Beyond the Sound | Yuzuru Hanyu

33.

Yuzuru's eyes glanced immediately at her arm and hand as she said that.

Maya mentioned that her body betrayed her, but that was all he knew.

He approached her slowly and sat down by her side on the small bench, not bothering to ask permission.

He placed a hand on her thigh and looked directly into her eyes.

"Will you tell me?" he asked patiently.

"It's not that interesting."

"I still want to know."

Maya sighed and looked at the keys in front of her with tears in her eyes.

"I started playing at the age of 4 when I was still in Japan. My teacher was quite famous and literally picked his students one by one, even at a young age.
I still consider that a bit stupid because as much as you can have a natural talent, music requires work but anyways...
From my very first lesson, it was easy to tell just how strict he would be.
Everyone that he taught was expected to be completely dedicated to the instrument and I was no different.
Piano was my life."

"doesn't sound that fun." he muttered.

"Because it wasn't. My love for the instrument was the only thing that made me keep going.
All I did at that time was study piano and focus on school."

"What about hobbies?"

Maya just stared at Yuzu and asked the question back, knowing he had been dedicating himself to skating for a long time as well.

"Did you have any?"

"I played games... Still do."

"hum. Not me. I didn't have much time left."

"Sounds a bit sad, Maya."

"I know. I didn't have a traditional childhood and maybe that's why it was so bad when things crashed down.
I moved to Italy and found another teacher at a conservatory. I was constantly praised for being so good given my age and those long hours practicing were already so fixed that my routine didn't change."

"Overuse injury?"

"Yeah, a pretty bad one. I managed to rupture the tendons of my left wrist due to overuse and still kept going. I had surgery to fix it eventually when my hand stopped working properly..."

"I noticed the scars before" Yuzuru mumbled "Was that when you stopped?"

"I wish... After the surgery and physio, I could still play. Maybe that was my doom because instead of learning from my mistakes, teenage dumb Maya just kept going and went back to her previous routine."

"oh no..."

"Yeah. The damage is now irreparable."

"But you can still play... Does it hurt a lot?"

"Probably not more than your back did when you wanted to keep going yesterday."

"So it does hurt a lot." he said with a gentle smile.

"Yeah."

Yuzuru grabbed her left wrist with care and massaged it gently while examining the scars that now seemed even more visible.

"Even with painkillers?"

"The only ones that work are too aggressive to take daily. I could... but I would be ruining my body. I've developed such a resistance to pain meds that even for a headache, most over-the-counter meds won't do a thing."

"God, Maya. That's crazy."

"My mom blames herself for being so distracted about my father's death that she didn't realize how much I was overdoing it."

This was the first time Maya spoke about the matter with anyone. Not just her injury but also her father's death.

"Was that one of the reasons why you pushed it so far? Your dad?"

"Maybe. But I had been doing it before him, maybe it just made an already bad situation even worse."

Yuzuru's gentle caresses brought even more tears to her eyes and Maya found herself laying her head on his shoulder as he held her close.

"It was your dream, wasn't it?"

"It was all I knew"

"Hum... And you chose a job that allowed you to stay in the music world."

"I had to choose a degree eventually. Being good with Maths and Physics as well as liking music gave me a straightforward indication."

"It's still sad that you couldn't follow that path"

"I try to see things in a positive light since this happened. I can't just stop living because of what happened, even if it often made me want to quit for real."

He was silent for a few seconds before finally speaking. It seemed like Yuzuru was considering if he wanted to share this with her or not.

"There were times in my life that made me want to quit for real as well. I thought about it more than I want to admit."

"You?"

Maya wasn't sure if he understood what she meant, but his face was very serious, indicating that maybe he did.

"I tried once, my mom was so worried for the next few months that she wouldn't let me leave her sight"

"Are you serious?" Maya asked, trying to gather if they were talking about the same thing.

"I'm not proud of that time, Maya."

"Wow..."

"No one else knows thing but my mother." he said seriously. "I often thought that I didn't deserve to have survived the earthquake when so many others had died."

"Oh, Yuzu..."

"I know. It's like you say, we grow up and realize our mistakes but when you're a teenager, things are not always as black and white."

"I'm glad you didn't. That would be a big loss to the world."

"Maya..."

His tone was more than enough for her to understand that he was looking at her with those expressive eyes, almost expecting.

"I'm very proud of the show we did. You were incredible out there."

"Let's not talk about work now. We have other things far more important to think and talk about."

"Right now?"

"Yeah."

Maya cleaned her tears and straightened up at those words.

"I don't know if I'm ready to hear it."

"Why not?"

"Because it will break my heart."

He gave her a gentle smile.

"You seem to be very sure of what I'm going to tell you."

"We both know that not working together means that you won't come to Tokyo as much. If I barely saw you now... Let's just say that I understand why we need to stop it."

"You're silly, you know that?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that not working together has the opposite effect of what you think it does."

"I'm confused."

"Alright... how about this... I love you."