Archive of Our Own

Montreal, November 2018

“Canadians are terrifying,” Ilya gasps, bursting into Shane’s downtown Montreal apartment — Shane’s actual apartment and not their sex building. Ilya slams the door shut with his back and leans against the frame, taking large, dramatic breaths as if he had been chased by loons up all 38 flights of stairs leading up to Shane’s unit.

“I told you not to go to that grocery store.” Shane sat at his kitchen counter, back facing Ilya as he took notes while an Edmonton-Toronto game played on his tablet. He was undoubtedly studying for Montreal’s upcoming game against Toronto.

“Is grocery store on Monday,” Ilya huffed, making no move to take off his jacket or snow boots. “Why are Canadians fighting over disgusting canned beer on a Monday. Do Canadians have no jobs? Too boring to work?”

“I told you to go to the Chinese grocer a few blocks away.”

“There is construction.”

“This is Montreal. There’s always construction.”

“It’s too far to walk with construction.”

Shane finally paused the game on his screen, spun in his chair to look at Ilya hugging a 12-pack of ginger ale for dear life, and raised an eyebrow. “The Chinese grocery store is only a 10 minute walk away and they’re cheaper.”

“You are multi-millionaire Mr. Real Estate and second best hockey player in MLH,” Ilya huffed, finally toeing off his shoes and joining Shane in the kitchen. He set the ginger ale on the counter and, standing by Shane’s bar stool, wrapped an arm around Shane’s waist.

“Oh, fuck you,” Shane said affectionately before catching Ilya’s lips in a kiss. His freckles popped against the faint red dusting his cheeks which made Ilya’s heart jump, knowing Shane held onto these small acts of affection.

Ilya winked. “Later.”

“But seriously,” Shane continued, “that grocery store is right across the street from the Bell Centre so the checkout is brutal on game nights and concert days. I try to avoid them. The Chinese grocer is better. It’s a little further but it’s all old Chinese people and students. A lot of those students are from East Asia, so they usually don’t care about hockey.”

While Shane was speaking, Ilya dutifully unboxed the ginger ales. He handed the first can to Shane, already chilled from the nippy November frost, and carefully placed each can in the fridge.

“That’s not where they go,” Shane said after half the cans were in the fridge.

Ilya raised an eyebrow. “Ginger ale does not go in fridge? You want it in freezer? Make ginger ale popsicle?”

“No, they go in the fridge.” Shane hopped off his barstool and joined Ilya in front of the fridge. “But they have to go on the middle shelf, left side, French label facing out.”

Ilya looked at Shane, unimpressed, but moved the cans according to Shane’s instructions.

Once the ginger ales were placed to Shane’s satisfaction, Ilya shut the fridge door and muttered, “French is stupid language.”

“You can’t say that here,” Shane said, too gently to be admonishing. He walked up to Ilya and looped his arms around Ilya’s neck. “You’re in Montreal.” Shane punctuated his statement with a quick kiss, barely brushing his lips against Ilya’s.

“Montreal is stupid city,” Ilya retorted. Before Shane could pull away, Ilya set his hands on Shane’s waist and held him there. He rubbed small circles into Shane’s hips with his thumbs.

Sensing that Shane was about to pull away and protest Ilya’s anti-Montreal stance, Ilya tucked a finger under Shane’s chin and gently tipped Shane’s head back so he was looking at Ilya. Ilya, gazing ever so softly at Shane, smiled and added, “Only good thing in Montreal is you.”

Montreal, January 2019

Shane and Ilya were walking away from the gates of McGill University, bundled up in their winter layers and each holding a cup of coffee with a small lion logo stamped on the cup. It was very early in the morning. Early enough that the morning rush of students hadn’t arrived yet, but late enough that other early birds were already on the street, headed in the opposite direction towards the campus.

“I need a new roll of athletic tape.” Shane suddenly stopped in front of a store with an offensively red logo. “I’ll be quick.”

Ilya stopped a metre away, a respectable distance for two definitely straight buddies to be standing on a Montreal street. Shane, wearing his glasses, looked just like any other student heading towards their morning class as long as you didn’t look too closely.

“You are never quick. You are slow fucking hoc-” Ilya cuts himself off at the look on Shane’s face.

“I’ll be in and out,” Shane said slowly, with a dangerous edge to his voice. A less observant person would have brushed that edge off as anger but after all these years, Ilya had become something of an expert in Shane Hollander’s voices. With his years of experience, Ilya knew that the edge wasn’t anger, so much as it was fear.

And it wasn’t that Ilya didn’t share the same fears, but…. “You will reread all the product reviews for all of the brands on the shelf and I will freeze to death on this street. I will become a fossil like Scott Hunter before you buy tape.”

“No you won’t!” Shane hissed. “I’ll be fast!”

“So what, you want me to stand still right here, on this very busy street where there are more people who could recognize me?” Ilya’s signature curls were hidden under a plain black toque while nearly half his face was hidden by a chunky scarf David had gifted him for Christmas. Despite everyone rushing to escape the freezing January chill, Montreal was a hockey city and hockey fans could be unpredictable.

