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Inori was the one who took the video. She was not allowed to use her new smartphone during practice, but after her ice time was over, she liked to take it out of her bag and play games or take photos by the rink while waiting for her parents to pick her up.
One particular evening, the rink was nearly empty, with only a few kids doing off-ice training with Hitomi, and Tsukasa seized his chance to have a moment to skate alone before it was time for ice maintenance.
His body moved without him having to think about it, without needing music to guide him. He followed a routine he had known by heart since he was a teenager: Yodaka Jun’s free skate to music from La Cage aux Oiseaux.
Unbeknownst to him, Inori recorded every one of his movements, doing her best to hold her phone in front of her face as steadily as possible while giggling and cheering him on.
As Tsukasa would later learn, Inori sent the video to Rioh to gloat, telling him that no one else could skate as well as her coach. Rioh recognized the original choreography and showed it to Hikaru, lamenting that someone as cool as Coach Akeuraji would choose to skate one of the bastard’s old programs. Then, Hikaru showed the video to Yodaka Jun himself because she thought it was funny.
All of this led to Tsukasa clutching his chest as his heart raced. He was startled by the sight of Yodaka Jun, who was casually hiding in the shadows outside the Nagoya Sports Center. As usual, he was dressed all in black and went unnoticed until he called out in a somber voice, “You there, wait.”
Tsukasa never expected to encounter Jun outside his workplace, so he stares at him awkwardly, silently wondering what to do.
Jun’s footsteps echo on the lonely sidewalk as he approaches Tsukasa, stopping when only a meter or so separates them.
“You skated to my old program,” Jun states, looking up to meet Tsukasa’s gaze. It doesn’t matter that it’s well past 9 p.m., he is still wearing dark tinted glasses. “La Cage aux Oiseaux.”
Tsukasa’s mind starts racing. He did skate to it, but how could Yodaka Jun, of all people, know about it?
“I want to see you skate to it,” Jun continues, cutting off Tsukasa before he can ask any questions.
“Huh?” Tsukasa gasps in surprise. “Right now?”
Jun lets out a tired sigh. “I’m already here, aren’t I?”
Tsukasa tightens his grip on his backpack strap and finally notices the black duffle bag Jun left behind where he was standing. It seems he came prepared.
It’s late, and Tsukasa should have refused and gone home to rest after a long day. But he still admires Jun and would never miss the opportunity to skate with him. So, he walks up the stairs back to the rink entrance and grabs the set of keys that Hitomi entrusted to him not even a month ago.
She will find out about Tsukasa’s questionable choices sooner or later, but for now, he tries not to think about it and opens the door.
On any other day, there would still be skaters on the ice, with more waiting for their turn to practice, but the badge tests scheduled for this month have just ended, so most of the kids left the rink early to take it easy for a few days as a reward before they start preparing for upcoming competitions.
Jun follows Tsukasa into the building, not uttering a single word. He walks straight to the rink with his sunglasses in hand while Tsukasa turns on only the lights necessary for them to skate safely. Jun remains silent as he takes his polished black skates out of his bag and puts them on, tugging at the shoelaces until the boots are perfectly tightened around his ankles.
“Are you going to stay there all night?” Jun asks, looking at Tsukasa with a raised eyebrow.
Tsukasa realizes then that he should also change into his skates instead of staring at his longtime idol, it doesn’t matter that he wouldn’t have minded doing exactly that.
He sits on a bench to prepare himself, but Jun doesn’t wait for him. Not that Tsukasa expected him to. He discards his black trench coat and skate guards, and steps onto the ice, smoothly gliding away.
Now Tsukasa is having an even harder time focusing on tying his skates because Jun skating is always a sight to behold, even while he is just warming up by skating around the rink, waking up his muscles and gaining speed.
It doesn’t take long for Jun’s movements to become more fluid. His arms and torso join his legs, moving with the grace of someone who spent his formative years doing ballet to improve his skating skills.
Tsukasa quickly warms up, too, moving his joints in circles to lubricate them and doing a series of vertical jumps. He is ready to join Jun on the ice when Jun launches into the first jump of the night: a triple Axel. It’s perfect, beautiful, and breathtaking as all of his jumps are.
Jun’s expression when he glances at Tsukasa afterward is hard to place: not quite challenging, but not nonchalant either. If anything, for Tsukasa it feels like déjà-vu to find himself once more in a half-lit ice rink under the attentive gaze of the elusive living legend, Yodaka Jun.
