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“When I said I was tired of schoolwork, that meant I wanted to fence,” Seiji said, frowning as he took the rental skates from the employee at Ice Palace Rink. He’d been exhausted from preparing for finals and fencing tournaments, and Nicholas had taken him up on the suggestion for a break, but Seiji was wondering if he’d regret it.
“Your body needs a break from fencing every now and then. And I’m taking you ice skating instead. You’re welcome,” Nicholas said as he picked up his pair of skates.
Seiji scoffed. He knew that his body could use a break. Dmytro had told him so many times before, when Seiji insisted on scheduling more private sessions. Dmytro had been the one to convince him to take this Saturday off too.
Seiji stared at the ice rink in front of them with reluctance. It wasn’t too crowded, despite the time of year. The lights and festive decorations made the outside ice rink glow even as the sun was going down. The rink was beautiful, but Seiji eyed it with uncertainty still, knowing the moment he stepped onto it, he’d be out of his element.
“I’ll thank you if I don’t get injured,” Seiji muttered.
“You won’t get injured here,” Nicholas assured him. “Besides, I thought you knew how to skate.”
Seiji nodded. Right. When he’d said that one little lie, he didn’t think he’d end up here.
Nicholas had told Seiji there was an ice rink right around where Nicholas grew up, so he’d skate all the time. Judging from Nicholas's familiarity with the sport, Seiji had told him in response that he knew how to skate.
In all honesty, Seiji wasn’t quite sure why he said it. He wasn’t one to lie needlessly. What was the point of wasting breath on lies? But perhaps it was just the idea that Nicholas knew how to do something and he didn’t that had gotten the best of Seiji.
Seiji had a feeling he was going to regret it now though.
Seiji sat down on the bench and tried to get a good look at the skaters already on the rink. He just needed to study their form and their foot motions and he was sure he could learn from there. But from the bench he wasn’t able to get a good look.
He hurried to tie the skates, but the laces had gotten tangled up in themselves and the skate. Seiji struggled to pull one side of the laces out and then froze when he looked over to Nicholas, already finishing up the last tie. Seiji scoffed and looked back at his own.
“Need help?” Nicholas asked.
“No, I don’t,” Seiji said, resisting to look back at Nicholas. He kept his glare on the damn skates. Before Seiji could get a grasp of the lace, he saw Nicholas knelt down in front of him, placing his hands on the tangled laces.
Seiji felt his face warm at seeing Nicholas there without warning. He had a slew of insults on his tongue, but he was too dumbfounded to speak.
“Some dumbass before you laced them up wrong,” Nicholas said. “It’s easier to fix them from this angle.”
Seiji nodded and managed to compose himself by the time Nicholas got them untangled.
“I can take it from here,” Seiji said, snatching the laces from his hands.
He stood up after he finished and instantly felt unbalanced and weighed down.
“Ready?” Nicholas asked as he stood on his skates. The way he looked so comfortable in them almost irritated Seiji.
Seiji just nodded.
Though Seiji typically reserved his competitive nature for fencing, with Nicholas it seemed to slip into everything. Even just running suicides with him was a competition and one that he hated to lose.
But running suicides was still a typical part of his training. Skating wasn’t.
Nicholas entered the rink in front of him, skating slowly out of the way, but patiently for Seiji.
Seiji held the railing on the rink’s wall with white knuckles thankfully hidden underneath his gloves.
“C’mon, Seiji! You got this,” Nicholas said.
Seiji risked a glance up from the ice to look at Nicholas’s too-encouraging smile. “I’m not a child, Nicholas,” Seiji said, but he knew his words wouldn’t have their usual sharpness when he was gripping Nicholas’s hands so tightly.
“Nah, right now you’re totally a little kid on skates,” Nicholas said with a grin. “Just hold on to me.”
The idiot still wasn’t even wearing gloves, despite the near freezing temperature.
Seiji didn’t appreciate being called a little kid, not even as a child half his height went zooming by on a pair of black skates. “Okay, fine,” Seiji said. “This is my first time skating.” He managed to gain enough of his balance back that he could stand up straight, but he kept his grip on Nicholas’s forearms.
“Really?” Nicholas asked.
“You don’t have to act surprised,” Seiji said.
“How long were you going to try and keep that lie up?” Nicholas asked with a laugh as Seiji managed to start gliding again. Nicholas skated backwards, extending his arms to keep Seiji in tow.
