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Once again, life had a lesson to teach him: it takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy.
Yuzuru has only recently come to realize that success has an expiration date that is creeping up on him day by day, minute by minute. He can hear the ticking of a clock echoing in his ears. It’s screwing up his jumping passes and messing with his head, and he wishes it would stop.
Sometimes, he even wishes he could go backwards, that he could be that 16-year-old boy up against the world with nothing to lose and not that much to prove. He misses when he had to look miles above him to see the top, even though it hurt his neck and dampened his spirits. Now that he is all the way at the top he was in a constant fight against gravity and an endless war against time. And the worst part was that he could feel himself starting to slip.
Yuzuru lived his life with the idea that he has to give everything he has. Because then if he failed, he could accept that. But he knew that if he did things half heartedly and they didn’t work out, he would always have regrets. So when people would ask him “Why do you always push for the impossible, when you already have more than enough to win?” he would think of that feeling he gets after the perfect skate. One with no regrets and one full of hurdles that he’d spent an insane amount of hours leaping over.
What sucks is not even being able to give it your all, because you are stuck in limbo in a shitty hotel room with a melting ice pack keeping you from slipping into restless sleep.
Now, as he lays on this cold and unwelcoming hotel mattress with a throbbing foot and a throbbing heart he thinks that maybe there isn’t a future for him, just the past steadily accumulating. Taunting him. His only enemy is staring back at him in the mirror, with red rimmed eyes and sunken cheeks.
Weak weak weak.
Yuzuru found that the worst type of crying wasn't the kind everyone could see - the wailing on street corners, the tearing at clothes. No, the worst kind happened when your soul wept and no matter what you did, there was no way to comfort it. A section withered and became a scar on the part of your soul that survived.
Still, being able to feel pain was good, he thought. It’s when you fail to feel any pain that you should start worrying.
For people like Yuzuru and Javier, their souls contained more scar tissue than life. There were only so many falls one could take before the bruises piled up and started to stain from the inside out. It’s like the ground was rushing at them at light speed and this time, they couldn’t save the landing.
When Yuzuru first met Javier, he lost a ton. Yuzuru envied his ability to not care, or at least act like he didn’t care. He was carefree and brazen, which is what made his skating so special, at least in Yuzuru’s eyes. He made a quad sal look like the snap of a finger instead of the complex jump that Yuzu coveted so very much. He looked up to Javier with glossy stars in his eyes that, over time, melted down into familiar constellations.
Javier was someone that Yuzuru could find refuge in, like the seashore to someone who’s been lost in the deepest parts of the ocean. Someone to fill in the cracks of his loneliness when static silence threatened to crumble him completely.
Their relationship started during a summer that felt like decades ago, when the heat was almost tangible in the air and between their bodies late at night.
Yuzuru thought he could convince himself it meant nothing to him, that Javier wasn’t the only one he let touch him like this. Like he actually cared, like he might even love him. But Yuzuru would be lying to himself if he said that the warm hands on his hips didn’t tie his stomach into knots that he couldn’t untie no matter how hard he tried.
But Javier wasn’t the type of guy to not give his everything. And it showed. So much that Yuzuru got scared and retreated into himself, tracing the human shaped emptiness inside of him and wondering why he couldn’t just let himself be loved. Because to Yuzuru, desiring another person is perhaps the most risky endeavor of all. As soon as you want somebody — really want him — it is as though you have taken a surgical needle and sutured your happiness to the skin of that person, so that any separation will now cause a lacerating injury. And the skater didn’t have time for injuries. He was selfish that way.
Their relationship ended during a very cold winter, when the cold froze up their passion and iced over their words.
“What’s so wrong if there happens to be one guy in the world who enjoys trying to understand you, Yuzuru?” Javier said to him one of those frozen winter nights, Yuzuru’s clothes clenched angrily in one of his hands. Yuzuru knows all Javi wants is something in return, anything. But all Yuzu can give is his body a few nights every couple weeks and empty phrases breathed into Javier’s skin.
They could both feel it, the inevitable end of Javi’s career just around the corner, and it’s like they were constantly hanging off the edge of a cliff waiting for gravity to finally make them come crashing back to the cold hard ground called reality.
Yuzuru doesn’t want to lose him. But he doesn’t want to fight for him either, because if he gives away too much of himself he’s afraid he will never get the pieces back. Or worse, they’d turn into grainy stardust and slip away between the cracks of Javi’s warm fingers. “I-“
“You what?”
He wants so badly to say it, to say something like “I want morning and noon and nightfall with you. I want your tears, your smiles, your kisses… the smell of your hair, the taste of your skin, the touch of your breath on my face.” But of course, he doesn’t. Fear clogs up his throat and grasps at his tongue and he wonders how he even gets his next words out, because they feel so wrong and yet more real than anything else. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
Javier looks at him with the last flame of warmth left in the cold Toronto winter buried deep in his eyes. He places a hand that feels like a piece of home on Yuzu’s cheek and says, “I just want this to be something. Actually be something. I want to introduce you to my parents as my boyfriend and have my sister’s kids call you Uncle Yuzu. I want to raise a kitten with you. I want to fight with you every night over who does the dishes even though we both know it will end up being me. I just… want you.” His whole body freezes up, paralyzed with crippling fear.
Everyone has always called Yuzuru brave, but deep down, he’s nothing but a coward.
He takes his clothes from Javier’s weak grasp and doesn’t say goodbye on his way out.
Now they are both too busy fighting against themselves to leave any room to think of each other anymore. Nights spent in a mutual silence, with just the other one present to mend scars and scrapes, are lost to nights filled with overthinking all the memories that can’t be smothered out. Even when they are on that same cricket club ice that used to be their shared home, they feel continents apart. The ice between them has melted into oceans that Yuzuru can’t even attempt to cross, because there are changing tides and crashing waves threatening to drown him.
Yuzuru often wonders if this is all worth it. If the pain and crippling loneliness is ever going to pay off. If losing relationships in the waves is what it really takes to reach the top without any fear of falling. But when Yuzu can feel the salt water burning his eyes and clogging up his lungs, he decides he would give up all his medals to find the shore.
The ice pack on his ankle is completely melted by now, and he swears he doesn’t mean to press on Javier’s name in his phone. The ringing echoes through the room and echoes through the empty spaces of his insides, banging up his edges and leaving him sore. Each ring seems louder then the last.
