This is the story of Ayame, a young artistic gymnast who, due to a stroke of fate, can no longer practise her sport. In search of a new purpose in life, she comes to Sendai from her home town of Sapporo by chance to work in the house of a famous fig...
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The very next day, Yumi set about advertising the position for the domestic help. Toshiro-sensei had given her the tip to get in touch with Dr. Kinosuke Watanabe from Tōhoku University Sendai.
He was an old student friend of the personal physician and was head of the Institute of Sports Science at the university. He had good contacts and certainly had an idea for finding suitable candidates for the position in Yuzuru's household, as Yumi wanted to find someone who had an idea of what makes an athlete tick and what they need in everyday life.
In addition, the whole thing had to be approached with extreme sensitivity, for very understandable reasons. Yumi didn't want to hire someone crazy who might make Yuzu's life a living hell. Unfortunately, this danger had become a possibility.
So Yumi sat in her office on the first floor of the Hanyū house and took care of all the things she wanted to organize for Yuzuru. Fortunately, she reached Watanabe-san immediately on the phone and he soon gave her the tip and the access data to be able to advertise on the university's own online job exchange.
"Hanyū-san, I think you will find the right person among the students to support your son. There are a lot of people with an affinity for sports, or even athletes themselves, who are registered here. Many of them study or do research at my institute, but there are also some from partner universities. They all have an idea of the life of a professional athlete, although I have to admit that your son is of course a special case." Watanabe-sensei grinned audibly as he said this.
"Oh, Watanabe-sensei, you have no idea how special Yuzuru really is!" Yumi had taken confidence in the professor. "I'm convinced we'll help him if we give him someone to look after him every day. I have to admit, I'm not getting any younger and it's not getting any easier for me..."
Yumi knew that she wouldn't be able to be there for her son forever. So it seemed to her that what she was doing for him now was absolutely the right thing to do.
So it was a done deal. After the conversation with Watanabe-sensei, the job advertisement was quickly posted online, and now Yumi just had to wait and see.
When she checked her inbox the following weekend, she was quite surprised at the abundance of applications, which she blamed on the high salary. Apart from that, she had carefully held back with information and details, especially Yuzurus name, only some bare essentials had been included in the job advertisement. There were 115 applications within two days, and Yumi sighed. She set about going through them all one by one.
Hours later, Hidetoshi poked his head in the door. "Are you getting anywhere?" he had asked his wife.
"Yes... but it's tedious. You go to bed, I'll catch up with you as soon as I can." "You can still continue tomorrow, don't you think? One day more or less won't make any difference to Yuzu either..." suggested Hidetoshi in his calm manner.
"I don't know, I want to get this done as soon as possible, you know how bad Yuzu is..." "Yeah, I hear you..." he gave her a kiss on the forehead and said goodnight.
Yumi turned back to the application letters. There was indeed not a single male applicant, but most of these women also seemed completely unsuitable due to their resumes or there was a detail that made Yumi weed them out. A paltry four were finally shortlisted, but still not the dream candidates.
It was getting very late and Yumi was about to shut down her computer when suddenly the email notification sounded. She checked. There was actually another application coming in late at night...
When she opened the email attachment and saw the photo of the young woman, she was immediately taken with her. An open, friendly face, deep eyes in which a little sadness flashed. But at the same time a cheerful, positive smile that was simply enchanting. Over all she looked very athletic, well-trained.
Yumi had always been able to rely on her incredible intuition, but of course she didn't want to decide anything based on a photo alone! She read the application and the CV and her breath caught in her throat:
This young woman was 24 years old, had been an artistic gymnast, had trained partly in the USA and had competed at the 2024 Olympics in Paris as a medal favorite for Japan. However, a terrible injury ended her career there.
She had also survived a major earthquake at the age of 16, just like Yuzuru. She attached great importance to healthy eating and described herself as tidy and well-organized. Now she was looking for a new challenge after her long injury break.
There were indeed some parallels to Yuzuru, which seemed almost like a small miracle to Yumi. She knew this candidate could be more than suitable.
Nevertheless, she decided not to react too enthusiastically right away and to wait a few more days. She also wanted to give others another chance. But deep down, Yumi suspected that she might have already found the right person.