“I thought I would be able to pick it up more … gracefully,” Seiji said at last. He eyed the rest of the skaters to see how they were making it look so easy.
“You are usually more graceful, I’ll give you that,” Nicholas remarked. “You want one of those rolling carts they give to the first-timers?”
Seiji didn’t have to look up from the ice to know Nicholas was smiling. “Shut up,” he said, testing out the breaks on his skates.
As embarrassing as it was to be clutching to Nicholas’s arms, it was better than falling and risking an injury by falling.
“Can I teach you?” Nicholas asked.
Seiji hesitated. “As long as I don’t have to use those awful rolling carts.”
“A lot of people use them when they’re first starting out,” Nicholas justified.
Seiji stared back at him. “And how old are those people?”
“Usually around five,” Nicholas said, his expression trying to stay composed, but the corners of his lips betrayed him and turned up into a smirk.
Seiji scoffed. “Teach me without the cart.”
“You’ve got a deal,” Nicholas said.
“First, just watch me for a second, alright?” Nicholas asked.
Reluctantly Seiji watched Nicholas as he skated. Seiji had so focused before on watching the others that he hadn’t considered watching Nicholas. But the longer Seiji watched now, Seiji realized how much he’d missed.
Nicholas was a skilled skater from the minimal knowledge Seiji could gather. He looked firm on his feet and headstrong and effortless. Even graceful, though Seiji had never thought of Nicholas like that before. The same power Seiji saw as Nicholas fenced he saw as he watched Nicholas skate.
As Nicholas came closer, Seiji composed himself, thinking back to how the way Nicholas had skated was so not how he had been skating.
Seiji nodded to Nicholas to teach him.
The next half an hour or so, Seiji listened to Nicholas and practiced. Seiji somehow managed not to fall, and he noticed Nicholas’s smile widening as Seiji began to pick up more of the basics of skating.
It was strange to listen to Nicholas give him tips. Seiji was so used to correcting Nicholas’s technique and form and footwork all the time. But he figured that perhaps just this once he could learn something from Nicholas.
And as much as Seiji hated to admit it, Nicholas was a decent teacher. He was patient and explained things clearly, and he gave Seiji time to practice it for himself instead of just talking.
After they’d made it a few laps around the rink, Seiji was pleasantly surprised. He could see why Nicholas liked to skate.
More lights lit up across the rink now that the sun had gone down and Seiji realized how beautiful the rink was like this. Seiji could see why Nicholas wanted to come here again.
Nicholas turned on his skates so that he was no longer facing backward. “You think you’re good now?”
Seiji nodded and they skated side by side. Nicholas was still more sure on his feet, but Seiji was no longer a stumbling child.
“There you go,” Nicholas said. “Now you got this!”
Seiji blushed at the excitement in Nicholas’s voice. They skated faster now, gradually picking up the pace.
Seiji felt more prepared to try and skate with more momentum now and skated forwards. He kept his focus ahead of him and on Nicholas by his side as they turned the bend of the rink.
“Shit, Seiji, watch out,” Nicholas called out from a few strides to his left. The urgency in Nicholas’s voice made Seiji turn, but he wasn’t quick enough.
Seiji felt a powerful force slam into his side. The tip of his skate dug into the ice. Seiji lost his balance too quickly for recovery, so he braced his body for a fall.
Hands wrapped around Seiji’s waist and neck in an instant, stabilizing Seiji’s body. Seiji blinked, overwhelmed by the sequence of movements around him. Nicholas stood in front of him, the rink’s railing pressed into his back. His heart beat loudly even through his jacket.
How had Seiji not fallen? His balance had gone awry so fast that he thought for sure he’d fall.
Nicholas looked about as shocked as Seiji was. His hands fell from his neck and waist, the warmth of them gone. “Sorry,” Nicholas said.
“No, it’s fine,” Seiji rushed. He didn’t even quite realize what Nicholas was apologizing for.
“Are you alright?” Nicholas asked, glancing down at Seiji's skates.
Seiji nodded. Seiji rolled out his ankles as best he could in the heavy skates and they felt fine.
The skater who’d bumped into Seiji skated back to them. She didn’t look older than ten and the look of guilt on her face was impossible to miss. “I’m so sorry,” she said before she even halted.
