#ni-ki fluff | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

filmbyjy · 2 months

Text

MISUNDERSTANDING

— the mafia series

PAIRING: nishimura riki x fem!reader

SUMMARY: you were never curious about people's lives but ni-ki's one has you intrigued. why weren't the teachers scolding him? getting mad at him for leaving in the middle class. it was just weird. that is until you find the very reason as to why the teachers were not doing anything. one thing led to another and somehow, you were roped into this mess.

WARNING: blood mentioned, fights and mafia, stabbing. if you remember the dark blood fight scene with sunghoon and ni-ki, you can imagine that but way more gory and also actually stabbing the person with an actual katana (not to sunghoon though, but to an actual bad guy)

WORD COUNT: 9.3K (I BEAT JAKE'S ONE?? WTH)

NOTE: lord have mercy, this took too much procrastination, sweat and tears to do finish this. like no joke. plus with the edition of me either forgetting to do it or me just having no mood to write. I FUCKING FINISHED IT!!! BE PROUD OF ME 🫵🏼🫵🏼🫵🏼🫵🏼

ONE

being a kid exposed to crimes at a young age wasn’t a peculiar thing. however, it was the life of a young boy who went by ni-ki. you see, ni-ki was one of the seven successful young billionaires in the world. his family name was already plastered to every billboard. the Nishimura Cooperation, they were one of the pillars to korea’s and japan’s success. any normal person would just look at them and acknowledge their power but what they didn’t know was…how did they get their power?

the nishimura family built their entire empire by doing dirty work which led to a huge money income. they bought their way up to the top and managed to gain countless of loyal followers. Eventually collaborating with the Park Corp. which was jay’s family company. Many were surprised to see that ni-ki was dabbling in a little of his family business because at the age of 18, nobody would willingly want to participate in business. The Nishimura Corp was mainly stationed in Japan so ni-ki handled the work done in Korea since he was already here.

as usual, as a teenager, ni-ki would be in school. however, he never studied nor did he care about his scores. why should he when is already a millionaire/billionaire at 18? he could easily buy his way through the system but his parents didn’t allow him. they wanted their son to get his certificate the right way. the same way his 2 other sisters were going through in Japan. ni-ki could only obey his parents’ words, they knew what was best for him. which leads into the female protagonist of his life story, you being his classmate.

ni-ki was like any normal teen boy. angsty, hates school and a little jokester who is always on the verge of getting detention. you had never understood why the teachers never actually sent the boy to detention, it was…weird.

“(name) and ni-ki.” the teacher announces. there was this project that you had for an English class, something about literature and poetry. you had to find some classical romance novel that fits the criteria. which you didn’t fully understand. honestly, you never even liked English class, the teacher just rubs you the wrong way. either way, ni-ki was now your project partner. you were already plotting different ways to approach him and actually get him to do his work. you weren’t oblivious to the fact that ni-ki rarely ever participates in school work.

“hi, we have to do a project together.” you timidly say after you approached him. The boy before you looked bored, seems like he doesn’t fancy English class too.

ni-ki sighs, “yeah, listen. I don’t really like English class so we should get this stupid project done and over with. i also have other important things to do.”

well, at least he was honest. you hummed at his words, “seems like we have something in common. let’s get this project done quickly then let’s meet in the library at 3pm?”

ni-ki shrugs, “alright then. if i’m late, don’t bother waiting for me. I have a pretty busy schedule and life so school and this project is the least of my worries.”

“no problem, just let me know if you can participate in this project. If you can't, I'll just do it by myself and slap your name somewhere on the paper.” you say. ni-ki tilts his head but he didn’t protest your suggestion.

“that will be great. Now, I need to run some errands.” he leaves the classroom, the teacher not even bothering to even ask where he was going. clearly, they were too used to him leaving the class in the middle of nowhere or maybe they knew something you didn’t.

“he is weird…” you mutter under your breath.

as expected, ni-ki did not show up at the library. you sighed and just continued working on the project. you weren’t exactly surprised he wouldn’t show up but you still hope he’d at least have some manners and actually show up. It was 5pm, you were finishing up on your part of the project. You still had to do his part and then come up with a short little poem because your teacher wanted to make it more sentimental or whatever she wanted.

ni-ki shows up, busted and bruised up. his hair was dishevelled, blood at the corner of his lips, he looked rough. something an 18 year old boy shouldn’t be having, you confused. just as he draws nearer, you notice there was a cut on his cheeks, small drips of blood slowly falling down. you gasp.

“sorry, had some business to attend to.” he says sheepishly.

“this is your business to attend to? why are you so bloodied and bruised up? who did you have a fight with?”

“just some group.” he shrugs. “don’t worry, my older friends were there to help me out. well, it’s not like they really helped.” he mutters the last part.

“uh, well this can’t be some sort of tiny thing. you’re bleeding.”

he reaches to touch his cheek and swipes the blood away. he winces a little and shrugs, “nothing too bad. been through worse. anyways, what’s the part I have to do? feeling a little bad if I don’t help you out a little at least.” you sighed when you noticed the blood he swiped away continued to flow.

“come here.” he tilts his head at your words but still goes over to you.

you made him sit next to you and you took out some antiseptic from your bag. you had one because you usually volunteered at the orphanage and the kids there played quite rough.

“this might sting a little.” you told ni-ki. he sighs and just lets you do whatever it is. you wiped the blood with a wet tissue and then placed the antiseptic on the cut. ni-ki winces.

“while i am curious as to how you got this since it looks like you had a huge fight, I’ll keep my mouth shut.” you placed a bandage on the cut. “there it’s better now. here take this and wipe the other blood that’s dried up on your face.”

ni-ki thanked you quietly. he quickly wipes the blood that you had previously pointed at. “so which part am I supposed to do? also, didn’t the teacher say we have to do a romance novel?” he grimaces at the thought of having to read a romance novel. he was never a fan of romantic things. Sure, he liked cheesy things like matching clothes or matching items but he was too single for that (and still young).

“yeah, it’s some romance novel. from the synopsis, i can tell it’s really similar to ‘Twilight’.” you could hear ni-ki sighing.

“so some vampire romantic novel thing?”

“basically. have you watched ‘Twilight’?”

“no. i don’t have time for movies or series or dramas. i have a busy schedule.”

“sounds…boring but i understand if you have a job and it’s more important than watching a basic show.”

“i-” ni-ki sighs. “we can watch it. well, i can watch it on my own and then read the novel the teacher suggested us to read.”

“alright, we can split it and then summarise the novel with our own thoughts. makes it more sentimental.”

ni-ki nods, “uhh send me a link to the ‘Twilight’ story or something.”

“i don’t have your number.”

ni-ki holds his hand out and you gave him your phone. he quickly types in his number and sends a text.

“there, now i need to go. i have work.” ni-ki doesn’t even bother to wait until you uttered a word, he just leaves. you huffed and looked down at your laptop. maybe you should just stay and complete some work.

TWO

ni-ki entered the Decelis Resort and clicked on the elevator button to the top floor. he was met with his 6 other older friends. each of them huffing and sighing, it seems like they found out something.

“uh, what’s wrong?”

“this.” jungwon shows off the screen on their database. a warning which was basically telling jake about his brother. ni-ki tilts his head.

“isn’t your brother dead a long time ago, hyung?” ni-ki asks jake.

“yeah.” nabi says. her arms were wrapped around jake as she comforts him. right, he forgot they got together already and they aren’t blindly being stupid and not confessing to each other (read: please save ni-ki, he already witnessed two of his hyungs kissing their girlfriend/wife).

ni-ki scrunches his face at the affection that jake’s girlfriend was giving him. just as he looks to look over in the other direction, he witnesses heeseung giving his wife heart eyes. ni-ki has had enough of it, he rolls his eyes.

“why did you call me in, i had a project to do with my partner.” he says.

“oooo project with a partner, who is this partner. is it a girl~” sunghoon teases. ah, the ever so annoying thing sunghoon loved to do with ni-ki, tease him. sunghoon should be thankful that ni-ki could hold back his anger. or else, ni-ki would’ve initiated a war crime on him.

“none.” ni-ki simply says. he folds his arm.

“none what?” sunghoon tilts his head, slightly confused at the short answer.

“none of your business.” ni-ki fires back. sunghoon clenches his jaw and gets ready to swing when jay holds him back. sunghoon practically hisses like a cat as he scrambles to get out of jay’s grip.

“okay okay. calm down.” heeseung claps his hand to get their attention. “we called you back here because while jungwon and jake fix the database, you, sunghoon, jay and sunoo are going out to find the target.”

“old school style?” sunoo asks.

“yeah. since our database is fucked up right now.”

“so…how are we going to do that without the database?” sunghoon asks.

“stakeout. you guys should know what he looks like after i send the photo of him. sunoo and jay will be in charge of ground level. ni-ki and sunghoon take high ground.” heeseung explains.

“what about you, hyung?” jay says.

heeseung turns to look over at his wife and the older boys instantly knew. ni-ki was still clueless until he realised…

“OH MY GOD EWWWW. can’t you leave the baby making for another time? we are literally on a mission.” ni-ki fake gags.

“you guys are on a mission. i can stay back.” heeseung reasons.

“you can fight too, hyung??”

“yeah, no. I wanna stick with my wife, thank you very much.”

“whatever, let’s just start this mission. I’ll just take charge as usual.” jungwon says.

THREE

ni-ki and sunghoon stayed up above while jay and sunoo stuck below. each of them had their own disguises since they were going in old school style. even if it sounded ridiculous but at least nobody would know it’s them.

“you guys going in now?” sunghoon asks.

“yeah, me and sunoo are going in separately to avoid any suspicions.”

“jake hyung says that they are working on getting the app online. if we find the guy without the app then we just strike and kidnap.” sunoo says.

“hyungs, you two are the only ones who have eyes inside. let us know if you need more help, me and sunghoon hyung will come down and help you.” ni-ki says.

“mmm, will do. you guys watch out from upstairs if the client left the building.” jay says.

“got it.”

both ni-ki and sunghoon watched from above the building. what they didn’t expect was for someone to come up behind them and shove them off the side. ni-ki grabbed sunghoon and pushed him closer towards the side of the building’s wall so that sunghoon could catch himself. ni-ki grabs his grappling hook and throws it so sunghoon can catch it. Both of them were eventually ‘safe’ on the side of the building.

“shit, they’re onto us.” sunghoon curses. “you good, ni-ki?”

“yeah, sure. dangling about 656 ft above the ground is totally fine, hyung.” ni-ki sarcastically says. sunghoon rolls his eyes.

“i can just let go of the rope and let you fall, you know?”

“you wouldn’t, hyung. you love me too much in a brotherly way.” ni-ki says.

sunghoon sighs, “yeah whatever.”

“we should find a way back up. those assholes decided to shove us off.” ni-ki says.

“yeah, we should.”

sunghoon taps on his spy earpiece, “heads up guys, I think they’re onto to us. Me and ni-ki just got shoved off the rooftop.”

“so you guys are just dangling at the side of the building?” jay asks.

“yeah, we need to clear the way. sunoo, could you find a way to floor 76? we’re currently dangling beside one of those hotel rooms on that floor. i think someone is occupying this room though.” sunghoon says.

“don’t worry, i’m on my way right now. they don’t call me sneaky sunoo for no reason.”

“nobody calls you that, hyung.”

“shut up, ni-ki.”

“i’ll keep a look out for the mafia leader. he’s probably in the party they have in the small casino of the hotel.” jay says.

“alright, seems like this is the plan we have for now. we’ll meet up after sunoo saves us.” sunghoon adds.

“roger.”

the wind blew onto their hair, ni-ki sighs.

“is it too late to tell my project partner that i won’t be coming to school tomorrow.” ni-ki asks.

“you’re still worried about your project?! we’re dangling off the side of like one of the tallest skyscrapers right now and you’re worried about that?!” sunghoon says as he is bewildered by ni-ki’s words.

“well, i’m still a high school student. i don’t want to fail my classes.”

“when have you ever cared about school.” sunghoon deadpans. ni-ki was about to counter but ultimately shut his mouth.

“you’re right. i hate school.” ni-ki huffs.

“no no wait. we’re not stopping there, tell me why are you suddenly thinking about this? is this about your project partner? because this is my first time hearing you actually want to go to school.”

“no.” ni-ki simply replies.

“don’t just say ‘no’. there is something more to that. are you falling for your project partner?”

“you’re crazy, why would i fall for my project partner. i’m only a high school senior, i’m too young to be falling in love. i’d rather focus on our mission than her.”

“ah, so it’s a her.” sunghoon egged further. though ni-ki couldn’t see sunghoon face, he knew the older was smirking at him, seemingly amused that ni-ki was actually showing some slight unknown feelings.

“the teacher assigned us together, we’re forced to do it. it’s not like i wanted to do this project with her.”

“okay but is this girl at least cute to you?”

“hyung, can we not talk about this?”

“no no. we have time. there are at least 10 rooms on this floor, sunoo will take a long time. tell me if this girl is your type.”

“i am not telling you and also, i don’t have a type.” ni-ki grumbles.

“so, it’s a yes?”

“i’m just talking to her because i am forced to.”

“does she intrigue you in any way?”

“hyung-”

“yo, i am here to save the day.” sunoo opens up the window just enough so that sunghoon and ni-ki could slid through.

both sunghoon and ni-ki climbed through the window quietly.

“how did you get inside the room?” sunghoon whispers.

“simple, the room was occupied by some girls so i just used my sunoo charms and boom they let me in. i told them i’ll be back soon but i’m gonna bolt out of this room after grabbing you guys.”

“the girls don’t appeal to you?”

“oh no, they are just…how do i put this in a nicer term?” sunoo thinks for a split second, “they are way older than me, about 40 years old?”

“ayo?” ni-ki says.

“anyways, we need to get out of here chop chop. i was informed that the system and database is back so we don’t need to stakeout. we can just find and capture the guy with a simple call for backup.” sunoo says.

“great. now, let’s get out of here.”

sunghoon, sunoo and ni-ki snuck out of the hotel room and went to find jay. jay gestures for them to come closer and they went over to him.

he nudges his head to point where the guy stood, “our target is being surrounded by some other innocent people and his bodyguards. we need to find a way to bring them around and away from these people.”

“did you call for backup?” sunghoon asks.

“yeah, they are on the way now. they’ll just clean up whatever mess we’ve done.” jay explains.

“hey umm, guys.” jake says.

“what’s wrong?” sunghoon asks.

“we can see from the security cameras some bodyguards walking to the casino hall. jungwon had eavesdropped into their convo from their walkie talkie. it seems like they’re going to report about sunghoon and ni-ki.”

“shit, we really need to take them down. jay, how about you proceed with sunoo and play a round with our target while me and ni-ki take down those guards.”

“yeah, that works.” jay says.

“perfect, we’ll watch over the security cameras. we’ll report if there is anything else. jay, your men are about 10 minutes away from the location, they’ll come closer after the deal is done.” jake says.

“got it.”

“so? can we go now?” ni-ki asks.

“yeah, let’s go.” sunghoon says.

about 1 hour later, they managed to kick down their bodyguards with no suspicions from other bypassers. both ni-ki and sunghoon locked their unconscious bodies inside the bathroom stall and went to find jay and sunoo. jay flips the coin and it lands on heads, he smirks. he cracks his knuckles and neck.

“showtime.” he mutters.

chaos quickly ensues. everyone was running out of the casino, jay flips his gun and shoots. sunoo slides towards the entrance of the casino and allows all the innocent people out before cooly shutting the doors for all the bad guys. he puts his hands up once he turns around when the henchmen were holding up their guns at him.

“ehem, i suppose you guys have me cornered.” he innocently says. “i suggest you turn around though.” he smirks.

before the henchmen could even turn around, their necks were snapped and they fell to the ground. sunghoon and ni-ki managed to run in time just to help them fight off with jay’s men. ni-ki corners their target in one spot.

“hand over what we want and we’ll let you free.”

the guy laughs maniacally and ni-ki laughs along with him, “no.”

ni-ki stops laughing, “okay then.” with one simple shot, the guy falls to the ground, blood surrounding him. sunghoon winces.

“i can never get over this scene. you’re so brutal and direct with it like no hesitation. at least jay waits for the guy to say something.”

“we don’t wait for people like him and besides, what good is he going to bring us when all he has done is sell personal information, drugs and solicit women.” ni-ki says.

“ni-ki is right though.” jay shrugs. he turns to his men, “anyways, let’s clean this up before police get here. which should be in 15 minutes.”

“10 minutes.” jake corrects them.

“okay thanks.” jay says.

jay pats one of his men's backs, “there isn’t much people this time so it should be easier.”

“there are a few unconscious people in the bathroom. maybe we can use them and turn them into our men.” sunghoon suggests.

“good idea, you heard sunghoon.” jay says. jay’s men nod, they get to work and went to clean up everything while sunghoon, jay, sunoo and ni-ki went back to the Decelis Resort.

FOUR

ni-ki went to school the next day after not getting much sleep. he was barely awake during the whole class, almost dozing off. it’s not like the teachers cared anyways. well, except for you. you had whacked the table to get ni-ki to wake up. he groans and wakes up.

“nishimura, we need to finish up the last bit of the project.”

“do we have to? i’m tired.”

“yes, we do.”

he sighs, “fine but can we do it after school?”

“we have consultations with the teacher right now and we barely have any work done other than my part.” you told ni-ki.

ni-ki deadpans. “and? look, i barely got any sleep last night due to some things in my life and i want to sleep right now.”

ni-ki almost looked too pitiful, you could see the dark circles under his eyes. the way his eyes were slowly about to shut. the slow blinking. which made you feel bad and so you sighed.

“fine, just sleep. i’ll find a way to cover you from the teacher if he asks.” you say.

ni-ki tilts his head. he was surprised to even hear that you’d cover for him. it’s not like the teacher cared so why did you care? either ways, at least he could sleep so he lays his head onto the desk and falls asleep. you sighed and turned away from looking at him. you still had to do something with the project hence you just continued to work on it without him.

about 2 hours later, the class ends. something was off, really eerie. you had went to the bathroom because you know, you had some business to attend to. you were about to turn the corner to the classroom when all of a sudden, someone bumped into you. you apologise but something was weird about them. they didn’t look like a high school student so why were they here?

ni-ki spots this and so he runs over and grabs your wrist. he doesn’t even mention anything, just grabs your wrist and walks. it leaves you confused as to who that guy was. ni-ki turns the corner and stops.

“get to class,” he says.

“umm, who was that?”

“just get to class. i need to settle something. don’t leave and make sure everyone stays inside.” he warns.

“okay?” you say a little confused. ni-ki grabs your shoulder and turns you around before pushing you a little to direct you to go inside the class. he runs off after. you were still confused.

after school, you still hadn’t seen ni-ki and so you were a little worried. of course, any sane person would be worried for their classmate after they disappeared without a trace. which led to you looking for him. not a very smart idea but what could an 18 year old boy do? he may or not be strong enough to fight some people.

there was an alleyway behind the school. dark and scary. you had to pass by it every time you went home. maybe, they were hurting him behind there. it was possible. you had turned to the corner and ducked behind the wall. there ni-ki was with a foot on top of the guy, it seemed like he was on the phone with someone.

“hyung, can you get here quick? this guy called for some backup.” ni-ki sighs. “you want me to settle with possibly 10 more men coming over? wow, for once you aren’t doubting my skills? i’m surprised.”

“no seriously though, find out why they went to find me at my school. this place is filled with innocent people and it would not be great for them to be caught in the middle.”

“no, the guy is knocked out. may want to interview him or something. he seems like he knows some useful info.” he pauses. “i am not carrying him, i’ll look too suspicious and besides, i have a project to work on with my partner.”

your heart races as you hear his words. wait. that makes no sense, you can’t like ni-ki. you shook your head. it was probably just the adrenaline, there were other things that were more important. who was ni-ki calling and why did he sound like he was on some creepy team. what do they call those people.

“what? obviously! we’re the mafia!” ni-ki says.

ah, right. the mafia. that thought flies over your head until you kept repeating it, you froze. ni-ki was part of the mafia? that explains the cuts and bruises he constantly has. why he rarely gets any sleep. why the teacher does not care. he was part of the mafia and the teachers knew about it. this new found knowledge changes your whole perspective of ni-ki. he was not weird, he was in fact a dangerous person who was living a very wild life.

