{ Between 1.03-1.04; July } It's The Perfect Day for a Beach Trip!

[theglassheart]

The alarm goes off spine-shatteringly sharp and loud and Yuri's glance out of the blanket at the menacing green numbers is owlish and more than a little annoyed. He had been sure he'd turned that off, while climbing into his bed, after Victor declared they were taking a break today. Victor declared things pretty often, that wasn't anything new, and might or might not have been helped by the fact Yuri rarely (never) argued with these declarations.

At least the never that existed where only his eyebrows went up and there was confused spluttering,
but Victor seemed to take more of those as further encouragement to dole out detail of his declaration.

Today was a day off. Today they were going to rest, or go to beach ... or something?
Victor had been rambling about something. Bouncing on the balls of his feet.
Smiling that too bright, inspiration has struck, time will stand still, smile.

Had it been somewhere else or something new he'd heard of? There'd been more, but yawning, and pulling his blanket up over his shoulder, and ears and almost eyes, all that was left in Yuri's head was that if he didn't have to be up at dawn, at the Ice Palace, he and his sore muscles could go back to sleep instead of paying any attention to the barely rising sun or whatever happened right before he went to sleep.

Comments

[fivetimechamp]

It's not his alarm that's gone off, but it doesn't matter; he blinks awake in a second to stare at the ceiling and try to remember why he feels so awake on a day off, Maccachin a heavy, too-warm presence at his feet, and then it comes to him ––

The day off.

The beach.

Last night's spirited conversation with Minako and Hinoto running through his head: they'd been extolling the virtues of the Genke this time of year. Minako in particular had counted off a number of seaside attractions she was sure he'd find beyond compelling, and the decision had been an easy one. Yuri could use a day or two off, before they dive into the second and more exhaustive half of their training before the season starts for him in October, and Victor has been itching for, well ...

More time. Time spent in places that aren't the Ice Palace or the hot spring, or running in the woods near the city limits, or exploring Hasetsu. Yuri has been amenable to most of Victor's ideas, but he's begged off a few trips that would take too much time or result in too many calories being eaten. The training is going well and Yuri has relaxed around him a great deal, but, well: Victor's always been a selfish person.

Even if it isn't only thoughts of his enjoyment to come that bubble through his head as he gets up to stretch, while Maccachin follows his lead and slips off the bed, to look at him expectantly. "Come on," he says, sliding the door open with a laugh:

"Let's go wake that sleepyhead up."

Probably it would be kinder to give Yuri a heads up, but he just pads as quietly to the room down the hall as he can, before inching the sliding door open carefully, until he can no longer hold it back. Throwing the door open as Maccachin comes gamboling in to leap onto the lump under the blanket that is Yuri, while Victor's cheerful voice takes the place of the long since silenced alarm.

"Good morning, Yuri! How can you sleep in on a day like today?"

[theglassheart]

For one second that is made of perfect, beautiful eternity, darkness clouds back into his eyes, chin tucking toward his chest, and arm, and shoulder, cozied up to the pillow, Yuri slips back into the darkness. It's easy as slipping beneath a blanket, or closing an eye that had cracked open on accident. All the weight is still in his muscles and bones, pulling them right back apart, all the bundled warmth of his wrapped blankets, lulling him down, and down, and down. There isn't enough of him left to even sigh as he's slipping away.

Especially not when something bounds onto the bed, and Yuri's making a disgruntled noise, curling toward his pillow, already into the assumption of whom that is. The muddle of blankets starts, "横たわる--" but never gets any further because, instead of getting to the second barely awake, and already slip-sliding, word, suddenly something cold and wet, and then soft fuzzy, but hard bonestructure under it shoves into Yuri's blanket wrapped face.

Almost into his mouth and then there's wet slobbering licks accosting his cheeks and nose and lips and cheek and ear, as he shrieks in some surprise, trying to even find his arms, under the wiggling body on top of him, to free his hands, to even begin to push off the offendingly happy brown blobbed blur of -- "Maccachin!" -- filling up his suddenly very wide open eyes. Which is when Victor's, also, too awake, voice comes all cheerfully from behind Yuri's head, and the wiggling, bouncing sudden bedful of large playful poodle.

Yuri doesn't even push up first, looking upward, even if upward makes the blur of Victor just inside his door a bit upside down and sideways, while still trying to fend off the excited poodle. His voice a question, groggy and exasperated. "It's barely morning?"

[fivetimechamp]

Maccachin is doing a wonderful job, and Victor is certainly not going to get in his way, or haul him off Yuri, no matter how betrayed Yuri looks or sounds.

