Safe Haven | Yuzuru Hanyu

41.

World Team Trophy was a complete mess.

Emma had been out of skating for a while but she was certain that the judging didn't make sense.

Once again.

It was simply ridiculous how easily they gave points to other skaters that didn't have half of his artistry or skating skills.

If she was the one in his place, she would have gotten out of that place a long long time ago.

Em just ignored it all and allowed him to make decisions by himself.

She attended the competition as if she was his assistant once again. Might as well use the whole thing for the future since it allowed her to be near him at the venues.
Emma had to admit that she still carried the responsibility to keep him safe. In her brain, even if she wasn't his bodyguard anymore, he had to be safe under her watch.

Not only that, observing her surroundings just came naturally and she did it even if she didn't want to.

In the end, she was completely frustrated as the results came and could only imagine what Yuzuru was feeling.

He had fun with the rest of Team Japan, but the smile was never real. Yuzuru might have been able to fool everyone else but Emma already knew him well enough to know when he was just smiling and joking for appearances.

The memories of just a couple of weeks ago came to her head and she just wondered if things could be even worse. If the pressure from the federation was even higher than what she had witnessed.

She wasn't very sure how long this had been happening or how bad it was but it affected him, even if he hardly admitted it.

They returned home as if nothing happened but Emma could tell that Yuzuru was hurting. The worse was that she didn't know what to do.

It was hard to support him like he needed, to know what she could do to make the situation a bit better and more tolerable.

A lot of ideas went through her head, but the one thing that Emma wanted to do was to take him out of the depression hole that he was sticking himself into.

Almost as soon as they were back in Sendai, he was even avoiding going on the ice. If she wasn't sure that something was wrong before, now she was completely certain.

Here's the thing, Yuzuru might be a lot of things but the part of his life that he never sacrifices is his time on the ice.

If Emma had to drag his ass to the rink, you could tell just how unusual things were.

Not even the word quad axel was enough to get him excited.

Yuzuru was in complete downhill and the worst was that Emma had no idea what to do to get him out of the depressive state.

Not even the prospect of training her made him better.

It was exactly because of this that Emma knew that she had to resource to desperate times.

Yuzuru was reading some kind of Anatomy book and missing another ice session when she barged inside his bedroom with his skating bag.

"Em?" He uttered, confused as to why she was dressed in sports clothes.

"Get your ass out of that chair and get your stuff ready."

"What for?"

"Ice time."

"I'm not feeling great today, I'm not going."

"Well, you may not want to be on the ice, but you promised to coach me."

Yuzuru stared her down for a few seconds as if trying to grasp if she was being serious. Emma stayed strong and with a stern look.

"Ok, we can go. But I don't need my skates."

"Of course you do! What if I don't understand something and you have to explain!"

Emma had anticipated every single argument and wasn't having any of it. He could try all he wanted, but she was going to get him on that ice.

"Ok. Fine."

Yuzuru didn't look particularly happy but went along with it.

As they crossed paths with Yumi on the exit, his mother looked as desperate as Emma.

"You're going on the ice?" She asked surprised. The woman knew well what was going on with Yuzu.

"Emma wants to skate." He said with a shrug of his shoulders.
Em saw Yumi look at her with a thankful expression. Not even his mother knew what to do.

"I see... Have fun."

He looked at his mom with a raised brow but didn't say anything else before Emma dragged him out of the house.

After arriving at the rink, she did her best efforts to look excited and ready to take on a challenge. The idea was that Yuzuru would remember why he loved skating after all, why he dedicated his whole life to this sport.

Emma did her off-ice warm-ups with his eyes on her.

Keeping focus wasn't the easiest thing to do when he looked at her like that, but she had a goal to fulfill.

He kept his silence and she had to admit it wasn't easy not to give him a lecture about that too. Had this been another time, he would already be teasing her. This wasn't the man that she fell in love with.

Emma stopped what she was doing and stared him down with the most intense expression she could find.

"What's wrong?" He asked after a few seconds.

She didn't answer that, not verbally.

Instead, the woman approached his sitting figure and ignored all of the confused expressions on his face before sitting in his lap.

"Em..."

"Shut up."

"But..."

"I said shut up. I'm sick of this, Yuzu"

"Sick of what?"

"This attitude of yours. You will get your skates, put them on and we are going to skate together, whether you want it or not."

"What if I don't?"

"I will drag you."