{ The China Cup GPF Qualifier, FS } November 7-8, 2014 - Shanghai, China

[theglassheart]

If Yuri thought the night before this one never ended, he was wrong. It's this newest night that feels like it never ends. Oppressive, pressing, darkness, digging into his eyes, his mouth, his nose, his ears, while Victor breathed heavy and easy in the adjoining bed. Yuri had tried to sleep. Turning this way, turning that way, staring at the backs of his eyelids toward the ceiling, pressing his face into his pillow. He tried and tried and tried (and most of all found himself trying not to let his breathing race so fast it might wake Victor).

The evening had been bearable, if not entirely enjoyable or unenjoyable. Less stressful than the one before it, if only marginally, while Phichit and Victor drug him from place to place. Too late for museums or anything with middaytime, there had been rather quick tours through the Yu Garden, the Oriental Pearl Tower, and the Jade Buddha Temple, and in the cases of closed doors, pictures with their iconic buildings. As well as everything else that looked interesting between them.

It took forever, and then it was just over.

He'd enjoyed some of it, but none of it stuck for long.
Not even the late calls from his family and Yuu-san had.

Not with the Free Skate looming. Not with every single person he was skating with gunning for where he was standing, and every person watching wondering if he could somehow pull out o f himself the miraculous performance that had seemed to come from almost nowhere. Like it hadn't even belonged to him. How many times had he performed Eros and it'd never been that?

How badly would it be when (if - when) tomorrow couldn't match it?
What would they say about him, then? What would they say about Victor, then?

Yuri would fall asleep only to startle awake what could only have been seconds later, nerves sharpening with each new jolt, until it felt like ice was splintering more and stabbing up harder through every part of his veins, until each second asleep seemed to only contain the certainty he would fall, he would fail, he would forget. He could never reach whatever he'd touched for that brief two minutes and eighteen seconds.

It'd been a fluke. He'd only dreamed it. He couldn't explain it. He couldn't sleep.
Every minute in that dark reaching, but, also, clutching his pillow.
Eyelids clenched tight, or eyes open, staring at the other bed.


Over and over, he counted his breaths down.
Over and over, he repeated that he had and he could.
Over and over, he told himself this was all in his head.

Over and over, he slipped right back as soon as it finished.




That morning comes at all only changes the color of the sky.

Breakfast is a blur, piling food into himself, like maybe it would give him any solidness. Weigh him to the seat, to the ground, to reality. It should be impossible, but his head feels even heavier than his body. Hot water had shaken some tension from his skin, but none at all from his mind. It hadn't mattered whether he was in the bed, in the shower, in a booth, at a table.

His foot tapped under the table, all the way up to his knee and thigh, and in the moments he could make himself stop, his fingers drum against the side of his thigh or the seat instead. Desperate to try and keep it from Victor's sight, when Victor won't stop looking at him, smiling like that, talking about how Eros was perfect, and what he should do as soon as they arrived at practice.

How would he look when he realized Yuri couldn't reproduce what he done. Couldn't even look at the things that compounded to get him there. Words Victor'd said, but entirely in a different way than he'd said them. That Yuri'd blown them out of proportion and reality out there, during Eros. What would he do if Yuri couldn't place at all?

What would he do when everyone no longer was cheering his name as the reason Yuri had done so well? When there would only be that gut-wrenching pity on every face and Victor's name was smeared with his failures the same as his already was? Why was he even going to put himself through that? Why was Yuri?





Practice is a comedy of uncertainty.
He doesn't even want to return to the wall and Victor during it.

His feet hardly feel like they belong to his body, and thinking about love doesn't produce his love, his family, Hasetsu, or Victor, it brings up more and more knots in his guts. It tears up the ice under him with images of last year, of every fall, of every day spent in his bed, avoid being awake, avoiding the rink, Celestino, Phichit. The flip of what that could -- will -- look like again.

Except at home. Except with his parents, and Minako, and Yuu-san, and his family.

Their sad faces, their disappointment, as Victor's back went vanishing away in the background of his loss.

Even the ease of his long earned and long loved turns seems to be slipping from him when his focus won't pull itself together. At full speed it makes it a fumble of something he hasn't fumbled in half his life, even if he doesn't fall. It's better the next time, and gone the third, but it still there. He can do this. He can. He's done it how many hundreds and thousands of times.

It makes him sloppy. It makes him reckless. It makes him stubborn. It makes him hesitate.

It ends all too soon. The alarm sounding for them to come in, and he trails in.

Comments

[fivetimechamp]

It's his turn to laugh, at the way Yuri is eying the food like a starving dog. Maybe he should be a little insulted that Yuri is looking at pork and rice and steamed vegetables with greater desire than he's looked at Victor with so far tonight, but he's barely eaten at all in the last few days, and worked hard regardless. He's probably feeling his stomach meet his spine, and that very audible growl only proves the theory. "You must be hungry."

The top tray lifts off the cart, so he takes the whole thing to set it down on the mattress, with enough room for them to sit cross-legged across from each other and share, as long as they're careful not to shift their weight too quickly and knock over the teapot or one of the bowls of food. "Come on, Yuri."

