Chapter Text
CHAPTER SEVEN HUNDRED FOURTY
Getting back to the parking lot on the far end of the complex was a challenge. When it was just a drive-by to drop the athletes off, it was a simple matter to just drive along the south end of the campus and pull-over by the bus lane. Having actually parked and stayed, though, meant Mikhail had to go all the way up around the north side to get onto the pedestrian access-road, pass the entire backside of the chow-hut, out the access point, and then figure out where the van was stowed. It was tricky with every vehicle covered in a new dusting of ice, but the lights from the key-fob helped guide his way.
With a shiver, he hopped in, turned it on, and waited a few minutes for everything to warm-up – the engine and the interior. He pulled his phone out while he waited, checking for any new messages. The last thing he had spoken to Minako about was letting her know he’d be late in returning – if at all, given the weather. But there was, in fact, a new-message banner from someone else.
4:27
Friday, 16 February
Sinclair now
Hey, boss! Just a quick status update. The bird landed safely and we’re getting her all loaded-up for the next leg of the journey. We should be landing at Ginpo International on schedule, Sunday morning at 9:30am local time.
Mikhail typed a quick reply, [Make sure you guys check the weather before you get here. The winds have been crazy.] There was a hesitation then, and his thumb hovered over Minako’s name in the text list again, but his nephew’s words rattled around in his head. He glanced out through the windows, and at the decided absence of lousy weather. Lips pinched slightly in continued disbelief, but Mikhail shook his head anyway and started typing again, [Hey starlight, if you’re with Nikki, can you pretend to need to do something in another room for a minute? Bathroom or get ice if you have to. Put the phone down first though and give it a bit so it doesn’t look like you’re doing anything because of a text.]
The status changed from Sent to Seen, and Mikhail slouched in his seat as the engine continued to rumble idly. For seven entire tortuous minutes, he waited. When his phone finally rang, he jumped from the surprise of it.
“Sorry!” Minako whispered frantically, “I didn’t see your message right away, and then you told me to wait a bit longer anyhow…”
“It’s fine; are you alone at least?”
“Yeah, yeah I am. I stepped outside the hotel. It’s freezing out here so be quick?”
Mikhail deadpanned, “Why are you cold? Did you not bring a jacket?”
“No! You said to get away!”
“Okay okay,” The Russian wasted no time, “I might’ve done something stupid and I need your help to get out of it.”
“…Oh lord, what happened?”
He paused a moment, “…I’ve had nearly ten minutes to think of how to explain this, and I haven’t been able to distill it down to much more than…I told Otabek I was okay with this ridiculous thing he’s got going with Nikki, as long as nothing freaky happened. He seems to get it, saying the whole thing is just…part of his culture? That it’s no bigger a deal than signing a permission slip for a school field-trip happening in the next term. Give consent now, but nothing happens until way later, and everyone knows it. But I can’t get over the fact that I said those words anyway. I’m out of my depth here.”
Minako stared at nothing in particular for a minute, blinking in confusion. She changed hands and put her phone against her shoulder, rubbing her hands against her arms, “Hun, you’re an idiot.”
“Yes, and I’m your idiot, and I need you to help me either undo the damage, or mitigate the effects.” He replied pensively, “Since I learned rather suddenly that I can’t solve family problems on my own as well as I thought.”
With a puff of foggy air, Minako stepped back into the hotel lobby, waiting in the space between the main doors and the inner ones, “Did you make this grand declaration privately or in public?”
“Public. Everyone heard it.”
“And did anyone have anything to say about it?”
“Vivi did.” Mikhail replied, and crossed his free arm across his chest, elbow perched upon it, “He basically said the whole crazy situation isn’t a crazy situation at all, and I should just talk to Nikki, and level with her. This is so stupid…” He rubbed his face in frustration, “What was I thinking.”
“Well…what you were thinking is probably less relevant than how you were thinking,” Minako retorted, which just made the man pull his phone away for a moment to stare at the face of it, “You said it was a cultural thing… Admittedly, I don’t know a whole lot about what Kazakhstan’s customs are, but from what I’ve been told, it sounds not-unlike what happened with your sister and Kon...”
“…I knew you’d bring them up.” Mikhail grumbled.
“And I know how you reacted to that one, too.” She noted simply, “The last thing we need is for a repeat of that.”
“Yeah.” He agreed, “If for no other reason than to prevent me from becoming estranged to anymore family members.”
