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thepoetsarejust · 7 years

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if Aphrodite gives a shit (and We created you in pairs) - ch2

Rated: T

Chapter: 1/5

Relationships: Otabek/Yuri, mentions of Victor/Yuuri, Mila/Sara, Leo/Guang Hong

Summary:

When Yuri met Otabek, his timer had been showing him zeroes since he was ten. His Soulmate didn’t come and find him. Cursed, people call him. Fuck off, Yuri tells them.

Otabek still has years before he’s due to meet his Soulmate.

aka the soulmate timer au with a twist

ch1 | ao3

ch2: 2016, or: puberty strikes again, Yuri finds out about Otabek's secret hobby, injuries happen, and Yuri has to deal with the fact that things are ephemeral.

2016 opens up with an injury Yuri sustains at Russian nationals. From there on, lying on a thin hospital bed as figures in white poke and prod at his leg, Yuri knows 2016 is going to be a shit year.

He can't make it to European, and Lilia threatens to burn all of his leopard print jackets if he dares to do anything but lay on his bed like a kicked little dog. It's not ideal and Yuri is already stressing over the bills he would have to pay with money, money that he doesn't have right now because he is bedridden with a fucked-up knee.

His grandpa, with an earnest, determined look on his face, ensures him that he will pay for Yuri with his pension money. Yuri vehemently refuses. Half of the reason why he skates is because he wants to avoid using Grandpa’s pension money as long as he can. The other half is because he wants to spite whoever says boys aren’t supposed to be gentle and graceful.

After three weeks of absolute torture, Yuri is released from the hospital and finally given permit to use his legs instead of treating like it's made of the thinnest glass in the world. He is not allowed to be on the ice yet, so of course he immediately goes to search for his custom-made skates, only to find that Victor and Yuuri have confiscated them. Knowing reasoning with them will end in vain, Yuri considers renting a pair at a local ice rink, then remembers the Yuri's Angels that always lurk in St. Petersburg and in the end, decides it absolutely is not worth the trouble. Staying home is the most tolerable option he has right now, until Lilia lets him back at her studio.

He spends most of his time doing light stretches and exercise, helping his grandpa around the house, and complaining to Otabek through Skype. He's going insane with boredom and antsy with his lack of income. It infuriates him to no end, that the one thing he knows he is fucking stellar at is the one thing that he is forbidden to do. Otabek suggests that maybe it's time to get back on that school work he's been neglecting in favor of his skating career.

"Don't remind me about school," Yuri groans. "You are bad at giving advice."

"It's good advice," Otabek defends. "You just don't want to do it."

Their conversations cover a wide range of topics, from skating to bees to Mickey's latest attempt to thirdwheel Mila and Sara's date, things that Yuri usually doesn't care much about, but now he finds crucial, coming out of Otabek's mouth.

Otabek tells him stories about his new coach—he always seems to change coaches—who is, in ten various ways, better than his last, but also the current bane of his existence. She is relentless and strict, iron-fisted and incredibly disciplined, and requires Otabek to spend no less than six hours on the ice. Otabek feels like he's being destroyed after training’s over, but he also feels like he's finally living up to his potentials. Yuri is glad to hear it; a lot skaters truly have the potential to become worthy of his attention, unfortunately, they always seem to lack the resources or simply stuck with the wrong coach.

Otabek's new choreographer has him excited, though, as he has worked with Virtue and Moir in the past and helped them with Carmen. Yuri points out to him that it might mean he has to do ballet again, and the sheer horror on Otabek's face is so priceless, Yuri has no regrets at all screenshotting it. Otabek threatens to block his Skype if it emerges the next day as a meme.

With this new program, Otabek effortlessly dominates nationals and snags gold at Four Continents, defeating JJ by a wide margin. Otabek’s truly beginning to shape up to become Yuri’s equal—not that Yuri doesn’t consider him as a worthy opponent before. When last year he had been intense and powerful, this year he’s still those things, but also graceful and simply mesmerizing. Yuri’s instincts say he should start regarding Otabek as an enemy, but he couldn’t find anything but happiness for the way Otabek has improved. If anything, it motivates Yuri, though in a distinctly different way that Yuuri’s skating moves him.

Otabek goes MIA for the rest of the night (well, afternoon, in Taipei’s case), but pictures of Otabek in a club, out of all places, surge up on Instagram. It wouldn’t have been all that scandalous if Otabek’s not wearing one of those sleeveless t-shirts with arm-holes so wide, anyone can take a peek at his nipples, if Otabek lets them, exposing his awful biceps and an honest-to-good tattoo just above his elbows. Even more than that, Otabek is positively DJ-ing, like some weird hybrid of the world’s most earnest person and a complete fuckboy.

Phichit posts a shaky video of Otabek’s impromptu setlist. It’s surprisingly good, even if Yuri’s not the type to venture into rave songs, if they can be classified as songs at all. Yuri’s horrified that he doesn’t know of this secret talent of Otabek’s even after one year of friendship, or his damn tattoo, and even more so at how much fun Otabek looks like he’s having. He’s smiling freely, and Yuri feels an irrational burst of jealousy that something else can make Otabek smile like that other than him.

Otabek calls his Skype in the evening, the next day (morning, probably, for him) and apologizes for disappearing.

Yuri rolls his eyes. “It’s okay, Mr. DJ, it’s not that your hidden hobby and tattoo are a surprise for me,” Yuri says, “who, if anyone’s counting, have been your best friend for over a year!”

Otabek’s wince is almost audible. “It isn’t hidden,” he says. “I only remix stuff, usually at home. I would need a bit of, um, liquid courage to do it in front of people.” People that are not him, Yuri supposes. Ugh.

“How come I never knew, then?” Yuri crosses his arms on his chest.

“Because you never asked?” Otabek says.

Yuri scoffs. Well, fair enough. “And that tattoo?”

Otabek hesitates. He looks like he’s swallowing cotton as he says, “I got it two years ago—“

“TWO YEARS?” Yuri shrieks.

“—after my first medal at Four Continents, with my parents’ consent.”

Yuri cannot believe what he’s hearing. “Of course you had to ask for your parents’ permission,” he grumbles. Otabek Altin, human hybrid of a bad boy and grandpa’s dream son-in-law.

“I didn’t tell you because I don’t want to give you any ideas,” Otabek says after a while. “Getting a tattoo isn’t as cool as it sounded. My parents tried to talk me out of it. Now, I kind of regretted it.” Come to think of it, Otabek almost never wears anything but jackets or long-sleeved shirts outside of the rink. Even during public practice, Otabek is always bundled up in his Team Kazakhstan jacket. Yuri never wonders why, thinking it’s just his friend’s preferred fashion choices, but now he knows why: Otabek is ashamed of his tattoo.

Yuri considers his response. “It’s decent,” Yuri offers truthfully. Otabek’s tattoo is three black rings around his bicep, one slightly thinner than the two, positioned in the middle. “It’s not, like, mind-blowing or fantastic, it’s just okay. I’ve seen way more regretful tattoos.” Otabek looks strangely relieved at that. “Also, what do you mean by giving me any ideas? I’ve always wanted a tattoo, and it absolutely has nothing to do with you.”

“Let me guess,” Otabek says dryly, “A tattoo of a tiger?”

Yuri’s face flushes. “Obviously not,” he lies. Okay, so he maybe sees where Otabek is going.

“Sure,” Otabek says skeptically.

“Alright, don’t think you’re off the hook yet! You’re a DJ—what the hell, Otabek? I thought you only listen to classical music!” Yuri demands.

“I don’t only listen to classical music,” Otabek explains. “I like all kinds of music. I told you, I don’t really DJ seriously. My friend’s private parties, birthdays, weddings… It’s nothing serious.”

“But you look like you were having fun,” Yuri grumbles.

“That’s exactly the point,” Otabek laughs, then does a double take. “Are you pouting?”

Yuri splutters. “I don’t pout. People like Victor pout. Guang Hong pouts. I—I glower.”

Otabek doesn’t look convinced. In fact, he looks amused. Thankfully, he makes no further comments. “I’m sorry I never told you about my hidden talents,” he says finally.

Yuri doesn’t feel so inclined to forgive him that quickly. “Action speaks louder than words, Altin,” he states.