He settles himself carefully at one side, long legs folded underneath him, and reaches for a pair of chopsticks to pluck out a snow pea and tuck it into his mouth, before setting them down to pour a cup tea first for Yuri, and then for himself. "It's good."

Not katsudon good, or as good as any of the other food he had at Yu-topia, or even as good as the Shanghai crab and drunken shrimp he barely remembers eating only two nights ago, but hot and fresh and tasty. He's even developed a taste for rice with his meals, after living in Japan for so long, and the little bamboo steamer full of plump dumplings is wafting the most delicious smell his way.

It's not worth having to give up Yuri in his arms, or even the brief mental image of pinning Yuri against the wall, but Yuri's stomach wasn't the only one protesting and it's not like they won't have time after the food is gone.

That's one thing he'll certainly make sure of.

[theglassheart]

Victor laughs, but it's hard to really care when the food smells amazing, and he's following the tantalizing smell and even now the look at everything, as Victor picks it up and carries it over to lay on the center end of his bed. It requires more care than tatami sitting, where the low table might just be bounced by too much movement. The tray shifts with as little as even the careful movements to sit on the bed, and scoot to the opposite side.

Yuri is already several bites of pork in (and he knows he ate this morning, knows he ate yesterday, that it was harder when he was stressed to get him not to eat than it was to get him to eat) but it's heaven in his mouth. The flavorful bursts of fried pork, salted and seared a little caramelized on some of the edges, under a warm, thin brown sauce. The warm, sticky richness of the rice. He's not certain he's even stopping to breathe before piling each next bite. Crisp snow peas. Soft earthy, buttery mushrooms.

It's like he hasn't eaten since getting to this country suddenly and it's heavenly.

It doesn't stop him from gulping down a bite, and saying, "Not as good as お母さん, but, yes. Good."

Even if it wasn't katsudo, and even if it was, even if it was the best katsudon that could found in this country or Japan, even to the making of something as simple as this, he would still stick proudly by those words. Nothing anywhere was as good as his mother's making of it. The thought of her strikes another. She'll call. They'd all called last night, and that was before he'd gotten a silver medal. They might have already.

Not first place the second day in a row, but he had placed. He was going to Moscow before he'd come home again. Which makes his eyes glance to his coat, but between the food in his lap and the idea of putting down his bowl to go there, he lifts it and takes another bite. Relishing in a slippery chunk of onion and the floret of broccoli captured with it. After dinner. He'd remember to check after they finished eating.

[fivetimechamp]

He's eating, certainly, but it really takes the backseat to watching Yuri, delighting in his delight. Has he ever cared this much about food? He enjoys it when it's in front of him, but for Yuri it seems to be an all-encompassing passion. It's really no wonder than his first instinct when skating Eros was to think about his favorite katsudon, even if Victor had found it a strange angle at the time. "I'm looking forward to sharing some Russian food with you in Moscow," he says, sipping tea and spearing a jiaozi to let it steam gently on his plate before he takes a bite. "It's not as nice as St. Petersburg, but you can still try some of the better-known dishes .. borscht and syrniki, and shashlik from the Izmailovsky market. Blini, they're like crepes."

Everything he's used to, and nothing like what he's been eating in Japan, where the fish is either raw or simply baked or steamed, and not smoked or preserved, and the starch is always rice and never potatoes or warm and crispy loaves of bread. The vinegar they use is different, the vegetables are different.

It's all delicious, but he has to admit that there's a part of him that's eager to get back to Russia and everything more familiar, to share some of his past with Yuri, instead of the other way around. Even if it is Moscow, and not his beloved St. Petersburg.

(He loves the katsudon at Yu-topia, but now that the weather is growing cooler, he finds himself craving a hot bowl of zharkoye, thick with beef and root vegetables, with a healthy dollop of sour cream melting on top.)

"Yurio is from Moscow, you know. He knows the city better than I do, maybe he can give us some recommendations."

Maybe. Or maybe he'll opt to maintain the radio silence he's kept since leaving Hasetsu back in the spring, it's difficult to say.

[theglassheart]

He doesn't know all of the words, and there's a wash of connecting images to the things on the table back at the restaurant their first night. The gelled ducks blood and the still slithering shrimp. (Lingers for a second, when he's chewing a little longer than his other bites, thinking about the rest of that scene. The drinks and Victor throwing at him.

Almost kissing him.


Possibly several times, he realizes belatedly.


And later. The - his.)


The next swallow feels like he still might not have chewed it enough before he's pushing it down too big. Some thread between there and here. Between the way Victor is looking at him, eating, and talking like normal. Except. Here and other there and minutes ago between the bathroom and the door. It's real, whispers, surreal in Victor's voice, while Victor's real voice is still talking about food.

Detours to Yurio.

Who'll be back for the first time since he vanished amid their small competition.
Back for one that is nothing like small. This next step toward the Grand Prix Finale.

"Maybe," isn't entirely swallowed, but he can't even imagine being the person to ask about that. Victor, definitely could. Yuusan could have asked, and probably received an answer. They'd stayed in contact since his leaving, more than Yurio had talked to either of them, at least that Yuri knew of.

He sets his bowl down, finally, picks up his tea. "What will you want first?"

