items with the precise eye of a general about to go to battle. The store seemed to have everything from fresh spices to live fish to cookware to baked goods, and Ilya was a little relieved when they finally headed to the checkout. Still, he had to admit he was curious. He'd managed to snag a bag of dumplings from the freezer section and some flavored sunflower seeds from the snack aisle before Shane had swatted at him and told him to keep up. There were a hundred more things in the store that he wanted to try. Maybe they should come here more often.
Near the checkout stood a rotating stand with keychains and bracelets hanging from it. He spun the display and found a series of keychains depicting what must be the animals of the zodiac, including a bull with a hilariously realistic penis. But his eyes caught on the keychains with the goats, even if he still would prefer the dog.
"We are goats, yes?"
"Yeah, that's right," Shane said.
On a whim, Ilya plucked two goat keychains from the display and dropped them into the cart.
"What're you gonna do with those?" Shane asked.
"Don't know," Ilya said. "Save them for when we need a reminder.”
“Of what?”
“That we are the GOATS."
Shane shoved at him, but his smile was warm.
The holiday itself was relatively low-key, and mostly involved eating copious amounts of food with Shane's parents and wearing the red shirt that Shane had picked out for him. They spent New Year's Eve eating bowls of soba with scallions and sesame seeds sprinkled on top, and Ilya learned that these buckwheat noodles were one of Shane's very few exceptions when it came to indulging with carbs outside of his diet plan. Something about the noodles bringing luck for the new year, which clearly won out over dietary concerns. Ilya ate, and loved.
After helping David clean up in the kitchen, ignoring half-hearted protests from Yuna that they should rest, they laid on the couch, hands entwined, with a hockey game on the television that they were ignoring in favor of looking into each other's eyes. Ilya knew that ignoring a hockey game and making prolonged eye contact required a lot, from Shane. This evening had been special.
Shane had also relented and had one glass of wine with dinner, and his cheeks were glowing bright red, which was also apparently a thing. Asian Glow, Shane called it, and acknowledging it only made him glow brighter with embarrassment. He was adorable. Ilya loved him.
"Thank you for being here," Shane whispered.
"Of course. Is a holiday. Why would we not be with your family?" he asked.
"I know," Shane said. "I just-- sorry. I'm being stupid."
"Why stupid?"
Shane finally broke eye contact, chewing on his lip as he considered what he wanted to say. He sighed, then said, "I'm not very good at this. I mean, I don't speak the language. I've only been to Japan, like, twice, and once was for my grandfather's funeral when I was super little."
"Okay. And?"
Shane fidgeted, avoiding his gaze. "I just. It feels a little silly sometimes, to insist on traditions, when I'm, y'know. Not even that into it."
Ilya considered this a moment. He considered all the overlapping parts that made up his husband. Hockey, always, at the center of it all, but this was something new. Something that mattered, even when Shane did not want to let it matter. Something that Shane apparently wanted, but did not feel that he deserved.
He shrugged. "I do not think there is a test," he said. "We can do whatever you want."
"Yeah?"
He nodded, then leaned in to kiss him, deep and true.
Ilya gave him the goat keychain when they won the Stanley Cup that June. He used his own for his keys. Shane didn't, but he kept it clipped inside his backpack and developed a habit of pulling it out to fidget with, running his fingers along the lines of the animal, the beads, and the lucky coins tied in a neat bundle.
They won a lot of trophies that year. New hardware that became additions to the trophy room that he would always be proud of winning. But secretly, he thought he liked the little goat keychain the best, the comforting weight of it in his hand. A reminder that they were the best, not in spite of, but because of all the little things that made them themselves.