“Right,” Minako smiled awkwardly, “Anyway… What I was trying to get at, was that this is all sounding pretty old-school. Yuri beat himself up pretty good for still being single when he got home, and he was 23 by then. Mari gets no end of grief for the same. In Japan, it’s pretty commonplace for young ladies to look for men 10-15 years older than they are; the maturity, the establishment, and being past all the angst of finding one’s self in their early adult years.”
“Otabek doesn’t even meet those criteria…”
“He’s not that much older, but he’s got the rest down pat.” She countered, and smiled awkwardly at a group of people as they left the hotel and passed her by, “I think you’re just worried Nikki will end up like your sister, stuck in a situation she doesn’t know how to get out of, and lacking the courage to reach out to you for help. So you want to help her now, before it gets to that.”
“Maybe… Tat at least had the benefit of growing up with Kon. Nikki’s known this guy for two months, and has already declared her intent to marry him. She gave him her scarf. It never went missing at all… She gave it to him as a declaration.”
Minako hesitated, but then burst out laughing.
“What? Why is that funny?”
“That’s so cute, honestly,” She answered, still trying to stave off a few puffs of laughter, “That girl knows what she wants, and a million others like her just lost their chance.”
Mikhail could barely squeak a protest, “She’s fifteen, Minako. Fifttteeeeeennnnn.”
“Yeah, and about three years late for her first crush, if this is even the first one.” Minako countered, “I envy her so much. All my life, I’ve been crushing on these skaters from afar, begging Yuri for room numbers that he’d never give me…and Nikki gets to be right there in the middle of them, all the time. You know I cried last year, when I finally got to meet them all?”
“…You are such a nerd, I swear.” The Russian leered vacantly.
“Quit being weird about this!” Minako harped, “So what if her approach is unconventional? It’s not like they’ve done paperwork. It’s just…gestures and words; lofty aspirations that all teenagers have. I think the only one who’s set to really be hurt by it all falling apart is Otabek, honestly. He’s the one with the cultural attachment to the concept; the one making plans about his future. Nikki gave him her scarf, and he accepted it, so…maybe the leveling you need to do with her is to make sure she doesn’t crush him with a ‘just kidding’ in six months, when she realizes long-distance relationships of any kind are hard to maintain.”
“…Hm.” Mikhail huffed, brow crinkled, “I hadn’t considered that.”
“You’re a dad protecting your kid. No one can blame you for being singularly-minded about it, especially since this is your first time dealing with it from this side of the equation.” Minako shrugged, “As an outsider, looking in on how you yourself felt about things way back when. And now that you’ve gotten yourself firmly stuck in that position, seeing it through Otabek’s eyes…what do you plan to do?”
“Guess I need to talk to my kid about the responsible handling of men’s fragile hearts.” He answered, and set the phone against his left shoulder so he could grab the gear-shifter with his right hand, “Thanks for the pep-talk, starlight. I knew I was missing the bigger picture. Love you.”
“Love you, too. Drive safe.”
.
The medicine ball was on the heavier side, but most people in the room were able to handle it. From one person to the next, the ten-pound leather-bound sphere was launched, caught, and launched again. T-shirts were showing peninsulas of sweat on chests and backs, but none were willing to be the first to tap-out.
“Give it…to me…” Yurio taunted, panting heavily as he stared down his counterpart on the other side of the circle, “I can…take it…”
Otabek looked the teen up and down, then at the medicine ball in his hands…and abruptly holstered that ball to grab a bigger one and tossed that at the testy Russian instead. Yurio took it straight in the chest, and crumpled like a paper tiger under its weight. The whole room snorted with laughter as the tiniest wheeze escaped the Russian Punk. Otabek took a few steps closer, wiping his face on the bottom hem of his t-shirt, and stared, “You took it, alright.”
“…G-get it offa me…”
Yuri bent over his knees to catch his breath, and everyone else in the cozy little space let out a sigh of relief. With a few puffs, Yuri pushed back upright again and wiped his brow on his sweaty forearm, “Well…that was fun. Exhausting, but fun.”
“Gonna be too worn out to skate tonight…” Phichit panted, “If I don’t make top ten, I’m gonna blame you, Yuri…”
“If that’s the case, I’ve probably self-sabotaged…” He answered, and flared his shirt out a few times to help with air circulation. He watched Otabek carefully pull the medicine ball off of Yurio and put it back into the pronged holster, but then turned to Victor beside, “How are you holding up?”
Victor just smiled…and slithered down from where he stood until he was little more than a puddle on the ground, “…I can’t…I’m done… I have seen the end…”
“Wow, dramatic much?” Yuri laughed and shuffled over, crouching down to jostle his hands against the man’s upturned shoulder, “You should’ve tapped-out sooner if you were tired.”
