Chapter 5: The Price of Attention
The coffee was bitter and cold. Misha watched the swirl of it in the paper cup, his stomach a hollow, clenched fist. Across the small Formica table, Ilia methodically finished his protein bar, each bite precise, his eyes scanning something on his phone. The café buzzed around them—the hiss of the espresso machine, the low murmur of other skaters talking jumps and scores, the distant scrape of blades from the rink.
Ilia crumpled the wrapper into a tight ball. His gaze lifted, landing not on Misha’s face, but on the full, untouched pastry sitting on Misha’s napkin.
“You’re not eating,” Ilia said. His tone was flat, observational, like commenting on the weather.
Misha shrugged, a tight movement of one shoulder. “Not hungry.”
“You weren’t hungry yesterday either.” Ilia’s phone screen went dark. He set it down, his full attention now a physical weight. “Or the day before. I notice.”
A stupid, fragile thrill shot through Misha. He notices. He made his voice casual. “Just cutting back. Carbs bloat me. Makes the lines messy.”
Ilia’s eyes, cold and assessing, traveled over him. From across the table, it felt like being undressed in public. Misha fought the urge to shrink, to expand, to do anything but sit still under that look.
Then Ilia leaned forward. He didn’t ask. He just reached across the table and his fingers closed around Misha’s wrist, right where it protruded from his team jacket. His grip was firm, unyielding. His thumb pressed into the bump of the ulna, a hard point under the skin.
“You’re getting thin,” Ilia said. His thumb moved, a slow, deliberate stroke over the prominent bone and the tracery of blue veins.
Misha’s breath locked in his throat. The noise of the café faded. All he could feel was the heat of Ilia’s hand, the rough pad of his thumb. It wasn’t a caress. It was an inspection.
“Is that bad?” Misha asked, his voice barely there.
Ilia considered. His eyes dropped to his own thumb, moving back and forth. He exerted a little more pressure, testing the give. “No,” he said finally, the word drawn out. “It’s… interesting. Sharp. You can see the architecture.”
He released the wrist as abruptly as he’d taken it. The sudden absence of pressure felt like falling. Misha’s skin tingled. He curled his hand into a fist, hiding the spot Ilia had marked.
Ilia stood, chair scraping. “Don’t pass out on the ice. It’s tedious to explain.” He grabbed his gym bag, slinging it over his shoulder. “You have the twelve-to-two session. Don’t be late.”
Then he was gone, weaving through the tables toward the rink doors without a backward glance.
Misha sat frozen. He looked down at his wrist. He could still see the faint, ghostly pressure of Ilia’s fingers. Interesting. Sharp. Architecture. The words looped in his head, a maddening mantra. They weren’t kind. They were clinical. But they were attention. They were a cataloguing. Ilia had looked at him and seen a change, and he had deemed it noteworthy.
Misha pushed the pastry away, a surge of grim triumph tightening his chest. He picked up his cold coffee and drank it all, the bitterness a punishment and a pledge. He would get sharper. Harder. More defined. He would whittle himself down to nothing but clean lines and visible bone, something Ilia couldn’t help but see.
The ice was a merciless mirror. Under the fluorescent lights, every flaw in a landing, every moment of hesitation, was spotlighted. Misha worked through his short program run-through, his body humming with a strange, light-headed energy. The hunger was a constant companion now, a sharp clarity that edged his movements with a desperate precision.
He landed a shaky triple axel, his edges scrabbling for purchase.
“Again,” his coach, Piotr, barked from the boards. “You’re thinking about your feet. Think about the air.”
Misha nodded, breath fogging in front of him. He skated back to his starting point. As he passed the center of the rink, he saw Ilia. He was in the next session, doing edge drills with glacial focus, his blades etching perfect, deep curves into the surface. He didn’t look over.
Misha launched himself back into the axel. This time, the rotation was tighter, the landing smoother. The applause from his body was a dizzying rush of endorphins and emptiness.
During a water break, he leaned against the boards, towel around his neck. Ilia glided past, close enough that the wind of his movement chilled the sweat on Misha’s face.
“Your free leg is lazy on the Lutz,” Ilia said, not breaking stride, not even looking at him. His voice was matter-of-fact, a coach’s critique. “It looks sloppy.”
Then he was gone, carving into a fast, complex step sequence.
Misha’s heart hammered. It wasn’t Look at you. It was Your leg is lazy. But it was a correction. An instruction. It was a form of ownership. Ilia was watching him skate, and he’d found something he wanted to fix.
For the rest of the session, Misha poured every ounce of concentration into his free leg on every Lutz takeoff. Making it sharp, precise, perfect. He fell twice, hard, his hip and shoulder screaming on impact. Each time, he scrambled up faster, his eyes darting to see if Ilia had noticed. Ilia never seemed to.
After the final buzzer, muscles trembling, Misha hobbled off the ice. He sat on a bench in the locker room, head between his knees, fighting a wave of nausea. The world tilted slightly.
Footsteps approached. Stopped in front of him.
“You’re pushing it.”
Misha looked up. Ilia stood there, already changed into street clothes, his hair damp. He held a cold bottle of electrolyte drink.
“I’m fine,” Misha said, the words automatic.
Ilia’s expression didn’t change. He unscrewed the bottle cap and held it out. “Drink this. You’re gray.”
Misha took the bottle. His fingers brushed Ilia’s. The liquid was shockingly cold and sweet, and it hit his empty stomach like a lifeline. He drank greedily.
“I fixed the Lutz,” Misha said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I saw.” Ilia took the bottle back, his eyes on Misha’s face. “The second one was acceptable.” He paused. “The hunger makes you furious on the ice. It’s not better technique. It’s just… angrier. More deliberate.”
“Is that bad?” Misha asked again, echoing his question from the café, his voice raw.
Ilia considered him for a long moment. The locker room was emptying around them, the sounds of showers and lockers fading. He reached out, not for Misha’s wrist this time, but to brush a damp strand of hair from his forehead. The gesture was so surprisingly tender that Misha’s entire body went still.
“No,” Ilia murmured, his thumb tracing the arch of Misha’s eyebrow. “It’s not bad. It’s just the truth. You’re making yourself into something else.” He dropped his hand. “Don’t break before the competition. It would be a waste of effort.”
He turned and walked away, leaving Misha on the bench, the ghost of his touch burning like a brand. The praise was oblique, conditional, and threaded with cruelty. Don’t break. It would be a waste.
Misha clutched the damp towel in his hands. The hollow in his stomach was no longer just from lack of food. It was a void he was carving out on purpose, a space where only Ilia’s approval, no matter how thin or how vicious, could ever fill. He had promised to stop loving him. This wasn’t love. This was something darker, a devotion written in hunger and falling bruises. He stood up, his legs shaky but determined.
He would not break. He would become so sharp, so interesting, so architectural, that Ilia would have no choice but to keep looking. Even if it killed him.