Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers | Heated Rivalry - All Media Types, Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationship:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Svetlana Vetrova, Sasha | Ilya Rozanov's Coach's Son

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe, Japan, hockey is also there as the dead wife, Explicit Sexual Content, Drunk Sex, Drunk Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander is Obsessed With Ilya Rozanov, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Xenophobia, don’t let the tags fool you this is extremely fluffy, like holy shit I had a plot for this once and then it just went poof, I see your obnoxious transliterated russian and I RAISE you obnoxious transliterated Japanese!, They are kind of toxic and codependent again, like yes Shane probably needs therapy but he cures himself with Ilya’s dick again instead, author’s poorly concealed autobiographical experience of living in Japan at 21 years old, sorry to do that to you Shaney, Angst with a Happy Ending, sorry I added a tiny plot! Everything’s gonna be fine though

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-09-01 Completed: 2026-09-27 Words: 46,684 Chapters: 4/4

cherry blossom season

Summary

Still looking at the screen, Model Man says, “What is your stop?”

“Ochanomizu?”

“Hm.”

There is suddenly a finger scratching at the hair at the nape of Shane’s neck, just above his collar. Model Man is touching him and looking at the train stops and manages to appear so casual that Shane almost convinces himself it’s by accident. A second finger joins the first, and now they are massaging a little instead of just tickling his hair, and it’s definitely not by accident.

“Get off with me at next stop,” Model Man says, brushing his knuckles up and down Shane’s neck.

Shane quits hockey and moves to Japan right out of college, where he gets really fixated on the hot guy in the ad for cherry-blossom flavored beer on his train. And then, one day, hot guy is on his train.

Notes

Lies I told myself when I started writing Hollanov: Oh, I’m not really interested in writing AUs for this pairing, just canon divergence. Oh, I’m not interested in making Shane more in touch with his Japanese ethnicity in comparison to canon. Well, here we are, an AU where Shane is fluent in Japanese and moves to Tokyo to be a salaryman. So I’m a lying liar who lies.

This takes place around 2011, which barely matters, but imagine a pre-smartphone Japan. No sexy video calls, sadly.

No one asked for a playlist but here is a playlist 🥴 This fic was initially inspired by my undying devotion to Sheena Ringo. I almost titled the fic “Marunouchi Sadistic” but that was before the version of Ilya I wrote here stopped being even remotely sadistic and instead just became baby. Anyway these are all great songs for feeling melancholy about Tokyo.
1. Marunouchi Sadistic
2. Gunjou Biyori
3. Killer Tune
4. Sid to Hakuchuumu
5. Morphine

Chapter 1

Chapter Notes

The advertisement appears on Shane’s train in the summer.

Shane moved to Tokyo to start his new job and entire new life in January, so he got to see how everything right around February through April turned into sakura mania. Cherry blossom pocky and kitkats and frappuccinos and, inexplicably, hamburgers. Cherry blossom soda and cherry blossom cookies and cherry blossom themed tissue packets that people handed out in front of the metro stations to advertise local businesses.

The concept of cherry blossom beer, therefore, is not all that surprising, even if it sounds kind of gross. It’s more that it’s strangely out of season. By the time the cherry blossom beer ad appears on all the banners hanging off the ceiling of Shane’s evening Marunouchi line train to Ikebukuro, there are no sakura trees still blooming anywhere in the city. So Shane wonders just how successful the ad campaign will be, especially when the idea of a sweet, pink-tinged beer seems like a hard sell in and of itself.

That isn’t really what draws Shane’s attention to it, though. The reason he notices it right away, and notices it again, and then continues to notice it, very deliberately and thoroughly, is that the man in the advertisement is probably the most attractive person Shane has seen in his life.

The ad consists of little more than the guy’s face in extreme close up, poised to sip at his probably-gross beer, his lips pursed suggestively, not quite touching the rim of the bottle. The first thing Shane notices are his lips, which is probably what the advertisement is hoping for. Maybe they are meant to make you thirsty, so that you might consider trying the cherry blossom beer. Shane stares at the man’s upper lip, which is so pink and round, two perfect half moons, and does in fact feel quite thirsty.

The man is staring back at him, making blistering eye contact. His eyes are very blue and vibrant. They’ve maybe blurred his skin or lightened it a little, because he looks a little glowy and ethereal. His chiseled jawline is very sharp and clear.

It’s not just that he’s strikingly foreign. Japanese businesses love using foreigners in ads, sometimes very famous ones. Shane has been blindsided before by a stone-faced Tommy Lee Jones on the side of a vending machine selling Boss coffee. Shane, himself, looks very foreign for Japan in a way that he has become extremely conscious of since moving here. His coworkers have knocked off the comments about how good his Japanese is, finally, but he still gets it multiple times a week, even during something as innocuous as paying his phone bill at 7-11 or getting the check at a restaurant.

It’s funny, because back home, when he was still playing hockey, he looked extremely Japanese, and he got comments about that all the time. Somehow, no matter where he lives, he’s not quite enough of one or the other. He’s always an outsider, looking in.

This guy, though, the beer ad model, is blond and blue-eyed and very, very gorgeous. Shane wonders if he lives in Japan, too. If he does, he must have people gawking in the street everywhere he goes. He must stand out so much more than Shane.

It is just one of the many things he thinks about while he looks at the ad every day on his ride home. Sometimes, thinking this way takes his mind in unexpected directions. He imagines the man walking around Tokyo, drawing a crowd just trying to go shopping or get a coffee. He imagines walking into the same coffee shop, and the two of them noticing each other. Maybe giving each other a little wave of acknowledgement. Hey, we’re both foreigners in Japan. Isn’t this kind of crazy? Maybe the man would invite Shane to sit and get a coffee with him, and they’d find out they have all sorts of things in common, far beyond just being kind of novel and out of place in Tokyo. Maybe they would exchange numbers, and agree to see each other again. Maybe he would find himself at the man’s apartment, after dark, and he would discover what those pillowy lips would feel like on his own lips, on his neck, on his…

Shane sometimes has to tear his eyes away from the ad, in case he is ogling the guy too conspicuously. Not that he knows any of these other commuters, but he does take the same train home every day. 20:32 from Nishi-Shinjuku station. Most of these people are probably on the same schedule, and they might recognize him as the not-quite-Japanese guy on their evening ride home. He doesn’t want to be too obvious, as a result. He doesn’t want to get a reputation for being both half-Japanese and fully gay.

That was the exact problem back home. That was kind of the entire thing, actually. That’s why he’s here, after graduation, and not home playing hockey anymore.

So he doesn’t allow himself to look at the beer model for too long. Just a few surreptitious glances, each night. Sometimes, his morning train has the beer ads, too, but not every morning. Not every train has them. When he boards his train to work in the morning, already sweating through his undershirt, and he looks up and sees it’s the fucking talking dog hawking SoftBank phones, he feels a little like the entire day is getting off on the wrong foot. But the train home is reliable. The beer model is always there, riding home with him.

Shane shocked his parents by announcing he intended to actually use his degree and take an overseas job with the Canadian Board of Investment. They acted excited on the surface, but it wasn’t a very good performance. There were a lot of loaded comments like Oh wow, that’s a big change! and You still have time to think about it, honey. It was obvious they weren’t very happy, especially his mom, which is a little strange, because she’s the one that had him in all of the afterschool Japanese classes and took him to all the cultural events. She’s the one that brought him here for the summer when he was younger and made sure he learned the language so her parents could talk to their only grandkid without her needing to translate. It’s obvious, though, that both his mom and his dad had expected him to stick with hockey. Doing anything else with his life clearly read to them as a step back, or some kind of crisis.

They weren’t wrong, not really. It was a crisis. And Shane didn’t tell them why. All they knew was the locker room had been bad. Shane had called it “hazing”, and “toxic”, and it was clear that his parents thought that was bad, yes, but not really bad enough to warrant quitting the sport when he had the MLH in his future. Their dismissive response had filled Shane with a kind of righteous indignation that made him want to double down on his, yes, maybe bizarre decision to move to Japan. He was determined to show his parents that he would be just fine, and that this was a good idea.

Has it turned out to be a good idea? Well. Shane is weirdly obsessed with the hot male model in the beer ad on his train. It is, sadly, the most exciting thing going on in his life. That probably says it all.

His office is more Japanese than maybe he’d anticipated. People stay late, and many go in six days a week, to mostly sit at their desks and pretend to look busy. Shane is one of the first to go home most nights, and he stays until eight PM. The extent of his social life are the mandatory drinking parties with his coworkers on Friday nights. Shane hasn’t really made friends at the office, or outside the office, because he’s never had hobbies before, just hockey and school. Now he has neither, and he’s discovering he doesn’t really like drinking and loud social environments, and it wasn’t like he was all that great at making friends back home, either. And, well, it turns out Tokyo can be a very lonely place.

Shane hasn’t even been to the gay district in Shinjuku yet, because the stakes seem so high. The risk is so great. He works in Shinjuku, and many of his coworkers live in the area, and he’s so recognizable. He was once an hour away in Chiba and ran into someone from the office, and they spotted him immediately, because he stands a head taller than the average crowd. So he still hasn’t even explored the one thing about himself he thought he might finally be able to when he decided to quit hockey. He hasn’t talked to or dated or slept with any guys. His coworkers inevitably needle him after enough drinks at the weekly nomikai about whether he has a girlfriend, even though he always says no, he’s not interested right now, he’s still getting used to Tokyo living. Somehow this has given them the impression that he’s a player instead, which ought to be a relief, but mostly just reminds him that his coworkers don’t know anything about him.

He talks to his parents once a week, and he doesn’t tell them any of this, of course. He says he’s settling into his new life, and he’s exploring the city, and he’s taking weekend trips further out of the impossibly vast bounds of Tokyo, to temples and hot springs and lakes. He’s still doggedly refusing to admit to his parents that this has been hard for him at all. Shane is not so oblivious to himself that he doesn’t recognize that this is exactly what happened with hockey at school, too. He kept everything inside, and said it was fine, or didn’t say anything at all, and when it finally exploded out of him, it was completely out of left field for everyone else in his life, and it had shocked and alarmed them. He can tell he’s doing it again, with his issues adjusting to life in a new country, and that it’s very possible he’ll have a similar sort of blow-up about Japan and quit his job and then he’ll have neither hockey nor a career and he’ll be a huge fuck-up, his life over before twenty-five.

But Shane is trying. He’s really trying. He gets up in the morning and gets on the train, and he goes to his job, and he has polite chit-chat with his coworkers, and he goes home and eats at the station or picks up a bento at the convenience store, and he goes to sleep and then does it again. And in between all of that, he stares at the pretty blue eyes and plush round lips of the hot cherry blossom beer model, and contemplates tearing one of the ads off of the ceiling and taking it home, because he knows when the campaign changes and the advertisement goes away, he’s going to wish he had.

If you asked him, Shane wouldn’t say he hates himself. That is a really strong word, and it probably means he needs therapy, or something. And he doesn’t. He does not need therapy. So he wouldn’t say he hates himself.

It’s more like, there is this part of him that derailed his life, and got in the way of something he really wanted, and it’s something he has tried and failed to change, and Shane hates feeling like a failure at anything.

He also wouldn’t say he’s, like, traumatized or anything, because again, therapy. And Shane doesn’t need therapy, at all. He’s fine.

He has a lot of dreams about the stuff that happened with his team, but he thinks that would happen to anyone, because it’s on his mind a lot, and because it was the worst thing to ever happen to him, and it’s probably normal to dream about stuff like that, even months after the fact. He has a lot of dreams where his parents find out what happened, and they are devastated, and they can’t even look at him, and he supposes that’s not great, because he wakes up in a cold sweat and has to scroll to the last messages in his family’s group chat to make sure none of that was real, but he isn’t going to say he’s traumatized just because of nightmares.

And he doesn’t think it’s a sign of being traumatized that he’s recently had a lot of dreams where the hot guy in the beer ad shows up in his locker room and touches himself, and sometimes touches Shane, too, reaching for his dick with the same blistering eye contact from the picture. He thinks that’s just a sign that he’s kind of fucked in the head, because a normal person probably wouldn’t take the worst thing that ever happened to him and turn it into a very compelling sexual fantasy. A normal person probably wouldn’t fantasize this much about a guy who is just a picture on the train.

At first, Shane thinks he’s hallucinating.

He’s staring up at the cherry blossom beer ad again, at the man’s pink lips pouting around the lip of the bottle, and then he makes himself look away from it, like always, in case someone is watching him and thinking, that guy is definitely attracted to the male beer ad model, and he looks down the car and standing by the doors is, well, the male beer ad model.

Shane actually rubs his eyes, like when a cartoon character thinks they might be dreaming, because he’s sure that he’s projecting the guy’s looks on a total stranger, probably not even a foreigner, he’s probably just so tired that he’s imagining the hot advertisement guy like a mirage. But the guy is still there, after Shane’s rubbed his eyes painfully hard and blinked a few times to boot, and Shane must be acting extremely obvious about it, because now the guy is looking at him. Fuck.

He’s tall, which maybe isn’t a surprise, but it’s a relief, for some reason. Like, oh, thank god Shane hasn’t been ogling a guy who turned out to be a foot shorter than him in real life. Shane is used to being the tallest guy in any room he walks into in Japan, about as used to it as he can be. He doesn’t tell his coworkers to stop when they shout Shane-san, dekee na! the minute any of them have a single beer in them. It’s the truth, probably, from their perspective—Shane is huge. And also, it’s the culture, right? It’s okay to get a little drunk and say very frank things to one’s colleagues. And he told himself that he was going to accept the parts of the culture that maybe made him feel more different when he took this job, because he knew it would mean he’d be different in a better way, not the way he was different back home, the unsurvivable way.

But Advertising Model Man is tall, at least as tall as Shane. He’s not wearing a shirt with sleeves, and his flexed arm looks especially nice holding on to the overhead handrail, and that is all Shane manages to see before he tears his eyes away to stare intently at the shoes of the man across from him, because the advertising man looked right at him as soon as he noticed Shane looking. Fuck.

The PA crackles overhead, and the announcement for next stop, Akasaka-Mitsuke lilts through the car, and Shane keeps his eyes on the shiny shoes directly in front of him, and alternatively the floor of the train. Advertising Model Man is standing by the doors, and Akasaka-Mitsuke is a big station, and Shane prays he’s getting off here, so he can catch his breath again and stop feeling totally mortified. Hopefully no one else saw, otherwise Shane will probably need to get off at a random stop and wait for the next train, and maybe never take the 20:35 Ikebukuro-bound Marunouchi Line train ever again, even though it will be an inconvenience. The train rolls into the station and comes to a smooth stop, and there is a big hectic flurry of commuters getting off and more commuters getting on. Someone sits down next to him just as the doors are closing and the train is pulling out of the station.

“Hello. You speak English, yes?”

The voice is very deep, and accented from somewhere Eastern European, and that is all unfortunately very hot, which isn’t doing much for Shane’s panic and embarrassment right now. He turns and it is Advertising Model Man, of course, who has come to sit right next to him and strike up a conversation.

He’s extremely beautiful up close, like even more than the advertisement, which Shane thinks is probably the opposite of how these things normally go. If anything, they toned down how attractive this guy is for the ad, because Shane is pretty sure his eyes aren’t as sparkling, strikingly blue in it. Shane burns with the impulse to glance up at the picture hanging overhead, just to check, and Model Man must notice this, because he laughs and smiles, which is also, unfortunately, super fucking hot.

“Yes, is me in Asahi ad.”

He gestures toward it with his head, and Shane takes the opportunity to look up at it, like he’s dying to do, since it seems like he’s being given permission. Shane was right. They really didn’t do his eyes justice. Must have wanted the beer to take center stage.

“You speak English?” Model Man repeats, now that he knows he’s got Shane’s attention.

“Um. Yeah. Yes.”

“You are not Japanese.”

Model Man is running his eyes all over Shane’s face, like he’s assessing his genealogy right there. Shane normally hates when people do this, take one look at him and decide there’s no way he’s Japanese. But for some reason he doesn’t mind it now. Maybe because he’s looking at someone who is so obviously foreign and striking and gorgeous that he knows this guy is way more of a sideshow attraction in Tokyo than Shane ever would be. It’s maybe a statement meant to commiserate, if anything. No one would ever mistake Model Man for Japanese, either.

“I’m, uh, half.” He adds unnecessarily, “My mom.”

“Ah.” Looking all over his face again, even though Shane’s answered the question. “But you live here. In Tokyo.”

“Yes.”

“Me too,” Model Man says. “I am not Japanese, either.”

Shane has to laugh. “Yeah, obviously not.”

“Obviously not.”

Model Man has a look on his face, vaguely amused, like the conversation is secretly funny to him. Maybe something about it is funny, and Shane just can’t tell because his heart still feels like it’s going to flop over and die. He still feels like he’s nearly at the height of his panic, from being caught looking, even though Model Man is now talking to him, so probably nothing bad has come of it.

“Do you want to know where I am from?” Model Man says, after a pause, like he was waiting for Shane to pick up the conversation.

“Oh. Sure.”

“I am from Russia. Moscow.” The way Model Man’s tongue rolls over the ‘R’ in Russia is, again, tragically hot. He has a very noticeable mole on his left cheek, which Shane did not know about, because he’s photographed from his right side in the advertisement. When Shane can’t bear to stare at Model Man’s mouth while he’s talking, he stares at the mole on his cheek instead. He’s maybe way too interested in all of the features on Model Man’s face, all of the ones that the ad didn’t catch.

“That’s cool,” Shane says.

Model Man smiles. “Yes. Very cool.”

He waits, and eventually Shane gets the idea. “I’m from Canada.”

“Canada. Is cool, too. Maybe not as cool as Russia, though.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to Russia before.”

“Hm.”

Model Man looks up at the digital screen over the doors, where the next eight stops are displayed in kanji. He squints until the screen shifts to English, and he scans the line diagram and the upcoming stations. He casually stretches out his very defined bare arm and drapes it over the back of Shane’s seat, which makes Shane’s impending heart attack feel significantly closer.

Still looking at the screen, Model Man says, “What is your stop?”

“Ochanomizu?”

“Hm.”

There is suddenly a finger scratching at the hair at the nape of Shane’s neck, just above his collar. Model Man is touching him and looking at the train stops and manages to appear so casual that Shane almost convinces himself it’s by accident. A second finger joins the first, and now they are massaging a little instead of just tickling his hair, and it’s definitely not by accident.

“Get off with me at next stop,” Model Man says, brushing his knuckles up and down Shane’s neck.

The announcement for Ginza comes on overhead. Shane doesn’t really care all that much about Ginza, because he’s not really one for shopping, and when he does have to shop for himself, he isn’t exactly choosing designer stuff. He’s pretty sure the tie he’s wearing came from Uniqlo. Not that it matters. Model Man isn’t even looking at him. If he wasn’t caressing the back of his neck, Shane might think he wasn’t even speaking to Shane. But he is. He definitely is.

The train rolls into Ginza station. The doors open, and air-conditioned cool air wafts over them. Model Man stands up and walks toward the open doors without even glancing back in Shane’s direction. But his fingers, the ones he was using to trace up and down Shane’s neck, wave back and forth in a little come here motion.

Shane is out of his seat in an instant, even though he has no idea what the fuck he’s doing. As in, he doesn’t know what he’s doing five minutes from now, or an hour from now, or for the rest of the night. All of those decisions seem to have been taken out of his hands as soon as Model Man sat down next to him. But he at least knows what he’s doing right now—he’s doing what he’s been told. He’s doing what Model Man instructed him to do. Model Man didn’t phrase it as a question, or say please, or say I would like you to. Almost like he knew Shane might say no, if he was given even an ounce of wiggle room. He said get off with me instead, which makes it incredibly easy to do it, to follow directions.

So Shane finds himself on the other side of the train doors, standing on the gleaming scrubbed platform beside Model Man, and the doors are closing behind them, and Shane’s train is pulling away, and that’s when Model Man turns and finally looks at Shane, looking really pleased that Shane obeyed him. Shane feels shockingly relieved at that look, at having made Model Man happy by doing as he said. Shane doesn’t feel like he’s about to have a heart attack anymore. He doesn’t even feel embarrassed.

Model Man jerks his head toward the escalators. “Come on.”

Shane follows him out into the night.

They turn off the main strip down a side street that is much narrower and darker and less flashy. It almost seems like it doesn’t fit in with the entire vibe of the district, like the kinds of people who come to Ginza to buy Chanel and Louis Vuitton would take one look at this rather dingy street and its old-fashioned signage and think Ew, gross. Shane is actually pretty surprised and strangely delighted that Model Man wants to take him here instead of some very overpriced and distressingly fancy bar at the top of Mitsukoshi or something. He wouldn’t think he and a super hot, super fashionable model had all that much in common, but maybe they have this in common: they would rather sit in some quiet hole-in-the-wall type of place than somewhere people go to be seen.

“Is just past here,” Model Man says after a while, like Shane had some idea of where they were going in the first place. Like he hasn’t just been following this gorgeous stranger down increasingly dark alleyways to wherever the fuck their final destination may be.

They stop in front of a tiny bar, so small Shane is sure he would have never noticed it otherwise. Bar Sayuri is written over the narrow door in hiragana. Shane wonders how Model Man knows it. It didn’t seem like he could read Japanese very well in the train. There is a neon sign declaring it’s open, also in Japanese, and otherwise it’s entirely dark. It’s impossible to see inside through the windows, so maybe they are blacked-out or the curtains are drawn for privacy.

Model Man pulls the door open and waves for Shane to go first. Shane ducks his head and steps inside. Model Man is very close behind him, and stays close behind him even after he shuts the door and they are standing at the entrance together.

Bar Sayuri is just as dark and narrow as it looked from the outside. Half of the room is taken up by the bar and the counter running in front of it, heavy dark wood with half a dozen stools crammed underneath. The wall behind the bar is mirrored and has about a million half-full liquor bottles lined up in rows, labels facing forward so the guests can browse. There’s nobody else inside, or even working the bar, and Shane is briefly embarrassed, like maybe the sign out front is wrong and the place isn’t actually open.

Model Man doesn’t seem fazed, when Shane glances quickly at his very nice face and then away. Instead, he loudly calls into the room in Russian, and sure enough, a man appears through a curtain hanging just beyond the bar, sees the two of them, and looks at Model Man and smiles. He must be Russian, because he says something back to Model Man and gestures at the empty bar, but he looks maybe Japanese, too, because he has dark features like Shane and doesn’t look much like Model Man. Not that all Russians necessarily look like Model Man. God, Shane hopes not.

Model Man puts his hand on the small of Shane’s back, which makes Shane stop thinking about how the rest of Russia may or may not be as hot as him, and moves him forward toward the bar. They take the two seats in the center, and the barman puts two small faceted glasses in front of them, then turns to the mirrored wall and pulls down a bottle of vodka and fills the glasses up halfway. The whole thing has the ease of familiarity, like Model Man comes here a lot and always orders vodka neat, and maybe this specific brand.

Model Man takes his glass and lifts it, so Shane does too.

“Kanpai,” Model Man says, and it turns out Shane likes his accent over Japanese, too.

Shane grimaces through his shot. His whole face goes red right away, which is embarrassing. This is why he hates to drink. He probably should have said something like that before he let a hot stranger lead him to a bar and hand him a shot of seemingly very nice vodka. But, even if he had said it, would it have stopped him from coming along, anyway? Of course it wouldn’t have.

Model Man is talking to the barman while Shane is processing his vodka shot, far more animated in Russian that he has been so far in English, and then the barman disappears behind the curtain again, and they are alone. Model Man turns back to him, the full force of his gaze entirely on Shane, and actually, maybe it’s a blessing in disguise that Shane is so red already.

Model Man says, “Are you hungry? I ask Vasya for something from back. I do not know if you eat Russian food, but Japanese food here is not so good.” He makes a so-so motion with his hand.

“Oh, um, no, that’s fine. That’s great. Thank you.” Shane is pretty sure he’s never had Russian food before, but surely it’s fine. And Shane doesn’t want to come off as picky or ungrateful. Anything that might make Model Man second guess the insane decision to pick Shane up on the train and bring him to his local haunt. It’s bad enough that Shane feels so tipsy and buzzed just from the half shot of vodka. He might be unconscious by the end of the night if he doesn’t eat whatever Model Man and Vasya put in front of him.

It turns out to be a plate of little pancakes topped with sour cream and dollops of glistening red caviar and a bowl of crunchy little pickles on the side. Shane takes a bite of pancake-cream-caviar and Model Man looks so pleased that it makes Shane immediately hot on the back of his neck. There is no water, so Shane cuts the salt with another sip of vodka.

“So,” Model Man says after a while. He looks expectantly at Shane, like suddenly this was Shane’s idea and Model Man is waiting to hear what comes next.

“Uh…”

“So,” Model Man repeats. “You know what I do. But I do not know what you do, Mister Pretty Man From Train.”

Pretty Man From Train. Pretty. Shane swallows. “Shane.”

Model Man smiles, and Shane feels a crazy swell of pride for having, like, a name this guy thinks is nice. “Shane. I am Ilya.”

“Ilya?”

“Il-ya.”

Shane tries again and doesn’t seem to nail it the second time, either. “Sorry.”

“No, is nice when you say Ilya like this. No one in Japan can pronounce, anyway. So, Shane from Canada. What are you doing in Tokyo? You are working?” He gestures at Shane’s suit. “Or do you just like wearing a suit in this fucking heat?”

“Yeah, I’m working. I work for the Canadian Board of Investment. I’m an account manager for a few Japanese firms that want to expand their international business into Canada. Um, it’s, like, finance stuff…” he trails off, because Ilya is wagging his eyebrows in a way that is definitely meant to make fun of Shane.

“Ah. Very interesting.” Ilya takes a loud bite of one of the pickles. Shane stares at his white, white teeth. “You come to Japan because, why? You grow up here?”

“No, no. I grew up in Ontario. Canada,” Shane adds, when Ilya doesn’t seem to know what Ontario is. “I just came here, um, after college.”

Shane skips over the why entirely, but Ilya seems satisfied with that much.

“Yes, I do not think your English sounds like someone who grew up in Japan,” Ilya says thoughtfully. “Do you also speak Japanese?”

“Well, yeah, obviously.”

“Is not obviously,” Ilya says. “I do not speak Japanese and I am here.”

“Sorry. I mean, I am half-Japanese, and that’s kind of the whole point of the job. I act as a liaison between these Canadian financial institutions and the Japanese businesses that want to work with them.” Ilya makes a puzzled face. “I’m a middleman, basically,” Shane says, which Ilya understands.

“You have very exciting job,” Ilya says flatly.

“It’s a normal job!”

“So it is very thrilling, being middle man?”

“It’s fine. I don’t need my job to be thrilling. I think I might hate that, actually.” Shane petulantly takes a generous sip of vodka and feels ten percent more drunk afterwards. “What about you? Your English is pretty good, too.”

Ilya scoffs. “Is more than pretty good. Is shame I never really get to use English in Tokyo, because it is very fun language.”

“Fun?”

“Yes. So many ways to say things. So many uses for same word. Like, I can say I fucking like you, and I can say I like fucking you, and they mean very different things.”

Shane is definitely blushing, even below the flush from the alcohol. His heart rate kicked up as soon as Ilya said I fucking like you, and is now pounding like crazy from hearing I like fucking you. And now Ilya’s mouth is curling into a wide smile and his blue eyes are sparkling with delight at Shane’s very red and flustered face.

“Fuck,” Ilya says, and reaches out to brush his knuckles lightly across Shane’s flushed cheeks. “Your freckles get so dark when you blush.”

Shane has a sudden, insane urge to grab Ilya’s hand and put one of those fingers in his mouth. He doesn’t do that, of course, even though Vasya has disappeared back through the curtain and it’s just the two of them. His dick does get a little hard about it though. He shifts in his seat to move into a slightly less obvious position.

“So what about you?” Shane stammers out, reaching for another caviar pancake. They are not doing nearly enough to keep the vodka at bay, but he doesn’t want to impose and ask for something more substantial. “Why are you in Tokyo?”

Ilya shrugs. His hand drops back down to his lap. Shane wishes immediately that Ilya was still touching him, even if it was causing him cardiac distress.

“Is Japanese company that sign me, so I come.”

“A company? Like a modeling agency?”

“Yes, modeling agency. Because I am sexy international model.” He says this so seriously that Shane laughs before he can stop himself. “Oh? I am not sexy?”

