No Homo Tho

Starship University has a long history of ice and snow related sports. The university is a well known sports college; it has a reputation for producing Olympians in all winter sports. This is thanks to the university’s campus being located in Pyeongchang, South Korea, near the Yongpyong Resort, a tourist location that beholds a vast cluster of mountains and slopes perfect for skiing, snowboarding, and climbing. However, the university isn’t known only for their skiers and snowboarders, but also their hockey players and figure skaters.

And the figure skaters and hockey players are wonderful. Coached by Kwon Jiyong and Choi Seunghyun respectively, they are some of the most talented individuals Korea has seen. Kwon Jiyong, being a jump specialist, produces skaters who are renowned for their stunning technique and clean lines. Choi Seunghyun, an Olympic hockey player himself, trains his athletes into fast, agile, and strong players who dominate the ice from the moment their blades touch the surface. 

They’re brilliant, the lot of them. Absolutely brilliant.

They share a rink.

The building itself is located by the mountains; the entire area including the rink and the slopes is called the Gyeoul Ice Park—or simply Gyeoul to the university students. The ice rink, christened the Pokseol Ice Castle in 1972, is an indoor, two story building near the gondola lifts that take the snowboarders and skiers to the top of the slopes. It’s an expansive building that, in addition to the spacious sheet of ice upon which the athletes practice, contains three dance studios, two equipment rooms, four locker rooms, and two small gyms. The lobby is something straight out of a Christmas story book: with a giant brick fireplace, several tables and desks, and cushioned benches and couches, many of the athletes who call the rink home enjoy studying, reading, or relaxing in the lobby.

The rink managers have long since developed fixed schedules that clearly outline who can be on the ice and when. But as the figure skaters and the hockey players began to gain popularity and recognition throughout Korea, the homey rink became an object of possession. The ice skaters would defend their ice time, and in turn, the hockey players would demand more space. 

To make matters worse, the skaters, with their fabulous technique, often create deep nicks in the ice, nicks that can cause a hockey puck to careen the opposite direction. The hockey players, with their thin, razor sharp blades, leave long, deep curves and grooves in the flawless surface, the kind of curves and grooves that can catch a toepick and send a skater sprawling.

Numerous solutions have been proposed, by people on both sides of the argument. The most popular solution is to build a new rink. The university is by no means poor, and there is plenty of excess space within the campus for another ice rink, but the skaters and hockey players could not decide to whom the rink should belong. Should the figure skaters receive the new rink, and the hockey players stay stuck with the rink with damaged ice? Or vice versa? It hardly seems fair, so nothing was ever done. Most students at the college suspect nothing will ever be done about it—so the figure katers and the hockey players will continue to wreck the ice and continue to blame the other team.

And from this issue a school-wide rivalry was born. It became a game of tug-of-war. Blame was thrown back and forth. Neither side are completely innocent and there have been times when both the hockey players and the figure skaters have risked suspension entirely. School directors have toyed with the idea of shutting down the rink entirely, but that would destroy the school’s reputation, and some of the students who use the rink are truly on their way to the Olympic Games.

But how else are you supposed to put an end to a rivalry where neither side is totally faultless?

Nineteen year old Lim Changkyun sighs as he slips his key card into the door handle of his new apartment. It’s a coldish day in March, and the semester will begin in only a couple of days. Being a fourth year, he’s finally allowed to live off campus, and even though he’s been assigned a roommate and the commute to his university is longer, he really is glad to at least live away from the hustle and bustle of the campus. He’d spent three long years of living in the university dorms, and while he’s never had a truly bad roommate, the dorms in the college are too small, and he’s relieved to be living in a bigger space at last. 

As he swings the door open, he stops to take in the flat.

It’s a two-bedroom flat. His parents agreed to help him with the down payment of the flat as long as he has a roommate, which had been arranged by his university fairly easily. He’s not the only senior eager to move off campus, it seems. 

Standing in the front doorway, directly to his left is a shoe and coat closet. Directly to his right is the first bedroom, which is still unoccupied, he realizes, opening the door. He shucks off his coat and shoes, drops his suitcases by the front door, and travels slowly through the apartment, making sure everything is in accordance with the lease. Next to the coat closet is one of two bathrooms, and further down the hall is the archway to the small kitchen. Across from the kitchen is a plain table with three chairs, and by the window and balcony is a sofa and coffee table directly across a tiny television. Next to the television is the door that leads to the second bedroom and connected bathroom. 

His roommate, whom he has yet to meet, is not in the room yet, it seems. He uses this to advantage and claims the bigger bedroom with the connected bathroom as his own, dragging his suitcases into the bigger room. It’s not terribly big, but it has a closet and a bathroom, and he also doesn’t have much with him in terms of furniture. There are some things he’ll have to go out and buy today; groceries and bedclothes, to name a few.

Last year he’d been lucky to share a room with Seungkwan, a skater on his team, but this year it seems he’ll have to cross his fingers when it comes to his roommate.

He lugs his suitcase onto the mattress. As a first year, he hadn’t minded roommates, but as he got older he started to wish he had his own space. Seungkwan is a great roommate, don’t get him wrong, but he can’t wait for the day he’ll have a home all to himself.

Only one more year, he tells himself. One more and then I’ll be on my own for real.

One of his three suitcases is carrying his skates and athletic clothes, so he leaves it by his desk and decides to do a quick cleaning spree before unloading any of his belongings. He gets as far as wiping down the surface of his desk and bedside table before the buzzer on the apartment door signals the entry of someone else, and, curious, Changkyun pokes his head around the door to see his new roommate.

His heart stops when Lee fucking Jooheon waltzes into the space. He shuffles into the hallway; he also has three bags: one of them is clearly his hockey bag, given the size of the thing. 

Their eyes meet for a moment. Jooheon stops dead.

“Oh, hell no.”

“Oh, hell no!”

The apartment suddenly feels way too small with Jooheon’s giant presence and even bigger ego. Changkyun makes his escape as quickly as he can. Without exchanging any other words, he finishes cleaning his room and doesn’t even bother to unpack his clothes before slipping back into his coat and shoes and heading down the building. 

Alone in the elevator on his way down, he wonders which higher deity or god has it out for him this time. He doesn’t believe in fate, but he’s pissed at coincidence for making such a cruel move. What are the odds of this?  

As he pushes out of the apartment building into the sluggish air of March, he sighs. He can feel his phone buzz against his leg in his back pocket, but he’s not in the mood to talk to anyone. He instead plugs his earbuds in and lets himself get lost in the music.

He wants to skate. He doesn’t want to go shopping. But the rink won’t technically be open until school starts back up, and if he doesn’t go get groceries now, he won’t have anything to eat tonight and he won’t have another opportunity to shop until the next evening, and he can’t wait that long. 

He remembers his mother telling him that there’s a public rink in the shopping center. He’s managed to avoid skating in public ice arenas since he was a first year in high school, but it seems now he’ll have to break that streak. After shopping, he decides he’ll check it out.

Because the apartment complex and the shopping center are so close to the campus, there are plenty of college students preparing for the year, and Changkyun sees a couple of people he recognizes among the shoppers. He picks up a set of bedsheets and pillowcases first before making his way towards the grocery store.

He hopes he won’t have to spell it out for Jooheon that he’s not going to shop or cook for him. No fucking way in hell is he going to do that. Jooheon has a job; he can do that himself.

He’s also not going to let Jooheon’s presence bully him into his room. He made the down payment for the apartment, dammit, he’s going to enjoy the space. He’s not going to spend all of his time in his room now that he has the space to stretch his arms.

Grocery shopping doesn’t take long at all despite the business of the store. After years of shopping for food accustomed to his diet, he knows where everything is and exactly what he needs, and he’s fueled by the idea of skating, so he gets in and out of the store fairly quickly. 

The weather has gotten considerably colder in the short time he was in the store, probably due to the oncoming rain, so he takes the metro back to the apartment complex, and with every step he takes towards the room he feels his heart sinking to his stomach.

He punches in the passcode and pushes his way into the apartment. He doesn’t see Jooheon, but the bedroom door closest to the front door is closed. Good. He can stay in there for all Changkyun cares.

He deposits his bedsheets and other toiletries in his (thankfully untouched) room and moves into the small kitchen to put away his groceries. 

It’s here that he’s finally cornered by Jooheon. Changkyun hears him before he sees him—even his footsteps are loud, sheesh—and he doesn’t turn around when he hears the hockey player pause in the kitchen doorway.

“I think we need to draw some boundaries,” Jooheon says. 

Changkyun scoffs, placing the container of raw chicken in the second drawer of the refrigerator. “Boundaries, huh? You have your bedroom and bathroom, and I have mine. I’m not going to let your presence back me into my room all the time. This is my home, too.”

Jooheon puts his hands up in surrender. “I mean, which parts of the fridge and cabinets belong to you and me.”

Changkyun scowls. He hadn’t thought about that. Stupid. Why hadn’t he thought about that?

“Well, I’ve already put some of my stuff away. You can have the second shelf and the second drawer.” Changkyun says shortly, then gestures to three of the six cabinets on the right wall. “And those three cabinets.”

“Fine,” Jooheon sighs. 

He disappears again, and Changkyun waits until he hears the bedroom door click shut before letting himself relax.

Fucking hell.

A few days later the Pokseol Ice Castle is finally opened. It’s Monday, and that means that from eight in the morning to one in the afternoon, the figure skating team has complete use of the ice. Changkyun leaves early so he can catch one of the campus shuttles to the Gyeoul Ice Park, but despite his haste, he’s one of the last ones to arrive at the rink when the doors open. He can hear voices in the ice area, but heads to the locker room first to drop off his belongings. 

He meets Hyungwon and Minhyuk in the men’s skating locker room. Both in the process of lacing their skates, they smile at him in greeting. 

“How’ve you been?” Minhyuk asks cheerily. He’s grown out his hair and dyed it blonde, to Changkyun’s surprise. It looks good.

“Not bad,” Changkyun says. He pulls his suitcase towards his locker, lays it open on the bench and begins putting everything back. He leaves out his skates, bungapads, and gloves, but puts everything else away, and sighs in satisfaction when everything is back where it belongs.

“Changkyun, you’re not living on campus this year, are you?” Hyungwon asks casually.

The question reminds Changkyun of his current living situation and he heaves a long sigh.

“No, not this year,” he says, pulling his trainers off. “I’ve finally got an apartment in the city.”

Minhyuk cocks his blonde head in confusion. “I thought you were excited to live in an apartment. What’s the sigh for?”

“My parents only agreed to let me move off campus as long as I’d find a roommate,” Changkyun says. 

Hyungwon raises an eyebrow; he and Minhyuk share a look. 

“No big deal, right?” Changkyun continues. “That’s what I thought, too, but my roommate this year is Lee Jooheon.”

“Nuh uh,” Minhyuk breathes. His eyes are wide in doubt.

Changkyun nods grimly. Hyungwon’s expression turns to pity. 

“What are the odds?” Hyungwon says, standing. He picks up his blade guards.

“Really, though?” Minhyuk looks to be in utter disbelief. "Like, actually?"

“Unfortunately, yes,” Changkyun says, tying his laces with a bit more force than necessary. Once finished, he gathers his gloves, blade guards and water bottle.

“That… sucks,” Minhyuk says. He stands when Changkyun does, and the three of them head out into the arena together.

Most of their friends are already there when they step onto the ice as a group of three. Yoohyeon, the excited puppy she is, grins and waves as Changkyun, Minhyuk and Hyungwon approach the cluster of skaters gathered by the stereo.

