Chapter Text
“Yuzuru you made it back for lunch,” Yuzuru’s mother watches her son trek in, face somber. She thought that the fresh air would do him some good, but maybe it left him alone with his thoughts for too long. “How are you?”
“Okay,” said Yuzuru. He sat at the table and stared at the food his mother made, having no desire to eat. Nothing felt quite the same. Everything was dull, nothing quite real.
“I made your favorites,” she said.
“Thank you,” said Yuzuru. He stared at his food, blank. With shaking hands he grabbed his chopsticks. He attempted to use his chopsticks but it fell out of his hand, his whole body shaking. He was crying, again. Yuzuru’s mother ran over to her son, wrapping her arms around him as he cried into her chest. “He was there, I saw him, at the park.”
“Honey, he can’t be there,” said Yuzuru’s mother.
“But he was so real, I felt his hand,” said Yuzuru, staring at his mother desperately. Shoma still had to be here, he wouldn’t leave him so suddenly. He still had to be alive.
“Yuzuru,” she felt her heart break as her son tried to piece together what happened to Shoma. “He’s dead.”
“No, he can’t be. I just talked to him. He told me he was getting better, mom, he told me he was taking medicine.”
“Yuzuru how about you eat a little bit and then lie down,” she said.
“He wanted to eat with me,” said Yuzuru, remembering Shoma asking to eat with him.
“Shoma would want you to eat,” she said. Her son had barely eaten since they received the news. He still seemed to deny Shoma was gone.
“Yes, I’ll eat,” said Yuzuru. He eats slowly, mechanically. Yuzuru’s mother sat across from him, allowing him to eat. Her eyes sad.
“Yuzuru I decided to take anti-depressants,” said Shoma over the phone. Shoma was there, talking to him. Yuzuru watched, there, but not quite there as Shoma toyed with his shirt, hair messy and matted.
“Really? I didn’t know that you were—” Yuzuru paused, unsure what to say. That he didn’t know Shoma was struggling with depression. It would emphasize that he was a completely unobservant boyfriend.
He had known, some part of him.
The way that Shoma would disengage occasionally, his withdrawn behavior, or his unwillingness to leave his room. He had always considered those to be nuances of Shoma’s personality, never thought that maybe Shoma did want to hang out but simply couldn’t convince himself to leave the bed. The need to sleep, not always from genuine exhaustion but rather from the desire to escape the inner workings of his mind.
A part of Yuzuru’s brain registers the regret of not researching his boyfriend’s struggle earlier. The information he had read page after page of—useless—in his brain now the person who was suffering was gone.
“Yeah, I’m depressed and I also apparently suffer from anxiety,” said Shoma. “Who would’ve known that feeling nothing or everything was unhealthy,” said Shoma laughing. Yuzuru didn’t quite know how to react to Shoma’s cynical humor.
“Oh I’m sorry,” said Yuzuru.
“It’s fine, better than some of the other figure skaters suffering from anorexia, anxiety, and depression,” said Shoma, laughing again. He was pushing down the importance of his struggle. Laughing off how serious it actually was. The idea that someone else had it worse, his pain and suffering invalidated because he wasn’t suffering too badly in his eyes.
“That’s not true, it isn’t fine,” said Yuzuru. But the words disappeared. They were unheard by Shoma. They were words he wished he could’ve said.
Yuzuru could hear himself awkwardly laughing, “Thank you for telling me what was going on.”
“Yeah,” said Shoma pausing, “I thought you should know.” Yuzuru’s watches silently this time as Shoma fades away, small body staring at his grainy face through the phone. He looked so small, and Yuzuru wanted to comfort him. To tell him his struggle was real and he didn’t have to be alone.
Too little too late.
Yuzuru wished he had done better.
“Yuzuru I love you,” said Shoma turning over to stare at Yuzuru’s face. They had spent many nights, side by side. Shoma's small sturdy body warming Yuzuru's thinner frame.
“I love you too,” said Yuzuru leaning in to press a soft kiss to Shoma’s chapped lips. “What brought this up all of a sudden?” asked Yuzuru. Shoma wasn’t usually one to express his emotions through words. He was much more a man of action.
“I’m not allowed to say that I love you?” asked Shoma.
Yuzuru wished he had taken time to dig deeper. He wished that he had looked deeper into those round brown eyes he loved so much and saw that Shoma was saying goodbye.
He was practicing.
He loved him and he wanted Yuzuru to know. “I want you to know I’ll love you no matter what.”
“Please stop saying goodbye, please, Shoma,” pleaded Yuzuru. Shoma faded again with Yuzuru’s unspoken words.
Yuzuru could see how hauntingly empty Shoma’s eyes were now. “Sometimes I don’t feel anything,” said Shoma. He hadn’t done well in practice for the day. “I’d usually cry, but nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“Maybe today was extra hard,” said Yuzuru. Yuzuru watched himself with deep resentment.
“Hm, maybe,” said Shoma, brushing off his struggle once more. “How was your day?” Yuzuru could hear himself enthusiastically discussing the quad axel he tried today. He was never observant enough.
A sharp ringing interrupts, Yuzuru’s eyes open and Shoma was gone again.
Yuzuru blindly grabbed for his phone, it was Brian. Yuzuru took a deep breath and answered the phone, he was okay, he could do this, “Hey Brian.”
“Hi there Yuzuru,” said Brian, his voice kind. There was a hesitant pause and Yuzuru already anticipated the question. “How are you doing?” asked Brian, he was using the gentle voice, the one he used when he told Yuzuru his injury was too severe to compete. It was the voice he used to try to convince Yuzuru to calm down and think clearly and objectively. It was also the voice he used when Yuzuru was unhappy with his score.
“Fine,” said Yuzuru.
He was fine.
If he was able to push everything down he could deny anything had ever happened. He would see Shoma soon during his trip back to Japan. He refused to believe the young man he had loved so much with his entire being was gone.
The warm brown eyes, soft lazy smiles. Comfortable hugs and gentle hands rubbing Yuzuru’s struggles away. Empathy and humor. Love, so much of it overflowing from Shoma’s entire being. Yuzuru felt tears pooling in the corner of his eyes and he furiously rubbed them away.
Shoma was not gone.
“It’s okay to not be fine. You can take as many days as you need,” said Brian. Why would he need to do that?
Shoma was not gone. He was still alive. He wanted to scream at Brian to stop. To tell him to stop talking like he was suffering from the loss of something.
He was okay.
Everything was fine.
“No, I want to skate again,” said Yuzuru. He needed to return to normal. He wanted to show Shoma his quad axel. He wanted to compete with Shoma. He wanted to hold him tight after a hard competition and giggle as they poked each other’s sore muscles. He would see Shoma again. He would land in Japan and Shoma would greet him at the bus with a bright smile and open arms.
“Are you sure?” asked Brian. “I don’t want you to skate if you aren’t emotionally ready.”
“I’ll be fine,” said Yuzuru with conviction.
“How about you come and do some of the group training,” said Brian. “Help you ease back in.”
“That’s fine,” said Yuzuru. A part of him dreaded seeing the looks of sympathy and possibly even pain on other people’s faces. But he could not afford to miss any more practice. He needed to return to normal. Practice meant competition. Competition meant seeing Shoma again.