Chapter 7: Heart-Shaped Marshmallows
The silence between them as they stepped out into the freezing evening was a third presence, bulky and awkward. Vil zipped his coat to his chin, the fur-lined hood framing his face. Leona fell into step beside him, hands back in his pockets, his shoulders hunched against the cold. They walked without direction, their breaths pluming in the air, the sounds of their boots on the cleared pathway the only conversation.
The Olympic Village was a surreal, temporary world. Flags of every nation fluttered from lampposts. The sounds of a dozen languages swirled around them. Athletes in team gear moved in tired, happy clusters, medals glinting around necks. Vil and Leona moved through it like ghosts, separate from the celebration.
“Hip okay?” Leona asked, his voice gruff, after they’d walked a full block in silence.
“It’s fine. It’s just a bruise.”
“Looked worse.”
“It’s fine.”
Another block of silence. The tension was a live wire, humming with everything left in the medical room.
“Your face is on that banner,” Leona said suddenly, nodding toward a huge promotional image hanging from a building. It was a shot of Vil from two seasons ago, mid-jump, his expression one of serene concentration. The perfect icon.
“Yes,” Vil said, not looking at it. “It is.”
“They used my bad side for the hockey ones,” Leona muttered, almost to himself.
A flicker of amusement cut through the cold in Vil’s chest. “You have a good side?”
Leona shot him a look, a glimpse of the old, familiar irritation. It was strangely comforting. “Bastard.”
They turned a corner, and the world opened up into the winter market. It was a burst of sound and light in the deep blue twilight. Wooden stalls lined the paved square, draped in strings of tiny white lights that glittered against the darkening sky. The air shifted, carrying the rich, sweet scent of roasting nuts, frying dough, and the spicy warmth of mulled wine. Laughter and chatter rose in clouds with the steam from food vendors.
It was overwhelming, a sensory opposite to the sterile, focused world of the arenas. For a moment, they both just stopped, taking it in.
“It’s… a lot,” Leona said.
“It is.” Vil felt an unexpected urge to step into the crowd, to be anonymous in the swirl of it. “Come on.”
They moved into the flow of people, their pace slowing. They passed a stall selling intricate wooden carvings, another with thick, hand-knit scarves and mittens in vibrant stripes. A vendor called out, offering samples of honeycake. The noise was a blanket, smothering the need to talk.
At a stall selling spiced chestnuts, Vil paused, watching the vendor toss them in a large, blackened pan over an open flame. “Want some?” he asked, the question feeling bizarrely normal.
“Sure.”
He bought a paper cone of them, hot enough to burn his fingers through the paper. He handed it to Leona, their gloved fingers brushing. The contact was minute, insulated by wool, but it sent a jolt up Vil’s arm anyway. He pulled his hand back, focusing on the chestnuts.
Leona took one, popping it into his mouth. “Hot. Good.”
They shared the cone as they walked, the simple, earthly act of eating quieting some of the noise in Vil’s head. He watched Leona from the corner of his eye. The multicolored lights played over his features, softening the usual scowl, catching the gold in his tired eyes. He looked younger like this, just a guy at a market.
They drifted past a stall selling hot drinks. A cheerful woman with rosy cheeks beamed at them. “Two hot chocolates?Special for the athletes! With marshmallows!” She was already reaching for cups.
Vil opened his mouth to correct her, to say they weren’t together, not like that. But Leona spoke first, his voice flat.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
The woman poured the thick, steaming liquid from a large pot, plopped a dollop of whipped cream on each, and then, with a wink, placed a single, pink, heart-shaped marshmallow on top of each mountain of cream. “For the champions!” she said, pushing the cups toward them.
Vil took his, muttering a thank you. Leona paid, a simple exchange that felt profoundly intimate. They moved away from the stall, finding a slightly quieter spot near a giant, lit-up ice sculpture of the Olympic rings.They sipped in silence. The chocolate was too sweet, milky. The heart-shaped marshmallow slowly melted into a pink blob. Neither of them mentioned it. The unspoken lie—the vendor’s assumption, Leona’s acceptance of it—wrapped around them like the steam from their cups. It was a fiction, but for now, in this crowded, sparkling nowhere, they could both live inside it. It was warmer than the drink.
Leona leaned back against a wooden beam, watching the crowd. “Remember that time we got lost at that competition in Prague? After the argument.”
Vil stiffened. He remembered. They’d been sixteen and seventeen, a raw new pair. They’d fought viciously over a missed lift entry, the kind of fight that was really about fear and the terrifying closeness growing between them. They’d stormed off in different directions and gotten hopelessly lost in the old city, ending up by the Charles Bridge as night fell. They’d found each other by accident, standing under a streetlamp, their anger evaporated into relief and something else, something that had made Vil’s heart pound harder than any performance.
