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Yuna Hollander is really quite good at Super Smash Bros. David Hollander isn’t bad, but he’s not particularly amazing, either. He tries his best.
When Ilya learns that either of them know how to play at all, after dinner one night at the Hollander house, he can’t quite hide his surprise. He enjoys playing with Shane and his parents nonetheless. The family gets quite loud, but it’s so different from the way Ilya’s family used to get loud. This is rambunctious. This is safe. This is fun, actually, even though Shane keeps elbowing Ilya in the side with how he’s shifting from side to side where they sit next to each other on the loveseat. He has never heard Yuna swear so much before, either.
Between Shane and Yuna’s talents and despite his best efforts, Ilya has not won a single game tonight.
It’s only after they turn off the TV—after Yuna pulls Shane aside to talk about some sponsorship meeting before Shane and Ilya leave for the night—that Ilya finds out why Shane’s parents know how to play.
He’s joking around with David as they clean up the living room together, saying that for all that Shane might have gotten some of David’s hockey skills, the video game know-how clearly must be from Yuna.
David laughs and smiles, but it’s a smile tinged by sadness. “Yuna was actually worse than me at the start, if you can believe it,” he says.
Ilya makes an exaggerated noise of surprise. “No, this I do not believe! She kicked both our asses tonight. She gave even Shane a run for his money.”
“Yes, she did,” Savid says. “But she worked for it. We got the game for Shane for his birthday one year—he had been invited to a classmate’s house, and he played it there, and he liked it so much. But it was right at that age where the teachers stopped insisting everyone in the class got a birthday invite, and Shane wasn’t invited back. And none of his teammates were extending invites, either.”
David doesn’t elaborate, but Ilya can hazard a guess anyway. Little Shane, in turns rambunctious about his interests and shy about everything else. Of a one-track mind, like he is now. Particular in the way he likes to do things and unable to explain why at that age. More talented than other kids his age. Different from other kids his age, in more ways than one. Ilya knows how kids treat kids like that.
“And so we got him the game, right? But he had no one to play it with, and he got tired of playing against the computer after a while. It stopped being fun for him—after he had been so excited about it before! Almost as excited as he was about playing hockey, which you know is rare for Shane.”
David is looking down at his hands where he’s neatly wrapping the charging cords for the controllers back up. Ilya, on the other hand, has paused where he was folding up one of the throw blankets. He can’t look away from David’s face, so nostalgic and so tender and so full of love for his son. For the love of Ilya’s life.
“So Yuna and I said we would play with him after he finished his homework one night. It was hard. There’s so many buttons, and Yuna got so frustrated. She’s like Shane—she’s competitive and she doesn’t like to lose. If she’s not good at something right away, if she’s not passionate about it, it can be a struggle to get her to keep trying.”
David chuckles, and Ilya smiles even though his throat feels a little tight. Like mother, like son.
David keeps going. “I swear, she almost threw a controller at the wall. We both did. Shane was so happy, though! You should have seen him. He had the biggest smile on his face. We kept playing, even though he was kicking our butts. And after he went to bed, Yuna said that we had to get better so we could keep playing with him. When we took turns taking him to hockey practice, whoever was at home would go against the computer for a little bit after all the chores were done. And there were a few date nights where Yuna’s parents would take Shane and we’d just stay in, playing round after round. Very romantic, I know,” David says with a chuckle.
Ilya chuckles back, but yes, he does think it’s romantic. Maybe not in the typical sense, but to so clearly see your partner’s mutual love for and commitment to your family together—to your child, a person containing both of you—through a gesture like that? That would inspire some amorous feelings in Ilya, at least.
“But it was worth it. The first night Yuna beat Shane, he was just thrilled. You’d think he would have been upset, right? Especially being so young—you know how little kids can get. But he wasn’t. He was glad to have a challenge. He was glad to have a reason to keep playing and get better. It made it fun for him again.”
Ilya can picture little Shane, giggling, smiling a gap-toothed smile. He can picture little Shane picking up the controller for another round, a determined and concentrated set to his little baby brow.
David reaches out and places a warm hand on Ilya’s shoulder. “I see a lot of that little kid now when I watch you two play against each other on the ice.”