Otabek shakes his head. He still looks so damn amused. Yuri has no idea what the hell is so amusing, but figures asking Otabek about it will only make him more amused. “Alright! Would a mixtape please Your Highness?” Otabek asks mockingly. Yuri sticks his tongue at him. “No, no, don’t be mad! I’m serious. Your birthday’s coming up, right? I won’t mind giving you my music as a gift.”

Yuri relents. “Alright, but seriously, no more surprise hidden talents.”

Otabek smirks. “No promises.”

As Worlds rolls close, the frequency of their Skype calls starts to wind down. It doesn't bother Yuri at all. Nope. Not at all. Really, he has his own work to do—getting his body up to the level he was when he got injured, regaining his balance and flexibility, and try not to fall every jump like a baby tossed on the ice for the first time. It doesn’t help that he seems to gain an extra ten inches since his last season, and his gangly legs feel so foreign and unmanageable on ice.

It’s humiliating, seeing the pity present in Mila when he meets her eyes, the whispers junior skaters share between each other, but Yuri refuses to give in and ask Yakov to move him to a smaller, private rink in the facility. He grits his teeth and keeps on trying.

Now retired, married and living with a dog and Victor, also known the human version of a headache, Yuuri enrolls himself as a coach and immediately takes Yuri under his wing. Victor isn’t officially listed as a coach at the rink, but he remains Yakov’s favorite apprentice even after retiring, so he gets to do what he wants. Lilia is still his ballet instructor, but Yuri trains more often with Yuuri—or Coach Katsuki—these days.

It takes Yuri four days to realize that the confident skater Yuuri puts on is not a façade. Rather, he is a multi-faceted person with layer underneath layer, and Yuri can’t, for the love of Aphrodite, figure out how many layers are buried underneath him. Though their dynamic doesn’t shift all that much (meaning Yuri yells at Yuuri and Yuuri sighs self-indulgently), there are things Yuri does that he didn’t use to do before, like yelling back at Yuri whenever Yuri yells at him in increasingly inappropriate Russian cuss words. He thinks Yuuri is trying to balance out the fact that Yuri swears enough for ten people.

Yuuri’s style of coaching is similar with Yakov in the sense that he won’t let Yuri rest until he gets every single detail right. He is strict without being unkind, thorough without pushing Yuri past his limits, minding his injured knee respectfully.

He’s also probably committed to have Yuri six feet under ten years earlier. Yuri is red-faced and bone-deep tired after every session, a sensation that he hasn’t felt in a long time since he was thirteen. Every day is discovering new ways to tame his body only to have to do it all over again by the time the sun rises the next day. It’s a never-ending loop of falling apart and putting himself together, and in between nursing his bruises, cursing himself for being a late bloomer, and getting destroyed by Katsuki Yuuri, Yuri has absolutely zero time to check his phone every hour for any new texts from Otabek, or any news at all.

He definitely doesn’t cave in after three days of radio silence and googles Otabek’s name, just to see if there are any news of him being found dead on the ice. Definitely not. He is a professional figure skater with the training from hell hot on his trails. He has no time to be thinking of a certain other skater, even if said skater is his only best friend. So when it’s break time, Yuri definitely doesn’t pull out his phone to scroll through Otabek’s one and only post on Instagram, wishing that it would magically conjure up a dozen more posts.

Yuri sighs. Otabek’s status on Skype remains stubbornly offline. He balances his phone on his thigh, downing a large bottle of water as the screen of his phone screen goes dark. The rink in front of him is still occupied by Mila and Victor, going through the last parts of her short program. Yakov assigns Yuuri to him and Victor to Mila, probably /for good reasons because Yuri would have buried Victor alive within the first day.

Victor perks up visibly when he sees Yuuri skating past, and hurries to catch up to him. Yuuri smiles when he sees Victor, squeezing his gloved hand gently before skating off to the side. He unlaces his skates expertly and sets them next to the bench Yuri’s sitting on.

"You're a little bit distracted," Yuuri observes.

Yuri immediately pockets his phone, denial on the tips of his tongue, then—oh, yeah, okay, Yuuri has a point. Still, he grits his teeth and says, "No, I'm not."

"Is your knee bothering you?" Yuuri asks, looking at him sharply.

"No!" Yuri shakes his head vigorously. He is being truthful—well, this time. Yuri had tried to lie before, and Yuuri—no, Coach Katsuki—had gotten that scary-intimidating look on his face and told him exactly how early his career could end if he keeps lying.

Coach Katsuki—fuck it, he's still Katsudon in his eyes, what the hell—narrows his eyes. "Then there's no reason you for you sit on the bench looking sadly at your phone like someone just kicked your cat when your triple axel is barely passable."

Yuri couldn’t believe that those exact words had come out of Yuuri’s mouth at first. Meek, kind Yuuri saying anything borderline mean is unheard of. Yet here he is, gaping at austere-faced Yuuri, humorless and absolutely serious.

Yuri stands up, satisfied to see that he almost towers over Yuuri.

"SHUT UP, KATSUDON," Yuri yells. Katsudon should feel damn lucky that he's not currently holding anything, because he would have hurled it at his ugly face. He jabs the older man on his chest forcefully and yells, "I AM TRYING MY DAMN HARDEST, YOU ASSHOLE, IT'S NOT MY FAULT I HAD A SECOND GROWTH SPURT EVEN THOUGH I'M ALMOST SEVENTEEN AND MY LIMBS FEEL AS USEFUL AS NOODLES."

Yuri’s pretty sure he hears a camera phone go off. It’s probably Mila.

Katsudon doesn't budge even a millimeter. "Then what are you doing now, mooning over your phone like a pathetic loser?”

Yuri reels back like he's been punched, and launches himself on the ice angrily. If Victor were his coach, this wouldn’t have come as a surprise. But Yuri never expects to feel so… belittled under Yuuri Katsuki’s words, kind and good Yuuri Katsuki who, more or less, intrigued him to the point where he won a gold just to keep him from retiring. His blades feel like knife under his feet, and his rage bleeds onto the ice as he prepares himself for a jump—

He nails his triple axel for the first time since his injury.

He hears a resounding "yes!" coming from somewhere in his left, and whips his head around to see Katsudon skating towards him excitedly, hands spread wide like he's about to—oh, fuck. Here it comes. The big damn hug.

Yuuri wraps his arms around his shoulders and lifts him off his feet, because it doesn't matter than Yuri has easily three inches on him now, Yuuri remains a cuddle monster.

"I'm still pissed at you for calling me pathetic, you ass," Yuri says, cheeks squished against Yuuri's neck and arm.

Yuuri laughs openly, and releases him immediately. "Come on, let's go over it one more time.”

Grandpa's house is a one hour drive away from his rink in St. Petersburg. When Yuri decided to move to St. Petersburg from Moscow, Grandpa simultaneously sold his childhood manor to purchase a smaller, two-bedroom house in the rural part of St. Petersburg. It’s the hardest decision Yuri had ever let his grandpa made, and it’s the only thing that he would admit he’d cried over.

Victor usually drives him, with his over-the-top pink convertible (who the fuck has convertibles in Russia? Victor Nikiforov), bugging him to rap along to Nicki Minaj’s Monster. However, with the training now in full-swing, Victor has his hands full with Mila, and since Yuuri doesn't have a license, Yuri has no other choice but to take the train, which is not ideal when he's had a rough day at training.

Lilia suggests that Yuri stay in her empty apartment. It's five minutes away on foot, full-furnished, and usually stocked with vodka. And it has wifi, the greatest invention of humankind. Yuri is instantly in love, then considers if he can spare more money to pay for rent.

Lilia is straight up offended when Yuri brings up the matter of lease to her, and declares indignantly that she doesn't take money from little brats, which Yakov assures Yuri is her own way of saying she cares for Yuri like her own child. Yuri is grateful, but can't help wondering furiously why he always ends up being the one getting adopted.

These days, it's where Yuri spends the night.

Living alone gives him more privacy, not that his grandpa doesn't. He knows when to leave Yuri alone, when to let Yuri work through his problems on his own, little things that Yuri is eternally grateful for. Sometimes, though, it can be challenging to unwind when someone else is in the other room, watching late night shows. Yuri, for someone so outspoken, regards silence with a massive relief. The quiet is hard to come by, when he spends nearly seven hours a day on a busy ice rink.

It's a good perk, but on a night such as this, he wishes he was home, with grandpa cooking late dinner in the kitchen and making him hot chocolate.

