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11

His skates are heavy today. He fucks up three quads in a row, lands one, bombs another. His body executes them automatically, but his head doesn’t follow, so he falls. He scrapes his knees and his hands a little, but the cold anesthetizes them, and he doesn’t feel the pain at all. He is numb, entirely numb.

“Lunch break,” his coach calls from the bleachers.

Yuri turns around. “It’s barely 11 o’clock.”

“Where is your head today?” Sergei retorts.

Yuri grits his teeth. His coach watches him, not smiling.

“That’s what I thought. Lunch break,” he repeats.

Sometimes Yuri misses Yakov, who gave in to him more easily. Yakov, who retired four years ago. Yakov, who once let Yuri skate when he had the flu, and thanks to whom he’d fallen badly after a failed Salchow. He’d nicked his right arm on the blade of his skate, and bled like crazy all the way to the hospital. Otabek had yelled at him the entire time he was getting stitched up.

“I told you he’d kick your ass out,” murmurs Mila when he joins her in the kitchen.

The room is small and cluttered, and smells of coffee and stale tobacco. Mila’s hair is tied back, which makes her look a little younger.

“I hate that guy,” Yuri spits out, sitting across from her.

She offers him a burning-hot cup of tea, and he wonders if there was a day he became worthy of all her patience and perseverance. For thirteen years, she’s supported him every way she could, and she still does with her eternal smirk.

“He’s good for you.”

Yuri says nothing, but he knows she’s thinking the same thing he is. The last person who was good for him was Lilia Baranovskaya, and they buried her three years ago.

“And anyway, Sergei won’t want to know what’s wrong,” she says. “Whereas I do.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Try to be more convincing. Did you argue with Beka?”

Mila has always taken the liberty of giving Otabek nicknames, and as it didn’t seem to bother him, Yuri has never stopped her.

“No.”

Then he adds, “We broke up yesterday.”

She chokes on her coffee, and in a moment of childish cruelty, he smiles.

“What?” she says, wincing. “Wait, yesterday?”

Yuri shrugs. He thinks he should probably be sad, but he isn’t. Maybe because it was mostly his decision.

“What happened?”

“Nothing special. We had eleven great years.”

He’d be lying to deny it, he thinks.

“But we reached the end of our relationship,” he adds. “That’s all. We agreed it was time to end it.”

“But nobody breaks up over that, damn it.” Mila’s voice borders on hysteria, and Yuri winces.

“Why the hell?” she asks. “Everything was going fine with you two.”

“We discussed it, Mila. Like adults.”

She doesn’t seem to hear him anymore. She sighs, her eyes a little damp. “The poor boy must be in such a state,” she says in a murmur.

Yuri’s heart clenches a little, but he ignores it. He knew it wouldn’t be easy at first, but that it would work out, and that in the end it was the only thing to do.

“We’ve agreed,” he repeats. “We discussed it.”

Mila shakes her head, and Yuri has a feeling that everyone else who hears about it will have more or less the same ridiculous reaction. But after all, nobody understood it when they were together, so nobody will understand that they’ve broken up. It’s kind of inevitable. Yuri doesn’t give a damn. If he’d lived his life according to other people’s opinions, he wouldn’t have lived very long.

1

“You plan to take it off someday?”

Yuri smiles, just a little. The medal around his neck is heavy, the gold almost a weight.

“No. I’ll probably sleep with it tonight, anyway,” he replies.

Victor’s eyes go theatrically wide. “Who told you about that?” he murmurs.

“Yakov.”

“That traitor.”

Yuri ignores him, swallows some more orange juice. He’s only 15 and nobody will serve him champagne, but when he stole a sip from Yuuri’s glass, he didn’t like the taste. He doesn’t like the fizzy part.

“Don’t sleep with it,” Victor tells him after a moment. “It’s very uncomfortable.”

“You’re not my role model, you know.”

Victor gazes at him, dubious. “Maybe for your hair.”

Yuri kicks him under the table, and Victor laughs before turning to Yuuri. Yuri lifts a hand to his own hair, perplexed. He’s let it grow out the last few months, but he doesn’t want to believe he was influenced by pictures of a younger Victor. Lilia had given him a sort of sophisticated bun for the banquet. It’s pretty, somewhat feminine, but he likes it anyway.

“Gold looks good on you, kitty cat,” Christophe whispers in his ear.

Yuri turns toward him, makes a puking gesture, and gets up. He’s about had it with their drunken nonsense, Victor and Yuuri and Christophe alike, and decides it’s time to take off. It’s already late, and he could go back to the hotel and sleep for 12 hours like he’s been dying to do since the awards ceremony, but he sees Otabek alone in a corner and decides he can sleep later. When he’s dead, maybe.

“Hey.”

Otabek looks up and acknowledges him. “Hey,” he replies, his demeanor almost formal.

He’s holding his phone, a horrible Nokia, some relic with buttons. He was texting. Yuri hesitates.

“You busy?”

Otabek finishes his text, sends it, and slides his phone into the pocket of his blazer. He’s wearing a dark blue suit for the banquet, and it brings out the caramel tone of his skin.

“I think it can wait. Congratulations.”

Otabek looks at the gold medal around his neck, and Yuri feels a bit ridiculous to have kept it on until now. But when he’d wanted to take it off to change, he’d had the impression that to do so would take away some of its reality. That if he took his eyes off it, it would be ripped away from him.

“You’ll get it next time,” he says.

Yuri smiles at him, and Otabek nods, still so solemn. Except there’s a little light in his eyes, like desire, like regret, like the rage to conquer. Yuri is just beginning to see it.

“I’ll do my best.”

“In any case, your short program was impressive.”

He accepts the compliment with grace, and Yuri sits next to him. Otabek tells him he’s going back to Kazakhstan in two days, that he’ll resume training in two weeks, and that they’ll see each other at the next competition in two months. Yuri says that that’s a lot of twos, and Otabek smiles, and in the distance Victor is shouting something about love and Yuuri.

“You should stay in touch,” Yuri reminds him.

Fatigue begins to overtake him, and he rests his head on Otabek’s shoulder. His blazer has a new-clothes, plastic smell.

“You, too.”

“You can follow my entire existence on Instagram, you know.”

“I don’t really like that sort of thing.”

Yuri gives him a sidelong look. “I mostly just post pictures of my cat,” he says.

Otabek seems to consider it. They agree to message each other from time to time, and to get in touch a few days before the next competition to find time to go for coffee together. Or take a motorcycle ride. Or go to the carnival.

“I’ve never been to Paris,” Yuri admits. “They have some kind of tower, don’t they?”

Otabek smiles again, and Yuri could get used to it. He closes his eyes briefly, feels his body go numb.

“Come on, I’ll take you back to the hotel,” Otabek murmurs into his hair.

They take a taxi, and the next day at the airport Yuri receives a photo of the Eiffel Tower pulled straight from Google Images. Under it, Otabek has written, “I believe they have some kind of staircase inside.”

3

Lilia won’t let up on him. “Watch your left leg,” she hisses.

Yuri grits his teeth, adjusts his posture. He pulled a muscle two weeks ago, but Lilia doesn’t care. Pain and training go hand in hand. Lately he’s been consuming as much pain medicine as protein.

“Higher.”

He can feel the sweat trickling down his neck, sticking to his loosely tied-back hair.

“From the beginning.”

Yuri lowers his leg, takes a long gulp of air and starts over. It doesn’t even occur to him to complain anymore. When he was younger, he hated training, and didn’t see the point of repeating the same motion 15 times when he was sure he could nail it. Now, he’s learned to consider the wisdom of those who want to see him win. He’s learned to make his body into a weapon for others to handle. Otabek would tell him it’s unhealthy, but Yuri knows they all work this way. Athletes are dolls. You do their hair, dress them up, take care of them, break them, put them back together.

“No,” hisses Lilia.

Yuri frowns. He checks the angle of his leg, the frame of his arms, and doesn’t see what he’s doing wrong. He looks at her, and she shakes her head, so he sighs and lets his limbs succumb to gravity.

“What,” he says.

“You won’t get anywhere like that.”

Three years already and she’s still as inflexible in her words as in her gestures. Yuri says nothing, and she slides behind him and takes the elastic out of his blond hair. It’s grown out, and he hasn’t had time for a cut. His hair falls a little past his shoulders now.

“You must let nothing distract you, let nothing disturb you,” she says slowly.

Her hands are rough but gentle as she untangles strands made sticky with sweat, and with a few movements she creates a tight bun on top of his skull.

“That’s better,” he admits.

He can picture her satisfied smile without seeing her. Lilia is a woman of pride.

“But perhaps there is something else distracting you.”

Yuri knows perfectly well there isn’t, that he’s carefully kept his training separate from his private life. But Lilia must have talked it over with Yakov, and they probably decided she’d be the one to bring it up.

“My relationship with Otabek will not be a problem.”

“Really?” She seems to have already formed her own opinion, and very few things could make her change her mind. “What if the boy becomes too clingy and interferes with your competitions?”

Yuri rolls his eyes. “He’s a skater too, Lilia. That won’t happen.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“That’s a lot of what if,” he observes.

She doesn’t respond right away, instead placing her delicate but firm hands on his shoulders. Her hands are cold against the fabric of his T-shirt. “I don’t want to see you ruin your career for a piece of ass.”

Yuri has nothing to say to that. He’s surprised by such language from someone ordinarily so contained and distant. He can almost hear anger in her voice, and something like regret. But if he tells her it isn’t just about sex—not even a little, because Otabek wants to wait until Yuri is of age—she’ll find something intelligent to say in reply. He knows what she wants to hear.

“I’ll drop him in a hot minute if he threatens my career,” he says clearly. “Or if you ask me to.”

Not Yakov, not Mila, not Victor. Lilia. He measures the extent of the progress he’s made thanks to her, the number of medals she’s made it possible for him to collect. Just as she always does his hair, and picks him up at the airport, and knows which foods he’s allergic to.

“Thank you,” she says sincerely.

They return to training, and that evening Yuri goes home and makes his weekly phone call to Otabek. He tells him about the last film he saw, and about the cat he petted on the way, and about the next time he’ll come see him in Almaty.

11

All week, Victor and Yuuri have been trying to call him. All week, he hasn’t answered his phone, sending vague messages telling them he doesn’t have time. And all week, between training sessions and the few times he sees Mila, he’s stayed home, staring at the ceiling. He’d love to admit that he feels lonely, that he misses Otabek, and that it’s all normal after a breakup, but he doesn’t want to. Yuri wants to keep believing it’s not a big deal, that it was certain to happen one day or another, and that it’s in keeping with the order of things. But after all, he grew up without his parents and won his first Senior Grand Prix Final at 15 and has more scars than a soldier, so what does he know about the order of things.

No more than he does about love, probably.

“Hey.”

Yuri hadn’t heard Otabek enter—he still has his keys for the time being—and it startles him. Through the open door of the bedroom, he can see him set his bag on the floor. Sees him hesitate before looking up. Yuri stretches out on the bed, drops his phone, and wonders if he should get dressed. He’d taken a shower an hour or two ago, and just threw on a pair of shorts and a wool sweater that itches a little. His long legs are bare, his ankles delicate in looks alone, and his feet still sore from training. He and Otabek had spent most of their time together in sweats, only half-dressed, but surely that has to change now. Yuri imagines there must be a protocol for it, but he’s never known how to follow convention. Annoyed, he gets up and enters the living room.

“Hey,” he says.

“How you doing?”

Yuri can’t even look him in the eye, but it’s things like that that drove them crazy these last months. Otabek’s pure gentleness, his permanent tenderness, the attention he paid him. He knows it isn’t bad in and of itself, but it’s stifling. Otabek knows everything about him, and vice-versa. Yuri had begun to feel like they were fusing into a single person. A very boring, very predictable person, without the least bit of ambition.

“Fine.”

Yuri doesn’t reciprocate the question. He goes to make tea, a habit he picked up from Otabek.

“I came to get some of my things.”

“Hm.”

He hears Otabek walk through the apartment, and carefully counts the tiles on the kitchen countertop. After a moment, he can smell Otabek’s cologne a little closer, and his body shivers reflexively. He hates him.

“No,” he says curtly.

Otabek ignores him. He takes him by the arm—and even though they’re nearly the same height, the Kazakh still has the upper hand when he’s angry—and forces him to turn around. His hand is warm on the wool of Yuri’s sweater, and his eyes are dark. He is still beautiful, still so calm in his rage, still himself. Yuri, cruelly, would have preferred it if the break-up had messed him up some.

“You could at least look at me,” Otabek murmurs.

“I no longer see any of what I once loved,” he says coldly. “Let go of me, please.”

Otabek winces and releases his grip. Yuri pushes him clumsily and pours himself a cup of tea. He waits for Otabek to take his bags of stuff and go. He waits to hear the door slam, and for the engine of his motorcycle in the street below. He waits for his pounding heart to be silent, and he lets the tears flow. He knows deep down that he made the right decision, that it was necessary, but fuck, it hurts. It would be better if he’s right. If not... if not...

5

“Do my hair.”

Otabek smiles, and his eyes are gentle. He’s gotten another piercing, through the tragus of his ear, and it hurts more than the others because of the cartilage. For now he just has a coarse metal ring, but Yuri already has three far cooler ones in his Amazon cart. Otabek will receive them on his birthday, or sooner if Yuri can’t wait.

“What do you want?” Otabek asks as Yuri sits between his legs.

They’re watching TV, more or less, and Yuri’s hair is beginning to dry after his shower. If he doesn’t put it up, it’ll get tangled and impossible to manage. Sometimes he does it himself, but he likes the feeling of Otabek’s fingers, and the tenderness of his touch.

“A French braid.”

“You’ve been watching YouTube tutorials again.”

Yuri raises an eyebrow, and Otabek plunges his brown hands into Yuri’s golden hair. “Maybe.”

He can feel Otabek smile, and in a moment he closes his eyes and lets him work. The apartment in Almaty is quieter than the one in St. Petersburg, and Yuri enjoys the silence. They’ve divided their time between the two for some time now, depending on their training, the competitions, and their desires. They’ve combined and set up their possessions, their furniture, the paint on the walls. Other than their skates and their medals, they couldn’t say what belongs to whom any more. It costs them a fortune in plane tickets, but Yuri has some solid sponsorships and Otabek isn’t a spendthrift. They’re doing well. Yuri would even say they’re perfect, and that he’s never been so happy in his life, but never out loud, never in the cold light of day.

“I can’t wait ‘til you get your first gray hair,” Otabek murmurs.

Only at night, only into the hollow of Otabek’s neck. Only when their bodies are drenched in sweat and their souls on fire, and when their lips barely part to whisper a few words of love, a few cursed words. Only when Otabek smiles against his neck and tells him he loves him beyond all reason.

2

Yuri knew they should have walked there. His suitcase wasn’t that heavy, and it wasn’t that cold out, but he’d given in when Otabek insisted. He could feel the young man’s underlying unease, his shyness at the idea of finally seeing each other again after months of phone calls and messages, after the coldness of their screens and keyboards. Their relationship has worked like this from the beginning—they only see each other at competitions, or on rare occasions like Victor and Yuuri’s wedding. There’s nothing weird about it. But their conversations have become more murmured and intimate as of late. Something has changed, but Yuri can’t say what, and he can see that Otabek thinks so too.

“Did you have a good flight?”

It’s the first time Yuri has come to his home in Almaty, and he plans to sort out this bullshit as quickly as possible.

“I hate flying,” he gripes.

The fear has never left him, despite innumerable flights, and he can’t stand travel unless he’s drunk enough to achieve a semi-comatose state where nothing can make him anxious.

“I know, Yura.”

There’s that, too. The diminutives, the nicknames. It started without Yuri’s realizing it, and he’s become used to it, probably too quickly and too easily.

“We’ll be there soon,” Otabek adds.

Yuri kind of goes along with it, and lets his head drop onto Otabek’s shoulder. The taxi isn’t moving any more, blocked by traffic, and the driver sings every stupid song on the radio, without exception. Yuri feels the Kazakh’s hand in his hair, and sighs.

“I might throw up on you,” he says slowly.

He can imagine Otabek’s smile. “I don’t really like this jacket anyway.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“And you’re going to take a nap.”

Yuri winces. “No, it’ll be okay, I’m used to it.”

He’s not completely nauseous, not yet, but his mouth is pasty and his body feels heavier than usual. The taxi rolls forward a little, and Yuri waits for his headache to go away. There’s an ad on the radio, then another song.

“For pity’s sake, not that,” he groans.

Of course the driver turns up the volume. Apparently he’s a big fan of George Michael.

“You don’t like it?” Otabek asks.

“Victor is crazy about this kind of bullshit.”

Otabek is briefly silent, then states, “You must miss him a lot, then.”

“I’m seriously going to puke on you, Beka.”

He’s really too comfortable with it. “It’s a very beautiful song. Very moving.”

Yuri ignores him. The driver’s voice is too high. Then he hears it: Otabek, murmuring the lyrics, almost distracted.

I’m never gonna dance again
Guilty feet have got no rhythm
Though it’s easy to pretend
I know you’re not a fool...

“I hate you more than flying,” he hisses.

Otabek contents himself with a smile. He hasn’t cut his hair in a long time, and several strands fall across his brown eyes. He sings a little louder, joining the taxi driver—the man laughs noisily and says something in Kazakh that escapes Yuri. He closes his eyes, breathes in the scent of Otabek’s leather jacket, and waits for his nausea to pass. He has “Careless Whisper” in his head for the rest of the day, and from that day on, every time he hears the song, he’ll think of Otabek and his voice like rustling leaves.

11

Victor picks up on the first ring. For a moment, Yuri feels guilty for having ignored him for two weeks, but in the end it’s not the worst injury he’s ever caused Victor.

“Hi, Yurio.”

His voice is still the same: amused, cynical, pure velour. Having spent more time on the phone with him than in person—Victor and Yuuri are forever busy, forever on the other side of the world—Yuri has learned to guess the emotions behind every inflection of Victor’s voice. If he had a good day, if he fought with his husband, if he saw something funny on TV. Now he wonders if it works the other way—if Victor knows he’s lying, just as Yuri knows he’s offended his friend and mentor by ignoring his calls.

“Hi. Do you have any special plans for the next few weeks?” It’s surely this fear that makes him decide to come straight to the point.

“Nothing special. Yuuri has a gala next month and I’m training him regularly, but aside from that we’re as boring as ever.”

After various apartments in various countries, the couple finally moved back to Japan four years ago, to Hasetsu. They took over the hot springs inn, and still skate from time to time, mostly for charitable events or local competitions. Yuri liked it better when they lived in Russia. He could see them more often, catch a train on a whim when something was bugging him and spend two or three days with them, wallowing on the sofa, enjoying Yuuri’s cooking, bar-hopping with Victor. He often went alone, knowing that he wouldn’t go home until he began to miss Otabek.

“Do you have any rooms left at Yu-topia?”

Victor doesn’t reply right away. Yuri hears him murmur something in Japanese, probably to Yuuri, and when he returns to the phone, his cheerful tone is more fake than ever. But Yuri understands. He knows that Victor sees through him. He also knows that Victor has the decency not to ask about it now, and to wait until they’re together again.

“Of course. Fly in whenever you can, and message us with your arrival time. Yuuri will pick you up.”

“Thanks.”

Yuri is filled with relief, and the only thing he wants is to slide back into bed and sleep until the next flight to Japan.

“It’s our pleasure to host you, Yurio,” Victor smiles. “Take care of yourself, please.”

“I promise.”

It’s an empty promise and they both know it, but it’s something. They talk a little longer, about unimportant things, and Victor gives the phone to Matcha who barks happily into the handset—they’d been inconsolable after Makkachin died and immediately adopted another dog—and Yuri pretends to be annoyed. When they say goodbye after an hour or two, Yuri doesn’t let go of the phone for a long time.

1

They get fake-married in September. Not in Russia nor in Japan, because they couldn’t, but in Estonia. The hotel is splendid, a palace called the Pädaste Manor, on a charming and picturesque island. The weather is beautiful. The rooms are spacious and smell like candles, and everyone smiles throughout the reception. They cry when they exchange vows, and somebody whistles when they kiss. They sign papers, wear wedding bands. But as soon as they go home, it won’t mean anything anymore. Fake.

“Yuri.”

Yuri looks up with a sigh. He’d taken refuge outside, on a terrace overlooking the water, hoping people would give him some fucking peace and quiet. It’s nighttime now, but even in the dark he recognizes the man approaching him.

“Otabek.”

It’s the first time they’ve seen each other outside of competitions. Yuri should be happy about it, happy to hang out with his best friend, but he doesn’t like this day. Doesn’t like this perfect location, doesn’t like the somewhat empty looks that Victor and Yuuri share when they think nobody’s looking.

“Are you all right?”

The Kazakh sits next to him. Yuri shrugs. He’s holding a flute of tepid champagne that Chris slipped him on the sly, but he doesn’t want to drink it.

“Want to go for a walk?” he suggests.

“I’d love to. But no, it’s better if I stay. It would be rude to run away now.”

He isn’t Victor’s best man: Victor had chosen Chris, because he needed an adult, but he’d insisted that Yuri be there. He and Katsudon both had. Together they had spent hours studying the too-short list of countries where gay marriage was authorized.

“How about that.”

“What?”

Otabek smiles at him, and his brown eyes shine in the dark.

“Looks like you’re starting to grow up.”

Yuri winces and punches Otabek softly in the shoulder. The Kazakh laughs gently, the sound light and rare.

“That’s the last fucking straw,” Yuri murmurs.

They sit in silence, then Yuri sighs again and moves a little closer to Otabek. Autumn in Estonia isn’t mild, and Otabek radiates heat.

“You smell like alcohol,” he says absently.

“I stopped before I got drunk, Yuri,”

It sounds like an excuse, and Yuri doesn’t know why he should deserve one.

“Normally I don’t really drink. But the mood here is so weird, and all this forced enthusiasm makes me uneasy.”

Yuri says nothing. Behind the mask of leather and silence that Otabek wears so often is a kind of naked vulnerability that takes the young Russian skater’s breath away.

“You saw them too, then?” Yuri says quietly.

“No.”

Yuri looks at him, confused.

“I noticed you, and that’s when I understood. They didn’t want to get fake-married, did they?”

Yuri suddenly wants to cry. He feels that if he speaks, says anything at all, the tears will come of their own accord, sorrowful and violent. So he grinds his teeth and grips Otabek’s elbow until Otabek gets the message and wraps his solid arms around him. They stay that way for a long time, bathed in the distant sounds of music and laughter. When Yuri feels better, he looks up. Otabek is the only one with whom he can freely express his frustration, without fear of being yelled at or coddled.

“Why do bad things always happen to good people?” His voice is a gasp, a breath, but Otabek hears him.

“Because that’s how you come to recognize bad people,” he says slowly. “The good people are the ones that don’t let misfortune corrupt them.”

Yuri smiles into the fabric of his jacket and takes a deep breath. When he gets up, his legs aren’t shaking and his eyes aren’t wet anymore. He smiles at Otabek, showing his teeth a bit, his blond hair brushing his shoulders. He’s gripping the flute of tepid champagne.

“Come on, let’s go. I need to take my revenge on Katsudon.”

Otabek, ever imperturbable, nods. “I’m afraid to ask,” he confesses.

“A dance-off, Otabek. A. Dance. Off.  I’m not going to fucking assassinate him.”

“I can never be sure with you.”

He follows him inside, and later, when the hour is late and everyone’s gone to bed, Yuri joins him in his room and they watch horror movies and cat videos until the sun comes up.

2

He arrived in Almaty three days ago and they still haven’t talked about it. They’ve gone out, they’ve gone skating together, they’ve eaten somewhat frightening traditional specialties in local restaurants, they’ve taken more or less enthusiastic selfies in front of various monuments. The longest personal conversation they’ve had was about upcoming competitions. Neither one has yet found the courage to bring up the kind of shyness living among them, the kind of uncertainty in their eyes. The balance is precarious, fragile. Yuri sleeps in the guest room, because the Altins’ house is large and very empty and because he doesn’t know if he should sleep with Otabek. If he could. If he’d want to.

The third night, it takes him a while to fall asleep. He spends maybe two or three hours on Twitter and Instagram, and when he finally falls asleep, his phone is still in his hand. He’s woken up by surprise by a bizarre sensation, like a prickling on the nape of his neck, and he cautiously opens one eye. There’s a vaguely human figure in the room, very close to his bed. He blinks and the thing is still there. With one eternally graceful motion, Yuri sits up in bed and throws the first thing he can grab—his phone, which had slipped from his fingers as he slept—toward the figure watching him. He probably screams, too. He’ll deny it later.

