Playing with Fire | Yuzuru Hanyu

32. Advice

Yuzuru didn't know for sure what even made him act the way he did.

There was some kind of plan previously worked on his brain but once he reached the store it completely changed.

He picked up the flowers according to plan and dressed in his best suit.

The whole idea was some kind of deep declaration about how he couldn't stop thinking about her and yet, as soon as he arrived and his eyes landed on her gorgeous features, Yuzuru completely froze.

He just didn't know what to do when she was right there.

The feelings consuming him were so utterly overwhelming that he considered backing down completely.

But no, he couldn't be a coward when she had already clearly noticed him.

Gathering all the courage he could muster, Yuzuru looked at her again and approached the woman slowly, taking deep breaths.

The last thing he needed was a panic or asthma attack right then to embarrass himself even further.

And yet, as he approached her, the only thing he could actually do was act on instinct.

Yuzuru was sure he looked dumb as he placed the damned chocolate bar on the conveyor belt but he needed some kind of an excuse to approach her.

From that moment on, he just improvised and after he was done writing what he so much wanted, Yuzuru just left.

Now that he looked back on his actions, Yuzu almost felt stupid for doing things that way. He wouldn't even blame her if she chose to ignore him because of how bad it was.

You're a coward, he thought to himself.

Well, there was nothing he could do now.

Between doing his best to sneak into the house without his mother noticing how he was dressed to getting ready for a late-night session at the rink, Yuzuru didn't really have time for much more dwelling and thinking of the consequences of his actions.

Not that he didn't overthink every single action either way.

His session on that day was absolutely terrible, with his coach Brian asking more than once what the hell was wrong with him. The anticipation and mere will to just check his iPod every 2 minutes was killing his focus on the ice.

There wasn't much he could do on days like that but accept and move on with the day.

With nationals approaching at a rapid pace, all he wanted was to have some decent performance there and get ready for worlds.

Who was he kidding?

On that day, none of that seemed to matter, not until he had an answer from the woman who managed to stay on his mind at every moving second.

It wasn't until he was finally leaving the ice and able to check his phone that he finally breathed in relief as he noticed her notification.

'Hey, this is Aria' she had written a couple of hours before. Yuzuru only hoped that she didn't think he was ignoring her. That was something he could never do.

So maybe it was precisely because of his fears that he answered with his skates still on his feet, leaning on the nearest edge he could find.

As he wrote his answer, the one thing he was very sure of, it was that he wanted to reassure her.

'Hello pretty girl, I hope you weren't hanging for long, I just got off the ice!'

Yuzuru did wonder if it was too straightforward but he had tried other ways before and they didn't turn out that well so maybe it was time to risk a bit more and gather the courage he had hidden deep down.

The answer, however, took more time than he expected.

He looked at the watch on his wrist, it was already a bit late so maybe she had just gone to sleep.

The truth was that he couldn't know the inner dilemma she was facing and he certainly had no idea just how many times she rewrote her answer to him after that, but when she had been so ready to send him a hate text mere minutes before, it took a well-considered answer to avoid getting the wrong point across.

When it did come, Yuzuru was already untying his skates.

'And here I was thinking you were ignoring me as revenge'

It was impossible not to giggle as he read her answer. She was silly enough to make the snarky comments and get away with them. Hell, he would allow her anything.

'I couldn't even if I wanted.'

'Cute.'

Yuzuru's smile to his phone would only be interrupted by the bane of his existence, aka, Javier.

"Why are you smiling so much?"

He shrugged his shoulders and went back to stare at his screen.

'What's your excuse for not answering now?' Came from her mere seconds later.

'Maybe I'm just trying to figure out how to answer you'

Javi was instantly behind him, trying to look at the messages, only to be disappointed to find everything in Japanese.

"Stop, Javi!" he begged.

"It's a chica, isn't it?"

"Why does it even matter to you?"

Yuzuru liked Javi but the other skater was still one of his main competitors. He couldn't just pretend like there wasn't a bit of collision there.

"I want you to be happy so if this girl makes you smile, I'm definitely interested in knowing more. You're the biggest hermit I know."

He smiled and shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. Yuzuru really didn't want to talk about this when it was so new and uncertain or when he could barely even describe what was really going on between them.

"I think she's a good one."

Talking about this with Javi, the forever bachelor, was something that he didn't expect. The reality was that the other skater was far from the biggest inspiration when it came to relationships.

Still, he was older and presumably wiser, making his next words hit Yuzuru like a ton of bricks.

"Then you better hold on to her."