Javier doesn’t pick up. Yuzuru can’t tell if he feels disappointed or relieved. He decides to convince himself it’s the latter.
///
Yuzuru doesn’t know when he started to develop this habit, maybe in some space of time between the first time a camera crew came to film him all those years ago when there was still light shining in his eyes, or maybe when he realized that he craved for medals that felt heavy around his neck. But at some point he unconsciously began to draw an invisible boundary between himself and other people. No matter who he was dealing with. He maintained a set distance, carefully monitoring the person’s altitude so that they wouldn’t get any closer.
His only passions were landing jumps and listening to music that he thought kept him from becoming too lonely. Music had always brought a warm glow to his vision, thawing mind and muscle from their endless wintering.
So when pangs of loneliness pierced sharply behind his eyelids and gleamed like razor blades against his ribs, he didn’t know how to classify this certain kind of pain.
Yuzuru thought he knew all about pain. He has skated through hell and made it back to the top again despite the many boundaries blocking his ascent. He thought this was due to the fact that he knew pain and could lock it up in the deepest corners of his brain where dust would gather on it until it eventually ceased to exist entirely.
But this, somehow, was different. It wasn’t as tangible, wasn’t as visible. It was a looming presence that would hit him in the quietest of moments, like when he would take a sip of water or a breath of air. He has now learned that injuries do not always take a visible form, and not all wounds gush blood.
Sometimes he could even hear the the roots of loneliness creeping through his veins and making a home in his heart when the world was hushed at four o'clock in the morning. It was the feeling that he was missing something, like some vital organ or maybe a curly haired Spanish boy.
He didn't feel like he was in his own body; his body was just a lonely, temporary container he happened to be borrowing.
Yet he still finds himself missing Javi in the nameless intervals between seconds and in the empty spaces between his fingers.
Yuzuru doesn’t know how or when Javier seemed to slip past his radar and break through his carefully built barricades. But he thinks maybe he’s been there for awhile now, it just took him this long to notice. Maybe it was when Javi had won his first world title, but still held Yuzu in his warm arms so tight, like he knew it was the only thing keeping the pieces of himself glued together. But no, it was probably some moment even earlier.
He remembers Finlandia trophy like it was yesterday, each moment still imprinted in his memory clear as glass. He can still feel the childish happiness he felt when he won gold with Javier by his side on the podium, and he remembers thinking that that's where they belonged - side by side on a podium together, eyes locked and smiles glued to their faces. It didn't matter what places they ended up, as long as they were there, together.
It’s almost like the universe wanted it that way. But that by no means meant they didn’t have to scratch and scrape for it till their nails were bloody and their lungs were gasping for air.
As Yuzuru thinks back to those unforgettable moments, one sticks out to him brighter than anything else. It seemed small and insignificant, but now that he’s older, maybe a little wiser, he realizes that that was it. The moment when Javier destroyed that last wall, knocking out the bricks like they were made of styrofoam.
“Yuzu, you are coming out to dinner with us, no excuses.”
“But-”
“I said no excuses! I already talked to your mother, so you can’t get out of this even if you beg.” Yuzuru nods his head, but that doesn’t mean a pout doesn’t form on his lips at the thought of having to speak only in English for hours. “It’s only us, anyway.”
“Just us?” Yuzuru tilts his head to the side in confusion. Usually it’s at least a dozen people invited to these “dinners”, Brian forcing Yuzuru to go because he says he needs to have a life outside of skating in order to mature as a person, or something.
“Just the two of us, plus Javier. I want to treat you guys to a nice meal for doing so well this week at Finlandia Trophy. I know how hard it must be to have to compete against each other while sharing a coach.”
He shakes his head in denial. “No, it not hard. It easy. Like breathing.”
“Alright, Yuzu.” Brian shakes his head back and forth and smiles in disbelief, but Yuzuru thinks his face might have shown an expression worn by a father proud of his sons. “Let’s go, we need to wake Javier from his nap.”
After a long ten minutes of Yuzuru jumping up and down on Javier’s stiff hotel mattress in an attempt to wake him up, the trio finally makes their way downtown to the restaurant recommended to Brian by one of the hotel staff. It’s small but charming, and Yuzuru let’s Brian order for him because he has no idea what anything on the menu means. He does order a chocolate milk, though, and now he’s blowing bubbles in the glass causing Javier, who is seated directly next him, to laugh. His smile seemed mocking yet full of adoration, and Yuzuru thought he should start keeping a log to record each and every type of smile Javier can give him.
“You are such a child.”
“Am not!”
“Are too!”
“Am not!”
“Okay, kids, stop it. That’s enough.” Brian says, fighting back a smile.
“Hey don’t call me ‘kid’, he’s the kid!” Javier points at Yuzuru who is back to silently sipping his chocolate milk.
“No, you the kid. At least I not take afternoon naps like toddler.”
“I’m Spanish.”
“Yeah, and I Japanese.” Yuzuru says mockingly. “We just stating facts now?”
“Here’s a fact: you are both children. Now shut up, the foods here.”
They both forget about their argument once the food arrives, both brightening up when it’s placed on the table. Yuzuru sneaks some off Javier’s plate not even two minutes into the dinner, Javier not even noticing. Or maybe he did, but he lets Yuzu do it anyway.
“This good, Javi. Try this.” He takes a piece of his sausage and puts it onto Javier’s plate.
During dessert, Yuzuru doesn’t even have to steal any of Javier’s because he just silently fed some to him before he’d even had a chance to try it. Yuzuru smiles at him through the mouthful of the delicious dessert and does the same for Javier, picking some of the blueberry pie up with his fork and transferring it to the others mouth. He laughs at Javier’s full cheeks and Javier kicks his shin under the table.
“Ow! I have bruise there, you big meanie!” Javier pokes him in the side again. “Stop, you know I ticklish there!” This doesn’t stop the other for one second, his fingers continuing to assault the Japanese skaters side causing him to let out suffocating giggles. He only stops once the waitress comes back with the check.
The moment Javi’s hands are off him Yuzu launches into his vicious attack, which is just him pinching the Spaniard’s cheeks. Javier groans in protest but Yuzuru’s raucous laughter drowns his protest out.
Brian seems to have given up all hope at having them behave and probably regrets ever bringing them out in the first place. “Alright, boys, let’s go.”
“Yeah Yuzu, stop messing around, let’s go.”
“B-But! Javi the one who started it!”