“Fuck, Yuri.”

It’s rare for Otabek to curse, and if Yuri hadn’t been in a state of utter panic, he’d surely have noticed. He also doesn’t pay attention to the sound of breaking glass that cuts the silence in two.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he hisses, getting out of bed.

He turns on the light and Otabek winces. He’s in boxers and a T-shirt, and his hand is pressed to his jaw.

“What the fuck are you doing? You trying to kill me in my sleep or what?”

He’s hysterical and he knows it, but he thinks it’s justified. Otabek avoids his eyes.

“I’m going to have to go to the hospital,” Otabek says slowly.

Yuri kind of wants to throw something else in his face, but holds himself back. He crouches in front of Otabek and finally notices the blood and the broken screen on his phone.

“Shit.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs.

Yuri grinds his teeth and pulls Otabek’s hand away from his face. There’s a deep cut along his jaw, just below his right ear. It’s bleeding like crazy, from the wound to Otabek’s T-shirt to the carpet.

“Shit,” Yuri repeats.

He stands up, pulls on jeans and a sweater, pulls his hair into a ponytail. “Should I call a taxi?”

“Yes, please.”

He only knows a few words of Kazakh, but since it’s similar to Russian he manages to make himself understood. Then he goes looking for compresses in one of the countless bathrooms in the house, and throws the whole packet at Otabek’s knees. More than injured or worried, Otabek seems ashamed.

“What were you doing watching me sleep in the middle of the night?” Yuri repeats slowly.

Otabek cringes at the anger in his voice. “I was wondering how I was going to go about asking you to go out with me. I wasn’t trying to wake you—or to get myself mutilated.”

One day. One day, Yuri will get used to Otabek’s pure and intense honesty.

“There are seriously times when I wonder what’s in your head,” he murmurs.

Otabek laughs, brief and bitter. “Me too.”

“I’ll go find you some clothes.”

He comes back with a pair of jeans and a coat for Otabek, and helps him hold the compress to the wound to avoid getting blood all over the fucking place. The taxi arrives, and they head for the hospital. They’re in the waiting room and a nurse has just told them they’ll have to wait 10 more minutes when Otabek turns to Yuri.

“Think you might answer me someday?” His voice is hoarse and tired. It’s four in the morning and this is where they are.

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

Yuri smiles at him with perfect white teeth. He’s taken down his hair and put it back up on the way there, creating an untidy bun that shows off his swan-like neck. Otabek hates him, just a little.

“This is my revenge. You made me freak out, and because of you I destroyed yet another phone.”

“Yura.”

“And anyway, you haven’t asked. So I’m waiting.”

Yuri crosses his arms over his chest and watches Otabek with his green eyes. Otabek feels like an exotic butterfly pinned by a collector.

“Yuri,” he says. He clears his throat. “Would you have dinner with me at one of those romantic places you detest so much?”

Yuri smiles. “Yes, Beka.”

The gash on his jaw will leave a scar. The doctor gives him three stitches, and Yuri holds his hand the entire time.

Chapter Text

11

It’s raining in Japan. Yuuri comes to pick him up, and in the car he tells him about the gala he’ll be skating for in a couple of weeks. It’s a simple, clean program, but he’s very happy with it, and he hopes Yurio will come see him.

“I dunno if I’ll still be here in two weeks,” Yuri says, ignoring the nickname.

Yuuri shoots him a quick look. “Vitya gave me the impression you’d be staying a while.”

Yuri doesn’t answer. He hasn’t really thought about it, but since the skating season doesn’t start for another three months, there’s really no reason for him to be in St. Petersburg. He didn’t notify Sergei or Mila, but they can certainly call him when they notice he’s gone. He can train wherever he wants, to stay in shape. After more than a decade, he no longer needs a coach in the off-season. And Otabek still has some things at his place, it seems, and Yuri doesn’t want to see him when he comes to pick them up. Doesn’t want to see him if he wants to give back his keys, or ask for the keys to the Almaty apartment.

Victor doesn’t hug him when he sees him. Yuri gets the feeling that he and his husband are waiting, that they know something’s wrong, and they’re waiting for him to tell them. They talk a while, Matcha flopping across Yuri’s knees. Then he puts his suitcase in his room—the one at the end of the hall, across from theirs—and goes to bathe in the hot springs. Neither of them joins him. They have things to do. Maybe later. Yuri knows they’re treating him like a porcelain doll that could shatter at any moment, and it’s starting to drive him nuts. But he puts up with it. He wants to wait for the right time, or he wants to keep acting like it’s not serious, that it hasn’t affected his life that much. So he bathes alone and joins them for dinner, his kimono knotted at the waist and his hair casually braided.

“Thanks, Yuuri.”

Yuuri smiles faintly at him, and they begin eating. Yuuri has made katsudon, as he often does when Yuri comes to visit them. Yuri picks up his chopsticks, looks at the bowl, and feels nauseous.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Victor asks. “Normally you’re all over it like it’s your last meal.”

“I want to tell you something first.”

He’s satisfied—he’s not even trembling. Victor sets down his chopsticks and looks at him.

“As you obviously suspect,” Yuri mumbles.

“We know you, Yura.”

There’s a heavy silence, and then Yuri says, “I’ve—”

This time his voice breaks on the very first syllable. He seems even more surprised than Yuuri and Victor, and when he tries to compose himself, his eyes flood with tears and his throat constricts. He starts to cry, noisy, painful sobs that drown him in horror. Victor is immediately at his side, hugging him with gentle reassurance, and Yuuri holds a hand out to him, which he seizes. His other hand is pressed to his lips, his fingers wet, his cheeks soaking. He hiccups, tries to stop, and cannot. He’s having trouble breathing now. His lungs feel tiny, ridiculous, useless.

“Yuri, calm down. Deep breaths.” Victor is close, warm, the smell of his cologne a little sickening. “Everything’s all right. We’re here with you.”

“Victor,” he chokes out.

“Shh, don’t speak. It’ll be okay, Yuri. It’ll be okay.”

Yuri lets his head rest on Victor’s chest, lets Victor’s arms wrap around his waist. Victor kisses his tear-stained cheeks, murmuring tender and childish things in Russian, stroking his hair. Across from him, Yuuri is also in tears, but he doesn’t let go of his hand. They have these automatic emotional responses to one another.

“I broke up with Otabek,” he mumbles.

Victor freezes momentarily, then kisses his forehead. “I see. You can stay here as long as you want, Yurio.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Yuuri, smiling at him.

Yuri closes his eyes. “Thank you,” he says again. “Thank you.”

4

Yuri briefly tells himself it’s too good to be true. That there must have been an error with the scores, that the jury must have been mistaken, that they were under a shared hallucination—but if the shouts of joy from Otabek’s coach at the side of the rink are to be believed… and Otabek’s amazed grin, and the pure joy in his eyes, and the way Yuri’s own hands were shaking... But it’s real, and tangible, and Yuri watches the sports journalists swarm the kiss and cry like flies. Otabek says a few words in Kazakh, a few in English, then his coach drags him off so the podium can be set up. Yuri joins them, and his feet never touch the ground. His legs feel airborne, like ballet dancing without the pain.

The past months had been filled with suffering and frustration, but now it already seems so long ago.

“Shit,” he says to Otabek, “I’m going to have to murder you in your sleep if I’m going to keep you from overtaking me.”

Otabek looks straight at him and bursts out laughing. It’s so rare— unheard of for those who don’t know the man the way he does. “It’s because of you, Yuri.”

He smiles at him, opens his arms, and Yuri loses himself in them. The coach steps away, giving them some privacy. Yuri wraps his arms around Otabek’s neck, and in a flash Otabek’s hands are on his thighs, lifting him just enough to wrap his legs around Otabek’s waist. It’s like a reflex now. He carried him without difficulty when Yuri was 15, and he can still do it without staggering, now that Yuri’s 18—even though they’re nearly the same height, Otabek very pleased to be a whole inch taller.

“I’m proud of you,” Yuri murmurs against his lips.

He kisses him without softness, without tenderness. They never do anything gently. They themselves are rage, they are desire, made of those things that grab you by the guts and burn you up from the inside. It’s easy to perceive in Yuri, and he’s proud to wear the bite marks on his neck and shoulders. But in Otabek it’s shocking, sometimes. He’s better at hiding what lives within him.

“I wouldn’t have made it without you,” breathes Otabek.

Yuri shakes his head, and a few blond strands fall into his eyes. He kisses his cheek, his jaw, the little scar under his ear, then back to his mouth, closing his eyes.

“I wasn’t the one on the ice,” he says when he opens them again.

“It was your help and your advice.”

Yuri rolls his eyes. Otabek slides his hands from Yuri’s thighs to his ass, his fingers chilly against the thin fabric of Yuri’s leggings.

“Your legs. Your arms. Your soul,” he replies with a conspiratorial smile. “Your piercings.”

To be sure, he’d encouraged Otabek to start doing yoga to improve his flexibility, and to practice his step sequences as much as his jumps. He’d shown him two or three tricks for the Salchow, and helped him craft his choreography. It was Otabek’s first time doing it himself, and his coach had been skeptical. Yuri had believed in him.

“It’s not like you to be so modest,” Otabek murmurs.

“You’re a bad influence, Beka.”

They look at each other a moment, wordlessly, then the coach clears his throat and announces that the podium is ready. Otabek puts Yuri down, lets his hand casually brush Yuri’s ass, and presses one more kiss into his hair. It smells like coconut and lemon. Acid and sweet.

“Be good and I’ll let you hang your gold medal next to mine,” whispers Yuri.

Otabek smiles at him. “I was planning to sleep with it for a week or two.”

“It’s very uncomfortable.”

Otabek raises an eyebrow, and the coach clears his throat again. He thinks he can hear him say under his breath, you guys are cute but we don’t have time for this. When he climbs the podium, he can feel Yuri’s eyes on the back of his neck, and when the Kazakh national anthem breaks through the noise of the crowd, he’s not ashamed to weep.

2

He’s been back from Almaty for a week, and Otabek hasn’t called him.

“So then I told him that I didn’t like him seeing his ex again, even if he claimed he wasn’t in love with her any more. I can tell this bitch’s entire world revolves around him.”

“Obviously,” mutters Yuri.

“No, but seriously, she spends all her time sending him snaps. And she’s the one who left him. She’s got no idea what she wants.”

“Uh huh.”

“I mean, besides pissing me off. I’m sure she doesn’t want to get back with him, but as soon as she heard he was going out with me, she just had to turn up.”

“Yeah. Classic.”

Mila looks up and sighs. “You’re not listening to me, Yuri.”

He turns towards her and shrugs. The screen of his phone, which he’s had lodged in his hand these past two hours, remains dark.

“No,” he says. “But I already told you I don’t like this guy and you deserve better.”

She sniffles. The two of them are stretched across her bed in their underwear, the heat turned up past 70 degrees. Once, Georgi mentioned that it wasn’t very eco-friendly, and Mila had responded by flipping him off. Russia is cold and sad, and they like to pretend they’re living in some exotic country where it’s hot all year round.

“Yeah, but he’s so funny. And he has a car.”

“What about the cashier from last time?”

She sighs dramatically and Yuri rolls his eyes. “False alarm,” she admits. “He’s gay.”

There’s a brief silence, filled in by the sound of the TV—a ridiculous, violent Tankboy rerun, just what they needed. Then Mila turns to him.

“Should I introduce you to him?”

“No.”

“He’s cute and he has tattoos,” she adds with a conspiratorial smile.

Yuri arches an eyebrow. “Still no.”

She giggles, lies on her stomach, and waves her hands around to make her nail polish dry faster. Her lacy white bra cuts across the defined muscles of her back and shoulders. She has this perfect, pure body, powerful under its feminine trappings, and Yuri’s just like her. He’s a gold medalist twice over now, but Mila has the real skater’s physique. He envies her. She has better stamina, and a natural grace that she hasn’t had to fight for, the way Yuri has.

“You still haven’t told me about Almaty,” she murmurs.

He looks at his phone again. No new notifications. No messages, no calls, no Skype requests—nothing. “It was nice.”

She sighs. Her red hair has lost some of its shine, and Yuri can see the beginnings of her brown roots. “Try again, Yura.”

“It was weird,” he says, wincing.

He stretches out next to her, and she rolls onto her side, putting her arm around his waist. Her breasts are warm against his chest, and she smells like flowers and dust. So he tells her. The night that Otabek woke him up by proxy, the three stitches, their first date at a romantic restaurant, all the times they held hands in private, their long motorcycle rides to nowhere, their shy goodbyes at the airport. And nothing else since then, and how Yuri’s freaking out.

“What if he’s changed his mind? What if he didn’t like me that much?”

He’s always fought to be treated like an adult despite his 16 years, but now he feels he’s become younger. But... this is Mila. Mila who knows him inside and out, and Mila who held his hair when he threw up, the first time he got drunk off his ass.

“You almost disfigured this boy, and he took you out to dinner anyway. I think it would take some really horrible thing for him not to want to talk to you any more.”

“So why isn’t he calling me?”

Mila frowns. She’s playing with his blond hair, and he pushes her hand away, fearing her nails and their still-wet polish.

“You didn’t do anything twisted, did you?” she asks. “You weren’t too clingy? You didn’t go through his phone? You didn’t bite him while you were kissing? Some guys aren’t into that.”

He doesn’t answer, avoiding her eyes.

“Yura. Yuri.”

“... We haven’t kissed.”

“Oh.”

“Is that weird? Is that it? He didn’t try anything, and I didn’t dare.”

“It’s no big deal, Yuri.”

“Your face says otherwise,” he hisses. “One of you is lying and it’s obviously not your face.”

Mila smiles, laughs, giggles. He can’t stand her.

“You really fucking love him.”

“Shut your face.”

“He adores you. I’m sure of it. He’ll call you. Or you know what? Call him first. Maybe he’s stressing out too, and if neither of you makes a move, you’re not going to get very far.”

Yuri mumbles a few insults, and Mila rolls onto her stomach. He gets up, grabs his phone and leaves the bedroom.

“And next time, throw yourself at him, damn it,” she calls after him. “You’ve got a nice ass and a nice face, it’s high time you took advantage of them.”

He tells her to fuck off, dials Otabek’s number from memory, and sits in the living room.

“Hey,” he says when Otabek picks up. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

11

Even buried under the covers, he can hear them murmuring, their voices faint and anxious, but he can’t make out what they’re saying. When Yuuri and Victor talk among themselves, they use a strange mixture of Japanese, Russian, and English, too random for anyone else to understand. Yuri gave up trying long ago. Mila’s pointed out to him more than once that he and Otabek were no better. Over time, he’d picked up a little Kazakh, it being pretty close to Russian, and their conversations were often a blend of the two.

“Yes, I’m awake,” he calls out.

Yuri won’t put up with it any more, knowing they’re outside the bedroom door, talking about him, probably. It’s silent in the hallway, then a ray of white light pours across the bed and Victor comes in. He’s smiling, but his eyes are tired. For a moment, Yuri blames himself.

“Sleep all right, Yura?”

He doesn’t answer. Victor sighs and sits next to him. He seems to be hesitating to touch him, to stroke his hair, to extend a hand to him—as they’ve done a thousand times, once Yuri grew up and accepted that the couple was his family from now on. He didn’t come to Hasetsu for the scenery. He’s come because it’s more home than St. Petersburg ever was.

“Sergei called,” Victor says slowly. “I told him you were taking a well-deserved vacation and that you’d be back in time for the next season. With the understanding that I could train you if need be.”

“Thanks.” His voice is hoarse and weak. Yuri hates himself.

“Stop that,” says Victor. “I don’t care if you’re grateful.”

Yuri winces. He rolls onto his back, looks Victor in the eye.

“We just want to understand,” says the older skater. “Last month you were sending us selfies of you and Otabek and the new sofa you bought. You never mentioned any fights or conflicts. You never said you were unhappy with him.”

Yuri wants to tell him the same story he told Mila, serving up the same half-truths and changing the subject, but this is Victor. His worst enemy, his brother, his idol, his father. His North Star in the slightest storm.

“I don’t know,” he mumbles. “It wasn’t an impulsive decision, I swear, but I don’t know how to explain it.”

Victor watches him for a moment. Finally, he reaches out, and Yuri gets up. He slides out from under the covers and into Victor’s embrace, his hands gripping the delicate wool of his priceless sweater. Victor caresses his tangled hair, murmurs banalities into his cheek, and rubs his back in big circles. Later, when Yuuri grows impatient and comes to tell them that breakfast is ready, he finds them in the same position.

“Oh, so we’re cuddling without me now?” he asks with an outraged tone.

Yuri growls for show, and Victor laughs when his husband tackles them both on the bed.

“You guys are gross,” mutters Yuri.

“But we love you, Yura.”

His only response is to sigh, his knee hurting under Yuuri’s weight, his blond hair caught under Victor’s arm.

“Me too. Losers.”

4

The zipper. It was the zipper, obviously, fuck. Two short ones, completely decorative and useless, and of course his hair had to get caught in them. He doesn’t really like this sweater, either, but it’s made of some slightly shiny black material resembling leather, and he’d told himself Otabek would like it. He’d taken off his ripped jeans first, hips swaying the way Yuuri had shown him, with the sensual slowness he’d made his own from ballet dancing. He wasn’t wearing anything under them, and seeing Otabek blush was quite satisfying. His boyfriend didn’t need to know he hadn’t planned it this way, but that Yuri had been putting off doing laundry. He’d briefly considered tackling it this morning, but then Otabek had told him his plane had just landed, and Yuri let it drop.

And then the sweater with its fucking shoulder zippers, pretty but useless, and his blond mane falling past his shoulder blades now.

“When you’re done laughing, you could come help me,” he growls.

Yuri would rather not imagine how he must look, with his sweater up around his neck and his arms still trapped in the sleeves. The hair caught in the zipper hurts a little, but not nearly as much as Otabek’s reaction does. It’s the first time he’s ever heard him laugh hysterically, and under different circumstances, he’d have adored it.

“Beka,” he mumbles.

Real, hysterical laughter, brutal and uncontrollable. He can’t even see his face, and he wonders absently if Otabek has tears in his eyes. Yuri waits, accepts this humiliation, and takes care not to pull too hard on the sweater. He doesn’t want to tear his hair out. In any case, it’s killed the mood, and they’re surely going to spend the rest of the evening watching a movie.

“Sorry,” Otabek murmurs.

He can still hear the trace of laughter in his voice. Otabek helps him untangle his hair, and when Yuri moves to put the sweater back on, Otabek stops him.

“Leave it off,” he says with a smile.

Right now Yuri hates him with all his heart. He’s been old enough for several months, but they’d had to wait until the end of the season to see each other in St. Petersburg. Yuri has a studio of his own, unlike Otabek in Almaty, and they wanted a place of their own for their first time. Yuri had thought of everything, from condoms to new bedsheets, everything except this fucking sweater. And now Otabek’s going to think he’s ridiculous and embarrassing and childish and he’ll probably dump him and go home and never ever call him again.

“Thanks. So now I’m butt naked and you’re fully dressed. I must look like such an asshole.”

His blood is still boiling, but Otabek knows him inside and out. Knows each of his manias, his flaws, his anxieties.

“You’re magnificent, Yuri,” he says sincerely. “And I could spend hours looking at you, if it weren’t for this terrible urge I have to take you on every flat surface in your apartment.”

Yuri stares at him in silence. Otabek takes a step back, his warm hands leaving Yuri’s shoulders, and strips his T-shirt off rather brusquely. Then does the same with his socks, his jeans, his boxers.

“There’s no reason for you to feel ridiculous any more,” he says simply.

Yuri already loves him, but now he falls in love with him that much more. In love with this perfect, intense man, who cannot tell a lie but who can recite Emily Dickinson poems in his sleep.

“I’ll probably start crying at any given moment,” Yuri admits, his voice already breaking. “Don’t pay attention to it.”

Otabek kisses him, smiles against his lips, and slides his hands over his hips. His body is hot against Yuri’s.

9

The place smells like fresh paint. Otabek is still not sure about the color, and ended up buying two different cans just so he can change his mind. Forest green and pearl gray. It’s not a big decision, just the four walls of the office. The rest of the garage isn’t that important; it will quickly become dirty and cluttered anyway, with oil stains for decoration. Only the office needs to feel personal and welcoming. He’s already refinished some furniture, thought of boxes to organize papers, and brought some framed photos. There are three of his family, one of a competition where he won gold, and one of Yuri. It’s kind of a dated cliche: their apartment in Almaty, the kitchen lit in soft tones in the early morning, and the love of his life sitting on the counter, a cup of tea in his hands. Yuri isn’t looking at the camera. He’s on the phone, but Otabek has forgotten with whom. He isn’t smiling. His face is neutral and calm, almost serene. His hair is knotted in a casual bun, and there’s a faint hickey in the hollow of his throat. He’d sighed when he noticed Otabek and his phone, but it was too late.

The place smells like fresh paint, but Otabek hasn’t begun work yet.

“Hey,” he says, leaning on the door frame.

Yuri doesn’t turn around. He’s crouching in front of a half-painted wall, a brush in his hand, his white T-shirt already stained. “Hey,” he replies.

“You’re not mad any more?”

Yuri hadn’t come home last night. After their fight, he’d left, slamming the door, and Otabek had spent the night staring at the ceiling. He wasn’t expecting him this morning, and went straight to the garage, where he found the door already open. Later he’ll learn that Yuri had gone to see his business partner, and stared at him nastily until the other man gave him a copy of the keys.

“I’ve been thinking,” he says carefully. “And even if I don’t agree with your decision, I’m shutting my mouth and helping you, because that’s what you need from me.”

“I need your honesty, too.”

Yuri turns. His eyes are a little red, but his gaze is piercing.

“I don’t want you to retire now. You’ve never been seriously injured, and you can still skate for two or three more seasons before you’re really too old, and I’m going to miss you. But it’s your choice and your career.”

He takes a deep breath and stands. His brush drips onto his faux leather pants, and Otabek promises himself he’ll buy Yuri another pair as an apology. And maybe because he can’t resist Yuri in leather.

“So we’re going to compromise,” he continues. “You’re going to keep skating with me, at least for the occasional weekend, and I’ll come help you at the garage until you hire some mechanics.”

Otabek nods. He’s not sure he’s able to speak. He knew Yuri would react badly when he told him he was retiring at just 27, and that he’d already rented a garage to start his business with an associate. That he’d done so without talking to Yuri about it, not having the balls to come clean about it until he was sure he couldn’t go back on his decision.

“Now come kiss me, asshole, or I’ll paint your face.”

Otabek does so, and when Yuri is solid and real in his arms, he can breathe again.

“Thank you,” he says into Yuri’s hair. “I love you.”

“I love you too, but don’t ever do anything like this to me again.”

“I’d be too afraid that you’d murder me and that Yuuri would help you hide the body.”

Yuri laughs into his cheek, and kisses him a long while. He smells like fresh paint. It reminds him of another day, another color, another emotion.

“You went with forest green.”

“The gray one is ugly.”

The next month, he’ll put the photo of Yuri on his desk, and he’ll watch the love of his life make a face when he notices it.

“I look horrible in that one,” he’ll say.

Otabek will ignore him and make sure the picture is visible whenever Yuri comes by.

5

Otabek has three now: one in each earlobe and a helix in his left ear. They’re all gold-plated, and they go well with his new medal. Yuri took silver this time, and they spent the awards ceremony devouring each other with their eyes. The banquet afterward seemed interminable, and when they stepped off the hotel elevator, Yuri’s hair had already come undone and Otabek was out of breath. If they passed anyone in the hallway, they don’t remember anymore. They made love until early morning, and when the rising sun had bathed their room in ochre and red, Otabek had breakfast brought up. He’d negotiated with his coach and the Four Continents organization to have a better room than usual.

Yuri’s told him several times that it isn’t that important, and that he’s used to beds that are too small and curtains that are too thin, but Otabek had insisted.

“Think of it as a present.”

“If you really want to give me a present, I have a wish list on Outlaw Moscow. And my birthday’s only two months away.”

“I know.”

Yuri turns toward him. He’s lying on his side, his porcelain skin very white against the pink satin sheets, his body nude and cruel across the bed. He’s never been a modest person, but ever since he turned 18, he rarely bothers to get dressed when he’s alone with Otabek. They see each other rarely, mainly during competitions and maybe a couple of visits to Almaty or St. Petersburg, and he knows Otabek will want him out of his clothes very quickly. Their constant messages, their long, multiple-hour calls in the middle of the night, and their Skype sessions on screen in cold light will never equal the contact of skin on skin, the scent of their bodies. Otabek thinks that if they were a normal couple, they wouldn’t be as voracious for one another.

