Work Text:
The announcement goes up on all pertinent major media outlets at just past two PM. When his phone begins to vibrate twenty minutes later, Yuzu knows who it's going to be before he even pats around on the mattress beside himself, grabs his phone, and swipes it open to accept the call.
"Nathan."
"Sound a little surprised." The connection isn't awful, but there's still static blurring the edges of his boyfriend's voice, carried to him from half a world away.
"I knew you would call."
"You know me so well, huh?"
Every one of their calls starts with a variation on this, a call-and-response, a song together. Yuzu smiles.
"I do." He can hear Nathan's smile, but there's a reason Nathan called, and Yuzu's not going to try to dodge.
"So, you're doing it," Nathan says, and Yuzu feels his throat a little tight. Simply that. 'You're doing it.' Not why, no attempt to talk him out of it. No dismay that it's happening so soon. No dismay in general.
And even if Nathan didn't already know this was coming - even if he hadn't been the shoulder Yuzu cried on, or ranted at, through the last few months of deliberation, he still wouldn't be saying anything different. Yuzu knows that fact, sure as sunrise. In a landscape of calculation and consideration, that guarantee sticks out like a sore thumb - no, like a tether point, to which Yuzu's been holding on.
"I am," he confirms.
"It's gonna be crazy," Nathan says. Yuzu can hear quiet clicking in the background.
"No getting around that."
"Are you gonna use my circus idea?"
"I *am* running away and joining the circus," Yuzu laughs; Nathan snorts and Yuzu talks louder, over him. "No, I am!"
"Ice shows are not the circus," Nathan counters. "For one, the circus has better costumes."
Yuzu gasps, affronted. Having fun with the hyperbole of it. "That's it! I'm uninviting you to CiONTU~TOO!"
"Two?" Nathan pauses. "Oh, 'Too.'" Yuzu hums happily, confirming, and Nathan laughs. "Fuck's sake, Yuzu."
"I like the layers of it!" he grouses. "Besides, leave me alone, the costumes are not bad."
"I turned down FaoI because of them," Nathan deadpans. It takes Yuzu a moment to realize he's kidding.
"Nathan!"
There's just laughter, through the soft crackle of the line connecting Utah to Sendai. Yuzu squeaks and harumphs, because it sounds like Pooh Bear and because it makes Nathan's smile crinkle up so tight and happy. They don't even have to be on video call; Yuzu can see it clear as anything, hear it in his little wheezy breaths.
"Anyway, we don't have the circus like that, here."
Sobriety settles back down over them both, a veritable bedsheet of it. They share the small space underneath, a little smothered but quiet and safe.
"You don't need to lie to them," Nathan says, and Yuzu chews his lip. The soft clicking continues.
"I wasn't going to!"
"Course not, but what I mean is you don't have to in order to make this go okay. The truth is enough."
"I--"
"It is, Yuzu." Nathan cuts in, firm and sure. Yuzu presses his lips together, trying not to clench his jaw behind them. "It is."
"Okay," Yuzu says, breathing deep, exhaling slow. "Okay. Okay, I'm ready."
"The press con isn't til tomorrow," Nathan reminds him.
"I know," Yuzu mutters. "I'm ready."
"You are. You've been thinking about this really hard, this isn't a rash decision," Nathan says quietly, trying for soothing, trying for reassuring.
Yuzu's brain flips it all inside out.
"What--what if," he starts, sitting up. "What if I am, though? What if this isn't right, what if I miss it in a few months? What if I change my mind?"
"Then un-retire like Dai did," Nathan says.
"But I--"
"--respect Dai, and you don't think less of him for having chosen his moments twice, so why would it be any different for you?"
"Nathan."
"Yuz--
"Don't interrupt me, I'm serious!"
"I know you are," Nathan cuts in, interrupting. Yuzu huffs but Nathan just takes that opportunity as more space to speak. "I know you are. You are in everything you do, Yuz. I know you've thought this through. You know you have. You know this is right for you."
A long quiet moment.
"I do."
"And you're gonna go through with it."
"I am," Yuzu says, feeling like Nathan's words are simply stating facts, reinforcing his spine with strength and a sense of committment, a requirement already engaged in. From anyone else, it would sound like challenging him for answers. From Nathan, it's just reminders.
"And you are gonna have so much fun with this!" Nathan adds, and Yuzu pauses. That's a bit of a deviation from the usual path of this conversation.
"I am," Yuzu agrees, conceding with a little smile and sigh, because Nathan's not wrong. There's less of the background soft clicking.
"Soooo... are you gonna go for the mechanical engineering degree or the skating school in Finland or the buying-a-cottage-in-England in The Forest plan?"
