Work Text:
2007
“I don’t really know what you want me to do about it, man,” Shoko’s voice crackles over the speakers, and Satoru groans. “Just ask one of the guys off the team, they’d love to go with you,”
This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to him, actually. He groans again. Maybe Shoko will change her mind and come with him anyway. She’s his girlfriend. They’re kind of expected to go together to these things, even if it’s new and he’s sort-of not told anyone.
“Dude,”
"Shoko. Come on."
"No, I'm grounded, my parents will murder me."
"Could you sneak--"
"No. Satoru, are you kidding. How the hell am I going to sneak out of my house?"
Shoko, unfortunately, has a point. Her house is big and has a full alarm system that trips if a window opens, and her mom is kind of nuts. It probably wouldn't work.
"I could've gone in the arena,"
"As if you don't get tickets for basically every home game," he can hear the way Shoko rolls her eyes, even over the phone. "Just ask one of the guys on the team, I dunno."
They all have tickets already, Satoru is pretty sure. He feels stupid asking. He was supposed to go with her. "Maybe."
"Don't sulk. I'll come with you to the next one?"
"Yeah." Satoru says into thin air, because Shoko has already hung up. He really loves her, he does, but sometimes it feels like making excuses. Sometimes it doesn’t feel right, like squinting at the tiniest gap in the net behind the goalie, and picking a spot on the top shelf and hoping it sticks. But the thing is, usually, the puck is in the net, at the end of the play. This is different, somehow.
He looks through his contacts, hits call on Baldy. He picks it up on the third ring. "Yo,"
"Hey, Toru, what's up."
"You goin' to the game tonight?"
"Yeah, in the arena with my mom and my girlfriend," he says, and there's no smugness in his voice at all because he's too nice to brag. Satoru forgot his dad was on the other team. It's rare that they're not off watching him play somewhere else. "Why? You need a lift?"
"Nah, Shoko bailed on me.” That’s okay to say, probably. People know they’re friends, even if everyone wants them to date, they don’t know any better yet. Satoru doesn’t even really want to tell his mom. He’s scared she’ll just laugh at him. “Y'know if anyone wants a ticket?"
"To the arena?" Baldy grins, Satoru can hear it- "well-"
"Nah, the mosh pit, I– it's only my mom in the arena. I just don't wanna be out there by myself."
He sucks air in through his teeth. "I don't think so. Matty?"
Satoru snorts. "Right, sure."
"Maybe it could be an olive branch, after last week's practice,"
Last week's practice, where Satoru had bowled him over, and he was a prick about it. But they play hockey, and hockey is a contact sport, and he should've had a better stance if he didn't want to get checked, to be honest.
"Sure. If you want one of your players dead."
Laughing, Baldy replies, “well, it’s either that or the new kid. What’s his name?”
“Geto.” Satoru half-spits out. He knows his name, at least. New kid, from Japan, with a giant stick up his ass. He’s been standing off in the corner of the locker room, not really talking to anyone, even though he knows enough English to understand coach, and the plays, and he’s annoyingly proficient.
“Well, those are probably the only two,” Baldy says. “You could just go by yourself,”
Satoru is abruptly eager for this conversation to be over. “Yeah, maybe. I’ll see you tomorrow at practice,”
"Tomorrow," Baldy agrees, and hangs up, which means Satoru is back at square one. To give him credit, he does stare at Matty's number for a moment, and blinks a few times, too. An olive branch. Too bad he hates the guy, huh?
He scrolls through his contacts, turning onto his stomach to stretch his shoulders out and rest his cheek on his bed, kicking his feet back and forth and resigning himself to staying home or just being there by himself. His thumb stalls on the button, and he swallows.
He could invite Geto. They’ve only spoken a couple of times, and it was in English, but maybe he can offer the ticket as a– as a way of getting to know him. Coach said they’ll probably play on the same line at some point. And who moves here if they don’t like hockey? Who plays hockey if they don’t like hockey?
What if Geto doesn’t like hockey? What if he has no idea what the NHL even is and he’s just freakishly talented for someone who doesn’t watch it? Satoru has no idea how hockey even works in Japan, and he should because his mom used to play over there.
He stares at his number. Which he has. On his phone. For the team. He’s trying to be more captain-like, keeping track of everything, of the players. The only other real option is Baldy, and he’s far better at playing the game than Baldy, so. Anyway, maybe this time it’ll pay off.
Before he can overthink, he hits the call button on his phone and listens to it ring: one, two, three, four, five, six–
“Uh, hello?” Geto’s voice is uncertain on the other end of the receiver. His accent in English isn’t even that bad, Satoru thinks. “Who is this?”
Satoru clears his throat and switches to Japanese. Probably easier, right? He hopes it doesn’t come off the wrong way. Speaking a different language in locker rooms is completely different to speaking over the phone, where no one can hear them or rib them or- “hey, it’s Gojo. Uh- Satoru, I mean.”
“Oh, Gojo,” Geto says, and Satoru can hear his throat working on the other end. Japanese it is, then. “Is- uh. Is everything okay?”
“Do you want to come to the game?” He blurts out, before he can second guess himself, “uh. With me, obviously. I just sort of thought- um.”
There’s a long pause, and Satoru thinks about throwing his phone out of the window. He’s truly messed this up. "The..." Geto frowns. Satoru can hear it, the hesitation, even in Japanese. "The hockey?"
"I mean. Yeah, the hockey. What other sport is there on tonight?" And in Canada in general, or this town, Satoru thinks. That's all there is here. Hockey.
"In– I can't afford tickets."
"I'm in the mosh pit." Satoru says, "you don't need to pay, I just- uh. Shoko was supposed to come and she got grounded. So..."
"Shoko?" Geto says, genuinely confused. Satoru forgot he doesn’t know her. Doesn’t know him, either. It feels like a breath of fresh air, in this town: everyone knows everything, everyone expects something.
"Oh. Girl at school. She's in our homeroom, short brown hair?"