He’d like to test this theory.

“I’m going to do something romantic. Indulge me.”

Yuri rolls his eyes, sits up on the unmade bed. His hair cascades around his shoulders and down his back. Over the years he’s gained in muscle and virility, but when Otabek looks at him, he still sees a little of the unstable kid who couldn’t express his feelings without screaming them at the top of his lungs.

“Then hurry up, Beka. My flight’s in just six hours and we still have condoms.”

Otabek winces a little. “Yura, I’m exhausted.”

“Me too, princess, but we won’t see each other until the Worlds in two months.”

Otabek sighs, but kisses the corner of his mouth before getting up. He’s naked, like Yuri, and he can feel his eyes on his back when he walks across the room and leans over to find something in his bag. He kneels at the side of the bed to give it to him. When Yuri sees the red velvet box in his hand, Otabek stifles a laugh.

“Beka,” Yuri says hoarsely, “what is this bullshit?”

“We already talked about marriage, Yura, and you know we’re of the same mind about that.”

His horrified expression softens a bit, and he sits across from him. The floor is cold under Otabek’s knees.

“Then what is this? And why are you pulling stunts like this?”

“I just wanted to see the look on your face.”

Yuri shoots daggers at him. “I’m a bad influence on you,” he says through his teeth.

“If I weren’t already a bit cruel deep down, I surely wouldn’t be with you.”

“For sure.”

Otabek begins to feel nervous, and he doesn’t like that. He was sure of his decision a few hours ago, but now that Yuri is hesitating to take the box, he’s freaking out.

“Yura,” he breathes. “Have a heart.”

Yuri gives in, distracted, and takes the velour box from him. When he opens it, he seems to become five years younger. His green eyes grow moist, and his features soften, and Otabek feels strangely blessed to be the only one to witness Yuri being vulnerable, even fragile. He loves him like this—just as he loves the skating prodigy, the angry kid, the inflexible soldier, the prima ballerina.

“It doesn’t look like the one for your fucking castle. Did you buy an apartment? Did you buy yourself a fucking apartment?”

The small, silvery key lies in his hands.

“Our apartment, if you want it to be.”

Yuri chuckles, a slightly damp sound that grabs Otabek by the throat. He stands, his joints sore after the previous evening’s program and their night of passion, and kisses Yuri more clumsily than usual. He smells of coconut oil, sweat, and winter, and he fits himself into his arms as if it were the only place he belongs.

“Fuck yeah, Beka. Thanks.”

He cries a little, but so does Beka, so they won’t mention it.

“I’ll send you a copy of my house key when I get home,” Yuri says against his lips. “I can come to you right after Worlds, I should have some free time before training starts.”

Then he adds with a slightly wicked smile, “If I win gold at Worlds, will you teach me to ride your Harley?”

“No.”

Yuri mumbles an insult in Russian under his breath, and Otabek plunges his hands into Yuri’s hair.

“On the other hand,” he says slowly, “if you do that thing with your tongue again...”

He smells of coconut oil, sweat, and winter, and of the leather jacket he’s always borrowing and forgets to give back.

Chapter Text

7

Yuri doesn’t do ballet as he once did, but he’s learned how to stay more supple and flexible than anyone else. He’s desensitized himself to pain, pushed the limits of his body until they became indescribable and blurry, and forged each of his medals from his own blood and bones—he’s turned his flesh into gold. But he never could have done it alone. Yakov built the skater he became, but Lilia Baranovskaya sculpted his identity. Sometimes he’d like to believe she is the mother he never had, but she’s more cruel than that. There’s nothing soft or protective about her. She has that same warrior’s rage, the same destructive urge in her gut, and he thinks she took him on as her disciple because she saw herself mirrored in him.

“Higher.”

Yuri lifts his leg a little, and Lilia approves. She paces half-circles around him like a predator. Despite her age, she hasn’t lost an iota of her grace or her deceptive delicacy. She seems to hardly touch the ground, and she moves with a lightness that Yuri loves to imitate. Naturally, he’s not as elegant as she is, but he’s so close. Sometimes he makes Otabek jump when he slides behind him to hug him, without a noise, without a sound. He says it’s a cat thing, but Yuri learned it by watching Lilia, and Lilia was born that way.

“Your feet are awful.”

Yuri grits his teeth and adjusts his posture. It’s not as if Lilia lets him catch his breath. He can see her out of the corner of his eye, on the periphery of his work. She never takes her eyes off of him. Somehow, that has always reassured him. The only ones to give him their full attention are Lilia and Otabek, though in different ways. Otabek sees the gold in his hair, the texture of his skin, the hint of his absent smiles; the nape of his neck, his wrists, the curve of his thighs, and the nuance in his eyes. Lilia sees his jawline, the angle of his spine, the solidity of his ankles, the finesse in his outstretched fingers, and the precision of his bones.

“Back to the barre. Apply yourself, damn it,” she snaps.

Yuri pauses before obeying. He checks his posture in the mirror, doesn’t see any defect, and drops his arms along his body. Lilia’s already leaving the studio. He watches her leave, confused, and notices she hasn’t taken her fur coat with her. Lilia always seems to disregard the cold, and this April has been mild, but Yuri knows she’s hiding her pack of cigarettes and her lighter in her pockets. He knows she smokes in secret, and he’s been blackmailing her for a long time in exchange for the occasional lapse in his diet. If Yakov finds out she hasn’t quit, as she’d claimed, he’d be able to search her belongings to try to stop her.

That asshole thinks it’s vulgar for women to smoke, she’d hissed when Yuri had formalized their agreement. I certainly plan to prove him wrong, as always.

“Lilia. I was perfect and you know it. You’re such a bitch when you haven’t had your fix, and—”

The words die on his lips, and his grip tightens on the fur coat.

“Go back inside, Yuri,” she says coldly.

She’s sitting on the steps to the studio, right on the concrete. She’s leaning slightly forward, clutching her stomach. She’s shaking a little in her black velour dress, but not from the wind.

“Lilia.” He puts her coat around her shoulders, and when he sits down next to her, she doesn’t even try to push him away.

“Deep breaths,” he says in what he hopes is a calm voice. “Don’t close your eyes and don’t move your head.”

Yuri watches her fight off the nausea—because the last time he saw someone that pale was when Mila had the stomach flu last year. He’d wanted to help, and of course she’d thrown up on his shoes before she had a chance to say she was sick. His faux python Richelieus, of course, that Otabek had just given him. He’d sent her a bill the next day.

“You have better things to do,” Lilia says without looking at him. “The Grand Prix Final is in two weeks.”

“Lilia, I’m not going to lose ten years of training in ten fucking minutes.”

“Watch your language, young man,” she says, standing up abruptly. She sits back down immediately, her hands halfway between her stomach and her lips. He stops himself from saying I told you so, old woman, and waits with her until it passes. When she gets a little color back under her layers of foundation, he goes through her pockets and lights a cigarette for her. She thanks him in a small voice, and smokes it halfway before speaking.

“I need you to keep this to yourself.”

“I think Yakov would love you even if you had leprosy, to be honest.”

She doesn’t reply, and Yuri’s eyes go wide. He tries not to move away. “It’s not leprosy, is it?”

“I knew we should have made you study harder,” she sighs.

“Stomach flu, then? Or did you eat something funny?”

Lilia looks at him with disdain, but her haughty expression becomes a little less severe.

“It’s nothing. It’ll pass.”

He knows she’s lying, but for a moment, he’s willing to change the subject. But her bony hands are shaking, and she’s having trouble lifting the cigarette to her mouth. He doesn’t like it. He tells himself that when he talks it over with Otabek tonight—because obviously he’s going to tell him, even if she said not to, because it’s Beka —he’ll blame him for not having pressed the matter. They’re in St. Petersburg for the upcoming competitions, because the Worlds are in Berlin, but they aren’t training together. They tried, briefly, but they were too distracted or too worked up from seeing each other all day long.

“You’d be better off going to the doctor, anyway. If you don’t, you’ll just give everyone at the studio whatever you have.”

Lilia sniffs. “I have already been to the doctor.”

Yuri doesn’t take his eyes off her. She clears her throat, crushes her cigarette butt on the ground and looks up.

“Cancer isn’t contagious, Yuri. You would know that if you had finished high school.”

He has nothing to say to that. Her eyes are moist, and he has nothing to say to that.

“I started chemo two weeks ago. They found it late, but my odds are still rather good.”

Silence spreads between them, and Yuri crosses his arms over his chest. He’s playing with the fabric of his leggings.

“How good?” he breathes.

Lilia avoids his eyes. “Fifty-fifty.”

“You call that good? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Language,” she says, wincing.

“Fuck off, Lilia. Two weeks. At least two weeks. Were you planning to tell me, or were you going to leave me a message the day of your fucking funeral?”

“Yuri.”

He gets up, and is glad to be angry. If his rage passes, he’s afraid he’ll fall apart.

“I’m coming with you for your chemo. I’ll cover the medical bills. I still have some money saved that I don’t know what the fuck else to do with.”

She looks at him now, and there’s something in her eyes that he can’t interpret.

“What,” he hisses.

“You have grown up so much, Yura.” Her voice is shaking this time, and he’s afraid she’ll start to cry.

“I’ll shave my head when you lose your hair,” he says idiotically. “That way we’ll match, and nobody will get in our faces.”

Lilia laughs out loud, and Yuri wants to weep. When she moves to stand, he helps her and guides her inside. She explains the medical procedures, and he doesn’t let go of her hand. They fall behind on the afternoon’s training, and she yells at him, and he doesn’t let go of her hand. She gives him her chemotherapy dates, and he checks the bus schedule so he can go with her. When she drives him home, she lets him kiss her on the cheek, and she wishes him a good evening. Her skin is cold and soft, and she smells of ginger and secondhand smoke. Yuri runs up the four flights of stairs and finds Otabek’s combat boots in the front hall, and Otabek in the kitchen. The first one home has to make dinner, and the other has to do the dishes.

“Is your program coming along?” he asks when he hears Yuri in the hall.

“No...”

Otabek raises an eyebrow, and manages not to drop the spoon in the casserole dish when he sees Yuri. He’d started to cry the moment Lilia’s car had turned the corner, and he hasn’t been able to stop. His cheeks are wet, and the sleeve of his sweater is damp.

“Could you draw a bath for me?”

Otabek turns off the gas stove and reaches for him. “First, I want to know whose face I have to break.”

“No-one’s,” Yuri says hoarsely.

“Too bad.”

They develop a plan of attack starting that night, Yuri curled into Otabek’s arms, still soaked after his bath. They look at their finances, money they’ve saved that they can access, the best way to tell Yakov, the risks of interrupting or canceling their training. Two weeks later, Yuri takes bronze at the Grand Prix Final, and Lilia’s hair starts to fall out.

11

He’d forgotten how small the rink is at Ice Castle Hasetsu. He’s already skated there a number of times when visiting Yu-topia, but only to kill time, or show some new thing to Victor, or keep his skills honed—never for training. The ice under his blades seems finer, more fragile. The cold against his skin is milder, warmer. He’s doing the same moves he’s executed a thousand times, but here they seem uncertain. He easily lands a triple Axel, then a quad Salchow, but he has the crazy feeling he’s going to blow it and fall the moment his feet touch the ice.

Emotions are a funny thing.

“You’re going to need a coach.”

Yuri turns to look, slows a little. Yuuri Katsuki is watching him, arms crossed over his chest, his face half-hidden in the collar of his fleece. “No, I won’t.”

He can hear Yuuri sigh, a sound so full of affection that he has to look away. After all these years, Yuri has come to accept Victor and his husband as components of his life, like lighthouses in the night, like friends and slightly peculiar parental figures. He knows they love him, and they know he loves them. But since he arrived last week, he hasn’t spent much time with them. He’s dawdled in bed, loitered in the hot springs, hung out with Matcha, and skipped out on several dinners and walks along the seashore. Victor and Yuuri are giving him time. He knows it, and it’s a relief, but he’s starting to feel like a jerk. He doesn’t even remember asking how they are, how Yu-topia was doing. He feels like he doesn’t deserve this kind of affection.

He adds, “I know my routine and my warm-ups and my programs.”

“That’s not what you need a coach for.”

“I’ve worked without a coach for three years. It didn’t stop me from taking silver at the Worlds last year.”

Yuuri doesn’t reply right away. Yuri knows he’s thinking about Lilia. He’d needed some time to return to it.

“What about the new guy, Sergei?”

Yuri scoffs. He moves through the steps of his choreography, from the simple ones to the more complex.

“He’s never managed to earn my respect. He’s practically useless to me.”

“Victor could—”

“No. Not Victor.”

Victor would be tough, and cruel, and would remind him of Lilia, and that would just make him more miserable. And Victor would analyze him, and look for echoes of his break-up, and reasons for it, in his dance.

“Fine,” sighs Yuuri.

There’s a silence in which he thinks Yuuri has dropped the matter. He leaps into a triple Salchow.

“What about me?” Yuuri blurts.

The Russian skater comes to a stop, standing stock-still on the ice. He’s a little out of breath, and his shoulder muscles are tight. He still jumps with his arms over his head. It’s become his signature move.

“You, I wouldn’t mind.”

Yuuri gives him a satisfied smile. Victor’s making dinner, and this time when he calls him, Yurio will make the effort to come and eat with them.

5

They message each other every day, but their Skype sessions are different. They try to have one at least once a week when they have time, or twice a month when they’re both too busy with training. The first few times they were both so frustrated at seeing without touching, at speaking through artificial speakers, at viewing without really looking at each other. But that’s the way their relationship is; they’re used to it. Yuri knows that long-distance relationships don’t work in general. Mila has told him so a thousand times, Victor has had his doubts, and Yuuri seems sorry for him. As for Lilia, she’s just waiting for it to end. She sees Otabek as nothing but a competitor, and their relationship as a temporary incongruity.

Yuri doesn’t give a shit.

He never does what he’s told, not without showing his teeth and claws, and can’t see why he should give up Otabek in the name of some hypothetically inevitable break-up. He’s happy with him. He’s happy to message him, happy to Skype with him, happy to know he’s thinking of him. Their relationship is “long-distance” only by criteria that have no importance.

“What did you do to your hair?” Yuri mutters.

Otabek raises an eyebrow. He’s pulled back the longest part in a ponytail, cinched just above his undercut.

“I saw it in a movie,” he says casually.

Yuri scoffs. “You look like a hipster.”

“I look cool and you know it. I might ask you the same thing, Yura.”

Yuri frowns and glances at his image in the corner of the screen. He’s embalmed his hair in a karité hair treatment he borrowed from Mila, and rolled it all up in a hot towel.

“Because you think hair like this happens without hours of hard work and maintenance?”

Otabek smirks. “Another myth, shattered.”

“Asshole. Tell me about your week.”

Otabek does so, and they talk until nightfall. Yuri tells him about every single cat he ran into, and sends him the music he’s going to use for his next free program. It’s a summery tune with EDM accents, and it makes Otabek smile.

“So you’ve finally given up on choreographing to hard rock?”

“Lilia ended up convincing me.”

“She must be thrilled.”

“Not really,” Yuri admits. “She doesn’t like this either. If it were up to her, I’d still be going with classical, but Yakov said it was okay. Ballet is starting to bore me. And anyway, I don’t have the physique for it any more.”

He’s still a little smaller than Otabek, but his shoulders are more squared and his face more mature, and his leotards no longer fit in the same way. He has to reinvent himself anew, now that he’s nearly finished growing. He had to stop competing the previous year because his body became unfamiliar and useless to him, but he knows he’ll get his revenge this season.

“I can’t wait to see you on the ice again,” Otabek admits.

“You and everyone else, princess.”

He smiles in pixels, and has the absurd impulse to stroke the screen with his fingertips as if he could reach Otabek’s cheek, the angle of his jaw, the little scar by his ear.

“Anyway, I took a big step today,” Yuri says slowly.

Otabek looks at him curiously, and Yuri sticks out his tongue. His piercing is new and shiny, the flesh still painful and swollen.

“Yura,” Otabek gasps.

The look in his eyes is equal parts surprise and desire, and Yuri hopes he’s not blushing. He keeps his mouth open, feeling ridiculous, and also powerful.

“You did that today?”

Yuri licks his lips, swallows. “Yeah. I wanted us to be one of those annoying couples that dress alike, but I couldn’t picture you in leopard fur.”

“Don’t even try to catch up, Yura. I’ve got a lot more planned.” Otabek has three piercings in his ears. He used to have one in his eyebrow, but it closed up because it was too risky to wear it while skating, in case he fell.

“No chance. It hurts like a bitch.”

It hurts when he closes his mouth, and it hurts when he swallows. He’d have been sorry if it hadn’t looked so good on him, and if Otabek hadn’t been so turned on in a split-second.

“I’ve been condemned to eat through a straw for two weeks.”

“You didn’t think it all the way through, did you?”

Yuri winces. “More or less,” he admits.

There’s a short silence, then Otabek clears his throat. “I like it.”

Yuri smiles wickedly. “I know.”

“Too bad about your hair, it ruins the effect. I won’t be able to jerk off with that image in my head.”

This time it’s Yuri who blushes, burying his face in his arms. He can hear Otabek laughing, the sound raucous and pure. Then there’s another sound, something heavy that comes from downstairs. He lifts his head, looking dumbly at the closed door to his bedroom.

“What’s the matter?”

“I dunno,” he murmurs. “The cat must have knocked something over.”

“Probably. Go rinse your hair and we’ll start over.”

“Beka.”

“Or don’t. Suit yourself.”

He looks embarrassed now, which Yuri finds hilarious. They’re still at the stage where certain things are embarrassing, uncertain, open to negotiation. They’re still establishing the rules.

“Hang on,” Yuri says abruptly.

He gets up, adjusts the towel wrapped around his head. Either the leftovers he ate were older than he thought, or something’s actually wrong.

“Yuri?”

“I’m having a weird feeling... don’t go, I’ll be right back.”

He doesn’t wait for Otabek’s response. He leaves his room and goes downstairs.

“Grandpa?” he calls. “What was that noise? Was it the cat?”

When he doesn’t get an answer, he becomes seriously worried. He finds his grandfather on the kitchen floor, unconscious, his wrinkled hands clutching his chest. Yuri freezes a moment, and it takes him several interminable seconds until he can move and lean over the old man. He attempts chest compressions in vain, takes too long to dial the number for emergency services, and panics when they ask for his address. The ambulance arrives, but he needs the insurance papers, and he runs upstairs to look for them in his room.

“I’ll call you back,” he says to Otabek, turning off the computer screen.

It takes them eleven minutes to get to the hospital. Eleven minutes.

3

Yuri’s been here before, but the first time, last year, he was nervous due to the growing unease between him and Otabek. He hadn’t noticed the house. He hadn’t noticed the acres of orchard surrounding it. He hadn’t noticed the high ceilings and the Art Deco furniture in the living room. He hadn’t noticed all the bathrooms.

“Six? Six?”

“Less than seven but more than five, yes.”

Yuri ignores him, runs down the hallways, his socks sliding on the wax parquet flooring. It’s a little like skating, so he doesn’t fall, and slides from one door to the next with an ease that makes Otabek grin. He follows Yuri, amused, perplexed, and somewhat anxious. The last time Yuri came to his house in Almaty, they had their first and only date. Because of the competition schedule, their relationship is built of dotted lines made up of messages and Skype sessions, and the rare in-person contact during competitions. They haven’t even kissed.

“And what is that?”

He’s leaning on the doorway of a room, a hand on the doorframe, his feet almost en pointe. His posture is too lax to be suitable for the barre, but Otabek is sure that if he leaves him there for five more minutes, Yuri will start doing arabesques from sheer force of habit.

“That is a library.”

“Thank you, I’m not a complete idiot. But why would you need an entire room for books?”

Yuri looks genuinely disoriented, and when he finally goes in and glances at the shelves and the windows, Otabek can’t read the look on his face. There’s a whole section of one wall organized by the Dewey decimal system, facing three Chesterfield armchairs in black velour—one each for Otabek, his mother, and his brother, because his father always reads in his office. They each have their predilections. Otabek has a weakness for classic Slavic literature, theology, and the history of Kazakhstan. Sometimes Emily Dickinson or William Wordsworth, and even less frequently, works of philosophy.

“And you’ve read them all?” Yuri asks.

Otabek smiles at him, but Yuri isn’t looking. His eyes are riveted to the rows of books.

“Of course not.”

Otabek watches him, and understands. Yuri isn’t frightened or envious, he’s uncomfortable. He’s never devoted very much time or energy to school, and never studied. Lilia suggested online courses several times, but he always refused. He feels too stupid. He’d had to sacrifice a lot for each one of his medals, and devoted so much to training that he forgot how to be anything but an athlete. Once he confided to Otabek that he regretted his decision. That now he was kind of a joke, and that he hated himself every time he found himself at a banquet or gala with someone trying to discuss politics or culture. He never knew what to say, always ended up finding some excuse to dodge questions he couldn’t even begin to understand.

“You’re staying for a week, right?”

Yuri turns briefly, nods.

“You can borrow what you like and put them back before you leave, Yura. We have lots of books in Russian.”

“But your parents—”

“My father is on a two-month business trip, and my mother is rarely home these days. They won’t even notice.”

Yuri nods slowly, running a hand through his blond hair. The bun he’d worn on the plane has been coming undone for a while, and he pulls out the elastic and lets his hair fall around his shoulders.

“Cool,” he says to himself.

Otabek doesn’t take his eyes off him as he selects works at random, piling them here and there on one of the armchairs. He carries them to Otabek’s room, and dumps them in a heap on the dresser. Otabek had offered him the same guest room as last time, but Yuri laughed and rolled his suitcase to Otabek’s room. There’s a relatively comfortable sofa, but maybe Yuri has decided they’re sleeping together tonight. Otabek wouldn’t have the heart to refuse.

“Your family is rich,” Yuri says flatly.

Some of the books he chose look really old. Otabek sits next to him at the edge of the bed and shrugs. “We never wanted for anything.”

“Beka. You have six bathrooms.”

“We don’t really use all six, you know.”

Yuri gives him a long look. Otabek winces. “I see where you’re coming from,” he admits.

“How come I only just noticed?”

“Because it isn’t something I talk about. I don’t boast about it, and I’m not ashamed of it, either. It’s just a fact, Yura.”

Yuri scoffs. “That’s what a rich kid would say. What do your mysterious parents do?”

“My father is a diplomat. Mum does charity work. She spends her time at hospitals and in shelters.” He smiles to himself, adding, “When I first came out, her first impulse was to set up a charity to help kids who’d been kicked out of the house because of their sexuality or their gender.”

“What about your father?”

“He said that if I insisted on proclaiming things that nobody gave a fuck about, he wanted me to know that he can’t stand the color beige.”

“Your family is weird. Rich and weird.”

Otabek shrugs, and Yuri lies lazily across the bed. His blond hair forms a halo around his face, and the bottom of his sweatshirt rides up over his hips. His skin is pale, milky-white.

“Do I have time for a nap before we go to the rink?”

Otabek isn’t listening. He stretches out next to him, slides his hand over Yuri’s stomach, his fingers brushing his exposed skin, and leans over to kiss him. His lips are warm and dry, his breathing steady. Otabek doesn’t close his eyes. He can see Yuri close his, and his long blond eyelashes cast shadows across his cheeks. He tastes of coffee and insomnia, and of bittersweet secrets. He smells like his coconut and lemon shampoo.

“Three years,” Yuri murmurs against his lips, “and you make your move when I’m just off a five-hour flight and I haven’t brushed my teeth in at least twice that long.”

“Sorry.”

“Is my breath that bad?”

“No. I really am sorry. I’m not usually this impulsive.”

Yuri frowns, and Otabek sits up a little. When he tries to remove his hand from Yuri’s belly, Yuri covers it with his own hand, awkwardly gripping his fingers. His short nails scrape his skin.

“You wanted to do something romantic,” Yuri realizes with a half-smile. “I’d have bet on poetry.”

“Emily Dickinson,” Otabek admits, blushing.

Yuri rolls his eyes. He lifts a hand to Otabek’s face, touches the little scar on his jaw, slides his fingers through the shaved hair of his undercut.

“Do it, or you’ll hold it against me later.”

“I’m not sure about the one I chose. Not completely.”

“Beka.”

Otabek takes a deep breath and recites:

Love—is Anterior to Life
Posterior—to Death
Initial of Creation, and
The Exponent of Breath.

Yuri kisses him a long while, and smiles against his mouth.

