post-mix lemonade

author's note: This story has been living rent-free in my head for ages, but I never had the time (or brainpower tbh) to properly sit down and work on it. I wrote this chapter over the span of like a month, so if there are any inconsistencies, repeated bits, or random weirdness... no you didn't see that ❤️ Every scene was written at a different time and completely out of order. Also, English isn't my first language, so there'll probably be some grammar mistakes, awkward phrasing, and the occasional language-calque moment. I finally handed in all my uni essays (thank GOD), but my finals are coming up, so next chapters might not be here anytime soon. Btw, I was on vacation when Ilia did that Twitch stream and I couldn't watch it 😭 maybe next time though.

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You hated adulthood.

You hated your microscopic, cardboard-box of a room in your aunt’s house — your aunt whom you hated too, though you kept that part hidden if you wanted a roof over your head. You hated the snide clerk at the only record store in town, the one who never wanted to give you a discount on Bowie albums and who had deliberately spilled juice all over your copy of one of the first issues of “Rolling Stone’’, the one with Lennon on the cover, which you had foolishly lent him out of sheer goodwill.

You hated the bratty kids you had to babysit just to pay off the loan for your new bass guitar (the previous one, in a rather dramatic act, had been smashed directly over the thick skull of your former band’s lead singer). You hated your rusty old bike. You hated the fact you had never gotten a driver’s license and that now you were far too broke to do anything about it. You hated your job, the chemical taste of the ice cream you had to sell with a smile while wearing a pink apron you also hated. You hated the faulty waffle iron, the impatient customers, and your manager, who never stopped scolding you over something.

You hated many things, really — your entire life, yourself, and the cruel, merciless world surrounding you, so painfully different from the idyllic version of it you used to imagine.

But above all else, you hated Ilia Malinin.

Even though you hadn’t seen him since graduation day, after nearly four sweet years of drifting from city to city with your suitcase and playing gigs across the country, somehow you still saw him constantly — especially ever since the Olympics. The Olympics, which interested you about as much as last year’s snow, except social media algorithms had apparently decided to torment you with them. Overnight, Malinin was suddenly everybody’s obsession simply because he had humiliated himself in his own event.

And apparently, that was enough to make him the internet’s white boy of the month.

That part didn’t annoy you too much. You blocked all his Instagram and TikTok accounts and preemptively muted every figure-skating-related hashtag you could think of. What truly enraged you — what had soured your mood for weeks and poisoned your entire attitude toward the Winter Games — were the comments flooding your official profiles.

Do you know Ilia? You went to high school with Ilia? Guys I think they dated. Quad God and Y/N know each other?? Actual multiverse of madness.

You were perfectly aware that nothing ever disappeared from the internet, so it did not surprise you in the slightest when Malinin’s new fans dug up old photos of the two of you from your classmates’ abandoned Instagram accounts. You weren’t even standing together — while you, as usual, occupied the foreground, the loser’s silhouette lingered somewhere blurry in the background. Someone even unearthed a screenshot from Ilia’s Snapchat where, answering a classmate’s question, he had spoken rather unfavorably about your band’s music back when it had barely existed.

You were fairly certain that when your band had still been thriving, your own fans — the same ones who unanimously turned against you because of a ridiculous rumor spread by your former best friend, the drummer you had founded the band with — had probably left similar comments under Malinin’s posts. The thought comforted you a little. The two of you even had your own Wikipedia pages now, and it wasn’t hard for people to notice you came from the same town.

Back then, though, despite a few impressive accomplishments in his sport — a sport you had always considered painfully boring (all right, maybe not always and definitely not as boring as curling) — Ilia hadn’t been even half as popular as he was now. Ironically enough, it was his spectacular Olympic failure that had finally made him famous.

Who would have thought? That self-centered, cringe idiot who claimed he wrote his own poetry despite never reading a single assigned novel in high school and being physically incapable of writing an essay without a dozen spelling mistakes had somehow become the darling of teenage girls, while you had turned into a pariah in the music world. Actually, you had become an outcast everywhere. Out of nowhere, you were reduced to a mid bassist, people called you a whore, and every old friend you had vanished from your life.

The world, however, was full of surprises.

Mostly unpleasant ones — such as your sworn high school enemy, whom you despised with every fiber of your being despite having exchanged maybe a handful of sentences with him in your entire life (it had been more than enough), showing up at your workplace for the second day in a row. Yesterday’s visit had been accidental — he had taken his younger sister out for ice cream. Today’s, however, was undeniably intentional.

I could’ve gotten a job at a bookstore, you thought bitterly. At least then you would know for certain Ilia would never set foot there.

The first time, you had managed to convince the other girl working at the ice cream shop to serve Ilia and Liza while you busied yourself pretending to repair a perfectly functional slushie machine. You did not spare them a single glance.

Today, however, you were alone on shift. There was nowhere to hide — nowhere beneath the counter to disappear into, no back room to lock yourself inside. You had no choice but to face Ilia and that infuriatingly beautiful face of his, delicate and flawless as porcelain.

Damn, you caught yourself thinking, was he this pretty back in high school too? Had his nose always looked so… perfect? You could no longer recall. Every warm feeling you had once harbored for him in 9th and 10th grade had long since been consumed, replaced by a fierce and living resentment.

You scolded yourself for the observation almost immediately. You had no idea why thoughts like that were suddenly creeping into your mind. Maybe you had consumed one too many energy drinks that morning and something inside your brain was beginning to malfunction.

So when, after staring at you for several solid minutes — and that was not an exaggeration — Ilia finally approached the counter, you decided to pretend you didn’t remember him. Hopefully that would throw him off enough to stop him from trying any stupid tricks.

If he did try something, you would shove the steel ice cream scoop straight down his throat.

“What can I get you?” you asked politely, though the mockery underneath your voice was impossible to conceal.

Ilia adjusted the glasses sliding down his nose. He looked at you suspiciously, startled by how composed you seemed. The last time he had spoken to you — during graduation, no less — you had called him an idiot and flipped him off.

In front of his parents.

“Um…” He wrinkled his nose, visibly unsure what exactly he was supposed to do. Confusion and panic flickered in his blue eyes — your plan had worked; he genuinely thought you hadn’t recognized him. “Two scoops of vanilla. In a cup.”

“We’re out of vanilla,” you replied dryly, with professional calm. You did not even blink. You had always been very good at lying, almost as good as you were at getting on people’s nerves.

“There’s no vanilla,” you informed him in a detached, impeccably professional tone. You didn’t so much as blink. You had always been good at lying — just as you had always excelled at getting on people’s nerves, both deliberately and entirely by accident.

Ilia looked visibly confused.

“But…” he began quietly, pointing toward the gelato pan filled with pale, frozen cream. “I can literally see it right there.”

“That’s sweet cream,” you replied smoothly, tossing the portion scoop through the air with unnecessary flair before catching it again. “Forgot to change the label.”

“Okaaaay…” he said slowly. “Then I’ll take raspberry.”