"Ah." Geto exhales, "are you sure? I don't want to be a bother."
"I just want to not go by myself." Satoru huffs, then winces. That's a little bit too honest, isn't it? "And y'know, if you like hockey and I thought it would be nice."
Geto laughs. It’s already easier than it was before. "Okay, but I don't think my parents can drive me,"
"It's okay, where do you live?"
—
Where Geto lives is actually a neighbourhood that's a little bit more out of the way than they realised. His mom swears under her breath. "I appreciate you trying to look out for this kid, but this is so far out of the way, Satoru."
"Sorry, I didn't realise," he replies, leaning his head right back against the headrests, looking at the fuzzy ceiling of the car. "I would've told you to leave earlier."
"It's fine," his dad exists, "the worst that'll happen is that we miss warmups."
Satoru's mom hisses under her breath about liking watching the warmups, and pulls up messily on the curb. The car rattles. "This is it, right? Seventy-three?"
Satoru pulls out his phone, and checks his texts. "Yeah, should be."
His mom stares at him through the rearview mirror for a moment. He stares back.
"Okay, go and get him, then."
Satoru scrambles out of the car, walking up the footpath. It's a nice house, even if the front garden has a neglected flower bed that has stones in the dirt. He rings the doorbell, and footsteps come quickly. Geto opens the door.
He looks different to how he does at practice. He's wearing jeans, and his hair is down, so it obscures his neck and the line of his jaw, instead of the ponytail he wears under his helmet. His features are soft. His skin looks it, too. Perfectly clear. Satoru is jealous, and also slightly perplexed. They sweat so much under the all the gear they have to wear. How the hell is his skin clear?
The main thing, though– “you’re wearing a Juliet jersey,”
Geto blinks a couple of times, and pulls the fabric away from himself, as if to check. “Juliet?”
“Like–” Satoru turns to show the back of his own jersey, even though the front of it has the C printed and it really needs no explanation. It looks old. Faded, slightly. “-Romeo and Juliet?”
When he turns back around, Geto looks confused. “It’s– it’s Kenjaku’s,”
“Yeah, I know. Juliet?” Satoru says, feeling thoroughly insane. They’re speaking in Japanese, there shouldn’t be a language barrier. “Sukuna and Kenjaku, Romeo and Juliet, they’re nicknames.”
Geto blinks. “Oh. I hadn’t heard. Of that,”
Satoru’s mom honks her horn, and Geto almost jumps right out of his skin. Satoru rolls his eyes. “She doesn’t wanna miss warmups.”
Geto shuts the door behind him, and they jog back down the footpath towards the car. Satoru clambers in first, Geto behind him, making sure the door’s shut behind him. His legs are long, Satoru thinks, and he has to tuck them into himself in the back of their car. He feels a bit stupid, now, for thinking he was arrogant, seeing him shrink himself down to fit. Like he had in the corners of the locker rooms. “Thank you for taking me.”
“Oh, no problem–” Satoru’s mom starts, then she gets a good look in the rearview, “oh! Your jerseys match!”
Satoru feels his face burn. “It wasn’t on purpose!”
Despite it all, Geto just laughs. “Sorry,”
“No, you boys look cute.” Oh, so there goes Satoru’s chance of any social credit. Thanks.
“So… Geto, right?”
“Yes, Geto Suguru,” Geto says, still infuriatingly polite. He came across so– so! So– whatever– during practice. Why is he– why is he not like that now?
“How come you’re here in Canada? It’s a long way to come,”
“Mom,” Satoru hisses, but Getou smiles. He’s relaxing. It’s so weird, watching his shoulders come down and his expression soften. He’s always so set, during practice, the stick in his hands and more often than not, the puck in his possession.
“We came for hockey,” Geto says, swallowing, but it’s still soft, sort of relaxed. Huh. No one’s like that around his mom. They’re all tense, remembering who she is, staring like she’ll bite.
“Oh, does one of your parents play?” His mom says, flicking on her indicator. The drive to the arena isn’t long: only fifteen minutes down the highway.
“No, um. Just me.” Geto says. He doesn’t sound nervous about it, really. Just apprehensive to be telling someone else.
“Ah,” Satoru’s mom says, her eyes widening just a fraction, “you’re here for you, then?”
“Yeah. Someone said I had a good chance on the draft, so. I’ve got a year to try and get there, and if not, we’ll go back home,”
Satoru turns to look at him. He’s tall. He knows he’s a good player, near enough as good as him after playing in a country that has nowhere near the calibre of player as Canada does. If he improves quickly, he could get drafted. Satoru definitely will, when he’s eligible. There are much worse players on the list this year.
Still, his mom whistles. “Good luck, Geto,”
“Thank you,”
—
The stadium is loud. They’re running slightly late, but it’s not so bad. He grabs at Geto’s arm so they don’t get separated and drags him to a spot towards the middle where they can actually see something.
Geto stares down at where Satoru’s grabbed him, and looks around. He’s not as wrung out as he was those first few days in practice, or stiff in homeroom, but he’s not as relaxed as he was in the car. “I’m sorry about my mom,” Satoru shouts, in Japanese, over the roar of the crowd. The buildup is almost over, and everyone’s getting rowdy. He feels like he should also apologise for what he thought– kind of still thinks – about Geto, too, but the words don’t come out.
“No, it’s okay,” Geto says, “it’s nice to speak Japanese, my English is– it’s shit!”
“Your accent isn’t bad,” Satoru finds himself saying, because it’s not.
“Ah, I know enough,” Geto says, turning to the screen, squinting. “But I have to think so much to speak. And to translate in my head. So it’s nice to speak with your mom,”
“I–” Satoru stutters, ‘cause he doesn’t wanna be an asshole, but he kind of has to know, “you know who she is, right?”
“Your mom–?” Geto frowns, looking away from the screens. “Wait, what?”
