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The past year had been a marathon, and Chuuya was tired.
Fourth at the Grand Prix, third at nationals, sixth at the Olympics. Under Mori, that would have been a terrible year.
Just over a year ago, Chuuya could barely walk because of his injury. His programs now had become more of a reflection of who he was and what he enjoyed rather than programs set up solely for the point of winning, and any success he had was for himself rather than out of fear that he wasn’t good enough. If he was satisfied with himself, he didn’t have to prove himself to anyone else.
That didn’t mean he didn’t want to win. Chuuya had always set high standards for himself, which was why he was competing at the World Championships even when a lot of those who had competed at the Olympics weren’t.
Dazai wasn’t. His Olympic gold satisfied him enough that he didn’t feel the need to and even though he’d enjoyed his first season back after his hiatus, he wanted to rest. Akutagawa was still injured, which left Chuuya and Nakajima Atsushi and whoever was called up for the third spot to compete.
Fukuzawa and Dazai were still concerned about Chuuya pushing himself too much. Dazai was worried — Chuuya was still getting used to the concept of him worrying — that Chuuya was trying too hard to prove himself because he wasn’t satisfied with how he’d done already.
Chuuya was looking for satisfaction rather than to prove something. He couldn’t get rid of this feeling that there was something more he needed to do. He wanted to see out the season in its entirety, to use the hard work of the past year to its fullest potential. The Olympics were one thing, but Chuuya still felt like he had more to offer and it would be nice to do it in a place where the world was still watching but they were watching a little less.
The high stakes had always been a huge source of anxiety, but they’d also motivated him to be his best, and this season he thought he was finally finding the balance between the two.
“You know what,” Dazai said over dinner after Chuuya decided he would compete at the World Championships. “It’s good you’re going. It was a good decision.”
“Thank you,” Chuuya said.
“I get to take a vacation to Italy!” Dazai smiled.
Chuuya almost threw his plate at him.
The championships being halfway across the world was both exciting and worrying. Chuuya enjoyed traveling, but it was always difficult to overcome things like jet-lag, the general getting used to a foreign city, and the tiredness that came from just being on a plane in the first place.
Chuuya also didn’t speak Italian.
Not that it mattered. Most of the business of the competition was conducted in English, and translators were available if needed. Dazai and Chuuya both knew English, though they weren’t quite fluent. Learning it had been, according to Mori, a necessity, and it was one thing Chuuya was thankful for because it gave him one less thing to worry about.
In fact, the only thing he really had to worry about besides his health was the competition itself.
“Only.”
He would try not to worry too much about it until he got there.
*
The thing about the World Championships after the Olympics was that it presented a different playing field. A lot of athletes had exhausted themselves preparing for the Olympics, which served as the climax of the season, so they didn’t compete. Those who did usually weren’t the people who medaled, which gave a chance to less well-known skaters.
Chuuya wasn’t less well-known, but it did take some pressure off him to have the playing field look different than it did during the Olympics. He didn’t know everyone here, which in some ways was helpful, because he couldn’t stress about competing against someone when he didn’t know what exactly to be stressed about. Competing against someone like Dazai was fun, but it was also stressful. Even putting the stress aside, Chuuya was kind of curious about who would stand out.
He and Dazai arrived in Italy with a few days to spare before the event, most of which would include training. Dazai, however, seemed to have something different in mind.
Because their flight arrived in the morning, Dazai seemed to think that the best thing for them to do would be to actually spend the day out of the hotel and then go to sleep at a normal time. That logic was actually pretty good, but Chuuya was dead tired.
“Come on Chuuya,” Dazai begged, dragging Chuuya off their shared bed. “Don’t you know what this city is famous for?”
“Don’t say some stupid shit like romance,” Chuuya mumbled into his pillow.
“Fashion,” Dazai said.
Chuuya sat up, suddenly more awake. “You’re serious?”
“Absolutely.”
“How did I not know this?”
“Because you never have spare time, Chuuya.”
That was true. From the time he became a teenager onwards, his life had become more and more consumed by skating.
“You better be right,” he said, standing up and stretching.
Dazai beamed at him. “I’m always right.”
Chuuya wasn’t so sure, but he made sure to wear one of his best hats.
*
Dazai was right.
Sometimes Chuuya wished that their competitions would be held in places that weren’t interesting. It was frustrating to travel such a long way to such interesting places and never have enough time to actually see them. Chuuya had been been so absorbed in the competitions the past few years that he didn’t even try.
Clearly Dazai was trying to change that. It was working.
Milan was an impressive city. Dazai wasn’t kidding when he said it was a place known for fashion — there were so many shops full of beautiful clothing that Chuuya could never afford. He got sidetracked by quite a few shops but only managed to buy one thing: another hat.
