Archive of Our Own

The twinge in his wrist turns rancid when Jeno drops the plastic blue crates in the backroom. He sinks down, carefully curls his fingers through the triangular gaps and lifts each crate one after the other into a perfect row, the third one from the back. He counts twenty-eight; the room can fit seventy-two. Six rows of twelve, a little less than halfway through row three. Nowadays, Jeno finds himself playing this little game often without himself even knowing it. How many more? How many more can you take before you quit?  Sure, it’s been almost seven years since Cal East, but Cal’s never really left him. This room’s about one third of that rink and just as cold. Sometimes the floor’s slippery enough that Jeno’ll be tempted to do a faux-wheelie slide on one heel to the workers board, but he’s learned better after a near-wipeout by the mini-fridge. 

And that’s when his thumb was still healing. He’d peeled off his glove, gritting at the bloodied shift of his band-aid, taking most of his scab off. Gone into the bathroom, ran his hand under cold water and rewound it in company gauze as best he could, left-handed. By the end of the day, his whole hand stung, the gauze soaked in sweat. He’d sat at the back of the bus, fist pressed against the vents, trying to sleep. 

Now his thumb’s fine, but everything itches. His new skin is sandpaper and his wrist’ll never let him forget Year Three when he landed a horridly crooked punch at Montana 89 that ended up going mostly into his helmet. Jeno couldn’t get a proper grip on the guy, having had less than three hours of sleep the night before, but he still had to wring some life out of him after that nasty swerve he pulled, sending their centre into the boards from under his skates. Montana had straight up started laughing after that punch, and Jeno tried to grab him again, missing four times before the guy just about gave in and let him get a nice splatter in the face. From the shape of it, Jeno guesses Montana had his bridge fixed at least a couple times now and considering it looked like it had been healing slightly crooked, he may as well have done him a favour. They made up predictably after the game, the guy even offering to break open a few beers if Jeno was ever in town again. It’s the shoulder pads, Montana winked, letting him in on a little secret that felt obvious the second he brought it up. Forget about sockin’ em, man —you ram into ‘em at thirty miles per hour on these babies, it’s blackout in no time. 

He was right. The hardest Jeno’s ever been hit —he’d jerked his head up at the wrong time, his own jaw smacking into Kennedy 45’s shoulder. Woke up on the ice semi-conscious as several gloved hands readied him for the stretcher, woke up a second time on the road, watching the deepening sky flare with streetlamps from the tiny window. Now he’s always careful about turning his head too fast. 

Scraping stray ice chips off the frayed wool, Jeno peels off his left glove towards the end of the fifth row of halibut flanks and readjusts the cold compress on his last two knuckles. The bone under his pinky has been permanently disfigured and when he makes a fist, you can barely see that knuckle anymore. He thinks some of his skin has just decided to stop growing back; the blackened nicks along his joints have stayed like that for weeks. Jeno’s gotten into the habit of wearing gloves everywhere, the blue surgical kind, and when anybody asks, he just tells them it’s a germ thing. Which is half-true, anyways.

As he steps into the July sun and up the loading ramp, Jeno turns to scan the mid-morning traffic. And sees him. His hair has gotten longer, bleached silver-blonde. Wolf-blonde. He leans slightly forward, one foot resting on the rusted pedal of his secondhand mountain bike. Jeno knows those pert, square shoulders from anywhere, that lean-dimpled grin. His marine-blue vest bunches up around his waist, stark bright against a tight black turtleneck. Jeno stares for so long, he thinks he can see the sunlight glancing off of each one of the guy’s bare-bright lashes. He pulls his cap further down when he thinks he sees Mark glance his way and heads back into the parlour, another set of crates in his arms. 

When he arrives home six hours later, Jeno heads straight to the shower. After seeing him, or thinking he’d seen him that morning, he could barely focus the rest of the day. Whenever Jeno walked out to restock the frozen trays, he searched the streets for him. Six or seven seconds. He fiddled with the ice along the foamboard rims, kicked some into the gutter to give himself more time. He hung around to help out anybody who lingered, staring at the lobster tanks for too long. Each time Jeno saw some wiry biker with glowing hair, his chest tightened a little. He pocketed a few numbers from some pretty Ivy Leagues who stopped by to ask him which fish were in season. He thought about calling one of them as a joke, or maybe giving the pastel scraps to Derek, the Humber sophomore who sorted the leftovers with him and spent way too much time cleaning movie theaters alone. In the end, Jeno tossed the numbers in the trash, all shredded, and went back to pouring shrink-wrapped steaks into the display bins. As the day wore on, Jeno became more and more convinced he’d just imagined the whole thing. 

What would Mark be doing here, anyways? Last time Jeno heard from him the guy was headed to BC, playing his fourth game against the Canucks. They ended up tied, eight minutes into over-time, 3-3. It came on at nine pm last October and Jeno had seen the last five minutes of it, having promised himself to cram at least another few pages of his dogeared Circuit Analysis and Design 2nd Edition. The pages were worn so soft that sometimes Jeno just ran his fingers back and forth along the edges to soothe himself. If his fingertips got numb enough, he could slump his cheek against the stained glass coffee table and imagine he was in the dressing room again, long after practice, wrung out as much as he was now, maybe more, Mark’s hair against his face. 

Mark always had a funny ear fixation which made it all the more enjoyable finding out how sensitive his own were. Jeno would lean over to graze the shell with his mouth, teeth bumping gently against the cartilage, then slowly kissing up the side of his temple as Mark struggled to loosen his elbow guards without fumbling. Once he got Mark to turn all the way around, Jeno would push him against the bags and one tug of his shoulder sleeve freed him from his oversized jersey, smelly shoulder pads and all. It was a sly trick Jeno picked up watching past games of the Philadelphia Flyers —loose shoulder pads —where you could escape an opponent’s fist and throw one of your own while they stumbled back in disbelief. Of course, Mark would use it to his own advantage. Of course, he would. 

Then he was bare and flushed down to his waistband that always hung a bit lower along his hips than most; if Jeno were to wrap his hands around Mark’s torso he’s certain his thumbs would cross or at least touch. He’s aware of all sounds around him converging as he buries his face against Mark’s throat, so hungry for his skin, the same way it was when he had anyone in his hold, feeling that sweet, thrumming sound through his mouth, lapping up all his sweat until his skin was tasteless. Jeno would graze his nose down the centre of Mark’s taut abdomen, kissing hard at the yellowing bruises from month-old slashings, hearing him groan, a rough hand pinching his scalp. He made Mark keep his skates on, pants pooled mid-calf while he kneeled between his legs, fingers hooked tight around the bench edge. 

The smell always overwhelmed him and Jeno had to steady himself or risk landing badly on his tailbone which would make it hurt to sit for weeks. There really wasn’t a way to do this comfortably. More often than not, his hands were raw. And even if Jeno pulled off at the last second, some of it usually ended up in his eye or near it and he’d gather up all his wits not to curse Mark out as he doused his face off in the sink, more aware than ever of the burning tightness of his own groin as he heard Mark fumbling himself back in order from the benches. Of course Mark would offer to help and then Jeno would have to remind him that the bright yellow ulcer on the inside of his cheek hadn’t healed yet and God knew what blowing a guy would do to something like that. 

