Unforgettable | Yuzuru Hanyu

23. Dinner

If her heartbeat had been beating like crazy before, nothing could even begin to compare how she felt when he finally uttered those words.

Kana was confused, unsure of what he meant at first but a single look into his eyes and she felt like she understood it all.

"Yuzu..."

"I can't bear to see you looking at me with disdain, I can't bear to see you looking in the distance and feel like you're afraid to approach me. God, Kana, I can't bear to have you far."

His words hit her hard, stunning her beyond words. She could have never expected him to just say it so openly as if they usually spoke about these things. This wasn't normal for them but at the same time, it seemed impossible to think when they were in such a position.

"I..."

"I know all of this is about Zhenya but please do believe me when I say that I don't care about her at all... Not in the way I lo..."

He stopped his sentence immediately, making her wonder what he was about to say. That's exactly how he stopped it all, quickly distancing himself from her once again before she could even say anything about it. Before she knew it, Yuzuru was walking in the other direction.

"Yuzu..." she tried, only to have him change the subject as quickly as he had pinned her to the door just a few moments before.

"I should order dinner. I'm sure you're hungry after all those hours on the ice."

So that's how it was going to be. Yuzuru was about to pretend like nothing happened and just move on with the plans for the evening.

Had she been a little bit more courageous, things would have been different, but she just didn't have the guts to challenge him in any way. She was still dumbfounded about what had happened merely moments before.

It seemed like they were moving on once again.

Just like that, the next minutes were as if nothing had happened. They ordered dinner together and sat on the couch talking about the session of the day as they waited. 

The whole scene was as natural as it was comfortable and you could almost believe that nothing had happened a few moments before. There was no doubt that it was easy to enjoy this, to feel like it was the normal way to be around this man. It was almost easy to believe that no problems had been on her mind in the past days, that she didn't have so many self-doubts that made it impossible to enjoy his presence.

Now, as she took in his figure in a relaxed state after the way they entered the condo, Kana felt like she belonged there and that he trusted her to see him in this rare state of vulnerability.

Even when the food arrived and they ate with gentle smiles on their faces, her mind was still lingering on how it felt to be in his hold, pinned against the door as he desperately begged her. She didn't really know what he meant back there but it didn't mean that the intensity of it all was lost on her.

The conversation came easily with all sorts of different random topics and it surprised her to see just how interested he quickly became of her research from the moment they spoke about her current job.

Kana had never taken him for a geeky nerdy type but with every exchanged word, she was quickly realizing of much of a science dude he was. 

As if she needed any more reasons to be scared shitless of all of this...

He showed so much interest in getting to know every detail of her current project that she felt overwhelmed. The questions he made were smart and well-thought, and the conclusions he took from her words were way too good for someone who was supposed to be an athlete first.

"I love all science fields" he ended up admitting to her while sharing some details of his own degree. To say that she was surprised wouldn't really cover how she had been feeling then. Kana could almost say he had the brain of a researcher and that did surprise her.

Being like this, in such a casual setting was the recipe for her heartbeat to slowly increase again. His focused look on her paired with the way he looked so comfortable on that couch brought things to the surface that she thought to be long buried in her soul.

Noticing her stares, he smiled gently in such a way that she felt like melting.

"You don't have to be so far away..." he eventually muttered after gaining courage. The resulting red cheeks on her face only seemed to make him more satisfied.

"I'm good..."

He considered it all for a while, looking at her attentively as if trying to make up his mind about something.

"I know I said we would talk..."

"Yeah, but you chose to interrupt that when we got here."

Kana wasn't allowing him to escape so easily from how quickly he changed the topic of conversation a few hours before.

"This... is a bit hard for me. I'm not sure what I should and shouldn't be doing when you're around."

When those words left him, it was inevitable to wonder why he saw her any differently from anyone else.

"Is it that hard to treat me normally?" she joked with a small giggle.

"One day... one day, I'll tell you why but for now I just want you to know that despite whatever Zhenya says or does, I don't want you to be distant. So please don't give up on me."