“Sorry, fuck, um. No, it’s just like, the way you said it was… sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that you aren’t… that you’re not—”

“So I am sexy.”

“Um.” Shane looks in the direction of Ilya’s mouth instead of his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, you are.”

Ilya grins.

“Yes, I know.”

He pops another pickle into his mouth and chews loudly, like he’s pushing his luck on the being sexy front.

“Anyway, I get good modeling contract here, so I stay. And yen is very strong against ruble, so I make very good money in comparison.”

“Because of the recession,” Shane says. “There’s a real deflationary movement in Russia right now.”

“Okay, yes, maybe. Wow, you really are Mister Finance.”

“Shut up,” Shane says, and winces right away, but Ilya looks weirdly thrilled. He stares, smiling, right into Shane’s eyes.

“I probably do not tell you something you don’t know, but you have looks to be model, too. You are very pretty.”

Pretty again. Pretty in that deep rolling accent. It sends a jolt of excitement down Shane’s spine. He’s sure Ilya can tell. Even through the tipsy haze, he’s sure he is so obvious. God, past tipsy now. He’s well on his way to drunk.

“I don’t think I’d like to be a model. I hate having my picture taken.”

“Ah. Yes, this might be problem for modeling.” Ilya winks. He looks at Shane’s mouth. “Is a shame, though. You are so good at following directions.”

Oh, god. Shane shifts in his seat again. It would be way too incriminating to check, but he’s sure his hard-on is obvious by now. He feels hot all over, not just across his cheeks and chest and neck. He feels hot in his gut, hot inside. He almost says, I am good. Give me more directions, please, so I can show you how well I follow them.

But, mercifully, he doesn’t have to do that. Ilya glances at the nearly cleared plate between them, at the bottle of vodka that looks far emptier than Shane remembers it being at first. Ilya’s hand crosses from his lap to Shane’s knee and squeezes.

“You are still hungry?” Ilya says. “You have had enough?”

“Oh, um, yeah. I’m fine.”

“Good. Is late. I think maybe last train to Ochanomizu will come soon.”

Shane reflexively pulls out his phone to check. Fuck, it is late. “Shit.”

“Yes. So we should go soon, if we do not want to miss.”

Ilya stands up and gets his wallet out, throws a 10,000 yen bill on the bar. At no point during the evening has Shane seen a menu, or a check. He wonders if Ilya comes here so frequently that he just knows how much things cost, or if 10,000 yen is the result of some previous agreement between him and his friend. Shane wonders if Ilya brings strangers here and drops 10,000 on them often.

Ilya shouts in Russian to Vasya or whoever else is back there, raps his knuckles on the wood over his money. Then, he puts a hand on Shane’s shoulder, warm through all the layers, his suit and his shirt, right down to his flushed skin.

“Come on.”

They make their way back to Ginza-doori, the summer humidity like a wet palm pressed on Shane’s back. The stores are all long since closed, black glass reflecting their own wavering figures back to them. Shane stares at himself, walking next to Ilya’s golden hair and thick biceps, and stumbles.

“Woah, woah,” Ilya says, and his hand snakes around Shane’s waist, and oh, that’s very nice. Shane swoons a little into Ilya’s damp shoulder and laughs.

“I’m kind of drunk,” Shane tries to explain.

“Oh? This is not your way of seducing me?”

“No,” Shane starts to say, then, “Uh, hm. Maybe.”

Ilya laughs and his hand squeezes into Shane’s side, pulls him a little closer. “Are you sure? You need time to think about answer?”

“Shut up.” Shane’s whole chest feels aflame.

The best thing about Tokyo is that no one can understand them. Shane could say whatever he wanted to Ilya right now. The chances that someone on the street would figure him out are so slim that it isn’t even worth worrying about. The other best thing about Tokyo is that, back home, Shane could never have walked down the street with a man’s hand around his waist, Shane’s head dipping to rest right up against his neck like this. There was just no fucking way. The guys on the hockey team dragged their drunk buddies by their ankles and wrists, road-rash and gravel scraping them to hell, just to avoid touching each other in a way that anyone could call gay.

But Japan doesn’t care. Sure, being too gay, too obviously gay, that’s still a problem, that will still get you in trouble, but the bar for too obvious is so much higher. Shane has seen drunk salarymen bridal-carrying their drunk colleagues—not even friends, just the guy two desks down from you—with a hand firmly under their knees and the other cradling their head, like they are delicate and precious. And no one cares. He’s seen guys walking a kilometer to the station with their friend piggy-back, legs wrapped carefully around their waist. His own coworkers drink one and a half beers and ask if his dick is big, too, if they can see it. And sure, no one can mistake Ilya for a coworker. His arms are way too pumped and exposed for that. But maybe he’s a friend, and they spent too long at the bar, catching up, and are now helping each other to the last train. And it’s fine. It’s all fine.

Ilya’s hand is tracing a little pattern in the wrinkled fabric under Shane’s jacket. “Your place. Is nice?”

Shane shrugs, which has the helpful effect of pushing him a little further against Ilya’s hard body. He lives in a nice apartment building. It’s new, which he’s learned is almost all anyone cares about here. New, and modern, and the more Western-style amenities, the better. He isn’t sure if that’s what Ilya means, though.

“It’s a 1LDK, so.”

“What is this? I do not know Japanese things.”

“It’s a one bedroom.”

Ilya makes an appraising noise, a little hm. “So yes, it is nice.”

“I mean, I don’t know. I haven’t been to any other apartments. The board set it up for me, when I got the job.” He stops there, because he can tell he’s rambling now, and Ilya isn’t really paying attention.

“You live alone?”

They are approaching the station. Shane can see the bright blue Tokyo Metro beacon shining and has a sudden pitch of fear over navigating the stairs. Maybe Ilya will help him down them, with his nice warm grip on Shane’s waist. Shane thinks he would like that very much. Like, wow, a whole lot, actually. He kind of wants to be led around by Ilya’s hand on his waist everywhere.

“Shane?” Ilya says, prompting.

“What?”

“You do not have roommates, or…?”

“Or?”

Ilya looks intentionally disinterested. “A boyfriend. A wife.”

“Oh. No. Um, no. Nothing like that. I live alone. Yeah.”

It’s probably bad that Shane likes it so much that Ilya seems willing to fuck him even if he’s married, or living with someone, or whatever. Like Shane is just that irresistible. Doesn’t seem to speak that highly of Ilya’s morals. Or his own, really.

Ilya gives him a pressed smile. “Okay. Perfect.”

He does help him navigate the stairs, and he does seem a bit worried, legitimately, that Shane is going to trip and fall down them. He makes him go slowly, carefully going one step ahead of him, then guiding him with a soft tug on his waist.

“Do not worry, is still time before last train. Do not rush and break neck.”

Shane forgot that they were almost in danger of being stranded in Ginza for the night. He hasn’t really been thinking about anything since Ilya made him get off the train. He's just been letting Ilya handle it all. Still is. It’s nice, actually, not to be in charge at all. Maybe when he’s not drunk and thrumming like an overheating appliance in anticipation of Ilya touching him more, Shane might need to examine why he likes that so much.

Ilya gets them all the way through purchasing their tickets and maneuvering through the turnstiles, and even finds them the right platform. He deposits Shane in a seat and walks to the vending machine in the center of the platform, pulling out his wallet and shuffling around inside for coins. Shane stares at his broad back, his fuzzy curls. He stares at the moles dotting his arms and wonders where else he has moles on his body. If he might let Shane put his mouth on them.

Ilya returns with a Pocari Sweat and hands it to Shane. It’s sweet and vaguely salty with electrolytes. It would probably be a good vodka chaser because it’s doing wonders for the sour alcohol tang in his mouth. Shane hands it back to Ilya after a few good swallows and Ilya drinks the rest without wiping off the bottle. Which, yeah, he guesses there’s no reason to do that if they are about to hook up.

It occurs to Shane that he might also like to know if Ilya has anyone at home. Not that it’s going to stop whatever Shane is letting himself do tonight. He’s already apparently made peace with being a scumbag if there are extenuating circumstances, like when the guy is really fucking hot and came on to him very strongly. Just, Shane is suddenly curious. It seems a little unlikely that Ilya is also a lonely guy living totally alone in a foreign city.

Huh, lonely? Shane wrinkles his nose, like the sudden, unwelcome thought is a bug he’s trying to jostle away from his face.

“What?” Ilya says.

“What about you?”

“What about me.”

“Do you live alone, too?”

“Ah. I do not have fancy Canadian apartment, no.” Ilya glances up at the screen overhead. Next train is in five minutes, but Shane isn’t sure Ilya can read the kanji. He’s squinting again. “I live in, ah. Dormitory? For models. I have roommates, so.”

“Oh.”

“So is better if we go to your place, yes?”

“Yeah.”

They board the train when it rattles into the station. Ilya makes him sit in one of the open seats. The middle-aged man to his left is dutifully staring out into the middle distance and ignoring the two maybe-drunk foreigners encroaching on his personal space. The girl on his left is curled over herself, sound asleep, her purse precariously dangling on her knees and her cell phone in danger of tumbling to the floor if the train lurches too quickly.

Ilya positions himself between Shane’s legs, standing over him, holding onto the bar overhead. If Shane looks straight ahead, he’s staring at Ilya’s crotch. Ilya’s pants are something like sweats, but oddly shiny, and with eyelets stamped into them in seemingly random places. Shane wonders if they’re designer, or something, because they look kind of complicated, in a way that feels like fashion choices he doesn’t understand. He wonders if Ilya has a lot of money. The model dormitory full of roommates implies not really, but the 10,000 yen tossed on the counter implies maybe.

Shane realizes he’s staring hard at Ilya’s crotch while he thinks on all of this, and that it’s probably obvious, and he should try maybe looking somewhere else. His eyes flicker up to the ceiling, past Ilya’s sweat-shiny bicep, and it’s Ilya’s face up there, too, the fucking Asahi ad. Shane looks away, to Ilya’s actual face, slightly flushed and damp, and still much hotter than the advertisement. Ilya smirks, because of course he noticed Shane looking. He knocks Shane’s foot with his scuffed sneakers, like he wants him to know, maybe, that he’s not laughing at him. Or maybe that’s wishful thinking, Shane doesn’t know. He isn’t sure, right now, that it matters much either way. He thinks, as long as Ilya follows him home, as long as he keeps directing Shane what to do, it’s okay if he does laugh at him.

By the time they are at Shane’s door, and he’s fiddling with his key, he is sobered up enough to be pretty nervous. He’s never actually done this before. Any of it, really—picking someone up, picking a man up, obviously. Shane hasn’t even kissed anyone in a while. What if he’s bad at it, being so out of practice? What if Ilya loses interest and he’s forced to spend a night horny and unsatisfied and embarrassed while a total stranger sleeps on his couch?

They step into his apartment. Ilya absently kicks off his shoes in the genkan, stepping up onto the hardwood floor without putting them away in a cubby or even straightening them out. He’s looking down the long hallway and whistling.

“Shane. This is a very nice place.”

Shane tucks Ilya’s shoes away and sits to take his own off, turn them to face the door. “Oh. Um. Thanks.”

“You do not know this place is nice? You think everyone in Tokyo lives somewhere like this?”

Ilya says this over his shoulder as he walks toward Shane’s living room. Shane sits for a moment more, eyes sliding closed, because it feels nice and because his heart is beating very fast now that there is a hot stranger inside his house.

No one has ever been to Shane’s apartment before. He gave his parents a tour over Skype when he first moved in, but that’s it. What exactly is he supposed to do right now? He thought maybe Ilya would just take it from here. Corner him in the doorway and just start telling him what to do. Can he ask for that? Is he supposed to offer a tour, even though he doesn’t want to give a tour? Even though what he really wants, as nervous as he is, is getting Ilya on top of him as quickly as possible?

Shane woozily hauls himself up and follows Ilya down the hall into his kitchen. Ilya is looking around at Shane’s light fixtures and cabinets and appliances. He turns to face Shane, hands in the pockets of his shiny sweatpants.

“Um. Do you want a drink, or anything?” Shane says. “Or do you…”

He stops talking because Ilya has approached him in a few long strides and pushed him up against the wall, and his hand is on Shane’s jaw, his fingers digging in. His other hand is sliding down the back of Shane’s pants. His face is really close to Shane’s, and he has a vaguely threatening look on his face, molten and intense. Shane feels a full body shiver go through him.

“I’ve, um, never done this before,” Shane squeaks.

Ilya grins, and it’s a little predatory, like Shane is about to maybe get eaten. “Yes, I figured that out.”

He reaches down into Shane’s pants and palms over his ass through his underwear. His index finger dips between the cleft of Shane’s cheeks, which is, wow, really forward. Shane’s mouth is dry and he wants to wipe his sweaty hands off on his shirt, but he doesn’t know exactly how to do that surreptitiously while Ilya is pressed entirely up against him. He settles on grabbing at the back of Ilya’s tank and hoping Ilya doesn’t notice that he’s panic sweating.

He waits, for some kind of direction, for Ilya’s fingers on his jaw to pull him in a certain way or for his hand on Shane’s ass to bring him closer. He really hopes Ilya isn’t waiting for him to make a move. He was really hoping he wouldn’t have to do that at all tonight. He was really hoping the last choice he’d have to make was getting off the train in Ginza.

“What do you want me to do now?” he says, a little at a loss.

Ilya smiles and brings his mouth down on Shane’s. Shane feels immediate relief—thank god, they’re finally kissing!—and he enthusiastically opens for Ilya, lets him slip his tongue inside. It feels really, really good, better than Shane thought kissing could feel. He kissed every girlfriend he ever had, and it had felt nice, but not like this, not hot and electric, and sending blood rushing to his face and his dick. Ilya’s hand on his jaw keeps him in place and he squeezes in when he wants Shane to open up more, to take more of his tongue, and it’s, god, fuck. It’s so good.

Ilya’s hair between his fingers is so soft and springy and thick. When did he put his hands in Ilya’s hair? Shane is on autopilot. He’s rubbing against Ilya’s leg, which has slotted between his thighs, and he didn’t notice that happen, either.

“Fuck,” Ilya says into Shane’s mouth. He pulls away a little, unfortunately, to look at him. “Pretty boy.” He brings his mouth back down on Shane’s neck and sucks and bites. His hand moves over his shirt and palms Shane’s chest, squeezes the muscle, kneads it hard. Shane feels a little like he’s being mauled by a sexy jaguar, teeth right over his trachea, fingers digging into his heart.

“Oh my god,” Shane says, bucking into him. “Holy shit, Ilya.”

Ilya’s hand is really far into Shane’s pants, and it’s starting to turn into something like sex right there in the hallway. It’s about to be sex, full stop, because Shane is going to come if Ilya keeps rubbing his dick over his underwear like that. And sucking his neck. Both of those things are really hard to concentrate through.

“We should, oh my god—” Shane stops to moan, and Ilya laughs. “We should probably, uh, shower? I’m really sweaty.”

Ilya kisses his neck noisily, a big wet smack, and pulls back with a smile. “You are nervous.”

“No?” That is probably not how someone who isn’t nervous would sound, but Shane tries.

Ilya grins. “Go take a shower.”

Shane takes a long enough look up and down to see that Ilya is hard, too, which thrills him a little. He really is sweaty, though, and his head is spinning. He’s not as sober as he thought he was, it seems. Maybe being this turned on makes you dizzy and drunk, too. Shane wouldn’t really know, he can’t remember ever being this turned on before.

It feels like his dick is too hard to allow him to walk to the bathroom successfully, but he manages. He gets in the bathroom and closes the door, and sheds all his clothes in front of the sink before he walks into the shower and turns on the water. He’s standing there for a few seconds, waiting for the water to heat up all the way, and the door slides open and shut behind him, and his whole body gets buzzy and excited, even before Ilya presses up against his back, naked and very hard, his big arms circling Shane’s waist and reaching out to test the water himself.

“Let’s make sure you are very clean,” Ilya says, kissing Shane’s shoulder. His dick is resting between Shane’s ass cheeks, which is very hot and a little scary.

Shane lets Ilya push him down to the edge of the bathtub to sit. Surprisingly, he doesn’t curl his fingers in Shane’s hair or push his head down and demand he suck Ilya’s dick. He actually reaches over and grabs Shane’s body wash and squeezes a generous dollop into his hands, and rubs them together to make a lather.

Still, Shane has a pretty nice view of Ilya’s hard dick, bobbing up and down, pink and wet and gleaming. It is a really beautiful dick. Wow. Dick modeling isn’t really a thing, but Ilya could do that too if it was. Shane looks up at Ilya and wonders if he can telepathically transmit I want to suck your dick, please ask me to suck your dick into his brain. It’s like, he could just do it, sure. But he wants Ilya to tell him to do it.

Instead, Ilya crouches down beside him and puts his soapy hands on Shane’s chest, massages him there.

“This area is very dirty.”

He thumbs over Shane’s nipple, then again, harder, just in case Shane thought it wasn’t on purpose. He leans forward and kisses Shane, and it’s so easy to melt into him, to lean so far forward on the edge of the tub that Ilya’s mouth is the only thing keeping Shane upright. Ilya’s hand trails lower, leaving a thick bubble trail down Shane’s stomach, one thigh, the other.

“Where else?” Ilya says against Shane’s mouth.

Shane is still back where Ilya was playing with his nipples. “What?”

“Where else should we get clean?” Ilya’s hand slides over his hip, palms his ass, sinks inside. “Here?” he says, petting over Shane’s hole.

“Fuck.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Probably should be clean on inside, too,” Ilya says, and presses in.

“Oh my god, fuck, Ilya,” Shane says eloquently. It’s like Ilya said, though, English has a lot of versatility in the word fuck. Right now, Shane means it like, that feels so good, I never thought a finger in my ass could feel so good, I am very worried I could come just from one finger in my ass.

Ilya smiles against his lips, pumping in and out, licking all the little moans out of Shane’s mouth. “So tight, Shane. Is amazing. How will we fit my cock inside?”

“Fuck.”

Ilya moves to suck on Shane’s neck again, slurping, all the noises they are collectively making echoing around the tiny room. It sounds like every porn Shane has ever watched, and it’s coming from him and the hottest guy Shane has ever seen. If he woke up tomorrow and discovered this was all an elaborate dream, he’d be disappointed, but probably not surprised. It’s way too good to be true.

Shane feels Ilya’s hand move down his body, from where it’s been playing with his chest, fingers dragging over his stomach, scratching through his pubic hair. His whole body tenses up in anticipation, and then Ilya’s hand is curling loosely in a fist over Shane’s dick, slick with body wash and warm and wet, and it’s over. Shane comes furiously, trembling and holding onto Ilya’s shoulders for dear life, and Ilya laughs at him of course, but he also reaches for Shane and pulls him close, kissing him deeply and strangely tenderly. When Shane finally breaks away and gets a good look at him, he can see Ilya looks enormously pleased with himself.

“Fuck,” Shane says, breathless, “I wanna do you, too. Please let me?”

“So polite,” Ilya says. Shane is starting to understand that Ilya can’t let anything go by without making it a joke, but his eyes are very intense and his chest is rising and falling pretty fast, too. “Such a good boy.”

“Fuck off. Please?”

Ilya stands up from his crouch so his dick is right in Shane’s eyeline and curls his hand into Shane’s hair, hard. He puts a hand on himself and taps Shane’s cheek with the head of his dick, like Shane needs to be reminded. Like it isn’t his idea in the first place, and it isn’t him begging for it.

“Since you ask so nicely,” Ilya says, rubbing his cock over Shane’s slick mouth. “Go on.”

Sucking a dick is actually even better than Shane thought it would be, and Shane has spent a lot of time thinking about it. Ilya is warm and heavy in his mouth, and he purrs out little noises when Shane does something he likes, and he cradles Shane’s jaw in one hand and he mows through Shane’s hair with his fingers and puts lovely pressure on his scalp. Shane feels so good that he wonders if he could fall asleep like this, petted and full and devoid of higher-order thinking. Just thinking about wrapping his lips tightly around the head and running his tongue along the shaft and relaxing his throat so he can get just a bit further back without gagging.

“Ah, Shane, fuck. You really never do this? You are just cocksucking prodigy?”

“Shut up.” Shane hopes he’s conveying that he means it to be a punishment to pull off Ilya’s cock to talk. If anything, he’s the one feeling punished. As soon as Ilya’s dick is out of his mouth, Shane aches to swallow it back down.

Ilya grins down at Shane’s expression, running his thumb along Shane’s cheek. “Oh, you do not like that? Is meant to be compliment, malysh. You’re so good at it.” He grabs his cock to feed himself back into Shane’s mouth, which Shane unfortunately feels very relieved about.

Ilya watches him, mouth parted, face flushed. Right now, he looks nothing like the version of himself in the beer ad. Shane lets that settle in him a little, that he’s seeing a version of Ilya that not everyone riding the Tokyo Metro knows about. Shane hasn’t really felt special, except in the bad way, since before he walked into his locker room and every single head turned. He feels special now, though, from the way he’s making Ilya look and the things Ilya’s saying while he fucks into Shane’s mouth.

“So good, baby. I don’t even need to tell you what to do.” Ilya laughs, like this has all taken him by surprise. “Your talents are wasted on finance.”

Shane wants to say, shut up. He also wants to say, I really would like it if you told me what to do. He also wants to say, I like that. I like when you call me baby. I think, maybe, I’d like to be your baby.

He doesn’t, though. He wants to see this through, and that means no breaks to chit-chat. Ilya probably doesn’t intend for this to be a dialogue, either. Ilya probably is just saying whatever, because it’s hot, and apparently he’s very chatty during sex. So Shane lets his eyes close, and he puts all of his focus on doing a really good job sucking Ilya’s dick, and he’s rewarded for it with Ilya’s fingers curling tightly in his hair again and Ilya’s body tightening up and a string of mumbled Russian words that float over Shane like melodic ambient noise, and then Ilya is holding Shane’s head still while Ilya comes in his mouth, and it doesn’t taste great, per se, but Shane thinks he likes how it tastes just fine. It tastes like a job well done, like victory.

Ilya pulls his dick out of Shane’s mouth and says, “Show me.”

He pets his thumb over Shane’s lip, and pushes it down. He inspects the cum sitting on Shane’s tongue and smiles, wider when Shane closes his mouth and swallows, and shows Ilya his clean tongue afterwards.

“Fuck. Come here.”

Ilya pulls him to stand, and Shane is glad Ilya’s hands are gripping his arms, because he’s dizzy and unsteady when he does, like he took another couple of shots. He sways forward into Ilya and his broad chest is a nice, firm weight to lean on. Shane feels happy and buzzy and warm all over, and Ilya’s hands are still in his hair, and he feels Ilya’s laugh rumble out of him against his own naked chest.

“Woah, woah,” Ilya says. “Is too much for you?”

“No.” Shane turns into Ilya’s slick shoulder and mumbles against his skin. “Well, maybe. But I liked it.”

Ilya laughs again. Everything Shane says seems to make Ilya laugh. Does that mean Shane is charming? Probably it just means Shane is weird.

“I liked it, too,” Ilya says.

“Yeah?”

“Very much.”

Shane lets out a long sigh and nuzzles into Ilya’s wet neck.

“Good. I’m happy.”

Ilya pulls Shane’s head up and kisses him. It’s tender and soft, and Shane lets himself be kissed for a while, and doesn’t think about much else except how nice it feels, how good Ilya makes him feel, how Shane likes his mouth so much, likes kissing him so much, would do it for hours if doing so didn’t mean catching pneumonia from standing in the shower so long.

They finish cleaning off, Ilya running his hands all over Shane’s body. He even lathers shampoo into Shane’s hair and rinses it out for him, and Shane does the same for Ilya. Ilya’s curls are so fun to run his fingers through that Shane does it for much longer than is necessary to shampoo them. Ilya purrs like a happy cat and kisses Shane about it some more.

It’s only after they step out of the shower room and are toweling off in front of the sink that Shane gets nervous again. What happens now that they’ve both gotten off? Is that the end of the hook up? Is Ilya going to leave now? Shane’s never done this before, he doesn’t really know what to expect. It would be nice if Ilya stayed the night, but maybe that’s a weird thing to ask for. It would be nice if he could get Ilya’s phone number, because Shane thinks he’d like to do this a lot more than just once. He thinks he’d like to do a lot more than hand and mouth stuff in the shower, too. Maybe that’s not how it goes, though. Maybe Ilya’s curiosity has been satisfied. Or maybe Ilya has enough people to call when he wants to fuck that he doesn’t need Shane’s number.

Shane follows Ilya out of the bathroom, determined to just be cool and chill and happy with whatever outcome, which is diametrically opposed to how he handles literally every other part of his life, but he’s going to try. Ilya steps over the pile of his clothes that he apparently shed in the doorway of the bathroom, and doesn’t reach for any of them, just wraps fingers around Shane’s wrist and leads him to the bedroom. Which, wow, great outcome, exactly what Shane wanted. Being cool and chill is working out very well already.

Ilya whistles when he looks around Shane’s bedroom and his bed. “Is shame, you have this big bed and this whole time you have been so alone.” He pulls Shane against him when he says this, and dips his head to suck Shane’s neck again. Shane can feel his dick is already making a valiant effort to get hard again, fattening up against Ilya’s thigh. “No one to fill you up until I come along, hm?”

“No?” Shane says, because it sounds like a question.

Ilya maneuvers them onto the bed, splaying Shane out and crawling over him. He puts one of Shane’s legs over his shoulder, pushes the other wide, and then his hand is dipping back down below Shane’s balls and sliding between his ass cheeks to press against his hole.

“We will have to do something about that. You are too pretty to go without cock for so long.”

He brings his fingers up to his mouth to wet them, and then he slips two into Shane’s ass, scissoring them to open him up, get him loose, for—oh, for his cock. He’s going to fuck Shane in the ass tonight. Shane’s going to have a dick in his ass for the first time in his life, and it’s attached to an honest to god model, and Shane almost choked on that dick earlier, because it’s actually pretty big, now that he’s getting a really good look at it, it’s thick and long and what is that going to feel like, when it’s inside of him? What if he doesn’t like it? Shane thinks he’ll like it, but he doesn’t know. What if he makes a weird face when Ilya is inside of him, and it turns him off? What if the sex is bad? What if—

“You are nervous,” Ilya says. Shane tears his eyes away from Ilya’s hardening dick to his face and sees that Ilya is carefully watching him. “Are you scared?”

“No, of course not,” Shane says.

“Shane.” Ilya lets Shane’s leg slide back onto the bed so he can bend forward and kiss him. “Is okay.”

He gently pulls his fingers back out and uses that same hand to tenderly cradle Shane’s face. Which is objectively pretty gross, but also sweet. Shane feels a weird, warm pressure in his chest, like his ribcage has gone tight around his heart.

“I will fuck you next time.” Ilya says. “Tonight I just make you come with my mouth. Hm?”

“Next time?”

Ilya grins. “Ah, you have had enough of me?”

“No! No, not at all.” Shane can’t help the goofy smile from spreading across his face. It gets him another soft kiss, before Ilya sinks between Shane’s legs and gives him a much more technically perfect and elaborate blowjob than Shane managed in the shower. Shane lasts longer the second time, long enough to really enjoy it, all of the sounds Ilya makes and his very talented mouth and the way his hands run up and down Shane’s body the entire time he’s sucking him off, pawing at his chest and finding Shane’s hand and gripping it tightly in his.

Holy shit, why does Ilya like him? Ilya is so beautiful and good at sex and has a job literally based on being sexy and looking gorgeous. He’s amazing. And Shane is just a salaryman whose claim to fame is a Mitsubishi contract to build a power plant in Ontario. Not that Ilya knows that, not that Shane would brag about it. He knows it’s boring. He’s boring. What does Ilya see in him?

He gets Shane off, touching himself, and finishes on Shane’s chest, wiping the pearly head of his dick off on Shane’s skin. Shane looks down at himself, striped with Ilya’s cum, and feels a greater sense of accomplishment than he has in months.

Ilya miraculously doesn’t leave even after he’s wiped Shane down and then himself. He bundles Shane up in his arms and pulls the covers around them just like that. They kiss and kiss until it’s not even kissing, just resting their mouths against each other, and Shane realizes Ilya has fallen asleep right around the time his own eyes are sliding heavily closed.

Chapter End Notes

Thank you for your comments and kudos!

