Work Text:
Lesson 1: Socialist Affection
“Maybe you can stop hugging each other so long when you’re on the podium.”
Javier shrugged. “My boyfriend does well, I’m hugging him.” He thought about it, then added, “Of course, he doesn’t do well, I’m hugging him too. But for different reasons.”
Brian looked to Yuzuru to be the voice of common sense, but Yuzuru’s eyes grew round and sad. “I like hugs,” he said wistfully.
Brian sighed. “All right, fine. But if you hug Yuzuru for fifteen seconds, then you have to hug everybody else for fifteen seconds.”
Javier and Yuzuru both looked at each other. As they stared into each other’s eyes, Brian looked elsewhere; it amazed him, how quickly they could settle into these moments of total privacy in public. It always made him feel like a voyeur to see it, when they would have these moments of conversation that nobody else could hear.
Finally they broke off, and they both nodded. “All right,” Javier said. “We’re okay with that.”
**
Yuzuru looked so happy, and Javier’s heart felt like a balloon, expanding with pride and affection and a bunch of other emotions he didn’t have the time to name. After he took his bows, he made a beeline straight for Yuzuru, smiling, and Yuzuru smiled back. His arms were open before he made it in front of his lover, and as Yuzuru stepped into his embrace, Javier pressed a kiss smack on Yuzuru’s lips. Only when the cameras flashed and a few people in the front row murmur did Javier realize his mistake.
Yuzuru seemed to realize it as well, given the way he stiffened in Javier’s arms. “You have to kiss Tatsuki now,” Yuzuru whispered, pressing his mouth to the skin near Javier’s ear.
“I don’t want to kiss Tatsuki,” Javier hissed.
“I know, but it’ll look weird if you don’t.”
“It’ll look weird if I do!”
“Well, it’ll look… sus… suspicious if you don’t,” Yuzuru replied, rather desperately. “Maybe if you kiss him, you can just pass it off as some weird Spanish thing.”
“Some weird Spanish thing?!” Javier said, clearly affronted.
“Okay, some weird Javier thing. We need to stop holding each other and whispering now, it’s looking funny.” Yuzuru let him go, though not before pleading, “Just get it over with already!”
Only someone with Yuzuru’s uniquely insane level of commitment to a performance would insist that his boyfriend kiss another man, Javier grumbled internally. He sighed and trudged his way over to Tatsuki’s side of the podium, feeling horrible for just about every party about to be involved in this.
As Tatsuki accepted his hug, he leaned down and patted Javier on the back. “It’s okay,” he whispered to Javier. “I know.” He closed his eyes, scrunched up his face, and waited for the inevitable.
A brief moment of shock passed -- how did Tatsuki know? -- before grim determination settled on Javier’s face. Well, fine. If he was going to kiss Tatsuki, then he was going to kiss Tatsuki. He grabbed Tatsuki by the shoulders, swung him around dramatically into a dip, and laid one on him. He counted the seconds in his head, trying to ignore the gasps from the entire audience and the flashing from an entire army of cameras.
**
Back at a hotel room in Saitama, Yuzuru threw the tabloids onto the coffee table in a fit of pique. “Spanish Love Affair with Tatsuki-senshu?! Inside scoop on all the details of their secret relationship.”
“I can’t believe you made out with him,” Yuzuru grumbled, his arms crossed.
Javier straightened up in the seat next to him, leaning forward. “You told me to!”
“You didn’t have to go at it like that. You were sticking your tongue down his throat!”
“I was not! You exaggerate.”
“How can I exaggerate. There are pictures everywhere!”
“Look. At least now there are no rumors about us, right?”
“Oh, really?” Yuzuru shoved a handful of tabloids under Javier’s nose.
“Yuzuru. You know I can’t read Japanese, so whatever point you’re trying to prove, I don’t know what it is.”
Yuzuru pointed to the English words underneath the headline. “Love Triangle: Hanyu the Jilted Lover?”, accompanied by a photograph strip of Yuzuru’s reaction in real time, his expressions ranging from shocked to annoyed.
“Oh. Huh.” Javier took the tabloids into his own hands. “Well, they got a good angle on you. Very nice lighting.”
“Urghh,” was all Yuzuru said in reply. “I think I have a headache.”
Javier rubbed Yuzuru’s back. “I’m sorry. I know what make you feel better.” His face lit up. “We can have make-up sex!”
