read don't mess up, my lucky charm, my last chance. before this one.
wanderer when he meets your former partner.
you swear wanderer bristles like a cat when yae announces that your ex-partner will be skating with his new partner at your next event - it's a pretty small, insignificant challenger event that you're attending to hammer out the rest of your new programs for the new season, but wanderer seems to be putting in more effort than usual into the practices before the official competition.
you've caught him sneering at photos of your former partner when he ego searches the two of you on the internet, so you really can't say you're surprised when he turns his nose up when the pairs at lined up at the boards, the negative energy radiating off him. to be fair, your former partner doesn't help by stealing constant glances at you.
"i'm better than him, right?" he suddenly pops the question as he holds your hand, doing your usual laps around the rink.
"much better," you affirm, and you resist the urge to laugh when a self satisfied smirk creeps his way onto his face, an expression he tries to hide as he stares down at his laces.
when your former partner tries to corner you at the rink, wanderer nearly charges at you and whisks you away, a "we don't need to talk to scum like them" at his mouth as he marches you away.
he ends up telling your ex partner to keep 'their eyes to themselves' when you manage to cross each other on the rink, all while trying to out-perform them with your hardest lift.
wanderer nearly breaks out in ill-hearted laughter at the kiss and cry when your combined total shows that you've placed nearly ten points above them. you have to pinch his arm to remind him to stop grinning like a villain, even though you're smiling from ear to ear as well.
"sometimes you just need another chance, cause the first one didn't work out, right?"
synopsis: your pairs partner just ghosted you, but no worries! your coach manages to replace him with the next worst thing - wanderer.
a/n: hi! making this a series called complementary figures, a figure skating au universe. stay tuned for other characters ^^ thanks for reading
“hi, i’d like to report a missing person’s case.”
ayaka looks up from unlacing her skates, giving you a sympathetic smile, “any news?”
“he’s gone gone, like, poof! i’ve been calling him ever since he disappeared two weeks ago but it’s like he never existed. i even called the police, and all they could say was ‘he’s still alive’, like buddy, i hope so.”
ayaka stands up, offering you a quick hug, “i’m so sorry, it was an asshole move for him to ghost you like this in the middle of the season.”
“it’s fine. i guess it’s all over now. still kind of in shock, but whatever.”
you sigh, sitting down on the bench and kicking off your sneakers as you pull your skates out from your bag. you weren’t even sure why you were here, your partner had up and left you in the middle of the competition season and you can’t perform a pairs routine by yourself. you were content to just wallow in self pity and refreshing instagram to see if, miraculously, any available pairs guy would contact you and ask to try out. in fact, you had been doing exactly that for the past few week and a half, but yae asked you to come in today, saying that you ‘needed to reconnect with the ice’.
you wave bye to ayaka as she walks away, leaving you to your own devices as you start pulling on the strings of your laces.
“y/n.”
yae appears before you, and you strain to get a look at her, a familiar grin on her face.
“hi, coach, what’s up?” you finish tying up your skates and stand up. with your skate, you tower over yae just a little bit, but you always felt like a little kid before her - she’s been your coach since you were little anyway, alongside your former partner.
“no news?”
you shake your head, and she sighs.
“disappointing, but no matter, we move ahead.”
she beckons you to follow her, and you trail behind her as she steps onto the ice gracefully. you’ve been off ice for about a week now, and you really feel it. there’s a bundle of nerves as you slowly follow her in a lap around the rink, is this where yae tells me my pairs career is over?
“what do you think about getting a new partner?” she stops suddenly, and you nearly crash into her, lost in your thoughts.
“um, if there’s someone out there who wants me?” you offer awkwardly.
she laughs, “well, he better, you’re his last chance.”
“wait, you’re saying someone asked to partner up with me?”
she taps her chin, “it’s more like - i offered and no one else wanted him, so we’re his only choice.”
she finishes with a self satisfied grin, “don’t worry, y/n dear, he’s won a few medals.”
