Chapter Text
Yuzu always knew that when Brian Orser agreed to coach him, his life would be changed forever.
He just didn’t anticipate that the man doing the changing would not be Brian.
*
Ice skating is cut throat.
It’s something that has been drilled into his head. Despite the hoards of supporters and friendly people he’s met along the way, Yuzu has always been cautioned to be careful of threats lurking in the woodworks.
The higher he climbs the tighter the noose gets.
Javier is a foreigner, and at best, at most he’s a rival.
Yuzu doesn’t know why Javier watches him so closely or why he hangs about when it’s Yuzu’s turn to practice.
Yuzu doesn’t trust Javier but there’s something inside him that refuses to be suspicious of him.
Javier is nice and his smile always pulls the most genuine reactions from Yuzu as well. And maybe, just maybe Yuzu likes Javier’s gaze on him, tinged with wonder, sometimes jealousy, Yuzu feels unerringly important.
He doesn’t know what Javier is doing when he skates back into the ring and holds him by the waist with a soft ‘ like this ’ as he helps Yuzu shift weight before jumps.
Yuzu blushes, wills for the tendrils of suspicion to take over.
The noose only loosens. Javier’s breathe across his ears lingers
*
Sometimes when Yuzu falls towards the end of training and his muscles are trembling with the weight and fatigue of it all, his heart races with the thought of how he’s ever going to get back up.
He wonders whether, the ice cold against his butt, will seep through his skin and freeze his bones, the very essence of him.
But then he hears the whoosh of skates and fingers cutting through his hazy confidence.
It’s always Javier and his veiny hands and stubby fingers.
*
Love is a simple concept.
Yuzu has never struggled with it, has never sat alone wondering what it feels like to be wanted and cherished and valued.
His sister had tied the laces of his first pair of skates.
His mom threatens to board a flight if he she even suspects he’s skipped a meal.
Javier will find him after competitions, without fail, to hug him and tell him he’s brilliant.
It’s easy to love and be loved.
*
They’re a pair now.
It’s something that Yuzu realizes long after it’s already happened.
Yuzuru and Javier.
Javier and Yuzuru.
It’s hard to be invited to events without the other.
It’s hard to go through an interview without being asked about the other.
Eventually, it becomes hard to conceptualize having to participate in whole competitions without Javier.
Whenever he competes without Javier, he waits for the loneliness to overcome him.
For his life to feel beautiful but hollow.
But it’s hard when his phone beeps and its Javier with a quiet ‘good luck’ that rings across the walls of his hotel room.
His heart swells and everything pulses with purpose
*
Desire is slightly harder to grasp.
He hates the moments of panic he feels every time he has to say goodbye to Javi.
He even hates the feeling of relief of waking up in Toronto, knowing that he can see Javi.
He doesn’t know what it means when his head is clouded with doubt and worry that only Javi can pull him back with a hand across his cheek, thumbs at home in the crook of Yuzu’s neck.
He doesn’t know what to call it when he’s distracted with the thought of Javier existing and loving and being happy when Yuzu is not around.
Skating has been his strength from when he was young, his only point of focus. He doesn’t know what to do about Javi intruding into the spaces within him reserved for loving the ice.
When skating is the reason for his life and Javi is the strength to his skating. He worries about taking and only taking, of wringing Javi dry and nothing can reassure him.
*
But then Javi kisses him.
And the pressure building within flows out across his lips, across the skin of his collarbones pressed into Javi’s fingers.
*
Being with Javi is the easiest of them all.
Sometimes he looks at a mirror and sees Javi there instead. Javi has always felt like an extension of himself. The part of him that leaps and thinks about consequences later, the part that enjoys things, the part that seduces and wants.
Perhaps, it’s only fitting that Javi is his greatest rival after all.
*
His second Olympic gold was supposedly the end of the road, the start of a simpler life. But he sees Javi, he feels Javi, the joy pulsing around them and even as he’s breaking down against him, Javi is furiously working to put him together.
Javi’s exhibition is everything Javi does best, entertain and ease.
And Yuzu is entertained and eased.
The joy permeates through him. And when Javi smirks at him across the ice, a lifetime of promises and teasing the pleasures of the coming night, Yuzu’s body tingles and his heart soars.
And Yuzu knows then that with Javi, it’s always the start of a new adventure, be that simpler or harder.