“okay, get here quick.” ni-ki says before ending the call. you had ran away from there. your legs were dragging you somewhere where you had to process everything and maybe get your mind off it. how do you continue working on your project knowing your partner was part of the mafia?

you had finally sat down in the school library. you were trying to comprehend everything. all you knew was that you can’t let anyone know about this and ni-ki can’t know that you know about him. what if you get hunted down? or what if ni-ki tries to hurt you? you could feel a cold shiver run down your spine, your life may be mundane but there was no way this was real. it felt surreal, this was real life and not a spy movie.

there were footsteps approaching you, a deep voice followed by it.

“hey, we still have to complete our project. we should get it done and over with. i have about.” he checks his watch. “30 minutes or so to spend.”

“we don’t have to do it. if you’re busy, we can just text.” you say. ni-ki tilts his head, he grabs the chair in front of you and sits.

“why do you look so scared to talk to me?” his eyes narrowed. you visibly gulped.

“what do you mean? why would i be scared to talk to you.”

ni-ki didn’t believe you, he leans forward. your breath hitches. his face up close, a strand of his brown hair falling right on his face. he once again tilts his head. “tell me.”

you felt the air being knocked out of you. you can’t look at him in the eyes. your face was heating up, this wasn’t good. “no. i’m really fine.”

ni-ki cocks his eyebrows and clicks his tongue, “then you should have time to do this project. we wasted too much time already.” he finally sits back in his seat, leaving you to able to breathe. his phone rings and rolls his eyes, he doesn’t pick it up.

“so what do we have so far?” ni-ki says.

30 minutes turned into 4 hours where you were working on the project with ni-ki. he cooperated really easily. he does the research and everything you ask him to do with ease.

“nishimura riki.” an unfamiliar voice says. you had looked up a guy with silver hair was standing there.

“hyung, what are you doing here?” ni-ki says not bothering to look behind him as he continues to work on the project.

“we called you hundreds of times and you’re here in the fucking library doing school work?”

“it’s a project. it’s due soon.”

“last i heard, it was due in a week.”

“and? me and my partner haven’t done much.”

“oh my god, this is the first time you’re acting like this. is it because you like her?” the silver haired guy points over at you. you blushed. ni-ki looks up at you and then behind him.

“no. sunghoon hyung, you always assume it’s something else.”

“yeah but you hate school.”

“i’ll go back in a bit. just leave.”

the man named sunghoon glares at ni-ki and then looks over at you.

“you have to be careful, remember. they watch our every move.” sunghoon warns.

“yes, i know hyung.”

“i’ll wait in the parking lot. finish this up because we have somewhere to be.” sunghoon says before he walks away. ni-ki sighs.

“is he your guardian?”

“one of them. my parents live abroad, i have 6 other ‘brothers’ who take care of me.” ni-ki nonchalantly says.

“oh.” you would’ve said more but you didn’t want to mention ni-ki's secret life. it was scary.

“i’ll just complete this last part and then we’re done. i believe that’s what we have to do for the project.” you hummed at his words.

ni-ki does as he said he would, finish up the last part and then packs his stuff. he gets up and pauses. “get home safe.” he says before quickly leaving. your heart races.

FIVE

2 weeks passed by quickly. it was just like any typical day at school, lessons for the day and then walking back home. you had walked past that dark creepy alleyway when suddenly, a few people had grabbed you. you were struggling in their grasp, fighting your way out of their arms. you kicked and bit their hands, finally they let go and so you did what was best, you had bolted away from them.

you grabbed your phone and dialed for ni-ki. the phone rings and rings as you ran but he wasn’t picking up. frustrated tears fell down your face. you hated feeling helpless, you weren’t strong enough and these people were fully grown adults. you needed help. out of nowhere, someone grabs your wrist. it was sunghoon, he pulls you over to one of the stores at the side of the road and then went through the staff room before going through the back door.

a van was waiting there. sunghoon opens the door and pushes you inside, he shuts the door and the driver starts driving away. you were panting heavily, you were also sure you’d get a bruise on your legs from being pushed into the van. ni-ki pulls you up so you could sit down properly. he places a jacket on your lap to cover your legs since you were wearing your school skirt. he also unintentionally brings your face closer so he could further inspect you for any bruises on your face.

“are you really sure you don’t have feelings for her?” sunghoon says. ni-ki rolls his eyes before dropping his hands to his side.

“can’t i just be concerned for a classmate who literally got chased by some bad guys? any normal person wouldn’t have to go through this if they didn’t interact with us.”

“yeah, whatever but there is something laced under your actions. what normal guy will hold her face like that? you look like you’re going to kiss her.” sunghoon mentions.

ni-ki’s face was stone cold, he definitely did not like that statement.

“do you really have to say that? I’m seriously just showing concern for a classmate.” ni-ki deadpans. you were staring in between both sunghoon and ni-ki, you didn’t even notice the other guys that were staring at you in confusion.

“so, what are going to do now? it seems like those guys think ni-ki has a love interest which means it’s only going to get worse from here on out.” a blond hair guy comments.

ni-ki sighs, “we need a way to distract them, i am sure her parents are going to be targeted next.”

“my parents…they umm aren’t present in my life…” it went dead silent.

“well, that’s good at least. we don’t have to worry about more people getting hurt-” sunghoon gets whacked by a guy with blond streaks in his hair.

“do you have any sense of awareness? she’s only 18 with no parents and you are thankful we don’t have extra people to get hurt??” the guy with blond streaks in his hair comments.

“it’s alright. i don’t exactly remember my parents much. i was really young.”

“so you’ve been living with your grandparents or something?” the guy blond hair adds.

“yeah. pretty much my whole life- hey, wait how did you know?” you had pointed out.

“idiots.” the guy with blond streak mutters under his breath. he holds out his hand for you to shake. “i’m jay. that idiot over there is jake.” he points to sunghoon, “the other idiot is sunghoon. i’m sorry for their stupidity. they clearly don’t know how to empathise with people.”

“it’s alright.”

“we’re here.”

“oh, right. that’s sunoo.” jay pats sunoo’s shoulder. sunoo playfully rolls his eyes before turning to look at you.

he gives you a smile, “nice to meet you, ni-ki’s girlfriend.”

his words fluster you, you didn’t expect to be addressed like that.

ni-ki shoves sunoo. “could you not call her that? she could be uncomfortable for all you know.”

“she isn’t saying anything or looking too disgusted so it is true. she’s your girlfriend.” sunoo shrugs. ni-ki rolls his eyes as he finds sunoo’s judgement of yours and his relationship to be something completely untrue. sunoo snickers before putting up a straight face.

“annoying fucks.” the one with the cat-like eyes sighs. he holds out his hand for you to shake and you took it. “i’m jungwon. the leader of this little…” he looks towards the others and then back at you, “boy group.” he says, dragging out the last part.

“BOY GROUP!?! we aren’t those pretty fuckers who dance and sing.” sunghoon rolls his eyes. “if anything, i’m stronger than them. they probably can’t lift up a gun if they wanted to. scaredy cats.”

“jeez, what’s gotten you so spicy with the topic of ‘boy groups’.” jay says.

“probably cause they get more bitches screaming their names than he ever has.” jake shrugs.

“damn.” heeseung adds.

sunghoon could only sit there and huff.

“okay, that’s enough.” jungwon pinches the bridge of his nose. “sunghoon, you know how to make plans last minute, what should we do?”

“can’t think of anything right now. all the plans i have in my head involve abandoning her.” sunghoon points to you. ni-ki smacks his hand.

“we can’t leave her.”

“and why?”

“because there could be other ways.”

“like what?” sunghoon folds his arms. “how about you suggest other ways, nishimura.”

all eyes were on ni-ki before he sighs, “since they already think, (name) is my girlfriend. we can take advantage of that and find a way to actually infiltrate their base or at least find out who is responsible for all of this.”

“so…you wanna fake date…her.” jay points to you.

“i-” ni-ki could feel his face heat up. “if you put it that way, sure. i guess.” he looks away so you and the other boys don’t notice the colour of his face change.

“i thought you were the one who said that you didn’t want to you call her your girlfriend? what happened to that?” sunoo deadpans.

“it’s just for the mission.”

“uh huh, the mission…ni-ki you like her don’t you?”

“no. i don’t, i just-” he groans. “i’m only 18, i have never fallen for anyone. why are you expecting me to know what feelings are?”

“he is definitely in love.” jake declares.

“uh, guys…i’m still here.” you say.

just as you opened your mouth to utter another word, the driver stops and announces that they had arrived their destination. you had zero clue where they had brought you to. however, the exterior of the place amazes you. it was huge, beautiful chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. there were greenery all over the place.

“welcome to our hotel.” jay says.

“woah. you guys built this place?”

“instructed and led the project. we obviously aren’t made to construct the place because that isn’t our job but yeah, for the most part.”

“it’s pretty.” your eyes trailed around the exterior and beauty of the decor. ni-ki stares at you, you truly looked pretty whenever your eyes twinkled at things you really liked looking at. a smile creeps up but he holds himself back. he couldn’t let anyone see him like this.

“anyways, here are the card to your room.” jay hands you a card. “since the mobsters seem to think ni-ki is your boyfriend, you won’t be able to get home.”

“right but what do i do? i don’t have any of my clothes and other stuff. most of my textbooks are still at home.”

“oh don’t worry about that. i’ll get some people to grab your stuff and we’ll clear it so that you can stay in this hotel safely with our men around.” jay smiles.

you turned to look at the other boys and they didn’t make a single face.

“i get to stay here for free? that’s not possible right? i mean, staying at this luxurious hotel for free doesn’t seem exactly right.”

“you’re right. there is a catch.” jay gets close. ni-ki nearly reaches out to stop him but he stops himself. “help us out.”

“oh, umm. look, i don’t know much about your little scheme. i just know these people you work with just do shady stuff.”

“you’re right, we do shady stuff but it’s not all legal. just…maybe illegal to a certain extent. after all, we do help good people. we don’t kill people unless they’re bad. which is why, you’re safest in our hands.” jay explains.

“alright. what do i have to do?” jay points to ni-ki as soon as you’re done speaking.

“be his girlfriend.” jay simply says.

“WHAT?”

“HYUNG!” ni-ki says. he could feel his ears heating up.

“don’t pretend i didn’t see how jealous you got when i got close to her. plus, it’s for a greater cause. we can use her and bait out those people and then find their boss.”

“but jay hyung.”

“do the others agree with me?” jay asks. the others nodded.

“sorry ni-ki, we just have to use this method. for some odd reason, they wanna use this ‘weakness’ of you having a girlfriend so we can take advantage of that and find out who is behind this.” jungwon says.

ni-ki’s eyes met with yours before he turn to the other boys, “fine but (name) has to also agree. this plan won’t work if she disagrees, i am not forcing her.”

“wow, the ever so gentleman.” sunghoon rolls his eyes. “(name), what do you say?”

you looked in between the boys and ni-ki. there was honestly no other choice, you were already roped into their life and it would only be harder for you if you just disagree. “yeah, i’ll do it. i’ll be…ni-ki’s girlfriend.” you could feel the heat rush to your cheeks as quickly as possible after those words left your mouth.

“ayyy.” jake smacks ni-ki. “ni-ki’s first girlfriend. now lead her to her room, she doesn’t know the place as great as you.” he shoves ni-ki to you.

“you guys know the place as well as me, why do i have to do it?”

“because she’s your girlfriend now, so be a gentleman and do it. besides, you’ll get jealous if we send her to her room.” jake continues to tease ni-ki.

“very funny. i am not jealous.” ni-ki deadpans.

“yeah and i’m ugly.” jake says.

“you are.” ni-ki yells as he grabs your hand and brings you over to the elevator. you could hear jake yelling a string of curses to ni-ki but he only ignores it. he taps the card on the elevator and clicks on the floor. the elevator closes and you were now in a confined space with just ni-ki.

“we have to make our relationship believable to those bad guys.” he turns to meet your eyes. “any suggestions?”

“uh, why are you asking me? I don’t know anything about dating.”

“considering we worked together during the past project, I think you should know more about love than I do. you did finish your part quicker than me.” ni-ki explains.

“yeah but that doesn’t mean I know much about datin-”

“romance is part of dating so, you should know.”

“well, too bad I don’t.” you say. ni-ki sighs.

“fine, I guess I have to follow my hyungs method.” ni-ki walks closer to you and you can’t help but step back. he corners you in the elevator. “we have to make it believable so you better play your role well or else, we won’t be able to get information we need.”

you meekly nodded. ni-ki was towering over you and it couldn’t help but feel small and helpless. after all, who's to say ni-ki couldn’t just i don’t know take out a knife and stab you. then leave you dead in the elevator. finally, the elevator reaches the floor. ni-ki steps back and grabs onto your hand. he easily interlaces it and drags you over to your hotel room.

it was one of the executive lounges so there were only 2 per floor. Hence, ni-ki was assigned to the room that was nearby yours. he stops in front of the large double door.

“this is your room and since you have no clothes. I’ll just lend you some of mine until the hyungs grab your stuff from your house.” he points to the other door on the other side of the hallway. “that is my room. considering I stay here most of the times, that room is off-limits to other people from booking it. if you need anything, just go over. for now, go in and just rest up. i’ll bring my clothes to you so you change into them and not wear our school uniform.”

you nodded. ni-ki hands you the card to your room and he keeps the other card so he could go in easily and possibly protect you if anything happens. he quickly goes to his room to grab a shirt and sweatpants before coming back and handing them to you.

“we have some ball, party thing tomorrow night and so you’ll be going as my plus one. there are a bunch of big media people going there to create a publicity stunt. it will make this whole thing even more believable since you’re with me.”

“okay, what am i supposed to do in the day though.”

“as it’s the weekends, you can just stay here or around the hotel until the party. there is room service just make your order, you won’t need to pay for it.”

“oh-” you hesitated, “but like isn’t it too much…this hotel is fancy looking and high-end…i am sure the food is expensive too.”

he leans down to your height, “it’s free since you are my girlfriend. the staff at the front desk know you’re my girl. you don’t have to worry.”

you felt your face heat up. his girl. a sentence you thought you’d never hear ni-ki say to you. it almost sounded too real, however you knew this wasn’t real. you were only a victim and ni-ki was your protector.

“r-right, it’s late. have a goodnight!” you quickly swiped the card and bolted into your room. leaving the door to shut quite hard. ni-ki snickers.

‘how cute’ he thought. he catches himself and so he shakes off the thought. it was only for a little while, he can’t fall for you. after all, he was a dangerous guy. it would put your life at risk if there was ever anything going on between you and him. that thought kinda made him sad, he frowns before turning around and walking over to his own room.

SIX

at around, 6pm someone comes knocking at your door. you went to peek through the peephole and realised that it was just a hotel staff. you opened the door and they entered with a rack of clothing and a present.

“these are the clothes that Mr.Nishimura hand picked for you.” the staff points to the rack. they hand you the present. “Mr.Nishimura also prepared this for you and told you to wear it for tonight. We will have a makeup artist coming soon to help with the makeup and hair.”

you nodded and the staff left the room. you had opened up the box and pulled out the dress from inside. it falls down perfectly as you hold it up, a beautiful long black dress with ruffles that cuffs around your arm until it reaches just below your shoulder. it was beautiful and it was also paired with a masquerade mask to hide your identity at the ball. the makeup and hairstylist arrives and quickly does your hair and makeup. just as they spun you around to let you look at yourself in the mirror, you were in shock. that was not you. they had tied your hair up in a half up and half down, along with curling the ends in loose curls and even making your curtain bangs look nice.

the doorbell rings, the staff letting ni-ki in. he walks over to you and he pauses in his step when he sees you. you looked beautiful. his heart races, was this love? the boy was completely speechless.

“umm, how do i look?” you had asked ni-ki. his eyes scanned you from head to toe and you blushed under his gaze.

“beautiful. you look beautiful.” he mutters. “let’s go. the older guys are waiting for us. they’re also looking out for the bad guys. security is tight today so you don’t have to worry about getting harmed.”

you nod. “that’s good.” ni-ki holds out his hand for you to take and you do so. he intertwines your hand with his and brings you over to the ball.

just as you entered, cameras start flashing. most likely capturing every part of yours and ni-ki’s arrival because it was it big thing. another member of the Decelis Boys was taken. there were whispers, mumbles and gossips all over the ballroom but ni-ki paid no attention to it as you leads you to where the other boys were.

“nice, the media is going crazy ni-ki. you’ve done it.” jake says.

“now, they’ll probably attack later on so make sure to bring (name) somewhere safe.” jay adds. ni-ki nods.

“you can enjoy your little couple time now. just keep a watch out.” sunoo teases.

“hyung.” ni-ki says. sunoo laughs, he pats ni-ki’s back and the other went their separate way as they split up to cover the ballroom. ni-ki turns to you, “want something to eat? or drink?”

“umm, is there only wine here?”

“i suppose so. hmm, maybe we can eat some nacho chips. i’ll request the waiters to prepare some for us and of course some plain water.” you nod at ni-ki’s words. “I’ll be back in a short while. you’re okay with being alone for a bit right? i need to find the waiter.”

“i don’t mind.”

“that’s good. wait here.” you hummed once more at his words.

right as ni-ki left, someone comes up to you and strikes a conversation. it felt off though, definitely not right like something was about to happen. the guy smirks and hands you a drink that he apparently grabbed from the waiter that had passed by previously. you shook your head and politely rejected it since it was wine and you were still technically a minor here in Korea.

the rejection doesn’t sit well with this guy, he frowns and shoves the glass into your hands and tells you to drink it. thankfully, ni-ki came back on time and shoves the guy away.

“what are you doing to my girlfriend?” ni-ki’s deep voice resonates. the guy wasn’t fazed by it and so ni-ki grabs the glass in your hands before splashing it on the guy’s face. he turns to you and whispers, “run. get to the elevator and click on the penthouse button.” he hands you a card.

you do as he says and left the ballroom. ni-ki taps the bracelet on his wrist. it sends notifications to the other boys. jake and heeseung’s significant other quickly left the place too. jungwon smacks the button on the wall for emergencies. a siren blasts the whole room and it sends everyone in a frenzy. everyone except for the bad guys, ran towards the exit. they stayed and took out their guns, aiming at the boys.

jay and sunoo pulled out their guns and so the battle begins. the bad guys ran towards each of them, but the two boys ducked and shot twice without looking back. jay eyebrows furrowed, this certainly wasn’t going to be a simple fight like back at the hotel.

“they’re stronger now, it seems like whoever is behind this has finally start to slowly show their power and skills.” jay says. sunoo looks down at the weapons and outfit that the guys they shot wore.

“this person is definitely smart.”

“but not smart enough.”

“he could be toying with us, hyung. we need to watch out.” just as sunoo says so, someone tries to attack him. ni-ki slashes his katana right on the guy’s back, saving sunoo and jay. the body falls right beside them.

“i think they’re going to get up to the penthouse. me, sunghoon and jake are going up there. jay hyung, we need more people to get up here.”

“on it. i’ll get some backup.” jay runs off. sunoo nods at ni-ki before he goes to shoot more people. sunghoon, jake and ni-ki went up to the penthouse by a different and secret entrance. once they arrived, it was eerily quiet.

“this definitely does not feel right.” sunghoon says. suddenly, a loud shriek was heard. the 3 of them ran over, only to see you, nabi and eun crouched on the ground with 3 guys cornering the 3 of you.

you had made eye contact with ni-ki, fear evident in your eyes and it makes ni-ki mad. something switched inside him and all that was left was anger. the red vision covering his eyes. he spins his 2 katanas and charges forward easily slashing two of the people. the last guy tries to fight him but couldn’t as ni-ki easily stabs the guy right in the middle. the guy falls to the ground. jake and sunghoon the whole thing with their jaw dropped.

ni-ki turns back to them, the blood right all over his shirt and some on his face.

“guard the elevators and get more people here. check up with the others downstairs. we may need to move. they found our little hiding spot here. i’ll move the girls to the garage since they have no idea where it is.”

with not a single word uttered, jake and sunghoon quickly left. they’ve never seen this side of ni-ki before and honestly, it scared them quite a bit. after they left, ni-ki checks up on you. his eyes softened.

“are you okay?” he asks.

“yeah, just startled. i didn’t expect this to happen. i thought, i was going to die.” ni-ki pulls you into a hug.

