Yuzuru Hanyu is My Emergency Contact

My sister and I are polar opposites.

We couldn’t be more different. I think we’ve basically always known that. No, it is not lost on me that we both happen to currently be in imaginary relationships with Asian boyfriends. But that is probably the closest we have ever come to agreeing on types of people. Unless you count Loki. I think we’d both date Loki. Though I would have to cut his hair (insert sister gasp here). And don’t get confused. We wouldn’t date Tom Hiddleston. No, Thor would have to be our brother-in-law in this scenario. Anyway…if you really want proof, all you need to do is examine our choices in Asian boyfriends and how we approach these completely viable, totally realistic, fake, absolutely true relationships.

We’ve already established the Korean beefiness that is Chansung. Yuzu couldn’t be less beefy. In fact, I’m not sure he’s ever even eaten beef. Well, maybe once from the convenience store. (That’s a joke just for me.) We call him the Iron Gazelle. As my sister describes it, he has a tensile strength. There’s also the whole jumping aspect…a little too on the nose?  That’s another thing. My sister also pointed out, “He has very tiny nostrils.” Yes, well. There’s that.

Chansung has a habit of wearing see-thru shirts. Or open shirts. Or simply ripping his shirt off. Often followed by some (granted, occasionally half-hearted) boy band gyrating. Yuzu, on the other gloved hand, is rarely even seen in short sleeves. Head to toe to fingertip clothed. Frequently layered. When he strips to layer 5 of 6 it causes an audible gasp in the crowd.  If he makes it down to layer 4 of 6, Japan declares a national holiday and everyone gets the next day off. There’s even a YouTube video titled, When Yuzu Took His Coat Off. I’m not kidding. It’s on my Besturu of Yuzuru playlist. But to better make my point, there also was a video on YouTube (or as I have renamed it YuzTube) of Yuzu starting to undress backstage after his short program at the Olympics. Unbeknownst to him, there’s a camera on him. He gets one shoulder exposed before someone points out this camera. He immediately ducks, covering his shoulder as if it is the most offensive body part imaginable. And, I might add, it is followed by zero boy band gyrating.

I guess it comes down to how “earthy” you are. This is my sister’s code word. Code word for…I’m not sure. But given that its emoji equivalent is the BLAZE, I have my theories. She claims it has something to do with being born in May. Insert shrugging girl emoji. I also use her a lot. Actually, I use her so much that I have named her MeMoji. MeMoji often appears before the other response I frequently send: nothing. Sometimes the text exchanges get so “earthy” that I’m at a loss for how to respond tactfully. Or respond period. So I send nothing. I mysteriously disappear. Whoops! Look at that! Got tied up with work and couldn’t respond to your comment about how “sex” in Korean rhymes with Chansung’s name. My bad! When my mom does it, my sister calls it the silence of judgement. As for me? I think mine could be more accurately described as the silence of my inner 恥ずかしい [embarrassed] self crawling into a hole and not coming back out until the next Yuzu celebration parade. 

Speaking of disappearing, I forgot to mention that Yuzu’s #ShoulderScandal2018 video has mysteriously disappeared from the internet altogether. It was like some kind of once in a lifetime eclipse. I imagine decades from now there will be humans reminiscing about figure skating while they sit on their front porches on Mars saying, “You know, I was there when they accidentally streamed Yuzuru Hanyu’s bare shoulder during the Olympics in 2018.” And, if the Martian they’re talking to happens to have been born in May, she will instantly burst into flames.

But back to “earthy”. Let me explain…

The “earthy” sister’s ideal dates involve going to the pool with Chansung so they can slather sunscreen on each other. Or retiring to the bedroom (probably with a 24 piece bucket of chicken). Or mysteriously setting Chansung’s best buck-fifty tweed suit on fire so he has to rip it off. The “non-earthy” sister’s ideal dates involve sitting rink-side in an empty ice rink in Sendai at 2 a.m. while Yuzu practices stroking on the ice. Easy. IT’S A FIGURE SKATING TERM. If you go there, this example won’t make sense. Or making hot chocolate in our 15 layers (count the apron and it’s 16). Or working together to perfectly fold a fitted sheet (because we would be SO good at that). This is where my sister would argue that she is pure. Okay. Fine. But you still want to burn Chansung’s clothes off, so, we’ll at least have to agree that your purity is highly flammable.  

One time, I was traveling in Mankato (it sounds really exotic like I was somewhere in Japan, but it’s only in Minnesota) and, exhausted from how un-Japanese it was, I texted my sister and said that all I wanted to do was get some chocolate mousse and go to bed with Yuzu. I meant I was going to go to bed and watch Yuzu on my laptop. I immediately followed up with a text explaining how that didn’t come out as intended.  Her response? “You didn’t say anything out of line. I knew it would just be you and Yuzu in gloves and separate sleeping bags in the bed geeking out over earphones.”

This has become one of the greatest mental images of my entire life. 

Nearly, dare I say it, pushing me to “earthy.” Throw in our mutual love of using different color pens to organize our notes and…well…BLAZE.