Seeing his friends, his teammates, is enough to boost his mood. They are the people he’s spent some of his most precious memories with. His heart is somewhat heavy with the knowledge that he’s graduating this year, but he shrugs it off, happy to be in their presence again. 

“Minhyuk, you look like someone’s just died,” Seonghwa says, and at once, everyone’s attention is brought to Minhyuk. Indeed, his expression is still incredulous and crestfallen.

“Changkyun’s roommate this year is Lee Jooheon.”

“No,” Yoohyeon gasps. Her hands, halfway through gathering her hair into a ponytail, drop to her sides in shock. 

“Are you serious?” Seungkwan demands, looking between Minhyuk and Changkyun in horror.

Changkyun nods. Seonghwa groans.

“Oh, dude…” Seokmin mumbles, grimacing. “I’m really sorry to hear that.”

“Can you request a roommate change?” Seonghwa asks, pulling his blade guards off. 

Changkyun shakes his head. “I’m living off campus this year. The school can’t do anything about it,” he explains. “And the only way I could file for an eviction is if he’s, like, charged with a crime, or something.”

“Frame him for murder,” Gahyeon says, completely serious. 

Her comment has everyone laughing. She’s the newest addition to their team; a second year at the university, she and Yoohyeon, being the only girls on the team, are pretty much attached at the hip. Actually, now that Changkyun thinks about it, he’s quite sure Gahyeon and Yoohyeon are part of the same friend circle. Gahyeon’s hair is a shocking pink, and most of her skating attire is shades of black. Her resting face is a little scary, unlike Yoohyeon, who is the equivalent of a human puppy, but Gahyeon wouldn’t be on the team if she wasn’t a good skater. Changkyun has long since stopped underestimating both girls and their skills.

“No, really,” Gahyeon badgers. “I have to read this terrifying true crime novel for my English literature class. It’s giving me some serious ideas.”

Before anyone can answer, the door to the ice area swings open and in walks Kwon Jiyong, the coach of the figure skating team at the university. He’s dressed in his padded, black Olympic Team Korea jacket and he’s already wearing his skates.

“Welcome back, team,” he says by way of greeting, and steps onto the ice. “How was everyone’s break? Also, who are we framing for murder?”

Seungkwan, Seokmin and Yoohyeon burst into giggles. Changkyun allows himself to smile, too, but Gahyeon looks totally serious.

“Changkyun is rooming with Lee Jooheon this year,” she says in a stage whisper.

Jiyong looks at Changkyun for confirmation. His expression turns into a wince as Changkyun nods.

“Oh, Jesus…” Jiyong sighs. 

“It’s… fine,” Changkyun says, even though he doesn’t really feel like it’s fine. “I’ll get through it.”

He always does. Yeah. Definitely.

The first month of school is tolerable at best. Changkyun and Jooheon have alternating schedules, so sometimes Changkyun will get home first and other times it will be Jooheon who is the first one to walk in the door. They’ve come to an unspoken agreement that whoever gets home first will have dibs on the kitchen, the laundry room, the dining area and the living room for things like making food, doing homework, doing chores, watching television, playing games, et cetera. 

Once, Jooheon had come home and tried to watch a hockey game while Changkyun was studying at the dining room table. That had not gone well. Changkyun highly doubts Jooheon will try anything similar again. Following that, they try to avoid each other as much as possible when they’re literally sharing a living space.

If Changkyun had it his way, he’d spend most of his time in the rink. In particular, the rink lobby, with its ever-burning fireplace, comfortable cushions, and high-tech tables with built-in power outlets, is a popular spot to study, relax, or hang out even for students who aren’t skaters or hockey players. But the hockey players have gotten so territorial and protective of their time in the building that even when Changkyun is alone in the lobby, not doing anything other than studying or reading, they pick on him and laugh at him and refuse to leave him alone. These days, Changkyun just doesn’t have the energy to haul his schoolwork to the rink, knowing he’ll inevitably have to deal with their brutish behavior.

As it is, Changkyun and Jooheon don’t see much of each other anyway. Since they’re both fourth year students, they’ve got fewer classes this year, but now that they’re both captains of the respective ice teams, they spend a lot of alternating time at the rink. Changkyun couldn’t care less about Jooheon’s classes and schedules, so he doesn’t know where Jooheon is when he’s not in the flat or at the ice arena. The only time they’re really in the apartment together is at night, when they’re done with classes and practice for the day and ready to wind down.

Also, Jooheon snores. Loudly.

On a warm Friday in late April, there’s a clash between the skaters and the hockey players. Changkyun is both proud and surprised that it had taken this long, really; the two teams had made it almost the whole month of April without any kind of interference. It was a new record.

The hockey players had the ice first on Friday and Fridays are the days before the weekly hockey game, meaning the hockey players have an extended session. So, when the figure skaters gathered at the rink to get ready, the stupid brutes were still there, wrecking the ice. Within ten minutes of every skater arriving at the rink, the hockey team had disbanded and left. As the zamboni resurfaced the ice, Changkyun relished in the fact that they were gone at last.

And then Gahyeon found her skate bag had been rifled through. She’d realized she was missing several things: her gloves, her makeup bag, her bungapads, her blade towel, even her nylon socks and her water bottle had been taken. This led to the whole team being dispatched about the rink in search of her stuff, and by the time everything had been found, all of them had wasted an hour of their precious ice time, Gahyeon was in tears, and Changkyun was seething.

He’s still seeing red by the time he walks into the apartment towards the end of the day, and Jooheon is sitting on the sofa, a hockey game displayed on the television.

“Do you think you’re funny?” Changkyun demands, dropping his rucksack on the floor by his bedroom door.

Jooheon doesn't even glance at him and grunts in response. “I like to think I’m hilarious.”

Changkyun clenches his fists at his side. “Why do you idiots think it’s necessary to mess with us? We haven’t done anything to you since school started. Did you get bored, or something?”

This seems to get Jooheon’s attention. He glances over. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“I genuinely do not.”

“You and your stupid teammates took Gahyeon’s belongings and hid them all over the rink,” Changkyun fumes. 

Jooheon pauses the game on the television with a sigh. “I didn’t participate in that.”

“But you knew?” Changkyun bites.

Jooheon shrugs.

“You’re absolutely pathetic,” Changkyun snaps, throwing his arms up. “Don’t you know that you’re responsible for your teammates and their actions? You’re their captain! And if you had an ounce of respect for anyone except yourself, you’d do something about it.”

There’s a pause. Jooheon stares at Changkyun, uninterested, while Changkyun smolders on the inside. Then Jooheon unpauses the hockey game and shifts his eyes back to the screen.

“You’re cute when you’re angry,” Jooheon says.

Changkyun almost hits him. 

To say things get worse from there is an understatement. Having the rink in the morning on Saturdays means they have access to the whole building; Seungkwan and Seokmin decided to get even with the hockey players by hiding the bucket of hockey pucks, and it seemed the brutes were too stupid to find the bucket, leading to a whole practice without any pucks at all. It was only once their coach, Choi Seunghyun, got involved that they found the bucket of pucks hidden underneath the basket of feminine products in the girls’ locker room. And because hockey pucks have to be frozen before a match to reduce bouncing on the ice, their Saturday game was delayed by an hour to return the pucks to their playable quality.

They’d lost the game. 

Changkyun thought it was genius, but Jiyong wasn’t impressed. He’d given them all a hundred and fifty torture twists and a hundred and fifty lunge jumps on each leg as punishment once Seungkwan and Seokmin came clean.

“It’s okay to want to stand up for your friends, but don’t stoop to their level,” Jiyong had scolded. “Be the bigger person, guys. I want to put an end to this stupid rivalry this year.”

Changkyun would have given his coach’s wise words more thought if his abdominal muscles weren’t screaming in agony. Getting out of bed the next morning had been pure torture, but the nasty look Jooheon had tossed his way as Changkyun left for the ice arena had given Changkyun a feeling of deep satisfaction.

Despite what most students at the university believe, there are times when the hockey players and the figure skaters reach a ceasefire, however brief it may be. There’s a metaphorical area of No Man’s Land between the two groups, and the one one who is allowed to walk that No Man’s Land is the one and only Yoo Kihyun.

Kihyun is a freestyle snowboarder. He’s one of the best on the university’s team. And he is considered off-limits by both the hockey team and the figure skating team. This is because both teams have claimed him: his boyfriend, Hyunwoo, is on the hockey team, and Kihyun has been friends with Minhyuk since they were toddlers. Whenever there’s a dispute between the opposing sides, Kihyun is usually the one to calm the waters until someone starts the fight again.

It’s a vicious cycle, for lack of a better term. Someone from one team will cause an issue, the other team will retaliate, and Kihyun will swoop in to force the teams to come to a temporary armistice. Rinse and repeat.

If Kihyun didn’t have his sights set on the Olympic snowboarding team, Changkyun thinks he’d make an excellent counselor. The reason Kihyun always manages to get the two teams to stop fighting, at least for a little while, is because he has everyone’s utmost respect, both as an athlete and as a person. 

There isn’t very much true goodness in the world, but Changkyun believes Kihyun is a walking miracle.

So, during morning practice the day after the hockey puck incident, Changkyun isn’t surprised to find Kihyun watching from the stands. Kihyun doesn’t usually watch morning practices because the slopes are easier to practice on when it’s colder in the morning, so when Changkyun spots him sitting alone on the bleachers, bundled in a winter parka despite the increasing late spring heat outside, he knows he’s in for it now.

Kihyun spends the rest of the morning there, so when Changkyun finally steps off the ice at a quarter to one in the afternoon, he smirks a little to see that Kihyun looks like he’s freezing.

“I feel like the single parent of thirty two adult babies,” Kihyun says dryly as Changkyun approaches.

Changkyun snickers, then smiles sheepishly. “At least we made it to April…?”

Kihyun gives him a look. 

“Do you wanna go into the lobby?” Changkyun asks. “It’s warmer in there.”

“I’m perfectly fine, thanks.”

Now it’s Changkyun’s turn to stare, gazing pointedly at the parka Kihyun dons. Kihyun sighs and stands up, and follows Changkyun out into the warm lobby.

Changkyun is hot, because it’s warm outside and that means that even the cold rink is warmer, but Kihyun seems glad to be out of the ice area. They pick a sofa further away from the fireplace and sit down together.

“What did Jiyong and Seunghyun have to say about these little stunts?” Kihyun asks, pulling off his parka as he sinks into the cushions.

“Well, I don’t know about Seunghyun, but I know he was pissed when his players sent him into the girls’ locker room instead of going in themselves,” Changkyun says with a small laugh, then sobers. “Jiyong wasn’t pleased, though. My abs are so sore, Kihyun.”

Kihyun doesn’t look the least sympathetic. “You kind of deserved it.”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“No, but your team members did,” Kihyun argues, “and they’re technically your responsibility.”

“I don’t have any problem taking responsibility for their actions. As their captain, that’s what I’m supposed to do,” Changkyun protests. “But Jooheon doesn’t. He didn’t help his teammates hide Gahyeon’s stuff, but he also didn’t do anything to stop them. He didn’t take the blame.”

“This isn’t about Jooheon,” Kihyun says. “I’m going to deal with him and Hyunwoo later. This is about your decisions.”

“Kihyun, he’s my roommate this year,” Changkyun whines.

“So I’ve heard.”

“This is just torture, Ki. I don’t know how I’m going to last this year. You’ll have to clean my bones out of my bed.”

Kihyun rolls his eyes. “He’s not going to kill you, Changkyun.”

“He might. Gahyeon thinks I could frame him for murder. I don’t know him; he could be a psychopath.”

