Unforgettable | Yuzuru Hanyu

15. Pull

It was impossible to ignore the presence of a certain Olympic Champion among all the skaters at the club.

Kana might have not been around for long but she was more than able to see the difference from the moment he came back.

Seeing the TCC after he showed up, it seemed like the whole atmosphere had changed. Yuzuru seemed to bring everyone to their toes when he was around and as days went by, that only seemed to get more obvious.

Sure enough, given their first interactions, it was only natural to expect him to ignore her completely but if anything, he just kept proving her wrong and none of it was ignored by those around.

Kana couldn't care less about them but she did wonder about the true reasons behind the Olympic Champion's interest. Not only that but every time she was in his presence, it was as if something pulled her in his direction, making it almost impossible to focus on anything else.

Whenever he was at the rink, she just couldn't take her eyes away from him.

Well, it was certainly due to the very obvious fact that he was a famous and very recognized skater, it couldn't be anything else...

Every day felt different, from just small glances to the other Japanese skater to casual conversations that never truly led anywhere. It was hard to describe how every small action made her stomach flutter, even when it was just those casual glances.

They didn't speak that much on most days, choosing to just look instead of actually approaching one another. 

Still, even when they did talk, Kana always felt like he was walking on eggshells around her, almost afraid of something that was hard to describe. It was all very weird, from the way he also seemed to enjoy looking at her to the way he cautiously asked her about little things of her day.

Truly, Kana couldn't be the only one finding it weird when she heard a lot of the people around them casually talk about the whole thing as well. Everyone seemed puzzled by his obvious weird behaviour.

One painfully obvious thing was that he only really acted like that towards her. Everyone else suffered from his painfully hard glares every time they looked too much in his way. It was just the way he was during practice time. To everyone but her, it seemed.

Kana wanted answers as much as everyone else but it seemed like the chances of getting them only got slimmer with each day that went by.

They kept the same old thing for weeks in a row without a single comment about the matter. The conversations never go too far into personal territory.

As summer gradually progressed and the other famous athletes showed up and practised there as well, Kana started considering her presence there.

Even with all of those people there, her eyes always seemed to find him.

Truthfully, it was even hard to comprehend the true reasoning behind it but there wasn't anything she could do to make it disappear.

The good thing about the off-season progressing was that the man of the hour only seemed to get more and more busy.

Soon enough, as he focused on the programs he had to build and the proper recovery from his injury, Yuzuru didn't look at her so often and Kana could even pull away from him a little bit.

She wasn't spending so much time at the club anymore either. With so many people getting back to Canada to train, she was feeling more like a burden to the coaches than anything else.

Kana wasn't exactly an athlete and they had to focus on those who had planned to compete during the season.
So no one really blamed her when she placed some distance and started focusing on other things in her life.

No one but her best friend, who wasn't finding it funny in the slightest from the moment she realized Kana was skipping more and more sessions.

"What's going on? You're not skating today again?"

She went from going almost every day for the course of 2 whole months to not going at all in the past few days. It was so obvious that Stella noticed it very easily.

"The season is starting. I can't have Tracy and Brian concerned about me when there are so many talented skaters to train for actual competitions."

Stella looked at her with a disapproving expression that Kana knew well. There was no doubt that she was about to get scolded.

"Have you even spoken to them about this?"

"Why would I? It's my choice..."

You could be certain that her friend wasn't having any of it. Kana could be a stubborn person when she wanted to and this was yet another situation that could have been easily avoided with some light conversation with the coaches who would most likely say that her presence wasn't making any difference to the other athletes.

Yet, her stubbornness was bigger than her intellect on this one particular thing and as a result, the time she spent at the rink reduced so much that she was even thinking of giving it all up once again.

What good was it to actually skate when she wasn't planning on competing again? It just didn't make any sense in her head.

Kana knew that her priority should be her research, her work and not this hobby that she had so quickly found to be really enjoyable.

Even if she did enjoy it, the eyes on her were making it harder and harder to accept it all and go to the rink normally.

Deep down, a certain Olympic champion was to blame for it as well but she couldn't really say it or even admit it to herself.

Like everything in life, though, sometimes you just have to endure it all before the good things come.