It was the strangest thing. Mark would wrap toilet paper around his glove so it would chafe less and Jeno would sit in the intersection of the benches in the corner so his sore quads had slightly more space. Mark sat on their combined gym bags because Jeno didn’t like seeing him staring up from the floor and as Mark sped up his pace, the sodden paper would rub off in bits and beads until the glove would chafe him anyway and right when Jeno thought it couldn’t hurt any worse, he’d come so violently his vision would go purple and eviscerate the whole room. It scared Mark after a while. He’d drop his hand and stuff his glove into his bag without washing it and head out. Leave Jeno to hunch in the stall alone, wiping off strings of blood. It was definitely the strangest part to bandage yourself. 

You’re not supposed to want stuff like this, man —you need to get help. Maybe he would need help in normal circumstances. But being willing to seek out pain had inevitably given him an edge in this place. Jeno wasn’t afraid of getting hit. He was never afraid of getting hit; at least not while it was happening and in the heat of it, he felt nothing and then something, briefly, when his bare knuckles connected with raw, living flesh. He felt something he was afraid to name while he watched his opponent stagger off with their upper lip bleeding so hard it looked like there was a hole in their face. That feeling of just knowing some of those guys just stopped going after Mark or Donghyuck, knowing they’d have to deal with him next. 

Man, what the fuck is wrong with you? God, I can’t fucking tell if you’re doing this for us or if you’re actually tryna wreck yourself. What if it’s both? Why can’t it be both? This conversation happens when Jeno wakes up in the hospital the third time that final season. He’s unable to move his mouth because it hurts to move anything. Mark grasped his mangled hand in both of his own, eyes red with exhaustion. For the entire time he’s there, Mark never kisses or even touches his face. Later, Jeno learns that there are plates embedded underneath his right cheek, right jaw, and under his eye; steel supports lift his nose and fourteen stitches seal his forehead. He needed fillers in the same cheek just to pull his eye back into alignment. He didn’t even remember who broke open his face that time. Mark said it wasn’t important. He said he would have to stay on the benches for a while. Coach’s orders. It was the scariest six weeks of Jeno’s life. He was sure he’d get pulled off the team. He couldn’t even skate while he waited because his vision was unreliable. Jeno spent those six weeks waking up at noon on the couch, emptying out the fridge he shared with five other members. By the second week, he no longer registered the warmth in his throat and by the fourth, he stopped throwing up. 

Around this time, Mark doesn’t fare so well either. From what Jeno gathers from hallway murmurings and television runs, it’s not so much that Mark is losing his streak as he’s losing his stride. With Jeno off the ice, there’s not enough backs to protect him. The new guy’s out of practice, skittish and doesn’t land hits quite so well. He’s afraid. Never confronts the antagonizers directly, always sticking them behind their backs or tripping them up from underneath. It’s hard to win respect that way. Sometimes when the opposing team takes a dig at them, Jeno watches the new guy just let it slide. He almost feels bad for him. Soon enough that guy gets thrown on the benches again and it’s only by the third switch where Jeno’s stand-in’s any good at all and by then, Mark joins him by the couch, damned to the benches too because he’s sustained too many falls to his dominant side to swing with the same accuracy as he used to. Forget what I said before, Mark leans against the couch, sitting on the carpet, drunk out of his mind. You’re good. You’re so fucking good. I don’t know how you… His voice dies out and the next moment, Mark’s crying into his hands. Nobody can take it like you. I don’t know how you do it. I haven’t felt safe out there since you've been out. 

I haven’t felt safe for weeks.

Safe. That was good. That was a good word. If words could warm his hands, Jeno would let safe burn as the last match in his grasp before winter fell and overtook him again. That evening, he pulled Mark up from the carpet and fell asleep with his matted hair against his mouth, damp shirt-back against his chest. Maybe they were both way too drunk, but to Jeno, Mark weighed almost nothing. He felt like a bird without feathers. 

It’s no use. Just like that, Mark evaporates and then it’s just Jeno standing in the shower alone, his old hockey glove drenched eight pounds heavier, the spray cutting through his hair. He stares at the dark mound in his hand, disgusted, and flings it limply into the sink. He sinks to his knees and ducks in his forehead, but he can’t even cry. It’s his fault. It’s his fault all of this happened and it’s his fault they haven’t been good since. He doesn’t remember twisting the shower off or even getting changed, but later that evening Jeno tries to call Mark twice. He almost tries a third time despite seeing the flash of NO SIGNAL clear against the dead screen. Finally, he kicks his phone under the bed and drags the window open, pressing his nose against the torn netting to get some air. 

…

The next day Jeno finds himself half-hunched inside the garbage can he’d dragged into the backroom, shoveling through a mess of half-finished Yoplait, gumball bits, chicken bones, beer caps, and hardened brown tissue wads. Green Coke shards mingled with tangled six-pack rings, bloodied foam trays —Jesus fuck, the smell —and a million shreds of snack wrappers. His knuckles hit the bottom and feel a thin scrape and he picks out the wet piece, squinting to read it. 

The paper is soaked pink and the ink has bled until faint blue arias formed around the digits. 647-36… The one after 6 is cut off and could be either a 3 or an 8, or even a warped up 2 —people didn’t scribble their numbers down to be quaint. Anyhow, it was useless if he didn’t find the rest of the strip. Jeno digs around for another couple minutes and comes up with three or so more shreds. The ink hadn’t bled quite so bad for him to be unable to tell that the handwriting all belonged to different people. Those damn Ivy Leagues. He peers into the blackish oily pit. The rest probably just melted like any paper would, smushed under eons of pulverized sludge. 

He tries to remember what they looked like. 

And realizes it doesn’t really matter. He’s trying to find a shade, a shadow of Mark in one of them and it’s not the first time he’s tried. You don’t find him reincarnated as some glaring, yet hopeful “hi” on MSN from some polite (and possibly drunk) stranger, telling you he thought he saw your MySpace and thought you looked cute. Pretending to be friendly, pretending to pick at your brain when all he really wants is to pick your clothes off the floor in his apartment downtown. Trying to condense years into minutes, acting all familiar after six or seven texts. He asked how old Jeno was in his picture and Jeno snorted saying it was a badly planned freshman bathroom selfie. When Jeno flipped the question back, he realized the guy was more than twice his age. He told Jeno he was a year younger than that when he took his picture, if that changed anything. Jokingly, the man offered to be Jeno’s sugar daddy. Jeno told him to buy him a Ferrari and then he asked Jeno what he’d get in return. Jeno didn’t know. He stared at the three unanswered texts and decided to block him, feeling sick even as he took a cold shower. 