“How can we have make-up sex? We haven’t made up yet!”
“No?” Javier frowned. “Are you really that angry? I don’t even know why. Tatsuki and I -- we didn’t even like kissing each other.”
Yuzuru’s face turned stony. “That’s not what he said.”
**
“Tatsuki-kun, I am so sorry,” Yuzuru kept apologizing, as he walked down the backstage corridor with his compatriot, handlers surrounding them in a circle.
“I’m fine, Yuzuru-kun, just fine,” Tatsuki assured him. He kept his voice quiet as he spoke. “I do wonder, though: Javier-san was the one who kissed me. Why do you keep apologizing for him?”
Yuzuru blanched. “Ah…”
Tatsuki smiled. “Like I said. It’s all right.”
“Thank you so much,“ Yuzuru whispered in relief. “I promise I’ll talk to Javier-kun.”
“Ah, you know, it wasn’t so bad. Before it happened, I thought the kiss would be something I’d have to endure, something that might even give me bad memories or a sense of disgust,” Tatsuki confessed. His expression grew thoughtful. “But Javier-san is a surprisingly good kisser.”
Yuzuru’s mouth dropped. He socked Tatsuki in the arm, eliciting an “Ow! Yuzuru!”, before he broke off and ran away, amidst protests from their handlers.
**
“Really? He said that?” Javier rubbed his jaw. “Huh. I don’t know my own power.”
“Javi!”
“Oh, for -- I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it, Yuzuru,” Javier said, unable to keep a small, amused smile off his face. “And even if he did, I wouldn’t be interested.”
Yuzuru had his legs bunched up on the sofa, silently picking at a loose thread in the seam of his pants. Then, muttering: ”Why wouldn’t you be interested.”
Javier’s smile disappeared. “What?”
“I said, why wouldn’t you be interested? Tatsuki is funny, and witty, and charming. He’s clever and good with words and more mature than I am. Why wouldn’t you go off with him instead?“
“Yuzuru, why are you saying all these things?”
“Because I have eyes, Javi! I see you, and your smile, and I see how people get when they’re around you. And I see me, and…”
“And? And what?”
“You know what,” Yuzuru muttered. “I don’t even know why you’re with me sometimes.”
Javier let out a short breath in disbelief. “Because I have eyes too, Yuzuru, or did you forget? You know what I see?” He took Yuzuru by the shoulders, forcing them to face each other. “I see a person who makes his dreams happen just by sheer determination, a person who puts so much of his own soul into everything he does, even if it hurts him sometimes. I see someone who never takes a single moment in life for granted, who takes care of the people around him and does everything he can to make them happy and proud.” He slid two fingers under Yuzuru's chin, gently lifting his face up. “I see a beautiful face that can be so happy, so frustrated, so disappointed sometimes -- but no matter what emotion it is, it makes me feel so much too. I see the person who makes me want to be a better skater, who makes me want to be a better person every second of my life, someone I tell myself I can never let down. You’re the one who - who I would have to be totally stupid to not fall completely in love with.”
Yuzuru was trying not to cry, and doing a bad job of it as he wiped tears off his face with the back of his hand. “Javi.”
They wrapped their arms around each other instinctively, in the same moment. Javier breathed in his lover, nose pressed against his shoulder. Yuzuru had accomplished so much so soon; he seemed so mature and confident on the ice that it was easy to forget that he was still nineteen in so many other ways.
Yuzuru buried his face into the crook of Javier’s neck, fingers splayed against his nape. “I wish I knew more English so I could say nicer things back.”
Javier’s lips quirked. “You say things just fine with your body, querido.”
“Okay then,” Yuzuru said. “I want make-up sex now.”
Javier discreetly fist-pumped behind Yuzuru’s back. Yuzuru laughed into Javier’s skin.
**
Lesson 2: Controlling the Bleeding
“Well-played, disciple of mine,” Brian remarked, as he entered their headquarters -- really, Javier’s hotel room -- with a wry smile. “Though a bit flashy and attention-grabbing.”
“I improvised,” Javier replied. “With some notes from my director.”
“Well, thanks to your little stunt, we found something else out. Machida knows. The question is, how did Machida know?” Brian wondered aloud. “And if he knows, who else knows?”
A moment of silence passed as Javier and Yuzuru digested this information.
Brian continued. “We need to figure out the first source, and then we need to silence that source and anybody else he or she might have told.”