Tsukasa refuses to fall and embarrass himself like he did the first time. He repeats to himself that he is wearing his own skates and there’s no reason he should fall as he tries to calm his nerves and stop his knees from shaking.
He moves to the center of the rink, and Jun returns to the barrier, wordlessly giving Tsukasa the space and time to skate.
Despite himself, a spark of excitement travels down Tsukasa’s spine when he kneels and gets into the starting pose with one bent knee on the ice and the other leg straight by his side. His arms follow, then his fingers, and finally his head. Only then does he remember that he forgot about the music in his haste to get ready as quickly as possible.
Still, he lets out a deep breath and starts moving, unwilling to appear as if he is making excuses to delay his performance. He stretches his arms up and down like a bird’s wings as he stands up and slides across the ice, tracing a wide circle around the rink and picking up the pace.
Tsukasa does a waltz jump instead of the initial quadruple Lutz and replaces the rest of the jumps in a similar manner. He does his best to compensate for the lower technical difficulty by putting extra effort into executing the program’s components, as if he will receive a score after he reaches the final pose.
If anything, Jun’s piercing gaze boring into him makes Tsukasa feel like he will surely receive a score, whether it's quantifiable or not. That’s enough to motivate him to give it his all until the very end.
For a second, Tsukasa can imagine the ghost of Jun’s charming smile on his handsome, expressionless face as he stops and stares at Jun with a smile of his own. Tsukasa can’t help but seek his approval or his rejection. His anything.
A moment passes. Then two. Every second feels like an eternity. Tsukasa’s smile fades as he pants, and Jun finally opens his mouth.
“You can do better,” he declares.
Jun glides to Tsukasa’s side and skates his step sequence, offering no explanation until he finishes and looks at Tsukasa.
“Now you.” It sounds more like an order than a request. Tsukasa didn’t expect otherwise.
He gets into position again to retrace Jun’s movements. However, it doesn’t take long before a disappointed sigh, followed by a tired “No,” makes him stop in the middle of the footwork.
“I thought I was doing well.” Tsukasa has no idea what went wrong.
Jun shifts his weight from one skate to the other. He opens his mouth, then closes it. He seems to be debating whether or not he can be bothered to tell Tsukasa about his mistakes.
He raises and lowers his shoulders like he expects Tsukasa to understand this unspoken kind of body language. Tsukasa just mimics him, unsure of what he is supposed to do.
“Your shoulders are too tense,” Jun finally says with exasperation. “Lower them and start again from the beginning,” he adds without sparing another look at Tsukasa’s confused face.
Tsukasa’s body moves on its own, blindly following his orders. He returns to the starting position before his mind can even catch up to the fact that Jun told him to repeat the entire program, not only the faulty sequence.
He pays close attention to his shoulders throughout the entire routine, which is easier said than done when his entire body feels taut as a bowstring under Jun’s scrutinizing eyes that follow his every movement. Needless to say, Jun doesn’t seem impressed when Tsukasa reaches the final pose for the second time.
“The Ina Bauer sequence,” Jun starts, skating away and quickly gaining speed with every touch of his skates to the ice. “Do it like this.”
His back curves into a perfect arch and he skates into a beautiful Ina Bauer, before he straightens, turns and stops.
“Did you see that?” he asks. From Jun’s tone, it’s clear that he won’t accept a ‘no’ for an answer.
Tsukasa nods. He doesn’t want to fail any more of Jun’s tests, but he is not completely sure what he is supposed to see besides the fact that Jun’s hips and shoulders stay squared off instead of shifting to the right when he leans back. A common beginner’s mistake that Tsukasa has probably committed when he was focusing too much on lowering his shoulders.
The fact that Jun noticed from the other side of the rink is a testament to how good he is at identifying how bodies move, both his own and others’. Tsukasa feels like he can’t hide anything from him, not on the ice.
“Then do it.”
Tsukasa moves to the starting position for the third time. He can’t help but wonder if Jun uses the same coaching methods with Hikaru, but then again, if anyone can keep up with Jun’s unorthodox coaching technique, it’s probably Kamisaki Hikaru.
Once again, Tsukasa tries his best to skate Jun’s routine, keeping his reluctant advice in mind with each move until he reaches the final pose. Tsukasa has fairly good stamina, but he is tired from working all day, so he rests his hands on his knees, catching his breath. In the past, people claimed that no one else could skate Yodaka Jun’s original choreography for La Cage aux Oiseaux, and Tsukasa now understands why.