The words are in his mouth, but as soon as they are coming out, they aren't the question in his mind, filling up the curious distance in his expression. It's what does he miss most. Of this whole world, Victor hasn't returned to his home for more than half of this year.

It makes him think about Detroit and coming home the beginning of this year.
Wonder, for a not too brief second, how much Victor will miss it when they are there.

[fivetimechamp]

"Hmm."

He taps the tips of his chopsticks against his lips, considering. "I don't know. Honey cake and some black tea, maybe." Something sweet and rich. As much as he enjoys the fresh green tea so prevalent in Japan and the sweets everywhere (some familiar, some ... very distinctively less so), and as much as he enjoys trying new things and indulging in the specialties of wherever he finds himself, he's never been away from Russia for this long. "We take our tea sweeter than you do, in Japan."

His bowl is mostly rice and vegetables now, and he pokes at them idly. "But Moscow isn't anything like St. Petersburg. It'll be a little like if you went to Tokyo after being away for almost a year, instead of Hasetsu. I haven't been there very often, only occasionally for competitions and for the blessings from the Patriarch. It's a very different sort of city."

And he's never really cared to go to Moscow all that often, truth be told. St. Petersburg, with its love of art and beauty and its magnificent old city with its soaring cathedrals and beautiful museums, it's more Western attitude and glowing summer nights, suits him far better than Moscow, where the people are ruder and the city is harsher.

It'll be strange to be in Russia and not go home to St. Petersburg, even for a day, but it's probably for the best. He might miss the city, but his life isn't there, right now: it's here. With Yuri. "Maybe we'll have a little time for sight-seeing. Did you know that every winter they flood part the Red Square, and people come from all over the city to skate together? It's a really beautiful sight, under all the hanging lights."

[theglassheart]

Yuri tries not to, but it doesn't stop the patiently amused expression that slips very cleanly toward oblivious fondness watching Victor tap the chopsticks against his mouth. It's just very Victor and no else. Just Victor. Harmless and a little ecentric, entirely off the cuff. Yuri might have questioned it as an act most of a year ago, but it isn't. It's just Victor.

If Yuri's gaze shifts micromentally from the chopsticks to his lips, before dropping back to pay attention to the cup in his hand, and then back to his face, while he's talking -- well, Yuri is at least trying not to blush at the slip and to still pay attention.

Honey cakes don't sound too terrible. Even if he imagines something that combines a drizzle of honey and those very America long white cakes, or even the small rounds from the university cafeteria. He can understand some the comparison he makes, to ending up in the right country, but it still not being home, not the place you missed.

(Would that make it worse?
Wasn't it?)

He doesn't know any of this even as Victor starts that question asking him if he knows something. When little of anything he's begun looking at, in preparation for the expected politeness of next weekend, is anything like preparation for the image that Victor paints with his next words. A world of people skating under the glow of Christmas lights.

"That sounds beautiful." It does, especially, watching Victor look moved by the memory of it. Beautiful, already, him, Victor, under Yuri's watching him just talk and eat, even more so, when Yuri's slowly, painstakingly, stopping himself from not thinking it. Questions in on every glance, and finds true every time his eyes land there. Again, and again, and again, and now, again.

The way it softens Vicor's perfect features even more with this expression, of something Victor loved, and something Victor might want to share with him. Take him to see. Or do. It's really almost enough to stop the flicker of reserve from prickling. (Almost.)

[fivetimechamp]

"It is."

Moscow has its appeal. The Red Square, the Bolshoi: it may not be the hub of art and culture in Russia, but it's a city with a great deal of history and character, both tragic and beautiful. "It's a shame Minako won't be coming with us. Ballet is very popular in Russia, and she'd probably be something of a celebrity, herself."

Not to mention he'd pay good money to have rinkside seats for any meeting between Minako and Lilia, Yakov's terrifying and strict ex-wife. She'll be there, he thinks. Isn't she working with Yurio? Yakov isn't holding back on his youngest senior skater's debut season, that's for certain. He wonders if Yakov is still angry with him for leaving, and feels the usual pang of guilt that has never quite been strong or sharp enough to make him call the man up and apologize.

How could he? He isn't sorry. He'd been miserable those last few months, and Yakov had been as aware of it as he had. Maybe even more so.

And now he's here, and Yuri had beat Georgi, among others, and Yuri is watching him with that light in his eyes and that soft, fond amusement that makes Victor's heart turn stupid and clumsy, falling all over itself to elicit the full smile from that quiet curled potential at the edges of his mouth. All that, and only moments ago Yuri had been pressed all against him. Yuri had his fingers against his hair and his arm around Victor's neck, and Yuri had kissed him back. Yuri had said he wanted this to be real.

No, he can't regret leaving. Not even for having caused Yakov pain. Even if that makes Yakov right about one final thing: that Victor cares for no one but himself.

If he's selfish, so be it. Without that choice, he would never have realized how much of life and happiness he was truly missing.

All of which makes his smile go soft and thoughtful and a little wry-turned-relieved, as he's picking up the tea pot and refilling first Yuri's cup and then his own. "But we'll be pretty busy there, anyway."