Yuri knows how to cook. Grandpa is very adamant about teaching him, getting him to help him around since he was five, telling him that it's an important life skill. Yuri used to complain, as a child, that it's a girl's work, and Grandpa would shake his head and tell him to keep cutting the potatoes. It's one of those things that don't make sense to you as a kid, one of those things that, patiently, adults will tell children, "you'll understand when you get older."

Looking back, Yuri is glad for Grandpa's cooking lessons. Cooking is indeed a necessary life-skill, and Yuri learns the importance of it whenever he comes over to Yuuri and Victor's apartment (much to his disbelief) to see Victor annihilating the entire kitchen trying to replicate the Katsukis' authentic katsudon recipe.

On nights that he's not too tired, he cooks in the meticulous kitchen of Lilia's apartment. It's a good way of relaxing, the sizzle of meat on the pan and the sound of boiling broth almost therapeutic.

Still, as much as he loves it, cooking takes energy. After landing his first triple axel in months, Yuri is both mentally and physically worn out, and cannot bring himself to even boil water for instant ramen. It’s probably for his own good; Lilia will add an extra gym hour if she finds out he even considers ramen as a suitable dinner.

Yuri's face hits the pillow and he immediately drifts off to sleep, sweaty clothes and shoes still on. Absently, he knows that he will feel gross in the morning, but his tired muscles protest when he tries to get up, and in the end, the mighty ice tiger is simply human.

He jostles awake when he hears a creak at the door, self-preservation instincts kicking in. He runs to the door, ready to clock a robber in the face with his fists (for interrupting his sleep! The fuck!), and sags with relief when he sees Katsudon behind the door, wide-eyed and bewildered.

"Nobody taught you how to knock?" Yuri snaps. His voice is scratchy from the sleep he's been so rudely jerked out of.

Yuuri brandishes the key he used to open the door. "S-sorry! Lilia gave me the key, told me to check up on you," the Japanese stutters. Yuri is perplexed yet again by how puzzling Katsuki Yuuri is. How is this scared-y cat the same person who insulted him just hours before, at the rink?

Speaking of hours. Yuri glances at the huge, antique grandfather clock in the living room. It's ten pm, which means he's slept for about twenty minutes.

He hears the rustle of plastic, and looks back at his coach. "I, um, I brought dinner?" he says, holding the plastic bag in front of his face. The unmistakable smell of katsudon wafts through the air, and his stomach groans in appreciation. Yuri realizes that he's starving.

"Well, then what are you doing, standing there like an idiot?" Yuri says petulantly. "The kitchen's that way."

The katsudon tastes amazing, though even hard-boiled eggs would taste like a five-star meal at the state of hunger he's in. Yuri is not ashamed at how fast he devours it.

"If I didn't know that katsudon is the only thing you know how to cook, I would've thought you're a good cook," Yuri says in between bites. Lilia doesn’t keep chopsticks in her kitchen arsenal, so they’ve settled for spoons and forks.

Katsudon laughs. He actually covers his mouth when he laughs. He’s about the only person Yuri knows to do that. "That's what Victor thought. After three days, he realizes that it's my only specialty and decides to cook himself."

Yuri snorts. "How many kitchen utensils were burned?"

"About a dozen,” Katsudon snickers.

Yuri shakes his head, exasperated. It’s practically insulting how helpless Victor is in the kitchen. For someone who’s lived alone since the age of ten, Victor is unbelievably useless when it comes to household chores. Yuri won’t be surprised if he’s never eaten anything homemade until the katsudon at Yu-topia. "You should try spaghetti,” Yuri suggests. “It’s easy to cook. If you want the easy way, you can buy one of those ready-to-eat packages from the market, but honestly you'd be doing a great crime to the world of culinary everywhere."

"I'm allergic to tomatoes,” Yuuri says.

"Like, for real?" Yuri gapes. "You were rid of the most wonderful things in life."

"Not really," Yuuri says. "I had pizza with pineapples, so I've basically discovered heaven. Also, truffles beat everything."

Yuri scrunches up his nose. Fruits do not belong on pizza, and he tells Yuuri as much. "The hell? You like pineapples on pizza? What kind of monster are you?"

"The kind who still has his liver intact after a dozen flutes of champagne, apparently,” Yuuri jokes. He’s gotten less horrified at that fact and acted more amused at the mention of the Banquet since he started living with Victor.

Yuri makes a face at the memory. "Don't remind me of the Banquet."

Yuuri grins unabashedly. "Afraid to get your ass handed to you in a dance battle again?"

"Alright, watch your mouth,” Yuri points at the Japanese’s chest with his fork, “I can throw you out if I want."

After dinner, Yuuri orders him take a shower while he washes the dishes. When Yuri emerges, hair dripping water on his shoulder, a clean t-shirt and pajama bottoms on, Yuuri is lounging in the living room, watching TV with a bowl of ice cream.

"Not holding back now that you retired, huh?" Yuri says. He tries to ignore how bitter that word feels on his tongue—retired.

"Want some?" Yuuri asks. "I know you're not supposed to, but I'm your coach and I allow you, like, three spoons."

Yuri shakes his head. "I'd rather not have Lilia kill me.”

Yuuri shrugs. "Suit yourself."

With a moment's hesitation, he plops himself down next to Yuuri.

"Yurio," Yuuri suddenly says. "I didn't mean anything that I said earlier at the rink, okay? I know how hard you've worked. It wasn’t fair for me to say you have been slacking just because you haven’t succeeded in landing any jumps. Puberty is super troublesome, I know.”

With his baby-face? Yuri wouldn’t have thought.

“If you’re going to tell me you’re proud of me, I would actually barf all over this sofa,” Yuri threatens. Something in heart traitorously swells at the smile Yuri sends his way. Yuri crosses his arms in front of his chest, looking away. “Is that why you brought me katsudon?”

"Victor and I made it a tradition to eat katsudon whenever we both accomplished something," Yuuri explains. "You did well with your triple axel today, and I want to reward you."

"You know that I'm not actually your son, right?" Yuri grumbles. “Why am I always babied? There are junior skaters four years younger than me at the rink!”

Yuuri shovels the ice cream into his mouth, pinches his chin like he’s thinking hard. "You're more like a little brother to me."

"Oh, hell, I don't want to be related to you in any way,” Yuri promptly scoots away to the other end of a couch.

Yuuri chuckles. "Still, don't take it to heart, okay? You’d hate it if I tell you, but I was actually... testing a theory."

Yuri sits up straight. "You were... experimenting on me?"

Yuuri grimaces. "Alright, when you put it that way, it sounds way worse. I just—noticed that you become very motivated when you're angry about something. Like when you broke Victor's record in 2014, you were mad that your grandpa couldn't make it to the competition. In 2015, a personal best because you were pissed at Victor. Today, you nailed your triple axel because I called you pathetic."

"You know that it requires at least three incidents before you can conduct a scientific experiment, right? You know, one is an accident, two is a coincidence, three is a pattern,” Yuri says, reciting what his science teacher taught him.

Yuuri smirks. "Glad to see you paid attention at school, Yurio.”

Yuri smacks him across the head with a cushion. "Shut up, you pig."

Yuuri dodges him expertly, extending his arms to put the bowl of half-melted ice cream away from Yurio’s reach. "No! Don't do that! The ice cream!"

"Who cares about the ice cream!"

"I care!" Yuuri shrieks.

Yuri scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest, cheeks puffed out. Yuuri puts the cushion between them, like a barrier. As if that stops Yuri from kicking him. Carefully, Yuuri places the bowl of ice cream on his lap. Yuri glares at him, considering if knocking over his precious ice cream bowl would be worth the reaction he’d incite out of Yuuri when he has to clean it up himself in the end.

Before Yuri can make a decision, Yuuri speaks up again. "Yurio, have you ever thought of making love your motivation instead?"

Yuri makes a pained sound in the back of his head. Is the pig serious? "Dear Aphrodite, go home, pig."

Yuuri searches his eyes. "I'm serious. Anger is not reliable. It comes and goes.”

No, it doesn’t, Yuri wants to tell him, but Yuuri beats him to it. “What happens when you can’t find anger? It’s not ever-present, but love—love is reliable. It’s not ephemeral, you know. You can count on it.”

Yuri almost laughs at how ridiculous Yuuri sounds. "I skated to Agape last year, Yuuri, I think I know plenty when it comes to love."