(Or how cute. Almost four months now, and he still can't get over how adorable Yuri is in the morning when he's barely awake. It is frustratingly, endlessly endearing.)

His hands just fist on his hips as he watches, a broad smile crinkling up his eyes. Yuri looks personally offended by how pleased he is, but that is not a good reason to stop. "It's been morning for hours!" Which is true, technically speaking. "Didn't I say we should get an early start?"

Well, he might have. It sounds like the kind of thing he'd say and mean. Yuri gets up this early every other day for training, why should their day off be any different? At least he doesn't have to go for his run.

His fingers unfurl, and he brings his hands up to clap them together in front of his chest. "Come on, Yuri! I think Maccachin is trying to tell you it's time to get up."

[theglassheart]

Maccachin isn't helping in the slightest, and Yuri ends up with more of his chin and neck, and even part of his covered shoulder, licked and headbutted, while the poodle is still dancing on the blanket Yuri has to fight free of having been wrapped so perfectly and snuggly around his body. He does manage to get his arms and hands-free and that at least helps with wrangling not being licked to death before he can even standup.

It gives him the leverage to actually push toward sitting, even if the rest of his body is still wrapped up, and he's got help sitting on a good portion of it, and him, and Victor clapping only gets the poodle bouncing again with a happy bark. "I'm sure he didn't have any help."

Definitely not from Victor, looking wide awake in the just forming morning, more light from the hallway than the window over his bed at this hour. Victor is far too awake, and far too put together. How early he had to wake up for that was still beyond Yuuri. Some questions were better left unasked and unanswered. If Victor got up early for that, that was Victor's choice. "Why aren't we sleeping in if it's an off day?"

This question happens, with something of a groan scrubbing at his face and bangs, before reaching for his glasses. He was already all too aware, given Victor's habits shown by now, that this probably would never end with him getting to go back to sleep. "The beach will still be there all day?"

[fivetimechamp]

"Your alarm went off."

He says it as if it answers everything, and doesn't it? Why would Yuri's alarm go off if he didn't want to get up?

Maccachin shoves his nose directly into Yuri's chest and licks right up along his face before finally bounding off the bed and sniffing around Victor's feet, bumping his nose up into Victor's hand to demand caresses. "Weren't you already awake?"

If not, it doesn't really matter: he's awake now, and that's what counts. His next comment only makes Victor laugh, as Maccachin stretches up to put paws on his shoulder and pant happily near his ear. "Of course! The beach isn't going anywhere. But don't you want to take full advantage of your day off? Come on, Yuri!"

Filled with purpose, he starts heading towards Yuri's closet, fully intending to throw it open and start tossing clothes Yuri's way. "I can already hear your parents downstairs, you're the only one still in bed."

[theglassheart]

Yuri's alarm clock is a traitor, and if he didn't need it to work so he got up at the right time tomorrow morning to run before skating, he would drop the offending thing in the trashcan now. Even with the thought, it didn't save him from the knowledge Victor might have found a reason to be right here, right now, even if an alarm hadn't gone off. That was very Victor, too.

Glasses on, Maccachin is at least in focus and he can lean away some from the excited poodle. If it's followed with a seconds' mournful burying his face in Maccachin's fur, in silent lament for his perfect morning sleeping in, before he was bounding right back off Yuri and Yuri's bed for Victor. Sniffing at him and leaping on him, while Victor let him and went right on being excited, trying to dragging Yuri into being excited by his collar.

Even three months in -- and how has it been three months? -- Victor still has just as much vigor and gusto for everything single thing, and place, and food, and happening that anyone mentions to him. More than Yuri thinks he's ever felt about anything. It's only when he realizes Victor is not only crossing the room to him, but passing him and headed for his closet that Yuri's eyes go wide.

Because. "No!" No, no, no, no! He can't get into Yuri's closet. Not today. Not ever. Not with the piles of everything covered in Victor's face barely even covered, and mostly just shoved, what could be, and didn't need careful folding or keeping. That had been carefully folded, or put in holders. But Yuri is already scrambling off the bed, so fast he nearly tumbles into a heap of those blankets tangled around his legs.

There's ungainly, embarrassed hopping, trying to either get Victor's attention or between Victor and the closet. While still trying to figure out how to walk. Which is the last of importance in those three things. "I'm fine! I'm up!" He would go anywhere Victor wanted if he just stopped moving. "I can dress myself!" Gets said, maybe just while throwing himself on the door to his closet.