It was only when even the old architecture of the city and the high quality stores couldn’t hold back Chuuya’s exhaustion that Dazai allowed them to stop at a cafe for coffee.
Chuuya liked the cafe they’d chosen even if there wasn’t anything unique about it. It was on a side street with outdoor seating. A handful of customers sat around them and the sounds of the city seemed distant. Dazai ordered them both cappuccinos and told Chuuya to judge the coffee, because he was better at that sort of thing.
“It’s good,” Chuuya said. “I don’t know how good because I feel like I could sleep for a thousand years and this is the only thing keeping me upright.”
“Good enough,” Dazai said. He took a sip of his drink and put the cup down. “How was that for a date?”
“Date?”
“We have barely been on any dates,” Dazai said. “I know the season will be over soon but I’m an impatient man.”
Chuuya wondered if not knowing this whole thing was a date meant it was a good date. “I liked it.”
“Good.” Dazai leaned back in his chair. “You’ll be rejuvenated for practice tomorrow.”
Practice. Chuuya had almost forgotten what he was here for. “You’re distracting me from thinking about the competition.”
“It’s working,” Dazai said, “but I know you’d freak out if you went to sleep and realized you hadn’t thought about it all day. Are you keeping the same program layout?”
There had been a lot of discussion between him and Fukuzawa about whether or not to add to one of the programs or to keep them the same as they had been during the Olympics. Chuuya did not pull them off effortlessly, but he also wasn’t one to shy away from a challenge, and he realized that he really did want to be on the podium at least once this year for a big international competition. Maybe that was the old part of him feeling like he wasn’t good enough, or maybe that was a natural part of him that wanted to challenge himself.
Figuring out how to put together a program required, if one was inclined to prioritize points, a certain amount of math, a thing that Chuuya wasn’t good at and something Fukuzawa didn’t particularly care about, in addition to the artistry. Mori had been big on maximizing the base point value of a program so that, if it was performed perfectly, would have a higher amount of points than someone else’s program with a lower base value even that person also performed perfectly.
Clean skates for Chuuya had always been inconsistent, and the base value of some of his programs under Mori had saved him at times so that even when he made mistakes, because his program was more difficult than others’, he could still edge out ahead of them or be very close behind them in points. This was something he was considering now.
Right now his program’s base value wasn’t low, but it wasn’t the highest either, and Chuuya didn’t always skate cleanly even with his new method of training. He made fewer mistakes, but he was still working up to how he used to be, and sometimes he hesitated on jumps, or went into them with too much power, because he wasn’t completely confident in his own body yet. Sometimes he felt like he didn’t know it well at all because of how the injury changed things.
Other times he recognized his capabilities and knew what to do even though things felt different. It was an up-and-down process. Fukuzawa told him that recovery wasn’t as simple as constantly getting better, so he shouldn’t worry if some days were worse than others, and Chuuya tried to remind himself of that so that he wouldn’t let anxiety consume him. He mostly succeeded, especially later in the season.
He really felt like right now was the best he would be until next year.
Dazai didn’t know what he was planning because Dazai didn’t go to all of his practices, and Chuuya preferred it that way. It was a bit weird to want to explain to him what he was doing after years of being his rival. Even though they were dating, it was still something Chuuya was getting used to. Dating and being each others’ competition were two different things.
Not that Dazai could really use anything against him now that he had stopped skating for the season.
“I’m thinking about it,” Chuuya said. “I made a few mistakes at the Olympics.”
It was slightly frustrating. He’d pulled off his free program perfectly when he’d skated it for Dazai, but not when he’d skated in the actual competition. Nerves definitely had something to do with it. He was still learning how to deal with them.
“If you add a second quad to the short and a fourth to the free you’ll be in a good position to win,” Dazai said. “If that’s not what you’ve been training for.”
“Not for the short.” The free skate was different. Chuuya had been thinking of adding a fourth one there, as well as making his final triple axel combination more difficult. Interestingly enough, despite not being as hard on him as Mori, Fukuzawa’s training had given Chuuya better endurance, possibly because his technique had improved.
To add an additional quad jump to the short program now would throw everything off if he messed it up. Chuuya knew that much about himself. There would be a time when he could mess up a significant part of his short program and still do well in the free without the nerves carrying over, but this year was not that time. He would keep it the same.
“But for the free?” Dazai asked.
“I’ve been thinking of two things,” Chuuya said. “But let me get through the first day of practice.”
Dazai nodded and didn’t push. He knew that for now, Chuuya needed to figure this out on his own, and Chuuya appreciated that.
Their date had done a lot to help him step back so that he could think about what he wanted to do without as much pressure.
This whole year — injury included — had been helpful in allowing Chuuya to get to know himself and his needs better. Adding a fourth quad to the free program would bring him very, very close to how he’d been skating pre-injury, which would be a huge accomplishment. He’d already accomplished so much. That he didn’t feel pressured into it spoke a lot to Fukuzawa’s training.
