Archive of Our Own ^beta

He did not remember the final pose, nor how he had gotten into it. He did not remember the music stopping either. At some point, his entire world had sunk into silence. Strange — he had been in an arena, and they had been shouting his name before he stepped onto the ice. Was it supposed to be this quiet? Why had they all fallen silent? And what was that ringing in his ears?

Ilya had botched the skate.

That was the first thought that came to him when he finally managed to breathe. Ilya loved the feeling of breathlessness after a program. He loved the moments when bowing to the audience brought a bright flush to his cheeks and an equally bright smile to his lips. He loved figure skating. Until today — he had loved it unconditionally.

Malinin covers his face with his hands, unable to understand what exactly he is supposed to feel right now. There should be panic. He should be devastated. But he has no strength left for that. He is simply empty. Only now does he realize there was no silence at all — the arena is screaming. They love him. They support him. And all Malinin wants to do is spit.

It is wrong. They should not love him today. He did not deserve it. He failed their expectations. He failed absolutely everything that could be failed. Ilya does not want to look at the crowd. It feels as though, if he does, they will see straight through him.

He bows anyway, but his eyes are empty, and Malinin sees nothing in front of him. He knows how to skate. He is a damn two-time world champion — of course he knows how to skate. But right now, just like when he was a child, he needs the boards — something to hold on to. Because his legs are no longer holding him up.

Ilya catches himself thinking that he does not want to stand on the podium. He knows precedents like that have happened. He remembers his ranking. If the judges decide to place him higher, they could shove him onto bronze. That medal would strangle him.

He does not want to deal with the consequences. After all, he landed three quads, and that might be enough to surpass Sato, who did the same, even if the rest of his program was better. And there are the short program points. And the components.

But Ilya does not want it. It would be unfair. And he loves figure skating precisely because he wins fairly. How would he look Shun in the eyes afterward?

Finally, with trembling fingers, he grabs onto the boards. Good. He made it. He did not faint in the middle of the ice, under the cameras. Now he just has to survive the rest.

His father steps forward, but Ilya almost hysterically shakes his head. It does not matter what his dad was about to do — it will not help. Malinin does not want to be touched. He is like a taut string. Or a ticking bomb. His father hands him the skate guards and obediently falls silent.

It is stupid. They both know what happened. Ilya crushed himself under the weight of his own pride. He wants to hit the person who, just a couple of months ago, had been talking about a world record and a quadruple Axel at the Olympic Games.

That person is himself.

Well, Ilyusha? Did it work? Did you manage?

Instead of a quad Axel — a single.

It must be karma. Fate — that damn bitch — laughing at him.

Because he should not have skipped practices. And he should have declined skating both the short and the free in the team event. Maxim could have handled the short. Especially since Ilya lost that too.

Malinin slips on his guards and, with trembling fingers, zips up his jacket as he lowers himself into a chair in the kiss & cry. Horribly uncomfortable chairs — the ones at home championships are better. He might be losing his mind.

There is one sobering thing.

He feels someone boring into him from the right and lifts his eyes, meeting brown ones. Misha Shaidorov is looking at him apologetically and shaking his head.

No. Not Misha.

Ilya would ignore the regulations if he could. He would stand up, walk over to Shaidorov and—

He does not know what “and” is. But Shaidorov should not be looking at him like that. Because he deserved this victory. The most important victory of his life, especially after the awful season he had. Ilya knew — they had talked. Were they friends? No. It had been something else. It did not matter now.

Ilya would like to stand, but his legs physically will not hold him. He needs to know what happens next. What place is he? Fourth? Third? Fifth?

The first thing Ilya notices when he hears the voice in the arena is his father dropping his head into his hands. He had been looking to the right, at Misha, and his father, seated to that same side, pulls him back to reality.

The judges have posted the scores.

An ugly eighth place glows on the scoreboard.

Eighth.

Ilya wants to burn alive. To fall and never get up again. To not move. He wants to burst into tears or, on the contrary, to scream — anything but remain in this ringing silence. His father says something to him, tapping his knee, but Ilya loses his bearings again.

He is eighth.

For his last fourteen starts, he had not let anyone near first place, taking gold after gold after gold. Today that streak has ended. At the one competition where he needed victory most desperately.