[fivetimechamp]

"Are you sure?"

Head tilt. Grin. Wink.

(Thus far, Yuri has proven annoyingly impervious to his flirtations. And sure, after that talk on the beach, Victor had largely tried to restrain himself on that front, and things have been easier ever since, but ...

He's just so. Cute. How is Victor supposed to resist a little nudge now and then?)

Still, Yuri is all but plastered to the closet door, and Maccachin has taken his scramble across the floor as an invitation to play, so Victor just laughs and waves it off as he turns back for the door. "Fine, then I'll see you downstairs." Casual, as he saunters back down the hall to his own room, considering the benefits of a shower before getting dressed and heading down to the main room.

[theglassheart]

Victor is grinning and winking, while Yuri stays plastered against the door, feeling like his embarrassment can only grow in leaps and bounds, while it heats at his cheeks, prickling up the back of his neck, and Victor teases him like he incapable of that. Dressing himself. With the blankets strewn everywhere between his bed and here, not entirely dislodged from one of his ankles. He probably looks about as idiotic as he can. Not that he needed Victor to point that out to him.

At least it's just that he looks like a mess.

At least it's not that he looks absolutely a fool. (Obsessed.)


But his heart gets the reprieve to tumble hard down each bone of the staircase of his ribs, because Victor turns away like it's nothing. Nothing happened. Nothing to see here. He'll just leave Yuri to get dressed, and figure out how to breathe, again. At least one thing is for certain: Yuri is awake and he is up. Why is he not even surprised that took Victor less than two minutes?

"Okay." And. "Yes." Along with. "I'll be down shortly."

Yuri sags against the closet door after Victor leaves the doorway to his bedroom,
listening to his steps retreat entirely before shifting any of his weight off the door behind him.

[fivetimechamp]

Maccachin comes trotting along with him, back to his own sliding door and the banquet room they'd turned into a makeshift apartment. Much more comfortable now than when he'd first moved here, but he has fond memories of that night –– sleeping on the floor and all. Now, it's as much him as it is classically Japanese: his furniture, his bed, his laptop and music. His clothes in the closet, Maccachin more often than not curled on the bed, or half underneath a table. There's no kitchen and no bathroom even slightly nearby, and it's much more cramped than his bright and airy apartment in St. Petersburg, but he loves it here nevertheless.

It's comfortable in a way even that clean, sleek apartment never was.

He feels that way about almost everything here, tossing on a soft shirt and pulling on light trousers over his briefs after a second's consideration about whether or not he ought to just wear his swim trunks. Probably not: if they stay out all day, it would get cold, so he should probably just pack them in a small bag along with their towels and sunscreen.

The beach! He hasn't had a proper day at the beach in ages. Did he even manage to get to one, last summer? He can't recall. The whole previous year is a blur of training and misery he's more than happy to simply forget about, in favor of heading downstairs towards the kitchen to greet Yuri's parents with a cheerful good morning! that is mostly pronounced correctly, and a deluge of thanks once handed some tea and breakfast.

It may not be coffee and syrniki, but it's still delicious.

[theglassheart]

Yuri closes the door to his room, and tosses the balled up blanket from the floor back on his bed, before he opens the closet itself. A disparaging look going toward the not entirely un-neat pile of things, absolutely obvious from, to him, even before the door is half open. It's not that he hasn't even considered the idea of getting rid of it, somehow, without his family spotting it and drawing attention to it, and Victor finding out that way, too. But he can't.

He just. Can't. There are pieces it took ages to get, and some which had to be duplicated because there was so little he could take with him when he left, with his single piece, for America. An assortment of clothes, normal ones, and practices ones. His skates, and his laptop. The knowledge he could buy most of the rest of whatever he might need on the other side, through the school or somewhere in Detroit once he worked that out.

Mostly that meant necessities, but inspiration and direction were a necessity of five years training, too.

Yuri might be frowning frettingly at it now, under his messy bangs, but there was more history in that corner of his closet than he could ever explain. Than he could ever point to on his own skin. All of it somehow pieces that led to whatever exactly is happening in his life now. Practicing to somehow reach the Grand Prix Final with Victor. Yuri pulls down a blanket from the top shelf and there's some annoyance to his own reluctance before he tosses it over. Then, tugs it in some places.

It looks worse for the attempt. A kid trying to cover a mountain under a sheet.
Yuri groans before just grabbing a random shirt and shutting the closet door.