“She was on the national team, for women,” Satoru squeaks out, “she’s kind of a big deal, around here. I– no one finds her relaxing,”
“I don’t watch women’s hockey.” Geto stutters, then– “I didn’t even know there was proper women’s hockey,”
Satoru half jumps as the commentary kicks in properly and the crowd roars. Geto does, too, but joins in with the cheers nonetheless.
“It’s so loud!” Geto grins, as he raises his hands to clap. His shoulders flex under the jersey and Satoru thinks somewhat insanely that he fills it out well. Like, he’s noticed the broadness of him before, but he kind of thought it was the shoulder pads, or– okay. No. Satoru’s not going there.
On-screen, the puck drops, and the commentary booms over the speakers. It’s hardly louder than the crowd, who descend into chaos. They get jostled a little by an older man to their left.
The game on screen is fierce, physical. Satoru groans with the crowd when a home puck gets saved by the opposing goalie. Even Geto is becoming animated beside him, eyes darting around the screen with the movement of the puck. It flies down the ice only to be stopped by their goalie in what looks like a miracle, and beside him Geto covers his mouth with his hands.
“Can you-” Satoru gestures at the screen, “can you understand the commentary?” He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth.
“Ah, I know players’ names,” Geto replies, “but I got lost during that play.”
“Do you want me to like- translate?”
Both Satoru’s train of thought and his sentence get cut off when, on screen, the puck flies into the goal, and the crowd erupts into cheers. Satoru ducks on instinct as beer and popcorn flies right above their heads, covering his head with his hands.
In a split second, Satoru realises a couple of things: one, Geto hasn’t ducked, and two, he probably doesn’t realise what’s happening right now. Satoru makes a decision influenced much more by impulse than logic, and grabs at Geto’s arm, tugging him rather violently to the side, out of the way of a flying solo cup. It still drenches them from above, and when Satoru looks back from the goal to Geto, he’s wiping liquid from his arm, and it’s dripping from his skin, jersey drenched.
But when Geto looks back at him–
He wipes the right side of his face, and with it the sticky strands of long hair that have been displaced by the beer. The crowd is still screaming, is the thing. If Satoru was paying attention, he’d be more tuned into it, into the way the crowd writhes and jumps with excitement.
“A warning would’ve been nice,” Geto huffs, but he’s still grabbing at Satoru’s jersey, maybe a little nervous, and there’s a soft twinkle in his eyes.
“Sorry!” Satoru says, “do you wanna go to the back?”
Geto shakes his head, turning halfway back to the screens, as play resumes. “I’m already wet, it’s fine.”
The puck clicks as it bounces from stick to stick. Satoru chews the inside of his cheek as one of the opposing players flies down the ice with it.
“I didn’t know you threw drinks here,” Geto adds, bumping into Satoru softly. He can’t tell if it’s on purpose, or if the crowd keeps shoving them closer together. It doesn’t really matter.
“Only when we score,” Satoru says, feeling stupid.
Geto just laughs again. The grin splits his face open. Satoru swallows it down.
—
Satoru still feels sticky when they get out into the cold air of the night. He’s not sure whether it’s his own sweat under the jersey, or the beer that got thrown, or just– other fluids. But he still loves it. Partly because–
“That goal in the last minute of the second period was insane!” Geto is saying, demonstrating in front of his chest, moving his hands slightly wildly. “It was like– bop, bop, done- the precision. Seriously,”
It had been a pretty incredible shot. The goalie hadn’t been able to do very much to combat it at all, already half spread out on the ice from trying to go low just moments before. It was a coordinated attack from two forwards that had sent the puck squarely into the back of the net, and the stadium into raptures.
“Have you watched NHL before?”
Geto moves in a way that looks like he’s nodding and shaking his head at the same time. “Yeah, but– no. Never in person.” There’s a pause. “You’re gonna play NHL, right?”
Satoru nods, “probably.” He hasn’t bothered with being pretend-humble for a while. He’s good enough, he knows it. He just needs to find somebody to keep up. None of the guys on the team are fast enough, so he has to slow down, play defensive when he has the puck and he’s waiting for someone to pass to, or for someone to catch up. It’s teaching him a lot, but it’s not his strength. He’s tall, sure, but he’s fairly skinny, and he doesn’t like being body slammed or checked by guys double his weight.
Geto nods. There’s no probe, no teasing, just simple acceptance.
They walk in silence most of the way back to the parking lot.
“You boys have fun?” His mom grins, looking in the rearview as they pull away from the parking lot. Geto nods, cheeks still kind of flushed from the heat, and eyes sparkling as the streetlights wash over them.
“Thanks for taking me,” he says, a lot more well-rounded and polite than he had been in the pit before. He’s smoothed himself over into something fuzzy and easy to look at. It’s a little jarring, and yet it makes so much sense.
“That’s okay,” his mom says, “I’m sure you can come again with us if you want,”
Satoru thinks distantly that he should probably invite Shoko again to the next game at home, because she missed this one, but Getou coming to another one with him could be cool. Would be cool, definitely.
—
“Dude, no, I’m not giving you the answers, you had like a whole week to do it. Extra,”
Satoru thunks his head down on the desk, and groans loudly. Shoko just sighs above him. He can feel her rolling her eyes. He lifts his head, blinking up at her. "Come on, not even, like, hints? It's due next period,"
"Why didn't you do it?"
"I had hockey,"
Shoko narrows her eyes at him. "I always do this for you,"
"It's the last time, I promise,"
"The last time, sure," Shoko huffs, "come on, you gotta actually do the work. What if you fail?"
It doesn't really matter if Satoru fails, is the thing. He's pretty much guaranteed to be in the NHL by the time he graduates. He's not going to bother with college, so why do test scores matter? "I'll be fine, I'm smart."
"Are you smart?" Getou appears at Satoru's shoulder, eyebrow raised. The one downside of having another Japanese student is that their conversations can be overheard by one other person. Satoru doesn't really mind it's Getou, though. "I have your, uh- your mouthshield. It was in my bag, I think you put it in the wrong pocket."
Satoru looks down at the little plastic box in Getou's hand, and blinks. He hadn't even realised it was missing, stupidly. "Oh, right. Thanks."