No one was going to force him into anything.
*
There was a certain mental block to break past in order to learn jumps. It was the willingness to launch yourself in the air and let go of the urge to pull back and stay on the ground. It was the willingness to experience the disorienting force of the spins, the harsh rise and jarring drop before hitting the hard surface of the ice. It was losing the fear of falling and the resulting pain, and going for it without hesitation despite knowing what it felt like to hit the ice and have the cold bite through skin, bruise and sometimes even break it. It was the willingness to experience all of that over and over because while it was a risk, it was a calculated one, and if points were what was important, then the rewards were great.
The points weren’t the only reward. Some people enjoyed the thrill of jumping and of seeing what they could do with their bodies when they pushed past limits most people had. Some people liked the feeling.
Even those who liked it, however, couldn’t enjoy it all the time. Not when the jumps were going badly and they suffered a lot of falls. Not when they took off and immediately knew something was wrong the second their blade left the ice but were unable to stop what would happen because it was literally all up in the air from that point on. Whether or not they managed to correct the problem, it would still be painful and still induce a heart-racing fear that they’d have to get over in time for the next jump.
It was hard, because of those things, to enjoy learning a new jump. Learning jumps could be painful because it involved taking off in a new way, landing in a new way, adding one more rotation, making the body become familiar with unfamiliar movements. Those seemed like small changes but they weren’t. Adding one more rotation especially to each type of jump required more power, ideally more height, and brought with it a higher likelihood of falling.
There were kids doing quads at thirteen and fourteen who used the fearlessness of childhood and the ignorance that bad things could happen to them to fuel their jumps. There were quite a few coaches more than willing to take advantage of that despite the high risks.
Dazai and Chuuya came from a slightly earlier generation who learned later, so at sixteen they were going to add quads into their routines for the first time.
They weren’t given a choice under Mori for if or when they wanted to start. They would learn quads now and they would use them in competition, because that was the key to getting ahead of the others in Mori’s eyes. Mori wanted results, and he calculated the points to give his skaters a higher chance of being ahead.
To him, the technical aspects of a program were what would win, because artistic execution was more subjective and therefore not consistent. It wasn’t enough. What Chuuya in particular excelled at wasn’t enough.
Chuuya was a more artistic, emotional skater. He got lost in his performances, because to him that’s what they were — he was expressing some kind of emotion or story in a performance for others to see and experience. To him, the artistic component of a program was just as important as the technical aspects, and if a skater was good enough artistically then their performance component scores would consistently reflect that. Even though he was told over and over again that the technical parts of a program were what he needed to focus on, he never let go of his opinion that the artistic parts were equally significant.
That was a hard opinion to uphold with Mori as a coach. Sometimes Chuuya would want to change a part of a program because it didn’t flow, but if that would lose him points, Mori wouldn’t allow it. As a result the performance was choppy for those programs. Other times they hit a nice compromise of changing something in a way that kept the point value the same or increased it that also flowed well with the music. Chuuya loved it when that happened and he fought to find those compromises.
He knew immediately that he was in for a world of pain when Mori told them they would be learning quadruple jumps. He knew that even if he managed to get enough rotations and land one of those jumps first, Dazai wouldn’t be far behind. Once Dazai managed to land a quad, he would be able to land them more consistently than Chuuya, and that was when Chuuya would feel Mori’s anger.
He hated Mori’s anger. He wished he didn’t care, but Chuuya had high standards for himself, perhaps even higher than the standards Mori had for him. He needed to please people, because when he didn’t they tended to cast him aside. Other people’s opinions of his work affected the standards Chuuya set for himself, so Mori fueled Chuuya’s drive to almost dangerous levels. It was a bad combination, but at fifteen Chuuya thought it was what was best in this sport.
Chuuya did have two advantages over Dazai though: he had more power to his jumps, he was shorter, and both those things were helping him.
It wasn’t a huge advantage. Dazai didn’t weigh more than him because he was so thin, but his height made his balance different.
As a result Chuuya was the first one of them to land a quad jump.
Dazai was the first one to land every single type of quad, though, and that was a point of contention between them and a point of frustration for Chuuya. Any successes he had always seemed to be overwhelmed by what Dazai could do, and then Mori would be angry with him for not performing that well.
“I’m going to go for a quad axel,” Dazai said with a wide smile over lunch after one particularly grueling practice. Grueling for Chuuya, anyway.
“I’m going to kill you,” Chuuya said. If Dazai managed to do something like that then he might as well quit now.
“What exactly do you find so hard about it?” Dazai asked, leaning forward and ignoring the food on his lunch tray. His eyes were on Chuuya’s face as if he was inspecting him, and Chuuya felt the rest of the cafeteria fade away.