Yuzuru’s eyes grew wide. “You mean…”
Brian sighed. “We’re not killing anybody, Yuzuru. Just find out who it is and persuade them to keep their mouths shut.”
“How do we find out?”
“I’m glad you asked.” Brian took a large white roll of paper out of his suitcase, unfurling it onto the table. Three large circles of different colors had been drawn onto the surface, with smaller circles intersecting at different points. Pictures of several prominent skaters had been pasted along the circles.
Brian pointed emphatically at the center of the three circles. “There are three major gossip circles in figure skating: the North Americans, the Europeans, and the Japanese. In charge of these circles are three chief figures -- three head honchos, if you will.”
Javier looked down at the paper, studying the diagram, and then glanced up at his coach. “… When did you have the time to make this?”
“Never you mind,” Brian said. “Do you want to learn this or not?”
Javier and Yuzuru nodded eagerly.
“All right, then.” Brian cleared his throat before resuming. “For the Europeans, it’s Carolina. Everyone spills their problems to Mama Carolina.
“For the North Americans, if the skaters see something strange, they go report to Patrick or Jeremy Abbott. You just need to get to one of them. Since Patrick’s not here, you’ll have to find some opportunity to corner Abbott when he’s alone.
“For the Japanese, Kanako Murakami currently heads the gossip currents.”
“Kanako-chan?!” Yuzuru cried. He had been expecting Daisuke, or Mao, or even Nobu. But Kanako-chan… an odd feeling of betrayal twisted in his chest.
“Don’t underestimate the gossiping power of nineteen-year-old girls, Yuzuru,” Brian warned. “She might look innocent, but she knows more about the personal lives of every Japanese skater than the three of us combined. She probably keeps pages in her Hello Kitty notebook devoted to information on each and every one of you.”
“No…” Yuzuru shook his head sadly. “Not Kanako-chan…”
“Your mission is to talk to the bosses and figure out if any of them know about your relationship. If they know, it’s probably because one of their informants told them; you’ll have to plead for their protection and silence the informant as well. You’ll also have to talk to Machida and see where he got his information from,” Brian finished. “Does that sound like something you can do?”
Javier nodded. “All right. Well, I’m close enough with Carolina, so I can talk to her, no problem,” he said. “And Yuzu, you can talk to Kanako, right?”
Yuzuru looked glumly at the floor. “I guess. But what do I say to her? I don’t know how to find out what she knows without telling her what we don’t want anybody to know.”
“I have a foolproof trick.” Brian flashed a sly smile. “Let me tell you a story about Bob and Lindsay.”
“Who’s Bob and Lindsay?”
“It’s just a story, Yuzuru,” Brian said. “Bob and Lindsay are a couple, have been going out for maybe, oh, I don’t know, two or three years now. One day, Lindsay comes up to you and asks you out to dinner. Naturally, you’d reply…”
“‘… My boyfriend would kill me,’” Javier chuckled.
“No. You’d say, ‘Why are you asking me out? What about Bob?’”
Understanding dawned on Javier’s face. “Ohh. That’s very smart.”
“I don’t know about that,” Yuzuru said, fidgeting. “What if the person doesn’t know about Bob and says yes?”
“Then you catch mono the day before the date and you cancel,” Brian replied. “They hear the word ‘mono,’ figure you’ve been macking on somebody else, and they won’t want to reschedule. And you, young grasshopper,” Brian said, clapping Yuzuru’s shoulder, “you’ll know that they don’t know about Bob.”
“Very clever,” Javier said again, nodding.
“So… we should just ask a bunch of people out?” Yuzuru asked dubiously.
“Well, if you’re not comfortable with the person and you can’t think of another way to get the information, this is the easiest way.”
“Come on, Yuzuru, we’ll do it together,” Javier said, trying to sound encouraging. “The exhibition’s tomorrow. I’ll ask Jeremy out then, you can ask Kanako, and then we’ll know if they know.”
Yuzuru pressed his fingers into his eyes. “This whole thing hurts my head.”
**
Yuzuru found Tatsuki first, since that was the easier and less awkward task. He made sure to sidle up to Tatsuki backstage as they were changing.
Yuzuru coughed loudly as he neared Tatsuki. “Many apologies for punching you, Tatsuki-kun.”
Tatsuki just waved it off. “Ah, it’s all right. Young lovers are often jealous lovers.”