“I don’t know! We should go. I’ll just order it online or something,” Shane said, as if he didn’t hate ordering his hockey gear online.

“Hey,” Ilya said, in the tender tone of voice he usually reserved for calling out Shane’s name in private, except they were in public, surrounded by countless dozens of people who simply walked around them. “Go inside, Get your tape. Trust me.”

Shane’s eyes flickered up as he met Ilya’s gaze. His lip trembled ever so slightly but he nodded, eyes unwavering.

Ilya followed Shane into the aggressively red, oversized drugstore. He stayed a safe five metres behind Shane and he very pointedly did not stare at Shane’s ass. When Shane turned into the athletic aisle, Ilya walked straight ahead in favour of the snack aisle.

Before he reached the snack aisle, the price of bananas caught Ilya’s eye.

A mathematician he was not, but even Ilya could tell the banana bunches were notably underpriced. 79 cents for one single banana, but two dollars for a bunch of seven bananas?

While Ilya stood there, eying the bananas with suspicion, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

Jane: There are bananas at home but you can grab another bunch if you want

Ilya looked up and saw the back of Shane’s puffy winter coat in the next aisle. Shane was staring at his phone while balancing three new rolls of athletic tape in his other hand.

Lily: Banana math is wrong

Lily: You were very fast

Jane: I said I would be fast!

Lily: You cannot be fast while reading three hundred reviews.

Even though Shane’s back was still facing him, Ilya knew Shane was rolling his eyes. His next text confirmed it.

Jane: Hey! Me being boring and reading the reviews saved you from buying a malfunctioning blender.

Jane: Besides, I’ve been an athlete long enough to know what tapes works for me

Jane: I told you, in and out

Lily: You interrogated worker about fruit shipment schedule for half an hour last time you said that

The reason Shane had interrogated the worker was because the persimmons sitting out were too ripe and he had asked when the next shipment would arrive so he would know when to come back for fresh persimmons. But, given that each extra moment they stayed in public was another moment they could be caught, he chose to move on.

Jane: Shut up

Jane: Anyway

Jane: Banana math?

Lily: Look at price. One banana is almost one dollar. Seven bananas is only two dollars. Seven bananas should be seven dollars.

Shane moved down the aisle trying to look natural, like any other shopper looking for a morning snack to start the day. Ilya, however, could tell Shane was trying to get a better look at the bananas.

Jane: It’s probably just because people usually don’t want a whole bunch of bananas when they come here

Jane: It’s a good deal though

Jane: Let’s get a bunch

From opposite ends of the banana shelf, they both reached out, but Ilya was faster. He plopped the bananas in the crook of his arm and turned to go to the register. Before he could move, his phone buzzed with a call from Jane.

“You can’t take those bananas.” Shane grabbed the bananas out of Ilya’s arms from behind and set it back on the shelf. “These are too dark on the bottom.”

Ilya watched Shane lift at least a dozen banana bunches. Shane carefully turned each bundle over, inspecting each individual fruit for blemishes, occasionally backtracking to review a bunch for a second time.

When he finally found a bunch he deemed adequate, Shane balanced it on top of his tape.

Glancing over, Shane briefly met Ilya’s gaze before looking down. His fingers curled around the cuffs of his parka sleeves as he fidgeted with the buttons. Shane flushed. Their phones were still connected, so Shane said, “Sorry I’m being boring again,” with a self-conscious edge to his voice.

“No, no, is very exciting. Is enthralling. I did not know Canadians have so much judgement for a fruit that does not grow here.” Ilya’s tone was sarcastic, but conveyed a warmth that usually only made its appearance behind locked doors.

“You won’t think that after you go shopping with my mom.”

Ilya’s heart jumped at the implication of Shane’s words. Since moving to Ottawa, he had a standing monthly dinner with Shane’s parents. They had welcomed Ilya, learned to love Ilya, faster than he could have ever hoped. Ilya relished each opportunity to feel a parent’s love each time he set foot in the Hollander family home. But despite the overwhelming warmth and love Yuna and David Hollander had extended to Ilya, there was still the lingering awkwardness of learning how to shape that love around Ilya. He knew it would take a little more time. Ilya certainly had no complaints about more puzzle evenings with David or more gardening days with Yuna or more game nights with them both.

But, they had not quite reached the stage where Ilya could be ordered to do household chores, even though he enthusiastically volunteered, just as he could not request Yuna’s homemade sushi, even though she always told Ilya to drop by when she made it.

They would get there in time but until then, Ilya would have to settle for Shane being the only Hollander to boss him around in the produce section.

Outside, Shane and Ilya walked together although they left a good metre between themselves.

“Yuna may be scary, but I am only shopping with you for now, moy bananchik.”

“Banan-chik?” Shane’s nose scrunched up as he cycled through his Russian vocabulary. “Your banana?”

Really, it had slipped out of Ilya entirely by accident with his mind still dreaming of the future where Yuna Hollander lectured him over navel oranges.

“It will help you remember vocabulary,” Ilya said as if he had done it on purpose.

