{ 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

[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?

[theglassheart]

Of course, I meant it, with just the barest sting of something that feels like just a hint of exasperation at the question. Or maybe it's impatience with the fact Yuri could even question it. Question him. What he means. When Victor had been apologizing and calling it a mistake, because of Yuri, only seconds before.

A mistake to have spoken. A mistake to have said he wanted to go there. Be there. Together. Skating together under the low lights of some place that Victor loves. Victor calling it a mistake, all of it, like Yuri wasn't the one of them being extraordinarily dense and overwhelmingly out of proportion. About everything outside of breathing and sitting.

It's a scary thing, making any statement that sounds declarative. Choosing a feeling that's anything like declarative. On a good day. About anything. This even more so. This, even while Victor says these things without seeming to think about them, and then takes offense to Yuri's absolute and idiotic unpreparedness for everything Victor defends as sincere, as insulting to have questioned. It's a scary thing, and no one else on the planet would have that problem.

That fear. Make Victor look like these things. Staring at his cup hidden.

Staring at him, with all the lights of that memory, that place he'd wanted to share, blown out, too.

It's scary, and stupid, but he stills says quickly. "I'd very much like to go see this rink, then." Except that's not all, is it? That still hides behind everything that's simple. It fits even the second thing he'd said. Restating it. Making it normal. Making it like any other trip. He tries to add, "With you."

But that's the same, isn't it? Still not right. Because even in the latter he would have gone with Victor.
He swallows down something is a bubble of fear, and worthlessness, and unworthiness, and sheer scrambling idiocy.
(Between the logic that says none of this could ever, and a slightly sick reach for those lights that had, just for a second.)

It's softer, so much infinitely softer, like maybe he can out run the words, not get them caught in his skin, not remember for all his life he said this, implied, took this step out toward something that shouldn't even be, that people might laugh at to hear him even imply was asked of him, no less that he'd acted like a child because of it, like it's not stupid and he's scared, and they aren't a for granted mistake, that isn't a mistake (like him?), because Victor said.

Victor who is looking at him, and Yuri can't quite figure out where to look. Victor, or his cup.
Repeats, "With you." Pushes, trying to clarify. "I'd like to go skate with you, there. If you still."

[fivetimechamp]

It might still not be the right thing to say, he supposes. Even if Yuri asks for the truth, there's no guarantee that he'll want to hear it, as evidenced by how he's been flip-flopping all evening –– but Yuri asked for the truth, and there's no way Victor won't give him anything he asks for that's within Victor's power to give. Even if it's to back off, again, the way Yuri asked him to all those months ago.

The first response as confusing as the others. That Yuri would like to go see it, the outdoor rink Victor talked about, before, quickly, clarifying that he would like to go with Victor. Which is nice, but it's like that amused, innocent response he first gave ––

We skate together everyday

–– like there isn't some sort of distinction, although Victor supposes he should be happy that Yuri wants to do anything with him at all, considering how badly he keeps managing this, before there are those soft, but determined words, and Yuri's staring at his cup with a rising flush of pink on his cheeks that Victor doesn't understand.

Maybe he doesn't understand any of this. Why Yuri looked so startled, why it had been so unthinkable, why he'd resorted to rambling in Japanese in his surprise, if he wanted to, if he thought it would be nice, if, if, if. Leaving Victor uncertain for a second about whether or not he'd accidentally manipulated this, made Yuri agree out of some misplaced desire to make him feel better instead of saying what he really wants, but he doesn't think Yuri would lie to him. Not to save his feelings. Not on something important. "Really?"

One day, maybe he'll be able to halt the birth of giddy, stupid hope every time it blinks awake in his chest and head, but each time it does, it clears away all the cobwebs and rationale and all he can think of is how much he wants it to be true.

It makes him feel like a stumbling newborn calf, trying to butt its head into the right spots to find air and water and food, missing over and over again but continually hopeful he'll get it right eventually. "You're not just saying that, are you? You really want to go?"

[theglassheart]

Yuri is not even sure he understand how anyone could just say those words. To anyone, but especially to Victor. It makes him feel barer, more at risk than anything short of that moment before Victor came all but running across the room to crush Yuri into his chest and arms and shoulder. It's scary enough to just have said it.

For Victor not to be saying it is, he does, they are or will.
That everything that pops out suddenly is a question.

When he thinks he wanted (needed?) to have heard something else, other than an uncertainty (that sounds like him?) when he can't even imagine the existence of people that could say this to just lie. That makes even less sense. That anyone could. That Victor thinks someone could. Yuri could.