I'm on tumblr at @scacao-blog and on threads @sister_cacao.

Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

Uh... peep the updated chapter count 🥲 I added a tiny soupçon of plot so this is no longer just 40k words of Shane wish fulfillment.

In the morning, Shane wakes up to Ilya wrapped around him like a beautiful boa constrictor, and he’s sweaty and tangled in his sheets and unbearably happy and nervous. He has to use the bathroom, and he has to get dressed and go to work, and part of him wants to shake Ilya awake and say, Give me your number! You said you would fuck me next time and I need to know there will be a next time! But that wouldn’t be cool or chill of him, so instead he waits until Ilya yawns and stirs and blinks pretty, sleepy eyes at him, and that’s so nice, too, that it is worth damaging his bladder a little for.

They meet at the door after mostly dressing in silence. They do pause at the sink to make out, because Shane offers Ilya a brand new toothbrush from his medicine cabinet, and apparently that is enough to make Ilya want to kiss him. Ilya wraps his arms around Shane at the door, and in his hands is his phone, and he pushes it into Shane’s hands and says, “Give me your number,” and Shane can’t believe how well being cool and chill is going for him, so far. Maybe he should apply this philosophy to other areas of his life. He’d probably need to become, like, a totally different person to do that, but wouldn’t it be nice?

He plugs his number into Ilya’s phone. Ilya kisses him again, and then they walk to the train station together. It’s not like last night. They don’t lean all over each other and mumble about the perverted shit they want to do to each other in the middle of the street. That definitely isn’t cool at seven thirty in the morning. But Ilya does give him a long look and a rather affectionate smile when Shane steps onto his train and turns back to look at Ilya, still on the platform, as the doors close. He spends the whole thirty minute ride to work in a bit of a daze.

Halfway through his morning coffee, he gets a text message.

[003-8800-2481]
hello SHANE HOLLANDER

this is ILYA ROZANOV

sexy international model 😘

Shane runs to the bathroom so he can type a message back.

[Shane]
Hi Ilya

Why all caps?

[Ilya]
you put your name in my phone like this:

SHANE HOLLANDER

I think you want me to yell it when you text me

or maybe other times 😉

maybe first time I get to have your ass?

am I getting closer?

Jesus Christ. Shane shoves his phone into his pocket. He’s going to have to be careful about opening it in front of his coworkers. He’s never going to let himself get found out that way again.

They text the whole week. Shane gets on the train home and there is a message waiting for him from Ilya. Miss me, pretty boy? He stares up at the Asahi ad and into Ilya’s fierce eyes and can’t believe that guy is the one in his inbox. Shane gets into bed and turns the light off. Then he spends another thirty minutes texting back and forth with Ilya.

[Shane]
What are you going to do next time you see me?

[Ilya]
I think I will keep it a surprise 😉

Shane does thorough research in anticipation of the sex he plans to have, which culminates in a terrifying trip to Don Quixote in a hat and glasses and face mask, like Michael Jackson avoiding the paparazzi, so he can buy a dildo, and lube, and condoms, and an enema kit. The teenager working the register has a very good poker face, but Shane is sure he’s thinking some things. He shoves all of the items in his nightstand, except the enema kit, which he puts in his bathroom, then spends some time brainstorming the elaborate explanation he will offer if someone ever finds it, even though Ilya is the only person who has ever been to Shane’s apartment and would know exactly why Shane has it. Still, he can’t be too careful.

The days pass and they text, and Ilya flirts shamelessly, and says a lot of things like, get some sleep, pretty Shane, you will not get any next time I see you, which obviously is really hot, and Shane jerks off more that week than he ever has before in his life, but Ilya doesn’t come right out and make any plans with Shane. He doesn’t say, are you free this weekend? Or, I want to take you out on Friday, and then come back to your place and deflower you. He probably wouldn’t say deflower, realistically, but that is beside the point.

The point is, by the time Shane is forced into a mandatory nomikai with his coworkers on Friday night, trying and failing not to get beet-red in the face off of one glass of beer and shoving edamame and fried chicken karaage into his mouth so he doesn’t get shitfaced, Ilya still hasn’t actually set up another date, and Shane is feeling dejected, and pissed off, and foolish for getting his hopes up.

Ilya has probably found another model to take home instead. Or a movie star. Or even just another person he caught staring at his ad on the metro. Oh my god, Shane is so stupid. What did he even expect? There’s no way he can go back to Don Quixote and return the unopened enema. That’s too mortifying, that not only was he planning to have gay sex, but that he didn’t even succeed. He’s just going to have to keep it in his bathroom forever as a sad reminder of how overeager he got for someone who is way too hot and interesting for him.

Ilya texts him at the restaurant, and Shane immediately slides out of the booth and heads to the bathroom to check his phone, because he’s pathetic. Because, sadly, the evening he had with Ilya Rozanov is still the most exciting thing that’s happened to him in ages, and it’s made him totally pitiful.

Shane goes into a stall to open the message, just in case it’s a dick pic, or something equally raunchy in text format, but it’s not. It’s a picture of Ilya at a dark bar—the same bar that he took Shane to in Ginza?—sandwiched between two of the most beautiful people Shane has ever seen.

One is a man who seems a full head taller than Ilya and has the same jawline that they give Clark Kent in the comics to illustrate how manly and heroic and superhumanly gorgeous he is. That man has a hand on Ilya’s thigh, which Shane can just make out in the shadows. The other is an unbelievably slender and elegant woman, who is wearing a fucking gown to that tiny hole in the wall bar, like she just stepped off the red carpet of a movie premiere, and whose makeup makes her look a bit like a sexy cat, and whose curly hair is arranged so that her sparkly diamond earrings are not swallowed up in its springy depths, while also framing her face so she looks effortlessly chic and put together. She has her arm snaked through Ilya’s, and her perfect cheekbone is resting on Ilya’s shoulder. And Ilya is winking at the camera, like he might wink for a TV spot where the intention is to make you want to fuck the hot model and maybe buy the stupid sports drink he’s selling at the same time. And it’s working. Shane is thirsty and he wants to fuck the hot model. He would probably buy any fucking thing that came with that wink.

There is no text message that accompanies this photo, as if it speaks for itself. Maybe it does. Maybe it is meant to convey: here is the general level of attractiveness of the people I spend my time with, Shane Hollander. We like to get together and be very glamorous and sexy together. Clearly, you do not fit in this picture. Also, why is everyone touching each other so much? Shane realizes, with horror, that he’s halfway to texting exactly that to Ilya, and deletes it quickly, and resolves to cut himself off for the rest of the night. He probably is too drunk to text anything cool and chill and low-key to Ilya at all. He probably should just put his phone away entirely, and tell his coworkers he’s going to head home early. He’s been in the bathroom for, like, ten minutes already. He can say he’s sick, and everyone will laugh and say he can’t hold his liquor, and that’s probably true, anyway, so he’s not really lying.

Shane spends the entire 22:12 Marunouchi line train bound for Ikebukuro with his phone in his hand, open to Ilya’s messages. It would be rude not to say something, probably. He thinks of sending something light and noncommittal, like: just passed Ginza station! Heading home! Which probably sounds like he’s fishing for an invite, or something. Shane doesn’t think that’s actually what he wants, though, if only because he doesn’t think he could handle sitting in that tiny bar with Ilya’s intimidatingly beautiful friends without making a fool of himself.

And anyway, that isn’t what he wants to say. He wants to know who these people with Ilya are. The need to know churns sourly in his stomach until he feels woozy and disoriented as the train lurches in the dark. Are they friends? Is that his girlfriend, or his boyfriend? Or both? Is Ilya in some kind of, like, permanent threesome situation? Do they all climb in bed together every night and have incredibly beautiful, inventive sex in complex configurations? Shane doesn’t really have any right to know, and at the same time, he thinks he might throw up all the beer he drank tonight, along with the fried chicken and gyoza and hiyayakko tofu, if he doesn’t find out.

By the time Shane is home, he’s resolved to just ask. Hey Ilya, looks like you’re having fun. Who are you with? He types out the text, then stands in his foyer for five minutes with his thumb hovering over the button to send it. Then he walks through his apartment to stand on his patio in his house slippers, still waiting for some lightning bolt of inspiration to strike him with the perfect cool-guy message that will get him exactly the information he is dying to know, without revealing any shred of jealousy or unchill feelings he may have. He has a plant out here, a bushy palm tree that is slowly outgrowing his tiny porch, ensconced in a heavy decorative planter. Shane can probably puke in there, if necessary.

He doesn’t notice that Ilya is calling him at first, still deliberating over his text and getting worked up over the many unfortunate possible answers he might get back. Shane’s phone vibrates in his hand a few times before he realizes that the screen is lighting up with an incoming call, and that the person calling is Ilya. Shane desperately tries to conjure up some saliva to coat his very dry throat as he picks up.

“Hello?”

“Shane.”

Shane can hear loud conversation happening in the background, like Ilya has called him from right in between his beautiful people sandwich, and that they’ve continued talking around him, like he’s a rock mildly disturbing a flowing stream. It all swirls in Shane, too, the whirlpool of his nauseous jealousy and envy and want.

He’s jealous. He is so fucking jealous, and horny, and maybe already slightly in love with Ilya, just because Ilya kissed him really nicely, and made him come, and because Ilya is so beautiful, and Shane has never been chill, or cool, or nonchalant about anything in his life. He is probably the most chalant person that has ever lived. And he saw Ilya Rozanov’s pretty face in the ad on the train, and projected all of his tragically unfulfilled sexual desires onto him, and then Ilya fulfilled at least half of those desires without Shane even needing to explain them, like Ilya could look right down into the most pitiful, ugly, starving parts of him and see them all laid bare. And now, as a result, Shane is desperately, pathetically needy, and wants this man to fuck him so badly, and thinks if he doesn’t get him to do it, he might lose his fucking mind.

Who are they? he wants to say. Are they better than me? Tell me all the ways that they are, so I can fix myself, so I can be better, so you’ll want to fuck me instead of them.

“Shane?”

Shane realizes he has been working himself up in seething silence for the last minute while Ilya waits. “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry.”

“Mm, you are busy? Now is not good time?”

“Oh, no. I’m at home.”

Ilya laughs, then there’s some noise, then some loud Russian voices, then Ilya’s loud Russian voice in particular, and then there is a flurry of sound and a click of a door sliding shut, and when Ilya speaks again, it’s quiet behind him.

“Sorry about that. They are so loud and stupid. You are at home? You do not go out with friends to celebrate end of the work week?”

What friends? “No. I mean, I had to go out with my coworkers, earlier, but I came home.”

“Ah. So you are alone? Or maybe you meet another model on train ride home?”

Obviously, that has not happened. Obviously, Shane is home, desperately alone, trying not to openly beg Ilya over the phone to please fuck him like he promised he would next time.

“No, I’m alone.”

“Ah. Well, is lucky for me. Maybe you can take a sexy picture for me while you are at home all alone.”

Shane imagines this. Going to the bedroom, where he can stand in front of the full-length mirror and examine his angles. Unbutton his shirt, loosen his tie. Kick out of his pants, so he’s just in his briefs, and take a photo of himself with his dick in his hand for Ilya. Or would Ilya like it more if Shane sent a picture of his ass instead? Standing? Leaning over the bed? Slicking up a finger and pushing it deep inside his—

“You’re out in public right now. I can’t do that.”

Ilya blows out his breath, like Shane has gravely inconvenienced him. “So boring, Shane. I want to see you. Whole week I think about you. I think, if I don’t see you naked right now, I might die. You do not want me to die, do you Shane?”

Shane’s entire body reacts to this, hot and staticky, like a surge protector that can’t handle all the voltage that’s been plugged in. He feels Ilya’s words careening through him, ricocheting along his nervous system, lighting him up. It feels like if he coughs too hard, his heart will come flying out of his throat and flop to the floor.

Fuck. It almost doesn’t matter anymore if Ilya is just teasing him, if he’s only flirting with him because Shane’s easy for it and Ilya is bored, or he has a bet going with his beautiful friends, or whatever. Shane doesn’t really care if it’s a joke. He just wants Ilya. He just wants.

“Why haven’t you asked to see me?” Shane says.

Ilya scoffs. “You tell me you haven’t done this before, so I think I will let you set the pace, so you are comfortable. I tell myself, Ilya, be patient, he will tell you if he wants it.”

This is so unexpectedly reasonable that Shane does not immediately know what to say. “I…”

“There is problem, though. Do you want to know what it is?”

“What’s the problem?”

“Problem is: I am not a patient man, Shane. I am a very impatient man, and I cannot stop thinking about you for one minute of peace. So I think I will just ask you straight out, even if I am worried you will get scared and run like baby rabbit. Do you want to see me?”

“I think…” Shane says, swallowing.

“Yes?”

“I think you should come here and fuck me right now.”

Ilya draws in a breath, sharp in Shane’s ear, and exhales. He draws the silence out just long enough for it to become excruciating. Shane presses his palm against his chest just to check that he isn’t having an actual heart attack. He has the completely irrational urge to throw his phone over the side of the balcony. He needs Ilya to say something.

Then, Ilya says, “Do not go anywhere. I’m on my way,” and the line goes dead.

Shane stands on his patio in disbelief. Ilya is on his way. Shane said come here and fuck me, and Ilya is saying his goodbyes to his beautiful friends and heading to Shane’s house to do exactly that. Shane could maybe have done that at any time this week, and Ilya might have gotten on a train right away.

Shane is immediately so turned on he feels a little dizzy, or maybe that’s the euphoria hitting him, the full-body thrill of having his wish granted so easily. Shane lets it run through him like pleasant electricity for a full thirty seconds, closing his eyes and feeling the warm July breeze blow around him, until it hits him. Ilya is on his way, and Shane is not ready, has done absolutely none of the prep he spent the week meticulously researching and sacrificing his dignity purchasing supplies for.

He staggers to the bathroom and realizes, as he’s taking all the pieces of the enema kit out of the bag—there are so many—that he’s still pretty drunk, and that he probably should have practiced doing this earlier, because he’s terrified he’s going to hurt himself, somehow. And wouldn’t that be a mood killer? Hi Ilya, thanks for getting here so quickly. Mind taking me to the hospital?

He manages to figure it out through sheer force of will. That, and the fear of embarrassing injury doing wonders to sober him up. He showers afterwards and gets dressed again, inexplicably first in a suit, before he realizes that would make him appear insane. He tries again with jeans and a grey tee shirt that seem casual enough. They at least don’t scream: I am an overeager virgin looking to get railed. Shane is exactly that, but he doesn’t think it would be hot to advertise it too heavily.

He sits in his living room, tapping his fingers against his knee, turning on the television and turning it off when all he can find on basic programming are variety shows that give him a headache. By the time he hears the knock on the door, Shane thinks he’s probably reached terminal anxious velocity, and he’s almost paradoxically calm again. He’s talked himself through a variety of possible calamities—leg cramp, ill-fitting condoms, panic-induced erectile dysfunction—and he’s nearly back to a state of relaxation about the whole thing. Like, Ilya won’t let any of that happen, somehow. Ilya will just tell him how to do everything so it all goes perfectly, and everyone is happy, and maybe Ilya will even want to do it again.

“Hello, Shane,” Ilya says, when Shane opens the door.

“Hi. Um, come in?”

Ilya smiles. Fuck, he’s really fucking gorgeous. “Okay.”

So Shane steps aside to make room for Ilya, and as soon as the door has closed behind them, Ilya’s hands go around Shane’s waist and he backs Shane against the wall and kisses him. He makes it filthy straight away, sliding his tongue into Shane’s mouth, and then he’s trailing his hands down under Shane’s thighs and—oh, fuck—hoisting him up, guiding Shane’s legs to wrap around his hips. They kiss like that, Shane taking big fistfuls of Ilya’s soft hair in his hands, until Ilya breaks away and buries his face in Shane’s neck, his voice breathy and low.

“I need to fuck you right now.”

They extricate themselves from the doorway, shoes tossed somewhere, and Ilya drags Shane into his bedroom, like he’s already familiar with the apartment, which is a little unbearable for Shane to think about too closely. Ilya wraps him in his arms by the bed, and kisses him hungrily, his mouth, then his neck, sucking it so enthusiastically that Shane is sure it’ll turn into a bruise. Shane wants to run his fingers over it, feel the swelling, knowing it’s Ilya’s mouth that put it there. Instead, Shane runs his hands over Ilya’s low cut shirt, something silky and probably expensive, then his ass, then, in a fit of horny bravery, drops to his knees and fishes Ilya’s dick out of his pants. He hasn’t stopped thinking about doing this since Ilya left his apartment the first time, and it’s almost unbelievable, the taste of Ilya’s cock on his tongue again, the weight of it sliding to the back of his throat.

“Wow,” Ilya breathes, cradling Shane’s head in his hands. And then, far too quickly, “Woah, woah, okay. Okay, Shane, stop.”

He hauls Shane up, laughing at Shane’s expression, which must look really disappointed, because Shane feels incredibly robbed. He barely even got started sucking Ilya’s dick.

“Was it bad? Tell me what to do differently.”

Ilya looks at him very softly for moment. “No, it was opposite problem, actually. I tell you before, yes? You are natural. You will make me come too fast with this pretty mouth.”

He thumbs over Shane’s bottom lip, and Shane’s tongue naturally slips out to lick the warm pad of Ilya’s fingertip. Ilya stares at Shane’s mouth and blows out a ragged breath.

“Fuck, Shane. How did no one find you, before? You are like present wrapped up just for me.”

He hauls Shane up into his arms again and deposits him onto the bed, crawling over him and shedding clothes, until Shane can run his hands everywhere across Ilya’s perfect body, feel all its muscles and golden skin and soft, curling hair. Ilya straddles him, tugging at Shane’s tee shirt, then his jeans, throwing them in random directions as he gets them off. Later, Shane will have to go on a scavenger hunt through his room to find them all, but that’s okay. And then they are naked together, on Shane’s bed. Ilya rakes his eyes over Shane’s body with open desire.

“On your stomach, pretty boy.”

“You’re the pretty one,” Shane mumbles, even as he obliges, flipping over, resting his burning face against the cool bedspread. Ilya runs his hands up and down Shane’s exposed back, lighting him up like a firecracker, a sparkler running down to nothing.

“Ah, no. I am sexy. There is difference,” Ilya says sagely. “You would know this if you were professional model like me.” He places a kiss between Shane’s shoulder blades, another at the topmost knob of his spine.

“So I would be a pretty model, not a sexy one?”

Kiss. “Yes, a very pretty one.” Kiss. At the small of his back now. “The prettiest. Is too bad you don’t like having pictures taken. You are wasting away in boring office.”

Ilya spreads Shane’s legs apart and manhandles him into arching his ass into the air. Shane can feel his face go bright red. His heart thuds and skitters around his ribcage. He thinks he knows how those weird fainting goats feel, when they get so excited they pass out and fall over. He feels very exposed and fully on display for Ilya, and it already feels like the craziest thing Shane has ever done, and they are barely getting started.

Ilya’s kisses move closer and closer to the trembling center of him, his big hands spreading Shane apart, and then Ilya is licking a wet line up and down his ass and dipping his long tongue into Shane’s hole and Shane doesn’t really give a fuck anymore if Ilya is making fun of him with the modeling thing, because this feels good, this feels so good. It’s one of the best things he’s ever felt, next to Ilya’s mouth on his dick. He turns his face into the sheets and moans and says a silent prayer of thanks to god or whoever for making him gay and then sending him the hottest man on earth to eat his ass about it.

Shane really does think that, and then for a moment is shocked at himself, that he’s thankful right now, actually thankful to be gay and not hating himself for it, not wishing to be different, not thinking he’s a fucking freak for being built this way. This is probably the first time he has ever felt otherwise, and certainly the first time since he was practically hate-crimed out of his college locker room. And suddenly there are hot tears stinging his eyes and his throat feels very tight and he’s afraid he might start fucking sobbing with Ilya’s tongue still in his ass.

And it’s the last thing he wants to think about right now, anyway. His dumb fucking team. The way he told himself he wasn’t going to let them make him hate hockey, and then he let them do exactly that. He wants to forget all of that, his entire stupid, embarrassing history, the last pathetic year and a half of his life, anything other than Ilya making him feel so, so good. He forces all of it back down, forces himself to breathe, to fist handfuls of the sheets and spread his legs wider and finally, when he thinks he can do it without his voice breaking, to moan, “fuck Ilya, oh my god. Oh god, please.”

“Yes, Shane?” Ilya says archly, pulling back. “Please, what?”

“Please fuck me. Please. Please.”

Shane manages to fish the condoms and lube out of his nightstand while Ilya is curled around him like an anaconda, biting and licking his neck and shoulder. Ilya puts him on his back, where he can smile down at him, the pupils of his eyes almost all the way to the blue edges, and kiss him filthily as he leads him through some hasty prep with his fingers.

“Is okay?” Ilya says, looming above him, and Shane can feel the blunt head of his cock lined up against his hole.

He nods, and Ilya bends down to kiss him, and then he’s pushing inside, stretching Shane out, and at first it seems impossible for Ilya to fit inside of him, there is no way he can. He’s just too big, Shane can feel all of it, so much, too much. Shane doesn’t think he can take it.

Ilya presses his damp forehead against Shane’s, and says, “Oh fuck, Shane,” like he’s feeling good, like Shane is making him feel good. And then, he’s sliding all the way inside, and somehow Shane’s body is making room for him to fit, and holy shit. He’s all the way in. Shane is stretched, and full, and it’s intense and overwhelming and good, and oh, yikes, is Shane crying? Oh no, that’s bad. Ilya is going to think he’s in pain, or like he regrets doing this, but he doesn’t. He feels better than he has in maybe his entire life.

Ilya kisses his temple, his nose, his cheek, then draws back. “Shane?”

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Shane says, sniffing. “I don’t know why I’m crying. It feels really good. Please don’t stop fucking me. Just, like, ignore me.”

“I will not do that,” Ilya says, and kisses him softly on the mouth, so sweetly, which isn’t going to help Shane stop crying, but oh well. “I am going to move now, okay?”

“Yeah.”

Ilya looks at him the entire time. He watches Shane while he moves in and out of Shane’s body, and if he briefly closes his eyes it is only to kiss him again. Shane can’t help the punched-out moans Ilya draws out of him, or the way he claws at Ilya’s back, or the way he keeps having to blink tears out of his eyes. Sometimes, they sneak out anyway, and Ilya wipes them away and lets Shane keep his dignity by not saying anything about them.

Ilya is so sexy and kind and beautiful. And he has a perfect dick and he keeps asking Shane if he’s okay, if it feels good, and then he continues making him feel good and okay. And Shane is suddenly afraid that he feels too much, way too much, might be in love with someone he barely knows.

Oh no. Is that right? Is Shane really in love with Ilya? Shane doesn’t even know him. And Ilya is beautiful, and glamorous, and has probably done this many times with many people, and almost certainly does not like Shane like that, does not feel as much for Shane as Shane is feeling in this moment for him. And maybe it isn’t even real, what Shane is feeling, the way his heart is swelling like he might go into cardiac arrest and his eyes won’t stop fucking watering. Maybe it is just because Ilya is making him feel so good, and because he’s being so gentle.

Shane decides that now is probably not the time to make any decisions about his feelings one way or the other. He rears up and reaches for Ilya, pulls him down, searching out his tongue, and then Ilya is folding him up and shifting the angle and then every thrust digs into Shane’s prostate, and it is very easy to put everything else out of his mind—his feelings, his rapidly pounding heart, fuck, maybe even the English language.

“Ilyaaa—”

He’s going to come, can feel it building way too quickly as Ilya fucks into him. It’s too much, too much, oh fuck—and he’s coming, his dick spurting helplessly onto his own stomach and chest, and all he can do is shout and dig his fingers into Ilya’s hair and let it wash over him in waves, feeling it everywhere, his ass clenching where Ilya is still driving into him.

“Fuck, Shane!” Ilya shouts, and bottoms out inside him, shaking and then stilling.

Shane probably passes out for a bit, or temporarily ascends to a higher plane of existence, if that’s possible just from being fucked really well. He comes to with Ilya lying on top of him, all of his weight pressing Shane down into the mattress, crushing him a little, but it’s also nice. It’s nice to feel Ilya’s entire body against his, the warmth of his chest, the flex of his stomach as he breathes, the soft hair on his thighs brushing against Shane’s legs. Ilya’s face is buried in Shane’s neck, and he can feel hot little puffs of breath against his skin. When Ilya finally pulls back to gaze down at him, he looks unsteady, his face red and his mouth slack, and Shane wants to kiss him all over and maybe thank him for all of this.

“Fuck,” Ilya says, laughing breathlessly. He glances down at the scant space between their bodies. “Such a mess.” He presses a sloppy kiss to Shane’s mouth.

“Was that good?” Shane asks, without really meaning to. “Did you like it?”

Ilya looks at him in open confusion. “It was not good for you? You just came hands free.”

“Oh, uh, no. It was amazing. I just… maybe you have sex like that all the time? I don’t have anything to compare it to.”

“Shane.” Ilya uses his hand to steer Shane back into a kiss. “I have never had sex like that.”

Shane’s whole body goes warm. “Oh. Awesome.”

“Yes,” Ilya says, looking at Shane like he’s amusing and a little strange, like a weird deep-sea creature. “Very awesome. Can you stand up? Let’s go to your giant shower.”

Shane really likes cuddling with Ilya in the shower, he decides. Ilya wraps around him and insists on lathering him up with body wash, like before. His dick slides up and down in the cleft of Shane’s ass, which would be suggestive if either of them weren’t too wobbly and exhausted to fuck a second time. Ilya peppers him with kisses anyway, all over his face and shoulders and neck, and washes the congealing cum off his body.

They towel off and slide back on top of the bed, and Shane wonders if Ilya is going to start collecting his clothes now, if he’s planning to leave.

“Will you stay?” he blurts out, as soon as he realizes that’s exactly what he wants.

“Let’s see,” Ilya says, considering. “Last train left an hour ago, so either I stay, or I go wander the street until five AM.”

“Please don’t do that,” Shane says, just in case that isn’t a joke. “I want you to stay.”

Ilya looks very fond, gazing at Shane. “Okay.”

Shane flips the light off and lies down with his arms open, hoping Ilya will see the invitation and take it. Ilya flops right over on top of Shane, a very heavy and warm weight, like a thick winter blanket. It’s perfect. It’s exactly what Shane wants. Ilya puts his head down on Shane’s chest and Shane runs his fingers through Ilya’s curly hair, and it feels so calming and relaxing that Shane doesn’t even notice himself drifting off. He falls asleep without realizing, still playing with Ilya’s hair and listening to him breathe.

Shane wakes up with a pair of large arms wrapped around him and a thick head of hair tucked up under his chin. He realizes with a little bit of alarm that he still feels exactly the same way he did last night when Ilya was inside him. Completely full of something very warm and a little painful, radiating out from his chest. Weirdly emotional, like he almost wants to cry. So, fuck. It seems like he’s the kind of guy who falls in love with someone once they have fucked him. That’s kind of unfortunate. There go his hopes and dreams of being cool and chill about Ilya Rozanov, up in smoke.

The bedroom has one window, through which all of the hot summer sunlight is pouring directly into Shane’s eyes, because he neglected to draw the curtains last night. It is uncomfortable, and Shane would like to get up and close them, but he is currently a prisoner under Ilya’s sticky body. Instead, he waits, squinting away from the light, for Ilya to stir.

He feels… pretty good, he thinks, for his first time. Kind of sore, but in the way that he likes, similar to a tough workout. It’s the lingering evidence of accomplishment. Not that it was a test of endurance or something. Letting Ilya fuck him wasn’t difficult. Actually, it felt extremely natural. It felt like Shane was exactly where he was meant to be, maybe for the first time in his life.

I guess I’m a bottom, Shane thinks, and waits for that to settle in some particular way. It isn’t a total revelation, more like confirming something he already suspected. He had kind of demanded Ilya come over and fuck him, after all. The other way around had not exactly been on his mind. But there was always the chance that Shane’s interest in getting fucked was hypothetical, more academic than it would turn out in reality. There was always the chance that he wouldn’t really like it when he finally tried it, that it would feel weird, or some residual shame inside of him would suddenly bubble up, and he’d end up hating it. But that isn’t what happened at all. It turned out it felt incredibly good. And Ilya said he’d never had sex like that before, so that must mean Shane is good at it, too. Shane feels great about that.