"Yet anger is still what motivates you."

“By Aphrodite’s name—what the fuck do you want?” Yuri can’t help but shout. “So what if it’s my motivation? I still won gold, didn’t I? Why are you complaining?”

Yuuri doesn't understand, and there's no reason why he would. He grew up surrounded by love, parents who married because they're Soulmates, parents who fell in love, a sister and a ballet teacher who willingly flew out to foreign countries just to see their baby brother perform in a competition that's not even the most important event in a season. The entire population of Hasetsu loves him. Phichit adores him to death, and so do his millions of followers of Instagram, probably.

Victor met him when he was on his worst—a major defeat at the Grand Prix Final, drunk off his ass on sixteen flutes of champagne, half-naked, and slurring his words. Hell, Yuuri hadn't even realized that his timer had gone off. Yet Victor fell for him anyway, and tossed away his career so mindlessly after one video that wasn't supposed to go online, put everything on the line in the name of love.

It’s offensive that Yuuri would even suggest it. Yuuri doesn't understand that for Yuri, anger is easier to find, always in the back of his mind like a bad childhood memory, like the cold touch of his distant mother's lips on his forehead, so long forgotten, so long buried in the darkest parts of his brain. Anger was there when his father came home swinging his bottle at the wall, anger was there when his mother left him to face his father’s wrath to marry an old, rich guy, anger was there when he found his father unbreathing on the blood-soaked carpet, anger was there when his grandpa picked him up and took him in, and it took years until that anger dissipated in the warmth of Grandpa’s embrace.

It resurfaced when his timer went zero, clawing at his heart at the realization that he, out of eight billion people in the world, doesn’t have a Soulmate. Since then, anger stays under his skin like an itch he can never rub off. Anger overpowers happiness when he sees Victor and Yuuri, or Mila and Sara, or Phichit and Seung-gil, and he’s angry at Leo, for abandoning his own Soulmate for his own selfish desire. For his illicit affair with Guang Hong. He’s angry that he can never escape the topic of Soulmates even when he’s working—the ice is his occupation, it had been since his first competition—that Otabek looks at his timer so reverently, that Otabek isn’t fucking answer his texts.

Yuri doesn't seek out love because anger has always been easier to find, and Yuuri doesn’t get it.

Rather than a stab wound, the flash of wedding ring around Yuuri’s finger feels like a million little papercuts.

Yuri's done crying himself to sleep, praying to Aphrodite to forgive him, though he knows he never did anything wrong. So pity turns to resentment.

Yuuri backtracks. “That’s not what I meant, Yurio—“

"It's easy for you to say," Yuri cuts him off. His voice shakes with how much anger burns underneath. He'll blame it simply on puberty later, when he gets a chance to reflect on what he’s done and proceeds to die from the embarrassment of oversharing. "You have love all around you, everyone and their mother in Japan fucking loves you, you—you have no right to tell me I have to find love when this fucking timer told me I'll never find it. Your timer went off and you found Victor. My timer went off and I didn't find anyone. I don't have a Soulmate, Yuuri, how the fuck am I going to find love?"

Yuuri’s mouth hangs open. It’s obvious that he didn’t expect Yuri to have a meltdown like that. Fuck, now Yuri feels so inadequate. Yuuri sets down his bowl slowly, as if he’s afraid of making a sound. "Yurio,” he starts, and here come the apologies, Yuri thinks. “I’m so sorry—“

"Stop apolozing,” Yuri snaps.

“Sor—“ Yuuri catches himself. He hesitantly puts his hand on Yuri’s knee. Yuri jerks his hand off, and pulls his knees close to his chest, refusing to meet Yuuri’s eyes. He hears Yuuri sigh. "There's so much love around you, Yurio. Your grandpa, Yakov, Lilia, Mila—me and Victor, Otabek, we all love you. You're wrong if you think you're not surrounded by love."

Yuri doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to think about the shift in his chest when he thinks about Yuuri’s words. What does it matter, anyway, when none of them has a timer to match his? He winds his arms around his knees. “I can’t,” he puts his forehead on his knees, “I told you, anger is easier.”

"Then find a place, somewhere between rage and serenity,” Yuuri says resolutely.

Yuri laughs. “I don’t even know what serenity is.”

Yuuri has nothing to reply to that, so he continues eating his ice cream in silence.

Despite making great progress, he doesn't make it to Worlds. That means Yuri will have no choice but to wait for the next season to make a comeback. Again, it’s not ideal, and as much as he wants to disobey his coach, he knows he can’t go to the ice with the state that he’s in. He’ll be humiliating the entirety of Russia, and possibly the sport of figure skating. It pains him to admit, but his body is transforming in ways that he can’t yet control, and he needs more time to relearn it.

Yuuri texts him livestreaming links and about a dozen emojis. Yuri purposefully ignores it before he realizes he has to watch Otabek perform. Yuri expects him to win an easy gold; his only real threat is JJ, and it's not even his skill, but his tendency to rob Otabek blind. Besides, Otabek beats JJ by a wide margin at Four Continents, bringing home gold for his country. JJ goes home shamefully with a silver and his tail beteeen his legs. Meanwhile, Phichit, finishing third, throws a party and posts about a dozen pictures of Seung-gil wearing his gold medal like the lovesick fool he is. It's truly a study in perspective. He also keeps posting pictures of hamster hats with cryptic captions, which Yuri supposes is his own way of hinting people at his ice show project, Phichit on Ice.

Yuri is positive a repeat of Four Continents will happen again at Worlds. If not the exact same order of the podium, then Otabek winning gold, because he has to.

Otabek hasn’t contacted him in almost three weeks now. Their last conversation is of Otabek telling Yuri he’s so damn tired, he will completely and utterly die in a minute, and then nothing. The only indication that Otabek isn’t actually dead, just being overdramatic as per usual, is the double checklist sign near his speech bubble that confirms that Otabek has read his text, just hasn’t answered. Yet. It bothers Yuri more than it should, so Yuri keeps sending him stupid posts on Instagram and Snapchats his misadventures training under Katsuki, even when Otabek never opens them.

Because he can't be here physically to yell davai at Otabek, he sends Otabek a Snapchat video of him yelling, "Davai!" at the top of his lungs. The red arrow almost instantly turns white; a sign that Otabek has received and seen Yuri's message. Yuri sits up straight, excited beyond belief to finally hear from Otabek.

Otabek sends him a thumbs-up emoji in reply.

Otabek still wears his ugly short program costume. Yuri tweets, someone needs to burn that faux pirate costume, not caring if it pisses Otabek off because the asshole deserves it for the unannounced radio silence. Through the entire program, Yuri texts him his thoughts and comments on the program, and doesn't even feel a little bit embarrassed at the twenty-something messages he's spammed Otabek's phone with. Otabek finishes at third after the short program, after—Yuri hisses in disgust—JJ and Chris, followed by Phichit and Seung-gil.

Otabek replies his texts— fucking finally—when Yuri's about to fall asleep.

Sorry, just had a chance to reply.

Don't you ever worry about your phone bills?

Yuri scoffs. Bitch, I made my own money

Yuri sees three dots on his screen, a sign that Otabek is typing out a reply, then they’re gone. Yuri huffs. Otabek is so busy these days. Yuri is mad, but he also knows his anger is irrational. Otabek is at the peak of his career, winning medals left and right. He must be swamped with meetings with potential sponsors, on top of his usual deadly schedule of practice and interviews and photoshoots and party appearances. It’s understandable that Otabek is too busy to check his phone, and with the added timezone, Yuri should, out of everyone, understand how difficult it must be for Otabek to manage his time.

Yuri sighs. He’s getting tired, and he has practice tomorrow. Maybe the only way to bridge their distance is to keep himself on the same level of busyness as Otabek. That way, he won’t be obsessively looking at his phone every hour for a reply.

Good luck on your free skate tomorrow, he types, and falls asleep.

He feels strange when he wakes up. It’s an unpleasant sensation under his skin, like something is crawling up his bloodstreams. He accidentally drops his bowl when getting cereal and barely misses getting punctured by the shards. He exchanges his bowl for a plastic one and eats out in the balcony, thinking that maybe he just needs some fresh air. Crows fly up above, a rare sight, and he angles his phone to take a picture, only to find it out of battery. Oh well.

