That night, before the club opened, Matthias and Sadiq approached Ivan near the bar.

"Eh, Ivan, my man," Matthias started, patting Ivan roughly on the shoulder.

"You been working here a couple of months and we been thinking," Sadiq continued.

"You should start working out with us!" Matthias finished with a huge smile.

Ivan looked at the two of them before responding, "I don't have money for gym membership… thank you for offering though."

"No, no, no bro. The boss' pops owns a gym in the city. He lets Berwald and I work out for free and gives a discount to the rest of Romano's employees."

"You could probably get by for free."

"I'll text you the address later, kay?" Sadiq said, waving his phone at him.

They left him then, Sadiq heading to the door and Matthias starting to sound-test the equipment on stage.

"I go there, too, a lot of the times. And so do two of our other friends," Tino piped up, wiping out some shot glasses with a rag. "Yeah, you should come by and meet them some time. You might like them."

Ivan nodded and smiled for Tino.

Tino smiled back and went about wiping up the bar.

Ivan did not plan to go to the gym.

The next day, Ivan was half way to the library when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

It was Tino. Are you coming to the gym today?

Ivan stopped to text back. I had not planned on it.

Almost immediately Tino replied. You should come by, just to check it out. Please?

Ivan sighed. Sure. What's the address again?

Ivan caught the bus to Sodo region and found the gym within a half hour.

The gym was called 'The Arena' and it was in a stone building near a Starbucks (which isn't saying much, as it is in downtown Seattle).

When Ivan entered he was greeted by an empty reception room. "Uh, hello?" he asked, looking around the receptionist's desk.

"Oh!" A thump came from the backrrom. "Ah, one moment!" There was a shifting of boxes, and suddenly a brunet boy popped up behind the desk, "Ve, hello! How can I help you?"

Ivan was taken aback by the man's appearance. He looked remarkably like Romano…

"Oh you must be Ivan! Tino told me you were coming. I'm Feliciano, and Romano is my big brother!" he exclaimed, talking extravagantly with his hands. "I could tell you were wondering that; you looked sorta confused. We're twins!" He spoke very quickly, with a strange accent, and Ivan slowly processed what he was saying. He had a different way of talking, and Ivan didn't know if he liked it at all.

"Oh. Yeah."

"Ve, great! You can go ahead into the gym. Do you not have a bag? When you do, you can just ask me for a locker key."

Ivan nodded, thanked him, and went through the door to the right of the receptionist's desk.

They gym was good-sized, not quite as big as most chain-owned ones, but also nothing to sneeze at.

At the far side of the gym was the weight-lifting area. A muscular man with sleeked back blond hair was lifting a considerable weight, as a brunet man (who also remarkably resembled Romano, but much older) was spotting him.

The only other inhabitants right now were on the full-body machines along the left wall of the gym. Tino and company were perched across two or three of these machines.

As soon as Tino saw Ivan, he hailed him over and introduced him to the two friends he'd talked about.

Their names were Emil and Lukas, and Ivan could tell they were brothers. Neither of them looked very happy to be there (which is funny: why would they be there then, if they didn't want to be?).

Matthias, who had been pressing some weights together in front of his chest (Ivan did not know the name of the machine), paused to greet Ivan, pat him roughly on the shoulder, and get a drink of water. Berwald just continued what he was doing and grunted vaguely, his version of 'hello'. Tino gave Berwald a look before turning his attention to Ivan.

"I am just so glad you came. Sadiq was here a minute ago, but he got a call and had to leave," Tino explained. "He looked rather upset…"

"Upset? He was fucking furious," Emil provided.

"Must be fighting with his boy again, then."

The five of them nodded, exasperated, in agreement with Lukas. Ivan felt like he was missing something.

Matthias adjusted to lift the weights at the foot of the bench, working his thighs and calves now. Lukas sat on the bench behind him, picking absently at his nails. Lukas had such an expression of disinterest that one couldn't help but be somewhat impressed.

Tino pulled up two stools, and motioned for Ivan to sit down. He did, and the five of them seemed to fall back into a conversation they had been having before (Actually, it was more accurately four of them falling back into said conversation; Berwald stayed completely silent save for when Tino addressed a question directly at him. Matthias also addressed questions toward Berwald, but Berwald ignored him).

Maybe twenty minutes later, Sadiq returned, looking wet and disgruntled. "It's fucking raining."

"Wow thank you for pointing that out. It's almost like we live in Seattle or something."

"Shut up, Lukas," Sadiq spat, pulling off his shirt and wringing it out. "Hey Ivan," he added as an afterthought.

"What happened that you had to leave?" Tino asked, concerned, as Sadiq dragged a stool up next to Ivan.

Sadiq sighed deeply as he sat down heavily. "Herakles is just being so…" he trailed off and sighed again, rubbing his forehead.

Matthias laughed under his breath, eliciting a glare from both Sadiq and Lukas as he glanced at the Norwegian seated behind him. "Yeah, I know, man." Lukas struck him over the head.

Emil laughed also, and Lukas kicked him.

Later, Ivan had run out of time to visit the library, so he went straight home.

He did not have work that night, and he wondered what to do with the extra time.

He went to the cupboard to look for a bottle of vodka. There was none. He'd have to pick some up.

