Facing Phantoms, Pursuing Flowers

The New Guy

The 2015 NHK Trophy had just passed five days ago, and one man particularly, stood out in that competition.

Yuzuru Hanyu walks though the doors of the Cricket Club, greeted and congratulated by many people for his world record performances.

Melody Pang looked wistfully at her longtime friend from behind a wall. Not wanting to interupt him but still wanting to see him. She smilled to herself as she finally managed to get a glimpse of Yuzuru. As she turned around to walk away, she tripped over her own feet and fell forward. Embarrasingly, she got up and cursed under her breath, but before she could look up, she heard a voice speaking in Japanese. She shot her head up and saw that it wasn't Yuzuru, it was....well it was an unknown Asian boy who had just asked her if she was alright in Japanese. As she understood a little, she replied back in Japanese automatically saying she was alright.

The boy blinked at her.
Guess he wasn't expecting her to understand that.

She too, blinked at the boy, wondering who he is and why is he here?

Talk about awkward silence...

In a few awkward moments later, she said 'Uh, hi? Um, well I'm Melody Pang. But you can just call me Dy. I don't think I've seen you around before?'

The boy stuttered and stuggled with the English and finally replied 'Ah, I'm new here. I'm Yamamoto Sota. Are you okay? I saw you fall just now.'

He helped her up and they walked along side the corridor of the Cricket Club.

'Oh ahaha, yeah, you know, clumsy me. But I'm alright now. And the Japanese thing was just like a reflex response I don't actually speak Japanese, I just know a little.'

'Oh, that's cool. So do you train here?'

'Oh yeah, I figure skate. What about you why are you here?'

'I figure skate too, I have come here to start training here.'

'Wait, what? Why are you just switching coaches mid-season? That's a little weird.'

'Uh, well my mother actually called the coach here and talked about the switching in the summer and the coach said it would be fine if we switched now cause that's when school finishes and I didn't want to stop school halfway through the school year just to come here to train.'

'Oh, so you are moving here permanently?'

'Ah, no. My mother said to let me try it out with the coach first and see if we get along and settle well'

'Ah well, you'll settle down just fine. Our whole team is really supportive of each other. Say, haven't I seen you before somewhere.....'

'Wel--'

'Junior Worlds! You were the bronze medalist weren't you? I remember seeing you on TV now. You were brilliant in your free skate.'

Before he could say anything to reply, Coach Brian Orser called out to them,
'Hey, you must be Sota? Come in, we need to talk for a bit. And you, Dy, go get warmed up, I'll be by the rink in 25 minutes, so night practice will start in 30'

She frown and turned around to go back to the rink, only to find Yuzuru standing right in front off her.

Her face lit up immediately. 'Yuzu! Congratulations! You were great!'

'Ah, arigatou gozaimasu! You saw me?'

'Of course!'

And they wrapped in a big hug.

'Where is Javi and Nam anyway? I haven't seen them since I came back. I must say, I was somewhat disappointed that you guys weren't the first to greet me.'

'Well, we didn't want to pounce on you immediately, but don't worry, you'll get to see us the whole of this weekend!'

Melody went of to get warmed up before pratice session and Yuzuru walked away to look for Nam and Javi, whom he eventually found.

As it turns out, Javi and Nam weren't the once who pounced on Yuzuru, Yuzuru pounced on them and they had their little bromance thing. Whilst neither of them knew of the arrival of the new kid that night. Yet.