The return to the Japanese team's residence felt like a smooth transition between two worlds. The biting cold of the Olympic complex was left behind as soon as the van stopped in front of the house's wooden fence. Late afternoon was falling slowly over the neighborhood, dyeing the sky a grayish-violet hue while the fine rain continued to fall in a constant murmur against the surrounding rooftops.
Aibek was the first to step down, breathing in the humid air with a sense of lightness he hadn't experienced in months. As he entered the foyer, the familiar creak of the wooden floor and the warmth of the home welcomed him like an embrace. He took off his heavy team jacket and arranged it on the coat rack, feeling a faint pang of fatigue in his legs, but it was a clean fatigue—the product of effort on the rink, not mental exhaustion.