“That was perfect,” he says. “You’re definitely going to have to translate it and explain it to me later, but that was perfect.”

11

Yuri prefers the supermarkets in Japan. The konbinis are always more sober, healthier, easier to breathe in. The food is nothing like in Russia, and the other customers are more pleasant. When Victor and Yuuri moved back to Hasetsu for good, he found all this politeness irritating, but over time he’s learned to appreciate it. Otabek said he was acting like an old man, to which Yuri replied that Otabek had started saying back in my day a little too often. There are other places Yuri is fond of in Hasetsu, but the corner convenience store is different. It’s a neutral zone where nobody pays attention, where nobody recognizes him, where he’s just the blond tourist who knows ten sentences of Japanese.

He already has the shopping list in his hand when he goes through the automatic doors, written by Victor with notes in Russian, stuck to the fridge when he got up this morning. He’s seen the groceries they need a thousand times, and quickly fills his shopping bag. He’s deciding between two brands of black konjac, remembering with a vague smile the first time Otabek tried Japanese cuisine. It’s hard to find sushi in Kazakhstan. Yuuri had served octopus, and when Beka saw the tentacles, Yuri had to stop himself from taking a photo.

“I’m an open-minded guy, Yura,” he’d said later, “but there are limits to what I’m willing to put in my mouth.”

Yuri had made a dirty joke, and Otabek simply stared at him with a resigned expression. It became a kind of code word between them after that. Any time they were together at a gala or a dinner and they’d had it with monotonous conversations about politics or indiscreet questions about their relationship, they’d share a look and mouth the word tentacles. They extricated themselves from more than a few annoying situations that way, but often Yuri used it when he was just tired or in a bad mood. Otabek often used it to ask for a favor, sometimes reasonable, but more often sexual. Yuri’s lost track of how many times he’d found himself on his knees in a hallway because of tentacles. He supposes it’s just another word now.

“Are you all right?”

He jumps, and drops the packet of konjac he was holding.

“Oh, sorry, I have frightened you.”

Yuri shakes his head, mutters an insult, and bends over to pick up the package. The other man reaches it first, and hands it to him with a somewhat foolish smile plastered on his face. Yuri recognizes him as one of the employees at the konbini, but he’s sure they haven’t spoken before.

“Thanks,” he says, sliding the package into his shopping bag.

“Are you all right?” the store worker says again.

His English is rudimentary, with a pronounced Japanese accent. He’s taller than Yuri, with short black hair and an angular face. There’s a kanji tattooed in red at the base of his neck.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“You looked pale.”

Yuri frowns. “I’m Russian. We seldom go tanning at the beach.”

The store worker laughs softly, still not going back to work. Yuri doesn’t know if he should be suspicious, but it will always be his initial reflex.

“Have I done something I shouldn’t have?” he says mildly.

“No, no, not at all. Our habits must look strange to you, no?”

“Not that strange.”

“Are you here on holiday?”

Yuri opens his mouth, closes it again. He can feel the tiny weight of his piercing in his tongue. It distantly crosses his mind that the guy’s hitting on him. Ordinarily he’d tell him to piss off. But he isn’t in a relationship now. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do.

“More or less.”

The store worker nods, blushing. Yuri doesn’t say anything else, and after an embarrassed silence, he attempts a smile.

“You didn’t really think this through, huh?” he asks.

“No,” the store worker admits. “I do not even know if I have a chance, actually.”

Yuri rolls his eyes. “I’m not that interesting.”

The store worker shrugs, blushing even harder. “You are intimidating. And you are truly very handsome.”

Yuri says nothing. His hair is dirty, knotted into a messy bun, and he’d thrown on some tacky sweatshirt, probably Victor’s, before going out, its electric blue completely hideous next to his faux leather pants. He can’t remember the last time he took a shower.

“Got a pen?” he says finally.

He does, and he quickly hands Yuri a black Bic from the pocket of his uniform. Yuri grabs his wrist, pulls him closer, and scribbles his cell phone number on the man’s hand. He can feel his pulse under his fingers, rapid and panicked like the flutter of a butterfly’s wing.

“Call me when you think of something.”

“Etsujiro. My name is Etsujiro.”

Yuri smiles at him, his teeth white, his lips sulky.

“I’m Yuri. I don’t like flowers, and I prefer dark chocolate.”

5

Mila is the first to arrive at the hospital. Yuri finds it strange, because he hasn’t called anyone yet. His grandfather is still on the operating table, and he’s just sat down to wait, staring at his feet and trying not to cry. The paramedics were able to restart his grandfather’s heart, but he’s not out of the woods yet. Yuri only took a moment to rinse his hair in the bathroom sink, leaving it to drip dry on his sweatshirt. Sometimes a passing nurse will give him a quick smile from the hallway. Then Mila shows up, her red hair loose, still dressed in training gear. Her leotard is electric blue—she’d bought it when the two of them shopped the latest sales—and she’s thrown her coat over her shoulders. She’s out of breath and has her phone in one hand and a packet of tissues in the other. She’ll tell him later she swiped it from the reception desk. She’s not even sorry.

“Here,” she says, thrusting them at him. “Have a good cry now so you can be presentable for your grandfather.”

His eyes immediately fill with tears, despite having spent two hours convincing himself he was stronger than that. Mila hugs him tightly, strokes his wet hair, and waits patiently for his sobs to run their course. He feels better afterward, and he wipes his face with a tissue as she kisses his forehead.

“I haven’t called anyone yet,” he says hoarsely.

“No, but you did talk to Otabek. He told me he also let Victor and Yuuri know, but apparently they’d gone out to dinner and now they’re stuck in traffic.”

“He called you?”

Mila sighs. She wraps her coat around her leotard, and Yuri looks at her hands and notices her nail polish is chipped. He can’t remember the last time he hung out at her place, or the last time they watched reality TV together, or the name of the last hockey player she went out with. He feels guilty. He spends all his spare time talking to Otabek now, and less and less with her.

“Yes. Try to keep up, it’ll save time. He’s been trying to call you for two hours, and he’s seriously freaking out.”

“I left my phone at home,” he admits.

“Well, that’s a first.”

He growls something insulting and childish, and she hugs him.

“Nikolai is tough, Yuri,” she says gently. “He’ll come through.”

They wait, not moving any more, and Mila shoots dark looks at the shocked nurses staring at her attire. When Victor and Yuuri arrive, they can hear them at the end of the hallway, probably even from the moment they step out of the elevator. They’re noisy, having drunk too much wine, Yuuri still ranting about traffic jams and Victor bumping into everyone they pass, and Yuri has never been so happy to see them.

“Yurio, you’re going to catch cold with your hair like that,” Yuuri cries.

His blond locks are still wet, slightly wavy over his shoulders. Victor harasses the nurses until someone brings a towel, and Yuri thinks he might die of shame when Victor starts drying his hair.

“How are you feeling?” says his former mentor while Mila talks to Yuuri.

“Nauseous.”

Victor gives him a gentle smile, grasping his face with his warm hands and looking him straight in the eye. “Darling. I’d love to tell you it’s going to be okay, and that your grandfather will pull through. But Yuri, he is very old, and very weak, and there is a chance he will not completely recover. You are going to have to be brave, and responsible. There may be papers to sign in case of death, administrative steps to take, decisions to make. We’ll do all we can to help you, and there are some things only you can do.”

Yuri gulps and nods slowly. Victor grips his cheeks, almost painfully, and there is a severity in his eyes that Yuri didn’t know he was capable of.

“All right. Your grandfather is very proud of you. Yuuri and I are proud of you. Mila will always love you. Otabek adores you. Your family is bigger than you think. Okay?”

“Okay.”

His voice is calmer than he could have hoped, and Victor kisses his hair before hugging him briefly. Yuri is having one of the worst nights of his life, but he also thinks he’s learning a lot right now. Unfair and necessary things.

“I love you,” Yuri says quietly.

Victor says, “I love you, too, Yurio. Now open wide and swear to me that that isn’t a piercing I just saw.”

Yuri sticks out his swollen, painful tongue, and Victor looks shocked. “Yuuri,” he calls. “My love, we have a problem.”

Yuuri comes to see, and says it’s sexy and it looks good on him, and Victor begins to rant about what a terrible influence Otabek is on him.

Chapter Text

6

That year, they spend the summer in Almaty, because two of Otabek’s cousins are getting married, and because the air conditioning in the St. Petersburg apartment isn’t working. They’ve been living together for less than a year, and leaving their routine behind has made them a little unstable. Their habits are already well established. Yuri walks around half-naked, Otabek eats in bed, they comment on the movies they watch, let empty beer cans pile up in the bedroom, leave the radio on all night, leave the bathroom door open, and write each other love notes with alphabet magnets on the fridge.

Their recent correspondence: i love your hair; youre a better lay when youre drunk; sorry i shouted this morning; i found your keys; you make me want to try; i think i like you more than the cat; i miss you when you arent looking at me.

“Good evening, Yuri.”

Yuri jumps, dropping his juice box and cursing. Mrs. Altin— please, call me Djamila —stands in the doorway, dignified in her white suit, her hair in a high, sophisticated bun. She radiates wealth and quasi-condescending goodness, and she looks at Yuri with black eyes full of reproach. He clears his throat, discreetly hiking up his jeans, and picks up the juice box. He hadn’t opened it yet, and for a moment he isn’t sure what to do now. He’d just come downstairs for something to drink before going back to Otabek’s room. The flight had been long, they’d just gotten in, and they’d thought they’d be alone until the next day.

“Good evening, Djamila. Beka thought you wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.”

She raises a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Barring proof to the contrary, Otabek no longer lives here. It is very presumptuous of him to anticipate the comings and goings at a property which does not belong to him.”

“I expect he’s used to not seeing you around.”

Oh, Yuri could smile and excuse himself and run back upstairs, but he doesn’t want to. Mrs. Altin, with her white suit and white teeth, is far from perfect, and he has no reason to be ashamed of running into her without his shirt on in the middle of the night. He probably has hickeys on his chest and neck, but she’s had two children. She must have at least some idea of what sex is, after all.

“Undoubtedly,” she says curtly. “Close that refrigerator door and join me on the veranda, would you.”

He does so, following her through the labyrinth of corridors that makes up the house. He’ll tell Otabek that his mother kidnapped him, and that he didn’t have a choice. The truth is, he’s curious to know what she has to say to him. They are generally cordial to one another, if somewhat distant, and Otabek is still the only thing they have in common.

“Sit down.”

Yuri lifts an eyebrow. The veranda, smaller and more reasonable than the rest of the house, is plunged in shadow. In the moonlight he can see the shapes of a sofa and a table, and a vase of wilted flowers.

“Beka is always praising your immense kindness,” he says, dropping onto the sofa.

Djamila doesn’t look at him. She reaches into a pocket of her suit jacket, removes a box of hotel matches and a pack of cigarettes, elegantly lights one, and smokes, gazing at the orchards beyond the windows.

“It seems to me you are a young man in perfect health. I do not see why I should give you my attention.”

“I am dating your son, you know.”

She smiles at him. Her face is wrinkled, especially around her eyes, but she does not appear old. “Oh, I’m not concerned. It won’t last.”

Yuri sighs faintly, and she comes to sit next to him. “Aren’t you at least going to protest?”

Being gay and Russian, Yuri is used to being hated, rejected, and mocked. He’s disappointed that Otabek’s mother would take part in it, but he isn’t surprised.

“He wants to have children. You cannot give him any. Adoption is impossible, here and in Russia, and complicated and difficult to manage elsewhere. He certainly loves you, and you are happy together, but his desire to have a family will outweigh all that.”

Yuri says nothing. Otabek has never brought up the topic, and Yuri hasn’t thought about it—because he absolutely never, ever wants children.

“I wish I could be sorry for you, Yuri,” she says slowly. “But Otabek is my son, and I love him with all my heart. He’s bisexual, he could potentially meet a young woman and have children with her. I only want him to be happy, and happiness for him means becoming a father. You cannot fight that.”

Yuri avoids her eyes. Djamila takes a drag on her cigarette, lets the smoke dissipate in the air.

“I’d like you to give it some thought, for his sake, and take some time to get used to the idea. That way, the breakup will be easier on him, and on you.”

“You’ve never liked me, have you.”

She shakes her head. Her eyes are cold but sincere. Yuri begins to feel nauseous, but that could be because of the bitter smell of tobacco.

“Oh, no, sweetheart. You’re an energetic and ambitious young man, and I appreciate that. Otabek has shown me your skating, and you’re obviously talented and you work hard. But that’s not what this is about. You cannot give him children, and that will be as frustrating for you as for him. If he makes himself stay with you despite everything, his anger will gnaw at him, and you’ll end up hating him. I would not wish that upon you.”

“I understand what you expect of me, Djamila,” he says with a twisted smile. “But I am not a reasonable person. I am not going to drop Beka like that. I am not going to ‘give it some thought.’ I am going to fight, and if we must separate, it will be through blood and tears, I can assure you.”

He stands and looks straight at her. She’s silent, almost shocked, her cigarette at the edge of her lips.

“I never had a chance in life,” he continues. “I never had real parents, I lost my grandfather last year, and I didn’t have friends as a child. I have fought for everything I have today. If you want to tear me away from your son, you will have to kill me, Mrs. Altin. Because otherwise, I have no intention of allowing anything to destroy our relationship—least of all you.”

He leaves her in the veranda and doesn’t look back. He gets lost three times trying to find his way, finally finds Otabek’s bedroom, and slides under the covers without a word. He will never discuss their conversation with him, and Djamila will never broach the subject again. Sometimes he’ll tell himself it could have been a test. He will never be certain.

“You got lost, huh?” Otabek murmurs into his skin.

“Yeah. Seriously, you might put up some signs.”

Otabek laughs faintly, and Yuri kisses him. “I’m pretty sure people have died trying to find the bathroom,” Yuri murmurs.

“We make the household staff hide the bodies. You’ll never be able to prove a thing.”

11

“Why hasn’t he called?”

Victor looks up, sets down his magazine on his thighs. Matcha is curled into a ball at his feet, her black fur shining in the sunlight. It’s almost noon, and Yuri has just gotten up. He’s naked under his bathrobe, and his blond hair falls around his shoulders. Yuuri is spending the day with Minako at the dance studio, so it’s Victor’s turn to run the inn. Of course, there aren’t any guests.

“Who hasn’t what, sweetheart?” says Victor.

Yuri groans a little and sits across from him. Matcha immediately comes to lick his hand, and he hugs her, avoiding the eyes of his former mentor. “The guy from the konbini.”

“Ah, Etsujiro.”

“I’m positive I never mentioned his name.”

“Yuuri went to high school with his sister,” he admits. “He promised me he’d find out all about him.”

Yuri sighs. “I don’t need guard dogs, Victor.”

“No, but it’s practically your first date. We have the right to play your parents.” Victor smiles at him, white teeth in an almost austere face. He pushes away the magazine and reaches toward Yuri, who takes his hands, perplexed. His skin is warm and smooth, and the scent of his cologne is familiar.

“Why this boy, Yurio?”

He shrugs.

“If you go out with him solely because you’re lonely, it won’t work. If you’re doing it to forget Otabek, that won’t work either.”

“I don’t want to forget him,” Yuri says quietly.

Victor stares at him. “Fine,” he breathes. “You have your reasons for breaking up, and even if I’m dying of curiosity, it isn’t my business. But you have got to be honest with yourself about it, Yuri. If you aren’t sure—”

“No. Don’t even go there.” Yuri stands abruptly, letting go of Victor’s hands. Victor stands, too, managing not to step on Matcha’s tail. He feels like grabbing Yuri by the arm.

“What if you’ve made a mistake?” Victor says. There’s something like a note of desperation in his voice, which Yuri can’t remember hearing him use except when talking about his own relationship, or his dog.

“If I’d wanted to hear this kind of bullshit, I’d have stayed in St. Petersburg.” He isn’t really angry, just agitated. Anger hasn’t been one of his automatic responses in a long time.

“You and Otabek had something powerful, Yurio,” Victor insists. “You can’t deny that.”

Yuri freezes. He stares at Victor. It’s so obvious, he suddenly wants to scream.

“You’ve spoken with him,” he says flatly.

“What? No.”

“You called him. I can’t fucking believe it.”

He pushes him away and leaves the room, but Victor follows him, Matcha at his heels. He crosses the inn and goes out to the courtyard, barely noticing that he’s barefoot.

“Otabek is my friend, too. I had the right to call him.”

“You have a weird way of defending yourself, then.”

Victor sighs, burying his face in his hands. He’s also barefoot on the gravel, but after all, the two of them are used to pain. Yuri turns his back on him, crossing his arms over his chest. The sun is gentle on his skin.

“I’m sorry,” Victor murmurs after a silence. “I wanted to know how he was doing.”

“No, you wanted to know how to persuade me to get back together.”

“Maybe. You can’t blame me, Yurio.”

Victor takes a deep breath, approaches him slowly, and wraps his arms around him. He’s taller than Yuri, and he has to lean down a little to really hug him, and Yuri’s hair tickles his face. It’s awkward and ridiculous, affectionate and sincere, and Yuri closes his eyes and leans against him.

“He’s the only man you’ve ever loved,” Victor says into his neck. “The only one you ever tried to. You never mentioned breaking up before. You were happy together. I don’t understand what happened, and you obviously don’t either.”

Yuri hates himself for asking, but the question slips out before he even has time to think about it. “What about him?”

Victor smiles into the nape of his neck. “He says he knows you too well not to understand, and that he’s aware he won’t be able to change your mind.” After a silence, he adds, “He says he will love you until the day he dies, and that you can call him at any time of night.”

Yuri nods, turning around so he can really hug Victor. His arms are strong and familiar, and Yuri inhales the scent of his cologne and tries to remember the poem by Emily Dickinson.

6

The distance isn’t a problem until they move in together. They spend the first six months living in the St. Petersburg apartment. They’ll stay there the majority of the time, Yakov being thrilled to coach Otabek, who is a thousand times more disciplined and polite than his other students. Their debut as a real couple, according to Mila, is even more perfect than they could have hoped. They do everything together. Yuri has lived in St. Petersburg for a long time, but his grandfather’s house in Moscow was his real home, and he’d had to sell it after the old man died the previous year. It was a long and difficult ordeal, but when Otabek suggested living together, he grabbed the opportunity to make his studio into a place he’d be happy to come home to at night. They painted, installed flooring, developed photos of Otabek’s family and Victor and Yuuri and Mila, and bought a real bed and a bathtub.

The Altins paid for a large part of it, on the father’s initiative. “You’ve never asked for more than you needed,” he’d said. “It’s a pain in the ass, son. I’ve never had the chance to spoil you until now.”

Yuri only ever met him once, but Ibrahim Altin seemed to him to be a pragmatic man with a dry sense of humor. Otabek took after him more than his mother.

“You noticed that on first glance?” Ibrahim had said with a smile when Yuri told him so. Yuri had shrugged. In a rare display of public affection, Otabek had put his arm around Yuri’s waist, smiling at him.

“He knows me well enough for that,” he’d said.

When their relationship was long-distance, the problem they had was of insatiable appetite. They saw each other too rarely to have time to fight or to learn each other’s boring flaws. They spend six months in pure ecstasy, making love on the kitchen floor by day, talking for hours by night. They tell each other their worst secrets and their biggest plans, and make fun of their old skating programs on pixelated YouTube videos. Yuri teaches him to cook, and Otabek reads the history of Kazakhstan out loud to him. They take long baths together until the water grows  cold, they talk and talk and talk some more, and sometimes fall silent just to look into each other’s eyes and hold hands, as if to say there you are, finally.

Then they start wearing pajamas to bed, and pissing with the bathroom door open, and one morning Yuri yells at him for leaving the light on when he’s left a room.

“Fucking rich kid,” Yuri mutters.

Otabek grits his teeth, stands up from the sofa, and parks himself in front of him.

“You were happy to take my parents’ money when you wanted to redo the windows.”

“Your father offered,” hisses Yuri. “You don’t have the right to say that as if I’d asked .”

“Nobody forced you to accept it.”

Yuri crosses his arms over his chest and steps toward him. They watch each other like children or predators.

“And do what? Live in a seedy apartment when I had the opportunity to turn it into something cool?”

“The opportunity? My father only mentioned it to be nice, but you should have turned it down.”

“What?”

“It’s about having some manners. Who the hell raised you?”

Otabek knows he’s made a mistake as soon as the words slip out, but it’s already too late. Yuri blinks, uncrosses his arms, and looks at him with such rage that Otabek considers dropping to his knees and begging his forgiveness. But he’s conscious that in Yuri’s current state, it would only make him more furious.

“Go fuck yourself,” Yuri says slowly.

Otabek lowers his head and lets him leave. He receives a message that evening from Mila, explaining that Yuri’s with her and that he’s all right. He’s really fucking worked up, she writes, but I think that an apology and dinner at his favorite restaurant should do it.

“We are going to need a list,” Yuri will say much later, “of things that are acceptable and things we should compromise on.”

“All right.”

“You can leave empty glasses around, you can forget to rinse out the sink after you shave. But talking about my parents, or calling Lilia or Mila when I’m not home right on time, is out. You have no right to bring up topics that you know are painful for me, even when I more or less deserve it. And the more you try to control every little thing I do, the more I’ll leave my phone off just to piss you off.”

Otabek nods and kisses him, and they set about making their lists.

“I love you.”

Yuri smiles, lips against his cheek, hands on his chest.

“I love you, too.”

4

“Go fuck yourself,” Yuri hisses through his teeth.

If Yakov hears him, he chooses not to say anything. It’s not the first time Yuri has insulted him—not even the first time today—and he’s gotten used to it. But Victor is here, and he’s not about to let it slide.

“Yuri, what did you just say to your coach?”

Yakov briefly imagines turning a blind eye, but he’s sure Lilia will hear about it one way or another. She’s always telling him he’s a wimp—but it’s easy for her, she gained Yuri’s respect with a snap of her fingers. As for Yakov, he sometimes wonders by what miracle he’s managed to teach his own student anything at all.

“I said, ‘Go fuck yourself,’” Yuri states, turning toward Victor. “I can extend the sentiment to you, if you like.”

Since he started dating Otabek Altin, he’s at least begun to express himself better.

“Yurio, this sort of behavior is unacceptable for an athlete of your level.”

Yuri gives him the finger from the ice, and keeps skating. He lands two triple Axels in a row, but falls after a quad Salchow. With his late growth spurt, his body doesn’t suit him anymore. Obviously, Victor hasn’t noticed, and hasn’t yet realized just how frustrated and irritable Yuri is, and how bound up in his unhappiness. Yakov’s former student stands up in the bleachers, and walks down to the side of the rink. Yuri sees him and glides up. His face is sweaty and he’s shaking a little.

“You’re retired, Nikiforov. I don’t have to listen to you. You have no business here.”

Victor is upset, but Yakov doesn’t want to intervene. It couldn’t hurt for his former protegé to take one on the chin—certainly, Yakov still blames him for leaving, four years ago.

“Yurio, you’re not a child any more,” Victor mutters.

Yuri laughs, loud and bitter. He’s not breathing well and is supporting himself oddly on his right leg.

“No, of course not,” he says flatly. “A child couldn’t break all your records and take home more Grand Prix medals than you, of course not.”

Victor holds his gaze a moment, then his face becomes cold and distant, and he glances at Yakov.

“I see,” he says slowly. “Yuuri and I have no reason to stay any longer, I suppose.”

Yakov grinds his teeth and watches Victor leave. He’s already far away when Yuri drops onto the ice, completely stretched out, and buries his face in his hands. Yakov approaches him without hesitation, and crouches next to him. His street shoes slide a little, but he doesn’t give a damn. He has decades of skating in his blood, and the day he falls is still a long way off.

“Get up,” he says.

“Go fuck yourself.” Yuri’s voice breaks a little, but he doesn’t budge.

“I know. I heard you the first 15 times. Get up, we’re done for today. You have apologies to make, and I’ve got a soccer game to watch.”

Yuri lowers his hands onto his stomach and looks at Yakov. There are tears in the corners of his eyes and his lips are trembling. He’s just turned 18, and Yakov has never seen him this fragile.

“It’s puberty, dummy. Everyone goes through it.”

“I hate the whole world,” he says, almost inaudibly.

“Me too. Except I’m old and embittered, whereas you’ll get over it.”

“I yelled at Otabek yesterday.”

Yakov takes a deep breath and sits cross-legged on the ice. He’ll have some trouble standing up, and his pants will be ruined, but so what. Yuri sits up a little.

“He’ll forgive you. The boy is crazy about you. It’s almost disturbing.”