It was a weird feeling, to have Dazai’s full attention and to have feelings about having his full attention. It was almost like he enjoyed it while being nervous at the same time, because Dazai was a challenge personified, but he knew that he would probably get angry very soon because that was how Dazai worked.
“What do you mean?” He asked.
“Well...you have all the triples down,” Dazai said, “even if you’re inconsistent. You have the power to do the quads and you know the technique for how it works, so shouldn’t you be able to do them now that you’ve gotten used to all that?”
Chuuya couldn’t tell if this was a roundabout insult or a genuine question, and truthfully it was probably both. “That’s not how it works.”
“Isn’t it?” Dazai looked confused.
“Not everyone can be you,” Chuuya said. “Not everyone can do things just because they know how it’s done.”
“But they should,” Dazai said. “Come on, Chuuya. What’s wrong?”
Chuuya didn’t think for a second that Dazai genuinely cared, but the question itself wasn’t a bad one. Even if knowing how to do something didn’t guarantee being able to do it, Chuuya should have been able to land most if not all of those jumps. These quads meant a lot for competition, so they meant a lot to Mori, which meant there was a lot of pressure to land them and land them well.
He wondered if he’d be able to land them without Mori there.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d practiced without Mori around. It was almost impossible these days just in terms of logistics. He was too young to really know how to schedule things on his own.
The idea that he could land jumps specifically because his coach wasn’t there felt a bit treacherous, but at the same time, he couldn’t get it out of his head now that he’d thought it, and he knew it wouldn’t leave him alone.
“You look like you’ve got an idea in that tiny brain of yours,” Dazai said.
Chuuya brushed aside the insult. “I’m going to ask if I can use the rink later tonight,” he said. “You can stay with me if you want, or go home.”
“This is the first time you’ve tried to get the rink to yourself,” Dazai said. “I’ll watch.”
As it turned out, getting the rink to himself was impossible, but Chuuya got permission to use the rink while another set of figure skaters trained under a different coach. That was fine — all he needed was the ice and a lack of his own coach.
Dazai stood by the entrance to the rink. “I’ll be your coach this evening.”
“Shut up, you won’t,” Chuuya said. He stepped on to the ice and began warming up.
“At least let me call out which jump you should do,” Dazai said loudly after Chuuya had done a few triple jumps without incident.
“Fine,” Chuuya said. Some direction would be good.
“Quad axel.”
“Fuck off.”
“Fine. Quad toe loop.”
Chuuya figured that Dazai would go in the order from what Chuuya had landed to what he hadn’t. Chuuya had landed this one, although his landings were precarious most of the time. This time he landed it with ease.
“Salchow.”
Chuuya also had landed this jump, so he didn’t feel too shaky about it. He felt like he landed it better now than in practice, though.
“Flip.”
Chuuya had not landed this jump or any of the others Dazai had yet to call out. He took a bit longer to get into it, using the luxury of the fact that he wasn’t competing right now to take as much preparation as he needed before he launched himself in the air...and landed it.
It wasn’t a perfect landing. Chuuya spun out of his exit, but it had been four rotations in the air and he’d landed on the correct foot and edge for it to count.
Dazai was quiet for a moment before he said, “loop.”
Chuuya took his time again before bending his knee to thrust himself up. He went into it with too much power, overcompensating, and fell.
He scrambled up, ready for a reprimand that never came, and remembered that Mori wasn’t there.
“Again,” Dazai said, sounding bored.
Chuuya didn’t feel anger from Dazai like he felt from Mori. He could sense Dazai’s judgement, but even that was muted this evening. Dazai didn’t have anything to gain or lose by Chuuya failing to land his jumps. It didn’t reflect on his own value as a skater, so his emotions were almost non-existent.
That was helpful.
Chuuya launched himself in the air again and this time managed to hold on to the landing.
“Lutz,” Dazai said.
The lutz was hard for him even as a triple, and he was pretty sure he took a ridiculous amount of time skating around the ice before actually attempting the jump. He fell, nearly crashing into the boards, and heard Dazai say “again.”
The same thing happened three more times, but each time Chuuya felt like he could correct what was wrong. It took some getting used to, but Dazai wasn’t angry, just bored. Chuuya didn’t give a damn about Dazai’s level of entertainment so he felt like he could make all the mistakes he needed. Eventually he managed to land one.
“Congrats, Chuuya,” Dazai said. “You finally landed —”
Chuuya ignored him and went around for another attempt. This time the landing was cleaner, and Chuuya felt like he wasn’t just hanging on by the skin of his teeth.
Feeling satisfied, he skated over to the exit and stepped off the ice. His legs felt like jelly and he was covered in sweat, but he’d done it. He’d landed those quads.
“When you tell him he won’t believe you unless you can reproduce the results,” Dazai pointed out as they walked to the locker rooms.
