Except to Feel Remorse (Yuzuvier)

iii

-o-

For all that Yuzuru was determined not to give up, he really wasn't sure how to proceed. He couldn't force Javi to be his friend, and his attempts to forge a friendship between them were clearly backfiring. The only thing he could think to do was give Javi space and try again later. So in the last week leading up to the Finlandia Trophy that's what he did.

He gave Javi the space to focus on preparing for the competition and settled for giving him a warm greeting at the beginning of each practice and then watching him from across the rink. He felt stupid, like a pining teenager and wondered if that's how he came across to everyone else. He hoped not. He hoped he was more subtle than that.

All too soon they were boarding a plane and heading towards Espoo, Finland. It was two long flights. Javi ended up sitting next to Brian and Ghislain, while Yuzuru was seated behind them with his mother. The arrangement left him feeling particularly melancholic, as he could distinctly remember that the first time around he and Javi had sat together and spent the flight giggling and goofing off, much as they had throughout the competition.

Once they arrived in Espoo they went straight to the hotel. Yuzuru was of course sharing a room with his mother, but as he settled in and unpacked he came to realize that was not a good thing.

It was hard enough hiding the fact that he was miserable from his mother when he shared an apartment with her and had his own bedroom. How was he supposed to hide it from her when he had no privacy at all? He would have to grin and bear it.

He was tense leading up to the short program, distinctly aware of how different things were this time, how he and Javi barely spoke to each other. His mother of course realized that something was wrong and tried to tease him about how he must be nervous to skate in front of his idol Johnny Weir, but Yuzuru could only muster the smallest of smiles in response. In all honesty he had completely forgotten that Johnny would be there, and his opinion of the older man had long since cooled. He still admired the man's skating, but he could no longer consider him his idol. Johnny no longer deserved that honour after what he said to Yuzuru.

Eventually the time came for him to skate, and when he stepped out onto the ice, everything else melted away.

He focused on his program, on delivering the best skate he could.

In between his attempts at befriending Javi, Yuzuru had put his all into his skating. He still had a long way to go to reach the level he had been at when he retired, but he had drastically improved from where he was when he first arrived in the past. He had begun to work with his seventeen year old body, not against it.

In all honesty, there were a lot of things Yuzuru had to get used to when he came back, not just his body and its capabilities. He had to get used to the old plus/minus three GOE system again. He had to adjust to all the old rules. It was a challenge. More than once he had to stop himself from "correcting" his coaching team.

(He had almost embarrassed himself by saying only one of his jumping passes in the second half of his short would get the bonus, when under the current rules, both would.)

And now everything was paying off.

Unlike in the original timeline, he skated cleanly. He felt particularly proud when he landed his opening quad toe. It was silly, since the quad toe was an old friend to him by now, but it still felt like an accomplishment, like proof that he could change something for the better. When it came time for his combo he made sure to do a triple toe for the second jump, not a double.

He left the ice feeling satisfied with his performance. It was far from the 110 point short programs he was used to aiming for, but that was a good thing. Here and now he didn't need that. No one had even scored over 100 points in the short program yet. Those sorts of scores would come with time.