Chapter 20 #3
They ordered steaks with different side dishes, Tora chose potatoes and Alisa went with vegetables, the safer option.
However, the smell of the fried potatoes on Tora’s plate was almost unbearable, warm, salty, and so inviting, and of course Tora noticed it immediately; she speared a piece with her fork and held it out toward Alisa without even asking.
Alisa leaned in carefully, taking the potato from the fork and chewing slowly, feeling the salt crystals melt against her tongue, the softness of it spreading warmth through her, and she moaned with soft satisfaction. “That’s so good…”
Then she glanced down at her own plate—vegetables, so predictable—and something inside her tightened just a little.
“Do you want something from my plate too?” Alisa asked.
Tora shook her head, “Nah, I’m good. I don’t feel like vegetables today,” she said, already cutting into her juicy steak.
Alisa did the same, but her thoughts drifted somewhere else entirely, to that exhausting loop about how Tora seemed to live so freely, without counting, without measuring every fucking bite of her food, while Alisa was already thinking about how to log those few stolen potatoes into her calorie app later, how to balance them out, how to make up for it.
Even though she promised herself not to think about it today.
It annoyed her, more than she wanted to admit, that some people never had to think about it at all, while others carried it like a constant background noise, a never-ending calculation…
They talked while they ate, filling in the empty spaces left by months apart, going over training, small moments, things that didn’t really matter and yet somehow did, because they belonged to them.
Still, beneath it all, Alisa couldn’t shake the feeling that Tora was holding something back and it made her restless in a way she couldn’t quite explain.
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was just her anxiety again, spinning stories where there was none.
Tora wouldn’t be seeing someone else back in Norway… would she? With Loke, maybe? No… that was ridiculous. Too much, even for my own imagination.
Alisa pushed the thought away, focusing instead on the warmth of the food and the sound of Tora’s voice.
Then Tora lifted her glass of red wine to make a toast. “To your victory, to the gold… you were incredible there on the ice, babe”
Alisa smiled, raising her own glass and clinking it lightly against Tora’s before taking a small sip.
“Thank you for coming to see me,” she said quietly. “Thank you for watching… for being there for me.”
“My pleasure,” Tora replied easily. “How could I not?”
“Well… you didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to. So I came.”
Tora reached her hand across the table, and Alisa took it without hesitation, gently tracing her fingers over Tora’s knuckles, slow and careful motion, as if memorizing the shape of them.
“Thank you,” Alisa whispered. “I really mean it.”
For a second, she felt like she might cry, overwhelmed by how good everything felt, as if something like this couldn’t possibly last forever, as if it might slip through her fingers the moment she stopped holding on tight enough.
* * *
As soon as they stepped out of the restaurant, they were met by a dense wall of people—Chinese reporters crowding the entrance, their voices overlapping, cameras flashing brightly and microphones already pushed too close to their faces.
They were speaking English, but too fast and too loud for Alisa to make out anything clearly.
She instinctively frowned, lifting her hands to shield herself, trying to push through, while Tora stayed close at her side.
Alisa even tried to hide behind the bouquet, but it only made things worse. Someone reached forward and snatched it right out of her hands, and she gasped, her fingers closing around empty air.
“You’re with a rival!” someone shouted.
“Figure skaters! Rivals!”
“The 2026 Olympics!”
The words hit in fragments and before Alisa could even process them, Tora’s hand tightened around hers. She snatched the bouquet back, handed it to Alisa, and shushed the reporters like a vicious cat.
“Run,” she hissed to Alisa.
And they both did.
They ran blindly, almost laughing out of pure adrenaline, pushing past the noise and the flashing lights, and the reporters didn’t follow far, not with all that equipment, so within seconds, they were out of sight, breathless and hearts racing. They slowed down only when it was quiet again.
And then, as if by some miracle, a bus rolled into view.
They exchanged a quick look and jumped in without thinking, laughter spilling out of them as they collapsed into the nearest seats.
But Alisa’s laughter faded almost instantly. Her heart was still racing, but now for a completely different reason.
The reporters had seen them, filmed them, taken photos of them leaving together, holding hands and running. And if that got out… if it somehow made its way beyond China…
Her chest tightened.