“Okay.” Shane accepted the explanation easily. “Tvoy bananchik. But, and I know you don’t mean anything by this, but don’t call Asians bananas.”

“No?”

“It’s kind of an insult.” Shane paused. He rubbed his nose. While he thought, he blew little clouds in the cold air with his warm breath. “Bananas are yellow on the outside and white on the inside. So some people call whitewashed Asians bananas. Like when they think Asians are acting too white, and not Asian enough,” Shane clarified further at Ilya’s confused look.

“What is Asian enough? If Asian does it, it is Asian.”

“Uh…” Shane wasn’t sure how to explain the complicated racial code switching that was seemingly innate to North American diaspora communities. “I guess people have this way of categorizing people based on how they expect certain cultures to act, and you get insulted if you don’t act the way other people think your culture should.”

“That is not very welcoming,” Ilya frowned. “I do not want to insult you for your culture. Only your bad hockey.”

Shane spluttered. “My bad hockey? I’ve scored more goals than you last season! I’m still the record holder in the shooting accuracy competition!”

“Yes, is very bad moya fruktovaya korzinka,” Ilya continued, ignoring Shane’s protests. “Is very lucky my fruit tart can learn from best hockey player in world.”

Ilya quickly glanced around and, seeing no one close enough to see them, he winked at Shane.

Brossard, April 2019

Naturally, Ilya had been to Montreal dozens of times over the last nine years playing in the MLH. Despite these frequent trips, Montreal still remained deeply foreign to him. The nature of a player’s brutal road schedule during the season meant Ilya had never really seen the city beyond a handful of clubs, the Bell Centre, and the inside of Shane’s sex condo in Chinatown. With their foundation and Ilya’s new team in Ottawa, his list of Montreal landmarks expanded to Shane’s actual downtown apartment where he actually lived during the season, and the inside of Shane’s house in Brossard. The house which, apparently, did not count because that was not in Montreal.

And, apparently, that distinction was the key behind Shane’s willingness to appear in public with Ilya for extended periods of time in broad daylight.

“I do not understand,” Ilya said, pushing their grocery cart down the aisles of a massive Chinese grocery store. “You act like alley murderer in Montreal Montreal but almost like normal boyfriend in not-Montreal Montreal.”

“Hush.” Shane bumped his shoulder into Ilya as a warning. “Don’t say the b-word out loud.”

“What b-word? Boy—” Ilya cut himself off when Shane pushed the cart sideways as a warning.

“You can’t say it! We can only be here together because it’s 11am on a Tuesday and the only people here are old Chinese people who don’t care about hockey.” Despite the conviction in Shane’s voice, it didn’t escape Ilya’s notice how Shane kept enough distance between them for plausible deniability.

“So Chinese people don’t watch hockey but Japanese people do?” There were, Ilya thought, a great number of hidden traps that came with being Asian in Canada. No references to bananas, no observing narrowed eyes, no comparing Asian women to tigers, no asking about instruments, and most devastating: no commenting on penis size.

“It’s more complicated than that.” Shane absentmindedly began chewing on his hoodie strings. “More Chinese Canadians immigrated more recently, so a lot of them didn’t grow up with hockey in their lives. Whereas I’m sansei,” Shane said with an intonation that didn’t feel like English to Ilya,” and mom was born here. My grandparents were diplomats and were invited to a lot of hockey games back in the day, so hockey has always been in my mom’s life.” “And now hockey is in your life,” Ilya nodded thoughtfully before backtracking. “Sansei?”

Shane hummed. “It’s a Japanese word. It means third generation, because I’m the third generation in my family in Canada. Or outside of Japan. I’m not sure which one it actually refers to, but it’s what my grandparents say.”

“Ah, so you are perfect in third language too,” Ilys said drily, trying very hard not to sound envious. His English had improved immensely since his rookie season, but Ilya was still deeply aware of how limited his English still was.

“I wish,” Shane said, almost wistfully. “I barely know Japanese. It’s…complicated.”

“Yuna did not teach you Jap?”

Shane’s entire body tensed.

“You can’t say that,” Shane hissed under his breath. He broke his own unspoken rules, having taken several steps closer and leaning in towards Ilya. “It’s…kind of a slur.”

“Ah,” Ilya nodded, “ like bananas.” He added it to his growing list of Asian Canadian traps to avoid. Do not shorten Japanese to Jap.

“Anyway,” Shane continued. His body relaxed with Ilya’s easy acceptance and he drifted away, back to a safe distance for two definitely straight friends to be walking even though Shane was right about the only other shoppers being older Chinese people buying impressive amounts of fruit. “There aren’t very many hockey fans in this part of the South Shore. It’s mostly Chinese families with kids who are going to go to McGill.”

“The small town where they produce boring Canadians who read the New Yorker,” Ilya quipped.

“It’s a really good school!” Shane retorted before speeding up again. He marched to the frozen food section in quick strides.

Ilya followed at a leisurely pace. His curls were hidden under a nondescript red toque stolen from Shane’s closet. Shane was, once again, wearing his glasses as if that made him any less recognizable.