His eyes find Misha again. He presses his hands to his mouth, staring at the scores in horror. Misha must understand what Ilya feels right now. Misha is strong — stronger than Malinin himself. He endured the same in past seasons. They all did.

And suddenly Ilya runs headlong into a horrifying realization: he forgot what it feels like to lose. It has been that long.

No. Do not think about that. Misha.

He clings to thoughts of Shaidorov like a lifeline. Misha deserved this victory. He killed himself for it. He does not look happy at all, and Ilya feels obligated to fix that. Malinin himself never respected opponents enough not to celebrate, but of course noble Shaidorov is doing this for him.

Ilya remembers last year. At Worlds, Misha had finished second, right behind him, thirty points apart. God, how arrogant Ilya had been. He wants to slap himself now.

It never even crossed his mind to feel sympathy. He has already proven he is a terrible athlete. He should at least try to be a good person. For the sake of the person who is showing him such compassion.

That thought makes him step forward.

“Misha?”

Shaidorov did not expect it. He jumps to his feet and looks at Ilya with a trace of fear. God, what does Misha expect from him? That Ilya will snap at him? Right in front of the cameras?

Malinin’s heart stutters. He had not expected that reaction. Could he really have been that awful before? He does not know.

He pulls Misha into a weak embrace and pats his back. His other hand brushes through Misha’s hair, and for some reason Ilya desperately wants to run his fingers through it more freely. Finally, he pulls back slightly to look into Misha’s brown eyes — like a damn abyss.

“You should be happy,” Ilya says. Despite his words, he cannot sound confident. He spends the last of his strength on them. “You won fairly. Be happy.”

And of course Misha — that angelic boy — shakes his head.

“I’m not—”

“Shut up. Please, Misha, shut up and be happy. You deserved it.”

“If you’d been clean… If you’d been clean, I never could have—”

“But I wasn’t. And you were. Congratulations, Misha.”

Only now does a faint smile touch Shaidorov’s lips. It is weak and uncertain, but somehow Ilya realizes that only now has he finally managed to breathe again.

He inhales deeply, carefully mirroring that smile. Of course, his cannot shine even a fraction as brightly.

“Ilya!” his father’s voice rings from the arena exit. “Let’s go.”

He holds out his hand to Misha, and Misha takes it.

For a moment, Ilya almost pulls him into another embrace.

He does not.

He simply leaves.

He simply leaves again.

⸻

They first met in 2019, back on the Junior Grand Prix circuit. And it would be a lie to say that Ilya cared about the Kazakh skater then. He wasn’t landing the quadruple Axel yet; his content already stood out for its difficulty, but he still had a long way to go before earning the title of “god” that fans would later crown him with. And of course he had no reason to care about some boy from a distant country who didn’t even make the top ten. They hardly spoke — perhaps not at all. Ilya had finished fifth that season and was clawing his way toward victory. It was during those junior starts that he learned to live at the rink for days at a time, to hold himself together, to master everything that mattered for an athlete.

He truly noticed Misha for the first time in 2024. That was the year Malinin claimed his first World Champion title. That was when people truly began to talk about him. Misha congratulated him, it seemed — shyly approaching after the competition. Ilya noticed him because he had genuinely assessed Misha’s program and its content.

To be more precise, Malinin laughed at him. Not to his face, of course, but the memory is humiliating: Ilya had said to someone in his circle, commenting on Misha’s skate, that he “hadn’t grown into quads like that yet.” That was the year fame struck Malinin hard. He was invited into advertisements and shows, dubbed a god. Edits were made of him. He was adored. It was hardly surprising that it went to his head.

And yet that foolish Misha Shaidorov lodged himself in Ilya’s heart precisely that year. He had greeted him in Russian, if Ilya remembered correctly. And, as he recalled, he had terribly thin wrists and a silly, almost fan-like smile — the kind many had worn around Ilya at the time.

Only now, having followed his career more closely and done a bit of quiet stalking, does Ilya know that it had been Misha’s first senior international season — one he had worked himself to the bone for, because back home in Kazakhstan not many believed in him. Ilya had read the articles. He remembered how Kazakhstan had not minded taking in athletes from sanction-blocked Russia. Misha had to prove he was no worse than anyone else, and even qualifying for the World Championships had been a victory for him that year.