A snort escaped you before you could stop it.

You immediately forced your face back into a perfect poker expression, praying Ilia hadn’t noticed the corners of your mouth twitch upward for a split second. You had no intention of revealing that you knew his last name, that you remembered him from school. That despite the three years that had passed since you both graduated from George C. Marshall High School, he hadn’t actually changed all that much.

The last time you had seen him in person, his hair had been darker, his features softer and more boyish, and he had possessed considerably less muscle. Practically none, in fact.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, clearly irritated.

“Nothing.” Your eye didn’t even twitch. “I choked on my own spit.”

“Right,” he said, unconvinced.

In a silence disturbed only by the soft hum of the ventilation system and the faint music drifting from the radio in the back room, you accepted his payment, took a paper cup, and scooped two generous portions of raspberry ice cream into it.

After serving your last customer, you had gone to eat a sandwich and forgotten to put your nitrile gloves back on afterward. You hoped Malinin would be gracious enough not to report you to your manager for violating sanitation rules.

Unfortunately, he had an entirely different complaint. The moment he tasted the ice cream, his nose wrinkled and his light eyebrows immediately drew together in displeasure.

“It’s melted,” he complained, puffing out his pink lips like a sulking child.

Back in high school, his expressiveness had always fascinated you. Ilia’s face betrayed every thought before he could stop it, his moods flickering across his features in exaggerated little performances that were, admittedly, sometimes funny. Not that you would ever confess that aloud. You would sooner walk barefoot over burning coals than openly admit that Ilia Malinin was actually pretty hilarious on occasion.

“And how is that my fault?” you frowned.

“I dunno. You work here, don’t you?”

“No shit, Sherlock.” You rolled your eyes. Annoying customers were nothing new to you. You had learned how to bite your tongue when necessary, even when someone pushed you dangerously close to snapping. But you had no intention of showing Ilia the same courtesy. “If it tastes bad, then don’t eat it. Toss it in the trash, throw it onto the fucking sidewalk, feed it to some random street dog, whatever. We don’t do refunds here…” Your gaze swept over him deliberately, slowly, from head to toe, before stopping at the yellow-and-black designer crossbody bag hanging from his shoulder. “Clearly Prada doesn’t either,” you added sweetly, venom dripping beneath the words.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. I’m just surprised you didn’t return the bag. It’s hideous,” you replied without hesitation, your face twisting with open disdain. “Though honestly, I can’t say I’m shocked. You’ve got absolutely zero sense of style.”

“Well, and honestly I’m not shocked your band kicked you out,” Ilia shot back instantly. “If you treated them the same way you treated everyone at school…”

“Don’t talk about my band, Malinin,” you warned, pointing the metal scoop at him like a weapon.

You knew perfectly well it was your own fault. You had started this whole exchange, after all. But that subject remained raw enough to make your stomach twist, and the last person you wanted discussing it was him.

“Ha. So you DO remember me.” Ilia grinned triumphantly, as if he had been waiting the entire time for you to finally say his name.

“Unfortunately,” you sighed theatrically. “Kinda hard not to hear about your Olympic flop.” You returned cruelty for cruelty by bringing up his free skate. You had no doubt it was a traumatic memory for him — just as traumatic as the moment your former best friend stabbed you in the back, dumped your belongings out of the band’s tour bus, and officially stripped you of your place as bassist.

At the mention of the Olympics, Ilia hit you with a cold Slavic stare — sharp and glacial enough to make you instinctively look away for a moment.

“Yeah? Well, funny, ’cause it was kinda hard not to hear about your sex scandal too,” he fired back.

“Oh my God, there was no scandal!”

Frustration erupted inside you like a storm finally breaking against the shore. You slammed both palms onto the counter hard enough for the cash register to nearly jump. Panic sliced across Ilia’s pale face, framed by long, bleach-damaged strands of hair falling messily around his rosy cheeks.

“It was all made up by that wangless prick Ian and that dumb talentless cunt who was literally jealous of me the entire time! Okay, fine, I almost sucked him off at a party once, but I was drunk and changed my mind, and how the hell was I supposed to know Penny had a crush on him? She never told me, and she literally had a new crush or situationship every other week. Then that fucker Ian got rejected and made up this whole story that we slept together and that I was supposedly in love with him. God, just thinking about those two makes me wanna throw up. A five-year-old could play the drum solo from “In the Air Tonight’’ better than Penny. And the fact she even picked Phil Collins? Please. She did that specifically to piss me off. Literally and metaphorically.”

“Wangless?”

“Seriously?” You clicked your tongue in disbelief. “Out of that entire emotional breakdown, that’s the word you focused on?” You gave him a meaningful look. “It’s eighties slang. Means no dick. Figured you’d know something about that.”

Scarlet bloomed violently across Ilia’s pale face. Even though your own anger burned white-hot beneath your skin and you had absolutely no patience for jokes, his sudden embarrassment amused you immensely. You loved tormenting men. It filled you with a strange, endless satisfaction — dark and intoxicating as spilled wine.

“What is actually wrong with you?” he asked, mortified. “Why do you keep insulting me? I literally just wanted to buy ice cream.”

As if to emphasize the point, he lifted the cup of raspberry ice cream now slowly melting in his hands. You suspected he would throw it away the moment he left the shop. Honestly, you couldn’t blame him. You had tried that flavor once yourself and it was genuinely disgusting, overloaded with artificial chemicals pretending to be fruit.

“And you bought it, so now get the fuck out and go practice your little spins or whatever,” you laughed humorlessly.

“I- no. You can’t kick me out,” he protested weakly.

There was not a trace of conviction in his voice. The confidence he radiated on the ice and during his Instagram lives — those same livestreams where, years ago, he used to mock you with irritating ease — had vanished completely.

“Oh, I can’t?” you scoffed. You took his pathetic protest as a challenge, and you had always been incapable of backing down from one. “Watch me.”

Quickly, you rounded the counter and marched toward him. Ilia immediately stumbled several steps backward, genuinely alarmed by you. As you got closer, you caught the scent of his expensive floral cologne — soft and elegant and maddeningly pleasant. You shoved him lightly toward the door with your shoulder, not hard enough to hurt him. Truthfully, you didn’t want to injure him; you just wanted him gone.

You could just as easily have grabbed the fabric of that ugly NF hoodie — the same one he had worn at the Olympics — and physically dragged him outside.

And you absolutely would have, if he pushed you far enough.

“You are actually insane!” he snapped, raising his voice. It did not impress you in the slightest. “You’re even worse than you were in high school, and honestly, I didn’t think that was possible. You seriously need help, like, professional help.”

“And you need to go train if you don’t wanna fall on your ass again at the next Olympics in Denmark or wherever they’re hosting it.”

“In France,” he corrected automatically.

“Don’t care.”

With a dramatic motion, you grabbed the handle and threw the door wide open. Cold March air swept inside like dark seawater flooding a shipwreck. “Goodbye.”