“Exactly, Changkyun,” Kihyun says suddenly, snapping his fingers. “That’s exactly what I’m trying to say.”

Changkyun stares at him, in horror. “He could be a psychopath?”

“No, idiot. I’m trying to say that you don’t know him.”

“Yeah,” Changkyun says shortly, “because he could be a psycho.”

Kihyun rolls his eyes. “My point is that you should try befriending him.”

Changkyun gapes at him, then starts laughing.

“Funny,” he chuckles. “Really amusing.”

Kihyun doesn’t laugh with him. Changkyun feels the smile slip off his face.

“Be friends with him?” he repeats. “You’re literally crazy. His presence alone makes me want to throw up.”

“He could probably say the same about you,” Kihyun says.

Changkyun scoffs. “He should consider himself lucky to be in my presence. I am a delight to be around.”

“He doesn’t know that,” Kihyun says pointedly.

Changkyun blinks, not sure what to say to that. Kihyun meets his gaze evenly, waiting for a reaction.

Completely unsure of how to respond, Changkyun settles for asking, “what’s your point?”

“Well, you kind of went into this whole mess already swinging your fists at each other,” Kihyun says. “I witnessed it. In first year, you made the figure skating team, Jooheon made the hockey team, and the first thing you both heard about was the rivalry. You haven’t taken the time or opportunity to, like, get to know him at all.” 

He pauses, looking at Changkyun again for a response, but Changkyun genuinely has no idea what to say. Kihyun heaves a sigh.

“What I’m saying is, you don’t hate each other because you’ve got a history of having personally wronged each other, or something. You hate each other out of obligation.”

Changkyun pauses, speechless. He had never considered that before. Kihyun can obviously recognize the internal enlightenment Changkyun is experiencing, because he nods victoriously.

“Honestly, Changkyun, I’ve followed both teams since we were all first years,” he says. “I’ve seen it grow, change, get worse, get better, get worse again. And every year, this stupid rivalry gets more and more pitiful. I don’t want you to leave this university only remembering the horrible shit you and the hockey players did to each other. At least for your sake, just—I don’t know—try being civil. Try understanding him. You might get to know someone you thought you’d never know.”

“So how should I start?” Changkyun asks. “I’m not opposed to it”—a lie, for the most part—“but there’s no telling what Jooheon is gonna do. I mean, he’s more prideful than me, with all his hoity-toity ‘no homo’ bullshit. If I try to get to know him and he turns out to be the same asshole I think he is, then what?”

“Jooheon isn’t an asshole.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Kihyun shrugs. “If you try to get to know him and he’s still a prick to you, at least you can say you tried.”

Changkyun sits back against the couch cushion with a sigh. “Where should I start?”

Kihyun thinks for a moment. “The hockey season just ended, and it doesn’t resume until early October, but they’ve got a couple of scrimmages lined up before they start playing for real. Why don’t you join me at a few of the scrimmages?”

“I don’t know how the game is played,” Changkyun says. “I’m afraid I’d either annoy you or bore you with my constant questions.”

“So do some research,” Kihyun suggests. “You love research. It’s not a hard game to follow once you get good at watching the puck. And you won’t annoy me by asking questions. Lord knows how patient Hyunwoo had to be with me when I started learning about it.”

“Ugh. Imagine dating a hockey player,” Changkyun groans, and dodges, laughing, as Kihyun swings at him. 

The long, warm month of May passes and leaves the door open for the heat of June as it passes by, and Changkyun is tired of having to change in and out of his jacket when going to and from the rink. Even in the very northern part of Pyeongchang, where the mountains are the tallest and coldest, the summers are warm. Of course, being located near the slopes of the Taebaek Mountain region, there’s no shortage of snow even when the sun’s rays turn angry, but after spending hours in the rink, working and sweating, sometimes the summer sun is too much and Changkyun has to resist the urge to find the nearest patch of snow and lie down in it. He wonders how Kihyun does it; every day, rain or shine, hot or cold, he wears the same parka, goggles, helmet, gloves, snow pants—and he wears it like the professional he is.

On a sunny afternoon in mid June, Changkyun agrees to meet Kihyun after their morning practices have concluded and return to the rink to watch the hockey scrimmage. Changkyun, having just finished his practice for the day, would be dead meat if he were caught still in the rink once the hockey players enter the building, so as he waits for Kihyun to arrive from the slopes, he waits (hides) in the men’s locker room in the west part of the building—the area dedicated to the skaters. Even from inside the locker room, he can hear the hockey players as they bang their way into the lobby, yelling and hollering and slapping at each other’s helmets. He wonders why he ever agreed to this. 

At least living with Jooheon has sort of gotten better. They’ve gotten very skilled at avoiding each other when they’re both inside the apartment, and Jooheon keeps to his space, which is more than Changkyun expected from him. Aside from the loud snoring, Jooheon is a fairly clean roommate. 

What’s better is they’ve come to an unspoken mutual agreement that the rivalry between them takes place only outside the apartment. The little flat is decidedly too small for the both of them, but it has finally become a place where Changkyun can (sort of) relax, as he and Jooheon have come to a ceasefire of some kind. As long as they keep to themselves, don’t meddle with each other’s belongings, and avoid any kind of social interaction at all, living in the apartment is tolerable.

Outside the flat, though, it’s fair game. Their enmity ceases only when they’re both inside the flat: anywhere else, they’re competitive as normal. At least the moments in his apartment are peaceful.

Changkyun pulls his phone out of his pocket when it buzzes against his legs.

Hamster: I’m at the rink. Where are you?

He takes a deep breath and pushes his way gently out of the locker room; after looking around to make sure the coast is clear, he heads into the lobby, where he sees Kihyun hanging his snowboarding parka on the hooks on the wall by the entrance doors.

“Hey,” Kihyun says by way of greeting.

“Hey,” Changkyun says. Kihyun turns to face him, then gives him a once over.

“You’re going to be cold in that,” Kihyun says, pointing at the thin jacket Changkyun is wearing.

Changkyun gives him a funny look. He’s wearing what he’d worn to practice: black skating tights, an athletic top, and his Starship University figure skating jacket. 

“What do you mean, I’ll be cold?” Changkyun asks, looking at his attire. “This is what I always wear.”

“I know, but you’re not going to be on the ice,” Kihyun points out. “You’re gonna be watching. Sitting. Not moving. And you’re going to be cold. I know this because I experience it every time I come here.”

Changkyun hadn’t considered that. He nods. “Okay, I’ll be right back. Meet you on the bleachers.”

When he returns from the locker room, wearing his winter coat—in the middle of June, what is his life—he pushes into the rink area, where the entirety of the team is already on the ice. Half of them are wearing orange and black, and the other half are wearing orange and white. The two players by the opposite goals are wearing blue and green respectively. Kihyun is sitting on the bleachers, watching.

Alone.

Does no one else come to watch the scrimmages?

“You did not tell me that we’d be alone,” Changkyun hisses as he comes to sit by Kihyun on the hard metal benches. 

Kihyun gives him a sideways glance. “What did you expect?”

He’d expected a crowd he’d be able to hide in. In his all-black attire, he stands out like a sore thumb against the cold grey bleachers, and they’re close enough to the rink that any player who looks at them for more than two seconds is going to recognize Changkyun.

“I did not agree to this,” Changkyun snaps under his breath.

“Yes, you did. I have the text conversation to prove it.”

Changkyun rubs his face with his hands. 

“Okay, so, tell me the basics of the game,” he sighs, admitting defeat.

“I told you to do research.”

“I’m a busy man, Kihyun.”

“Okay, fair enough.” Kihyun says, then clears his throat. “Ice hockey is a sport that is played by two teams on ice. The players wear ice skates on their feet and can skate across the ice at very high speeds. They hold hockey sticks, which they use to push, shoot or pass a puck around the ice. The players score by shooting the puck into a net. The goaltenders try to stop them.”

Changkyun glances at him, unamused. “Did you just recite the Wikipedia definition?”

“I knew you wouldn’t research it.”

Walking miracle or not, Kihyun can be really impish when he feels like it. 

Changkyun sighs and turns back to the ice.

“How many on the ice at a time?”

“Six per team, twelve total. Each team has two defenders, three forwards, and goaltender.”

“So the other guys just sit and watch?”

“Pretty much,” Kihyun says. “But everyone gets plenty of ice time. They rotate players.”

Changkyun nods. He’s not willing to admit to himself just yet that he’s curious to see how the game works. He doesn’t think he could ever be a hockey player, even if he knew the game and had the physique and skill. Figure skating isn’t a team sport. He has his friends, sure, and he’s grown up with figure skaters as his closest friends and confidants, but at the end of the day, they’re also his competitors, and it’s hard to find a balance between being teammates and being rivals. That’s why, as the captain of the university’s skaters, he tries to promote teamwork any chance he gets: group workouts in particular are a good time to encourage a team mentality.

“Does the coach always play referee?” Changkyun asks, gesturing to Seunghyun in his black and white striped shirt.

“No, no. Just during scrimmages.”

“How does he coach and ref at the same time?”

“He doesn’t,” Kihyun says. “I’ve watched enough of these scrimmages to know that he saves the coaching for after the match. His scrimmages are more like a chance for him to see how they play. How they’ve progressed as a team and as individuals.”

Changkyun nods in consideration. Jiyong is usually always barking instructions, corrections and suggestions from the rink’s edge, even when he’s doing run-throughs of his routine.  

A whistle blows. As Kihyun had explained, the five players in orange and five in white form a sort of circle in the middle of the rink. The goaltenders take their positions at the nets at the opposite end of the ice.

“Which one is Jooheon?” Changkyun asks under his breath.

“Number seven. Orange jersey.”

After searching for a minute, he sees Jooheon on the right side of the rink, closest to where Kihyun and Changkyun are seated.

“Is that his normal position?” Changkyun asks. 

Kihyun nods. “He plays right wing.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“He has to stay towards the right side of the rink.”

Changkyun nods. Another whistle blows and something small and black slides across the ice. All at once the players go after it, like a herd of wildebeest. The puck is moving so fast Changkyun can’t even see it as it’s battered around the ice, clicking noisily off of the sticks.

Kihyun is watching the game with ease, but Changkyun is struggling, so he decides to watch one player and one player only. His eyes fall on the orange jersey closest to him, with the number seven printed onto the fabric. Changkyun can’t hardly see Jooheon under the helmet, but suddenly Jooheon gives a wild swing of his stick and with an ear splitting clack, the black puck goes flying into the goal at the east end of the rink. Everyone wearing orange jerseys, including Jooheon, burst into yells and hollers. Jooheon pumps his fist in the air. 

Kihyun is clapping. Reflexively, Changkyun joins him, even though he has no idea what he just watched. 

The game is played in three twenty minute periods, with short breaks in between each period. By the last two minutes of the last period, the teams are tied six to six. He bites at his nail, looking back and forth between the hockey players and the giant red clock on the wall, counting steadily down to minute zero. The players are fully invested in their game, and he can hear the poor rubber puck as it’s smacked around on the ice, clacking and clicking violently off of every stick it hits.

Changkyun blinks and then there’s twenty seconds left on the clock. There’s a shout, then another clap of the puck bouncing off Jooheon’s stick. Changkyun barely manages to catch sight of the thing as it flies across the slick surface, right between the green goaltender’s legs, and into the net.

In the span of five seconds, the game board on the wall changes from six to six to seven to six, and the shriek of a whistle splits the air. The players on the ice erupt into loud shouts and cheers.

“What just happened?” Changkyun asks, shocked.

Next to him, Kihyun is grinning and clapping. “The game is over. Hyunwoo’s team won! Jooheon scored the winning shot!”