Ilya had not known any of that. He had seen in Shaidorov only another skater who would never reach the top step of the podium. And yet, when Mikhail Shaidorov followed him on Instagram, Ilya chose to follow him back.

He cannot even remember how they began talking. Mostly, it was Misha who wrote first. He would send crude memes about competitors. Sometimes those images mockingly glorified Ilya himself in absurd ways. It did not feel like jealousy. Somehow it was perfectly clear that Shaidorov was parodying it all. Ilya had never had friends. It is difficult to form friendships when you are killing yourself on the ice eight hours a day. He spoke mostly with his parents — something Misha, astonishingly, also learned to tease him about. Parents as coaches. Ha-ha.

In truth, their communication began by accident. To Ilya, it did not seem important. So what if he was chatting with a guy from the second ten? They would never stand on the same podium anyway.

Before the World Championships, they met in person. It felt strange to talk to someone like that — Ilya had almost forgotten what real conversation felt like. Usually, all his “friends” were simply on the same wavelength. He spoke with members of Team USA; he did, of course, go outside. Yet that time was different. He did not have to force laughter or maintain a mask. They met in the hotel lobby and then went to talk in his room.

Ilya was usually roomed with his father — which, incidentally, did not help him make friends — but his father was always respectful of Ilya’s time. Malinin loved him for that: before competitions, he gave the skater freedom and did not monitor every step or every bite he ate. He was the good cop. The strict coach was his mother. Together, they had decided it was easier if she did not travel with them to competitions.

In that room, they kissed.

It happened accidentally. Misha admitted that he had actually been a fan of Ilya for a long time, considering him the strongest. Admiring him. And beautiful, too.

As it turned out, Misha had soft hair, thin wrists, and bottomless eyes.

For Ilya, the fact that Misha was a boy was not a problem. They still lived in a homophobic world, but Amber Glenn from his team was openly bisexual, and Misha lived in Kazakhstan. Of the two of them, it was Misha who risked more. Ilya had kissed boys before. Their sport had plenty of those willing to experiment.

But Misha, of course, turned out to be shockingly different.

Ilya’s drug.

They left the room two and a half hours later because Shaidorov had to begin training — he was in the lower warm-up group — and Ilya was firmly intent on repeating what had happened.

He did not have the strength to do so when Misha placed third after the short program.

Misha Shaidorov — the boy who had barely scraped his way into Worlds the previous season — was now third after the short.

It happened. People regularly fell apart after the short program; it was not a true measure of level. Being the best for two minutes was far easier than being the best for four.

That small, incredible Kazakh skater took silver, standing beside Malinin himself. The gap in points had been colossal, but sport forgives nothing. On any other day, the wind could shift.

And Ilya tried to find it within himself to be happy for Misha. They were friends. He tried. He smiled at him. He hugged him.

And then he stopped replying on Instagram.

After nearly a month of unanswered attempts, Misha stopped writing. In interviews, he responded dryly that he respected Ilya and was pleased to have such a competitor. Malinin watched every one of them, unable to tear his eyes away from that smile. And nowhere did Shaidorov mention their fleeting friendship.

Ilya, of course, ignored it as well.

They stopped being friends. Sometimes Ilya wondered if they ever had been.

Almost everything could be forgotten — just messages and a couple of calls. He spoke to Sasha Trusova the same way, after all. Distance. And were they friends? Of course not.

In short, everything could have been forgotten.

Except for one small detail.

Ilya’s lips burned every time he opened Misha’s Instagram. They curved into a smile on their own whenever TikTok showed him one of their shared competition clips.

The Olympic season offered no rest, and for Misha it went terribly. He lost start after start, while Ilya, on the contrary, collected everything he could. They did not speak. They exchanged glances at the Grand Prix Final. Misha smiled at Ilya when he saw him in the corridors.

Malinin walked past.

He was first, and Shaidorov was only sixth. It was still a result that did not allow Ilya to let Misha come any closer.

He did not want friendship with a rival. He feared losing. He feared that if he chose anything besides sport, he would lose everywhere. Life, for Ilya, was no less a competition.