That was last summer. Back in high school, Jeno thought twenty-one would pass by a lot more eventfully. He ended up just buying himself a six-inch cake with an orange ONE-DAY expiry sticker on the clear plastic cover, crammed with candied cherries and lopsided dark chocolate wings. Took a few blurry pictures of it on his cracked Blackberry Curve, taking advantage of the rare shaft of sunlight through his unfinished dormitory window that day. He didn’t tell them to write Happy Birthday; it was too embarrassing. Told them the cake was for his girlfriend.

When he’s shoved most of the trash back inside with his heel, Jeno clangs the heavy can upright again and heads into the corner bathroom. He has to duck to avoid the naked bulb and the water gushes out with flecks of rust. Most of the sink is clogged with blue foam by the time Jeno realizes he’s scrubbing with his gloves on. He tosses them into the toilet, shouts into his fist and picks them back out, dropping them into the smaller wastebasket under the sink. He holds his hands under the tap, jaw taut, lighter on the soap this time to lessen the sting. Even the older scars seem to burn under the water. Sometimes Jeno thinks this is God’s way of telling him he’ll never heal from it. 

Going by that old psychiatrist trick, retracing it back to his roots, Jeno can pinpoint the exact moment it started for him. Three in the afternoon, mid-May, seven years ago, Jeno’s cladding down the hall in partly loosened skates, bangs sticking to his forehead when he hears a shallow gasp some ways beyond the trophy cabinet and then he’s standing right in front of them, stick clattering from his gloves. 

Mark’s on the floor, blood in his teeth, coughing on a pink pool of his own spit, one ear cupped with equally slick-dark fingers. Someone from their own team is holding him down, crushing his shoulders under their haunches, yanking his face up by his scalp, the raw fingers of their other hand dangerously close to his eye. The guy is just able to brush a yellow fingernail across Mark’s lower lid when Jeno wrenches him up by the ears and throws him against the cabinet —exploding the glass and ramming him down with a fifteen pound silver cup. Jeno lifted Mark from the ground, feeling how his hands instinctively curled around his shoulder like a lifeline, cheek pressed to his chest, shaking. Mark didn’t start crying until they were back inside Jeno’s old F-150. He cried with a tissue pressed against his mouth, reddened from a hole where one of his canines used to be. It fell out in the dressing room sink, split into two uneven halves, laced in more bloodied spit. Called me s-something before he hit me. Mark mumbled into the darkened wad, wiping the snot from his upper lip. Trash-ass sonuvabitch —I’m not even fucking Chinese. 

After Mark fell asleep in the back under a spare coat, Jeno locked the car and headed back into the rink, hands trembling. He returned to the mound of glass shreds and overturned trophies and later found himself sitting inside Coach Kitch’s office with that wretched waste of space, now a bag of ice pressed to his skull and one eye bruised shut as the stern polo-clad man before them went over team values and honor and all that bullshit, mildly urging Jeno to divert his rage towards the opposing team come next hallway scrabble. 

As the dunce lumbered off, Jeno turned his attention back to Kitch who turned to flip through a filing cabinet and handed him a stapled stack of pink and white forms. He asked Jeno if he owned boxing gloves. Jeno shook his head; he tended to practice with either finger tape or just his bare hands because the bag in his garage was relatively worn already and that was more for keeping him fit outside the ice. They talked a bit more after that, trivial, useless things Jeno can no longer recall. 

But Kitch saw it early. The next day, Jeno got called into one of the spare training rooms upstairs. Got tossed a pair of boxing gloves and told to throw a few quick ones at him. 

He’d ended up with a bleeding ear and a split brow, but seeing Kitch give him a solid thumbs up from the floor felt rather satisfying despite the coach not sustaining anything visible enough to brag to his teammates about the next day. Actually, Kitch might’ve gone easy on him. He’d rubbed the back of his head and righted the collar of his badly fitting blue polo, but then he strode off without as much as a slight swing in his heel. Jeno leaned by the remaining equipment, still stripping off the gloves. Rubbed blood from the corner of his eye, still thinking about the hallway. 

Later that same night, Mark leaned in, absently touching his mouth, now one tooth lighter, as they headed down Yonge to the massive A&A. Someone whistled at them, Jeno flipped them off. All around them spun a dizzying mix of red lights, flapping flyers and smoke. It’s not fair. This never happened when Fletcher was center. Jeno covered his nose as they passed under a stretch of tarp. Something was always under construction. Turned to Mark as they neared the door, two giant neon records flashing red overhead. That’s ‘cause Fletcher was a crapshoot center. How long was he in there, huh? Two weeks. You’d smoke him any day. Mark smiled, unconvinced. He pulled Jeno over to the aisle with the red-taped 20% off boxes. I think I saw a Bon Jovi in there a couple days ago. 

They don’t find Bon Jovi. Jeno hung back as Mark flipped through the sticky tabs and pulled out a few, the plastic already pretty scratched and torn in a few places. Jeno only recognized TLC. Mark turned to him, motioning with his chin. Come on, you pick one. I’m paying. It took more than a few wrings of his patchy thrift-store varsity sleeve before Jeno finally decided to humor him by picking the one with two scraggly cacti under a gaudy RedNex logo. Cotton Eye Joe? You’re kidding me. Jeno snorted too, eyeing the finer print in brackets. Sex and Violins. He had no idea what the fuck that meant in terms of genre and deeper meaning, but somehow he thought it described Mark pretty well. Not that he’d ever seen Mark holding, let alone playing a violin, but he thought the combination took after his energy. Something concrete like strings that could fold and smooth over like undeveloped film. 

He barely feels it as he reaches over to screw the tap shut. His hands don’t burn anymore. They barely feel like a part of his body. Jeno stares into the mirror to avoid the pink water stain in the sink. The old shard of plastic twists in his fist so hard he’s sure the slash in his palm has reopened. The only relief he’ll get all week.

…

Jeno doesn’t believe in classifieds. That’s why it takes him almost four tries to stay on the line after he punched in the number, breath trembling in his chest. Her voice comes out, dark and reedy on the other end.

“Hello. Madame Warwick at your service. What can I do for you today?”

“Can you,” Jeno swallows, barely hearing himself. “-hypnotize me?”

“Hypnotize you?”

“Just for a few hours. I need this. Please.”

She asks him whether he prefers to have it done over the phone or in person. He says in person. Asks if it makes a difference. She doesn’t answer. Static crackles in his ear. He waits for her to tell him the address and he jots it down on the tattered corner of the newspaper he’s got still open. She repeats it to him twice, each time slower than before as though she suspects he has a learning disability. Then hangs up. 

It’s an office. Surprisingly well-kept, the windows letting in a lot of natural light. Small and tan. There’s watercolour diagrams of orchids and cross-sectioned brains. A vase of white lilies. 

He doesn’t remember her face. Maybe that’s part of it. All he recalls is that he sat down in the chair and she asked him to start counting down. Down from twenty. Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, sixteen… The room seemed to thin. He felt himself sinking. Sinking deep into a cage of sand. Pooling up his legs. His waist. He couldn’t move. And then it was over.

Outside, the walk back was jarring, everything too bright and loud. Immediate. He still felt like he was floating. 