“don’t worry, you have me. i’ll protect you…always.”

it was quite a romantic moment, even nabi and eun were shocked to hear this come out from ni-ki. they didn’t expect him to be so kind-hearted towards a girl. after pulling back from the hug, “we should get going.we don’t have much time before they send more people up here.”

ni-ki leads you, nabi and eun to the secret elevator which led to the garage. it was definitely safer around here and there even was backup. there was a loud slam to the door after the rest of the boys poured in. jake and heeseung ran up to their significant other and hugged them. there were small whispers of sorry’s amongst the both of them as they tried to calm down their girls.

“well, this resort is fucked. we have to move somewhere else.” jay says.

“we could move to this resort near the airport. whoever is charge most probably won’t know that we own it.” sunoo suggests.

“we should move there. if don’t move there now, the innocent people staying here will be hurt.” heeseung adds.

“that means we need to divert the attention of the reporters right now.”

“but what could we possibly use to divert their attention from?”

“i think we could use a distraction of love. like ni-ki and (name).” nabi says.

“but everyone already knows (name) is my girlfriend.”

“oh, no hesitation-” jay whacks sunghoon.

ni-ki wraps his arm around your waist, “yeah, no hesitation because she is my girlfriend.”

“holy shit.” jungwon’s jaw drops.

“i’ll give the reporters some scoop about mine and (name)’s relationship details.” ni-ki says.

“but we- aren’t we fake dating?” you looked up at him.

“not anymore.” he simply says.

you could feel your face warm up at ni-ki’s words.

“i’ll tell them that you’re mine and i like you a lot.” ni-ki says.

“damn, ni-ki with the rizz?” jake says.

jake and jungwon gets notified of the police cars and reporters driving to the resort.

“you have to get ready quickly, ni-ki change your clothes and then we need to delete their memories of the fight that happen and organise the place quickly. hurry!”

all of them had quickly done their parts. with one large bright flash of light in the resort, everyone forgets the fight that happened. jay’s men quickly cleans up the place and pretends to escort the affluent towards the hall as if nothing happened before. the place was lively again.

when the police and reporters arrived, it was strange. someone filed a report that there had been a gang trying to tear Decelis Resort apart but the police didn’t see anyone fleeing in terror. they tried to look for the very person who filed the report but when they did, the person seemed confused and didn’t know what they were talking about. they simply just brushed it off and left. of course, the reporters were more nosy then the police they had to figure out what was going on.

that is exactly when ni-ki and you walked towards them, giving them free information about your newfound relationship. the reporters left happily as they could use this huge scoop for their headlines. just as ni-ki got ready to leave with you to meet up with the others. someone taps his shoulder and hands him something.

“this fell out from somewhere i think that waiter over there dropped it. you should really discipline your staff from throwing litter on the ground.”

it was a strange object, something a waiter should not be harbouring.

“thank you for the feedback but mind your language when you’re speaking to one of the founders and this resort.” ni-ki’s tone was laced with venom. the guy nods.

he carefully makes his way to the garage again and hands the item to jake. it cracks open the moment jake touches it.

‘kinda pathetic to wipe their memories don’t you think? it’s a one in a lifetime for those elites to experience such a scare. they should think twice when pushing around people who aren’t rich.’ - a voice recorded message.

“whoever this is definitely doesn’t like rich people.”

“and they used a voice modulator. it’s not their voice. we should run a test at the other resort.” jungwon says.

“yeah, whoever this is…we have to find them. our families are in danger.” sunghoon says.

ni-ki turns to look at you, “are you coming with us?”

“of course, i have to but you have to teach me how to fight. i want to help you guys out. this person will probably take more precautions now.” ni-ki holds your hand and squeezes it.

“that means we will have to miss some of school.”

“is school really our priorities right now when we are being chased by some evil dude?”

“she makes it a point there.” jungwon says.

“alright, we’ll be a team. my girlfriend.” ni-ki shyly says.

this emits groans from the rest of them with how cheesy it was.

“we will, boyfriend.” you could only smile up at him.

taglist[open]: @my5colors @wtfhyuck @nyfwyeonjun @thealatte @dimplewonie @nuttykittypainter @tya0 @strvlveera @slayjw @iea-tsand @yannew @jrjr289 @angelhuukookie @babyy-bambii @raven

(want to be added into the taglist? just send an ask or fill up this short form here!)

272 notes · View notes

amakumos · 1 year

Text

twizzle into my heart — nishimura riki

synopsis. Falling in love when your sport is your top priority is hard, and nobody knows this better than you and Nishimura Riki. You two tried to make it work, but things didn't end up like you both wanted it to. But, when you and Riki cross paths again 4 years later at 4 Continents, old feelings resurface, and you find that Nishimura Riki comes twizzling straight into your heart once again.

genre. fluff, angst, exes to friends to lovers, slowburn, figure skating au

warnings. swearing, mentions of injury, riki is 21, reader is 21. both riki and reader compete for japan, set during the 2026/2027 figure skating season

wordcount. 25.4k (whoops)

author’s note. it's finally here :) timh! rikiyn will forever hold a very very special place in my heart and i !!! hope you love them as much as i do :,) here's a playlist i made if you'd like to listen to the songs i listened to while reading !! i hope you all enjoy reading and i love getting feedback and comments so pls lmk ur thoughts on this !! ^_^ i hope you love it

ONE. harder than a quad axel

When it comes to love, Nishimura Riki is no stranger to getting hurt.

Being a competitive athlete whilst trying to find love at the same time is surprisingly hard, he’s realised over his 21 years of existence. Figure skating is his career, it’s his life – but most of the people he’s ever been with never seem to understand the dedication he has for the sport.

Riki thinks that skating is what makes him whole. If he didn’t have the ice, he’d feel like a part of him would be missing.

On his list of priorities, skating comes on top of the podium. Love is left with 2nd place, a silver medal. Nobody he’s ever liked has ever come close to understanding how Riki can’t put love above figure skating.

Nobody until he met you.

He had met you at Junior Nationals 7 years ago, when you were sitting in the stands, watching the women’s free skate. He was sitting next to you, and you had decided to start a conversation with him. He learnt that you were a pairs skater, partnered with Takahashi Keiji, one of Riki’s old friends from primary school.

You two had gotten lost in your conversation, completely forgetting about the performances in front of you. Talking to you was fun, and Riki found that he enjoyed your presence. A lot.

It wasn’t long before you and Riki got closer. Every time that you both had spare time (which, to be fair, wasn’t often), you two would hang out together, going to various cafes and talking for hours and hours on end. You and Riki would also go to arcades, where you watched as he played with multiple claw machines, and he gave you one of the Hello Kitty plushies that he won.

Everyone knew that you and Riki were bound to have developed feelings for each other. It was just a matter of time before you two realised, and when you two finally did, your friends both wasted no time on telling you both to just confess.

Even though you had a feeling that Riki liked you back, you were always too scared to tell him about your feelings. But, when Taki blurted it out in front of the both of you accidentally during a training session, it led to you both confessing your feelings to each other – after all, it was all out in the open now.

You both swear that Taki did it on purpose, but the boy still maintains his innocence.

You two had both established early on in your relationship that your careers were important, and skating was of the utmost importance to the both of you. Riki was elated to have finally found someone who understood how he felt. You two know better than anyone that finding love is hard when figure skating is the most important thing in your life – and you have never felt luckier than to find someone like Nishimura Riki.

Despite spending most of your time training, you and Riki managed to squeeze in dates whenever you both had a free spot in your packed timetable. From going to the arcade, walking around busy shopping malls or relaxing picnics in the park, every single moment you could share with Riki was special.

But then came the transition into seniors.

Competing in seniors added more pressure for the two of you. You two forced yourselves to train more, reducing the little time that you two had to spend together to practically almost none. Even phone calls and text messages between you two were rare – and when Riki had spare time, you were busy, and vice versa. It was clear to your friends that you both did not have any time for your relationship anymore, and the best decision was probably to end it before one of you got hurt.

Riki was scared. Scared of losing the best thing that’s ever happened to him — he didn’t want to lose you. He wanted you in his life.

But after weeks after weeks of him bailing on you for training, and weeks after weeks of you bailing on him for training, you two know that at this point, there was no relationship between you two. It was like you two had already broken up for months. You two just had to have a conversation to make the split official.

And that conversation happened when Riki was entering the rink for training, and when you and Keiji were leaving it. You had stopped him for a few minutes, and it was like Riki already knew what was coming.

“We both know that we’re too busy and focused on skating to be together.” you said, and Riki agreed. You two had tried your best to make it work — but your dedication to skating was just more… important. You both understood that.

“Yeah. I agree. So… I guess this is it, isn’t it?” Riki bites the inside of his cheek. He knows this is right, but he can’t help but feel upset about it. You were his girlfriend for 2 years — and the relationship was really going to end with a conversation that took less than five minutes.

“I guess so… um… I’m really sorry.” you say, and Riki nods, giving you a small smile. “I get it. You get it too. We have other priorities.”

You smile, nodding at him. “We’ll still be friends, hmm?”

“Are you joking? Of course.”

“I’ll see you around.” you stand there looking at each other for a few seconds until you pull Riki into a hug — one that he knows shouldn’t feel awkward, but somehow it does.

Maybe because he knows that it’s a goodbye hug.

“Thanks. For… everything.”

“You too.” Riki says, when you two separate. “Uh… I gotta go. Coach is waiting for me.” he says, and you nod. “Of course. Have a nice practice.” you say with a smile, before turning around to catch up with Keiji.

With a conversation that lasts no less than 5 minutes, Nishimura Riki’s first and only relationship ends.

Riki is off focus for the entire training session, and even weeks after that. His jump landings are shaky, he falls more often, and even his coach mentions to him that she doesn’t feel like he’s fully… there.

He can’t stop thinking about how he could’ve lost his one and only chance at love.

He knows he’s young, and it’s a little dramatic to say — but who would fall in love with him when they know that he cares more about his sport?

It was different, because you were a skater, so you understood how he felt and agreed with him. But he knows not many people are willing to make sacrifices — and he understands.

Love is complicated.

It is even more complicated for someone like Riki.

Ever since he was young, Riki had always wanted to fall in love. His parents are still happily together, seemingly falling more in love as each day goes by. His older sister has seemed to find “the one” too, and his younger sister’s crush seems to be liking her back, from what he’s heard from her (and also from how he’s seen the boy look at his little sister when Riki goes to pick her up from school.)

But for Riki, who is the unlucky one in the family, falling in love is harder than landing a quadruple axel.

And Riki can’t even land that jump without falling yet. He’s a quarter off on rotation, so he’s getting there — but for love? Oh, Riki is way more than a quarter off.

Riki likens his love life to be a triple axel he’s going for, but then he pops it. A popped jump is a very good way to describe Riki’s love life. Going for it, realising it’s something that can’t be done without hurting himself (but in the case of love, hurting the other person), then backing away.

So, Riki decides that he’ll put love on hold for the meantime. But, it doesn’t stop him from getting a little bit jealous when he sees all his friends in happy relationships.

He wants someone who understands his dedication to the sport and encourages him too.

And that someone is you.

But, he’s very clearly lost his chance now. Your breakup was mutual — there was no animosity about it, but neither of you had taken up the offer of staying as friends.

Riki waited for you to text, and you never did. Little did Riki know that you were also waiting for him to text… and he didn’t either.

You two didn’t really talk much after that. And you didn’t end up seeing him much either, unless it was very briefly at competitions, since half a year after your breakup, you and Keiji had moved to Canada to train. But, Riki did see how you and Keiji had gotten better and better after the coaching change, and he was proud of you two for gaining such amazing scores and delivering such wonderful programs.

You could say the same about Riki too — you watched his skating online, and every single skate of his seemed to be better than the last.

Slowly but surely, you two got over each other. It wasn’t easy for you, and it wasn’t for Riki either. But you two did what you knew best to try and forget.

To skate.

The thought of love just completely slips from Riki’s mind after a few months. His whole world is skating now, and he’s quite okay with that. Love is put on pause, for Riki. And he doesn’t know if he’ll press play any time soon.

It’s just that love never seems to come at the right time for Riki. Love seems to be far away, out of reach, and something that Riki can only dream of experiencing.

Love has no time for Riki, and he does not have time for love either.

TWO. 4 continents, 4 years

“That’s a flutz. Do it again, Riki.”

Nagai Hikari, Riki’s figure skating coach, stands on the other side of the boards, eyes scrutinising Riki’s every move. Her eyes are narrowed into slits as her eyes lock in on the blades on Riki’s boots.

He takes off into a lutz, arms outstretched above his head to do a rippon. Hikari nods in satisfaction when she sees that Riki uses the correct edge on takeoff. “Better.” she says.

Riki has worked with Hikari for years — and she is not a woman who gives out too many compliments. Short and simple is the way she does it, but Riki knows that she cares.

Such as when Riki won his first senior competition. Riki had never seen her so happy. She actually had a bright smile on her face — one that Riki had never seen before.

Riki holds his hand up to tell Hikari that he’ll be taking a short break, and she nods. Riki skates up to the boards, where he sees Taki and Yuma sitting down on the bench, taking off their off-ice shoes.

“Riki with the rippons,” Taki says in his best impression of a commentator’s voice when he notices Riki. “They might as well just rename it to like… Nishimuras.”

“I would be on board with that.” Yuma pipes up.

“Stop,” Riki says.

“It’s your thing, okay?” Taki says, skating onto the rink. “That’s why they call you Riki with the rippons. You have your thing, I have mine.”

Riki skates alongside Taki, Yuma catching up with the both of them when he’s done lacing up his own skates. The three had gotten assigned the 3 spots Japan had for 4 Continents, with all three of them doing pretty well at Nationals. Riki had gotten assigned a spot at the World Championships next month as well, making the boy extra busy.

The short program was tomorrow, and Riki felt that he was quite confident in his ability to do well. If he landed all his jumps cleanly, Riki thinks that he has quite a good shot at leading in the short.

“Are you nervous?” Riki asks Yuma, whilst Taki skates away from the group to practise his jumps. From the corner of his eye, Riki sees Taki land a quad loop. Surprisingly, the loop is Taki’s favourite jump – Riki’s is the salchow, which Taki absolutely despises doing.

“Kinda. First Four Continents… I’m bound to be a little nervous.” Yuma chuckles, and Riki nods, patting the boy on his back in reassurance. “You’ll do great, don’t worry.”

“Riki, run through your short program again.” The sharp voice of Hikari catches Riki’s attention, and the tall boy nods. “Duty calls.” Riki says to Yuma, who nods.

The music to Riki’s short program plays, and as if it’s instinct, his arms move exactly the way they’re supposed to, his feet carrying him across the rink — there’s not a single thought in Riki’s mind. It’s all muscle memory now, considering the amount of times he’s done the program.

He’s got a quadruple lutz lined up first, and he steps out of the jump. Hikari presses her lips together as Riki makes a mental note to make sure to land the lutz well. He’s always been able to land this one cleanly in the free skate — but in the short program, the quad toeloop has not been his friend at all.

He takes off into a quadruple salchow-triple toeloop combination jump, landing it cleanly. He hears a few cheers from the audience, and the sound of camera shutters going off from the photographers there.

Hikari gives him a satisfactory nod from behind the boards.

The rest of Riki’s runthrough of his program is executed well enough to meet Hikari’s high standards. Soon enough, they’re all told to leave the rink since practice time is over, and the ice dancers will have to use the rink.

Riki puts his skate guards on, sitting down on the bench next to Taki. “Oh, and before I forget to ask you, do you wanna go to lunch with the rest of us? The whole 4CC team is going, with the exception of Sakura and Fuma, ‘cause they’re practising.”

Riki shrugs, taking off his skates to change into his regular sports shoes. “Sure. Where are we going?”

“Kazuha found this nice restaurant nearby the arena,” Yuma chimes in. He puts his skates into his bag, standing up to wait for the two other boys to finish putting their skates away. “Let’s leave our bags in the locker room and go. I think Kazuha, Mina and Yuta are already there.”

“I’m going to get changed.” Riki says, getting up from the bench and heading towards the changing room. He’s sweating after practice, and he’d much rather go out in fresh clothes than wear what he’s got on now. Taki and Yuma follow him not long after, and Riki changes into a black hoodie and a pair of jeans, spraying some cologne on as well.

He brushes his bangs out of his eyes as he takes his wallet and phone out of his bag, shoving them into his pockets. “You ready?” he asks Yuma and Taki, who have also changed. The two boys nod, and they all head out of the changing room.

“Where’s the restaurant again?” Taki asks Yuma, who’s got the location entered into the GPS on his phone. “A five minute walk from here.” Taki replies, and he walks in the direction of where the GPS tells him to go, and the two boys follow him.

Soon enough, the three boys arrive at the restaurant, telling the front of house staff Kazuha’s name, since she was the one who booked. The staff member takes them to their table, and Riki greets everyone before sitting down next to Taki.

But, when he turns his head, he sees Keiji sitting just one seat away from him, with the one next to Riki being empty.

“Hey, who joined us?”

Riki knows exactly who that voice belongs to, and he turns his head slowly to meet eyes with you.

Everyone at the table immediately goes silent as you and Riki stare at each other for a few seconds, neither of you moving. Riki lets out a shaky breath as he looks at you — he hasn’t really seen you at all since the breakup.

“Hey.” You’re the first to speak.

Riki gulps. “Hey.”

You awkwardly slide into your seat next to Riki, and he sees Yuta wiggling his eyebrows at him, and Riki makes a mental note to send him a text message with many middle finger emojis later.

You haven’t seen Riki in a long time. He’s grown taller, way taller than you last saw him, and he’s now got dyed blonde streaks in his dark hair. It looks good on him — he looks good. As Riki talks to the others, you can’t help but stare at him. There’s a couple silver necklaces he’s wearing around his neck, and you’re sitting close enough to him to realise that he’s still wearing the cologne that you had recommended to him years ago.

“So…” Kazuha starts. “How’s Bisco?”

Riki’s eyes light up at the mention of his dog, and Hitomi notices that there’s a fond smile on your lips when you hear him talk about Bisco. After all, you did frequent Riki’s house when you two were together, and had formed a close bond with Bisco.

Riki never told you (and doesn’t plan on telling you) but after your breakup, Bisco would often sit by the door, waiting to see if you’d show up.

And you never did.

“Good,” Riki says. “I’ll go back home to see him after the competition. I try to go back as much as I can since it’s only a 4 hour train ride from Nagoya to Okayama, but — training kinda steals most of the time I have.”

“Oh, so you found out Bisco’s gender now?” you ask, absentmindedly — you don’t realise the words slip past your lips until Riki replies. “Uh, yeah. Konon told me, actually.” he chuckles awkwardly.

The tension between you and Riki is so thick that you could cut it with a knife. You didn’t think that seeing him would be this awkward, since you two had ended things amicably — but now that you’re seeing him for the first time after the breakup, you really don’t know what to say to him.

“Awks.” Taki whispers into Riki’s ear, and Riki rolls his eyes, nudging him on the arm. “Ow,” Taki says dramatically, clutching the spot where Riki had elbowed him. “That really hurt.”

“Sure it did.”

The lunch goes well for the most part, with Mina catching you and Riki sneaking glances at each other when one of you isn’t looking. There’s a sneaky grin on her lips as she watches the scene play out before her. You’re awkwardly taking a sip of your tea, whilst Riki is trying to do everything in his power to stop himself from trying to steal another glance at you. “They should talk.” Mina whispers into Kazuha’s ear.

“Keiji, practice is in an hour.” you tell your partner, and he checks the time. “Shit, right. Um, guys, we’ll have to leave soon for the official practice.” Keiji announces to the group, and Yuma nods.

“Let’s just all leave, then. We’re all done with eating.” Yuma says, and Riki nods. The boy stands up, looking at the time on his phone as you catch a glimpse of his lockscreen, and it’s of Bisco having Riki’s Worlds gold medal hung around his neck.

A smile spreads across your lips as you catch sight of the photo. “That’s cute.”

Once again, the words slip out before you realise you say them. “Sorry. Caught sight of your lock screen.” you say, and Riki shrugs.

“It’s alright.” he says, and you two just stand there awkwardly, looking at each other — you both don’t even realise that everyone’s gone to the cashier to pay (even if they all did it purposely just to get you two to talk in private.)

“So… how have you been?” you ask, attempting to start a conversation. “I’m good. Just training a lot… you know how I am,” Riki says, and you nod. “How about you? How’s Canada?”

“Oh, it’s nice there. Really cold in the winter.” you say. “Colder than Japan?” he asks, and you nod. “Sometimes. Oh, and I forgot to say — congrats on gold at Worlds last year. You did really great.”

