Safe Haven | Yuzuru Hanyu

73.

When it came time for her to start her first chemo cycle, Yuzuru was completely swarmed with work.

He didn't just have one show scheduled, but two, and he had told her that he wanted to do another in March.

Emma could only encourage him to keep going and do his absolute best to achieve everything he wanted.

Whatever she was going through on the sidelines was not important when his success was a priority.

It didn't matter how much that first week was a complete nightmare, her priority was to hide her symptoms as much as she could from him just to make sure that he was focusing on getting everything ready on time and without the extra concern for her.

Still, there were a lot of new things that they had to suddenly be aware of.

From a lot of caution around everything that Emma touched to even wearing gloves when doing her laundry. All of this was not only to protect her but also to protect everyone at the house from being exposed to the chemo drugs as well in the first days.

Even if her drug dose wasn't as high as most people's chemotherapy, the effects were still drastic.

The first days were the worst, she was constantly suffering from nausea, barely holding any food in her stomach, and was clearly dehydrated all the time, something to expect given just how much she was throwing up.

That was the part that she couldn't hide at all, no matter how big her efforts were to pretend that everything was fine, it was hard to pretend when you were constantly throwing up.

What she could hide though was her fatigue, the dizziness, the absolute will to just sleep and ignore everything else in her life.

Everything was frustrating, she didn't feel like herself and suddenly nothing seemed to be important enough for her to make any effort to make it happen. The worst of it all was that amid everything, she couldn't even skate, something that was now a staple in her life.

Even if the doctors allowed her to skate, and that was highly unlikely, she wouldn't have the energy to do anything interesting either way.

But the worst of it all was how her brain seemed to be working on saving mode, it was hard to focus on anything or remember the most basic of things.

For a doctor, this was not only terrifying but also incredibly frustrating.

She still tried her best not to lash out at those around her, especially Yuzuru.

The first days he went as far as not getting close to her, wearing a mask whenever he entered the bedroom and even sleeping in another room entirely.

He didn't understand it at first, but this only made things worse for her.

It was easy to understand his concern, especially when he was meeting new people almost every day and Covid was still a big thing but at the same time she couldn't bear the distance.

Eventually and slowly, he started to do even more research, and in no time things changed.

He was back in their bed and showering her with love that was crucial for her recovery.

It was certainly a learning curve with plenty of obstacles along the way but eventually and slowly, he started to understand things one by one.

Sure enough, they still had to be very careful about the risk of infection given her weak and sensible immune system, but there was no reason to be over-paranoid over anything. Especially when her dosage wasn't even that high.

Still, and even given just how much she knew about Chemo, everything just felt more intense than expected.

After the first initial symptoms, things slowly started to get better.

A few days after the initial shock, she could finally start eating and having an appetite and even when she didn't, Yuzuru would make her drink protein shakes and other meal substitutes to make sure she was getting her nutrients.

Eventually, everything was less intense, and even with all of the usual craziness that would be expected started to get slowly better as time went on and the drugs left her body.

There was no doubt that some of the symptoms would be back when she did the next session of treatments but for now, the one thing that mattered was that she was getting better.

Emma eventually even found the strength to go to the rink and watch Yuzuru practice. 

It had been so long since she went on the rink for the last time that even the air felt weird.

With less than a month to go until Yuzu's first show, everything was a bit crazy. His schedule those days was absolute madness given that he was alternating between preparing for this show and organizing the other two he had planned.

She could only guess how much of a madness it would be when he announced the show at Tokyo Dome.

Well, if there was anyone who could pull it off, she had no doubts he would be the one.

Entering the rink space was weird now, but she sat on one of the benches and watched him intently. Emma had to admit that she wanted to go on that ice and skate herself.

Maybe all of that work on her triple axel was useless after all. It wasn't as if she would go back after stopping for so long and the jump would still be just like it used to.

Well, not completely useless when it motivated Yuzuru to keep going.

And now she was very glad to have done that because his skating looked better than ever.

Not having watched him in a while meant that she could now see very well every tiny amount of progress he made.

It wasn't even surprising that his stamina had drastically improved.

Seeing him was just like magic, it improved not only her mood but she felt physically better almost instantly.

To think that she never believed in love before him seemed like utter madness.

There was no other explanation for how much he fascinated her or how much joy this man seemed to be able to give her.

Truly, she wouldn't have been able the last weeks without his support and love.

She was far too gone to turn back now.