That anything more than all of this might make Yuri even attempt to say that.
(About Victor. About them. About Victor, of all people in the world, asking him on a date.)


Yuri is torn, first shaking his head and then nodding.

Because one question is a no, and the other, the other is starting to spangle something new, tendril warm, hazy light, like those imagined suspended lights, giving birth to other, newer concerns (what does that mean, how does, what is he supposed to do, wear, say, what is he supposed to know for that that he doesn't). But it doesn't stop the faint warmth in his cheeks, or the way he's torn between wanting to look down at his lap, but can't, can't because he has to look at Victor.

Has to say, "Yes," if, if, if - "If you haven't changed your mind."
How often those words keep happening in this room tonight.

[fivetimechamp]

He doesn't know what it looks like, but it feels like a light breaks all across him, drenching his head and face and shoulders. Not a thin, tentative dawn sort of light: the brash, bold, liquid gold of brilliant afternoon cutting through a fog of cloud and a haze of drizzling rain.

Or it feels like being dropped into a vat of champagne, bubbles popping everywhere in his ears and head and chest. He doesn't know, only knows that Yuri is watching him with that odd and determined look on his face, like he's going to get this right or die trying, and that Victor is too far away. Whatever instinct lets him put down his cup and shove the tray of food to one side is his last rational one, but it's all one motion: tray pushed aside, crockery and utensils and teapot clattering in complaint, and a push forward onto his knees to lean across the space and wrap his arms around Yuri's neck in pure delight. "Really?"

Really, really? Not just saying it to make him feel better, not just wanting to go with him, but with him, just like Victor always thought was impossible, and he can't stop grinning. "You're going to love it! We'll have so much fun."

That last qualification getting brushed aside with all the dismissiveness it deserves. "Of course I haven't, why would I? I can't wait."

Change his mind? If Yuri hasn't? If Yuri is saying yes, and meaning it, because he wants to, if Yuri kisses him back and teases him for being a fool and holds onto him anyway? "It's all I want."

Well. Maybe not all, but in the grand scheme of things, everything he wants falls into this category, doesn't it, of being with Yuri, with Yuri, the way he hadn't realized he'd wanted all those months in St. Petersburg, trying to figure out why he couldn't stop thinking about a Japanese boy he barely knew.

[theglassheart]

Everything happens so very fast.
Yuri is beginning to think that is the pattern.

This is true of this again. The way Victor's chest rises, posture shifts, spreads wider, face clears as simple as someone took a blown up car wiper and had suddenly brandished it across his face. Then, Victor is shoving the tray aside and Yuri should feel startled (right?), worried (about the tray? about it falling? the mess being made, if does and doesn't? About the sudden, predictable launch of movement?). Then, Victor has thrown his arms around Yuri's neck and everything is Victor curled around him.

There's still a teacup in his hands, and it doesn't come. Even though he waits a second for it to come. The other part of the pattern. The panic. That confusion. It doesn't come. It's a strange warmness. In his face. In his chest. Something strangely ... happy? Bursting up under that touch. (He's going on a date with Victor in Moscow. Apparently. In a week.) Under Victor's sudden burst of this newest touching, his voice so close to Yuri's ear, and so very, also ... happy? (That he said yes.)

Victor's burble of excited words.

Victor saying, this is all he wants?
Yuri? Saying yes? Taking Yuri on a date?

He's only got one hand, with the cup, but the fingers of his free hand still end up against Victor's side, partially curled to his back, somewhere short of his shoulder. When he's both crushed into and leaning into Victor, a little shy of the whole fluttering first now thing, getting everywhere in his chest, pushing out and out and out, like nothing else is allowed to take this second anymore, but grateful, strangely, for this moment of Victor's over abundance of, well, everything.

Apparently, that's sort of part of the pattern, too. His part.

[fivetimechamp]

Yuri doesn't say anything else, but his hand comes up to Victor's back and he doesn't pull or push away, either, and Victor keeps being surprised by that and grateful for it in the same second.

(It had been so confusing, bordering on hurtful, those first few weeks, like his touch was a lit match that did nothing but burn.) "I'm glad." For Yuri agreeing. That Yuri is letting Victor hold onto him, one hand at the back of his head with fingers sinking into soft dark hair, the other at his shoulder, while Victor beams into his neck and ear and jaw. "You had me worried for a second."