“It’s okay,” Seiji said. The girl looked instantly relieved and she skated off after another look over at Seiji.
Nicholas still looked at Seiji with concern.
“I’m really okay,” Seiji said. “Her speed more than anything took me off balance.”
But as Seiji stood, he felt perfectly balanced on the ice. The skates even felt lighter. Seiji began skating and Nicholas followed his lead again.
“Thank you,” Seiji said.
“You don’t need to thank me,” Nicholas said.
“I told you I would thank you if I didn’t get injured.”
Nicholas shrugged. “I saw her lose control of her speed, so I figured I could at least try and help you avoid a fall.”
Seiji barely remembered the feeling of the tip of his skate getting lodged in the ice. Instead all he remembered was the feeling of Nicholas’s hands around his neck.
Snow began to fall softly. Seiji tilted his head up to watch it fall.
He could understand why Nicholas still wanted to visit this place. The lights illuminated the snow as it fell and the smell of fresh hot chocolate seemed to melt into the air. Seiji doubted any other skating rink closer to Kings Row would be like this.
“I can see why you like this,” Seiji said, striking up conversation to distract himself from thinking of the way Nicholas’s arms had wrapped around him. He’d held on to Seiji even tighter than Seiji had held onto his hands.
“Right?” Nicholas said.
“Did you skate often as a kid?” Seiji asked. “I thought fencing was always your passion.”
“It was,” Nicholas agreed. “But I wasn’t always able to get fencing lessons, so I sort of messed around with other sports. None of them stuck like fencing,” Nicholas said.
“So you learned to skate here?” Seiji asked.
Nicholas nodded. “Yep. And now you did too,” Nicholas added with a smile.
Seiji blushed, though his statement didn’t mean anything. Just Nicholas noticing the similarities between the two.
Though maybe it was just that realization that made Seiji react this way. He spent so much time thinking about how different he was from Nicholas, and yes they were different, but it was … nice to have this in common.
They had always had fencing in common, that was a given, and Seiji had realized he’d had fun finding another commonality.
“So why have you never skated before?” Nicholas asked, his hand stabilizing Seiji’s arm. Seiji liked the way it felt. “I thought most kids on the East Coast learned how to skate.”
Seiji shrugged at first. He knew he wasn’t like most kids. Most kids didn’t attend hours- long private practice sessions five days a week and training camps at the age of six.
“My schedule never allowed me to have much free time. And I didn’t think it was wise to spend it doing other things that could lead to injury. I also hardly ever wanted to do anything other than fence,” he said. “Though this may be a good form of exercise to work on for balance.”
Nicholas laughed as if he could see Seiji internally making note of the physical benefits of skating. But Seiji recognized more than just that benefit. He hadn’t ever really hung out with Nicholas in a setting that wasn’t school or fencing related before.
There was a part of Nicholas here he hadn’t seen before. A part that Seiji wanted to see more of if he had the chance.
The train ride back to Kings Row felt longer this time around now that it was late at night. Seiji still had a cup of hot chocolate in his hands that he’d gotten at the rink.
“Did you know I had lied about being able to skate?” Seiji asked.
Nicholas smiled. “I suspected it by the way you were looking at the rink like a death sentence when you were putting on your skates.”
“I could have spared myself that humiliation, I suppose,” he said.
“Nah, it wasn’t embarrassing. It was kinda cute, though,” Nicholas said.
Seiji’s grip on his cup tightened a bit.
“I’m not sure I understand your concept of cute,” he said, thinking back to his clumsy attempts at balance and almost slamming into the rink’s railing.
“I meant the way you held on to me when you thought you were going to fall,” Nicholas said.
Seiji guessed that made more sense. “Well if we go again, I’ll hopefully be past the stage of needing to grab on to your arms.”
“That’s true. You’re a fast learner,” Nicholas said, “I could always hold your hands instead.”
Seiji felt his cheeks blush and he nodded. “That sounds better.”
“Would you like to go again? I mean after finals and stuff,” Nicholas asked.
“During winter break?” Seiji asked.
Nicholas nodded.
“I would like that,” he said. Seiji looked out the window and caught Nicholas’s gaze in his reflection.
Seiji turned and saw the real Nicholas, not just his reflection, with his hand extended towards him. Seiji placed his hand in his and had a feeling he could get used to holding on to Nicholas like this.