Ice Dance
AN: To all my readers, thank you for your support! I've always wanted to write this story and I think my goal is more to just show my love for the sport and hopefully get other people interested as well.
Hiashi Hyuuga was a tough man – tough, but not heartless. He and his twin brother, Hizashi, began skating at the age of five. His father wanted to teach his sons discipline, while his mother, a woman whose demands were adoringly fulfilled by all who surrounded her, was just a huge fan of the sport. Their coach, the legendary Jiraiya – infamous for sudden deviations in his routines and for his womanizing ways – instilled a great sense of rivalry between the twins, which led them to push each other to achieve great feats.
However, Hiashi always hated this rivalry; it gave him an inferiority complex. Although both brothers were mostly equal in terms of skill and medals, Hiashi could not help but feel inferior to his brother every time he lost. He began to hate the sport and thus started a huge losing streak in the competition between himself and his brother. One day, an argument erupted between the twins. That day, Hiashi announced his retirement to figure skating to the chagrin of his mother and brother; and although neither of them took this pronouncement seriously, it weighed heavily on their hearts as his mother drove Hizashi to practice without his twin. It was then when it happened. On the way back from the rink, the slippery roads of winter caused their car to hit a tree and thus ended the lives of two of the most important people in Hiashi's life.
A month later, Hiashi went back to the rink and decided to skate again, for his mother and his brother. His love for the sport had rekindled, because he knew that whenever he was on the ice, they would be there with him too. When he had actually retired from the sport to spend more time with his family, he knew that he wanted to teach his children to love the sport as much as he did.
"Hanabi, for the last time, point your toes!" yelled Hiashi. His daughter rolled her eyes at him and continued her arabesque spiral… without her toes pointed. "Okay, fine, go take a break."
It had been a long day for Hiashi. He had left his other daughter, Hinata at the other practice rink to work on some of her jumps. He hoped that she had made some sort of improvement after that abysmal lesson that morning. Then again, his lesson with Hanabi wasn't going any better.
Although they were sisters, Hinata and Hanabi were very different people and very different skaters. Hinata was five years older than her younger sister and had spent some of her childhood in ballet lessons with her mother. As a result, Hinata had good posture, lovely lines and good flexibility. On the flip side, she was a shy girl and was unconfident, something that worsened as her inability to jump became more and more acute. He had considered putting Hinata with a partner so that she could do pairs skating, (1) but Hiashi could not bear to see his sweet lovely daughter being intimately touched by some strange boy, even if it was part of a skating maneuver.
Hanabi, on the other hand, was a firecracker on the ice. She didn't have the benefit of ballet lessons, seeing that her mother died soon after her birth, but she had undeniable power which allowed her to do huge jumps. If Hiashi could combine Hinata and Hanabi together, he'd have the perfect figure skater – and less teenage girls and boyfriends to deal with. He tried to set up some sort of a friendly rivalry between the siblings to help them develop each others' weaknesses, but it didn't work. Hanabi saw Hinata as a mother figure, while Hinata was too kind to even allow for such a rivalry.
In any case, he was worried about Hanabi's lack of motivation and Hinata's growing feeling of ineptitude, which might cause her to quit the sport entirely.
"I'll see how Hinata is doing," he sighed.
"Ok, now stroke to the left, kick your foot up," instructed Naruto. "Watch that you don't kick me."
"I think I've got the hang of it now," said Hinata. Naruto had been teaching her one of the basic waltzes for the last hour. (2)
"Do you want to go even faster?"
"Sure!"
When Hiashi walked into practice rink 1, he was greeted with an unexpected sight. Hinata was skating with a boy… and while he held one of her hands, the other one was on her waist. How dare he! He spotted Tsunade, an ice dance champion before his time standing at the side of the rink watching them.
"Good afternoon, Tsunade sempai."
"Well if it isn't Hiashi Hyuuga, champion extraordinaire," she greeted. They both taught at the same rink but only spoke between their lessons.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"Well, my other student quit on me and ditched Naruto over there but he seems to have found himself a new partner. Then again, the kid has always been a bit of a dunce 'cause I bet he doesn't know who she is and what he'll have to deal with for touching Hiashi Hyuuga's precious little girl."
"You got that right," he growled. The boy's face was inches from Hinata's in dance hold. (3)
"Well, if it's any comfort, they make a good pair. She's learning quickly and they're very fast and graceful on the ice. (4) They have good unison for a pair that's been skating together for an hour and good free leg extension (5) and I think Naruto's learning from example because he's pointed his toes this whole time."
Hiashi grumbled. It still didn't erase the fact that the boy was touching her innocent little girl.
"Hinata, do you trust me?" asked Naruto.
"I… guess?"
"No, Hinata, I need you to completely trust me. Repeat after me: Naruto, I know that you won't drop me."
"Naruto, I know that you won't drop me," said Hinata with a smile.
"We're going to skate straight and then you're going to put your right arm around your shoulders. I'm going to grab your right leg and you're going to swing the other leg over on top of your right."
"W-what?"
"Trust me, it'll be okay."
"I should probably stop this, she needs to practice that flip," said Hiashi.
"Leave them be, they're going to do something interesting," said Tsunade, putting an arm in front of the concerned father.
