Meg
"I still can't believe that I did not recognize you when we first met each other." I say when Yuzu finished his rehearsal. Brian and the rest of the Orser team left us earlier to grab lunch.
"Why?" Yuzu asks. After what Brian has told me how Yuzu thinks about me, I reconsider our special meeting the day in Waseda. It just doesn't make sense!!! How come I didn't recognize Yuzu the first time I saw him in reality.
"I don't know! When you were in Ueno station, I recognized you instantly." I cover my eyes from frustration.
"It's not a big deal, Meg. I recognized you in the ice show instantly." Yuzu giggles.
"ah~~ you made me feel so guilty!!"
"It's okay. I know how much you care about me. Plus, if it wasn't you who did not recognize me in the garden of Waseda, I don't know if I will pay a lot of attention to you during the ice show."
We passed the long aisle of the backstage. There is a underground tunnel that is connected to the hotel, and then we have to ride the elevator to the second floor, where Yuzu and I had a small "silent confession" this morning.
"You payed a lot of attention to me during the last ice show?" I inquire with a surprised look on my face.
Yuzu looked away from me and through my lashes, I can see his earlobe turning red. The view is such an ambrosially nourishing entrée for my personally spiritual romance. Yuzu is so honest with his own emotions that I am so glad that I did not cache my secrets and struggles to my own. Because if I did, then I might not know that Yuzu went through a lot as well, and Yuzu may not know how much I really love him that I couldn't eradicate him from my life.
"Yuzu?" I test. "From the first day, right?"
He still doesn't turn his face to me. Right now, in this position, we stopped in front of the lobby of the hotel. I run from the left of his side to the right of his side. His reflexes quickly to other side, and I keep up his pace.
"Stop it! Meg." He laughs out a clear complain.
"I'll only stop when you answer my question." I switch to the right.
"Let me see your face." I grab his arms.
Both of us stopped playing our childlike game. I'm out of breathe but Yuzu feels absolutely fine. I think we have the results out. He won.
"Fine." I could barely say another word. My hands fall to my knees to let me rest.
"Jesus..." Yuzu shrills. "Meg, you really need to exercise more." He shifts down his backpack in a clean move. He rushes to take out a bottle of water out of his bag.
"I'm fine." I gasp. "A couple more second and I'll be normal again."
"Seriously, Meg. Don't scare me." He sighs. In my mind, I do not want to scare at all. However, I have not noticed my physical ability to just play around with him has become so weak; and in turn, has both put him off guard and disappointed myself. I really become a lot powerless than I was.
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"Are you sure you're alright?" Yuzu asks the same question uncommonly frequently.
"Yes." I repeat my answer. "Don't change our subject, Yuzu!" I remind him.
He stumbles to find an excuse but is stopped by my passionate stare.
"Come on, Yuzu." I smile mellowly at him. "I really want to know. Brian told me everything."
"What!" He turns to me with a surprising speed but turns his head back when he realizes that he actually turned to look at me and showed me his blushed and nervous gorgeous profile.
"Damn it! Brian! I thought he would keep my secret for me." Yuzu covers his face.
He really likes to bury his own face in his palm. I guess that is the ultimate way to cover his embarrassment and shyness. There is nothing wrong about it, but a deep inner compliance from his every single reaction is built up in my mentality that tells me I got a very big chance to really become in love with each other.
"If you had heard everything, then why do you want me to say it again" He mumbles in his hands.
"I would prefer to hear you say that to me rather than hearing such a heart-racing news from his coach." I please him.
" Sometimes I feel like you're..." Yuzu puts down his hands. Finally."You do a lot of romance. Well, I don't know what romance is, but I just feel like what you do and what you say are......" He waves his hands up in the air as if the subject he is talking about is amorphous and intangible.
"They are so dreamy, enchanting, and extravagant to me.I am all naturally attracted to them. Especially how you treat me. With such delicacy of care and adoration you have towards me, sometimes I can not handle them in case I might crack them into sand." He portrays his own feeling through his words so lucidly that every word hits my heart with its own specific beat, and gradually heating my entire physique. His words are not words anymore, they become something more special, like the music of a diamond nightingale. One and the only one in the world. If this is not the purest, direct, unhiding love confession, then what is love?!
"Dear Yuzu, don't forget that I'm always naturally attracted to you as well. Thank you for telling me. I feel esteemed." My heart blooms as I say my words.
"I know."
We keep our favorite silence until we met the Orser Boys again in the lounge.
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Yuzu is not beside me to defend me. He went to rink again before the show starts.The dream is broken by the appearance of the Hawk. I can sense it from 5 meters away even if I'm turned backward to him. I pat my palm on my jeans several times to calm myself and get rid of the moisture.
"I've been looking for you." His voice, mixing with aloofness and discrimination, hits me from the back of my body. I turn slowly to face him.
"Ah....." Akira smirks at me. "You've been spending your precious morning with your prince, right?"
I bite my inner cheek and tilt my head down to glare at him.
"I thought that you would at least tell me your plan. Oh, wait." He sais with sarcasm. "You said that you wouldn't want me to be left out, When. I. Kissed. You."
"I don't remember that I have promised to listen to orders." I fight back with a deep voice. I can not let myself to fall under his sharp claws again. I have to protect myself for Yuzu.
Akira, surprised by my retort, continues his lecture.
"Since when have you started to talk back? Fine, sometimes some arguing will be interesting as well."
"Akira, look," I am annoyed by his arrogance and childishness. "I am not your toy or your slave. After what you've done to me, do not expect me to love you anymore! You never ask for my opinion and never consider about my emotions. The Akira I know is caring, considerate, and bright like a sun. I do not know who you are. Enough is enough!"