Shoko elbows Satoru, as Getou stands over them. "Dude."
"What?"
"Fucking-- introduce me, asshole."
Satoru laughs, thinks that maybe that's not the way the guys on the team would like to be talked to by their girlfriends, but he doesn't mind it from Shoko. "Uh- Getou, this is Shoko, Shoko, this is Getou. He's on the hockey team."
Getou smiles, and his eyes crinkle at the edges. They really are awfully brown. "Ah, well. Suguru's fine. I'm trying to get used to first names here,"
"Shoko's my first name," Shoko smiles, soft, "so, Suguru?"
"Yeah. Suguru,"
Satoru stutters. What the hell? "Okay, that's nice for you two but like. Shoko. Answers, please, you know I'm gonna get throttled."
"For next period?" Suguru blinks, "I have them, if you want them."
Shoko exhales, throwing her hands up and rocking back in her chair, "God, he'll never learn," but Suguru is already digging around in his bag, and pulls out a sheet of paper.
"You've just saved my life, man," Satoru says, grabbing onto the paper. The teachers don’t really understand that there’s only so much homework he can do around playing so much. He needs to like, sleep and eat. His test scores are perfect anyway.
“It’s okay,” Suguru says, “just give it back before class and we’re good,”
The teacher comes in and tells them all to sit down, and Satoru lets his hand brush against the back of Shoko’s shoulders, against the ends of her hair. She turns to watch him sit next to her, smiling regardless of being annoyed at him. He’s still scared to really show it, with everyone around. He doesn’t know how to act in public, thinking about the chirps from the guys and the stupid locker room banter. If she’s his girlfriend, he’s gonna be expected to talk about her the way the others talk about their girlfriends, and he hates it. He likes her too much to talk about her like that.
Suguru sits in the chair in front of him. He thinks about reaching forward, tugging on the ends of his hair, making them both laugh like when they crash into each other on the ice. But for real, because it’s Satoru making him laugh, not just hockey.
—
Coach had put Satoru and Suguru on the same line mainly because of the language barrier, is the thing. He’d kind of shoved him onto Satoru and said, “well, you two will get along fine,”
At first, it had been frustrating. Satoru remembers throwing his bag in the back of his mom’s car and throwing himself into the passenger seat, and just screaming straight into his hands. Of course they’d paired him with another random kid instead of someone who could actually keep up with him. He never thought being too fast would be an issue, but on a team like that, it was turning out to be. His mom had just laughed at him, repeated the same phrase: well, when you play pro, you’ll be with guys the same level. You’ll find a good winger.
The first few practices had been rough. Satoru hadn't really even wanted to have to speak Japanese. He's never made it a habit to speak it in front of the other guys: he doesn't want to be pushed around or chirped at over it, or have his accent made fun of. Suguru had kept up, though, well enough that coach didn't bench him constantly. It was alright. He'd turn, and he'd be right there with him in the crease, ready to rebound Satoru's missed pucks or give an assist.
But then they went to the game together, and things sort of started to click. They played a practice game, going through the motions, and it was like--
Satoru has never had a player that's kept up with him before. Or one that pushed him to go faster. But Suguru's rustiness begins to wear off at the end of the second week, and it's like breathing fresh cool air right into his lungs, feeling it seep all the way down. He needs an assist? Suguru is there, on his right. Satoru misses by a hair? Suguru is there, punting the puck into top shelf. He's too heavily manned at centre? That's fine, Suguru is on his right calling out and free, because he's managed to break off from the defense.
It works the same at the other end of the ice too, even though neither of them are particularly good defensive players, they're both there. They work as a team. Satoru feels like he can turn, know where he is, extraordinarily quickly. Even with Baldy, the rhythm had been hard to fall into, taken a few months.
His mom said he'd have to wait until the NHL. Satoru had kind of resigned himself to that fact, but this is fun. Freeing. After the second week, he gives up on not being chirped at, just speaks to Suguru in Japanese anyway. It helps that none of the guys understand them on the ice, that it acts half as a distraction, and then it helps that Suguru relaxes into the words he speaks in his mother tongue. It's like speaking to another person entirely, someone who Satoru has decided he needs to be friends with. He wants to know how the hell Suguru got that good at hockey without playing in the US or Canada or any major league. He wants to know who told him to come here, to risk it all in one of the most competitive places in the world for it. Who had faith he'd be good enough.
It's so stupid, though, because Satoru is sure that anyone who sees him play would think the same thing: this kid is gonna make it. He's unfamiliar with watching it from the outside, only having seen it said about him in articles and think pieces from NHL teams.
He was unsure about how people could be so sure about him, to be honest. It's not like he isn't good. He knows he's good: that's not the issue. The issue is th conviction with which it was said, over and over again, like the journalists were just echoing each other. For a while, Satoru wasn't sure if it was his mom pulling some sort of strings behind the scenes, or whether his name made a difference.
Now he knows. Suguru is good. And he understands, maybe, what everyone sees when they look at him. He's not played in any games yet, but he's sure once he does, the journalists will be writing the same think pieces. Maybe even nicer ones, considering Suguru doesn't seem like the type to draw penalties, or argue with refs, or fight. He's level-headed, lets his game speak for itself. And it immediately garners the respect of the other guys, despite the initial annoyance that he'd skipped straight into the team without going through any of the usual parameters.
His dad picks him up from practice before the home game at the weekend, which is rare. His mom is cooking, which is even rarer. She's humming a song that Satoru doesn't recognise when he wanders into the kitchen, looking for something edible to steal off the chopping board, and finding nothing.
"Food's almost ready, 'Toru," she says, "set the table, won't you?"
Satoru nods, opening up the draws. "How come you're cooking? What's the occasion?"
"Well, just felt like it," she says, "can I not do that?"
"No," Satoru grins, "must be trying to poison me before the game,"
His mom grabs him and ruffles his hair as he flails around and protests. "How was practice?"