Changkyun sits back in his seat, dumbfounded, as Kihyun gets up and hurries down the bleachers towards the players to rejoice their victory with them. 

His eyes follow Jooheon as the hockey star pounces on Hyunwoo, his mouth wide open in a cry of triumph. He hadn’t realized his eyes stayed on Jooheon the entire game. Changkyun doesn’t know anything about hockey, but he doesn’t need to know much to recognize that Jooheon is an excellent player. His team, the orange team, wins seven to six, and Jooheon had made at least three of the goals, including the winning one.

As he watches the players celebrate and congratulate each other, it hits him that in all his years sharing a rink with them, he hadn’t really stopped to consider the fact that the hockey team is actually very good. Son Hyunwoo, Kihyun’s boyfriend, plays center, while Jooheon and Lee Hoseok are right and left wingers respectively. Jeon Jungkook and Kim Mingyu play defenders, and the goaltenders are two boys Changkyun knows by name only: Choi Seungcheol and Song Mingi. He supposes there’s a reason Starship is known for producing Olympians in every winter sport. 

He also realizes the players look much scarier when they’re completely decked out in all their gear. Changkyun stays seated on the bleachers as the players get off the ice, observing. He watches them all shrug out of their jerseys and shoulder pads and pull their giant helmets off their heads and while most of them are pretty muscular, they’re all about half the size they seem to be when wearing the pads and jerseys.

 A flash of deep black catches the right side of his gaze and he glances over to see Jooheon talking to the goaltender in blue, Seungcheol. Jooheon is absolutely soaked in sweat, and as he tosses his head back to laugh brightly at something Seungcheol says to him, he combs his veiny hand through his damp black locks. Catching the harsh glow from the overhead fluorescent lights of the arena, Changkyun doesn’t think Jooheon has ever looked more attractive than he does in that moment.

His heart beats a little faster the whole way home. 

A few hours later, Changkyun is at the dining room table working on an assignment for his music theory class when the front door opens and Jooheon comes inside. Neither of them say anything, as is customary. Changkyun acts like Jooheon doesn’t exist. Jooheon does the same.

“I saw you at the rink,” Jooheon says suddenly. “During the scrimmage.”

It startles Changkyun more than he’d care to admit. He’d kind of thought they’d reached a pact of silence in the apartment.

“Uh, yeah,” Changkyun says lamely.

“Did Kihyun drag you there?”

“For lack of a better term, yes,” Changkyun says, nodding slowly. 

He decides to take the leap. 

“You’re, um, a good player.” He says awkwardly.

Jooheon glances at him, and for a moment his expression is unreadable. Changkyun looks at the tabletop, unable to bring himself to look at Jooheon in the face.

“Look,” Jooheon begins, and Changkyun’s stomach sinks at the hardness of his tone. “I know Kihyun is trying to force us to get along, but I don’t want nor do I need to be your friend.”

Changkyun puts his head in his hand. He’d known this would happen.

“I like you better as a rival.” Jooheon bites. “Don’t expect to get all chummy with me.”

“All I said was that you’re a good player,” Changkyun says weakly. He kind of feels like crying, but there’s no way in hell he’s going to let Jooheon see that. He doesn’t want to give Jooheon the satisfaction. 

“I don’t need your compliments,” Jooheon snarls. “I know I’m a good player. And what do you know about hockey, anyway? You wouldn’t know a good player if he came up and hit you in the face.”

Changkyun doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know what to say. 

It’s silent for what feels like a long time. Jooheon is sizing him up, trying to make himself seem bigger. Changkyun can’t believe this is the same man that, only hours earlier, he’d found attractive, shining and grinning in his sweaty glory after scoring the winning goal. He reminds Changkyun of a threatened peacock, flaunting its feathers in the face of danger as a means of scaring off predators. But this is a little scarier than an angry bird. Jooheon’s hostility is rolling off him in waves; it’s almost palpable and Changkyun just wants him to go away. Or vanish himself. Either works.

“Are you gonna cry?” Jooheon mocks.

“You’re such a prick,” Changkyun snaps, aware his voice is shaking.

Jooheon scoffs. 

“Pussy,” he jeers.

He vanishes into his room, and slams the door behind him.

When Jooheon leaves the rink the next morning after practice, he makes it six steps away from the arena doors before he runs straight into Changkyun, who is just stepping off one of the campus shuttles. Despite nearly having been bowled over entirely, Changkyun doesn’t even look at Jooheon as he heads towards the rink. As he passes, Jooheon realizes he has his earbuds in, and as he approaches the rink entrance he pulls them out and stuffs them into his pocket. Jooheon kind of feels as though he should say something, but before he can come up with anything to say, Changkyun disappears through the glass doors.

To say he feels bad about what had happened the previous night is an understatement. He feels terrible. He doesn’t know why he attacked Changkyun like that. Changkyun had left the apartment shortly after Jooheon’s outburst, and he hadn’t returned until quite late. Jooheon barely slept.

He sighs as he steps into the parking lot, looking for his car. His heart sinks when he sees Kihyun’s short figure leaning against the driver’s door of his car. 

One look at the snowboarder and Jooheon can tell he’s fuming. 

“I think what you said was so unnecessary, Jooheon,” Kihyun says coldly as Jooheon approaches.

“How did you find out? Did the baby tattle to mommy?” Jooheon says reflexively.

CRACK!

Jooheon’s face snaps to the side. 

His cheek starts to sting like he’s been burned. 

Had Kihyun just hit him?

“Ow!” Jooheon yelps. “What the hell?”

“Don’t give me that. I know you struggle sometimes, but that does not give you an excuse to be a dick, Jooheon,” Kihyun seethes. “If what he told me you said is what you really said, then fuck that, Jooheon, that was nasty. And so uncalled for. Calling him a pussy? Are you joking? You’ve got quite an array of personality traits, but I know that being an asshole for no reason is not one of them. So why the fuck do you keep acting like it is?”

Jooheon stares at Kihyun with a hand on his reddening cheek, a little stricken. 

“What did he tell you?” Jooheon asks breathlessly.

“Does it matter? Jesus, Jooheon, he called me in tears,” Kihyun bites. He throws his hands up in exasperation. “I just don’t understand, Jooheon. You would never speak like that to me or anyone on your team. You and I both know you are not like that. So why—why? Explain it to me.”

“You know why, Kihyun,” Jooheon says weakly. “It’s like—instinct.”

He’s starting to get upset. He very rarely sees Kihyun this furious, and it’s weighing painfully on him to know that he’s the cause. His heart is also heavy with guilt, sinking to his stomach with the weight of regret. He knows he was out of line, speaking to Changkyun the way he had.

“That’s not a good enough answer for me anymore, Jooheon,” Kihyun says sharply. “I’m telling you right now I am not going to accept that from either of you. From this point forward, your stupid rivalry is not an excuse I’m going to hear. Rivalry or no, you had no right to talk to him like that.”

Jooheon swallows. The sun is burning the back of his neck; even in the wintery wonderland that Pyeongchang is, the summers are hard and Jooheon knows the warmth of June isn’t the only thing making this worse.

Kihyun looks him deeply in the eyes. The snowboarder is scary when he’s like this. “I know it’s hard for you to let your walls down around him, Jooheon, but I promise you—he is harmless. Being on a friendly basis with him isn’t going to kill you. Learning to respect each other is not going to kill you.”

“My dad will kill me if he knows I’m hanging with him,” Jooheon protests.

“Who cares what your dad thinks? Your dad isn’t here,” Kihyun snaps back. “And you’re an adult. I know he tried to make you afraid of the world, afraid of people—but that’s no way to live, Jooheon. I know you know that.”

Jooheon nods; he does know that. They’ve had this conversation before.

Kihyun puts a firm hand on Jooheon’s shoulder.

“He deserves an apology,” Kihyun says sharply. “The end of July will bring the ISU Challenger Series. This is a big year for Changkyun. He’s participating in the Autumn Classic in Canada, the Ice Challenge in Austria, and the Nebelhorn Trophy in Oberstdorf, but before those happen, his coach is holding a mock competition the last weekend in July. I’m going to watch, and you’re going to come with me.”

“Okay,” Jooheon says meekly. 

“You’re gonna learn to respect each other if it kills me, Jooheon, I swear,” Kihyun says seriously. “I’m not asking you to love him. I’m asking you to be kind. Why is that so hard?”

Jooheon doesn’t know.

Things are tense for a while following the hockey scrimmage. Jooheon doesn’t see Changkyun at any more scrimmages following the one he’d attended with Kihyun. Actually, for almost a month Jooheon doesn’t see him much at all. Jooheon sees him very fleetingly in between hockey practice and skating practice, and at night, when they’re both in the apartment, he hides himself away in his room. 

What Jooheon doesn’t understand is why this bothers him so much. He feels like he’s lost something he only had a very weak grip on. Staring at Changkyun’s closed bedroom door puts a heaviness on his shoulders.

He never formally apologizes. He’s too much of a coward to do that.

A week before the end of July, on the hottest day of the summer, Jooheon gets a text from Kihyun as he’s leaving his morning classes.

Snowboarding Dude: Changkyun is performing in the mock competition tonight. I’ll pick you up at four.

And he sighs. He’d had plans to hang out with Hoseok and Jungkook after hockey practice, but he knows Kihyun will probably literally kill him if he tries to get out of going.

Hockey Dude: Okay. How late should I expect this to go?

Snowboarding Dude: Late. It’s a good thing it’s Friday.  

Kihyun’s car swings into the parking lot of the apartment building at five to four, and Jooheon is surprised to open the passenger door to find Hoseok and Hyunwoo in the backseat of the car. One look at their faces and Jooheon can tell they’re not excited to be going either.

Jooheon is even more surprised to see the turnout at the rink when they pull into the parking lot of the arena. The parking lot is packed. He hadn’t realized the mock competitions were open to the public; Seunghyun never advertises their scrimmages. Of course, the hockey games that are played at the university’s rink are huge campus affairs; nearly everyone in the university comes to watch. He supposes since the skaters always have to travel for competitions, opening the rink to the public when they’re performing at home is only fair.

Upon walking into the rink, they’re pounced on by Minhyuk, who flat out ignores Hoseok, Hyunwoo and Jooheon. He talks animatedly to Kihyun about how excited he is that Kihyun is there, that he’s really excited to show him his routine, and other things that leave his mouth in an almost unintelligible flurry. He’s also dressed to perfection, in a white button down, black vest and red necktie. It must be his costume.

“Minhyuk!”

It’s Hyungwon, peeking out from the locker room. His expression darkens considerably upon seeing Jooheon, but he beckons Minhyuk inside. After waving goodbye to Kihyun and only Kihyun, Minhyuk bounds towards the locker room, his red blade guards click-clacking against the floor.

Kihyun leads them into the rink area and Jooheon is blown away at the number of people in the arena. They end up having to sit further back by the wall, away from the ice, in order to find space for all four of them to sit together. Within five minutes of them sitting down, the doors close, and the audience hushes as a voice comes over the loudspeaker.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming tonight to support our figure skaters,” the voice says, and Jooheon recognizes it as Jiyong, the figure skating coach. “Before we get started, I’d like to give a few honorable mentions. I’d first like to recognize Lee Gahyeon, our newest skater, for her accomplishments in the Korean Junior Nationals earlier this year. She received a silver medal for her second place finish and hopes to continue her successes in the senior division. Secondly, I’d like to recognize Lim Changkyun, our team captain, for being invited to participate in the ISU Challenger Series, where he will compete in Canada, Germany and Austria.”