Yuri sniffles.

“Now you shut your mouth and let me talk,” he continues. “This season isn’t going to be easy, and you’ll have to relearn the basics. Your body is changing, your skating is changing. And if you go about it with a modicum of good sense, you’ll reach your previous level again. But you can’t take your feelings out on the people you love. Go for a run, take a hot bath, go get drunk, but don’t take it out on other people. It will only make you feel worse, and you’ll regret it.”

Yuri nods slowly, and Yakov puts his hand on his shoulder. He leaves it there, somewhat embarrassed, and ends up petting his head like a cat’s. Yuri attempts a smile, showing his teeth a little, and pushes his hand away. He sits up, rolling up the cuff of his leggings. There’s a bruise forming already on his right shin, and he pokes it to see if it really hurts.

“Do you think Victor and Yuuri will really cut their visit short?” he asks. “They were supposed to stay until next week.”

“If it were just Victor, I’d say yes, but his husband will tell him he’s wrong, thank God. He’s as immature as you are.”

“Yeah, but he’s, like, fifty years old.”

Yakov rolls his eyes and ask his student to stop touching his bruise. Time passes, and Yuri still doesn’t stand up.

“If you’re planning to spend the night here, let me know, moron. My TV is waiting for me.”

“I’m not going to skate this year.”

Yakov blinks. “What.”

“I’m not participating this season. If I push it while my body is all screwed up, I’m going to fall and break something. I don’t want to risk seriously hurting myself.”

Yakov nods. Yuri seems calm and sure of himself, his face still damp with sweat, his green eyes clear and cold.

“Was it Lilia?” Yakov asks. Yuri shakes his head. “Something I said?”

“No. I’m capable of making my own decisions, you know. I’m an adult, you know.”

“Fine. Very well. I didn’t think you’d be capable of canceling an entire season. Lilia was prepared to lock you in your room if you became too dangerous to yourself, but we weren’t prepared for you to be reasonable.”

Yuri gives him a dark look. “Go fuck yourselves.”

“Yura, do you really think you can do it?”

Yuri hesitates. He looks down at his skates, his hands brushing the steel blades. His fingers are probably iced over, but he hasn’t felt the cold in a very long time.

“I know it will be hard,” he admits. “It will be long, and it will put me even more on edge. But it’s the right thing to do.”

Yakov doesn’t reply immediately, and gets up. His joints creak a little, but Yuri doesn’t have the heart to tease him.

“I’m proud of you,” he says in the silence of the skating rink.

Yuri doesn’t raise his head, but Yakov can see him smiling.

11

Mila doesn’t like cheating on her diet, but there are some annoying situations she’d rather face with a reward for herself. She’s ordered a black coffee and taken a seat at a little table in the back, and it doesn’t take long for her to get up again and ask for sugar. (She’ll add a few abdominal crunches to her next workout.) Her hands shake as she unwraps the paper packet, but not from guilt. She watches the door, the windows, the street outside. She spills a few sugar crystals on the table and stirs her coffee with a little spoon, not looking down. Though she’s run through hundreds of possibilities in her mind, when Otabek finally walks in, she can’t find the right words to say.

“Oh, sweetheart, this sucks so much,” she says, hugging him.

He sniffles and puts his muscular arms around her, and Mila feels him give in to her embrace. She’s gotten closer to Otabek over time, but he’s always been a little shy around her, which comes across as indifference. She feels like he still sees her as Yuri’s childhood friend, and not as an ally of his own. She apologizes for not calling him sooner.

“I should have,” she insists when he shrugs. “I fucking suck too.”

He hasn’t shaved in four days or so, and there are bags under his eyes. She puts her delicate hands on his shoulders, her red nails standing out against his black leather.

“I wouldn’t have answered anyway,” he admits in a tired voice.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

She frowns, and they sit down. She waits for him to order, then sips her coffee, watching him.

“I’m offended that you’d lie to me, Beka. You can tell me anything, you know. I’m not going to blab to Yuri.”

He smiles gently. “Really, I’m fine. I think I’m still having trouble grasping it.”

“Are you still living at the apartment?”

“I slept at a friend’s place for the first few days, but now that Yuri is in Japan, I am.”

Mila winces, her hands clutching the coffee cup. “That’s not good for you, Beka. You’d be better off at my place.”

“No,” he says curtly. “It’s my home, too. Moving out is out of the question.”

“What about Almaty?”

He shakes his head. “That’s ours as well. Same thing, Mila. And I’d rather not see my parents.”

“You haven’t told them?”

He doesn’t reply immediately, and the waiter brings his cup of tea. They let the silence surround them a moment, and then he takes a deep breath and says, “Not yet.”

“Beka, you’re swimming in denial,” she says.

“So what? I’m happy this way.”

She sighs, finishing her coffee in a few too-hot gulps. Otabek has a kind of weird glow in his eyes, an illusory light that’s scaring the shit out of her.

“Either you come live with me, or I’m dragging you out of there. I could set fire to that apartment if you resist—without an ounce of regret.”

“No.”

She’s furious: furious at herself for waiting so long to call him, furious at Otabek for being so passive, and furious at Yuri for being so selfish. She stands, grabs her jacket, and leaves a tip on the table.

“Perfect. I’ll pack your bags myself. Can’t be that hard. You have, like, three T-shirts and a pair of jeans.”

“Mila.” There’s an imploring note in his voice, and she sits back down.

“Talk.” It comes out like an order.

Otabek looks at her. His dark eyes are damp. He sighs. “As long as I stay at our place, I can pretend it’s not over,” he says softly. “I can pretend that Yuri’s just gone to Japan as he’s done dozens of times, and that he’ll be home soon with a bottle of sake from the duty-free shop and some new Victor stories. I can pretend he still loves me.”

“Beka.”

“I’m not leaving until he calls. He has to call, because I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.”

Mila gently takes his hands in hers. His skin is cold and rough.

“Beka,” she says softly. “He won’t call. You have to accept that, and start to move on.”

He shakes his head, almost stubborn, like a child who doesn’t understand why he can’t have a treat.

“I can’t, Mila. I’ve spent a decade loving him. I don’t want to destroy that.”

“But Yuri already has, sweetheart. You don’t have a choice.”

He opens his mouth to reply, and freezes up. He bursts into tears, and she lets go of his hands to reach out to him. She hugs him across the table, partly embarrassed and partly horrified, and when the other customers at the cafe look their way, she shoots them dark looks and flips them off.

“It’s going to be hard,” she says when he’s recovered a little, “but you’ll get there.”

Frankly, she doubts he will, but Otabek doesn’t need to know that.

9

There are children in the park. There often are, but Yuri’s never paid attention. As long as the kids don’t fucking knock him over, he doesn’t have to yell at them, so there’s no reason for him to notice them. But Otabek notices, and if Yuri doesn’t care most of the time, this morning he can’t do otherwise.

“Can we sit a minute?” Otabek asks.

Yuri gives him a mocking smile. He’s sweaty, hair pulled back in a ponytail, and his T-shirt is clinging to his skin. “Tired already?”

Otabek raises an eyebrow, sticking his tongue out with a knowing look. Yuri rolls his eyes and does the same, his piercing sparkling in the sunlight, and takes his hand. They sit on a bench across from the playground, and Yuri stretches while Otabek watches a little girl go down the slide. He’s got a wistful look, his brown eyes a little glazed over, but Yuri doesn’t want to notice. He has a gift for ignoring things that bother him or shake him to his core. A moment later, Otabek turns to him and kisses him, just on the corner of his lips, his mouth hot against his own, and Yuri trembles.

“Yura,” Otabek says softly.

“No.”

“I haven’t said anything yet.”

Yuri stands abruptly, but Otabek grabs his wrist, maybe severely, maybe from fear.

“We’ve only been running half an hour, Beka.”

“Please, Yura.”

There’s an imploring tone in his voice, and Yuri hates himself. He sits back down, letting Otabek gently take his hand and squeeze his fingers. He forces himself to meet his eyes.

“I know that age has never mattered in our relationship,” Otabek says slowly, “but I’m going to be 27 this year. I’m finished with skating, and I have steady work that pays well at the garage. We’re living together. We’ve been together for eight years.”

“Nine.”

Otabek smiles. “What?”

“In my head, I’ve always counted from the day we met in Barcelona, even if we didn’t start going out until the year after.”

Otabek kisses his cheek, and Yuri sighs. “I know, it’s so stupid,” he mumbles.

“No. I like it. I love you.”

Yuri lets go of his hand and slides his arms around his neck. He has to twist awkwardly on the bench, and he can feel the mothers watching him—watching both of them.

“I love you,” he says simply. “I’m sorry.”

Otabek sniffs. His face is calm and his eyes are dry, but his hands clench a little on Yuri’s waist. “It’s never a good omen to hear those two sentences at the same time. And, again, I still haven’t said anything.”

“Otabek. We are at a playground and you are talking to me about stability.”

Otabek nods, his expression suddenly less serene. He smells of sweat and coffee, and of the new green tea toothpaste he bought this week. Yuri hates it, and has told him that kissing is out of the question as long as he brushes his teeth with that shit. He held out for two days, until Otabek held him tenderly and bit his neck the way he likes it, and he lifted his head and gave in. Their relationship is made of things like that. There’s no room in there for diapers and crying and toys on the floor. There are no empty spaces to fill.

“Yura, I want us to be parents,” says Otabek.

Yuri thinks of Mrs. Altin in the veranda, her cigarette at her lips, her white suit immaculate.

“I don’t want children. That won’t change. I’m sorry.”

His voice shakes a little, but he gives Otabek a look that’s almost hard, unprecedented.

“Can we at least talk about it?”

“No.”

For a moment, Yuri thinks Otabek will get upset and insist, but after nine— eight —years together, he must know there’s no use. And Yuri thinks the same thing. But later, long after they’ve come home from their run, long after the silence between them has dissipated and they’ve gone back to their routine, Yuri will regret it. He’ll tell himself that Otabek should have gotten upset and insisted, that he shouldn’t let it go, he shouldn’t abandon it. Because even if he doesn’t mention it any more, he will never stop wanting it. And the more time goes by, the more his resentment will grow, and the more hostile they’ll end up being to each other.

Otabek will hold it against him, viciously, for two years, and Yuri will leave him when it wears him down.

8

“Maybe I was wrong.”

Yuri looks at her and smiles. “Lilia Baranovskaya admitting she was wrong. That’s a first. Wrong about what? Last year’s European championships?”

She winces. “No. I always thought Mara Masa was a faded and superficial band.”

“I took gold, and it’s Mura Masa.”

She shrugs and adjusts her shawl around her shoulders. She weighs barely 110 pounds, and her cheap brown wig poorly covers her bald head. Yakov and Yuri bought her a much nicer one, but Yuri’s cat shredded it, and it’s being repaired right now.

“Go on, spit it out,” he whispers.

Lilia spreads her cards on the formica table—a flush—and Yuri sighs. He’d wanted to play durak.

“Otabek seems like a very nice boy.”

Chemo always takes hours, and today it’s Yuri’s turn to volunteer to keep her company. He makes arrangements with Yakov or Mila when he really can’t make it, and on one rare occasion, Otabek went. Lilia hasn’t mentioned it to him since, and when he asked, Beka merely said that they’d talked about skating and listened to a radio program she likes.

“We’ve been together for seven years. It’s a little late for you to give us your blessing.”

“As if you would give my opinion the slightest weight,” she says with scorn.

“Exactly.”

He places his bet: a pen and two mints. They rummaged through the room a bit for their poker game, despite disapproving looks from the nurses. They’re not doing anything wrong, anyway. Yuri is convinced that these bitches don’t like him—Lilia is too elegant and haughty, and he dresses any way he wants and doesn’t hide the fact that he’s in a relationship with a man.

“What are you holding?” Yuri asks.

“Three tens.”

“Finally,” he mutters, gathering his winnings. “So, why this sudden interest in my love life?”

“Knowing that I am so close to death has given me the chance to put certain things in perspective.”

Yuri rolls his eyes. Lilia is always so dramatic. “You just started chemo two months ago. It’s a little early to plan your funeral.”

“Yura.”

He carefully avoids her eyes. He knows that Lilia’s odds are weak, that it’s important to keep up morale, and that the mastectomy was really fucking hard on her, but he doesn’t want to think about it. He’s never really gotten over his grandfather’s passing, and it’s been three years now, so he doesn’t want to imagine how difficult Lilia’s death will be for him. Otabek has already begun speaking more gently to him and giving him more foot massages, and Victor and Yuuri call every three days for updates, and Yuri hates how kind and careful everyone is acting around him.

“Otabek’s a nice guy, I know. Get to the point.”

“I have nothing else to say, Yura.”

He looks up. She’s watching him tranquilly, her eyes calm and tender. She turns her cards over on the table and reaches out to him. He takes it, a little clumsily and awkwardly, so as not to pull on the arm with the IV drip. Her skin is cold.

“I am proud of you,” she says quietly.

He nods briefly. For a moment he’s unable to speak. They let the silence spread out between them, and when a nurse stops in to ask Lilia if the dose is too much or if she’s nauseous, Yuri tells her to piss off with a single look, and they resume their poker game. Lilia wins the next three hands.

Chapter Text

11

Predictably, but charmingly, Etsujiro takes him to the beach. It’s their fourth date, and Yuri doesn’t know how he should behave. He went on dates with Otabek, at first—more or less official and almost formal—but they’d already known each other for a while, and did it just to spend time together. They didn’t have to ask each other questions or share awkward silences. When they moved in together, each would sometimes surprise the other with reservations at a chic restaurant or tickets to the movies, but always in a familiar, comforting way. They didn’t have to seduce each other any more. Maybe they should have.

“You don’t like it?” Etsujiro asks.

Yuri smiles at him faintly. There’s something invigorating about being around someone who can’t read every one of his expressions, or emotions. Someone who has to ask.

“It’s cliched, but I like it.”

Etsujiro nods, blushing a little. He looks out at the sea—the distant horizon line blending with the clouds, the same blue hue as the sky. Yuri bends down to roll up his cuffs and take off his shoes. The sand is cold underfoot, and the wind whips his hair. He closes his eyes briefly, breathes in the iodine in the air. When he opens them again, Etsujiro is looking at him. His expression is gentle, attentive, light.

“I am happy I spoke to you at the konbini, ” he says slowly.

Yuri takes his hand and they walk along the ocean. The occasional wave comes to lap at their feet, making Etsujiro jump back and yelp, and Yuri laughs until tears come to his eyes. The water is ice cold, and they’re shivering a little, but they both ignore it.

“You were telling me about your family,” Yuri says.

“Oh, yes. My sister is studying in Europe, and my parents worry about her. She Skypes with us every week, and no matter how often she tells us everything is fine and she is adapting quickly to life over there, they are convinced that she is lying.”

“What are they afraid of?”

Etsujiro shrugs. “Who knows. They are always saying, it’s Europe, you know, but they have never left Hasetsu and have not the least idea what Europe is like. Half the time, they point to the wrong country on the map.”

“Where is she studying?”

Etsujiro stops short, blushing. “I forgot that you are European as well,” he says absently.

“Russia is right smack in the middle, you know.”

“She is in Austria, but to them, Austria is the same as Switzerland or the Czech Republic. Have you ever been?”

“Yes, to Switzerland and Austria. For competitions.” He remembers Switzerland most of all. He’d spent an entire weekend with Victor and Yuuri at Christopher Giacometti’s place.

“Have you traveled very much?” Etsujiro asks. He seems both curious and jealous, in a way, and Yuri would love to tell him that it isn’t as much fun as it looks, and that most of the time, competitions are so exhausting that he doesn’t have time for tourism. But he doesn’t want to disappoint him, so he talks about the Trophée de France and his first Senior Grand Prix in Barcelona. He hasn’t thought about that in a long time. There are plenty of things he hasn’t wanted to linger on since he left Otabek.

“Will you take me there someday?” Etsujiro smiles at him sincerely, and Yuri squeezes his hand.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly.

If Etsujiro is disappointed, he hides it well. He kisses Yuri’s cheek, warm lips on cold skin, and looks at him without any bitterness.

“I know that you told me you were getting out of a long relationship,” he begins.

“Etsujiro.”

“Let me finish.” He kisses him, and his mouth is warm and tastes of iodine and the salmon teriyaki they shared for lunch. He doesn’t completely move away, places his free hand casually on his waist, the other gripping his, foreheads touching, and his eyes—his eyes are very calm, very dark, anchored in Yuri’s own.

“I understand, and I am not going to push you to be with me. I like you, and I would like us to spend more time together. But if you feel that you are not ready, it’s okay. We can stay like this.”

Yuri wonders if he deserves such kindness. Probably not. “I like you too,” he says slowly. “I admit I am still a little lost, but I want to try with you.”

Yuri kisses him, and Etsujiro smiles through their kiss.

6

They waited to start painting the apartment until spring. They’d tolerated the old wallpaper for their first winter together in St. Petersburg—which dated from the building’s Soviet-era construction and smelled of decayed flowers and secondhand smoke—and threw out everything Yuri didn’t care about. Any furniture they didn’t absolutely need was sold, and outgrown clothes and useless knickknacks were given away to charity. Their apartment is quite empty, but it puts them at ease. They eat sitting on the floor, make shelves out of Otabek’s books, keep their clothes in crates and cardboard boxes. Yuri can spread out any way he likes in the living room, and no longer trips on the coffee table when his favorite song comes on the radio. Otabek often watches him dance from the bedroom, just in the doorway, almost in secret.

He’s still having trouble believing this is his life now, that he can sleep with Yuri in his arms and grumble about the dirty clothes he leaves all over the place.

“Light blue?” Yuri mutters.

“It’s the ideal color for a bedroom.”

“I wanted red.”

Otabek rolls his eyes and reaches for the paint can Yuri’s leaning over. “Red is too stimulating. A bedroom needs a calming color.”

Yuri shoots him a look from the corner of his eye, and Beka hopes he isn’t blushing too hard. “You can paint the living room red,” he says simply.

Yuri stands, not saying a word. Otabek braided his hair this morning, but the braid is already loose and disheveled—surely Otabek’s own fault when Yuri sucked his dick a little while ago. They’re still in that euphoric phase where Beka wants him every time he looks at him.

“Beka, is there any more white?” Yuri says suddenly. Otabek has finished taping up the wall and the baseboards. The floor will vanish under the new flooring they’re planning to get next month.

“There’s primer,” he says, pointing vaguely toward a can at the foot of the bed. He stirs paint with a wooden stick, then pours about half into a paint tray and dips the roller in.

“What’s on your mind, Yura?” Otabek asks, noticing Yuri standing silently behind him.

“Something stupid.”

“Tell me about it so I can make fun of it.”

Yuri hesitates a while, finally sliding a hand along Otabek’s waist and hooking a finger into one of the belt loops of his jeans.

“You know... I practically grew up at the rink. I left early in the morning before sunrise, and I didn’t come back until after sunset. I never really played outdoors.”

Otabek feels Yuri kiss his bare shoulder, feels his lips against his warm skin. He smells of his coconut and lemon shampoo, and sweat, and turpentine.

“If we had white, we could make clouds. You know, with a sponge or a toothbrush. I’d really like to have a sky to look at every morning, even if it’s still dark out.”

Otabek turns, holding the paint roller aside, just enough to give Yuri a half-hug. He puts his arm around his shoulder and pulls him close, gently, and when Yuri looks up, he kisses his cheek.

“We can do that,” he says. “It’ll be pretty.”

Yuri smiles at him. “Thanks, Beka.” Then he adds, like a brand-new reflex, “I love you.”

Otabek freezes. He’s holding his paint roller up, and he can feel a drop of paint running down his wrist. Yuri looks at him, confused by his reaction. “What?”

“Nothing. I love you too,” Otabek stammers.

Yuri frowns. “Beka, you’re making one of those faces. Are you surprised or something?” He’s on the defensive, some of his old habits not completely erased yet.

Otabek gives him a foolish grin. “No, Yura. But... that’s the first time you’ve told me so when we weren’t fucking.”

“Holy shit.”

Yuri seems to be counting in his head, and his eyes go very wide when he realizes it. “Five years. Five fucking years and I’ve never told you I love you.”

“Yura, it’s no big deal.”

“I am the worst boyfriend in the universe,” Yuri mumbles, staring at the floor.

Otabek kisses his hair, smiling. “I don’t care, as long as you’re mine.”

“You’re always so romantic and kind,” Yuri moans. “You knew, right? Tell me you knew and that you haven’t been waiting for five years.”

“Of course I knew,” Beka reassures him. “I know you, Yura. You have your own ways of saying it.”

Yuri thinks about it, letting Otabek kiss him. He’s remembering any of a dozen times Otabek declared his love. At the Grand Prix after Yuri’s short program. On an improvised date on a rooftop. At the Almaty airport. An afternoon watching TV. A text sent in the middle of the night.

“I’m going to have to catch up.”

Otabek agrees, solemnly, and Yuri murmurs it against his mouth, on his cheek, into his throat, against his chest. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.

5

Yuri prefers to come here by himself, despite Otabek’s and Victor’s constant offers. His boyfriend will be in Almaty for another month or two while he gets ready to move. He’ll keep the apartment there anyway, and together they decided it would be more practical to split their time between the two countries. Otabek still has family in Kazakhstan, and even if Yuri hardly has any in Russia, he refuses to be coached by anyone other than Lilia and Yakov. They still have a lot to do, papers to fill out and emails to send, and his grandfather’s Moscow house to sell. But when he received the letter from D. Plisetsky last week, he decided he wanted to visit his father as soon as possible.

Victor and Yuuri don’t like thinking of him at a prison, but Kresty II isn’t the worst in Russia.

“Hey.”

The guard looks at him indifferently. Yuri hands him his papers and his authorization for the visit, and allows him to search his pockets and his bag. Another officer leads him into a windowless room and asks him to take a seat. Yuri does so, putting his feet up on the table. He stretches, crosses his arms over his chest, and looks over the guard.

“You’re not... the skater?” the guy says after a moment’s hesitation.

Yuri smiles at him, his piercing shiny between his parted lips. “Yeah.”

Pyeongchang 2018 made him even more famous than Victor, and since then Yuri’s gotten used to being recognized. The officer leaves, making Yuri wait another 10 minutes or so, then the door opens again and his father enters. He sits across from Yuri without making eye contact, and when he slips something into the guard’s hand, the guy vanishes, leaving them alone. Yuri cringes.

“Do they expect you to do that every time?”

His father shrugs. He’s a big man with square, tattooed shoulders and an angular, hard face. He wears the scars on his neck like a uniform, three long pink scars tearing his flesh. A gift from Yuri’s mother—almost a souvenir.

“I saw your performance at the Four Continents,” his father says. “The music was shit, but you were amazing, as always.”

Yuri smiles at him. Dmitri is the most sincere and unpredictable person he knows, and he’s seen a little of himself in him from the first time they met. He meddled in various dealings before meeting Yuri’s mother, and having a son didn’t stop him. He was serving a 12-year sentence when Maria died of leukemia, and he asked Nikolai to look after his son. His grandfather raised him without mentioning his biological parents for a very long time, and when Yuri was 12, he told him the truth. Dmitri left prison soon after, and they’d been able to meet, briefly. He stayed with them at first, then got involved in another hold-up and went back to prison. He’s got four more years to serve, after which he swears he’s giving up all this bullshit.

I want to be there for you, he’d written in one of his rare letters. I want to be there if you want to go get a drink or you need help getting your car fixed. I want to be there when you get married. The fact that Yuri could not get married didn’t put a damper on his ambitions.

“I only took bronze, Pa.”

“Your last quad was no good,” says his father.

Yuri rolls his eyes. Dmitri has never laced up a skate in his life, never set foot on the ice, but he’s been following Yuri’s career since the Juniors and learned enough to hold a decent conversation about it.

“How are things going with Otabek?”

Yuri blushes. “Good. We’re moving in together.”

His father smiles widely and insists on hearing all the details. Yuri tells him about their plans to renovate the St. Petersburg apartment, about Otabek’s new Russian coach, about all their hopes and wishes. Little by little, Dmitri seems less like a criminal. Without his tattoos and his scars, he could be an ordinary guy. He has the same stark beauty as Yuri, but with dark eyes and short brown hair. It’s not a close resemblance, but Yuri likes to think people would see they’re related at a glance. They both know they can’t go back in time, that Yuri’s wounds linger in the past as well as the present, but that there are things Dmitri can do to ease the pain.

Such as learning how figure skating is scored, and beating up anyone in this prison who calls his son a faggot.

“I’m happy for you,” he says.