"Good. Well, Baldy's slightly injured so the game is probably gonna be rough, but we'll manage. He can rest it, after this one, for a bit."
His mom hums, stirring something in one of the pots, "what about the kid they put you on the line with?"
"Suguru?"
"Mm." She has a knowing smile on her face, not looking at him, "how's that? You've not complained about him much this week."
Satoru knows that he's being teased. He knows that the response his mom is expecting is a bite back, a protest, but he can't find one. "He's really good. He keeps pushing me, he's fast. I'm kind of excited for the game?"
His mom's eyebrows rise all the way up her forehead. "Who're you, and what'd you do with Satoru?"
"Mom-"
She just laughs. "Come on, let's eat."
—
“Go!”
The third period has been a fucking joke. This team plays dirty, and one player alone has slashed Satoru about five times in the last five minutes and the ref is blind, because not a single one has been called. Meanwhile, Baldy got put in the box for tripping when he just straight up fell into someone, and they’ve spent what feels like half of this period on the penalty kill for no reason.
One of their half-brained d-men slams Satoru hard, into the boards, and he grunts under the weight of it. He’s lost the puck anyway, because of this idiot, and he shoves him off him. He hates being pinned at the boards, breathing stuttering because of the pressure. There’s nowhere to go when he gets cornered like this, and he tries to reach out with his stick to pull the puck back towards him. The guy hits him with his shoulder, then over the knees with his stick, and finally, when they chase the puck down the ice and his stick goes high to the side of Satoru’s left eye, knocking him sideways.
Finally, the whistle gets blown, and the ref skates over to him as he blinks away dizzy spots from his vision. He’d been hit hard.
“You okay?”
Satoru nods. It’s more instinct than anything at this point to lift his hand up, pressing his fingers to the point of contact, “it stings, though.”
The ref looks at him, at the side of his head. When he drops his hand, the white underside of his glove comes away red. He grins, looking over to the benches where Suguru is already clambering over the barriers, skating to him. With Baldy half-injured, it serves them well to have both of them on the powerplay.
He holds his glove out to the ref, who nods. Suguru grabs him on the shoulder, steadying him. “You good to play?”
Satoru nods. The initial shock from the hit is gone, now. He feels fine. Perfect, even. He sends a thumbs up to coach on the bench, who sends one back. They’re equal at the moment, two goals to two, and Satoru would love to wrap this up in the third instead of going to overtime.
He bumps his shoulder with Suguru, who grins back, and says, “yeah, let’s get it,”
—
They win, in the end. By two goals, since Suguru put one in within the first thirty seconds of the powerplay, and Satoru solidified it two minutes later right as he came on for his shift. He leans across his seats in the back of the car, eyes half-closed.
His mom laughs, “that kid’s good,”
“Who?”
“Suguru. Getou.” His mom pauses. “You two match each other really well.”
Satoru hums, half asleep. The hockey takes it out of him, especially after a win when everyone is screaming and jumping and celebrating after.
“I was worried, you know, when he said he was here for his hockey,” his mom carries on, “a lot of parents think their kids are better than they actually are, and then it’s a waste of time and money and they resent them, but– he plays like he’ll make it,”
Satoru smiles, half-delirious, and murmurs, “that’s exactly what I thought,”
—
For once, Satoru is early to practise, barging into the locker room with his bag. He’ll just lie down for a bit, maybe. Blast music out loud whilst he waits for everyone else to roll in. When the door flies open, he comes face to face with Suguru, who’s already sitting on one of the benches, eyes wide. “You’re early.”
“Yeah,” Suguru blinks, “I’m always early. You’re not, though,”
Satoru sighs, and resigns himself to sitting next to him. “Yeah, no, my dad dropped me off so.”
They sit in silence for a bit. Satoru breaks it. “My mom saw you play on Saturday,”
“Oh,” Suguru’s cheeks colour a little, “did she say anything? That penalty I took in the first period was so stupid-”
“No, she said we matched each other good,” Satoru blurts, not wanting to send Suguru down a spiral. “It’s hard to find somebody fast enough. All season I’ve just been slowing down, for the wingers to keep up, and now you’re here.”
“Thanks–?” Suguru frowns, “where’s all this coming from?”
“‘Cause we’re here by ourselves, I dunno,” Satoru starts rooting in his bag and pulls his t-shirt off his shoulders. Might as well get ready. Maybe they can get on the ice early. There’s no patch time today. “Do you wanna practise for a bit, by ourselves?”
Suguru’s eyes go wide. “We’re allowed to do that?”
“I’ve never got in trouble for it before,” Satoru thinks out loud. Sometimes he’ll go out early, just throw pucks at an empty net until he feels a little more normal. Until he can feel his edges and his knees aching.
Suguru still looks at him a little sceptically, even as he unzips his bag and pulls out his skates. "But what if someone is there this time?"
"I'll tell them it was your idea," Satoru grins. Suguru throws a towel at him as he laughs.
—
"Okay, no-"
Suguru spins, sort of, deep on the outside edge as he manoeuvres the puck, then on the other one. The ice creaks underneath the blades in that deeply satisfying way that Satoru loves to listen to, even though he only really hears it when he sees the figure skaters landing from big jumps, deep in their knees through the landings.
"What?"
Satoru skates over, pulling the puck from Suguru's stick. "It's supposed to be a balance thing," he says, picking up the puck on the top of his stick. They'd been messing around, really, when Satoru got it stuck in his head.
"What? How would you even do that in a game?"
Satoru shrugs. The more you practise something, the quicker you can do it, right? "So, if I pass it to you, you need to like-" it's hard to explain, so he just flicks his stick, effectively throwing the puck into the back of the net. "Like, this, kinda,"
Suguru narrows his eyes, but he picks up another puck from their little pile in the o-zone, bending his stick underneath it so it's balanced on the tape. He's still got a different type to everyone else: Satoru's been meaning to ask about it.
