Chapter 44: Things in the Past

Turning off the highway, the surroundings became bustling with activity. Hanyu stared out the window at the streetscape, unaware that Le had quietly adjusted the navigation destination. It wasn't until the car turned into the parking lot of the University of Tokyo Hospital that he realized something was amiss.

"What brought you here?"

"Let's go get a checkup. I've already made an appointment with the doctor." Le didn't look at him. He carefully looked in the rearview mirror as he parked the car. He turned around and unbuckled his seatbelt before getting out. He walked around to the other side of the car door, opened it, and pulled Hanyu Yuzuru out of the passenger seat without saying anything. "Aren't you anxious to get back on the ice? Grandpa Kikuchi and Kosuke both said that you still need to be examined by Dr. Suzuki, who is most familiar with your medical history. Only after he confirms your condition can you go. Let's go!"

Yuzuru Hanyu, completely covered in a mask and hat, was dragged out of the car by Le. He finally understood why this road trip had been so dull and boring, a five-hour, almost nonstop journey, like a bus on a schedule. Wasn't it all just to make a doctor's appointment?

This was premeditated!

He was completely unaware that even when he suggested to Le that they go to Utsunomiya City to try their local dumplings, he was rejected. As the Utsunomiya City sign gradually disappeared from view, Yuzuru Hanyu didn't dare to show his disappointment, simply assuming that Le was still angry.

The elevator numbers flickered and changed, and Yuzuru Hanyu silently hoped that some of the past could be forgotten. The elevator doors opened, and he and Le Yilu passed the familiar nurses' station. The nurses busy at work were no longer the ones he knew.

When he was still hospitalized in 2017, every time Le left the hospital and passed by the nurses' station, there would always be a few young nurses who would come to tease him.

"My girlfriend is here again?"

Nurse Nohara, the most lively of the group, was always the first to speak. Seeing Yuzuru Hanyu's ears blush and wave his hands in denial, she would always drawl out a long "oh" with a look of knowingness on her face, and the other nurses at the nurses' station would laugh at her. But that day was different. Nurse Nohara actually pressed the issue again, "She's really not your girlfriend? That's great, Dr. Suzuki has a chance now~"

"Hmm? What did you say?"

"Hanyu, you haven't noticed, have you? Doctor Suzuki seems to like your friend. He's been asking us when she'll be coming lately."

The young nurses' chatter revealed a great deal. Hanyu, who had been concentrating on recuperation, had never imagined that a solitary stroll in the hospital's back garden, a baked treat as a token of gratitude, and so on, would actually happen without his knowledge. A deep sense of betrayal welled up within him, and by the time Dr. Suzuki came to check on him that evening, he couldn't contain himself anymore and asked directly.

"I heard you were going to pursue fun?"

This question startled Dr. Suzuki, who was looking down at the medical record board. He blushed, pushed his glasses on the bridge of his nose, and admitted it with a smile.

"Well, I'm planning to officially confess my feelings on Christmas. Does Mr. Hanyu have any good advice for me?"

"I advise you not to think about it. Le won't agree to it."

"Why?" Dr. Suzuki asked with a raised eyebrow, still smiling gently.

"Because... because she has a boyfriend."

"Oh? But she told me she was single?"

"That's because she can't reveal her boyfriend's identity." He said this with a guilty conscience, and Hanyu himself was a little confused, ruffling his hair. "Anyway, she won't agree to you. You'd better give up."

"But I have already invited her, and she has agreed."

Yuzuru Hanyu vividly remembers how Dr. Suzuki, known for his gentle demeanor, smiled with such smugness that he felt provoked. From that day on, he felt unhappy about Christmas and declined his mother and sister's offer to spend the holiday with him.

"What's so good about Christmas? I don't celebrate it. I've never celebrated Christmas before, so what's so good about it?" Yuzuru Hanyu said as he poked the stew in his bowl. The stew in the hospital just didn't taste good.

However, unexpectedly, on Christmas Eve, Le took him to the dormitory and spent Christmas together.

"Do you... know that Dr. Suzuki is pursuing you?" He spoke carefully while helping Le hang colorful lights in her dormitory.

"Yeah, I know. He confessed to me. Hey hey! Be careful!"

Yuzuru Hanyu steadied himself on the stool, unable to hold the lamp in his hand, so he turned around with one hand raised. "You agree?"

"No." Le went over and supported his legs, which looked unstable. "I said, I still have dreams I want to fulfill, so I won't be in a relationship for the time being."

After that, Hanyu Yuzuru never saw Dr. Suzuki deliberately approaching Le again. However, every time Dr. Suzuki looked at him with a meaningful expression, he always felt a little uncomfortable.

Just like now, the look on Dr. Suzuki's face as he looked between him and Le made people feel uncomfortable.

"It seems like Hanyu has come to his senses now. If I had known, I wouldn't have let him win back then."

Today, Yuzuru Hanyu learned a lesson: the past isn't easily forgotten, especially by a medical professor with a good memory. Fortunately, Dr. Suzuki himself quickly brushed off the incident and never brought it up again, as if it had never happened.

The topic was brought up again when the two of them were sitting in Le's house, eating the dinner they had taken home from the restaurant.

"Aren't you curious about what Dr. Suzuki said today?" All the way out of the hospital, Hanyu Yuzuru secretly observed Le's expression. Her indifference actually made Hanyu Yuzuru very concerned.

"Hmm? Talking about the water release? That's between you two, why am I asking so many questions?" Le said it matter-of-factly, making the questioner seem petty. Seeing his troubled expression, Le couldn't help but sneer, "So you're refusing to come for a follow-up checkup because you have a secret in Dr. Suzuki's hands?"

Hanyu was quiet now, and he suddenly felt like he had shot himself in the foot. Le was now intrigued, propping his chin up, awaiting his response with keen interest. He was momentarily unsure how to evade the question, and then an idea struck him.