“Was not!”
“Was to!”
“Was not!”
“Was to!”
“Oh for the love of god, please stop. Let’s go, the cab is already waiting for us outside.”
Yuzuru sticks his tongue out at the other and whispers, “Aha! I win!”
Javier just places his hand on the back of his neck before putting his arm around his shoulders, laughing warmly, and Yuzuru can feel the vibrations of it in the spaces where they are touching and thinks it feels a little bit like home. In this tiny corny of the universe so far from the place he called home, he’d somehow managed to find a piece of it in Javier.
Now, as Yuzuru reflects, he thinks he’s stupid for not realizing back then what he knows now - that what he feels for Javier is a wholly different emotion, one that stands and walks on its own, living and breathing and throbbing and shaking him to the roots of his being.
///
The injury is worse than they originally thought, and Yuzuru is starting to get restless.
It’s already been a month and Brian is trying to keep him busy, but without the ice as a distraction his thoughts run away from him more often than before. They run to places he normally wouldn’t let them, but it’s like he lost hold of the leash and now they are running laps around him, and his ankle hurts so much he can’t possibly catch them.
He lets himself think of the what-ifs. What if he’d given them a chance. He thinks maybe he’d be happy, waking up next to Javier everyday, a warm arm wrapped around his waist and his fingers threaded through curly hair. Maybe they would have gone on dates, hands brushing under the table at quaint, dimly lit diners. Afterwards they might’ve gone for a walk and stopped to look up at the stars and realized the world is bigger then ice rinks and the tallying of points.
But then his mind keeps going and going, to the other what-ifs, the more realistic ones where he’s destroying everything in his path.
It’s precisely because of these thoughts, these insane, ridiculous thoughts, that Yuzuru has been avoiding Javier, no matter how much his body wants to attach itself to his and never let go. And the worst part is, Yuzuru is pretty sure Javi has been actively looking for him.
Distance might not solve anything, no matter how far he runs.
“Yuzu! Hey, Yuzu!” Yuzuru flinches, but relaxes once he sees its Junhwan.
“Oh, hey, Jun. What’s up?” Yuzu's face relaxes into an easy and warm smile directed towards the younger skater. But his facial expression quickly changes dramatically when Junhwan replies.
“Javier told me to tell you he’s been looking for you. Said something about how he knows you are hiding from him.”
“I- I’m not hiding!” Junhwan just looks at him. “What? You think I am? How… okay, is really that obvious?” The younger nods. Yuzu avoids all eye contact and basically makes a run for it. Well, as much as he can with his ankle still tender. But Junhwan is already back on his way to physio and doesn’t pay him any more attention.
When he reaches the end of the hallway, he can hear a familiar voice echoing from the other end and knows he needs to act quick. He ducks into the nearest room, which thankfully ends up being a vacant sitting room, and basically holds his breath.
“I know you’re here. You may as well show yourself.”
Yuzuru jumps up, banging his head against the table he was hiding underneath. “You scare me!”
“No, you scared me! You can’t just drop out of the grand prix series and off the face of the planet without even shooting me a text.”
“I try call you.”
“And then didn’t answer when I called you back!”
“I- I was busy!”
“Yuzu, you were on bed rest for two weeks!”
He’s got nothing. Javier knows him too well, he knows that he does nothing but listen to music on his phone when he isn’t skating.
“C’mon Yuzu, I just want to know how you’re doing.”
“I’m fine.”
“How you’re really doing.”
And this, this is exactly why he was hiding from Javier. Because he could get him to open up like no one else could, get him to break down and down until he was raw and exposed. Even before they had started sleeping together, he knew him well enough that he could give him one look and have him telling him everything.
But now, now it’s… different. After they broke things off, sure they had remained friends. On the ice. But off the ice, they were this cold and disjointed pair that didn’t even resemble the Javi and Yuzu from before.
Yuzuru wants to say he wishes they’d never done anything, but he’d be lying to himself. And as much as Javi insists they were still friends, and Yuzuru’s hesitance to start a serious relationship would never change that, Yuzu can’t truly think that. The air around them is laced with static that shakes him to the marrow of his bones and has his thighs turning to jelly.
And now here’s Javi, soft look of genuine concern on his face and no signs that he can hear the static in the air between them ringing in his ears.
“I-“ He tries so hard to hold it in, the stream of words that threaten to spill out because this is Javi, his Javi that is nowhere near actually his, but he fails. Miserably. “I’m afraid.”
“Of what?”
Of never skating again. Of failing in front of the entire universe. Of scraping up the last bits of fight I have left only to fall down to the very bottom.
And of losing you.
“Oh, Yuzu.”
“Wait. Did say that out loud?” But he doesn’t get an answer, just warm arms wrapped around his body he didn’t even realize was shaking. He instinctually nestles his head into Javier’s chest, and he doesn’t even feel the tears forming before they are falling down his cheeks and soaking the fabric of Javier’s thin t-shirt.
“Why this always happen when with you. I swear I not crybaby.”
“Yeah, okay. Sure you aren’t.” He squeezes him a little tighter in his arms, and the tears start to clog up just a little bit. “Yuzuru, if anyone can do it, it’s you. You’re the bravest person I know, and the fact that you’re afraid doesn’t change that.” Yuzuru thinks how wrong the other is, because he’s a coward who’s not even brave enough to let himself fall. “It’s okay to be afraid. In fact I’m afraid, too.”
“We be afraid together?”
Javier just keeps holding him there, both of them barely moving, and Yuzuru feels some of the cracks in his ribs start to mend themselves the longer they touch.
But there’s a growing pressure blooming in Yuzuru's chest, a faint but all consuming one.
Javi never says he won’t lose him.
///
When Yuzuru is done with his off-ice training, Javier is waiting for him in the hallway. Yuzuru wants to run away on instinct but then remembers their talk from earlier, and immediately feels too embarrassed to move. He can’t believe he told him all those things. It’s unlike Yuzuru to just let everything go like that, even to Javi.
He does feel like a weight has been lifted from his chest, though, like maybe things won’t be so bad, afterall. Like maybe two months is enough time to put all the pieces back together into the Yuzuru Hanyu everyone is expecting to see.
“Yuzu, I have no one to get dinner with. Come with me.” Yuzuru just blinks at him, clearly hesitant. “Don’t say no, I thought we already talked about you avoiding me. And you know I hate eating alone.” Yuzuru has started to accept the fact that he has no way out of this. And maybe he wants to eat with Javier, too.
