Featured / Yuzuru Hanyu is My Emergency Contact

I wonder how many hours you can watch one person before some type of common law marriage goes into effect…

Because I would say in the past six months I have heard Yuzuru Hanyu’s voice more than most people have heard their spouse’s over several years. Or, in the case of many of my married, monosyllabic-named friends, over the courses of their entire marriages. And I am tooooootalllly okay with this.

I moved into a new apartment shortly after the Winter Olympics, which made for perfect timing since Yuzu was free to move in with me. It was also convenient that I was renting a two bedroom. (Here is where my sister would hang her head and make another comment about how I’m not a real girl.) Arima and Obi-Wan moved in too, but they tend to hang out in the living room. Schweethart, the Alpha, is always an arm’s length away regardless of what room I’m in. We’re hoping eventually Kaneki will move in for real instead of just Skyping every once in a while as he does now from Anteiku. Since Schweethart already Skypes with Yuzu and Pooh-san, we’re set up for that. But back to Yuzu living with us…

One day, I had a Yuzu press conference playing on my computer in the second bedroom. From a couple rooms away, it struck me how much it sounded like Yuzu was actually in the other room talking–you know, just giving a phone interview in Japanese. It was freaky and awesome all at the same time. And I thought, “Wow. I guess this is what it would be like if Yuzu really lived here.” Granted, if Yuzu did actually live with me, I would have a lot easier time getting all my groceries up to the fourth floor. As it stands, I practice the pack mule method: Better to stumble over the edge and tumble into the Grand Canyon with one forlorn and fading “Heeee haaaaawwwww” instead of making more than one trip from the car. And remember, Yuzu has a tensile strength, so that has to count for at least four Trader Joe’s bags.  

There is one thing we would have to sort out though: the whole raw egg eating thing. 卵ごはん. Literally, “egg rice”. You take a bowl of rice, crack a raw egg into it, mix it up with some soy sauce and have at it. HOW IS THIS A THING? The first time I saw Yuzu do this, I had the instinct to dive into the TV, slap the chopsticks away and yell, “Don’t do that!  It will kill you!” What a very American thing to say. But seriously. A raw egg is a raw egg; right? These can’t be magic Japanese eggs. (I have since found out these are, indeed, magic Japanese eggs.) If people in Japan can do THAT, why am I concerned I’ll be poisoned if I don’t refrigerate ketchup? When my sister saw Yuzu doing this, she instantly felt vindicated about the video she made me watch of Chansung eating bone-in chicken for a solid 40 minutes. Truly. I’ve never seen anything like it. My sister was equally as amazed by the video, but not nearly in the same way I was. It was like some kind of Korean poultry horror flick. He would put the entire chicken leg in his mouth and then pull it out clean. There are some sounds you should never hear. The sound of a human chewing on chicken cartilage is one of those sounds. (Even Kaneki got a little squeamish.) So I told her I would rather Yuzu silently scoop raw egg rice with his expertly particular chopstick style any day of the week. But I still don’t need to be present while he’s doing it. 

That can be his poker night.

Author’s Note: For Faux…