There are billions of people in this world. Entire cities breathing at the same time, strangers passing each other every second without ever truly seeing one another. And yet somehow, once in a lifetime if you’re lucky, you meet someone who feels painfully familiar. Someone who reaches parts of you that nobody else ever touched.

That’s what makes soulmates so terrifying and so rare. It’s not just love. It’s recognition. It’s the feeling of “there you are” after spending your whole life not realizing you were searching for someone at all.

Most people will never experience that kind of connection. The kind that alters your chemistry. The kind that makes the world split into a before and after. The kind that turns coincidence into destiny.

And maybe that’s why Hudson and Connor feel so special to me. Because against every impossible odd, in an industry designed to swallow people whole, they found each other. Two people who somehow seem to soften and unravel in the other’s presence. Like they were always meant to collide eventually, no matter how long it took.

There’s something almost haunting about witnessing two souls recognize each other in real time. The quiet gravity of it. The tenderness. The inevitability.

Shane pushing Ilya against the wall.

1. When he tells Scott Hunter that what he did is good after MLH and celebrating with him in a club much to Scott's astonishment

2. Bringing Troy Barrett to the Kingfisher in New York

3. Telling Troy is doing great work by raising awareness on assault and how to find help via his socials and confronting Commissioner Crowell when he learns he tries to silence Troy

4. Skipping All-Star Game to go to the funeral of Duncan Harvey (who struggled with drug addiction and mental health issues)

5. Reaching out to Ryan Price (who also came to the funeral) and asking him to become a coach for the Irina Foundation camp, saying he wants to be inclusive and keeping this his touchstone

6. Reaching out to Max (transman, former female player and now unable to compete) and ask him to be a coach as well

7. Getting everyone silent in the locker room when Troy wants to come out to the team

8. Every occasion Ilya is kind to women, like in the episode 4 scene when he apologised to the bartender on behalf of his rude teammates

9. All the times that man has hyped up women around him: Svetlana, saying she knows EVERYTHING about Hockey, Jackie Pike who could do much better than Hayden in his opinion because she runs the ship and her husband is nothing without her, Leah as a multiple Champion in the Olympics and PWHL, Yuna, his mom (I don't want you to think she was weak. She wasn't.)

What if Ilya died? What would Shane do? How would he mourn?

They were going to die, and Ilya would never get to have the big conversation with Shane. Would never get to tell him everything that Ilya had been hiding in his heart.

Ilya only had vague ideas of the afterlife and any gods who may be waiting there, but he believed his soul would stay with Shane, however it could. He believed the people you loved stayed with you until it was your time to go.

To be honest this is due to Rachel Reid's writing. She did NOT write Shane with autism in her mind. She wanted him to be deeply closeted and with the heavy expectations that comes with being a gifted kid and half Asian on his shoulders.

However, as she went through the diagnosis of her oldest child, she started to see that a lot of Shane's attributes were concurrent to someone on the spectrum.

Ilya is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Literally and figuratively.

I see what you did there, Jacob

Ilya, on the other hand, tells Shane is beautiful IN THE PROLOGUE: “You are very beautiful,” Rozanov said suddenly. It was said very matter-of-factly."

Shane's answer to that is: “Hottest Man in the NHL, according to Cosmopolitan,” Shane joked."

Shane was literally ranked the most handsome player of the entire NHL CANONICALLY wtf dym some people say he's "unfuckable?" His quirks and personality are why Ilya falls for him, but the lust and desire for that man has been here since 2008 Saskatchewan. FUCK!