He went through the front door and down the hall, bursting into the second door. 

“Wha—

He pushes Derek onto the bed, immediately kissing him, mouth crushed messily against his. Groaning. He knows it’s him. It hadn’t worked, not fully. He knows it’s him and yet he’s still doing this, kissing him, touching him, grabbing him, using it as some kind of excuse. He’s a dick, he’s such a fucking dick. He knows Derek likes him. Knows he’s liked him since he moved in next door two months ago. It’s not even what he does, it’s the way he looks at him. That longing, that quiet, desperate longing. The way his eyes will linger when Jeno turns to him, asking if he wants milk from the fridge, some of it still coating his own upper lip. The way his hands will shake slightly when they sit across from each other, and if his foot brushes his under the table, he’ll keep it there until Jeno shifts his own. How he’ll sometimes brush his elbow, almost grasp it if they run into each other at the door, and then ask if he wants to join him. Some party, some get-together, something to eat. 

But Derek’s not stupid. 

“What is this?” He pulls away, a thread of spit still clinging to his lips. His face is all red. Hair messed. Shirt, rolled up. He’s not Mark. He’s not Mark at all. “-why’re you…?”

He doesn’t look remotely like him. 

“I’m sorr…” 

Jeno gets up and staggers off to the door, lingering there. It’s wearing off. Already it’s wearing off. He feels his pockets. Fuck. She took all the money. All that money and the bitch was a fucking hack. His wallet’s empty save for his ID and auto repair. Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

He slides down to the floor, too pissed to even cry.

…

It happens again. It keeps happening until it works. A week later, Derek moves out. 

Jeno’s free of him.

…

Physio’s great. Physio doesn’t require you to talk, do much of anything with your face at all. None of that pointless hoo-ha personality bullshit. After Jeno signs himself in at the front, he goes down to the second last door on the left and waits outside until the door opens and the lady lets him in. She’s old. Thin. Wears layers of lilac clothing, glasses with a beaded chain. Pale leather loafers. Her hands are strong, though. Strong and warm. He trusts them.

The first time he came here, Jeno wanted to pretend he was mute. Or deaf. Or both. It would make it less embarrassing somehow, that he was here. So young and his body is already falling apart. He’s grateful no one can see him. How she makes him hold the long end of a broom and raise it slowly or tilt it side to side, slowly stretching his arms. His back. The backs of his legs. The movements are simple, yet by the end he’d find himself slightly out of breath. 

By the third week, he’s converted. He came here at least once, sometimes twice a week. It felt good. It felt good to breathe. 

…

He still stays in contact with some of them. Not all of them. Donghyuk moved towns. Yangyang, the same. Sicheng’s staying somewhere with a few other guys, a few blocks from where he lived. He hasn’t visited. They were never that close back then. Actually, he ran into Ten the other day at the cold/flu section of the convenience store, picking off a pack of Ricola cough drops. They didn’t really talk. 

He’s catching a movie with Sungchan later this evening. Donnie Darko. Hadn’t planned it. But the other friend ditched last minute, and then he called. Jeno said sure. He had nothing tonight anyways. 

Of course there were other guys, but he knew them even less well. Some guys, he doesn’t even remember their names anymore. Numbers, even. 

He should head over to Donghyuk’s place sometime again. They still played videogames on the floor and his basement shelf had a surprisingly good selection. Final Fantasy, Doom, Fallout. Legend of Zelda. Half-Life. The darker stuff. He was really getting into Silent Hill these days.

…

He’s shaking sweat from his hair when Logan nudges his shoulder, gesturing to the far benches on his right. Jeno looks up and almost drops his helmet. Five rows up, three seats in, Mark waves, grinning. His hair’s gone —buzzed clean. Even so, he’s damn radiant, smile still sharp as ever. Jeno doesn’t realize he’s climbed the steps until he’s standing there, thumbs pinching the iron buttons of his chin strap, still admiring Mark’s dimples. That’s what he called them anyways —he could never be sure if they were real or just there because of his peculiar cheekbones. It didn’t matter. Jeno loved them, anyways.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” He says, spinning his helmet. His chest feels tight. “I didn’t know you’d be coming.”

“Yeah, me neither. Overslept on the bench and, uh...Muscle memory when I heard Union?” Mark shrugs, laughing. He’s wearing the old Raptors hoodie Jeno lent him back when they roomed together. That old place, God. He can almost smell the crushed newspapers they stuffed beneath the door whenever it rained. The Kraft Dinner stain over the teeth’s still there.“Hope you don’t mind. It’s pretty late.”

“You come here every day?” Mark asks him later in the change room. 

“Wish I could, actually,” He says, pulling down the tight frayed lips of his skates. Shucks his feet out. Stray ice bits bleed into his sore soles immediately and he barely cares, digging his beat-up runners from his bag. They slap the floor. It feels warmly rounded under his feet like it always does after he’s been on the ice for a while. “-the hours clash with my classes and even if they didn’t…”

A metallic boom clangs from nearby and when Jeno glances up again, Mark hands him an ice-cold can of 7Up. Shouts ring out from outside. Sticks clap. Everything reverberates. Jeno cracks the tab and takes a long swig, wincing. He can feel the migraine setting in already. Fuck.

“Yeah, I get that,” Mark nods, taking a seat next to him. “-I get told that a lot too —not to overdo it and all that. It’s all I think about sometimes, though. Remember all those old drill tapes they used to make us watch?” He laughs, looking down. “I’ve started watching them again.”

“I thought you would,” Jeno smiles. He nudges his bag to the side with his foot and really looks at him, a damp, heated palm pressed to his chin. It’s still a shock. He’s seeing parts of Mark’s head he’s never seen before, the almost triangular shape of his skull. Some parts are darker than others, it’s slightly patchy. His cheekbones are somehow even more pronounced —falcon-like. Like he’s out for blood. “You were the worst out of all of us for that stuff. Way into the night. I was this close to kicking you out and making you sleep in the garage instead.”

“You should’ve said something, then, damn,” Mark shoves at his shoulder with a cool, flushed hand, getting some soda onto his sleeve. Sets his can onto the bench. “You don’t say anything, I’ll never know. Fuck, Jen. Seriously.”

It’s quiet for a while.

“Is this some pre-game charm thing?” He reaches over and vigorously rubs the top of Mark’s head, laughing, oddly enjoying the feeling of the sharp tiny hairs buzzing all over his heated palm. Mark blushes down to his chest, but doesn’t push him away. It’s amazing how small and narrow his head is —how full of multitudes it contains, its best kept secret. “You do it yourself —that why it’s so uneven?”

“Yeah, no, actually I got Ryan to do it,” He grins, still looking somewhat uncomfortable with himself. He won’t look Jeno in the face, picking his soda back up, just turning it around in his hands. So the older Lee couldn’t cut either. Not much surprise there. Mark shrugs, flattening one side of his mouth. “It’s not bad, you know. Don’t have to worry about fucking lice or any of that weird bacterial shit.”

“You shaved it for lice?”