Yuri blushes a little, then his expression changes and he lowers his eyes. “That’s not why I came.”

Dmitri sighs. “The last letter I sent my father came back unread,” he says slowly. “When did it happen?”

“Five weeks ago, Pa. He had a heart attack, and the doctors managed to save him, but then he had another, and he was alone in Moscow and the nurse I’d hired found him too late.”

Yuri had done all he could to stay in the Moscow house, but Lilia and Yakov never stopped pestering him about coming back to his training. His grandfather had asked him to go. I don’t want you wrecking your career for an old fossil like me, he’d said. So Yuri sent a nurse to visit him at home three days a week, who was supposed to look after him and call if there was a problem. Nikolai died another day. Yuri blamed himself horribly, and the funeral and the paperwork were just a burning blur in his existence. He remembers Otabek’s steady and familiar arms around him, and he remembers Yuuri holding his hand, warm and reassuring. Victor had said a few words at the burial. Something lovely and moving that Yuri hadn’t listened to.

“How do you feel?” his father asks.

Yuri shrugs. “How about you?” he answers.

“I hadn’t seen him in a long time,” he admits. “Coming here was too tiring for him.”

Dmitri falls silent. He looks at his hands, which are flat on the table between them, heavy handcuffs around his wrists.

“I remember when I called him and begged him to take care of you. He didn’t want to, at first. He’d never liked Maria, even after she got sick and died. He just wanted to enjoy his retirement in peace, especially after all the trouble I’d caused him. But I insisted that he meet you, just once. A friend of Maria’s was looking after you, and then social services was going to take you in.

“He called me right after he saw you. He was crying.”

Yuri says nothing. He’s never heard this story before.

“He was overwhelmed. He didn’t tell me what changed his mind or what he saw in you, but he took you in. He suggested I get custody once I got out of prison, but I always said no. I was happy with my decision. It wasn’t easy for me to leave you, Yuri, don’t think it was. But I didn’t weep the day you were born. Nikolai—he broke down in tears the moment he laid eyes on you.”

Yuri nods. He’s unable to speak, and from the looks of it, he’s not the only one. He and Dmitri spend the rest of their visit in silence, and when the guard comes back, Yuri hugs his father. He hears his handcuffs jangling at his back, and feels the cold metal press against his jacket, but it doesn’t matter.

11

“I think it started when he retired from skating.”

Victor pours him another drink, and Yuri takes a sip. Victor’s husband has already gone to bed—he has to be up early for training—or maybe he still can’t hold his liquor and doesn’t want to embarrass himself yet again. Victor already has several gigs of embarrassing photos of their nights out.

“I felt betrayed,” Yuri admits. “I felt like he was abandoning me, like everything we’d accomplished together didn’t mean a thing to him. That skating was just a pastime to him.”

“You know that isn’t true,” Victor says slowly. He’s followed Otabek’s career just as he has Yuri’s, and he’s seen how talented Otabek is. Otabek was always embarrassed when Victor sent a congratulatory message after seeing him win. The great Victor Nikiforov, he’d said to Yuri once. We’re not in the same league at all.

“I know. But that’s how I felt. Later I thought about it and realized how ridiculous it was.”

Victor watches him a moment, a cup of sake in his hand. His kimono is neatly tied, the fabric thick and luxurious. Yuri seems to recall  it had been a gift. In the dark of the evening, he can’t recognize it.

“You’ve always been afraid of that, Yurio.”

They’ve gone out to the terrace at the inn, and if the wood is cold under their feet, they don’t feel it.

“I wasn’t abandoned,” he mumbles.

“Your mother died when you were very young. Your father was in prison for half your life. I don’t really see the difference.”

“Yeah. Sure.” He downs his drink in one gulp, and Victor pours him another as soon as he sets down the cup.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” Yuri says distantly.

“Yes.”

“How come?”

Victor smiles at him. “You need to talk, and you won’t if you’re sober. Obviously you and Otabek have been having problems for a while.”

Yuri winces, takes a sip, winces again. He shivers in the night, regretting his choice of crop top and canvas trousers. “Not everyone can be the perfect couple like you and Katsudon.”

He rarely uses the old nickname anymore, but he’s in a bad mood. Mila called to rant at him for half an hour about Beka and his sad face and the hours he spends watching old championships on YouTube, and he outright denied feeling guilty, swapping it for anger, then swapping anger for weariness. He told Mila to mind her own fucking business.

“We’re not perfect,” says Victor with a perfect smile.

Yuri scoffs.

“No, really. To tell the truth,” he continues, “we broke up for a while, about a year after the wedding.”

Yuri freezes briefly. He’d been about to take another sip, and his arm hovers in mid-air, the muscles extended, the sake warm in his cup.

“What,” he says when Victor doesn’t go on.

“We couldn’t communicate. We argued all the time and never said sorry. I couldn’t understand Yuuri’s anxiety, and he thought I was superficial. We spent two months apart, then got back together.”

One month, three weeks, and six days.

“You never said anything,” says Yuri.

“I wouldn’t have known how,” Victor says, avoiding his eyes. “It was a difficult time, for Yuuri and me both. But we gave it some time, we talked, we made compromises, and today I can’t imagine life without him.”

“I don’t want to go through that with Otabek.”

Victor looks up and sighs. Yuri feels very young.

“You don’t have to. Every relationship is different, Yurio. And you shouldn’t get back together with Otabek because you need to. You should do it because you want to.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

Victor rolls his eyes and pours himself some more sake. The bottle is half empty now, and the night very dark around them.

“You’re making excuses,” Victor murmurs.

“Beka wants to have children.” The words slip from his mouth so fast that he doesn’t have time to regret them.

“Oh.”

“We’d never be able to adopt. And the other options are even more illegal, or just plain improbable.”

Victor doesn’t contradict him. He and Yuuri had tried dozens of times. Their names are still on waiting lists here and there, but they know they’ll never get the call. Nobody offers a child to two men. They make them sweat blood, they make them pay, they make them wait, and eventually they make excuses, accompanied by fake sorry smiles.

“Did he talk about it a lot?” Victor asks after a pause.

“Yeah.” It’s a lie, but only somewhat, so Yuri thinks it doesn’t count. But he thinks once again he’s underestimated his mentor and friend and father figure.

“I don’t know Otabek as well as you do,” Victor says simply. “But I think he cares more about you than he does about some hypothetical children.”

“I don’t want to deprive him of anything.”

“You’re the one who left, not him,” he retorts. “You’re the problem here, Yuri. And in any case, you still love him, don’t you?”

Yuri doesn’t have the heart to reply. It’s not fair to Etsujiro—Etsujiro, who introduced him to his parents yesterday, and who’s taking him out of town next weekend.

“Obviously you do,” Victor continues. “You don’t spend ten years with someone you’re indifferent to, and you don’t erase a ten-year relationship in one month. You don’t leave someone for their own good, Yuri. Love is selfish. When people leave, it’s always for themselves. Find out why, fix it, and call Otabek.”

“It’s not your fucking problem, Victor.”

Victor gets up, swaying on his feet a little, and brandishes his sake cup like a weapon. “Yes, it is. I don’t like seeing you like this, and if you don’t do something about it now, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

He goes back inside, his kimono swirling dramatically around his legs. Yuri hears him bash his knee against the furniture, curse, then vanish down the hall. He stays outside for a while, long enough to finish the sake and fall asleep on the terrace. Yuuri will scold him tomorrow morning, but he’s used to it.

10

He smells like gasoline and paint. There’s engine lubricant in his hair, black stains on his T-shirt, and grease under his nails. He gets a distant look when Yuri talks to him about skating, and his shoulders sink a little when they watch championships together. He doesn’t really look sad, maybe because he’s hiding it well, maybe because he hasn’t decided if he is sad or not.

“Do you regret it?” Yuri asks one evening.

Otabek’s come home tired from the day’s work, and Yuri has cooked. They eat in front of the TV, the sound lowered, the noise of forks on plates breaking the silence.

“What?”

Yuri looks at him, putting his plate on the coffee table. Otabek does the same with a sigh.

“I’m not in the mood for a serious conversation, Yura,” he says, a little curtly.

“Oh, I’ve noticed. For at least a month.”

Otabek apologizes, and Yuri feels like shaking him a little. “Stop it,” he says, trying not to get upset. “Tell me what’s wrong and how I can fix it.”

Otabek meets his gaze, his brown eyes indecipherable.

“You can’t make it all better just because you want to, Yuri. There are things you can’t change.”

Yuri bares his teeth. “Tell me. Do you regret it?”

“No. And yes.”

Otabek lowers his head and Yuri gets up. He stands there a moment, the rolled-up sleeves of his sweater falling over his forearms, his tracksuit pants loose on his hips. He’s used to being able to read Otabek like a book, and it’s incredibly frustrating not to grasp the problem immediately. After ten years, they’ve almost become a single person. Yuri can’t stand this distance. At least when they argue—rarely, but always intensely, as is their nature—they’re vulnerable to each other.

“Beka, keeping it inside won’t help you. Talking about it won’t hurt you.”

Maybe he’s repeating something Yuuri told him once, a long time ago, but it doesn’t matter. Slowly, he crouches across from Otabek, fitting himself between his legs, his hands resting on Otabek’s thighs. His skin is warm under his jeans, and he reeks of grease and gasoline. Yuri is as much in love with that as with the entire man.

“It’s complicated,” Otabek begins.

“It always is.”

Beka gives him a weak smile, and gently caresses his blond hair. Yuri’s left it undone tonight, because he knows how much Otabek adores it.

“I’m not sorry,” he says resolutely. “I like the garage and I like working there. We can finally afford another employee, and he does good work. I make a good living, better than before. But I still miss it. The ice, the competition, the recognition. I must have gotten too used to it. Nobody congratulates me for fixing a car, you know.”

Yuri nods.

“I should be satisfied. It’s not like I’m unhappy. I have my own business, I like my work. But sometimes I remember that my skating career is over, and even if it was my own decision, sometimes I want to break something, or cry, or probably both at the same time.”

“Beka, that’s normal,” says Yuri. “It was your whole life for so long, you can’t just forget that in a few months. You sacrificed so much for every one of your medals, every achievement. You fucking live with a skater. Moving on to something else couldn’t be anything but complicated.”

Otabek laughs, brief and bitter. “I miss having you as a rival. Is that weird?”

“I think our entire sex life stems from our rivalry on the ice, Beka.”

He blushes absently, grinning when Yuri takes his hand and moves it from his hair to his lips.

“You’re going to tell me I haven’t measured up in about six months,” he mumbles.

“Babe, the day you stop being great in the sack is the day I go back to my parents.”

“I knew you only ever wanted me for my body.”

“That, and your collection of Rolling Stones LPs.”

Otabek closes his eyes, and Yuri stands up. He hugs him, warm arms around his shoulders, golden hair tickling his face.

“Want to go skating tomorrow night?” Yuri says in his ear.

“Sure.”

Otabek never asked before, only agreeing to it the few times Yuri suggested it, fearful of looking unsure or ungrateful for the effort Yuri put in to help him at the garage. At least, when they’re together on the ice, he doesn’t think any more.

“Please don’t let me worry like that any more.”

“I promise.”

Otabek will break his promise two or three times, and even if Yuri doesn’t realize it at the time, he can feel the end approaching. He could always figure out what Otabek was thinking, from the stammering beginnings of their friendship through their fragile long-distance relationship. He never asked for anything, never had to go down on his knees to make him confess. That was a problem other couples had. He and Otabek were far too sincere and tender and confident for that. But by believing they were invincible, Yuri had forgotten they were human, and that they had their faults and defects after all. Perfection doesn’t exist. Perfection doesn’t last.

8

The film has just ended. The names of the actors have scrolled past, followed by the technicians, the producers, the acknowledgments, each name less familiar than the one before, then the screen goes dark. The music stops and the TV screen goes into sleep mode. Otabek hasn’t gotten up to turn it off or put on something else. He kind of considered it, because he thought he’d seen something in the TV guide about a documentary that sounded interesting, but the download has gone missing and he hasn’t got the energy to hunt it down. Instead he’s sprawled out on the sofa, arms crossed over his chest, legs under a blanket that smells like cat. It’s nighttime now. He hasn’t had dinner, just munched on a sandwich on the way home from training.

He slides his phone out of his jeans pocket and sees that it’s just past ten o’clock. He finally gets up, finds his laptop in the bedroom, and goes back to the living room. The live video stream takes some time to load, and the picture is pretty bad, but Otabek deals with it. He hasn’t missed Yuri’s program. A Polish skater he doesn’t know finishes his performance, then someone else goes, and finally it’s his boyfriend’s turn. He sees him smile on the big screen, flawless and severe in his black and red costume, hair pulled into a harsh ponytail. When he glides across the ice, Otabek holds his breath like he always does. He’s disappointed he couldn’t come along, but he followed his own coach’s orders, and Yuri feels better knowing he’s near Lilia. They both know she is watching Yuri too.

This evening, it’s particularly important to Yuri.

He’s selected a theme he hasn’t used in quite a while, and has come back to ballet. He picked one of Lilia’s favorite songs, something she used to dance to at the Bolshoi, and he’s choreographed his own program instead of hers. Carmen Suite No. 1, Aragonaise Allegro vivo, composed by Rodion Shchedrin for Maya Plisetskaya. Lilia has bittersweet memories of it, and Yuri wanted to make her proud one last time. You cannot pay me homage if I am not yet deceased, the former ballerina had replied, to which Yuri made no retort. Otabek watched him training. He’d never seen Yuri so determined, so eager to do well, and he’s worked hard this season.

The whole year had been difficult. Lilia’s health improved only to take a turn for the worse, and Yakov retired to take care of her. Yuri had had to work with another coach, Sergei, probably a nice guy, but Yuri had been quick to disdain and snub him. Victor spent a lot of time on the phone persuading Yuri to play nice, and in the end they came to a sort of compromise. His efforts are visible on the screen, and Otabek smiles as he watches him—the graceful power in his movement, the way he unhesitatingly lands every one of his jumps. He ends in time with the music, arms crossed, face lifted toward the sky, body trembling from exhaustion. Otabek immediately texts his congratulations, reminding him to call when he has a chance. He sees him leave the rink, collecting plush cats, then going to wait for the scores.

He places first, of course, and stays there for the rest of the competition. He wins the Cup of China, and Otabek grins, shutting down the laptop. He’s making something to eat when the phone rings, and he answers, thinking it’s Yuri already.

“I’m sure she’s proud of you,” he says right away.

There’s a silence on the other end, and Otabek realizes it was Yakov’s name on the screen.

“Otabek, it’s over,” the old man says, and the skater closes his eyes.

They agree that Yakov should give Yuri the news, and when it’s done, Otabek receives a terse message stating the arrival time of his flight tomorrow. He’ll pick him up on the motorcycle, and they’ll hold each other tight at the airport for a long time. Otabek only sees Yuri weep once over his mentor’s death: when he finds out from Yakov that she’d passed away in the afternoon, well before the Cup of China began.

11

“I’ve selected the music for my free program.”

“Finally.”

“What?”

Yuuri gives him an irritated look. “The season starts in a month and a half,” he reminds him.

“Once, I chose my music three weeks before the first competition.”

Yuuri rolls his eyes, and Yuri bends over to lace up his skates. “Yurio, you’re a nightmare.”

“You’re the one who offered to be my coach,” he says simply.

“I thought it would look good on my resumé.”

“Opportunist.”

Yuri warms up calmly, spins on the ice with Yuuri, and heads into his first jumps. He’s working on a new combo, and there are still adjustments he needs to make.

“What is it?” Yuuri asks.

“What.”

“Your music.”

Yuri frowns, nods, and hands him his phone. When he’s skating, he tends to lose himself in his own thoughts.

“Which song is it?”

Yuri looks up. His substitute coach already has earbuds in, and is squinting at the screen.

“That one. I put it on repeat. What the hell did you do to it?”

“Nothing. Only, that’s a George Michael song.”

“That’s right.”

Yuuri looks at him, face frozen halfway between doubt and horror. “Did you lose a bet with Victor?” he says.

“No.”

Yuuri mutters something in Japanese that Yuri doesn’t catch, then listens to the song. “Careless Whisper” has an interesting rhythm, and he’s sure he can figure out some kind of arrangement that works with it, but he doesn’t understand Yuri’s choice. Yuri usually skates to EDM or classical, or, on one occasion, the Rolling Stones.

“Yurio.”

The skater traces circles on the ice, avoiding his eyes.

“It’s a personal thing.”

“Nothing you say or do is too personal for me,” he says sincerely.

Yuri blushes a little, wishing he could be sorry about all the private things he’s confided to Yuuri over the years. He probably knows as much as Victor does, maybe even more—the stammering early days of him and Beka, their sex life, their difficult moments, his grandfather’s death, his visits to Dmitri in prison.

“Beka likes it. He sang it the first time I went to see him in Almaty, in the taxi we took to his fucking castle. Whenever he wanted to annoy me, he’d blast it throughout the apartment.”

Yuuri places the phone and earbuds on the bleachers, and sighs.

“I hate this song,” Yuri admits after a moment. “Even to this day. But I came across it randomly last night, and I spent the whole night thinking up choreography for it.”

He doesn’t mention that he still has all the Spotify playlists Otabek made for him, and that he started listening to them again, a few days after he and Etsujiro slept together for the first time.

“All right,” Yuuri says slowly. “If that’s what you want.”

Yuri’s laugh is brief and bitter. “I don’t know what I want. That’s the problem.”

He lets his coach kiss his cheek, then they get back to work. By day’s end, Yuri is sweaty and exhausted. Back at the inn, he complains to Victor that his husband is a worse taskmaster than he is, which makes Victor outrageously proud. The three of them watch a movie, a Japanese drama with English subtitles for Yuri, piled up against each other on the sofa. Victor’s arm is around his husband’s shoulders, and Yuri rests his head on Victor’s shoulder. The older men talk throughout the film in their incomprehensible blend of Russian, Japanese, and English, and Yuri falls asleep on them, lulled to sleep by their familiar voices.

He dreams of a beach, and of a wall painted sky blue and cloud white.

10

They haven’t slept in each other’s arms in forever. It was cool at first, when they were long distance, but they’d given up on it after a week of living together. Otabek was always being awakened by Yuri’s hair in his face, and Yuri by the excessive heat pouring off Otabek’s body. Once in a rare while they’d drape an arm over each other’s waists, or entangle their legs and their hands, but only when they’ve found themselves really missing one another at the end of a season of competitions. So when Yuri opens his eyes to find Beka watching him and a brown hand at the nape of his neck, he frowns.

“You were watching me sleep,” he groans.

“Hm.”

“We don’t do stupid shit like that any more, babe. Remember?”

Otabek smiles, kissing him. He’s brushed his teeth, the bastard.

“All right,” Yuri says, letting Otabek pull him in. “What day is it?”

“The eleventh.”

Yuri sighs against his shoulder, closing his eyes. “I see. Happy anniversary.”

“Happy anniversary,” Beka echoes.

His skin is warm, and he smells of toothpaste and cinnamon. It’s nine years to the day since they’d had dinner at that chic restaurant in downtown Almaty. Otabek had still had a bandage along his jaw, just below his right ear. He’d held Yuri’s hand the entire time, and Yuri had blushed into his hoodie.

“Shall we order takeout and watch a movie?” Yuri murmurs.

“No, I feel like going out tonight. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to show you off, Yura.”

“I don’t have a thing to wear.”

“What about your shopping trip with Mila last Tuesday?”

Yuri sighs. “Fine, I’ll try to make myself presentable.”

Otabek laughs into his hair, and Yuri groans, rolling on top of him. He wraps his legs around Otabek’s waist, knees pressed into the mattress, and places a hand on his naked chest. His blond hair cascades over his face and collarbones, and Otabek brushes it away, sliding a rebellious strand or two behind Yuri’s ears.

“Since when are you in such a good mood at”—glancing at the clock radio—“six in the morning? Spit it out.”

Otabek looks at him, sliding his fingers from Yuri’s face to his throat, from his throat to his sides, from his sides to his hips. There is something intense and adoring in his expression that Yuri hasn’t seen in ages.

“It’s not just dinner out. There’s something else we haven’t made time for in far too long.”

“No, we just did, last week. And you sucked my dick in the shower last time. Are you starting to have memory lapses, or are you just horny this morning?”

“Yura,” Otabek says flatly.

The skater sits up a little, crossing his arms over his chest. Otabek’s hands are just at the edge of his leggings, brushing the skin left exposed by the folds of his T-shirt.

“Fine, I’ll be quiet.”

“Thank you.” Otabek takes a deep breath, then says,

Tu rappelles ces jours blancs, tièdes et voilés,
Qui font se fondre en pleurs les coeurs ensorcelés,
Quand, agités d’un mal inconnu qui les tord,
Les nerfs trop éveillés raillent l’esprit qui dort.
Tu ressembles parfois à ces beaux horizons
Qu’allument les soleils des brumeuses saisons.*

Yuri leans against him, planting a kiss on his cheek, saying nothing. He breathes in his smell, his skin, his flesh, his bones, and listens to his pulse beating at his temples.

“I asked Anya to look after the garage today,” Otabek adds. “We can spend the day in bed, if you like.”

“I love you.”

Otabek smiles against his lips. “I love you, too,” he murmurs.

Yuri presses up against him, falling back asleep to the delicate sensation of Otabek’s hands running through his hair.

Chapter Text

7

It rained all night and into the next morning, too. It must have been around five in the morning when they left the club, and since then they’ve lost track of time. They don’t have training tomorrow, so it doesn’t matter. Whenever they’re off-season, it’s become a bad habit of theirs to go out on a whim and get shitfaced in this club Otabek likes. Yuri is always the first to start dancing, and if Otabek looks away for a second, he quickly loses him to the feverish crowd. Finding him later, sweaty and happy, grinning like a madman, hands gripping his T-shirt and eyes more expressive than ever. Yuri doesn’t hide his emotions. He wears them proudly like medals on his jacket, and screams them at the top of his lungs in his awkward, rather aggressive way. Yuri weeps over sad documentaries about abandoned animals, and howls at people who bump into him in the street.

Otabek loves him so much it hurts.

“I ought to make a video of you,” Otabek says.

Yuri turns to look, smiles at him, and shimmies his hips. He’s dancing alone in the middle of the street, to the beat of a song whose lyrics he mumbles at random.

“You should, babe. I know people who would pay a lot to see it.”

“I want names.”

Yuri laughs, his soaked hair clinging to his neck. His red crop top and leather pants are ruined, and the jean jacket knotted around his waist is dripping onto the pavement. The rain doesn’t let up, and they’re both soaked, and it’s a good thing they’re used to the cold. Otabek still feels just slightly tipsy, and he follows Yuri through the streets of Almaty, wondering if his boyfriend doesn’t feel like going home yet, or if he’s forgotten where they live.

“Yura.”

He ignores him, still dancing. Despite the alcohol in his bloodstream and his fatigue, his movements are smooth, and he dances to the beat of his own tune. There’s an elegance in his body language that Otabek recognizes from ballet, with something different that’s uniquely Yuri’s. He’s often seen him dancing since they moved in together two years ago, any time something good comes on the radio, any time he gets a song stuck in his head. On one of his rare trips to Japan with Yuri, he’d watched him with Victor, their bodies moving in perfect synch, sharing conspiratorial smiles and laughing glances. Victor’s Yuuri had told him they’d always been like that, deep down, but that Yura was too proud to completely admit to the love he had for his substitute parents, and Victor too arrogant to yield to his disciple.

“I’m going to record this and send it to Victor.”

Yuri abruptly turns to face him. “You do that and you’re sleeping on the couch for a week,” he warns.

Otabek mirrors his outrage back at him, and Yuri giggles. He’s ridiculous with his messy hair and his almost delirious expression, and Otabek falls in love all over again. He opens his arms, and Yuri pretends to think about it before snuggling up to him.

“Dance with me,” he says flirtatiously.

Otabek smiles and slides his hands over his hips. He sways with him, following his rhythm, responding to the kisses Yuri plants on his neck and shoulders. His T-shirt is cold and damp, and when he kisses Yuri, his lips are ice cold.

“You must be chilly,” Otabek says.

“Warm me up, will you?”

“So subtle.”

“It beats reciting romantic poetry, Mister Altin.”

Otabek sulks at this, sliding his hands through Yuri’s hair. “You don’t like it?” He hates the indecision and worry in his voice, and hates himself utterly when Yuri backs off enough to look him in the eyes.

“Beka. I haven’t always been the most affectionate guy, but I love you, okay?”

“I love you too,” he replies automatically.

“Those romantic things you do... they’re one of my favorite things about you.”

