Wax

Fire on Ice (1/2)

He stopped in his tracks, frost spitting from the blades of his skates out of habit—some sent flying in the direction of the familiar face.

Gracefully, as though he'd seen it coming, Vanilla back-skated out of the way to avoid the flakes of ice. A simple step to the side. Swift and elegant. "...the signature welcome, I see."

One of the many moves that differentiated figure skaters and ice hockey players was the way they choose to bring all momentum to a stop. The latter party was infamous among members of the former for the unsightly spray, as demonstrated by the local idiot first-hand.

"Sorry." He apologized shortly, still surprised by the skater's sudden appearance. "Habit."

"Well... I'm not upset," Vanilla clarified, reaching up to adjust his glasses. "In fact, it'd be silly of me to relieve myself of all blame when clearly, I'd played some part in interrupting your skating practice, thereby startling you and hence resulting in the... signature welcome."

Leroy stared. He thought of pulling out a dictionary. This was the first conversation he was having with the star skater and by fuck, was the English out of his league. He couldn't understand a damn—

"I just meant to apologize for interrupting your moment while you were focused. I-is all. Sorry, was I speaking too quickly?" Vanilla appeared stunningly adorable all of a sudden; hands clasped behind his back and staring down at his skates while drawing circles with the toe pick on his blade.

"No," the idiot blurted out of a guilty conscience for stirring up some form of upset between them. "You book the rink?"

"Oh no! Not at all," his companion looked up. "Actually, I thought you did. Which is why I'd have more reason to apologize for interrupting your practice. I come by sometimes in the evening without serious intentions, simply to... clear my head. After a long day."

Hm. So they were the same.

Leroy couldn't help but feel a fair bit puzzled by this revelation; that the polite, straight-As, graceful, elegant, perfect ball of snow with a legendary ass had down days just like he did was... was unthinkable.

"You seem perturbed," said his companion after some time, shimmying back the way he came from. "I shall take my leave—"

"I fucked up the ice pretty bad but if you're okay with that, stay," Leroy laid out bluntly, slightly concerned about safety issues. His response did well to lighten the mood; little snow appeared incredibly pleased.

"That is quite alright, actually. Figure skaters make holes in the ice all the time from our jumps, so I'd say we're equally destructive," laughed Vanilla. The sound was a crystalline chill down his spine.

"Partners in crime."

"Yes indeed." The model student agreed, approaching the other and skating past him to start on his first round of the evening. "Well, um. Excuse me then. I'll leave you to it." He skated off. Leisurely, but maintaining the perfect posture and grace.

Trust the player to fall into step.

"Nice reflexes for a figure skater," he mused, matching Vanilla's speed and pace. Their lefts and rights were synced.

"Oh," was all the latter managed at first, taken aback by the continuation of the conversation as though he hadn't expected much to begin with. "I um. I'll have you know that figure skaters have equally sharp reflexes to be—"

His sentence was cut short by a hand grabbing his arm and tugging him leftward; closer to its owner. "Hole."

"Good heavens," Vanilla looked over his shoulder to see that he had, indeed, narrowly missed a deep hole in the ice. "That was quite a fright but thank you. For the warning. Anyway, what was I saying...?"

"That figure skaters had sharp reflexes," Leroy mused with a growing smirk on his face, having quietly disproven his companion's claim albeit in a singular instance. He was merely playing, of course; teasing somehow elicited the sweetest responses from the skater and Leroy was determined to see more of him.

"Y—well, that was... I mean I suppose I, too, made the mistake of a sweeping statement and generalizing is, of course, the greatest language crime but Leroy, you can't possibly think that instance represented me in my entirety!" He huffed, indignant. But the player had his attention narrowed in on something completely irrelevant.

"Leroy?" He stopped short to stare. Again, spraying a little. "You know my name."

It took Vanilla the longest moment to piece the information together in his head and realize the extent of his slip-up, turning blush-red in an instant and looking quite flustered indeed.

"Name? W—yes, I mean of course I... everyone kn... it was a, just that one time in the past. A year ago, almost. Quite frankly, I've forgotten how that—simply put, asking me how I'd come to know your name is useless because I've, um, practically forgotten how that happened, so! So." The ball of snow was thus reduced to playing with his fingers behind his back and looking everywhere except at the subject of concern. "Please forget that ever happened."

"And if I say no?" Leroy mused privately, laughing low and circling his companion in as slow, burning tease. "What are you going to do about it? Vanilla."

This took the figure skater another full moment to process and by the time he did, yet another shade of red was due.

"You knew all along!" "'course I did." "But! But then you looked so surprised when it was your name a-and and that was low, and unfair, and quite frankly, a crime. Do you know how embarrassed I felt? But also, how did you know my name?" "Your face is on every wall, dumbass." "W-what! Haven't those posters been taken down? Good god I swear I told Si Yin... never mind. That must've been quite annoying for you. I'm sorry you had to see those terrible shots of me." "I like them." "... I cannot tell if you're being serious, Leroy." "A hundred percent." "Your smirk tells me otherwise. Anyway, I watched one of your matches early last year. You're undeniably an ace. Also, your name is on every female skater's tongue, just so you know—well, a least among the members of our college team, that is." "Like what?" "Oh, nothing much. Just... Leroy this! Leroy that! Leroy is so unbearably handsome and cool and hot!" "Mm. You don't think so?" "...well." "Ha." "Oh be quiet. You're surprisingly insufferable." "Don't lie, you expected this." "How intelligent! You are correct for once." "I literally fucking saved you from that hole." "Nh—w... fine. Twice."

It was fire and ice; red and blue, and together, they collided and attracted and produced a sound that sang of purple.

"We race," offered candles-for-eyes, "and I'll make it three times."

The lake shivered in excitement. "Two is as far as you will go."