“It’s a good thing you witnessed me, then,” Chuuya said. He stopped walking and turned to Dazai. “Thanks, by the way.”
Dazai’s eyes were flat. “For what? I’m just tired of Mori wasting time on you.”
Chuuya watched as Dazai continued his walk to the locker rooms, not sure what to make of that. It was an insult, but at the same time Dazai had wasted time on him too, and the result had been good.
Chuuya didn’t want to admit it to himself, but this made it pretty clear that Mori had a big effect on his skating, and it wasn't necessarily a good one. He was young, though.
He genuinely believed this was the best way forward.
*
“I’m going to do it.”
“Do what?” Dazai asked, as if he hadn’t been watching the majority of Chuuya’s practice and the run-throughs of his proposed changes to the free program.
Chuuya swatted at his arm as he stepped off the ice. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“It looks good,” Dazai said.
“It should.” Chuuya turned and started walking towards the locker rooms. Dazai followed. Truthfully, Chuuya had no idea what it looked like, but Fukuzawa and Dazai both agreed that it looked good, and it didn’t feel awkward or unnatural, so Chuuya was inclined to believe them.
The short was tomorrow. Now that he was off the ice, Chuuya could feel the nerves creeping up on him, and he was glad he was saving his extra difficulty for the free rather than diving straight into it. He was tempted to turn around and get back on the ice, to make sure that he had everything down even though he knew he’d be unsatisfied. It was the sort of old thinking that had led to his injury in the first place.
Instead he asked Dazai if he wanted to go to dinner. He was grateful for Dazai’s presence — if anyone knew how to distract him, it was Dazai.
*
The ringing in Chuuya’s ears was barely drowned out by the music he’d put on in the hopes of keeping his focus on the one thing that mattered: his short program.
He told himself over and over again that what other people accomplished didn’t matter, so he didn’t want to know what had happened until after he was done skating. It was tempting to take out his earplugs and listen, or to look up what was going on with his phone.
There was, however, one score he couldn’t avoid hearing, and it was always the score of the person skating before him.
That person was usually good. Everyone in Chuuya’s group was extremely good, which meant that more often than not Chuuya heard an intimidating number.
This time was no different. As Chuuya was heading towards the rink he heard the crowd erupt into cheers as the previous skater, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, took his bows. Dostoyevsky was a bit like Dazai used to be, very technically precise and consistent, and nerves didn’t seem to play a part in his skating. He’d been a thorn in both Chuuya’s and Dazai’s sides for the past few years, and no matter how much they wanted him to lose his stamina and preciseness to age, he didn’t.
Chuuya’s heart started beating faster and he took deep breaths. A hand tapped his shoulder and he turned around.
Dazai pulled him close and kissed him.
Chuuya hadn’t been expecting that. He hadn’t expected Dazai to be down here at all and his breath caught at seeing the fondness in Dazai’s eyes, a look he never thought he’d see before this year.
“You’ll do great, Chuuya,” he said.
Chuuya’s heart was beating too fast for an entirely different reason now.
“Don’t worry,” Dazai said, squeezing his arm. “Everyone’s too distracted with Dostoyevsky to be watching us.”
Chuuya didn’t care if anyone saw them. He tried to get himself to speak, to tell Dazai thank you, but Dazai pushed him forward.
He took a shaky breath and passed a few people who seemed to be watching him closely. Everyone was probably watching him closely for one reason or another as he stepped on to the rink and turned to talk to Fukuzawa.
At this point, the scores were announced. Chuuya couldn’t avoid hearing them, and high scores tended to do one of two things to him: light a fire under him and make him want to beat the person before him, or fuel his anxiety.
He was tending towards the urge to shove his success in Dostoyevsky’s face.
Fukuzawa had never been one to say many words right before each program. This time was no different as he looked Chuuya in the eye and gave him a slight nod.
Chuuya nodded back, a bit encouraged because Fukuzawa only really said things if Chuuya looked visibly nervous or if practice had gone badly. Right now he seemed to think that Chuuya would do well, and Fukuzawa was a realistic man, so Chuuya believed him as he turned around and skated to the center of the ice.
The moment of silence between when he took his starting position and the music started were the hardest. It lasted only a few seconds, a few breaths, but somehow it was enough time for a stray thought to come to the surface or an emotion to take over. He always tried to clear his mind and get into the character of the performance, to turn everything else off.
This time the stray thought that flitted through his head was, this is the last competition of the year and these people watching expect great things from you.
Then the music started and Chuuya turned his focus towards that instead.
If only thoughts would leave that easily. The emotion caused by those thoughts made themselves known in the jumps, because those were the elements that were most visibly impressive, the elements that people were watching for, and the elements with the most points.
With this program it was easy to get lost in anxiety because it was so fast-paced. The music sounded like the mind of someone heading into some kind of anxiety attack if Chuuya was in the mindset to think that way, and today he was.
