Chapter Text
The year XXXX was the year Akutagawa had been waiting for since he was 7 years old.
It's been a while since the last Olympic Games were held in Japan. This time, the choice fell on Nagano, a charming place where you could experience the real Japan, rich history, authentic culture, and see majestic landscapes. At least that's what all the guidebooks to Nagano said.
Akutagawa read about 18 of them before giving up and throwing his phone aside to look out the window of the moving bus. He didn't know if the nonsense about authentic history and rich culture was true, but the view from the window seemed to confirm the "majestic landscapes" part. No wonder they chose this particular location for the Olympics. The landscape was filled with mountains, not without reason called the "Roof of Japan," and the small wooden houses covered in February snow looked incredibly charming.
Even though Akutagawa was from Japan, he never visited Nagano before. It wasn't that he didn't want to... he simply didn't have the time. He divided his time solely between training, competitions, and sleep.
To train, to train, and to train more and more, all to win, to win again, and to win more and more again. To stand on the top step of the podium time and again. For the ice rink lights to reflect in the gold medal. For the name Ryūnosuke Akutagawa to be displayed above all the other competitors as the winner's name, so that everyone could see it. Especially his former coach, Osamu Dazai. Let him regret abandoning him and not deeming him good enough before he left. Let him see that Akutagawa is the best, that he is the one who carries forward the legend and fame of the PM club, while Dazai left them for some stupid opposing sports club ADA.
The PM Figure Skating Club was a decades-old club training champion ice skaters in Japan. Its headquarters was located in one of Yokohama's ports, where the abbreviation "PM" came from, standing for Port Medalists. The name itself may not have been great, but the athletes who graduated from this club were. For centuries, they dominated Japanese and international figure skating, winning championship after championship, medal after medal, and setting record after record. The sports club "ADA" (Akutagawa I never remember what it stands for because who would care about such nonsense) was their rival from time immemorial. While they focused on jumping, breaking records, and pushing their limits to quickly reach for gold, ADA also focused on the correct technique, physical and mental health of its skaters and their longevity.
They ended up winning everything they could, then retiring at a young age, fading into obscurity with chronic back pain, or who knows what else. Meanwhile, the ADA skaters, despite their age, continued to compete, winning everything they hadn't managed to win when the PM skaters competed, catching up to them, until they were once again replaced by a young talent from the PM. Regardless, both the ADA and PM skaters were eventually replaced by new, young, and still capable skaters from the PM. The only difference was that ADA skaters left of their own free will when they felt they wanted to leave with their bodies still healthy, while PM skaters were constantly trying to outrun the inexorable passage of time and win before they had to leave the stage, before their time ran out, before someone replaced them and they were forgotten forever, in favor of someone new, better, someone who had not yet felt pain with every jump.
But once the devil grabs your hand, you have to dance with him. It’s better than trying to pull away. Akutagawa knew this, and yet deep down he hoped he might be able to lead in that dance before the devil outdance him.
If Akutagawa were to fall back on such hopeless metaphors, he would describe life at the PM club as standing on stage with thousands of eyes watching you. You're not sure if those eyes are looking at you with admiration, pity, or perhaps waiting for you to stumble. You just know they're watching. To get on stage, you had to climb a grueling staircase, which seemed higher with each step. And you weren't the only one climbing it. Behind you, in front of you, beside you. There were people everywhere. So you had to climb ahead of them, faster, higher. And yet everyone wanted to be at the top. You'd reach out to grab the stage, to get closer, someone would slap your hand away, and two steps would become 20... 20? No... no. 200? Where had so many suddenly come from? There were two of them, and now you were down again? Down? Or was that already the top? Or was the top both up and down?And when you were already standing on stage, in the light, you suddenly looked up. Sooner or later, you do it. You can do it very early, or you can realize it very late—even too late. Up above, you see someone holding a spotlight from which the light shines. Your long-awaited light, without which you won't be seen on stage. This person is the devil. He's smiling at you. You know he's about to move the light. You can try to move like this, staying in the light. But after a while, your strength runs out and you fall off the stage. You think about running there, trying to stop him. But to do that, you'd have to, in a sense, get off the stage. And yet, all those eyes are watching. What to do? What to do? You finish your performance and then silently die behind the curtain where no one can see, watching the devil turn on the light for someone else. Someone new, someone better. Someone who is... more perfect? A younger version of you?
Akutagawa had always been afraid of being replaced. For as long as he could remember, he had looked around fearfully, seeing everyone around him as potential replacements. He was scared that someone would replace him, as an figure skater, as a brother, as a person, and he would eventually fade from this world. It was eating him up from the inside, slowly and painfully. Like a seed of madness, watered by the daily fear of never being enough. Until finally, he decided he had to somehow undo it before he destroyed himself from within. He had to be the best. And if he couldn't be the best, he had to pretend that he ja the best. Maybe he wouldn't have to, if he'd just heard that he was enough... He'd never know, because he'd never heard it.