[theglassheart]

He doesn't see the connect coming, but it shifts Yuri's expression. Even if Minako hasn't been at his side as much as had in his childhood before he'd left Hasestsu for Detroit, that space now fully owned by Victor as his coach, there was a comfort to her being there. That she'd come to his first two competitions. That she'd been the other half of his days, his practice, his routines, helped him find his own ways into them, for all of these months.

It made losing her presence, even more idea than solidity, not comforting. It raised the question about whether she'd stay for the Gala or she'd already be gone back home, and even if Moscow is more and less a week from now through being finished even, and then he'd be home after, it's not the comparison of any seven normal days.

Training a quad flip.

Continuing to critique, then tighten Eros and Yuri on Ice.
The new people he'd go up against for this round of the qualifier.

It wasn't a week, it was a mountain, and it smushed at his ears, clouding his chest, like he'd tapped it on the shoulder and it had jumped at the invitation to clobber any available space there. Leaves him staring for a long too long second, until Victor's hands and the stream of the tea make him blink. Make him catch the words being said then, not quite sure if he'd missed earlier ones.

Where had they been? Russia. Victor's home. The things he missed.
The things and places all that he'd had to give up to train Yuri.

The things and places he'd be suddenly near to, but busy.


"But, maybe after, if you wanted --" Yuri shugged a little, shoulders pushed in together, left it hanging like some combinations of a reminder and an odd offer, of something he wasn't really much in the control of offering. Not clue where they'd, he'd, be in those seven days. But it was almost a month between Moscow and Barcelona. If he made it. No. When. When he made it. (If.) It was Victor's home. It wasn't like Yuri wouldn't understand, didn't want him to be able to touch it if he could.

(Not even if it made something catch fingers in back of his breastbone.)

[fivetimechamp]

"Maybe."

It's vague, and he shrugs. "If it were St. Petersburg ..."

But it isn't, and he's not sure that's such a bad thing. Of course he loves the city, would enjoy showing Yuri around it, but they shouldn't take that kind of time off before the Grand Prix Final, so the thought is largely dismissed out of hand. "It's going to be a busy week with a lot of travel and practice. You might want to go straight home to Hasetsu after Rostelecom, so let's not worry about making any particular plans."

If they can, thought, they certainly should, and his smile grows fond over his teacup, watching Yuri. "But if we can get to the Red Square rink, we should. I'd like to go skating with you."

Something he does almost every day, but it's all practice, all training, all working choreography and jumps and steps, angles and extensions. Had he ever even thought that one day he might be able to skate hand-in-hand around a frozen outdoor rink at night with Yuri, wrapped in winter coats with their breath freezing under a glittering canopy of fairy lights? Why is it such an appealing image? "But Barcelona will be pretty, too."

That close to Christmas, the city will probably be lit up like a million candles, and by then, they'll be as ready as they can be for everything that will come next. "And your birthday is around then, too, right, Yuri?"

How has this year gone by so quickly? He remembers this time last season, watching the Cup of China alone at his apartment with Maccachin flopped onto his lap, barely paying attention to either the rankings or the competitors once it was clear that one particular name wasn't among them. Had he cared at all last year where the final was taking place, or which qualifiers he was assigned to? His focus hadn't even been on the Grand Prix at all, but on Sochi.

It feels like it all happened to a different person, in a different lifetime.

[theglassheart]

There's something as patiently amused as it is patiently suspect about Yuri's expression when Victor gets done with his decision about not spending a day or two extra. Unless it was St. Petersburg, apparently. But all with sensible reasons. Reasons he had already thought of himself, even as he said it. But it's the way he comes back around to the Red Square that had evoked the question.

When it is with all that patient back and forth, of amusement, of suspectness, that Yuri reminds him, "We skate together every day."

Or close enough. It wasn't every single day, not with travel and competing now, and even before Victor still insisted on rest days, which had both at different points probably saved Yuri from skating himself into a wall or frustrated himself beyond belief, but not respect or obedience, to have to stop.

Not that Victor ever kept him from the Ice Castle, the nights he'd still ended up there. Never told him to stop.
Which is beside the point, even when the patient fondness of the reminder is what Yuri is left with.
Like somehow Victor's forgotten that point. That truth. That they do. All the time.

This thing Yuri could not forget, would not forget, even for a perfect dinner or a gold medal.

That he'd dreamed of getting to stand on the ice with Victor for his whole life,
And now, in the strangest twist of his life, he got that every day.

Unforgettable, etched in, for him at least.

[fivetimechamp]

Victor scoffs, snatching a piece of broccoli with his chopsticks. "For training."

Which is its own kind of wonderful, certainly. Working with Yuri every day and helping him realize the potential he has. Drills and choreography work and perfecting every step, creating their stories together –– but it's almost never just for fun. "Not for a date."

Which is something he can do now, maybe? It came out sort of reflexively, but he mulls it over, the aftertaste of it in his mouth, and thinks it's about right. A date. With Yuri. A real one, not just him dragging Yuri to tourist spots all over southern Japan to document it on Instagram and pretend it isn't exactly what it us, or what he wants it to be.