For all their anxiety about appearing in such close proximity together in public, there was something about the Asian grocery stores in Montreal that allowed the pair to almost feel like a normal couple. For all their struggles balancing their relationship with the MLH’s unforgiving schedule, one of the few silver linings was that they could go grocery shopping at times when the only other shoppers were elderly Asian matriarchs. Candlelit dinner dates at trendy restaurants in the Plateau were not an option, but shopping at Asian grocery stores on random weekday mornings very much was.

Ilya caught up to Shane just in time for Shane to place several small styrofoam packages in their cart.

“Cute,” Ilya cooed, seeing the smiling orange cat on the packaging. “Is you.”

“What?” Shane tilted his head, unintentionally mimicking an adorably confused kitten Ilya had seen on Instagram the previous evening. Before Ilya could say anything embarrassing about kittens, Shane continued, “this is natto. It’s a Japanese breakfast food. My mom and I try to eat a container everyday. It works really well with my macro diet. It’ll be good for you.”

Ilya, whose limited experience with Japanese food began with all you can eat sushi and ended with yam tempura, grinned. “Then I look forward to sharing your natto.”

~~~

“Bleh,” Ilya retched, spitting his mouthful of natto right back into his bowl. “Hollander. You are trying to poison me with spoiled beans.” He spat into his bowl again. And a third time for good measure.

Shane looked at him and blinked innocently, slimy natto tendrils connecting his lips to the slimy, smelly beans. “Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all, “most people usually eat this with rice to help mask the flavour, but I can’t have that many carbs. You did add the soy sauce and mustard packets, right?”

They sat at the dinner table in Shane's Brossard house.

Ilya retched again and chugged his glass of water, trying to wash the taste out of his mouth. “Rice and soy sauce will not save poison beans. This is hate crime.”

Shane shrugged, shovelling another mouthful of slimy, poison beans into his mouth with his chopsticks. “It’s an acquired taste. Mom eats it with pickles, too.”

“The slime will not go away. Yuna has too much good sense to eat poison beans.” Ilya stole Shane’s water as well, but made a face when the slimy aftertaste still clung to his teeth.

“It’s traditional. Great for cardiovascular health, bone density, digestion, blood sugar, and it’s anti-inflammatory.” Shane mixed his natto again, creating more slimy strands.

Ilya retched again as he watched Shane calmly eat another mouthful of natto.

“You’re such a drama queen,” Shane huffed. He shovelled the rest of his natto into his mouth, stood, and went to the adjoining kitchen.

Before Ilya could join him, Shane returned to his seat with a small box.

“Here.” Shane placed the box before Ilya. Half a dozen round treats sat in the box in pairs of green, pink, and white. “Have some mochi.”

“Mochi?” Ilya narrowed his eyes at the unassuming box of treats.

“It’s sweet,” Shane said, opening the box for Ilya. “It’s a Japanese dessert. It was my favourite treat when I was a child. My mom and I still make it together every year for Shogatsu — Japanese new year. They’re really good.”

Ilya shifted his narrowed, suspicious gaze to Shane. “You said natto was good.”

“No, I said natto was good for you. That’s not the same thing.”

“Lies,” Ilya huffed. Although his expression screamed distrust, he grabbed a pink mochi and stuffed the whole thing in his mouth.

Ilya’s face brightened when the sweet red bean paste hit his tongue.

“I told you, it’s good!” Shane laughed. “The filling — the sweet paste inside, that’s red bean paste. Mom calls it anko, sometimes.”

Satisfied, Ilya grabbed a second mochi. He savoured this one, taking a normal-sized bite of the chewy shell. “This is proper use for beans.”

Shane’s eyes softened as he watched Ilya enjoy another mochi. His chest filled with warmth as he thought about Ilya with him and Yuna at the Hollander family home in Ottawa, sitting at the dining table making mochi while one room away, David juggled all the pots on the stovetop in the kitchen. Scheduling hadn’t allowed Ilya to join them this year, with Ilya rudely forced to fly out to Des Moines of all places for an away game.

But next year, Ilya was going to join them in their mochi making. Yuna would move heaven and hell, and maybe even fistfight the MLH commissioner herself, to make sure her newest family member was there at her table for the holidays.

Shane couldn’t wait.

Saint-Jérôme, June 2019

“Deux cafés, s’il vous plaît,” Shane ordered. He and Ilya were on their way to the cottage and had stopped for supplies. Their late start to the day meant stocking up on groceries in the city was too risky. He had dropped Ilya off at the grocery store across the street while he acquired caffeine for the two of them. “Un café noir, un café avec deux crèmes et deux sucres.”

“C’est tout?”

Shane scanned the pastry display. He hesitated for a second before adding, disdainfully, “Je vais prendre un crème Boston aussi.”

As if the universe was not done with turning Shane Hollander’s life into a cosmic joke by having him fall in love with the most complicated possible man, Ilya unironically loved Tim Horton’s Boston cream donut. Ilya Rozanov, a man who had lived in Boston for eight years, a man who had eaten his fair share of good donuts over the years, was also a man who unironically loved the most mediocre doughnuts Canada had to offer.