“You know what’s kinda funny?” He lifted his chin stubbornly, narrowing his eyes at you. “You always thought you were better than everyone else. You were sooo convinced you’d become this, like, huge star or something, and now you’re back in Virginia selling ice cream to my little sister and her friends. Any of your fans visited you here yet or-”

You shoved him outside with all your strength and slammed the door before he could finish speaking.

You knew his visit had not been accidental. He wanted to humiliate you. He wanted to savor your downfall, to force you to choke on the ruins of your own failed dreams — despite the fact that only a month earlier he himself had shared Icarus’s fate, flying too close to the sun before crashing brutally back to earth. Literally.

You still remembered watching the recording of his Olympic skate on YouTube, unable to suppress your laughter when he collapsed onto his ridiculous skater ass, snow spraying everywhere beneath him while confusion flashed across his face.

Okay. Maybe you hadn’t actually laughed, but you had felt satisfied.

Quad God my ass, you thought bitterly as you returned behind the counter.

You were lucky no new customers had walked in. Otherwise, you never would have been able to afford such a dramatic little performance.

Unfortunately for you, your manager, Carrie, had not missed the argument with Ilia. Sitting in the back office surrounded by paperwork and receipts, she had heard every single word. The security footage certainly did not help your case either — the camera had captured, in painful clarity, the exact moment you shoved a bewildered Malinin out the door.

“What the hell was that?” your boss demanded, practically vibrating with rage.

You hadn’t even recovered from the emotional hurricane that was your interaction with Ilia before being dragged into yet another confrontation — this time over your minor public act of aggression.

“How many times do I have to tell you that this is not how we treat customers here? Do you even know who that was?”

“A narcissist who bought ice cream flavored after his own last name,” you muttered before you could stop yourself.

You slouched deeper into your chair and pulled out your phone to scroll mindlessly through social media, utterly oblivious to the fury steadily consuming your manager. Up until now, Carrie had always overlooked your incidents with customers, and you genuinely believed she would let this one slide too.

You were wrong, and your dismissive attitude was not helping your situation in the slightest.

“What are you even talking about?” Carrie snapped, leaning over you. Lazily, you glanced up from the cracked screen of your phone. The moment you noticed the sparks of anger blazing in her darkened eyes, you realized this was serious. “How can ice cream even taste like someone’s last name? Are you high again? Because if you are, then I swear to God, I’m not giving you severance pay.”

“Of course not!” You shot up from the chair, shoving your phone into the pocket of your thrifted vintage jeans. The accusation struck directly at your pride. “I haven’t smoked weed in, like… four… three… okay, two months! That one time I just drank too much coffee. I would never come to work wasted or stoned, I swear! Who do you think I am, Mick Jagger?” Your voice climbed into a panicked pitch — something that happened so rarely it startled even you.

Carrie let out a long, exhausted sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose, silently counting to ten in a desperate attempt to calm herself down. Then she looked at you with pure, almost maternal sorrow, as if she were moments away from mourning your tragic little life.

You hated pity. You never knew what to do with it. The only response you had ever mastered was anger.

“I’m sorry, Y/N, but I can’t keep tolerating this,” she continued, quieter now. “Two days ago you called one of our regular customers a lobotomized string bean.”

Your lips parted automatically before snapping shut again while you searched the depths of your memory for the incident in question. Even though you had only been working here since mid-January, you had already gotten into more verbal altercations with customers than you could count. Not even drinking an entire kettle of chamomile tea before your shifts helped anymore.

“Because that moron blamed me for the ice cream prices going up!” you defended yourself once the memory resurfaced. “If he wants to complain so badly, maybe he should get a better-paying job or stop eating ice cream every day.”

Five minutes later, you stood outside the café-ice cream parlor stripped of your dignity, your job, and the stupid pink apron you had hated with all your heart mere moments earlier and now suddenly missed terribly.

Cold rain began drizzling from the heavy navy clouds hanging low above the city.

You wandered toward the bike rack at the end of the street only to discover, with mounting horror, that someone had stolen your bicycle. A few days earlier, you had lost the lock but convinced yourself the thing was old and rusted enough that nobody would even glance at it.

You had been wrong. Along with your job, you had lost your only means of transportation.

“Fucking amazing,” you muttered to yourself.

Tears burned at the corners of your eyes. Helpless and thoroughly humiliated, you sank onto the curb, burying your head between your knees while the rain poured down over you like cold grief.

When someone honked at you, you instinctively raised your hand and flipped them off without even looking. You already knew who it was. Before discovering your bike was gone, you had spotted his huge ugly Honda in the corner of your vision.

Eventually, though, you lifted your gaze from your battered cowboy boots. Ilia had rolled down the window and was staring at you with an expression balanced delicately between pity and amusement. If you had somehow forgotten why you hated him so intensely, the reminder arrived instantly.

Ilia loved feeding on your weakness and misery just as much as you delighted in his. In that regard, the two of you were painfully alike.

“Oh, you’re still here,” you sniffed weakly, making no effort to wipe the tears from your cheeks. They blended seamlessly with the rainwater. “Great.” Your soaked clothes clung uncomfortably to your skin.

“Yup. Saw you arguing with your manager and couldn’t miss a show like that.”

“And what, you’re proud of yourself now?” you asked with pure venom. You didn’t even want to look at him — not now, not after losing your job. Babysitting local brats remained your main source of income anyway, but the tips here had at least been decent. “Probably as proud as you were after landing that stupid quad-something jump. You walked around school for a week acting like some kind of king and thought you were cool.” You wiped your reddened nose against the sleeve of your hand-crocheted sweater. “Trust me, you weren’t. When that film crew came to record you during computer science class, we all nearly died from cringe and laughed behind your back.”

That wasn’t entirely true.

Sure, Penny had never passed up an opportunity to mock Ilia, but in reality many of your classmates had been genuinely impressed by his achievements. A large portion of the students at your school figure-skated or played hockey themselves and saw him and his parents as role models.

You simply could not stand the fact that someone else was admired more than you back then — especially when that someone was a boy who openly looked down on you and always acted superior. A boy you had envied almost everything.

Correction: you still envied him. Provoking him had simply become the only way you knew how to survive that jealousy.

“You know more people have landed on the moon than can do a quad Axel, right?” Ilia replied smugly, studying you with open challenge in his eyes. “Last time I checked, I’m still the only one in the world.”

Curled up on the sidewalk, you suddenly felt small and exposed, so you quickly scrambled back to your feet.

“You know I literally don’t care, right? Someone’s gonna knock you off that pedestal eventually anyway. You know what people were saying during the Olympics? That you were an overscored jungle man with a god complex and zero artistry who robbed Japan of a medal. And honestly? They were right. Maybe if you’d actually gone to the Beijing, you wouldn’t have flopped this hard. But nah — instead you were sitting in French class crying your eyes out like a fucking baby. So, last time I checked, you are still a loser.”

That hit its target perfectly.

“And you know what people said about you?” he snapped back instantly. “That you’re an attention whore who got pissed because everyone only appreciated that Ian guy, so you hooked up with him on purpose just to destroy the band.”

