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Most people consider Javi to be a relatively straightforward person. One thing they don’t know about him is that he’s also insightful.
He knows his relationship with Yuzuru Hanyu is different. Unusual. “Bromance” – that’s what the media outlets have labeled them. Javi supposes this is true.
They are more than friends. But it doesn’t mean they are in a romantic relationship. They are like brothers – but they are passionate towards each other in a way that true brothers are not.
When Javi had opened Twitter on his phone this afternoon, his eyes had widened at the alarming number of notifications he had received. He was no stranger to social media popularity and viral posts, but this was a level beyond what he had been used to recently. One quick scan of the title told him why – “Coach Brian Orser reveals double Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu has been missing long-term training partner @javierfernandez this season.”
And they had had the audacity to tag him in the post. Which had already been retweeted more than 3k times.
His inbox was also full of direct messages from mostly strangers, but some acquaintances, inquiring (full of concern) about his and Yuzu’s secret emotional lives.
His first thought was – Brian, why the hell would you do this to me?
His next thought was -God, I hope Yuzu doesn’t see this.
He and Yuzu have done a good job moving on with their lives. Or at least - he feels that he has. His own ice show has been taking off. He has spent more time with his family than he has since first starting his senior career as a teenager. Things are moving along with Marina.
He and Yuzu have fallen into a calm and level pace of conversation between busy lives – mostly through LINE but sometimes through WhatsApp. He doesn’t tell anyone that Yuzu is the primary reason he still keeps an active account on these apps. Shoma Uno and some of the other Japanese skaters have accounts too, but he has not been great at keeping in touch with them outside of ice shows and other international events. Javi’s Spanish friends use other apps.
The messages don’t come daily, but they come consistently every two to three days. Sometimes, they consist of just photos and links of what they encounter in their daily lives. For Yuzu, it has been images of TCC, of his home in Japan, and more recently physical therapy and random music links. For Javi, it has been recent vacation photos and ice show setup. He doesn’t usually share pictures of him and Marina. He doesn’t really want to think too deeply on this, except that he has the vague insight that Yuzu would not enjoy seeing them.
His feelings for Yuzuru are...complicated.
When they were training regularly together, Javi could sometimes see the hurt in Yuzu’s eyes when he spoke about his dating life. He was dense, not blind.
He is also aware that he and Yuzu have a bit of a…following. Yuzuvier, their fans call them. Javi has his Instagram and Twitter accounts to thank for this knowledge. He can only be thankful that his family members do not follow social media that closely, and if they do, they take these things with a grain of salt.
Javi is not ashamed of his relationship with Yuzu. Far from it – he is proud of being an integral part of what Yuzu has become. He watched the interview segment that he, Brian and Yuzu did after the Olympics with pride – the section on “What makes Yuzuru Hanyu so great?” consisted largely of a segment about their so-called rivalry. Javi is well aware of the fact that neither of them would have reached half their skating dreams if they had not trained together.
However, there were times when it was…complicated. Javi himself once told an interviewer, with half-buried frustration and half-buried fondness – “Yuzuru is a mystery and will always remain a mystery. Because he likes it that way.”
They could not have guessed how true these words were. Are. Even now.
Javi is aware that Yuzuru Hanyu truly has never had a girlfriend. Has never even shown an interest in any girl beyond a friendly companionship borne from shared interests – mainly skating. Having been around Yuzuru and his seemingly magical lady-charmer aura for the past six years, Javi finds this nearly impossible to believe. Javi himself would certainly have had a hard time staying single.
However, the one person Yuzuru has shown an interest in during all this time is Javi himself. As what, Javi still doesn’t know. What he does know is that he can still capture Yuzuru’s attention easily in a crowded rink just by looking in his direction. Javi can skate past Yuzu in the midst of a busy selfie shoot with other skaters at galas and immediately steal his attention away, such that in less than 30 seconds he will invariably find Yuzuru by his side demanding a selfie with just the two of them. Javi knows he can always make Yuzu laugh, a special skill he prides himself in because sometimes a tightly-wound Yuzuru Hanyu is impossible for anyone else to crack.
Javi doesn’t feel flattered. He also doesn’t feel proud, or boastful. After all these years, he accepts these facts as easily as breathing.
That is not to say their relationship hasn’t changed over the years. The early years had been passionate – fiery, even. He and Yuzu had been so excited to have a friend, a comrade in arms, a brother in each other. They had been endlessly charmed by one another, and hopelessly attracted in a not-quite-romantic-way.
It had been the honeymoon phase of their friendship. Javier admits to himself now he had taken liberties with boundaries and touched Yuzu often in places which were not always considered platonic, but he had not cared because he had been so drunk on the delight of discovering Yuzu as a human being.
From the moment they had medaled together at their first competition to the early days when they had begun training together, their chemistry together had been undeniable. Sexuality had nothing (and everything) to do with it. Javi had never felt the need to take his relationship with Yuzu further, but his friendship with Yuzu had spurred him to find Miki, whose mannerisms and similarity to Yuzu he had found undeniably charming.
Slowly, as they had both become more famous, and as the intervening years of complex and bittersweet feelings of competition had come between them, he had stopped touching Yuzu in his previously uninhibited way. The change was subtle at first - rather than a spontaneous brush on Yuzu’s cheek or around Yuzu’s waist, he mostly limited his hands to the shoulders and back - areas which were safe and not outside the realm of friendship.
He still does nothing to stop Yuzu from coming to him, though, and that’s where the lines get blurry. He had let Yuzu cling to him after their Olympic medals at PyeongChang. Yuzu had cried on his shoulder, moist breath coming in warm gasps on Javi's off-white costume. Javi had told himself this was still sportsmanship, hyped up on adrenaline when emotions were heightened. He had been aware the crowd had eaten it up. He had made no attempt to stop it, nor did he want to.
Javi does not want to move any closer. He also does not want to move any farther away.
It’s not like Javi doesn’t wonder - sometimes - okay, quite often. In moments of fire and ice running through his veins. What it would be like to have Yuzu under him, writhing with pleasure. What it would mean to take him - this creature who is so beautiful and deadly on the ice –and own him completely. He could see it burn in reciprocal flashes in Yuzu’s eyes too, increasing in frequency in the days leading up to Javi's departure from TCC. These flashes were inseparable from the deep-rooted emotional neediness between them, forged over years of shared pain and laughter.
Yuzuru Hanyu wants it. If Javi ever decides to cross that line, Yuzu would be waiting.
But that’s not who they are. They are rivals on the ice, friends off the ice. There are unspoken boundaries, unspoken feelings they never touch.
So that is why – when Javi had seen the Twitter post by Olympic channel earlier this afternoon, he had been briefly inundated with complicated feelings before he had gently but firmly capped the forbidden bottle - and put it away.
Sometimes, life does not have to be complicated. Sometimes, it can be simple.
He picks up his phone, opens the Skype app (this one he does use to communicate with friends other than Yuzu) and presses dial on Yuzu's smiling contact avatar. His heart skips a beat.
He is helpless to stop his voice from softening a bit.
“Hey Yuzu, it’s me - Javi.”