He throws his usual crippling fear into the deep and dark corners of his mind and says the, “Ok. Let’s go.”
The dinner is nice, but Yuzuru can’t help but hyper focus on the way Javier’s throat looks when he takes sips of the expensive red wine he orders for them. Or the way his fingers look as they tap the crisp white cloth covering the tabletop between them. And he especially can't help but focus on the way they are seated so close together their feet keep brushing each other’s under the table. It takes everything inside Yuzuru not to grab the other by the collar of his light blue shirt that has just the right amount of buttons unclasped to drive him crazy and do unspeakable things to him right there in the middle of the restaurant.
“Yuzu? Yuzu!” He comes to when he sees fingers waving in front of his face.
“Oh, uh, what you say?”
“I asked how your sister is doing. I heard from Brian that her and your father are coming up for New Year’s. You must be excited.”
Yuzuru automatically brightens up, “Yes, I very excited! It’s been awhile since the family been able to spend time together. I talk to Saya on the phone, after NHK. She sound confident I can recover. I can't help but feel like burden though, since they have to come all the way to Toronto just because my stupid injury.”
Yuzuru pouts and takes another sip of wine, almost emptying his glass. He used to hate wine, not even able to take more then a few sips without wanting to be sick. But now the bitter flavor feels comforting against his tongue and warms him up from the pit of his stomach to the tips of his ears.
“You are anything but a burden, Yuzu. They just care about you a lot.” Javier grabs his hand and links their fingers together, and Yuzuru blames the wine for the way his face burns. It’s just holding hands, and they’ve done way more together, but this time it feels like millions of tiny universes being born and then dying in the space between Javier’s fingers and his skin. “We all do.”
He doesn’t want to think about the weight those words might hold, hanging heavy in the air between them. Instead, Yuzuru breaks all eye contact, taking the last sip of his drink. He doesn’t make a move to unclasp their hands, though, and neither does the other. But when he sees the waitress coming with their plates he quickly let’s go, but not without leaving a lingering touch with his fingertips. Almost like a promise for more.
It doesn’t take much verbal confirmation between them to decide where the night is going to take them next. Yuzuru pulling Javier into a cab and telling the driver Javi’s address kind of seals the deal, though. The other doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to, because the hand planted firmly on Yuzu’s thigh speaks loud enough for him.
Long minutes pass until they are finally backed against Javier’s door, Yuzu tugging at that same blue shirt that was driving him crazy earlier and also at Javier’s lips and tongue and teeth. And it’s everything Yuzuru was missing and everything he wishes he could have the courage to hold onto.
It’s not fear he feels when they make it to Javier’s bed, it’s something else entirely. It’s familiar territory for them, sure. But something about this time feels different, feels heavier. Maybe it’s because Yuzuru has started to come to terms with how he feels, or maybe it’s the alcohol coursing through his veins, but each time their skin meets it feels like molten lava and falling on ice all at once.
Yuzuru’s straddling Javi, the others hands holding his hips tightly like he’s afraid he’ll run away. It’s a valid fear, Yuzu thinks, but there’s no way he can make a run for it, what with the way their hips are grinding together and Javi’s tongue is mapping out uncharted constellations onto the skin of Yuzuru’s neck.
They somehow manage to take things agonizingly slow, despite how frantic each touch to the others skin feels. They already know every inch of each other’s mouths, but that doesn’t stop them from exploring like it’s completely new territory.
After a long time of them fighting for dominance in their shared kiss, Yuzuru finally starts to feel himself turning to putty in Javier’s hands. He lets the other flip him over onto his back and finally take off the shirt Javi’s hands were already under anyway and unzip his pair of white jeans. But the other stops there, to Yuzuru’s disgruntled surprise, and goes back up to explore the sharp indents of his collarbones.
“Javi, c’mon.” Yuzu tugs at the others hair, but he doesn’t budge.
“Shh. No need to be impatient.”
Yuzuru squirms underneath him, in desperate search of any form of friction. “Yes. Need to be impatient.”
Javier buries his face into his chest and laughs, the vibrations of it causing Yuzuru’s sensitive body to shiver. The other stops laughing, though, and suddenly turns serious. “What do you want, though?”
“You know what I want. Stop trying make me say it.”
“Hmm? I have no idea? You want to hold my hand, is that it?” He doesn’t know if Javier is referring to the incident from earlier, when he’d held his hand and Yuzuru had blushed like Javier hadn’t been literally inside of him on multiple occasions.
Javier threads their fingers together just like earlier and Yuzuru glares at him, squeezing his hand so tight he’s sure it hurts.
Because Yuzuru didn't want soft and gentle. He needed his rough possession, claiming him, branding him, taking him in a firestorm of heat and flame that would end the world around them, leaving them nothing but ashes, clean and fierce and forever welded together. The “fuck me” breathed into the skin of Javier’s neck was enough to set the other off, and he was now in that state of fire that he loved. And Yuzuru wanted to be burned.
With one last squeeze of their entwined hands he let go and finally tugged Yuzuru’s jeans off. Yuzuru did the same, firm and confident fingers unbuckling the others dark brown leather belt, the material cold against his burning fingertips.
And then they were a galaxy exploding into a million pieces, creating a whole new world, as they crashed against each other on the soft surface of Javier’s mattress, a cloud in the darkness, their bodies finally falling together like rain. It felt like the first time and the last time all at once, and it was all too much for Yuzuru, Javier deep inside him hitting places no one else ever could. Yuzuru finally let’s himself go, let’s himself feel everything - the skin of the others back being scraped by his nails and the rough thrusts giving him just what he needed but still not quite enough, never enough.
“J-Javi, I need you to-“ Javier slows down at the sound of his voice and Yuzuru actually whines, “Touch me, or go faster. Please.”
Javi places a kiss to the corner of Yuzuru’s mouth, and chuckles, but complies with both his requests, and then he’s clenching around Javier and arching into his hands and finally coming apart at the seams underneath him. Moments after Javier comes too, kissing every inch of his face - the skin below his eyes, both his panting lips, the tip of his nose. Yuzuru, if at all possible, melts into Javier’s embrace even more. He could taste the salt on his lips, each kiss like a summer wave breaking on an empty beach.