Ilya grunts, an inelegant, unconscious sound, and moves, tickling Shane’s jaw when his hair brushes it. He looks up at Shane, his chin balancing on Shane’s chest, blinking where the sunlight is beaming right into his eyes and turning them a brilliant blue.

“Hello, Shane.”

Shane smiles. “Hi, Ilya.”

Ilya stretches up to kiss him, closed-mouth because they haven’t brushed their teeth. He pulls back and squints. “Fuck, is bright.”

“Oh yeah, sorry, let me close the curtains.”

Shane is still partially penned in by Ilya, who pats him on the chest when he starts to squirm free.

“Don’t get up, I will go.”

Ilya slides off the bed and staggers over to the window, which thankfully does not go all the way from floor to ceiling, since he’s completely naked and sort of posing in front of it, glaring out at the cheerful weather. All of Shane’s focus pulls to Ilya’s perfectly shaped, fat ass. Shane is preoccupied enough with it that he is reconsidering his earlier declaration of being a bottom, just a little. He would really like to get his hands and mouth on it at the very least.

Ilya draws the gauzy inner curtains but leaves the heavy blackout ones open, casting a film over the sunlight so it doesn’t feel so intrusive. He turns back to Shane and takes an appraising look at him. He’s half-hard, the head of his cock peeking out from the foreskin, and Shane feels his mouth fill with saliva. God, Ilya makes him feel like some kind of animal. All of his reactions feel completely out of his control.

“Fuck, Shane,” Ilya says, watching him. It sounds appreciative. It sounds a little like Ilya feels the same.

He stalks back over to the bed with a hand on himself, bringing himself to full hardness, and slots in between Shane’s legs, dipping down right away to tongue at Shane’s cock, humming happily as it grows. Shane props himself up on his elbows to watch all of it, Ilya’s lovely mouth and tongue on him, Ilya’s arm flexed and working over his own dick.

“Wait,” Shane says, already a little dizzy. “I want to do you, too.”

Ilya grins. He rears back, pulls Shane down further on the bed, and maneuvers around on top of him, until Shane is pinned in place by Ilya’s huge thighs on either side of his head. His heavy cock hangs overhead, bobbing in his eyeline. Oh, wow, Shane hadn’t even thought of this. He’d thought they would, like, take turns. This is better, though. This is very hot.

Shane wraps his hand around the big cock dangling in his face and guides it into his mouth, and immediately moans from the relief and excitement. He’s so happy to get to suck Ilya’s dick again, and the angle is like an interesting challenge presented to him. Ilya sucks in a breath and then he’s swallowing Shane down, too, and it’s overwhelming, being pleasured and also giving pleasure at the same time. It smells so strongly of Ilya and sex, so heady and masculine, in the tight little space Shane is sequestered into between Ilya’s legs. Shane feels tipsy and maybe a little too turned on for the first thing in the morning, wants to touch Ilya everywhere, and he reaches up and slips his fingers between Ilya’s perfect ass cheeks and pets them over his hole, which shocks Ilya enough for Shane’s dick to fall out of his mouth.

“Shane…”

“Oh, fuck, sorry, I should have asked,” Shane says, sheepish. “Is that bad?”

“No, is okay. You can. You just surprised me.” Ilya laughs. “You are full of surprises.”

Shane laughs too, breathless, feeling kind of invincible. He pulls his fingers back and wets them in his mouth, then slides them back up, between Ilya’s cheeks, and very carefully pushes one inside. Ilya’s body is hot and slick, tight like a vise around his finger. He gets his mouth back on Ilya’s dick and takes him as deeply as he can go with the angle afforded to him, and Ilya moans and shifts around above him like he’s trying to get more of everything, more of Shane’s fingers and more of his mouth.

“Fuck…” Ilya breathes, and then he is sucking Shane again, furiously, like he’s trying to make Shane come as fast as possible, which Shane does, because he’s only human. Ilya’s mouth stays on him the entire time, swallowing him, pumping him through it, and Shane is sure his technique gets sloppy and distracted as a result, because it’s unbelievably hot and intense, but he manages, and Ilya comes. He floods Shane’s mouth, clenching around Shane’s finger, tensing everywhere like his orgasm is an electric shock shooting through his body. His orgasm that Shane gave him with his hands and mouth.

Shane feels warm, accomplished, euphoric. He shudders with happiness, eyes prickling, and he noses against the fuzzy thigh bracketing his cheek. He could stay here all day, probably, if Ilya wanted that. But Ilya carefully extricates himself from over top of Shane and gathers him up in his arms, kissing him deeply. It’s impossible to tell who tastes like who, they both just taste like sex and spit and cum. Shane’s eyes get hotter, which he’s starting to get used to. He’s just the kind of guy who cries during sex, it seems.

If Ilya notices, or thinks it’s weird or whatever, he doesn’t say anything. He just kisses Shane for a nice long while.

“Wow,” Shane says, when he can.

“Mmhm.” Ilya grins, licks Shane’s mouth. It’s so nice.

“I liked that so much. I really, really liked that,” Shane says, meaning all of it. The sex, the way fingering Ilya’s ass made him come so fast, the way Ilya had swallowed him, the soft kisses after. All of it. And Ilya too, because Shane really, really likes him. There is probably some more poetic way to say that, but Shane doesn’t know how to explain himself except in the most straightforward terms. And anyway, it seems to do the trick. Ilya smiles so wide that Shane can see both rows of crowded teeth and his eyes crinkle up at the corners.

“Me too.” Ilya presses one more heavy kiss to his mouth and sits back against the headboard, sighing. “I have no idea what time it is. Do you have work today?”

“No. Do you?”

“Nope.”

“Oh. Cool,” Shane says, feeling a sudden glut of hopeful anticipation come over him. Maybe they can spend the day together. Shane would like that more than almost anything else.

“Well, Shane, I—”

“Do you want to do something together?” Shane blurts out, too fucked-out to overthink.

There’s that look again, like Shane is a strange little ocean-floor crustacean, something Ilya has never seen before. Shane is starting to understand that might be a good thing in Ilya’s opinion. Ilya kisses him again, running a hand along his jaw.

“Okay, Shane,” he says. He swings his legs over the bed and rises. Shane is once again completely distracted by his ass. “First, I will shower.”

He disappears into Shane’s bathroom, and Shane takes the opportunity to finally get out of bed and gather all the clothing that was tossed around his room last night. He smoothes out Ilya’s clothes and folds them on the bed. Then, he thinks about how gross he would feel, walking around in last night’s clothes, and gets out some of his own for Ilya to borrow—just, like, if he wants to. Shane won’t pressure him at all. He doesn’t own anything nearly as flashy as the stuff Ilya wore to his house, so he just lays out a black tee shirt and jeans and hopes Ilya won’t take one look at his clothes and scoff at how uncool and basic Shane is. Hopefully, by now, Ilya knows how uncool and basic Shane is, and likes it at least a little.

“Um, I didn’t know if you wanted to wear the same clothes as yesterday, so I put out some of mine to borrow,” Shane says, basically as soon as Ilya walks back into the bedroom, towel slung unbelievably low around his hips. “You don’t have to wear any of it, though, if you don’t want—”

Ilya kisses him, tasting like Shane’s toothpaste. “Thank you, Shane.”

Shane staggers into the bathroom, and does his whole routine on autopilot, cleaning himself thoroughly everywhere. The day could involve anything, but Shane assumes it will involve a lot of sex. He wants to be prepared for that. He has a sudden, distracting thought, or maybe a fantasy, of spending the whole day just, like, ready for Ilya to use him whenever he wants. Maybe Ilya wouldn’t even want him to wear clothes. Maybe just Ilya would wear clothes, and then when he demanded it, Shane would drop to his knees or brace himself against the wall and Ilya would unbutton his pants and Shane would do what he said, give him whatever he wanted. That seems like a pretty fun way to spend a Saturday.

It takes Shane a long time to come out of the shower after letting himself think about that for a while. Long enough that he finds the bedroom unoccupied, and he gets dressed and wanders into the kitchen to find Ilya cooking something on Shane’s tiny range. Ilya looks up as Shane pads into the room. He’s wearing Shane’s black shirt and his jeans, and it makes that happy-painful thing flare in Shane’s chest again to see it.

“Shane, you have no food in your house,” Ilya scoffs. As Shane approaches, he can see the thing in the pan is scrambled eggs. “All you eat is eggs?”

“No, um. How old are those eggs?” Shane does not remember buying them.

“Is just eggs. Will be fine. You don’t cook? What do you eat?”

“Normally, I just get something from the convenience store. Or at the train station after work.”

Ilya makes a disapproving noise. “No, Shane, this will not do. You will get fat.”

Shane feels an immediate jolt of anxiety. “Oh, you don’t like that?” he says, and feels suddenly very prepared to change his habits under Ilya’s say-so. That impulse feels like something he should probably examine later, but he is presently distracted by Ilya swooping up around him and taking two big handfuls of his ass.

“Mmm, I like this part fat.”

Despite what this does to him pretty much immediately, Ilya is intent on finishing the eggs and serving them to Shane. They sit at his tiny kitchen table and dig in, Ilya much more cavalierly than Shane, who is still trying to remember what month he purchased them.

“So, where will we go today?” Ilya says, after they’ve washed and set out the dishes to dry. Shane, buzzing happily from the unexpected domesticity of crowding in with Ilya in his kitchen and doing chores together, looks at him blankly. He’s been expecting Ilya to tell Shane what he wanted him to do, if anything. He just jerked off to it for, like, twenty minutes in the shower.

“Oh, I don’t know?” Shane says, flat-footed.

“Well, you asked me on this date, so you come up with plan for us.”

Ilya sounds like he could be annoyed, or he could be playing at being annoyed but really is joking around with Shane. Shane really can’t tell the difference. He decides to just be honest.

“I thought you just meant, like, having sex? I didn’t know you meant an actual date.”

Ilya looks briefly upset, to Shane’s surprise. He doesn’t think he’s said anything weird or bad, but Shane’s been wrong before.

“Yes, I mean actual date outside somewhere. What, you don’t want to be seen with me?”

“Oh. Shit. No, uh, I do. I really do.” Shane can feel the threat of tears again, and clears his throat. “I haven’t been anywhere in Tokyo on a date before. I don’t really know where to go.”

Ilya, standing beside Shane at the narrow countertop, leans over and pats Shane’s cheek.

“You are smart man, Shane. You will figure something out.”

Shane wonders if Ilya would think of him as too much of a horny freak if he sucked Ilya’s dick right here before they left the apartment. It might help clear Shane’s mind a little, actually, give him some ideas. He wants to ask. He also wants to ask whether Ilya thinks they will have sex later, too, after the date, because Shane really wants that, but he’s a little in his head now, a little worried about that face Ilya made before. He doesn’t want to come off as preoccupied by sex, even though he definitely is. He’s finally having it, after all, and it’s amazing. But Shane is concerned he’s somehow hurt Ilya’s feelings, like maybe he implied that’s all Ilya’s good for. That is definitely not the case. It’s just, well, unbelievable that someone who looks like Ilya, someone who is actually paid to look that good professionally, wants to spend his whole day wandering around Tokyo with Shane.

Fuck, Shane wants to do a good job at this. He feels like he’s been given a precious opportunity, something that might only happen once in his lifetime. Maybe, if the date goes really well, Ilya will come back to his place again, afterwards, and blow his back out. Fuck, maybe he will even let Shane try eating his ass. That is incentive enough.

“Okay,” Shane says. “Do you want to go?”

“Yes, Shane, I do,” Ilya says, smiling, and follows him out.

As soon as they are out the door, Shane gets nervous. He really doesn’t know anywhere to go in Tokyo. His days, so far, have consisted of going to work in Shinjuku, coming home to Ochanomizu, and occasionally being forced to go out drinking in one of those two locations. He’s sure there are, like, places you go on dates. Maybe a park? There’s a big one in Harajuku and another in Ueno. Would Ilya want to walk around a park? Would Shane? Shane isn’t a big, like, walker. He likes to have a destination.

What does Shane like to do? Where does he like to go? Has he really been here for half a year and still has nothing to show for it? Jesus Christ, he’s so boring. He was boring in college, but he was also busy in college, with hockey.

Huh, okay.

“Have you been to Tokyo Dome?” Shane says, as they are stepping onto the train. “It’s nearby.”

Ilya shrugs. “I did campaign for Tokyo Dome before, so I have been, but was just to see myself on giant poster.” He grins. “Did you see it? You would have liked it very much. I wore very tiny shorts.”

Shane does think that sounds like something he would like, especially blown up onto a giant billboard. “No. Just the Asahi ad.”

Ilya’s grin spreads further. “If you like, I can get you signed copy. For my biggest fan.”

“Fuck off,” Shane says, smiling too.

Tokyo Dome is a giant sprawling complex, more of an amusement park than an arena. Shane has not been on the roller coaster or the ferris wheel, or to the hot springs, or most of the things inside the Big Egg. He comes here sometimes, on his day off, on days when he can hold a stick in his hand and not feel the same cold, nauseous slide of panic and misery down his spine that he felt every time he stepped into the locker room toward the end of his tenure on his college team.

He’s pretty sure he’ll be fine today, though. He feels buoyant, almost euphoric, approaching the arena with Ilya. Being with Ilya feels like a warm, protective barrier around Shane’s bad feelings, normally always on the verge of taking over his mood. Too many good things have happened to him in the last twenty-four hours—Ilya fucking him last night, and getting off together again this morning, and eating possibly rancid but probably fine eggs that Ilya cooked for him—for his mood to be brought down by all of the things that normally affect him, such as, well. Such as every possible negative hypothetical that has ever happened to him or could ever happen. Shane actually thinks they are going to have fun.

“You like baseball?” Ilya says. They are at the ticket counter, where Shane is paying, and feeling a little thrill at pushing Ilya’s wallet back down toward his pocket when Ilya tries to preemptively pull out another 10,000 yen bill.

“No, not really,” Shane says. “There’s a hockey rink in the basement. That’s what I come here for, sometimes.”

“Ah. Hockey,” is all Ilya says.

The hockey rink is actually more of a general purpose ice skating rink, but they shuffle the figure skaters and total newbies off the ice for a couple of hours every day for dedicated stick time. They are a little early for the hockey period of the day, which is good, because Shane knows he would get anxious to get all their gear on and make the most of the time if it was already underway. You can rent absolutely everything at the rink, down to the base layer, and Shane coughs up the hefty rental fee for both of them since this was his idea. They deposit their things in the provided lockers and shuffle into the locker room to get changed.

Shane does have a thought, watching Ilya gear up, staring maybe a little too long at his bare, bulging chest before his under-armor gets pulled over it. What if Ilya hates this? This probably isn’t anyone’s idea of a good first date except for Shane. It’s probably a bad first date even for Shane, because what if Ilya has never skated before? What if Shane paid all this money and then has to watch Ilya wobble unsteadily around the ice like a baby deer taking its first steps, and it’s awful and he wishes they had never done it at all? That’s probably something he should have thought of earlier. They are pretty committed to Shane’s bad idea now.

But as soon as they get on the ice, after the polite overhead announcement that dedicated hockey hours have begun, Shane can tell Ilya knows how to skate. He floats easily across the rink, stick in hand, hefting the rented bucket of pucks to the center of the blue line.

“You’ve played hockey before,” he says to Ilya, feeling almost out of body with relief.

“I am Russian. Of course I have played.”

But that can’t just be it. As soon as they are actually moving, Shane realizes Ilya really knows what he’s doing. He must have actually played before, maybe as long as Shane, because he can keep up with him. He knows how to pass, how to shoot, can target all four corners of the net and land the puck with impressive accuracy. It is, unsurprisingly, extremely hot to Shane, maybe even more so because he had been so worried Ilya would be bad that the reality that he’s actually really, really good is that much more of a shock. Ilya looks so good floating on the ice, glaring right at the point in the net he wants to hit, moving his whole body to that one end, then grinning at Shane with his shark smile when he nails it. Shane spends the last thirty minutes of stick time harboring an uncomfortable erection inside his gear.

After they return all of their rented equipment, they use the showers in the locker room, which are unfortunately not the long open row type that Shane is used to from back home, but rather nice, individual stalls, for privacy. Actually, it is very fortunate that they are single stalls, because Shane knows himself, and knows that he would have a hard time ignoring the temptation of ogling Ilya in the group showers. The thought of it alone is so close to practically every adolescent fantasy Shane ever had that he does end up frantically tugging his dick in his single shower stall, just so he can towel off and leave without having a giant erection getting in his way. There’s no way he could have managed showering next to Ilya in public without doing something to get himself and Ilya banned for life from the Tokyo Dome sports facilities.

Ilya eyeballs him at their lockers like he can see the last ten minutes of Shane’s life projected on his forehead, grinning maniacally.

“What?” Shane says, and it comes out huffy and breathless, which makes Ilya grin even wider.

“Nothing. You are very flushed.” Ilya waggles his eyebrows.

“It was the workout.”

“Yes. Workout that you do in the shower after you see me in hockey gear,” Ilya laughs.

“I, um.”

“Want to know what I did, in the shower?”

Shane can immediately imagine several things Ilya might have done in the shower, helpfully informed by the night before.

“What did you do?” Shane says quietly, adjusting himself.

“Let’s see.” Ilya makes a big show of thinking about it, caressing his nonexistent beard with his fingers. “That’s right. I washed my hair.”

“Oh my god,” Shane says, huffing out a laugh.

“Why? What did you think I was going to say?”

They are alone in their little row of lockers, and Shane wants Ilya to kiss him. He gazes up at him from his position sitting on the bench. Ilya, shrugging his shirt back on over his head, notices his look and shakes his head.

“No fair. You cannot look at me like this in public.”

Shane can’t help it. Ilya’s blue eyes are hot on him, his smirk lighting up the length of Shane’s spine and sparking along the back of his neck. Shane tugs his bottom lip between his teeth, telepathically projecting kiss me, kiss me, kiss me at Ilya.

Ilya mutters something in Russian, gaze fixed on Shane’s mouth. He sidles up between Shane’s legs, looming above him, and bends down just enough to kiss him, just like Shane wanted.

“You will get me in trouble,” he says, pulling quickly away.

Shane is so happy that he feels like he might go crazy about it.

They end up at a coffee shop outside of Tokyo Dome, overlooking Korakuen station. Every few minutes, a car swoops up the hill of the roller coaster outside the window where they are sitting, and they’re treated to the screams of people flying by. Ilya digs into the parfait sundae he ordered with gusto, and manages to feed Shane a few bites of it, even though that much sugar and milk doesn’t really agree with him. It’s just far too easy for Ilya to get Shane to do anything. It doesn’t really take that much convincing.

“So, you’ve played hockey, right?” Shane says eventually, because he can’t stop thinking about it, Ilya’s elegant form on the ice, his accuracy taking shots, his speed. “You are really good.”

Ilya shrugs. “Yes, I played. Not for very long. Was never serious thing for me.”

Something about the way he says it, or the way his gaze slides off toward the window, like he’s suddenly become very interested in the stupid roller coaster whizzing by them every thirty seconds, makes Shane think that maybe it was a little more serious than Ilya is pretending.

“When did you stop?” he says.

“Long time ago.” Ilya shoves a heaping spoonful of ice cream into his mouth. “Twelve.”

“What made you quit?”

“So nosy, Shane.” He stirs his spoon around the melted slush at the bottom of his glass, and the rattle of the metal against the cup keeps either of them from saying anything for a little while. Finally, he says, “Death in the family.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“And?” Ilya looks him up and down in open assessment. “What about you? You are also very good, so. Did you play?”

“Yeah, I did. I played in, um, college.”

“And? Then you decide to get very boring job in Japan instead of play hockey?”

Shane has been having a really wonderful day, so far, with Ilya. This is the first real date he’s ever been on with someone he’s very, very attracted to, and it’s basically been perfect since he woke up to Ilya’s gorgeous face next to him in bed. He decides, in that moment, that he doesn’t want to ruin it by telling Ilya his sad loser life story. He’s not proud of himself for quitting hockey, and he’s not proud of his reasons. And for some reason, he’s got the attention of this extremely beautiful man, solely radiating on him, and he would like to keep it that way for as long as he can manage. He’s still trying to project a maybe unsustainable aura of coolness around Ilya, after all.

“I decided I didn’t want to keep going with it,” Shane says, which is kind of the truth. Some of it, at least. “I wanted to make a change.”

“Ah,” Ilya says.

Ilya pays for their drinks and the ice cream, and pushes Shane up against the wall of the elevator as they ride it down to the ground floor, gives him one-and-a-half floors worth of a fucking amazing kiss.

“Anywhere else you want to go?” Ilya says against his mouth. “Because I would like to take you back to your house and fuck you.”

Shane agrees, stammering out something like yes, please, and stumbles out of the elevator doors like that baby deer using his legs for the first time in his life.

Ilya insists on a detour on the way home to buy groceries. Shane wonders if this is some kind of foreplay thing, telling Shane very plainly that he wants to fuck and then making them run errands while the after-effects of that declaration radiate through Shane’s body. Ilya leads them down the aisles and keeps looking to Shane before he throws anything into their little shopping cart, but Shane barely registers any of it. He feels like a horny zombie, staggering around with all of the blood in his body pooling in his crotch.

“You like this? Will be good, I think,” Ilya says, holding a package of shiitake mushrooms. Shane notices this abruptly, feeling like he’s just come to in the middle of the produce section.

“Sure, yeah,” Shane says. He’s never cooked shiitake mushrooms in his life, and Ilya could be shopping for anything right now. Shane hasn’t been paying attention to the plan at all; he has no idea what’s for dinner. Shane will say whatever it takes to get them out of the store as quickly as possible.

By the time they are back at his place, Shane is so keyed-up and turned on that he’s vibrating with it, and he fumbles the key a few times before it lands in the lock. Ilya grins at him like he knows exactly what’s going on, and Shane flushes and mumbles, “Shut up,” and then they are stepping into his apartment and Shane is on his knees right there behind the door, sinking his face into the rough fabric of Ilya’s jeans—his jeans, on Ilya’s body—and mouthing at the outline of Ilya’s cock through them, moaning a little.

“Fuck,” Ilya says, and drops the bags full of whatever-the-fuck to the floor, and sinks his fingers into Shane’s hair and digs them into his scalp.

Shane gets him off right there in the entryway, doesn’t let Ilya step inside and take off his shoes or load the refrigerator or even go take a shower first. Shane grabs fistfuls of denim, in fact, to hold Ilya in place so he won’t go anywhere. Shane doesn’t mind that Ilya isn’t squeaky clean, doesn’t mind the way he tastes or how he smells or any of it. Thinks he might like it, in fact, that he can taste Ilya’s sweat and that he smells more strongly of himself than he did last night after he showered. Ilya seems into it too, the way he holds Shane’s head and cradles his jaw and makes breathy, appreciative noises when Shane starts enthusiastically sucking his cock.

Maybe that makes Shane gross, or a freak, or something, but he doesn’t care. Maybe all of that stuff, what’s gross or freaky or not, is all relative. Maybe Shane doesn’t need to be so ashamed of all of his wants and desires, when it seems like Ilya thinks they’re hot, too. Thinks Shane is hot, wants to spend time with him, and cook dinner with him, and fuck him. Maybe Shane has been a little unfair to himself all this time. Maybe he’s unfairly come to believe all of the things his teammates said about him were true. Maybe he should stop caring so much what a bunch of assholes had to say about it, anyway. It’s a strange revelation to have on his knees with Ilya’s dick in his mouth, but who knows why these things happen when they do.

In any case, by the time Ilya comes down his throat, and Shane stands back up with probably the hardest, angriest boner he’s ever had in his life, it feels like maybe something has unlocked inside of him. He feels a little more unburdened.

He follows Ilya dizzily into the kitchen to help put away the groceries, seeing most of them for the first time: cabbage, daikon radish, shrink-wrapped foam packages full of chopped chicken thighs. Tofu, fish balls. Shane is mystified until Ilya pulls out a plastic pouch of pre-made hot pot broth. Ilya blindly stuffs most of it into the refrigerator, then turns on Shane and crowds him against the countertop, runs a hand over his tented pants and kisses him filthily. Shane comes as soon as Ilya pulls his dick out, overstimulated from the entire afternoon. He pants into the slope of Ilya’s neck where it meets his shoulder, feeling like he just ran a marathon.

Ilya laughs, and they kiss, and then he tells Shane to shower while he gets dinner ready, which feels like a fantasy scenario Shane might have concocted in a dream: a beautiful man getting him off and then cooking for him right after.

They sit at Shane’s little dinner table and eat right out of the bubbling ceramic pot in which Ilya has arranged all of the ingredients and mixed up the ready-made broth. Shane didn’t even know his apartment came furnished with a hot pot set, but Ilya apparently found it when he was rummaging through Shane’s cabinets at breakfast. Ilya steals a fish ball off of Shane’s plate and grins at him while he eats it, cheeks ballooned like a chipmunk, and out of nowhere Shane feels so full of emotion that he’s afraid he’s going to cry.

I like you, he thinks. I like you so much. Are we anything? I know we barely know each other, but I like you so, so much already. I don’t think I’ll be okay if there’s nothing after this, because this feels like something real, and big, and I don’t know how to ask you.

Fuck.

Shane cleans up after dinner, and Ilya goes to shower, and comes back out with just a towel wrapped low around his hips, showing off the insane taper of muscles and dark patch of hair leading down to his dick. Shane’s eyes probably bug out like a cartoon, because Ilya laughs and comes up behind him, puts his hands firmly on Shane’s hips, and presses his crotch right up against Shane’s ass so he can feel that Ilya is hard beneath the towel. It is exactly the level of direct communication Shane thrives on.

Ilya is very gentle in bed with Shane, minding that he’s sore from the night before, which Shane doesn’t even have to tell him. He wouldn’t have, anyway, because he isn’t sure he wants it to be gentle until it’s happening, and then he decides it’s really nice like this, too. Ilya stays very deep inside of him, grinding his hips, thrusting shallowly and slowly. He puts his hand on Shane’s stomach, and Shane imagines maybe Ilya can feel himself from the outside, the outline of his cock where it’s making Shane so full and hot, and just thinking that gets him close. Ilya keeps him on his back so he can bend down to kiss him when he wants, so he can look him in the eyes, and it’s intense and intimate, the way Ilya keeps staring down at him, his pupils so wide and his lips parted and his face flushed. It’s too much for Shane’s heart to take, and he blurts something out before he even realizes it.

“Do you like me?”

Ilya stops immediately, going still and staring down at him. Shane can feel the flush deepen across his face and chest, and briefly wishes he could melt into the bed and disappear. Why the fuck did he say that? He’s ruined the entire vibe. Ilya is going to realize Shane is far too attached for the amount of time they’ve spent together. He is finally going to realize something is fundamentally wrong with Shane, just like Shane has always suspected. His life has been a series of events proving that yes, something is in fact the matter with him. The locker room, and the way his parents clearly felt about his move to Tokyo, and now Ilya, looking at him with open confusion and concern.

“Shane,” Ilya says, leaning down over him. He pushes Shane’s sweaty bangs away from his forehead. His lips curl up at just the edges. “I just spent entire day with you. You think I do this with people I don’t like?”

“Oh. Okay.” Shane takes a breath and lets it out. Then, because he realizes he hasn’t said it yet, “I like you a lot, Ilya. I really like you.”

Ilya’s smile goes huge across his face, a happy, jagged thing. “Good.”

“Oh thank god. I feel better,” Shane says, because it’s true. He feels warm all over, fuzzy, like he can feel everywhere his skin is touching the bedspread and Ilya’s body, and where Ilya’s connected to him, still throbbing inside of him. It feels so good, floaty and bright and strange. “I was worried you think I’m really weird or whatever.”

“Oh, I do,” Ilya says. “I think you’re very weird. You are maybe weirdest man I have ever met.” Ilya laughs at whatever mortified look is on Shane’s face. He bends down and kisses him, hot tongue sliding into his mouth. “And you have prettiest freckles and sweetest smile.” He pulls back, surveying Shane with intense focus. “And I like you, too.”