Yuzuru pondered the first thought that popped into his head -- How on earth would you know that? -- before quickly banishing it. He had a mission he needed to accomplish. “By the way,” he tried casually, “who did you… where did you hear that Javier and I were together, anyway?”
“Oh, I didn’t hear it from anyone,” Tatsuki said, shaking his head. “I just knew.”
“You just knew?”
“I can just tell these things.” Tatsuki shrugged. “It’s the way you look at each other. The way you smile at each other, the way you talk about each other. It reminds me of my mom and dad.”
“Oh.” Yuzuru scratched behind his ear. Then: “Does anybody else know?”
“I don’t know. If they do, I didn’t tell them.” Tatsuki smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry I can’t be more help to you, Yuzuru-kun.”
“Ah, it’s all right. You’ve been a great help already.” Yuzuru bowed his head. “Thank you very much for keeping our secret, Tatsuki-kun.”
As Yuzuru turned his back to leave, Tatsuki called out to him. “Hey! Yuzuru-kun!”
Yuzuru stopped at the exit and looked up. “Hm?”
“You’re very lucky!” Tatsuki said, smiling. “Someday, I hope someone will look at me the way Javier-san looks at you.”
Yuzuru returned the smile as he nodded.
**
His second target was Kanako-chan, and that made him considerably more nervous. Kanako-chan, whom he had come up the ranks with, whom he’d seen at competitions as he was growing up. It was hard to believe that the girl he thought he knew was the head of some sort of shadowy, powerful gossip circle. He wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers.
He had asked Kanako out once before, when they were younger. They had both been fifteen at the time. He’d been halfway serious about it, just wanting to have a pretty girl on his arm, and she had rolled her eyes and hit him playfully on the head.
That had been a different time, though. His interest had been sincere back then, and he wasn’t just hitting on her in a furtive, roundabout attempt to discover if she knew about his secret life overseas with his Spanish boyfriend by seeing how she might react to the possibility of him cheating on said Spanish boyfriend. God, that sentence sounded horrible in his head.
Kanako had one foot up on the bench, unlacing her skate. Yuzuru glanced around, checking for bystanders, before approaching her. “Ah… Kanako-chan…”
Kanako looked up and smiled. “Yuzuru-kun! I didn’t hear you coming.” She saw the serious expression on his face and sobered. “What is it?”
I am so sorry, Kanako-chan. “Would you… would you like to go out with me?” he sputtered, his voice squeaking towards the end.
He held his breath and waited, half-expecting the type of droll response he had gotten when they were kids -- but instead he received a surprised, sweet smile in return. “Y… yes, Yuzuru,” Kanako said, her voice soft and shy. “I’ll go out with you.”
There had been a plan involved -- something about mono and dates or something -- but Yuzuru found that he couldn’t remember a scrap of it as he heard himself giggling rather uncontrollably. “Ha ha, just kidding!” he laughed nervously. He stared at his feet in the ensuing moment of silence. Then he turned and ran away.
**
The exhibition was almost over. It was time for the skaters to link hands and skate a full lap around the rink.
Mao grabbed his hand rather tightly, her fingers digging into the bones of his wrist. Yuzuru winced.
“Mao-senshu, you’re hurting me,” Yuzuru whispered to her, as the music continued to play.
“I’m hurting you?!” Mao spared him a look, and it was furious and withering. “That was a terrible joke to play on Kanako-chan. You should feel ashamed of yourself.”
Tatsuki, who held Yuzuru’s other hand, looked up in concern. “Mao-senshu, let’s not do this right now,” he whispered. “Let’s concentrate on putting on a good show for everybody.”
Mao just shook her head in disappointment. Fortunately, the music kept playing, and it was her cue to skate to the other side of the rink.
Tatsuki glanced over at Yuzuru. “Yuzuru-kun… why on earth would you ask Kanako-chan out when you seem so happy with Javier-san?”
Yuzuru made a sound from his throat, guttural and frustrated. “Javi and I are trying to figure out who else knows about us,” he explained. “So my coach and I came up with this brain-dead plan for me to ask the important gossipers out.”
“Important gossipers? What are…”
“Yeah. Apparently Kanako-chan keeps a notebook with people’s blood types and real hair colors and deepest darkest secrets,” Yuzuru scoffed.