The cashier nodded sympathetically. “Pour ta blonde?”¹

“Pour un ami,” Shane corrected in a carefully neutral tone. While the cashier gave no indication of having recognized him, Shane knew full well that most of the time Canadians were simply too polite to interrupt public figures living their lives.

Armed with two coffees and a mediocre doughnut, Shane meandered back to the grocery store where he had dropped Ilya off. He found his boyfriend in the dairy aisle, holding a milk bag and studying it intently.

“Yeah, I know,” Shane sighed, anticipating the bagged milk conversation. It was one he had multiple times every season with all the Americans and Western Canadians confused by the bagged milk. He handed Ilya his coffee. “The bags are kind of weird.”

“No, no. I am just checking bag for leaks. I know Canadians sell milk in bags. Like Russia. Is very smart.”

“What?” Shane blinked, shocked. This was the first time the bagged milk conversation didn’t involve defending the utility of the bags to non-Eastern Canadians.

“Yuna and David cannot drink all the milk, so they give me two milk bags every second week. One for drinking, one for freezing. Frozen milk is very delicious, I am treated so well.” Shane’s heart melted a little, the way it did whenever he was given small reminders how much Ilya loved his parents, and how much his parents loved Ilya back. Still, he was confused.

“You get your milk from my parents?”

“Yes, Ottawa milk comes from Yuna and David’s fridge,” Ilya muttered. “They give me extra milk. I do not need to buy milk from store and they do not waste milk.”

Shane was still experiencing whiplash from Ilya’s lack of mockery over bagged milk. “I’m glad you approve?”

“Canada is good country. Much smarter than Americans.”

“Yeah, I guess?” Shane was still reeling. This was the first time he witnessed someone’s discovery of bagged milk without any mockery. “Russia also has bagged milk? Why is this the first I’m hearing about it? Why does everyone laugh at Canadian bagged milk when Russia does the same thing?”

“Because your neighbour is dumb Americans.”

“Be nice,” Shane chided It was force of habit because he didn’t exactly disagree with Ilya. “But I’ve never seen the milk jug in your fridge?”

“Canadians are smarter than Americans, but not smarter than Russians. Russians are not babies, we do not need special jug. I put milk bag in empty yogurt container. It is very good for the environment. Yuna is very proud.”

At Shane’s side, Ilya radiated pride. It wasn’t the kind of pride Ilya weaponized on the ice, when he successfully lured an opposing player into dropping gloves or winning a round of cards at the Hollander game table.

It was the pride of a happy golden retriever when rewarded with treats. Or, as in this case, a very happy Ilya when Shane’s parents lavished him with praise and compliments.

“I’m surprised you aren’t saying anything about how four litres of milk are divided into three smaller bags.” Shane laughed gently. His hand opened and closed at his side as he resisted the urge to reach for Ilya. He took a sip of his terrible coffee to distract himself.

“I do not have to,” Ilya smiled back. He crossed his arms so, like Shane, he would not be tempted to reach over and hold his boyfriend. “You already know boring Canadians are not as smart as Russians. Still cannot do math. You are bad at hockey and bad at math. Banana math and burger math and milk math.”

“I don’t think Russians are all good at math if you can’t understand how my 57 goals are more than your 52 goals from your last season with Boston,” Shane chirped.

“Ah of course, boring fucking Canadians not understanding that I still had more points.” Ilya laughed as he turned away. Before he walked off, he grabbed a bag of milk for the pancakes he planned to make for Shane at the cottage.

Shane glanced around and, seeing no one else, raised his voice. “Au Québec,” Shane said, smugly, calling after Ilya, “Nous disons tabarnak.”²

“Au Québec,” Ilya repeated in a terrible French accent, “we go to the cottage.”

Montreal, December 2019

For all the media attention and fan obsession their line of work brought upon him, Ilya found it was actually quite easy to hide in plain sight. Spotlights rarely followed him out of the stadium and Canadians were so boring that very few of them actually paid enough attention to even notice him out and about.

Occasionally, a sneaky photo of Ilya in downtown Montreal would find its way to Twitter. And it was fine because Montreal, for some reason, was a tourist city even if it was a boring city. In any other Montreal neighbourhood, no one expected to see Ilya Rozanov so people…simply didn’t.

The handful of Rozanov in Montreal spottings were easy enough to explain away as foundation business or visiting his friend, Shane Hollander, who he was very platonically friendly with.

Boring Canadians sometimes had great ideas.

Shane still struggled with leaving his house sometimes, with the unceasing potential to be recognized, being perceived, being caught unprepared building layers upon layers on his existing anxieties. Ilya, however, thrived with how unassuming Canada could be.

Naturally, as they found their footing in their relationship, Ilya offered to take the task of running quick errands. Ilya would offer, Shane would deliberate, Ilya would negotiate until Shane agreed, and they repeated the steps until one day it simply became Ilya’s task.

That was how Ilya found himself walking along Rue St. Catherine, trudging through the 15 centimetres of snow that Mother Nature had graciously dumped on the city that morning, on the hunt for what was definitely a war crime.

