Playing with Fire | Yuzuru Hanyu

16. Anticipation

Yuzuru's days were filled with anticipation until the next meeting.

There was something about already having done it once and already knowing Aurora that made a big part of his nerves disappear.

Maybe it was even obvious in the way he carried himself around.

Yuzu would go to the rink and no longer feel terrible every time he saw Julia, he would no longer mop all day about his injury and was finally seeing some nice improvement in a while.

Truthfully, the decision to hire the service seemed to be going far better than he could have ever expected. 

Aurora had managed to give him a confidence that he never thought to be possible to achieve and he carried himself with a different attitude.

Even when his mother finally came back from Japan not much changed. She would question him sometimes about how he was feeling and he was sure that she was trying to gather what had changed in his behaviour but he would never confess the actual truth.

And when the day to finally meet the girl again came, he ignored every single look that his mother threw at his suit-clad body. Because not even now did he want to disappoint the woman he hired.

The hotel was the exact same and the meeting arrangments too. The one key difference was that both of them knew what the deal was and what the night entailed.

"You're going out?" Yumi asked as she looked him up and down.

"Yes."

"Date?"

"Maybe."

"Yuzu-kun..."

"What?"

"What are you hiding from me?"

"Who says I'm hiding anything?"

"You're dressed in your best suit, the one that actually fits you well and you're leaving me on a Friday night so I have a feeling you met a girl and aren't telling me about it"

He took a deep breath and decided that it was for the best not to give any hope to his mother. There was nothing of his agreement with Aurora that made him excited to tell his mom.

"It's nothing serious so I don't want you to get too hopeful."

"Yuzu-kun... You're an adult but..."

"Okasan, you just said it, I'm an adult so let me do things my way."

"I don't like it when you do foolish things."

"Foolish things are what teaches one to grow up, mama."

To that, his mother could only nod and sigh. He kissed her forehead and said his goodbyes before heading to the hotel right across the street.

The short walk there was made in quick steps, admiring the Canadian night in ways that he probably never had during his time there. Maybe going out every once in a while wasn't bad at all.

Doing the whole procedure again brought a certain deja vu to him. Checking in, looking at the bar, and finally walking in its direction was a bit weird due to the repetition but seeing her seemed to make all that weirdness go away.

Seeing Aurora on that night was a whole different experience from the previous week. She wore flared pants and a white shirt that made her look like she had just gotten out of a day at the office and he was almost sure that she chose against makeup for that night. Weirdly enough, he liked it.

"Hey, beautiful." he greeted her in Japanese with a confidence that was almost foreign to him.

"Hello, handsome. Good night."

It was almost impossible not to smile when her eyes were on him and the whole atmosphere seemed far lighter than the first time they did this.

Yuzuru looked at the glass in her hand and found her drinking soda, something that surprised him right away.

"No alcohol tonight?"

"What makes you think there's no alcohol in this?" she joked right away.

"Is there?"

"No, I'm not nervous so I didn't feel the need."

"That makes us two, then."

Aurora gestured to the chair beside her and he quickly sat down with a grin on his face.

The bartender looked at him expectantly, only for him to ask for whatever she was drinking, not even bothering to try to explain himself when the man gave him a weird look.

Maybe they were both crazy for drinking soda in such an expensive bar but who cared?

"How was your week?" she ended up asking, trying to come up with small talk.

"Great, actually. For the first time in ages, my injury seems to be improving. I can even walk without pain."

"That's great news!"

"I know! How about you?"

"Huh... I had some pretty tough exams but I feel like they went well enough."

"Uni?" he eventually asked, the curiosity too big to hide. In reality, it made a lot of sense that she was studying. If he could guess, Yuzuru would almost say with certainty that she was using this job to support her studies.

"Yes, Pharmacy."

He wasn't even surprised that she chose such a degree when she seemed so smart from the very first moment they met.

"Hard degree..."

"I know, but I always wanted it. I was a little kid and knew every single med on my mother's cabinet."

"Impressive."

Aurora just shrugged her shoulders and leaned a little bit more into him.

"So... you did fulfill the promise of booking me again."

"I did tell you I would."

"Yeah, but given that we didn't do much on that night, I wasn't sure if you would."

Yuzuru felt confident enough to wrap a hand on her waist and bring her even closer. By then, she was almost sitting in his lap.

"Something tells me you did it on purpose... so I would come back to you."

"We do have a few tricks up our sleeve."

He chuckled and kissed her cheek.

"Well, it worked. I'm looking forward to tonight."

"Any ideas what you want to try today?"

Yuzuru was feeling relaxed enough to say whatever came into his mind and it showed.

"You're the teacher... are you telling me you didn't do a class plan?"

"Don't tell me you expect a report card with your grades by the end of every session?"

"Now that's a good idea!"

Aurora pinched his side and moved to kiss his neck teasingly before whispering in his ear.

"Take me to your room, Hanyu-san."