A pair of long shorts come next and socks. Running a brush through his hair. Stopping into the bathroom, both to use it and to brush his teeth, before he makes his way to the kitchen. There's a quiet, respectful "おはようございます" for his mother, already up and bustling in the kitchen, likely both this one and the restaurant, before he rounded it for his seat on the mat.

Breakfast, at least, is one of the few meals a day he can match everyone without needing something swapped out. Fish, soup, a portion of rice. The last, half the size of everyone. Some vegetables from the night before. Usually green beans, but this morning it's a small bowl of crispy slices of daikon and lotus root. There's a small, but warm, smile for his mother and the hand that rests on his shoulder just long enough to put the last of the small plates and bowls down while he sat.

[fivetimechamp]

Yuri comes down only a few minutes after he does, but Victor's already halfway through his breakfast. He always seems to be ravenous, here –– or maybe it's just that he can't remember being all that hungry all that often over the last year. Here, it's like he can't get enough of Hiroko's good food, or her cute blush when he's as enthusiastic about each new dish as he was that very first week before he even knew her very well.

He's still not at all sure she has any clue who he is or what he's doing here or what his connection to the skating world is, but once he got over his surprise, he was gratified: she seems to genuinely like him, just him. Not Russia's Living Legend. Not the five time world champion. Just Victor. (He is frequently overcome with the desire to gather both of Yuri's parents into an embrace each and every time they are politely vague about skating, but supportive for Yuri's sake –– and now, he suspects, his as well.)

It's all just as nourishing as the good food itself. Even better when Yuri makes his way over to the table, still looking a little mussed and sleepy, if at least fully dressed, while Victor beams at him from over his rice bowl. "So, Yuri, where should we go? Is there a beach you like? How warm is the water? Will we need to pack a bag?"

[theglassheart]

There's the urge to rub at his eyes still itching the back of his eyelids, but seated and starting to eat, the annoyance in his waking and anything like the panic of Victor in his room, it's all faded. Victor is inhaling food like he's never seen it before, the same as every day before it, and when he starts talking, it's lively. Like always. A half dozen questions to start, like he's been up hours, waiting to ask them. Except he hasn't. This is just how it is.

When Yuri is finishing a bite of food, and it's not even humoring Victor -- it was, there was a point when it was, and now it's just like the plates in front of him, and Wisteria growing only more purple by the day outside his window; constant. Not entirely normal, and not quite a habit, but something like it, too, when he's swallowing his fish as the only pause before answering. Picking one question of the several Victor always throws at once.

"Hamatama has the nicest beach in the Prefecture, and the port is over there. If you wanted to go there--" There's a thought to it, looking up, with the smallest crinkle to his nose and forehead. "I think it's maybe about an hour on the line. A little less in a car. Or a cab."

"But," Yuri picked up his bowl of rice, while thinking of those things that weren't far out of the way. Especially if Maccachin would be coming along, as he so often did. "There are a number of places not far from here." The whole of the city was edged and surrounded by the Karatsu Bay and then Genkai-nada Sea. "Karatsu Bay does have some nice public beaches not far from the Castle, and few others between the Castle and the Planetarium. There are a few resorts out that way, that should have tourists and families on the occasional long weekend from school and work by now, too."

[fivetimechamp]

A trip on the train sounds nice, but between the thought of hauling beach gear onto a train and back, along with Maccachin, and his desire to see the places Yuri loves and grew up in, it's hardly a choice at all. "Why don't we stay around here? That way we don't have to worry about catching trains or bringing too many things."

Not that he needs much. His swim trunks. A towel. Sunscreen. Maccachin. Water.

Yuri.

(Even when he already knows it's going to drive him crazy all day long, even past the usual torture that is Eros, or working knots out of sore, tense muscles, or helping him stretch.)

He waves his chopsticks in an idle circle, and tops off his tea from the pot on the table. "I want to see the places you like best, Yuri."

His never-ending mission, that Yuri still drags his heels on, all reluctance, more often than not, but it takes more than that to dissuade Victor. After so many months of knowing nothing and imagining everything, he can't get enough information, hoards it all the way a dragon hoards gold, as if in some as-yet unknown detail he might find the answers he's looking for.

He probably never will, but that doesn't stop him from wanting them.

[theglassheart]

Yuri is crunching his way through a bite of rice, lotus, and raddish, even while his eyes follow the twirl of Victor's chopsticks., briefly, before returning to his face. He doesn't know how Victor thinks continuing on this crusade to see all the spots of his childhood will help with his skating, but Yuri knows better than to balk at the easiest references and reminders of those things.