“Why,” Ilya lamented to Yuna Hollander over the phone, “are there different poison beans? Poison beans should simply be poison beans.”

Ilya was a man on a mission and that mission was finding more natto for Shane Hollander.

“I think Shane only eats poison beans for cute cat. He is pretending to be tough, but just wants to look at kittens. Cute cat makes poison beans a little less poisonous.”

Yuna laughed. “You should try natto properly. It’s more palatable with rice and pickles.”

“Lots of pickles,” David piped up, as Yuna had set her phone on speaker. The two of them were driving. Scheduling had allowed Ilya to spend an extra week with Shane in Montreal leading up to the holiday break, while David and Yuna had a trip to Cancún in January that would fly out of Montreal’s airport. For convenience, they had decided to celebrate Christmas at Shane’s Brossard house.

“Sounds like lie,” Ilya quipped, as he jaywalked across a narrow street. “You are in the pocket of big poison bean.”

Yuna laughed. “It’s an acquired taste,” she said, echoing Shane’s words from many months earlier. “I enjoy it with a raw egg yolk. Pasteurized, of course.”

“Canadian eggs are pasteurized?”

“No, we pasteurize them ourselves,” David jumped in again. "It's really convenient for carbonara. Yuna and Shane have no fear of raw food, but I feel better knowing there's definitely no risk of salmonella."

"Very logical," Ilya nodded even though they couldn't see him. “But even if creamy raw egg makes delicious pasta, it will not salvage disgusting poison beans. Sounds like Stockholm syndrome.”

“No," Yuna disagreed fervently. "Stockholm Syndrome is Shane’s conviction that Brossard is more fun than Montreal. I know he likes the quiet, but better than Montreal?”

“Brossard has better grocery stores.” Having reached his destination, Ilya stepped into a small Korean convenience store.

Yuna continued. “The only notable grocery store in Brossard is that giant Chinese grocer.”

“Yes and they are greatest Canadian invention. We do lots of grocery shopping there. No scary fans fighting over disgusting beer, no silly banana math. Less construction.” Ilya sighed. Ottawa was boring but at least they knew how to complete their construction. Montreal, in Ilya’s correct evaluation, was really three construction cones and a sign redirecting traffic into the wrong direction pretending to be a functional city.

Having reached the frozen section, Ilya continued, “Much easier to find poison beans.”

“Oh honey,” Yuna laughed, “you’re so spoiled now. When I was a child, the Asian grocery stores were so few and so small that my parents had to make natto themselves. It’s great that Montreal has so many options for Asian food now.”

Ilya shook his head even though Yuma couldn’t see him. “Brossard Asian food is better. There are more mochis and sometimes they come in cute shapes.”

Yuna hummed. “Did Shane tell you what we do for the new year?”

“No. Do Canadians not look at fireworks?”

David quipped, “I think that one is pretty universal.”

“Fireworks are on New Year’s Eve. Japanese New Year, Oshogatsu, is on the same day,” Yuna explained. “Shane and I make mochi while David makes soup.”

“You can make mochi?” Ilya gaped. For a brief moment, he froze in the middle of the narrow aisle. It was a comical image: living hockey legend Ilya Rozanov looking shellshocked in a too narrow aisle in a tiny Korean-style convenience store in Montreal with a basket full of natto wrapped in packaging covered in printed cats. He didn’t bother masking the awe in his voice. “Shane can make mochi? Shane can make mochi and he did not tell me?”

“You’ll know how to make mochi too, soon,” Yuna said lightly.

“Soon?”

“We’ll make mochi together. You, me, and Shane. I’ll teach you.”

“I will make mochi?” Someone swore loudly after knocking something over in the next aisle, shocking Ilya’s spirit back into his body. He blinked away the wetness sneaking behind his eyes and straightened his back.

“Of course.” Yuna swallowed the lump in her throat. She glanced over at David who shared her gaze. “Making mochi is for family.”

Ilya’s chest filled with a warmth that he had not felt since his mother’s death.

“Family,” Ilya repeated, voice thick with emotion.

“Of course. You’re family. I don’t play Yahtzee with just anyone.” Sensing that Ilya needed more time to collect himself, Yuna continued talking, launching into a monologue about her best Yahtzee plays.

Yuna was still speaking once Ilya collected himself. He was happy to listen to her. It was soothing, knowing he was not expected to speak just yet.

As Ilya headed towards the register, a beautifully packaged box of large green grapes caught his eye. Korean muscat grapes. Seeing the intricate packaging jogged the memory of Shane once sharing stories from his childhood, watching his Japanese relatives give and receive ridiculously overpackaged luxury fruits. He grabbed three boxes, suspecting that gifting fruit would mean something to Yuna that Shane had not fully picked up on as a child.

While Yuna continued, moving onto retelling the destruction Monopoly has wreaked upon the Hollander household, Ilya finished his errands and began the trek back to Shane’s apartment. It wasn’t cold but the snow was relentless.

Once Yuna hit a lull in her narration, with the reminder that UNO was banned in their home, Ilya spoke again. “UNO is only banned because you are sore losers who will lose to me.”

Yuna laughed lightly. “Sure we are. Hey,” she continued, changing the topic. ‘We’re about an hour away.”