His quad, as a result, was off, and although he didn’t fall he did put his hand down. He had some time to recover. At the very least this was the only quad he had to worry about, and he was past it. Next was the triple axel, which he barely hung on to, and then a sequence of spins. He really just wanted to get to the step sequence, which he knew he would do well on, where he would feel more in his element.
He did pull off the last jumping pass, though, and the step sequence and spins were done flawlessly. The crowd cheered loudly for him when he stopped and he gasped for breath, his heart pounding as he took his bows before exiting the rink.
He hated waiting for the scores. People could see him, so he tried not to visibly look nervous or upset. He also didn’t like talking during that time, although some people did. He didn’t want to make any assumptions about what the judges would do with his performance.
When the scores came up, he was in fourth. He didn’t know whether or not that was a good thing. His mind was blank.
Because if he wanted to make the podium, a lot was riding on how he performed tomorrow.
*
Chuuya was used to coming back from behind before, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed it or that he was always successful.
He wasn’t always successful. It was generally a crapshoot as to whether or not his sheer desperation would turn into a good program or a disastrous one.
He was quiet that night over dinner, picking at his food and lost in his thoughts. He couldn’t add the extra quad jump to his program tomorrow, and he couldn’t turn his combination into a more difficult one. Not when he’d barely managed to pull off his jumps today. He’d kept those jumps the same in the hopes that he’d pull them off flawlessly, and he hadn’t, so he was grateful that he hadn’t decided to make them harder.
By playing it safe he might not get as many points tomorrow, but he’d probably put on a better performance as a result.
He was frustrated that despite several very talented skaters not competing, he’d still only managed fourth. That also played into his hesitation.
Dazai noticed that Chuuya wasn’t really eating and got their food wrapped up, paid the bill, and insisted that they go for a walk. Chuuya almost wanted to go straight to their room and go to bed, but Dazai seemed determined for them to take a walk.
Outside it was chilly, though the brutal sharpness of winter was gone. It was about the same temperature outside that it was in the rink, which didn’t help Chuuya not think about it. Even the beautiful landmarks of the city lit up didn’t leave Chuuya enthralled enough to forget his problems.
Dazai led them into a large square in front of an elaborate church. Chuuya remembered being there the first day and feeling a lot happier than he did now.
“This walk isn’t clearing your head,” Dazai said.
“No,” Chuuya admitted.
Dazai led them to one side of the square and had Chuuya sit down on the sidewalk. “What’s going on?”
“You saw what happened,” Chuuya said. “I can’t make my program tomorrow more difficult.”
“Why not?”
Chuuya took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t think I can pull it off without falling or messing up in some major way. I barely got through today’s program.”
“It’s the last competition of the season,” Dazai said. “What do you have to lose?”
“Besides the actual competition? I want this to end on a good note,” Chuuya said. “Even if I don’t injure myself, I don’t want my last program of the season to suck after everything I’ve done. I definitely don’t want to finish in a shitty place.”
“You haven’t finished in a shitty place all season even with mistakes and even when your programs were less difficult,” Dazai said, “because you’re that good. You have to be easier on yourself — “
“I am easier on myself,” Chuuya said, “but I want to go in there knowing I’ll be able to pull off a good program.”
Dazai was quiet for a moment. “You’re worried about the jumps mostly, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But you’re not as worried as you used to be about falling and repeating your injury, right?”
Chuuya gave him a wary look. There were times when he felt an ache where he’d been injured and he knew it wasn’t because he’d hurt himself again, but rather because the injury had changed things whether he liked it or not. “Sometimes...but I try not to think about it.”
Dazai waved his hand. “Now that you can enjoy the jumps without worrying about falling every single time, you should do them,” he insisted. “Do them, but jump higher and with the power I know you’re capable of instead of pulling back. You have more confidence and your technique is better. You’re more consistent because of that, which means when you jump it’s safer, so show everyone what you can actually do. You might enjoy it.”
Chuuya did want to enjoy the rush. He wanted to show people what he could do and feel the pride he used to feel after a particularly good program. Other people recognizing his talent was a great feeling, but there was something even better that Chuuya was re-learning after his injury.
What made those jumps equally heart-stoppingly stressful while at the same time thrilling, what made Chuuya want to try over and over again, what kept him coming back, was that it was the closest he’d ever get to flying.
If the injury wasn’t the thing stopping him, then what was? He looked at Dazai, and thought about how when he’d practiced his free program in front of Dazai he hadn’t made mistakes. It was the only time he’d done it perfectly and it wasn’t because Dazai didn’t have the same expectations of him as everyone else.
Dazai didn’t need him to win or lose even when he was competing — he enjoyed the challenge and he enjoyed watching Chuuya skate. He knew all the hard work that went into creating those programs and knew that sometimes the few minutes on the ice didn’t reflect everything that the skater had gone through, that sometimes it only reflected the mindset in that moment or the events of that day despite the months and years leading up to it. He knew, and he wasn’t judging.