“In a manner of speaking,” he says. Knocks his knee against his, exhaling a half-laugh. “Tired of them saying I look like a fucking girl.”

“Yeah? You feel better now?”

“Sure,” Mark nods. He’s remembering it now. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t. He sees it —Mark putting on the lip balm, taking the cap from the guy. Kissing it. Accepting their gifts. Late night television. They’re saying they’re jealous of his team —getting to see Mark get changed. “-it’s barely enough. Like somehow I feel even more naked. I’m still getting used to…” He shakes his head. Squeezes his arm lightly. “Like I gotta get bigger too. All these guys are like almost three times my size. They could kill me just by sitting on me, fucking hell. I hate that I think like that. You don’t think like that, do you?”

“You don’t have to go that way,” Jeno tells him. The floor feels cold against his stiff soles, the fan’s too loud. Everything’s crowding together. “You need to play to your—

“-My strengths —God, man, I fucking know, fuck…” The other rolls his eyes, messily downing more soda and clanging it against the bench. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how fast I am, how well I snipe it, how well I steer myself past all those guys, how much I give, how much I fucking score —how much—-” His voice breaks. “-how much I try to…” 

He ducks his head into his hands, shoulders going rigid. 

“They only want one thing from me. That one thing.”

He sighs shakily.

“I don’t get it. They don’t even treat their girlfriends like this.”

Jeno winces. 

He doesn’t want to think about how much worse it had gotten since then. 

“You don’t like it either, do you?” Marks asks, smiling a little. He takes Jeno’s hand and smooths it down the side of his own head again. “It was fun making me your girl for a while too, huh?”

It hurts more than he thought it would. He pulls his hand away.

“I liked your hair, dude. Really, I did.”

Mark just laughs.

“Then, let’s go get me some fucking hair.”

“You know, they traded a guy from us?” Mark says once they’re outside. The walking light blinks. They go on, giving most of the way to the other passersby. Strollers, grim working men, a stray neon jogger or two. He shakes his head. “He’d only been there a year or so. Barely. We were just getting to know him.”

“Yeah?”

“He’s got a lot of stuff, so I told him I could help out —he’s staying at the old place, you know?” Mark smiles, knocking his shoulder gently against his. “-the little old Polish couple’s still staying there. Remember when they used to…”

“Yeah,” He nods. He hasn’t thought about it in ages, but as soon as Mark brought it up, it started coming back. The tupperware packed with the still-warm chewy baked squares. Red bean paste inside, the slightly burnt crusts on the edges. “-it was the best. And they made it all by themselves. Our moms were always trying to make it again, but it wasn’t…”

“They just couldn’t make it right,” Mark laughs and digs inside his coat pocket and pulls out a Ziploc, patches of steamed condensation sticking to the plastic. As soon as he opens it, Jeno can smell it, the gooey warm sweetness of it and the baked crusts and he waits until Mark holds the bag towards him before he takes one —but like what usually happens, the cut’s not clean and it’s sticking to another one and Mark’s laughing again, shaking his head. “Just take two —take them both. I’ve got more in my bag —here, you can take the whole thing if you want.”

“No, no, it’s fine, it’s good,” Jeno puts a hand over the seal of the bag, mildly pushing it back to him. Stuffed both squares into his mouth, feeling his cheeks puff out. Mark grins at him, in a way that’s so undeniably fond he’s at a pause before nodding, making firm noises of gusto, holding up a thumbs up. Then Mark’s laughing so hard he’s squinting, slapping him in the arm. Jeno talks with his mouth full. “-it’s good, it’s really so good, I don’t know why I’m trying so hard to convince you…”

“I believe you, man, really,” Mark wipes at his eye, sucking in a breath through his nose. “I believe you. Your face, though. I can’t with —it’s just the best. You really haven’t changed. You haven’t changed at all.”

“Really,” He says, still chewing. Still nodding. “And what makes you say that?”

“You’re just you,” Mark smiles. “I don’t know. You’re still you.”

Jeno snorts, sighing. “Who else would I be?”

It takes them a while to find the right one. Beanies. They’re well into July with an expected heatwave of nearly fortysomething humidex going into the weekend, but Mark wants a beanie. Because fuck hair. Fuck wigs. They’re itchy and sparse —at least the ones they find, and Mark looks ridiculous. So that’s how they got here. That’s how they end up shoulder-deep inside the massive clearance wire-bin at Bathurst St., pulling five or six out at a time and scattering them at the top and holding them up to Mark’s face jokingly before he puts them on. There’s all kinds. Bright pink, vomit green, zebra stripes. Plain navy, black and grey. Patterned with metal band logos, tiny sharks or sushi, tiny arcade-style cherries and chibi fighter avatars shooting lasers. It’s late enough in the day that the shopkeeper doesn’t bother hovering over them to keep them from stealing. It’s clearance, anyways. They’re meant to be gotten ridden of. 

“Wait, wait, wait —I’ve always wanted to do this,” Mark grabs a beanie at random and pulls it over his head, then immediately pulls another over on top and hands him another one. Stacking them. “Here, put it on —on top.”

“What?” 

“Yeah,” He laughs. “I wanna see how many I can get it to.” 

So they do that and soon they’re twelve beanies in and the first one’s pulled down so far that Mark probably can’t even see and the higher up they go, the less the material is actually clinging to his head and more just sitting on top on the one right under it like a mini wool tower and soon he looks like something right out of a Dr. Seuss book. Eventually Jeno has to toss the hats up and hope for the best that it lands. Sometimes it knocks three hats off and they have to try again. It’s the weirdest form of Jenga ever. Soon the hats are piled so high that they extend past the smudgy full length mirror tilted against the racks and Mark gestures to his backpack, telling him to get his camera out. Then Jeno documents the whole journey —the crooked, wavering beanie tower, Mark trying to lean back to somehow see it all, then knocking backwards into the rack of hair accessories and feeling all the beanies roll and flop down, scattering all over the floor. Some of them get caught on the rack hooks. The first three still cling to his head, miraculously.

“We probably could’ve gotten all of them,” Mark says as they leave the store, the first six in a tiny plastic bag around his wrist. “-nobody else was getting them. They’ll all end up in the frickin’ landfill.”

Jeno looks at him. “You could never use that many beanies.”

“That’s not the point. I’m trying to save the planet.”

“You could start by taking shorter showers. And turning the lights off when you leave the room. Biking to work.”

Mark squints dramatically. “How do you know I don’t already do that?”

“Do you?”

That gets his shoulder shoved, he gets told to shut up.

“You looked really cute by the way,” Jeno adds just because he feels like it. It’s nearly dark now. The streetlights glow down the block. “Like fifty scoops of ice cream.”

…

One time they were walking home from practice and Jeno saw a building, half-finished or even less so, behind a crooked fence of peeling iron and wooden boards. The balconies were bright and bald in the early evening sun, the rough white floors sloping off without rails. Suddenly, Jeno took Mark’s sleeve and ducked him under the gap in the boards, pulling him into the area under construction, kicking past dirt and shreds of plaster, sliding behind a locked red mini-crane and into the shadows of the bare, open lobby. It was just a tunnel then —jagged, darkened damp walls of cement leading into the bumpy, unpaved parking lot.