The arena explodes into applause. 

“Without further ado, please allow me to begin the short program by welcoming our first performer to the ice, Lee Minhyuk!”

Minhyuk appears in the center of the rink as the audience bursts into cheers. From where he sits, Jooheon can see Korean flags and banners being waved in the audience. He can also see signs and slogans with Minhyuk’s name on them. 

Minhyuk skates to a song Jooheon doesn’t recognize. He’s told by Kihyun that it’s from the soundtrack of an American movie called the Addams Family, but that doesn’t mean anything to Jooheon. Seokmin is next, then Seonghwa, followed by Hyungwon, then Seungkwan. 

Jooheon notices, as Seungkwan is finishing his performance, that the skaters are seated by the ice barrier, cheering and watching just as animatedly as everyone else. Seungkwan has gotten up after every performance to throw a single rose onto the ice, and as he takes his final bow, the pink haired girl Jooheon doesn’t know tosses a rose from the bouquet at Seungkwan. He picks it up, grinning, and Jooheon notices that Changkyun is in the process of taking his blade guards off and talking to his coach.

“Is that normal?” Jooheon asks Kihyun under his breath, leaning over.

“Is what normal?” 

“All the skaters are watching each other,” Jooheon says, pointing at the bench where the skaters sit. 

“They don’t normally do that, no,” Kihyun says. “At least, they wouldn’t do that at a major competition.”

“So why are they doing it now?”

Kihyun shrugs. “I mean, why wouldn’t they?”

“Don’t they need to get themselves into the mindset to compete?”

“Well, I guess so, but not at this particular event. This is more of a show than an actual competition, Jooheon. They’re supporting each other.”

Jooheon hums. He doesn’t really get it, but he nods to appease Kihyun.

“And the last skater in the men’s short program, Lim Changkyun!”

Changkyun glides out onto the ice with all the grace in the world. He’s dressed in a white kimono-styled top, with a black obi around his waist. The white top has shimmering black and red sparkles and sequins that tendril from his left shoulder across his torso, and the hems of the sleeves are a deep red. It really is a stunning outfit, and he pulls it off better than Jooheon expected. He looks really good.

The music begins. It’s a piano and violin piece Jooheon doesn’t recognize. The first beats of the music are slow, then begin to crescendo. As the music picks up, Changkyun also gazes speed, and dances and spirals across the slick surface with such ease and poise Jooheon is absolutely enthralled. About a minute in, he does his first jump. Jooheon has no idea what the jump is.

“What was that?” he asks Kihyun quickly, applauding with the rest of the audience.

“Triple axel,” Kihyun informs him. “He’s the only one on the team who can do it successfully.”

Changkyun does another jump. Jooheon can’t even tell how many rotations he’s doing, what with how quickly the whole thing happens.

“And that?"

“A triple salchow.”

Changkyun’s final jump is actually two jumps—a combination, Jooheon has learned the term is—and it looks just as flawless as everything else he does. Jooheon glances expectantly at Kihyun.

“I’m not sure about that one, actually,” Kihyun says. “The first jump was either a flip or a lutz, but the second one was a toe loop.”

Changkyun leaps into a spin and after what feels like half a minute of just watching him spin, the music ends with a few sad chords, and Changkyun slides slowly on his knees, his arms stretched out towards the audience as if reaching for something he cannot grasp. At once, the crowd goes wild, clapping and yelling and calling Changkyun’s name.

“Wow,” Hoseok says quietly. It’s not so quiet that Jooheon misses it, though.

Seungkwan throws his remaining red rose onto the ice and as he stands and takes his bow, Changkyun picks it up with a smile. In a moment that has the crowd screeching, he puts the flower between his teeth as if he were about to tango. He smirks at the audience’s reaction and Jooheon pretends he hadn’t seen it.

The girls perform their short programs and after a fifteen minute intermission, the lights dim again and it’s time for the free skate. Kihyun had spent all fifteen minutes of the intermission explaining to Jooheon, Hyunwoo and Hoseok how skating competitions are set up: two programs plus an exhibition skate make for a very, very long night, and usually competitions take place over the course of three days. Jooheon has learned that it’s easier for him to understand all of this if he tries to put it into terms he knows: halftime, tournament, first half and second half, et cetera.

The girls go first for the free skate segment of the show. Yoohyeon skates to a song from The Hobbit soundtrack, and Gahyeon, the pink haired girl, skates to You Give Love A Bad Name by Bon Jovi. While Yoohyeon’s program was certainly enthralling, Gahyeon’s performance has the audience on its feet, clapping and singing along, and she’s wearing a black bodysuit with a black studded leather jacket. Jooheon is horrified to catch himself mouthing the lyrics, but in a fleeting moment he sees Hyunwoo and Kihyun and Hoseok enjoying themselves too, so he decides to give up his pride for three minutes and jam to the music as everyone else is.

The men’s free skate happens next. Seungkwan goes first, skating to a song that sounds like it popped out of an American movie from the 1920s, and Seokmin skates after him to a violin cover of part of the first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Minhyuk follows with a performance to a song from Harry Potter; Jooheon is fairly sure the song Seonghwa skates to is the James Bond theme, and Hyungwon skates after him to a Chopin medley. 

Changkyun is last, it appears. As Jiyong announces his name, he slides across the ice in a completely new costume. This one is black, and tight to his body. It highlights the muscles in his arms, which Jooheon hadn’t noticed before are actually quite toned and lean. The left sleeve of the costume is red and fades into black around the wrist, and similar patterns of black to red to white ombre across Changkyun’s torso, like some sparkly beast has come and raked its claws down Changkyun’s chest. The glitter and rhinestones on the shirt catch the light above, glimmering fantastically in the packed arena. He almost looks like a disco ball. Only much, much more attractive.

Changkyun’s free skate music is piano and violin again, only this is much faster and captivating in an entirely different way. From the very first keys, Changkyun is flying around the rink; his movements are sharp and clipped and precise and his first jump is totally flawless. Within the first twenty seconds of his program he has the entire arena eating out of the palm of his hand. Jooheon couldn’t tear his eyes away if he tried.

At one point the music comes to a long crescendo, a full minute where the emotion and passion in Changkyun is almost physically palpable within the arena. Every movement is timed with a certain moment in the music. He leaps into his final spin sequence of the performance and by the time he’s finishing, the audience is standing again. The applause is thunderous in a way that is so different yet so similar to the wild stands of a hockey match. It makes Jooheon’s ears ring.

He’s just… floored. There’s no other word for it.

Changkyun’s performance marks the end of the night. Shortly after he takes his final bow the audience begins to disperse. Jooheon hangs in the building as long as he can, trying to catch a glimpse of the younger athlete, but Kihyun eventually drags him away and drops him off at his apartment.

He makes it home before Changkyun, of course. When he walks into the flat, the clock on the television reads 10:27 pm.

Jooheon lies awake until well into the late hours of the night, listening for the beeping of the electronic lock on the front door. He finally hears it slide open at a quarter to one in the morning, and then the familiar shuffling of Changkyun’s footsteps slink into the quiet apartment. Jooheon can hear him go straight down the hall to his bedroom; the door opens, then closes. Then there is only silence once again. 

And Jooheon sleeps.

Changkyun is still at home when Jooheon wakes up the next morning. The skaters typically have the rink to themselves on Saturday mornings, so Jooheon is used to being alone when waking up on the weekends. But Changkyun is sitting at the table in the living room, snacking from a plate of fruit and eggs while poring over a textbook.

If Changkyun had noticed Jooheon at the arena during the show, he doesn’t say anything. He makes no comment about the night at all, actually—but Jooheon has also learned to expect complete silence from him in the apartment anyway. He doesn’t acknowledge Jooheon’s presence at all. 

Briefly, Jooheon wonders if he should say something.

“Um,” he says, eloquently. 

Changkyun looks up slowly from the words in his textbook. "Yes...?"

“Congratulations, on, uh, being invited to that thing,” Jooheon says. “What did Jiyong call it?”

“The Challenger Series?” Changkyun says hesitantly, lifting his head a little further.

“Yeah,” Jooheon says with a slight smile. “What, er, what exactly is it?”

“It’s just a series of international competitions,” Changkyun says. His voice and expression are blank, betraying nothing. “I don’t know if you know what the Grand Prix series is, but it’s, like, below that.”

Jooheon doesn’t know what any of that means, but the word ‘international’ stands out to him the most, so he figures it must be pretty serious. 

“And it requires an invitation?” he asks.

Changkyun shakes his head. “Not really, no. You have to enter yourself into a competition. I was invited because the Korean Skating Union doesn’t have anyone to represent them at this point. We don’t have any Korean skaters on the international scale right now, so I was asked to represent.”

“Well, isn’t that a good thing?” Jooheon asks. “I mean, there’s eight of you and you were selected to compete. That’s pretty cool, right?”

Changkyun nods. “I mean, sure. I’m looking forward to it.”

“When, um, is the first competition?”

“I’ll start out in Canada in September, then Germany, then Austria in early October,” Changkyun says. 

“That’s really cool.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

Awkward.

September comes too quickly and soon enough Changkyun is packing for his first competition.  When Jooheon returns from practice the night before Changkyun leaves, he finds the figure skater on the floor in the living room, neatly placing folded articles of clothing in his suitcases, open in front of him on the floor. Jooheon notices that one suitcase is full of things like hair products and bottles of glitter and makeup. Underneath the supplies, folded up in dry-cleaning bags, are Changkyun’s costumes. The other suitcase seems to be full of athletic practice clothing and other toiletries.

“Where are your skates?” Jooheon asks.

Changkyun nods towards his closed bedroom door. “In there.”

Jooheon nods. Upon arriving at the rink for afternoon practice, he’d walked in on the figure skaters in the middle of something resembling a group hug. As Jooheon had made his way silently to the hockey side of the rink, he’d heard all of them (sans Changkyun) yell something that sounded like, “Changkyun, fighting!”

And his heart had stirred a little when he’d remembered that Changkyun is leaving tomorrow morning.

“When’s your flight?”

“Early,” Changkyun sighs. “Minhyuk is driving Jiyong and me to the airport at six in the morning.”

“Sheesh,” Jooheon mumbles.

Changkyun looks at him suddenly and Jooheon realizes with a jolt just how dark Changkyun’s eyes are. He’s wearing a soft-looking brown jumper over a white t-shirt and black pants, and the sleeves of the jumper fall over his hands. The lightness of his outfit is a beautiful contrast to his auburn hair and dark eyes and in the late afternoon sunlight, the whole setting just seems very… domestic.

How have I never noticed how dark his eyes are?

“Can you… never mind,” Changkyun says, then starts to stand up.

“What is it?”

“Nothing, never mind,” Changkyun waves him off, and then he closes the curtains on the balcony doors, blocking the sunlight. He turns a little pink when he realizes Jooheon is still watching him. “I was getting hot.”

Jooheon shrugs, trying to play off the way his heart is suddenly sprinting in his chest. Changkyun sits back down again, resuming his clothing folding, and Jooheon feels his mouth go dry.

“I’ll, uh, let you get to it then,” he says, then ducks into his bedroom and closes the door. 

In the back of his mind he can hear his dad’s voice like a broken record.

“No one in this world is as important as yourself, Jooheon,” he whispers. “Protect yourself before protecting others.”

And that’s the way Jooheon has lived his life. He’s kept walls around himself, no matter who he's hurt to keep them sturdy. Perhaps his father is wrong, but his father is damaged, and people who have suffered are never keen on going through it again, and Jooheon knows his father’s advice is only designed to protect him. 