“I’m not an attention whore, you are! You literally call yourself a god, and even after placing, what, eighth? tenth? at the Olympics, you still walk around acting like you won the whole thing. That’s actually pathetic. And I didn’t fuck him!” Your teeth clenched violently at the mere mention of Ian. “I might be bitchy, but I would never humiliate myself like that. Believe it or not, I only cared about making music, not having sex with groupies and doing coke every day. This is not the 70s anymore. And it was my band! I started it, I wrote the lyrics, I’m the one who asked him to join in the first place! Then people started obsessing over his voice and suddenly he lost his damn mind and wanted to be the center of everything. A literal raccoon digging through garbage would’ve been a better leader than him!”

“Why does that surprise you? I mean, honestly, it’s kinda how it always goes, right? The singer gets all the attention. Nobody gives a shit about the guitarist. Give it a few days and people won’t even remember you existed.”

“Like you’re gonna become some immortal legend yourself,” you snapped, your voice rising despite yourself.

His remark had struck deeper than you cared to admit — mostly because he was right. When your band had begun clawing its way toward popularity, Ian had become the center of gravity around which everything revolved. He stole every spotlight, every headline, every ounce of praise. Nobody looked at you. Nobody looked at Penny. Nobody looked at Dean.

Only Ian.

“Someone’s gonna break all your records eventually, and nobody’s gonna remember you either. And for the record, I play bass, you fucking idiot.” You pointed a finger in his direction. “Also, since when are you some kind of music expert? You literally mixed up NSYNC and One Direction and didn’t even know what Justin Timberlake looked like.” A dry laugh escaped you. A second too late, realization crashed over you.

You couldn't take the words back now. All that remained was to die of embarrassment. You slowly sank back onto the curb.

“That was forever ago and-” Ilia broke off mid-sentence. His eyes narrowed suspiciously as he studied you, as though he'd just caught you red-handed. “Wait.” A slow grin tugged at his lips. “How do you know about that?”

Your silence answered for you. You lowered your head, staring fixedly at the toes of your boots.

“Aaaah.” The sound left him with unmistakable satisfaction. He looked as though he'd just discovered a new continent… or solved some impossible equation. “I see.” His grin widened. “You watched my interviews.”

“I did not,” you denied immediately. The protest lacked conviction.

“Yeah, you did. Otherwise you wouldn't know that.” His smile turned downright triumphant.

“Just shut the fuck up and leave. Now.”

You sounded defeated. For the first time all afternoon, there was something almost pleading in your voice.

“Please,” you added quietly.

You looked at him with naked desperation written across your face, silently begging him to leave you alone. Your clothes hung heavy with rainwater. A traitorous part of you longed to crawl into the warmth of his car, but you refused to grant him that victory.

As though he'd somehow read your thoughts, Ilia — slightly thrown by the sudden softness beneath your anger, by the sorrow seeping through your words — offered casually:

“You seriously gonna stay out here?” He tilted his head. “I can drive you home.”

“I don't need a ride from you,” you snapped. The suggestion stung far more than it should have, mostly because you wanted exactly that. “Besides,” you added, “you probably can't even drive.”

You eyed him skeptically. To you, Malinin hardly seemed like the type who could stay focused on a road. Or survive rush-hour traffic into D.C. without losing his mind.

“Because I'm a figure skater?” His pale brows knitted together.

“No. Because you're the loser who just got me fired.” Your arms folded tightly across your chest. “And I probably wouldn't fit in there anyway. Your giant ego already takes up all the seats.” He rolled his eyes. “I thought the whole Olympic experience would've humbled you.” Your laugh was bitter. “Guess I was wrong.”

“For someone who supposedly doesn't give a shit about me,” he observed, far too smugly, “you sure talk about the Olympics a lot,” he paused. “Did you watch them?”

“Yeeaaah, totally.” Your sarcasm practically dripped from every syllable. “I watched every skating event, every hockey game, ski jumping, all that stuff. Couldn't tear myself away from the TV… well, actually, I did watch some hockey.” The confession slipped out. “I even went to a bar for the final.”

Ilia blinked.

“My dad and aunt are from Montreal, so I wanted Canada to take gold,” you admitted. “But, y'know, disappointment is basically a national tradition at this point.” You shrugged. “At least I got free beer and peanuts out of it, so whatever.”

Suddenly, the rain intensified, turning into a torrential downpour. You shuddered — a cold, unpleasant chill ran down your spine.

Ilia did not miss your discomfort, nor the way you trembled from the cold, huddled on the ground, stripped of your dignity, largely because of him. A wave of guilt washed over him, and his chest tightened painfully at the thought that someone was suffering because of his actions.

He immediately regretted having witnessed you lose your job — and even more that it was because of him that you had lost control of yourself in front of your boss.

“Look, I’m sorry I called you an attention whore,” he said quietly, genuine remorse woven into every word. “I don’t actually think that. I just said it to piss you off.”

You barely heard him through the relentless rain drumming against the sidewalk, soaking your face without mercy. You were certain your mascara had already bled down your cheeks in dark streaks, but you were far too stubborn to hide inside Malinin’s car.

“Yeah, sure.” You rolled your eyes. “Everyone thinks that. Even my mother. Well, especially her.”

“I don’t,” he insisted immediately, almost fiercely. “And honestly? That Penny girl always gave me this like, super fake, sneaky kind of vibe back in high school. One time she literally stole my buddy’s homework and signed her own name on it.”

The mention of Penny ignited something volatile inside you.

“Because she is fake and she hates literally everyone around her. Like, okay, I hate everyone too, but she HATES hates. Capital H.” You gestured wildly with your hands as you spoke, rainwater flying from your sleeves. “And she stole my homework too! I just let it slide because I needed a drummer and I genuinely liked her back then. Now I think I’d probably strangle her. Or shove her drumsticks so far up her ass she’d cough splinters.”

Ilia laughed softly. The sound was brief and bright and startlingly sincere, his blue eyes flashing behind his glasses for a fleeting moment like sunlight beneath icy water.

It irritated you that you noticed things like that. Worse still, you couldn’t stop the faint smile tugging at your mouth in response to his almost childlike, uncontrollable laugh. Suddenly, embarrassment crept beneath your skin when you remembered how viciously you had treated him at the ice cream shop.

“And I don’t actually think you’re some talentless jungle man either,” you admitted with a sigh. “I mean, that ugly brown Viking costume was tragic, but the performance itself was kinda cool. Not really my type of music, obviously, but… yeah. It looked pretty impressive, even though I don’t know shit about jumps and all that stuff. People online just hate for the sake of hating.”

Ilia’s lips parted in unmistakable surprise. He looked as if you had just informed him that aliens were real and had abducted his cats aboard a spaceship. Reluctantly, you had to admit those cats were adorable, despite your deep fear of domestic animals ever since your uncle’s furious short-haired cat clawed your arm bloody years ago.