Shane can’t help the big, goofy smile on his face, but it doesn’t seem to matter, none of the dumb things he says or the stupid expressions he makes seem to matter. They just make Ilya kiss him again, and maybe laugh at him, but maybe it’s in a nice way. Like, yes, he’s weird, but Ilya seems to find him charming, or at least fascinating. And that’s awesome. And he says he likes Shane. That’s probably the best news Shane’s ever heard. He almost wants to say that out loud, but decides to quit while he’s ahead. He just reaches up for Ilya and Ilya bends down to meet him, and starts to fuck into him again while he kisses Shane deeply, hands touching everywhere. Shane comes gratefully, feeling so good, untouchable, invincible. Even better, if it’s possible, when Ilya shudders over him and comes, too.

It’s nice, Shane thinks, curling up into the sticky warmth of Ilya’s chest, for something to be finally going right for him.

Chapter End Notes

I lied, there is no hockey rink in the basement of the Tokyo Dome 😥 I just had to let Shane have this. Wish fulfillment!!

Thank you for the chapter 1 enthusiasm! I'm so glad you are enjoying the story. Again, comments and kudos always appreciated, I need them to live, you see. It's very sad. I love them so much.

Catch me on tumblr and on threads @sister_cacao if you're so inclined 😘

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

Shane’s life is soon filled with more sex and cuddling and kissing than he’s had in all twenty-one years to date. Ilya comes over a few times a week, and stays the night, and fucks Shane like it is his personal mission to see how many orgasms he can wring out of him in a single evening. On weekends, when Ilya doesn’t have a photoshoot or a casting call or some other modeling related business to attend to, they go on dates in the city. Shane has seen more of Tokyo in the last several weeks than he managed to in the first six months he was here. He has, for the first time, favorite restaurants and coffee shops and neighborhoods. They have favorite places to go—this revolving sushi bar in Ueno, a decent pasta place in Omotesandou—and just thinking about that is sometimes enough to send Shane to a sort of warm, melting, gooey happy place. Shane has—thinks he has, hopes he has—a boyfriend, for the first time ever.

Shane has not explicitly asked Ilya whether he is his boyfriend, but. Ilya is at his house all the time! They go on dates! They are not just hooking up. Shane is not a particularly socially aware guy, but he at least knows they are at a much more intimate and intense level than merely fuck buddies, or whatever. He doesn’t feel the need to define their relationship more directly than that right now, because Ilya is always here, and so Shane doesn’t really ever feel too self-conscious or worried this is all his imagination or something.

Something funny happens to the rest of Shane’s life, now that he has a beautiful man in it with a beautiful dick who is using it on him regularly. Everything else, even the things not directly touched by Ilya, feel better, too. He gets on the train for his morning commute and he swears the upholstery smells and feels like it’s been recently cleaned. He notices how lush and green the trees look on the street outside his office, how delicious the green tea that’s always stocked in the tiny kitchen tastes, how the guy at the 7-11 where he pays his cell phone and electricity bill is actually pretty friendly and smiles nicely at him when he shows up at his usual time. It’s like being in love casts the entire city of Tokyo in a rosy glow, makes everything about it chafe a little less than it did at first.

Maybe Shane is just getting used to living here. Or maybe it really is just Ilya. Ilya’s voice on the phone, Ilya’s messages in his pocket all the time, Ilya’s lips on his neck and his hand at the small of Shane’s back. Ilya’s sleepy morning smile and the glint of his eyes in the darkness as Shane drifts off. Ilya’s curls nestled against his chest, and his low, even breathing.

Whatever it is, Shane is enjoying himself, and he thinks other people notice, too. His work is going well. The success of the Mitsubishi contract is something he feels actual pride and accomplishment over. He talks to his coworkers more, now that the newbie shine has worn off him a little and they’ve laid off the general comments about his appearance and his height and his proficiency in Japanese. He lasts two Friday nights at the requisite nomikai before he breaks and tells them he’s seeing someone.

Another wonderful thing about Japan: it’s very easy to talk about the person Shane’s dating in Japanese without ever mentioning a gender or a pronoun. It doesn’t even really feel like he’s being deceitful, just careful.

His parents notice the change in his demeanor, too. He’s less defensive with them, because he’s actually enjoying living in Tokyo now, and doesn’t feel like he has to convince them and himself that he didn’t make a huge mistake coming here.

“You seem happier, honey,” his mom says, while his dad enthusiastically nods. “Did anything happen?”

A wild, courageous part of Shane almost tells them, right then and there. He can feel the words I’m gay on his lips, poised to escape. I’m gay and I’m in love and he is so great, really great.

But when he starts to say it, he clams up. What if they aren’t supportive? Shane wants to believe they would be, but, well, they were not all that supportive about his decision to move to Japan. They were not all that supportive of his decision to quit hockey. He doesn’t know if he could handle it, if he told them about himself, and he saw their faces calcify into those fake-happy smiles again, if he had to hear his mom say It’s okay to change your mind, knowing it meant we would like you to change your mind. It would be so much worse if they said it about something like who he is fundamentally as a person. It wouldn’t be something he thinks their relationship could ever recover from.

So he doesn’t say anything. But they ask if they can come visit in August, and he says okay, and he resolves to tell them when they are here in person. It will be easier to do, face to face, he tells himself. Maybe he’ll even tell them the whole story with hockey, once it’s all out in the open. Maybe, by then, things with Ilya will be serious enough that he could meet them, too. That thought makes Shane feel like he’s vibrating out of his body, and not entirely in a good way. It feels almost impossible, for his two worlds to collide like that. He doesn’t spend a lot of time picturing it too concretely as a result.

But, mostly, Shane’s life is the best it’s ever been. He’s in love, and he’s finally feeling like there are things in this city that mean something to him, that he isn’t just an awkward, temporary visitor. He’s doing well at work, and he cares enough about the work he’s doing, because he’s good at it. And it’s nice to know that he isn’t only good at one single thing in his life. That maybe he didn’t fuck everything up at twenty-one years old. That maybe everything after this might be even better than what he thought he could have.

They are in Shane’s bed on a Saturday afternoon. Ilya came straight from a photoshoot, this time for the upcoming fall season at Parco Department Store, his hair absolutely reeking of the hairspray keeping it aesthetically helmeted to his skull, and barely even breathed out a hi before he had Shane on the mattress, shaking through an orgasm Ilya fucked out of him with one foot planted on the floor, Ilya’s pants at his ankles. Shane still feels a little dizzy, a shower and lunch and a second, lazier round later, too kissed-out to talk that much, so they are both scrolling their phones and just existing side by side.

Shane is investigating the upcoming Japanese release of the latest Fast and the Furious movie, which is not Fast and the Furious in Japan, he’s learned, but instead called Wild Speed. It’s the fifth in the series, and he’s never watched any of the other ones before, so he’ll probably be lost the whole time. But Ilya mentioned he kind of likes these movies, and so Shane is scrolling through showtimes and imagining them sharing a horrifically expensive bucket of popcorn together while Vin Diesel or the Rock or whoever launches a car off a boat and onto a plane or whatever happens in these films.

Ilya chuckles at something on his phone, and it goes on long enough and he looks goofily amused enough that Shane watches him until Ilya notices and looks up.

“What?” Shane says, smiling a little too.

“Ah, is just Sveta,” Ilya says. He shows Shane a picture that Svetlana sent him of a table absolutely covered with bottles of alcohol and an ashtray filled with cigarettes. “She went out with some of the big important people from the agency last night, and she has a lot to say about it. Is very funny, but probably would not be so funny if I have to translate for you.”

Ilya sighs a little, like something about this makes him a little sad.

“What?”

"Sometimes, I think it would be so nice if I could speak to you in Russian. Sveta and Sasha are very funny. Much funnier in Russian. I am too,” he adds ruefully.

“You’re funny in English,” Shane insists.

Ilya nods gravely. “Yes, and in Russian I am even funnier than that. And only Sasha and Sveta know this. Is not fair to you, Shane. You would be even more impressed by me.”

Shane is not as jealous as he used to be about Sasha and Svetlana, now that he’s learned they are just Ilya’s friends from Russia. He’s not totally cured, of course, because he still hasn’t met them, or seen the dorm they all live in, even though he isn’t sure why that feels like a big deal. He has a nice, spacious apartment all to himself, after all. It’s not like he even really wants to sleep with Ilya in a tiny dorm bed, instead of the large and comfortable one here in his own house.

Maybe it only bothers him because it’s something Sasha and Svetlana know about Ilya that Shane still doesn’t. Maybe that’s why it makes him feel jealous. Maybe he’ll always be a tiny bit jealous, just because they are all so glamorous in a way that Shane will never be. But he does think back to his, frankly, insane thoughts when Ilya first sent Shane a picture of the three of them at the bar, and he finds himself laughing about it now, how worried he was that Ilya was sleeping with one or both of them. They’re just friends! Friends and roommates and coworkers.

“You know, when I first met you, I was so jealous that I convinced myself you were fucking Svetlana or Sasha,” he says to Ilya, in a ha ha, isn’t that hilarious? tone of voice. He figures it’s probably okay to admit he was a little jealous, now that it’s obvious Ilya doesn’t find him too terribly offputting. Ilya will probably find it funny. He’ll probably laugh, and say something like, Oh Shane, I cannot compete with your imagination.

But Ilya doesn’t do any of that. Instead, he shrugs one shoulder, a tiny movement that Shane immediately hones in on like it’s a ringing alarm, and nonchalantly says, “Oh yes, well. That, too, sometimes.”

Shane feels his heart drop down into his ass. “What?”

Ilya looks at him. “What? Sometimes we fuck. Is no big deal.”

Oh, I’m an idiot, Shane thinks, and his eyes drop to Ilya’s mouth, because it suddenly feels too overwhelming to look into Ilya’s eyes. It’s no big deal. No big deal at all: that Shane was too stupid to realize that yes, of course Ilya sleeps with his beautiful friends, and not just with Shane!

No, not too stupid, because that was his terrible hunch all along, right? He just really, really didn’t want it to be true, so he told himself it couldn’t be, and now he’s discovered, in the most humiliating way possible, that he was right: Ilya probably doesn’t feel as much for Shane as Shane does for him. Ilya may have been sleeping with other people the entire time that he’s also been casually rearranging Shane’s entire life around his amazing dick, and his sweet kisses, and his burning looks, like Shane is singularly fascinating, and commanding all of Ilya’s attention.

Was that all nothing? Does he go home and give Svetlana and Sasha those same looks, and kisses, and dick?

Oh fuck, now he has to ask. He has to know, even though it’s going to be so bad, to know for sure. Not knowing, though, would be unbearable, too. He’s going to be crushed either way, so he might as well find out right now and start setting his expectations accordingly. Shane doesn’t think he can bring himself to stop fucking Ilya, because the sex is just too transformative, and he’s too addicted to it, and he’s also pathetic. So he’ll just have to find a way to have the amazing sex that has changed his life without the feelings that have bubbled up as a result killing him.

Okay. Okay, that’s fine. Well, no, it’s not fine at all, but Shane can do this. He can ask.

“Have you done that since we started…?”

Ilya is looking at him, trying to catch Shane’s eyes. “Since we started what?”

He doesn’t sound like he’s teasing, but Shane is never totally sure Ilya isn’t teasing him. He can’t bring himself to directly look at Ilya to make sure. Shane can feel his lip trembling, and his eyes feel itchy and hot, which he’s going to hate himself for later. Crying over this would be so embarrassing. Crying over his own mismatched expectations, because he’s a sad, lovesick idiot.

“I don’t know, whatever this is.” This being the best month or so of Shane’s entire life. “Have you?”

Ilya’s hand goes to cup Shane’s face and turn it, so Shane has to look at him, into his lovely blue eyes, which are way too intense, too focused, like Shane knew they would be. It sucks. He’s so gorgeous and it sucks so badly.

“Shane. I am here all the time. You think I, what, come to your house, fuck you, take shower, go home, fuck my roommates, and then do it all over again?”

He sounds like he almost finds it funny, but Shane can picture that very clearly, exactly that. Ilya is describing Shane’s worst nightmare like it’s very silly, a crazy idea. Ilya’s lips are quirked into a little smirk, which is objectively hot, and making it hard for Shane to handle this conversation. He’s terrified and upset, and now kind of turned on, too, because apparently he’s a freak with no off button. Maybe that’s the kind of thing a therapist would work on with him, but Shane doesn’t have one, and isn’t going to get one. He’s just going to have to deal with this on his own, with half an erection and his heart beating out of his chest.

Shane summons all of his courage and asks a second time.

“Do you?”

Ilya snorts. “No.”

Shane stares at him. Ilya keeps talking, still smirking and searching Shane’s eyes, and touching Shane’s face with his warm hand, lightly stroking Shane’s cheek.

“No, Shane. I am not sleeping with them, and with you. I have not, with anyone, since we started our whatever this is.”

The relief washes over Shane in a great wave. No. No, I have not. Not with anyone. That’s what Ilya said. Okay, okay. Great. If his heart could just stop hammering now, that would be awesome.

Shane gently shifts out of Ilya’s grip, so he doesn’t have to keep looking at him in the eyes while he settles. He’s too overwhelmed right now for any more of Ilya’s searing eye contact and his infuriating, sexy smirks. Ilya said, Not with anyone. Shane feels a little like he just dodged an oncoming train, like he missed the closed crossing gate and almost ran head-first into a gruesome and incredibly embarrassing accident. Like Phew! Glad I didn’t just die. I really hope nobody else saw that.

Now that that’s over, maybe they can pretend this entire conversation never happened. Maybe Ilya didn’t notice that Shane was holding his breath, that tears were pricking his eyes the entire time he was waiting to hear whether Ilya was still sleeping with other people. Maybe Ilya didn’t notice how hard his heart was beating. Maybe Shane somehow managed to keep all of that contained, and remain outwardly cool and chill. Shane can’t really tell, being in the thick of it, but he thinks he managed not to actually cry, so. Hopefully, Ilya just lets him go back to scrolling Wild Speed showtimes and never, ever brings this up again.

“Okay,” Shane says, talking to the ceiling, in a tone he thinks sounds pretty casual. “Okay, cool. Thanks for telling me.”

He can feel Ilya looking at him, and Shane is pretty sure he’ll be able to look back at him, and be normal about it, in another minute. He just needs a second to shove everything back down, put all his enormous feelings back in their box, so Ilya doesn’t immediately realize Shane is desperately in love with him. Things can go back to how they have been, where Shane feels everything but doesn’t let it make things too weird, doesn’t scare Ilya off.

He thinks he’s doing a pretty good job, taking deep breaths, blinking up at the ceiling, until Ilya shifts on the bed, and climbs over Shane so he’s looming above him, with his giant arms caging Shane in, and kisses him. Which is actually a great idea, because now Shane can close his eyes, and he can focus on how nice it feels to kiss Ilya, and maybe that means Ilya is going to let Shane move on.

Ilya puts his tongue in Shane’s mouth, and he runs his hands through Shane’s hair, and down the back of his neck, and over his chest. Everything he does always feels so good, makes Shane feel good, makes him stop thinking in circles. Maybe they should have been kissing the whole time they’d been talking. No, Shane. No, I have not. Not with anyone.

Shane is just starting to really get into it, moving his hands up Ilya’s incredible arms and shoulders, playing with the curls at the nape of his neck, when it hits him. Not with anyone.

“Wait, you said anyone,” Shane says, pulling away, even though he has to break what is objectively a really hot kiss to do so.

Ilya nods.

“You really haven’t? Since?”

“No, Shane,” Ilya says, leaning down to kiss him again, but Shane—Shane!—stops him.

“Really?”

Ilya sighs, but it sounds fond. It sounds like the way Shane sighs to himself, sometimes, when he’s alone and thinking about Ilya. Not even, like, jerking off, just hanging out on his couch, and thinking about how much Shane likes him.

Ilya leans back and surveys Shane beneath him. They’re both in their underwear; there is a lot of both of them on display. Shane might feel self-conscious, given the emotional roller coaster he’s just been on, except Ilya is looking at him so warmly.

“Shane. You suck my dick like you expect gold medal ceremony at the end. You come just from me fucking you, which makes me feel like… I don’t know. Superman, but porn star version.”

Shane laughs a little. “A porn star version of Superman?”

“Yes. Like superhero but for my dick.”

Ilya runs his hands over Shane’s chest, palming his pecs, up his neck. He runs a thumb across Shane’s bottom lip, where it’s been kissed puffy and wet, and then along Shane’s cheekbones, under the line of his lashes.

“Then, you give me biggest, saddest bottom eyes I have ever seen—”

“Ugh.”

“—And you say, what, you think there is something I could be getting elsewhere that I am not getting here? I am not actually porn star Superman, Shane. I am just a man. I can barely keep up with you, you are so insatiable.”

Shane is definitely fucked up, because this is probably the most romantic thing he’s ever heard. And because his dick is really responding to the way Ilya says the word insatiable. And because Ilya is looking at him like he likes him so much, like Shane is really, actually special.

Shane is so relieved, and so happy, and all of that feels huge, expansive, spreading throughout his body until it seems impossible that he felt so small and weird and stupid a minute ago. Ilya doesn’t make him sound weird or stupid. He sounds powerful, the way Ilya describes him. Ilya makes Shane’s desire sound like a mountain to climb, an expectation he is challenging himself to meet.

Shane feels suddenly brave, imagining this. Brave enough to say, “I don’t want to sleep with anyone else. I don’t want either of us to sleep with anyone else. Just… just us, okay?”

Ilya’s eyes flash, and then he’s kissing Shane again, messily, holding Shane’s face in place with his hands the way Shane likes so much.

Ilya is a little breathless when he breaks away again.

“Okay,” he says, a little muffled against Shane’s lips. “Just us.”

“Just us,” Shane says, wrapping his legs around Ilya’s waist. He’s feeling a little bit like Superman himself, right now, like he could launch himself over Tokyo Tower if he tried. He feels bulletproof. His smile is so wide it feels a little crazy on his face.

Ilya laughs even as he pushes Shane further down on the mattress and slides over him, pressing up against him, all of their bare skin touching. Shane is suddenly very ready to go again. He bucks up against Ilya, just to see Ilya’s gaze on him go hot. Ilya is hard, and Shane touches him over his briefs, squeezes the hot outline of his dick, and it feels so good, Ilya pushing back into his hand, moaning against Shane’s mouth.

“Yeah, come on, Ilya.”

Ilya laughs. “See? This is what I mean. Insatiable.”

“Fuck,” Shane says, wondering if that word is going to be a thing for him now.

“Fuck,” he says again, after they’ve gotten each other naked and discovered that Ilya can sink right into him after their two earlier rounds—yeah, okay, maybe Ilya has a point with the insatiable thing.

“Look at you,” Ilya says, holding Shane’s legs wide, driving into him, sweat collecting on his forehead from how hard he’s working his hips. “You were such, ah, uptight little virgin before me.” He bends down to suck on Shane’s neck, teeth scraping Shane’s hot skin and going right to Shane’s dick. “Now you are so greedy. Just take and take.”

Something about this, about Ilya saying he’s made Shane this way, takes Shane over the edge, makes him shudder and flood his stomach and fist where he’s been touching himself.

“Oh god, fuck,” Ilya mumbles, and then he’s pulling out of Shane’s body, snapping the condom off his dick. He manages to get a hand around himself and then he’s coming, striping Shane’s chest, adding to the mess already pooling there.

Shane stares and stares. Ilya looks wild and impossibly beautiful, reared up between Shane’s splayed legs, squeezing out the last drops of cum with his fist, and peering down at Shane, looking winded and proud of himself, his chest heaving.

No one gets to see him like this, only Shane. That’s what Ilya said: It’s only been Shane, since they met. The rest of the world gets Ilya, airbrushed and too perfect, selling beer and moderately priced suits for salarymen and Yomiuri Giants merchandise at the Tokyo Dome. Only Shane gets to know what Ilya looks like, eyes dilated, pupils fat, mouth red and wet, cheeks flushed with exertion. Only Shane gets to see Ilya crawl over top of him and sprawl out, like the mess doesn’t matter to him at all, just to kiss Shane with that drunk, blissed-out smile on his face. That objectively feels like some kind of miracle. And Shane is the one that makes Ilya feel like Superman?

“Mm. You are okay?” Ilya says, peering at him.

“Yeah. Yeah, that was so hot,” Shane says, blinking hard, and thinks, I love you.

He wants to do this every day. He wants Ilya with him all the time. Maybe that does mean he’s greedy, and he wants too much, and it probably would be crazy to say any of it out loud to Ilya. He can keep it inside, still, for now.

It’s coming, though, the part where he spills his guts. Soon, probably, Shane knows he’s going to break and tell Ilya everything, because it feels like it’s about to burst out of him all the time, and he doesn’t think he’s going to be able to stop himself forever.

“So they’re bank robbers?”

“No, no, they are street racers.”

“But they robbed a bank.”

“Yes, now they rob banks.” Ilya waves his hand around. “I don’t know. This is new.”

“They didn’t really do any street racing, either.”

Ilya considers this. “You’re right. They did not. I will show you first movie sometime, if you want to see street racing.”

It is almost nine PM, and they are in Shinjuku, walking out of an evening showing of Wild Speed MEGA MAX. According to Ilya, the movies are actually called Afterburner, which doesn’t sound quite right to Shane, but they both agree that MEGA MAX just confuses them more.

Shane is still a little confused by the street-racing-into-bank-robbery-and-car-heists turn of the plot, but the promise of curling up with Ilya at home, later, and watching the first movie sounds very nice, worth being confused for. And anyway, Ilya slings a strong arm around his shoulders as they spill out into the hot night, and the plot of the movie doesn’t really matter at all in the face of that.

“Do you want to go somewhere? Still have time before last train.”

“Are you hungry?” Shane asks. They shared a massive bucket of caramel popcorn in the theater, and Shane is, if anything, a little nauseous from the sugar. Mostly, he wants Ilya to take him home, lay him out on the bed, and maybe edge him until he begs to be fucked with tears in his eyes.

This is also nice, though, walking around the city after a date. This is something he never really imagined having for himself. People do look at them, but it’s probably because Ilya is just really gorgeous and striking, radiating sexuality in all directions. It would be a surprise if no one looked. Anyone looking is probably just thinking, Oh look, a couple of foreign guys. And wow, that one is really hot.

“Hm. No, not really. We are close to Nichoume, though. Do you want to go?”

Shane hasn’t told Ilya that he hasn’t been to Shinjuku Nichoume yet. He hasn’t told him how afraid he’s been of being spotted on the street by a coworker in the middle of the gay district, and being unable to explain it away. Even though, if he was seen by a coworker in the gay district, that would mean they were also hanging around in Nichoume, for very likely the same reasons. That’s actually a point Shane has never considered before.

It also bears mentioning that Shane is on a date in Shinjuku with a man right now, a man who has his arm around Shane’s shoulders and is speaking very close to his ear. Shane hasn’t felt worried about it once all night.

“Yeah, sure. That sounds cool.”

Shane isn’t sure what he expected Nichoume to be like. He’s always imagined—hoped, maybe?—that any district known for being gay would have, like, hot guys in their underwear dancing on tables, pouring shots in people’s mouths. Nichoume is definitely not like that. It turns out, nothing all that debauched is going on in Tokyo’s gay district, unless it’s happening in secret.

They end up at a quiet bar called Gregory—maybe the proprietors think Gregory sounds like a particularly gay name?—and it isn’t all that different from Bar Sayuri, except that there are other people in the bar, other guys, and no one bats an eye when Ilya pulls Shane into a booth and slots him close up against Ilya’s body.

They do not start making out right there at the table or anything, because even the gayest part of Japan is still Japan, and they would probably have the cops called on them for excessive PDA. Still, it’s another milestone in Shane’s life, another dream coming true thanks to Ilya. Shane gets to cuddle with a beautiful man, that he really, really likes, out in public and not have it be a big deal at all.

Maybe that’s why Shane is feeling a little more cracked-open, a little more vulnerable than usual. Maybe it’s the three chu-hai’s that Ilya pushes into his hands in quick succession. But he starts to tell Ilya things that, until now, have been the exclusive domain of Shane’s own worried brain.

“I’m thinking about coming out to my parents.”

Ilya hums a little assent. “They don’t know about you?”

“No, they don’t know anything.”

“Would they be bad about it?”

Shane sighs. That is kind of the whole problem, isn’t it?

“Until, like, last year, I would have said they’d be fine about it.”

Shane can feel himself tense up, thinking about it now. Shane is so close against Ilya that he must feel it, too. He touches Shane’s neck, gently, running his fingers up and down. It’s like a magic trick. Shane feels melted, lulled. He leans a little further into Ilya’s side.

After a few moments, Ilya presses on. “Did something happen last year?”

“I quit hockey. I didn’t tell them why. I just said I wanted to take this job and move to Japan. They weren’t happy about it at all. It was really obvious they thought I was making a huge mistake.”

“You said same thing to me, when I asked you.”

Shane thinks about that date, their first date, sitting by the window next to the roller coaster. He hadn’t wanted to talk about it then, because it felt like a giant bummer, a black mark that would draw the color out of one of the most perfect days of his entire life. But it feels okay to tell Ilya now, here in the relative dark of the bar, Ilya’s hand on the back of his neck, making him feel safe.

“There was a lot more to it. I… I kind of was outed to my team in college.”

Not kind of. He was outed. When he says it, Shane can immediately picture the moment he knew his entire life was crashing down around him. Walking into the locker room, and seeing his teammates huddled around their cell phones, and then everyone’s head snapping up to stare at him. Even before he had figured out what had happened, Shane had known everything from there was going to get worse.

“I was, like, talking to this guy at my school? Online. We hadn’t met up or anything, but we had done some… stuff. Like sending each other pictures, or whatever. And I guess he was just fucking with me, or he got scared or something, because he sent all of it to some guys on my team.”

Shane has never figured out whether he was being catfished by someone on the team, or if the guy really was who he said he was and just decided, for his own reasons, to blow Shane’s life up. Shane never spoke to him again after that day, obviously, and after a while he decided that ruminating on nothing else but the guy’s possible reasons for doing what he did would drive Shane actually insane, and so he forced himself to stop. Maybe some part of him will be still wondering about it at eighty years old, but for his own sanity, he had to give up on getting those answers. The outcome was the same, either way: Shane’s life was irrevocably fucked up.

“After that, it got really hard to stay on the team. Like, everyone knew, obviously, and it was really shitty in my locker room, but then they told guys on other teams, too, and it sucked on the ice and it sucked off the ice, and I didn’t think I could do it anymore. Actually, I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. If no one wanted me there, it just wasn’t going to work.”

Ilya’s hand has stilled at the nape of his neck, encircling it, like he’s holding Shane in place. Shane leans into the warmth of Ilya’s palm.

“Shane…”

Ilya gives the back of his neck a little squeeze. Shane feels okay. He could never feel any worse than okay, being with Ilya like this. So he keeps going.

“And I couldn’t tell anyone, right? It was so fucking humiliating. I couldn’t tell my parents that it was happening without telling them why. And I thought about just sticking it out, anyway, but. I thought there was no way I was going to get drafted to any teams without them also finding out about it. I’m sure it was already starting to get around. I thought, no way was an MLH team going to stick their neck out for me. Best case scenario, I play in the AHL for a few seasons, but no one was going to want me in their locker room there, either.”

By then, Shane was so done with it all. He was tired. Hockey clearly didn’t want him if he was gay, no matter how good he was, and he couldn’t make himself not be gay. He had tried that his whole life, and what he had ended up with was a secret not-relationship that ruined everything, anyway. If he was going to get looked at with mistrust and revulsion every time he stepped into a locker room, it wasn’t worth it. Right? There had to be something else.

His college advisor—he hadn’t even known he’d had a college advisor—had asked him if he spoke any Japanese. Which, of course, was the kind of ambiguous comment Shane got all the time back home, because of how he looked, and because of his mom’s name. But this time, he’d actually answered. And it turned out his advisor was asking because she knew of a job in Tokyo that needed someone Canadian, with a degree in finance, who also spoke Japanese. It was like the position was designed exactly for Shane, like it had appeared in front of him at the exact moment Shane was reconsidering his entire life. He had sat right there in his advisor’s office and filled out the application that same day.

He hadn’t thought about it any more than that. About whether it was something he really wanted to do, about whether Tokyo was somewhere he would like. It was just this: different than hockey, and somewhere far away, where no one would know him, and where they definitely wouldn’t know him as the fucking queer on the team.

