That means that Ilya is covered head to toe in physical embodiments of his mother's love for him. He has so many moles, he is so loved.

And there is no way this could've been an active casting decision, because why would it be? It just shows that Connor Storrie was destined to play mama's boy Ilya Rozanov

ilya’s cross is never visible when he’s around his family. not once.

at first, i tried to explain it away. maybe it was the clothes. he is only ever shown near his family whenever he is in a formal wear, and the cross isn’t visible in the joint interview with shane or at the rookie of the year event or the selfie awards thingy, so i told myself it meant nothing.

but around his family, even in casual clothes (which is shown like once), its still gone. not even a glimpse of the chain in sight.

and this is what broke me.

that cross isn’t just jewelry. its an heirloom, a quiet inheritance that ties him to his mother, someone he lost in the most devastating way. a way that leaves questions that echo for the rest of your life.

so when the cross disappears around the people who hurt them, it feels like shrinking oneself. like he has to make himself smaller to survive. like he has to hide the parts of himself that came from her, because those parts were never safe there.

alternatively, maybe its protection.

maybe he hides it because it is too sacred to be exposed in a place that broke her and nearly broke him. maybe, as an adult, rich and commanding as he is, he is finally doing what he couldn’t do as a child: keeping her safe

so the cross becomes something he guards instead of shows. a memory he carries instead of displays.

(She then also prints a dinosaur and adds it to the tree, like on the top of the tree)

Shane: who is this, baby?

Irina is having a stilted conversation with one of the airport workers, maybe her tickets are wrong because they've seated her five year old away from her, I don't fly so whatever.

Anyway Ilya is bored and doesn't really understand the conversation anyway so he's looking around and notices Shane, who saw a dog and wandered away from his parent because he wanted to pet it and forgot that he should say something about the dog and wanting to pet it, something something mostly nonverbal Shane.

So Shane realizes that he can't find his parents or the doggy and starts to cry and well, no one really cares about one crying toddler when they have flights to catch, except Ilya decides that he's going to help this kid, so he goes over and gets babyShane to stop crying and tells him he'll help in his very limited English and takes his hand to take him back to Irina but they can't find her so they go on an adventure through the airport trying to find either of their parents.

Eventually Shane remembers the bording gate he and his parents were going to and they go off to find it, they get there and Ilya is helping Shane climb onto a seat but Shane won't stand on it because you're not supposed to do that, that's a bad thing and Shane's already been bad enough in his eyes today so Ilya is standing on the chair looking for two people that look like Shane because the concept of parents not looking like their kids is foreign to him.

However, they are only little and airports, adventures and new friends are exhausting, so eventually Ilya sits down in the chair and curls up with Shane and they fall asleep together sharing the same chair.

They are found by an airport worker who reports it but doesn't want to wake the children so they wait while the parents are located and brought over and while Yuna meets Irina David is taking a dozen pictures of the two on his camera.

However they do still have flights to catch and while Ilya doesn't wake up when Irina untangled him Shane does and wails the entire way to the bording gate and through most of their flight before he passes out from exhaustion.

Unfortunatly Shane asks for Ilya almost everyday for a year because he's his bestest friend and he helped him find his parents but neither David nor Yuna thought to get anything more than Irina's name, they didn't think their son would fixate on a boy he knew for a handful of hours so deeply.

Ilya also asks for Shane but well, he's no stranger to not getting things he wants so his asking doesn't last nearly as long.

Of course, David never got the pictures from that trip developed, at least not until after the Hollanov wedding, and he finds a handful of pictures of his kid with another kid (who he does eventually recognize as Ilya but not immediatly) curled up in an airport chair and thinks that looks familiar and realized that it's the same exact way Ilya and Shane curl up together on the couch or loveseat when they are over watching a movie.

And maybe there is a picture or two of Irina collecting a sleeping Ilya and of him sleeping on her shoulder before they leave.

And David wonders if maybe, just maybe they were meant to find one another.

He does, of course, use the pictures to embarass them at one of their anniverseries when Harris is asking aboit the Hollanov Timeline, David has the gleeful pleasure of saying that Ilya and Shane are both wrong as he whips the pictures out and says they were meant for each other long before Rookie season or the summer before and thus causes a breakdown in most of the team and their partners but also unlocks that memory for Ilya and Shane.