He had always thought that when he won Olympic gold, he would write to Misha. Apologize. They could walk through Milan together, or meet in the Olympic Village. Ilya would win the most important competition of his life and finally become absolutely happy.

Three days before the team event began, Misha asked him not to skate both the short and the free.

“Ilya, you’re not a robot. You’re human. You’ll regret it,” his former friend wrote.

Malinin merely snorted and did not reply.

He had not done that in a very long time.

———

Ilya did not remember how he ended up in the taxi. Team USA had its own building in the Olympic Village, but Malinin simply could not imagine himself there tonight. That morning Amber had kissed him on the cheek, and Isabeau had whispered in his ear that everything was ready for the celebration in the evening. He simply could not look them in the eyes. Alysa would have started comforting him. And Maxim and Andrew? Their skates had not gone well either — Ilya did not want to add more drama.

His father allowed him to spend the night at the hotel, as long as he stayed in touch. Perhaps his father, too, needed time to come back to himself. They say coaches feel their athletes’ failures just as sharply as the athletes do. Ilya did not know. He had never lost before.

Maybe it was his imagination, or maybe the taxi driver really had recognized him and now pitied him, but by the end of the ride Ilya had come to hate the sympathy directed at him.

Opening TikTok had been reckless, but he had not expected it on this scale. His entire feed was flooded with sad edits, words of support, analyses of his mistakes, and other things that were unbearable to him right now. When he came across comparisons to Kamila Valieva, he set the phone aside.

He did not want to see that. And he did not deserve pity.

But Ilya could distract himself.

He picked up the phone again, opened TikTok, and with trembling fingers typed into the search bar: “Mikhail Shaidorov.”

A smile touched his lips on its own.

The Olympic medal suited Misha so well that Ilya felt no bitterness. Shaidorov sang his anthem proudly, shook his flag, cried. He shone brighter than he ever had in all the time Ilya had known him.

And being a winner suited him so damn well.

Ilya could not even squeeze out jealousy toward the medal. He himself was to blame. He himself had fallen. And no matter how exhausted he was, somewhere deep inside he had still been certain he would win. He had no right to that certainty.

And Misha? Misha had clawed this victory out for himself. He had not skipped a single practice. Before that he had gone to training camps, then trained and trained again. Misha had lost weight. Even here, he had listened to his program music through his headphones.

His relentless work had outstripped Ilya’s talent.

Malinin did not dare like a single video.

Then his gaze froze on his own back on the screen.

It was their embrace.

For some reason, Ilya had not even thought about being filmed. Misha had hugged him as if clinging to life. Ilya saw that exhausted stare into nothing — guilt and fear tangled together with hope.

Perhaps today Ilya had finally lost not only the title of the best.

The first thing Ilya did when he was finally alone was tear off the hateful Team USA uniform, which felt no less suffocating than a noose. What was he supposed to do now?

In complete darkness, not daring to turn on the light, Ilya found himself on the bed.

His mother had not written yet. She never watched his skates until his father texted her the result. What had he written this time? Ilya is eighth, he destroyed his career?

He was certain his mother could not have expected this. No one had expected this from him. Not the fans. Not Tatiana.

The twilight around him thickened. Ilya almost physically felt the strip of light in the room fading further and the shadows drawing closer. How the hell had he boasted that he could land a seven-quad layout? Ilya did not even know what hurt more — that he had failed there, or that he had failed the quadruple Axel.

He did not notice when he began to cry.

The emptiness finally receded, surrendering its hold to emotion, and the realization of what had happened crashed over him with renewed force. Malinin could not breathe again, but this time not from exhaustion. The air simply could not enter his chest through the hysteria, the salty tracks of tears, the trembling hands.

Ilya choked on his sobs.

A timid knock at the door cut through the storm, and Ilya jolted as if shocked by electricity. It could be intrusive journalists who had tracked him to the hotel. They were not allowed into the Village, but today Ilya himself had decided to stage this circus and come here.

“Ilya, it’s me.”

The voice beyond the door was quiet — and so painfully familiar to Malinin. He had rewatched hundreds of podcasts, memorized that rough baritone down to its last note.

Ilya did not feel himself leap from the bed in sudden panic.