Riki smiles at you. It’s a smile that you didn’t know you missed until you saw it again. “Thanks. I saw you there, I think — just didn’t get a chance to say hi. I’ve seen you at many competitions, briefly, actually. Just… the opportunity never came up.”

“Yeah. I saw you too. I was in the bleachers, actually. Umm… yeah, you did really great. You’ve come so far. Super proud of you.” you say, offering him a smile. “We haven’t talked in so long. How long has it been?”

“4 years, I think.” Riki replies.

“Right. 4 years… 4 Continents.” you quip, and Riki tilts his head, looking at you with an amused smile.

“Good one.”

You know it wasn’t really a good one. More of a lame joke, compared to the ones that you had told him before when you two were dating.

“Thanks.” you say, shoving your hands into the pockets of your jacket. “We should probably… go. They’re all gone.” you say, and Riki nods.

“Right. Yeah. Don't leave anything behind.” he says, not forgetting about your terrible habit of losing things often. He’ll never forget the day when you nearly forgot your skate bag in the bus that you two were riding on to get to the rink — thank god he was there to remind you to pick it up.

“Yeah. I won’t.” you say, checking the table once more. Riki remembering that about you makes you feel a little bit happy, somehow. To you, it shows that he didn’t really forget about you, despite not having seen or talked to you for 4 years.

You follow Riki as you two both make your way towards the cashier, Taki looking at Riki expectantly. “So… did you guys kiss?”

“What the fuck?” Riki asks his friend. “You think I’m going to see my ex girlfriend after 4 years and after maybe a… 5 minute conversation, we’re going to kiss?”

“You’re unpredictable. And you two also broke up in less than 5 minutes, so… yeah. Maybe.”

“You’re insane, Taki.”

“Are you guys going to go back to the hotel?” Sakura asks Riki, Yuma and Taki. The men’s single skating practices were officially done for the day — meaning Riki could just go back to his hotel room, flop onto the bed and sleep.

“Uh… yeah. Probably.” Yuma says. “Do you guys have any plans?”

“I’m going to watch the pairs practice.” Kazuha pipes up. “You guys are more than welcome to tag along so we can watch (Name), Keiji, Mina and Yuta if you’d like.”

“Might go take a shower before I come join you.” Taki says, and Yuma nods in agreement. “Yeah. And I’m sure Riki would love to tag along as well.” he says, and Riki knows that Yuma’s just enunciating the word ‘love’ to piss him off.

“Yeah, I’ll come.” he says.

“Nice,” Keiji says. “See you later.”

The group splits up, with Riki, Taki and Yuma walking back to the hotel, and Hitomi, Kazuha, Mina, Yuta, Keiji and you heading to the arena. But before Riki gets far away enough, you call out his name.

“Hey, Riki?”

The boy turns his head to look at you.

“It was nice seeing you again.”

You leave before he can respond.

THREE. 3LzTh

Riki heads to the arena with his hair still damp.

Not the best idea in cold weather, but he makes do. He shoves his wallet into the pockets of his jeans, Taki trailing behind him.

“How was seeing (Name) again?” Taki asks, a smirk on his lips. “I know you’re trying to piss me off, and it won’t work. She’s just a teammate now.” Riki says, shrugging.

Huh. Riki doesn’t realise that you are just a teammate now until he says those words out loud. Over the years, he’s always thought of you as something more — you mean (or rather, meant) a lot to him.

But he hasn’t talked to you in 4 years, and a lot can change in 4 years. You two might as well be strangers with a lot of history. “Ouch. Not even friends?” Taki asks.

“Things are a lot different compared to when we were 17,” Riki says. “Plus, I’ve only had one conversation with her since the breakup. Let’s take things slow, okay?”

“Just saying, I think you two might end up falling in love again.”

“You’re being ridiculous. Based on what? A 5 minute conversation?”

“Based on how I feel like you’ve never really been over her. Let's face the facts here, Riki. You haven’t even tried to find someone else after your relationship with (Name). Not even a single thought about being in a relationship with anyone else has crossed your mind.”

“Because I’m focusing on skating.” Riki replies.

“Or are you using that as a lame excuse because you know deep inside the only one who will ever be able to have your heart is (Name)?”

Riki blocks out what Taki says. He’s done with having the older boy meddle in his dating life, even if it is what got you and him together. Riki is over you. He is sure of it.

He enters the arena, sitting down next to Kazuha. “So…”

“Is this conversation going to be about (Name)?” he asks, and Kazuha shakes her head rapidly. “No, no, no.” she replies, but Riki knows that the girl is lying.

“Then what is it about?” he asks, and Kazuha doesn’t say anything.

“Uh… I forgot. Slipped my mind!” she says quickly, before reverting her focus back onto the ice. Riki sees you and Keiji prepare to do a throw jump, and he doesn’t know why Riki feels this sudden sense of dread.

It’s the same kind of dread he felt every single time when he watched you and Keiji practice in the rink when you two were together, and whenever Riki felt that terrible emotion, you would fall.

And Riki is right. You’re barely a quarter of a rotation off, and you find yourself landing harshly on the ice. On instinct, Riki stands up abruptly from his seat, his eyes wide with worry. He doesn’t notice how Taki and Kazuha share a knowing smile.

“She’ll be okay, Riki.” Kazuha tells him. Riki looks at you on the ice, still not having gotten up. He squints to try and examine your expression to see if it is one of pain — and it is then when Riki realises he can’t read you like he used to anymore.

Things have changed too much for Riki’s liking.

But this is what happens when people break up. He accepted this fact so long ago, but why has it all changed suddenly when he sees you again?

You no longer make his heart skip a beat whenever he sees you. Surely, that is the telltale sign that he is over you by now.

He sits back down with an inscrutable expression. Of course it is normal to care for you when he sees that you might be injured, is it not? But this feeling seems to be a little bit more than that — something that Riki cannot find an explanation for at this point in time.

Perhaps he should just let that thought go and watch the practice. “Don’t be worried. (Name) is strong.” Taki says.

It’s exactly the same thing he told Riki 5 years ago when he saw you and Keiji practising a triple lutz throw. Riki remembers being so scared that Keiji would throw you across the ice so carelessly — but he knows that you trust Keiji.

So in turn, he supposes that he should trust Keiji.

He watches as you and Keiji do a side by side triple loop, Riki holding his breath for the entirety of the time he sees you in the air. When you land the jump cleanly, he lets out a sigh of relief.

Riki realises that the last time he saw you skate in person was just before you two broke up. He didn’t watch your performances even when you two were at the same competitions, because he was too busy preparing for his own performances.

It’s funny, how he could’ve seen you so many times after the breakup — but there is some sort of force separating you from each other, and only bringing you two back together again now.

Taki claims that your relationship with Riki was a right person, wrong time situation. And in some ways, Riki agrees. He does know that you are the right person for him, but he doesn’t think he is the right person for you.

He watches you practice silently, thoughts of his previous relationship with you running rampant in his mind. He is over you, he reminds himself. That heart-stopping feeling he always got whenever you smiled at him, the butterflies in his stomach, and the instantaneous smile that spread across his lips at the sight of you are now all gone. Riki is just reminiscing over the happy memories he had with you, there’s nothing wrong with that.

And reminiscing over happy memories doesn’t sound like being in love at all, Riki thinks. Jokes on you, Taki.

When the official practice is over, he heads to the vending machine, wanting to buy himself some coffee. When he gets there, he sees you, standing there as well, seemingly fishing through your wallet for coins.

“Hey,” he says, and you look up, a smile gracing your lips when you realise who it is. “Hey. You came.” you breathe out.

“I did,” Riki says, rubbing the nape of his neck. “You guys did great. Did the fall hurt?” he asks, remembering the hard fall you had on the triple lutz throw. You shrug, chuckling. “Nothing I’m not used to.”

“Mmm. Make sure to ice it when you get back to the hotel.” he says, pressing the buttons on the vending machine, then slotting in the coins. He takes the coffee out of the slot, handing it to you.

He still remembers which one you like.

“Take it.”

“Riki, it’s okay — I can just pay for my own.” you say, shaking your head. Your words only prompt the boy to hold the drink out closer to you, and you take it in your hands. “You sure?”

“I wouldn’t give it to you if I wasn’t, (Name).” he says, running his fingers through his hair. He presses another button on the vending machine, paying for his own drink then taking it out of the slot.

“I owe you one,” you say, and Riki shakes his head. “You don’t owe me anything. Just think of it as a gift.”

“A coffee from a vending machine as a gift?” you ask, laughing. “I’ll treat you to coffee when we’re back in Japan.”

Riki tilts his head, raising an eyebrow. “You and Keiji aren’t going back to Canada? Worlds is soon.”

“Worlds is in Saitama this year. Figured it’d be easier, and Hikari’s letting us train at your rink for a bit until Worlds is over.” you say.

So Riki will have plenty of chances to see you again.

“Oh, that’s really nice. Let’s try and find a time where we can both make it.”

The last sentence Riki says seems like a little bit of an insult — when he didn’t mean it in that way at all. He hopes he didn’t sound like he was blaming you for the breakup. It was a poor choice of words, given the situation that you two had been through.

“I didn’t mean it like that, by the way. I just meant in general, we should both be free for a… longer period of time when we go to the coffee shop.” Riki hurriedly tries to explain, and you shake your head, chuckling.

“Relax, I didn’t take it like that. Plus, we both know that the timing just wasn’t right.” you say, and Riki nods. “Yeah. We both know that.” he gulps.

“Right.”

The atmosphere suddenly feels very tense.

“I better uh… get going.” you say, awkwardly smiling at him. “Thank you for the coffee, Riki. Let’s talk more later?”

“Sure, of course. Um… you have my number.”

“Yeah. Unless you’ve changed it, or something.” you say, and Riki shakes his head. “Just the same. Yours?”

“Uh… same. It’s LINE, so… didn’t have to change much when I moved to Canada.” you say, and Riki nods. “Right, right. Um… I’ll see you.” he says, giving you a wave goodbye, before you two awkwardly part ways.

You turn your head to look back to see if he’s also looking back. He’s not, so you just turn back around.

As if you two are fated to just have the wrong timing, Riki looks back the exact moment you turn your head back around.

FOUR. zamboni

Today is the day of the men’s short program.

Riki doesn’t feel his best today. Something just feels off — maybe it’s because he went out with damp hair in cold weather and he’s catching a cold, but he certainly hopes that’s not the case.

He chugs some water before he goes to line up, preparing for the 6 minute warmup, unaware that you and Keiji are seated in the bleachers as spectators. You’re dressed in a black puffer jacket that you’ve had since you were 15 – really, you’re still not quite sure how you’re still able to fit in it, but it’s comfortable and keeps you warm. Keiji looks over at you, noticing your eyes scanning the arena for any sight of Riki.

“Are you looking for someone?” Keiji asks, and you cross your arms, frowning. “No,” you mumble, biting on the inside of your cheek.

Of course, Keiji doesn’t believe you. He likes to think that he knows you better than most people, considering how you two have been paired together for nearly 10 years.

“You can’t lie to me, (Name).” Keiji chuckles, and you avert your gaze from him. “You can be honest with me, you know? I mean… we live together, I throw you up into the air every single day and catch you while skating on frozen water — that at least shows that you trust me with your life, which in turn, means that you can trust me with whatever feelings you have toward your ex boyfriend, who also happens to be my friend from primary school.”

“I forgot you and Riki went to the same primary school,” you say, burying your face in your hands. “And I don’t have any… feelings towards him.”

“So you’re saying when you see Riki, your mind goes blank? Not a single thought inside of that brain of yours?”

“No, you idiot. But like… I don’t know what I’m feeling.”

Seeing Riki after 4 years has made some feelings that you had made yourself forget about long ago resurface, and now that they’re all out in the open, you don’t know what to do with them. It’s not like you’re still in love with Riki, but seeing him again makes you think of all the times when you were in love with him.

Moments like showing up late to practice due to staying a little too long at the arcade with more plushies in your arms than the amount that people throw onto the rink when you skate. Or moments like getting scolded by your coaches, who tell you that being late is not acceptable, and smiling at each other secretly, trying not to laugh while they tell you off. Moments like running to hug each other after getting your scores at the Kiss and Cry, both holding each other so tight you both feel like suffocating.

Some part of you feels like you miss those moments.

But looking at the ice, you realise that you don’t think you can have those moments anymore. They are just memories now, memories that you hold near and dear to your heart.

Because even whilst Riki is in the arena, he’s never felt further away.

Things with Riki are awkward. It’s not like he’s unwilling to become close with you again, and it’s not like you are either — but there’s just so much history between you two, things just can’t be smoothed over this easily, unlike the zambonis on the rink that smooth over the ice.

“Things are just complicated, Keiji,” you sigh, pursing your lips. “As much as I’d like things to be back to the way they were, we’ve both changed too much over the years.”

“Woah, woah, woah.” Keiji’s eyes widen in surprise, as you look at him confused. “Back to the way things were? Like… when you two were dating? Kissing? Showing so much PDA I nearly threw up on the rink?”

“No!” you say quickly, and Keiji notices the defensiveness in your voice. “Just… when we were friends. When things weren’t awkward between Riki and I. I’ll figure everything out, okay? I just don’t know when.”

“Huh.” Keiji furrows his eyebrows. “I think you’ll figure things out sooner than you think.”

“Why’d you say that?”

“No reason.” Keiji struggles to hide the smile on his lips.

“Please welcome the next group of skaters to the ice.” the commentator says, and when Riki skates out onto the ice, you immediately spot him.

But that’s not just because of your shared history together — Riki stands at 6’0, towering over all the other skaters. It’s pretty impossible to not spot him. Keiji carefully examines your expression as your eyes follow Riki’s figure as he skates across the ice.

Riki’s skating second in his group, and you watch as he takes off into a triple axel. The landing is a little shaky, and you notice him coughing slightly after he lands the jump.

“Is Riki sick?” you ask Keiji, who shrugs. “Not sure. Why’d you ask?”

“He’s coughing.”

“Could have choked on air. I do that all the time.”

Soon enough, the 6 minute warmup is over, and Riki leaves the rink. “Are you worried about him or something?” Keiji asks, and you bite the inside of your cheek.

The music for the first skater in the group starts. “If he’s sick, it’ll be hard for him to compete.” you mumble.

The first skater lands a triple axel, the crowd clapping as you and Keiji join in as well. “Riki’s strong. He can take care of himself.” Keiji says.

“I know.” you say, and then you wince when the skater falls pretty hard on a quadruple flip. “Ouch.”

The skater’s program goes relatively well for the most part, except for the hard fall on the flip. You tap your foot rhythmically on the floor, nervously waiting for Riki to skate onto the rink.

That skater is placed 8th after the short program, it’s announced. Then, Riki skates onto the ice.

There’s a strange twinge in your heart when you see Riki skate out onto the ice. His costume is gorgeous — the shirt is flowy, with sequin details on it. He brushes his bangs out of his eyes before skating to the centre of the rink, getting into his starting position.

“Try not to fall in love.” Keiji whispers in your ear.

You glare at him, elbowing him. “Shut up.”

The music starts, Riki skating across the rink elegantly. You just realised that you haven’t seen Riki skate in person in 4 years, since you never really got the chance to watch him skate even when you two were at the same competition.

The timing was never right. It never seems to be when it comes to you and Riki.

And at that thought, Riki takes off into the quadruple lutz, and he steps out of the jump. You see the disappointment in his face as he continues skating, and you frown.

“You’ve got this,” you mumble. Stepping out is better than a fall, at least — but you can tell something is stopping Riki from skating at his best. He doesn’t seem to be in the best condition today.

Then, he takes off into the triple axel. He lands it, and you clap loudly — Keiji looks at you, amused, but you’re too focused on Riki to care.

Riki’s spins are always gorgeous. They always have been. It takes you back to the times when you two would practise on the same rink, you watching Riki spin from behind the boards, completely mesmerised.

The last jumping pass is a quadruple salchow-triple toeloop, and Riki barely hangs onto the toeloop. You’re glad that he didn’t fall, and all the jumps are done now — so now all he has to do is skate the rest of the elements well.

Riki has always delivered in terms of artistry and expression. Today is obviously no exception, despite him being a little off today.

When he finishes his program, the crowd cheers, and you and Keiji clap loudly. “Let’s go, Riki!” Keiji says, even though he knows that Riki can’t hear him. Riki bows to the audience, picking up a couple of stuffed toys that some audience members had thrown to him.

“He did good.” you say, and Keiji nods.

“I think that’ll put him in 1st for now. The step out and barely hanging on for the toe loop will cost him, but… there’s 4 more to go, so.” Keiji replies, and you press your lips together in a thin line as you wait for Riki’s score to be called out.

Seated in the Kiss and Cry, Riki sighs. He’s not happy with his performance today. He thinks he’s getting sick, and that definitely affected his performance. “You seem off today.” Hikari tells him.

“Think I’m catching a cold.” he replies, and his coach looks at him with concern. “Go back to the hotel immediately after. Take some Vitamin C supplements, then go get some sleep. I’ll get someone to take some medicine to your room.”

“Thanks, Hikari.” Riki says, a grateful smile gracing his lips. The woman just nods, and Riki turns to grab one of the plushies that he had placed next to him on the bench.

Like Keiji predicted, Riki does go into the lead after that skate. But he knows it won’t last for long after the next 4 skates if they all skate clean. Riki knows that he’ll just have to make it up in the free program, but first, he’s got to focus on getting rid of this cold before it can properly hit him.

Riki leaves the Kiss and Cry, going to the locker room to get changed.

He’s unaware about Hikari messaging Keiji about getting some medicine for Riki, and as Keiji replies back, a small smirk makes its way onto his lips. When he sends the message back, Keiji turns to look at you.

“Hikari wants you to help her do something.”

FIVE. rushed entries

You find yourself with a shopping bag, being told to head up to Riki’s hotel room. He’s sick, Keiji tells you.

Exactly like you thought.

You buy more than you think he needs. There’s 2 packs of lozenges, a few cans of the corn soup that you remember that he likes, some instant noodles, a few boxes of tissues and some cold medicine. You also put in a warm blanket that you had brought with you from Canada — you figure that he needs it more than you do.

You knock on the door, and you hear Riki’s footsteps approach. He swings open the door, and he looks tired. His nose is a little bit red, probably from blowing his nose.

“(Name)?” he asks, surprised that you’re here. His voice is a little croaky, and you frown.

“Hikari says you’re sick,” you mumble. “I came by to give this to you.”

“Oh,” Riki says. “Thank you.”

“Um… you did well today.” you say. It’s still awkward between you and Riki, and you’re trying to fill the terrible silence with some sort of conversation. “Nice triple axel.”

“Thanks,” he chuckles, but then he covers his mouth with his hand to cough. “Sorry. I think I’ve got a cold.”

“It’s okay. Um…” you don’t know whether you should stay or leave.

You and Riki stand there, looking at each other awkwardly. Riki thinks he should ask you to come in — but he’s sick, and your free skate is tomorrow. He can’t get you sick.

But you’re also looking expectantly at him, as if you want to come in. Riki can’t read you anymore, so he figures that maybe he should just take a leap of faith and ask.

“Do you wanna… come in?”

It takes you a few seconds to register what Riki had just asked you. “Oh! Um, yeah. Of course.”

“You don’t have to. I’m sick, and you’ve got a performance tomorrow.” he says, shrugging. You shake your head. “No, no. I want to.”

Riki opens the door a little wider for you to enter, and you walk inside his hotel room. The boy closes the door, setting the bag that you had brought him on the table. He takes the boxes of tissues out, and then he takes out a can of the soup that you had brought him.

“You remembered.” he says, turning around with a small smile on his lips.

“Yeah.” you breathe out, sitting down on the couch. “I remember we’d always go get that from the vending machine in winter. Warmed us up after practice.”

Riki nods. “Yeah. Thank you, by the way. This is really sweet of you.”

“It’s no problem,” you say. You get up from the couch, helping him take out some of the stuff in the bag. You place the box of tissues on his bedside counter, and you place the blanket on the edge of the bed. “I brought this blanket if you need it. It’s kinda cold, so.”

“Thanks,” Riki replies. He opens the can of soup, bringing it to his lips. The soup warms him up immediately, but also brings him back to the exact memory that you’d talked about a few minutes ago. You two would head to the vending machine, buying this small can of corn soup. It warms his heart that you still remember. “Still as good as it was before.”

“I’m glad.” you reply, and Riki takes the cold medicine before he heads over to his bed, draping the blanket over himself. You sit on the couch awkwardly, just looking at Riki.