“Eh… she keeps a notebook? Did it say anything about me?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if she even owns a notebook,” Yuzuru grumbled. He stopped for a second, dip in his brow, as he looked over more closely at Tatsuki. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Tatsuki answered quickly. “So, uh… why did you have to ask her out?”
“Oh, because if she knew about Javi and me and I asked her out, then she might say something like, ‘Oh, aren’t you dating Javier-kun?’”
“Huh. So she didn’t know?”
“Obviously not.”
“Oh.” Tatsuki worried his lip. “That’s surprising. I thought you guys seemed really obvious.”
Part of Yuzuru felt like blaming Tatsuki for making them paranoid about everybody discovering their relationship. Maybe Javi and he had been doing a pretty good job so far, and nobody else had suspected -- Tatsuki had just been the really, really perceptive exception. Yuzuru sighed, knowing it wouldn’t do himself any good to start thinking along this route. “Maybe just obvious to you,” he said finally.
Tatsuki clasped a hand on Yuzuru’s shoulder. “I’ll try my best to smooth things out with Kanako-chan,” he said. “In the meantime… maybe you should just lay low for a little while.”
“Yeah.” Yuzuru tried to sound grateful. “Thanks, Tatsuki-kun.”
**
Javier found Jeremy as the other skater was cleaning his clothes out from his locker. He approached him with his most disarming smile. “Hey, congratulations on your free skate. It really was one of my favorites.”
Jeremy shook hands, polite smile on his face. “Congrats on your bronze, Javier.”
Javier nodded. He lingered, leaning against the lockers with crossed arms. Jeremy just looked at him like he had no idea why Javier was still standing there.
All right. Javier took a deep breath. Nothing for it but to get it out in the open. “Actually, why I am here… I was wondering. Do you want to go out to dinner?”
Jeremy paused, and then shrugged. “Sure, why not. I don’t have any plans. You want to grab a bite after the exhibition?”
Javier bit his lip and tried again. “I mean… you want to go out. To dinner. With me.” He wiggled his eyebrows this time.
Jeremy paused. He looked at Javier again to make sure he wasn’t misinterpreting any signals, and Javier nodded slowly, practically willing Jeremy to understand.
Then Jeremy sighed. “Oh geez. How do I do this.”
“Yes. How do you do it,” Javier said, watching carefully for signs that Jeremy might know something. “You want to tell me something…?”
Jeremy closed his locker. “You’re such a sweet guy, Javier, and I’m very flattered. But I’m just not in a good place for a relationship right now.”
“Oh.” Through the immediate rush of relief, Javier tried to put on a disappointed look. “Well, that’s okay. I’ll see you –”
“I mean, don’t get me wrong. You’re good-looking and you’re charming, and I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who would be interested in you. But even if I were in a place to start a relationship, you probably wouldn’t be my type.”
Javier nodded. “All right. Well –”
“Don’t feel bad about it. You’re not the first person I’ve said no to, and you’re not going to be the last. I just get really picky sometimes. It’s all on me. It has nothing to do with you. So don’t give up hope on love. Keep trying. Persevere in your dreams.”
“Yeah. I’ll be sure to do that. So, uh –”
“And you never know. I mean, who knows? Maybe in two or three years, my tastes will change. If you want to ask me again in three years -”
“I’m going now,” Javier said quickly. “Nice talking to – uh, yeah. I’ll see you.”
**
Hands clasped in front of him on the table, Brian waited patiently for the results. “So. How did it go?”
Yuzuru grimaced. “Kanako doesn’t know, and half of the Japanese skating team hates me now,” he reported.
Javier patted Yuzuru’s arm in commiseration. “I talked to Carolina, and I learned that she doesn’t know about us. I also learned that Jeremy Abbott has to make a big deal out of every little thing.” He sighed. “He’s probably telling everybody now that I am carrying lifelong torch for him.”
“Ah.” Brian’s eyes glinted. “That brings us to our third lesson.”
**
Lesson 3: Deception
“The reception’s tomorrow night. While you’re there, try to get photographed with as many different skaters as possible. And look reeeeally friendly with them.”
Javier looked up. “How friendly?”
The look Brian gave him in return could have withered the Amazon rainforest. “‘I’m-completely-fascinated-by-your-crotch’ friendly.”
Javier shifted on his feet. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
Yuzuru gave him a smile that Javier could easily tell was forced. “It’s all right, Javi. You can do it. I won’t get mad again, I promise.”