No. Misha could not be here. He should be placing his medal on a shelf right now, celebrating. How had he even known where to come?

The knock sounded again, more insistent.

“Ilya, open the damn door, or I’ll have to break it down!”

First of all, Ilya knew Misha — he would not do that. It was not in his nature. Then again, Malinin had thought the same about his meteoric rise, hadn’t he? Shaidorov knew how to surprise people. Ilya had promised himself to stop underestimating him.

He approached the door.

At first, Malinin asked himself whether he even wanted to answer. To tell the Kazakh to go to hell. To say he did not need this pity. This indulgence. Because when Misha had lost, Ilya had simply walked away. At first he had not believed in Shaidorov enough to sympathize, and later he had begun to doubt himself. Under no circumstances did Misha owe him comfort in return for that rude behavior.

Too good for the whole world.

Too good for Ilya.

Malinin’s voice would not obey him. He tried to pronounce at least the other’s name, but his lips treacherously refused to form that simple four-letter word.

Ilya forced himself to open the door just a little.

The first thing he sees, impossibly close, is soft chestnut hair falling over a beautiful face. Misha is not smiling. He peers anxiously into the darkness, trying to make out Malinin, lips pressed tight.

Ilya does not want this.

“Go celebrate. Don’t you want to?”

“I don’t have anyone to celebrate with,” Misha shrugs lightly, leaning against the doorframe. “I don’t exactly have that many friends either.”

That is complete nonsense. Surely there must be people here ready to share Misha’s victory, aren’t there? He was always talking to someone at every competition where Ilya saw him. He was never alone.

Then again, Ilya talked too — and never made any friends.

Maybe he and Misha had far more in common than Malinin had first thought. Perhaps what he did back then was not merely awful, but simply cruel.

“Leave,” Ilya repeats dully. “I just can’t. Not you.”

Misha exhales heavily, letting his forehead rest against the half-open door.

“I just thought you might need a friend right now.”

Ilya remembers the heat of Shaidorov’s fingers on his stomach, the taste of his full lips, and those damn thin wrists.

“We’re not friends.”

Misha does not argue. He is silent for several seconds before, pressing his lips together, saying with visible effort:

“You’re the closest thing to that I’ve ever had.”

Ilya’s heart tightens painfully. He remembers the unanswered messages, the ignored calls, the glances avoided. He remembers how, after that World Championship, a radiant, emotional Misha with his silver medal had come up to him after the ceremony. He had joked, “We’re still friends, right?” And he had laughed.

Ilya remembers perfectly that he did not answer.

Now it sounds utterly stupid.

He had been first back then and simply afraid of becoming second one day if he let this bright, tireless, capable boy come too close. Nothing had even threatened him — the total point gap had been over thirty. Now, with the bitterness of someone who has lost, he admits just how badly he messed up.

“I don’t need pity,” Ilya says, his voice almost steel. “Everyone’s pitying me already.”

At last Misha lifts his chestnut gaze to him again and smiles — the corners of his mouth rise, but the smile does not reach his eyes. It is sad.

“Then it’s lucky I didn’t come for that.”

He raises a bottle of vodka.

Ilya frowns.

He had only turned twenty-one in December. Under U.S. law, he could not drink hard liquor before that, and breaking the laws of the country you represent was not the best idea. And after December, it had not even been up for discussion. Drinking could exist only in the off-season, when you could finally exhale. In the middle of the season — and an Olympic one at that — it would have been suicide.

So it happened that until today Ilya had never drunk anything stronger than beer.

Apparently, Misha had. And more than once.

And yet Misha had always seemed younger to him. Ilya does not want to admit that.

Surrendering to alcohol, if he is honest, sounds tempting. But not in the presence of the golden boy. Ilya is afraid that if he loses the fragile scraps of control still keeping him upright, he will lose his mind and do something foolish.

In Misha’s presence, that abstract “foolishness” takes on the shape of something very concrete — something Ilya is afraid to do.

“I don’t drink. Not with you. And not now.”

Ilya tries to close the door, but Misha’s hand firmly stops it, slipping into the narrow space between.

“I do,” he says. “And I really need to talk to you. Please, Ilya.”

Malinin sighs and opens the door a little wider.