But how can Jooheon guard his heart if it’s already bruised?

He can still hear Changkyun moving around in the living room and he hastily stuffs his earbuds into his ears before it can drive him crazy. He’s keen on pulling himself out of reality, if only for a little while. Behind a closed and locked door, he’s safer here than he is anywhere else.

Changkyun places second in the Autumn Classic. Jooheon finds out a week later when he walks into the rink for afternoon practice and the skaters have occupied the lobby for a little party, celebrating Changkyun’s victory. After practice, before he drives himself home, he sits in the driver's seat of his car, watching Changkyun’s performance on YouTube. He has fully captured the Korean public’s attention; there’s Naver articles about him circulating all over the internet. They call him a dark horse, an underdog.

Changkyun has added an element to his free skate, something the commentator calls a cantilever. It’s one of the coolest things Jooheon has ever seen him do.  The image of Changkyun standing on the podium with the silver medallion around his neck is an image Jooheon files away in his head for the long term.

When Changkyun returns in the beginning of October, he has two silver medals and a bronze medal with him. The beginning of October marks the start of hockey season, so while Jooheon is fairly distracted with practice, he does make sure to congratulate Changkyun on his successes. He makes a remark about a skater he’d met in Austria that has both him and Jooheon doubled over in laughter at eleven at night in the kitchen of their apartment, and it’s only when Jooheon is lying in bed later that he realizes it’s the first time he’s ever heard Changkyun truly laugh. The melodic sound rings in his ears all night. 

A week after hockey season starts, just when the weather is starting to turn too cold to go outside without a jacket on, the heating system in the apartment breaks down and six whole levels of the complex are left without working air condition and heating. This makes the building pretty much unbearable to be in and even Changkyun can’t handle this kind of cold when he’s not exercising, so he takes his study materials to the rink and sits by the fireplace in the lobby. 

He can hear the hockey players practicing inside the rink area, 

“Oi, what’s Queen Elsa doing here?”

Changkyun looks up. Two hockey players he doesn’t recognize saunter into the lobby, filling the lobby with the nauseating stench of sweat. His heart sinks as he looks back towards his laptop screen.

“Didn’t Jooheon tell you the heating in our building is out?” Changkyun grumbles.

“Aww. Is it too cold for the ice princess to handle?” the other player jeers. 

Changkyun rolls his eyes but stays quiet, deciding not to justify the taunt with a response. The first player opens his mouth, probably to say something equally as insulting, but then the doors to the ice area open and another player comes into the lobby. He’s covered head to toe in his hockey gear, so Changkyun only recognizes him as Jooheon when he begins to speak.

“Yo,” he says flatly. “We’re still practicing. What are you doing out here?”

The two players look rather taken aback to be interrupted this way, because they both fumble slightly for a response.

“Queen Elsa is in the rink before his turn,” the second player says. Changkyun almost laughs, it’s such a lame response.

Jooheon does not seem impressed. “Okay. And? He’s not bothering us.”

Neither player seems able to come up with anything to say to that. Jooheon nods smugly and points towards the rink; they go back into the area with their tails between their legs like kicked dogs. Jooheon watches them go, but before he follows them, he glances back at Changkyun and gives him a brief nod. Then he vanishes back into the rink.

Relieved and also a little flattered for reasons unknown even to him, Changkyun lets his mind wander. He’s supposed to be studying, but his mind strays away and suddenly he’s skimming the Wikipedia page for hockey rules and regulations. He’d been meaning to do more research on the game, especially now that the season is in full swing, but he’d been so busy with school and the challenger series that he hadn’t had the time. He immerses himself in the text on the screen, even jots down some notes on the back of his maths worksheet.

A substitution of an entire unit on the ice at once is called a line change. Teams typically employ alternate sets of forward lines and defensive pairings when short-handed or on a power play. 

None of those words make any sense to Changkyun, but he doesn't get a chance to think about it before the double doors behind him bang open. Changkyun slams his laptop lid shut; the sound echoes louder than the door opening. He winces, hoping he didn’t accidentally crack his computer's screen and turns around to face the double doors to the rink. A stream of players pass him, stinking of sweat and ignoring him entirely, headed for the entrance to the lobby, apparently done with practice. Changkyun had no idea that much time has passed.

A moment later, Jooheon pokes his head around the door. He’s not wearing his hockey gear aside from his gloves and arm pads, but he’s sweating like the devil, and his chest is heaving as he catches his breath.

“Hey,” he says. “You good? AC still out?”

“Ye—um, yeah,” Changkyun fumbles, trying way too hard to look as casual as possible. “It is. That’s why I’m here. Just—finished with, uh, an assignment. Finally done, you—you know?”

Jooheon nods, inhaling deeply. “...Right. Uh, congrats on being done, I guess.”

“Thanks,” Changkyun says awkwardly.

“I have to go to the store,” Jooheon says as he pushes further into the lobby, pulling off his gloves and elbow pads. Changkyun watches him shuffle around, putting his hockey stuff away. “Do you need me to, like, get you anything while I’m there?”

“Oh, no, that’s—that’s okay,” Changkyun says. “I was planning on going tomorrow. I—um. Yeah. Thanks, though.”

“Okay,” Jooheon says easily. “See you.”

“Bye.”

And he heads out of the rink, following his friends, and then Changkyun is alone in the giant building. His fingers shake as they hover over the laptop lid. 

It takes a week, but then the AC and heating in the building is fixed. It comes just in time, too—mid October brings a serious cold front and the first snow of the winter season. This also means the slopes are open, and suddenly Changkyun sees much less of Kihyun than he had during the summer months. He makes it a point to come watch Kihyun practice. He wants to thank him for a lot of things: without Kihyun, he wouldn’t be on speaking terms with Jooheon. Changkyun isn’t quite ready yet to consider Jooheon a friend, but he’s definitely not an enemy anymore, and they both have Kihyun to blame for that.

He decides to ask Jooheon to join him to watch Kihyun’s practice. He knows Hyungwon and Minhyuk have also been keen on watching Kihyun practice for a while, so during the five minutes all the figure skaters and all the hockey players are in the building, Changkyun takes the opportunity to invite them with him.

“I’m planning to go to the slopes on Friday to watch Kihyun practice,” he says, finally having gathered everyone he wants: Jooheon, Hoseok, Hyunwoo, Minhyuk and Hyungwon. “I wanted to know if any of you would like to come with me.”

“I was also going to watch Ki’s practice,” Hyunwoo says. “Why don’t we all go?”

“Wait, like, all of us?” Hyungwon says skeptically. “All six of us?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“Okay, am I missing something?” Hoseok asks bluntly, eyes narrowed.

“Yeah, since when are we all friends?” Hyungwon looks at Changkyun as though he’s grown a third eye.

“We’re not,” Minhyuk clarifies. “But we’d be going to support a mutual friend. Unless I’m reading this wrong?”

Changkyun accidentally meets Jooheon’s gaze. He can’t read the hockey player’s expression.

“You’re not reading it wrong. I think that’s what Changkyun meant,” Hyunwoo says, and then everyone’s looking at Changkyun. “Right?”

“Definitely,” Changkyun says, swallowing. “Just... the six of us are going to support a mutual friend. Yeah.”

They meet at the slopes after everyone is done with their classes for the day, and they spend a good twenty minutes just looking for Kihyun. The snowboarding team isn’t very big—bigger than the skating team, but not as big as the hockey team or the ski team—and they, too, have a strict schedule on the slopes, so why they can’t find Kihyun is beyond Jooheon.

Hyunwoo is in the middle of dialing Kihyun’s phone number when—

“Oh, what are the odds I’d find you all here?” a voice says from behind them. “I was just about to call one of you.”

Taeyong, another snowboarder on Kihyun’s team, is walking towards them, his board tucked under his arm. His expression is a little tense.

“Where’s Kihyun?” Minhyuk asks instantly.

Taeyong heaves a sigh. “There’s, um, been an accident. Kihyun fell during practice. I don’t think it’s super serious, but our coach took him to the emergency room about twenty minutes ago.”

Jooheon’s heart drops.

They make it to the hospital on campus as a group of six. The receptionist in the emergency room looks up in slight horror at the mass of athletes headed her way, and Hyunwoo reaches her desk first, slightly out of breath.

“We’re here to visit someone,” he says. “Yoo Kihyun.”

“Room six, down the hall,” she says, pointing.

Kihyun is alone in the room, Jooheon realizes when they walk in. He’s awake and looks totally fine, but his leg is suspended in a splint and he’s scrolling through something on his phone screen. He looks up, bewildered, when all six of them pool into the room.

“How did you find out so quickly? I haven’t even texted Hyunwoo yet,” he asks, shocked.

“We wanted to surprise you at practice today, so we went to the slopes,” Hyunwoo explains, making a beeline for Kihyun’s bedside. “Taeyong told us you had an accident.”

“What did he tell you?”

“Nothing, really,” Minhyuk says. “Only that you’d fallen, and he didn’t think it was serious but your coach brought you here.”

“I mean, it’s all true,” Kihyun says with a slight eye roll. “Coach Youngbae overreacted a little. The doctor thinks it’s just a sprain; I landed wrong on a backside one-eighty because I bailed. It was my fault.”

“Are you in pain?” Hyunwoo asks, petting his hair. Jooheon's chest tightens a little.

Kihyun shrugs. “I was earlier, but they gave me something and now I’m fine. It just looks bad; seriously, guys, I’m fine,” he adds, seeing the incredulous gazes at the splint his left foot is encased in.

“In that case, can I just bring up the elephant in the room?” Hoseok says shortly. “I mean, if no one's gonna talk about it then I will. What the hell are we all doing here? Have we all just forgotten about everything?”

Of course, they all know what he’s talking about. Jooheon can see Kihyun’s gaze darkening.

“I thought we made it clear we’re just supporting a mutual friend, Hoseok,” Minhyuk says, and there’s an undercurrent of warning in his tone that has Hoseok bristling. 

“Imagine being such a brute you can’t shove aside your masculinity for five minutes to worry if your friend is okay,” Hyungwon spits.

Hoseok glares at them with a gaze of venom, and looks to Hyunwoo and Jooheon to do something. Jooheon avoids his gaze by putting his head in his hands.

“Don’t look at me,” Hyunwoo says brazenly, putting his arms up. “This was Changkyun’s idea.”

Jooheon opens his mouth to defend Changkyun, but Kihyun beats him to it.

“You know,” Kihyun says loudly, drawing everyone’s attention back to him. “The worst part of being an outsider is the lack of involvement. It sucks, sometimes, that I’m not part of this mess, because it means I have to catch up on everything by myself, and I have to hear and decipher two sides of the same story just to figure out what really happened. But usually I’m also grateful I’m an outsider, because there are advantages to not being snagged in the tangle. The biggest upper hand I have, looking in from the outside, is that I can see things through an unbiased perspective. I can see things as they are. And this, this whole rivalry, as I see it? It’s pathetic.”

The words are sharp, which isn’t uncommon for the snowboarder, but this time they silence everyone. 

“I really had hoped that the two of you would get over yourselves,” Kihyun says, looking sharply at Changkyun and Jooheon. “I see now I was hoping all in vain.”

It wasn’t, though, Jooheon thinks to himself.

The thought surprises him. And it’s that moment that Jooheon realizes something that absolutely knocks the wind out of him.

He looks at Changkyun, sitting next to him with his auburn head cradled in his hands, and he realizes he’s in love.

