nevertheless || yuzuru hanyu

three - the sun appears on a cloudy day

:: Gabriella

The waking hour was at 8 AM, but for some weird reason, I had a weird gush of wind. I wanted to move. I wanted to sweat. I just needed to let something out.

Slowly, I left my room as quietly as I could. I made sure not to wake Joanna up. I put on my shoes and I went out to get some air.

Eventually, I was one of the few people running at the seventh hour of the morning. The wind was a very embracing one, so as the heat of the sun.

It was a beautiful morning, there were already some people jogging around and a few who were outside of their homes, reading newspapers.

This was something I never usually see, and I like it.

I started running, planning to circle the area until I get too tired to even keep running. I kept at it for about thirty minutes, then I decided to rest on a bench nearby.

I bought a small bottle of water before I sat down to rest and quench my thirst. Midway through my rest, a man sits beside me in a rush, breathing rapidly out of exhaustion.

And I mean rapidly, he looked like he was about to pass out from the way he engulfed the air around him.

"Are you okay?" I asked out of worry, he didn't seem okay but I didn't want to do anything rash.

And when he couldn't even answer my question, I ran to the store where I bought my water and bought another one for the stranger.

After paying for the bottle of water, I ran back to the man who was still sitting on the bench catching his breath.

"Here, try to slow your breathing, then drink this," I said to him.

Eventually, his breathing slowed down and he was able to calmly drink the water I gave him.

"Are you good?" I carefully and slowly asked.

"Yes, I am. Thank you." He answered back. It was the first time I heard him speak. Not much to my surprise, he had an accent as he spoke English. It was very beautiful though, he didn't seem like he fully knew the whole of the language, but he speaks really well.

I sat down beside him again and smiled as I did.

"Is something wrong?" He asked.

"Not really, I was just going to ask if you were being chased or something. It was as if you were running for your life." I told him.

He smiled slightly and let out a small chuckle of his own.

"No, I'm just training my body to handle exhaustion. I really need to work on it." He calmly explained.

"Ah, you're an athlete?" I asked.

"Yep." He laughed. "I do figure skating, and it requires a lot of energy for it to properly push through."

"I know what you mean. Well, you can't just be losing energy while spinning and jumping, can you? That would throw off your entire routine." I replied as I was also reminded of my own experiences as a child.

"Yeah, exactly. How about you, do you skate as well? You seem to know a few things." He uttered.

"I used to skate, but growing up I had more love for badminton than skating. It just wasn't for me." I said to him with a reminiscent smile.

By that time, I saw my watch and remembered that me and Joanna planned to leave early. This also meant I had to say goodbye to this nice fellow.

"You're looking at your watch like it's time for you to go. I'm right, am I not?" He asked, observing as I was immediately reminded of several moments I've run late.

"Yeah... I really hope to see you again soon. By the way, what's your name?" I asked with much interest.

"Yuzuru." He answered, "You?"

"Gabriella. It was really nice meeting you!" I replied.

In my head, I can just hear my watch ticking, telling me to go faster, but as I was getting ready to run, I almost fell and twisted my foot.

"Are you okay?" Yuzuru asked with a mocking laugh.

"Yes, I'm fine. I'm just in a hurry." I replied.

With that, I ran away, only hearing a few more words from Yuzuru, "Try not to trip again, you might not make it to your sessions." He jokingly yelled. I looked back at him and saw that he was laughing a lot.

For that, I said, "Try not to overwork yourself, you're hard work might be for nothing!" He gave me a thumbs up and with that I continued running to Joanna's place with a huge smile plastered on my face.