Misha freezes like a deer in headlights, looking somewhere just below Ilya’s face.

Oh.

Yes.

He had been in such a hurry to rip off the humiliating uniform that he had not thought to put on something like a T-shirt. But he had not been expecting guests, either.

Shaidorov exhales uncertainly and slowly lifts his gaze to Ilya’s face. The hand holding the bottle trembles.

“I came to celebrate. There’s no one else for me to celebrate with. Come on — what do you have left to lose now?”

There is a flicker of challenge in his eyes, and his lips curve into something like an apologetic smile.

Ilya should hate him for that joke.

But how could he?

He does not open the door wider, but obediently steps aside with a heavy sigh, grimacing when Misha switches on the light. Misha clicks his tongue in annoyance, gathering the clothes Ilya had thrown on the floor and tossing them onto a chair.

Malinin does not stop watching him.

A large bag with the flag of Kazakhstan hangs from Shaidorov’s shoulders, and he is still in his national team training gear.

That means only one thing: Misha did not go back to the Village. He came here straight away.

He would not have had time anyway, Ilya thinks. The medal ceremony, then journalists. Ilya has been here less than an hour — and he came directly from the arena too, even if he lingered.

And all of that leads to one thought.

“Show it to me,” Malinin says, taking an awkward step forward. “The medal. You brought it here, didn’t you?”

Misha exhales heavily and parts his lips, about to either refuse or apologize, but suddenly he stills. Ilya watches the empty, distant look in his eyes and the faint tremor in his fingers. They stand in silence for nearly fifteen seconds before Misha finally slips his hand into his pocket and pulls out the medal.

Everything Malinin had killed himself for on the ice for years.

What he had been meant to receive.

Misha holds out that miserable piece of metal to him, but Ilya sharply shakes his head and steps back. He does not want to touch it.

Misha sighs.

“I knew you were lying,” he says dully. “At the arena. When you said I deserved it. We both know that’s not true.”

Ilya shakes his head.

“You landed five quads. You fought for that layout all season, and now— here. You earned it.”

“You land seven,” Misha replies softly, almost soothingly, as if speaking to a child. “And the whole world has seen it. They know I’m wearing someone else’s medal. I know I’m wearing someone else’s medal.”

Ilya frowns. He steps forward impulsively, placing his hands over the cold metal that feels as though it should burn him, but does not. The medal, like Misha’s fingers curled around it, is cold.

“No. That’s nonsense. It’s my fault I botched the skate, not yours. You were clean. And honestly, I’m glad I lost it to you.”

“Don’t lie. I know you think I’m weaker. I don’t know why I ever decided we could be friends, but I always knew that. You… never really hid it.”

Ilya exhales heavily. His hand is still covering Misha’s, and he does not want to break the contact.

“That’s not true. I avoided you because I saw how you work. Maybe once you were the guy in the first warm-up group, but I think we both knew that one day you’d overtake me. Stupid, but I hoped it wouldn’t be today.”

“You were afraid of me?” Misha frowns slightly, lips pressing together. It seems the thought had never even crossed the Kazakh’s mind. “Of me? You?”

“I think somewhere deep down I knew I couldn’t win forever. One day someone would pass me. I didn’t want that someone to be a person who mattered to me. Do you understand? I was afraid I might end up hating him.”

“And do you?”

“I hate you and your damn gold medal, Shaidorov. But I hate myself much more.”

Misha exhales and finally pulls his hand away, slipping the medal back into his pocket. He says nothing as he moves past Ilya and sits on the bed behind him. He says nothing, but Malinin hears the distinct sound of the bottle being opened.

“It’s all bullshit, Ilya. The Olympics, I mean. I came here expecting to lose. I prepared myself for the idea that anything else was nearly impossible. All of us did, you know. No one expected to dethrone a god.” There is a faint note of mockery in his voice, aimed at Ilya’s pride.

Ilya lets out a hollow laugh, more imitation than genuine amusement.

“The fans gave me that nickname.”

“Yeah. And it’s your username. On Instagram. On TikTok.”

Yes. It is difficult to deny — Ilya had elevated himself too high. Now he does not live up to that terrible name. The god of quads cannot be someone who landed only four. Even the damn queen on her own Games landed five.