“I remember,” Vil said softly.
“We didn’t talk for an hour. Just walked. Like this.” Leona took a long swallow of his chocolate. “Then you bought that terrible trdelnik from that street cart and made a mess of the powdered sugar. All over your perfect face.”
“You laughed,” Vil said, the memory vivid. “You actually laughed. A real one. I’d forgotten that.”
Leona was quiet for a moment. “I didn’t forget.”
The simple confession hung in the cold air. Vil’s grip tightened on his cup. This was the minefield. Every step into the past was dangerous.
“Why did you really quit?” The question left Vil’s lips before he could stop it. It was the old, festering wound, but here, under the fairy lights with a heart dissolving in his cup, it didn’t sound like an accusation. It just sounded tired.
Leona didn’t look at him. He stared into his chocolate as if it held answers. “I told you. The rules. The fakeness.”
“You’re a professional athlete. Hockey has more rules than figure skating. And it’s just as fake, just in a different way.” Vil’s voice was low, urgent. “Don’t give me the press conference answer. Not here.”
Leona’s jaw worked. He blew out a long, slow breath, the steam swirling violently. “It was you,” he said, the words quiet but stark. “It was always going to be you.”
Vil went very still.
“I couldn’t… share you,” Leona continued, his voice rough. “With the judges, with the fans, with the choreographers. Every look, every touch, every moment of connection was part of the program. It was for them. It was scored. Our partnership… what it was becoming… it felt like it belonged to everyone. And then you’d bow, and smile that perfect smile, and it was like a door shutting. I was just the other half of ‘Vil Schoenheit and Partner.’” He finally looked at Vil, his eyes dark and serious. “At least in hockey, when I shove someone into the boards, it’s because I want to. The feeling is mine. Ugly or not, it’s mine.”
The truth, after all this time, was a physical blow. Vil had thought it was a rejection of him, of their sport, of their dream. It was more terrifying than that. It had been a rebellion against the cage of being an accessory to Vil’s ambition. A demand for something real, even if that something was violence on the ice.
“You could have told me,” Vil whispered.
“What would you have done?” Leona asked, not unkindly. “Changed your entire life? Stopped being who you are? You were born for that world, Vil. I wasn’t. I was just in love with someone who was.”
The words landed, simple and devastating. I was just in love.
The past tense was a blade.
Vil looked away, his throat tight. The market swirled around them, a cacophony of joy that felt a million miles away. He watched the heart-shaped marshmallow finally sink into a pool of pink cream.
“It wasn’t just physical,” Vil said, the words barely audible. He was admitting it to the cold air, to the steam, to Leona’s profile. “In the shower. I lied.”
Leona’s head turned slowly. He studied Vil’s face, reading the surrender there. “I know.”
“Why did you leave?”
“Because you were scared,” Leona said simply. “And I was scared of what I’d say if I stayed. So I did the shitty, easy thing. I ran.”
A group of laughing skiers jostled past them, breaking the moment. The spell of the market, of the shared history, thinned. Reality seeped back in. Their flights, their teams, their separate, public lives were waiting just beyond the twinkling lights.
Leona pushed off the beam, finishing his chocolate in one go. “We should head back.”
Vil nodded, the motion feeling heavy. He dumped his half-finished cup, the sickly sweet drink and the melted pink heart, into a nearby bin. The gesture felt final.
They walked back toward the residential blocks in a different silence. It wasn’t tense or awkward. It was heavy, saturated with the words they’d finally spoken aloud. The path was quieter, the market sounds fading behind them.
As they reached the entrance to Vil’s building, they stopped. The impersonal glass doors reflected the night back at them.
“So,” Leona said, hands in pockets again.
“So.”
“I fly west. Day after tomorrow.”
“I fly east. Same day.”
Leona nodded. He looked at Vil, really looked at him, as if memorizing the lines of his face under the harsh lobby light. “That fall was brutal. But the way you got up…” He shook his head, a faint, incredulous smile touching his lips. “It was the most brutal, beautiful thing I’ve ever seen you do. More beautiful than any landing you ever stuck.”
It was the most raw, unfiltered compliment Vil had ever received. It struck deeper than any praise from a judge or a headline. It left him breathless.
Leona leaned in, and for a heartbeat, Vil thought he would kiss him again, right there in the open. But he just stopped, his face close enough that Vil could feel his warmth. “Don’t let them smooth it out, Vil.The crack. It’s the best part of you.”