“N-neverrr…”
Everyone else dropped to their backs soon after, until it was just Yuri, Phichit, and Otabek still standing…though Phichit eventually rolled to his back like the others. The Kazakh at least went down to sit, and crossed his legs, elbows pressed above his knees, “Your stamina is formidable, Yuri.”
Yuri just looked around the room, seeing all those skaters splayed out on the floor – starfished, curled up in the fetal position, some with knees in the air, or an arm slung over their brows – and shook his head. He drew in a restorative breath, and crossed his arms, “I can’t believe the whole bunch of you were actually holding out to see if I’d go down first. You fools!” He laughed.
Chris lifted an arm, finger pointed to the ceiling, “Some of us already knew we would buckle before your terrible power.”
“We’re not worthy…” Leo and GuangHong chanted from their spots near Phichit.
“I…refuse to bow…” Michele grumbled, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees, “Not…here… Not ever…!”
“Nothing wrong with admitting when you’ve been beaten, Micky!” Emil chuckled, still splayed-out in every direction, “As long as it’s here, and not on the ice, right?”
“I’m with Victor on this one….neverrrr.”
Yuri snickered quietly to himself, and stood back up again, keeping close to his spouse so the man could lean against his legs, “Well, speaking of the ice…” He started, and looked around the room, watching as each person around the circle pushed up to sit in their own way. Once everyone was settled and comfortable again – or, as well as they could manage, anyway – Yuri looked at each of their faces in sequence, “Tonight’s the night. I’d like to say that this is just one random extra competition, like Golden Spin or something, but honestly…for some of us, this is the biggest competition of our lives.”
“Here’s to that,“ Phichit added in agreement, giving a half-assed but well-meant salute, and others chimed in with their own ‘here here.’
“For all but two of us, this is all a brand-new experience,” Yuri nodded and carried on, “But every one of us has more-than earned these jackets we were gifted. Tonight, we show the world why we were chosen.”
“I’m the only skater they had to pick from,” Phichit laughed and raised his hand, “So I had a small advantage.”
“Same!” Emil threw his hand into the air.
“…I’m the only one they had left.” Yurio grumbled, “…Georgi doesn’t count. He got the pity-invitation.”
“Wow, slaughter the guy.” Leo puffed, “Aren’t you supposed to support your teammates?”
Yurio staggered where he sat, but crossed his arms indignantly, “I’m not representing anyone here, and therefore Georgi isn’t my teammate.”
“Brutal. Slaughtered and thrown under a bus.”
“Is it a bus from NASCAR?” Victor snickered.
“DON’T YOU GO THERE, VICTOR NIKIFOROV-“ Leo leapt from his spot, only held-back by GuangHong latching around his waist, “YOU WOULD NEVER UNDERSTAND.”
Victor just snorted a laugh and rubbed his thumb around his husband’s calf, head perched against the man’s thigh, “Never fails to give me a chuckle.”
“What’s a nasscar?” Michele wondered cautiously.
Leo flipped around and speed-crawled right up to the Italian, nearly nose-to-nose, “Only the greatest American pastime after baseball and spreading little-D democracy.”
“I think the greatest American pastime is shopping,” GuangHong diverted, “Every time I come this way for the summer training season, I always buy so much stuff…clothes mostly. It’s so relaxing.”
“I second that,” Victor raised his free hand, “I love shopping!”
GuangHong’s eyes lit-up, and he let go of Leo abruptly to fanboy over the Russian’s acknowledgement, “Right!?”
“Anyway,” Yuri tried to take the reigns back, “Part of why I invited everyone here-“
“I wasn’t invited,” Michele sat up straight and crossed his arms.
“You screamed when I hugged you last year,” Yuri countered, “At the end of Rostelecom.”
Michele opened his mouth, about to say something, but then shut it again and sagged in his seat.
“Anyway,” Yuri said again, “I just…wanted to bring everyone together for one last moment…the calm before the storm. I’ve got a strong feeling that the podium is going to be mounted tonight by people who are in this room right now. Three people who are going to be watched by the entire world; more than the Final, more than Worlds even.”
“This is the place where careers take off and legends are made,” Victor agreed, cheek rubbing against his beloved’s leg as he nodded.
Yuri leaned aside to pet the man’s head, “Exactly. We’re all building our résumés tonight. So, let’s wish everyone good luck, okay? Let’s put everything we have into it. No holds barred, no pulled punches…no winning and then stepping off the podium.”
“I did that one time.” Victor half-whined.
“One time too many,” Yuri teased, then looked around the room again, “So…everyone…ganbatte, ne?”
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