It wasn’t like Shane wanted to spend his entire life in Japan. He knew, even when he decided to take the job, that what he was mostly doing was trying to get away from a really terrible thing, rather than running toward something he really wanted. Working on business negotiations between Canada and Japan was fine, but it wasn’t hockey. Which clearly everyone knew, including his parents. Everyone knew that there was something else going on.

“So I quit. I didn’t even finish out my last season. And then I applied for the Canadian Board of Investment position in Tokyo, and I got it, and I told my parents I didn’t want to play hockey anymore, and they weren’t going to convince me otherwise. And that was it.”

Shane blows out his breath. He feels a little like he’s run a marathon, saying all of that in one long monologue. He’s not used to talking so much all at once, even with Ilya, who he talks to more than anyone.

“You’re the only person I’ve told any of this,” he says, finally.

After that, they are just quiet at the table. Maybe with anyone else, it would be excruciating, but Ilya never talks just to fill the silence, and he never makes Shane feel weird, or bad, for not talking either. He makes it feel like it’s okay for Shane to just be quiet when he doesn’t want to talk. It’s another thing about Ilya that Shane, well, loves.

So they are quiet, for a while. Shane’s glass sweats a little wet ring onto its napkin, and Ilya’s beer fizzes, and Shane watches bubbles form at the bottom of the glass and rise in little pillars to the top. Ilya squeezes softly into the hot skin at the back of Shane’s neck, and his other hand finds Shane’s knee under the table and holds him there, too.

Surprisingly, Shane does not feel as horrible as he thought he might after recounting the whole experience out loud. He feels a little lighter, instead. A little unburdened. And sure, he knew Ilya probably wouldn’t run screaming for the hills if he heard this story. Intellectually, Shane knew that. But still, it’s nice that Ilya is still right here, that his hand has not moved from its place on the back of Shane’s neck, that in fact Ilya is holding him even firmer, more securely, like he wants Shane to know that he’s got him.

Ilya says, “I quit hockey because my mother died.”

Shane curls his hand around Ilya’s where it rests on his knee. He slips his fingers in between Ilya’s, and Ilya lets him, rubbing his thumb along the back of Shane’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” Shane says.

“My mother is the one who came to my games. My father was never interested in hockey, except to make sure I did not embarrass him by being bad at it. When she died, I just didn’t want to go on the ice anymore. First time I went back was with you.”

“Oh. I didn’t know,” Shane says. “I just thought it would be fun to play together. I—”

Ilya squeezes his neck. “Don’t say ‘I’m sorry’ for this. If I didn’t want to play hockey with you, I would have said no. It was fun, to play together. I forgot how much fun it was, until then. So thank you.”

Shane wonders if being there had made Ilya think about his mom. Obviously, right? It seems like it would be impossible not to. He remembers Ilya saying death in the family, when Shane asked why he stopped playing. He must have been thinking about her then.

But Ilya told Shane not to say I’m sorry, so Shane doesn’t. He just tightens his grip on Ilya’s hand.

“It was fun,” Shane says. “It was the most fun I had playing hockey since everything, too.”

“Do you regret giving it up?” Ilya asks.

“I don’t regret coming here,” Shane says, watching Ilya’s lovely profile. He knows that isn’t exactly the same thing Ilya asked, but maybe it’s the part he knows for sure. If he hadn’t given hockey up, he wouldn’t have come to Japan. If he hadn’t come to Japan…

“I wouldn’t have met you, if I hadn’t come here.”

Ilya smiles a little. “Is a good line, Shane.”

“I mean it.”

He wants to add, You’re the best thing to ever happen to me, but he doesn’t. Shane’s gotten much braver, since meeting Ilya, but he’s still afraid of telling Ilya just how deeply he feels for him. He’s afraid that if Ilya sees how bright and huge, how molten-hot Shane’s feelings are, Ilya is going to find it too much for him. Shane is afraid, himself, that they’re too much. It stands to reason that the object of his want would feel even more freaked out by it.

“I’m glad you came here, too,” Ilya says, and Shane has to kiss him. It has to be short, and much more chaste than the kind of kissing they normally do, but it’s still incredible, to get to do it just because he wants to, right out in the open.

“Let’s go,” Shane says.

They settle their tab, and head outside. Ilya puts his arm around Shane’s shoulders again, and leads him down the street. Shinjuku is lit up like a carnival, too bright, too blinding against the grey smear of the night sky. Tokyo, at times, feels to Shane like an infinite circuit board, too much flashing signage and noise, an overstimulating traffic jam that never ends, so huge and so claustrophobic at the same time. But tonight, it’s beautiful, because Ilya is here, and Shane is in love. The lights play across Ilya’s face, kaleidoscoping in his eyes, spark and bloom and fade like fireworks. Shane could look at him forever like this.

“We are close to my place,” Ilya says as they walk. “I will show you.”

Ilya’s dorm is shockingly close to Shane’s office, it turns out, just a few streets down. Shane is struck by the idea that he might have happened upon it any day, if he had decided to take a walk around the area during his lunch break, or in the evening instead of going straight home. That they have been so close to each other all this time, even back when Ilya was just the beautiful face on the train, and Shane was a lonely, self-loathing basket case.

Maybe they have crossed paths without knowing it, one station platform away from each other, one stop, one street, one crossing sign. Maybe Shane was looking down, or distracted, or Ilya was chatting on the phone, or talking to his friends. Maybe they have just missed one another, again and again, until finally, inevitably, they ended up on the train together.

Maybe it was always supposed to happen. They were always meant to meet. Shane was always meant to fall in love with Ilya.

Ilya’s dorm is easily missed, a faceless, characterless apartment building on a street of many. Shane’s not sure what he expected. Maybe deep down he thought wherever Ilya lived had to be as glamorous as he is. Or that it would advertise itself somehow, the way host bars have a bunch of headshots of pretty men and women you can pay to drink with right out in front.

“Is really nothing special. Small on the inside, too. But,” Ilya says, with a drawn-out sigh, “I can take you upstairs, if you want.”

Of course Shane wants.

Ilya’s apartment is three floors up, and there’s no elevator, so they trudge up the stairs, and then Shane follows Ilya down the walkway to one of the apartments.

Ilya slips his key into the lock. “I do not hear Sveta or Sasha. Would be very loud, if they are home. Always like this, at all hours,” he says, and mimes a yapping mouth with his hand. “So we have place to ourselves, probably.”

As promised, the apartment is small, and narrow, and visibly older than Shane’s. One bedroom has been hastily converted into two with a barrier down the middle, and each side has just about enough space for a twin bed. Another flimsy wall splits the living room into a shared area and what passes, probably, for the third bedroom.

“Sasha and Sveta get those two,” Ilya says. “This one is mine.”

There are a lot of clothes slung over the back of the couch, and shoes piled in the genkan, and spilling out of racks behind the door. There is an array of complicated hair styling equipment strewn across a tiny coffee table, wires dangling off its edges. More clothes on the chairs in the kitchen, and on the table, and an open bag of makeup by the television. It’s a mess, and if Shane lived here, he’d definitely pull his hair out like an anxious parakeet, but something about the chaos and the messiness is strangely endearing, too. It’s like some of the varnish of Ilya’s perfection is being peeled back, ever so slightly, allowing Shane to really see inside for the first time. Like maybe Ilya wants Shane to really know him.

“It’s nice,” Shane says, and Ilya laughs.

“Shane, you do not have to lie. You would hate it here.”

“I mean, we’re not sleeping in that twin bed tonight,” Shane says matter-of-factly, and Ilya laughs again. “But it’s… homey.”

“Yes, yes,” Ilya says, like he thinks Shane is completely full of shit, but he wraps his arms around Shane anyway and pulls him close. His body is warm and sticky from the humidity outside, and Shane feels like melting into him, wants to feel Ilya’s sweat on his skin, wants to slide down his body like the beads of condensation on his glass. Ilya kisses him in the cluttered, tiny living room, slips his tongue inside, licks mercilessly into his mouth.

It’s enough to have Shane reconsidering the twin bed, since it’s right there, how bad can it really be? But Ilya pulls away, blue eyes sparkling, running a thumb along Shane’s lower lip and grinning at whatever tipsy, blissed-out expression is on Shane’s face.

“Let’s go back to your place, Shane.”

They lock up after themselves and head back to the station, passing people on their way out for the night and joining up with the tired throng going home after a Saturday at the office.

On the platform, waiting for the train, Ilya fusses with his shirt, smoothing out a wrinkle that is obvious only to him. He glances at Shane, and then away down the street.

“Are you disappointed?”

Shane looks at him, just catching the side of his face, yellowed and wan in the awful station lighting. “Disappointed? With what?”

“Maybe I am less exciting to you, now that you’ve seen my life is maybe not so glamorous as you think.”

“I don’t care about that,” Shane says, emphatically.

Ilya shrugs. “When we first met, you liked me because I am mysterious, sexy model.”

“Well, yeah, but I didn’t know you at all. You were just the hot guy on the train.”

“And now?” Ilya says. He still won’t look directly at Shane, picking at the hem of his shirt.

Shane considers, for the very first time, that Ilya might be nervous. Like he actually thinks Shane won’t want to keep seeing him now that he’s seen his tiny, cluttered apartment, like that is a factor in Shane’s choice to date Ilya, or anyone. If Shane was normal, he might find this kind of offensive, that Ilya thinks he might be so shallow. But Shane is instead filled with an aching, clenching happiness. Ilya cares about Shane’s opinion of him, maybe just as much as Shane cares about Ilya’s.

“Now, you’re real. You’re, like, amazing, Ilya. I don’t care about that stuff at all.”

Ilya turns to him, finally, a grin slowly working its way across his face. He reaches out and wraps his arm around Shane’s neck and pulls him close, into the warmth of his chest.

Shane wants to tell Ilya he loves him. He wants to tell him he’s never felt like this about anyone before, and he doesn’t think he’s capable of feeling like this about anyone else, after. That Ilya might be stuck with Shane for life, even if he changes his mind about him. Shane is going to be hung up on him, forever.

What he says is: “But you should tell Svetlana to put her stuff away.”

Ilya laughs. “She would kill me, and they would never find the body.”

They take the 22:14 Marunouchi Line train bound for Ikebukuro back to Shane’s apartment. Ilya’s smoldering, airbrushed gaze peers down at him from the beer ad over their heads. The real Ilya’s arm is slung around the back of Shane’s seat, his leg brushing right up against Shane’s. Shane can still taste Ilya in his mouth from the kiss in his dorm, the plush softness of his lips, the press of Ilya’s tongue down his throat.

Shane is dizzy with want, itchy from it, by the time they are finally home. Ilya’s hands roam over his body, touching him everywhere, pulling at his shirt, pawing at the fly of Shane’s jeans. Shane ends up pushed to the wall, Ilya’s hand shoved down the front of his pants, his mouth locked on Shane’s neck, his breath fanning out across Shane’s soaked skin and making him shiver.

“Shower?” Shane says, even as he thrusts up into Ilya’s hand. Ilya grins deviously and squeezes Shane’s dick, thumbing over the wet head. “Fuck, Ilya. Wait. Come on. Let’s take a shower first.”

Ilya groans, very dramatically, and slowly pulls his hand from Shane’s crotch. He grabs at Shane’s hips, turning him around, slapping his ass as he pushes him toward the bathroom.

“Fine, Shane. Let’s go.”

An idea foments in Shane’s mind, while they’re showering together. Ilya is trying his very hardest to turn it into sex right there, pulling Shane against him, Ilya’s big hands digging into his hips, so he can rub his hard dick against the cleft of Shane’s ass, kissing and licking along Shane’s neck, his shoulders.

“You know… we could… uh…”

“We could what,” Ilya says, tongue plunging into Shane’s ear. So many things Ilya does ought to be gross and instead are the hottest fucking thing Shane has ever experienced. Getting the inside of his ear licked, it turns out, is one of those things.

“Well, you said you didn’t sleep with anyone since me, right?”

“Yes.”

“And I haven’t slept with anyone either, since you.”

Ilya laughs against Shane’s neck. “Yes, ‘since me’.”

“Shut up. I’m just saying, if you used protection before that, maybe we… could… uh… do it without a condom.”

Ilya goes quiet and still behind him. Shane would normally immediately backtrack, say never mind, forget I said anything! and try to claw back the mood that he’d assumed he’d ruined. But, he thinks Ilya might be quiet in a good way, because he feels Ilya’s cock kick where it’s slotted between his cheeks, a second before Ilya groans, clamping his mouth on Shane’s shoulder.

“Fuck, Shane. I think you will kill me, someday. I have never done this before with anyone.”

“Oh. Do you want to?”

Ilya makes a choked noise and spins Shane around, crashing their mouths together, fumbling blindly to turn the water off. His wet cock slides stiffly against Shane’s, which feels so good, Shane could come from it if he lets himself go. He bears it, though, because he really, really wants Ilya inside of him. He wants to see if he can feel the difference. He wants to come trembling and clenching around Ilya’s bare cock and feel Ilya’s cum pumping up into him, filling him up. Wants all of that so badly that he is afraid he won’t be able to hide his disappointment if Ilya says no, that he doesn’t want to, that it’s a reckless, stupid idea.

But Ilya doesn’t say no, because he is perfect and possibly sent from heaven to grant all of Shane’s devious wishes. He says, growls really, “Do I want to fuck you raw, Shane? I do not want to do anything else ever again,” and drags Shane out to the bedroom.

“Get on the bed.”

Shane goes down onto the mattress, stomach trembling against the covers. Ilya covers him like a blanket, the weight of him pushing Shane down into the bed so nicely. Ilya kisses him everywhere his mouth can reach. Shane can feel hot sticky something dripping slowly onto the dip of his back. He reaches blindly back behind him, finds Ilya’s dick where it’s leaking all over him, closing his fist around it.

Ilya moans like he does when he’s very close. He wraps his own hand around Shane’s so he won’t start pumping.

“Wait, wait,” he huffs, laughing threadily into Shane’s hair. “I am maybe too excited. You need to be careful.”

Shane laughs, too, forehead pressed to the bed, feeling unbelievably powerful. Superman, but for his dick, or whatever Ilya said. He can’t believe he has this effect on Ilya. He can’t believe he ever felt bad about liking what he likes, wanting to be held down like this, and touched, and filled, just because some stupid fucking jocks bullied him about it. He can’t believe he was ever ashamed to want this. He’s so glad Ilya touched him on the train that day, and told him to get off at the next stop, and made it easier to follow him than to be afraid.

Oh shit, he’s crying again.

Ilya manages to retrieve the lube from the nightstand without separating too much from Shane, still plastered to his back as he slides wet fingers inside of him and works him open, petting Shane’s hair with his dry hand and mumbling Russian into Shane’s ear.

Shane can feel the difference immediately, even before Ilya is inside of him, just from the heat of Ilya’s dick pressing against him. No drag of latex against his ass, just the soft velvet slide of bare skin. He can feel Ilya leaking right up against his hole, and it’s so erotic that Shane briefly thinks he’s going to die from getting too horny. His breath catches and his heart hammers insanely in his chest, and he tries to bear down, to focus on relaxing for Ilya’s cock, even though he’s so fucking turned on and excited that he’s tense everywhere with humming anticipation, like he’s been run through with an electric current.

Ilya grips Shane’s hip, thumbs pressing into his back. His breathing sounds unsteady. His voice is almost unrecognizable when he says, “Okay?” and presses once more against Shane’s ass, his cock hot and insistent.

“Uh huh. It’s okay, it’s okay.”

The first slide in takes Shane’s breath away. Ilya’s cock goes in so easily, no friction at all, wet and slick. Shane can feel it throb inside of him, feel it tremble. It’s hard to describe, even if he had the words right now, even if he wasn’t feeling stupefied like he always does when Ilya fucks him. It’s just more. It’s everything Ilya always makes him feel, but more. Like Ilya is even closer, and hotter, and thicker, and touching him everywhere, really touching him for the first time.

“Oh my god,” he says, and hopes that says enough.

They don’t move for a while. Shane is pressed wonderfully into the mattress, his burning face against the cool sheets, and Ilya is holding himself still on top of him, except his twitching dick, stuttering inside Shane. Shane imagines Ilya’s cock leaking right into his ass, marking him, and moans, too gone to do anything else.

Ilya makes a weird, breathy noise behind him; Shane twists to see his face. Ilya is flushed red across his cheeks, and forehead, and down his neck and chest. His mouth is open, his perfect lips slack. He has his eyes tightly shut, the dark fan of his lashes splotchy and sticking together strangely.

“Are you crying?” Shane says, reaching for him, feeling so fond that it threatens to overtake him.

“No,” Ilya says, and sniffs, and it’s so stupid and obvious a lie that Shane feels himself tear up again, too. Ilya lets Shane cradle his hot face in his hand, turning into it, nuzzling Shane’s palm. “Fuck, Shane, you feel so good.”

“You feel so good, too.”

Ilya maneuvers them so he can be pushed all the way inside of Shane and kiss him at the same time, spreading Shane wide, slotted between his splayed legs. He fucks into him shallowly, moaning loudly into Shane’s mouth every time he thrusts himself in, and he looks so blown apart when they break away, so overwhelmed, that Shane thinks it must mean something. It has to be more than just how good this feels.

Shane feels it too. His chest feels too tight, his heart pressed right up against his rib cage, like it’s gotten too full, swelling up with this flood of emotion that has unlocked inside of him and is spreading out all along his body. Shane is sure he must look just as dazed and intoxicated as Ilya does. Every time Ilya’s lips leave his, he’s sure I love you is going to come flying out of his mouth. Maybe it does, and Ilya is just politely ignoring it. Shane isn’t too concretely aware of what he’s doing or saying right now.

Ilya mumbles into his mouth the whole time, mostly in Russian, which makes Shane jealous and turned on all at once, a combo that unfortunately works for him. He wants to know what Ilya is saying, in between occasional whimpers of English—you’re perfect, so fucking good, fuck, Shane—because he can’t shake the feeling that it’s more, the parts he’s keeping to himself, cheating out in a language Shane doesn’t speak. He wants to pry every thought out of Ilya’s head by force, shake them all out.

Do you feel like I feel? Do you love me, too? I love you so much that I feel insane.

And then Ilya finds Shane’s aching cock, and wraps tight fingers around it, and Shane isn’t thinking about anything but jerking up into his warm hand and coming for Ilya. Shane bucks into his fist once, twice, and he’s shuddering and spurting between Ilya’s fingers, his whole body tensing, helpless. Ilya buries his face in Shane’s neck with a long moan and comes, and Shane can feel it, each shudder and release, each squeeze of Ilya’s cum deep inside of him. He feels marked, branded. Physical evidence of how he belongs to Ilya.

They lie, panting, in a pile, Shane pulled close against Ilya. Ilya’s hand runs up and down Shane’s back, but sneakily keeps dipping between his legs, fingers fluttering over Shane’s exhausted hole, until Shane finally laughs and swats weakly at him.

“Ilya.”

“Nooo, Shane, let me see.”

Shane will always do whatever Ilya wants. He lets Ilya gently pry him apart, pillowing his head in his arms, so Ilya can’t see how flushed Shane is with embarrassment and weird pride at being thoroughly inspected. Ilya’s thumbs drag at his rim, keep him held open, and suddenly Shane feels the wet slide of Ilya’s tongue join them and it’s too much, he’s going to die from this, a lightning bolt is going to strike them both for this unbelievably hot and depraved idea, he’s sure of it.

“Ilya…”

“No, no, let me take care of you,” he says, then dips back down.

This does go right to Shane’s heart, unfortunately, and joins the general mess in there. This is just so much, Ilya’s mouth on him, licking him clean, and being so sweet to him. Shane is just too vulnerable, too blown-apart by the way Ilya felt inside of him. He has to know how Ilya feels, right now. He can’t breathe until he does.

“Are you my boyfriend? Are we together?”

Gently, Ilya pulls his fingers from Shane’s body. He slides back up to him, wrapping Shane up tightly in his arms, snaking one huge thigh over his legs. Ilya presses Shane’s face down into his chest and pets his hair, laughing a little.

“I just fucked you raw. What kind of question is this?”

Shane doesn’t exactly see how those two things are connected, except for how scooped-open, how exposed he feels, after letting Ilya fuck him like that. Shane can’t imagine doing that with anyone else. Ilya said basically the same thing, that he had never done it before, either. So maybe it’s not just a sex thing, a hookup thing. Maybe it’s a boyfriend thing. Maybe all of it has been, all along. Wild Speed MEGA MAX, and hockey dates at the Tokyo Dome, and getting groceries together, and spending every weekend and every free week night with each other. Maybe Shane has been overthinking everything, and he should just say how he feels, and stop being so afraid. Ilya has only ever seemed to be fascinated and very, very interested in him. Why is Shane so scared that Ilya is going to turn around and decide that Shane is suddenly too much?

“I love you,” Shane says. “Sorry if that’s too soon, or whatever. I love you. Do you want to be my boyfriend?”

And then Shane is being kissed, deeply, which he sinks into, opens wider for, even though he knows where Ilya’s mouth has just been. It’s okay, it’s all okay, when it’s Ilya, when it’s the two of them. He would do anything Ilya asked, let him do anything. Whatever Ilya wants, Shane will give him.

Ilya breaks away, and gazes down at him, and runs his thumbs along the flush on Shane’s cheeks.

“I love you, too, Shane. I do want to be your boyfriend. I mean, I have been thinking all this time that I already was.”

Shane can’t help the smile that spreads across his face, so wide that it hurts a little. “Really?”

Ilya makes an offended noise, jokingly indignant.

“You think I have so many secret lovers. Is flattering that you think I have the time, but. No. Is just you,” he says, with a kiss. “It has always only been you.”

“Good. I mean, me too. Obviously.”

“Yes, I know,” Ilya says, “You have been saving yourself for me like fair maiden in a tower.”

“Shut up,” Shane says, even though it’s kind of true.

“No, you love me. You don’t want me to shut up.”

“You’re right,” Shane laughs into Ilya’s mouth, the happiest he’s ever been. “I don’t.”

There is a really annoying sound buzzing over the dream Shane is trying to have. He only realizes it’s his phone, ringing and ringing on his nightstand, after a few minutes of mentally swatting away the little bug that is making all the noise in his dream. Ilya grunts and mumbles, “Shane, is your fucking phone,” at about the same time, not even opening his eyes.

Shane picks up his phone and looks at the caller ID, but it isn’t a number he has saved. Who would be calling him on a Sunday, anyway?

“Hello?” he says, yawning. Ilya puts his face back down into his pillow, satisfied.

“Shane?” his mom says.

That’s weird. His parents never call his Japanese phone, because it’s expensive. They always talk on Skype. Maybe something happened to their computer?

“Did you forget we were arriving today?”

Oh, fuck.

Shane did, in fact, forget that his parents were arriving today, because he has been so wrapped up in Ilya that it’s already somehow the middle of August. Shane hasn’t checked his email in days, because Ilya has been over at his house the whole time. And sure, Shane knew what day his parents were coming, he’s sure it’s in his calendar from when they booked the flight. But then he got the movie tickets, and that was the day that worked for him and Ilya, and he’d been excited about that, about their date, and he wasn’t really thinking about anything else. He wasn’t thinking about his calendar, or his emails, or calling his parents, or anything.

And now his parents are here, and he totally fucking forgot about it.

Shane feels very fucking awake now. He hauls himself upright, which requires pulling his limbs out from under Ilya, who is wrapped tightly around him, caging him in with his arms and legs, sticky and enveloping like a sexy octopus.

“Uh…” he says, trying to stall, because he doesn’t want to tell his mom he forgot, because that’s terrible. Unfortunately, it’s also the truth, and he’s a bad liar. “Sorry, I just woke up.”

His mom makes a noise into the phone like that’s a bit of a surprise to her. Shit, maybe that was the wrong thing to say. Maybe Shane overslept, and it’s late in the day, and he shouldn’t have said anything.

“Okay, honey, well, we just got to the hotel. We’re all checked in. Save this number, by the way! It’s our rental phone.”

“Shane?” Ilya mumbles. He looks so cute and sleepy, his eyes creaking the tiniest bit open. Shane is only human, and he can’t help looking, only half-listening to his mom.

“Uh, sure, I’ll save it right now.”

Shane looks around the room. Oh, fuck, his whole place is a mess. They are both naked, and the whole place looks and smells like they had wild, raunchy sex last night, because that is exactly what they did.

Ilya notices Shane looking him up and down, and grins, running his hand up Shane’s thigh. Shane’s naked thigh. Ilya is feeling him up while he’s on the phone with his fucking mom.

“Shane? Who is it?” Ilya says casually, his fingers digging in a little where he’s massaging very high up Shane’s thigh, in his deep and unmistakably masculine voice. He is alarmingly close to the receiver of Shane’s phone, where his mom might hear him.

Fuck, what if she already has? What if she’s looking at his dad right now, her eyes going wide, mouthing Shane is in bed with a man! at him in shock and horror?

Shane feels a cold jolt of adrenaline surge down his spine. He covers the phone with his hand and hisses, “Shh!” at Ilya, whose eyes go momentarily wide.

“Shane?” his mom says. “If you’re in the middle of something, we can—”

“No!” Shane says, much too quickly. Fuck, he must sound so suspicious. “I’m um. No. I’m just here at my place, alone.”

He can feel Ilya’s eyes on him, the hand on Shane’s leg still there, but frozen in place. Shane doesn’t look down at him, deciding instead to just stare out the window; the curtains are pulled wide open again. They were too wrapped up in everything last night to remember to close them.

I’m just at my place, alone. He’s so obvious. He’s so obviously lying, and panicking, and his mom is definitely going to notice, if she hasn’t already. If she hasn’t already heard Ilya’s voice in the background, and hasn’t already figured it out.

Fuck, he can’t believe this. He can’t believe this is happening again. He’s so fucking sloppy, so fucking bad at protecting this secret. How could he have forgotten they were coming today? It’s probably too late. Shane can’t help but imagine the way his teammates had looked, eyes wide as they all turned to look at him, the way he had just known then, in that moment, that they all knew about him. He can’t help but imagine his parents looking at him the same way, in open shock and disgust. Or disappointment, that he’s once again not living up to their expectations of him. First hockey, and now being gay. There isn’t a single thing he can fucking do right.

His mom says, “Oh, okay, well. Don’t go anywhere! We’ll take the train over, and then we can get lunch?”

“...Lunch?”

“It’s almost noon, honey,” his mom says.

“Jesus Christ.”

Shane briefly considers telling his mom no, even though he knows he can’t. He can’t tell his parents he doesn’t want to see them. He hasn’t seen them in months, and they’ve just traveled across the world to do exactly that. He doesn’t even have a good reason. He doesn’t have anything except the beginning of a panic attack crawling its way out of his chest.

“Okay,” he says. He takes a deep breath, and manages, “Yeah, sounds great. See you soon.”

He whirls at Ilya as soon as he hangs up. Ilya is still lounging in the bed, stretched out, looking a little curious about whoever Shane has been talking to, maybe a little wary. His big hand is still curled on Shane’s leg, his thumb rubbing a little pattern on the inside.

Even through his burgeoning panic, Shane thinks Ilya looks fucking amazing. For a moment, Shane is really, really disappointed that this isn’t going to turn into another one of their lazy Sunday mornings, Ilya practically naked while he cooks for them in Shane’s kitchen, and then jokingly demanding payment for his services, which Shane may deliver on his knees, right there on the kitchen floor.

God, it is insane for him to be thinking about that right now, when his parents are on their way. There really is something wrong with him. He needs to get it together.

Shane launches himself out of bed to retrieve some clothes. Pulling on his underwear, he turns back to Ilya, who is now sitting up and watching him.

“You have to go. That was my mom. My parents are on their way over right now, so you have to leave.”

Shane can tell immediately, from the way Ilya’s expression shutters, that he’s hurt Ilya’s feelings. Ilya does not, however, make any move to get out of bed. Shane says, a little more frantically, “Please.”

“I thought you were going to tell them,” Ilya says tightly, finally standing up. He starts shrugging his clothing from last night back on. Normally, Shane would offer him stuff to wear, but right now he just feels frozen, watching Ilya stiffly pull his jeans back on. All he can think about is how much time they reasonably have before his parents arrive. Maybe twenty minutes? They aren’t staying very far away. He remembers the email his mom sent, with the hotel reservation. Fuck, he’s so stupid.