“Oh. Really?” The cold wind had painted Ilia’s face pink, and suddenly it lit up with undisguised happiness. “Thanks. Wait- you seriously watched it?” He blinked at you in disbelief. “Like… actually watched watched?”

“Yeah,” you admitted, which only delighted him more. “On YouTube, because I don’t own a TV, but it still counts. God, don’t get so excited,” you tried to shut down his enthusiasm, completely unsuccessfully. He looked like a little kid on Christmas morning. “Ugh, I can’t believe I even said that. I take it back.”

“Well… you can’t, so…” Ilia fell silent for a few heartbeats, studying you with something painfully close to concern.

You were drenched, trembling from the cold, wet strands of hair plastered against your face, and above all else you looked impossibly sad. Guilt twisted unexpectedly inside him. He regretted lingering outside the ice cream shop just to watch your manager fire you through the window.

“C’mon,” he urged almost tenderly, his voice suddenly gentle as velvet, painfully different from the raised voices and sharp words from earlier. “Let me drive you home. You’re gonna get sick standing out here. And honestly? I don’t wanna talk to you in the rain.”

“And I don’t wanna talk to you at all, so I guess we already solved the problem,” you replied bitterly, though something inside you softened at his strangely sincere offer. Still, an annoying little voice in the back of your mind insisted this had to be some kind of trap. “Besides, it’s not your problem. I’ll walk.”

“To the other side of town?” He looked at you like you had completely lost your mind.

“No. My aunt’s place is like half an hour away on foot.” You shrugged. “I’ll survive.”

“Wait… you don’t live with your parents anymore?”

“Why the hell would I?” you replied coldly. “They don’t even wanna know me anymore.” Your voice sharpened like broken glass. “Why do you think I ran away right after graduation? I’d rather live in a cardboard box under a bridge than stay with them.”

It was no exaggeration; by the end of high school, sharing a home with your parents — especially your mother — had become a slow, merciless torment. You saw your overworked father only on rare occasions (and after discovering he'd been having an affair with his assistant, you no longer wanted to see him at all), while your drunken mother turned every day of your life into its own private hell. The day you told her you'd started a band and intended to release your first album, she flew into a rage so violent the entire neighborhood must have heard her screaming.

Though the memories of that night had begun to blur around the edges, the pain they carried remained painfully vivid.

Silence settled between you. Only the hum of Ilia's car and the relentless drumming of rain against the slippery asphalt filled the space. You had completely drifted away into your thoughts.

Ilia sensed the shift in your mood. You weren't just furious about the stolen bike, the lost job, or irritated by his presence anymore — a shadow had fallen across you, a strange haze of bottomless sorrow clouded your eyes.

"Just get in the damn car, Y/N. Please." His voice pulled you from the depths of your painful reverie.

You lifted your chin stubbornly and shot him a proud, defiant look.

"No." You shook your head sharply, sending droplets scattering from your hair. "You're gonna kidnap me and murder me."

"I'll do that some other time."

Eventually, you gave in. You were too upset, too exhausted, and far too soaked to keep fighting him, and Ilia seemed suspiciously determined. Besides, you had to admit he had a point. A few more minutes standing in the rain and you'd almost certainly get sick — and you couldn't afford to miss your second job, the one you needed to keep no matter what.

With your pride thoroughly bruised, you climbed into Ilia's Honda. You immediately soaked the entire passenger seat. To your surprise, he didn't mention it once, and for that, you were genuinely grateful. You suspected you might have burst into tears if you'd been forced to apologize — or worse, start another argument.

You gave him your aunt's address. He entered it into the navigation system and, a moment later, one of his utterly unhinged Spotify playlists began playing through the speakers.

You parted your lips, ready to tell him to turn off the NF song he'd skated to during the exhibition gala in Milan (you absolutely were not going to admit you'd watched that performance), but ultimately decided it would be rude to complain about his music while he was driving your ungrateful ass home.

The entire ride to the neighborhood where your aunt Andrea lived was painfully awkward. Ilia attempted several times to ask what touring had been like over the past four years before you got kicked out of the band, but every question earned little more than a shrug. You had no desire to talk about it.

When he finally pulled up in front of Andrea's house, relief washed over you like a wave. You didn't want to spend a single second longer in his company.

“Wait.” His fingers closed gently around your elbow before you could pull the door handle. You turned sharply and yanked your arm away at once, as though the warmth of his touch had scorched your skin clean through.

“What now?” you hissed, your foot tapping impatiently against the floor mat. You were convinced that if his music kept playing any longer, your ears would physically shrivel up and die.

“That’s it?” He narrowed his eyes at you, openly disapproving of your entire existence at this point. “No thank you? No thanks, Ilia, my dear high school buddy that I bullied for years?”

“I did not fucking bully you,” you snapped. “You were the one acting like a bratty little kid twenty-four seven.”

“No oh, Ilia, you saved me from the rain!?” he continued in a ridiculously high-pitched voice. You had no idea he could manipulate his tone like that.

You shook your head, irritation simmering beneath your skin like static electricity.

“Do that again and I’m knocking out those perfect little white teeth of yours,” you warned.

Mostly joking — mostly. You tried your best to sound deadly serious, but exhaustion dragged at every inch of your body. You had just lost your job, your clothes were still damp from the rain, and there was water sloshing inside your shoes every time you moved.

“Oh my God, why are you always so defensive?”

“Why are you so annoying?” you shot back immediately.

“I’m not,” Ilia argued. “I seriously don’t have anything against you. I genuinely wanted to help.” To your surprise, he sounded sincere. That alone threw you completely off balance.

“Yeah. Whatever. Thanks for the ride,” you muttered reluctantly, the words tasting unnatural in your mouth.

“Umm, no problem. Uh, see you around, I guess…” Ilia accidentally gave you the world’s most awkward side-eye before scratching the back of his neck, visibly unsure what else he was supposed to say.

You ignored his painfully clumsy attempts to keep the conversation alive and practically tumbled out of the car, narrowly avoiding a massive puddle stretching across the sidewalk. Without looking back even once, you marched toward aunt Andrea’s small, slightly dilapidated one-story house.

Later that evening, after finally drying off and soothing your nerves with greasy cheese pizza and several glasses of cheap wine, you sat cross-legged on the edge of the stiff mattress in the converted storage-room-turned-bedroom you temporarily called your own, lazily scrolling through your phone in a pleasant half-drunken haze.

You didn’t even know what possessed you to unblock Ilia’s social media accounts.

You absolutely did not follow him — God forbid. You just wanted the option to occasionally snoop through whatever he posted. You justified it by telling yourself that whenever you were in a terrible mood, you could simply browse the hateful comments under his pictures for emotional support. Back in high school, furious Yuzuru Hanyu fans dragging Ilia across Instagram and Twitter had always lifted your spirits whenever you were forced to share classes with that idiot.

At some point, sleep overtook you with your phone still pressed against your cheek. Before the screen dimmed into darkness, its pale glow lingered briefly across your face, illuminated by a photo of Ilia smiling sweetly into the camera, Olympic team-event medal gleaming in his hands like captured sunlight.