Hiashi watched intently, until… "WHAT IS HE DOING TO MY DAUGHTER?" He heard a scream, which was really a squeal of delight as Naruto carrying Hinata bridal style in a straight line lift. (6)
Hinata spotted her father over Naruto's shoulder.
"Hey daddy!" she exclaimed as she giggled with delight. That was the scariest and yet most fun experience of her life. Hiashi was at a loss for words, Hinata had been coming home from the rink in a depressed state for the last month.
"You know, Naruto's not a bad kid. He's also in need of a partner…" started Tsunade.
"Hinata has great potential as a singles skater," affirmed Hiashi. "Besides, there's no glory in ice dance. Most people don't know that the discipline exists anyways." (7)
"True, but I've got a good feeling about these two. They remind me of Asuma and Kurenai."
Asuma and Kurenai were Tsunade's former students. They were paired at a young age but grew to be one of the most successful ice dance teams (and cutest couple) in the history of figure skating. Although Tsunade had coached many ice dance teams, to her, very few could match the magic and beauty they made on the ice. Sadly, that magic disappeared many years ago when Asuma died of a heart attack, leaving Kurenai alone with their child. Tsunade had always hoped to find a team that could show her the love and magic that she once saw and no one, not even Hiashi Hyuuga was going to destroy those hopes.
"I'll talk to Hinata and see what she thinks," said Hiashi. He knew that Tsunade would never say something like that lightly. "Hinata, let's call it a day. Neither you or Hanabi have been making much progress today anyways."
"Ok, daddy!" Hinata turned around. "I'm usually here everyday in the mornings. Come by sometime so we can skate together again!"
"That's great! I'm here everyday too! My dad, Iruka, is rink manager!"
Hiashi happened to hear the last comment.
"His father's Iruka?" he asked Tsunade.
"Does that matter?"
"Well, I've gotten a bit… shirty with him sometimes. The man's a bit annoyed at me I'm sure."
"Don't piss him off more by denying his son a lovely partner then."
"We still need Hinata's opinion on the subject."
"Oh, I think her opinion is pretty clear," said Tsunade with a smirk.
"Why's that?" Hiashi turned around to see Hinata's red face as Naruto gave her a kiss on the cheek. "HINATA! Hurry up, we're leaving!"
"Hey son, did you have practice today? I heard Sakura quit," said Iruka as he was making dinner.
"Well, Tsunade didn't really do any coaching but I skated around with another girl."
Iruka chuckled. "You make it sound as if you're having some sort of casual affair, which you shouldn't by the way. Who was the girl?"
"I don't know her last name but her name's Hinata. Apparently she's there everyday but I've never seen her before."
Iruka groaned. "Remember a few years back when that Olympic figure skater demanded that I open the rink at like three in the morning?"
"That tight-ass jerk?"
"Naruto…"
"Well, that's what you called him!"
"His name is Hiashi Hyuuga and the girl you were dancing with was his daughter."
"Oh. He seemed like a nice guy… sort of. At least it seemed like he cared about Hinata a lot."
"I'm surprised he didn't castrate you for touching his daughter."
"Is he going to in the near future?" asked Naruto apprehensively.
"Maybe."
"HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT IN SUCH A RELAXED WAY!?!?! I KISSED HER ON THE CHEEK TODAY! RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM!"
"You did WHAT? Naruto, I think you're at the age where you need to learn about the birds and the bees…"
"Hinata, did you enjoy ice dancing today?" asked Hiashi at dinner.
"Ohhh… Hinata danced with a boy..." taunted Hanabi. Her father glared at her.
"It was fun, Tsunade said I could come to Naruto's lessons if I wanted to."
"Do you?" Hiashi asked eagerly.
"Well, Naruto doesn't have a partner…"
"He'll find one soon enough, I'm sure."
"I wouldn't mind taking ice dancing lessons, actually," stated Hinata.
"They'll cut into your training time."
"Can I try them for just little while?" she pleaded.
"Fine." Hinata rarely asked for anything, so Hiashi decided to comply. Not to mention it would give the rink manager one reason to not kick him out after being so demanding last year…
Nonetheless, it was the beginning of a new partnership.
1) The jumps in pairs skating are not as challenging, but there are other elements that make up for the easier jumps.
2) In ice dance, there are set dances with a certain pattern based on ballroom dances. The more challenging ones usually form the compulsory dance portion of the ice dance competition. The other portions are the original dance and the free dance. See Wikipedia for details.
3) Think of how two people hold each other in ballroom dancing. That's dance hold.
4) Speed and flow are crucial in ice dance. The best teams in the world can do complicated footwork and lifts at high speeds while making it look effortless.
5) Footwork is the most important element in ice dance. Your free leg is the leg you aren't standing on when you kick out with one foot. A lot of teams – even the top ranked ones – tend to just kick and their free legs look like dead wood, while others (see Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir or Emily Samuelson and Evan Bates) have excellent free legs and hold them steady while forming beautiful lines.
6) Ice dance lifts are diverse but are categorized by their trajectory on the ice. The categories are: straight-line, rotational, curve and serpentine (the lift's trajectory looks like an "S").
7) How many of you knew that the discipline existed before this fic?