That he understood where Chuuya’s mindset had come from, the struggles he faced, and that he simply wanted Chuuya to succeed for no other reason than that he enjoyed Chuuya’s skating and Chuuya as a person, was exactly what Chuuya needed.
It was the audience’s and his own expectations that held him back when he focused too much on them. Right now his own expectations were exactly what was making him turn away from the challenge of a harder program. He expected himself to do well and didn’t want to fall. He hadn’t had a perfect free program all season aside from when he’d skated with only Dazai as an audience, and he expected that by now he should be able to pull one off. The audience and the judges probably did, too.
Dazai didn’t. Dazai knew what he was capable of and he wanted Chuuya to try to challenge himself, but he didn’t expect perfection. Neither did Fukuzawa, because neither of them were Mori, and Chuuya had to remember that. They were, after all, the only people he’d really talk to at length after it was over. They were the only ones who would know how he really felt.
And still, he couldn’t make a decision.
Maybe he was putting too much importance on what everyone else might think.
“I can’t tell,” he said, “if I’d be disappointed in myself for not doing it or angry at myself if I did it and didn’t pull it off.”
Dazai hummed but didn’t say anything. Chuuya could tell he was trying to gather his thoughts and empathize before speaking.
“There’s a lot of ‘what-ifs’ in there,” he said after a moment. “You’re better at just doing things rather than overthinking them, because your brain is small.”
Chuuya’s mouth dropped open, and then he laughed. “Better than having a brain that’s too big for my head!”
“Better than having my brain being eaten away by my bad fashion choices.” Dazai plucked Chuuya’s hat from his hands and put it back on his head, a bit off-center.
Chuuya didn’t straighten it. “So you’re telling me not to think about it at all tonight.”
“Maybe just go with what you’ll feel most satisfied with,” Dazai said, “or what you end up telling yourself to do in the moment.”
“Telling myself?”
“You’ve never been consistent,” Dazai said bluntly. “That doesn’t necessarily apply to just bad things.”
“I don’t get it,” Chuuya said.
Dazai stood up, pulling Chuuya up with him. “Think about it.”
“You just said I’m shitty at thinking,” Chuuya pointed out.
“My words are so wise that they correct your shitty thinking,” Dazai said. “That’s the only time your brain works.”
“Sure,” Chuuya said. “Because telling me not to think is so wise.”
“You never know,” Dazai said. “People tend to overthink these things. It might be the best advice I’ve ever given you.”
*
Chuuya somehow managed to sleep that night. It was probably because of the talk with Dazai, and he knew that if he didn’t sleep he’d be more likely to do poorly in the program tomorrow. It was in the morning, which was good because he didn’t have much time to kill.
Maybe he wouldn’t be able to think at all.
It was weird advice, to just go out on to the ice without having decided on what to do. Dazai didn’t ask if Chuuya had made a decision over breakfast. It was almost as if he was testing Chuuya to see if he’d actually taken the advice.
Chuuya’s run-through was a challenge. He went through it with both versions of what he could choose to do just to get a feel for them. The version he’d been doing so far went well, but not perfectly. The more difficult version had several falls, except oddly most of them were in the beginning, as if his brain was trying to prevent himself from going on with it. Chuuya tried not to overanalyze it or to give in to the part of himself that was insisting that he keep things as they were. But he knew, when the competition started, that he was leaning towards keeping his program as it had been before.
Waiting through the actual competition was harder. Hearing the distant cheers of the audience and the voice of the announcer, knowing that with each name called his time was getting closer, made it difficult not to think about what he might do. At the worst, not thinking until he was on the ice would result in too much hesitation.
Maybe he would just not think there, either, and let the music and his own emotions carry him. That was a risky thing to do, but when he was feeling good it was actually a decent strategy. Fukuzawa had encouraged his artistic side, too, so he allowed himself to feel the music, emotion, and movements more than he had under Mori, and as a result he expressed them better.
Time compressed itself and too soon it was his turn to step on to the ice. When he looked at Fukuzawa this time, Fukuzawa said, “whatever you do will be the right thing to do.”
It sounded like it went with Dazai’s advice. Chuuya wondered if the two had been talking as he skated to the center of the rink and took his position.
The music started.
He let himself drift along with the opening notes. The first jump three jumps were quads, and they were the total amount of quads in the program. Getting all the hard stuff out of the way first had been a big part of his strategy this season.
His first one he landed perfectly, right in time with the music. That made him feel like he was completely in tune with the music, which in turn always gave him a bit more confidence and direction.
Chuuya nearly fell on the second quad and ended up putting his hand down. He almost panicked, but the music was still going and he was still being pulled along with it, so he allowed himself to move on without lingering on the jump.
