Safe Haven | Yuzuru Hanyu

13.

From the day she admitted she had been a skater before, things were a bit weird every time they went to the rink.

Yuzuru made the mistake of googling her name and found a very old video of her skating. She wasn't just skating for fun, Emma had competed internationally and wasn't bad at all.

Deep down he wanted her to join him sometimes, even if having her there was probably more of a distraction than anything else.

The problem was that she was always a distraction. The mere thought of her presence sparked memories in his brain and made him flush red.

Yuzuru wasn't the type to just have sex without some sort of connection. It wasn't as if they had gone all the way, but it still counted in his head.

As much as he tried not to think about it, his home rink was now connected to images of her on her knees sucking the life out of him with an intense expression on her face.

Emma was dangerous territory for him. Too dangerous.

Her reactions were also as confusing as they get. Yuzuru often found her staring at him wordlessly and wondered what the girl was thinking. Maybe he wasn't the only one going a bit crazy with all of this mess.

Well, deep down he knew from her looks that she also thought about it.

That was the worst of it, knowing that she probably liked it as much as he did.

Yuzuru wasn't looking for a relationship, but if she was interested, relieving some tension wouldn't be that bad.

Except that you're her boss.

Yeah, probably not a great idea.

Things only got worse when the orders to close the Sendai Rink came.
The news weren't necessarily unexpected, but they didn't come lightly to Yuzuru.

Attempts were made and emails were sent, he even suggested secretly keeping the whole thing open just for him, offering to cover the maintenance costs and going against the rules.

For anyone else, he was acting too desperate for something that maybe wouldn't last for that long. The thing with Yuzu was that his life was skating and he was always desperate when he couldn't get ice time or was injured.

He merely didn't know what to do at home.

Obviously, he had his thesis to finish, but it was nothing that he could occupy all of his mornings and afternoons.

On top of that, his parents had been suggesting moving to the house of his grandparents to help out and make sure everything was okay during this time of crisis.

It wasn't that Yuzuru couldn't live alone, he had done it for a few weeks in Toronto. The one thing that bothered him was the prospect of living alone in the house with Emma once again.

In Canada, he often locked himself in his room to avoid interactions with her and he had a feeling that he would end up doing the same but for entirely different reasons.

Their current day-to-day lives were almost always consumed with avoiding one another, the only exception was the time at the rink. Even if he could do the same, not having his parents at home meant that the thoughts he usually reserved for the time at the rink would probably consume him at home too.

Being alone together was prone to make them snap, and his body remembered well the last time that happened.

The worse of it all was that despite his brain's knowledge that it was wrong, his body still tingled with a weird sensation that he couldn't necessarily explain.

To be fair, he had a feeling he wasn't the one feeling this way.

When eventually his parents made the final decision to go and told Emma about it, he could see on her face that she wasn't any more satisfied than he was.

Her reaction was very subtle but was there for anyone watching carefully enough. And Yuzuru seemed to always watch her close enough to see the shift in her expressions.

Having the whole house for themselves with nothing to do was truly a recipe for disaster...or something else.

His parents straight up warned them on the last day possible, something he found strangely weird given how much his mom liked to plan things.

That was the first hint that there was some kind of hidden plan behind this sudden move. The second was the tiny smirk he saw on her face as she saw the reactions.

Yuzuru knew his mom well enough and this didn't seem like a coincidence.

What was she trying to achieve here?

Maybe he could ask her straight up, but the skater wasn't sure if he wanted to know the truth.

It was better this way, not to know.

Being clueless is often the best route.

Still, as his parents left, the stare that Emma gave him was enough to know that she had her own suspicions as well.

"What the hell was that about?" She asked immediately after.

"How would I know?"

Yuzuru shrugged his shoulders in response, the last thing he needed was to try to explain any of his suspicions.

"They just left?"

"Apparently."

"And you don't find that weird?"

"Of course I do... But I know better than asking."

He could see it on her face, that she wasn't satisfied with the answer received. It was still better this way, that he could avoid the topic and try to figure things out himself.

Still, she apparently chose against questioning him further.

Yuzuru could only imagine what the next days would bring and he wasn't quite sure if he was afraid or excited about it.

Only time would tell what to expect.