Afterwards, as they come down from the stars, Yuzuru traces patterns with his fingerprints onto Javier’s face and chest and stomach. He’s having an internal battle with himself, deciding whether to gather his things and run like he would have done in the past, or to stay here in this makeshift haven made just for them.
“Stay.” Javier says into his hair, as if reading his mind. “We both have to be at the club in the morning anyway.” Yuzuru hums, and without much more thought he gives away the last pieces of himself to Javi’s warmth, closing his eyes and pretending he’s not completely terrified of how utterly and undeniably right this feels.
///
He wakes up before Javier, a warm arm loosely tangled around his waist. As he feels the breath go in and out of Javi’s lungs from where his head is placed on his chest, he wonders why he was always so terrified of this before, because it really doesn’t seem that scary now, with the light coming in through the blinds and painting Javier’s face and chest in a warm glow that really suits him. And for the first time, Yuzuru finds himself thinking he could get used to this. He could see a future with Javier, although blurred around the edges, that doesn’t leave him in a cold fear induced sweat.
He untangles the arm from around his waist and moves to the bathroom to wash up, not before taking a pair of Javier’s boxers and a t-shirt with him. He looks in the foggy mirror and notices the fresh bruises lining his neck like constellations and touches them lightly with his fingers, remembering how each one got there and shuddering.
Javier doesn’t wake up until Yuzuru has already finished making breakfast, well if you can even call plain wheat toast and orange juice a breakfast, but it’s the best he can do with his limited life skills.
“Oh, wow. Nice toast. I’m surprised you even know how to use a toaster.” Javier ruffles his hair that’s still wet from his shower.
Yuzuru glares, strands of damp hair falling in his eyes, “Of course I know how to use toaster.”
“Do you know how to use the coffee maker, though?” Javier asks while eyeing the machine on the counter with coffee grounds surrounding it, looking like a war zone.
“Mm.” Yuzu takes a sips of his orange juice and avoids eye contact. He had tried to make coffee, knowing Javier can’t start the day without at least three cups of the disgusting drink. But after twenty minutes of fighting with the machine he’d given up. Stupid machine that makes stupid poison liquid. “Yes. Totally know how.”
Javier laughs and shakes his head, all while cleaning up the area around the machine and putting it back together. Ten minutes later he is sipping a steaming cup of coffee. Yuzuru glares.
“Aw.” Javier plants a kiss on his mouth. “You’re so cute.”
“Ew, ew! I can taste the poison liquid, stop!” He shoves a hand in Javier’s face. “And I not cute.”
Javi eyes the pout adorning the others lips and the mess of hair framing his face. He brushes the strands behind the others ears and says, “Hm. Yes you are. And don’t pretend like you don’t know that.”
Yuzuru can’t help the blush that might spread all the way from ear to ear and the slight smile that quirks one side of his mouth up. Next, he does something that surprises both of them. He grabs both sides of Javi’s face and places a deep kiss on his lips, then kisses his nose and the skin of his closed eyes. “You not so bad either, I guess.”
Javier flicks him on the forehead but is still smiling as he says the, “Shut up.”
He makes them scrambled eggs and Yuzuru just watches him, trying to soak in all the information he can so he can maybe not make a fool of himself next time. Next time sounds like a scary and foreign concept, but he can surely admit to himself that he wants a next time with Javi, who is now placing a heaping pile of eggs onto his plate.
“Are you just going to stare at the eggs or are you going to eat them?” Yuzuru moves his gaze from the eggs and looks at the other instead. “Oh god, you don’t like eggs do you? I guess I should’ve asked.”
“No! No, I like eggs.” Yuzuru takes a big bite to prove his point. “I was just… thinking.”
“Hm. You must’ve been thinking pretty deeply, since I called your name about four times before you noticed.”
“Yeah. Yeah, guess I was...” He trails off, not really knowing how to explain to the other that he wants a next time. That he sees a future in Javier’s kitchen, of him making messes and Javier cleaning them up. Of warm kisses in the mornings that are tainted with the taste of bitter coffee. “I was thinking… wanted to talk. About us. I want you know that I-“
“Yuzu, you don’t have to worry about it. You don’t have to tell me last night didn’t mean anything. I already know how you feel about starting a serious relationship, and I’m sorry for pushing you last time.” He takes a hold of Yuzu’s hand and he hopes the other doesn’t feel it shaking. “I don’t want this to change anything, okay? I don’t want you to start avoiding me again. I need my friend back.”
He wants to scream at Javier and maybe even punch him, because that is nowhere near what he was going to say. The night before was far from nothing and changed far too many things. But he gets where Javier’s coming from. He doesn’t want to lose him, either. And that big part of him that’s still afraid he will ruin everything is starting to take over.
So he nods his head and smiles. “These eggs really good. Where you learn to cook?”
Javier laughs so hard tears come to his eyes and he has to wipe them away with his fingers. “They are just eggs, Yuzu. No one taught me how to make them.”
Yuzuru huffs and now he’s blushing again, and he thinks maybe this is enough. Being friends. Javier laughing at his expense and him pouting about it. It’s easy and it’s warm and it’s going to be enough.
But for some reason, he can’t believe his own lies like usual.
///
New Year’s passes by in a swirl of laughter caused by the arrival of the other two parts of his family. They count down to the last minute till midnight and make promises to have a happy year. Yuzuru just hopes he can fulfill those promises, in one way or another.
The first step to fulfilling those promises is to rebuild his friendship with Javier, which isn’t the hardest thing to do. They’d always been friends underneath everything, after all. So when Yuzuru offers to buy the other coffee before practice one morning he really shouldn’t feel so nervous, and he really shouldn’t feel so relieved when the other says yes.
But then he’s focusing on the way the other chugs down his drink like it wasn’t unbearably hot, and scolding him for it afterwards. “You going to burn your tongue, baka. Be more careful.”
“Fine, Mom.”
“Oh god, don’t call me that.” Yuzuru hides his face in his hands. “That’s just… not right, Mr. Fernandez.”
“Fine… Mom.” He punches him on the arm but can’t help but let out a laugh that shakes his whole body, and wonders why he was so nervous about this in the first place. It’s Javi, for god’s sake.
His ankle allows him to at least start some stroking practices in the first week of January, but he’s frustrated and pent up with his seemingly innate need to just jump. He almost wants to beg Brian to let him try at least one jump, just a triple axel or something, but he thinks the universe can only be tested with so much. So he keeps his mouth shut and digs the edges of his blades into the ice so hard he’s surprised it doesn’t brake.