Malinin frowns.

“I don’t know what happens next. After losing.”

Misha holds out the bottle to him.

“That’s the problem. Have you ever thought about it that way?”

Ilya turns the glass bottle in his hands, not daring to drink. What is Misha talking about? His mind refuses to function. The hysteria and even that sickening emptiness have receded, but thinking still hurts. At least now he can control himself. And his thoughts.

When Ilya does not answer, Misha does it for him.

“You don’t know what comes after defeat. You never learned how to get up when you fall. Well — you used to. A long time ago. But three years without losing…” He shrugs slightly. “I’m afraid you’ve lost that skill.”

Ilya frowns but does not interrupt.

“I watched your skate, remember? And do you know where you made the biggest mistake? You couldn’t pull yourself together after the first fall. God knows how long it’s been since you had to fall, but it’s important to know how. Because if you fixate on the fall, you won’t gather the rest of your content.”

Ilya takes a grim swallow. The liquid burns unpleasantly down his throat. God, why do people drink this? Are they idiots? It is a disgusting sensation. Almost like falling out of a jump — except Ilya still returns to the rink every morning.

“Did you come here to finish me off? Fine, I’m a terrible athlete, Mish. We’ve established that. What do you want from me?”

“You’re a stupid athlete, Malinin. I’m saying you needed this failure. You can’t build a career on victories alone. That would be too easy.”

Ilya takes another hurried swallow, as if alcohol might help him not hear.

“What?”

“How will you learn to get up if you don’t know how to fall? I’m sorry it happened here, Ilya. But we both knew it would happen. You did too, remember? You told me you were afraid of me because I became second. Sport is a game. And you can’t win forever.”

He is even good at comforting, the bastard, Ilya thinks. What other sides of Misha has he failed to know because of his own cowardice? Ilya does not want to know as fiercely as he aches to find out.

“What are you getting at?”

“You’ll get up and win the next competition. What is it? Worlds? You’ll become a three-time champion. Or maybe you won’t. Then you’ll come back in the fall. And then again and again. You know how to break on the ice — we all do. We’re athletes. What difference does it make when you win again? What matters is that you will. And when you do, you won’t take it for granted. Can you imagine how incredible it will feel to reclaim your god title? Malinin, you’ll die of pride that you managed it.”

Ilya is silent.

Of course Misha is right. Absolutely right.

Only—

“It’s Olympic. Your medal. In four years there’ll be a new, shining Ilya Malinin, and then…”

“Hanyu came back in 2018 for his second medal. And you’re the new legend, remember? That’s what everyone says. You’ll land your Axel on Olympic ice. Who else, if not you? There aren’t any other lunatics like that.”

Ilya exhales.

The dreadful feeling that the shadows are swallowing him slowly begins to retreat. Maybe Misha is right. He cannot give up. Not today.

A faint smile touches his lips.

Tomorrow will be an awful day. In the morning the ghosts will return. They will return again and again, but they will grow weaker each time. And one day they will disappear. He will grieve his Olympic dream more than once, but happiness is not determined by a piece of metal, no matter how you twist it. It must exist somewhere else.

And Ilya no longer intends to miss it because of foolish medals.

He has not ceased to be himself because he lost, and Misha has not become the devil with a medal around his neck.

Which means Ilya has been wrong his entire life.

He does not have to fear rivalry.

He could enjoy it.

“You were cruel to me, you know.”

“Did you need pity? I don’t think this will even be the worst day of your life. There are things more important. Even for people like us.”

“And will yours be the best?”

Misha shrugs.

“Most likely it’ll be tomorrow. For the best day of my life, I’m too exhausted.”

Ilya passes him the bottle, and he does not refuse. Malinin inhales deeply.

“My mom is probably disappointed in me. I wanted to dedicate this medal to her. And to my dad.”

Misha shrugs again.

“I’m not disappointed in you. Your fans aren’t disappointed. Why would she be? Ilya, you’re an Olympic team champion, and your name is carved permanently into the history of figure skating. You perform the quadruple Axel. Even if someone else lands it someday, everyone will know who did it first.”

Ilya flushes slightly.

“I forgot about the team event.”