"Naaaaathan!" Yuzu's pink across the cheeks, rolling over to bury his face in a pillow. But he's smiling, and Nathan's laugh is beautiful. Just beautiful.
"Come on, tell me! I could make hundreds selling this info!"
Yuzu picks his head up. "Oh, and you are going to be a journalist suddenly?"
Nathan snorts. "Uh, no? I'm gonna call up Keiji! And Nobu."
Yuzu jolts upward, actually worried for half a second. "You wouldn't."
"Oh, I would," Nathan laughs. "Hey, at least I'm not threatening to tell Nam."
Yuzu sputters. "You know all the worst ideas."
"Nah." Nathan's voice is easy confidence and soft confidance. Yuzu's chest aches. What he wouldn't give to be in those arms right now, to be hearing that soft rasp in his ear, rather than down the phone line. "I know all the people who would lose their minds with happiness over your newest crazy idea."
"The list is longer than that," Yuzu says softly. Dozens of faces in his mind's eye. His second family.
"Oh, don't I know it. That's why I would start with those guys. Tell them, and everyone will know in a few minutes! Otherwise I'd be texting people all damn day."
"You could make a group chat?" He can hear Nathan's no way face.
"Uh-uh. My sisters are bad enough in the fam chat."
"You have notifications muted," Yuzu shoots back.
"I do not!"
"You doooo. You told me so."
Nathan sputters. "O-only during exam week and dead week and comps and stuff!"
"So, half your life."
"Oh you're one to talk." Suddenly they're back around to the topic at hand, and Yuzu tenses, not expecting anything bad, but...
It's like Nathan can hear Yuzu's worry machine start back up. He clicks his tongue, hums.
"You know how happy I am you're doing this, right?"
Yuzu laughs, tight. "Oh, because now you will get all the golds!" But he knows it's a mistake as soon as it leaves his lips.
Nathan, because he's a better person than Yuzu would be in this situation, doesn't take the offense he definitely could. But his voice does get harder, and Yuzu sits up on his bed, legs crossed in front of himself, chin in his hand. Paying attention, not that he wasn't before, but...
"Yuzu."
"I know, I know--"
"No. Lemme talk." Yuzu is quiet. "Thank you. Look, you know that's what they're going to say. But we've talked that over to death already. And I get that you're nervous, okay?"
"I am just worried about--"
"--Your boyfriend crawling through the phone line to strangle you if you keep trying to not-listen to him?"
Yuzu winces. "Whoops."
There's a sigh, and Yuzu can oh so very clearly picture it, the way Nathan's shoulders rise and fall, the way he rakes his hair back from his face with one hand. Yuzu tugs on the hair in front of his own ear, fidgety. This part of the conversation, where Nathan tells him how much he respects him as a skater, where he reminds Yuzu how much he still looks up to him, always makes Yuzu uncomfortable. It's easier when they're together, or even in text, but over the phone, there's nothing but the urgent sincerity in Nathan's voice, and it's almost too much.
But Nathan surprises him, because the laudation he's expecting doesn't come. Instead, the clicking resumes in the background, and Yuzu is smart enough not to ask what it is, because Nathan's still talking, even though he's quiet right now. He's gathering his thoughts, and sure enough, it doesn't take much longer for him to ready them.
"This time, I'm not gonna tell you not to worry, because you've never done this one before," he says. Yuzu can't help his little startled noise, but Nathan just hums to acknowledge it and keeps going.
"Worry, I get it. Nervousness, I get it. But listen, Yuzu, you know. In the deepest part of you, you know what you want. And - this is just the same as it always has been. You're following what you want. You're following it where it goes, and it's not your problem if people have a problem with where that where is."
"Lots of wheres."
"Yuz."
"No, I am hearing you. I..." He wets his lips, tries to find words for the feeling in his chest, the feeling that's simultaneously like a calm empty rink and the roar after a performance ends. "I am really hearing you."
"Hope so," Nathan says. "I'm hearing you, too, Yuz. Okay?"
"Okay."
"You don't sound convinced."
"Okay!" Yuzu says again, emphatic, bringing his voice up at the end, not as genki as he's capable of but pretty close. Nathan snorts.
"Yeah, cause that's convincing. Anyway. I'm hearing you. Not just this conversation, but I'm hearing you. This decision. This choice, this set of choices. I hear you, I see you."
"Nathan..."
It's a bit of a comfort that Yuzu can hear the fond smile in Nathan's voice. It doesn't alleviate any of the tears in his own, though.
"Nathan, I don't deserve you."
"No, you don't," Nathan agrees, "Because people don't deserve people. We choose."
"It is a strange English phrase," Yuzu agrees, as a sidenote. Nathan keeps talking.