Suguru waves it from side to side a couple of times, then flicks it up, and the puck bounces off the frame. "Oh,"
"Oh! Like golf!" Satoru grins. "Come on, it doesn't matter if you can do it, I wanna have a go."
"It doesn't matter if you can do it into an empty net," Suguru scoffs, pulling out a puck and skating back toward centre ice anyway, "that's easy. Even Matty could do it,"
Satoru snorts. Snot from the cold almost shoots straight out with the force of it, and he has to wipe it on the back of his glove. "He could not."
Suguru shakes his head, then makes his way down the ice at speed, and Satoru readies himself, keeping his stick high, around his mid-thigh. When Suguru passes, he flicks the puck upward, and Satoru tries to catch it on the tape, but it skims to the side again. Suguru groans. "Look, it's impossible,"
"No, no, come on, lemme just-" Satoru turns his stick in his hands, drying the tape with his gloves. It’s just not sticking, Suguru wouldn’t get it. “Third time’s the charm?”
Suguru rocks from side to side in his skates, hopping up and down. Satoru bats his eyes at him. That works with Jazzy sometimes. When he sees Suguru groan, he knows it's worked on Suguru too. "Last one?"
"Last one," Satoru nods, "I'll get it this time,"
Suguru nods like he doesn't quite believe him, but that's okay. He watches as he takes another puck, half-heartedly spinning and crossing his feet as he takes it away from Satoru, further down the ice, focused.
Readying himself, Satoru focuses on the clouds of his own breath in front of him, then Suguru's movement, then at the puck sent flying towards his hip, a clear shot. He lifts his stick, flips it, and manages to stay in contact with the puck, flicking it straight into the empty net. When it makes contact, he turns to Suguru and screams, as does he, jumping up and down. "Wait- that was- I wanna do that now!"
"Oh my God-"
If they look like idiots on the rink cameras, jumping up and down and hugging each other, then that's between them and the empty stands.
—
“How’s Shoko?” His mom asks, chewing on an apple, as Satoru curls up, watching the same TV show.
“She’s okay,” Satoru replies. They’ve been texting, but she’s still grounded mostly, so they haven’t skated together for a bit. “Why?”
“Just wondering,”
—
It becomes–
Satoru doesn't mean for it to become a routine, or a thing, but it does, and he begins to commit the way Suguru's laugh echoes in the empty rink to memory, asking his dad to take him in earlier. It helps them warm up, if anyone asks what it’s for. Coach has been saying he's been playing even better recently.
But sometimes they can't get the nets or the pucks out. Like today. Satoru groans, yanking on the doors of the supply cupboard again, hoping that maybe if he pulls hard enough it'll open anyway. Suguru laughs somewhere behind him. "We could just skate, you know, do some of the edgework exercises that we're supposed to,"
"Those are boring," Satoru whines, "and the manager's not even in to give us the key."
Suguru yanks at the scruff of Satoru's neck, pulling him back. He only wobbles slightly. "Come on, we're doing edgework, it's important."
"If we're doing that in training too I'm gonna kill you," Satoru huffs, trudging after him down to the doors. Suguru presses down on the latch, jumping to use all his weight. It always looks funny when he does that, skates lifting off the ground for just a moment.
"We're not. Coach said odd man drills I think," Suguru steps onto the ice, and immediately turns, gliding backwards and facing Satoru as he steps on. “Come on, edgework isn’t that bad.”
Satoru really honestly thinks that most of the figure-skatery drills they’re subjected to are stupid. Who needs single leg skating in a game? It makes you easy to knock over. Slaloms are stupid. “We don’t need them,”
“They improve balance,” Suguru huffs, “you’re not going to be able to run on natural talent forever, you know,”
"I don't run on natural talent," Satoru puffs his chest out, "I work hard."
Suguru raises an eyebrow at him, but says nothing. Satoru adds, just for good measure, "they're for figure skaters, those drills, anyway, not for us,"
Suguru grins. "Sure,"
Squinting, Satoru can still see the way that Suguru looks smug. "What are you planning."
"Look, lemme warm up and I'll show you something,"
Satoru still stays in one place as Suguru skates away, wiggling on one foot. "Come on, you can hold my hands doing the backwards ones if you think you'll fall over!"
"Fuck off," Satoru mutters, under his breath, but Suguru still hears, and laughs. It echoes. God.
They end up doing some of the drills. Slaloms, power edges, crossovers, crossrolls, Suguru likes them. "Do they not- they feel satisfying to me," he says, genuinely a little puzzled, as does crossovers in a circle around Satoru, who's sort of spinning to watch him.
"They hurt my feet after a while,"
"Your skates are fitted wrong, then," Suguru shrugs. He's doing crossovers like figure skaters do, without lifting up his feet, big sweeping movements. It's sort of mesmerising to watch. He opens up the circle, and turns to jump.
Satoru laughs, "is that it?"
Most of them can do waltz jumps, is the thing. Fucking about at camps or on empty ice, seeing who can do the stupidest shit. Baldy actually has a pretty good one-foot spin, by hockey standards.
"Do you ever shut up," Suguru rolls his eyes, "just be patient."
So Satoru shuts up, and watches. The next time he comes round, Suguru throws himself into a full axel, twisting his body in the air and landing with a krrrrrhhhh to the ice, on a deep outside edge. He's grinning when he lands it, pumping a fist. "Not done that in a while,"
"An axel?" Satoru says, waving a hand in front of his face, "come on, I can do one,"
"Go on," Suguru says, "I wanna see."
Satoru tries one and falls flat on his ass, dizzy and lost between the rotation in the air. Suguru wheezes on the other side of the rink, but still comes to help him up. "Dude, you could have hit your head."
Satoru, very eloquently, looking up at Suguru and his loose strands of hair dangling over his face, says, "yeah, but I didn't, so it's fine."
"Yeah, fine until I have to explain to coach why you're concussed," Suguru says, but he’s still grinning, “this is why you do edgework drills,”
Satoru grabs him and pulls him onto the ice with him with a thump.