⋆⁺₊❅⋆ ⁺₊❆⋆

You hadn’t always been at odds with Ilia Malinin.

The resentment came gradually, spreading through you like venom beneath the skin.

Despite the fact that most people saw you as a cold, self-centered bitch, you weren’t the kind of person who disliked others for no reason. If anything, it was the opposite — you always tried to make a good first impression on anyone you met.

Back in 10th grade, Ilia fascinated you.

The two of you barely knew each other. You shared a few classes and occasionally passed one another in the hallways, nothing more. Even though he tried to act like every other stupid teenage boy, there was something oddly charming about him. He was weird, awkward, a little cringeworthy, and somehow endearing all at once.

You admired the fact that he figure skated.

Most people would have expected a girl who played rock music to think the sport was boring or ridiculous, but Ilia was different. When he stepped onto the ice, he worked harder than anyone. He devoted himself entirely to his passion, throwing every ounce of himself into it. There was something authentic about the way he skated — something rare. He was nothing like the boys you spent your time around, the ones whose lives revolved around raves, football games, and house parties where they got drunk off cheap beer bought with fake IDs.

As someone whose love for her own craft practically bled through her skin, someone obsessed with perfection in everything she created, you couldn't help but appreciate how much time and dedication Ilia poured into skating. Without hesitation, he had sacrificed his entire teenage life for it.

Sure, maybe he was a little strange. Whenever he actually showed up at school — which wasn't often during competition season, thanks to his individualized schedule and international events — he always seemed slightly disconnected from reality.

Your friends, especially Penny, thought he was a complete freak.

They filmed him in secret when some guys convinced him to do a backflip in the cafeteria. They laughed about him at parties when he lingered awkwardly in the corner, refusing to drink. They cracked up whenever he made embarrassingly obvious spelling mistakes or stumbled through reading his own poetry aloud in English class.

Though, if you were being honest, the poems really were awful. Painfully bad. The kind of writing that felt one step away from parody.

"He's not that bad." You defended him every single time, despite the fact that you'd exchanged no more than a handful of words with him.

Not because you knew him, because you wanted to.

Every time an opportunity presented itself, though, something stopped you. You could never figure out what. The feeling was entirely foreign to you. You had never been afraid of approaching people before, but something about Ilia made your stomach tighten and your palms sweat.

The opportunity presented itself of its own accord on a sunlit afternoon in March, when you happened to run into him at the skate park. You took it as a favorable twist of fate, especially since your presence there had been entirely accidental. You had never intended to go there in the first place.

Earlier that day, you had been sitting in your garage, surrounded by cables and tangled amplifier cords, practicing on the bass guitar your uncle from New York — a passionate musician himself — had given you.

For three weeks, you had been obsessively working your way through Cliff Burton’s legendary bass solo, "(Anesthesia) – Pulling Teeth". It was difficult, but not unattainable. You had been playing bass since you were eleven years old, and your ambition knew no equal.

For two relentless hours, you had replayed footage of Metallica performing in Chicago. Cliff Burton’s fingers drifted across the fretboard with an almost supernatural ease you desperately longed to master yourself.

Your wrists ached, your fingers burned, and your neck screamed in protest. Yet you had been doing fairly well, right up until your drunken mother burst into the garage and threatened to smash your amplifier and sell your bass if you didn’t stop making noise and wasting your life on stupid nonsense.

Afraid she might actually follow through on the threat, you left the house immediately. You knew better than to argue with your mom whenever she had already worked her way through several glasses of wine before six in the evening on a weekday.

Usually, you preferred her in that state. When she drank, she ignored you. She stopped reminding you that you were an ungrateful slut wasting your life wandering around music stores with teenage degenerates instead of focusing on school.

But when she became aggressive, the smartest thing to do was disappear, especially when your father wasn't home… which was almost always. His office was the closest thing he had to a permanent residence.

You had nowhere else to go. You felt uneasy sitting alone in the roadside bars where you hoped to start performing once you finally assembled a band. Your aunt was away in Florida. You couldn't play in the library.

And Penny had gone to the movies with her new boyfriend — a heavy metal fan a year older than her, who supplied the two of you with cigarettes you occasionally smoked beneath the school bleachers.

With no better options available, you decided to hide out at the skate park near school. You leaned your bike against a tree and settled into the grass. The teenagers weaving across the concrete on skateboards barely registered in your mind. Instead, you pulled out your notebook and disappeared into your thoughts, attempting to write lyrics for a new song.

Unfortunately, inspiration remained frustratingly out of reach.

“Yo, Ilia! Dude, can you chill with the show-off stuff for, like, five seconds?!”

The familiar name cut through your concentration. You looked up immediately, and instantly found yourself meeting Malinin’s gaze. He stood atop a ramp, staring at you with unmistakable curiosity.

The moment he realized you had caught him looking, his cheeks flushed red. He quickly turned away. Pretending indifference, you lowered your eyes back to your notebook and resumed scribbling. Your heart, however, had begun pounding twice as fast.

The two of you remained at the skate park until late evening — everyone else eventually left. The sun drifted slowly below the horizon. With AirPods tucked into his ears, Ilia spent the entire afternoon attempting increasingly ambitious tricks, most of which ended with harmless crashes onto the concrete. Your phone died, you could no longer listen to music, and the relentless sound of a skateboard slamming against the ground began driving you insane.

Eventually, you snapped.

“Could you maybe stop falling? Pretty please. I’m trying to focus here.”

Ilia didn’t hear you. He saw your lips moving and noticed the annoyed crease between your eyebrows, but that was all. Pulling out one earbud, he paused whatever song had been playing.

“Huh? Sorry, what was that?” he asked, slightly out of breath as he approached, his face unexpectedly flushed.

“Can you stop wiping out every five seconds? Or at least do it more quietly? I’m trying to write a song.”

Ilia froze. For a moment, he looked completely speechless, as though language itself had abandoned him. You sighed and began gathering your belongings.

“You know what? Never mind. I was about to leave anyway.”

“You’re Y/N, right?” Ilia blurted awkwardly, nervously running a hand through his damp hair. “Like... from school?”

“And you're that figure skater kid. Like, from school.” A faint smile tugged at your lips. “I didn’t know you skated too. I mean, on board. Shouldn’t you be at the rink or something?”

“Day off,” he explained, bending down to retrieve his board.

“What are you listening to?” You pointed abruptly toward his phone. You had been curious ever since noticing him skating with headphones. It was practically an occupational hazard — you always needed to know what people listened to and whether they had good taste.

Ilia hesitated. He knew perfectly well you were planning to start a rock band. The entire grade knew. Besides, you were impossible to miss in the hallways. You laughed twice as loudly as everyone else, your vintage clothes stood out from a mile away. You never backed down from older jocks. And whenever teachers weren't looking, you stuck Aerosmith stickers to the backs of classroom chairs.