He wants to skate hand in hand with Yuri under the fairy lights, and he wants to walk through the Christmas markets and ask Yuri about how his family celebrates holidays, and he wants to call this what it is, show the whole world. He wants to re-choreograph Stay Close to Me, now that he finally understands the truth behind it, how it was about this even before there was a this to describe. He wants to take pictures together and show the world the Yuri he knows, the one he loves, the real Yuri, shy and reserved and occasionally amusedly fond at him, when he's saying ridiculous things.

The way he is right now, as if it's such a strange thing for Victor to want to take him for a nighttime skate around the Red Square rink. "Besides, you should see a little of Moscow while you're there."

[theglassheart]

It's a marvel that Yuri manages to keep the teacup in his hand.

It's decidedly not that his tea does not stay in his mouth.

It's just another explosion, this one of embarrassment, lack of control, impropriety, but all of that, all -- of -- it, is nothing as big as the sudden dawn shock, the overwhelming white blare that eradicated all of the rest of existence, except one flippantly tossed word, that set him sputtering, "What?!" loud enough that it he might as well have yelled it and it seemed to be bouncing off all the walls in the room. Or was it that his mouth had and he couldn't even hear it.

Victor wanted to -- What.

[fivetimechamp]

Victor has the broccoli in his mouth and therefore cannot answer as clearly as he might, but his expression is probably eloquent enough: raised eyebrows, wide and innocent eyes, until he swallows, and reaches for his tea to clear his throat.

"What?"

It's not like he said anything weird, Yuri.

[theglassheart]

Victor's face looks like Victor's face always does. There isn't a wrinkle. It's peerless. Soft hair and bright eyes, caught in the midst of a bite of food, and something like a question is in his expression, but nothing like nothing like he. Like he said nothing. Like he didn't. He hadn't. Yuri's brain didn't just make that up, and all he asks is, what, like Yuri might have dropped something.

If Victor was expecting English, what he gets is shrapnel calling itself that language: "You just - we - you - you want -"

The word is inflated in this head. It's very suddenly a balloon of itself. Bright red. All four letters, the only thing in the drawn shape that was once his head. It is all the space inside of it. It's screaming it so loud his tongue doesn't even need to whisper the word. Because it is everywhere. He hasn't even gotten to get anywhere near over the kissing. Victor touching him. Victor kissing him on the ice. Pulling him on his lap. Flopping on him outside the bathroom. How could he.

And he wants TO??? - with PEOPLE??? - where they would be SEEN??? - in PUBLIC??? - doing - doing -

[fivetimechamp]

That doesn't really help, but Victor just takes a swallow of tea and blinks questioningly at Yuri from over the cup before he sets it back down. "Didn't you just say it sounded nice?"

Well, he'd said it sounded beautiful, or something similar, but that's about the same meaning, isn't it? "You don't want to go with me?"

Which is a whole other question, and one that chases the question from his expression and leaves him with melting, reproachful eyes. Eyes that say but why do you hate me?. Eyes that wonder what he did to deserve this. "It's a really nice spot."

And ... sure. Of course. Is it really so surprising he would want to take Yuri somewhere nice, somewhere romantic, somewhere that means something to both of them?

[theglassheart]

Oh, it gets worse it does. When Victor's mild expression and milder first question suddenly becomes Victor spinning out others, absolutely normal points of question, confusion, while his face becomes - becomes - becomes - fallen. His eyes seemed to get brighter - sadder - more confused - suddenly doubtful and Yuri can't even - breathe in - or - stop wheezing. He can't even tell which.

Except his heart is in his throat, trying to crawl through the front of it. His head is screaming.
And everything in his chest - somehow still attached - becomes a sharp ache at that face.

" いいえ - 私 - 君は - ちょうど." The words are just exploding everywhere, nothing like coherent sense clinging, and definitely nothing like the realization as he slips and doesn't try to come back. "君は 欲しいです 行く - なぜだろう - "

The last word locks his teeth. The one he wasn't supposed to ask, and suddenly hadn't - couldn't stop.

[fivetimechamp]

Well, if nothing else, it wipes Victor's reproach away, to replace it with blinking uncertainty. "Yuri, I don't speak Japanese."

There are a few words in there that he catches –– I, for one, and but, he thinks, and why –– but there are a whole string in between that don't mean anything to him at all, and certainly not as fast as they've been tossed at him. It's not totally unprecedented –– Yuri occasionally slips into Japanese when he's very tired, or not thinking, or is thinking too quickly to put into English –– but it's unusual enough that Victor's eyebrows crawl towards his hairline, and he looks at Yuri with faint concern. "What are you saying?"

[theglassheart]

Apparently, he can't keep tea or English in his mouth.

If it softens the white out shame of his last word, it only makes his cheeks flood with embarrassed heat more, as his shoulders slump, eyes finding the tea cup still in his hands. When had he even. He can't look behind himself. He doesn't even remember which part of what was last in English. Was any of it? From the moment Victor had said - said that?

How infantile was he. That he wasn't even saying that word. In his head. Date.
Date, date, date. It's an ugly throb, and his heartbeat under it is strangled still.

The part of it tilting a little dizzy at the light, the thought, still pressed under the tar black everywhere else.


He's such an idiot. Such an absolute idiot. And a child. It makes even less sense why Victor would want to. With him. He presses his mouth, aware he can't actually not say anything. Not after whatever convoluted amount of Japanese just came spewing out, and English, if there'd been English in it at all.

