rainyrainaa
Yuzuki Kurosawa was never taught how to ask for love-only how to earn it.
At fifteen, he is Japan's rising star in men's figure skating: brilliant, disciplined, and quietly breaking beneath the weight of gold-medal expectations. His body aches, his mind is worn thin, and his parents only love him when he wins. When twenty-year-old physical therapist Tatsuo Hayama is assigned to him, he doesn't expect much more than another overworked prodigy. What he finds instead is a boy starving for warmth, skating on pain and perfection, terrified of being too much.
Tatsuo tells himself it's just a job. But year after year, competition after competition, injury after injury-he stays.
What begins as careful care and quiet protection turns into something else entirely: something no one dares name, something unspoken, something that grows between late-night ice baths, whispered confessions, and hands that linger a second too long. As Yuzuki grows into his body and his brilliance, Tatsuo watches him rise-and wonders if there's still a place for the man who caught him when he fell.
A slow-burn love story told across years-aching, quiet, and deeply human.
He was never supposed to fall.
And Tatsuo was never supposed to catch him.