“Why do I feel like you're about to roast my entire playlist?”

“Because I probably am. C’mon.” Without permission, you snatched his phone and opened his Spotify playlist titled “Skate Sesh”.

You scanned the endless track list. “Please tell me you don’t listen to Juice WRLD. And Eminem? Wow. This is worse than I thought.” You continued scrolling. “Well, at least you've got Nirvana. Guns N’ Roses. Ooh, The Beatles. Metallica!” Your eyes lit up. “You know I actually tried learning one of their songs today? Maybe there's hope for you after all.” Then you froze. “Wait.” You brought the screen closer to your face.

“What now?”

“What is ABBA’s “Angeleyes” doing next to Kendrick Lamar?” Instinctively, you looked up, straight into his bright blue eyes. Almost luminous beneath the fading evening light. The sight threw you off balance for a second. You cleared your throat and quickly resumed scrolling. “The Weeknd. A$AP Rocky. Jim Croce?” You nodded approvingly. “Respect for Jim, but how do you even skate to this?”

Then your eyes widened.

“Oh my God! Fleetwood Mac.” You looked genuinely delighted. “I love you, dude.” The words escaped before you could stop them. For a brief moment, you seemed like the happiest person alive. Your fight with your mother, your worries, your frustrations — all of it vanished.

You jabbed the play button beside “Dreams” with such force that Ilia briefly worried for the safety of his screen.

“Uh... I only know, like, one Fleetwood Mac song,” he admitted. He handed you his second earbud. You accepted it gratefully.

“But you've heard “Silver Springs”, right?” You stared at him expectantly. “RIGHT!?”

“Uh... yeah. Totally. Of course.” He sounded profoundly unconvinced.

For the next hour, the two of you sat together sharing music. Night settled over the skate park, the air grew colder — neither of you cared. You completely lost track of time. It felt as though eternity stretched out before you.

You forced Ilia to save every rock playlist on your profile. You also extracted a solemn promise that one day he would skate an exhibition program to Led Zeppelin or Depeche Mode. In return, you had to promise to stop insulting NF.

After that day, you barely spoke for weeks. Being around Ilia made you self-conscious again. And he resumed passing you in the hallways without a word, as though nothing had ever happened. Because, technically, nothing had. You had run into each other, you had talked about music, that was all.

And yet, for you, those hours meant something. You simply didn't know what.

By the end of sophomore year, you noticed he kept looking at you. Not exactly staring, more like side-eyeing you. Every time you walked past him, you'd catch him glancing in your direction with blank expression. You assumed he was judging you, just like half the school did — the people who mocked your music taste, your clothes, your attitude.

You had no idea it was simply a nervous habit he had whenever he felt stressed.

Eventually, it started getting on your nerves — mainly because, despite how few words had ever passed between you, something within you had already started leaning toward him. One afternoon during band practice in Penny's room, you mentioned it. The next day, while the three of you stood in line at the cafeteria, Penny turned toward him.

"Quit staring at her, creep."

You immediately jabbed her in the ribs with your elbow, but it was too late. Offended, Ilia muttered something under his breath and looked away.

He didn’t dare so much as glance at you for the next several days.

The distance between you only widened when your geography teacher assigned you, Penny, and Ilia to the same group project. Together, you were supposed to build a model of tectonic mountains. Both you and Ilia seemed quietly radiant at the prospect of spending time together. Penny, however, was anything but enthusiastic — she was positively outraged.

"I seriously can't believe we have to do a project with that Russian quad-jumping fucko. Maalin? Maleenin? Whatever his name is. I can’t even pronounce this shit" she said as the two of you lingered by a row of lockers after class. Penny had never cared much for discretion; her voice rang through the hallway. "He's so lame. The guys at the music bar are gonna think we hang out with those stupid, weird rink kids. We are so cooked."

You listened to Penny with a steadily growing fury. You were busy transferring books from your backpack into your locker — perhaps if you had bothered to look around, you would have noticed Ilia standing just behind you, hearing every cruel word hurled in his direction. Penny was fully aware of his presence — that was precisely why she had said it. Your silence only convinced Ilia that, just like your friends, you mocked him too. He quickly slipped past the two of you.

Perhaps if you had noticed him then, if you had made him understand that you did not share Penny’s opinion, everything might have unfolded differently.

"Don't call him that," you warned after a long moment — though, to your misfortune, Ilia was already gone. You slammed your locker shut, its metal door covered in stickers and crookedly cut-out photographs of your favorite rock bands.

"Why not?" your friend snapped.

Her prejudice toward Ilia was beginning to grate on your nerves. You could not understand her point of view. As musicians devoted to rock music, weren't you supposed to embrace people who were different? And the very fact that Malinin spent his days on the ice instead of playing football or basketball like most of the boys at school seemed impressive to you.

Maybe he had... questionable taste in music, but that was nothing that couldn't be fixed.

"Because he's not lame or stupid. And figure skating is, like, one of the hardest sports in the world. It's honestly kind of badass that he does it."

Penny snorted.

"Oh my God. Do you have a crush on him or something?" she threw at you, half-joking, half-serious.

"Maybe." The confession slipped free before you could stop it. "He's polite. And very... pretty."

Penny stared at you in horror.

"But... he looks like a porcelain doll! In a bad way. He's not even your type!" she exclaimed, paying no attention whatsoever to the students streaming past in hurried currents.

You frowned, irritated that Penny presumed to know your type. You had never talked about boys around her. Until now, they had hardly interested you at all; your priorities had been your bass guitar and the feverish search for both a guitarist and a vocalist for the band.

"What are you talking about? He's exactly my type."

Penny gave you a look. "No, he's not."

"I mean, sure, I love the whole rockstar look on guys. Bell-bottoms, denim jackets, smudged eyeliner..." You shrugged. "But Ilia has something else."

"Like what?"

You hesitated.

"I don't know. Something... kind of majestic?"

Penny immediately gagged.

She shook her head with such dramatic force that several black strands escaped from her thick, loosely braided plait.

"Majestic?"

You punched her lightly in the arm, your cheeks turning scarlet. Embarrassment rarely found its way to you. You were the sort of person who refused to be intimidated by anyone. Ilia was the exception.

"Shut the fuck up."

"I'm serious. Majestic?" she repeated in disbelief.

"He just does, okay? He's got that really pretty, delicate kind of face. Almost feminine." Your gaze drifted somewhere far away, wrapped in thought. "And his eyes are insanely beautiful."

"Oh my God." Penny grimaced theatrically. "What the fuck? Ew. EWW. You've got to be shitting me. I cannot believe I'm hearing this from you."

You crossed your arms and leaned your weight against the locker.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Y/N, look at yourself. You literally look like Jimmy Page's long-lost child."

You rolled your eyes.

"And?"

"And Ilia Malinin looks like he belongs in some fantasy movie where he talks to fairies and woodland creatures. Geez, I can't fucking believe you are thirsting over some cringy figure skater."

A dry laugh escaped you.

