Hana

I Can't Wait

The plane finally starts to move to the tract to takeoff. While its engine  is preparing to boost for flying into the air, I close my eyes to think how to answer Mom. The roar of the engines is so loud that it eclipses over the noises in my head that makes me overthink everything. The plane accelerates itself and I feel that I'm off the ground into the air.
Once we're in the sky peacefully, I answer Mom's question.
"I think I'm afraid to hurt her with my uncertain feelings." I say with hesitation. "You know... I don't know how to pay back her feelings."
Mom listens to me patiently and closes her eyes, thinking.
"Well my son," She speaks again. "love is not about paying back. Love is more like converging and balancing two shades of color into a brilliant color." She pauses.
I look at her like a child who is listening  the most exciting story.
"I think I'll tell you till here. I've give you enough hints." She smiles at me. "You have to find out the answer by yourself. Maybe sometimes you just have to follow your heart!" She says.
Maybe Mom's right. I've been suppressing my own feelings to much that I can't really here my heart's voice. Suddenly, I remember something.  After I met Meg, she told me the similar words that Mom just said. Meg said that I hide my true feeling, and the reason might be that I've been facing cameras and media too often since I was still a young skater. How can she know me so well when even Mom says the same thing but I never notice my own problem before? Can I ever do the same thing? Do I even know her well? I don't even know her grades, family; her favorite food, object, hobby. For almost always, it is Meg who is understanding and learning of me, but I never attempt to know her better. I guess that's why I don't have the confidence to say I love her. In this short amount of time of being separate with Meg, I can't believe that I already want to go back to stay with her more and I can't wait to see her again.

But Mom and Meg are right. I have to focus at Cup of China right now.
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Yuzuru

Once I landed in Shanghai and get out the place of picking up my luggage, immediately there are journalists, cameras, and fans around me. Media from Japan want to interview me, and of course I accepted. As usual, I speak of the goal of this time's competition. All the journalists look at me with high expectations and treat me as if I'm the superstar. I know that some people are crazy about me, but I think the media exaggerate it to an extent too far from reality, which is that I'm just a 19 years old skater.

I struggle to get to the van and in the van the hotel has sent to pick me up, and all along the way to the hotel, I can see cars, perhaps fan's car, following along the van from the glass window in the back of the van. There are fans wanting to take pictures with me even when we arrived in the hotel lobby to check in. Although I know how Japanese are crazy about me, but I have never thought of the madness of Chinese fans. Well, Meg's different.

But all that me taking pictures with fans is being recorded by the media as a positive note. However, I don't know how Meg will see this. I know she will be watching these videos from the Japanese media on Internet, will she feel lonely right now and feel sad to see me standing beside other girls? For the first time, I care so much for how I contact with female just for Meg's sake. I don't want her to feel betrayed and left alone. I've promised not to leave her and I don't want to lose her as well.

Thankfully, Brian comes to the rescue and calls me over to the elevator to save me from the passionate fans.
"Thanks, Brian." I breathe out and shake off the weight on my shoulders.
"Your welcome. Saw you having an awkward situation over there." Brian laughed.
"Yeah." I look into the mirror in the elevator to check my hair.
"Thinking about Meg?" Brian peeks at me while raising one eyebrow. His eyes meet mine in the mirror intentionally.
I blush immediately and hold back my breathe.
"Brian!" I say.
He laughs widely. Westerners' faces get red easily when they laugh hardly or when they are angry. That's what happened to Brian, his face turns red by laughing at me. I think I have a I-don't-know-what-to-say look on my face.
"Just joking," he says in between his laughter. "But you're really thinking her, aren't you?"
"Yes." I turn my back to him. "I'm thinking what she'll think when I'm being around many girls."
"Well, I guess she must be feeling uneasy then."
"Why?" I turn to him after all.
"Because part of her wants to come with you but another part does not." He explains as the elevator dings on our floor.
"Why would another part not want to come?" I ask genuinely as we walk out the elevator and walk in the long aisle to our room.
"Oh boy, Yuzu, do you think she really want to see you staying with other girls right in front of her eyes?"
His argument shocks me how ignorant I am about other people's feeling.
"So it will be tougher for her to stay with me?" I keep asking.
"That is not certain, but she knows that it will not be easy to stay with you."
"Because I'm a skater."
"Yes, and a professional one who is a gold medalist in the Olympics."
I stop my question-asking and keep my silence. Meg always thought that she can't stay with me because she's not a person in my world. But the truth might be that it's because I'm in this world, and the fact that Meg's not in this world might actually be a plus to our relationship. I try to imagine if Meg is a skater, then both of our hectic schedule might make us never seeing each other. I've decided that I have to tell her when I go back to Toronto that not being in part of my world is not a bad thing after all.
"Where did you learn all this, Brian?" I break the silence.
"Hmm?" He turns to me with a surprise voice.
"All this analysis." I explain
"I kinda get it naturally, I think." He says. "Remember, Yuzu, I'm at least 30 years older than you are. Many things happened between this 30 years that you haven't been through yet." He chuckles. "You're still young, Yuzu."
"I see." I reply. We now walk to the end of the aisle and our rooms are facing each other, so we have to separate now.
"Oh, by the way, Nam might be here in a couple hours. You two are sharing a room. Your mom's next to your room. And you have practice next morning, try to bring Nam with you to the breakfast. You know him, he likes to sleep more."
"Yeah, sure." I nod at Brian and he gives me my card for the room. "Thanks." And I turn to open my door.

