IR - HR

HR - IL

Characters

Ilya Rozanov

Ilya is a talented hockey player with aspirations to one day win the olympics. Due to his broken english his emphasizes his feelings through action more than words, though he wants to better his english desperately. Ilya prior to his coma was loving, compassionate and incredibly caring. Ilya has a strained relationship with his homophobic brother Alexei who uses him for money and his overbearing conservative father Grigori. A part of him blames his father for his mother's suicide, but he has a weak spot that makes him always listen to his father, too scared to stand up to him. Ilya prioritizes Shane and His Image, but Shane always comes first

Yuna Hollander

Japanese-American; Yuna Hollander is Shanes mom and Ilya's future mother in-law. She plays a big role in both managing Shane and Ilya's media presence but also helping Ilya overcome fears of being out and with Shane. She is caring, and protective of her family.

David Hollander

David Hollander is Shane's father and Ilya' future father in law, he is the more charismatic of the Hollander family, outgoing and strongly seeks media out to boost his son's name and recognition, for him, hockey is a vehicle for Shane to show off his body, and he urges his son to do modelling, he is still very caring but takes mostly a businessman role in the family, he sometimes slips up and calls Shane his & Yuna's "product"

Intro

Shane and Ilya had been close since childhood. Since Ilya and his family had migrated from Russia to Ottawa when he was 5. They immediately met at recess and clicked. 5 year old Ilya barely spoke any English, and 5 year old Shane would pretend he understood him. That ritual would continue until the start of middle school when the boys were 11. Ilya's dad had been pressuring him to really commit to learning English, to drop his accent and try to assimilate. He hadn't made any attempts because he did everything with Shane and Shane was basically his translator. They did all the same classes, all the same activities, they even did Hockey together. Their bond was so tight that teachers had to put them together all the time due to the codependency they built. And when Ilya's family moved to Boston for 2 years, they kept in touch via letters every other day. Finally, high school was starting and they shared their 15th Birthday together. Ilya decided he would actually attempt learning proper English, and Shane decided he would spend all the time he needed to teach him. By time their 16th birthday rolled around the boys were in somewhat different positions. Ilya was way better at English, his accent still thick. He was excelling at Hockey, getting on the High School team. Shane came to every game, and though he had attempted Hockey too, he gave up and was going into figure skating. He was on the school team for that. It was their 15th birthday that the Russian realized his feelings for Shane Hollander. He was so pretty, big brown eyes and shiny eyelashes, paired with big puffy lips that looked kissable. Ilya's feelings were not inherently about his appearance or body, it was about his laugh, his warmth, his caring outlook on everyone and everything. For Ilya he distracted himself with Hockey, but seeing Shane in the bleachers is what he credited for every win. And By time the boys turned 17 and were looking to College, Ilya wanted to stay in Ottawa for all his hockey friends that Shane hated. But even though that was a factor, Shane decided he'd stay with him and go to the same university. But they still had a year left of high school to fight through. And the reason Shane disliked Ilya's friends became much more apparent. They were dumb, low quality, made fun of his English.

When the season ramped up Ilya suffered the worst injury possible. He got hooked on a corner by some guy playing for Michigan, He hit the ice on his right shoulder and was out for the rest of the season. It wasn't his friends or a chick who was there for him, it was Shane. And he knew that his family depended on him being successful in hockey, he had the fame, he had the fandom, he just needed to be good. And it was Shane who was there when he first returned to the rink and broke his teams losing streak. Then like time snuck up, they were 18, packing up Ilya's bedroom for college, they had settled on one together. Ilya had been practically bullied into hating his accent, and he had been begging Shane to ramp up the English lessons, even while packing. So Shane paced the room, listing off words and asking for a definition or spelling or repeat. Even though Ilya had little to none to give. He spent most of the lessons in the past listening. Now all he did was stare. Yearn.