Playing with Fire | Yuzuru Hanyu

10. Sharing

As Aurora heard his request for the first time, her first reaction was to laugh.

It had to be some kind of prank, there had to be some kind of hidden camera around.

There was no way he was serious.

Still, as she looked into his eyes, his expression told a whole different story.

"Wait... you're actually serious"

"Yes."

"Why? I mean... There must be some kind of other way..."

"I've analyzed all my options before and I just can't bear to be bad at something like this. I figured that the best teacher would be someone with huh... More experience..."

He was blushing stupidly cute as he placed his thoughts into words. The man was too adorable for his own good and she wasn't sure what that meant for herself. Aurora felt like she was entering some very dangerous territory.

"So... you hired an escort to teach you sex?"

"Yes..."

"And you think that somehow, a single night will fix every single problem?"

"No, but I'm willing to pay for more sessions, of course, as many as we deem necessary."

"We?"

"Yes, because I need you to tell me when you feel like I've improved enough."

She really had no idea what to say to him. This man was, to say the least, one of a kind.

"How do you even quantify what's good enough? This is very confusing to me."

Yuzuru slumped against the couch and she could see the disappointment in his eyes starting to settle in.

"You really don't have to help if you don't want to..."

The thing was, that couldn't be further from the truth. Aurora found his situation peculiar but at the same time, found herself wanting to help in every single way he asked.

When you work in the escort, it's easy to dismiss your own desires and will. You start associating sex with pure work. Suddenly, pleasure becomes almost inexistent and it's hard to separate what you want from what you're meant to pretend to enjoy.

People often see it as something easy but it's very far from that, it means sacrificing the enjoyment of a pretty big aspect of relationships... intimacy.

For one of the first times since she took this job, Aurora found herself wanting to do something out of her own will instead of because of what was expected of her in the job.

"I... I want to help you." she muttered almost on instinct, seeing him like that, sad and down, was almost impossible for her to bear.

He instantly brightened up as her words left her mouth, a smile etched on his lips and his back a bit straighter.

"You do? You will?"

"I mean... I'm not even sure how to do this, but I can try if you really want this."

"I do... yes."

The awkwardness was back in just a few seconds. None of them knew how to act then.

Aurora almost felt guilty for barely being able to guide the evening as she was used to. With any other client, she would have been deep into her seduction from the very first moment their eyes were on her.

With Yuzuru, however, she just couldn't turn on that side of hers. 

Maybe it had something to do with their obvious age similarity.  Up until that point, every client of hers had been older so it was always easier to disconnect. With him, and maybe also due to the fact that he was Japanese, Aurora found herself in an unheard-of situation.

The obvious tension that he still had on his shoulders seemed to come partly due to the language barrier and she wanted him as comfortable as possible, given the situation.

"So... if we're doing this... maybe it's probably a good idea if we switch to Japanese? You will probably be more comfortable" she said in his mother tongue, almost missing his surprised reaction.

"You... You speak Japanese?"

Aurora was confused. She had pretty much convinced herself that he had read that detail in her profile and chose her in specific because of it.

"Yes. You didn't read my profile details? I figured that had been the reason for you to chose me"

"No... I...hum...I just chose you."

"Randomly?"

Maybe it was stupid but she really wanted to know why he had chosen her in particular.

"No. I looked at the pictures and you seemed nice."

Nice... she seemed nice. He was choosing a woman to teach him sex based on the fact that she looked nice...

She truly didn't know how to describe the man before her eyes. Confusion just seemed to settle in further as she got to know more of him with each word that he uttered. His brain definitely had the potential to be studied by science.

"You're not normal, you know that, right?"

The man in front of her eyes just laughed.

"You're very fluent." he muttered as he noticed her Japanese, trying to change the conversation topic. It had a slight accent that he couldn't place but it was definitely good. Yuzuru highly doubted it came from learning online or through a foreign school. Her Japanese was as good as you would expect someone living there for a long time to have.

"I lived in Japan for a long time."

"You did?"

"Yes. My father is in the Canadian Navy and depending on where he was stationed, we moved around. Japan was one of his last missions, my parents loved the country so much that they stayed there."

"So they still live in Japan?"

"Yeah."

"But you came back?"

"I wanted to study here. Japanese education is really good but it's also very hard and English always feels more natural to me."

Aurora had barely realized just how much personal information she was giving him without a second thought.  This was far from her usual way of doing things but the damage had already been done.

"I'm sorry for asking. I read the rules..."

He seemed to find the exact time to remind her that he wasn't like any other men she had encountered before. Yuzuru felt guilty for something she shared willingly.

"It's fine. I was the one who started sharing."

"Hum."

Aurora knew she was going down a bad slope and there was no doubt that she wanted to change the situation.

Doing her best attempt to gather herself together, Aurora finally took a deep breath and decided it was about time to take hold of the circumstances.

"Well, I feel like we're wasting time... So tell me, Hanyu-san, what exactly do you want me to teach you?"