Akutagwa glanced around the bus. Most of this year's Japanese figure skating team was seated there. Behind him sat Atsushi Nakajima. Next to him usually sat Kyouka Izumi, but she was still too young for the Olympics at 14. If it weren't for that, Akutagawa was sure she would have won the gold medal, especially since she had once trained with their club. She would easily beat the older Ichiyō Higuchi, who had qualified for these Olympics. Akutagawa wasn't saying Higuchi was weak. She was good, just not good enough. Sometimes Akutagawa felt as if Higuchi's biggest dream wasn't to win a gold medal, but to abandon the single skating and skate with him. Which seemed strange to him. But everyone had their quirks. He did too, after all.
When it came to Atsushi, Akutagawa didn't know what to think. When they were still in the juniors, Atsushi didn't stand out in any way, didn't represent the ADA club, didn't place on the podium, so Akutagawa ignored him. Then, when Akutagawa became a senior, he had no reason to be interested in the juniors. Competitions passed by normally. He stood on the podium with other skaters. Skaters whose faces he didn't remember. They won once, then fell somewhere down the rankings. So, to him, they were a thing of the past. He held the gold medal, and next to him stood nameless skaters. They stood next to him on the podium often, so he remembered their faces. Not their names. But Atsushi? When he entered the seniors, he was consistently in the top 20, and soon after, he was regularly in the top 10. Then he was seventh, sixth, then suddenly nineteenth, and right after that, fifth. He began to steadily place in the top five. And then he was third, third, and third again. And after a while, to Akutagawa's surprise, he found himself in second place. And before Akutagawa knew it, Atsushi was consistently in second place. When Akutagawa stood on the podium and looked to the right, he always saw someone else in third place. Someone whose face he saw for the first time, sometimes for the second time. People without names. But when he looked left, Atsushi was always there. Always in second place, always a few points behind Akutagawa. He remembered his face. He knew his name, his surname. He knew the way light reflected in those purple-yellow eyes. He saw his reflection in them. He saw a young man with black hair, a gold medal around his neck, and an intense gaze. Himself. Sometimes, quite unintentionally, he thought he looked very lonely in those large, gleaming eyes. Sometimes, when his thoughts got out of control, he wondered if Atushi saw him that way too. Akutagawa knew well how to usually think about people. It wasn't difficult for him. He saw the world mostly in black and white. But for some reason, he couldn't place Atsushi solely in black or white. For some reason, he couldn't quite hate him, but he didn't like him either. Atsushi was gray to him. Not just one gray, but a whole palette of them, with all their shades. For some reason, Atsushi was complicated to him, and Akutagawa didn't know what to think of him. In a strange, slightly twisted way, Akutagawa felt a little jealous of him. He couldn't help but wonder what Dazai's coach had been like. Was he as strict with him as he had been with him? Or had he become a soft fool, praising him with every well-executed jump. Had Atsushi ever heard him say he was worth something? That he was enough? Was he, like Akutagwa, constantly chasing something he'd never get? What was his story? Had he dedicated as much to the sport as he had? Did he feel his entire body ache every day, begging for a break, and yet he continued practicing? Had he often been told during training that he was hopeless, that he shouldn't whine. That something was wrong with him as he sat blankly staring at the blood on his removed skate? That he was too slow, too flexible, too artistic, too technical, too imprecise, doomed to failure? Should he respect him or hate him? Akutagawa didn't know, and it irritated him.
He struggled to tear his gaze away from the white-haired boy to the rest of the people in the bus.They were familiar faces, he knew them all. Ice skaters, physical therapists, coaches—in short, most of the team. He scanned their faces, trying to remember something about each of them, when suddenly the bus stopped.
They arrived at the Olympic Village. They got off the bus. He felt the solid ground of cobblestones beneath his feet. For a moment, Akutagawa lost hearing the others. A quiet emptiness filled the air, his ears squealing. In that single moment, he felt acutely aware that something he had waited for so many years had finally arrived. The realization that he was here, in the Olympic Village, that he had qualified for the Olympics, that he had every chance of winning a gold medal, hit him with the speed of a train. Despite this, he kept a straight face, took a breath, and returned to reality. It was like emerging from water. But in a way, paradoxical. He felt both as if he were emerging, yet mentally, as if he were underwater, unable to draw a breath of relief, overwhelmed by the pressure of the Games, the expectations, the pressure. It was all like an unconscious, unreal dream, where you float underwater, disbelieving yourself or your surroundings. It was an inexplicable feeling. Akutagwa didn't believe it could be conveyed in words. He moved forward.