Jeno pulled Mark up onto the first floor balcony and pressed him against the rough white wall, kissing him with dry, desperate lips. Mark clutched at his wrinkled leather varsity sleeves, brief little squeezes that meant for him to ease up, to slow down, but not to stop. Jeno kissed harder. Mark kissed back more hesitantly, mouth parting gradually, tracing the underside of his lip with the shy tip of his tongue, making small whines of discomfort. Soon he kissed him more meaningfully, exploring his mouth with his whole tongue, going so far as to scrape his molars, groaning, licking up spit that slid down from the side of Jeno’s mouth. He broke off first, staring back at Mark with unabashed fear in his eyes. Late sunlight turned the edges of his hair fiery gold and made half of his face burn a faint, tawny amber like he’d been pulled from the sands of Mars. He was the most beautiful, terrifying thing Jeno had ever seen. 

“I hadn’t meant to do that,” Jeno said, white hot jitters rattling the inside of his chest. All he could think about was kissing him again. And again and again. And again. Forever. “-I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Well, it wasn’t a complete disaster,” Mark smiled. “You told me a lot.”

“Did you like it? Was it bad?”

“I thought it was okay. You?”

“I was afraid maybe I was hurting you. I kept thinking you would—” Jeno broke off, staring at the ground. Their feet were dusted in plaster and bits of gravel. Smudges of their dirty footprints now covered the balcony floor. He looked back up. “I didn’t know I wanted to. I didn’t know I wanted to until I was doing it. Kissing you.”

“Do you…” Mark paused, searching his eyes for something. “-like me maybe?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

“How can you be not sure?”

“I liked it. And I like it when you’re with me. I don’t know if that’s the same thing. As just liking you.”

“You want to do more of this?” Mark leaned in and licked across Jeno’s slightly parted mouth, a shiver running down his neck when Mark brushed the underside of his lip again. Mark went deeper and licked right against Jeno’s own tongue, making a satisfied noise and licking again. Murmured. “-oh, I like this. Mm, I really like this, I like doing this with you. You feel good, you feel good on me, mhm. We should do more.”

“You feel good?” Jeno hated how hopeful he sounded. It made him feel weak, obedient. “You like it? What’s more?”

“This,” Mark took Jeno’s hand and placed it underneath his coat, right against the front of his jeans. He was hard, semi-hard, and Jeno could feel him hardening even more as he moved Jeno’s hand slowly back and forth, his breath coming out in visible puffs in the bright November air. Mark stared at him with heavily lidded eyes, glancing down briefly, then pressed his hand harder against him, grinding into it. Moaning. “-you feel that? You made me like this, from that. And now I can’t stop. I don’t want —I don’t want to stop.”

Mark dragged him in closer and grabbed the belt of his pants until they were pressed right against each other. He began grinding against Jeno, his breath coming out in shorter, harsher gasps, sometimes small, raspier noises from the back of his throat, soon leaning his face against Jeno’s cheek, his breath hot against his neck. Soon Jeno matched his growing desperation, breathing just as hard and strained, grinding against him with equal harshness, squeezing his eyes closed, biting down his own moans as Mark chanted his name under his tight breath, as though he was begging for it. Moments later, Mark let out a broken cry of relief and Jeno felt a warm dampness spread against him, in the spot where they were grinding. Mark panted against him and then kissed his neck a few times before reaching down to squeeze his groin, realizing he hadn’t come and then loosened his belt with one hand, reached into his pants and jerked him off the rest of the way. Jeno just watched him in awe, at the glowing strings of release in Mark’s flushed hand. At Mark taking that hand to his mouth and licking a fingertip and then smearing the rest across Jeno’s lips. 

“Taste it. It’s you.”

“I know. I’ve never done that.”

“Try it. You might like it.”

Jeno does. He’s not sure if he likes it. 

Mark stares at him. Takes his hand back and licks off the rest, making a show of it, showing a lot of tongue, a lot of mms and ahhs. Jeno’s not sure if he likes that either. Mark kisses his fingers, then the center of his hand. Jeno likes that. Mark smiles.

“I like your taste. I think you like it too.”

“Not really. Just you.”

“Just me?” He laughs. “What do you like about me?”

Jeno tries to think of an answer, a reasonable one. He can’t. He kisses Mark on the mouth, then the cheek, then his throat. He licks over his Adam’s apple, making Mark make an aborted noise. He pulled back. 

Mark smiles. “I see. That’s what you like.”

“Some of it. I’m still not sure about the rest.”

“Well, we’ve got plenty more time,” He took Jeno’s hand and led him into the unmade building, pulling them into dimmer, bluer shadows. Soon they reached the back and began picking their way out of the trees behind the parking lot. Patches of snow crunched under their feet, Jeno ducking to avoid the skinny, low hanging branches around them. Through the trees, the lopsided chimney of the old fire station glowed a pale gold in the dying sun. Jeno recognized the red blocks of their elementary school some ways up, behind the black chain-link rubber fence. He hadn’t gone this way in a while. Mark pulled him along. Some plaster dust had smeared along his ass, the backs of his pants, his hair. 

Jeno wanted to pat it off, but was afraid to. He didn’t know what would happen. Would Mark pull away from him, feel disgusted? It felt different now.

They stopped outside of the town’s daycare centre. Pizza shops, coin laundry, laser hair removal and a TD bank and bar surrounded it. Mark looked back at him. 

“I’ve got to go in to get my mom. Sometimes she gets there early and naps by the boxes of board games. You can join, if you want.”

He knows Mark means for him to leave. He pulls his hand from Mark’s grip. It’s suddenly cool, his fingers having stayed under Mark’s warmth and gathered sweat. They feel empty now.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Mark smiles, his nose scrunching a little. 

“Maybe. I’ll have to see if my brother can drop me off at the rink again. He’s out a lot now because of work —it’s a lot farther than it used to be. Call me, okay?”

“We could go to my house instead. I got the new Call of Duty and we just got better speakers in the basement.”

Mark laughs. 

“Okay. I’ll knock on the window when I’m there.”

…

Mark only had short hair once. Jeno was trying to show him a new trick he learned —setting his own finger on fire carefully laced in vegetable oil.

Not careful enough —at the last moment he brushed the edge of Mark’s ear by accident, taken by surprise when Mark yanked his wrist closer and then the flames took over. He had him on the ground less than a second later, furiously scrubbing the fire out with his tightened jean jacket sleeve. Mark barely made any noise, but Jeno attributes that to his mouth and much of his face being crushed under his arm as he tried in vain to save his friend. When it finally went out, Mark was panting on the pavement, chin and ear scraped bloody, a wide, amorphous patch of tender, singed scalp along the side of his head. 

Later at the hospital, they shear his whole head. Safety reasons, they said. Bullshit.

