Wings of Change | Yuzuru Hanyu

13.

In his hotel room, Yuzuru kept replaying Joan's message over and over again. With a phone in one hand and a stuffed Pooh bear in the other, he was lying in bed thinking of the girl that had filled his dreams and nightmares for the past 2 years. There she was, in front of him through a screen, in a place that looked dangerous, giving her congrats. Tears ran through his face, in all this time Yuzuru never got the answers he was looking for.

There was one particular detail that was bothering him, the mention of his mom. Had they been in contact all this time? Was his mother keeping her updated on everything behind his back when he didn't even know if Joan was alive?

All of the questions on his head took away his sleep. No matter how tired he was, he wasn't able to find peace until he replied to the girl. Maybe he wouldn't get an answer, but he had to try.

Yuzuru decided to use the same method she did. He positioned himself a bit straighter on the bed, cleaned his tear-streaked face, and started filming with his phone.

"Hey Hime, you look beautiful. I hope everything is okay. Thank you for taking a bit of your time to send me a message. I wish I could talk to you again, even if just for a bit. I want to... I need to know why you went away" From that point on, Yuzu knew it was going to be an emotional mess "All I can think about is you. I have just won an Olympic medal and all I could think about on that podium was if you were watching, thinking of our deal. I'm a mess Jo." he realized how pathetic he might have sounded, but it was too late to back out. "Anyways, you probably have better things to do than watch me cry, Arigatou gozaimashita Joan. Ai shiteru."

There it was, he had said it, just like she did. but it didn't matter at all when they were so far away.

Afghanistan

Joan was lying in her bed in the military tent. She was on duty for the night so she didn't bother trying to get some sleep. This mission had been going on for almost half a year, and the only faces she saw were of her soldier pals. She had watched the whole Olympics through an old TV that no one cared about, the quality was terrible but it allowed her to see Yuzuru achieve his biggest dream at the age of 19. He seemed happy without her and it gave her peace.

She would occasionally speak with his mom through text, but Joan had to be careful with how much she used her phone on the field. In theory, she could only use safe lines to communicate, but those were rare and usually used for people to talk to their families.

When Joan received his email everything dropped. She figured he would just ignore her like she deserved. His video made one thing clear, he blamed himself for her choice to come here and something inside her wasn't okay with it.

At this time Yuzuru should probably be asleep, but something told her he wasn't.

All the caution in the world set aside, she opened the contacts in her phone and hovered over the one number she had been ignoring every call and message and hit call.

Sochi

Yuzuru couldn't sleep at all as expected so he just started playing videogames. He was on the very end of a hard level when his phone rang, distracting him and making him loose. "Kuso" he said as he picked up the phone from the bed.

The frustration of losing the level was soon forgotten as soon as he realized who was calling. He fumbled with his fingers trying to answer, the emotions getting the best of him. Eventually, he did manage to answer the call.

"Hello?" he said with uncertainty.

"Hey Zuzu" words failed him for a second, it really was her, with her old number that he thought had been deactivated for a long time. he didn't know what to say now that she was finally there.