"Well, maybe opposites attract."

Penny pointed at you accusingly.

"No. Absolutely not. I refuse to watch this happen."

"I was actually thinking about asking him to Spring Formal."

"You? At a school dance?" She barked out a laugh. "Don't tell me you'd slow dance with him to Olivia Rodrigo too."

"Oh, shut up."

"No, seriously. Come on. Malinin looks like a strong gust of wind could snap him in half. Besides," Penny continued, "dating him would completely ruin your image. Once we finally put the band together, you'll have, like, a thousand better options."

"A thousand?"

"Easily."

She nudged your shoulder.

"Girl, find yourself a hot guitarist or something."

Two days later, you learned that Ilia — having obtained the teacher’s permission, though without consulting either you or Penny — had switched project groups.

The news struck you as oddly unsettling. When your geography teacher had announced the assignment, pairing the three of you together to build a model of tectonic mountains, Ilia had seemed genuinely pleased by the arrangement — pleased, and perhaps a little intimidated. Still, you said nothing about his decision. You assumed he simply preferred working with his own friends, which, in all fairness, was perfectly normal.

The reasons to worry emerged gradually, they revealed themselves mostly in the ways Ilia began avoiding you. He sat on the opposite side of the room in classes you shared. He slipped past you in the hallways and the cafeteria as though you were a stranger. By the end of the school year, the two of you had not exchanged a single word.

Your disappointment carried a bitter aftertaste — you truly liked Malinin. Every day, you nurtured a frail, steadily fading hope that maybe he would talk to you first. Maybe he would ask you to hang out. Maybe he would invite you somewhere.

Instead, he acted as though you did not exist. He spent his time exclusively with people from his rink and with his girlfriend. After Spring Formal — which you ultimately skipped because you had no one to go with — you discovered that Ilia had started dating an older girl from the drama club, a figure skater herself.

You could not stop comparing yourself to her.

The final drop spilled the cup at the beginning of summer. Your parents had gone out to dinner with friends, while you sat on your bed testing a new custom bass pick engraved with your name in elegant, slanted lettering.

Eventually, you set the bass aside. You lacked both the patience and the energy to practice Cliff Burton’s solo. You had been trying to master it for months, and it still refused to yield. There was a reason "(Anesthesia) – Pulling Teeth” was considered one of the most difficult bass pieces to play.

You could manage the first half reasonably well, but the second half was where the composition truly bared its fangs. The tempo surged toward a relentless two hundred beats per minute. Burton attacked every note with a raw, almost violent intensity. The bass line unfolded across two strings in thick, chord-like phrases, pulsing alongside the rhythm while the wah pedal drenched the sound in sharp, unpredictable bursts of color.

For you, it had become a true test of your abilities as a bassist. And to make matters worse, heavy metal had never been your natural habitat. You were a rock musician at heart.

Accepting defeat, you decided to occupy yourself with something less painful to your fingers. You started scrolling through your phone. After logging into Instagram, you absentmindedly browsed your friends’ posts. Penny had gone to Chicago with her brother for a few days, and the rest of your little friend group had gone off to a music festival — one they hadn’t invited you to, of course. Not that it would have mattered; your mother would never have let you go anyway, convinced you’d spend the entire weekend getting high and sleeping with strangers.

You were just about to close the app when you noticed that Ilia was live. You had followed him the very evening after your encounter at the skate park, and from time to time you checked what he posted — usually short clips from ice practices.

Without thinking much about it, you joined the stream. His face appeared on the split screen. Alongside him were Josh and Derek from your school, as well as another skater named Jacob, whom you did not recognize.

You happened to tune in just as Ilia mentioned that someday he wanted to start making his own music.

“Yo, maybe you should join Y/N’s little rock band,” Josh snickered. “You could be, like, the next Freddie Mercury or something.”

The remark immediately soured your mood. Only a few days before summer break, Josh had run into you at the school copy center while you were printing flyers advertising your search for a vocalist.

It was hardly a secret that the two of you disliked each other. Once, he had stepped on your foot on the school bus, and you had loudly chewed him out for it. You had already been in a foul mood after another fight with your mom, and cramps from your period had left you with little patience for politeness.

Josh, however, clearly still held that outburst against you.

Ilia ran a hand through his sun-bleached hair and leaned back in his gaming chair.

“I mean... maybe. If I find out she doesn’t hate me,” he murmured.

“Y/N? That chick who hangs out with all the metalheads?” Derek chimed in. “Dude, she hates literally anyone who doesn’t listen to David Bowie. She laughed at my Travis Scott merch.”

You snorted. There was some truth to that. Sure, you occasionally mocked your classmates’ taste in music, but you did not hate everyone— that was Penny’s specialty. She openly despised anyone who did not belong to your subculture.

“Yeah, she’s kind of a total bitch,” Josh added, making no effort whatsoever to censor himself despite the fact that half the school was probably watching. “Wait, Ilia, didn’t you once say that Y/N basically stalked you at the skate park and then straight-up grabbed your phone and went through your playlists without asking?”

“Yeah... I mean, something like that happened,” he said quietly.

A surge of fury blazed through you. You could hardly believe what you were hearing — that he had just openly lied and, with breathtaking audacity, painted you as some kind of obsessive lunatic.

“Dude, what the fuck. She’s actually insane,” Derek laughed, barely able to contain himself, his curly head shaking from side to side.

“Okay, guys, chill,” Ilia said. “Chat’s gonna cancel us.”

His voice was serious. His face, however, radiated pure amusement. He was clearly fighting back a laugh.

Eventually, he cleared his throat and glanced at the chat.

“What are your plans for next season’s programs?” he read aloud. “I don’t wanna spoil anything, but they’re gonna be, like... more me, I guess? If that makes sense.”

“Eva’s asking if you’ve landed the quad axel in practice yet,” Jacob interrupted. Of the three boys, he seemed by far the kindest. He was also the only one who had not laughed while the others insulted you.

“The only thing I’ll say,” Ilia replied, “is that I may or may not have already done it. For now, only my parents know whether I landed it.” A smug grin spread across his face. “And QuadGoddess.” He winked at the camera.

A moment later, he glanced at the chat again.

“Oh, yeah. Who’s QuadGoddess?” His lips curved upward. “My girlfr-”

You left the stream. Then you logged out of the app entirely before he could finish the sentence.

You rarely cried. This time, however, your eyes stung with gathering tears. You did not understand what you had done to deserve Ilia’s hostility. As far as you knew, you had done nothing wrong. You had not earned the ridicule, the public humiliation.

From that day onward — through your junior year and all the way to graduation — you could not stand the sight of Malinin. You envied his success. You envied the warmth of his relationship with his parents. You envied how effortlessly everything seemed to come to him. You envied the silver platter upon which life appeared to serve him every opportunity, while you fought tooth and nail merely to assemble a band and carve out a future for yourself.

Most of all, though, you felt rejected. Judged. Dismissed without cause. The hatred you carried toward him had been born from unrequited affection.