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“There you are”, Nathan couldn’t help teasing him. “Are you hiding, Yuzu? You’re not hiding from me, are you?”Yuzuru scoffed.“I hide from English speaking....with press. I hate when I do that.”Nathan chuckled.“Your English is good enough. You just have to stop being so scared about it.”“I’m not scared!” Yuzuru protested, shrilly, almost stomping his foot, and Nathan snickered a little, as he saw an opportunity to tease him.“You know, some people are saying that you are. They’re saying you’re afraid of me.”Yuzuru’s childish demeanour changed abruptly at that, eyes darkening in challenge, with an amused twitch of the lips.“Do you think I’m afraid of you, Nathan?” he asked silkily.“....I think I’m the one who is”, Nathan admitted, deciding to abandon his pride in favour of having the truth out in the open between them.He chanced a look at Yuzuru, just in time to see his pupils widening, like a beast smelling blood, but he went on, with the same dogged determination that made him launch into quads he knew he couldn’t perfectly land:“It’s just – you’re always too much. Strange to think....strange to think you’re one of us. But I’m thrilled to be up against you – having reached that level where I can measure up with you makes me feel like.... like I can hold the world in the palm of my hand. It makes me stronger. There’s fear - yes, but also excitement. You make me better.”Yuzuru smiled, bowing his head in acknowledgement of the offering.“Because you are honest with me, I will be honest too, Nathan. It’s true I am afraid”, Yuzuru confessed, on a serious tone. “But not of you, or of anyone else. Not that my records will be broken. Of myself - my own limits.”Nathan nodded. He could certainly understand and sympathize with that.“I always push my limits but what happens when there is no more left to push?”“You’re not there yet, Yuzu”, Nathan reassured him.“I am afraid I’ll be forgotten”, Yuzuru went on, scarcely audible, like reluctantly baring a shameful secret.“How could you ever be?” Nathan scoffed loudly, before he registered that Yuzuru’s eyes were expressing a very real and deep fear. “Yuzu” – he reached out and brushed Yuzuru’s fingers, long and delicate, looking deceptively frail. A strong desire to protect welled up in him, just as deceptive, because the man in front of him had certainly proven he could look after himself.Nathan changed his tone, and continued earnestly:“If by some catastrophe, all records of you are erased, I’d spend my life telling people about you.”“But if that happens, then you too – forget”, Yuzuru said, laughingly, implying Nathan was being silly.“I wouldn’t”, Nathan insisted. “How could I, forget the one I was always trying to reach? The one I always learn from?”“You – - learn from me?” Yuzuru said, disbelievingly.Nathan confirmed it, with a swift nod of his head.“First reluctantly, because Raf kept telling me ‘Watch him, now this is what you need to be like, he’s the one to learn from, he’s the one to beat’. I was annoyed because I didn’t want to be like anyone, I wanted to be myself, and why couldn’t anyone understand that, and just let me be like I wanted – myself -“Yuzuru was watching him carefully, and he nodded in understanding.“- but then somehow – I learned to let go. Of people’s expectations, of my own demons. And I looked at you not like a rival, but like a curious child. And then I saw everything more clearly. Like the scales fell from my eyes, and then I could see what everyone else saw in you. I watched you – the noise of people pressuring me only the most distant of hums in my ear, drowned out by your music, as I kept watching you, just another pair of eyes in the crowd. And then I knew – I could never be like you, but there was so much to learn from you still – so much, and so little time to do it. This is why, I have to ask you, please don’t leave, Yuzu, not yet.”Yuzuru smiled wistfully.“Time is not waiting....for anyone – is that how you say? My... my best friend left, retired, because he was too broken to go on, even though he wanted more. He can pretend he is satisfied but I know he isn’t, I know him so well. He warned me soon it will be like this for me, too. He tells me now that there is good things in letting go. That you can enjoy past success without fear. I am thinking about this with hope, to calm me down when I feel restless.”“Forget about what Fernandez told you”, Nathan said brusquely, annoyed. Forget about him altogether, he didn’t say, but his suddenly incensed thoughts followed that path. “You can’t leave yet, I need you”, he said instead, then because that felt too personal, too possessive, he added: “We all do.”Yuzuru smiled wistfully.“You are world champion and grand prix final champion. You are going to be fine.”“But none of these things matter if you’re not there”, Nathan blurted out. “And I know, I know I’m not enough. I still have things I want to learn from you”, he repeated, like a stubborn, contrary child, looking down at Yuzuru’s hands now lying still and composed in his lap. Nathan had a sudden urge to grab them. “You mean so much to me”, he said, wonderingly, a sudden revelation.Yuzuru’s smile changed in hue as he learned in, and pressed his lips to Nathan’s softly, in a sweet kiss.Nathan wasn’t shocked – he closed his eyes briefly, enjoying the moment, taking it as it was: a sign of Yuzuru’s kindness, a blessing of sorts, maybe even a goodbye. There were tears in Nathan’s eyes as Yuzuru pulled back, but he wasn’t ashamed of them, because Yuzuru’s eyes were also shining, and he was still smiling fondly at Nathan.Nathan reached out his hands instinctively as Yuzuru stood up, but grasped at nothing, as his touch was delicately but firmly evaded.“See you at Worlds”, Yuzuru said, as he brushed his hand through Nathan’s curls instead.And then he was gone, like a bright light that couldn’t be captured but left a steady warmth in its wake.