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It doesn’t feel real until Javi grabs Shoma by the back of the neck and pulls him in. It doesn’t feel real even then, face buried in the crook of Javi’s shoulder and jaw. It doesn’t feel real for Yuzu to be shaking apart, sobbing words Shoma can’t understand but knows. He just knows.
Javi says something that makes Yuzu shake harder. He can feel them both, Yuzu on his right, his hand curled tightly in Shoma’s shirt, and Javi on his left, shaking, too, but out of laughter. It’s safe, between them, the wall behind him, screams and cheering and constant applause from above and all sides. But it doesn’t feel real. Not really.
“Do you feel it yet,” Yuzu asks him, a few hours later. He’s taking off his shirt and seems to be deliberating on whether he wants to be naked or pull on a new one. Javi, already sprawled out on the bed, looks up from his phone.
He’s probably texting the new girl. She’s cute. Javi says she feels like home, that he wants to feel like he has a home. Shoma understands that: he carries pieces of home with him in Mihoko and his team. He wouldn’t want to leave them behind for anything. Anyone.
Lots of things have changed in this past year. The relationship between the three of them is constantly in negotiation, constantly in flux.
“No,” Shoma replies to Yuzu, but he’s looking at Javi, because Javi is the one who looks concerned. Yuzu is probably in a better position to understand Shoma’s lack of immediate reaction: his entire season has been unreal, his injury, his comeback, his win.
Shoma smiles at him, awkwardly. Javi sits up, shakes his head. “It’ll come with time,” he says, as if to reassure. Shoma isn’t sure about that, but it doesn’t matter. Javi grins at him, shrugs, “...and even if it doesn’t, you’ll have an Olympic medal and you get a big cuddle. I think that means you’re winning in life, whether you realise it or not.”
Yuzu snorts, and digs his elbow into Shoma’s side. Shoma hadn’t realized he’d snuck up on him, but he leans into Yuzu’s body, leans and leans until Yuzu laughs and has to hold him up entirely.
“Tradition?” Shoma asks, just to make sure that this is what they’re here for.
They haven’t done this since World Team Trophy, since almost an entire year ago. Yuzu nods. Shoma can feel it against the back of his head and the top of his shoulder. Javi’s eyes turn fond, the crinkles around them deepening in a way that makes Shoma’s stomach clench.
There was the time spent goofing around at shows, playing and getting closer, a push and pull of friendship and attraction and, yes, love. Just a little, just at the edges of everything they were doing. There was potential, he thinks, for happiness, then.
And then they all returned to real life: training, preparation, single-minded focus on the ultimate goal. Gold. A medal. Performances worth the price they pay.
Yuzu pushes Shoma to stand on his own two feet, and slides familiar fingers under the hem of his shirt. Shoma breathes, deeply, and watches Yuzu’s hands pull it up, fingers dancing over skin in the process, slow and tender and explorative until Shoma feels like he’s going to vibrate apart just from this.
“Yuzu,” he says, and feels Yuzu chuckle. His breath is at the back of Shoma’s neck in a way that isn’t entirely comfortable. “Javi.”
Javi laughs at them. “Don’t stop on my account. I know you guys haven’t seen each other in a while, so…”
“Raise your arms up,” Yuzu says, ignoring Javi’s comment, and Shoma listens. The shirt is pulled over his head and thrown in the general direction of Yuzu’s laundry basket. It’s more of a laundry corner, really.
“Come here,” Javi says. The joking tone is gone from his voice, all that’s left is gentle reassurance. Yuzu gives Shoma a push, right between the shoulder blades, that is entirely unnecessary. Shoma remembers this well. He wants, wants so badly to lie skin against skin between the two of them, to be held until maybe he can feel real in his skin again.
He goes without protest. Climbs onto the bed and over Javi, who holds him up by the shoulder and waist, something like a hug that leads Shoma to fit himself against his side just right. Javi sighs, pleased, and leans against Shoma’s chest. His weight is lovely, grounding and pleasantly warm. Yuzu giggles, and then he’s up and on the bed as well.
