Chapter 15 A False Alarm
At the Cricket Club, Yuzuru Hanyu, having finished his ice practice for the day, finished his final lap, draped in his jacket, cooling down. He reached the center of the rink, bowed, and skated toward the exit. He put on his skates, then turned back, bowed, and touched the ice, muttering a soft "thank you for your care." His first act after leaving the ice was to find his bag and pull out his phone.
The LINE message interface was silent, the message stuck at the one from an hour and a half ago: "I'm going to training." I'd read it but not replied. Hanyu pursed his lips, perhaps busy, and typed out another line of text.
Yuzu: I'm done with training. I felt really good training today.
Although Le's Lunar New Year holiday should have ended yesterday, Hanyu knows she's probably not very busy. Due to the pandemic, the ballet studio where she works part-time has suspended classes, the company's dance productions have been temporarily canceled, and the number of performers allowed in daily training is limited. She'll likely be spending the next few days at home holding occasional remote meetings with her project team.
I learned all this from the messages I exchanged over the past few days.
After they resumed contact recently, she had been replying to his messages quite quickly and normally. But since yesterday, she had been ignoring him again.
Did I say something wrong again? Hanyu wondered, scrolling up again. It was a lively conversation, with many replies coming in seconds!
Look at the time, it should be 12 o'clock in the evening in Beijing, maybe he is asleep?
It was indeed midnight in Beijing, but Le wasn't asleep. She was sitting at her computer, headphones on, typing away intently. When the small frame on the screen reached the end credits, Le compared the document with the transcript in her hand, confirming everything was correct. She took off her glasses and headphones and rubbed her brow to soothe the soreness in her eyes.
Ah... so tired...
Le recently found a part-time job as a Japanese-Finnish translator, translating and proofreading Japanese films. Sure enough, it's not easy for an outsider to make extra money by relying on their language skills.
After submitting the completed translation, Le threw himself onto the bed. Lying on the bed, he fumbled around and finally found his phone.
There were several messages from Yuzuru Hanyu on the new message list. Reading through them, I realized, "Hmm, training went well, which is the best good news I've heard recently." Before I could reply, Le had already fallen asleep on the bed.
She has indeed rarely replied to Hanyu's messages recently. It's not intentional, but she is really a little overwhelmed.
This week has been incredibly dramatic.
First, the ballet studio politely explained that they were facing a difficult situation and would temporarily suspend operations, so salaries would need to be delayed. Just as Le was trying to figure out how much longer her meager savings would last, Guan Yue sent a message saying the landlord was demanding a rent increase. Le and Guan Yue had always been the ones to contact and negotiate with the landlady for their shared apartment. That day, Guan Yue sent an angry message.
[The Moon Can't Be Confined: I'm so pissed! I'm so pissed! Raising the rent at this time, where's your conscience?]
[The Moon Can't Be Confined: Lele, can you handle this rent increase? I'm looking for other good places to move to, too. It's just a matter of finding a moving company.]
The rent increase wasn't much, but it was still a bit difficult for Le, who had no income. But she still replied to Guan Yue that it was no problem.
She didn't want to cause Guan Yue any more trouble. Prices in Beijing had risen significantly recently, and masks were difficult to find and quite expensive. Guan Yue's situation was likely even worse there, as she still had to take care of her family, and Le couldn't bear to have her worry about him anymore.
However, the news was full of promises. He had to pay three months' worth of rent immediately, which was a real stretch for Le, who had never been a big saver. So he started looking for a part-time job with quick payouts, hoping to get the rent paid before the 9th.
Fortunately, after a few days of busy work, I finally received enough compensation on the morning of February 7.
After the transfer was complete, Le opened the windows to get some fresh air. Beijing was freezing cold in February, and the cold wind blew in, ruffling her hair, but she felt only the relief of finally being able to breathe.
bite--
Yuzu: New Record! [Image]
After smoothing down his messy hair, he turned around and picked up his phone. It was a selfie. Still in his light blue kilts, the youthful Yuzuru Hanyu proudly gave a "V" sign to the small TV behind him. The screen displayed Yuzuru Hanyu's short program score: 111.82.
Le smiled and lowered his head. This was the second good news today. It was great.
Raku: Congratulations! That's awesome!
As soon as the message was sent, the reply popped up.
Yuzu: Did you enjoy watching it?
Ah... she was so busy that she completely forgot... is it too late for her to replay it now?
Between coaxing a spoiled athlete and telling a white lie, Le chose the latter. She replied guiltily, "After watching it," and then quickly opened her computer to find the transcribed video, like a child secretly finishing homework for fear of being discovered by the teacher.
Holding my phone, I watched the entire performance, from his earphone-clad, lip-syncing entrance, to his first quadruple jump with a minor fall at the six-minute mark, to his flawless performance on the ice, to his final ending pose. Seeing him sport that domineering expression on the rink, Le silently complained about Hanyu's expression control, not realizing he was also beaming with pride.