“This is not going to work,” Jun says, gliding across the ice until he stands next to Tsukasa.
“What did I do wrong this time?” Tsukasa asks, straightening his back.
“When Hikaru showed me the video, I knew I had to find you,” Jun says, ignoring the question as he moves even closer to Tsukasa.
“The video?”
Tsukasa has no time to register his confusion before he faintly feels their toe picks clink together. He looks startled at Jun, who presses an accusatory finger to Tsukasa’s chest, disregarding his personal space completely.
“You did a fantastic job, and it drove me mad. I wanted to figure out why,” Jun confesses, not breaking eye contact for a second. “Now I know that you can imitate me to the best of your abilities, and your skating can be a reflection of mine, but we’ll never be the same. Do you know why?”
Tsukasa is quite sure he already knows the answer, but he still shakes his head. “No.”
“You can try, but you’ll never beat me, not without jumping,” Jun explains. Tsukasa notices, not for the first time, that even though Jun is shorter and slimmer than he is, Jun’s presence eclipses his own. “You gave up, but I didn’t. Your skating means nothing if you don’t know what it takes to be the best.”
The air between them feels electric. Tsukasa can smell the bitter, pungent odor of cigarettes that clings to Jun as his warm breath hits Tsukasa’s face, contrasting with the cold ice surrounding them.
It’s unavoidable for Tsukasa to notice the instant when Jun shifts his gaze to his lips. It’s not subtle at all, and perhaps Jun never intended to be subtle. That wouldn’t fit with his straightforward personality anyway.
Tsukasa doesn’t know how Jun would react to his advances or if Jun would be willing to take the first step. In any case, getting rid of the remaining distance between them would have been way too easy, but Tsukasa forces himself to take a step back before giving in to his impulses.
“Keep your eyes on me one more time.” Tsukasa skates to the barrier without waiting for a response, feeling like his heart might burst out of his chest with how fast it is beating.
He doesn’t waste any second looking for his speaker, and instead, he selects Jun’s music from his playlist and turns his phone’s volume up to the max.
Tsukasa rushes to the starting position, and it all starts again. His arms move up and down, and he tries to punctuate his movements with more intent than before. Not like a bird flying away, but like he is struggling to get out of his cage.
The freezing air bites Tsukasa’s cheeks as he gains more speed than before, despite the ache in his legs. Inori would give him an earful if she knew that her coach was overworking himself, especially after he had lectured her multiple times on the importance of not pushing her body beyond its limits.
In a fit of spite Tsukasa launches himself into a double Lutz for the first jump, a jump he has barely landed once before, during that Lutz jump competition with Inori.
It’s over in the blink of an eye.
Tsukasa completes the rotations but lands a bit forward for his liking. He doesn’t have time to worry about his ice dance boots or blades as he slides backward with a bent knee, knowing Jun is staring at him like a hawk.
Instead, he focuses on regaining his footing and speed for the twizzle sequence, holding his free leg out in a sit position. For the second jump, Tsukasa goes for a single Axel. He won’t try his luck with a double he has not practiced in a long time again, not tonight and not with his ice dance skates.
The unforgiving choreography leaves him no time to recover before the flying camel and sit spins, followed by a single Loop, a single Toe Loop, and then the step sequence. As expected, Jun put all the jump combinations in the second half of the program to profit from the bonus and increase his score. If it weren’t for the adrenaline coursing through his body, Tsukasa couldn’t have kept up.
The senior men’s free program lasts four minutes and thirty seconds, and Tsukasa feels every moment reverberating in his body. His knees are shaking by the time he strikes the final pose, smiling and extending a hand to the side of the rink where the judging panel is placed in competitions.
The music keeps playing on loop, starting from the beginning again, but for Tsukasa, the sound of Jun’s blades scratching the ice is even louder.
“So, you can jump doubles now.”
“Not really.” Tsukasa takes a deep breath to steady himself. “I only learned the double Lutz to compete with Inori and motivate her.”
“How long did it take you to land it?” Jun asks.
“A little under an hour.”
That gets a snicker out of Jun. “What a waste of raw talent and potential.”
Jun skates away, and Tsukasa follows without much thought.
“I already told you; I’m using my potential to make Inori a gold medalist.”
“And yet, she’s not getting the results she so desperately wants.”
“She’s still adjusting to juniors!” Tsukasa exclaims.
