Chapter 62 Major Milestones
The key clicked into the lock and turned. She opened the door to a dark entrance, a scene that felt strange to Suginohara Raku for a moment. She hung her bag on the hook in the entrance, took off her shoes, and entered the house. The neighbors next door seemed to be watching a movie, and the sound of the dialogue could be heard faintly through the poorly insulated wall.
I went inside and unpacked the unused barbecue grill from the corner of the balcony, packed it up and placed it by the door, then did a quick tidy of the house. Having not lived in the house for over two weeks, a thin layer of dust coated everything. After all the busy work, I felt a bit dusty. I went to the bathroom, showered, changed into my home clothes, and settled down at my low table to rest.
The sounds from next door were no longer clearly audible in the inner room. Le had just enjoyed a moment of silence when his cell phone rang.
"Honey! What are you doing?" Guan Yue's face, beaming, appeared on the phone screen. She quickly noticed something different about the background behind Le. "Huh? Where are you? Back to your own apartment?"
"Well, a colleague will come to borrow something later."
"I see. I mean, if you move back here, Haniu will definitely be the first one to disagree, hahaha!"
Guan Yue laughed wildly, and Le was a little amused and helpless.
He was indeed not very happy about it.
Although Yuzuru Hanyu hadn't asked her to move in, ever since he'd rented the apartment, he'd found ways to get Le to stay the night. Today was no different, except that while preparing dinner, Lio called and needed to borrow a barbecue grill for camping the next day. She answered the phone, watching as Yuzuru Hanyu shuffled closer. When he heard she'd agreed to return to the apartment later to meet Lio, he frowned and pouted, a look of displeasure on his face.
"Can't she get it tomorrow?" Yuzuru Hanyu held her waist unhappily, resting his chin on her shoulder and refusing to let go.
"I have to leave early tomorrow morning, so I'm too late." She turned her head and scratched his nose. "Li Xu praised you, don't you want to help her?"
"Just coax me."
"Really? Last time when I applied the plaster, she even said she envied me for having such a great boyfriend." She exaggerated the last few words a bit, but Yuzuru Hanyu clearly enjoyed it.
"Hahaha, it's indeed the Hanyu player I know!" Guan Yue laughed so hard after hearing Le's vivid description of Hanyu Yuzuru's appearance that she fell over and slapped her thigh in praise. "But, my colleague just came to pick up something. Can you go back later?"
"Stop giving me bad advice." Le quickly interrupted her. "He listened to you when you said brown sugar ginger water was good."
This reminder immediately reminded Guan Yue of the frantic Hanyu call. He struggled to explain the situation clearly in English, ultimately hanging up and sending a WeChat message instead. With the help of WeChat Translator, she finally understood that Le was experiencing period discomfort again.
YZ: Sorry to bother you so suddenly. I remember when Yue Sang Ji Le's luggage arrived last time, she brought some traditional Chinese remedies for menstrual discomfort, but I moved in so hastily that I forgot to bring them. She seems really uncomfortable right now. Is there anything I can do to help her right now?
He was afraid of making mistakes in the translation, so he kept the most complete grammatical structure for each sentence. As a result, the texts he sent to Guan Yue were long paragraphs, and the translation progress circle took a long time to let her understand his question.
It was under such circumstances that brown sugar ginger water was successfully introduced.
"Brown sugar ginger water is so good. It can drive away the cold and warm your uterus, so you won't feel uncomfortable." Guan Yue said confidently.
"It's too hard to drink." Le shrunk her neck and pursed her lips at the camera. She never liked overly sweet things, so when she was in China, she couldn't drink any of Guan Yue's dishes.
That night, nestled in his newly made bed, she frowned at the smell of the steaming drink he brought her. But his eager, hopeful eyes made her unwilling to let his efforts go to waste, so she pinched her nose and downed half the drink. This gave Yuzuru Hanyu immense encouragement, and from that day on, brown sugar ginger water became his daily bedtime drink for the rest of the week.
I thought I'd be fine after a week of enduring it, and I don't know how he came to the conclusion that ginger was particularly good for her health from that week's experiment. The less-sugar, more-ginger version of brown sugar ginger water later firmly established itself as my go-to bedtime drink.
The culprit of all this is now behind the camera, with an expression of being a great hero, which is really laughable.
"So you called me via video, is there something wrong?"
"Ah! Right, Lele, look what's different about me!" Guan Yue deliberately cupped her face with her palm and leaned closer to the camera. The sparkle on her left ring finger was so eye-catching that Lele exclaimed in surprise.
Unlike the atmosphere of sharing joy here, the phone call between Yuzuru Hanyu and Kosuke had a completely different atmosphere.
"Ahem, since Le isn't here, I'll probably call her later," Morimoto Kosuke tried to interrupt the chattering Yuzuru Hanyu. He regretted his assumptions. He'd thought if he couldn't reach Le, he'd just contact Yuzuru Hanyu, since they lived together anyway. He put down his overheated phone and turned it on speaker. The number still climbing on the call screen was the price Morimoto Kosuke paid for his impulsiveness.
"Did you hear what I said?"