They didn’t even stay for a full night. Mark tore the tubes off, laughing and slid off the bed, stuck his legs out the window, pulling Jeno along. Running down the street, barefoot and screaming. They spent the night in his backyard, never even bothering to change their clothes. The next morning, the burn’s gotten infected.

He never let Jeno apologize. He never has.

…

He gets into the water with him, sloshing some of it onto the floor. Pieces of rounded ice float on the surface merging with small soft clumps of foam from the salt. Epsom salts. Jeno can't recall who told him about them, said they were good for his back and sore muscles in general, that soaking in them for a few hours would soothe him immensely. The water’s just above his chest. Loosely lapping at it. He feels nothing yet. Cold, just cold. Mark kicks him, laughing. More water hits the floor. 

This thing's barely big enough for the both of them. It's an outdated kiddie pool Jeno pulled off the side of the street not long after he took the speakers home several months ago. It was two thirds deflated then. Jeno had felt all around it, almost certain it was torn somewhere, no other reason someone would toss it. But it was fine. Just soft. Someone had outgrown it perhaps. 

“I'm not feeling anything yet,” Mark tells him, leaning back. His neck has gone red. His nipples have shrunk, darkened. “You sure we were supposed to put the ice along with it?”

“I have no idea,” He turns to grab the edge of the glass coffee table, trying to push it a bit further away. His console was there, as were some scattered batteries. Some CDs. “Maybe we didn't put enough.” There was still more than half the bag left. Some of it spilled onto the couch, large irregular crystals faintly pink in the crevice between the cushions, the top corner cut far too wide. An old habit. “Should we try to scoop it out?” He lets out a loose, high laugh. His legs were going numb. “I can get two bowls from the kitchen and we can scoop them into the sink. Or the toilet. Tub, even.” 

“No, no, it's cool,” Mark says, sinking even deeper. He stops when the water reached his chin, then right in the middle of his mouth. “I can harness my superpowers. Become the next Mr. Freeze.” His voice is comically distorted by the water and then when he tastes some, he's jerking back up, coughing, trying to spit, wiping the taste off in his arm. It takes Jeno a moment. Oh yeah, salt. It was still salt. “Fuck, I just drank pure ocean. Oh god. Yo, fuck. It stings! Feel like my tongue's gonna burn off,” He kicks him again. “You owe me a new mouth. Jesus.”

“I thought you were Spiderman.”

Old joke. He couldn't help it.

“Spiderman doesn't drink seawater,” Mark glares at him, still blinking water from his eyes. He's still coughing. “You think being bit makes me immune to everything?” 

“Should at least make you immune to being a little bitch,” That earns him not just a kick, but a hard shove down from both shoulders until Jeni's fully under. Bubbles escape his mouth immediately, eyes squeezed shut and he only really tastes it as he's pulling himself back up. It's not bad. Hardly any salt at all. No sting. Mark was weak. “What’d you swallow? Your own spit?”

“Fuck off,” He laughs, letting his arms hang out. There had to be more water out than in by now. Ridiculous. The pool’s low enough that his knuckles brush the floor. “I was half kidding.”

“Were you?”

“Sorrrrrrt of.”

“That's a really long sort of.”

“I like to give words a little stretch sometimes. They get tired too.” 

“That might actually be really lame.” Jeno says. He sinks deeper in the water. He’s starting to feel it now. “Really, really lame.”

“But you don't think so.”

“I don’t?”

“Took you too long to say it. Come on.”

“So, I can't speak?” 

“You can,” He shrugs. Even under the water Jeno can still just make out the pale pink scar along Mark’s abdomen. It's still there. “-but you don't always mean what you say.” 

“Neither does anyone,” Jeno pauses. “-neither do you.”

“Most of the time I do. Most of the time.” 

They don't talk about it. Maybe there's nothing to be said. In the end, they never did it. Never followed through. But they were close, so close. They'd planned the time, the place, the stick they’d use. That guy’s stick. That fucking guy’s stick. So he could get a taste of his own medicine, swallow his own teeth for a change. Maybe they’d kill him. Stuff him in one of those giant canisters at the hazardous waste lot and drag him to the lake, make sure he never came back up. Just like the movies. Just like the fucking movies. Jeno never picked out that split canine from the sink, doesn’t know where it’s ended up now. In some landfill probably, lost deep among all those fucking clearance beanies they never bought. They really should’ve just bought the whole bin. Whole fucking store too. Who was even looking. No one. This whole time Jeno’s never taken a proper look inside Mark’s mouth, tried to see how that hole in there healed up. Maybe he’s got a metal tooth now. A gold one. Maybe it’s made of porcelain. 

He still hates himself for it. For not saving the tooth. For not getting there in time. 

…

Mark traces the bruises along his lower back with a lazy finger, one of his calves laid over his, both of them crammed along Jeno’s tiny twin-size bed pushed to the wall. A generous stretch of his sheets have slid free from underneath the mattress, the rougher, ridgier material faintly scratching Jeno’s shin. He sighs into the pillow as Mark licks into the skin right under his nape, tongue hot and heavy. Lamplight burns through his lids, makes him see red. Red. Mark’s the lone coal burning in his night. Jeno would char his bones off just to hold him. 

“I love kissing you,” Mark murmurs against his lips. “You’re always so ready to give into me…so pliant…” He wets his lips and lets a swirl of spit drop into Jeno’s mouth. Jeno thinks of getting a stroke and dying. Then he wouldn’t have to face the morning. And waiting, and waiting again. “Love tasting me on you, hm.”

“You do, huh.” 

“I do,” He said, and it felt like he would never leave him. 

“And I love your, um,” Jeno searches his eyes, but the words fail him. He kisses up the slope of Mark’s nose, feeling the phantom pins he knew were there; he’d watched them put them in. In the center of Mark’s face, a narrow rose. Red. He was like iced filets under that light. Jeno kisses every swollen breakout along his forehead, knowing to be gentle. He needs Mark to know how gentle he can really be. He needs to give him a reason, he needs to try. “-never mind.”

His mouth is buried against Mark’s sweet, bloodied scalp again before he’s pulled back down for a real kiss. When Mark kisses him, Jeno believes in it, everything. He believes Mark is really there, he can feel him, his lips solid, yet soft against his mouth, feel his tongue tracing the underside of his lip, right against his teeth, making him shiver. Mark’s mouth melds into his so naturally, so smoothly, it’s hard to imagine it was never there most of the time. Most of his life. Jeno feels like he’s kissed Mark in his sleep. Sometimes everything feels like him. He wakes up crying, noiseless in his throat, knowing Mark’s not there, has woken up like this for months. His neck starts to hurt, straining his face to the side, still feeling Mark against his lips. 

I love…you. I love you, Mark. And he hears it anyway, in his mind, even though he knows it’s pointless. Even then morning will come. And he will hate himself. And there’s all this room in his chest and no one to fill it by. And what’s the point of space, then? Just distance. Distance and nothing. He feels nothing. It’s crushing him. 

Mark makes a soft noise and pulls back. Presses a tear flat into Jeno’s cheek with his thumb. Mumbles softly. “What is it?” 