"About the rink--" The rink whose name he's now forgotten. It was a color. His breath isn't loud, but it doesn't feel like it's steady or inside of him either. He's picking more careful words after he just threw vocabulary in the air like it wasn't meant to collect into sense even in his own tongue. "You want to go there--" His fingers are tightening, loosening, fidgeting again the cup. One nothing like Yu-topia's, and feels so far from anything home. (Safe.) "--together."

To skate. But not like they did every day. He wanted to skate with Yuri.



Victor wanted to skate with him?

There are not enough levels of preposterousness to the thought.

Untouchable. Apart. Perfect. Trained by yes. Not. Not. Just he was ... just was not.



He feels a little sick at his own over-dramatics. "On a--" But it still doesn't happen on his mouth.

But in his head it does. Victor. Victor is saying it would the place to go on a date. In. In seven days.
Because this will still be happening in seven days? When Yuri still isn't sure what all is happening here?

[fivetimechamp]

He feels a little like he'll never be able to stop blinking at Yuri in bewilderment. "Is that such a surprise?"

Honestly, he hadn't thought he'd been all that subtle about his intentions, once he'd finally arrived in Hasetsu, even if Yuri acted like he'd never proffered that invitation, or asked Victor to come be his coach. He'd been pretty straightforward, hadn't he? Enough that Yuri had asked him to stop, had told him no, that wasn't what he wanted?

Which pings in Victor's head now, while the bemusement on his face gives way to cautious uncertainty. "I know you said you didn't want ... that ... from me, before. That day on the beach, you said ––"

No, no, no, no, no, no. A million no's all landing like darts tossed directly at Victor's chest and whatever bubbles of possibility he'd dreamed up, popping them unceremoniously. Just the recollection makes him feel uncomfortable, unhappy, and he taps his chopsticks in a nervous beat against the tray. "That you didn't want me like that."

But he'd thought –– and so much has changed since then –– and Yuri was just in his arms –– "But I thought maybe you'd ... changed your mind."

He still doesn't know if he'd make any kind of decent boyfriend, honestly. He's never been a particularly good one before, and he'd admit to that no matter who asked, or even if Yuri threw it at him as a reason to keep saying no. He couldn't blame him. The other times, though ... that had never been like this. Infatuation, occasionally bursts of burning passion, few and far apart and never lasting long, and he can't even think about them in the same space as how he thinks about, feels about, Yuri.

Perhaps he should have considered that Yuri's feelings haven't actually changed. "I just thought ..." A little helpless, gesturing with the chopsticks before he remembers he has them in his hand and puts them down before he accidentally stabs either Yuri or himself and makes this whole conversation much worse than it already is. "... it would be nice."

[theglassheart]

Yuri is not sure he's even vaguely prepared to look at the way Victor says he offered -- this? On the beach? That morning? That he looks confused and, is it, hurt? That somehow this isn't just possibly on a string to what happened that day, it's on one to that same conversation? The one that finally made it feel like Yuri could breathe, let Victor in at all?

The way it had slipped into feeling normal, okay, and like he could breathe during dinner, just now, before Yuri overreacted to something else. Like he couldn't stop jumping at every single thing Victor did or said now. It's exhausting. It feels doubly exhausting on the state of his head and his body, even though he knows the painkillers have kicked in, are helping at this point. That eating is.

Even if nothing feels like it's held, holding matters when Victor is talking.
Beating his chopsticks on the tray and then pointing with them.

"I didn't think--" But Yuri's lips press. That sounds so stupid to say out loud. He's never thought a lot about all of the other four offers Victor made. To be these things Victor wasn't, but could just become if he'd just pick one already. None of them had mattered in comparison to what had happened, and that Yuri had expected least. They become something different out there, and it had meant the whole world to him. What they'd become. All the months that had followed, flowed, flowered in every new and unexpected way because of it.

He doesn't want to question whether one means not the other, even when it stirs in there. (It's still just me, Victor said, not too long ago.) What he'd gotten instead had been better. Better than any of those options and more than Yuri could have ever asked or expected, even dreamed of. It was the kind of thing that defied words even now. It was just a feeling that only even felt it was felt clearly and cleanly when he was on the ice ... and that had apparently turned into all of this, too.

When he can't decide what in that he's supposed to know what to do with, but Victor puts down his chopsticks looking slightly defeated by Yuri's panic and Yuri's uncertainty, again, with those words hovering in the air, and it did, too. If it takes a little effort and doesn't sound certain of why, or if he should even dare, if the ice between here and there won't crack, even exists, he still says, "Sorry. It did. Sound nice. The rink."

... skating with Victor. With. Not just in the distance from. Near.
(His heart gives in for a second toward that quieter dizzy thing. Pictures it.)

Without Victor watching him, or matched him as example. But beside him. With him.

[fivetimechamp]

Across the bed, across the tray, across from him, Yuri flusters, and Victor is aware of having done something wrong ––
again –– but not what. Is saying he'd like a date really pushing all that far? Is it, honestly, truly, that surprising?