That aura of strangeness keeps following him, even when he arrives at the rink. People stare. He inspects his face in the locker room—maybe he’s grown another two monster pimples—and finds nothing out of the ordinary, except for the length of his hair. But people couldn’t be talking about his hair; Victor had his down past his butt. His hair shouldn’t be weird.

He figures he’s just exhausted. He did, after all, stay up to livestream Worlds yesterday. Otabek must be starting his free skate by now. Mila always records the livestreams; he’ll bug her for the link later.

There's a stricken look on Mila's face when Yuri skates to Katsudon, already waiting on the ice with an expression that mirrors hers. Yuri frowns. Maybe people truly hate his hair.

"Yurio..." she says.

"What is it?" Yuri demands. The strange feeling is gone, but now it’s replaced by terror, seeping into his bones like poison. Mila wordlessly shows him an article on her phone.

"I'm so sorry," Mila says.

Yuri can pinpoint exactly when his world crumbles.

Mila pulls him into her arms before his legs give out. For a brief moment, the world narrows down to the ringing in his ears. There's nobody at the rink, there's no medal to be won, there's no competition. He closes his eyes and hears the rumble of a motorcycle, laughter that doesn't come easy, a song that sends him to sleep.

Then the ringing stops.

Suddenly, everything becomes too much. Voices become too loud. Everything around him is blinding. Mila still has her arms around him, whispering lies into his hair, whispering empty promises.

Yuri wants to scream, wants to chuck Mila's blasted phone at the nearest wall, wants to go to Boston and wreck every single incompetent referee and medic—

He pushes his face into the crook of Mila's neck and wails.

OTABEK ALTIN SUFFERS A MIGHTY DEFEAT AFTER A TERRIFYING CRASH

11.23 AM | Olivia Wu

This year’s Four Continents champion Otabek Altin and silver medalist Jean-Jacques Leroy were expected to battle in this year's World Championship, but the two collided hard during warm-ups (3/29), leaving both with visible injuries.

Altin was skating backwards at full-speed when he collided with Leroy, leaving both lying on the ice for several minutes. Leroy was able to get himself off ice to seek immediate medical attention, but Altin was knocked unconscious.

Despite the injuries, both refrained from withdrawing. Altin finished last after failing to land three out of the four quads he landed, and Leroy came in seventh. Altin was limping to the Kiss and Cry before he fell unconscious again. Christophe Giacometti, launched from his previous third rank after the free program to first, became the World Champion.

He dropped the following statement at his press conference: “My victory today is only because my dear two friends were badly injured; had it not been the case, the competition would’ve been so much different.” Silver medalist Phichit Chulanont also echoed his statement on an Instagram post.

America’s Leo de la Iglesia, a known close friend of Altin, had also taken to social media to give a statement regarding the accident. He tweeted, ‘Please respect both JJ and Otabek’s privacy. They need our support and prayers more than ever.’

Isabella Yang, Leroy’s fiancé and Soulmate, was notably silent on all platforms of social media.

Altin and Leroy are currently being kept overnight in a local hospital in Boston, it has been reported.

Yuri’s always wanted to visit America. He grows up watching Hollywood movies, like many children with a cable TV, and has always thought of America as the land of dreams. He’s been there when he’s assigned to Skate America in his junior skating career, but being there as a tourist feels infinitely different than being there as a competing athlete. He wants to go there on his own, one day, visit friends that he makes in figure skating, go sight-seeing.

He's doing all that now, just not in the circumstances that he never thought he would be in.

Last-minute ticket purchases are expensive, but Yuri barely even looked at the numbers. He packs his clothes in a daze, that strange cloud of knowing things aren’t a-okay, and unable to do something about it. Victor drives Yuri to the airport for the longest ride of his life. For the first time, Victor doesn’t play music, doesn’t try to initiate a conversation. Katsudon rides shotgun, Mila squeezed with him in the backseat, and no one makes a sound.

Mila sends him off to the boarding room with a hug. Her red hair is shoved haphazardly under a baseball cap, so as to not be recognizable. “Yakov will understand,” Mila says.

“I don’t care about Yakov,” Yuri says.

Mila smiles at him sadly. “Text me when you’ve landed.”

Twelve hours later, he’s in cab in Almaty, watching trees and buildings and people blur past him as the drive takes him to where Otabek is.

Yuri hates hospitals. The smell of death envelops the smell of antiseptic. The pristine white walls and the pristine white floor hurt his eyes. Nurses smile way too wide and doctors scurry past without a care in the world. He can’t stop seeing blood-red against the white shirt that his father was wearing when he found him dead in the kitchen, and he squashes down the image of Otabek’s white free program costume tainted with blood.

God. He should’ve asked someone to come. Hell, even Victor’s overly joyful presence would help him a lot right now.

He doesn’t know where Otabek’s room is. He wants to ask the receptionist, but his English is heavily accented and terrible, and he hates people. God, why are Americans so loud? He hates this. He hates JJ, for crashing into Otabek, his best friend for being a fucking idiot who doesn’t know how to stop even if Yuri spells it out, he hates distance for separating them, he hates his fucked-up knee and his missing out of Worlds.

Maybe if he were there he could—

He almost topples over when someone bumps into him. That someone immediately apologizes. Yuri looks up, miffed, to find an Asian-Canadian woman staring back at him. Isabella Yang, hair a mess and dress rumpled, looking like she hasn’t slept in a year.

“Yuri,” she says.

Rage suddenly conquers him. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Excuse me?” Isabelle says indignantly.

“Aren’t you supposed to be celebrating with your dumb husband?” Yuri snarls.

“Excuse me?” Isabella huffs. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“Your precious JJ succeeded in taking out his biggest competition of the season. Made him lose big time, too,” Yuri says. “Tell him congratulations on a plan well executed.”

Isabella’s eyes well up with angry tears. “You think JJ did this on purpose?”

“He crashed into Otabek. Anyone with eyes can see it. It’s recorded and broadcasted everywhere,” Yuri spits out. “So, yeah, tell him, in the process of killing Otabek’s career, he also has killed his!”

Isabella takes one step forward and slaps him across the face.

“What the fuck—“ Yuri splutters.

“How dare you!” Isabella yells. By now, people have started to gather around them, whispering warily. Nurses hurry over to where they are, but Isabella doesn’t seem to care that they’re making a scene. “If you had eyes, or even an ounce of conscience, you would know that JJ was badly hurt, too. I felt it,” Isabella clutches her chest, “Right down in here.”

“Who cares about what you felt—“

“I care!” Isabella barks, her fists balled at her sides. Tears well up in her eyes. “Do you know what happens when your Soulmate dies, and you’re not there?” It’s probably meant to be a rhetoric, but Isabella tilts her head, mouth turning into an ugly, angry curve. “Right, you wouldn’t know. You wouldn’t know because you don’t have a Soulmate. You’re heartless—that’s why you’re so angry, there’s no room in your heart for love. You don’t know love, and you never will, you son of a—“

“Isabella,” comes a voice that Yuri hates so much.

Isabella’s head whips around. JJ, in a wheelchair, is just a few feet away behind her, and she bridges that gap in three wide strides that transition into running at the end, hugging him close. She cries into his shoulders, sobs wrecking her lithe frame. JJ rubs her hair and kisses her just behind her ear. He has a bandage wrapped around his forehead.

“Yuri,” JJ says once Isabella’s released him. There’s no way he hadn’t overheard his fight with Isabella. Yuri braces himself for another barrage of insults, of how he is a monster incapable of love, but JJ only nods politely at him. “Otabek is in room 317.”

Otabek is, blessedly, awake.

“Yuri,” he says, like he couldn’t quite believe it. “Hi—how—when did you—“

"You were limping to the Kiss and Cry," Yuri says, "and then you passed out."

"I finished last," Otabek says, like it fucking matters when Yuri saw the blood dripping from his chin and onto the ice, a stark shocking red against the translucent-white ice.

"I don't care that you finished last!" Yuri yells. He doesn't notice Otabek flinching from the volume. He grabs Otabek's shoulders and squeezes tightly. He hopes it can convey everything he's feeling right now: relief that Otabek is alive and will recover in no time, anger at fucking JJ, fear of Otabek not making it, leaving him like his parents did, worry, love. "When I heard you got injured, I..."

"I'm okay," Otabek reassures him.