Misha laughs hoarsely, taking another drink.

“No kidding. I noticed. You looked at my medal like you didn’t have exactly the same one. But technically, we’re both Olympic champions.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t reply. I was afraid of competing with someone close to me. We’ve already established that.”

Misha’s face changes instantly. Before Ilya’s eyes, he grows slightly darker, then drops his gaze in embarrassment.

Right.

That.

Ilya had decided Shaidorov had invented his own version of things.

It seems he had.

“You decided differently, did you not?” Ilya frowns. “Mish, then why…”

Shaidorov worries his lower lip for a long time before answering.

“We kissed. Do you remember? And after that you began avoiding me whenever we were alone. In public you kept smiling, kept hugging me, looking friendly as ever. But the moment we crossed paths in an empty corridor, you would look away as if I had done something unforgivable.”

Ilya goes still.

They did not speak about it afterward. Not once. The next day Misha placed third in the short program and later took the silver medal. And apparently, all that time, he believed Ilya to be a contemptible fool who had simply failed to confront his own internalized homophobia.

Malinin wants to strike his head against something solid.

He truly had been a fool. But certainly not a homophobe.

Shame seeps through him to the very tips of his fingers.

Misha continues.

“I was so frightened that I asked you whether we were friends. You did not answer. I thought that if I left and kept writing to you, perhaps we could… at least remain friends. Then the new international competitions began, and you smiled at me in front of everyone again, embraced me, congratulated me on the ice and beneath the cameras. I decided that you wanted them to believe we were friends, so I said as much in one of my podcasts. You probably did not see it…”

“I did,” Ilya interrupts quietly. “You said I was your idol. I watched all of your interviews.”

Misha freezes. He turns to Ilya with a faintly embarrassed expression.

“Why?”

Ilya does not answer at once.

He shapes several responses in his mind, from the foolishly sweet “I missed your smile” to the dismissive “I was keeping an eye on my rival.” None of them feels honest enough.

In the end he merely shrugs.

“I wanted to.”

Misha gives a soft snort.

“Did you skip straight to the timestamps where they mentioned you, and only then watch the whole thing?”

Ilya lowers his gaze and nods.

A crooked smile touches Misha’s lips.

“I did the same.”

A quiet pause settles between them, no longer heavy but almost warm.

“You said I was your idol,” Ilya murmurs. “Am I… still?”

“I have considered you one for as long as I can remember,” Misha replies without hesitation. “And I certainly will for as long as I am able to remember at all.”

And Ilya yields.

He knew this was how it would end the moment he opened the door to him. They had delayed it far too long. He should have done something like this at the very beginning, two years ago. He had missed his chance then.

Tonight, he is finished with missed opportunities.

Malinin reaches for his face and kisses Misha in a way that makes his own blood boil and his heart pound as if he has just completed a program and is standing in the final pose. It turns out that kissing Misha is as intoxicating as bowing to an audience while breathless from exertion. His breathing now is just as unsteady.

He does not know how long they remain like that, but he is certain of one thing: Misha was right. This will not become the worst day of his life. On truly bad days, something this radiant does not happen.

Milan lies in darkness outside, yet in Ilya’s room it feels as though the sun itself has taken up residence. And that sun is his Misha Shaidorov.

They eventually draw apart. Even athletes must breathe, though at this moment it hardly seems necessary.

Misha lets his forehead fall against Ilya’s chest. At last, Ilya fulfills another quiet dream: he slides his fingers into Misha’s hair, soft as silk, and they both exhale deeply in unison, overcome with emotion.

“What happens next?” Misha asks softly after a moment. “Will we still talk?”

Ilya gives a faint huff of laughter.

“You fly to America for training camps anyway. Fly more often. And to begin with, we could try persuading the federation to assign us to the same events. After today’s ‘rivalry,’ they will gladly do it. We could…”

“Ilya,” Misha interrupts gently but firmly, “I want to win. And if I can, I do not want to… hold back for you.”

Malinin hums in approval.

“Anything else would insult me. But it will not be easy.”

Shaidorov laughs in response.

“We shall see. I believe I have caught up to you in program components. And answer me on Instagram at last.”

Ilya laughs as well. For the first time that evening, he has enough breath for it.