Playing with Fire | Yuzuru Hanyu

3. Problem

Yuzuru approached every problem with a rational mind and this wasn't any different.

After returning home on that night and finding his mother already asleep, Yuzuru had stirred in bed for hours, completely unable to fall into a deep slumber.

Whenever his mind was consumed by a problem, he would be completely obsessed for ages until he finally found a solution. It had been that way for every figure skating jump and hard skill. He had studied different skaters, read as many books as possible, and placed his whole heart into finding solutions.

This seemed like another time when that happened.

His brain was quickly filled with ideas to solve his current predicament. From ridiculous to straight-up impossible, you could always count on his creativity to solve problems.

By the next morning, he had a ton of possibilities in his mind but none of them seemed to be plausible enough to take action. He needed more time.

Seeing his mother the next morning would prove to be the hardest part. He knew how much she liked Julia and part of him was disappointed that they couldn't make it work and make his mother happy.

Then again, this was his life and his decisions to make.

"Are you okay?" his mom asked, seemingly noticing the tension on his shoulders.

"Fine."

She immediately eyed him with a wondering expression. Yumi could read him unlike anyone else. She had raised that boy and knew when he was trying to hide something from her.

"Did you get home late last night? I didn't notice you arriving."

"A bit late but nothing too crazy. You were already asleep."

His mother really did have a talent to read him. The mere mention of where he had been on the previous night must have shown some kind of almost invisible reaction on his expression because she immediately noticed the soft spot.

And well, his mother didn't give up when she noticed something. 

"Is Julia coming for dinner tonight? Maybe I can do her favorite."

"She isn't." 

Yuzuru almost grimaced at his tone as he answered. It was very easy to tell that there was something there, even to anyone who didn't know him as well as his mother did.

"What happened?"

Yumi was looking at him with such a sad look that he immediately felt bad. It wasn't even about his heartbreak, it was just his mother's.

Gulping, he eventually admitted the painful reality.

"We broke up yesterday."

Her mouth was instantly agape with the surprise. It was easy to tell that Yumi expected them to be pissed at one another but nothing more. A break-up was far more serious than anything she could've imagined.

"What? Why?"

How could he even explain the whole situation to his mother? It was way too embarrassing to admit out loud to anyone and he would never feel comfortable enough to talk about sex with her. As open-minded as she was, they were still a fairly traditional Japanese family. You didn't talk about these things openly.

"Just... you know, we didn't like each other anymore."

It was a shitty excuse and he knew it. Her face showed an unbelieving look as soon as he said it.

"I know you too well and you're a very bad liar."

He knew that there wasn't much he could do to make her drop the subject so he just went with the usual defense mechanism, half-truths.

"I can't tell you everything because I'm not comfortable but we just wanted different things and she wants more than I can give."

His mother moved to hug him right away and he smiled instantly. There was something about the warmth of her embrace that always made things better, no matter how much he was hurting.

At least the worst part was done. Now all he had to do was explore more solutions to his newly found problem.

It was almost ridiculous that he was so invested in it but given that he was still forbidden from being on the ice and his distraction was completely gone, he needed to find something else to entertain himself.

For the next few days, the topic was always lingering in his brain.

He could be focusing on Estpolis and trying to come up with solutions or approaches to this.

Apparently, men could multitask too.

The apparent conclusion was that to solve something like this, the approach could be like anything in skating. It was all about practice in the end and well, Yuzuru truthfully didn't practice this particular thing anywhere near as much as he did skating so it made sense that he wasn't that good at it.

Thinking of the subject in such a practical way probably wasn't the best solution so he just tried to keep it out of his mind for a while.

In his next physio session at the rink, once his eyes landed on Javi, the immediate idea to ask him about his problem was instantly a plausible possibility. But then, just as it had been with his mother, Yuzuru wasn't comfortable discussing the theme with those around him. The likelihood of Javier mocking him for this particular subject was way too big to risk.

He never asked the Spaniard about it and he swore to himself he would never get that desperate. There had to be other options.

About two weeks passed with the whole thing in his brain. Passing Julia on the halls was a painful reminder of what had happened on that night and given that he wasn't planning on leaving Toronto any time soon, he knew that it was urgent to come up with some kind of solution to get his confidence back.

With skating out of the picture to distract him, the only possible alternative to feeling like himself again was the knowledge that he was good at something else, the one thing she accused him of being terrible at.

That was exactly when he knew it. Like everything in life and figure skating, you couldn't learn everything by yourself. There were Spinning coaches, jump coaches, and anything else one could need.

Like any good athlete, Yuzuru found the solution to his problem with his own sport.

All he needed was a good teacher.