That he'd managed to push Yuri too far again, and Yuri had refound all those lines he'd drawn around them months ago, remembered why he wanted them in the first place, but now, he's saying yes, and Victor wasn't wrong to say it after all. Even if he could have handled it better, probably.

A thought which makes him pull back so he can kiss first one cheek, and then his mouth, and then the other, and then Yuri's ear, full of exuberant affection. "I'm sorry I'm so bad at this, gomen, gomen. I really want to do it right."

As apologetic as the words are, there's only relieved laughter in his voice, all his hesitation sailed directly out the window into the glittering Shanghai night with Yuri's agreement, and when he pulls back, eyes warm and half-lidded and smiling, with his hands cupping Yuri's face, delight bubbling up in a never-ending spring. "I'll try to do better next time, okay?"

[theglassheart]

Worried. He worried Victor?

Yuri isn't even sure which of those words even makes sense, which to stress the question of more, but he doesn't have long to think about it, because the next second Victor pulls back and suddenly is kissing him, in that same rapid fire suddenness. His cheek and his mouth and his other cheek, and Yuri's face is scrunching up, unable to not, the warmth trying hard to bubble straight up his throat. Almost a laugh, trying to escape especially when Victor just lands another of these fast, giddy kisses on his ear, like somehow he can't just stop at both of his cheeks, and his mouth.

Before he pulls back, again, but not far, hands on Yuri's cheeks, face, again, instead of his shoulders, and Victor does. He looks so happy. It's undeniably happy. His face, so close to Yuri's face. His eyes, are so bright and shining in a way Yuri almost wants to reach out and touch, brush his fingers along, like he could it. Just for a second. This (impossibly impossible, but shining) thing in Victor's eyes staring at him.

Victor who wants thinks he's bad at this and to get this right, who looks like he would in any other day, on any other trip, not be able to hold still, when he makes this face, needs to see and touch and try everything. Who is looking at Yuri while saying that. Before Yuri is blushing a little, shoulders raising, but not pulling away, not stopping touching Victor, when he says next time and he tries not to let it tumble, strange, surprised or baffled in his stomach too hard.

Victor is already at next time? That there's going to be a next time,
before they even get to Moscow and that rink? He doesn't want to think long on it yet.

He finds himself nodding, finds himself pulled along by the light in Victor's eyes, and the giddy swoop of the kisses, saying, "Okay."

Then, maybe as shy as it wants to be certain. "Me, too. I'll try to be ... better."

He could try. If this was what Victor wanted.
(What he wanted, and Victor, and they.)

Yuri lets go, then, but not for anything more than switching his tea cup from one hand to the other, and to glance in that direction (where, oh, good, the tray is still flat, if not entirely soundly balanced in its entirtey). He leans toward it, not loosing himself from Victor's hands, and letting his far hand counterbalance against Victor's other side, to just puts his cup down finally. Before turning back to Victor, free hand floating for a second, almost reaching up to curl at his bicep, before ending up gently, almost like the butterfly of a question, lightly at the other side of Victor's waist.

[fivetimechamp]

It's so cute, the way Yuri scrunches up his face, and makes that sound like he can't decide if he's laughing or squeaking, how his shoulders lift like he's trying to fend off Victor's ticklish kisses, but without any real attempt to get away, and it's like drinking straight vodka. Goes to his head as swiftly and as completely, and all he wants to do is make it happen again, coax out that laugh until Yuri is sparkling and happy and relaxed and can't remember that he had ever even doubted Victor's sincerity.

Even if it's absurd to think that Yuri could somehow be better, when just Yuri is all Victor has wanted for so long he can't remember what it was like before he wanted it. When all he cared about was the next competition, the next medal, the next program, always something new, always searching for the next surprise. it seems like such an empty existence now, to think back on it.

(Remembers how he'd scoffed at himself that night in the ballroom, sure it couldn't possibly be love, because love at first sight was a fairy tale, and not even a good one.)

"I don't have much practice with this," he confesses, still fond, still smiling, and leans to kiss Yuri's nose, hoping for that same addictive crinkle of his features, and has he gone insane, maybe? Why on earth does he find that so irresistible? "You'll have to be patient with me."

When he is, as he's prone to doing, throwing caution to the wind and hurling himself headlong into the fray, too impatient to wait, too unpracticed to know how to do it right, but if Yuri doesn't mind, if Yuri likes him enough to remind him not to go too fast, maybe he can ––

But that thought gets wrecked on the slight shift of Yuri's weight, and he watches as that teacup changes hands, before one lands light as a feather against his side, and the cup is placed on the tray along with the rest of the dinner he'd honestly managed to forget even existed, entirely, in the last half a minute. Not that he's sure anything exists except that hand that's now free, fingers careful and shy, that float for a minute near his elbow while Victor's breath catches and his heart stumbles, and then makes a suicidal dash against his ribs to try and meet that hand where it is.

