Unforgettable | Yuzuru Hanyu

9. Revelations

Kana's whole body was shaking as she was guided to the locker room and given some old skates to use for the test.

It was very funny that Stella had moved right away to help her tighten them, only to be shoved away. Kana knew how to do it, at least her physical memory did.

Her hands tightened the skates with practiced ease. As if she needed any more signs of familiarity with the sport...

From the moment she was ready, they then guided her to a very untraditional rink. it was very different than anything she thought to be able to predict. You see, this particular one didn't have walls surrounding the ice. From the moment you entered the rinkside, you were merely one step away from being on the ice.

A man in his 50s approached her as she stared at the sight in front of her, completely clueless.

"Hello, I'm Brian Orser. You must be Miss Mizuki, right?"

Kana could only nod as she looked around her. The place looked magical and she was strangely looking forward to entering that ice.

"Hello, yes, please call me Kana"

With a single nod, Brian smiled at her. 

"Your friend explained the situation to me. I can only guess it must be really confusing for you right now. I don't know if it helps but I called some of my acquaintances in Japan and there was someone with the same name as yours competing at quite a high level about 8 years ago. It's the last record they had."

Kana could've never expected what the man was telling her. She must have looked like an idiot as she stared at him while he handed her some papers with records of what could very well be her Figure Skating career.

"Wow...I... I never expected you to be able to find these so easily."

"You were competing internationally, it wasn't very hard to find. Your listed coach was Nanami Abe, she's a very famous coach from Sendai."

"So I trained in Japan?"

He looked at her with a confused expression as if he never expected the question. The truth was that Kana always thought that she had lived in Canada most of her life until the accident. Her family had told her that and it was now becoming very hard to trust anything that they had told her in the past.

"Your family didn't tell you?"

Kana just shrugged her shoulders and ignored the very pissed look on her best friend's face. It was becoming very clear that most of what she knew about herself, which wasn't that much from the start, was completely and utterly wrong.

"Anything that involves my family is quite complicated..."

"I see... Even with this, I'm quite willing to test you and see how your skating is at this moment. I'm very curious to see how much you're still able to do after all these years out of the ice."

Kana couldn't have been more thankful for Brian. This man that she didn't know from anywhere was easily making her have some hope in people. Something that she hadn't believed in a long time.

"I don't know much, to be quite honest. The knowledge seems to be engraved in my mind when I watch others skate but I'm not sure of how much I will be able to translate into actual skating."

Brian was about to answer when another voice did it for him. 

"That's what we're here for."

They all turned in the direction of the sound and found a blonde woman with skates on her feet looking at them.

"Tracy... I didn't think you would come." Brian said right away, smiling at the other woman.

"I love a good mystery and I searched it up... she was a beautiful skater. Not that it surprises me when she was coached by both Tsuzuki and Nanami."

The audible gasp that left Stella told Kana that there was something that she was missing. You could be certain that she wanted to ask a lot of questions but she wouldn't dare to do so in front of these coaches and embarrass herself any further.

"I'm a bit confused." she eventually admitted.

"I'm sorry, Miss Mizuki. My name is Tracy Williams and like Brian, I am one of the coaches here. I hope you don't mind if I watch as well, I'm curious about your case."

The way they spoke about it was almost as if she was some big mystery to be solved and well, in a way, she might really be but it was still weird to be treated that way. Kana knew that they didn't mean it in a bad way but it was still very weird for her.

"Maybe there isn't even a need for me to do the test... I just wanted to know if I used to be a skater and it seems to me like we've figured that out."

The panic that settled on everyone's faces was clear. They never expected her to go and say something like that so easily without much consideration. She had a feeling that they were pretty much considering her crazy now.

"You aren't one to go with the norm, are you?" Tracy asked, smiling from ear to ear.

"What do you mean?"

"What if we said it like this: We would love to train you for a while to see how much you could improve. Would you do the test if I said that?"

"I don't really..."

Just before Kana could refuse, Stella looked at her with a scary expression that told her all she needed to know. Her best friend was pretty much threatening her with just her eyes and it was painfully obvious that she had gone to a lot of work so they could be there. These were top coaches, after all, and they had also taken the time to do this for her and even contact people to see if they knew anything about her.

"I'm sure my friend won't mind doing the test. If you're so curious, it's what we came here for..."

One look at the Stella and Kana knew not to refute that.

"I guess Stella is right, we can do the test."