“You will get there before us. Shane is still packing and I must bring him his natto.”

Shane was in the process of slowly moving out of his downtown apartment. He’d been there since he first signed with Montreal. The convenience of living next door to Centre Bell was a luxury, especially on game nights. But the downtown traffic was for Shane, at best, overstimulating and as he grew older, the proximity to the Bell Centre only became more and more grating. It only got worse with each season, especially after he bought his Brossard house and doubly so after the massive Chinese grocery in Brossard became their regular date spot.

There was no rush, but it was clear that Shane’s downtown apartment would likely be going on the market within the year.

“We’ll let ourselves in then,” Yuna said. “Text us when you two head out.”

The call ended, and Ilya quickly made his way back to Shane’s apartment.

Inside, while Ilya waited for Shane to finish packing, he made a split second decision. He grabbed a natto container and took a photo of it, grinning cat filling his screen. Before he could second guess himself, Ilya posted it to his Instagram.

Poison beans. -10000000/10.

Montreal, February 2020

February in Montreal was a far cry from the picturesque beaches and warm sunshine of the 2017 All Star Games in Tampa. Luckily for Ilya, the Centaurs’ first game after the All Stars would be an away game against the Metros, which gave him a few extra days with Shane.

“Fuck,” Shane swore as his feet slipped out from under him. He landed gracelessly on his butt. He and Ilya were trying to walk up a steep hill, but were making very little progress.

“Russians do not fall on ice,” Ilya cackled, somehow both mocking yet affectionate. “Soft Canadians are very weak, falling down small hills, no wonder you are only second best hockey player.”

“Asshole,” grumbled Shane from the ground, still flat on his ass. When Ilya extended his hand, Shane tried to pull him down but Ilya danced out of the way. His foot slipped, but he was just barely able to recover his footing.

“This is a stupid city,” Ilya mused. “Who builds city on top of big icy hill?”

As if to prove Ilya’s point, a city bus shuttered past them at an alarming speed while the brakes screeched uselessly on the icy road. Both Shane and Ilya winced when the bus unglamourously crashed into an innocently parked car.

Before Shane could pick himself up from the ground, a snowplow came careening down hill, crashing into the bus.

³

“Yeah, okay, this city might be a little stupid,” Shane admitted. Ilya extended a hand out again and this time Shane took it.

“You are the one who wanted to be outside,” Ilya said, unhelpfully. “If you listened to me, we would be in bed, warm and dry and I could be su-“ Ilya cut himself off when he saw Shane’s glare.

“You drank the last of my matcha.”

“Yes, yes, big unforgivable crime, drinking bitter grass water, is why I am braving the ice instead of drinking hot chocolate indoors.”

On the opposite side of the street, someone on skis raced down the sidewalk, deftly avoiding the vehicular pileup, and zoomed into the downtown core.

“No.” Shane cut Ilya off before he could say anything.

Ilya’s grin instantly became a pout. “One time Canadian does something fun and you don’t let me join in.”

A second snowplow made its appearance, careening downhill and crashing into the vehicles that came before it.

“Don’t you dare try skiing down this hill.” Shane glared at Ilya as he brushed the snow off his pants. Slowly, carefully watching where he stepped, he continued climbing up the hill. “Do you even know how to ski?”

Ilya shrugged, following Shane uphill. “Is easier to balance than skates.” He paused for a second before an incriminating glint appeared in his eye. “Perhaps next All Stars game should be race on this hill. Skills competition downhill, speed competition uphill. I will win both.”

Shane groaned. “I’m going to push you down this hill.”

His hand twitched at his side. He wanted to reach over and hold Ilya’s hand, but settled for feeling Ilya’s looming presence two steps behind him. His stomach churned as it always did when he and Ilya were out in public together, but the warmth of his boyfriend’s presence was enough to make up for the anxiety pooling in his gut for now.

Montreal, July 2020

“I think we need to change the timing of the camps,” Hayden grumbled.

Shane, Ilya, and Hayden pulled into a Costco parking lot forty minutes behind schedule. Their Montreal hockey camp was set to start that week and they still needed to stock up on emergency snacks for the kids.

Unfortunately, they were trying to navigate Montreal roads on July 1. Most of Canada was celebrating their nation’s birthday but in Montreal, it was moving day. Instead of waving little flags and relaxing in a park, Montrealers were fighting to get their moving trucks on the roads.

“Is stupid that everyone moves on same day.” Ilya crossed his arms in the backseat, sunglasses pulled down low while Hayden looked for parking. “Movers only make money one day a year? What if you have emergency and must move in December?”

“You can still move in December. There’s just less options.” Unlike Ilya, Shane was helpfully looking out at the sea of cars, trying to find an opening Hayden missed. “Hayd, you should probably just drop us off at the entrance while you keep looking. At this rate we’ll be done before you find a spot. It’s just watermelon and juice boxes anyway.”

