Except to Feel Remorse (Yuzuvier)

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By the time Finlandia Trophy came around, Javier was well aware that he was not okay.

Oh, his skating was fine. It was better than ever, even. He was landing his quads consistently in practice, his spins were getting better, and his edge work had improved. All of it a combination of the knowledge he brought back with him and the hard work he put into applying it and retraining his body.

But otherwise he was a disaster. He was still avoiding his family and he was pretty sure they were starting to notice. He was having trouble connecting with his old friends, they all just seemed so young and he felt like he had nothing in common with them anymore. Brian never said anything, but he got the distinct impression that the man had was either displeased with him or worried about him. He couldn't tell. Maybe it was both. Tracy clearly was worried about him and had tried to talk to him about it, but he lied through his teeth and assured her he was perfectly fine. And of course all of that combined was still just the cherry on top of a very tall sundae named Yuzuru Hanyu.

The entire trip to Finland he felt disconnected and wrong footed. There he was, sitting on the plane like last time, except instead of sitting next to Yuzu he was sitting with Brian and Ghislain. Instead of laughing he was brooding. The dichotomy between the two versions of events left him feeling like he was crazy.

That feeling followed him all the way through the competition.

When it came time for the short program he refused to watch Yuzu skate. If he did poorly Javier would blame himself. If he did well Javier would resent his success. There was no winning by watching, and yet he couldn't escape the scores announcement, where it was revealed that Yuzu had broken the world record a competition ahead of time. It left Javier anxious and angry while he waited for the skater between them to finish and his turn to come.

It was stupid to be angry and resent this baby Yuzu for doing well, he knew that. He was just so frustrated with the boy and the power he had over Javier. How dare he be successful when he was doing this to Javier? It was an irrational thought and feeling. Yuzu's success and whatever was going on between the two of them were not connected. He shouldn't care if Yuzu did well, he should just do better.

After what felt like an eternity it was his turn to skate. He channelled all that anger and frustration at Yuzu's success into his performance. He had elected to use the same music as before, but he had altered the layout of his short program drastically, taking advantage of the bonus in the second half to maximize his score, and swapping out a quad toe loop for the slightly higher scoring quad salchow. Every fraction of a point mattered if he wanted to beat the great Yuzuru Hanyu.

And it worked. His score was announced and it was just barely higher than Yuzu's. He felt like he was on top of the world. Yuzu may have done better this time around, but it wasn't enough. With his advantage Javier still came out on top.

The elation of his triumph carried him all the way to the free program, where he gave it his all and performed spectacularly. He even set a new personal best (for the current timeline). He was confident that his victory was assured.

And then Yuzu skated and blew him out of the water, making up for the minor deficit in the short and pulling ahead by just over a point.

When Yuzu first stepped out Javier was hit with the realization that his costume was different from what he remembered. Originally it was red, he thought. Red always suited him and Javier had been disappointed when he cut out the colour the first time around. A distant part of him had been happy that he would get the chance to see him skate in it again, but apparently it was not to be.The new costume was white with purplish blue accents but still as sparkly as ever. It was an unexpected change, one Javier wasn't sure how he had influenced but he must have. Things with Yuzu were different than before, and perhaps a throwaway comment of his early on made the boy rethink his costume design.