“Great,” Brian said. “It should be easy for you, Javi. You’re friends with practically everybody.” He turned to his other student. “Yuzuru, try to branch outside of the Japanese skaters, okay? Nobody really thinks you have anything but a brotherly relationship with any of them; they’ll just think you’re sticking close to them because you speak the same language. I know you’re a little shy, but try to find just one person outside of your normal social circle and hang onto them like a life preserver the whole night.” He nodded sagely. “If people see you with somebody they don’t normally see you with, they’ll definitely notice.”
There was a line of tension in Yuzuru’s shoulders that hadn’t been there the day before, Javier noticed. Yuzuru simply nodded in response. “I’ll do my best.”
**
“Let’s take a picture.”
“Another one?”
“Come on, Tomáš, just one more.”
Javier had about thirty different snaps with his arm slung around various skaters so far; he’d wade through all of them later, try to figure out which ones to put on his Instagram.
“Hey, Daisuke!” Javier waved as the Japanese skater approached his seat. “Take a picture?”
“Maybe later,” Daisuke replied quietly. “Javier-kun, would you go talk to your friend for me?”
“Who?”
“Yuzu,” Daisuke said. “He’s been acting strange this whole week. First he plays a mean prank on Kanako-chan -- very uncharacteristic of him -- and now he’s ignoring us and hanging out with some strange European the whole night. No offense,” he added with a smile. “Not friendly strange European like you.”
Javier frowned. “Not friendly?”
“I don’t know. Just seems kind of… aggressive,” Daisuke said, finding the right word. “I’m worried about Yuzuru-kun. He’s so young; maybe he’s hanging around some bad influences.”
Javier nearly choked on his spit. “No, I don’t think he’s hanging around -- no, that doesn’t seem like Yuzuru.”
“Well, you would know more than me. I’d talk to him, but right now I think you can reach him more than I can. You young people stick together.”
“You’re not that old, Disk,” Javier said, getting up out of his seat. He picked up his suit jacket, which had been draped over the back of his chair, and shrugged it on.
“Old enough to tell you what to do.” Daisuke smiled. “So go find your friend.”
Javier had been flitting through the adjacent dining rooms the whole night, which were connected to the main reception area. A few questions about Yuzuru’s location had Javier wading his way through the halls back to the main ballroom. As he entered, he noticed that the lights had been dimmed, and the floor had opened up to dancing. His eyes searched through the crowd.
He spotted them near the center of the room -- the ‘strange European’ had been Alex, and he was currently pressing himself up against Yuzuru, far too snugly for Javier to be comfortable with the sight. Yuzuru seemed to have taken that fabricated fascination with other people’s crotches quite seriously -- the two had left practically no space between their bodies, and Alex kept pushing as they danced, thrusting one of his legs between Yuzuru’s thighs and rubbing against him. Alex’s hand, already low on the small of Yuzuru’s back, slipped further down, his fingers curling around the curve of Yuzuru’s ass.
Javier stood still and waited for the music to play out, his eyes never wavering as someone else touched his boyfriend in places they had no business touching. Nothing to do but stand there watching, his throat thickening with every second.
Alex swung Yuzuru around abruptly, causing Yuzuru to stumble and nearly fall into Alex’s chest. Alex shook with laughter, and Javier’s heart burned. He could see Yuzuru’s face now over Alex’s shoulder -- his eyes were hard, and he was smiling tightly through clenched teeth. Alex put his lips to Yuzuru’s ear, whispering something, and Yuzuru’s smile grew even more strained.
That was enough. Javier didn’t care anymore that he was making a scene, as he strode through the sea of couples, excusing himself. He tapped Alex’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, I need to talk to my training partner.”
Alex glanced back over his shoulder. “We’re busy right now. Let us enjoy a moment, yeah?”
“Maybe you’re enjoying it. I don’t think he’s enjoying it very much at all.”
Alex finally released Yuzuru and turned around to face Javier, and the smell of alcohol slammed Javier in the face. “He hasn’t said no to me the whole night.” Alex pushed Javier’s shoulder rather brazenly with a finger. “So I think we’re just going to keep on dancing. What are you going to do about it?”
