Beyond the Sound | Yuzuru Hanyu

7.

Part of Maya was still processing all the information from the meeting.

She agreed to do something completely out of the scope of her usual job just because she had the whole board of directors in front of her.

Who was she kidding, any of those board members could make her agree with this. She liked her status and job way too much to risk being fired.

And well, she was curious about the whole thing as well.

This wasn't common.

The directors wouldn't just randomly decide on something like this if they didn't believe it was the right call. Whoever they chose to head the first ice show at the Tokyo Dome had to be someone influential enough to bring in the crowds but also probably someone with good sponsors.

Planning a show like this costs money, plenty of it.

On top of that, assigning a member of the Dome team to help with the show wasn't common either. They usually didn't care as much.

Maya's bet was that they were confident that this would bring in a lot of good publicity, it had to be big given the amount of dedication shown to a single performance.

It was only by the end of the meeting when they were all ready to leave, that Maya finally remembered to ask the most important question.

"We've spoken a lot about this show, but I still have no idea who I will be working with."

"Oh, of course. It's Yuzuru Hanyu, I'm sure you've heard of him."

The name was familiar, but she couldn't exactly place where she knew him from.

Only later, when she headed home after lunch, did she decide to google the mysterious skater.

When the face showed on the screen, Maya recognized the man as a skater who did Fantasy on Ice. She had helped with the sound for the show as a freelancer but had never gotten the chance to interact with any of the skaters.

She never watched the show, usually leaving in the afternoon after setting everything up and doing the soundchecks, but it seemed like she was about to grow more familiar with this guy's skating.

Maybe she should watch more news because as soon as her Google search went further, she realized just how famous the guy was.

He was a double Olympic champion and had more world records than you could count on your hands. Not only that, but it also seemed like he had just retired from competitions the previous month, the announcement being done through a press conference that went viral in just a few days.

One thing seemed certain, the guy could drive crowds of people to watch him skate.

Slowly but surely, Maya was starting to understand the pieces of the puzzle.

He was sponsored by ANA, Kosé, Towa, and even Phiten. Not only these were major companies in Japan, but she knew for a fact that a few of them had ties with the board members.

This show was no coincidence, and neither was the request to have someone make the connection between him and the venue. This had to go well.

Being in the middle of this mess could be both a blessing and a curse. It all depended on the final result.

What this meant was that Maya had to do her absolute best to make sure that this would go well and that he had every tool at his disposal to make the best show possible.

Well, she wanted a challenge and they definitely provided her with one.

It's safe to say that even if the first instinct was to research the skater even further, Maya just stopped there. If she was going to work with the man, it would be best if he told her the essential information himself. Going on Google and expecting everything to be accurate was probably not the best approach.

Still, her excitement was notable and expected. This was a very new experience for her, and Maya couldn't wait to see the true challenges ahead.

It was inevitable to continue the research that she had started a few days prior. Doing both the sound engineering job and the connection with Hanyu meant that she wouldn't have much time left for anything.

As quickly as she figured out the best approach to place an ice rink at the Dome, the quicker she could focus on the rest of the job.

Even if she could do a bit by herself, it was easily understandable that she couldn't do much without speaking to the skater. Without a general idea of what they were going to do, she could think of thousands of scenarios, and possibly none of them would work.

It was all a matter of how and where they placed the rink if there would be live music, screens, and other types of effects. Without this knowledge beforehand, everything would be very hard to plan.

The show was apparently scheduled for February, which left them with a little over 6 months to plan everything properly.

It might have sounded like a really long time, but the reality was that for a show of this scale, it was a noticeably short span of time.

Given that she would still be working normally at the Dome, it wouldn't surprise her if these next months were filled with sleepless nights and a lot of extra hours of work.

However, if it turned out to be a success, this could also be incredible for her curriculum and career. Big achievements always were.

The real question would be if they could pull it off.