I see that some people in the hotel have already take my luggage a to the room while I'm struggling with the fans. I walk into the room and gaped. The room is quite big for two people who are both not 20 yet. The big window captures the whole of Shanghai and the bathroom is wide in space. I think Nam will love it.
I start to take out the clothes and costumes of my programs this season and hang them in the wardrobe. Once everything is in place, I sit in the sofa beside the curtains and look at the busy traffic on the ground.

I can't help myself but to think about Meg again, even though she told me not to.  I close my eyes to imagine me flying across the Pacific Ocean and reach Toronto then fly to her side and tell her how I wish she can end my agony of  holding back the desire to think about her. She is like the most translucent, smoothest silk floating above the ephemeral flowers which are too fragile and dazzling to be picked. Yet she seems to be so strong and determined like a romantic soprano saxophone. I kept repeating her voice in my head. "I'll wait." She said to me before I closed the door of the van.
"But I can't wait now." I mutter and lay my head on the back if the sofa.
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According to the world ranking, I'm going last in the short program. I have finished my warm up and soon after a couple minutes, it will be my turn to skate the short program. I have been successfully keeping Meg out of my mind for the past two days in Shanghai. The part of hugging Meg, who is sitting inside of my heart, and placing her outside of my heart cost me lot of determination. But I think I'll be absolutely fine to skate without thinking about her. I plug out my earphones and look at my physician when we walk out the backstage to the rink.
"You look more nervous than usually are." He says .
"I am." I admit. "Everyone's watching."
"Watch out for your ankle as well. Even though it has almost healed completely, you still have to be careful."
"Alright, I will." I say.
The audience clap with power to cheer for Maxim Kovtun's power ending. As soon as he came out the rink, the staffs let me in the rink.
The feeling of the ice somehow soothes my tension but at the same time somehow tightens the tension because everyone's watching. I thought I got used to getting nervous, but the first GP after the Olympics does worth some nervousness.
The announcers speak my name in Chinese and then in English, and I push the barriers to give me the boost, the usual routine, and off I go, into the center of the rink. I do my routine of getting ready and stand still in place to wait for the music to start. I close my eyes, as the part of the choreography, and submerge myself into serenity.

When the music plays to the point when I start skating, I remember the time when I skated this in this program's infancy, when Meg texted me in early June. I skated Chopin so smoothly that I felt like playing the piano myself. I opened my eyes and my body swings with the music. The first jump: Axel. I leap into the air with the spread eagle as my entry with utmost grace and land it smoothly, spread eagle connected immediately as transition. Perfect.
Till this moment of the program, I think I'm still in a different dimension of world where I'm completely skating alone with ease, but as soon as I finish my spins, the false dimension breaks and I'm back to the reality of the pressure of an upcoming quad. The clapping of the crowd is so loud that
I think I've hesitated before the jump. As a result, I popped the quad into a triple. What's even worse is that I step-out the triple lutz and miss the triple toe that follows. Unsatisfied,disappointed, and shameful for what I skated.

I ended up second.
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Hi everybody, hope you like this chapter!! If you do, please comment on what you like about this chapter and how you think! So for the next couple chapters, I'm thinking of doing all in Yuzu's point of view. Let me know if you like the idea or would you prefer mixing Meg's with Yuzu's. Let me know what you like! :D