“Really?”

Yuri kisses the corner of his mouth, kisses his jaw, kisses his scar. “It’s so cheesy and bad, but every single time, it makes me want to tear your clothes off. It isn’t something I need, but you do it anyway, because you always do your best to make me happy. Like you’re persuading yourself that you deserve me and you treat me well.”

His eyes are green, so green.

“You deserve me,” Yuri whispers like a secret. “You so deserve me, and I’m the one who should try harder to be worthy of you. I have nothing to offer you.”

“Yura.”

“It’s the truth. Take away the skates and I’m just another guy with a complicated family history and a tendency to speak too bluntly.”

Otabek takes a deep breath and places his hands on Yuri’s face.

“Yura, you are the most precious, most courageous person I know. You are courageous, and strong, and resilient, and talented.”

“That doesn’t count, Beka, you’re in love with me.”

Otabek smiles at him. “That’s the whole fucking point, right? It’s because I love you that I see you this way. It’s because you love me that you think I’m so great. That’s what makes us so extraordinary. We believe in each other.”

Yuri frowns and takes his hand.

“What if we stop loving each other? We just go back to being losers?”

Otabek laughs. Later, he’ll tell himself maybe he laughed too hard, and that he should have reacted some other way – but in the moment, it just seemed so ridiculous.

“That’ll never happen, Yura.”

Yuri kisses him deeply, and the rain comes down with a vengeance.

11

Yuri still feels strange after sleeping with Etsujiro. Not exactly dirty, not exactly traitorous, but somewhere between the two. Sometimes he squeezes his eyelids shut when he kisses his boyfriend, and sees Otabek’s face in his mind. He doesn’t know which is worse: when he thinks of him, or when he forgets. But he supposes that an 11-year-long relationship doesn’t vanish in two months, and however kind and interesting Etsujiro may be, a part of him will always love Beka. Realizing this especially hurts tonight, and when Etsujiro finally falls asleep, he slides out of bed and slips out of the room. His bare feet slap the floor, and he hates how sticky his sweaty hair is, how slick his thighs are with lube.

Maybe it would have bothered him less with Otabek. Maybe he’s too old for this bullshit.

Oh, he could go take a shower, and borrow some clothes from Etsujiro, but he hasn’t got the strength. He sits in the kitchen, cellphone in hand, and figures out what time it is in Almaty. He doesn’t know if Otabek is there, or if he’s still at Mila’s, or if he’ll even answer, or if someone else will answer only to say he doesn’t want to talk to him. It would be okay coming from Mila, but if it’s a friend of his—or his mother —Yuri’s going to be sick. He’s thought constantly of Djamila since the breakup. How delighted she must be to think herself victorious. Or maybe she blames Yuri for making Beka miserable—Mila’s word, not his own—and that Yuri’s always been the one in the wrong.

Beka, of course, answers on the first ring. Yuri is so surprised that he forgets to speak.

“Yura?” says Beka cautiously. “Is that you?”

The sound of his voice is an immeasurable relief, and Yuri realizes he didn’t just leave the love of his life behind—he left his best friend.

“Hey.”

He can hear Otabek breathing—a little panicked, a little hesitant. “Hey,” he says quickly.

“I’m not going to hang up, Beka.”

The nickname is terrible, sliding past his lips like bile, putrid and familiar. His stomach knots up, and he pushes the phone against his ear.

“I wasn’t really expecting this anymore,” Otabek admits, after a long silence.

“Yeah. Sorry. I wasn’t sure you’d want to speak to me.”

“Yura, you haven’t been in touch in two months. Of course I’m glad to hear your voice.”

Yuri sniffs. “You had Victor and Mila.”

“Victor exaggerates everything. And Mila kind of hates you these days.”

“She’s probably right to,” Yuri admits. “I’m really sorry.”

Otabek doesn’t answer. Yuri wonders where he is, what he’s doing, what he’s wearing. What he had for dinner, whether he’s pulled his hair back, how things are going at the garage. If he checks out girls in the street, if he thinks of him when he touches himself, if he’s done mourning him.

“I don’t even know any more if I told you so. Because I really am, sincerely. I know we had agreed, but I wish it had ended some other way.”

I wish it had not ended at all.

“Don’t feel guilty, Yuri. I didn’t do much to keep you here, either.”

“Yeah.”

This is even harder than Yuri thought it would be, and for a moment, he just wants to hang up.

“How’ve you been?” Otabek asks.

“Fine. Victor and Yuuri are awesome and horrible. Hasetsu is relaxing. Skating season is coming up, too.”

“You training by yourself?”

He can hear Beka start to relax a little, and Yuri smiles into the emptiness.

“Yuuri’s my coach. I’ll see Sergei when I go back to St. Petersburg. You still at Mila’s?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you’d be in Almaty,” Yuri says hesitantly.

“It’s not as if I can take the garage with me.” Then he adds softly, “I still haven’t said anything to my parents.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know,” Otabek says derisively. “Got a theme for the season?”

“What, are you afraid it’s ‘separation’?”

Beka laughs a little, and Yura smiles into his phone. Their hearts are heavy, but there’s no universe in which they hate each other.

“It’ll be a surprise. Especially since I changed my free program at the last minute.”

“Did Victor choreograph a program for you?”

“No. I did.”

“Oh.”

Sometimes Yuri has adjusted elements he didn’t like in the choreography that Lilia or Yakov or Sergei came up with, but he’s never dared to skate his own ideas.

“I can’t wait to see that,” Otabek murmurs.

“Are you planning to watch me?”

“I watch the championships every year, Yura. I was a skater for fifteen years, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Don’t say ‘was.’”

Otabek scoffs. “If I tried a quad tomorrow, it’s very likely I’d break something.”

“You kept up with me every weekend.”

Otabek doesn’t reply right away, giving Yuri plenty of time to regret his words. He pushes back the hair falling into his face, tugs his T-shirt down, closes his eyes.

“You’ll have to find yourself another partner,” Otabek says flatly.

Yuri blurts, “I’m seeing someone.”

“Did you call me to tell me that?” The anger comes across clearly in his voice, cold and slicing like a razor blade. Yuri receives it with joy.

“Sort of. You deserve to know, and I suspect Victor hasn’t dared to tell you, and Mila isn’t up to date.”

“You didn’t waste any fucking time,” Otabek hisses. Yuri can hear him grind his teeth, a bad habit when his serious— rare —fury emerges.

“Otabek,” Yuri says calmly. “If you want to insult me, you can do it later. I get it. But take two fucking seconds to think about it, and understand that I have no interest in trying to humiliate you, or whatever stupid idea you’ve got in your head.”

He mutters something in Kazakh as if he’s forgotten that Yuri can understand him, then takes a deep breath. “Very well,” he says carefully.

“His name is Etsujiro, he’s my age, and he knows I just got out of a long relationship.”

“Does he take care of you?”

Yuri smiles faintly. Otabek’s reflexes are solid, anchored in his flesh and bones. “I’m an adult and I’ve had my shots.”

“You deserve someone who will take care of you,” he insists with affection in his voice.

“He treats me well. He takes me out to dinner. He listens to me.”

“Good.”

Yuri waits, and Otabek says, “It makes me sick to imagine you with someone else. But at least he’s a good person,” he adds mockingly.

“I don’t know if it will last. I’ve already had one long-distance relationship, I don’t want another.”

“Ours worked all right.”

“That’s different.” Yuri sighs. “I still love you, you know. I don’t have any idea how to stop, or why I’m supposed to.”

“I love you too,” Otabek says slowly. “As I breathe.”

They say nothing else to each other for a long moment, and when Yuri feels fatigue catching up with him, he yawns and stands up. The floor is chilly under his bare feet. Familiar terrain.

“Let Mila pamper you,” Yuri says.

“I love you,” Otabek says again. “Good luck this season.”

“Thanks. You’ll watch me, then?”

He can hear Otabek smiling for the first time in two months. “Yes, Yura.”

“Beka,” he murmurs.

And for the first time in two months, he can hear Otabek burst into tears. Yuri doesn’t have time to say anything before the line goes dead, and he stares at the dark screen of his phone for a long time.

3

He’s in the orchard at his boyfriend’s residential castle in Almaty, a concept which is taking Yuri some time to absorb. He could not have imagined this a year ago, and even now he’s having trouble coming to terms with it. When Otabek asked him out—specific circumstances aside—he didn’t really think about it. He likes Beka, he’s into him, he trusts him, and there’s a mass of contradictory feelings that rise up in him every time he makes him smile. Yuri is seventeen. He neither needs nor wants to give words to his feelings, doesn’t feel the need to think about how long this will last, nor whether this new development is good or bad for him.

Before, he only had two things: skating and his grandfather. Mila, Yakov, Lilia, Dmitri, Victor, Yuuko, and Yuuri all mean a lot to him, but they exist on the edges, in the orbit of his one-planet universe. He’d bleed for them if he had to; but he wouldn’t die for them. Little by little, Otabek got closer to him, closer to this ideal of love and devotion. If Yuri doesn’t set his limits very quickly, he’ll have to find a place for him in the very core of his universe. He’ll have to protect him as he does the other orbiting moons, and take care of him. He’ll have to stop being afraid. Fear makes him weak, and for the past few months he’s been terrified. He must be ready to sacrifice himself. He must let Otabek know.

“Hey,” Beka murmurs in his ear.

Or maybe Otabek knows already, which frightens him even more.

“Hey.”

“Do you believe in God?”

Yuri looks up at him. His gentle brown eyes are patient, and Yuri can’t resist placing a kiss on his cheek. His three-day beard is dry against his lips.

“Not really,” Yuri confesses.

Since their first kiss a few days ago, they’ve been testing their limits—establishing habits and manias, gauging and judging each other. Otabek learns that he can kiss Yuri if he’s in a good mood, especially on the neck and shoulder blades. He can hold his hand if he’s upset, or if he’s gotten up on the wrong side of the bed. And he can play with his hair anytime. Yuri learns that Otabek likes it when he touches his arms and wrists, that he’s reassured by a kiss on his jawline, and that he should stay clear of his pierced ears.

“I think Grandpa is Orthodox, but non-practicing.”

“My parents are Muslim, but they’re not observant either.”

“How about you?”

After lunch, it was so nice out that they went for a walk in the orchard. The property is huge, and all the trees look the same. The humid air is redolent with the aroma of ripe fruit, and Yuri feels a little stifled with every breath. Otabek’s hand is warm in his own, and when their shoulders brush against each other, Beka smiles absently.

“I still think of myself as Muslim, but I haven’t set foot in a mosque in years.”

“You drink alcohol and eat pork,” Yuri points out.

Otabek makes a face. “I picked up some bad habits in Canada, then in the U.S., then from you.”

“Cool. I love being a bad influence.”

Otabek smiles at him again, and Yuri looks away, trying not to blush. He can hear his quiet laughter, then he tugs on his arm to pull him closer. His body is solid against his own, and when he lifts his head to kiss his mouth, he can taste the green tea Otabek drank at the end of their meal.

“Are you going to recite a poem, or were you just testing the waters that one time?” Yuri murmurs against his lips.

Otabek blushes, running a hand through Yuri’s blond hair. “If you think I didn’t see you paging through that anthology yesterday, you’re mistaken.”

“Yeah, but I’m not going to learn it by heart just for your beautiful eyes.”

Otabek bats his eyelashes at him, and Yuri chuckles.

“You’ve offended me, Yura,” he says dramatically. “You don’t appreciate my true worth.”

“Shut up,” Yuri mutters to hide his embarrassment.

Otabek kisses his cheek, and Yuri puts his arms around his waist. The bittersweet fragrance of ripe fruit fills their lungs with every breath.

8

“Your mother called.”

Otabek nods, but he isn’t really listening. He’s sitting in the living room, right on the polished floor, barefoot and shirtless. There’s a book in his hands—something in English about Confucianism, Yuri seems to recall—and a look of concentration on his weathered face. St. Petersburg is broiling this summer, and every time they go for their morning jog, he gets a little more tanned. Yuri barely tans, and adores the contrast between his milky skin and Otabek’s golden brown hue. They will never be more beautiful together than they are that summer.

“Don’t you want to know what she wanted?”

“Sure,” Otabek mutters. “Of course.”

“She wanted to know when we’ll be in Almaty. I gave her our flight number.”

“Okay.”

Yuri sighs, taking the elastic band off his wrist. He pulls his hair into a bun and goes to make dinner. He’s planned something light, due to the heat, and he’s peeling vegetables when his phone rings. He answers, his hands stained by beets and carrots, and wedges the phone between his ear and his shoulder.

“Yeah.”

“Yurio, you will never guess what happened this week,” Victor says in a conspiratorial tone.

Yuri smiles, chopping vegetables and talking with Victor for twenty minutes—with interjections from Yuuri in the background, and the occasional bark from Matcha. When he’s wrapped up their current domestic adventure, his mentor asks how they’re doing.

“We’re dying of heat over here, old man.”

“Are you ready for the season?”

They’ve been working hard, they’re exhausted, and they can’t wait to find out their competition assignments.

“How’s your ankle?” Yuuri asks in the background.

“Yakov thinks it’ll be completely healed in three more weeks. That should be enough.”

He doesn’t add that the last time he talked to his coach, he said he might be planning to retire. Taking care of Lilia is a full-time job . Yuri begged him to coach him for one more season, and Yakov had given in. He knows how important Yuri’s programs are to him this year, particularly the not-yet-posthumous homage to Lilia.

“Be careful, Yurio. You’re not fifteen anymore.”

“I know,” he mutters.

“Keep it in mind. Give me Otabek now.”

“If it’s about my birthday, you should know you’re still terrible at surprises.”

He can hear Victor grind his teeth while Yuuri laughs. “Be quiet and let me talk to your better half.”

Yuri wipes his hands on a dishtowel and goes back to the living room. Otabek is exactly where he left him, sitting cross-legged on the floor. He looks up absently when he sees Yuri, and automatically takes the phone.

“It’s Victor,” Yuri says. “And don’t waste your time whispering. I’ve been aware of your childish little attempts at secrecy for a long time.”

Beka smiles at him. “Yura Plisetsky, the handsome ingrate.”

“That could be my official slogan,” Yuri simpers.

Otabek blows him a kiss and takes the phone as Yuri goes back to his cooking. He’s gotten the rice and vegetables going when Otabek comes in and wraps his arms around his waist. He presses his lips to Yuri’s neck and shoulders, breathing him in like a fragrance.

“You’ll act surprised anyway, right?” he asks.

“I know, I know, it’ll make Yuuri and Victor happy.”

“How long until dinner?”

Yuri shrugs, lacing his fingers with Otabek’s, warm and solid against his stomach. “At least another half-hour.”

“Perfect. I want you.”

Yuri laughs, and Otabek is a little offended. “What?” he says, undoing Yuri’s blond hair. He’s already slid a leg between Yuri’s and a hand under the fine fabric of his T-shirt. Yuri doesn’t resist.

“Your mother called,” he says.

Otabek freezes, groans, and takes a step back. “Son of a bitch. What did she want?”

“To know when we’ll be there.”

“Did you tell her?”

“No. I hung up in her face like I do with everyone in your family,” says Yuri. He turns toward Otabek and smiles at his resigned expression.

“You’re lucky I love you so much,” Beka sighs.

Yuri cracks up a little, and leans against the kitchen counter, hands flat on the countertop. He can hear the water boiling, and the neighbors’ Latin music. The sun is going down, and the apartment is bathed in gold. Otabek is close enough to smell his scent, but not close enough to touch. His chest is bare, back-lit and dark, and his face is gentle and unguarded, his black hair tied back on top of his head. His undercut is growing out unevenly, and he’ll need some time before he can even it out again. His lips are pink because he bites them when he’s concentrating. Light glints off the piercings in his ears. His clear brown eyes are two lakes flecked with gold.

“That’s what I tell myself every morning,” Yuri admits slowly.

Otabek kisses him, and Yuri lets the heat consume him.

11

It’s still chilly out, but Yuri feels like getting some fresh air. He hasn’t slept well, and today’s training promises to be challenging. The wooden boards of the terrace are hard under his bare feet, and he walks carefully to avoid splinters. He’s not sure he’d even feel them, but he’d rather not take chances.

“Did you steal the teapot?” says a velour voice behind him.

Yuri nods, and Victor comes to sit beside him. From the corner of his eye, he watches him pour himself a cup of tea and take a pensive sip. They’d gotten up at the same time, talked about Yuri’s programs a little, then Victor had stretched like a cat and said he was going back to bed with his husband.

“Did Yuuri kick you out of bed again?”

“I need to take care of the guests arriving today.”

Yuri scoffs. “I bet you forgot.”

“Naturally,” Victor concedes with a half-smile. “What is this that I’m drinking?”

Yuri sees him make a face as he looks into his cup. “It’s rooibos. I had some at Etsujiro’s and I liked it, so he gave me a box of it.”

Victor sighs and sets the cup down. “That boy is an angel. When were you planning to break it off?”

Yuri cringes and doesn’t answer immediately. He looks at his bare feet, half covered in bandages. He’s got two broken toenails, three twisted and purple toes, and a wound on his heel that’s been bleeding on and off for a week. He’d had to break in new skates after wrecking his in a fall. Each time he does, it’s painful and takes some time. Lilia had given him her old ones after he took gold at the Worlds four years ago. He can’t bring himself to throw them away. They’re still in his locker at the Ice Castle, and he sees them every day when he’s changing.

“What is wrong with me?” says Yuri.

Victor takes his hand. His skin is warm against his own, and Yuri lets their laced fingers rest on the wooden boards. Once in a very rare while, Yuri wonders if he should call Victor papa. Dmitri will always be his father, of course, and Nikolai was his real parental figure, but Victor has played this role for him for more than ten years now. But Yuri associates him with skating too much for him to be a real father figure—still too much his rival, and too superficial and impulsive in any case. Often he’s too much of a child himself.

“Don’t say that, darling.”

“Etsujiro is perfect for me. We get along perfectly, we have a great time together, and yet my heart’s not in it. I keep thinking about Beka.”

“Because you still love him, Yurio.”

“But why? We broke up two months ago, I should be moving on.”

“But do you want to?”

Yuri finishes his tea and puts the cup down. He squeezes Victor’s hand.

“Yes.”

“When you want something, you find a way to get it.” Victor smiles at him, almost tenderly, his hair still uncombed, eyes still puffy from sleep.

“You think I’m wrong, don’t you?” Yuri asks.

“Yes,” Victor admits. “But it’s not my decision to make.”

“You wish.” Victor shrugs, faking innocence.

Yuri adds, more slowly, “Do I disappoint you?”

His mentor grips his hand, shaking his head. “No, darling. You could never disappoint me. I’m just sad for you and Otabek.”

“Because you love Beka very much.”

Victor takes a deep breath, looking straight at him. “Yuri. It’s true that I’m sad that you two broke up, and that I like Otabek, but that has nothing to do with it. You’re the one I worry about, and you’re the one I want to see happy, more than anything in the world.”

Then he adds—so gently and sincerely that it makes them both want to cry—

“I love you, Yurio. No matter what you decide to do.”

Yuri nods quickly, his throat constricting, and grips Victor’s hand very tight. He holds his gaze, and Victor seems to get the message.

“But I believe,” he finishes simply, “that you and Otabek still have things to say to each other.”

7

Yuri has waited until the last minute, until Lilia calls him herself and asks him for a few days off.

“Could Yakov take you to the hospital?”

She’s been going by herself for a long time, but she’s been too tired for the past month. She always has someone with her, of course, but they don’t play cards like they used to. Yuri worries to see her becoming so weak.

“I have made arrangements with him,” she says.

Yuri shifts the phone to his other ear and disregards the look Otabek shoots him from across the bedroom. He’d set Yuri’s suitcase on the bed that morning, and seems a little too pleased to have been proven right.

“Are you two together or not? I can’t make any sense of your bullshit any more.”

He packs somewhat at random, remembering that Almaty is cold in autumn. He’ll surely end up wearing clothes that Otabek left behind at his parents’ mansion back in the early 2000s. To Yuri, they’re so ugly they’re beautiful, and he can’t resist the siren song of fluorescent velour.

“Language,” she says automatically. “And that is our business.”

“Your business is really fucking complicated. Don’t you think you’re both too old for this?”

Otabek snorts from across the room, and Yuri flips him off. He’s decided to sulk at him all the way to the airport, just to prove he hasn’t mellowed over the years, as that bastard and Yuuri both claim. He only has Victor on his side. Victor knows what to expect.

“You are not in the best position to advise me about my love life, Yuri.”

“Six years in a stable relationship, Lilia. Six years.”

He can practically hear her rolling her eyes. “Child’s play. Come talk to me when you’ve reached twenty.”

“I plan to.”

She pesters him about the details for a while—reminds him to keep up his training in Almaty with Otabek’s former coach, and to reach out to the dancer she’d told him about. He doesn’t need to remind her that they’ll only be gone a week, because she already knows, and she doesn’t see why that should matter. You may rest when you are dead, she always says. It used to make him laugh, but these days he wakes up every morning with the word cancer on his mind, and he finds it somewhat creepy.

“If you’re bored during chemo, call Mila. I already let her know.”

“And spend hours putting up with her litany of boyfriend troubles? I’d rather talk to the nurse.”

“She’s offered to give you a manicure,” Yuri says.

Lilia seems to consider the idea, then asks him to message her when their plane lands, and to give her regards to Otabek. When Yuri finally ends the call, his suitcase is full. He closes it, checks his name tag on the side, and takes it off the bed. He rolls it into the living room, laces up his sneakers, and plugs in his phone to charge while they wait for the taxi. He checks his pockets—keys, strawberry gum, rolled-up earbuds, airline tickets, wallet—and goes back to the bedroom. They’ve had the same paint on the walls since they moved in. The sky blue is perfect, gentle and familiar, and the white clouds are cottony and ethereal. Yuri never grows tired of it.

“Everything all set on your end?” he asks vaguely.

Otabek has stretched out on the bed while Yuri was in the living room, arms crossed behind his head, gazing into the middle distance. He’s wearing his favorite black jeans and a forest green polo shirt his mother gave him for his birthday. The fabric rises up over his stomach a little, baring his brown skin and perfect abs. Yuri feels like joining him, feels like crawling across the unmade bed and pressing his lips on him.

“Yeah. Got your passport?” The unspoken subtext: not like last time, when we had to make a U-turn and nearly missed our flight. Yuri nods, leaning on the edge of the bed to stretch his legs. He can feel Otabek watching from the corner of his eye, and exaggerates the movement of his hips and spine a little. It’s their habitual game now. When they fight, they fight dirty: no rules, no honor, no limits.

“I’m worried about Lilia,” Yuri confesses.

No morals.

“Yakov will be with her. So will Mila.”

Otabek has already begun to sit up on the bed, giving Yuri a gentle and loving look. Yuri smiles into his sweatshirt, and goes to slip into Otabek’s outstretched arms.

“I win,” he says, sing-song.

Otabek sighs, his breath warm on Yuri’s hair. “I don’t care, because I know you’re actually worried.”

Yuri says nothing, sliding his arms around his waist and resting his head on his chest. He can hear his slow heartbeat under his ribcage, calm and regular. He can see the sky painted on the wall. They stay that way for a long time, then the taxi honks outside and they get up.

Chapter Text

9

When Mila opens her door, she’s wearing a somewhat cropped T-shirt and a pair of pastel pink cotton shorts. Her wet hair, pulled back in a casual ponytail, has gone back to its natural color. It looks almost black when it’s wet, giving her a somewhat austere look.

“That’s how you greet people?” Yuri mutters.

She raises an eyebrow. “My door has a peephole, idiot. And it’s after eight at night, so excuse me for not being more presentable.”

He gives her a look, then she lets him in and locks the door behind him.

“There’s dark chocolate in the fridge,” she says. “Get the bar and come to my room. Something tells me you’re going to be here a while.”

Yuri watches her disappear down the hall, and throws his jacket on the sofa. He does as she says, and finds her stretched across the bed, wrapped in a fleece blanket. He takes off his shoes, slides in between her and the wall, and sighs noisily.

“Beka lied to me,” he says after a silence.

Mila looks up. “Something serious?”

“He decided to retire from skating without discussing it with me, then took a night course in auto mechanics and rented out a garage for a year with some guy he’s never mentioned to me before. So yeah, I’d say so.”

“Shit.” She sits up, her back against the wall, and lets Yuri curl into her. She strokes his blond hair and waits for him to wipe his eyes before asking, “How did you find out?”

“He told me this evening.”

“And how did you take it?” she asks, already gritting her teeth.