“yeah? like what?”
“world championships, world cup finals,” she lists off a bunch of titles, including national champion.
wait, national champion?
“are you talking about, uh, wanderer?” you interrupt her.
“is that the kid's name? ah, i forgot. he always hissed at me and ran away whenever i went over to ei’s house.”
while yae launches into reminiscing about her shared history with his coach, your mind goes a mile a minute.
wanderer, national champion, current world champion, former junior world record holder, and current world-renowned asshole.
no one can deny his talent and skills, but also that comes with a major attitude. you’ve heard changing room horror stories about him scaring off potential partners; people leaving in tears; a world record in the number of partners dropped; and if he drops you in the middle of a lift it’s not his fault - it’s yours.
“yae, why in the world did you offer to pair me up with some asshole?” you blurt out, “yae, i thought you liked me.”
“oh look, they’re here!”
yae pointedly ignores your comment and pushes past you, making her way to the edge of the rink. you can feel the drilling stare, even with your back facing him. you just prayed to whatever archon is listening that he didn’t hear you, and you would at least leave this temporary partnership with your ego and self-confidence intact.
“ei! long time no see,” yae stops at the boards, as you slowly turn on your blades and skate towards where the pair is waiting.
“this is y/n,” she beckons you, and you pick up the pace, gliding into place next to her.
“hi, uh, it’s nice to meet you!” you’ll try your best to leave a good impression on his coach, at least.
“likewise,” ei nods and holds out a hand to shake, which you take.
“kunikuzushi,” she angles her head towards you, “say it.”
“hey,” he says curtly, avoiding your gaze. awkward silence settles over the group before yae claps her hands.
“i see. kuni, then? i see your skates are on, good! get up here. y/n, sweetheart, can you get my phone please? i would like to film this, thank you.”
you sigh, moving to grab yae’s phone on the other side of the boards. you watch the boy pull off his skate guards and step onto the ice out of the corner of your eye. you can’t deny it - you can tell by the way he holds himself that he’s far more elegant and well-trained than half of the guys you’ve seen come in and out of the rink door. the two of you make eye contact and you quickly fumble with yae’s phone, placing it near her hand.
ei and yae are chatting, leaving you to awkwardly follow wanderer, or kuni, or kunikuzushi, you weren’t really sure what to call him anymore.
“can you even skate?” he sounds irritated, and you bristle.
“of course i can, can you?” you retort.
“i’m the current world champion. of course i can. are you dumb?” he whirls around to face you.
“yeah? try doing that again without a partner,” you fume.
“i don’t need a partner to win.”
“it’s called fucking pairs.”
he snorts, “and you think your mediocre skills can keep up with me?”
“sorry, but i happen to hear you switch partners every season? you need me. admit it, i’m your last chance, because nobody else is stupid enough to partner up with someone like you.”
“someone like me? it’s okay! you can just call me an asshole again, just to my face. go on.”
you stop, skates slowing to a halt, you can feel your face heating up at the reminder of the less-than-kind comment you made only a few moments ago. ah, fuck, he heard me.
his eyes narrow at your silence, and he whirls around again and kicks off, throwing ice in your direction and he leaves you behind.
“y/n, honey, you’re supposed to skate with him! don’t tell me you forgot after a week already!”
you hear yae call from the boards, and you roll your eyes.
you race to catch up to him, but he ignores you.
“okay, fine! i’m sorry! but like - prove me wrong!”
he turns at you with a strange look in his eyes that you can’t really place. before you can get a closer look, yae yells at you to ‘do a spin or something!’
he grabs your hand, grumbling something under his breath as he slows to match your strokes.
“do you know how to do triple salchow?” he questions over the sound of blade scratching ice.