Following the trip to the hospital, things between the hockey players and the figure skaters have gone from not terrible to abhorrent. And Jooheon has come to rely on Kihyun to help them sort out their issues, but this time he doesn’t think Kihyun will be willing to help. Kihyun has a right to be done with this, Jooheon thinks. For years it’s been his job to be a parent. He’s finally been pushed over the edge, and he’s going to make the two teams deal with it themselves. Jooheon is pretty impressed it took this long, if he’s being honest.

But he doesn’t think about it as much as he thinks about Changkyun. 

His earth-shattering epiphany in the hospital room that day has shaken him to his very core; he feels broken, like he doesn’t even know who he is or what’s happening in his life anymore. He feels like he’s lost his grip on the control he had; by being prickly and defensive and guarded he’s managed to protect his wounded heart and now he feels exposed, weak and defenseless and he has to get some level of control back before he loses his mind.

He finds himself struggling to breathe whenever he’s Changkyun’s proximity, which makes living with him so much harder than it had been before, even when they never spoke to each other. Changkyun, on the other hand, seems to desire to rekindle whatever growing friendship they’ve been forming, because he’s growing more and more talkative and Jooheon just doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. This is the very thing his father taught him to be wary of and protect himself from but at the same time being in love has allowed the feeling of elation into his life and it’s a feeling Jooheon wishes would disappear and wishes he could keep forever. 

He’s never felt so confused and lost in his life.

On a chilly day in late October Changkyun joins Jooheon in the kitchen. By now, Jooheon knows Changkyun is aware something is going on; he’d either be incredibly naive or stupidly blind to not realize something is up. To his credit, though, Changkyun doesn’t say anything, gives Jooheon his space, and tries to act as though everything is normal. It’s something Jooheon is eternally grateful for, even if it’s not really working.

Changkyun hums quietly to himself, one earbud in his ear, as he pulls out some leafy greens and chopped chicken and begins placing the ingredients into a bowl.

“Salad?” Jooheon asks skeptically, trying to ignore how his brain is overanalyzing everything all at once. “Since when do you eat salad?”

“I don’t, really, but I’m starting a new diet,” Changkyun says, closing the lid of the salad bowl and shaking it to mix the contents.

Jooheon raises an eyebrow. “You’re on a diet.”

Changkyun nods. Jooheon looks him up and down. There’s no possible way he’s anywhere near overweight. In fact, he looks a little underweight to Jooheon, and he’s willing to bet that the slight thickness of Changkyun’s thighs is one hundred percent muscle, and his arms are toned through the athletic top he wears.

“Why are you dieting? I mean, you don’t look like you need to,” Jooheon says.

Changkyun shrugs. “I just want to keep my body healthy.”

Jooheon looks him up and down again. “You look pretty healthy to me.”

Changkyun smiles. “Thanks, but I’m not doing this to lose weight or anything.”

“Does figure skating really require dieting, though?” Jooheon asks. “Like, is it really a sport?”

He knows immediately he’s said the wrong thing.

Changkyun stops mixing the salad bowl and slowly turns to him, eyebrows furrowed. “You wanna try that again?”

“I’m just saying, there’s not as much athleticism in figure skating as there is in other sports.” Jooheon manages. He knows he’s burying himself deeper into the hole he’s just dug, but he can’t get his mouth to stop running.

Changkyun’s expression changes again. “Yes, because skating at full speed on a surface of pure ice with knives on my feet, stabbing said ice with said knives, launching myself into the air and rotating several times does not require any athleticism or muscles or a healthy body mass at all.”

Jooheon opens his mouth to defend himself, but Changkyun keeps talking.

“It’s pathetic that you can’t appreciate other sports because you’re trying so hard to protect your fragile masculinity. You’re such an asshole, Jooheon. Why do you have to be such a prick all the time?” he snarls, fists clenched at his sides. “I thought that by being roommates, I might learn to better understand you, maybe get to know you, and learn why you’ve got a stick shoved so far up your ass. I was willing to give you a chance. I thought maybe there was some other side to you, something people don’t see, but you’ve insulted my friends, you’ve insulted my sport, you’ve insulted me to my face, and now I realize you’re just mean. You’re mean, Jooheon, and I’m going to move out. I tried so hard, Jooheon, to be nice to you. I tried so hard. I’m so tired of dealing with this. It’s just not worth it.”

“Changkyun, wait—I didn’t mean—”

He lunges for Changkyun and grabs his hand. Everything stops; they’re both looking at each other and Jooheon struggles to make words, staring Changkyun deeply in the eyes. He hopes Changkyun can read his gaze, will wait for him to apologize, but Changkyun’s dark eyes are cold and bitter and he pulls his warm hand out of Jooheon’s grip and vanishes. Jooheon stares after him, and the door to the apartment shuts loudly behind him. The electronic lock shoots into place and Jooheon feels like he’s been gutted, but it’s his hand that holds the knife.

Jooheon is done being afraid. He’s done being guarded. If this is his first heartbreak, then so be it, but he doesn’t want to live hiding anymore. He doesn’t want to hurt anymore. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone anymore.

He’s gay and he’s in love with Changkyun.

He decides instantly he has to apologize. 

After putting Changkyun’s half mixed salad bowl back in the refrigerator, he shrugs into his jacket and shoes and hurries to the rink because it’s Tuesday and the skaters have the rink in the afternoons on Tuesdays and he knows that’s where Changkyun will be. 

The lobby is empty as he walks inside and he pushes into the rink area. As he looks around the ice, he sees some of the ice skaters clustered around the stereo. As he moves closer to the rink’s edge, he suddenly meets Seungkwan’s stare all the way across the ice, and with a sigh, begins making his way over to the clump of skaters by the stereo. 

The only one he doesn’t see among them is Changkyun. Just his luck.

The skaters turn their attention to him as he approaches. He winces. None of them are looking at him with any sort of warmth or welcoming. Their gazes are just as cold as the ice they stand on.

“What are you doing here?” Seungkwan demands shortly. “You don’t have the ice for another three hours.”

“I’m looking for Changkyun,” Jooheon says tiredly. “Do you know where he is?”

“Why are you looking for him?” Yoohyeon asks. Jooheon can count on one hand the number of times he’s seen the girl in a mood other than happy. Right now, she’s watching him distrustfully, and her tone is sharp.

“I said something I shouldn’t have said.” Jooheon sighs.

“Yeah, we heard,” Dokyeom bites. 

“I want to apologize to him.”

He’s met with silence. They’re all still staring at him with gazes that could melt metal, and he tries not to fidget. At last, Seonghwa nods his head towards the stairs. 

“Check the dance studio upstairs,” Seonghwa says crisply. 

“Thanks,” Jooheon mumbles, walking away.

“If you upset him again, I’ll castrate you with my car keys,” Seungkwan snaps.

The threat has Jooheon turning back around to face him in surprise. Seungkwan genuinely looks pissed. All of them do; with their arms folded across their chests and hands resting on their hips they look a little like a gang or a clique. Jooheon doesn’t know a lot about Changkyun’s friends, mainly because he hasn’t bothered to ask him about them, but their protective nature tells Jooheon that maybe, just maybe, the skaters are a family, too.

He climbs the stairs slowly, listening to the thud of his feet on the steps. His heart is starting to pound quickly enough to make him feel a little winded, and he pulls his jacket tighter around him as he reaches the second level of the rink.

When Jooheon enters the dance studio, he’s shocked to find Changkyun settled in a horrid looking stretch on a yoga mat unfolded on the floor, alone among the mirrors and ballet barres. Jooheon’s own legs ache at the sight. Changkyun, who has his earbuds stuffed in his ears, doesn’t notice him at first, folded neatly over himself. His phone is lying face up on the mat next to him, and as Jooheon cranes his neck to see better, he notices the screen is alight with a timer. 

For a long moment, it’s quiet as Jooheon pauses to decide how to proceed. The timer on Changkyun’s phone begins to chime, and Jooheon watches Changkyun sit up and tap on his phone screen, and pull his earbuds out. Jooheon takes the opportunity to clear his throat to get Changkyun’s attention. The figure skater startles terribly at the sudden noise and glances at the door.

Jooheon waves awkwardly. Changkyun’s eyes narrow. He clearly hadn’t expected Jooheon to follow him.

“What are you doing here?” Changkyun snaps coldly. “Isn’t this room too gay for you?”

Jooheon sighs. “I owe you an apology, Changkyun. For a lot of things.”

Changkyun looks at him silently, eyebrows furrowed. He slowly slides himself out of the ridiculous stretch. He turns away from Jooheon as he does so, but his gentle wince doesn’t get past Jooheon.

“Are you okay?” Jooheon asks, concerned.

“I’m fine,” Changkyun says shortly, standing up fully. He pulls both earbuds out of his ears and drops them onto the mat next to his phone.

He pauses and regards Jooheon with a careful look, folding his arms over his chest. 

“Go on, then,” he says expectantly.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, Changkyun,” Jooheon says honestly. “I shouldn’t have said what I said, and I didn’t mean it. And… I’m not just talking about today, either.”

Changkyun stares at him. His expression is blank, guarded. Jooheon swallows.

He surprises himself by continuing to talk. “If there’s anything I’ve learned about you over the past few months, it’s that you’re… actually pretty cool. And you’re really good at what you do. So, even if we can’t be friends… just know that you have my respect.”

Changkyun contemplates for a moment, then opens his mouth. “Who said we can’t be friends?”

Jooheon pauses, waiting for him to elaborate.

Changkyun shifts, letting his arms hang at his sides. “Back at the beginning of the year, I… complained to Kihyun about you. Uh, a lot.”

Jooheon nods to himself. It’s fair. He doesn’t have a right to be upset because he’d done the same. 

“But he just wouldn’t hear it. He told me to get over myself, that things like this are petty and stupid… and that’s all true. But he also told me that it’s so pointless, this rivalry between you and me, because we don’t even have a history. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I disliked you when we were first years because our teams hated each other. I didn’t even try to understand it—I just wanted so badly to belong that I just went with it. Kihyun said we hate each other out of obligation. And I think it’s time we both realize he’s right, and get over it.”

Jooheon contemplates for a moment. He can vaguely recall Kihyun saying similar things to him. He remembers feeling the same way: the elation at having learned he’d been accepted to Starship because of his stellar hockey skills. He hadn’t even questioned it when Ilhoon, who had been the team captain when Jooheon was a first year, explained that they didn’t get along with the figure skaters. He, like Changkyun, had just gone along with it because that was what he’d been expected to do. 

It’s kind of pathetic, he thinks to himself morosely. There could be a great friendship between the hockey players and the skaters. Come to think of it, Jooheon doesn’t even know why there’s a rivalry. Now, he and Changkyun have a relationship akin to Romeo and Juliet—shamed, hidden, forbidden.

It’s just… sad. 

If God hadn’t woken up one morning and decided he was going to stick a figure skater and a hockey player in an apartment together, they wouldn’t be here right now, talking about this.

Thanks, God.

Jooheon nods again, and as he does so he can physically feel tension in his shoulders loosen. He looks at Changkyun with a half smile, and wordlessly sticks out his hand.

Changkyun stares at his outstretched hand for a moment in surprise, then gives Jooheon a small smile, and shakes his hand.

“Friends?” Jooheon asks, tilting his head, even though he wants to be more than that.

Changkyun breathes a little laugh.

“Sure.”

November comes quickly and Jiyong pulls Changkyun aside after practice on a cold morning and tells him the headmaster is coming to the rink for an inspection.

“An inspection?” Changkyun repeats, surprised. “What for?”

“He wants to know if we really need two rinks,” Jiyong says. “You and I as well as Seunghyun and Jooheon have been asked to give him a tour of the arena. It probably won’t take long. I just need you to come back after your classes are done today. It’ll happen about a half hour after the hockey players are done with practice."