(How is it possible to feel something that isn't even touching him?)

Except it doesn't stay there. Drifts down, pauses, before deciding to be brave and settling at his waist, so lightly he almost doesn't feel it, might not at all, if his nerves weren't screaming news of it all the way up his skin, his spine.

Making that caught breath shake out, hard and vulnerable, when he shivers. Forehead lightly bumping Yuri's, as his eyes close, before they open again to find his, even if he can't remember what it was he was saying at all.

[theglassheart]

Yuri's nose is kissed in the first pang of something that actually is drops of cold that he desperately doesn't want, but can't be shaken when Victor goes on. Asking him for patience, before pressing close again. Until he's got his eyes closed, breathing out heavily, and Yuri is staring. Unmoving. Suddenly confused, and he doesn't want to be. So very much.

Wants to dig his fingers into Victor's side and his waist, still that faint flush of barely held boldness. They only just stopped disagreeing, and agreed on something, hadn't they? Why? Why was it the next words to come out of his mouth, making it so Yuri suddenly felt like every warmth was fading away just as soon as it had finally come back?

He doesn't want. Victor had just said.

He was. Wants.

It this is real, supposed to be, going to be real, why Victor would say.

"Victor." It's reluctant as it is soft because he's so close, Victor just opening his eyes, looking so bright and dazed-pleased still, and because. Yuri doesn't want to say it. Doesn't want to break this. At all, or want to do it, or Victor to. Again. Always him. This second that feels already confused and like it's slipping from his fingers even when Victor hasn't. Victor doesn't look like.

Except. As maybe unreal as it being him might be.

It's not Yuri who knows that's wrong. (A clear lie.)
The whole worlds knows it. Well known, even.

"You've already been with other people."

[fivetimechamp]

"Hmm?"

Is a little dopey, still drunk on the rush of Yuri touching him, Yuri touching him, Yuri choosing to reach out and ––

But it gets a little derailed when Yuri goes on, and Victor's hands move from his jaw to settle against the sides of his neck, just at the curve where his shoulders meet his collarbone. Thumbs light but steady against the corded muscle there.

(Yuri is so much stronger than he thinks he is; he knows the muscle under that soft, fair skin is more like steel now than like the pudge that had been there when he first came to Hasetsu.)

Listening, head tipping slightly like a bird considering a dropped seed, because Yuri's not wrong, but that's not what he meant, either. "Not like this." Riding on the faint huff of a wry breath, because all the times he might have thought he was in love before –– and they exist, Yuri's right about that, he's had his fair share of sweethearts and lovers, even if none of them lasted very long –– it was nowhere near this.

Picking him up like a whirlwind, and sending him to Japan, and as much as he might protest that he really had no choice, he knows that's a lie.

(Somewhere in his head is Yakov's voice echoing around a rink: You say that as if we ever get to choose. We don't. We choose only what we do about it. And that is the story, happy or not.

Once again, Yakov was right.)

But Yuri is still watching him, and Victor is shaking his head, just a little, not to argue, but against the very idea that he's ever experienced anything like this with anyone he'd ever been with before. "Not like you."

[theglassheart]

Victor's hands drift down, fingers and palm slides across the sensitive under his jaw, and then even more of it, down the column of his neck, to settle there. In that space that leaves those hands against his neck, against his shoulders, thumbs running the muscle there.

It makes him tremble, the combination of this touch on his even thinner shirt and the look on Victor's face, even before he gets to the beginning of a defense that almost confuses Yuri more. That can't be true. Can it?

Unless Victor means that no one else in those interludes was ever like him? Ever knew nothing at all, made everything such a muddle at every set of words, every touch, and couldn't give just give Victor everything at a single word? That that is what makes all of this new? All of it something Victor has never had to handle.

His stomach curls in on itself, even while he just wants to reach out and stroke his fingers against this expression still on Victor's face. This impossible look that doesn't look troubled by the trial of having to reinvent everything he's ever known, ever had easily, for Yuri.

But he hasn't moved. Victor hasn't.

Making Yuri sigh, and actually, push it into words.
Because if they are being honest, and Yuri said he'd do better.

"Because no one else ever had no clue what they were doing."