“side-by-side? i mean, i can try!”
he rolls his eyes at you, but he releases your hand, “you go first, i’ll follow.”
wait, shouldn’t we talk about this?
you nearly stop your momentum but you catch how he’s staring intently at you. your insides squeeze together, your partner could never do a salchow properly, so you haven’t done it in a long ass time.
okay, fine.
you adjust your position, and you can hear his skates against the ice as well, perfectly mirroring your position as you launch yourself into the air.
there’s a foreign feeling in your legs, and next you know it, you end up hitting the ground, legs giving out as you slip and land. wanderer snickers as he slows to a halt next to you, and you just know he landed that triple salchow perfectly.
"not only did you double it, but you also fell on your ass? some skating skills you have."
you fell a thousand times before, but this one stings. you wince as you hang your head, trying to figure out if the dull throb in your leg is anything serious.
"are you crying? archons, i can't believe i have a crybaby of a partner." he sighs, but twists to get a better look at your face. you turn away from him.
"i'm fine," you say, pulling yourself to your feet, there's a shit-eating grin on your face, "let's try that again, partner."
he scoffs, "should've known you were pretending. can't deal with crybabies. you're lucky i'm giving you a second chance."
"watch this one. their debut internationally, the new wonder pair from inazuma. their chemistry is electrifying, and their technical content is one of the best!"
you let out a dry laugh of amusement at the commentators as you splay out across the couch, taking up all the space. wanderer hisses at you to 'get off me' but makes no move to shove your legs off his lap, instead, he grabs the remote from the coffee table to fast forward through the gushing that takes place before you've even entered your beginning pose, eyebrows drawn in irritation.
the two of you watch intently, the bright lights of yae's TV cutting through the darkness of the night combined with tightly drawn curtains. wanderer lets out a snort when you nearly crash into the ground as you land from your throw lutz, only saving it with a ridiculously bent knee that keeps you upright.
"still not used to the height?" he smirks.
"shut up, you're lucky i saved that," you spit. it's true, despite his shorter stature, he's hiding some serious muscle, enough to throw you into the air with height that looks like 'he's trying to send you to the moon' - as the commentators put it. your former partner never threw you that high up, and when you first did it, you felt as if you were in the air for an eternity.
"hah! no. you're lucky i held back."
"let's just call it even," you sniffle, turning back to watch the replay. after months of skating together, you know his little quirks, and when you shake with mock tears he stiffens, and you know you've actually got him wrapped around your finger. when you first actually cried in front of him (after a particularly ugly fall that felt like a broken bone), he spent his time saying that you 'looked ugly when you cry' and holding up tissues to your nose, but you can tell by his eyes his worry when the tears won't stop coming despite his irritated sighs and non-stop shaking of his head.
"whatever," he pats your ankle with a sense of urgency, the sofa creaking as he throws off your legs to stand up, "keep those ankles of steel safe, lucks, you'll need it."
you watch as he moves to ransack yae's fridge, and he sticks his face into the cool air in a desperate bid to stop the red crawling across his face. you're left quiet on the couch, an indescribable feeling racing up your neck at the nickname.
you tune out yae's usual pep talk as you survey the crowd - the arena's more packed than usual, and you're feeling the pre-program jitters.
wanderer's hand finds your's, giving you a tight squeeze.
"you ready?"
you turn to smile at him, and he returns a rare one, "with you? always."
he snorts, but turns his head away as red tinges the tip of his ears, "don't mess up."
(and, by the way, thanks for giving me a chance back then.)
maybe i will write one where wanderer meets your ex-partner anyways, ♡ or ↻ if you enjoyed, support your writers, thank you!!
synposis: thoma's really nervous ever since he spotted you: skating prodigy, at the local rink he's volunteering at as the zamboni driver.
a/n: this is part of a series called complementary figures, which is a figure skating au with the hyv characters!
"hi! sorry, this might be really weird, but can i get your autograph?"
you look up at the voice from your phone, and you see a cute blonde guy giving you an awkward smile. there would be nothing weird about it, except for the fact he was just climbing down from the zamboni that was making it's rounds around your local rink a few minutes ago.
