Chapter Text
Megumi couldn't bear to look at himself in the mirror, it was always too clean, too polished. In his mind he always appeared warped. The only way he could view himself was in the boards during practice, scratched and battered from years of hockey games, warped, dirty and dented. He felt that's how he truly looked, disgusting, frosty, and nothing more than something to be used.
He could not survive without skating, soul, mind and body. Scraping of an edge press going into a salchow, the sound of blades as you spin faster, the perfect pick of a lutz, and the endless technique of working on footwork and choreography. Megumi loved every minute of it, except for how it crushed him, killed his spirits over and over until he gave in and accepted his fate of you have no future in this sport. Bruises, endless screaming and degradation by coaches, endless technique, off-ice training, blisters and bleeding feet. Was it worth it? He felt as though he spent every waking minute at the rink, inhaling the smell of freshly resurfaced ice and feeling that blissfully smooth glide of unfrozen and unworn ice under his blades.
He scrapes the snow off his blades as he stands by the boards mindlessly, picks up his water bottle and takes a sip. I should do a run through of my long program again I need to work the transitions more and maybe the short as well, I couldn't think yesterday. He thinks as he plays with the cap.
“Megumi! What do we feel like working on today huh? How ‘bout the short? It looked really sloppy yesterday, looked like it killed ya to be out there!” Suguru Geto, his beloved and god awful coach wandered up to the boards setting down his pile of binders and bags on the bench.
“Hey, yeah that sounds good I guess, I must’ve been really tired from school or something” Megumi admits quietly.
“Great! Hopefully today is better ya looked like ya gave up 10 seconds in” Suguru narrows his gaze at him knowing that Megumi will get the message of do better, you should be a champion but I can't remember the last time you medaled in competition.
Megumi leaves without another word or sound and starts warming up, stroking, power pulls, rockers, back turns. This is bliss, every stroke is like breathing, knee bend and edge press, inhale, push off and release, exhale. Then he goes to jumps bringing up speed and feeling the wind rush in his ears from the power and strength just in strokes and crossovers, waltz to loop, to axel, to the rest of his doubles. Edge to pick, bend to push, and fly. Suguru chimes in “Your leg was wrapped too high on that flip you looked ridiculous, please fix that” Megumi nods in his direction and turns back around to do the flip again, to Suguru’s standard this time. Crossover to mohawk, reach back, pick, and, suddenly he feels weightless, but not like he has control, and a sharp pain in his knee and wrist where he tried to catch himself. Megumi didn’t even have time to react and somehow caught his body weight to fall on his knee. He keeps sliding along the ice until he hits the boards. He can’t breathe, he didn't hear anything crack or snap like it was wrong, but holy hell it hurt. It'll be fine with time and ice, he reasoned. Megumi tried to bend it to get back up and put weight on it, to no avail.
“MEGUMI! ARE YOU OKAY?” Suguru screamed across the ice. It startled him and the other freestyle skaters in the rink, who were staring at him asking the same question in their heads, always too scared to speak up, and probably whispering that they are glad they are not him. He didn’t know if he was ok, in all honesty, the pain was starting to fade a little bit and he already knew it was going to leave a nasty bruise and be unbelievably swollen come tomorrow morning. But for now he silently nods and manages to get back up on his good leg and glide to the door to get off and take a break for a second. Brain scrambled and in too much pain to remember to grab his guards, he sits on a bench and takes deep breaths forcing himself not to react to the pain and to hold back tears. No crying, only quitters cry, no complaining, pain makes champions, learn from this. Repeating things in his head he’s heard for a decade to soothe himself, to show no weakness. Suguru storms out of the doors and comes up to him, dark, imposing and slightly irritated. “You learn to fall safely in Snowplow Sam, you can’t remember that? That was just warm up too, you have to skate on that for the next 2 hours I hope you know” He walks away swiftly, long down coat and scarf traveling after him. He has a long session ahead of him and plenty more pain to come.