"I thought...." Akira pauses. "I thought you said you like me..."
"Not anymore. Since when did you respect me? You checked my private messages, kissed me, bullied me without even considering how I will feel."
" Well... Because you never told me not to!"
"And can you call yourself a gentleman? A "gentle"man who anyone girl will fall for him?" I bite my teeth hardly from anger and disappointment. "Sorry, but I said NO!"
"Meg, please..." Akira softens. "I don't know that you were uncomfortable. You never say anything."
"Well, now you know! You're too young to love someone! This is not love! The value of your love is as ignoble as the evil criminals who deserve to get punched in their face for a hundred times."
Akira keep his silence. But unlike the silence that I have with Yuzu, this gap of time frustrates me.
"Say something!" I frown.
"Well...." Akira looks at me with his signature puppy eyes face, but this time I will not be fooled. "Do you still want to go the show with me?"
"No." I answer instantly. "Give me the ticket and I will pay you." I take out a couple thousands of yen from my wallet and put them on Akira's hand. He takes out the ticket from his pocket.
"Thanks for what you've done for me, the positive things, Akira. Good bye."
"Good bye, Meg." Akira grins.
I turn on my back and take long strides away from the Hawk. I let out a long reliving sigh. Pheww..... This is the first time I talked to a person like that. The special enzymes and chemicals in my body works like a placebo to cure cowardliness and passiveness. I still cannot believe I did it!
I walk to the counter in the grand lobby, hand the lady the ticket and ordered her to send the ticket to the next person who come to register a room. The lady smiles quizzically at me, and I, am wondering what's the matter of giving away free ticket.
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I enter the rink again, this time from the front door and not the backstage. As usual, I sit down in the front row. The whole stadium is glorious and fantastic with violet and dark blue lightings. And the ice, as perfect as I always expected it to be.
People starts to fill up seats and the stadium. The seat beside me is but still empty. Of course, you send it to the counter lady, My conscience rolls her eyes to me.
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Yuzu skates on the ice and does a couple of jumps for the opening. Our eyes meet when he lands his Quad toe. Oh my, the look in Yuzu's face is so confident and charming that makes my deepest part of my stomach to churn. He likes me.
The show before Yuzu's performance is basically like the one I saw in April. When Yuzu appears on the ice again, I see his serious face. It is the look when he's competing. With the speed of light, he sends pulses of electricity through my veins. My instinct told me to watch out, its either going to be awesomely breathtaking or difficult to pull it off. His costume is somehow too bulky. I know that it is to be designed as light and airy, but the front of the costume is just making me to feel that Yuzu is not in his beset shape and forming a ridiculously weird looking on his angelic face. The costume just doesn't suits him well!
I know the theme of his new short program is using one of the most famous piece of music: Ballade no.1 composed by Frederick Chopin, when the speaker releases the first note. Damn, it is hard.
Beyond my expectation, he jumped triple axel first before the Quad. He nearly missed the quad, but He missed the combination that followed. I don't know if it is because that I have a bar that is too high for this music, but I definitely know that Yuzu still got a lot to work on to match the quality of the music. Chopin's music is unpredictable. I know he can do it, he just needs time.
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"お疲れ〜"I say to him as he skates to me at the last of the last show to receive fan's gift.
"You got no gift for me?" He looks at my empty hands.
Startled by his words, I realized that I totally forgot the gift. I should at least buy a bouquet of flowers! Dang it.
Yuzu is sweating all over and catching his breathe after a 4T-3A-3A-3A sequence during the finale. I know within seconds what I can give it to him right now. I put my hands into my bag and pull out a pooh towel, I always adore and bring it with me because it has pooh on it, a tinny tiny bottle of water that is still perfectly sealed and untouched by anyone's lips, and a little fan to cool him down a bit.
I take a step forward to place the towel on his neck and open the bottle for him since he has bunch of gifts and flowers in his hands. I'm glad that there is nobody beside me, or else I guess I will be strangled to death by some fangirl.
"There you go, cooler and more comfortable." I smile at him when I gently wipe the towel on his face and neck.
He keeps his silence after I finished. A staff skates over to us and Yuzu literally buries the staff under a pile of fan's love.
"Oh, and finish the water before you leave. It won't be able to fulfill your eagerness to gulp down bottles of water, but you will feel better." I point at the bottle of water in his hand.
Yuzu's hand gracefully lift the bottle and finished it in one drink.
"Meg, we're not alone..." He sais.
"I know, its okay, I'll act as if I your cousin or the staff here." I blink naturally a several times to make him laugh.
He chuckles slightly, obviously pulling back his laughter.
"Great! Maybe I should make you my manager." He replies.
"Feeling better?"
"Awfully better. Only you noticed this. Thanks." Yuzu sais.
I look to my left, there are literally mountains of audience who are waiting to hand Yuzu their "love". A little jealous and a little forgiveness in my heart reminds me to hurry him up to go to other fans.
"Ok. Meet you after show for dinner?"
An rendezvous as unexpected as ever! Hastily recovering from the surprising invitation, I clumsily answer him.
"Uh, Yes! Of course. Meet you at the Grand Stairs." I wave to him as he skates to my left.
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The next person who show up after Yuzu is Nam. The amount of souvenir on his elbow is actually overwhelmingly heavy for a 16 years old boy. For me, the only impression from Nam is that he trains together with Yuzu and his first place in the World Champion Junior this season.
"Hi! Meg." Nam greets."How's the show?"
"Awesome~"
"Good to know~" Then Nam skates to join Yuzu.
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Sorry this took some time~~~ I am absolutely overwhelmed with my busy school projects.... I'm holding 2 big events in my school so I might not update frequently, but I will do my best. Thank you so much for the votes and the support~ ;'3
Jinbobo