Jun has always been a fast skater and has always known how to use it to his advantage. He used to skate to fast-paced programs with great ice coverage, using the momentum for higher jumps and faster spins. Tsukasa refuses to fall behind, straining his tired muscles to keep up.
“Those are only excuses,” Jun replies. “You can still skate. You should be on the ice instead of her.”
Jun turns sharply before Tsukasa can object and launches himself into the air, a place where Tsukasa can’t follow, to perform a magnificent quadruple Lutz.
“That’s how it’s done,” Jun tells him after landing. “Stop wasting your time by playing coach.”
“Coaching Inori is not a waste of time!”
Jun huffs and resumes his mad dash around the rink. He is still a jerk. A big one, but for some reason Tsukasa pushes himself to fall into step next to Jun again, chasing after him like he has done since the first time he saw Jun skate on TV.
“You can skate, too, like you never retired. So why are you coaching instead of going pro?” Tsukasa dares to bite back.
If Tsukasa had allowed his own frustration to lead him, he would have asked many more questions that he often finds himself pondering about. If Jun loves skating so much, why did he retire so early? Why did he disappear for so long? Why is he back now? Why?
Jun stops abruptly, sending up a wall of finely shaved ice. “Don’t try to equate us again. My reasons are none of your business.”
The irony of him saying that, of all people, manages to get a chuckle out of Tsukasa despite himself.
“And mine won’t change.” Tsukasa presses his lips into a thin line. “I’ll never regret my choices.”
“I’m done here then.” Jun turns around, and Tsukasa feels like he can finally breathe as he watches him skate away.
A much-needed respite before he trails after Jun, retrieving his phone on the way.
Tsukasa could have waited until Jun was out of the building to leave the rink and avoid an awkward moment, but he didn’t. He could have avoided sitting next to Jun while he took off his skates and dried his blades by walking a few more steps to another bench, but he didn’t.
The silence is less uncomfortable than Tsukasa expected. Maybe even less uncomfortable than if Tsukasa had tried to start a conversation.
Surprisingly, Jun is the first to break the silence. “The last time you skated to it, that’s what I wanted to see since I got here.”
“Wh–what?” Tsukasa stammers, unsure how to respond to the unexpected praise, if it’s even praise at all.
“The bird doesn’t simply break free by flying, it has to desperately fight for it with every single movement,” Jun explains.
“Oh.” Tsukasa breathes.
Tsukasa can try to unravel the mystery that is Yodaka Jun by dissecting his programs one by one, reading and rereading his Wikipedia page until he knows every line by heart, or letting his eyes wander down the slope of his nose and up the crest of his cheekbones. Yet, it doesn’t matter how hard he tries to decipher Jun and his convoluted way of giving praise, Tsukasa can never come close to understanding what’s going on inside his head.
Maybe Tsukasa will never fully understand Jun. It might be for the best, but Tsukasa wouldn’t give up the chance to get to know his idol, even if that involves late-night skating sessions when he should be asleep.
Jun stands up and starts collecting his belongings while Tsukasa stares at the ice, wondering how he’s going to explain the lines and holes that shouldn’t be on the pristine surface to Hitomi in a few hours.
“Give me your phone.” Jun stops Tsukasa’s train of thought, leaning close to him and invading his personal space again.
“Huh?”
“Your phone,” Jun repeats, not waiting for an affirmative answer before reaching for Tsukasa’s phone. He holds it in front of Tsukasa so he can unlock it.
“Why do you need it?” Tsukasa traces the pattern on the screen and nods for Jun to use it.
“I haven’t gotten a replacement for mine yet, but I suppose it’s about time I buy a new one.” Jun taps the screen a few times and returns the phone to Tsukasa’s hands.
Tsukasa looks down at the screen to find a new contact saved on it.
“Wait!” he yelps, jumping to his feet. “Is this—”
“Call me if you have anything interesting to show me.” The way Jun wets his lips as he speaks is as close as Tsukasa would interpret as an invitation coming from him.
For what? Tsukasa is willing to find out.
“I will!” Tsukasa promises, sounding too excited at the prospect of having a reason to call.
Jun puts on his trench coat without another word. He doesn’t smile when he meets Tsukasa’s eyes for the last time, but Jun doesn’t seem displeased by him either. It’s a different look than the one Tsukasa received when he first encountered Jun in the shadows.
As Jun walks alone to the exit, Tsukasa can feel his heart beating steadily, fluttering like the wings of a bird. Perhaps it all was a step in the right direction.