Javier stared straight into Alex, his fists clenching. The refrain of Don’t hit him don’t hit him don’t hit him was running through his head, and maybe the only thing that had him listening to that voice right now was that it spoke broken Spanish in a Japanese accent. He forced himself to unclench his fist, his fingers reluctantly releasing themselves. “Nothing,” he finally said. “Yuzuru is an adult, and he can make his own decisions. If he wants to come with me, then he’ll come with me. If he wants to stay here and dance with you… that’s fine too.”
Alex looked at Yuzuru. Yuzuru glanced between the both of them, and then he quickly looped his hand around Javier’s arm. “I want to get out of here,” he whispered.
**
They finally found a storeroom where they could be alone behind closed doors. Javier let out a breath between his teeth as the door clicked shut. “He should not be touching you like that.”
Yuzuru looked exhausted, his eyes nearly drooping shut. “Javier, we agreed earlier. It’s fine –”
“It is not fine. That is not what we agreed on. Letting people sexually harass you is not what we agreed on,” Javier insisted. “I know you. I can tell when you’re feeling uncomfortable, and he was making you feel uncomfortable.” He paused, forcing himself to breathe out slowly. “If you don’t want people touching you, then they shouldn’t be touching you. You have a right to tell them no.” He bit his lip. “That includes me.”
Javier whirled haphazardly around in a half-circle and idly kicked at a box on one of the metal racks. “I don’t know. Maybe I see things wrong.” He exhaled; the air tasted bitter on his tongue. “I forget sometimes, that I’m your first relationship. Did you like dancing with somebody else? Did you like having his hands on you?”
“Of course I didn’t,” Yuzuru rejoined hotly. He stepped closer into Javier’s space, and Javier could feel the welcoming heat off his body. “You know I didn’t. It made me feel wrong and gross. The only way I got through him touching me everywhere was thinking of you the whole time. I think to myself, ‘If this is what I have to do to stay with Javi, then this is what I will do.’” Yuzuru’s voice cracked, and he shook his head wildly, trying to dispel the emotion. “‘If I have to let some stranger grope me so that I can be with my boyfriend, then so be it.’”
Hearing the actual words come out of his lover’s mouth just made the entire thing sound ridiculous. “This is so stupid.” Javier blew out an exasperated breath. “Why do you need to let some creep grope you just so we can be together?”
“Because you don’t want anybody to find out about us!”
“Oh, don’t pin this whole thing on me! I don’t care if everybody knows! I just know it might hurt your reputation and get crazy media people writing things about you, so I pretended!”
“Well, I don’t care if everybody knows either! I just pretended because I didn’t want to hurt your reputation and have crazy media people writing things about you!”
They paused. They looked at each other.
**
Final Lesson: Schooling the Teacher
Back in his office in Toronto, Brian looked up from his paperwork to find his two prize students, standing united in front of his desk. “Yes?”
“We’re calling this quits,” Javier announced. “It’s not worth it. It’s not worth it to ignore him in public and pretend he doesn’t exist, it’s not worth it to kiss strangers and fight and stress about it, and it’s definitely not worth it to watch drunk people grope my boyfriend and treat him like meat.” Javier gave a single, firm nod of his head. “We don’t care anymore. We’re just going to live our lives.”
They had expected Brian to put up a protest, given how much he had invested in this effort -- but Brian just paused, considering, as he looked at the two of them. Then he shrugged and returned his attention to his paperwork. “If you’re sure.”
Javier and Yuzuru looked at each other again, engaging in their usual ocular conversation. “We’re sure,” they said finally, and left his office, hand in hand.
**
“So? How are Javier and Yuzuru doing?”
“Great. Physically healthy, emotionally well, training’s going as planned.”
“Come on.” Tracy had eyes that could twinkle at will. “You know what I mean.”
Brian didn’t bother hiding his smile any longer. “Well, they’re done jumping through ridiculous hoops trying to hide their relationship.” He shook his head, his smile growing as he remembered some of the crazy things he had them do. “I mean, sure, discretion is great -- but going overboard trying to hide it is pointless, and they should just enjoy themselves without worrying too much about what other people are saying.”
“And you couldn’t just tell them all that.”
“I could have,” Brian conceded, “but it wouldn’t mean as much to them if they didn’t realize it for themselves.”
Tracy shook her head, chuckling. “You’re a horrible manipulator.”
“The worst,” Brian agreed. He looked through his office window out onto the rink, where Yuzuru and Javier were chatting away happily and naturally, open adoration in their eyes, oblivious to the other skaters around them. “But look at their faces. Wasn’t it all worth it?”