And Shane didn’t exactly say he was going to tell them, did he? He said he was thinking about it. And that’s different, that’s a different thing. Planning to come out to his parents, preparing for it, coming up with a way to say it that doesn’t feel horrible, doesn’t make him want to immediately burst into flames. It is an entirely different thing to do it like this, just having his parents show up at his place with Ilya still here and the only bed in his fucking apartment a defiled mess. And then what? Just wave around the room and go, Hey mom, hey dad, here’s where I let my boyfriend fuck me raw last night! That’s why I forgot you were coming today, because I was busy having so much gay sex with my gay, male lover.

No. No fucking way. That would be totally insane. It makes him want to die, just thinking about it. It feels like the hockey stuff all over again, the pictures and the text messages getting sent around, all of it completely out of his control.

It’s impossible. It’s not something he can do. It just isn’t.

“I… don’t know, okay? But definitely not like this. They can’t find out this way.”

Ilya retrieves his shirt and pulls it over his head. His hair is wild, sticking up in weird directions, because Shane tugged on it like crazy last night. Shane is actually afraid to see what he himself looks like right now. He really needs Ilya to go, so he can spend some time making himself presentable, so his parents don’t immediately realize he’s an irredeemable sexual deviant.

Dressed, Ilya steps toward Shane, and Shane must look terrified, because Ilya stops, his mouth pressing flat.

“What way, Shane?”

“Jesus Christ, Ilya! Maybe by seeing a fucking man I’m fucking in my apartment! That way!”

Ilya takes a step back, like he’s been shoved.

“Man who you are in love with,” he says coldly. “Man who you asked to be your boyfriend last night.”

Shane can see Ilya is angry, and upset, and knows he’s fucked up, even as panic really starts to rise, prickling at the back of his neck, flooding his chest. He can see Ilya’s eyes are red, and he won’t meet Shane’s, instead glaring somewhere over his shoulder, out the window.

“Ilya…”

“I have never been told this, you know. People tell me I am sexy, I am good to fuck. And so I am stupid, I think. Because I make what you said mean too much.”

Shane feels like he might throw up. He can feel heat at the corners of his eyes, the lump in his throat that forms right as he’s about to cry. He feels like there is a truck hurtling toward him, and he knows there’s going to be a horrible crash, but he doesn’t know how to stop it. He doesn’t know how to stop making Ilya look so hurt, and defensive, instead of understanding him.

“Ilya, no, it’s not… I’m just…”

“I know what you are,” Ilya spits, and Shane’s mood is too heightened not to ignite quickly into anger.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Ilya says. “I am going home. Have a great fucking time with Hollanders.”

Ilya stomps out of the bedroom. Shane doesn’t follow him, and a few moments later, he hears the front door slam shut. He stands, chest rising and falling too fast, alone in his apartment again. Even though it’s what he wanted, all he feels, somehow, is worse.

Chapter End Notes

Sorry about injecting the tiniest bit of plot into the wish fulfillment 🥲

Thank you for your comments on the story so far! I'm glad to have you here on my nostalgia tour of early 2010s Tokyo.

You can always find me on tumblr @scacao-blog or on threads @sister_cacao.

Chapter 4

Chapter Notes

Sorry about that lil bitty baby angst, now watch me shamelessly grant all of Shane's wishes 😅

Shane’s parents pick a place near his apartment based on the artfully arranged dioramas of fake unagi bowls and tempura soba lined up in the window. Shane still feels like he might throw up, but he scours the options on the menu anyway, trying to act normally so his parents don’t catch on. He’s probably doing a terrible job. His eyes blur over the lunch set details, until he can’t really even read them. Every time he thinks he’s clawed back his stupid tears, he starts thinking again about how hurt Ilya had seemed, how he’d looked so wounded and sad, before his expression had hardened and he’d stormed out of Shane’s house.

Shane’s panic had settled enough by the time his parents had arrived that he’d already felt like shit about the fight with Ilya, about what he said. Would it have been so bad to just let Ilya stay? Yeah, probably. Fuck, Shane doesn’t know. Maybe it would have been better to just let the situation itself do the talking. Maybe Shane wouldn’t have had to say anything at all. That would probably have been excruciating, but so is sitting at this table with his parents while he feels like his heart is being squeezed in a vise. All Shane wants to do is call Ilya and apologize for hustling him out the door like a wayward husband hiding his mistress, and for forgetting his parents were coming, and maybe also for being a fucking freak who is too scared to tell them anything.

“—thing okay?” his mom says, and Shane realizes she’s been talking at him while he dissociates in front of the drink menu.

“I’m fine, Mom.” He clears his throat and decides to try to sound like a human being. “How was your flight?”

He lets his parents’ opinions on All Nippon Airways’ food and drink service wash over him for a while. The waiter comes and takes their order, though Shane is surprised by what ultimately arrives for him, because he hadn’t really been paying attention, just pointing at one of the lunch options and thinking about the downward cant of Ilya’s mouth when he said I know what you are.

Shane picks at his food while he answers his parents’ questions about Tokyo. The apartment is great. No, Mom, it’s not too hard to keep clean by myself. The weather is very hot. Yeah, much more humid than Ottawa this time of year, for sure. The job is going well. No, I’m not the youngest person in my office, there are lots of people my age. Yeah, Dad, finance is really fun.

While Shane talks, he concentrates very hard on plucking the food off his plate, putting it in his mouth, and chewing. Hopefully, he doesn’t give off the impression that he might puke. He knows he sounds like a robot, and he knows he’s probably doing the world’s worst impression of someone who woke up this morning and didn’t have a fight with their boyfriend that led to their boyfriend storming out the front door. Unfortunately, this is probably the best he can do while he replays the curl of upset around Ilya’s words over and over in his mind.

I’m stupid. I make what you said mean too much. Ilya said that like he didn’t believe Shane’s feelings for him anymore. Can Shane even blame him? He called Ilya the man he’s fucking! Ugh.

The food is probably good, because his parents look like they’re enjoying it, but Shane can’t really taste anything. He’s the one who feels stupid. Ilya is everything he’s ever wanted. He’s probably everything a lot of people would want. Ilya can probably go out and find someone who would tell their loved ones about him. Thinking about it now, that feels kind of like the bare minimum, actually. Someone who wouldn’t treat him like a shameful aspect of their own horrible secret.

He can tell his parents aren’t really buying that everything is fine. They keep giving him these little looks, and then looking at each other. He kind of wants to say something. Guys, knock it off, I can see you doing that. I don’t want to talk about it.

And that would probably be that, and Shane could get through this whole visit without telling them that he’s gay. Which… why is that the goal? Why is Shane trying to pretend he isn’t seeing them looking at him that way? They don’t look mad, or suspicious, not really. They just look worried. Because they care about him, and they can tell something is wrong, and it suddenly feels really shitty to Shane to keep lying to them.

And what’s the point? All of this, just so his parents won’t find out he’s gay? He is gay! He’s never not going to be gay! Is this really how he wants the rest of his life to go? Keeping this giant secret forever?

Of course not. Of course it isn’t. He wants his parents to know him. If he never tells them he’s gay, they never really will. And they won’t know he’s in love, and that the person he loves is Ilya, and that isn’t what Shane wants at all. He wants them to know Ilya, because Ilya is amazing, and Shane should have made him feel that way, instead of like someone he’s ashamed of.

Ilya doesn’t deserve that. He deserves someone who makes him feel as good as he makes Shane feel. Hopefully, he can still do that. He can start, right now, by doing the scary, and difficult, and right thing.

And sure, maybe he has a good reason to be scared, because Shane’s parents didn’t react the way they should have when he quit hockey. But he also didn’t totally give them the chance to, because he didn’t tell them the truth, because he was too afraid. And Shane’s not telling them the truth now, for the same reason. And that sucks. He’s made Ilya feel like shit as a result, and Shane feels like shit, too. And on top of all of that, he’s being kind of an asshole to his parents, because he’s acting like they are going to be monsters about it.

Maybe he just needs to accept that the perfect time and the perfect words are never going to come to him, and that he can’t control everything out of fear forever. Maybe it doesn’t matter if it comes out awkwardly, or unrehearsed, or if it happens at 12:30 PM in an unagi restaurant in Ochanomizu, as long as it happens.

His Dad takes a sip of soda and says, “So, Shane, we were thinking about checking out this temple in Asakusa this afternoon, if you want to go?”

Shane looks at his mom, and his dad, who are smiling and waiting for his answer.

“Um. Mom, Dad?” Shane says, forcing himself to look up at them and not down at his food. Maybe the worst, most anxious part of him does search their faces a little, trying to find something there other than love, and maybe some worry, but he doesn’t find anything. Because they’re his parents. He thinks, at the end of the day, they just want him to be okay.

Shane takes a deep breath. Fuck. Fuck, okay. Here goes.

“I’m gay.”

His parents take it pretty well, of course. Deep down, in the rational part of his mind, Shane knew they would, even being told out of the blue. There is a bit of awkward silence, and then a bit of them talking over each other, thanking Shane for telling them, reassuring him that they love him exactly the same. They seem surprised by the timing, but not exactly by the news, which is not something Shane wants to inspect too closely. He really thought he was getting away with hiding a huge secret from them for years, and it’s possible the secret was actually pretty fucking obvious and badly concealed the entire time.

The conversation gets around to hockey, of course, because his parents must connect the dots there in some way, or maybe they had their suspicions already. Shane ends up giving them a very abbreviated explanation of why he quit, without going into detail about the pictures or the exact words in the text messages. He doesn’t need his parents to know he sends sexts, ever, Jesus Christ. But he tells them that he was talking to a guy, and then his team found out, and then it got bad, so bad that it didn’t feel possible for him to play hockey anymore.

Strangely, this is the hardest part for him to admit, and some of that weird, probably misplaced shame still bubbles up when he speaks about it. His parents look so alarmed after he’s finished that Shane is momentarily terrified that their disgust is directed at him, for like, being so weak to quit just from a bit of (sustained, dangerous) hazing. But then his mom gets kind of choked up, and says in a wavering voice, “I’m so sorry that happened to you, Shane. I’m so sorry you didn’t think you could tell us,” and then everyone gets teary-eyed and overwhelmed and they quickly change the subject to Dad’s garden and Mom’s book club while they collect themselves. And it’s done, just like that.

Shane feels like something heavy has been lifted off of him. His parents finally know. They aren’t mad, not even about being kept in the dark. He’s spent so long being worried about what they would think of him, how his relationship with them might change if they knew. And now that they do, and none of his worst fears came true, he feels kind of pleasantly drained, like the stopper on a full bathtub has been pulled, all of this long-carried tension having flowed out of him. Shane feels like he could tell them anything now, maybe for the first time in his life.

“So,” his dad says, very delicately, “is there a special guy in your life?” Which makes Shane want to groan and, at the same time, hug his parents for being who they are.

“Um. Yeah. There is.”

“That’s great, Shane,” his dad says. His mom nods and says, “We want you to be happy.”

“I’m happy, Mom,” Shane says. “I really am.”

Shane tells his parents he has to go take care of something, and that they should enjoy the temple without him, and call him later if they aren’t too tired. He sees them off at the train, and then pulls out his phone. He doesn’t have any missed calls or messages from Ilya, which he probably should have expected, but it still twists in his stomach a little anyway.

Shane sits down at a bench in the park outside Ochanomizu station, and pulls out his phone. He’s not even really sure what he’s going to say yet, except maybe I’m sorry, and I told my parents I’m gay and a sinkhole didn’t open up and swallow me whole, so now I feel like even more of an asshole for freaking out this morning. Some version of that, anyway, Shane thinks, as he calls.

Ilya doesn’t pick up, which Shane probably should have anticipated. He considers not trying again, and leaving Ilya alone, and waiting for Ilya to reach out when he’s ready. That would be the cool and chill thing to do, definitely. That is to say, it would be the exact opposite of Shane, and the exact opposite of how he feels about Ilya, so instead he calls five more times until Ilya picks up.

“You are in hospital?” Ilya says, curtly. “Your house is on fire?”

“What? No. I, uh. What are you doing?”

Ilya huffs. “Well, Shane, I am trying to clear my head, but very persistent little bee keeps buzzing in my pocket.”

Shane laughs a little, despite how annoyed Ilya sounds. He thinks he can detect the slightest bit of humor in Ilya’s voice. Shane suspects that if Ilya really didn’t want to talk, he would have just turned off his phone. So maybe he’s not actually furious with Shane. Shane feels a little emboldened, as a result.

“Where are you?” Shane says.

“...I am in Ueno Park. I decided to go to the zoo. I think, maybe if I spend time with nervous little monkeys, I will understand my own nervous little monkey better.”

“Fuck off,” Shane says, feeling very soft at this. “Can I come there? I want to see you. And talk, if that’s okay.”

“If I say no, you will just keep calling and calling?”

Shane laughs. “Yeah, probably.”

“Then I guess I have no choice,” Ilya says, with a dramatic sigh, like he’s being incredibly put upon., but Shane thinks he might be joking. He kind of wants to ask, but maybe he should just quit while he’s ahead. He’ll know for sure when he sees Ilya, anyway.

Ilya tells Shane to meet him in the park by the entrance to the zoo. Shane’s never been before, and the park is very large and incredibly crowded, like any Sunday with decent weather would be. He’s sweaty by the time he walks over from the station, from nerves and from the heat, and he’s worried for a minute, as he wanders deeper into the park, following posted signs to the zoo, that he won’t be able to find Ilya at all.

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to worry for long. Ilya is six feet tall, and very blond, and built like a greek statue. Shane can see his fuzzy head of curls from approximately a mile away, like a sexy Russian lighthouse signaling to him from shore.

Ilya is still in the clothes he was wearing last night, and his hair is still disheveled, and his eyes are puffy, and he could use a shave. He smells like he’s burned through a pack of cigarettes while he was waiting for Shane. None of this does much to dampen how excruciatingly handsome Shane finds him. Even with his mouth pressed flat and his eyebrows raised, looking at Shane like he’s trying to keep himself from saying something sharp and devastating, he’s still the most beautiful man Shane has ever seen.

Shane puts his hands in his pockets, just so he doesn’t feel so fidgety, itching to touch Ilya in some way.

“I told them,” Shane says.

Ilya nods stiffly. “Okay. Good for you.”

“I’m sorry for today. I really am.”

“I know why you did it,” Ilya says, rubbing his nose and glancing away. “But I do not like feeling like a secret, Shane.”

“Well, you’re not. You’re not a secret.”

Ilya shrugs, like maybe he doesn’t believe him. Shane adds, “I told them about you.”

“Ah.”

Shane curls and uncurls his fists in his pockets. He doesn’t really know how to do this. He’s never had a boyfriend, so obviously he’s never had a fight with a boyfriend, either. He doesn’t know what else to say, except exactly what he’s thinking and hope for the best.

“Do you want to meet them? Like, tonight? Or tomorrow. Or whenever. Or not at all, I don’t know, whatever you’re comfortable with.”

Ilya’s eyebrows climb, like he’s actually surprised at Shane for asking. “You want me to meet them?”

“Yeah, I do. Of course I do.”

“They will know I am man you’re fucking, though.”

“They’ll know you’re my boyfriend, asshole.”

Ilya nods and looks at the ground, rubbing his nose again. He rolls something around under his shoe, or maybe just pretends to, so he can draw things out a little longer, have a little more time to think.

It’s okay, if he says no, Shane thinks. It’s okay if he’s changed his mind, or if this is too much, too fast. Shane will probably have to find a secluded place in the park to have a nice long break down if that happens, but maybe Ilya wants to protect himself, and reel things back after this morning.

Ilya sniffs, straightening up, and Shane braces himself for the worst.

“Okay. I will meet them.”

“Really? You will?” Shane blurts.

Ilya shrugs, but his mouth is turned up at the corners, and his eyes have lost their turbulence.

“Yes, Shane, of course if you ask me to do this, I will.”

Shane has to bite back his huge, goofy smile. “Oh. Awesome.”

“Yes,” Ilya says seriously, but he’s looking at Shane much more softly now.

Just in case it wasn’t said enough, Shane adds, “I’m sorry, Ilya. I’m really sorry.”

“Yes, I know. I am maybe too easy when it comes to you,” Ilya says, looking at Shane a little ruefully.

“Well, I love you,” Shane says, without even really thinking about it. He hasn’t really said it out loud enough. He didn’t even say it this morning, when he was freaking out, which is another thing he wants to apologize for. He thinks Ilya might have had enough of hearing him say sorry today, though, so he keeps it to himself.

Ilya is smiling now, the way he does when they’re in bed together and Shane has just blurted out something intensely vulnerable, wide enough to show off all his teeth. It’s a really beautiful smile, one of Shane’s favorites. Shane wonders, for the first time, if his parents would be proud of him, for finding someone so beautiful, and interesting, and funny, and apparently forgiving, too. He realizes that he’s actually looking forward to finding out.

“It would be a bad idea to kiss you out here, probably,” Ilya says, taking a step toward him.

“Um,” Shane says. “Yeah, probably.”

Ilya takes another step; they are now standing pretty close, close enough that Shane could reach out his hand and touch Ilya, run his fingers along his chest. Which he won’t do, of course. He keeps his hands in his pockets, anyway, just to be safe.

“You would get very nervous about someone seeing us, I think.”

“People don’t really do that here,” Shane says, but even as he says it, he’s thinking, who cares, really? There are a million people in the park, plenty of them tourists, from places where people do kiss in public, even guys. And they are all total strangers. And he just told his parents that he’s gay. That’s not directly related, of course, but Shane is feeling uncharacteristically brave today as a result.

“Yes, I know, Shane.”

“So, uh,” Shane says, and now he’s the one taking a step forward, closing up the space between them. If Ilya tried, he could wrap his arms around Shane at this distance. It’s not really a friends distance between them, anymore. Ilya looks surprised, and then pleased, and that look goes through Shane like a warm sip of hot chocolate. “If you wanted to do it, you’d probably have to be, um, quick about it.”

“Ah,” Ilya says, and then he leans forward and kisses Shane, right there in public. He pulls away immediately, before they can cause too much of a scandal, but it’s still thrilling, Ilya grinning triumphantly like Shane’s let him get away with something devious. Shane feels almost as flustered as if Ilya had felt him up and used some tongue.

“Okay?” Ilya says, watching him.

“Yeah,” Shane breathes.

No one around them has stopped to stare, or alert the police, or even glance at them, really. Maybe they should kiss again, just to see if they can get away with it some more.

But before Shane can work up the courage to suggest it, Ilya looks down at himself, wrinkling his nose, like he’s just now taking stock of his current condition, looking like, well, a guy who wandered around in the heat all day in the same clothes he was wearing last night.

“If I am meeting your parents tonight, I need to change clothes.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“And take a shower.”

“Yeah, we probably both should do that.”

“Yes,” Ilya agrees seriously. He drags a long, meaningful look up and down Shane’s body and says, “And maybe I will think of some things you can do to show you are very, very sorry.”

“Oh,” Shane says, and that warm hot chocolate feeling turns definitively molten and pools much further south than his gut. He is suddenly aware they should probably not continue this conversation in public, mostly for the noticeable effect it’s having on him. “Okay, yeah. Fuck. Can we go now?”

Ilya grins, not doing much to hide the heat in his gaze. Absently, Shane hopes they don’t spend all of dinner with his parents inadvertently eyefucking each other.

“Yes, let’s go,” Ilya says, leading them out of the park.

In the end, Shane doesn’t need to worry about Ilya being too sexy with him at dinner with his parents. Ilya is almost bizarrely polite, on the best behavior Shane has ever seen from him. He calls them Mr. and Mrs. Hollander until they insist on Yuna and David. He also insists on paying for their four-person shabu-shabu, which Shane is afraid might constitute a very large portion of Ilya’s paycheck, but he literally steals the check out of Shane’s hands, albeit very respectfully for his parents’ sakes.

It’s a little crazy to sit at dinner between his mom and dad and the man he’s in love with. Shane watches his mom laugh at something Ilya says, eyes sparkling in a way he rarely sees from her, and feels a bit like he’s dreaming, like maybe this is a movie he’s watching of someone else’s life. By the time dinner is over, Yuna and David have wrangled a promise out of Ilya to come visit them in Ottawa, with or without Shane. Shane is a little awed by how quickly Ilya has managed to charm them, and also very turned on, to the point that he’s almost annoyed when Ilya offers for them to walk his parents back to their hotel.

It’s worth it, though. It’s worth it for the way his parents give Ilya the same enveloping hug that they give Shane, which seems to render Ilya briefly speechless, blinking carefully away while they finish their goodbyes. It’s worth it to see his parents actually happy for him, even though his partner is a man, even though it’s maybe different from the expectations they may have had for him.

A year ago, this version of his life felt impossible, and happiness had never felt further out of reach. Now, Shane has almost everything he could ever want. He finds himself a little overwhelmed, too, thinking about it, and they are quiet on the way back to his apartment. Inside, Ilya wraps his arms around Shane and pulls him tight, pressing a soft kiss to the crown of Shane’s head.

“Your parents are very nice,” he says, sounding a little choked up. “Very accepting.”

“Yeah, they’re good. They’re really good people. I don’t know why I got so in my head about it. I should have known it would be fine.”

“You are in your head about everything,” Ilya says gently, brushing his lips against Shane’s temple. “Is okay, I always know where to find you.”

Shane has to kiss him for that, and for making his parents fall in love with him so quickly, just like Shane has.

The advertisement for cherry blossom flavored beer is gone from the Marunouchi line sometime in September.

“What is it?” Ilya says, riding home with Shane, having met him outside his office in Shinjuku, like he has recently started doing more and more. Sometimes, they walk over to Nichou and have a drink, but only if Shane is very sure that no one from work is around to catch him in the act. He’s working on being less paranoid, but these things take time. His colleagues have seen Ilya at least a couple of times, and they think he’s Shane’s friend, and that’s all Shane really ever plans for them to know.

“Nothing,” Shane says, eyeing the new banner floating over their heads, which is advertising some kind of energy drink. Orange steam is blowing out of the ears of the hard-hatted man who is drinking it.

Ilya nods archly, eyebrows high on his forehead. “You are disappointed. Favorite advertisement is gone.”

“It’s fine,” Shane says. “It’s not a big deal.”

“I am sad, too, malysh. I liked thinking about you looking at me all the time, even when I’m not here.”

“Oh, you do, do you.”

Ilya grins. He leans over, close enough that Shane can feel his warm breath on his neck, the side of his face.

“Of course. Anyone who saw you looking at me like that would know that they had no chance with you. Means no threat.”

“Jesus Christ,” Shane says, feeling the heat in his cheeks. If anything, he’s gotten weaker to the insane things Ilya says, now that they’re official. He hopes Ilya isn’t all that hungry, despite the grocery bag weighing in his hand, because Shane plans to leap on him as soon as they’re home.

“You know, I have new campaign out soon. Styling cream for hair. They put me in tuxedo, very dramatic. They tell me it will be on the train in the fall.”

“Really?” Shane says, not even trying to hide the relief in his voice.

“Yes, so. You will have new opportunity to ogle me again.”

“I don’t ogle you,” Shane lies.

“No? I am doing something wrong, then,” Ilya says, and runs a finger subtly down the back of Shane’s neck.

They could kiss right now, Shane thinks wildly, as long as it was fast. Probably no one would notice, if it was just a peck, and no tongue. Or a little tongue, maybe, a tiny bit. Not like, anything crazy. Just Ilya’s hot mouth on his, just for a moment. Shane licks his lips, stares at Ilya’s grin, maybe moves a tiny bit closer to him, and dips his head, and looks up at Ilya through his lashes, like he knows Ilya likes.

The announcement for Ochanomizu station chirps through the car. Shane is only a little bit disappointed. Definitely better not to make out on the train. Definitely.

“Come on, it’s our stop,” Ilya says, and Shane, heart clenching, doesn’t correct him. Our stop.

“I never did try the cherry blossom beer,” Shane says, as they stand.

“You did not miss anything,” Ilya says, grimacing. “It was disgusting.”

Shane is chatting with his parents over Skype about the squirrels taking over his dad’s birdfeeder, and Dad’s increasingly desperate methods of expelling them, when they notice Ilya bobbing in and out of the camera as he moves around the kitchen. The conversation is immediately sidetracked, his parents’ attention instantly pulled toward Ilya, just like Shane’s always is.

“Oh, is that Ilya?” Dad says, as if Shane has a harem of Russian models flitting in and out of his apartment.

Shane, perched at the tiny dining table, slants the angle of his laptop just enough to pull Ilya’s profile into frame.

“Yeah, he’s making dinner,” Shane says, and then big hands close around his shoulders, Ilya bending down behind him so he can peer at Shane’s parents through the screen.

“Hi, Yuna and David.”

“Hi, son, how are you?” Dad says.

Shane is briefly relegated to the fourth party of his family check in, watching the full force of his parents’ attention being showered on someone else for the first time in his life. Someone his dad called ‘son’ so comfortably, like Ilya has slotted into some space that was waiting for him in their family. Shane knows it’s not quite that simple, and that they only had a brief opportunity, in the grand scheme of things, to get to know Ilya. But that’s true for Shane, too, and it already feels like Shane’s entire life is different as a result.

His parents are genuinely excited to talk to Ilya, asking him all of the same little follow-up questions they normally ask Shane. There is a blush that Shane has literally never seen before creeping across the heights of Ilya’s cheekbones, and Shane is briefly so overcome with happiness, watching all of this happen, that he’s afraid he’s going to cry about it, which is so stupid. They were just talking about shooting squirrels with motion-activated water pistols, for god’s sake.

Eventually, Ilya says, “Okay, I have to go check on pasta,” and says goodbye. Shane and his parents chat a little bit more, until he hears the splash of water through the colander, signaling dinner is ready and it’s time to go.

“Bye, guys, love you.”

Mom says, “Love you too, honey.”

Dad says, “Give Ilya our love, too!”

“I will,” Shane says, and glances behind him. Ilya is standing at the sink, staring down at the steaming pasta and blinking hard. Shane shuts his laptop and goes to him, wrapping his arms around Ilya’s waist. He puts his head down to rest between Ilya’s shoulder blades. “Hey.”

Ilya sniffs. “I am fine,” he says, wetly.

But he turns in Shane’s arms and pulls him against his chest, running a hand through Shane’s hair, and they both have to kind of pretend they aren’t soggy and emotional while they plate up their pasta and eat.

They’ve spoken a little about Ilya’s situation with his family back home, over the course of a few conversations, conducted lying in the dark, Shane running fingers through Ilya’s hair and smoothing down his back. He knows it’s just Ilya’s dad and his brother back home, and a niece who is still just a baby. He knows they wouldn’t be okay with Ilya having a boyfriend. He knows they don’t even really have the sort of relationship where Ilya would share that kind of information with them. Shane is so glad he can give Ilya a little bit of that, even if it’s just an occasional Skype call. It’s another reason he’s happy he told his parents, and a reason he’s thankful they are who they are, and that they got to meet Ilya.

Ilya wants Shane, in turn, to meet his friends. Sasha and Svetlana, he insists, are more like his actual family than his brother and father back home. They are the ones, Ilya explains half-jokingly, who Shane must make a good impression on.

“Svetlana, especially,” he says. “She will defend my honor.”

It’s a little messy, still, to Shane, because they’ve all slept together, which he is just too boring and possessive to ever truly understand, but whatever. He knows it matters to Ilya that they at least all meet one another. So he says yes, of course he will meet Ilya’s beautiful and slightly intimidating friends for drinks. Ilya is maybe too excited about this, because he sets the whole thing up almost immediately after Shane agrees, before Shane is maybe entirely ready, or has had the chance to, like, get a cooler haircut, or find his least boring salaryman outfit to wear, or maybe go buy a new wardrobe entirely, or whatever it is that he thinks might make him feel a little less nervous about all of it.

“You do not need to feel nervous,” Ilya says, eyeing him as they walk down the narrow alley in Ginza to Bar Sayuri. “They will like you.”

Shane doesn’t really believe that, because he knows he’s an acquired taste, and it just happens to be blessed serendipity that Ilya is so turned on by all of his peculiarities.

“I’m not nervous.”

“No, you are just walking very fast because you are so excited.”

“I’m walking a normal speed.”

Ilya throws an arm around him, squeezing his shoulder, because he knows by now that this works wonders on Shane’s, fine, tiny bit of nerves. It does; Shane relaxes into Ilya’s embrace automatically.

