It's all in your mind.

That was the phrase Hana had been repeating to herself this whole time as she failed again and again at her routine, making mini mistakes that she normally wouldn't make.

After a failed jump she was sitting on the ice, her breathing heavy and eyes sore. She was getting frustrated with herself for not pulling things together and her frustration was piling up.

"Ok from the top" she muttered to herself, determined to restart her routine and get it right. She nailed the first half but after a shaky landing on one of the jumps her doubt caught up to her and she fell face first into the ice.

"Dammit!" she yelled, banging her fist against the rough surface (which did in fact hurt very much). If she didn't pull her shit together soon she would make a mockery of herself on global television.

All the stress from skating, taking care of Emi and living with Kenji was getting to her. It was tough to balance and she was beginning to feel the pressure.

What was she if not a winner? She was nothing without being the best and even though she always chastised Kenji for being egotistical she was more or less the same–she was always just more humble about it.

Competition was getting steeper as the years went by, younger and brighter talents were beginning to become more favored and news of Hana retiring was beginning to spread.

She would often ponder on sleepless nights why anyone made her career have a deadline, as if she wasn't good enough to skate after the age of 29. She was only 26 for crying out loud!

It wasn't fair.

Hot tears began forming at the corners of her eyes but she whipped them away, choking back her sorrow and opting for a brief break.

"Hana Masahiro?"

Her head tilted up at the call of her name, the face of a pretty girl sporting glasses with short hair greeted her with a smile. Hana recognized her, the woman's name was Ami, a reporter.

"Oh, do I have an interview today? Sorry I completely forgot" Hana jabbered apologetically. Ami shook her head, "No need to apologize Ms.Masahiro, I just arrived."

Hana sighed, thankful for the 'just arrived' part of her reply. "Alright so do you want to talk here?"

The two took their seats on the benches, Hana handing Ami a can of instant coffee from the vending machine as she took a seat next to her.

"Ask away, what do you want to know?"

Ami picked up her phone and put it on record, "With the olympics coming up and your wonderful track record of gold medals you sure are one of the favorites to win, I was wondering if you had any comments on this."

Hana played with the can in her hand, thinking of a suitable answer, "Well you know it's been more than a great season, I just hope I can pull myself together in time for the olympics, been having a rough few weeks lately."

"Rough weeks?" Ami questioned, wanting the skater to elaborate some more. "Yeah, it's just a build up of stress and not knowing how to balance everything with professional skating and taking care of a kid-"

"A kid?? Don't tell me you have a secret love child" she gasped, "Is the father Ke-" "Hold on right there." Hana chuckled nervously, shaking her arms in a 'no I do not have a secret love child' way before taking a breath.

"Uh- m-my cousin's kid. I'm taking care of my cousin's baby while she's gone off to vacation, yup." She gave Ami a very convincing smile before looking off into the rink. She wasn't completely lying, she was taking care of the baby for someone. That someone just happened to be a kaiju and not her cousin.

"I know how you feel, taking care of a child is tough work, I have a daughter myself and it's just me and my mom" Ami said, giving Hana a small smile. "How do you do it? Any pointers 'cause I'm getting a bit overwhelmed" Hana sighed.

Ami put a hand to her chin as if in thought on how to phrase her advice, "Children can be a lot sometimes but you just have to remember they're just trying to discover who they are and what they want. The only support they have is us, their parents. Nobody is perfect and I'm surely not but I look at my daughter sometimes and think that I'm learning as much from her as she is from me."

Hana's grip on the canned drink in her hand softened up and she let out a small laugh, "Thank you, so much Ami. You're a really strong person, you know.. Now ask me anything, absolutely anything you want."

The reporter couldn't help but take note of the smile of pure affection gracing Hana's face, as if she really needed to hear those words and she couldn't help but smile herself.

.

.

.

Hana unzipped her jacket and hung it on the holder, making her way down to the living room where there was not a single person in sight.

"Kenji?" she called out, wondering if he had already left to go somewhere. She walked to the elevator and went down to the underground level, somewhat a little more excited to see Emi.

When she walked inside her ears perked up to the sound of sniffling and her eyes darted to the giant glass window where Kenji was kneeling down, hand on the glass.

"Kenji?" she said with caution, moving over towards the guy. The moment he heard her voice he whipped his nose and straightened himself off the ground, "Hana, what are you doing here?" he said–not turning around.

"Ken.. Are you crying?"

"What..? No.. I'm not crying" he said in between sniffles.

She heaved a sigh, "Turn around for me." He paused for a moment before slacking his shoulders, turning around to face her–his eyes slightly puffy from crying.

"You're not alright Ken, what's going on" her eyes were filled with care and he couldn't help but crumble.

"It's like everyone has huge expectations for me and I'm not able to meet them, first with baseball, being Ultraman and now taking care of a baby Kaiju? I don't know how to handle it." Kenji's confession was met with a hesitant hand to his shoulder, slowly patting him as if to make him feel better.

"You know.. I talked to someone about just this today. We can never be perfect parents, Kenji, we fight, have lives, hopes and dreams.. But, to her" Hana looked up at the tube where Emi was happily watching videos of Kenji playing baseball, "we're all she's got. Instead of treating her like some assignment we need to get an A+ on, let's try to learn, she could teach us a lot."

Kenji's eyes drifted over to Emi as well, watching as she was trying to imitate his swing from the video playing in front of her.

"You know what would be a great idea" He said, turning to look over at Hana who seemed to be on the same page as him already.

(Part two is next)