The liquor store was three blocks away. And it was raining. And dark.

Ivan went anyway.

When he returned a half hour later, he was wet and cold. It wasn't very cold compared to what he grew up with, but he was still cold. He was soaked to the bone.

He set the bottles on the counter and went to take a hot shower.

The next day, Ivan went to the library. Tino had texted him again, but Ivan ignored him this time. There was no way he was going to the gym right now. He was going to get to the library before Yao today, according to his observations of Yao's schedule.

He grabbed a random book and went to his normal table. His book seemed to be a modern account on the life of some Greek figure from ancient times.

Fifteen minutes later, Yao arrived. He saw that Ivan was there, smiled, and asked if he could sit by him.

Flustered, Ivan just nodded, and Yao took a seat.

Yao opened the first book on today's two foot thick stack; a Japanese text on desserts. Yao started flipping through pages filed with strange-looking dishes. He stopped about half way through the book, and started to read.

He can read Japanese?

It was harder to sneak glances at him from this proximity, but that was okay.

Yao sifted through his giant stack of cookbooks over the next hour, occasionally copying down a recipe into the red notebook that Ivan had never noticed before.

Ivan hadn't been paying much attention to his own book since Yao arrived, but when Yao was finished with his books, he glanced over to what Ivan was reading.

"Ai, I loved that book! Did you read the Iliad, too?" Yao asked excitedly, leaning over to read what part Ivan was in.

"Uh…" Shit. "I don't know what that is."

"Oh." Yao looked disappointed, and Ivan felt rather bad, though he knew it wasn't really his fault he had never heard of the book. "You should read it. It's a classic, one of Homer's." Yao was restacking his books and standing, getting ready to leave.

"I was thinking it would be nice to get coffee again, but I work early tonight. Are you free tomorrow?"

"Oh," Ivan said dumbly. "Yeah. What time?"

"I don't know, we'll probably see each other here. Then we can walk there together whenever."

"Okay." Ivan didn't know what else to say.

"Okay," Yao agreed, taking his books, and leaving. His hands were shaking as he went down the stairs.

"Okay," Ivan said again, to himself, as soon as Yao was out of sight. He looked back down at the book and recalled how excited Yao had gotten when he saw it in Ivan's hands. He read the blurb. It was a book about the Greek warrior Achilles and his friend Patroclus, and their not-necessarily-just-friends relationship. Oh.

But Ivan was still curious about this 'Iliad' that Yao spoke of.

The pink librarian came by then, collecting books that had been left by people.

"Excuse me, where could I find a copy of the Iliad?"

That night, Ivan struggled to read through the first chapter of the Iliad. He had a headache by the time he gave up; there were too many words he didn't recognize, and the sentence structures were really fucking with his head.

And now, with silence and nothing to read, it dawned upon him that he kinda had a… thing with Yao tomorrow (He refused to call it a date. Just two guys having coffee together, is all).

He was lucky to get through the other day without screwing up. How was tomorrow going to go?

Don't think so much about it, Braginski. He pulled out his laptop to check Skype. He had several messages from Yekaterina.

Yekaterina Braginskya

Hi Ivan!

How's it going?

Natalya is looking at colleges right now

Do you think University of Washington is good school?

I think she's going to apply there

It had been a while since Ivan had been on, obviously.

Ivan Braginski

Do you really think she'd move so close to me? Hopefully not just because I'm here.

Ivan left Skype and opened Facebook. He had three friend requests now.

The first was Berwald, and Ivan accepted it without hesitation. He had to laugh at the first post that appeared on his homepage then.

It was a photo of a bookshelf posted by Berwald, with no caption. Ivan guess Berwald made it himself; Berwald just seemed to be that type. Matthias had commented and said, "Wow, you should make me one!" to which Berwald responded, "No."

He went back to the friend requests and found that Sadiq was the second on the list. He accepted.

The third request, however, caused him some pause.

'Yao Wang,' it read, beside a little icon that showed Yao holding a big stuffed panda against his chest and a peace sign, a big smile on his face.

What was he supposed to do? If he accepted it right away he may seem desperate. But if he didn't accept it right away Yao might think he's ignoring him purposefully.

At that moment, Skype bleeped at him.

Yekaterina Braginskya

I think she'd like it there.

Anyway, we sent you package

Happy Birthday, Vanya! (Natalya says so too)

It should be arriving any day now

Ivan Braginski

You shouldn't have done that…

Yekaterina Braginskya

Oh be quiet and accept it for once, Vanya!

Ivan Braginski

No… you should've just kept the money..

Yekaterina Braginskya

No, this is Natalya and you need to shut up, Ivan

Ivan Braginski

Alright. I still don't think you should have though.

Yekaterina Braginskya

This is Katerina again

And Ivan we both know what you would do tomorrow if you we didn't send you package

No drinking tomorrow, by the way. Alright?

Ivan Braginski

My birthday is tomorrow?

Yekaterina Braginskya

Ivan! You do not seriously not know when your birthday is?!

And technically it's two days from now for you in your time zone.

Ivan Braginski

Oh.

Yekaterina Braginskya

Well, we have to go. Keep making friends!

Yekaterina Braginskya has left the conversation

With not another thought to Facebook or what was to come the next day, Ivan closed his laptop with a sigh and went to bed.