“You wanna watch a movie?” he asks.

“Sure.”

“Come here,” he pats the empty spot on the bed next to him. “Or you don’t have to. It’s just… the TV isn’t exactly visible from the couch.”

“lt’s okay. I’ll come.” you say, and you walk towards Riki’s bed, climbing in next to him. You haven’t been this close with him since you two were together. It’s foreign yet familiar, and that confuses you.

“What’d you wanna watch?” he asks. You turn your head to look at him, and you realise that he’s much closer to you than you actually thought he was.

“Um…” you say, flustered. “You pick.”

“Your Name?” Riki suggests. “We always liked to watch that when we… um… yeah.”

Your Name was yours and Riki’s movie. Every single time you two had a movie night, you two would watch Your Name, huddled up on Riki’s couch, and Bisco would watch it with you both too. You’d think that after watching a movie so many times you’d get tired of it, but Your Name never got old for you and Riki.

It brings back a lot of memories. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

Riki presses play. Gosh, he doesn’t know why he suggested Your Name. To be fair, it was the movie that you two always watched when you two were together — but bringing back old memories would make things awkward, and when Riki wants to become friends with you again, the worst thing to do is to bring back old memories.

But he can’t help it. You’re a familiar stranger to him now, and he doesn’t know what to do in situations like these. You’re so close, yet so far — Riki knows you, but he knows the you from 4 years ago. Who knows how much you’ve changed? Riki certainly doesn’t.

“Hah, his name’s Taki.” you pipe up, thinking of your friend Taki.

“I’ve never thought about it like that.” Riki chuckles. “Hopefully Taki meets his Mitsuha. Gosh, maybe then he’ll be less interested in my love life since he’s got his own.”

You laugh. Taki was the whole reason why you and Riki were able to confess your feelings to each other, so you do suppose that you should thank him.

You and Riki mostly watch the movie in silence. There’s occasional commentary from both of you, but you two are focused on the movie. It’s how it’s always been. You and Riki didn’t really like talking much when watching a movie — when you two were dating, he would just have his arms wrapped around you. He’d play with your hands, sometimes drawing little doodles on the inside of your palm with his finger.

The one part that has always gotten you and Riki emotional is when Taki writes ‘I love you’ instead of his own name. You remember both bawling your eyes out the first time you had watched the movie, finishing a whole box’s worth of tissues due to that one part.

“I’m going to cry,” you say. “We’ve watched this so many times, and I’ve never been able to control my emotions when it comes to this scene.”

“Don’t cry,” Riki says, looking at you. On instinct, he takes a hold of your hand to comfort you, and your eyes widen slightly. Fucking hell, Riki doesn’t know why he just did that.

But you’re now looking at him with an unreadable expression. You’ve never been this close to Riki ever since your breakup — your faces are mere inches apart. If you just leaned in a little… you shake your head in an attempt to rid yourself of the thought, but it stays ingrained into your mind. He lets go of your hand, and you don’t know if it’s the music in the background, the memories that the movie reminds you of, or what — but you feel the urge to just pull Riki close and kiss him.

Maybe your feelings aren’t completely gone.

Your eyes flicker to his lips, and Riki notices the look – it’s not very subtle at all. The boy doesn’t know what’s going to happen after this. Seeing you after 4 years has gone from awkward, to even more awkward, and now this. He doesn’t exactly know what this is, but he knows that something is going to change the entire trajectory of your relationship from here on out.

Riki is so beautiful. He’s always been beautiful.

“You got rid of your moles.” you hum.

“Yeah. I did.” he gulps.

“They were pretty.” you whisper.

You’re just saying whatever your mind’s thinking now. Nishimura Riki does tend to have that effect on you – blurting out whatever thought your mind has when it comes to him.

Riki’s cheeks flush a bright pink as you continue to admire his features. Riki is sick, and his main priority is getting better before tomorrow — but with the way that you’re looking at him right now, that priority has flown straight out the window.

Riki glances at the lanyard around your neck. It’s the one with your athlete details on it, telling everyone that you’re competing at 4 Continents. He supposes that you didn’t take it off before going to buy all that stuff for him. Then his eyes glance to your lips, and you know that Riki’s not trying to make it subtle.

You nod at him.

So he pulls you in by your lanyard, connecting your lips with his. It’s a terrible idea, in hindsight — considering he’s sick, and you’ve got a competition tomorrow, but neither of you seem to care. You can taste the minty flavour of the lozenge in Riki’s mouth from his lips, and his hand moves to cup your cheek.

It’s only when you’re kissing him do you realise how much you’ve missed Riki. Riki kisses you with such longing, and it makes you think that he’s missed you too. When you two pull apart for air, all you can do is look at him with an expression that Riki once again can't read. He simply stares at you, not knowing what to say. He doesn’t know if there is anything to say.

You don’t know if you want to say anything. You just want to kiss him again.

So you do.

You connect your lips with his once more, wrapping your arms around his neck. The movie is completely neglected now, the characters speaking just providing some background noise.

Riki was right. Something has changed the trajectory of your relationship completely — and it was a kiss. He’s very well aware that you two aren’t dating, and you two only saw each other again after 4 years three days ago. He should pull away, because he doesn’t know what this all is supposed to mean, but as your lips are on his, he realises that he doesn’t think he really cares.

Funnily enough, Riki doesn’t even think that he’s sick anymore.

SIX. 3A (fall, ur)

You wake up next to Riki.

You guess that you were just too tired to have returned to your own room last night. Riki looks so peaceful next to you, sleeping with a blanket draped over his body.

As you try to get up, Riki stirs, peeking one eye open. You just remembered that Riki was a light sleeper. “Hey…” you say, and he blinks to adjust to the light.

“Oh, morning.”

“Do you feel better?” you ask him, and he nods. “Cold medicine was good. So was the soup. And… oh.”

It seems like he just remembered the kiss. Or rather, kisses. It was a spur of the moment thing, and it’s not something that Riki regrets at all, but now it leaves a whole awkward conversation to be had with you about what it means for you and him now.

“So… about that. You know… kiss.” you awkwardly say.

“Yeah.”

“It was a… spur of the moment thing. We got caught up in our feelings.” you say, and Riki nods. “Yeah. That’s exactly what happened. I couldn’t have said it better.” he chokes out.

He’s over you.

You’re over him.

You’ll blame Your Name for making you think of all those memories of you and Riki when you two were a couple. That’s what led you two to end up kissing. You know that Riki will blame the movie too. It’s not that you two have any feelings left for each other – it’s been four years! Four years is definitely enough for both of you to move on.

“Did it mean anything?’ Riki asks.

“No,” you gulp. “Nothing at all.”

“Great. Glad we’re on the same page.” Riki grabs ahold of the water bottle placed on his bedside table. You nod at his words, eyes darting around to look at anywhere else but him. “Yeah. Let’s just… forget about this, okay? We’ll just put this all behind, it never happened, and… we’ll just be friends. We’re friends, right?”

“Yeah. Of course, we’re friends.” Riki breathes out shakily, and you give him a small, awkward smile. You and Riki are friends. You guys can go back to the way things were – before the relationship, and before that… kiss last night, provided that you both don’t continue to think about past memories.

“Let’s start over?”

“Yeah.” Riki replies. “Let’s start over.”

It’s fine. You’ll just forget about the kiss – it’s not going to be that hard to forget, right? You and Riki kissed when you two were together, it’s not like it’s any different. Except that it was 4 years after your breakup, and also a spur of the moment thing. You should stop thinking about it before it completely consumes your mind and knocks you off focus before your competition, so… you just lock that memory in a little box in your brain and throw away the key.

“Oh! My competition.” you say, suddenly being reminded. You have official practice in around an hour, leaving you with extremely limited time to get dressed. “You should go. Um… thank you for all the stuff, by the way.” Riki says, and you nod.

“No problem! I’ll see you later?” you ask, heading towards the door.

“Yeah!” Riki calls out after you, and you give him a quick wave before leaving the room.

Another five minute conversation leaves your dynamic with Riki changed once more. It seems like five minutes is the perfect amount of time for you both to make drastic, huge changes in terms of your relationship.

But Riki is so incredibly fucked.

Because one, he doesn’t think he can just forget what happened last night so easily. His worst trait is that he dwells on things a little too much – and oh, boy, Riki is going to dwell on this a lot. He’s never going to tell you this because you seem to feel regret about the whole kiss, but some words that he said in that 5 minute conversation he had with you are words that he doesn’t think he really means.

Yes, it was a spur of the moment thing. Yes, Riki got caught up in his feelings. But, that kiss did mean something to Riki. Taki was right. Riki’s not over you yet, and the fact that he realises this after only 3 days of seeing you again worries him a little.

Because how long has he been suppressing these feelings for? Or how long has he been neglecting how he feels, too busy focused on skating to even pay attention to the fact that he’s missed you? These feelings arising once more so quickly and so suddenly makes Riki scared.

Scared because Riki knows that you don’t feel the same way. You’re so quick to tell him that it meant nothing to you, so quick to leave, even if you did have a reason. So quick to tell him that you’d like to start over, and so quick to be able to get over him when his mind’s stuck on you.

Riki’s falling. And it’s not one of those falls where he thinks he can get up really fast from, like an underrotated triple axel that leads him to falling right on his ass.

He hurriedly runs to unplug his phone from the charging port, pressing on the call button on his cousin Rei’s contact. She picks up, incredibly quickly – no surprise there, since Rei’s eyes are always glued to her phone whenever he sees her.

“I’m so fucked, Rei.”

“I saw the tweets. Why didn’t you tell me you and your ex started talking again?” she says, and Riki furrows his eyebrows at her words. “What? How’d you know?”

“You really think none of your fans would take photos of you two talking at the vending machine inside the arena?” Rei chuckles. Riki sighs – Rei’s right. Rei was the one Riki always went to when he needed to ask for relationship advice, instead of Taki, who’s answer was always these two words: just kiss.

“So what problem do you have now? Did you guys kiss, and then one of you regretted it or something?”

Rei must be a psychic.

Riki’s silence gives Rei the answer she’s looking for, and Riki just hears her slam her hand on the table. “No fucking way, you guys kissed? Who, when, what, where, why, how?” she yells into the phone, and Riki brings his phone away from his ear due to how loud the girl’s voice is.

“Quiet down, will you?” he says, frowning. “Yes, we… kissed. And she said that it didn’t mean anything, and that it was just a spur of the moment thing where we got caught up in our feelings.”

“Then what did you say back?”

“I agreed?”

“Did you mean it when you agreed?”

“No?”

“You fucking idiot!” Rei yells, and Riki notices that he hasn’t even put her on speaker, but his ears already hurt from how loud she is. “Why didn’t you tell her that it meant something to you?”

“Because it’s weird! I see her for the first time in 4 years after our breakup, then I kiss her 3 days later and I’m supposed to tell her how I feel when I don’t even know what I feel?”

“Yes!” Rei replies, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. “Riki, everyone in the world could tell that you were never really over her. You just used skating to distract yourself, but the way you two ended things was bound to leave some sort of lingering feelings. For fuck’s sake, your breakup took less than 5 minutes. I’m sure that there were words that you meant to say and words that she meant to say.”

“So what do I do now?” Riki asks, anxiously biting his bottom lip.

“You’re the one who knows her. What do you think you should do?”

Riki doesn’t know, but he doesn’t plan on involving another kiss anytime soon, despite how much he wants it to happen again.

SEVEN. figure it out

Keiji surprises you at the door of your hotel room.

“Seems like you spent the night somewhere.” he says, a sly smile on his lips. “Maybe a 6’0 male singles skater who you have some history with?”

“Shut up, Keiji.” you swipe your key card to unlock the door. “I just went to his room to pick up the jacket I left behind last night.” you lie, and Keiji raises an eyebrow.

You know he probably doesn’t believe you, but he also doesn’t pry further.

“How is he?” Keiji asks, and you shrug. “Seems to be doing fine. Bought him some soup, he took some medicine, we watched a little bit of a movie, then I left.” You obviously leave out the part where you two had kissed, because god forbid if Keiji found out, he’d tell everyone.

Then, it would make everything between you and Riki awkward again. But after your little conversation with him this morning, you think that maybe you and Riki can get past that initial awkward stage.

You just have to get rid of the thought of that kiss from your mind.

“Did he cough much this morning when you saw him? Or sniffle?”

“No, he seems to be alright.” you reply, taking a new change of training clothes from your suitcase and heading to the bathroom, locking the door. “What movie did you guys watch?” Keiji asks.

“Your Name,” you say, without giving much thought to it.

“Are you kidding me?” Keiji asks, in disbelief. “Your Name is literally yours and Riki’s movie. I can’t even watch it without thinking of you two. Are you sure nothing happened?”

Keiji knows you a little too well. You suppose that’s what happens when you’re pairs partners for nearly 10 years but gosh, sometimes you wish that he didn’t know you this well so you could get away with lying to him sometimes.

“I’m sure, Keiji,” you say, pulling your shirt over your head. You turn to look in the mirror, fixing your hair into a neat ponytail before unlocking the door and leaving the room. “Look, Riki and I are just friends now, okay? We talked last night and we’ll put everything behind us.”

“Everything? How are you supposed to forget hundreds of makeout sessions? A shit ton of hugs? Date nights that involved you two watching the same movie over and over again?”

Terrific. Keiji’s words bring you back to last night. And to be fair, he is somewhat correct — how are you supposed to forget? But you’ll find a way, right? It’s not like the thought of Riki has consumed your mind for the past 4 years when you two have been separated.

You’ll see him more often now that you and Keiji will be training in Nagoya for a bit, so you figure that it’ll be best to just pretend nothing ever happened to ease the tension between you two.

“Riki and I were friends first before we dated. I can handle this, Keiji.” you say, and you grab your skate bag. “Come on, we should head to the rink.”

When walking to the arena, flashbacks to last night keep replaying in your mind. You’re reminded of your face being inches away from Riki’s, him pulling the lanyard around your neck to connect your lips together, and the cool, minty flavour of the lozenge on his lips.

You don’t realise that you’re unconsciously bringing your fingers up to your lips. The feeling of Riki’s lips on yours still linger, for some reason, and you don’t notice how Keiji’s looking at you strangely.

“What’s up with you?” Keiji asks.

“Nothing.” you reply quickly.

You enter the arena, and you head towards the vending machine to buy a coffee. “I’ll head down soon,” you tell Keiji, who nods.

“(Name).”

You look up, and you’re greeted with the sight of Riki. “Riki! Hey,” you reply, flashing him a smile. “Didn’t know that you were going to come watch our practice today.”

“Oh, I’m not watching practice today, sorry. I’ve got a clash, since the men’s official practice is today and at another rink – I just stopped by to hand this to you.” he says, handing you your blanket. He’s folded it neatly, and you thank him gratefully before taking it into your hands.

“Thank you, Riki,” you say. “Um, you’re feeling better today, right?”

“Yeah. You asked me that this morning,” he chuckles. “Cold medicine and lozenge really did its wonders.”

You’ll never be able to think of lozenges the same way again.

The word alone brings you back to the kiss from last night, and maybe you shouldn’t have proposed the idea of putting everything all behind when you can’t even forget about that one kiss.

“Hello? (Name)?”

Riki’s voice snaps you out of your daze. “Oh! Sorry. Just competition nerves have gotten me feeling a little out of it,” you lie, chuckling.

“Hey, you’ll do great.” Riki says, placing a hand on your shoulder. You tense up slightly when Riki’s hand makes contact with your shoulder, and that’s enough for Riki to pull his hand away. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. Um, I’m just really nervous. Thank you, by the way.” you say, giving the boy a grateful smile.

“You’re welcome,” Riki says, returning the gesture by smiling at you too. “I’ll head off now, but have a great practice!”

“You too, Riki.” you beam at him, and you watch as his figure disappears past the doors of the arena.

Maybe now you realise it’s a little hard to forget about your shared history with Nishimura Riki. But both of you had agreed to put everything behind you two, so that’s exactly what you’ll do, no matter how hard it is to forget some certain events (to name one of them, that kiss from last night.)

You want to have a relationship with Riki again. Not a romantic one — even though you don’t think you’d mind that if it did happen — but you want to be friends with him again. You’ve missed having Riki around.

And as you lace up your skates before heading onto the rink, you tell yourself to forget about the minty flavour on Riki’s lips for just a little while.

EIGHT. strawberry cakes and skates

You don’t spot Riki anywhere when you skate onto the ice for your free skate.

Admittedly, you are a little disappointed – but that doesn’t stop you from focusing all your attention on making sure you and Keiji have a clean skate. You forget about minty lozenges, Your Name and Riki’s lips on yours.

Forgetting about those events proves to be helpful, as you and Keiji end up on the podium. Second place isn’t bad at all, and you’re glad that you and Keiji get to add another medal to your collection. Mina and Yuta place first, and even though you and Keiji weren’t the ones to bring home gold, you’re glad that your teammates were able to.

You rush to the locker room to change out of your costume after the victory ceremony, changing into a cropped cardigan that you had thrifted from somewhere and a pair of jeans. You redo your makeup as well, since the competition makeup is a little too dramatic and over the top after you’ve changed.

When you leave the locker room, you see Keiji and Riki talking, with Riki holding a Hello Kitty plushie in his hands. You walk up to the two boys, slinging your bag over your shoulder. “Hey,” you say, and they both turn their attention to you.

“Hey,” Riki says, and he holds out the plushie to you. “It’s for you. Sorry I couldn’t make it to watch your performance.”

You smile at Riki as you gratefully accept it with both hands. “Thank you, Riki. And it’s no problem – I know you’re busy preparing for your own performance later today.”

“Hey, where’s my plushie?” Keiji asks, looking at Riki. “(Name) steals all of yours anyways,” Riki points out. “Unless you don’t anymore…?”

Keiji crosses his arms, feigning anger. “She still does. But I would’ve guarded the one you gave me with my life, okay? Unless you’re only giving one to her because you–!”

Riki claps a hand over Keiji’s mouth before he can finish his sentence. You watch the scene in front of you in amusement, chuckling as Keiji gives Riki a death glare. “Good job, Riki.” you say, giving him a thumbs up.

“You two are ganging up on me again… just like old times.” Keiji says, and this time it’s yours and Riki’s turn to give Keiji a death glare. Keiji bringing up your past relationship with Riki is really not helping either of you in your quest to put everything all behind, and gosh, you love Keiji to death, but you wished that he would just shut up about all this to make things less awkward between you and Riki.

“Anyways… do you wanna go grab lunch?” you ask, and Riki nods, his hands stuffed into the pocket of his hoodie. “I should probably go eat before my performance later,” Riki says. “Keiji, are you gonna come along?”

Keiji struggles to hide the small smirk that makes its way onto his lips. He’s got a plan, and that plan is to get you and Riki to spend time alone as much as possible. So he pulls out his phone, pretending that Taki had just texted him. “Oh, Taki and I already planned on going to eat. You guys go alone.”

“Oh, perfect – just invite Taki along.” you say, and Keiji shakes his head. “No, it’s all good! See you!”

Your partner then runs off, as you and Riki watch in confusion. “Well… that was really strange.” you say, and Riki nods in agreement. “He told me he had absolutely no plans.” Riki replies.

“Maybe Taki had just texted him.”

That’s a lie, and you both know it. It’s incredibly obvious that Keiji just wants you and Riki to spend time together, in hopes that you two will reconcile and start dating again. Little does he know that you both have decided to put everything behind – even though that has proven to be a little bit of a struggle, considering how you both can’t stop thinking of the kiss.

But, you’re not too mad at Keiji running off and leaving you and Riki alone. It provides more opportunities for you and Riki to get used to having each other around again. Since you and Keiji will be training at the same rink as him before Worlds, you’ll see Riki often anyways, and the more you see Riki, the more chances you have to get that whole awkwardness stage over.

You think it’s going pretty well.

“Where’d you wanna go eat?” you ask him, and Riki shrugs. “You pick. If you didn’t ask, I was just going to go to a coffee shop, maybe eat something light and get a coffee.”

“We can do that. I can treat you to coffee now, then.” you beam.

“You really don’t have to.” Riki says. “Let me help you get that, by the way.” he says, taking your skate bag and slinging it over his own shoulder. “It looks heavy.”

God damn it, Nishimura Riki. You can’t do these heart fluttering gestures when I’m trying to get over you, you think.