“No, Misha, I not even back to jump practice yet. I only started plain skating practice at beginning of week.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. Misha had called him to check up on him, knowing he’d been restless since the injury happened. “I don’t know. Will I have enough time? I mean, my ankle still hurts when walk, let alone skate.”
“Listen, Yuzu. I know it may seem dark now but that’s only because it’s going to shine brighter than anything else later.”
Yuzuru sighs into the phone. Misha is always so bright and positive, and it really doesn’t mesh well with how pessimistic he’s feeling at the moment. “How can you know that? Maybe my time over. Maybe I should just quit while ahead.” He knows he would never do that, but watching all the others practice quads on the ice earlier had really made him feel hopeless.
Misha sighs into the phone, and Yuzu can almost hear the facepalm, too. “I’ve seen a lot of great skaters, and I mean a lot. But the fire you have is rare and special, and it’s gonna take more then some injury to put it out. If you want it as bad as I know you do, nothing can hold you back.”
The words actually make Yuzuru feel hopeful and motivated. He cracks a smile and says, “Javi tell me same sort of thing. I have very good friends, it seems.”
“Wait, Javi told you? So you kids are talking again, huh?” Yuzuru huffs. Misha was one of the only people who knew about what had been going on with Javier. It was hard to deny things when Misha had basically guessed the whole situation, and Yuzuru had turned into a stuttering mess completely incapable of coming up with any sort of lies.
“Well, it not like we weren’t talking.”
“I have screenshots from when you live texted me you hiding from him under the table. So spill it, what happened. And don’t try to lie to me, you and I both know how that always goes.”
“Well.. I mean, we uh, kind of, you know-” He stops mid sentence to facepalm and contemplate hanging up. “But it was only once. But it felt different, and I slept over, and I-“
“Wait, wait you slept over? Mr. Hanyu is this really you on the phone?”
“Yes. It is.” He’s blushing now.
“So are you together now?” Misha sounds too excited for his own good.
“No, we not. We decided to be just friends.”
“Is that what you want?”
“It was. But now… I be lying if I say that. But it’s enough. It better than nothing, right?” He whispers the last part and wishes to any god that’s listening that he actually means it.
“Are you absolutely sure of that?”
“It going to be enough, Misha.” He hopes his voice doesn’t sound as desperate as he feels. “Thanks for talk, but have to go now. Essay due in hour.” He has no paper to write, except maybe the one explaining in vivid detail, with citations and all, on why he’s the biggest coward in the universe.
Misha laughs and he hopes that means he’s off the hook. “Procrastinating again?”
“You know me too well.”
“Good luck Yuzu.” Before he can hang up, he adds: “And I really think you should just tell Javi how you feel about everything. He looks at you like you're his whole universe.”
Yuzuru hangs up and pretends he didn’t hear any of that. But the words ring in his ears and eventually reach his brain, littering it with useless wishful thinking that keeps him up way too late that night.
///
He didn’t have enough time.
It seems like in the blink of an eye he is boarding the plane to Pyeongchang, carrying a bag of painkillers in his suitcase and also a desperate hope that things won’t crumble to dust and disentagrate around him. But somehow, the world keeps turning on its axis, the moon rises every night, and gravity hasn’t turned its switch off, so how bad can things really get? This fact alone comforts him.
Javier serves as a decent distraction, Yuzuru begging his way into the window seat with pouty lips and puppy dog eyes. When Javier pushes him into the window seat with a laugh then settles into the one next to him, Yuzuru almost forgets why they are even on this plane together in the first place. Something about being with Javi does that, makes him forget where he is, even if it’s just for a moment.
Javier brings a notebook and pen out of his backpack, placing it on the tray between them. “We have a 13 hour flight. Let’s play a game.”
“Okay. What game you want to play?”
“Hangman.” Yuzuru tilts his head at him in confusion. “It’s really easy. I’ll just think of a word, any word, and then you’ll guess letters.”
After a few rounds of the game Yuzu’s brain gets too tired trying to think of English words and the alphabet, and he complains that the game is rigged. He never did like to play a game he knew he couldn’t win, after all. Instead, he starts writing on the page of Javier’s notebook. He writes things like good luck!!!, thanks for the last six years ^^, I want forever with you, baka, I'll miss plane rides with you, I love you. The last one he quickly scribbles out, because the words in black ink on bone white paper seem much too real and menacing, almost like they can jump right out of the paper and stab him in the chest.
“What are you writing?” Javier looks questioningly at the Japanese scrawl messily taking up space on his notebook paper.
“Sorry, can’t tell you. It’s plan for long program. Top secret.” Javier believes it, laughing but still giving him a flick to the forehead. “Can we watch movie?”
Javier nods, “Sure, you choose one first.”
It takes Yuzuru awhile to find a version with Spanish subtitles, but he eventually does. As the first scenes of Onmyoji unfold on the screen of his laptop, Javier is already immersed into the film. He laughs, gasps, and cries at all the right parts, and even recognizes which pieces of music Yuzuru had used for his free skate. It makes him smile in a way he doesn’t know if he ever has before, because showing this film to Javier is like giving him a glimpse at the very core of his being. The fact that Javier seems to appreciate it makes him want to hold onto the other and never let go.
After the movie is over, Yuzuru admits to Javier what he’s been thinking for awhile now. “You’ve always remind me of Hiromasa.”
“The flute player? Why?”
“Because Hiromasa good person, and Javi good person. Hiromasa makes any moment good moment, warm moment. You do same.” Yuzuru pauses, trying to collect his thoughts and convey them into the right words to make Javi understand. “He also too nice for his own good. Protects city even though city do nothing for him, and always sees best in others.”
Yuzuru can’t tell if he’s imagining the blush dusting Javier’s cheeks, but either way it brings a light feeling to his chest. “So if I’m Hiromasa, that makes you Abe no Seimei, right? Guardians of the City, hm?” Yuzu nods his head and smiles, but as he looks out the window and sees moonlight descending upon whatever part of the world they are currently flying over, he realizes the only thing him and Abe no Seimei have in common is the fact that they can’t bear to lose their Hiromasa.
He thinks that he’s probably more like The Lady of the Full Moon, too stupid and too scared to admit to herself the one she’d truly loved had been right in front of her all along. He just hopes he doesn’t meet the same end as she did, wounding the one who had loved her, despite her horrible fate, beyond repair.