—
Satoru doesn’t really struggle with pop quizzes, even when they’re sprung on him like this. He swallows, chewing on the eraser on the end of his pencil. There’s chunks of it all over his desk, like a dissection. Beside him, Shoko taps her foot on the floor a few times. Satoru looks to her.
She struggles in this class, a little. She taps the table, question three?
B, Satoru taps back, and she nods, scribbling in the box. Suguru shuffles in the seat in front of him.
—
“Where’d you get your skates sharpened?” Suguru says, at the end of practise another time, “mine are so blunt, but there’s no shop here,”
“Oh, uh.” Satoru looks around at the team filing back towards the locker room, laughing and pushing each other, “I’m probably not the best person to ask, my mom does mine.”
“Oh, right,” Suguru looks deflated, “cool, um. I’ll ask Jazzy, maybe,”
In a moment of insanity: “I’m sure she’d do them for you anyway,”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, just give me them to take home and she can do them tonight, probably,”
—
“Did you ask him about how he likes them? Satoru-”
“I’ll text him!”
—
Suguru gets on the ice first, like always, and immediately bends his knees, sinking into the edges. “That feels so much better,” he sighs, turning and crossing his left foot over his right, “does she have a machine?”
Satoru nods. “Obviously, I mean, you can’t grind them by hand,”
Suguru rolls his eyes, “I meant, like, the ones you just strap skates into, or a hand grinder,” he huffs, “come on, you’re not an idiot.”
Satoru flushes. “It’s like– I dunno. The wheels.”
There’s a moment where Suguru grins to himself, hopping from skate to skate, “she’s good at it, they feel even.”
“I’ll tell her.”
They skate together round the perimeter in silence for a bit. Suguru bumps into him, probably by accident, and Satoru shoves him back, on purpose.
“You wanna time some laps?” Satoru says, because he doesn’t feel like doing anything complicated, before practice. Suguru nods in return as he switches to skating backwards.
“Sure.”
It quickly devolves into ragging it round the rink and throwing themselves as far forwards as possible to try and get one up on the other. On his sixth attempt, Satoru just lies on the ice, chest rising and falling as Suguru skates over, with his hands on his knees.
“You win, I think,” he says, lying down next to him on the ice. He’s panting too, Satoru realises, when he feels the ghost of his breath, warm on the side of his face. “Or do we call it a tie?”
“Nah, I’m faster,” Satoru says, even though there’s about a second between their times at best.
“Can I ask you something stupid?”
“Sure,”
“Are you and Shoko– like.” Suguru stalls. “Like, a thing, I guess,”
For the first time, Satoru has the opportunity to tell the truth, to someone who he knows won’t hold stupid expectations over his head about it. “Why, are you interested?”
“No, no– I’m just… curious, I guess?”
Satoru lets it die. “Nah. We’re just friends. We’ve known each other since we were really little.”
He has his answer, really, if he can’t even tell Suguru.
“She’s-” Suguru starts, but then there’s a thump on the plexiglass above the boards, and Satoru sits up to see Matty and a couple of the others laughing, making stupid faces at them. He gets up, grinning, and rams a shoulder into it just to make them jump.
—
With Satoru being smart and having straight As and being in hockey, he's somehow managed to con Shoko's parents into thinking that he's a good influence on her. Not that he's a bad influence- he just can't really influence her either way. She's too good for that kind of stuff.
She's sitting cross-legged on his bed, because whilst he isn't an influence on her, she's an influence on him, and if she sits there, he actually does some of the homework he gets assigned. But he's mostly distracted, now. He can’t stop thinking about it, like a dog chasing its own tail.
He knows Shoko is pretty. Anyone with eyes can see she's pretty: dark hair that lies perfectly straight, clear skin, a nice enough body. It's not like he doesn't like girls. He likes girls, it's just–
She's his girlfriend. They kind of agreed that they'd give it a go. She tasted so nice, so sweet when they kissed, but it was awkward. Satoru can't deny it was awkward anymore. He looks at her and breathes out, "I think we should just be friends,"
Because here's the thing: he doesn't want to talk about her in locker rooms, or bring her to games or have her on his arm. She deserves much better than that, and that's what his life is going to be. Now, and when he gets drafted. It's– sure, he doesn't have to speak about her the same way that the other guys speak about the girls they fuck about with, but it feels– she's his friend. They're good as friends. They can stay like this, without Satoru feeling like he's treading water every time someone mentions her, teases him for not locking her down yet.
Shoko exhales, loudly, and rolls onto her back. "Thank fuck, I thought you were gonna make me say it,"
"It's not right,"
"I know too much about you, man!" Shoko grins. "I've known you too long, it's like looking through– fucking– you know those upside down glasses they give you at fairgrounds,"
Satoru smiles. It's a relief. They've never really been on different pages about anything, but it's still a relief. "Good, okay,"
"It's stupid, just to date 'cause everyone was saying it was a good idea,"
Satoru thinks about the way his mom and dad ask about her, about the way the guys ask about her, about lying because he was too embarrassed to admit it, to admit that they were right, because he didn't want them to be. It feels clearer in the light of day, but it took a while for him to get it right in his brain.
"Can you help me with this one, actually?" Shoko says, sitting back up, "I wanted to ask like half an hour ago but-”
Satoru is already across the room and sitting next to her on the bed, “yeah, okay, so-”
—
The next home game rolls around, and Shoko is still grounded. Satoru’s mom asks if he wants to just go into the arena with them this time, and Satoru thinks about it.
"Can Suguru come?"
"Suguru?" She asks, "sure, but you'll have to be in the pit,"
"That's fine," Satoru had said, through a mouthful of cereal, and that's how they end up pulling up at his house again.
This time, his mom answers the door, and her eyes go wide as she calls up the stairs in Japanese for Suguru. She turns back to Satoru, and smiles, "thank you, he really enjoyed it last time,"
Satoru nods as he sees Suguru running down the stairs behind her, pulling his jersey down over his stomach. The same one. "Coming!"