“When,” Jeno stares at his collarbone instead, just letting his thin snot run free down his lips. “-when are you leaving?”

Mark exhales, a near laugh. 

“You want me gone already?”

Jeno echoes his laugh, or near it, trembling.

“Of course,” He kisses Mark’s throat to shield his eyes. Tastes his own saltwater, thin and runny. “I can’t stand you. S’wonder you’re even here.”

“Well, I for one,” Mark answers, smoothing the back of his hair over and over again. Every brush of his fingers makes Jeno fold further into himself, losing this. “-like you a lot. Sorry.”

“I don’t like you at all. You’re a nuisance.”

“I try my best,” He smiles. “Can’t please everyone.”

“I love you,” For a moment, his arms tighten to a vise against Mark’s back and he endures until he hears Mark wince in pain, patting at his chest to let go. He lets go. His arms still loosely clung to him.  “I love you, Mark, I don’t know what to do with myself.”

Mark said nothing for a while.

“It’s okay. I knew. I always knew.”

“I don’t want to love you,” He said, finally letting go. Shifted onto his back, staring at the ceiling. “I know it’s no use.”

“I’m happy that you love me,” Mark said. “I’m happy.”

“Let me send you off in the morning.”

“Okay.”

…

When he can’t stand to look at the news anymore, Jeno crawls over and lifts the lid off the cardboard cassette box next to the secondhand stereos he dragged home last August. Dew had collected over the speakers along the grass and when he wiped them off and plugged them into his adapter at home, Jeno had been afraid they wouldn’t work. But they did. From then on, Jeno watched everything with those speakers. He loved the way they shook his floor during explosions and even when someone just breathed before speaking. It was like having the Cineplex inside his apartment. 

Now Jeno flipped through his mountain of VCRs, most of them caseless and only labeled by the center sticker and smudged Sharpie. He had all sorts of stuff. The Lion King. Titanic. Space Jam. Silence of the Lambs. Basic Instinct. The Bourne Identity. Die Hard. Jurassic Park. Braveheart. Fantasia. Enter the Dragon. The Neverending Story. Happy Feet. He’d collected most of them from either yard sales or library overstock, never more than a few dollars each. Most of them worked. At some point the audio in Space Jam stopped working and Jeno considered throwing it away, but it was one of the few cassettes that did have a cover case —and a really nice one too —sturdy white plastic that made a soft click when he closed it —so he couldn’t bring himself to throw just the VCR away and put a different one inside. It just felt wrong. 

But Jeno digs farther than these and pulls out a stack of navy cassettes kept together loosely by worn brown elastic that felt like it would tear at any moment. Even the plastic feels somewhat grainy. They read: East Cal Drills #1, #2 and #3. He pushes the third one into the player, hearing the familiar whir of the tape being spooled back in place. Scoots back towards the couch on his hands and bum and grabs a cushion, still sitting on the floor. Jeno ducks his chin into the cushion’s edge.

The screen opens to a wide shot of the rink. They look like a pack of ink-blue termites against the ice, their sticks rigid, poised for attack. A clap of sticks and the mock game begins. The camera swoops down and starts to follow Lee 99, catching a blur of his shoulder, then his navy-orange gear-bound legs scattered in shredded flurries. It stays on his tail for most of the way, sometimes jerking sideways or down when it nearly crashes into a couple other members. Lee 99 narrowly misses crashing into the boards and whirls around from behind the red line and snipes the puck to Lee 04 who sends it clean through the net between the goalie’s legs. Mark swerves over and scoops him into a congratulatory hug as easy as it is heart-numbing, holding on a second longer, mussing Jeno’s helmet affectionately with his glove. The back of Jeno’s head involuntarily shivers. He touches it, jaw taut.

The remote’s pause is broken so Jeno scrambles to the TV on his knees and punches the corresponding button on the player. There it was, Mark frozen on tape, helmet pulled off, bangs sticking to his forehead, eyes shining. Some of his hair is swept up like a crown of thorns and his face is flushed. He looks so winning. Jeno’s palms attempt to grasp the glowing screen, the fine wisps of static licking his fingertips. 

The pale blue light melts through his face, lighting all that’s left in the room. Scattered papers and glass. Empty bottles. Mark is asleep on the couch. The quilt half-drawn, tangled somewhere along his legs. He’s snoring. He has no idea. No idea.

Jeno sighs. He runs his thumb over the curve of Mark’s eye through the screen and almost thinks he can feel his lashes. His throat feels constricted. The closer he gets the more it looks like Mark is breathing and replacing his own breath with lead. Soon the static becomes thin, squirrelly whispers, only partial words of want and when Jeno finally presses his face to the screen, it barely stings his lips. For a while he doesn’t open his eyes. It’s quiet, perfect. 

Slow-spinning fireworks bleed behind his lids. It’s the CNE, circa August 1997. Mark’s sweaty hand gripping his neon entry bracelet-clad wrist, dragging him into the house of mirrors. One mirror makes him look like a shovel, another one a twisted gourd. They’re laughing and then Mark’s pressing him against a mirror that caves in like a hook and Jeno’s grinning as he tastes the roof of his mouth, the stinging melt of cotton candy grits and kiwi Sprite. He tastes colours and arcs of light until one strikes his cornea and evaporates the tent. This close Jeno could see Mark breaking away into hundreds of red and blue-green pixels, now frozen again. The inside of his nose burns, throat dry.

It was just a game. It had always been just a game.

…

“Make a stop over there,” Mark tapped the window suddenly with his glove, glancing back at him. “Yeah, here is good.”

Jeno stared at him, frowning.

Mark opened the car door, slid off into the snow. Looked back and waved. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

He followed him, sinking shin-deep with each step until they reached a high green fence. There’s a construction sign somewhere off to the left. Reds, blacks and yellows. Danger. Do Not Enter. It looks recent. Jeno makes out the faint greyish lilac outline of the building beyond, barely visible against the sky. Good God. He couldn’t believe how long it’s been. How long it’s taken him to come back. 

“They’re tearing it down tomorrow,” Mark turned to him. “Did you know that?”

“I saw something about it,” He lied. Half-lied. It didn’t matter either way. Didn’t change anything. “Somewhere on the paper, something.” 

“You still read the paper?” 

“It was on the ground,” Jeno shrugged. Crushed against the lamppost, he was just gonna toss it out. Most of the words were smudged to shreds, anyways. He hardly recognized the photo at all. That wasn’t it. Wasn’t his Cal East. No way. “Might as well, it was free.”

“Did you think anything of it?”

“It’s a shame,” he said. “It was a nice place.”

“Yeah,” Mark laughed. “Right.”

Suddenly, Mark gripped the black rubber diamonds overhead and pulled himself several diamonds up. Soon he was nearly at the top. 

“I’m going in for one last swerve. You coming?”

“Yeah,” Jeno nodded. Started climbing after him. “Why the hell not?”

He raced after Mark down the parking lot, laughing as they crashed against the doors, and grabbed at each other against the glass and then laughed some more before they slipped into the dark.