But he’s worried he already has.
He tears his eyes from the clouds and lets himself look at Javier, and what he finds is the other already looking at him. Their eyes lock, and for a moment he imagines some alternate universe, one where he could kiss Javier right there in a plane full of people. This unnamed universe is full of magic, of butterflies that morph into humans, but still has plane rides just like this, where the moonlight seeps through the windows and paints Javier’s face in a crystallized glow.
But this isn’t another universe, and he’s still the scared Yuzuru Hanyu he’s always been, so he just feigns a yawn and lays his head on Javier’s shoulder, instead.
He falls into the most solid sleep he’s had since the night he’d slept wrapped up in Javier’s arms that seems like so long ago now. He dreams of Olympic rings and the Japanese flag with the Spanish flag waving proudly by its side, and he feels hopeful for the first time in months.
///
Yuzuru knows it’s him that made their attempt at a relationship turn to dust, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel a thousand bricks drop to the pit of his stomach when people whisper about Javi’s retirement. It’s regret and remorse, at all the things he could’ve had and all the chances he gave away to fear and pure selfishness.
He didn’t think it would all happen so fast. That six years could go by with having this constant by his side, whether it be as a rival or friend or something much, much more. But here they are, at the top of the mountain filled with rocks that cut them in various places. It had seemed so far away when they were looking up at it from the bottom, but now it’s like they’d only started climbing a few days ago and now there’s nothing left to strive for.
So Yuzuru’s only solution was to lie to himself, something he’s been used to doing for years now. Avoiding all of his problems, mainly his emotions, was a specialty of his. And it had worked for awhile. He was happy. He was at the Olympics. And it was his second Olympics, no less. Yuzuru was being honest when he said he didn’t feel nervous, just excited and grateful to be skating on his dream stage. And Pyeongchang is nothing short of magical. Every moment is laced with a sense of purpose, every stroke on the ice is one that Yuzuru is thankful for.
Inside him, just below the surface of his skin, there was this otherworldly force driving him to continue, no matter how much it hurt. It was his mission to get gold, and he wouldn't let mortal pain stop him. So he lied to himself even more, popping pain killers and forcing any doubt out as the pills dissolve in his stomach.
Because what’s one more lie going to do on top of everything else?
He’s cheeky yet mysterious towards the press, and he revels in the uproar his first practice gains. He swears he tried to do a double axel, but it’s not his fault he forgot how and had to go for the triple instead. Denying the press an interview afterwards had to be the best feeling ever, and he couldn’t help but laugh later when there was finally no cameras around to see him.
A few painkillers later, one crawl behind Shoma, and the last pep talk from Brian and he was skating on competition ice for the first time in three months. At the Olympics. His nerves were shaking with questions of what will I do if this slips between my fingers like so many other things have, but the questions soon stop along with the quivering doubts after the first jumping pass. Then he’s just revelling in the feeling of the crisp air blowing through his bangs, the sharp undulations of Chopin’s Ballade No.1 flowing through his joints, and the realization that he simply loves skating, deep down to the marrow of his bones.
“I’m back.” Are the words he says to Brian when he meets him at the boards, his coach enveloping him in one of those hugs that only really happen after a life changing skate.
“You are.” Brian looks proud yet scared, and Yuzuru can’t say he blames him. It is scary, he thinks, memories of the first wobbly quad he landed barely two weeks ago flashing in his mind. But this has been inside of him all along, the yearning for a perfect program on Olympic ice. It’s only natural this yearning has boiled over, almost melting said ice into murky puddles.
And then Javier comes in second, shining so brightly and violently that it almost hurts Yuzuru to watch. Brian gets them together sometime shortly after and explains how proud he is, mist clouding his eyes. It all feels too close to an ending for Yuzuru, so no one can blame him when his eyes mist over as well. It’s like they are this little patched together family that smiles and laughs like any normal one would, and Yuzuru finally wouldn’t have to lie if someone asked if he was doing okay.
That night, after the media frenzy has finally ended, he is alone in his hotel room. His ankle is propped up with a few bags of ice his mother had to pry from the hands of the hotel staff, and he finally drifts off to sleep. It’s a sleep almost as solid as when he had fallen asleep on Javi’s shoulder on the plane earlier that week, but not quite, because without the warmth of him weaving itself into his dreams he feels ice cold.
The next morning finds him back on the ice he’d melted with sheer willpower the morning before, and he’s back with three quads landed so cleanly they leave sweeping arches carved into the surface. He gives himself fully over to the music, no doubt seeping into his mind that he’s got this; even when he steps out of that last quad, and scrapes a landing on the triple lutz that has got to defy every rule of the universe.
He fights like this is his last Olympics, because in some shadowy corner of his mind he fears it might be, what with the way his ankle burns with the crack of that last jump.
He can’t help but yell when it’s all over, because he really did give everything he could. Even if it wasn’t the perfect, solid program he’d been aching for since that day four years ago, it was a different kind of perfect. That’s the problem with perfection. Once you think you’ve got it, it slips back into imperfections. Change in taste, erosion of purpose, or simple advancement of time. Perfection is as temporary as it gets. And if there’s one thing he’s learned in the three months he’d been out of commision it was that perfection is highly overrated.
Winning with some drama was what Yuzuru Hanyu was all about, afterall.
When Boyang lands his quad lutz combo and with it lands above Nathan, he semi-forces the young American into a hug because he knows what it’s like more than anyone to have his dreams crushed as easily as ants on a burning hot sidewalk.
“You did well, Nathan!” The younger gives him a smile that doesn’t quite look genuine, and Yuzuru realizes he isn’t the only one who’s been lying to himself.
“Thanks, Yuzu. And congrats, seriously.” He lets the others congratulatory words settle into his ears, but nothing about this feels like it could be true, and when they announce Javi’s name he wishes he could make time stop.
But reality is cold and unforgiving, and stops for no one, no matter how much effort Yuzuru puts in to make it come to a screeching halt.
It only really, truly becomes real once he sees Javier skate his free program. When he sees the other carve out the last of his dreams on Olympic ice and realizes that this is it, this is the last time we compete together, the last time I watch him from the kiss and cry with my breath held even though I see him skate this program everyday. He starts crying before the music even ends, hot tracks leaving burning imprints on his cheeks. He can’t even see the scores through the tears blurring his vision, but he doesn’t have to because he knows. They will be on that podium together, one last time.
