Unforgettable | Yuzuru Hanyu

37. His side

Yuzuru remembered the day his mother broke the news about Kana as if it was yesterday.

The whole array of feelings he experienced on that day was still deeply engraved in his mind as they were on the day it all happened.

He wasn't in Canada then but he knew very well that Kana was arriving there soon. They had everything planned out, every day scheduled to the minute to make sure they could enjoy each other's presence as much as possible.

They were both in a tough spot. When he left Canada, they had agreed that their relationship was nothing but friends. Kana could bear to do long distance with him and the truth was that at the time he didn't have any better arguments to give. It was for the best and he had to focus everything on his career, his skating.

Of course, all of that was easier said than done.

He loved her more than anything in the world and it was inevitable to always see her as his lover, the beautiful woman he had once dreamed of marrying and growing old together.

Still, and despite not being his lover anymore, when she told him of the planned trip, he had been more than excited.

With the full knowledge that he would only see her later, Yuzuru had been wishing for his competition to just go by as fast as possible.

Nothing could have prepared him for that news. Nothing could have ever made the blow any easier to take and now he could think of how hard it must have been for his mother to deliver the news to him after the competition was all done.

"She's gone" was the way his mom found to slowly ease into the craziness that completely broke his heart.

Yuzuru thought it was a joke at first but nothing of his mom's expression seemed to be indicative of a joke. 

For someone who had gone through so much when the earthquake happened, Yuzuru had believed that he could withstand anything and his mind would be able to take it but the truth is that you are never prepared to lose the ones you love, especially not when they are young and with their whole lives ahead of them.

The "death" of Kana changed him in more ways than most people could understand.

He matured quicker than most but not only that, finding joy in those things that were once his dreams seemed useless then. All of his wishes and dreams were tied to her and it was always with this woman in mind that he went into every competition and gave his absolute best.

She had wanted to win as much as he did and the truth was that Yuzuru found that winning everything was his way to honor her memory in his brain every single day.

With all the joy that came with winning, came the obvious pain of remembering her and her presence.

So when he realized that the love of his life was alive and well, it took him a long time to reconsider all of the previous years and process all of this new information and emotions that he had never expected.

They had lied to him, just as they did to her Japanese family and Yuzuru couldn't at all understand why. Whatever the reasoning behind all of that cover-up, the biggest victim was always her.

It was hard to imagine living a life surrounded by strangers and without knowing a single thing about yourself. Yuzuru could now consider how her life had been and just how much was stolen from her in the blink of an eye.

They were extremely lucky to have found each other again and you could bet that this skater wasn't going to give that up now. Yuzuru wouldn't let her escape another time unless she really despised him.

On that day when he saw her at the TCC, his brain had easily gotten into overdrive. He was mad at first, unsure of the situation and even unsure of his own mental capability. Yuzuru had been certain he was seeing things and maybe if it wasn't for the fact of how well she skated or even the clear coincidences in her life, he would have probably never believed that it was really her.

One other thing that was clearly evident was how hard it was for him to keep his hands to himself once they were on talking terms. While slowly realizing her experiences of the past years, Yuzuru only fell even more for this woman and he had to keep himself in check every time.

She didn't remember him.

Even so, the clear emotions that always filled him whenever she was around were completely impossible to hide and caving in was just inevitable.

He worried for her even more now but the most important thing was that he wanted Kana to be as happy as possible after so much darkness consumed her life.

Now that she knew who he really was, the will to just take her and show her how much he loved was hard to control and in a way, Yuzu knew he wasn't the only one confused about all of it. 

When it became clear that neither of them was feeling like ignoring the heavy weight of their past and what it meant for both, Yuzuru knew it.

He wanted to be by her side in every challenge but most importantly, he wanted to be there as she slowly understood each piece of the puzzle that was her memory. Now all he could do was be a humble servant of this beautiful woman and hope that one day things would be like they used to be.