"oh, hey," you give him your best dazzling smile, "no problem! you got anything i can write with?"
"seriously? um, here!" he manages to scramble and produce a sharpie and a printed out picture of you at one of your competitions, a gold medal slung around your neck.
"aw, this was from two seasons ago! when i won the world champion gold for the first time."
you make small talk as you uncap the sharpie, finishing your signature with a flourish.
"what's your name?" you smile at him again.
"uh, thoma - t. h. o. m. a.," you laugh at how bright red he is as you scribble down a quick TO: THOMA above your signature.
"oh my god, thank you so much," he says, almost breathlessly as you hand the sharpie and photo back to him, "my parents used to watch your parents on TV. we used to be from mondstadt as well."
"mom and dad? haha, that's so sweet. when did you move here?”
“a few years ago,” he scratches the back of his neck, “maybe when i was, like, twelve? anyways, i never managed to get the same ice time as you, but i’ve been watching you a lot. archons, that sounds weird, right? sorry.”
“oh, it’s okay. actually, thanks for the support,” you let out another laugh as he frantically apologises, “i’ve been skating here since forever, i think everyone in this town has seen me fall once or twice.”
"thoma! the ice!" the both of you wince as the rink manager yells at him, gesturing to the buckets of ice used to patch up the surface of the rink.
"right, that," he mumbles. you watch as he troops over to the buckets of ice, picking up one with a spatula. turning to survey the ice, you see the various divots and holes that dot the ice, thanks to you and the other skaters, no doubt.
“here, let me help,” you watch as he pulls on his rental skates and go to grab your own bucket, taking off your guards as you step onto ice. he awkwardly follows behind, legs scrambling to keep up.
“haven’t - haven’t skated in a long time,” he says, after straightening up.
“you don’t skate often?” you’re scared he’s going to splat straight onto his face with the way he’s moving, so you move in closer, just in case he falls.
he shakes his head, “winter sports and me? not a great match. more of a track runner, actually. just here to earn some extra cash during the holidays. my friend skates here, uh, ayaka?”
“ayaka kamisato? i know her, the one who skates with her brother, right? i see her sometimes.”
you blink and suddenly thoma’s feet nearly slide out from under him as he bends to patch up a spot. he wobbles before regaining his balance.
you breathe out a sigh of relief as you round up on him, “here, bend at the waist, not the knees.”
“like this?” you cringe as he does exactly the opposite as what you just said.
“not quite… actually, just grab onto me,” you take his hands in yours, at which he sputters at. you laugh as you take him into the middle of rink, letting go of his hands to scoop some ice to patch up the surface of the ice beneath you.
“like this,” you demonstrate, and when he finally nails the pose you turn around with a self-satisfied grin to focus on the far end of the rink.
thoma short-circuits, but as he watches you busy yourself with inspecting the ice, he turns and does the same thing, wishing that a hole could open up in the ground and swallow him whole. the extra cash thing was true, but he’s had a major crush on you for years - but he swears its not for that reason alone. ayaka and ayato are here, so he gets to hang out with them in his free time and not worry about being bored out of his mind all day; and he likes helping out the neighbourhood whenever he can, and when he heard the rink manager fretting about not getting enough volunteers this summer, he naturally signed up.
“hey.”
he nearly slips and falls when he hears your voice next to his ear, and you laugh - which sounds like wedding bells.
“i finished my end of the rink, you done with your’s?”
“uh, yeah,” he stares down at the nearly empty bucket in his hands, guess he works fast when spaced out and imagining things.
“great!” you take his hands again, and he has no choice but to allow himself to be pulled back and forth by you.
“thoma, do you wanna get dinner together? maybe my parents can meet your’s someday, and give them an autograph, too.”
he doesn’t reply, but you’re plenty amused by his ums and ahs and shaky okays.