He stepped back, gave one last, unreadable look, and turned, walking away into the night without a backward glance.
Vil stood frozen, watching the dark space where Leona had vanished. The cold seeped through his coat, but inside, a strange, hot ember glowed. He touched his own cheek, where Leona’s thumb had smudged his makeup a lifetime ago in a medical room.
Inside his quiet apartment, the silence was different. It wasn’t hollow anymore. It was full of echoes—of a roar, of a confession, of a terrible, wonderful truth. He stood by the window, looking out at the glittering, temporary village.
He didn’t know what happened next. But for the first time in a long time, the unknown didn’t feel like an enemy. It felt like the edge of a blade, sharp and clean and real. He picked up his phone from the table, his thumb hovering over the screen. Then he opened his contacts, found the name, and typed a single message.
Where does a masterpiece go from the cheap seats?
He sent it before he could think. He put the phone down, his heart hammering against his ribs. He didn’t wait for a reply. He just stood there, watching the lights, feeling the profound, unsettling crack in his perfect world, and wondering, for the first time, if it might be the beginning of something, not the end.
He just stood there, watching the lights, feeling the profound, unsettling crack in his perfect world, and wondering, for the first time, if it might be the beginning of something, not the end.
His phone remained dark and silent on the table.
Sleep was a futile concept. He lay in the dark for hours, his mind replaying the press of Leona’s lips, the taste of too-sweet chocolate, the raw confession I was just in love with someone who was. The past tense was a stone in his gut. Dawn arrived as a pale, thin light seeping around the edges of his blackout curtains. The village would be quiet, the celebrations having bled into exhausted sleep.
He needed to move.
The small outdoor rink was a afterthought, a decorative loop tucked between residential buildings. At this hour, it was deserted, its surface a blank, grey sheet under the muted morning sky. The air was knife-sharp and still. Vil laced his skates on a cold bench, the familiar ritual calming his spiraling thoughts. He needed the clean scrape of blade on ice, the purely physical demand of motion.
He stepped onto the surface, pushing off into a slow, wide circle. His hip protested with a dull throb he chose to ignore. This wasn’t for jumps or spins. This was just for the feeling of gliding, for the emptiness. He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the cold air sting his cheeks, and just skated.
A second set of blade-scratches, hesitant and unfamiliar, cut into his solitude.
He opened his eyes.
Leona was at the far entrance, clumsily stepping onto the ice in a pair of battered rental skates. He was dressed in sweatpants and a thick team hoodie, no hockey gear in sight. He looked surprised, then guarded, his shoulders tightening as he saw Vil.
Vil slowed, his blades carving a shallow arc to face him. The world narrowed to the twenty meters of ice between them.
“You’re kidding,” Leona said, his voice rough with morning. He took an awkward, stilted push forward. His movements were nothing like the powerful, controlled aggression of his hockey strides. This was unstable, tentative.
“I could say the same,” Vil replied, gliding to a smooth halt. “I didn’t think you ever wanted to see a blade without a puck again.”
Leona shrugged, concentrating on keeping his balance. “Couldn’t sleep. Thought it might… I don’t know. Clear my head.” He finally looked up, meeting Vil’s gaze. “Your text.”
“You didn’t reply.”
“Didn’t know what to say.” Leona took another careful push forward, closing the distance slightly. “Cheap seats have a better view sometimes. Less pretending.”
Vil drifted backward, maintaining the space. “Is that what you were doing last night? Getting a better view?”
“Maybe.” Leona’s glide was gaining a shred of confidence, the muscle memory of a childhood spent on figure skates faintly reasserting itself. “Or maybe I just like watching you fall apart. It’s more interesting.”
“Charming.”
They orbited each other, two points in a silent, frozen dance. The only sounds were the whisper of their blades and the distant hum of a generator.
“We keep ending up in the same place,” Vil observed, his breath a plume in the quiet air.
Leona executed a slow, wobbly turn. “It’s a small village.”
“It’s not that small.” Vil did a effortless three-turn, a simple flourish that felt like breathing. “Statistically, it’s improbable. Rink at dawn? This specific bench?”
“So what’s your theory?” Leona asked, finally stopping his progress, planting his feet wide for stability. He looked like a tree trying to root itself to the shifting ice.
Vil coasted to a stop before him, close enough to see the flecks of gold in his tired eyes. “Bad luck. For both of us.”
A ghost of a smile touched Leona’s mouth. “Or fate’s a shit-stirrer.”
The word hung between them. Fate. It was the kind of sentimental, grandiose concept Leona would normally mock. Vil raised an eyebrow. “You believe in fate now?”