Yuri stares at the cut on his chin and the gauze around his head and laughs mirthlessly. "Fucking say that to the five stitches on your skin," he grumbles.

"Yuri."

"That asshole JJ robbed you twice. First when he robbed you of your bronze in Barcelona, and now—this!"

"Yuri."

"He fucking planned it, I knew it. He couldn't let his loser self suffer alone, so he has to drag you down with him. That fuck—"

"Yuri!"

Otabek raising his voice is as rare as a spotted unicorn. Yuri immediately shuts up. He looks up to see Otabek staring at him with that unreadable look again. So it's not enough that Otabek has to be a cryptic ass, Yuri has to suffer from trying to interpret what his damn look means.

“Can you,” Otabek coughs. “In the bag on the sofa, there’s a gift for you.”

It’s so unexpected, that it takes a few minutes for the words to sink it. Obediently, Yuri rummages through Otabek’s bag. “It’s a small red box,” Otabek describes, and Yuri finds it easily. Among the black hoodies and black everything, the red box stands our starkly like a pimple. Yuri brings it over to Otabek’s bed. “Open it,” the older boy encourages.

Yuri opens the box to find a new pair of earphones and a mixtape CD inside. “Oh,” he says, remembering his request back in February. “The mixtape… I even forgot about it.” He always forgets his birthday. It’s not a big thing in his household, so he grows up never really celebrating it. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry I missed your birthday,” Otabek says.

Yuri can’t help the warmth in his eyes. He comes here to visit an injured Otabek, yet he’s the one with his dam breaking. “’S okay,” he mumbles. “I love it already.”

“Yeah? What if I told you I put nothing but Careless Whisper in it?”

“Otabek, no.”

“And Never Gonna Give You Up?”

Yuri smothers him—gently, very gently—with a throw pillow. “You wouldn’t dare.”

"I'm tired," Otabek mumbles, falling back to the pillow as if conversing with Yuri takes up all of his energy. "Stay?"

Yuri shakes his head. "You don't need to ask, idiot," he says. He takes Otabek's hand before he loses his guts. Otabek smiles, and fits his fingers in between Yuri's.

"Go to sleep," Yuri says, softly this time.

Otabek must've wanted to reply, but the painkillers took over and his eyes flutter shut.

It's way well into the night when Yuri realizes Otabek hasn't let go of his hand.

Otabek’s family barges into his room the next morning in a flurry of winter coats and rapid-fire Russian, peppering kisses on his cheeks and showing him how worried they are. Yuri stands awkwardly at the door, clutching a vending machine issued coffee, uncertain if he should introduce himself or slowly remove himself from the premises. Otabek’s face is flushed, despite his darker complexion, clearly enjoying the attention, but embarrassed all the same.

“We came as fast as we could,” the oldest woman in the room, presumably Otabek’s mother, says. “But I had an operation yesterday and you know I couldn’t leave it.”

“It’s okay, Mom, I’m fine,” Otabek says.

A woman of otherworldly beauty—who is Yuri kidding, they are all of otherworldly beauty—smacks him lightly on the shoulder. “Oh, like hell you are! You fainted at the Kiss and Cry! And now you’re hospitalized! You need to up your standards for ‘fine,’ little brother, or the next day you pull this kind of shit again, I’m going to have to kick your ass.”

“Sabina, language,” the other woman in the room says. She has a headscarf on.

“Shut up, Katya,” Sabina says.

“Let’s not fight in front of your very sick, very injured brother, okay?” the man who could only be Otabek’s father interrupts. “How are you feeling? You know what, we should move you to a hospital in Almaty. Yeruslan will take better care of you than this sleazy American hospital. Let me get in a word with your doctor—“

“Mom and dad,” Otabek interjects, “and my beloved sisters,” this one’s clearly sarcastic, “I promise you, I feel better.”

Otabek’s mother takes his hand in hers, and pulls it to his chest. Her sleeves slide down in the process, revealing an old-fashioned timer wrapped around her wrist, showing nothing but zeroes, much like Yuri’s. They all wear their timers on their wrist, the traditional way, Yuri notes. “You never gave us a break, Otabek.”

“Oh,” Sabina’s eyes catch Yuri’s. “Otabek, how rude of you to not introduce your friend!”

Yuri’s torso becomes rigid. Suddenly, four pairs of beautiful dark eyes are trained on him, and Yuri finds himself gulping nervously under the scrutiny. Is this how being intimidated feels like? Yuri does not like it one bit. “Um,” he says. “Hi.”

“Yuri, Mom, Dad, Sabina—“

“Hi!” Sabina waves excitedly.

“—and Katya,” Otabek makes a face at Sabina. “Everyone, this is Yuri. He holds the current short program record.”

Sabina nods in understanding. “Oooh, that Yuri—“ Otabek shots up so fast, Yuri’s scared he might get a whiplash, and clamps a hand over her mouth.

“Never mind what she said,” Otabek says in horror to Yuri.

“Sure,” Yuri says, not truly comprehending what’s happening. He is, statistically, terrible with parents. He has no idea how to respond to their kindness, like the Katsukis had been. His coffee is starting to burn his palm, so he switches it to the other hand.

Otabek’s mother smiles at him. Otabek looks, for the most part, like her. His darker complexion, his nose, his almond-shaped eyes that always seem to be searching for an answer. His nose is his father’s, as well his scowling mouth. “Hello,” she greets politely. “Were you also competing?”

“Um, no,” he shakes his head.

“Oh?” Mrs. Altin’s eyebrows raise.

“No, I was in St. Petersburg. Training. I had to sit out this season because of an injury,” Yuri explains.

“Wow, that’s true friendship right there,” Sabina remarks.

“I, um,” Yuri stutters.

“Thank you for keeping him company,” Mr. Altin says. His straight face mirrors Otabek’s default expression.

“It’s nothing, really,” Yuri says.

“Assuming you flew immediately after you heard the news, you must’ve purchased the tickets only a handful hours prior to boarding. It must’ve cost a fortune,” Katya analyzes. Between Sabina and her, she looks more like Otabek. Sabina has lighter skin, matching Mr. Altin, and always seems to be smiling. Katya is the exact opposite. “Seeing as even Tatyana couldn’t manage.”

Otabek’s face darkens at the mention of the name. “Let’s not talk about Tatyana,” he says. “Listen, I’m super hungry and I hate hospital food. Do you mind going out to buy me McDonald’s?”

“You’re an athlete; you don’t eat garbage,” Sabina says.

Otabek looks at her pointedly.

“Oh!” Sabina seems to get his meaning. She immediately ushers the rest of the family out. “Shoo, out we go! I haven’t been in Boston in a long time, I really wanted to go sightseeing!”

“There is, statistically, nothing to see here in Boston that we don’t see in Almaty,” Katya points out as Sabina shoves her out of the room. “And it is very unbecoming of you to shove your parents like this.”

“Later, Otabek!” Sabina yells out, and closes the door behind her.

Otabek sighs. “So sorry about them,” he says. “I didn’t know they’re coming.”

“They’re your family, of course they’d come,” Yuri says. It’s only then that he realizes he hasn’t touched his coffee. Now cold, he downs them in one go. He almost chokes at how terrible it is. Cardboard would’ve gone way smoother. He wants to ask about Tatyana. Remembering the way Otabek reacts (badly), Yuri decides to file it for later.

After that, there’s really not much for Yuri to do. Otabek is released two days later to be transferred to a local hospital in Almaty (that Mr. Altin claims is much better than any health institution in America). Mrs. Altin insists to buy his plane ticket, no matter how vigilant Yuri declines, and on Monday, Yuri boards a plane back to St. Petersburg.

But not before he makes Otabek promise not to disappear online again. “I’ll send you my schedule, I promise,” Otabek says, “So we can arrange our Skype calls around the time we’re both free.”

“We have to be on the same level of busyness,” Yuri says. “But that doesn’t mean I forbid you from being busy! Like, if I have ten things to do today, and you only have four, you better find six more things so you don’t pine over the phone.”

“Me? Pining?” Otabek smirks. “Shouldn’t that be you?”

Distance is hell on friendship, but Yuri is positive they’ll manage.

In September, Victor barges into practice one day and drapes himself over Yuuri excitedly. “Yuuri!” Victor sing-songs, his mouth doing that stupid heart-shaped thing that makes Yuri want to kill him even more than usual, “I know who we should be for Halloween!”