Yuzu feels shards of glass in his throat.
When Javier pulls him in for a hug, Yuzu forgets about everything else and just clings onto his neck and for once stops thinking about last times or lost chances and let’s himself paint Javier’s jacket with tears lined with happiness.
“You d-did it.” He is so, so proud, but his voice sounds like sandpaper and he doesn’t even know if Javi hears him.
“Yeah, I did. We did.”
Yuzuru snorts but holds Javier’s neck even tighter. “I wanted you to get gold medal. Can’t we all split gold medal?” Javier shakes his head and Yuzuru swears he can see the moon living in the lining of Javier’s skin. It hurts his eyes to look at, but it’s a type of pain he doesn’t know how he’s going to begin to live without. A pain so precious that he would never dare squash it out with painkillers.
Javier’s placement doesn’t mean he doesn’t clench his jaw and dig his nails into the skin of his palms during Shoma’s program. The younger could beat him, and he knows that, but he still flinches and cheers him on when he falls on the quad loop. The rest of the program has Yuzuru glowing with pride for his not-so-young-anymore teammate.
And then it’s them and Shoma by the boards, and Javier rounds them up into yet another hug. His hand is grasping the back of his neck and Yuzu’s hand is clinging to his shoulder, almost begging him not to go, to not make him do this by himself.
“You know, this is probably my last Olympics.”
Yuzuru shakes his head, and the floodgates are open again, no chance at building back up the dam to keep the current under control. It’s not like he didn’t know this was coming, they all did. But hearing the words straight out of the others mouth is like Javier taking his heart in his hands and crumbling it up as easily as paper.
“No, no.” Javier just nods his head, and Yuzuru almost can’t hold his own weight anymore, leaning on the boards for support. “I can’t- I can’t do it without you.” It’s the closest to a confession he’s ever been. And he doesn’t just mean the competitions; it’s everything in between. The plane rides, the practices, the injuries. Javier’s always been there. The days are vanishing into thin air, and Yuzuru realizes with a jolt that he really is running out of time to make things right.
He thinks for the thousandth time that he really, truly is a coward.
Yuzuru hides his face in Javier’s chest once again and tangles both hands in the back of his shirt and hopes Javi knows how much he means to him.
///
Yuzuru used to think that years go by in order, that humans get older one year at a time. But it’s not like that. It happens overnight. It’s not something tangible, or something visible with the naked eye, but something that changes deep within. Two wires that were previously useless attatch or a switch turns on and all of sudden you are looking at the world with a new set of eyes.
He had, at some point, completely lost his sense of direction, and Yuzuru’s thoughts started endlessly circling the same place. By the time he became aware of what his mind was doing, he found himself back where he’d started. Finally, his thinking process got stuck, as if the folds of his brain were a broken screw.
And somehow, he’d found himself outside Javier’s hotel room door, one knock already echoing in the dimly lit hallway. He flinches back from the door when he finally realizes what he’s doing, because he’s not ready. He’d thought he had grown, in some way, that two Olympic golds would give him the courage he had never been graced with before, but when he hears the familiar footsteps coming towards the door he wants nothing more then to run.
But his body is frozen solid, and now the lock of the door is clicking and he’s not ready, he’s not ready - “Oh, hey Yuzu.” He’s greeted with a warm smile and all of a sudden he doesn’t even remember what he’s not ready for. “Come in, come in.”
He forgot that they were friends, that it’s not all that weird for him to show up at his hotel room at half past midnight. But when Yuzuru walks in on wobbly legs and doesn’t say anything Javier begins to look worried. “You alright, Yuzu? Is there a problem?”
“My problem is that when I look at something I see you, when I think about something, I think about you, and when I want to say something, I just talk about you.” It’s almost like now that’s he’s finally started talking, he can’t turn off the switch or tear apart whatever wires he needs to to just stop talking.
“Yuzu, I-”
“No, let me talk. I try to say something, but all I get are the wrong words—the wrong words or the exact opposite words from what I mean. Or words get caught in throat and I don’t even say anything at all.”
“Yuzu-”
“Let me say! Javi, I’m stupid. I love you. I want to be with you, I’m sorry I ran. Maybe it was because I was scared, but not of you. Of me. Of ruining everything, or worse, losing you. But I not want to end like this - us going back to our own corners of the universe. Pretending that I don’t feel things I feel. I understand that it’s too late, you not feel the same way anymore, it’s fine, I’m sorry that I-”
“Yuzuru!” He flinches at the volume of Javi’s voice and takes a small step away from the other. “God, just, okay, so what you’re saying is-”
“I love everything about you.” He basically lets the words out in the form of a sob, tremors shaking his body and sharp nails digging into the palms of his hands. Javier takes his hands in his and forces them open, caressing the tops of his fingers until he finally relaxes them. “No, you don’t.”
“No, I don’t.” He thinks of Javi’s scratchy stubble against his lips, how his voice becomes way too loud when he’s had more than two drinks, how he can’t ever be on time. He smiles and shakes his head, bravely linking their fingers together. “But I do accept them. I hope that’s enough.”
Javier just stares blankly at him with his mouth open in shock. “It’s okay, Javi. You not have to say anything. I just need you to know.”
Javier finally speaks. “Why… Why now?” Yuzuru shrugs and looks down at their entwined hands. Their hands are roughly the same size, the others fingers a bit sturdier. Yuzuru thinks it would be so easy to just run away, but the others hands squeezing his own are like anchors holding him down. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? I mean, all those times… and I never thought…”
“I told you. I scared. And for awhile I not want to admit.” He finally tears his eyes away from their hands and looks into Javi’s eyes and there are a thousand galaxies shining back at him and it finally feels that there isn’t a universe between them. “That you were more.”
Javier let’s out a shaky breath and blinks rapidly. Yuzuru laughs and if possible squeezes the others fingers between his even tighter. And then he is closing the space between them until there is none left, and he can finally say he isn’t afraid when Javi leans in to connect their lips.
“What does this mean? For us? I mean, I won’t be in Toronto anymore, at least not as much, and you will be busy competing, and-“
Yuzuru pinches his side and the other lets out a yelp. “What was that for?!”
“Stop think so much.” Yuzuru pecks his lips and thinks his advice to the other is really hypocritical, considering he wasted years overthinking. “Just kiss me.”
And Javier does.