"I chose. You. I chose to make you part of my path. And I still choose that."
"N-"
"I choose it not because of competing with you, or because of golds, or because I idolized you, or because of your fashion sense, because really."
"You have absolutely no room to talk!" Yuzu huffs.
"This, I will have you know, is drip."
"I still have no idea what that means."
"Just shows how bad your fashion sense is," Nathan teases. Yuzu laughs, and the sound is a little wet in the middle. He hears Nathan's voice catch in response.
"Ah, fuck. God, I wish I could be holding you right now."
"You have Sun Valley," Yuzu reminds him. "And I am okay."
"Oh, I know you are," Nathan sighs. "I mean completely selfishly. I just really want to be holding you right now."
"We will make a point to make a visit soon," Yuzu decides for both of them, and Nathan hums assent.
"I'm looking forward to it already."
"I am too."
"Yuzu..." Nathan is relentless in everything, even in his sweetness, and Yuzu rubs a couple tears out of the corner of his eye and hums acknowledgement. He's paying attention.
"Yeah?"
"I choose you not because of any of that. And not 'despite' your lack of drip." They both snicker. "And I'm fucking proud of you for this. I don't know if you would have made this choice before."
"I still had things to do!"
"I mean, like, the person you were, mentally. I don't know if the Yuzu I met, all those years ago, would have been this good to himself."
"I did come seeking a consolation prize," Yuzu replies, impish. "That counts for something."
"It is way too late at night for you to start with that," Nathan grumbles. "Another night."
Yuzu hums, low. "Okay."
"Anyway." Yuzu smiles to himself. He knows Nathan's still thinking about it, but he's not going to be a brat this time.
"I'm trying to say I think you've grown. A lot. I think that you're doing one of the hardest things to do, which is to choose yourself over people you care about. Cause I know you do care about them all. And it's been easy to choose what you want cause they've wanted it too, so far."
"Everyone wants gold."
"So I get it."
"You have told me so, a lot of times."
"And I'm telling you one last time, hush. The worry, and the anxiety about it, I get it. But Yuzu - I chose you before the second gold, hell, I was drawn toward you before your first. I chose you. And so did they."
"They chose you for you. And you're not going to lose as many of them as you think you will."
"Well, we do not know yet," Yuzu demurs. Nathan scoffs.
"I do. I know."
"You know a lot of things," Yuzu says quietly.
"I do. I'm a college boy," Nathan jokes.
"I am a college graduate," Yuzu counters. "I know many things, too."
"Oh yeah? What do you know, Yuz?"
"I know that I love you."
Predictably, there's the soft choke and small wet sound of Nathan licking his lips, collecting his composure as quickly as he can. Yuzu's seen it happen so many times, in person and on video call. He can see it now.
"Yuzu, hey." It's almost petulant. He shouldn't be allowed to be this cute.
"I do. And I love that you love me. And you show me."
"I try."
"You do."
There's quiet, the moment in which heavy and fragile sentiments are let to settle when there's nothing to respond to them with that won't start up another endless chain of aggressively validating each other. They get caught in those a lot.
Yuzu breaks the quiet, keeping his own voice soft.
"Thank you for choosing me," he murmurs. His cheeks are still pink, but his eyes have dried. There's a heavy, sturdy certainty in his chest once more, one that he hopes will carry him through the next twenty-four hours.
"Thank you for choosing you," Nathan responds, and Yuzu doesn't quite know how to answer that one. Nathan keeps going, so he doesn't have to.
"Tomorrow is going to go great."
"I hope so."
"I know so."
Yuzu chuckles, wry. "We're going to get stuck again."
There's a particular expression of Nathan's eyes that pairs with the tone of voice he uses next. If Yuzu closes his eyes, he can very nearly watch it form.
"I'd be okay with that."
Yuzu swallows. "Me too."
*
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coda:
"Hey, Nathan?"
"Mmm?"
Yuzu's laying on his back now, throwing a soft ball up and catching it, watching the stitches on it spin and trying to figure out what flick of which fingers makes the stitches spin in one direction or another. It's a good fiddle toy to keep his hands full. His phone, Nathan's voice, lays on speakerphone on the pillow beside Yuzu's. They have not, of course, managed to hang up yet; they'll keep talking long into Nathan's night, until he falls asleep with the quiet of the open line still glowing on the pillow beside him.
"I keep hearing clicking every once in a while."
"Oh. Yeah."
Yuzu huffs. "Well, what is it?"
"I've been texting."
"Mmm?" Yuzu glances at the clock, does the conversion in his head quickly. "Who's still up at your hour?"
Nathan snickers, smug. "Nobu."
Yuzu drops the ball on his face.