Meeting Ilya’s friends goes pretty well. Ilya has clearly prepared them in some way, because they come with facts about Shane they have obviously been fed, and they make a painstaking effort to speak English the entire time, with the sole exception of asking Vasya to bring out more blinis, and to get another bottle of vodka down from the shelf when they clear the first one in no time at all.

“You really are gorgeous,” Svetlana purrs, reaching out a hand toward Shane’s face that Ilya swats away, making her laugh breezily. “My god, Ilyusha is so jealous! This is why he wouldn’t let us meet you for so long.”

“I… what?” Shane says, looking to Ilya, who makes a face and tightens his grip around Shane’s waist.

“Do not make up lies to tell my boyfriend,” Ilya says, but he is grinning too widely to sound anything but fond. “And keep your hands to yourself, you pervert.”

“You really should be a model, Shane,” Sasha says, with a wistful tone. “What a waste.”

“Yes! This is what I tell him, first time we meet,” Ilya says, nodding enthusiastically. The three of them are giggly about it, assessing him openly, Ilya’s hold on him getting stronger as the night goes on, and his fingers edging ever closer to sneaking under the waistband of Shane’s pants, which Ilya is seemingly pretending he isn’t doing. Everyone is a little drunk and eating basically nothing.

Shane does feel a little overwhelmed, being the center of attention at all, let alone being flatteringly evaluated by three beautiful, increasingly handsy Russians. He can kind of understand how they have all fallen into bed together, the way they keep finding ways to touch him. It doesn’t help that Shane finds Ilya’s possessiveness incredibly hot, squirming on his seat whenever Ilya’s grip tightens on his waist. He kind of hopes this night ends with Ilya shoving his tongue down Shane’s throat to stake his claim in front of his pretty friends.

Some very deep, unexplored part of Shane thinks it would be even better if Ilya fucked him on the bar, while everyone watches, just to prove Shane belongs to him. If he gets drunk enough, he might share that particular thought with Ilya later, when they’re safely back home. Or like, here in the bar bathroom, maybe while Ilya crowds Shane up against the stall and shoves a hand down the front of Shane’s pants.

“Ah, yes, maybe,” Svetlana says, appraising, the three of them still discussing Shane’s model potential. “But he would need a better haircut.”

“We’re leaving,” Ilya says curtly, though he doesn’t really make a move to go. “You are horrible people.”

“Again he is abandoning us,” Sasha sighs, his accent thick on the back of many, many shots of vodka. “We never see you anymore and you are already leaving. You are too good for him, Shane, he is a beast.”

“I hate both of you,” Ilya says.

Sveta waves her hand, like she’s shooing away a fly.

“Ah, in that case, please finish getting your things out of the apartment, since you are never there anymore, anyway. I would like to take your bedroom.”

They insist on exchanging phone numbers with Shane, when they finally stagger back out to the street, Svetlana and Sasha holding each other up and giggling in a way that still somehow manages to be very elegant and aspirational.

“Do not answer them when they text you, Shane,” Ilya says. “They will corrupt you with their rotten spirits.”

“Jealous and insecure,” Svetlana says, fishing a cigarette out of some unseen place on her tiny, glittering dress. “Shane, you should come home with us instead. We are much more fun.”

“Okay, please leave now, goodbye,” Ilya says flatly.

Shane is a little too drunk and thrown the way he always is from too much direct socialization to follow what’s happening, but everyone gives each other cheek kisses at the station, so he understands that this was all said as a joke, and probably not a serious invitation for a threesome. On the train ride back to Shane’s apartment, Ilya reiterates this, while he touches Shane as much as he can manage without it being blatantly obvious to all the other passengers what he’s doing.

“Is okay if you want to talk with them,” he says. “I was kidding, before.”

“Yeah, I know,” Shane says, though it’s nice to get the confirmation. “Your friends are nice.”

Ilya beams at this, so happy when he smiles at Shane that Shane is deeply proud of himself for going through with the whole evening.

In the end, he doesn’t even need to say anything about his brief, tipsy fantasy at the bar. Ilya is preoccupied with the same idea from the other angle, fired up by Svetlana’s offhand comment about being more fun. In bed that night, he pushes Shane down hard into the mattress, hand gripped tightly in his hair, growling in Shane’s ear as he bottoms out inside Shane’s ass, dragging Shane up by the hips so he can shove in as deep as he can go.

“They are the ones who would be jealous, if they saw how well you take me.”

“Ilya… Ilya, fuck…”

“Your body is made for my cock, yes? Say it.”

“Made for you. Made—ungh!—for your cock… god, oh my god…”

Ilya flips Shane over, butterflying his legs apart, staring intently down at where his dick is plunging in and out of Shane’s body.

“Who taught you how to be fucked so pretty like this, hm?” Ilya says, looking flushed and wild, his words punching out with his thrusts.

“You did,” Shane moans, absently noting that he will absolutely have to figure out a way to get this reaction out of Ilya again. “Fuck, I’m…”

“Shh, shh, I know, baby,” Ilya says, smearing his hand across Shane’s face, grabbing for his jaw to pull him into a filthy kiss, his tongue sliding around Shane’s mouth and chin, sour with vodka and the sweat off Shane’s body. “I will take responsibility. I have made you such a slut for me, no one else will do now. This is all for me, yes? All of your pretty holes, only for me.”

Shane comes harder than he has in probably his entire life, agreeing enthusiastically with all of it. Only you. No one else.

As has become kind of a tradition between them, Shane lets loose with his thoughts while they are still tangled up and panting together, feeling gooey and soft under the lovely weight of Ilya’s possessiveness. Ilya is still curled jealously around him, like Shane might leap out of bed and take Svetlana up on that threesome otherwise. He pets up and down Shane’s sticky thighs, kissing along his pecs, back and forth between them, leaving little wet circles around his nipples when he gets preoccupied with them. Shane feels so safe, with Ilya holding him like this, that it feels impossible to be nervous about anything.

“Do you want to move in with me?”

Ilya laughs into the sticky cavern of Shane’s neck. Shane is still a little drunk, despite all the exercise, so his first instinct is to flush with embarrassment.

“Sorry. Sorry if that’s too much. I don’t know why I said it. I—”

“Stop,” Ilya says, kissing his neck, his jaw, between the two planes of his clavicle. “I know why you said it.”

Shane lets himself be lulled back down into the hazy, fucked-out place Ilya always puts him, the place where these sort of big declarations and questions always seem to come from.

“Let me guess. I said it because you fucked me so well?” Shane tries to make his voice sound flat and annoyed, like he doesn’t secretly love being called Ilya’s voracious little slut.

“No. You said it because Sveta said I am never home anymore.”

Ilya pulls his head up from where he is pressing kisses all over Shane’s chest. He’s flushed and sweaty and very, very beautiful, his eyes so soft on Shane. Shane would really not mind seeing him, looking like this, every night and every morning. He practically already does, which Svetlana and Sasha have apparently also noticed. But officially. Officially, because both of them decided that they want to have this much of each other, all the time.

Shane is smiling, and Ilya is looking at his mouth and smiling, too. They probably look goofy and tipsy and in love, grinning at each other like this.

“She’s right,” Shane says. “You’re already here all the time.”

“And this is why you want me to?”

“No. I want you to because I love you.”

Ilya’s smile grows and grows. He gets like this when he’s really happy, sometimes, grinning a little too widely for his face, and he looks like a big kid, not cool or sexy or glamorous at all. It’s probably Shane’s favorite smile, if he had to pick one, because he doesn’t think Ilya knows how he looks at all, too happy to care. Shane loves all of Ilya’s smiles, all of his different little expressions, but this one feels especially made for only him.

“Okay. Okay, I will move in,” Ilya says.

“Really?”

Ilya kisses him, reaching for Shane’s face and curling fingers around his jaw, like he wants to make sure Shane won’t go anywhere. Like there is anywhere else Shane would rather be than here. Shane opens for him and thinks, Wow, this is it. This is really it.

Then he thinks of something else, also kind of important.

“You can’t throw your clothes everywhere though.”

Ilya blows out a breath. “Ah, very good, Shane. You made it almost thirty seconds.”

“I mean it. Your house is a fucking mess. I get that it’s small, but you guys really could—”

“Don’t worry, Shane. I will be so clean, like little mouse. You will not even know I am here.”

“I’m just saying—”

Ilya wraps his hand around Shane’s dick, which has apparently woken up again while they’ve been discussing Ilya’s level of clutter, and that turns out to be a pretty good way to change the subject.

Moving Ilya in mostly involves making space in Shane’s closets and his dresser for Ilya’s clothes. Shane buys a bunch of organizers to go under the bathroom sink for Ilya’s Russian toothpaste and hair products and deodorant, from the same Don Quixote where he got all the sex supplies before. Shane isn’t wearing a mask this time, but he still wonders if the staff recognizes him, if they see him coming with his basket and think, hey, didn’t that guy buy a douche here one time?

Look how well the douche worked out for me, he thinks insanely, as he pays for all the things he’s buying so he can live harmoniously with his boyfriend.

Ilya makes fun of him for buying all of it, of course, but he does end up using them. It makes Shane incandescently happy, the first time he opens the bathroom cabinets and sees Ilya’s toiletries, neatly stacked and organized, placed side-by-side with his own.

Life stays mostly the same once Ilya is living with him, except that Ilya is here when Shane comes home from his mandatory Friday work parties, which he has been leaving as early as he can get away with. He lets his coworkers believe their version of events, that Shane’s girlfriend is very high maintenance and jealous of his time. If Shane can help it, they will never make the connection that Shane’s high-maintenance, jealous girlfriend is the same tall, chiseled guy that used to wait outside Shane’s office for him to get off work and pretend he hadn’t just been smoking cigarettes.

Shane misses that, a little, but it’s worth being able to stagger through the door and get immediately wrapped up in Ilya’s strong arms, with a kiss pressed to his neck, and the smell of food wafting in from the kitchen on days when Ilya isn’t home too late from his own stuff to cook.

He waits until after Ilya has already moved in to tell his parents, though he forces himself to do it sooner than he might otherwise have, now that he’s trying not to keep secrets from them anymore. He can tell they have opinions on it, probably about whether it’s too fast, but they are clearly still a little shaken from discovering he kept the gay thing secret for so long, so they don’t say anything. Shane knows they won’t be able to keep this up forever, his mom especially, but it’s nice to get a few months where he can tell them anything and all they say about it is Oh, that’s great, honey.

Sometimes, Shane still can’t believe things became so different for him so quickly. He keeps waiting for something to happen, a blowout fight where it’s revealed Ilya is actually a huge asshole, because everything Shane has ever really wanted in life has always seemed to end up fucked up in some way, but it doesn’t come. Ilya is a little bit of an asshole, but so is Shane, and anyway, they like that about each other. There are no blowout fights, no horrible things said that can never be taken back.

They do bicker, of course. Ilya thinks Shane could stand to be a little less closeted outside the apartment, because he’s surrounded at work by the most flamboyant and sexually liberal minority slice of Japan, and therefore thinks he knows how all of Japan is about being gay, and annoys Shane about it all the time. Shane is pretty sure, having seen how Ilya lives, that he was consistently broke within days of his payday every month. Ilya rolls his eyes every time Shane asks him if he really needs another pair of shoes or weirdly complicated set of sweatpants. So, yeah, their life together isn’t completely idyllic. But they don’t stay mad for long. They will snipe at each other, and then Ilya will burn through Shane with one of his molten looks, like the whole fight has only served as foreplay, and then they fuck the irritation out of each other, and it’s smoothed over.

Maybe Shane’s hypothetical therapist would say this isn’t a healthy way to resolve conflict, but Shane doesn’t really care about what other people think is healthy or not. He likes this way a lot more than talking anything out, anyway, and he likes that what works for him and Ilya probably wouldn’t work for other people. It makes their relationship feel special. Maybe Ilya and Shane really are just perfect for each other, and they really only work well together. No one else has to understand it, just them.

One day, Shane gets on his morning train, and there is Ilya’s face in that fancy hair gel advertisement, right next to the doors, where a million people probably admire it every day. Shane takes a picture of it to show Ilya later, and thinks, that’s my man, and feels incredibly lucky.

They are watching the one variety show Ilya likes late on a Sunday. Half-watching, realistically, because other things keep getting their attention: The chime of the laundry completing, a lazy blowjob Shane gives Ilya when he gets bored of watching four dudes slap each other in a library and then get punished for laughing, afterwards. Ilya likes this show because it’s completely understandable without needing to know a word of Japanese, but Shane would rather spend that time bobbing his head in Ilya’s lap, feeling Ilya’s hands twist in his hair while he laughs at the TV.

And now, after Shane gets Ilya off and tucks him back into his sweats, and hangs their laundry before coming back to the couch, Ilya is the one half-watching, reading texts on his phone while Shane leans into the crook of Ilya’s neck, looking but not really looking. He still can barely read any Russian, after all, and he’s not really jealous of anyone Ilya knows anymore. Not really. Not too much.

Ilya says, “Sasha is moving to Paris.”

“Oh. How come?” Shane thinks back to whether he knew this already. He does occasionally go with Ilya to get drinks with Sasha and Svetlana, and he doesn’t remember Sasha mentioning it before. That being said, nights at Bar Sayuri normally end with way too many shots of vodka and Ilya’s feral claim-staking afterward, so it’s possible Shane just forgot.

“He says he is tired of Tokyo. Wants a change of scenery.” Ilya is reading off his phone, so this must be what Sasha has just sent to him. So maybe it’s news to Ilya, too. “He is like this, you know. He does not like to stay anywhere too long.”

“What about Svetlana? Won’t she be lonely?”

“Maybe a little, but she is very good on her own. She would get mad, if she heard you say she’d be lonely without us.”

Shane can picture this, Svetlana’s dark eyes flashing with indignation, the flippant way she would say something like, Please, Shane, I cannot stand these men. I wish they would leave me in peace for once.

“And she does not say this to me, but. I think she is maybe also thinking of going somewhere else.”

“Oh. How do you know?”

Ilya shrugs. “She sometimes says she does not want to do this forever.”

“Would she go to Paris, too?”

“I don’t think so. I think probably she will go to Boston, where her mother lives.”

Shane nods, and takes all of this in. The same four comedians on the screen are now conducting some kind of blind coffee taste test. Someone dressed like Juan Valdez comes out and slaps them whenever they guess wrong.

Shane doesn’t really have anyone else in Tokyo except Ilya, but he thinks if he had come here with friends, he’d be sad and lonely if they all left at once. He was sad and lonely before Ilya. He knows what it feels like.

“I’m sorry,” Shane says.

Ilya shrugs and wraps Shane further up in his arms. “Is nothing to be sorry about. Is okay. We have lived in separate places before, and we are still friends.” He ducks down for a kiss, patting Shane’s cheek when he pulls away. “Come on, you are falling asleep.”

They take turns standing in front of the narrow sink, brushing their teeth, and then Shane waits for Ilya in their bed, lying on his side. Ilya flips off the bedside lamp when he enters the bedroom, and pulls the covers back, and slots himself in behind Shane, close enough that his breath moves the hair on the back of Shane’s neck. His feet are cold when he runs them up Shane’s calves, Shane squirming half-heartedly away.

“Ugh, Ilya, you’re cold.”

“So warm me up, malysh. Come here.”

He tilts Shane’s head back for a kiss, tasting like water and toothpaste, familiar and domestic, still wrapped in a humid cloud of the deodorant he sprays himself with every night before bed. For a while they just lie together, Ilya running his fingers down Shane’s arm, kissing his shoulder and behind his ear.

Eventually he says, “Do you think you will stay in Tokyo?”

“Like, forever?”

“Mm. I don’t know, but. Okay, let’s say forever. Or a long time.”

Shane has been shockingly content lately, for the first time in his life, with not worrying too much about his future. That’s not to say that he’s decided Japan is it for him. Shane doesn’t think he could stay here forever. He is a little too Canadian to ever truly fit in here, even if he sometimes has a hard time fitting in completely in Canada, too.

And also, Shane came to Tokyo for reasons that feel a little meaningless to him lately, now that his parents know he’s gay and he’s largely made peace with the bullshit that drove him out of hockey. Shane doesn’t hate himself anymore, and he doesn’t feel like his life is ruined because he isn’t playing hockey, like he was afraid he might. He doesn’t even regret sexting the guy who caused all of this, even though what he did was really fucked up. But that guy inadvertently led him to Tokyo, which led him to Ilya, and now Shane knows that he’s capable of falling deeply in love, and being loved in return, and both of those things had never felt like they were within his reach before. Meeting Ilya feels sometimes like a personal miracle, something Shane never thought he’d get to have, and it makes Shane think, maybe dysfunctionally, that going through everything he went through was worth it. That if there was no other way for this to happen, then he wouldn’t do anything differently.

Coming to Tokyo has also led Shane to discover that he’s good at things other than hockey, and that he can be happy without it in his life. And, ironically, it’s that realization that has him thinking, lately, that maybe he doesn’t need to excise hockey from his life forever. Maybe there is a way to bring it back, be involved in some way again, without compromising the self-acceptance he’s come to have.

“Probably not forever. I like my job. But, yeah, I’ve been thinking.”

He lets Ilya kiss along his neck for a while, humming sleepily, until Ilya slots his chin on Shane’s shoulder and squeezes him gently to continue.

“I’ve been thinking about whether I could do something with hockey again. Not, like, tomorrow. But someday, maybe I could work for a team? Or whatever. I don’t know yet.”

Ilya’s voice is soft. “Is okay not to know yet.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Shane wants to ask Ilya, too. Does he want to stay in Tokyo forever? Does he expect to go back to Russia someday? Shane doesn’t know how, but he thinks he would try to follow him. He would change a lot of his plans, maybe all of them, if it meant getting to stay with Ilya.

Ilya kisses his neck, the shell of his ear, then slides over him, pushing Shane gently down onto the bed. They are maybe too sleepy to do too much more than kiss. But it’s still so nice, to lay underneath Ilya, weighed down and held, to have Ilya lazily lick into his mouth and run hands through his hair.

Ilya breaks away and stares down at him in the dark. “They have modeling agencies in Canada, yes?”

That’s kind of a weird question. Like, why would Shane know anything about that? But Ilya is looking at him very intently, so Shane tries to answer anyway. “Yes, I’m sure they do?”

Ilya grins. He runs a thumb across Shane’s face, like he’s trying to feel the freckles on Shane’s cheeks. Shane has figured out by now that this is something Ilya does when Shane is being obtuse, because apparently Ilya finds it charming, just like he apparently finds all of Shane’s weird stuff to be.

“Okay. So I will get signed to Canadian modeling agency, and you will work for hockey team.”

Shane realizes what Ilya is saying, then, or maybe asking for, trying to see if that’s what Shane wants, too. And like, of course. Of course Shane should have known Ilya was thinking about this, too, because against all odds Ilya is just as crazy about Shane as Shane is about Ilya. Shane can feel his eyes get a little hot, and that’s okay, that’s fine. He doesn’t even get embarrassed anymore when Ilya brings that out of him. Ilya is impossible, and beautiful, and overwhelming, and of course Shane is going to get a little choked up about that.

“Is it, like, that easy?” Shane says, quietly.

“Well, you see, I am very sexy, and many, many people want to look at me,” Ilya says seriously, but his eyes are dancing with humor. “So yes, for me, I think it will be that easy.”

Shane laughs, a little wetly, and then Ilya is kissing him, long and slow, his warm palm planted firmly on Shane’s chest, spread over his heart, squeezing into the muscle like he knows that just beneath it there is a spreading, wonderful ache. Shane almost can’t breathe around it. It’s painful, but Shane wants to linger in it forever, too.

“So, like, just to be clear,” Shane says, sniffing, blinking away the sudden blur in his eyes. “You would come to Canada just to be with me?”

Ilya laughs. “Just to be with you. Shane. This is all I want.”

Shane feels so wildly, incandescently happy that he thinks he could explode from it, burn out in a single huge flash like a dying lightbulb. Shane must look crazy, because he feels crazy, and because he’s smiling so widely that it’s making his face hurt.

“Yeah, me too. I love you. Holy shit, Ilya, I love you so much.”

Ilya just kisses him and kisses him. Against Shane’s mouth, he says, “I love you, Shane.”

“Say it again, Ilya. Say it in Russian.”

Ilya says it again. And then in Russian, kissed along Shane’s neck. Again, purred into his ear. Again, chased with Ilya’s tongue.

Shane opens wide for him, his mouth, his legs, wrapping them around Ilya’s waist, burying his fingers in Ilya’s thick hair. He feels a little like one of those guys who got slapped for not knowing coffee, but in a good way, jolted awake by the force of all this happiness hitting him straight across the chest. Ilya’s hands travel down his body, lighting him up everywhere they touch, and it turns out it’s not too late to get something going after all.

Spring, the next year

“Is lucky you came early, Shane,” Svetlana says, plucking a single hanami-dango off of its skewer with a pair of chopsticks, so elegantly that Shane is sure she must have done it for a commercial before. “We would not have such a nice spot, otherwise.”

“Thank you, Svetlana,” Shane says, eyeing Ilya meaningfully. Ilya rolls his eyes, like he hadn’t tried to persuade Shane out of their 5:45 AM wakeup with an increasingly perverted series of bribes. He pops a piece of sushi into his mouth and waves his hand dismissively.

“Would have been fine to wake up at 7, like human beings,” he grouses. “But yes, is nice spot.”

They have a very nice spot, actually, if Shane can say so himself. They are directly under one of the biggest, fluffiest cherry blossom trees in Shinjuku Gyoen. When Shane looks up, all he sees are enormous clouds of delicate white flowers, swaying in the chilly April breeze, layered on each other like thick stripes of icing on a cake. All of the available real estate in the park is occupied by people arranged in little clusters on picnic blankets, arrays of food and drinks in front of them, all here to see the cherry blossoms on the last weekend to catch them at their peak. Already, the trees are starting to shed, a small shower of petals floating to the ground whenever the wind blows strongly enough. Svetlana has caught a few in her hair, peeking out of her high curly ponytail. She makes it look cool and intentional, of course.

“What did you bring for us to drink, Ilyusha?” Svetlana says, rifling through their cooler bag. Ilya filled it with what would normally be too much alcohol for only three people, except two of the three people are Russian and will probably end up barely worse for wear. She pulls out a full bottle of vodka, still foggy from the freezer, and three crystal glasses. The vodka goes onto the blanket, next to their open bento boxes, while Svetlana inspects the rest of the options. “Ah, you did not bring the cherry blossom beer?”

“We couldn’t find it,” Shane says. “I don’t think they make it anymore.”

Ilya grimaces. “I told you, was disgusting.”

“Ah, but this was the chance to drink it!” Svetlana says, though she doesn’t look all that disappointed. She lays out the glasses as best she can on the uneven surface of the blanket, carefully pouring out the vodka. Shane eyes his a little uneasily. It’s not even eleven AM. “Is romantic, yes? Is what brought you two together.”

Shane and Ilya look at each other. Ilya has a wry, knowing smile on his face.

“Shane would have gotten off the train with me anyway, I think.”

“Hey,” Shane says, without any heat, because it’s probably true. But it does make him sound very easy. He was very easy, but Svetlana doesn’t need to know that.

“Was just bonus, to find out you were already obsessed with me,” Ilya says, sounding very soft about it. He shoves two more pieces of sushi into his mouth, smiling widely as he chews. “Did not have to work very hard.”

“Gross, Ilya.”

“Yes, disgusting, the two of you. I’m sick watching you make heart-eyes,” Svetlana says, making a face. “Here, we will drink before you get any worse.”

She hands them the vodka shots she’s poured, Shane taking his with grim reservation.

“Kanpai!”

Shane grimaces through the sour shock of the taste and the subsequent burn of it down his throat. He can feel a flush go through him immediately, blooming along his cheeks and down his neck. Close to a year of dating a Russian, and Shane’s tolerance to vodka is still embarrassingly low. Svetlana and Ilya look barely fazed, of course.

“Ah, I almost forgot,” Svetlana says, pulling a slim digital camera out of her tiny purse. “Let’s take a picture. I want to show Sasha all the fun we are having without him. Make him very jealous to have left us.”

Ilya puts his hand on Shane’s knee, rubbing little absent circles with his thumb. They are sitting very close together on the blanket, Ilya’s thigh slotted up against Shane’s. The strangers on either side of them are probably not paying attention. No one is here to do much more than drink and look at flowers.

Shane, feeling very warm from the vodka, and maybe also a little brave, too, snakes his arm around Ilya’s waist and drops his chin on Ilya’s shoulder.

If anyone happens to look at them, and think that maybe they are being very touchy for eleven AM, for two men… well, okay. So be it. Shane cares a lot less about all of that stuff now than he did last year. He doesn’t know exactly when that happened, so it must have happened little by little, with a thousand tiny inoculations: Ilya’s fingers brushing his neck when they sit together on the train, Ilya reaching across a restaurant table to feed Shane food off his chopsticks, Ilya slinging his arm around Shane’s shoulders when they walk. On New Year’s Eve, Ilya leaned over amid the throng of the million other people celebrating at Meiji Shrine and kissed Shane, right when the clock struck midnight, and all Shane felt was butterflies.

“Okay, smile,” Svetlana says, holding up the camera.

Just then, there is a furious burst of wind, billowing the blanket, biting at Shane’s ears, still wintry cold even this late into spring. It rattles the branches over their heads, bringing forth a blizzard of white and pink petals that rain down all around them.

“Ah, is good luck, yes? Better gimme kiss,” Ilya says, eyes dancing over Shane’s, through the snowfall of tiny flowers catching in his hair and blanketing their picnic spread.

“I don’t think that’s a thing,” Shane says, even as his eyes expectantly close, and he’s rewarded with the soft press of Ilya’s lips against his, warm despite the wind chill.

He hears a click of a shutter, and Svetlana’s gleeful laugh. She says something in Russian, probably making fun of Ilya just from the lilt of it, and Ilya shoots something back. They blow the soggy petals out of their shot glasses and pour another round, and then another. Shane is going to be drunk and probably tucked into bed by 2 PM at this rate, but he accepts the drinks anyway.

Ilya’s hand goes higher and higher on Shane’s thigh as he drinks, his body drifting closer and closer to Shane, until finally he’s cuddled right up against him, leaning heavily across Shane’s lap to fish the specific sushi pieces he’s willing to eat out of everyone’s bentos, leaving behind the tuna but stealing all of the salmon.

Every so often, the wind picks up again, jostling loose another snowfall of flowers, and Ilya insists they kiss for good luck every time, which he completely made up, but Shane does it anyway, secretly thrilled, not-so-secretly tipsy.

Eventually, Ilya gets his hands on the camera Svetlana brought, and they laugh at the picture of them, eyes lidded, gazing at each other, obscured by fallen petals. Ilya looks over at him, and plucks one out of Shane’s hair.

“You are covered with flowers, malysh,” Ilya says, holding it up for Shane to see. He poises to blow it off his finger. “Make a wish.”

“That’s not a thing, either,” Shane says, but he closes his eyes and pretends to wish, and Ilya blows the little petal away.

“What did you wish for?” Ilya says, sing-song. Maybe he’s feeling the vodka more than he’s letting on. He’s grinning wide, eyes sparkling when Ilya gazes at him. Svetlana’s right; Shane can practically see the hearts.

“I can’t tell you,” Shane says, “or it won’t come true.”

But it has already come true, everything Shane could ever wish for. Everything he wants is right here, right in the middle of Shinjuku, right under this cherry blossom tree. Ilya’s smile, and Ilya’s soft eyes, and Ilya’s warm touch, and a cloudy spring sky, and a blizzard of pink and white, and whatever vestiges of winter still remain buried under something sweet, and beautiful, and new.

Chapter End Notes

Alternate title: How Shane Got His Genki Back

Ilya would totally be a Gaki no Tsukai enjoyer. The episode where they get slapped for guessing the wrong coffee is real. I like to think he made Shane watch the whole New Year's Eve "You Laugh You Lose" episode before they went to Meiji Shrine.

Thank you so much for reading! I was nervous about posting my first AU for this fandom, so I'm very touched that it has been received so positively, especially this version of Shane as a much more neurotic, anxious dude than he presents in canon. I can't promise I won't write another AU that takes place somewhere in Japan, either 😬 I can't promise I don't have a WIP started, even...

You can always find me on tumblr, and you can sometimes find me on threads @sister_cacao unless I'm too annoyed and retreat back to tumblr.

Works inspired by this one

[Restricted Work] by the art of making art (puttingittogether)