But it doesn't really matter what he thinks, or even what he wants, and Yuri's confusion at least makes what he should do clear, so he shakes his head, smile apologetic. "It's okay, Yuri. I'm sorry."

Wanting to poke at one of those dumplings that are left, that look as stupid and clumsy as he currently feels, but that would probably come across the wrong way, right? Even if it would make him feel better to stab one until the delicate steamed sides fell apart and the filling came tumbling out. "I shouldn't have said that."

He doesn't understand why he shouldn't have said it, but it's obvious it was the wrong thing to do, so he can at least apologize for mis-stepping, again, and making Yuri feel unsettled, again. "It can just be normal sight-seeing if we get the chance to go –– that won't be so bad, right?"

It's not like they haven't done and gone to lots of things and lots of places together, that maybe felt like or seemed like dates but weren't, and he's getting ahead of himself, and, worse, getting ahead of Yuri, so he switches tracks, index finger tapping on his chopsticks before he picks them up again to pick at his bowl of rice and vegetables, even if it feels like his stomach has simply decided to vacate his body altogether for how little appetite he suddenly has. "Is your hip feeling any better? I can go get some more ice, if you need it."

There's still some from before, but it's probably started to melt, and he's not sure a cool water pack will really help Yuri's bruises all that much. Besides, he wants to be helpful, not ... whatever it is he's being instead.

Isn't all this more than anything he's expected, ever since that same day on the beach? Isn't he grateful? Why does he keep saying these stupid things, is this really that hard, or is he just bad at it?

He'll do better, he promises himself. The last thing he wants to do is push too hard and send Yuri running away, down the hall directly through the door or the wall or the window to get as far away from him as humanly possible, and if that means hauling himself all the way back to just barely blurring the line of coach and friend and just Victor, he can try his best. After all, when was the last time he'd failed at anything he'd put his mind to?

Aside from not falling in love with Yuri, anyway.

So he rallies, even as he gives up on the rice and vegetables in favor of another cup of tea, that feels warm and soothing and not too hard on his suddenly petulant stomach. "I'm sure it'll feel much better tomorrow, but just in case, you should probably keep the jumps in the exhibition to a minimum."

[theglassheart]

Victor apologizes, right across the image of Yuri picturing them. Some rink, with a shape he doesn't know and a background he doesn't know, with lights hanging from somewhere that he doesn't know how work, like low stars, or gleaming fireflies suspended in the sky. With Victor at his side, skating probably in public circles, is what it sounds like, even though neither of them -- well, at least, Yuri hasn't done that except in laps in so long it seems childhood distant.

It takes some of the light out of it those words. Snuffs them delicately like the night sky becomes a drop cloth.

While Victor suddenly picks up his chopsticks and starts changing it. That it could just be like everything else. It didn't have to be anything. It didn't have to be ... a date. Just an outting. Just like everywhere else in Japan Victor had drug him, erstwhile company and even amused companion, because it was hard to stay forlorn long in the face of Victor unwavering adoration for everything new.

Instead he goes back to the food, and he starts talking about Yuri's hip and his jumps for tomorrow, and it's all Yuri can take really. He's trying. He is, and everytime he thinks for a second he has something, everything slides, and everytime he thinks he has the next thing, it all slides again. It's not even like the ice is slippery, it's like the ground won't stop moving, and Victor won't stand still long enough to let him.

He doesn't even entirely know where it comes from, but by the time Victor is on his jumps, he says, "Don't do that."

He's not even certain if Victor's done talking, but he doesn't want to listen. To know how Victor can just switch back and forth so easily. Like it's nothing. How he can listen to of these sudden jarring topic changes, trying to following, when it feels like his feet (his heart) are three back, whining about being drug from that spot with the lights, or by the door, and maybe he wasn't ready every single time Victor said or did something, but it didn't mean he wanted it to suddenly get shoved away the next second, too, before he might be.

"I know I'm not doing ... well at any of this," if anything it sounds more irritated than apologetic.
At himself, at Victor's sudden change of scene and topic, right as he thought for a second.
Might have finally, just for a second, been able to try and see it Victor's way. Barely.


Insane. Impossible. And somehow ... Victor wanted him. Wanted him there.

And then just took it away again, less than a minute and half later. Because of him.

[fivetimechamp]

It's not even sharp, that order, but Victor stills into silence like he's been smacked, head tipping towards the teacup in his lap just enough so his eyes are shaded by the fine silver fall of his bangs, his light chatter gone as if he'd swallowed it, or like he'd been playing some recording that was suddenly cut off, and he remains silent as Yuri keeps going, the only indication he even hears those words the way his shoulders tighten, and then fall.

If Yuri's not doing well, he is a disaster equivalent to at least the Hindenburg, floating blithely along before suddenly bursting into flame and ruin when he least expects it. Case in point: he doesn't even know what to do or say to improve this situation. He'd thoughtlessly suggested a date, Yuri had panicked and slid into a fumble of words in Japanese, and all but threw up a stop light in his face, but now he's ... what is this, annoyed? Angry? Exasperated? When Victor tries to make it better.

So what can he do? Is there anything, that isn't taking the coward's way out and simply tossing himself out the window?

The tip of one index finger rubbing along the edge of the teacup in an idle tic. "You're doing fine."

