Yuzuru Hanyu is My Emergency Contact

Genius. Genius. Handsome Frickin Genius.

I am still in the Tokyo Dome. 

I may have stood up. 

I may have climbed the stairs. 

I may have gone through the revolving door out into the headwind and past the rollercoaster. 

I may have even gotten on a plane and flown 7000 miles to the other side of the world. 

But I am still in the Tokyo Dome.

Because I am not finished with the GIFT Yuzu left for us there – painstakingly wrapped in light and sound and gently placed on a mirror of ice to reflect the colors we each see differently. And I can’t stop staring into this delicate prism of Yuzu’s emotions as I try to decipher my own. 

I am unsettled.

Nothing I can say is good enough.

Nothing I can say is what Yuzu deserves in return for what he gave to us.

We have been enchanted by a GENIUS. 

And there simply are no words.

But I will try.

If you had told me on July 19 that in less than a year I would be sitting in the Tokyo Dome watching Yuzu perform a two and a half hour, one man ice show, I would’ve laughed in your face. Actually, I probably would’ve kissed you on the mouth. I will never forget how I felt after Yuzu’s press conference – as though a void had opened up in the earth. It was utter darkness. I worried we would never see Yuzu again.

But what we didn’t know was that the void merely had to open wide enough for Yuzu to fill it completely. 

As I stood in line to get in the line for the opening of the line to join the Merch tent line, I started to cry. No, it wasn’t because I accidentally ended up at the “yen only” counter instead of the credit card counter. I was just so incredibly proud of Yuzu. I imagined him looking down from his hotel room watching thousands of people buy GIFT goods with reckless abandon. 16 tote bags, 10 binoculars, 14 newspapers, 13 bath salts, 7 flags, 3 stationary kits, 12 key chains, 8 blousons…and that was just the person in front of me. As I saw box after “Yuzuru Hanyu” stamped box precariously removed from the merch stacks and emptied, I was one proud Fanyu.

People don’t just want you, Yuzu. They even want your bath salts. 

What’s extraordinary is that inside of Yuzu you have an exceptional human being who would probably prefer to be at home playing video games in his green pajama pants. But instead, he has agreed to push the boundaries of art, beauty and athleticism…and share it with the world. And share it he did – in the most fantastic way.

From the moment he appeared (entered, ascended, materialized) he took us all on a journey we never could’ve anticipated. I was seated in a side section (a side section that would later receive the sexiest, most smoldering side long glances in the history of jumbotron glances), and this made his entrance all the more dramatic. We had no idea where he was going to appear…until we saw the silhouetted Yuzu profile rising out of the Tokyo Dome set’s cavern of wonder. I have a vague memory of my sister saying, “There he is!” (at least I think it was her that said it – it could’ve been me) and at that point, GIFT had already changed my life forever. 

Once I could pull my eyes away from Actual Yuzu to see Magnified Yuzu on the screen, I couldn’t get over his (slightly smug but totally justified in the least arrogant way possible) expression of “Look how my wings have grown.” I bet twelve year-old Firebird Yuzu never dreamed he’d have wings like those. But I bet NINE year-old Yuzu always expected he would one day have digital wings the size of the Tokyo Dome. Regardless, 28 year-old Yuzu flapped them with satisfaction. You know we’ve always loved your feathers, Yuzu. 

Yuzu was in every detail of GIFT. He should win an Oscar, a Sundance Film Festival award, a Nobel Prize for Literature (grass and light speaking, wind smiling…美しい [beautiful], Yuzu) and a Tony for choreography (I’m looking at you Ashura-chan). He could be hired on the spot as a Cirque du Soleil creative director AND win the Sendai Chamber of Commerce award for being the best dang storytime reader at the 図書館 [library]. I bet he even cobbled those boots himself. (Speaking of, how have we not found those and sold them out yet? Or have we?) Imagine Executive Producer Hanyu Yuzuru sitting in the Tokyo Dome watching the monologue videos in tech rehearsals. Just think. He could’ve been in the very seat you were in, watching his story from your perspective to ensure it would be perfect for you. I’ll give you a minute with that…

Within GIFT, you have this incredible human who has so transparently and rawly bared his soul, confessing, “I am scared,” “ I am alone,” “I am suffering so much. So much, so much.” How can we just move on? I found myself thinking, ‘Can someone check on Yuzu?’ But I knew I didn’t need to worry. Because Yuzu was checking on Yuzu. I wanted to climb into the jumbotron and hug Light Side Yuzu and say, “ありがとうございました [thank you so much] for taking such good care of Yuzu, you beautiful, 優しい [gentle] Yuzu!” That’s not strange; right? I’ve always said I could listen to Yuzu talk forever, but listening to Yuzu talk TO YUZU? That’s on a whole other level. Oh, and…THERE IS NO MORE HANDSOME HUMAN BEING. I say again…how can we be expected to handle Yuzuru Hanyu? We CAN’T. And it’s time we just accept it.

