Facing Phantoms, Pursuing Flowers

Hard Practices

She slept well. 

Got up in the morning, got ready for morning session, and headed straight to the subway to the Cricket Club. As she got on, she saw a familiar silhouette of Sota Yamamoto.

'Hey! Yamamoto Sota! HEY again!'

She slapped him on the back and greeted him.

'Ah! Good morning. You take this subway too?'

'Yep! By the way, what should I call you? Yamamoto-sempai? Yamamoto-kun? Yamamoto-san? Cause I know in Japan, you call each other by your last name with an honorific.'

'Yah, no need for that, just call me Sota.'

'But- are you sure? No. It sounds too informal. How about Yamamoto-sempai?'

'No no no. That's too formal. Sota is fine. You call Yuzuru, Yuzu right?'

'Yeah, but even so...when I first met Yuzuru, I called him Hanyu-sempai for like the first 2 weeks'

'Really? hahaha'

The subway came to a stop, and they got off side by side, talking and laughing as though they were long time friends, when in fact, they don't really know each other outside of figure skating.

'What country do you represent when you skate competitively?' Asked Sota, as he realized he didn't know what country she represents.

'Ah, Canada.' She replied matter-of-factly as if she would never choose to represent any other country.

'So where do you go to school?' Sota questioned.

'I actually stay in Kingston, a small town a few hours drive away from Toronto. But every Friday nights, I take the Mega-bus to Toronto to train here for the weekend and then I take the bus back to Kingston on Sunday nights and resume school there on Monday. And it's not too expensive cause I have this yearly bus-pass to travel back and forth from Kingston to Toronto. But I do train every week days after school at the local rink, The K-Rock Centre, it was where Canadian Nationals where held last year. Yeah, it is pretty weird, but I hate Toronto, no offence to you, but I hate big cities, but I like the coaching team here so....'

'Wow that's pretty insane. So you've been travelling here back and forth since you started training here?'

'Ah no, I actually grew up here and moved to Kingston last Summer cause my mom found a better job there.'

'Oh, I see. Do people recognize you? In school or here?'

'Not before the Skate Canada Grand Prix this year. Like my friends knew i figure skate, but they didn't realize I was skating competitively this year until Skate Canada that is. Cause my stupid annoying teachers had a recognition assembly for all the school clubs and sports association the day after Skate Canada was over and they showed the whole school the video of me skating competitively. It was embarrassing, so now the whole school knows I figure skate and I compete. It so weird, honestly. Like, when I walk around school I can feel people look at me weirdly. And one random guy that I didn't even know asked me if I had a wikipedia page!'

'Ahahahhahaha, do you though?'

'I don't know, I don't go around searching myself up on wikipedia. What about you? Don't you get a lot of attention in Japan since figure skating in Japan is like Hockey in Canada?'

'Yeah, people in my class know I figure skate competitively, I don't mind people knowing, but it does get tiresome when dealing with the press. I kinda like it here, no one recognizes me here and I can walk the streets without getting stampeded, or get shoved from pillar to post by fans and press.'