"I heard you. Do you think she doesn't want to live with you anymore? She's just borrowing something. It's not like she can't come back at night. You've been in a long-distance relationship for so long and it's been fine. Why is it so unacceptable to be alone for one night?" Xiaojie replied helplessly, "I have to catch the early Shinkansen tomorrow, otherwise I wouldn't be calling you now."
He had only wanted to find Le-chan to confirm tomorrow's communication schedule with their dance troupe's physical therapist, but he had been doing this for over twenty minutes, like a complaining trash can.
"I don't know Le-chan as well as you do, but I feel like she's quite independent. Don't be so clingy. Give her some space and don't scare her away."
"Where am I... Hello? Hello?" Yuzuru Hanyu looked at the call end notification on his phone and made a mental note of Xiaojie.
He threw his phone aside and stretched out his arms and legs on the double bed. He swiped across the bed twice, his long arms and legs moving as far as they could. The empty feeling of freedom made him sigh.
He never doubted Le's feelings, but she was indeed very concerned about her personal space, always maintaining a delicate distance. They had been living in this apartment for over two weeks, and although she often stayed overnight despite his various attempts at coquettishness and nagging, she had never mentioned anything about the move. Hanyu Yuzuru was also wary and didn't dare to ask any further questions.
"When you said your last boyfriend, did you mean you wanted to marry him? It seems you're still unclear about some things. Le might not even consider marriage," Tohara Kazuki told him the day they brought him to Yokohama. Thinking of that guy's provocative look at the time, Yuzuru Hanyu suddenly sat up in bed, grabbed Pusan from the bed beside him, and rubbed him in his arms, finally letting out some relief.
The phone next to the pillow suddenly lit up. It was a message from Le.
【Raku: Yuzuru, good night. 】
A message swept away all his unhappiness tonight. He lowered his head and stroked his wrinkled yellow bear face, and said seriously: "I will not give up!" After that, he took out his mobile phone and replied with a good night, pulled the quilt and lay down peacefully.
Lying on the bed, Le looked at the message that Yuzuru Hanyu replied to in seconds, smiled, put down his phone, and turned over.
The lights in the room were off, and the moonlight filtered through the curtains, casting her shadow as she lay on her side on the wall in front of her. She stared at her own shadow, lost in thought, her mind full of Guan Yue's happy face during the video call tonight.
I was proposed to...
She unconsciously reached out her hand and looked at it in the darkness. The moonlight flowing through her fingertips made her knuckles look white. Suddenly realizing what she was doing, she put her hand away as if she had received an electric shock and hid it under the quilt.
"Eh? Suginohara-senpai isn't living with a boyfriend? I thought you were. After all, I've been seeing you wearing men's T-shirts to work lately." When Lio came to get the grill, she was surprised to see only Raku there. "I think you're in really good shape lately, and I thought it must be due to love."
Is it already so obvious? She touched her face.
That’s right, after all, Yuzuru is here.
During the two weeks she'd lived there, every night after washing up, she'd smell the pungent aroma of ginger and brown sugar wafting from the kitchen, filling the entire house. Yuzuru was in the kitchen, diligently stirring a small saucepan with a wooden spoon, occasionally scooping a small spoonful to his lips to taste it, then nodding in self-encouragement.
"Are you really not planning on moving in with Haniu? He's the famous Sendai Earthbound Spirit, and he even came to Yokohama just for you." Having just announced her happy news, the newly engaged bride-to-be began to focus on the well-being of her bridesmaids. "I understand what you just said about wanting a place of your own. I think that's right, too. But Haniu's going to cry."
Cry? He did love to cry. But before, he always cried calmly. But in the past two years, he would bite his lips, pout, and tilt his head back to try to hold back the tears. That always made her even more worried.
It's really helpless.
She turned over, turned on the bedside lamp, and climbed out of bed.
At 9:00 AM, Yuzuru left the rink through the back door, against the rink's opening hours. The walk from the rink to his apartment wasn't long, and since everyone working was already at the office at this hour, it was just the right time to walk home. He wheeled his small suitcase toward his apartment with long, brisk strides.
The door clicked open, and he tossed his bag onto the floor in the hallway. He didn't bother changing into slippers, dragging his tired body to the bathroom in his socks to shower. The bottles and jars on the sink in the bathroom momentarily confused his sleepy mind. Did he have so many skincare products? And it seemed like there were more than just skincare products.
He frowned in confusion, picked up a glass jar, examined it carefully for a few seconds, and suddenly came to his senses. He turned around and ran out of the bathroom, only to find that there were many more things in the room.
Next to the movable handlebars stood a small basket containing tools for sewing pointe shoes. In the kitchen, a can of worn-out coffee grounds sat beside the coffee machine. In his closet, his uniformly black tracksuits were now joined by some brightly colored training clothes. Even on his bed, Poosan had a Moomin to keep him company.
【Yuzu:! ! ! ! ! 】
In the rehearsal room, Le received a message from Yuzuru Hanyu. It didn't say much, just a series of exclamation points. She turned away from the program's director and investors, and quietly replied to him.
[Raku: From now on, please take good care of me~ P.S. Today is the program review day, so I packed a little hastily.]
Yuzu: Keep going! I'll be waiting for you to bring back good news! (*^▽^*)
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