PRESTO

one. "the lonely pianist."

The ice is for a single person alone.

It can only belong to one single person alone.

It was hypocritical for them: for any of them at all to deny that. Even within pairs, within teams — they all sought to be that one. That one who audiences became transfixed with under the blinding lights, the heavy pushes of skates in the final moment. And the cheers and claps and screams in the single moment you stand on the ice, gasping for air and dizzy with nausea and adrenaline and the time freezes and there are falling flowers and bright lights—

There was never anything quite like it.

No, there really wasn't.

That crystal white field of white. The ache that sometimes makes her collapse and gasp for breath and tears that made her pound of fist into the wall and the hole in her heart she wished she didn't have.

* * *

Yui arrived back in Kyuushu only a few days before Yuuri, there is a brief moment where her eyes water at the sight of the civilian streets of grey and colourful houses and small apartments and low buildings; the sight of the fluttering seas of soft pink cherry blossom, the low hums of the subways and the occasional clicking of bikes and children's footsteps.

She chides herself, wondering where the old her: the uncaring, sadist Yui went.

Slinging her single bag over her shoulders, Yui pulls out her wallet and looks for her Japanese bus pass among the many other foreign tickets and receipt in her wallet. Only to give up after two seconds and pull out the crumpled bills from her pocket.

She hadn't ridden a train in a long, long time.

Home was still a long way back down the memory lane.

***

Yuuri returns later next week. Yui is all serial-killer smiles full of homicidal intent. But she only terrifies Yuuri more as she steps with her smile dark:

"You don't look so good, my dear kouhai."

Beside her, Minako goes pale and lunges for him with a killing blow, it's needless to say that the next hour is less than enjoyable and little better than despairing before he is finally released from the claws of his sensei and his senpai.

But during that hour surrounded by shouts and shrieks and cackles, the weight on his heart lightens slightly and suddenly, he hasn't disappointed his senpai, he hadn't failed in front of his idol, he hadn't screwed up his skating career, and he hadn't lost.

And then they come crashing back then, and he just sinks and sinks until he can't even see the surface anymore.

But he was home.

* * *

The next weeks pass, and the world goes on. It cared nothing for the boy of a man who was holing himself in the bedroom with a shame and weight on his heart she was no stranger to. But the guilt Yui held was different from the one of her pupil. It was because she was the one who introduced him to her world.

* * *

It's a Saturday where Yui practically kicks down the door with a mildly disturbing smile and drags her hedgehog of a student to the rink.

Yuko's face literally lights up like a freaking Christmas tree before she slams the keys to the rink in front of them. And runs off laughing like a hyena leaving Yui to roll her eyes for the nth time in her life at her best friend.

Yuko shuffles around to the back and takes care of her job while Yuuri ran off to change, leaving Yui to enter the rink alone. And for a second she stops, eyes wide and filled with nostalgia of the sight in front of her.