The third quad had a less precarious landing, and the following triple axel was one he landed perfectly. Now he had some space to map out the rest of the program in terms of jumps. He realized, during his spins, that he was mapping out the rest of the program because he was actually thinking of doing the harder version, and that invigorated him.
The original version of the program had a triple-double combination here. The new plan was to have a quad-double.
As he headed into the jump, he could feel his body practically bursting with energy. Whether it was excitement or nerves, he couldn’t tell, but either way the thrill of it carried him forward — into a quad.
He missed the combination because the landing was incredibly shaky, but he didn’t fall. That was a good compromise, he thought, and changing something that quickly was a challenge in and of itself. It wasn’t just about the jumps or the points, he reminded himself. It was also about a good performance, and he still had a good performance to offer. But a good performance could be both — in fact, a good performance could be the drama of added challenge combined with the emotion.
Part of him wanted to do the rest of the program as it had been, because he’d already added difficulty and surely that was enough. Changing something else raised the possibility of a mistake, which would mess up the flow of the rest of the program.
But the momentum of the music carried him forward and this time he could feel his body itching to meet the challenge head on, because this was the last chance this season that he’d have to do it. Whether or not he succeeded didn’t seem to matter now. It was taking a chance he wouldn’t have taken even a month ago out of the lingering hesitation that his injury and shaken confidence it caused.
The fear of failure and falling was intense, but there was something special in feeling like he’d broken through that fear, whether or not he succeeded. The attempt was a kind of success in and of itself.
He could feel the fluidity of the step sequence. He loved step sequences because he loved being able to show the finer intricacies of the actual skating part of figure skating, and he felt like he could express his emotions best in these sequences. He poured his heart into them, and he was completely into it here. He allowed the step sequence to carry him forward smoothly into what came next.
Both the original combination and the new one started with a triple axel, but this time instead of going straight into a second triple jump Chuuya did a half-loop followed by a triple flip. It was a harder combination mostly because of the loss of momentum from the half-loop, but Chuuya pulled it off.
It was probably the energy spent on that combination that made him fall on the second jump of his last combination, but it didn’t matter. His poured his heart and emotions into the rest of the choreography and it felt right. This was the best he’d ever felt on the ice. He’d done what he’d set out to do and when he finished the final spin and came to a stop and heard the crowd cheering, he allowed his emotions to crash into him. He wanted to cry, but not out of frustration or anger.
He was happy.
He was so happy he couldn’t contain his tears or his smile as he took his bows. It hadn’t been perfect, but he’d set out what he’d meant to do and he’d accomplished something he hadn’t dreamed of accomplishing at the beginning of the season. Somehow the perfection didn’t matter, even though in the past it would have mattered a lot.
He felt satisfied.
He truly felt like he had no regrets, and if he never got scores for this, he wouldn’t care. That was huge for him. He had skated without thinking of anything but the music and his own emotions, and what he wanted, and he’d come out on the other side feeling stronger.
Fukuzawa was waiting for him just outside of the rink, but so was Dazai, and Chuuya threw his arms around Dazai and held him close. This would probably be the last time he’d be able to do this directly after a skate for a while, because Dazai would be a competitor again next season, so he took advantage of it.
“I did it,” he said breathlessly, pulling back to look at Dazai. Dazai was smiling, too, and it almost looked like Chuuya’s emotions were catching on to him, because his eyes were bright. “Are you crying?”
“Idiot,” Dazai said. “Of course not.”
“Of course not,” Chuuya teased.
“Chuuya,” Dazai said quietly, “you have to go get your scores —“
“Right, let me just — “
“ — but can I kiss you first?”
Chuuya didn’t think his smile could get any wider, but it did. He pulled Dazai close and kissed him. It was a brief kiss, but it was deep and full of every emotion Chuuya was feeling, and when he pulled away he could see reflected in Dazai’s face those same overwhelming emotions. It was probably one of the few times Dazai had felt so much for someone else, and he was letting Chuuya see it.
Chuuya took a shaky breath. “That was the best I’ve ever skated.”
“It was.” Dazai handed him blade guards to put on his skates and Chuuya put them on with shaking hands. “Whatever the scores are, you know that it’s true.”
Chuuya did know. He’d skated clean before in front of an audience, he’d skated to harder programs with less mistakes, but never had he felt so challenged before, never had he poured so much emotion into it, and never had he come out of it feeling so accomplished that he was genuinely, completely happy.
It made him excited for the next season, for his future with Dazai and what they could do to help each other even as competitors, for the new challenges he’d face along the way that he’d set for himself rather than for the sake of others.
The injury ultimately didn’t matter. He didn’t skate like his life depended on it anymore. Now when he skated, when all the negative things he’d dealt with before fell away, he felt alive.
He felt like he was made to fly.