✍🏻See You Again

7 🫐 Chapter 7

The party was a success in the sense that I got to know everyone at TCC much faster and made several new friends. It was less successful in the sense of my happily ever after with Javi.

Right on Monday when we ran into each other he greeted me with his usual 'hey' but no longer added any flirty or flattering remarks. And just like that, it started off weeks and weeks of helpless agony. If I thought he was avoiding me like a plague before, now it was as if I was already dead, ignoring me as if I was no longer existing in his world. On more than one occasion I even saw him taking a detour not to run into me in the hallway.

At first, I tried not to take it too personally. After all, I didn't expect him to kneel and profess his undying love to me. But what I did expect was that we would stay casual friends, keeping the flirtation until he would consider the potential relationship and ask me out. At least that's how it was in all the books I've spent my evenings with and I definitely didn't see it coming when he erased me from existence.

It wasn't any better with Marco. The news of Javi ignoring me somewhat cheered him up for a day or two but it did nothing for his overall shitty mood. He was grumpy and agitated and as much as he was trying to keep me out of it and not take it up on me, the atmosphere in the room with him sucked anyway. Each day I hoped would be the day he finally tells me what was going on but instead each day he was more and more closed off. Over a month went by and I knew that whatever it was, it was fucking serious. Never had he cut me out from what was troubling him like this. Never for so long. I was losing my best friend and I didn't even know what I was losing him to or how to stop it.

"Why don't you just ask him?" Yuzuru asks during one of our walks home, probably the only thing that is still keeping me sane. We don't manage to have these every night, but we wait for each other at least twice a week to catch up.

"If it were anyone else, I would. I so totally would. But that never worked on Marco," I explain, kicking a small stone in my way and watching as it rolls several meters ahead. "He is the type to either completely shut down when pushed, or worse...to explode. And I don't want either. I just have to be patient."

"Hm. Any guesses as to what it could be?"

"No. Only that it has something to do with his wife Sandra, but that's it."

"Hm."

"Yeah. Hm."

Soon after we switch the topic to his preparations for Autumn Classic, our first competition of the season scheduled only in a couple of days in Montreal, Canada. Unlike the first weeks after the party, we no longer talk about Javi as there is literally nothing to talk about since our daily encounters - if any - were reduced to those half-muttered greetings.

And so we discuss his jump layout, and his worries about his stamina and I do my best to boost his confidence as we both know that's half of the success.

It's going to be a tough competition for Marco and I as well since Virtue and Moir will be there, our main threat for the upcoming Olympics. At least in a shitty mood or not, Marco is a damn good skater and even when annoyed, he can keep his focus during practice. Unlike me.

By the time we reach my apartment building Yuzuru is beaming from all the praise I showered him with, and I'm smiling as well, glad to be around him. We part with my usual hug, one that he started to properly return several days ago, and say our goodnights. As always, he waits until I get inside the building before leaving and it warms my heart whenever he does these little caring gestures.

Once I'm in the shower I wonder if I would still be sane without becoming friends with him. He rarely talks about things that are truly personal to him but with each week I see the little barrier he built around himself getting weakened.