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They call every few hours for the next few days after that. They talk about anything and everything, reminiscing on old memories or simply sitting in intimate silence. It feels like they’re finally becoming something more than skaters thrown together by happenstance, that maybe this is where they finally choose to be something real rather than letting life take its course upon them. It makes Javi’s heart pound with excitement, but it terrifies him too. Because he doesn’t just want to be friends anymore. He wants more, and he knows it’s futile to want it, but he’s so not used to holding himself back when it comes to romance. It feels like denying his nature to tamp down the longing in his chest, but he knows he has to. For Yuzu, he tells himself. He has to.
In between their calls, Yuzu sleeps, and Javi tries to. It’s so hard to find rest when his insides are twisted with worry and his chest feels like it’s going to explode from all the feelings he’s finally letting himself recognize. Yuzu is still quiet but he hasn’t lashed out in anger anymore, and Javi has even heard the hint of a watery smile in his voice on occasion. Javi has seen him eat some ramen, rice, and chocolate, and, one time, as they were saying their goodbyes, Yumi thanked Javi with such emotion in her voice that Javi is almost certain he was right to worry for Yuzu the way he was in those first twenty-four hours.
But he seems to have regained a small portion of his resolve, because Yuzu tells Javi that he’s scheduled a press conference for Monday the 14th of February. Valentine’s day, Javi thinks, and he has to remember to breathe so that he doesn’t choke on air.
“What do you plan to say?” Javi asks, his heart in his throat. Is this where Yuzu lets go? He wonders. He doesn’t dare ask it aloud, but Yuzu knows he thinks it, because of course he does.
“I not announce retire,” he says, the words spoken softly and resolutely, seemingly more to reassure himself than Javi. “Just answer questions of press.”
Javi nods.
Because Yuzu isn’t a medalist, the press didn’t get to ask him the questions they usually would. It’s only fair to them, he explains. Still, Javi can tell that Yuzu is incredibly nervous.
***
It’s the night before the press conference. Javi has finally managed to sleep more than four hours at once, and he wakes up feeling rested but also tremendously guilty for leaving Yuzu without him for so long. It’s an irrational thought, he knows that, because Yuzu has his mother with him, and Javi hasn’t been physically with him at all, but it’s what he thinks, nonetheless. He rolls out of bed, makes himself another coffee, and immediately calls Yuzu again.
When the video call connects, Yuzu is sitting on his hotel bed with an ice pack on his raised ankle. He’s holding the phone in his right hand, his left one caressing the Pooh-san tissue box on his lap. On the bedside table behind him lies a half-eaten bar of chocolate, an empty instant ramen container, a cup of tea, and a full glass of water. Javi notices fondly that Yuzu has in the same earbuds he had worn yesterday.
Javi doesn’t ask how Yuzu is, because he already knows the answer is not good. Instead, he offers to tell Yuzu about his plans for Revolution On Ice’s opening number this year. Yuzu listens attentively, making a visible effort to distract himself from his own mind. He asks questions and gives choreo suggestions, and it’s not without interest, but his usual enthusiasm is lacking.
They’ve been chatting for about thirty minutes when Yuzu grows quiet, his soft, interested sadness from before morphing into painful silence. Javi gives him space, letting him process whatever he’s thinking in his own time. After a couple minutes, Yuzu speaks.
“Sometimes I wish I just be what they want. Like Nathan-san and Shoma-kun and Yuma-kun with their quads. But I can’t.” Yuzu lifts his head, meets Javi’s eyes. His are downcast, shadows of their usual selves. “I not like them, Javi. I from Sendai. JSF resent me for that.” Javi nods. He knows that; he has ever since Yuzu had come back from the 2012 Japanese Nationals scared and looking like a beaten puppy despite having won his first national title. It had taken three days of Javi’s gentle prodding for Yuzu to even admit something was wrong, and only then had he burst into tears and told Javi about the booing and the pressure. “They no want boy from Sendai,” he had sobbed, almost incoherently. Javi hadn’t understood why — and still doesn’t, really. Yuzu had won, fair and square that day. And now, he has become, objectively, the greatest figure skater of all time. He should be exactly what they want. But Javi knows better than to question the internal politics of the Japanese Skating Federation.
