Skating

Toronto, 2023

Fast forward 4 years and her small boy had grown so much and too fast in her eyes.

He still skated. It turned out that he became obsessed with the sport and now wanted to spend most of his day at the rink.

He still had his classes to attend and to study for, but Mia allowed him to enjoy the Ice time and everything in between, from Gym to Dance classes, everything was about skating.

Even at home, the mother was now more than used to hearing him talk about skating all the time.

It was only during the last year that she first allowed him to use the internet and it seemed like his obsession with skating only grew.

He arrived from the rink and would instantly turn on the TV in the living room on Youtube and start watching other skaters.

Mia couldn't possibly know all of them, but she knew of a few names, especially the ones that trained at the same rink as Alex, or at least used to train.

She never actually watched the videos with him, merely having an eye every once in a while on the TV as she worked on her laptop absent-mindedly. Names like Hanyu, Chen, Jun, and Brown were often in Alex's mouth, but she couldn't even place those names on the faces.

The mother liked to watch him practice, but times when she was allowed to do that were getting scarce as her career developed even further, with more and more work to deal with.

She often heard about new jumps, usually combined with a number of rotations and other things like mohawks and counters, all things that she didn't understand at all.

The one thing that she knew was that watching Alex skate was always nice and more often than not, it was scary, especially when he jumped.

Finding the opportunity to get out of work earlier didn't come often but whenever it did, she took the opportunity.

The previous week had been quite intense for her due to a pretty big case that wasn't going her way, but work had no place at home or when she was with Alex.

Putting on her best smile, Mia entered the TCC like so many times before and noticed immediately that the place was slightly more crowded and agitated than she remembered.

"I can't believe Yuzuru is here" she heard one of the teenage girls comment with another.

She was pretty sure she had heard that name before but it was hard to tell where.

Moving through the now very familiar halls, the woman waved at the people she knew in greeting with a smile on her face.

Everyone seemed to be in a particularly good mood today and Mia couldn't quite understand why.

As she arrived at the area of the rink, she found what looked almost like a cue of kids and a figure in all black right in the middle.

Pictures were being taken, one by one, as the Asian-looking man smiled and greeted them one by one in accented English.

Well, this was far from what she expected when she came here. Mia was hoping to see Alex skating after all. It had been a while.

"Mommy!" She heard the unmistakable voice of Alexander say and a smile reached her face immediately even before she saw him running to her.

"Hey, baby. What's going on?"

"Yuzuru is here! Can you believe it? I can't wait to take a picture with him."

Mia had no idea who this Yuzuru was. Again, she had heard the name somewhere.

"Yuzuru?"

"Yes! Yuzuru Hanyu, Mom! He's like the best ever!"

The man seemed to find Alex's excitement endearing as he observed from the distance with a smile and it didn't take too much for him to listen to everything, not with how loud her son spoke.

At the mention of the last name, Mia finally recognized it in her memory. He was one of his favorite skaters, of course, and as Mia's face looked up she saw the name unmistakably engraved in the plaques of the champions, and not just once.

It surprised the woman to see the skater move in their direction with a smile, looking slightly down and bowing to Mia as he approached Alex.

"What's your name?"

"Ah! Ohmygod" the kid said quickly before recovering smoothly. "I...I'm Alex."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Alex. I'm Yuzuru."

"Everyone knows that..."

As shy as Alex was, he was always one to answer smartly when provoked.

The man looked at her for a few seconds with an intense gaze. Mia didn't know why but she felt her cheeks get warmer as the gaze intensified. It was hard to explain the reasoning behind her reaction, but she just looked at the ground, embarrassed at her very visible red cheeks.

"Hi..." He greeted in a shy voice.

"Hello..." Mia wasn't quite sure how to answer that.

Looking at this weird exchange, Alex grabbed one of her legs as he looked back and forth between them with a confused expression.

"And you?"

She didn't think it was possible but her cheeks seemed to redden even further. What the hell was wrong with her?

Maybe she was sick. Yeah, it had to be something like that.

And why did this popular man want her name for? She was certain he got what he wanted all the time.

"I'm Mia."

"Hello, Mia...Call me Yuzu."