“Oh, thanks.” you manage to choke out, and Riki just nods. “Come on, let’s go.” he says, and you follow him, trying to calm the erratic beating of your heart. Riki knows exactly what to do to make your heart do flips, and he’s certainly making it hard for you to forget about everything.

“Are you nervous for your free skate later?” you ask him, walking next to him side by side. Riki shrugs, pursing his lips. “I mean… yes? I’m trying not to think about it though… that’ll make me more nervous, and I don’t wanna mess up.”

“Understandable. I’m sure you’ll do great, though. I saw pictures of your costume — it looks really nice.”

“Are you stalking me?” Riki jokes, and you shake your head no, laughing. Riki’s comfortable enough to start cracking jokes with you again. You guess he’s handling the whole “putting it all behind us” situation better than you are.

Little do you know, you are very wrong.

The sound of your laughter makes warmth bloom across Riki’s chest. He tells himself to ignore that feeling.

You two walk to a nearby coffee shop, pushing open the door as you hear the bells hung to the handle jingle. The atmosphere is cozy and warm, and there don’t seem to be a lot of people in the cafe at the moment.

“What do you wanna get?” you ask Riki, and his eyes scan the menu written on the blackboard hung to the wall. “Just an iced americano would be great. I’ll pay for my food.” he says, pulling his wallet out of his pocket.

“Nope,” you say, slapping his hand away gently. “My treat.”

“(Name), you said you were only going to treat me to coffee. Plus, you bought me all that medicine and soup — come on, let me pay for my food.”

“Just go sit down, Riki.” you say. “I’ll go pay.”

Riki opens his mouth to protest, but you just shoo him away, and he sighs reluctantly. You turn to the boy at the counter with a bright smile. His name is Jake, according to the name tag clipped to his shirt.

“Hey, what can I get for you today?”

“Two iced americanos, one slice of the strawberry cake over there and… the banana chocolate muffin.” you tell Jake, who types it into the register. “Cool. Cash or card?”

“Cash,” you reply, handing Jake the money. “Thanks so much.”

“No problem,” Jake says, handing you the change. “I’ll bring you guys your order soon.”

You thank him once again before you head over to where Riki’s sitting. He’s typing on his phone, and he looks up when you sit down in the chair opposite to him.

“What’d you get for me?”

“Strawberry cake. We’d always go get some after competitions, remember?” you smile softly, and Riki nods. “Of course I do. The shop near the rink had the best ones, remember? The lady there still knows who I am — she’s been asking about you.”

“Mrs Kimura? Oh my gosh, how is she doing?”

“Really good, actually.” Riki says. “She’s gotten her grandson to help out with the shop, and the cake’s still just as good. We should go there again when we’re back in Nagoya.”

“Definitely,” you beam. “Gosh, I miss Japan. I’m going to stop by Okayama to visit family first, though. That’s Keiji and I’s plan before going to Nagoya to prepare for Worlds.”

“Oh, that’s what I’m doing as well,” Riki says. “Konon says Bisco misses me.”

“Bisco, oh my gosh. I miss Bisco.”

Riki smiles. “Yeah, well… Bisco misses you too. You know, according to my sister, Bisco’s in love with the neighbour’s dog?”

You gasp. “No way. Fudge? That one? Or is it another dog?”

“No, no, it is Fudge!” Riki says, and your jaw drops. “Bisco would always bark at her, but we found out it was because he actually just liked her?”

Riki only found out about Bisco being in love because his sister was trying to tease him about how he “hasn’t pulled anyone since his breakup with you.” Sad, but laughable. And she isn’t wrong, either.

Jake walks up to your table with a tray in his hands, placing one iced americano each in front of the both of you. “Strawberry cake is for…?”

You gesture to Riki, and Jake sets down the plate in front of him, placing down a fork next to the plate as well as a napkin. “Muffin must be for you, then. Enjoy.” Jake says, and you two thank him before the boy leaves.

“Strawberries. I love strawberries.” Riki hums.

“Yeah, you microwave them too, like a lunatic.”

“They taste better microwaved, (Name)! You told me you understood when I made you try it before.” Riki protests, as he watches you take a bite out of your muffin.

“Well, that was because I was… you know.”

You were going to say that it was because you were in love with him. But saying that would make things awkward, and right now, you’re having a lot of fun talking to Riki. Plus, you haven’t thought about the kiss once. You’re taking this as a win.

“Is the cake good?” you ask Riki, changing the topic, and he nods, taking another bite. “Really good,” he says between mouthfuls. “I wanna buy another one after the competition.”

“I want to try it. Maybe I’ll order one for myself.” you hum.

“Just have some of mine.” Riki says, pushing his plate towards you. “Really?” you ask.

“It’s not like we haven’t shared food before.”

Right. You try a bit of the cake, and Riki’s right — it is really good. It brings you back to when you and Riki would share the strawberry cake at Mrs Kimura’s shop. Of course, it doesn’t taste exactly the same, since the frosting at Mrs Kimura’s is a little lighter.

“That’s so good.” you say, and Riki nods with a twinkle in his eye.

“Oh, you’ve got frosting there.” Riki says, noticing the smudge of frosting on the side of your lips. “Where?” you ask, and Riki leans in a little closer to wipe the frosting off with the pad of his thumb.

Unconsciously, as he does the motion — your eyes flicker to his lips once again. Riki notices, but he decides not to say anything.

Your face feels hot. Very, very hot. Riki’s does as well.

“Ahem. So…” Riki starts. “We should definitely get more of the cake again.”

“Oh, one hundred percent. It’s really good.” you say, attempting to rid the awkwardness between you two. It’s working, you think.

The rest of your lunch goes pretty well. You two talk a lot, catching up on what the other has missed through those four years of no contact, and it reminds Riki of your first conversation ever, at Junior Nationals 7 years ago.

But Riki will keep quiet about how he thought of kissing the frosting off your lips.

You also won’t tell him that you were secretly hoping that he did that instead.

NINE. slipping up

Like you and Keiji, Riki places 2nd overall.

Obviously, he would’ve liked to have taken home the gold, but he’ll just make sure to perform better at Worlds. And second place isn’t the worst. At least he got to go home with a medal, and had gotten some strawberry cake with you after the event was over.

The time on the plane ride back to Nagoya flies faster than ever, with you and Riki chatting nonstop for the whole duration of the flight. Everyone else on the team watches you both with knowing smiles, giggling to themselves as they whisper to each other about what they think is going to happen between you two.

“Something definitely happened when I sent (Name) to bring Riki medicine. Their dynamic shifted.” Keiji hums, his eyes fixated on you walking next to Riki.

“They got out of the awkward stage pretty fast, hmm?” Taki tilts his head. “They’re already acting like how they did before they started dating. Maybe it’ll take a bit of meddling to get them together.”

“You do it.”

“Why do I always have to be the matchmaker?”

“You… did it last time? Because you said you couldn’t stand seeing them acting like a couple but not actually dating?” Keiji blinks, and Taki lets out an ‘ah’ when he’s reminded of his own words from years ago.

“Ah, right. I’m a genius.”

“Quit flattering yourself,” Kazuha says, walking up to the two boys. “I think they’ll get together on their own this time.” she looks at you two with a smile on her lips.

Taki hopes that Kazuha’s right. Admittedly, he does like meddling in Riki’s love life — only because he wants to see him happy — but he kind of hopes that Riki can just gather up the courage and confess without Taki needing to “accidentally” slip up.

“Wait, where are you going to stay in Nagoya?” Riki asks you, suddenly remembering that you had sold the apartment where you used to live in before you went to Canada. “Oh, I’m staying with Hinata and I believe Keiji’s going to stay with Fuma.” you reply, mentioning an old friend of yours.

“Ah, Hinata. I haven’t seen her in a really long time,” Riki hums. Hinata was your friend who Riki only happened to meet because you two were dating at the time, and he remembers asking her for ideas on what to get you as a gift for your 6 month anniversary. He eventually settled on a set of headphones that Hinata said that you had been eyeing for a couple of months.

You still use those headphones.

“I haven’t seen her in like… 6 months? But yeah, you haven’t seen Hinata in a while. I’m just going to drop off all this stuff at her place, then I’ll pack another bag and head back to Okayama.” you say, patting the giant luggage that you’re wheeling around.

“That’s my plan as well,” Riki says, checking the time on his phone. “There’s a train in 4 hours, I’ll probably go catch that one. Do you wanna go together?”

You beam at him. “Of course. I was hoping you’d ask — a 4 hour train ride can be so boring.”

“You could sleep. You didn’t get any sleep on the plane, and you usually doze off the minute you sit down.” Riki points out, and you nod. “Well, I was busy talking to you. Plus, I’m not that tired.”

“That’s good,” Riki says. “If you wanna sleep on the train, just let me know — I’ll wake you up when we get there.”

Your heart beats a little faster than normal at his words. Mainly because when you and Riki were together, you’d often find yourselves going on the same trains back to Okayama — you would be sleeping, while Riki listened to music and drew in his sketchbook.

Riki’s sketchbook was filled with drawings of you, with some that he showed you, and some that he hid. Not because he thought they weren’t good, but because he was embarrassed at how often he’d draw you. There were just pages after pages of his doodles of you — he swears there’s one sketchbook that consists only of his drawings of you.

“Okay,” you hum.

You and Riki part ways soon after that, with you taking the train to Hinata’s apartment. You struggle a bit with walking around with 2 suitcases, but you manage to make it work. You meet Hinata at the station, and she immediately rushes to help you with your bags — but not before she wraps you in a huge hug.

“(Name)!” she says, hugging you so tight you’re gasping for air. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” you say, smiling at her. “Congrats on the medal, by the way.” she looks at the medal draped around your neck — you had forgotten to take it off after the pictures at the airport.

“Thanks, Hinata.”

“So… I see from the news that you’ve been reconnecting with a special someone?” she asks, wiggling your eyebrows at you. She’s no doubt referring to Riki, of course. “Sure, I suppose you could say that. We’re going to take the train back to Okayama later today.”

“What? Riki’s stealing you from me again? Man, don’t tell me I only get to see you for a few hours today before you disappear for a week.” she pouts.

“I’m sorry!” you reply. “I’ll be back super soon, and we can go hang out as much as you want. We have lots to catch up on anyways. Well, by as much as you want, it depends on when I’m not training, because I can’t skip — Seungmin is going to kill me, but yeah. As much as you want.”

“That’s not very ‘as much as you want’, (Name).” Hinata jokes, and you sigh. “I know, I’m just so busy. Making plans is much easier during the off-season, which is soon, so don’t worry.”

“I get it. So,” Hinata starts. “What happened between you and Riki?”

You can tell her, right? Hinata’s been your closest friend since you were little — she won’t tell anyone. Most importantly, she won’t tell Keiji or Taki. So you think you’ve got the green light to tell her absolutely everything.

The apartment complex Hinata lives in is pretty close to the train station, so you two get there in no time. As Hinata unlocks the door, you figure that you should tell her now — you didn’t want to tell her now, because you were worried that she might get so shocked to the point where she shouted in the streets.

“So, umm… we had lunch together.” you start, and Hinata nods. “Then, he bought me coffee, so I said I’d treat him. But after that, he got sick, so Keiji told me to grab some medicine for him and bring it up to his hotel room — which I did, and then… we, uh…”

“You guys what?”

“Kissed.” you murmur, but Hinata can still hear it.

“You guys kissed?” she practically shrieks, and oh, you’re so grateful you decided to tell her when you two came into the apartment. She looks at you with wide eyes, as you sit on the couch, tapping your foot on the ground awkwardly.

“How did you go from buying him medicine then to kissing?”

“It just happened! It was a spur of the moment thing — but, we had a conversation, and we’ve decided to put everything behind us.” you say, and Hinata looks at you with a raised eyebrow.

“And how is that working out?”

“Great! We’re good friends now. Seriously, there’s no awkwardness between us, and I’m over the relationship. Riki and I are just friends now.”

Hinata nearly bursts into laughter at your words. She just finds it so unbelievable that you and Riki can “put it all behind you two” because from what she knows about you, you’re probably overthinking every single little action from Riki.

“What? Is it so hard to believe?”

“Yes!” Hinata says, and you frown. “I’m sorry, (Name) — but is it bad to say that I see you two getting back together?”

No, not at all, you think. You think you’d love that, actually. But you would never admit it out loud, so you lie to her. “Yes.”

Hinata doesn’t believe you. Gosh, maybe you are a terrible liar. Either that, or Keiji and Hinata know you too well.

You unpack some of the items in your suitcases, placing them in drawers in Hinata’s spare room that she had so kindly allowed you to stay in for the time being. You leave only the essentials in your suitcase that you’re taking with you to Okayama, and you place your skate bag on the floor. You won’t need them for the time you’re there anyways.

You wheel the suitcase you’ll be bringing with you to Okayama out into the living room, where Hinata’s watching television. “Don’t tell me you’re leaving this soon,” she says, looking over at you.

“No, not yet. The train’s in 2 hours, so I’ll probably go in an hour and a half so I can meet up with Riki.”

“Ooh, Riki.” Hinata says, wiggling her eyebrows at you as you groan. “I regret telling you everything. Oh, and whatever you do, do not tell Keiji or Taki. Those little shits will hold it against me until I tell Riki about any possible feelings I may have for him.”

“I won’t tell them. But what do you mean about any possible feelings you might have for Riki? Are you saying you feel something for him again?” she asks, as you brush your hair out of your eyes.

“No? Yes? Ugh, I don’t know. I’ll figure it out, okay? Everything’s happening all too fast, and I… need time to figure out how I feel.”

“Well,” Hinata starts. “Take your time. Nobody said you had to rush into things. Eh, wait — you two kinda did, with that spur of the moment kiss — but hey! Whatever works for you two. Riki and (Name)… just friends!”

Yes. Whatever works for you two. Right now, you and Riki staying as just friends is working out pretty great, so you think that you two will stick to it.

“Just friends. You know it.” you chuckle.

Just friends, huh?

Those two words leave a bitter taste in your mouth.

TEN. side by side (jump)

You meet Riki at the entrance of the train station with a bright smile on your lips.

He seems just as happy to see you as well, despite only seeing you a few hours ago at the airport after your flight. “Good to see you again,” he says. “Even though I saw you a little while ago.”

“Good to see you too, Riki.” you reply, and you two walk into the train station together. Just like old times.

Riki waits for you to be able to tap your card on the reader — the train station is quite busy today, even busier than usual. You pass through the gate, dragging your suitcase behind you. “Should we grab some food or snacks? I ate a little bit at Hinata’s, but it’s a 4 hour train ride. We might get hungry.”

“Sure.” Riki replies. He points out a FamilyMart located inside the station, and you two walk there side by side. “Are you going to get onigiri?” you ask him, and he nods.

“You’re so predictable, Riki.”

“You just know me well.”

Silence. But it’s a comfortable silence. You and Riki have gotten past that awkward stage faster than you two had anticipated. Just friends, now.

Even if you two wish that you could be more. Like old times. When everything between you and Riki seemed right.

When he’d softly nudge your hands with his head when you stopped playing with his hair for a bit. When he’d hug you randomly in the middle of the ice rink, the both of you hearing Keiji’s frustrated sighs in the background. When he’d kiss you underneath the cherry blossom trees every spring.

With Riki, everything always seems right.

Even the days leading up to the breakup, you enjoyed his presence in your life, even if he could barely spend time with you, and vice versa.

You two were 17. The stress of transitioning into seniors got to you both, and it wasn’t like you two didn’t hold any more love for each other — it was just skating that had taken the little time you had away from each other.

But you two are older now. 21 years of age, no longer new to seniors, with a collection of medals stored in boxes in your rooms. So maybe, you two could make things work.

Riki lets you walk into the FamilyMart first, following you to the section that has ready made meals. Riki takes one of the salmon onigiris, while you take a ham and cheese sandwich. You check the expiry date as you follow Riki to the drinks section, the boy picking out 2 bottles of coffee.

“One for you, one for me.” he says, holding one of the bottles out for you. He knows which one you like. He always did, and it doesn’t seem to have changed throughout the years.

“Thanks,” you say, grinning at him.

You both head to the cashier to pay, the kind lady giving you a smile as you hand her the money. She bids you both goodbye before you two leave the store with 1 white plastic bag, storing the food and drinks that you two had both bought.

“The train is arriving soon. We should head to the platform,” Riki says, checking his phone. “That’s perfect. We got everything we needed in time!” you say, and he nods.

“Doing anything special for your return?” Riki asks as you both step into the escalator, and you shrug. “I’m not sure. Mom will probably surprise me, if there’s anything planned.”

“That would be cute,” Riki says. “l don’t think my parents have anything planned. Bisco’s probably just going to look at me then turn away.”

You let out a loud laugh at Riki’s words. “Wow, Bisco’s cruel.”

The train arrives not long after, and Riki helps you put your suitcase in the overhead luggage rack. Riki shuffles into the window seat first — he knows you don’t like sitting there, but you’ve still yet to explain to him why that is the case.

You sit down next to him, taking out the headphones that Riki had gotten you for your 6 month anniversary. “You still use them?” Riki asks, glancing at the headphones.

“Of course. They’re good headphones.”

He turns towards the window, a soft smile on his lips.

You tell Riki you’re going to sleep, and he nods. The boy pulls out his sketchbook and a pencil, flicking through its contents. There’s some drawings of the food he’s eaten. There’s one of Taki pulling a goofy face, and there’s one that he drew of his old broken skates.

A stark contrast to the sketchbook he owned when you two were together. Where all the drawings were ones of you.

He turns to look at you, who’s sleeping peacefully.

You’re so pretty. You make Riki’s heart skip a beat. He takes off the coat he’s wearing, draping it over your body. The aircon in the train is cold — he doesn’t want you to shiver in your sleep.

Unconsciously, a small smile spreads across his lips as he looks at you. If anyone was watching the scene, they would all say that Riki was looking at you with the softest look in his eyes, with nothing but adoration and love for you.

His feelings have never left. Riki has grown to accept that — but he doesn’t know if you feel the same. He’ll keep it quiet for now, or as long as it takes. Riki can’t lose you again.

He would rather be just friends than not having you in his life at all.

Life is more vibrant with you in it. To Riki, you are the sun. You always have been. You light up every room you enter. Your smile is infectious — just the sight of it makes the corners of Riki’s lips quirk up. You brighten up his day every time he sees you, without fail.

He gently brushes your hair out of your eyes.

Something about that simple action is filled with so much love. Riki supposes he can’t tell you about how he feels at the moment, in fear of making things awkward again, so he will settle for this.

He’ll tell you that he loves you quietly. So quietly that you might not even notice.

Riki helps you fix the ponytail in your hair the best he can without waking you up, and he hums as he ties the elastic band around your hair.

He then returns to his sketchbook, drawing things like the medal that he had just earned, the view from outside the window, and the onigiri that he had bought with you at FamilyMart.

And one sketch of you that he hides in the back of his book.

You’re asleep for the majority of the train ride. Riki taps you on the shoulder when you two have arrived at Okayama, and you crack one eye open at him when you’re awake. Riki smiles — something about your expression when you wake up is just so endearing to him.

“We’re here?”

“Yeah.” Riki says, taking his coat that’s been draped on top of your body. “You looked cold, so.”

“Thanks.” you say, smiling gratefully at him.

You grab your bag, getting up from your seat so Riki can leave as well. He helps you get your suitcase as well, and you two leave the train together, and he waits for you to tap your card on the reader once again.

“Are your parents picking you up?” you ask him, and he nods. “They should be here.” he says, looking around the train station.

“That’s nice.” you say. “I think my mom’s coming too.”

“Tell her I said hi,” Riki tells you, and you nod. “Of course I will. I think she still has lunch with your mom once a week, or something.” you chuckle.

“Ah, right. Mom has mentioned that a couple of times.” Riki laughs. He then seems to spot his family, and a bright smile spreads across his lips. “They’re here. I gotta go… I’ll see you soon?”

“Of course.”

You don’t seem to notice how Riki fixed your hair a little bit for you while you were sleeping on the train. He smiles at you before bidding you goodbye.

You turn to watch him run to his family, a small smile on your lips at the sight. Riki doesn’t leave the station before turning back to look at you.

And with that, the moon waves goodbye to his sun.

ELEVEN. rinkside

Like Riki had anticipated, Bisco simply looks at him before turning away when Riki walks in through the door.

“Well.” Konon says, as Riki looks at his dog with a pout on his lips. “Bisco doesn’t even care about me!” Riki says, placing his bag on the couch.

“He’s side-eyeing you.”

“He’s always side-eyeing everyone.”