It's not a lie: Yuri may be confusing him, and this may not be going exactly how he thought it would, but that's his fault, not Yuri's, and his shoulders lift again, abortively. "You don't have to apologize for not wanting something."

Him. Right? Is that what he's saying? It has to be, if he's going to do his absolute best. And if he's going to face that, well, then, he should face it looking Yuri in the eye, too, shouldn't he? Even if it feels like lifting a reluctant weight, even if he's nervous about what he might see there. That tip of his index finger shifting from a rub to a tap-tap-tap-tap he doesn't even notice is happening, and a wry puff of breath from his nose. "You looked horrified at the very thought."

Horrified, startled, surprised into flustered Japanese. None of that looking anything like Yuri thought it would be a good idea, the memory of it, perfectly fresh from only a few moments ago, cramping his stomach painfully. "Should I keep pushing for something you don't like or want? I'm just trying to ..."

It's all escaping him, when with anyone else, he'd be throwing his most charming apologies and winning smiles their way, but Yuri's nearly glaring, and he mostly just feels uncertain. "... not make you so uncomfortable."

It's not a thought he can really handle. Yuri uncomfortable with him. Yuri afraid of him, like he said he wasn't. Yuri looking pale and terrified at even the thought of an innocent outing, doing something they both love, coincidentally in public. "It's my mistake, Yuri, not yours."

Which may be the only thing he feels really clear on, in this precise moment, but that does at least settle his shoulders a little more firmly, even if his finger is still tapping at the teacup.

[theglassheart]

Victor goes still in a way that surprises Yuri. Maybe it shouldn't after the way he'd gone still in the garage. Both when he'd been crying and then when he'd started shouting. Even if these words are so much quieter. Even if they had been firm. Had been an argument in themselves for the sound to be heard and stop having things thrown at him as though it might make him forget what came before.

He doesn't know what Victor's face is, though. When he's looking at his cup, and his expression is obscured by his hair.
(For just a second, Yuri remembers that pained face, that hoarse whisper of his name, brushing Victor's face clear.)

He's not doing fine, regardless of what Victor says, and for a moment it's so frustrating he doesn't even know what to do with himself. That wasn't stuttering, and sputtering, and apparently getting incoherent. How did things seem to be fine and then they suddenly veered, until they found themselves here. Dinner had been so well, and now he just didn't want anything. He was perturbed at the cart top and food even being there still.

Perturbed at everything. At his ignorance and how every part of him screamed for and against every single thing happening to him tonight. About the embarrassed feeling of being told he looked horrified. Victor's voice soft, like he was trying to inform about himself. As though he could have missed his own shock. When he goes right on to asking about pushing for something Yuri does or doesn't like, or want, and Yuri isn't even certain that's fair.

Because he has no clue here, what he likes yet, what he wants yet -- that isn't this careful, netral face on Victor, explaining things to him like he was a child. He doesn't want that, and he isn't. Even if felt like it. He still wasn't. It was frustrating to the extreme to want to defend not knowing, except Victor changes the word again, the one that's in Yuri's head and Yuri's hands.

Not like, not want. It becomes mistake, and the words tumble like they can't not:

"It's only a mistake if you didn't mean it." Cautiously. Like maybe Victor has changed it already. That's what Victor is trying to tell him. That it was obviously too much. Too soon. He wasn't ready. It shouldn't exist. Horrified, comes back, and he tries not to cringe or sigh because of it. He was probably the only person on the planet who would have that reaction to Victor, of all people, suggesting a date. What was he, defective?

He doesn't know, but he presses on anyway. Just needing. Having. To know.

"Did you?" Yuri was looking at him carefully. "Not mean it?"


Somehow he thinks it would make so much more sense if Victor would just say yes, or laugh at him finally.
That every time he doesn't, every time he smiles, says these things, kisses him, everything changes more.

[fivetimechamp]

What is this expression on Yuri's face? It's some combination of frustration and determination that looks more like his stubborn need to get something right an hour after Victor is already exhausted and wants to call it a day. He looks like he wants to logic his way to the bottom of this, but Victor's not sure there's such a thing as logic involved. If there was, he'd probably still be back in Russia right now and Yuri would have simply slipped into quiet retirement. Victor's not even certain there should be a place for logic here. It's cold, uncaring stuff, nothing at all like the way he feels more him when Yuri's looking at him with happiness or affection or even fond exasperation in his face.

And he hates this cautious tone, too, almost as much as he hates the question it's backing, enough that his negation fairly bursts out of him. "Of course I meant it."

This feels more like a few hours ago in the garage than like any other time they try to work something out or come to an understanding, and he supposes it's probably because the stakes are higher now than they ever were before. If they can't figure this out, what happens to them?

But he knows the answer to this question like he knows his own face in the mirror, even as he's horrified at the thought that Yuri might think he's somehow joking, as if this would be an appropriate thing to tease about. "I wouldn't joke about that, not with you."

He's never joked about any of this with Yuri before, has always been as sincere as he knows how to be, as honest as possible, and the thought that maybe Yuri might think otherwise flummoxes him so completely it leaves him wondering what else Yuri might have thought he didn't mean.

Isn't it a sort of normal thing to ask, when you want to be with someone?