Russia.
Rumors.
There would be severe consequences.
Would she be going to jail for holding a girl’s hand? That would be the end…
These thoughts alone made her feel like she was already falling, like the ground had disappeared beneath her feet.
By the time the bus started moving, her hands were trembling, and Tora pulled her into a tight embrace, one hand stroking grounding circles along her back.
“It’s okay… we got away from them,” Tora murmured trying to steady her. “We can just go somewhere, maybe a mall, buy something nice for tonight… something beautiful, like sexy underwear or—”
Alisa barely heard the second half. Her head was so loud with anxiety and fear.
“We’ll be everywhere tomorrow,” Alisa said, her voice almost breaking. “On every site, every article, people will start talking, they’ll say we’re together… And I’ll be done.”
“Hey, don’t rush such things,” Tora said quickly. “Nothing’s happened yet.”
“I cannot do this!” Alisa snapped, panic rising in her chest. “You’ll go home and be fine no matter what they write, but me? They can ruin my life because of this. Do you understand that? I could go to jail just for holding your hand!”
That made Tora go still.
For a second, her expression hardened at the situation itself, at how unfair and suffocating it suddenly felt. Her jaw tightened, and Alisa looked at her with worry in her gaze. “If anything like that comes out…” Tora said carefully, “then you will come with me. Immediately.”
“I can’t,” Alisa shook her head. “I don’t even have a Schengen visa. And they don’t give them directly to Norway for Russians now.”
That only made the tension in Tora’s face deepen, the frustration clear in the way she exhaled through her nose.
It felt like a dead end.
Tora reached for her again, squeezing her hand this time instead of pulling her closer.
“Let’s deal with things when they actually happen, okay?
” She said more quietly now. “Nothing’s been published yet.
And even if it is… people can write anything.
This is China, they’re not exactly rushing to publish stories about same-sex relationships either.
If anything, they’ll twist it into something else like heeey, two rivals were seen together, secret meetings, drama before the Olympics, something like that. ”
Alisa didn’t answer, but she listened.
“Don’t destroy yourself over something that doesn’t exist yet,” Tora added gently. “Please, Alisa, let’s just… breathe for a second. And maybe go somewhere, distract ourselves a little. I don’t want tonight to be ruined because of them.”
Alisa just nodded obediently and buried herself in Tora’s neck, nuzzling into her blonde hair and inhaling her familiar scent.
She smelled like home, and it amazed Alisa how a single person could create such a feeling, how everything dissolved in her arms, how all problems disappeared somewhere far away and all worries faded into nothing.
The smell of Tora was impossible to describe in words, but it could be described in feelings, like the warmth in Alisa’s heart that spread through her entire body, as if wrapping her in a soft, protective blanket that shielded her from the harshness of this world.
They reached a huge shopping center and went inside to look for lingerie stores, and as soon as they entered the first one, their eyes immediately scattered from the sheer number of options.
But the most important thing was that there were only women there, and it was quiet. Soft pleasant music played in the background, while the girls walked around trying to find sets that would catch their attention.
Alisa noticed a translucent set with tiny roses all over the fabric and immediately took it, trying to find her size, and a consultant approached them, quickly assessing her with a glance before handing her the right size, then turning to Tora and leaning slightly forward, as if expecting her to ask for something similar, but Tora shook her head and instead asked, “Do you have something for bigger breasts?” gesturing with her hands.
The consultant nodded and led her to another section of the store, where there really were bras made just for Tora, and she smiled.
“Wow, thank you,” Tora said, while the consultant waited patiently for her to choose, and Tora settled on a light blue set that looked almost like silk, but then the consultant pulled out an additional piece with garters and stockings from a drawer beneath the display, something Alisa didn’t even know the name of…
she had never worn anything like that before, but it looked insanely sexy, and Alisa couldn’t help smiling as she imagined Tora in that set.
They went to the fitting rooms to try everything on, and when Alisa saw herself in the mirror, she wasn’t shy about her body at all, she looked beautiful in that set, even though the fabric was sheer, the white color and those tiny red roses suited her perfectly.
Tora knocked lightly on the wall from the next fitting room. “Can I see, or are you saving it for later in our room?”