Konon nods, agreeing with her younger brother’s words. Bisco does have what one might call a permanent judgemental stare.

Riki flops down onto the couch, Konon sitting down next to him as Bisco wanders off to… wherever he’s going. Probably to stare out the window to get a glimpse of the neighbour’s dog.

“So… you and (Name) came back together?” Konon asks, and Riki nods, grabbing the remote control for the television from the coffee table.

“We were at 4 Continents together. Plus, she’s staying in Nagoya for a bit to train before Worlds — it’s easier than going back to Canada. Their coach Seungmin’s staying with a friend, and Keiji’s staying with his friend too.” Riki explains, clicking onto Netflix.

“I see,” she hums. “I didn’t know you guys started talking again.”

“It’s recent.”

“What’s recent?” Riki’s mom asks, exiting the kitchen. She looks at her son with a curious look on her face, even though Riki’s pretty sure his mom heard small pieces of his conversation with Konon, and there’s no doubt in his mind that she saw Riki with you at the train station.

“Riki and (Name) are talking again.”

“Don’t say it like that!” Riki says, lightly elbowing his sister. Pink tints his cheeks, and Konon immediately notices.

“What do you mean to not say it like that? You two are talking, am I wrong?” she laughs, and Riki groans.

“The way you worded it is…” Riki trails off, embarrassed. “Whatever. Doesn’t matter.”

“That’s nice. I liked (Name),” Riki’s mom says, a knowing smile on her lips. No matter how badly Riki’s trying to hide it, she knows about her son’s lingering feelings for you, and so does everyone else.

At the sound of your name, Bisco barks.

He really does play favourites, Riki thinks.

“I know you did, Mom,” Riki chuckles. “She told me to tell you that she said hi.”

“That’s kind of her. Tell her I said hi too.”

“So, what’d you guys do?” Konon asks, and Riki shrugs. “We didn’t have much time to… you know… hang out between the events. We had lunch first, with everyone on the team. That’s how I saw her after 4 years of no contact.”

“Oh, and then I went to watch her practice with Taki and everyone else. She did really well. Then, I kinda got a little sick, so she brought me tissues, cold medicine, soup — the ones that she knows I like — and lozenges.” Riki purposely leaves out the part where you two kissed. His family doesn’t need to know about that. In fact, he thinks that his sister would rather not know, even if he was willing to share. Konon would probably pretend to throw up, and his mom would definitely tease him about it for the rest of his life. His dad would laugh for hours, and Bisco would just stare at him with that judgemental look of his.

Riki continues rambling about spending time with you at 4 Continents while his mother and sister share a knowing look. “Oh, then we went to grab something to eat, and I got this strawberry cake, like old times, when we used to go to Mrs Kimura’s shop after practice. We have plans to do that again when we return to Nagoya. We had a lot to catch up on, so… yeah. Seeing her again was really fun.”

Konon chuckles. “Sounds like you had a really nice time at 4 Continents with (Name). You even forgot to tell us about that medal of yours.”

Konon has always liked you and Riki together. You both were incredibly similar, both loud and mischievous. You and Riki could talk about anything and everything for hours and hours and not get bored, and Konon would simply just watch in awe — she didn’t understand how two people could talk this much and not even feel tired. In fact, before you two started dating, Riki had complained multiple times when he had to leave the rink, because he wanted to talk to you more than he already had.

Konon remembers how Riki would call you his sun. And how you’d call him your moon.

She also remembers when you and Riki would have movie nights in this exact house, on this exact couch. She’d walk into the living room to get a late night snack, and see Riki’s arms wrapped around you, your bodies covered by a warm blanket.

You made Riki happy.

As a good sibling, that is all she wants for Riki in his life. Happiness.

Konon can see how happy Riki is when he skates a completely clean program. She can see how happy Riki is when he gains a new personal best score. She can see how happy Riki is when he earns a medal.

But the happiest she’s ever seen Riki is when he’s with you.

So with the way Riki’s talking about the short amounts of time he was able to spend with you at that competition makes Konon feel like yours and Riki’s story isn’t over yet. The glimmer in his eye returning, the way he’s smiling the entire time when he’s talking about the moments he shared with you, and the excitement in his voice as he details every moment tells her that her brother is still incredibly in love with you.

She hopes that he realises it. Or has already realised it.

But she knows Riki is too cautious, too worried that he’ll make a mistake when it comes to you. She doesn’t want him to just stand on the rinkside, constantly overthinking every move he makes when it’s related to you. So she figures that someone will have to give him a little push.

Before 4 Continents, Konon has heard her brother’s constant complaints about how he’s the only one in the family who hasn’t found love yet. But it’s clearer to her now than ever that Riki has always been the first one to find his person.

Words like how the universe might just simply not want him to fall in love, words like how maybe he’s not made for the thing called love.

But, the universe decides that it is the right thing to do to bring you and Riki back together. It has been too cruel to you both over the past couple of years — pushing the idea of knowing that you might’ve just lost your chance with the one and being left to wonder if you’ll find someone that can make you feel love the same way that person did.

But, the universe now decides to bring the sun and the moon back together.

One of them just has to take the first step.

TWELVE. on ice / off ice matchmakers

Riki doesn’t see you at all during his time in Okayama.

You two both don’t take the same train back as well, since Riki left for Nagoya a little earlier than you’re planning to. He texted you, asking if you were going to be on the train that day, and you replied with a ‘no’ and a sad face emoji.

You told him that you’d be staying a bit longer to spend more time with family, considering you hadn’t seen them in months. He tells you to have fun, and that he’ll see you back in Nagoya. You reply with a thumbs up and a heart emoji.

He can’t believe that his face heats up because of a stupid heart emoji. Riki thinks that he’s even more in love now than he was then, and maybe it’s because of a mix of those old, lingering feelings with the addition of the new ones that he’s developed over 4 Continents — the point is, Riki is crazily in love with you.

Riki returns to the rink with the thought of you on his mind. He sees Keiji there as well, alongside his coach Seungmin. Hikari doesn’t seem to be here yet, and neither does Taki.

“Hey, Riki!” Keiji says, skating up to the boards. “How was Okayama?”

“It was good. Spent some time with my family, chilled at home, witnessed my dog try to court the neighbour’s dog, you know, normal stuff.”

“Your dog is trying to court another dog? Also, what’s with the sudden use of formal language?” Keiji asks, laughing loudly at the fact that Bisco is trying to romance another dog.

“I didn’t know how else to word it? Is saying that my dog is trying to date another dog a better way of putting it?”

“I can’t believe Bisco’s pulling before me,” Keiji says, sighing. “Oh, and I almost forgot to ask. Did you spend any time with (Name)?”

Keiji wiggles his eyebrows at him, and Riki just looks at him, unamused. “No. I didn’t.” he replies, and Keiji gasps dramatically. “No way. Riki, what?”

“(Name) was spending time with her family. I’m seeing her here anyways — I don’t want to take away time that she could’ve spent with them while she’s there.” he explains, sitting down on the bench to put on his skates.

“Okay, that makes sense, I guess.”

“You seem very hellbent on trying to get me and (Name) back together.” Riki hums as he finishes lacing up his skates. “Look, she’s great. And I… hmm. The thing is, if she doesn’t feel the same way anymore, then it’s not going to happen.”

“Are you indirectly saying that you’re still in love with her?”

Riki doesn’t say anything as he takes off his skate guards and skates out onto the ice.

“Riki! Riki!” Keiji calls out after him, trying to catch up to him. “It’s a yes or no question, it’s just one word, come on, man!”

“You’ll figure that out.”

“That’s a yes?”

Riki doesn’t say anything once more, and Keiji takes his silence as an answer.

Oh, Keiji is so incredibly excited. Knowing that Riki still likes you and also knowing that your feelings for Riki have never left (despite you denying it constantly) has opened up so many new doors for him to come up with a scheme to get you and Riki back together.

Keiji usually wouldn’t meddle in his friends’ relationships – that’s more of Taki’s thing, but like Konon, he knows that without a little push, you two would never do anything about it. Keiji would hate to see you both just deciding to let your feelings for each other slowly melt away when he knows that you two are practically perfect for each other.

Keiji’s coach, Seungmin, looks at him with a curious expression, wondering why his student looks so excited suddenly.

Seungmin had started coaching you and Keiji when you both moved to Canada. He and his pairs partner Yeji had recently retired, with Yeji wanting to pursue a different path away from the ice, and Seungmin wanting to transition to coaching.

“What are you so excited about?” Seungmin asks when Keiji skates back to the boards. “You know how Riki and (Name) used to date, right?”

Seungmin nods. Keiji has been talking about it constantly after 4 Continents, and since he wasn’t coaching you and Keiji yet at the time when you and Riki were together, he is quite intrigued about why the whole team wants you both back together.

“Riki still likes her. Maybe even loves her? Not sure. But I swear (Name)‘s been secretly hung up on her relationship ever since they broke up — she’s just made herself so busy to the point where she could forget about it. Plus, they didn’t break up because they didn’t love each other anymore, they did it because skating got in the way!”

“And you think skating won’t get in the way for them now?”

“No? They’ve both matured. They can find that healthy work-life balance.” Keiji says, and Seungmin tilts his head. “You do know that Riki lives here, in Nagoya, and we train in Montreal, all the way over in Canada.”

“Long-distance!”

“What are you guys talking about?” Taki asks, walking up to them, and a wide grin immediately spreads across Keiji’s lips.

Taki is quite literally known as the matchmaker in the group. It’s incredible how he can pick up on people’s feelings for one another even with just one interaction with the smallest hint of interest. Riki jokingly says that it’s because he has nothing to do better with his life, but Keiji thinks that it’s a gift from whoever’s above.

“Your friend and his ex.” Seungmin tells him.

“What about Riki and (Name)?” he asks, a mischievous smile on his lips. He looks at Riki, practising his twizzles on the rink. “Is he finally not in denial about liking (Name)?”

Keiji adds mind reader to Taki’s list of gifts.

“Yes. You must know him very well.” Seungmin says, and Taki nods. “I’ve witnessed every single part of their relationship. The beginning, the end, and now, finally, the return.” he says, feeling very proud.

“We should try and get them back together.”

“But Kazuha said that they’ll probably get back together on their own. I feel like my magical matchmaking services aren’t needed in this case,” Taki says, sitting down on the bench. “What a rare thing to say, I know. I think we just have to get (Name) out of her denial phase, and they’ll both just tell each other. They love each other too much to keep that a secret.”

Taki not meddling in a relationship for once? Keiji is surprised.

“You’re right.” Seungmin says. “Just sit back and watch for a bit, maybe. Then we can see how to go from there, right?”

“We? Coach, do you wanna be part of the plan?” Keiji asks, shocked at his coach’s response. He didn’t expect Seungmin to even agree with him meddling in your love life, much less wanting to get involved with getting you and Riki back together.

“(Name) deserves to be happy,” Seungmin shrugs. “You guys seem to think that he makes her very happy. Plus, I used to be quite the matchmaker a long time ago, back when I was in college.”

“That was like 5 years ago. Why are you talking like you’re 45?”

Seungmin rolls his eyes. “Shush, Keiji. When (Name) gets back, they’ll probably spend more time together. When we’re not training for Worlds, at least.”

“You’re right.”

“Hey Riki?” Taki calls out. “Yeah?” Riki replies, skating closer towards the three near the boards. “Are you planning to see (Name) anytime soon? Like after she comes back?”

“Yeah, why? She’s going to be training here anyways. She wants to go get strawberry cake at Mrs Kimura’s after practices.” Riki replies, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

Riki smiles at the thought of seeing you again. The three matchmakers standing near the boards, however, are smiling for a different reason.

THIRTEEN. skate guards

You arrive in Nagoya 2 days later.

Riki’s eyes light up when he sees you enter the rink, and it does not go unnoticed by Taki and Hikari. Taki silently giggles to himself, and Hikari just looks at you, before looking at Riki again.

Hikari has never said anything about your relationship with Riki, not even when you two were dating. The woman is also impossible to read, so Riki never knew if she approved of his relationship with you. She’d only scold him for being late, and saying that dates weren’t excuses to skip out on practice.

But he knew that Hikari didn’t dislike you.

“Hey!” you say, skating up to Riki. “Hey, how was your trip back?” he asks, giving you a side hug. Taki and Keiji give each other one of those looks, whispering amongst themselves, as Seungmin just watches your interaction from afar.

“It was nice! I actually bumped into your sister yesterday,” you chuckle, and Riki widens his eyes. Oh gosh, he really hopes Konon didn’t tell you about how he was basically rambling on and on about spending time with you at 4 Continents. “Don’t worry! She didn’t say anything bad. She just said congrats on the medal, and that the next time we’re both back our families should go and grab dinner together.” you say, noticing Riki’s alarmed expression.

Riki lets out a sigh of relief, and you look at him with an amused expression. “What, you thought she’d say something else?”

“No, no. I was worried she’d say something strange.”

“Like what?”

“Nothing.”

Riki says the word with such quickness that it makes you a little suspicious, but you brush it off. “So… how was your trip? I didn’t get to spend time with you then, so I figured you must be busy with family.”

“It was good. Bisco has been trying to romance Fudge. I’m unsure if it’s working,” Riki chews on his bottom lip as you laugh. “And I thought you were busy with family, so…”

“It’s okay. At least we get to see each other now,” you say, beaming.

His heart just does a strange flip, and his cheeks feel hot, face tinting pink all the way up to the tip of his ears. He blames the cold instead of your words.

“Yeah. We can go get strawberry cake after this?” he asks you, and you nod. “Of course. I’ll go get practicing now, since Keiji just seems to be… staring at us. Then we can maybe go get strawberry cake around… 3?”

“Of course. It’s a date.”

Riki then skates off, leaving you with your face feeling hot this time. It’s a date? You know he means that he agrees to the time that you’ve set for going to Mrs Kimura’s shop to get cake, but you know that it can also mean something very different.

You wish that he meant it in a different way.

You have been in denial about your feelings for Riki for a while now. The signs are all there — from thinking nonstop about the kiss, to his words and his actions making your heart flutter like it used to.

Oh, you realise. You still love Riki.

You don’t want to leave everything in the past. You want to continue where you two had left off 4 years ago. You want to hold Riki like you used to, hug him like you used to, kiss him like you used to.

You want things to go back to the way they were before.

You stand there in the middle of the rink, eyes following Riki’s figure as he skates across the rink, doing a gorgeous layback Ina Bauer as your heart thumps faster and faster.

Maybe things could all work out now. Just maybe.

You gulp, hand touching to feel your cheeks — they’re warm, and you tell yourself to snap out of it. You should hurry up with skating so you can go and spend more time with Riki.

You skate up to the boards, and Seungmin looks at you with a small smile on his lips. “So… Riki, huh?”

“Coach, come on. I wanna focus.”

“I was just asking! And yes, let’s focus.” he says, and you nod. “Keiji, get over here! Stop whispering to Taki.”

Keiji sighs, telling Taki that he’ll talk to him later. He skates up to you both, hands on his hips. “What are we doing today?”

“Everything, Keiji. It’s Worlds in less than a month, and we want that medal.” you tell him, and Keiji nods. “Come on, let’s go.”

You and Keiji skate away from the boards, and as you fiddle with the hair tie on your wrist, Keiji asks you about what you and Riki were talking about.

You immediately shake your head, saying that it’s nothing important with a soft smile on your lips. “Let’s focus now.” you say. You want to keep your conversations with Riki a little more private now, considering how you know that Keiji is prone to telling everything related about you and Riki to Taki.

During the practice, you don’t miss Riki’s occasional glances at you. When you catch him looking, he simply gives you a thumbs up, telling you that you’re doing great.

You thank him quietly, as Keiji struggles to hide the cheeky grin on his lips.

You also don’t miss Hikari telling Riki to focus on his own practice instead of yours as you and Keiji twizzle across the ice. There’s a soft smile on your lips at her words, for some reason.

Practice goes smoothly for Riki, for the most part. He does fall a couple times on a few quads, but during the final runthrough of his program for the day, he lands them all cleanly. Hikari gives him a nod in satisfaction, telling him that he did well. Riki thanks her, and she gives him a close-lipped smile.

He exits the rink, putting his skate guards back on. He spots your purple ones placed on the bench. You still use the same ones as 4 years ago.

“Um, Seungmin? Could you tell (Name) I’ll be waiting for her? I’m just going to get changed.” he tells your coach, who nods. “Of course. Have fun.”

Have fun getting changed?

It doesn’t register in Riki’s mind until he’s in the dressing room a few minutes later that Seungmin means that Riki should have fun spending time with you.

Riki exits the changing room after spraying some cologne on, changed into a hoodie and a pair of jeans. You’re the one putting on your skate guards now, and you tell him that you won’t be long.

He nods, waiting patiently next to the vending machine as he sees you disappear into the women’s changing room. You appear a few minutes later in a fresh change of clothes, smiling at him.

The sight of you makes his heart skip a beat.

“So… should we go?”

“Of course. Let’s go.” he says. He bids goodbye to Seungmin, Hikari, and Keiji — Taki is nowhere to be seen, for some reason.

You and Riki leave the rink together, leaving your bags at the rink since you two would come back later anyways. The walk to Mrs Kimura’s shop doesn’t take too long, since it’s just across the street. You haven’t seen the kind lady in years.

Riki pushes open the door, letting you enter first.

“Welcome!” the voice of Mrs Kimura makes you smile, and as you approach the counter, the old lady seems to recognise you. “Oh my. Is that (Name)?”

“Long time no see, Mrs Kimura!” you say, smiling brightly at her. Mrs Kimura walks around the counter, approaching you to give you a warm hug. “I haven’t seen you in ages! Oh, and Riki’s here as well! I didn’t know that you two got back together. That’s so sweet.”

“Oh, we’re not together, Mrs Kimura.” you say, chuckling awkwardly. Riki nods, and Mrs Kimura lets out a small ‘oh’.

“Well, sorry for misunderstanding.” she laughs, and you shrug. “It’s quite alright. You did see us come here often when we were together.”

“Yes, I did. You two were adorable together.” she beams. “So, the usual for you both? Strawberry cake?”

“Of course. That’s very kind of you for still remembering.” you say. “Riki still comes here often, after practice. Just you know, without you around.” Mrs Kimura says, looking at Riki, who’s gone to sit at the table closest to the window. That table was where you two would always sit whenever you came here.

“Oh, I see.” you say.

“He seems to have missed you quite a bit, over the years. I would ask about you, and he’d just tell me he didn’t know with this sort of… sad look on his face.”

You didn’t know Riki felt that way.

“But I’m glad you and Riki are talking again.” she says, as she cuts two slices of the strawberry cake. She places them on small plates, pushing them towards you. “Free of charge today.”

“Oh, Mrs Kimura, no. I’ll pay.” you say, and the lady shakes her head. “No, no, no. Just seeing you again after a long time is enough. I have missed seeing you almost every day, you know.” she replies.

“I’ve missed seeing you every day as well. And thank you so much, Mrs Kimura.” you say.

“He’s looking at you.” she whispers to you.

“Hmm?”

“I think he really likes you.”

You smile, looking back at Riki. “I think I really like him too.”

FOURTEEN. when the ice melts

As the World Championships inches closer, you and Riki find yourselves training more intensely each day.

The only time that you two can spend together without being stressed about preparations for Worlds is at Mrs Kimura’s shop, ordering 2 slices of strawberry cake like usual. You and Riki talk about everything but skating, such as Riki giving you updates on how Bisco’s mission on trying to romance Fudge is going.

According to his mother, it seems to be going well.

“Bisco is going to get a girlfriend before you do.” Taki says, taking a sip out of his water bottle.

Riki glares at your pairs partner. “Actually, I have exes.”

“Correction, you have one ex. Who just so happens to be standing next to you.” Taki gestures to you, who’s awkwardly standing there. You opt to give a thumbs up with an uncomfortable smile, making Taki burst out in laughter. “Yes… us… exes!” you say, and Riki copies your action, awkwardly giving Taki a thumbs up as well.

Taki laughs even louder.

“You guys are funny,” Seungmin says, placing his bags down. “Where’s Keiji?”

“Not here yet,” you say. “I’ll just practice some solo jumps?”

Seungmin nods, telling you that it’s a good idea. You tell Taki and Keiji you’ll get practicing before skating off, leaving the two boys and Hikari standing near the boards. “So… are you going to tell her?” Taki asks Riki, and the younger boy looks at him, feigning confusion.

“Tell her what?”