Hayden scoffed, but he still drove towards the doors. “One does not simply go in and out of Costco, Shane.”

“Shane is very efficient,” Ilya said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively before hopping out of the car after Shane.

Shane groaned and, ignoring Ilya, walked into Costco armed with Hayden’s membership card. Ilya quickly scrambled after him, while Hayden muttered something about how, “that wasn’t even an innuendo,” before driving back into the sea of cars.

Inside Costco, Shane made a beeline for the produce section. He could feel Ilya’s presence nearby and trusted Ilya to have grabbed a cart, so he didn’t look back. They were shopping together for a legitimate purpose, exactly what the charity camps were supposed to do for them, but Shane was scared to look at Ilya in case he made any incriminating faces that someone could capture with a well-timed photo. Instead, he looked at the ground.

Shane briefly looked up to check he was heading in the right direction and noticed two men looking at a patio bench. They were like any other shopper, but Shane immediately zeroed in on their interlocked hands. They were young, probably around Ilya and Shane’s age, but they were out and comfortable and held hands naturally, in public, as if it was their ordained right to be happy and domestic and out in public.

An ugly bubble of envy boiled in Shane’s gut but he suppressed it before it could overflow. He and Ilya had a plan and it was a good plan. It was the best they could do, being who they are, so he just had to be patient and follow the plan.

Simple.

Shane began loading their cart with giant watermelons but hesitated after the third melon.

“How many kids will we have, again?” He asked Ilya, who unhelpfully shrugged. Sighing, he pulled out his phone and pulled up his messages with J.J.

Shane: Combien d’enfants?

Shane: On est au Costco

J.J: 30

J.J: tkt mon capitaine

⁴

J.J: c ok

Shane: Des allergies? Aux arachides?

J.J: jsp

J.J: att stp

⁵

Ilya, who had been looking at Shane’s texts over his shoulder, declared, “French is fake language.”

“Why is that?” Shane said dryly. “And stop reading my texts!”

“Letters don’t make sense. Is even stupider language than English.”

“Maybe I use French so you can’t be a snoop!” Shane glanced at his phone, seeing that J.J had responded pas d’allergies. “J.J is just using abbreviations.”

“Ah, like I-D-K.”

“Ouais,” Shane responded absentmindedly, putting his phone away after double checking J.J.’s messages. He looked up to see Ilya giving him a deeply amused look. “What?”

“You speak duck now, too?”

“Hmm? Oh!” Shane realized what he’d done. “Ouais is yes in Québecois French. Don’t call them ducks!”

Ilya’s only response was, “Tabarnak.” He nodded sagely, as if he were imparting great wisdom upon Shane.

Shane couldn’t resist laughing. “Come on, let’s get juice for the kids. And maybe some protein bars for us. For breakfast.”

“Hollander, it is summer. I thought disgusting rabbit food and protein bars are breakfast during the season. Summer breakfast is miso soup with tofu, no? Yuna said the seaweed and tofu were dietitian approved.”

“At home, sure.” Shane flushed. “But I don’t want miso breath with the guys around, you know?”

Ilya looked confused. “What is wrong with miso breath?”

Shane looked down, watching his feet as he navigated them between carts and through the crowd. “It’s just really Japanese. I don’t want to give them that reminder.”

“There is nothing wrong with being Japanese,” Ilya said with the conviction that he genuinely felt. “Don’t they all know you’re Japanese? Is not a secret.”

“They do, but that’s different. Knowing isn’t the same as seeing. It’s…it’s just not a part of me I’m ready to share with them. Just with you,” Shane said quietly. He absentmindedly fiddled with the hem of his rumpled linen shirt. His words pulled at Ilya’s heartstrings, reminding Ilya how much of himself Shane had been forced to hide so that he would be acceptable, palatable, to his awful team. The awful team and he and Yuna still loved so much despite their terribleness.

Ottawa, January 2022

“It is time for us to stake our claim,” Ilya said very seriously.

Shane furrowed his brow. “What?”

“This is our grocery store. It does not matter if it’s Brossard or Ottawa or wherever. Even Montreal. Montreal is still stupid city, but this grocery store is ours.”

Shane and Ilya walked into the Chinese grocer together. It was the same as the Chinese grocer they frequented in Brossard, except this branch was in Ottawa. Unlike all the times in Brossard where they were always a little on edge and careful to never touch or stand too close, they walked into the Ottawa store together. They stood so close together that their shoulders pressed against one another. It was comforting. Shane’s hand was clammy—after the year they’d had with the Centaurs’ plane’s engine failure, Hayden’s fanmail outing them, confronting Crowell, getting married, stepping on home ice as teammates, and all of the media circus that followed each development, it was hard to not be on edge.

Shane knew Ilya was also nervous. He could feel Ilya’s tighter-than-usual grip on his fingers, tight enough to be uncomfortable, but never painful.

They never had the luxury of simply being together in public as Shane and Ilya, without the baggage that came with also being Hollander and Rozanov. Quite frankly, they didn’t know how to be a couple outside of the confines of hidden corners and locked doors. But, the grocery store was as good a place as any to try.

For the first time, they walked into the grocery store together, hand in hand.