He leans over Javi, presses a kiss to his cheek that makes him smile, then, after Javi nods and curls his hand around the back of Yuzu’s head to pull him closer, he presses a kiss to his lips as well. They breathe together, lips against lips with the softest amount of pressure, and then they break apart. Yuzu smiles, a little shaky around the edges.
Shoma half expects him to worm between the two of them, but Yuzu climbs over Shoma, and hugs him, knees curled behind his, chest against Shoma’s back. He runs a hand up his arm, and then down Javi’s. Shoma watches as he wraps his fingers around Javi’s wrist, and Javi turns it so Yuzu’s fingertips are pressed to the soft skin on the inside. Shoma buries his face in the crook of Javi’s shoulder again, and closes his eyes.
It was a lovely kiss to watch: simultaneously hello and goodbye, it is comfort and affection and familiarity all wrapped into nostalgia. Something they can have in the present that may not carry into the future, something from the past they couldn’t quite carry into the present.
There was discord between them, these past months. Shoma knows this, and yet, he has his own relationship to both of them, and he can’t understand the push and pull between them, probably he never will. There is so much history, so much negotiation that he wasn’t a part of. And yet, he’s caught in the edges of it, because he adores them both, and he wants to smooth over the jagged bits that this past year has revealed.
“Good,” Yuzu declares, once he has settled against Shoma. Javi laughs, full bellied, and nods. “Yeah. This feels right.”
Shoma just nods, hoping that they’ll both feel the movement, because he’s too tired to try to speak. It doesn’t really matter if they don’t catch it. Shoma just wants to soak this in. It’s better. He’s been carrying tension in his shoulders and thighs for months, it feels, that is finally fading.
“Media tomorrow,” Yuzu whispers against his neck. He says it in Japanese, and it sounds like home, a little. “Maybe a thousand questions will make this real for you, huh?”
Shoma shakes his head again. Javi, who probably didn’t understand what Yuzu said, reaches to pat Shoma’s hip consolingly. Yuzu’s hand goes with him. It feels a little like being part of a big, six-legged, six-armed creature, right now.
“I’ll miss this,” Javi says, in slow English. “I’ll miss you.”
Yuzu reaches over Shoma and swats at Javi’s face. “Shut up,” he doesn’t sound the least upset, and the slaps must be gentle enough because Javi barely complains, “if you make me cry again I’ll kick you.”
“Don’t make him cry,” Shoma murmurs. It comes out sleepy and muffled, and both of them laugh at him for it, “no more tears.”
“You’re so sweet,” Yuzu murmurs back, and presses a kiss to Shoma’s cheek. Shoma turns in his direction. Like a flower to the sun, he thinks, blurry and distracted. He must have said it, because Javi laughs again, and Yuzu presses another kiss to his face, the corner of his eye, his temple, and then, when Shoma makes a complaining noise and blinks his eyes open enough to actually look at Yuzu’s face, he smiles, bright and happy. Shoma leans up and kisses him, hard.
They haven’t done this since shows ended and Yuzu went back to Canada. It’s easy enough to fall back into it, all of this, the weird and the good and the comforting, despite the fact that when Yuzu fell, when he did the idiot thing of pushing himself too hard, Shoma was upset.
Upset enough to give him up. Upset enough to call him, even though he doesn’t like calling. Upset enough to cry, and to make Yuzu cry, and to tell him not to be distracted, by them, by this, by anything.
It was Yuzu’s choice to cut out everything and everyone and to focus fully on rehabilitation, but Shoma made it easy for him. He thinks Javi may have been hard on him. Shoma just let him do what he had to do, and Shoma doubled down on his training just the same. But he missed him.
Yuzu gentles the kiss until it’s just lips against lips, shallow like Yuzu kissed Javi, until it’s just affection and ease. Shoma could do this forever, but he could also sigh and moan and open his mouth. There is no space and no energy for that, not right then, but it’s brimming under the surface. It’s something Shoma wants, like he wants to win, like he wants to skate forever and ever.