GENIUS.

It wasn’t until I was able to watch the Global Livestream with the subtitles that I could fully feel the impact of Yuzu’s words. I don’t know how people who are fluent in Japanese could stand to watch it live. If I had been comprehending this Vulnerability Well of Yuzu emotions in real time, you would’ve had to scoop me up off the floor, pour me into a bath salts bottle and ship me back to the US. So…おめでとう [congrats] to the Fanyus who withstood that.

But back to the unparalleled courage of Dark Side Yuzu. All I could think about was how difficult it must have been to go straight from GIFT to Notte Stellata. Imagine showing up at your workplace and asking all your co-workers, “So did everyone see my diary projected on the big screen at the Tokyo Dome a couple weeks ago? Did you know it sold out cinemas in Taipei?”

I was asked what I did during Intermission, and my first thought was, “What intermission?” I was in a gobsmacked haze of Yuzuness. I remember tweeting about how beautiful Rondo was and how happy Yuzu looked, but I have zero recollection of the other 39 minutes before Let’s Go Crazy started playing and all the Fanyus who had been in the bathroom line finally gave up and came running – RUNNING – back to their seats. If YOU were in the same place as Yuzuru Hanyu and that song started playing wouldn’t you run to wherever you thought he was too? Those stairs were not easy to traverse, but people who had been creeping carefully down them prior to the show had a new spring in their step as they SKIPPED to their seats for the second half of the show. Yuzu gives you life…especially when you think the Purple Pants of Sin might be about to make an appearance. 

And I defy you to tell me there has ever been a more charged Yuzu performance than the combined six and a half minutes of Let Me Entertain You and Ashura-chan. I may be biased because I had a light strapped to my wrist that appeared to be responding to my ever increasing heart rate, but it doesn’t matter how many times I watch it. I sit and shake my head in astonishment. He is dancing like that ON ICE! I don’t know how he did anything else that WEEK after that performance, much less throwing down Phantom of the Opera five minutes (FIVE!!!!) later. And yes, it looked just as fast watching it from afar when he was doing it in person. 

P.S. Good job for sticking up for your brilliant choreographic self Yuzu. No hysterical crying emoji needed.

But Yuzu didn’t just illuminate our hearts. He also illuminated our wrists. They might as well have installed shocks in the seats, because the first time those synchronized, slap bracelet lights lit up during Let Me Entertain You I nearly jumped out of my seat. The cueing system was so spot-on, I found myself questioning who was controlling the wrist lights (a technician…or my pulse?). Excited moments (I clapped my light bracelet off at one point!), hopeful moments, heartbreaking moments…it didn’t matter. The lights responded to them all. It’s like Yuzu knew the exact moments our hearts would swell to the point of needing an exterior exit. Our adoration needed wings to fly. I distinctly remember when one of the Emotional Harpoons (which I actually understood) hit during a monologue and I subconsciously put my hand to my heart. At that exact moment, the light slowly glowed white. How. Did. You. Know. Yuzu? 

GENIUS.

That’s just it. Yuzu knows us. And Yuzu also hears us. And he wanted to do everything for us he possibly could. Return of Firebird? Check. Frozen lake? (I know you saw it during Hope & Legacy.) Check. The return of the Zipper Pants of Sin? (I’d been saying that we needed more time with that costume.) Zip and check. Rondo? Tiny victory fist on the exit – and check. Upgraded “shake your ass” in Let Me Entertain You? Check check. I imagine him asking his team, “Just how many of me and my face can you get on the screen at once?” Even Cactus said, “You must’ve loved seeing that on the big screen. A million Yuzus wandering lost in a white room.” 正しい [correct], Cactus-san. 

But Yuzu also gave us things he knew we’d never expect…but would love. Fire. Actual, honest to goodness, toast-some-marshmallows-and-make-a-zunda-s’more FIRE. Or should I say, BLAZE. And the new hair? Let me say it again. BLAZE. NEW. HAIR! I never believed it was possible, but I think Balenciaga Ad Yuzu hair has surpassed LGC Yuzu Hair for me. And who ever would have thought that could happen? It felt right that I had to travel over 7000 miles to witness that new hair’s domination live, in person, in Tokyo. It was gift after gift at GIFT – all given with zero restraint or sign of exhaustion. Yuzu didn’t give 100%. He didn’t give 110%. He gave 38,000%. And what a demanding list of gifts he prepared for us! I can just imagine Yuzu’s mom looking over it and saying, “Now, don’t try to do too much, Yuzuru. They won’t stop loving you if you don’t do SEIMEI.”