On the morning of the free skate, Le, eager to avoid the soul-searching, tuned in to the live stream early. Holding the Moomin doll that had been with her for years, she nestled comfortably in her computer chair, waiting for Yuzuru Hanyu's appearance.
In the six-minute OP before the game, a group of players went on the ice one after another. Yuzuru Hanyu, wearing a white Seimei coat with light green embellishments, glided calmly on the ice, tried a few jumps, and muttered something in a low voice.
Seimei had watched the show many times, but Le still silently clenched her hands, a little nervous. A sudden knock on the door startled her. Unable to pause the livestream, Le grabbed her phone and quickly ran to open the door, not forgetting to glance back at the screen twice.
Through the peephole, he saw an unfamiliar middle-aged woman and two men standing at the door. After a while, no one opened the door, so he rang the doorbell a few times and even started knocking. Suddenly, Le's clenched phone rang. It was an unfamiliar number, and the woman's voice outside the door overlapped with the voice on the phone.
"Hey, are you home? Open the door for us."
Le took two steps back, controlling his voice so that the door wouldn't hear him. "Who are you?"
"I'm the landlord. Please open the door and let's go in and talk. I know you are at home. If you don't open the door, I will call a locksmith." After that, the phone was hung up.
I've already paid the rent, so why is the landlord here? Is it really the landlord? Le was a little scared. He clutched his phone, calmed himself down, and reached for the door lock.
There was a click, the sound of the lock cylinder being locked.
The person outside was clearly enraged, banging on the door with force and insults. Le retreated to her room, locked it, and leaned against it, alertly listening to the noises outside. The banging stopped, replaced by the sound of a cell phone, which rang out over and over again, mingling with the applause, singing, and exclamations of the commentator from the speakers, filling the entire room.
After a while, the phone finally stopped ringing, and the live stream on her computer had already started broadcasting something else. She leaned over the door and listened, but there seemed to be no sound outside, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly, the phone beeped again, startling her so much that she threw the phone away. The screen lit up, with LINE messages scrolling up one by one, ding-ding-ding. After about four or five messages, it stopped, and after a few seconds of silence, another video call request came in.
Picking up the phone and scrolling through it, I saw a video of Yuzuru Hanyu's smiling, sweaty face and his excited voice, "Le! Did you see my match?"
There seemed to be some rustling sounds outside the house again. Le turned his head in horror, and Yuzuru Hanyu naturally did not miss this scene.
"Le, did something happen to you?"
Backstage at the men's singles free skate at the Four Continents Games, Yuzuru Hanyu approached Jin Boyang and, speaking a mixture of Japanese and English, with gestures, explained that a friend of his seemed to be in danger in Beijing. The Chinese team's translator was perplexed; she was only translating from Chinese to English, so how would she translate in Japanese? Fortunately, Hanyu quickly regained his composure after a brief moment of panic and was able to describe the situation in English, using what he could speak.
With everyone's help, Le successfully called the police remotely.
The police only learned that the landlady, remembering Guan Yue was from W City, was worried that she might have sneaked back into the house, so they came to check. Le's strange reaction only confirmed their suspicions, and they felt something was amiss, so they called in a locksmith.
After the whole farce was over, the house became quiet. Le sat on the sofa at home with his knees hugged, in a daze, as if he had not yet recovered from the farce.
Yuzuru Hanyu, who was far away in South Korea, also confirmed the situation and repeatedly thanked Jin Boyang for his help before leaving the venue. The first thing he did when he returned to the hotel was to video call Le.
The video was connected, but there was no light in the room opposite, so it was a little dark and I could only make out Le's outline.
"Le? Why don't you turn on the light?" Yuzuru Hanyu asked while wearing headphones. The person on the other end of the video chat moved slightly and didn't answer him, but the sound of sobbing came clearly through the headphones. He patted the top of the phone, as if patting Le's hair, and gently coaxed, "Okay, okay, be good, everything is okay, Le has tried very hard, it's great."
The person in the video lowered his head and buried it between his elbows, with his hand holding the mobile phone resting on his knees, slightly tilted.
Yuzuru Hanyu didn't say anything else. He sat quietly on the bed in the hotel, listening to the sound in the headphones, which gradually changed from sobbing at the beginning to whimpering, and finally to crying that became more and more clear and audible.
Night gradually fell. Le, who was tired of crying, sniffed and went to turn on the light with his mobile phone. On the way, he kicked the corner of the coffee table. The screams and sobs combined together were particularly funny. Yuzuru Hanyu covered his mouth to prevent himself from laughing out loud.
The lights came on, and Le squinted his eyes to adjust to the light before raising his phone again, "How...how...how...did you call the police for me?" He had just cried so hard that his voice was still sobbing.
After listening to Yuzuru Hanyu's rambling account of how he'd summoned reinforcements, Le felt his head suddenly explode. Why were so many people involved? The coach, the translator, the Chinese athlete Jin Boyang, and a bunch of onlookers.
"Ah——" It was really embarrassing.
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