“Oh, okay,” Changkyun says. He’d had plans to get dinner with Minhyuk and Hyungwon later that night, but it seems they’ll have to go without him.

He tells them as such over text, and they offer to reschedule, but with exams and finals coming up later in the month, he doesn’t know when they’ll get another chance, so he tells them to go on without him. He returns to the rink after his classes are over for the day and arrives at a quarter to six. Everyone is already there, including Jooheon, who greets him with a small smile.

“Am I late?” Changkyun asks, bowing respectfully to Seunghyun and Headmaster Kim.

“Not at all,” Headmaster Kim says. He reaches out to shake Changkyun’s hand. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

Jiyong leads the way into the rink. They give a brief tour of the lobby before heading into the west half of the building. Jiyong lets Changkyun take over guiding them through the area designated to the figure skaters. The area isn’t very big, considering there hasn’t been more than ten skaters on the team since the nineteen eighties, so Changkyun’s part of the tour is over fairly quickly. Seunghyun then leads them into the ice area, the biggest area of the rink, before handing the reins to Jooheon, who leads the party to the east wing.

“Over there are the locker rooms,” Jooheon says, pointing in the direction left of the rink. “We’ll get there in a minute. This room is the equipment room. We keep our pucks, spare hockey sticks, and things like spare mouth guards and neck guards.”

“Every athlete has their own equipment, though, am I correct?” Headmaster Kim asks as Jooheon enters the code on the lock on the door.

“Yeah, we do, but sometimes we need spare materials. This is where we keep it all,” Jooheon says.

Changkyun has never been anywhere in this half of the building. He’s pretty curious to see the equipment room. Once the door is open, Jooheon leads them down a short hallway that spills into a dimly-lit room.

Changkyun nearly slams into Jooheon’s back when he halts suddenly in the doorway.

“Hey, what—” he starts, then looks into the room, and stops dead. His breath leaves him in a gasp.

In front of him are his teammates, minus Minhyuk and Hyungwon, surrounded by parts of broken hockey sticks. There’s bits of lacquered wood all over the floor, and all five of the skaters are looking at Jooheon and Changkyun with varying degrees of horror and shock and panic written in their faces.

“What is it?” Seunghyun asks, then he and Jiyong step into the room. “Oh, my god…”

Headmaster Kim walks in as well. “What on earth…?”

For a moment, there’s only silence. No one knows what to say or do. Changkyun can feel the tears coming already. How is he going to explain this?

“Well,” Jooheon says tightly, looking at Seunghyun. “We were overdue for new sticks, anyway. No one uses wooden sticks anymore.”

Seunghyun glances at Jooheon in utter horror. His eyes are wide and his mouth is open in a gape. Jooheon forces a smile; Jiyong’s hands are at his mouth.

“Someone explain what’s happening here,” Headmaster Kim demands.

No one seems to be able to answer him. All of his teammates are petrified, frozen in fear and shock, and Jooheon is surveying the damage with something akin to sadness in his eyes.

The words leave his lips before Changkyun can even think about them.

“It was my idea,” he blurts.

And everyone’s looking at him now. He feels like he might crumble under the weight of everyone’s gazes.

“J-Jooheon… he, um, said something a few days ago that hurt me,” Changkyun says, swallowing thickly around the lump in his throat. “I… decided to get revenge.”

Jooheon looks at him. The moment Changkyun looks back at him, stares into his eyes, he knows Jooheon doesn’t believe him. He doesn’t believe him at all.

He glances back at his teammates. Seungkwan looks like he might faint. Changkyun is too shocked to feel anything other than cold numbness. He isn’t even angry; he feels nothing but dread.

“I’ll, um, take whatever punishment is necessary,” Changkyun says.

He knows he’s done. Taking responsibility for this, even though he’s not responsible at all, will probably get him kicked off the team. He might not be able to skate here anymore. His stomach sinks at the idea that he might even have to go home. He swallows.

“There’s no way this was your idea,” Jooheon says suddenly, directing everyone’s attention to him. He’s shaking his head incredulously at Changkyun. “I refuse to believe that. You’d never do something like this.”

“He’s right!”

Everyone looks at Gahyeon. Her face is almost as pink as her hair.

“Headmaster, Jooheon is right. Ignore this idiot,” she says brashly, pointing one half of the broken hockey stick in her hand at Changkyun. “It wasn’t his idea at all. It was mine. It was all mine. He’s right; Jooheon did say something that hurt him, but… it was my idea to get revenge.”

“Then why would Changkyun-ssi take the blame?” Headmaster Kim asks.

“As the captain of the team, he’s been taught to take responsibility for the actions of the group as a whole,” Jiyong says softly, speaking for the first time in ten minutes. Changkyun has never seen the coach like this; he’s almost white in the face.

“Please, headmaster,” Gahyeon begs. “I deserve the punishment.”

“We all do,” Seonghwa puts in.

Seokmin nods, pointing at Changkyun with the toe of the hockey stick he’s holding. “He’s the only one who doesn’t. He wasn’t in on this at all."

Headmaster Kim instead looks at Changkyun.

“Are you in any way responsible for this?” he asks. “Be honest.”

Changkyun swallows again, then shakes his head.

Headmaster Kim nods sagely, turning again to survey the mess of wood. Yoohyeon is crying; Seungkwan doesn’t look too far away from doing the same. Everyone else just looks painfully guilty.

“I shall have to spend some time thinking about a proper punishment,” Headmaster Kim says softly. “But this has gone on long enough. I know neither side is completely faultless, so for now, both the figure skating team and the hockey team may consider themselves suspended until further notice. This rivalry cannot continue.”

He turns to Jooheon and Changkyun.

“You are both captains of the respective teams, yes?”

Changkyun and Jooheon nod simultaneously. Headmaster Kim looks at them disapprovingly.

“Come with me,” he says. 

Cold trepidation is all Changkyun can feel as he follows the headmaster out of the room and into the manager’s office of the rink. Traveling all the way across campus to the headmaster’s office seems unnecessary.

“Wait here for a moment, please,” Headmaster Kim says, allowing both boys into the room. “I’ll only be a minute.”

And then he’s gone. Changkyun is rooted to the spot he stands on, but Jooheon sits down in one of the chairs with a sigh. 

“I’m sorry,” Changkyun says, barely able to speak past the lump in his throat.

Jooheon sighs and shakes his head. “It’s not your fault. And you’re stupid for trying to take the blame. Don’t do that to yourself, okay? Please. Have a little self respect.”

Changkyun looks out the window to realize it's begun to snow. “I-I just want to protect my friends.”

“They need to deal with the consequences of their own actions,” Jooheon says. “And Headmaster Kim is right. Neither of our teams are blameless. I’m going to give my team a good pep talk, too. If I’m still captain, I mean,” he adds with a little forced laugh.

Changkyun doesn’t humor his attempt to be funny. His mood is too low to even try to laugh. He’s genuinely worried that they’ll be stripped of their titles as captains. 

And the headmaster has every right to do so. He and Jooheon have not been the best captains by any stretch of the word. 

When the Headmaster comes back, he’s flanked by Jiyong and Seunghyun, as well as Seo Hyunjoo, the main manager of the rink.

“Well, boys,” the headmaster says, “it’s time we put an end to this.”

They go back to the apartment together. The train ride from the campus to their apartment isn’t long, but it’s spent in silence, so it’s quite tense and Changkyun is just exhausted. His limbs feel as though they’re made of lead as he follows Jooheon to the door. He shuts himself in his room as soon as he’s inside the flat, and lies down on his bed.

Part of him feels like he should do something, like call his parents. He hasn’t talked to them in a while. But his limbs are made of lead, and all he can do is stare at the ceiling above him.

He’s had his title of captain taken away. He hasn’t been kicked off the team, but both the hockey team and the figure skating team are facing three weeks of suspension. The rink will be closed until the end of November. The hockey team has been banned from playing in any games they were lined up for in November and the skating team won’t be allowed to make any appearances  or compete until the holiday shows in December.  

Changkyun supposes the punishment could be worse. His mother always tells him to look on the positive side. He hasn’t lost his scholarship. He can still skate, technically. He supposes a worse punishment would involve his skates being taken, or his future access to the rink denied entirely. He’s lucky it’s only a three week suspension, and he should be relieved it’s only that long.

But he spent all three of his first years at university working for the title of Team Captain and just like that, in a single day, through no fault of his own, he’s lost it. Part of him wants to be angry, wants to be resentful of his teammates for going to such great lengths to have the last laugh, but—he just doesn’t have the energy. He feels like a drained battery, and even recharging seems like much too big of a task.

A knock on the door pulls him out of the storm cloud of his mind. 

“Yes?” he calls tiredly, wondering what Jooheon could want now. 

The door is gently pushed open. Jooheon stands in the threshold.

“Do you want anything to eat?” he asks softly.

The question is so innocent, but it’s asked with such tenderness—tenderness that reminds him of his mother, of home, and suddenly he’s in tears, and he turns away from Jooheon so the hockey star doesn’t see him as the mess he really is.

Then there’s a hand on his shoulder, and Jooheon is pulling him into a seated position, and suddenly the hockey star’s arms are around Changkyun’s body and they cling to each other; they hold each other because they’ve both lost something and they’ve both been simultaneously guilty and guiltless and everything just seems so stupid—

Jooheon’s lips are on Changkyun’s forehead.

He pushes away from Jooheon gently, confused and scared. “What are you doing?”

Jooheon looks at him. Changkyun is suddenly overcome with the fear that Jooheon is messing with him; it’s an open secret that Changkyun is gay, but it would be low even for Jooheon to mess with him like this. 

“Don’t play with me like that,” Changkyun spits, pushing away from him.

Jooheon grabs his hand. “I’m not, Changkyun. Hear me out.

“I know what happened today was just so shitty, but—when you took the blame for Gahyeon without even hesitating , I just—in that moment, I realized—I realized I’ll never be that brave. I will never be that selfless. And I’ll never deserve someone like you, Changkyun.” Jooheon says earnestly. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t try. And maybe it’s selfish of me to be thinking about myself right now, but I can try to be better. I can try to think of others before myself, but before I try that—just allow me to be selfish one more time. I like you, Changkyun, and I want you—I want you for myself. I want you to be mine. I don’t care if I have to lose hockey or drop out of school or whatever.”

Changkyun is speechless. Jooheon’s eyes are becoming red and glassy. 

“You have every right to reject me,” Jooheon says. “Because I have been a real asshole to you. You never deserved anything I said to you, anything I did to you—and the stupid rivalry between our teams is just so dumb—but I know what I feel for you is real, and I want you to know that. My whole life, I’ve been afraid to feel, afraid to get hurt—but I’m not afraid anymore.”

Changkyun gazes at him. 

“You have been an asshole,” Changkyun says, startling himself. 

Jooheon looks at him in surprise. Changkyun feels himself smile.

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t or won’t forgive you.” Changkyun continues. “I know it’s dumb. I only wish we’d realized it sooner.”

And he doesn’t give Jooheon a chance to speak, for he kisses him gently on the lips.

Things won’t get better quickly. Changkyun knows that. The enmity between the hockey players and the figure skaters is deeply rooted in the university’s history and neither side are completely innocent. But he hopes that this will mark the beginning of the end, the beginning of a friendship. He and Jooheon will be graduating in about four months, and their lives will be totally different.

But at least they’ll have each other.

They pull away. Changkyun smiles.

Jooheon pecks him quickly on the lips.

“No homo, though,” Jooheon says boyishly.

Changkyun grins and shoves him away.

“Idiot.”