We will never stop loving you, Yuzu. And we wanted you to hear. I could hear myself screaming – both in the footage from the arena and in my hotel room while I was watching it again on Disney+ Japan. By the time he made his (completely unexpected – how the heck did he change that fast – my life is now complete and I feel totally vindicated from the cancellation of Worlds 2020 because how can you top seeing Yuzu perform SEIMEI IN JAPAN?!) SEIMEI entrance, I went full-on Beatlemania documentary. I put my hands to my head and screamed, “Oh my god!” with about as much fervor as one can muster without subsequently requiring oxygen…or a soft pretzel. 

The same thing happened during each of the monologues…but I managed to internalize those screams. At least I think I did. It wouldn’t surprise me if one had managed to surface during the final monologue when Yuzu gave his second, brief, shy glance up after saying “ 一人だ [I’m alone].” Could there be a more beautiful, subtle moment? YES. And it is after he finishes Notte Stellata and is skating back to claim his second set of digital wings while his narration says, “I don’t know what’s waiting where we’re heading.” It’s a good thing I didn’t see that look until watching the stream later…and alone…or my light bracelet probably would’ve exploded on site and caught the Fanyu’s hair in front of me on fire. BLAZE. 

And this came after the most breathtaking, beautiful snow globe (what ever happened to that merch item?) of starry crystallized magic: Notte Stellata. Yuzu even put on white gloves, because he knew he was going to be carefully holding our hearts. In fact, this was the moment my Fanyu heart ascended into Yuzuvana. It was the most fantastical setting I have ever been in in my entire life. We weren’t beneath the stars, we were inside them…with Yuzu.

Yuzu, I could not love you more…but I know you’ll manage to make me.

GENIUS.

Another Fanyu who I am certain feels the same way is the Fanyu seated behind me who quietly but passionately whispered, “できる [you can]” each time Dark Side Yuzu said, “できない [I can’t].” Fellow Fanyu, I couldn’t have whispered it better myself. Every Fanyu in the Tokyo Dome desperately wanted to hug Yuzu. Dark Side Yuzu, Light Side Yuzu, Topcoat Yuzu, Animated Yuzu, Watercolor Yuzu, ACTUAL Yuzu…there were so many Yuzus to choose from. I just hope all of the Yuzus could feel all of us Fanyus there with him. I think the only proof we needed came from his free skating at the very end of the show. And I don’t mean “free skating” as in the four minute competitive program. Yuzu has a whole new form of free skating now: one without limits.

I have never seen Yuzu skate with that kind of freedom. Effortless. Light. Passionate. Aggressive. FAST. Oh, so fast. He was not skating. He was FLYING. Because of us.

Yuzu may have started the show with Firebird wings but by the end he flew with Fanyu wings. And this was the most precious GIFT. 

We don’t need flowers.

We don’t need chocolates.

We don’t need to hear “I love you.”

Just please always skate for us with that reckless abandon, Yuzu. 

In the end (why, why, why did it have to end?), you simply can’t believe you saw it. Your entire existence has changed knowing you saw the final triumphant pose of Hope & Legacy, the (fabled improvised) seductive stretch in Chopin (oh, you know the one), Yuzu thinking as he points at things during his 6-minute warm up, THE FOOT STOMPS, the “stand back, I’m getting ready to throw down an epic step sequence” arm thrust in Rondo, the Let Me Entertain You I-don’t-actually-touch-my-hair hair sweep, the Phantom hand to the face, the heartbreaking final release of breath at the end of いつか終わる 夢 [A Dream That Someday Will End], the iconic Notte Stellata “one delayed single axel,” the 春よ、来い [Haru yo koi – Come, Spring] head dip, the SEIMEI anything (literally – “The SEIMEI Anything”). But you can’t help but feel like you DIDN’T SEE IT HARD ENOUGH. I wanted to bore every single crystal from the Notte Stellata costume into my eyeballs. (That sounds more painful than intended – but you get the idea.) Yuzu’s own words describe it best:

Flash of a dream.

We don’t ask what’s next for Yuzu. The question now is what’s next for us. How do WE move forward? And how could we ever thank him for this incomparable GIFT? We could not throw Pooh bears. We could not fling flowers. We could not even be overcome and hurl our purses toward second base. There was no box for leaving gifts. But box or not, I left my heart at the Tokyo Dome…for you, Yuzu. Yet as I have tried to convert into words the GIFT thoughts and emotions that swirl around me daily, I have struggled to find any of them worthy. I feel as though Yuzu is standing in front of me, still holding out this glistening jewel and I am inadequate to fully accept it. I want to say “できない [I can’t].” Perhaps then I would hear Light Yuzu whisper “できるよ。[You can.]”

There are things we like.

There are things we love.

And then there is you, Yuzu. 

The one we love the most.

You are our warm world. 

You are our bright light.

…and you’re a handsome frickin GENIUS.