“WE’RE PRACTICING, VICTOR,” Yuri yells. “AND IT’S SEPTEMBER!” Victor should be aware that the only reason why Yuri isn’t kicking him is because he’s wearing his skates. If that weren’t the case, Yuri would have kicked him a thousand times.

“Victor,” Yuuri says, deadpan, “I’m coaching Yurio.”

“Please, please, just take a look at this?” Victor pulls on the puppy-dog eyes, and Yuri could’ve sworn they actually sparkle. What the fuck.

Yuuri sighs, looking fondly up at his husband. He turns to Yuri. “Yurio, why don’t you work on that step sequence while I,” he glances at Victor’s shit-eating grin, “take care of this?”

Yuri stares at his coach in disbelief. “You’re abandoning me for a quickie?”

Yuuri splutters. “N-no! Totally! Absolutely not!” he denies, arms flailing vehemently. “Besides, you do need to improve your step sequence anyway!” He looks back and forth between his student and his husband, and gets a suggestive wink (Victor) and a mock-vomit (Yuri) in return. Yuuri slaps his hand over his forehead. “Seriously, Yurio, just improve your step sequence. And we haven’t even started working on your EX skate!”

Yuuri pushes Victor out of the rink. To Yuri’s absolute relief, they don’t stumble into the locker rooms. Though, rest assured, any flat surface should be good enough for them. God, they’re not even newlyweds anymore. How the hell are they eternally on the honeymoon phase?

Mila skates over to him. “Abandoned by your coach?”

“Always,” Yuri grumbles. “Why is Yakov trusting us with them? At this point we’re going to lose. Miserably.”

Mila shakes her head. “It’s like they never got over the Soulmate high.”

“Soulmate high?” Yuri inquires.

“Yeah, like when you meet your Soulmate and your endorphin levels shoot up to the sky and you feel so inhumanly jolly,” Mila explains. “With normal cases it usually stays for two months, tops.” Ah, another sensation in life that Yuri is never going to experience.

“Evidently, they are an abnormal case,” Yuri states. “Fuckin’ Halloween costumes.”

“It’s probably a code,” Mila agrees solemnly. “Speaking off Halloween! Isn’t Otabek’s a spooky baby?”

“That sounds so ridiculous, I’m changing his contact name to Spooky Baby,” Yuri declares. Otabek will despise it with the entirety of his being. From one of their scheduled Skype sessions, Yuri gathers that Otabek hates being reminded that his birthday is on Halloween. Sabina always finds excuses to turn his birthday parties to Halloween costume parties, and by the time she breaks out the booze, people would’ve forgotten what exactly they’re celebrating. It’s a valid reason, but the mental image of Otabek brooding in the corner in an over-the-top hero costume on his own birthday party is so amusing, Yuri can’t help but tease him about it.

“Did you think of a gift yet?” Mila asks, skating ahead of him.

Yuri easily catches up with her. “I got him a new helmet,” he says.

“But?” Mila prompts.

“I don’t know,” Yuri shrugs. “It just doesn’t seem thoughtful? I know he won’t hate it, but I just feel like it’s a gift that someone who only knew him for five seconds could give to him. I’ve known him longer than that.”

Mila pinches her chin. “What about new headphones? He DJs, doesn’t he?”

Yuri sighs. “Leo beat me to it, the asshole.”

“I’m sure he will like whatever you end up giving him,” Mila assures. “I hate cooking, but Sara took me to her grandma’s house in Rome to spend the whole day cooking for my birthday, and it’s the best experience I’ve ever had to date. It beats even the World championship gold!” she sighs contentedly at the memory. “What I’m saying is, it’s the thought that counts, you know? Sometimes the best gifts aren’t materialistic. Sometimes it’s simply a feeling. A special thing that only you two share. Like that time Sara and I went to Sicily and—“

“Dear Aphrodite, Victor is rubbing off on you,” Yuri shudders.

“What can I say!” Mila squeals. “I love Sara!”

Yuri skates far away from her to avoid hearing any heartsick lovestories. Everyone he knows is fucking in love, and he grows more repulsed by it every day that passes. And he thought Georgi was bad. Thank fuck Anya was just a false alarm and he found his actual Soulmate.

Although, what Mila says gets him thinking…

Sometimes it’s simply a feeling. Well, Yuri is fucking happy when he’s with Otabek. That much he knows. What makes Otabek happy?

Skating makes Otabek happy. Nailing all four of the quads he squeezes in his free program for this year’s season, the crazy bastard. Talking about making Kazakhstan proud, calling Yuri at four in the morning just to tell him he landed a quad axel, I fell down on the ice but I did it, I did the impossible, in a breathless voice, like he ran straight to the phone from the rink, so happy that Yuri can practically hear his smile. It seems that their whole dynamic is based on the fact that they both, more than anything, love skating. Yuri remembers what Otabek told him—you have the unforgettable eyes of a soldier—and wonders if Otabek would’ve noticed him at all if he didn’t start skating, didn’t start doing ballet as a result. Would Otabek still be his friend?

Yeah, no. Skating is the basic principle of their friendship. Without skating, Otabek wouldn’t have traveled to Russia. Wouldn’t have seen him at Yakov’s summer camp, wouldn’t have felt inspired to move to other rinks in different continents, different parts of the world, to finally meet him in Barcelona.

Oh.

Suddenly, it clicks.

Yuri skates to the side, haphazardly putting on his blade guards to run to his bag. He finds his iPod, the playlist that Otabek mixed for him downloaded into the card, and plugs his earphones into the jack. There’s one particular song that’s his favorite.

When Yuuri finds him, he tells his coach, “I know what to do for my EX skate.”

October rolls around, and with it, the assignments for the Grand Prix series are announced. Yuri shares Skate America with Otabek, and his other assignment is the Rostelecom Cup, and Otabek’s Trophee de France. Skate America is the first event of the series, lasting from the 29th to 31st, and Yuri, for all that he pretends to be nonchalant, is nervous about his comeback. Russian child prodigies tend to burn out once they have reached puberty. It’s something that Yuri sees in his former fellow junior skaters, and he knows the press is riding on that theory, backing him to a corner, fueled by last season’s injury.

He browses the internet to distract himself, but it backfires when he finds tweets doubting his skills as a competitor. He writes a long angry rant only to delete it, feeling self-conscious and pissed off. He wants to see Otabek, but he won’t be arriving until tomorrow evening because his flight gets delayed. He doesn’t see Otabek until the public practice, looking ragged and incredibly jet-lagged, and decides that perhaps what Otabek needs the most is peace.

Just before his short program, Yuuri pulls him aside and hugs him. Yuri struggles in his embrace, but the Japanese is resilient. “I know you have a lot of things on your mind right now,” he starts, “which is why I want you to channel all of that nervous energy to your skating. Okay?”

“Okay,” Yuri mumbles, head buried in Yuuri’s chest. The latter is wearing a Team Russia jacket that fits just a little bit loose on him.

Yuri’s greeted with a roaring crowd when he steps into the ice. Otabek yells davai at the top of his lungs, hugging the bear plushie he always seems to get from fans. He doesn’t look as exhausted as he had been, though his eyes are still ringed with dark circles, but his smile is blinding, as if he’s over the moon at Yuri’s sole presence on the ice.

He gives Otabek a thumbs-up.

“Ladies and gentleman, representing Russia, Yuri Plisetsky!”

Yuri glides onto the ice, hands above him, catching the roars of the crowd. His heart is pounding agaist his ribcage, but the bone-chilling sensation is familiar. He closes his eyes and strikes his starting pose.

The music starts.

His theme this season is The Phoenix. His short program costume is black with a touch of sparkling blue on his sleeves, and the story that he’s telling is of death. His long hair is pulled back into a sleek high ponytail, and just a little dust of powder on his cheekbones, making him look ghostly. Yuuri is the one who pushes to renew his image. With his gangly legs and newfound muscles, he no longer fits the role of the Russian fairy. Yuri wants to be the soldier Otabek believes him to be.

He searches for anger, the one and only motivation he can count on. He recalls why he began skating—no, why he began skating professionally, as an athlete with ties to several big companies in Russia. He skates to support his family—no, not his mother, not his dead father—to support Grandpa, who never showed him nothing but compassion, love, and kindness. He skates to support himself, to spite the kids at school who called him names because he grows his hair—who jeers at him, calls him fairy for all the wrong reasons, who mocks him. Yuri won his first junior championship because he wanted to shut them up with a gold medal.