"Didn't you have an appointment with Dr. Suzuki for the Christmas before Pyeongchang? Didn't Dr. Suzuki stand you up, so you had to ask me to go with you at the last minute?"

"It's because someone couldn't make it all day, and he was throwing a tantrum in the hospital every day. He even refused to go home for Christmas, insisting he'd spend it alone. Who could be reassured?" she said, shrugging. "So I stood him up, and I also gave him a nice guy card."

"It's a dream card." Yuzuru Hanyu added without even raising his eyelids.

"You remember it quite clearly~"

How could it not be clear? Yuzuru Hanyu thought, biting the piece of meat from his chopsticks into his mouth and chewing vigorously. Dr. Suzuki wasn't the only one who believed her nonsense about dreams. He finished the last mouthful of rice, closed the lunch box and tossed it into the trash bag.

"So what exactly did you figure out?" Le turned around and leaned over the back of the chair, looking at his back in the kitchen and asked, "You brought it up yourself and only told half of it. How can that be possible?"

Before she could finish her words, Yuzuru Hanyu came over and held her head, ruffling her hair.

"Why are you asking so many questions? I won't tell you~"

"Ah! Yuzuru Hanyu! Your hair is tangled!" Yuzuru Hanyu rubbed her hair so hard that she had to hold her head with both hands to prevent it from shaking around.

There was no one else in the house, just the two of them. This whole mess ended when the moving company called to confirm their appointment for the next day. Then, with their heads swollen like a chicken coop, one went to the bathroom to clean the bathtub, while the other went to the room to make the bed. Le didn't care what evidence Dr. Suzuki had on Yuzuru Hanyu anymore; it was all in the past.

"The bathtub is cleaned~" Yuzuru Hanyu walked into the room, wiping his hair. Le, with wet hair, was sitting on the bed sorting a pile of mail. She also had a small box on her hand. He walked over and touched her hair. "Do you want me to blow dry your hair?"

"Well, okay~" She answered without raising her head. She glanced at the letters in her hand one by one, sorted them by the sender and the recipient, and put them aside. Only the small box contained some postcards.

Yuzuru Hanyu came over with a hairdryer, stood beside her, lifted her long hair, and carefully blew it dry, occasionally glancing curiously at the small box beside him. The top postcard in the box, backside up, allowed him to clearly see the sender's name: Kawasaki Kensuke. The one she was holding was from the same person. She glanced down at it, then placed it in the box, stacking it with the others.

"Who is Kawasaki Kensuke?"

"It's my father."

As she answered, she didn't stop sorting the letters; instead, the sound of the hair dryer stopped. She looked up curiously, meeting Yuzuru Hanyu's complicated gaze.

"What's wrong? You don't think Marrku is my biological father, do you?" Le waved his hand in front of Hanyu Yuzuru and joked, "If that were the case, I would have green eyes. They would be pretty nice, right?"

Her joking words went unanswered, and the hairdryer began to whirr again. His slender fingers lifted her hair, sending it dancing in the warm breeze. Through the dancing strands, she caught a glimpse of Yuzuru Hanyu, who seemed hesitant to speak, and raised her hand to hold his.

"You can ask whatever you want to ask. It's okay."

"I thought you two had no contact anymore." After all, I have known her for so many years, but I have never heard her mention her biological father.

"Hmm...if postcards like these count as contact, then we're still connected?" She grabbed a few postcards from the box and showed them to him. "But I ran into him once in 2017 when I was working in Tokyo. He was with his current daughter and wife."

She lowered her eyes as she spoke, her still-undried hair draped across her face, obscuring some of her expression. She shuffled through the postcards in her hand, one by one, like shuffling cards, and recounted to Yuzuru Hanyu the few times she had interacted with her father.

After her parents divorced that year, the strong-willed Feng hired a powerful lawyer to have Kawasaki Kensuke kicked out of the house. Despite this, Kawasaki Kensuke still felt guilty towards his daughter, but he was afraid to face Feng, so he only occasionally sent postcards and gifts. But Feng always threw them away.

"Then one time, I was the one who received the letter and I realized Dad had sent me a birthday postcard. I was so happy at that time, but I knew Mom would be upset, so I secretly hid it and went to the post office to mail Dad a postcard in return. I don't know if he received it, but later I found out that postcards don't come every day, or even every month, but only on holidays."

She curled the corners of her mouth slightly, as if making fun of her childish childhood self.

At that time, she would always sneak in to the mailbox when her mother was not around. The little girl would stand on tiptoe and try hard to insert the key into the mailbox lock, but she would always be disappointed to be hit in the face by a pile of flyers.

"Later, I found that sometimes I didn't receive any postcards during holidays or birthdays. Maybe postcards are just easy to lose... Afterwards, I moved to Finland and kept the house here. When I come back, I check the mailbox. Anyway, if it's something Mom doesn't want to see, I just deal with it as I can."

In fact, she received fewer and fewer messages later, until that time on the streets of Tokyo, when she ran into Kawasaki Kensuke and his new family. He was holding the hand of his teenage daughter, gently speaking with his head lowered. When he looked up, he saw Le looking at them. Le nodded at him and turned to leave, but her father quickly caught up with her.

"He said he heard we had all immigrated, so he didn't contact me anymore. He was very happy to see how grown up I was, and then he left me a phone number. I told him that the address could still be used, so you see, there are postcards again now." She looked up and proudly handed the postcard with the latest date to Yuzuru Hanyu.

The bright date of December 26, 2021 on the postmark stung Yuzuru Hanyu's eyes.

He hugged Le in his arms, stroked her hair, and bent down to kiss the top of her head.

"It's okay, I'll be here for you from now on."

"Um."