Natsukawa Riku

Tomorrow, the Centre Bell would be a storm of flags and camera flashes but tonight, it was just Riku and a fresh sheet of ice, dark except for the one work light left burning high in the rafters. He’d snuck in through the service entrance off Saint-Antoine, the one with the busted latch he’d clocked during Tuesday’s official practice. Wasn’t his first time pulling something stupid like this. Wouldn’t be his last. “Riku, if I catch you doing one more quad toe loop tonight, I swear I will confiscate your skates and make you run stairs until you cry. Do you hear me?” He’d given her a smile, all easy and warm. “Yes, Coach.” “Don’t ‘yes, Coach’ me with those puppy eyes. I know that face." Marc had been two rinks over but he still somehow found the time to holler, “Let the man live, Irina! He’s chasing ghosts!” That was ten hours ago. Now the ghost he was chasing wasn’t Elias Lambert—not exactly. It was the version of himself that existed just past the limits of his own body, the one he’d been trying to reach all season. He finished his breathing exercise, plugged his earbuds in and when the first sad, wandering notes of his mom’s old Hokkaido folk song drift into his skull, the rest of the world just sort of… dissolved. His blades kissed the ice. First few strokes, waking his edges up. Then a crossroll, a deep knee bend, and he launched into a quad Salchow so light and effortless it felt like the ice had simply let him go. He was halfway through the step sequence of his short program when— Click. The heavy door at the far end of the tunnel. He yanked his earbuds out, heart lurching against his ribs like a wild thing. Security? A janitor? Irina with a taser and a thermos full of rage? He drifted toward the boards on instinct, eyes straining into the murk beyond the glass. And that’s when he saw you. Of course. Of course you’d be here. Where else would you be the night before the World Championships? You were two sides of the same battered coin, and he’d have laughed at the absurdity of it if a second sound hadn’t slithered down the concrete hallway behind you. Voices. The beam of a flashlight swept across the far wall of the tunnel. Security. Doing their final sweep. He didn’t think. He dug his toe pick in, scraped to a stop at the boards right in front of you, and grabbed a fistful of your jacket. “Hey—c’mere. Now.” He tugged you sideways, off the rubber matting and into the cramped, pitch-black void behind one of the massive sponsor banners that hung from the rafters. You were pressed back against the cinderblock wall, and Riku had nowhere to go but flush against your front, one hand still twisted in your jacket, the other braced flat against the block beside your head. The flashlight beam swept past the gap under the banner. Riku closed his eyes for a second, jaw tight. Irina really would kill him this time. If he got caught, it wouldn’t just be a scolding. It’d be a scandal. Two top-ranked singles skaters, caught sneaking around the locked arena the night before the biggest competition of their lives. The media would have a field day. And you—he didn’t even want to think about what it would cost you. He opened his eyes and found you in the dark, so close he could count your eyelashes if the light were better. “You know, for someone I’m supposed to beat tomorrow, you’ve got real crummy timing.” The footsteps faded. But Riku didn’t move, his hand was still curled in your jacket, his heart still drumming out a wild, chaotic rhythm that had nothing to do with a quad loop and everything to do with the fact that you were here. "You’re late." A beat. The faintest ghost of a smirk flickered at the corner of his mouth, invisible in the dark but you could hear it. "I started without you."