“I believe in patterns.” Leona looked down at his ill-fitting skates, then back at Vil. “And I’m standing in rental skates at six in the morning talking to you. The pattern is pissing me off.”
“Then leave.” The challenge was soft, barely audible.
Leona didn’t move. His gaze held Vil’s, the morning quiet amplifying the unspoken things crowding the air. “You first.”
Neither of them moved. The standoff stretched, charged and impossibly fragile. Vil thought of the medical room, the door clicking shut. He wouldn’t be the one to walk away this time. He wouldn’t let Leona run either.
“You’re terrible in those,” Vil said finally, nodding at the skates. “It’s physically painful to watch.”
“They’re not my skates,” Leona grumbled, shifting his weight and nearly slipping.
“No kidding.” Vil sighed, a sound of theatrical exasperation that masked a sudden, nervous impulse. “Here.” He held out a hand.
Leona stared at it as if it were a foreign object. “What?”
“You’re going to concuss yourself on recreational ice. It would be an embarrassing headline. Take my hand.”
Suspicion warred with something else in Leona’s expression. After a beat, he reached out, his gloved hand closing around Vil’s bare one. The contact was electric, a live current through the insulation.
Vil pulled gently, setting them both into a slow, forward glide. “Don’t fight it. Just… follow.”
“I don’t follow,” Leona muttered, but he let himself be guided, his strokes becoming less jarring as he matched Vil’s rhythm. It was clumsy, a far cry from their former synchronicity, but the fundamental connection was there—the push and pull, the shared balance.
They made one slow circuit of the rink, hand-in-hand, saying nothing. The world was sleeping. This pocket of ice was theirs alone.
“This is stupid,” Leona said, but his grip tightened.
“It’s basic edges. You used to be good at this.”
“I used to be a lot of things.”
Vil didn’t reply. Instead, he shifted their momentum, turning them in a gentle, sweeping curve. It wasn’t a step sequence or a prescribed pattern. It was just a turn, a change of direction done together. Leona’s body, stiff at first, gradually relaxed into the motion, trusting Vil’s lead.
Another circuit. Then another. Their hands remained linked. The silence was no longer empty; it was full of the sound of their shared movement, of their syncing breath.
Without a word, Vil gradually increased the pressure on Leona’s hand, signaling a tighter turn. Leona, intuitively understanding, leaned into it. They began a simple, circling dance around a central point, a slow waltz on blades. It had no music but the scrape of steel and the wind.
Leona’s awkwardness faded, replaced by a latent, powerful grace. He wasn’t a figure skater anymore, but his athlete’s body remembered the poetry of flow. Vil led, but it became a conversation—a push answered by a lean, a shift met with counter-pressure.
“See?” Vil murmured, his voice low. “You remember.”
Leona’s eyes were on their linked hands, then lifted to Vil’s face. The early light softened his features. “Some things.”
They slowed to a gentle stop, their momentum dissipating. They were in the center of the ice, still holding hands. The village around them was beginning to wake; a distant door slammed, a cough echoed from a balcony. Their time alone was evaporating.
Leona didn’t let go. “What happens after today?” he asked, his voice raw.
“We get on planes,” Vil said, the reality of it cold and simple.
“And then?”
Vil looked at their joined hands, then back up. The crack in his world felt vast, a chasm. But Leona was standing on the other side of it, holding on. “I don’t know,” Vil admitted. “But the cheap seats have a terrible view of my next competition. It’s in Montreal.”
A slow, understanding dawned in Leona’s eyes. His team was based in Toronto. A short flight. “Is that an invitation?”
“It’s a geographical fact.” Vil extracted his hand, the loss of contact immediate and cold. He skated backward a few feet, putting necessary space between them before the pull became irresistible. “You can interpret it however you want.”
He turned and skated away, toward the bench, his movements fluid and sure. He didn’t look back. He could feel Leona’s gaze on him, a tangible weight between his shoulder blades.
He sat, his heart hammering against his ribs, and began unlacing his skates with trembling fingers. He heard the slow, scraping sound of Leona following, moving with a newfound, cautious confidence on the ice. He stopped a few feet away, his rental skates crunching on the paved edge.
Vil stood, his street shoes feeling alien on the solid ground. He slung his skates over his shoulder and finally met Leona’s eyes.
Leona gave a single, almost imperceptible nod. Not a promise. An acknowledgment.
Then Vil walked away, leaving Leona standing alone on the edge of the ice. The morning sun finally broke over the roofline, painting the grey surface in a band of weak, gold light. It felt less like an ending and more like a starting pistol, its echo hanging in the crisp, waiting air.