Otabek is the only person who sees him and doesn’t think of a fairy. He calls him a soldier. Yuri remembers how scared he had been when he learned of Otabek’s injury, how angry he had been at JJ, at Otabek for not being careful enough. He remembers the weight of Otabek’s hand in his as he listens to whirring of the air conditioner in a hospital in Boston, miles away from Almaty, from St. Petersburg, and hopes his skating would be enough for Otabek.

His mind goes blank in the middle of it, as it usually does when he truly lives the music, his mind struggling to catch up with his body, realizing he’s done a quad salchow before his mind registers it. He feels strangely… serene, like the edge of the sand that never kisses the waves, though it always comes close.

Oh. That’s it.

The place between rage and serenity, he’s found it.

The crowd roars as he strikes his final pose. Flowers rain down on him like snow, tiny children in tiny skates rushing to pick it up. “Oh, splendid! Truly splendid! It’s intense, it’s theatrical, it’s entirely, and wholly, Yuri Plisetsky! The dance of death, the resurgence of Russia’s new legend and prodigy, Yuri Plisetsky!” the commentators are saying, but Yuri barely pays attention to them. He half-skates, half-runs to Yuuri, waiting with open arms.

“I’m so,” Yuuri shakes his head. “So, so proud of you.”

“Wait until I break your record,” he says.

Yuri notices a pair of brown eyes watching him, and immediately hug-attacks him. “Asshole!” he laughs. “I haven’t seen you in so long, I missed you so much.”

“I do too,” Otabek says. “Yura, you were amazing.”

“You try and beat me now,” Yuri says. He releases the older boy. “Listen, Otabek—“

“Yurio!” Yuuri calls. “Kiss and Cry, now!”

Yuri grimaces. “Shit, gotta go. You’re skating after this, right?” At Otabek’s nod, Yuri gives him another hug. “Davai.” Then he all but runs to the Kiss and Cry, where Yuuri is already waiting, looking expectantly up at the scoring board. He gets 103.8; it’s not high enough to break any records, but it separates him and Chris, who held the first position prior to him, by three solid points. Yuuri hugs him again—wow, he hugs a lot of people today—and really, it’s like Yuuri is prouder at the score than Yuri himself.

It isn’t until he’s sat down to watch Otabek that he realizes Otabek called him Yura.

Otabek wins silver, losing by five points to Yuri’s gold, and looks up at him proudly at the podium. Yuri is taller than him now, and taller still when he’s one step elevated at the podium. He’s wearing his free skate costume, in contrast to the austere theme of his short program, fiery red and gold, the phoenix rising from the ashes, alive again. His free skate is enthralling; that, at least, never changes since the first time he met Yuri. He remains a delight to watch, all elegance and sharp lines. He’s going to goad the champion to pay for him when they go out for Korean BBQ after the banquet; it’s his right, as the birthday boy, and Yuri’s responsibility as a winner.

His EX gala is Ambush from Ten Sides, depicting the perseverance of Kazakh warriors in times of war, and he’s dressed in a long-sleeved velvet blue jacket with gold lining stitched on the back. He loves EX galas as it gives him the freedom to improvise, to enjoy skating as a performance art that he’s fallen in love with as a child without the pressure of the competition.

He passes Yuri on the side, sporting a casual look with black trousers and sky-blue button-up shirt, looking younger than a seventeen years old. “Looking good,” Otabek greets. “We haven’t had a moment to catch up.”

“Still on for that BBQ, right?” Yuri asks.

“Of course,” Otabek says, embarrassed at how quickly he responds.

“Good, I hope you’re hungry because Yuuri is paying,” he says, taking off his blade guards. He claps Otabek on one shoulder. “Also, I hope you enjoy my EX gala.”

Otabek is going to tell him that he would like what Yuri puts out anyway, but Yuri is already gliding on the ice, the lights dimmed.

“Presenting, gold medalist, representing Russia, Yuri Plisetsky!”

The ice bathed in magenta. Yuri trains his hopeful eyes to the domed ceiling, and the music starts.

Otabek freezes.

The happy, poppy beats are a contrast to Otabek’s intense gala music. Yuri starts out with little laps around the rink before launching himself into a sequence of energetic, fancy steps. It isn’t packed with technical difficulties like his programs always had been, it’s less about dramatics and competitions and more about having fun, and it bleeds onto the ice, the positive vibes that Yuri is bringing. Otabek can’t help but laugh, covering his face in his hands as he hears his own voice singing—you only live once—in time with Yuri’s jumps.

“Otabek,” Leo, the bronze medalist, elbows him. “Isn’t this your song?”

Otabek parts his fingers. Yuri is still moving, electric and mesmerizing, and he’s using his own music. He remembers mixing at two am, worrying himself to death over whether Yuri will like it, calling Leo for R&B and electro-pop reference. He feels warm all over. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it is.”

“Yuri must love it so much,” Leo says.

When the song ends, Otabek’s pretty sure he claps the loudest.

Yuri skates off the ice, and as soon as his blades hit the ground, Otabek hugs the shit out of him.

“I take it you love it, then?” Yuri laughs. Otabek can’t fully envelop him in his arms like he wants to. While they’re away from each other, Yuri’s grown about seven inches taller and his shoulders are broader.

“You are unbelievable,” Otabek declares.

Yuri pushes himself off him. “No, seriously, I’d die if you hate it, because it’s meant to be your birthday present,” he says sheepishly. “I just—you know, part of the reason why we’re friends is because of my skating, so I figured—why not try to choreograph a program for you? It’s my first time ever choreographing anything, so it sucks, even though Katsudon helps, but I’m always open to suggestions.” Yuri shyly tucks his hair behind his ears. “So… what do you think?”

“I think,” Otabek says, “that I could—“

Kiss you right now.

“You could…?” Yuri prompts.

Fuck. Otabek is fucked.

“I could cry,” Otabek saves his ass.

“A good cry, right?”

Like it could ever be anything else.

Otabek squeezes Yuri’s hand. It’s still as warm as he remembers. “A good fucking cry.”

Leo claims that Yuna’s has the best Korean BBQ in all of America. He’s taken Otabek here for a total of twelve times during his time sharing a rink with Leo when he was fifteen. This is a rather historical place for the both of them. This is where Leo had come out to him and confessed his quiet rebellion. He hates timers, thinks that love should not be controlled. The year after he meets Guang Hong, he drags Otabek after a competition and told him he’s in love.

Otabek is a traditionalist, born in a family of traditionalists. It has come as a surprise, but the look in Leo’s eyes melts his resolve and he decides he would support Leo, no matter what. There’s been many selfies posted on Instagram of Guang Hong and Leo eating out here at Yuna’s since then. Otabek wishes that everything would work out in their favor, in the end.

Tonight, Leo’s booked the best table in the restaurant for a modest celebration of Otabek’s birthday.

Yuri is sitting next to Otabek, flipping meat on the stove, hair pulled up in a messy bun. Yuuri is with them, conversing with an excited Leo, nodding and ahhing at the right parts of the story. He takes pictures to send to Victor, and also Phichit, who insists on him documenting his food.

“Oh, look,” Yuri nudges him. “Snapchat has a spooky filter!”

Otabek knows enough of Snapchat from Sabina’s adventurous escapades, and quickly removes himself from the line of the camera. Yuri’s mouth curves downwards. “No fun,” he says.

His screen lights up with Yakov’s name.

“Whoops, sorry, gotta take this,” Yuri presses the button. “Hey, Yakov! Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?”

Otabek puts more meat on the stove, moving the cooked ones to a clean plate. The sizzling sound is definitely one of the most satisfying sounds he’s ever heard in his life. His mouth waters just thinking about it.

“—is he—“

Otabek’s head snaps up. Leo’s and Yuuri’s chatter has died down, and they’re both looking at Yuri with a twin expression: worry. Yuri’s eyes are shining with unshed tears, and Otabek feels dread in his chest. Yuri mumbles a few words that Otabek can’t catch, nodding along, and when he finally puts his phone down, Otabek’s appetite has gone.

“It’s, um,” Yuri croaks out. “It’s my grandpa.”

#otayuri #victuuri #yuri on ice #otabek altin #yuri plisetsky #leoji #milasara #fic: if Aphrodite gives a shit

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