"Nice to meet you," Satoru says, trying to be as easily polite as Suguru is with his parents, and probably failing. His mom laughs, just pushing Suguru out of the door.
"Don't worry, don't be late,"
"Bye," Suguru says, as he drags Satoru back down the path and they pile into the car.
—
They're a lot earlier this time than they were the last time, so Suguru and Satoru end up much closer to the front of the crowd, pressed close amongst everyone else, but able to see a little better. This time they get popcorn, too, drenched in syrup. Suguru chomps on a handful of it, absently. "Who'd you think is winning?"
"Uh, us, obviously," Satoru grins. The whole inside of his mouth feels sticky, and Suguru shakes his head at him.
—
They lose. Satoru was expecting it. Most of the sane fans were. The opposing team is on a bit of a streak, undefeated in six or seven games. It doesn't change the atmosphere being awful after, especially because a goal that would have equalised toward the end of the third period got called for being offside.
There's a food truck right outside the stadium, and Satoru manages to skip the queue because the guy recognises him from his mom, and he gives them food out the side door– a burger for Suguru, hotdog for Satoru, a couple of cokes, and fries to share between them. They end up near the doors, waiting for Satoru's mom, sitting on the asphalt.
"Toro?"
Satoru's blinks a couple of times, and he finds the voice in the crowd and groans inwardly. He taps Suguru's knee with his, signalling for them to get up. He doesn't want to deal with this, to be brutally honest.
Suguru immediately gets the message, and they both clamber to their feet. Matty squints at them. There's a few other guys from the team there, too. They must’ve been in the pit, but Satoru didn’t see them before.
"Oh, I thought you would've bought Shoko, is she here?"
"Nah, man," Satoru pops more fries into his mouth and starts chewing on them, "she's not here,"
"Aw, how come, you break up?" Someone else chirps from behind, and Satoru can't tell who it is, because of the noise, but he's so sick of it.
"We weren't together? Just 'cause you guys can't be friends with girls ‘cause they all hate you, doesn't mean I can't."
There's a couple of oohs, and then two of the guys break off, needing to leave already, but Matty carries on squinting at them, looking between them, clearly pissed. Satoru begins to think about the security guards nearby and the crowds of people and–
"Alright, so you bought your boyfriend instead, right? That's cute,"
"I'm not- dude-" it's not even creative. It's boring. "Pick a better angle,"
Matty laughs, "Honestly. You two and your little dates before all the practices. What are you doing in the locker rooms, huh? Should we start making sure everywhere's clean, or-"
It shouldn't affect him, because that's not what's happening, or anywhere close to it. But still, the fact that the thought had even crossed through his mind– he stiffens. "What the fuck are you on about?"
"Why else would you go to all that trouble?"
"Dunno. Some people are actually fucking enjoyable to play with, thought of that?"
Suddenly, his tone changes, ice cold and smarmy and– ugh. "Chill out, you can't take a joke?"
Screw it, he's angry now. And he's taller than him, and stronger, and he knows he can be intimidating when he needs to be, and right now he feels like he needs to be. "Well, it wasn't a joke, was it?"
Matty throws his hands up, "well, you’re the one getting all defensive. I'm just saying, none of us ever know what you two are saying to each other anyway, speaking in tongues-"
Satoru grits his teeth, "nah, fuck off now. Go home, Jesus,"
"Getting upset over your boyfriend? Huh?" Matty takes a step forward, trying to get up in his face like he's going to fight him in the middle of the arena exit, but as soon as he does, there’s a drink flying at him and hands shoving him back.
Satoru realises just a moment too late that they’re Suguru's, and that Matty is drenched in his coke. He has no clue how Suguru managed to drench him without getting a drop on Satoru, but it doesn't matter. Suguru looks unimpressed, upper lip half-curled, but it’s still somewhat twitched up into a smile. "Oops. Guess you'll have to go home now,"
Matty lunges for him, and Suguru's fist makes contact with his nose. He staggers back, holding it, even though they all get much worse at practice. "Dude, what the fuck,"
"Don't be a dick," Suguru spits out, "seriously."
Satoru turns as he sees the arena security finally starting to come over, and realises they're about to get in a ton of trouble. "Run," he tells Suguru, and neither of them need to be told twice, sprinting through the crowd and out in the direction of the parking lot. Suguru's laughing, and Satoru thinks he might be, too, when they get to the entrance, both of them breathing heavily, hopped up on adrenaline.
"Dude! You punched him!"
"He was being an asshole," Suguru frowns, like it's the easiest decision in the world to make to just deck someone because they're chatting shit. Maybe it is. They both play hockey, after all.
“Not enough of an asshole to get punched, probably,” Satoru pulls hands through his hair, “I mean. It just rubbed me the wrong way. Did it piss you off?”
Suguru shrugs. “He was getting on your nerves. I wasn’t gonna let him do that,”
Something clicks, “did you even understand what he was saying?”
“Did I have to?”
Satoru huffs in disbelief, “this is gonna be an incredible conversation with Coach,”
But then Suguru’s face pales. “He’s gonna go to Coach?”
That shocks a laugh out of Satoru. “Who gives a fuck? What’s he gonna do, take you off the line?”
Suguru’s eyes widen, “yeah,”
“Nah, you’re the only one that can keep up with me and he knows it. Everybody knows it. You’ll be fine. The guys do worse to each other all the time,” he stutters, looking down at Suguru’s hands. “You kept the takeaway box.”
“Yeah. Do you– do you want some?”
“I thought you dropped them,” Satoru laughs, “to punch him! I dropped mine to run!”
“You can have some of mine,” Suguru says, cheeks flushed as he grins.
“We should probably find the car first,”
—
Satoru does eventually have half of what’s left of Suguru’s burger, sat thigh-to-thigh with him on the hood of the car. It’s not been that long, but it’s nice. He’s not ever really gotten on with anyone in his team like this. Suguru throws a fry in the air and catches it in his mouth. He grins.
Matty’s a dick, but like. He’s not going to be in the NHL, is he? And they will be.