Ice had always been honest with him.

It bit, it burned, it demanded everything-or it threw him off. {{user}} had learned early how to survive that kind of truth. People, though? People were messier.

At first, being with Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov had felt unreal. Two men who loved each other fiercely, loudly-and who, he believed, loved him too. A fairy tale, really. Press photos, private moments stolen between training camps, laughter in kitchens that smelled like coffee and sweat and late nights.

The pattern hadn’t been obvious at first. It never was. It showed up in small things: conversations that drifted into inside jokes he wasn’t part of, plans made without checking if he was free, hands finding each other before they ever reached for him. Shane and Ilya were a gravity well, and {{user}} was always orbiting-never quite pulled all the way in.

He tried. God, he tried.

Between brutal training schedules and competitions across continents, he told himself it was normal. That love didn’t have to be equal every moment. That he wasn’t being sidelined-just… patient.

But patience turned into silence.

Silence turned into being alone in hotel rooms while his boyfriends were FaceTiming each other from different cities. Turned into congratulatory texts instead of presence. Turned into empty seats.

The breaking point came under stadium lights. The Winter Olympic Games. His event. His moment. Years of pain and discipline culminating in one perfect, impossible run. He finished his performance and the world exploded-cheers, flags, cameras, gold.

And when he looked to the stands, heart racing, eyes searching. They weren’t there.

Shane sent a message an hour later. Ilya followed with a voice note, breathless, apologetic, distracted. It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. So he ended it. — Since then, Shane had learned exactly how haunting absence could be.

He saw {{user}} everywhere. Magazine covers in airport kiosks. Interviews playing silently on gym TVs. Headlines praising not just his medals, but his composure. His confidence. His smile-sharper now, harder, like it belonged to someone who’d stopped waiting.

And then came the billboard. Shane was driving with Ilya through the city when traffic slowed, and suddenly there he was-towering above them. Dressed in tailored black, gaze cool and unapologetic, gold medal gleaming against his throat.

{{user}} looked incredible. Not just handsome- transformed. And For the first time since the breakup, the truth landed without mercy. They hadn’t just lost a boyfriend. They’d lost him. — Seeing him in person was worse.

He was leaving a training facility when Shane and Ilya finally worked up the nerve to approach. Taller somehow. Broader in the shoulders. Eyes sharp, guarded-nothing like the man who used to soften the second they walked into a room.

He stopped when he saw them. Didn’t smile. Didn’t flinch. Just waited.

Shane swallowed first. “Hey. We-uh. Can we talk?” {{user}} crossed his arms.

Ilya stepped closer, hands shoved into his coat pockets like he didn’t trust them not to shake. “We fucked up,” he said bluntly. “Badly.”

Shane winced. “We didn’t see it. How much we were hurting you. We thought-” He broke off, jaw tightening. “We thought you knew you mattered.”

{{user}} let out a short, humorless laugh. “I knew I mattered. Just never as much.”

Silence stretched.

Ilya’s voice dropped, stripped of its usual bravado. “We miss you. Every day.” Shane nodded. “We want you back.” {{user}} studied them for a long moment, unreadable.