“That you like her.” Taki says, as the two boys watch you skate around the rink, before taking off into a triple loop. “What do you mean?” Riki asks.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Riki. I’ve been stuck with you since we were both 3 years old.” Taki nudges the younger boy, who doesn’t say anything. “I’m really not going to meddle with your love life this time. I swear. I know you and (Name) will get together on your own, so… I’m stepping away.”

“You’re acting as if being a matchmaker is your job, Taki.” Riki chuckles, and Taki shrugs. “It’s my part time job. I’m a full time figure skater, mind reader, and a part-time matchmaker.”

“Mind reader?” Riki questions.

“Yeah. I’m reading your mind right now, and your mind is telling me that you like (Name), but you’re too scared to tell her because you don’t want to screw things up all over again.”

Riki flips Taki off, who gasps, feigning offence. Riki despises how Taki knows him so well. Or maybe that Riki just isn’t doing the best job at hiding it.

“I don’t… what?”

“Riki, it’s just me. You can be honest with me.”

“You’re probably going to tell (Name) like you did all those years ago. Look, Taki — I don’t think it’s a good idea this time.” Riki sighs.

“Explain what you mean, Riki.”

“I… don’t think I should tell her how I feel,” Riki confesses. “Not only is it too early, but also, there’s a multitude of other factors that just tells me that if I confess, things might not turn out the way we want them to again. She lives all the way in Canada, I live here — our lives revolve around skating all day, and with the 13 hour time difference too, I don’t think a romantic relationship can survive all that, even if she likes me back. Plus, we’ve just started being friends again. Look… I would rather have her as a friend, than lose her completely.”

“Riki, but you really like her.”

“I know.” Riki sighs. “I always will.”

“But relationships are complicated. Love is complicated, even more so for people like us who dedicate our lives to our sport. I just don’t want to lose (Name) once again. Because at 4 Continents, I finally realised how empty life seemed without her in it. Those 4 years separated her were, no offence to you, and everyone else around, but less… vibrant, in a way. And now that we’re back in each other's lives… I don’t want to go back to how uninteresting and boring life was before.” he muses. Taki listens to him intently, his lips slightly downturned into a frown.

“Plus,” Riki chuckles. “I don’t even know if she likes me back.”

“Of course she does, Riki. What are you even saying? She looks at you as if you’re her entire world.” Taki says, and Riki smiles slightly. “That is a nice thing to say. I would like to get back together with her, if she did like me back.”

“But if not, I would rather things between (Name) and I to stay like this instead of… you know.”

Riki doesn’t know that you hear him say those exact words as you skate by the two boys. You didn’t hear the parts they said before, but you sure did hear what Riki said about wanting things to stay the same.

“What do you mean by you know?” Taki asks.

“Seriously, man? I would rather things stay like this rather than having no relationship at all. I thought it was clear, considering everything else I had said earlier.”

But to you, it is not clear at all. Without context of Taki and Riki’s previous conversation, you’re left thinking that you were wrong.

Riki really doesn’t like you back.

You feel your heart shatter a little at his words. You held up the tiniest bit of hope, and all this came crashing down with just one sentence from the boy’s lips.

But really, what did you expect? He told you that he agreed that it was a spur of the moment kiss at the hotel. He agreed to leave it all behind, and it seems like he held up on his part of the deal.

However, you didn’t.

Nishimura Riki twizzles right into your heart once again and ends up breaking it.

You should’ve expected this to happen. Falling for your ex boyfriend after only a couple of weeks of talking again? Sounds like a recipe for disaster. You were just stupid and foolish enough to think that maybe you and Riki could be a thing again, and look where it got you.

You try to rid your mind of the thought. It doesn’t hurt this bad. The breakup didn’t hurt like this. I should be fine.

To forget about the words that Riki had said, you decide to just focus on practicing your solo jumps. Keiji still hasn’t gotten here, and for once, you actually want to confide in him.

You then take off into a triple flip.

His words must’ve messed with your mind a little. You’re not as focused as you usually are, which is to be expected — so your body makes an impact with the cold, hard, ice.

Every fall hurts a little bit.

This one hurts a little more than usual.

When Riki sees you fall, he immediately skates over to you. “(Name), you okay?” he asks, worry laced in his tone. Somehow, him skating over to help you back up makes your heart twinge a little.

“Yeah. I’m okay.” you murmur, and Riki holds out his hand for you to take so he can pull you back up. You take his hand, and butterflies erupt in your stomach — even if you tell them to stop.

Riki doesn’t like you back, you tell yourself. He’s just really nice. He’s always been really nice. That’s why you fell for him in the first place.

“Careful,” he says, as you give him a smile that doesn’t really quite reach your eyes. Riki’s able to read you like he used to now, and he can tell that you’re not quite happy with something. “Yeah. I will. Thanks.” you say, before skating off, leaving Riki confused.

You were okay before. Did he do something wrong? Were you upset because you fell on the flip?

He skates back to Taki with a confused expression on his face. “(Name) seems upset.” he frowns, biting on the inside of his cheek. “Maybe it’s because she fell on the flip.”

“Maybe…” Riki trails off. But he knows you well enough to know it’s not that. Sure, you’d be a little disappointed, but you wouldn’t usually let it show on your face.

“Boys. Let’s get practicing.” Hikari says, and the two nod. Keiji just so happens to arrive, and you sigh in relief. “You’re here!” Riki hears you say as he pulls his black gloves onto his hands.

As Riki practices, he tries to not think about your upset expression. But, Riki is an overthinker — he just can’t help it. He hopes that maybe he’ll be able to lift your mood a little bit later, but the thought of you being upset distracts him a little, and Hikari notices.

Of course she would. She notices everything.

And when Riki lands a quadruple salchow shakily, Hikari decides to call him over.

“Is something distracting you? What’s on your mind today?” she asks him.

Riki looks at his coach, a little shocked. She never usually asks him about personal stuff. “No, it’s just… forget it. I’m sorry.” Riki says, and Hikari shakes her head. “Don’t lie to me, Riki. Worlds is in a few weeks, and I don’t want anything stressing you out because it’ll hinder your performance. Just tell me.”

Riki turns his head to look at you and Keiji, and Hikari understands immediately.

“Are you still in love with your ex girlfriend?”

“Coach, I…”

“It’s very obvious, Riki. Why is that bothering you then?” she asks. Riki sighs, rubbing the nape of his neck. “Because she seems upset. And I can’t help but wonder if I did something that made her feel that way.”

“Did you say anything?”

“I don’t think so. I wouldn’t want to say anything that would hurt her feelings, considering that I do like her.”

“Then you’re fine. Focus on skating. I can help you handle this.” Hikari says, and Riki looks at his coach, shocked. “What?” she asks.

“You’ve never talked to me about anything regarding my personal life. I’m just not used to this at all.” he confesses, and Hikari shrugs. “I’ve been your coach for the majority of your life. I pick up things that you don’t notice until later. Such as how when I knew immediately that you and (Name) would be together after you two started talking at Junior Nationals that year.”

“Oh,” Riki says. “I just… I don’t know. I like her a lot, but skating seems to get in the way.”

“You both need to find that work-life balance. As a coach, I should be telling you that skating is the most important. But, your relationships with others are just as important, and if you love her as much as you do, you should keep your relationship with her as a priority as well.”

“Okay.” Riki breathes out.

“Now get back to practice. I’ll talk to (Name) later.”

FIFTEEN. compulsory figures

Nagai Hikari has always intimidated you.

Riki’s coach stands at 5’1, but she is incredibly scary for some reason. The lady has a straight face almost 90% of the time, and you remember the times where she’d scold you and Riki for being late to practice with pure anger on her face. Of course, you understood why she was so angry, but that didn’t take away how frightening she was to you.

So when she asks you to talk after your practice is over, you’re a little bit scared.

Riki is somehow nowhere to be seen. He left the rink a little while ago, disappearing into the changing rooms — and you don’t think you’ve seen him leave, but you also don’t know where he is.

You know Riki isn’t that cruel to go to Mrs Kimura’s shop without you, so maybe he’s still in the changing rooms, or he’s gone off to somewhere else when you were too busy practising to notice.

“Um, what’s this about, Ms Nagai?” you ask her, as she pats the seat next to her, motioning for you to sit down. “Riki tells me you’re upset.”

You don’t know why his coach is telling you this, but you stay and listen.

“Um… I suppose so. Why’d he tell you?”

“He was distracted during practice today,” Hikari hums. “I figured it might be because he’s thinking about you.”

Your face heats up a little after hearing Hikari’s words. “And… why would he be thinking about me?”

“Because he loves you.”

Hikari gets straight to the point.

“That can’t be right,” you chuckle awkwardly. “I just overheard him saying to Taki that he likes how things are between me and him, and… he’d rather it stay like that then… you know.”

“Did he say what the ‘you know’ was?” the lady asks you.

“No?”

“The ‘you know’ is not even being in contact with you at all. Riki is scared of losing you completely if he tells you how he feels.” Hikari tells you. “You should go tell him how you feel, because after hearing what Taki and Riki were talking about, I don’t believe he will be the one to make the first move.”

“But how do you know that I still like Riki?”

The lady looks at you as if the answer is obvious, because Hikari really can’t believe you had just asked her that — you and Riki have never been able to hide any sort of feelings that you had for each other. “You look at him the same way you did when you two were younger. Like he is everything to you. He looks at you the same way. Don’t lose him again. And don’t hurt him.”

“He looks at me like that?” you ask her, and she nods.

“All the time. You just must have not noticed,” she says. You sigh, and Hikari frowns. “Why are you sighing? I just told you the words that you wanted to hear.”

“No, I know, Mrs Nagai — it’s just hit me right now that even if Riki and I continue our relationship from 4 years ago, things will be even more complicated and hard. The time difference, the flights, everything will be harder than before, and we couldn’t even survive that.”

“You two will make things work. You both love each other too much to not even give your relationship a second chance.”

The lady gets up out of her seat before walking away, leaving you to register everything she’s told you in your short conversation with her. So you had just misunderstood. Nagai Hikari knows Riki very well, arguably better than some of Riki’s friends, considering how she’s literally watched him grow up.

She has watched you grow up too, with you and Keiji training at this exact rink just with a different coach. She had been there when your relationship with Riki had sprouted, blossomed, then wilted.

Hikari’s silent observations prove to be useful to you. Riki loves you, she had said. Your heart fills with joy at the sound of that.

But now you know that you’re the one who needs to make the first move, and nervousness courses through your veins. The last and first time you’ve ever confessed to someone is after Taki had left it all out in the open. You two just whispered a meek ‘I like you a lot’, and then Riki asked you if you’d like to be his girlfriend.

You had said yes.

You don’t think the confession should go like that this time around. Your first confession lasted no longer than 5 minutes. Your first breakup lasted no longer than 5 minutes.

Love is special. It should be treated as such.

6 years ago, as a teenager and after Taki exposed your feelings for each other, you should have told Riki how crazily, stupidly in love he made you feel. You should’ve told him that every second, every moment you shared with him sparked this feeling of joy that you couldn’t possibly ever describe in any shape of form. You should’ve told him that there is nobody else in the world that you could ever imagine feeling this way for.

And 4 years ago, after you both came to the realisation that things weren’t working out, you should’ve told Riki that you wanted to try and fix things. You should’ve told him that even though everything was going south, those short moments with him that you managed to squeeze into your busy schedule was the only time you felt like you were at peace.

You should’ve told him that despite everything, you still loved him.

So this time around, you’ll tell Riki all the words you never got to say during your first confession, and during your breakup.

The words “I like you a lot” are not remotely enough to describe your feelings for Riki. You could write entire paragraphs about your feelings, and 5 words, 12 letters is nowhere near the length of a paragraph.

You get up from your seat, looking around to try and find Taki. When you do, you immediately run up to him, startling him a little bit. “Do you know where Riki is?” you ask him, and a sly smile spreads across his lips.

“You look like you’re in a hurry.”

“I’m not.”

“Okay. Well, he’s gone to see Rei. He says that she’s not feeling well.”

“Ah,” you say, pulling out your phone. Sure enough, there are a couple messages from Riki.

Rei’s throwing up, I think she ate something bad. Had to leave early to drive her to the doctor’s. I won’t be able to get strawberry cake with you at Mrs Kimura’s today, but I bought you a slice and dropped it off at Hinata’s apartment on my way to Rei’s. Hoping it lifts your mood a bit. See you tomorrow!

Knowing that Riki had even gone out of his way to buy you a slice of the strawberry cake and drop it off at Hinata’s apartment himself when he couldn’t go to the shop with you today makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

You can’t believe you’ve found someone like Nishimura Riki.

“What are you smiling at?” Taki asks you, even though he already knows the answer. Don’t worry about it, and thank you for the cake! Hope Rei feels better soon, you write, before tapping send.

“You know the answer without asking, Taki.” you say, before grabbing your bags and leaving the arena.

You return to Hinata’s with a bright smile, strawberry cake waiting for you and your feelings for Riki stronger than ever.

SIXTEEN. in every universe, 1Lo<.

Riki heads to the rink much earlier than he usually does on a Wednesday morning.

He��s hoping to get in more practice time today, since his practice was abruptly cut by Rei getting food poisoning, leading to Riki needing to drive his cousin to the hospital.

The streets of Nagoya are awfully quiet this early in the morning, and as Riki walks by empty streets with his headphones on, he quietly admires the city that he calls his home away from home.

The boy pushes past the doors of the arena, the cold air from the rink brushing against his face. It’s not possible for someone to be here this early in the morning — hell, he knows that even Hikari isn’t awake right now.

The boy quietly places down his bags, pulling his skates out. He puts his skates on, placing his regular sneakers into a shoe bag that he stuffs into his skate bag. Riki finishes lacing up his skates, and he walks over to his locker, shoving his bags in there.

Riki removes his skate guards before skating out onto the ice.

The ice has never felt so comforting to Riki, especially during preparations for Worlds. Perhaps he should start practising much earlier than he usually does.

But then he hears the doors of the arena open, and he curiously looks towards the entrance to see who would possibly come here this early, other than him.

It’s you.

He doesn’t know why something so simple, such as you walking through the doors makes his breath hitch. Butterflies flutter in his stomach, and despite how cold the rink is, Riki has never felt so warm.

You seem to spot him, and you hurriedly lace up your skates before skating onto the ice — seemingly not even bothering to put your skate bag away into your own locker.

“Morning,” you breathe out.

Riki doesn’t know how nervous you are.

“Morning.” Riki smiles at you, and just at the sight of his smile, you swear you fall in love with him all over again.

“How’s Rei?” you skate beside him, and Riki shrugs at your words. “She’s doing okay, I think. Her friend Gaeul’s taking care of her, since she knows I’m busy preparing for Worlds. I should go and see her sometime soon though, just to check up.”

Riki seems to suddenly remember something. “Oh, did you get the cake?”

“Yes, I did!” you say with a wide grin and a bright twinkle in your eye. Warmth blooms across Riki’s chest at the sight of your joyful smile. He’s glad he’s the one who was able to make you smile like that. “I’m glad Hinata didn’t eat the cake.”

“Me too.”

Then there’s just silence between you and Riki. It’s not a comfortable silence, but it’s not awkward, either. It’s just you, trying to get yourself to muster up the courage to tell him what you’ve wanted to say to him, and Riki, sensing that you’re about to tell him something, but nothing seems to slip past your lips.

Riki decides that he doesn’t quite like the silence. “Are you okay from yesterday?”

“Hmm?”

“You seemed upset. I got worried.” he confesses, looking down at his skates. A tiny smile appears on your lips.

“I’m okay. It was just me overthinking.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Is this the right time? you ask yourself. You don’t know what exactly to say. All you know is your feelings towards Riki are so strong that you just can’t keep it a secret anymore. You don’t have a clearly thought out paragraph to tell him how you feel, you don’t have anything rehearsed — all you have are your feelings.

“I love you,” you blurt out.

You just hope that your feelings are enough.

Riki stops in his tracks.

“I have never stopped loving you, and it’s killing me that I only realised a couple weeks ago. Less than 5 minutes seems like all the time we need to make major decisions regarding our relationship — but I don’t want 5 minutes. 5 minutes is too little for me to tell you how much I like you. It’s too little for me to tell you that even when we were 14 years old, with our eyes set on nothing but flashy titles and gold medals, I knew that you would be the only one that I could ever find myself having these types of feelings for. It’s too little for me to tell you that during those 5 minutes of our breakup, I should’ve gathered the courage to tell you to stay.”

You take a step closer to him. “And I know that with my confession, I’ve opened up hundreds, even thousands of doors of problems that could happen in our relationship. Staying as just friends would and could have avoided all that — but I don’t want to be just friends. Hikari is right. I love you too much to not even try and give our relationship a second chance, and I… I don’t know. I suppose that I should tell you that I wish that I didn’t propose the idea to leave our relationship all behind when you kissed me at 4 Continents. I wish that I didn’t tell you that it was all just a spur of the moment thing — I wanted it to happen. And after it did happen, I wanted it to happen over, and over, and over again.”

“I don’t know. Perfection is everything that we have strived for,” you mumble. “Every day, we are told to execute certain things to perfection. And I know that we’ll never be as perfect as we are on the ice. But I don’t need perfection when I have you.”

You pour your entire heart out. You’ve said every single possible thing that comes to mind, and your mind is now just blank. You don’t know what Riki’s going to say, what he’s going to do — all you know is that you could feel nothing but overwhelming joy in the next second, or overwhelming, crushing, heartbreak.

You can’t read Riki’s expression. He seems like he’s still trying to register all the words you had just said.

But then he tugs on the sleeve of your jacket. You look at him, confused — until you see the widest smile you’ve ever seen on Riki’s face.

“I love you too.” he beams, and you feel that overwhelming feeling of joy. You wrap your arms around him, burying your face in his chest to hide the stupid, lovestruck grin on your lips.

You look at him, and Mrs Kimura is right. He does look at you as if you’ve got stars in your eyes. “I was scared to tell you how I felt. Because I was worried that you wouldn’t feel the same way — and I couldn’t lose you all over again,” he mumbles.

“You’ll never lose me.”

Riki’s lips quirk up into a smile. “I didn’t want to forget about our shared history after the kiss. I guess that I’m just always too fearful to tell you how crazily in love I am with you.”

“I guess that makes us crazily in love with each other.” you whisper to him.

He nods, a breathy laugh escaping past his lips. Riki then leans in to connect your lips with his, and everything feels right. Everything has always felt right with you. The flavour of the minty lozenge from the kiss at 4 Continents is instead replaced with your strawberry flavoured chapstick, and Riki brings his hand up to slowly cup your cheek.

Your first confession was at this rink. Your breakup was at this rink. And now your second first confession and second first kiss is also at this rink.

This time, everything is exactly the way you had imagined it. Nobody is there to interfere. No words have been left unsaid. This time, it is just you and Riki, and you know that perfect is not an ideal word to describe things, given how much pressure the word alone in a different context holds — but everything is perfect.

Riki doesn’t know if soulmates exist or not. But if he did have one, he knew it would be you. You both are like two missing puzzle pieces that match perfectly together — as if he was made for you, and you were made for him.

When you both pull away, Riki rests his forehead against yours. “I watched a movie a few days ago,” he whispers.

“What was it about?”

“The multiverse,” he replies, lacing his hands with yours. “Hundreds and hundreds of different universes. And I thought to myself: in each and every universe, I would still want to find my way back to you.”

Your heart swells to the point where you think it’s about to burst at the seams. “And I would always want to find my way back to you, too.”

Nishimura Riki is yours, as much as you are his. He has never left your heart the second he twizzled his way into it, and you truly are surprised how it took you this long to accept it when everybody else (but Riki, too) had known that you two would eventually find your way back to each other.

Wherever you are in the world, I will search for you.

And as Riki presses another kiss to your lips, he knows that love is no longer some sort of mystery he cannot figure out anymore.

Riki realises that love isn’t as complicated as he thought. Love, to Riki, is you. It is the most simplest of definitions, and Riki knows the meaning will never change for him.

Riki may be still a quarter of a rotation off on that quadruple axel, but for love? Riki isn’t a quarter off at all anymore.

He puts love on pause, because he will only ever press play when he finds his way back to you. Love is no longer far away, out of reach, and only something Riki can dream of experiencing anymore. He is with you, your hand in his — and everything is right.

You twizzle your way right into Nishimura Riki’s heart all over again, and he knows you’ll stay there for a very, very long time.

1K notes · View notes