“I not like them,” Yuzu repeats. Javi opens his mouth to comfort him, to tell him that he doesn’t need to need to be like them, that he’s special just the way he is, that he loves him — wait, definitely not that — but Yuzu’s still talking. “I not from Nagoya, my family not rich. I not…” Yuzu trails off, lowering his head. He takes a deep breath and when he raises his head once again, there’s a desperation in his eyes that Javi hasn’t seen since the months leading up to Pyeongchang. It’s raw. It’s animalistic. It’s as if the walls Yuzu usually keeps up around his heart and mind have crumbled and Javi can see right through his shining eyes into the abyss behind them. He wants to jump in, to explore the castle of thoughts and feelings behind those carefully constructed gates and moats and bridges that Yuzu only lets down so rarely, for so few people. But it also scares Javi to see Yuzu lose control like this. He swallows, his throat suddenly dry and his palms clammy. He meets Yuzu’s gaze, and it feels as if he’s being begged for permission to keep going.
“You’re not what?” Javi whispers, almost afraid that speaking aloud will scare Yuzu away like a skittish stray kitten.
“I not…” Yuzu tries again. The words don’t come. He shakes his head slightly, and his lower lip trembles. “I not their perfect figure skater boy. I not kiss girls like them. I never going to marry, never going to have girlfriend.” He turns away from Javi, cheeks pink and eyes sharply focused on something to the side of his phone which Javi can’t see. “I gay, Javi,” he whispers, and it’s the most broken sentence Javi’s ever heard from Yuzu, more broken even than after Boston, more broken than even a few days ago. Javi’s eyes go wide and he sits, frozen in time and space. His body doesn’t seem to know how to react — his heartbeat is going wild in his chest, but his limbs feel leaden and his mind whirs at a million miles a second without making any sense at all. And then Yuzu’s sobbing, loud, ugly noises, which he tries to muffle by pressing his face into Pooh-san but that only makes him sob harder. The phone falls from his fingers onto the bed beside him and Javi is shaken from his weird stupor.
“Yuzu, carí, please don’t cry,” he says. Yuzu shakes his head and chokes on another muffled sob. “Thank you for trusting me.” An intense longing tugs at Javi’s chest. He wishes he could be there to hug Yuzu, to rub soothing circles into his back and to hold him in his arms until he stops shaking. But he’s not; he’s on the other side of the world, and Yuzu is alone in his room in a Beijing hotel, without him.
“Ss-sorry,” Yuzu manages to choke out. “I– I should go,” he adds, entirely unconvincingly. He sobs harder.
“Yuzu, look at me,” Javi says as softly and soothingly as possible. Yuzu shakes his head once more. Javi sighs. “You’re not alone,” he says, and he marvels at all the layers of meaning that such a simple phrase holds. Yuzu lifts his head to blow his nose with a tissue from Pooh-san. There’s a question in his eyes, one that he’s obviously too afraid to verbalize, but which hangs between them nonetheless.
“I’m bi,” Javi breathes. His voice comes out shakier than he’d intended. He blushes. “I haven’t really told anyone, other than Laura, because, you know” — he waves his hand in a vague circle in the air — “skating. But it feels good to say it, doesn’t it?” He smiles at the soft nod Yuzu gives him. He’s mute but his eyes are shining in a good way now, a hint of the deep meaning of the connection they’re sharing making its way through the screen. Javi could swear he can see a flicker of hope and longing in his friend’s eyes. He decides to meet Yuzu’s intense gaze with one of his own. Without realizing what he’s doing, Javi reaches out toward the phone screen, trying to cradle Yuzu’s face in his fingers. Yuzu blushes prettily and Javi reddens, quickly dropping his hand and looking away abashedly. Just like that, the moment is over.
Yuzu wipes at his eyes and lets out a shaky laugh as he reaches for the half-eaten bar of chocolate behind him. “It do feel good to say. Thank you for talk to me.” He smiles softly, and then his eyes turn teasing. “It a shame Javi isn’t here so can’t have any chocolate.” Javi grins, both because Yuzu appears to be in a better mood, and because it’s not lost on him that this is Yuzu’s way of saying that he wishes Javi were with him, too. Now that their secrets are out in the open, Javi feels a wonderful lightness in his chest. For the next few hours, they chat about chocolate and times past, reminiscing about all the times they made Brian lose his hair and giggling over Effie’s antics. Yuzu ends up falling asleep on the call, still on top of his bedsheets and fully clothed, and Javi’s heart clenches at the image of his softly sleeping form, fondness bubbling up in his chest. He can’t help but watch Yuzu sleep for several minutes before reluctantly disconnecting the call. As he does, he whispers three small words into the phone.
“Te amo, Yusu.”