Tries not to unless it feels far too personal, like earlier, things not to be shared, or done
(or it's one of the days where everything that isn't skating is more than he can take).

He, also, knows if it's going to be a long day, it's better to keep that option in his pocket for later, instead and in case. After all, what does it really hurt at all to take Victor down to the beach and just have one day off. They'll work on more of everything tomorrow. It might even be nice. The ocean more than bright or dark companion for his runs. "Okay."

It's not much, but there was the beach where he and Yuu-san used to go, while Mari would watch over them.
Then, with a second thought, "We could take food with us? Unless you want to be back here by lunch?"

[fivetimechamp]

"No."

He doesn't want to be back here by lunch. He doesn't want to go into this day already planning to cut it short, to lose any of the precious hours he's managing to glean here. And it's not only that he selfishly wants this time with Yuri: Yuri needs this break. He's been training to exhaustion almost every day, continually pushing past the point where Victor is nothing more than a limp rag slouched against the rink wall. His stamina, always impressive, has improved even further, but that concerns Victor, too. It's too easy to overtrain and burn out. Even if Yuri has the energy for it, his body still needs time to recuperate and rest, or he'll wind up injuring himself, blowing out a knee or tweaking his back or shoulder. Yuri's never had a major injury that would push him out of competition, and Victor means to keep it that way.

What kind of a coach would he be, if he didn't force his skater to take a break every now and again in order to come back the next day and work harder than ever? "Let's take a picnic lunch with us!"

Or at least some onigiri and a few bottles of water. He really doesn't care what they do for meals, as long as lunch isn't an opportunity for Yuri to run away to the rink for a few secretive laps around the ice.

Besides, Maccachin would like that. And who doesn't love picnics?

[theglassheart]

The answer isn't anything more than expected, and Yuri nods.

Then scoops another bite of fish, and, then, rice and vegetables into his mouth, crunching them down while thinking about details. Letting the little pieces falling into place in his head continue helping him wake up more and more, without a shower or a run. Sunscreen, and maybe even sandals depending. His wallet for wherever Victor will inevitably drag him off, too.

It really is that inevitable.

Whether it's going to be the closest businesses or
another building that catches his attention in the distance.

He's at least mostly sure. Yuri picked up his tea cup to sip at the cooled tea.

"If you want to get some of the larger towels from the onsen, after we're finished, I can see what we have in the kitchen that could be packed up already." Or he could see what could be constructed quickly enough into one of any of the many bentos. That wasn't too hard at all. It'd be easier than setting Victor loose in a kitchen full of things he didn't know where all to find, and Victor knew just fine where to find the towels.

[fivetimechamp]

Yuri doesn't argue, which is heartening, only continues to eat his breakfast with a thoughtful expression. Not that long ago, he probably would have spent the larger part of their breakfast looking more than a little like Victor has pulled the rug out from under his feet and he can't quite manage to regain his balance, but things have changed. Ever since that talk on the beach, Yuri's grown more and more comfortable and relaxed with him. It's wonderful.

(And terrible.)

(But mostly wonderful.)

"Okay!"

He hasn't ever mastered the art of appearing less enthusiastic than he actually is. Of all the lessons Yakov imparted on him, the ability to remain stone-faced has never been one he'd absorbed, or even wanted. The idea of spending a day at the beach with Yuri is just too perfect to be anything less than thrilled about. Even the prospect of hauling along their gear -- towels, food, water, and all the rest -- feels warmly domestic and appealing.

When was the last time he had a picnic on the beach with anyone?

He'd sat down before Yuri and has always been a fast eater, so he's nearly finished, now, only tips the rest of his tea down his throat and takes a few final bites. "What else should we bring?"

[theglassheart]

"I suppose that depends," Yuri says after finishing another bite of his rice and vegetables. "On how long you want to be down there. We might still have beach chairs or an umbrella, too. In storage."

But Yuri's not entirely enthused about the idea of carrying them back and forth, and he's not positive he believes Victor will stay still on the beach for long enough that Yuri won't end up worrying the chairs are going to go missing in that event Victor drags him off to see something. Even if half the time it's encased in dragging Yuri somewhere that Yuri has to take him, wherever it is, and explain what it is, and answer a hundred questions on top of that.

"We used to have them and floats, a ball or two, back before I moved to America." He's relatively certain there's nothing more embarrassing there, for any time when he and Mari were younger. Though it does leave him paused, trying to remember when the last time he'd gone with his family might have been. The year he left? Or was it even further back, since those years he'd been in Juniors gearing for Seniors. For America.