Not right now. But soon.
Shoma pulls back, rueful. He’s probably bright red. Yuzu is certainly blushing. “Sorry, Javi.”
Javi snorts, wiggles himself ever so slightly closer to Shoma and drops a kiss of his own, low onto his cheek. “Don’t worry about it,” he says, “I missed making fun of you guys as much as I missed this tradition of ours.”
Yuzu giggles at that and settles down again.
“Do you think you will do this, even if Javi doesn’t compete anymore?” Shoma asks, hesitant and low, in Japanese because he can’t find the right words in any other language. Yuzu hums, and then poses the question to Javi, who nods.
“I’m not going to disappear. Skating is my life,” he says. He sounds sure, solid. “And Yuzu is going to stay my friend for as long as he wants to be.”
“Okay,” Shoma whispers. “That’s good.”
“You, too. You’re included,” Javi smiles, and shakes Shoma a little. “Of course you’re invited to where I am, always. When I build the rink at home, I want you both to come and bring the—”
“--money,” Yuzu laughs. “We bring the crazy fans with money.”
Javi snorts. “Yes, that is the only thing I’m cuddling you for. It is my most devious plan.”
“I knew it,” Shoma laughs.
“No,” Javi says, “not just that, though. I want… I want to build a community. A home. For skaters from Spain, but also skaters from everywhere. That works better when people are different.”
Yuzu, reaching over Shoma, flaps his hand in Javi’s face again. “Stop. I’m going to cry again.”
He is mostly joking, but he does sound a little congested. It’s probably not healthy for a person to cry so much in one day. Shoma twists back to him again, and kisses his chin. It’s the only part of him he can reach without Yuzu’s help, and Yuzu doesn’t move until Shoma has already patted his head clumsily with his free hand and kissed him.
It makes Yuzu laugh, and Javi, too.
Shoma wants to pull them all even closer together, but that’s probably not his place. He can try, though. He can take every invitation extended to him, can talk to both of them even when they don’t talk to each other, can try to understand them when they don’t quite understand each other. They are very different, and Shoma is different from both of them. Perhaps that is why he fits so seamlessly into their relationship: he evens them out in unexpected ways.
“I’ll come,” Shoma says, turning back to where Javi is watching the both of them. “If you invite me, I’ll always come.”
Javi nods, and smiles. It’s fond and kind and he is going to be great. He will build what he wants to build.
Shoma turns to Yuzu again, and Yuzu, this time, tilts towards him like he knew exactly what Shoma meant when he said that. “We need to talk,” Shoma tells him, before Yuzu closes the gap between them and kisses him softly. “We need to really, really talk.”
It doesn’t feel real, Shoma thinks, when he leans back and closes his eyes again. Not just the silver medal and the Olympics; even this, it feels too good to be true. He rests against Yuzu and Javi, and tries to think through it all: medals and success and overcoming the impossible.
The future is a steep hill with many steps leading up towards the peak, and he can’t see very far at all: Shoma takes challenges one at a time, and it doesn’t always work out perfectly. He doesn’t make plans, doesn’t want to raise expectations.
Sometimes, that means months of radio silence, sometimes it means sitting in a hotel room with your boyfriend’s romantic best friend and trying to figure out how to figure it out, and sometimes, it ends up perfectly. Sometimes, it ends with three medals on the bedside table and countless interviews looming and knowing that you will spend the next few days laughing at each other and necking in hidden corners and napping in inconvenient places.
Javi will leave soon, he will go home and show off that he has achieved his goal. Yuzu will stay, for a while, and then they will all come together for the gala. It’s too much to consider, and Shoma’s head grows heavy with the knowledge that there will be more and more as time goes by.
But they have simplicity on their side in this moment. He tries to pull both of them closer, shifting and reaching, and it causes a chain reaction in Yuzu and Javi, who adjust around him so they fit together like puzzle pieces. No matter where the future will take them, who else will become important to them, how much they grow. They have this moment right now, and they will create more moments like it in the future. Shoma feels it. He’s sure of it. It’s real.