Chapter Text
Yuzu takes a deep breath and steps out onto the ice. This is the Olympics, the competition he knows so well, the one he has made friends with twice before, and yet, it feels so foreign, standing there alone with only a sea of blue seats and blue walls and blue boards seeming to reflect his very likeness back at him as if the entire stadium were formed of the unforgiving mirror-like surface beneath his feet. It feels as if something important — vital, even — is missing. The crowd, yes. But something else, too.
“The next skater represents Japan. Yuzuru Hanyu.” Ever so calmly, he checks his salchow, checks his axis. These Olympics might not be anything like the last two, but they are still the Olympics, and this is still Rondo Capriccioso — the program that he has poured his heart and soul into over the past several months, the one he knows will someday be his salvation. He brings his hands in close to his chest like a prayer, and the familiar movement centers him. He checks the sal one last time, shakes the tension out of his arms, and takes his position. He has so much love to give: he loves this program, he loves this music, he’s loved it since he was just a boy, he loves to skate, he loves to fly.
The moment he hits that hole, his mind shuts down and his body reacts instinctually. He knows what’s happened, and he feels the kuyashii rise up, thick and hot. He sees his gold medal start to fade away, but then he feels the silky golden stands of piano notes slipping past his fingers and he reaches out to grab them, to hold on tight and not let go. He lets himself become them. The rest of the program is a blur of steps and spins, pain and power, and mostly, love. He finishes with a bang, reaching out and grabbing at the dream that forever seems to be eluding him, that shadowy light at the end of the tunnel that he knows is there and can sometimes see flickers of but never enough to make out precisely what it is. He can fly, yes, but it will always fly higher, just out of sight and surely out of reach. Yet, despite his inability to grasp it, he puts on a triumphant smirk, lifting his fist which has closed around nothing.
In the kiss and cry, he feels more empty and lonely than he has in a very long time. He’s used to being alone — in fact, he chose this, and he doesn’t regret it, either. At nationals, he was proud to be alone, to show the world what he could accomplish despite the odds. This is different. Granted, he had skated clean there, but there’s something else wrong too. The word “Olympics” keeps replaying in his head like a dead weight he can’t rid himself of, and suddenly he realizes why everything feels so wrong: Javi’s not here.
His score appears and he lowers his head, forcing his stinging eyes shut. His breath comes out in harsh heaves, but he doesn’t cry. It hurts so much, knowing that he had put in all the work he could, become the best he had ever been, only for this to happen. It hurts, because he knows he could have skated perfectly, and he didn’t. It hurts, because he knows that even a clean skate wouldn’t have been enough, not enough for the judges but most importantly, not enough to heal the gaping hole in his chest that he’s been trying to patch up with clean skates and countless hours of painful quad axel landings and gyozas and strawberries and time with his family. Sometimes, it works, but deep down, he knows that hole will never heal. (Just like that damned hole in the ice, his brain unhelpfully supplies.) He just misses Javi.