“What do you think? I screamed like a madman. I told him I won’t put up with him hiding things from me, and that quitting skating now would be ridiculous and cowardly. I told him if he wants to betray me, he should just do it the right way and break up with me—and that if he didn’t have the balls to, I’d do it myself.”

“Let me guess what happened next,” Mila says slowly. “You slammed the door behind you without telling him where you were going, and came straight over here to keep me up all night when I’m already exhausted.”

“Pretty much.”

Mila sighs, taking his hand. He’s shaking, and she hates seeing him this way.

“At least send him a text. He must be worried sick.”

“He can go fuck himself,” Yuri hisses.

She doesn’t reply. She remembers Yuri’s adolescent years with nostalgia. He was just barely tolerable at the time, provocative and hurtful, but Mila always kept her cool. Today won’t be the day she gives in.

“You’re not really planning to leave him, Yuri. Which means you should talk to him at some point or other. Tomorrow would be best, when you’ve calmed down a bit.”

He makes as if to reply, and she covers his mouth with her hand. He nips at her fingers and she smiles, terrifying and magnificent. She waits a moment, and when she feels him relax a little, she takes her hand away.

“I hate it when you’re right,” he mutters.

“Since the day I was born, kitty cat.”

Yuri sniffles, and she twists enough to wrap the fleece blanket around him. He grumbles without any real conviction, and the two of them devour the bar of dark chocolate.

“What if he breaks up with me?” Yuri asks after a pause.

Mila laughs, honestly and sincerely. “No chance of that.”

“Really? Because there’s a big fucking difference between pro skater and auto mechanic.”

“Yuri, skating isn’t the only thing you two have in common. Don’t be ridiculous.”

He sits partway up in bed, his hair disheveled and his sweater askew. “I don’t know. I can’t even imagine retiring, myself.”

Mila gives him a long look. “So that’s what it is.”

“What.”

“You’re afraid of what comes after skating, and you hadn’t given it any thought until now. What’s really freaking you out isn’t Beka’s career change, it’s yours.”

“He lied to me,” Yuri repeats idiotically.

“Yeah, and he shouldn’t have, but you can discuss it later.”

Yuri says nothing, staring at the ceiling. Mila gets up to throw out the empty chocolate wrapper, and comes back to sit next to him. At least he isn’t crying—she can’t stand it when people cry—but it’s even more frightening to see him so calm and silent. Yuri tends to express his emotions , negative and positive, until he overdoses on them.

“You’ve never thought about it?” she asks gently.

“No.”

“You still have time. You’re still young, kitty cat.”

“What if I get injured tomorrow?” he says.

Mila sighs and wraps her arms around him. “I’m sure that won’t happen.”

Later she’ll think, it’s a lucky thing she was right.

11

“I think we met at the wrong time,” Yuri says slowly.

Etsujiro is sitting across from him. He nods carefully. Yuri takes a deep breath and continues.

“I genuinely believe we’re good together. I like you very much, and you’re a great boyfriend, but I want to be honest with you. I don’t want a long-distance relationship. I have no choice but to go back to Russia, and I wouldn’t be able to come back and see you until the season ends. I’m no longer as patient as I was when I was younger.”

“There is something else,” Etsujiro suggests. “Isn’t there?”

Yuri winces.

“I am sure to see my ex. I don’t know if we will get back together right away, or even at all, or if it’s a good idea. But it’s possible. I spent eleven years with him, and I was wrong to believe I could move on that easily.”

“I see.”

Etsujiro takes his hands in his, and gives them a squeeze. He looks tired, and disappointed, and already resigned. Yuri would have preferred it if he’d screamed, or cried, or thrown something in his face.

“This guy must be a very interesting fellow,” Etsujiro says with a sigh.

Yuri shrugs, kissing his cheek. “I’m sorry, Etsujiro.”

Etsujiro laughs faintly, a bitter and unfamiliar sound. “Not as sorry as I am.”

He seems to hesitate, then he releases Yuri’s hands and hugs him slowly, as if giving him time to step away. Yuri closes his eyes and breathes in his scent. He smells of industrial disinfectant from the konbini, and cold sand, and the ocean.

“I’ll miss you,” he says into the collar of his jacket.

Etsujiro smiles against his hair. “Call me the next time you are in Japan.”

“I will.”

When he returns to Yu-topia that evening, Victor and Yuuri give him pitying looks.

“How did it go?” asks Victor.

“Strangely well. Are all breakups like that?” He tells the story, and they shake their heads in unison.

“Not really,” Yuuri says. “I don’t have any personal experience, but I remember when Yuuko broke up with her boyfriend in high school. He threatened to kill himself, and then harassed her for weeks.”

“Etsujiro is a mature young man,” Victor adds.

Yuri looks at them, groans faintly, and drops on the floor next to Matcha. He plunges his hands in her brown fur, and graciously allows her to lick his face.

“Why are relationships so difficult?” he murmurs, hugging the dog.

Victor shrugs, smiling. “Are you still planning to give tickets to Otabek?”

“Yeah.”

“I wanted to ask,” Yuuri adds. “Why two tickets?”

“Giving just one seems weird. Two is more traditional. I can pretend I don’t care, it’s just a suggestion. Then if he reacts badly, he won’t be alone.”

This time, it’s Victor who looks at him askance. “Reacts to what?”

Behind him, Yuuri kisses him on the cheek and comes to sit next to him. “Yuri choreographed his free program specially for Beka. It’s very expressive, and very moving.”

“How romantic.”

Yuri throws one of Matcha’s toys at his face, which Victor dodges elegantly.

“I can never find the right words,” he admits after a brief silence. “But I know how to express myself on the ice. And I know he will understand.”

As will every single spectator at the Cup of China, probably, but he doesn’t give a fuck. It’s time for him to fight for the boyfriend he left so impulsively three months ago.

4

It’s a little like going back to your hometown and discovering that everything has changed—the buildings have been renovated, the supermarket has changed hands, the people are different, the sky isn’t as blue and the wind isn’t as gentle.

“You can still go back to the hotel,” Yakov says at his left.

Yuri shrugs, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets. He’s not wearing his Russia team jacket, but something expensive that Victor gave him when he turned eighteen. He doesn’t want to seem like part of the team. He doesn’t want some journalist to ask him questions, or for a fan to come talk to him. He knows reasonably well that it’s likely to happen, but he’d rather not think about it. He’ll improvise. In any case, everyone already knows that three-time gold medalist Yuri Plisetsky is not participating this season. As for why he’s here at the Rostelecom Cup, he cited personal reasons.

“I’ll stay for Georgi’s program, at least, or he’ll make me pay later.”

Yakov is only half listening to him, already focused on the final verifications. There is still some time before it begins, so Yuri disappears in search of Otabek. He finds him talking with his coach, and waits until they’ve finished before approaching him. After the mood swings and emotional vulnerability of the first few months, Yuri generally feels apathetic now, from his head to his heart.

“Hey.”

Otabek turns and gives him a slow smile. “Hey.”

At least now he’s tall enough that Otabek doesn’t have to bend down to kiss him. He chases Beka’s lips when he backs away, knotting his hands around his waist. He’s vaguely aware of the photographers, but he doesn’t care. Victor and Yuuri have done far worse things at competitions.

“I missed you too,” Otabek says softly. “How are you feeling?”

“Empty, but strange. Starting to regret it.”

Otabek shakes his head and runs a hand through Yuri’s blond hair. “You made the right choice, Yura. I assure you.”

He’s wearing just a little makeup for the competition, and his brown eyes look almost black. The cloth of his costume is fine and delicate, and when Yuri slides his fingers along Beka’s hips, he can feel him shiver.

“And besides, you helped me a lot,” Otabek adds. “When I’m on the ice, it’ll be like you’re there with me.”

“That’s different.”

Otabek sighs and plants a kiss on his forehead. “I know.” He slowly removes his hand from Yuri’s blond hair and touches his arm. He takes one of the elastics that Yuri always wears around his wrist, and slides it over his own. The sleeve of his outfit is long enough to hide it, but Yura will know it’s there.

“This way, I’ll have a little bit of you with me.”

“Such a romantic,” Yuri groans, hiding his blush in Otabek’s chest.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Otabek points out.

“No. I don’t know. I need some time to get used to it.”

He can feel Otabek smiling, and he lifts his head to kiss him on the cheek.

“Make us proud, okay,” he says with confidence in his voice. “But save a little energy for tonight.”

Otabek shivers again, and Yuri thinks he’ll never get tired of that. “This is not the time to give me an erection, Yura.”

Yuri smiles at him, and Otabek rolls his eyes before kissing him one last time. When it’s his turn to skate, Yuri is in the bleachers with Mila.

1

When he answers the Skype call, Yuri feels vaguely nervous. It’s not his style to worry about something as futile as human relationships, but Otabek has given him ideas and desires he’d been unaware of until now—just making him laugh has changed something within him; just seeing Beka overwhelms him. Maybe it’s about the distance, and in the precious and rare quality of each of their interactions. Maybe it’s coming from Yuri and Otabek themselves. Maybe it’s what they call puberty, as Katsudon had told him with a smile.

“Hey, Otabek,” he says like an idiot.

Otabek smiles, half indulgently. “Hey, Yuri. I thought of you this morning.”

Yuri raises an eyebrow and runs a hand through his hair. All the lights in his bedroom are out, and he has to speak softly so Lilia won’t hear him. He’s still living with her while he looks for his own studio: Yakov has finally agreed that he can live alone, as long as he handles the move himself. Yuri doesn’t own very much anyway.

“There was this documentary about panthers,” Otabek begins.

He describes a scene where the predator was chasing a spotted deer, and Yuri nods along. He can’t help thinking about where he was this morning—at Kresty II prison, visiting his father. He hasn’t talked about this part of his life with Otabek yet. Probably from a sense of reserve, more certainly from a mixture of shame and pride.

“You didn’t have training today?” Yuri asks when he’s finished.

Otabek avoids his eyes—a futile attempt on Skype—and clears his throat. “Sure I did. We finished early.”

“You are the world’s worst liar.”

“Not everyone can be as talented as you.”

Yuri scoffs. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“Oh, really? Because last time—“

“Answer the question, Otabek Altin.”

Otabek’s eyes are very brown when he finally looks up, and his cheeks are a little flushed. “I twisted my knee three days ago,” he admits.

Yuri winces. “You fell?”

“I fell. I stupidly messed up a triple Axel and I landed badly. It hurts like hell.”

Seeing Yuri’s face, he adds quickly, “It’s minor. I have to rest it for two weeks, that’s all.”

“You scared me, you idiot.”

Otabek smiles hesitantly, and Yuri hides his blush in the collar of his hoodie. He changes the subject and tells him about Yakov and Lilia’s quarrels. They got back together for a week, then split up again the week after that.

“I can’t understand their bullshit any more.”

Otabek shrugs. “They love each other,” he says simply. “It’s complicated, sometimes.”

Yuri sniffs, crossing his arms over his chest. “If that’s what love is, count me out.”

Otabek looks distant for a moment, but still patient and sympathetic. “You’re only fifteen years old, Yuri. You can’t just decide like that, today.”

“Really? What makes you think you know more about it than I do?”

He can feel the hesitation on Otabek’s face, but he isn’t lacking in self-confidence when he calmly recites, rolling his Rs:

Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the Lover’s ear alone,
What once to me befell.*

Then he translates it roughly into Russian, and Yuri gives him a half-smile.

“That’s pretty. But there’s a difference between poetry and reality.”

“Where do you think poetry comes from, Yuri?”

Yuri rolls his eyes, and Otabek lets it go. He watches him for a moment, then asks, “What do you think of love, then?”

He seems to be sincerely thinking about it. It’s not a question he asks himself often, but with Victor so excited about going to Japan the day after tomorrow, he’s been thinking about it.

“Love is just gold plate. From the outside, it looks completely beautiful and perfect, but inside it’s just rubbish.”

Otabek says nothing for a moment. He looks surprised, somewhat impressed, and finally almost moved. When he finally opens his mouth, Yuri is so embarrassed that he has to physically stop himself from shutting down the computer and going to bed.

“That’s very poetic, Yuri.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Otabek laughs, and Yuri feels that thing changing within him—transforming, shifting, reaching out and anchoring itself in the depths of his being. Something hot and bitter that leaves an acidic aftertaste in his mouth and a sensation of happy fatigue in his muscles. Something artificial and deep. Something tender and jealous.

11

His itinerary includes a stopover in Moscow, so Yuri can go place flowers on his grandfather’s grave. He has lunch at the airport, and sleeps on the flight to St. Petersburg. All his desire to call Otabek dies the moment he sets foot in his— their —apartment, and he ends up sending a vague message to Mila. She replies curtly, but agrees to meet him for coffee. Yuri doesn’t want to see Otabek right away. He’s absolutely terrified at the idea that it will be awkward, forced, weird; that Beka will realize, looking him in the eye after three months of emptiness, that he’s not as beautiful or perfect as the image he’d built up of him in his absence. That their memories are faded now, and tarnished. That getting back together would be a bad idea, in the end.

He has not been this afraid in a long time.

So, he does what he always does when he’s looking for a short-term distraction, and goes over to the Vaganova ballet academy. Everyone there knows him, and the dancers and instructors let him participate in classes, or just observe. He and Lilia used to come regularly to the Mariinsky to see ballets. He suspects that the former prima ballerina of the Bolshoi had made arrangements with the director so Yuri could come and go as he pleased, but he isn’t going to complain. The dance studios are magnificent, the atmosphere always electric and intense, and he is as respected as any other prodigy here, even though, strictly speaking, he isn’t one of them. He picks a class at random, changes with the other students, and sweats for a few hours.

When night falls, Yuri feels the accumulated fatigue from jet lag, and goes home. He showers, strips, and goes to bed. He’s so exhausted that he falls asleep immediately, and when he wakes up, the sun is already high in the sky. He dresses, has a quick breakfast, and walks downtown. He’s the first one to arrive at the cafe, followed by Mila a few minutes later. She’s cut her hair in a bob, and she’s wearing a new pink velour jacket. She sits across from him without a word or a glance, and pays him no attention until the waiter brings their order.

“Talk,” she says.

“I’m sorry I decided to leave Beka without talking to you about it first,” he begins slowly. “Not because you should have made the decision for me, but because you have always had good advice, and I should have taken the time to hear what you thought before I did anything.”

Mila looks up and nods. She still says nothing, so he goes on.

“There are real problems in our relationship, things he and I both have to fix. But it would have been more sensible to discuss it beforehand. I thought I was doing what needed to be done, but obviously I was wrong.”

She gazes at him a moment, then takes a sip of her tea, and crosses her arms over her chest. Her nail polish is pearlescent gray, and there’s a smirk beginning to form on her lips.

“Apology accepted. And we’re going to have this conversation now, Yuri.”

He scoffs, and she looks him over. “I’d say it’s a little late for that.”

“Really? Because Beka told me you called him, and that you still love him. So we may be doing things out of order, but we can do them just the same.”

“All right.”

Yuri takes a deep breath and tries to pretend they’re in their underwear in Mila’s room with the thermostat all the way up. The TV is on, but neither is really watching it.

“Otabek wants to have children.”

He’s never told her that before. He hopes she won’t find out later that he told Victor first, before her.

“But you don’t,” Mila says carefully.

“No.”

“Because of Dmitri and your mother.”

“Probably.”

She sighs. “I was afraid it was something like that.”

“He’s bi. He could meet a woman and have a family.”

He hates hearing himself talk this way. How thrilled Djamila Altin must be in her castle in Almaty. The garbage she said to him five years ago is still well anchored in his head, perpetual and indestructible.

“Yuri, that’s ridiculous. For one thing, that’s not how being bi works, and it’s not like you to dump Otabek out of some weird sense of self-sacrifice that very likely went right over his head.”

Yuri cringes, saying nothing. He wants Otabek to be happy, to have everything he wants and deserves to have, even if it means hating him. Even if he doesn’t agree. Yuri knows how Otabek can act too nice, sometimes, too conciliatory, and that he’s capable of being miserable for a long time because he doesn’t want to leave Yuri.

“Yuri. Kitty cat.”

He avoids her eyes, gripping his coffee cup in both hands. The porcelain is burning hot.

“I think you’ve forgotten what kind of guy Otabek is. Above all, he’s determined. He didn’t let his family keep him from going pro, he didn’t let the skating business destroy him even though he was less talented than so many others, and he never gave up when the rest of the world tried to convince him to. For fuck’s sake, Yuri, he even risked losing you because he wanted to retire and have his own garage, even though he can’t live without you. If he’d wanted children more than he wanted you, he’d have dumped you long ago. And do you know why he still hasn’t told his parents you broke up?”

Yuri shakes his head, blinking rapidly. He doesn’t want to cry in front of Mila. He knows how much she hates it when people cry.

“He has faith in you. He knows that, come what may, you will come back to each other. As stupid and naive and unrealistic as that may seem.”

He smiles faintly, swallowing down the pain constricting his throat.

“I won’t disappoint him,” he says quietly. “I swear.”

Mila nods, taking his hand a moment. Her skin is warm and soft, and the jangling bracelets around her wrist break the silence.

“You better not, Yuri. I love you, but this self-sacrifice story of yours is bullshit.”

He takes the tickets to the Cup of China out of his jacket pocket, and Mila takes them immediately.

“Give him that,” Yuri says.

She doesn’t ask questions, which he appreciates. When they leave the cafe, she hugs him quickly, and he kisses her on the cheek. He hadn’t realized how very much he’d missed her.

3

“I don’t want to make a bad first impression in front of your parents.”

Yuri doesn’t look up from the phone in his hand, the screen casting a weak light on his face. He cut his hair yesterday, just to his shoulders, and Otabek can’t resist playing with the newly trimmed ends. They’re soft.

“Stop calling them my parents.”

Otabek is only spending a week in St. Petersburg, and going to dinner at the home of the Nikiforov-Katsukis was honestly not among his priorities. He’d rather spend the evening watching a movie with his boyfriend in his arms. He wants to wait one more year before their first time, but it doesn’t stop them from pushing their boundaries a little. They have a constant need to touch each other, to fill the void carved out by distance. From the moment Otabek stepped off the plane, they haven’t kept their hands or their mouths off one another.

“Do we have to go?” Otabek mumbles. He doesn’t think Victor and Yuuri would appreciate it if Yuri sat in his lap throughout dinner.

“Yes. If I cancel, Victor will come over here, and he has a key. And Katsudon is cooking tonight.”

Yuri stretches like a cat and makes himself more comfortable in Otabek’s arms. Otabek can feel his bony knee pressing into his thigh, but he doesn’t care. When Yuri is stretched out against him like this, head resting on his chest, body partially curled against his side, he can feel his heartbeat from his stomach to the nape of his neck. From time to time, Yuri turns away from Instagram to press a kiss into his cheek or lips.

“We’ll stay in tomorrow, I promise,” Yuri murmurs. “I’ll tell Lilia I’m sick.”

“She’s a pretty smart lady, Yuri.”

“So what? She doesn’t have a key. And if she gives me any grief, I’ll tell Yakov she’s started smoking again.”

Otabek sighs, kissing him on the head. “That’s blackmail.”

“That’s the way it works.”

“You’re terrible. I love you.”

Yuri smiles at him, and kisses the scar by his jaw. They’re late getting to Victor and Yuuri’s, and the moment Otabek crosses the threshold, he’s sorry he wore his ripped jeans.

“Otabek. It’s been a while,” Victor says with a smile. “How do you like Russia?”

“It is a beautiful country,” Otabek says politely.

Next to him, Yuri rolls his eyes and goes to join Yuuri in the kitchen. Otabek watches him leave with a pang of anguish.

“Really? You’ll need to travel some more, then.”

Otabek wonders if he’s supposed to laugh, but Victor seems quite serious, so he shrugs. Followed by an awkward silence, then Yuuri calls them to the table, and Otabek and Victor join them. The apartment is large and rather sophisticated, but the kitchen has a more natural charm. Victor makes conversation and Otabek begins to relax—up until Yuuri passes him his plate.

“What is this?” he asks awkwardly.

“It’s sunomono. Octopus with cucumber and seaweed.”

Sometimes Otabek appreciates his mother for teaching him to respect the rules of etiquette. When he was younger, he thought good manners were ridiculous, but his education has spared him many a difficulty.

“It looks delicious,” he replies automatically.

Yuri smiles at him, and the others start eating. Otabek slowly equips his chopsticks and picks up a piece of cucumber. He carefully avoids the shiny pink tentacles, and thinks intensely of his mother. He looks up briefly to see that Yuri has noticed his discomfort and is about to say something to him—and Otabek really wants Victor and Yuuri to like him, because he’s aware of how important the couple is to Yuri. He grasps a tentacle, eats it, and avoids making a face while swallowing. Across the table, his boyfriend is watching him, shaking his head.

“It’s very good, Yuuri.”

The Japanese man thanks him, and Otabek suffers his way through the meal. It doesn’t taste bad, but the rubbery texture is horrifying.

“So, Otabek.”

Yuri clears the table, and Otabek prepares for the interrogation he’s been expecting.

“How long have you two been together now?” Victor asks.

“A year, give or take.”

“You don’t find the distance too difficult?”

He can feel Yura’s eyes on him, and he stops himself from turning around.

“It’s not ideal, but we manage.”

Victor continues, and from his expression, he seems to be satisfied with Otabek’s answers. Otabek is relieved when it’s over, and then Victor turns to his husband.

“Did you have anything to add, darling?”

“Just two questions, Otabek. One, are you prepared to die for Yuri? And two, do you really plan to honor your promise not to sleep with him until he is of age?”

Otabek blushes, gulping noisily. He doesn’t want to know how Yuuri knows about that.

“Yes, and yes.”

“Katsudon, you’re going too far,” Yura murmurs. “What’s next, are you going to threaten to kill him if he harms me?”

Yuuri’s laugh is dry and cold. He’s seriously starting to freak Otabek out.

“Kill him? Oh, no. More like, dismember him alive and leave him to die in a ditch where they won’t find his body for weeks.”

“Okay, you’ve really given this some thought,” Yuri says slowly. He stands up, and Otabek is relieved to follow him. They say goodnight from the doorway, and Yuri kisses Yuuri’s cheek and accepts Victor’s hug, grumbling. Otabek feels very grown up shaking their hands. They walk home, Yuri’s arm around Beka’s waist. His hands are warm against the fabric of his jacket. Otabek feels like telling him he misses him already, just a little, and that the thought of going back to Almaty in three days is killing him, but he doesn’t want to ruin the moment. He doesn’t want to scare him. He just wants to walk more slowly, he just wants their time together to last forever, and he wants to never forget his face or the scent of his hair.

Chapter Text

6

He’s doing it again. Yuri knew there was a risk of it, that Otabek hadn’t quite learned his lesson the last time, but he’s still disappointed. And this time, he didn’t call Mila. He called Lilia.

“You must set clearer boundaries, Yuri,” says the ballerina, forcefully.

“I know.”

She shows him her phone with four missed calls from Otabek. Yuri thinks he might die of shame.

“I suppose we should be happy he did not come to the studio.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Yuri admits.

Training ran a little late, and when the battery on Yuri’s phone had died, he knew Otabek would do something stupid—he didn’t think he’d go as far as calling Lilia, but apparently this bastard knows no limits. Lilia, a woman of good manners and conduct, mixed up in their relationship issues... Yuri wishes he could bury himself alive.

“I’m terribly sorry, Lilia. I promise it won’t happen again.”

“That would be best for all concerned,” she agrees.

He’s under the impression that she is as embarrassed as he is, which makes the situation even worse. After a long and uncomfortable ride, they arrive in front of Yuri’s building, and the skater is getting out of the car to deal with Beka when she calls him back.

“Yuri.”

“Yeah.”

“Your independence is important to you, isn’t it?”

Stupid question, he thinks. He’s had a chaotic childhood, between the lack of family structure and the poverty, the looks from other people, the fear of being beaten up in the street for his sexuality, and the constant worrying about his grandfather’s health. But if there is one thing Yuri is proud of, it’s that he’s always been free and resilient, and never dependent on anyone.

“Of course.”

“Do not let your feelings for Otabek ruin your power, Yuri. You deserve better than to be trapped by a man or a relationship.”

He gets the sense she’s speaking from experience, and for a moment he dreads her poor track record with Yakov. He has never completely found out what happened between them, or why they ended up divorcing, or why they keep getting back together only to separate again.

“Do not lose sight of what is most important to you,” she adds.

Yuri doesn’t really have to think about it. A year or two he might have agreed with her, but things have changed. He has changed.

“Beka is more important than my independence,” he says flatly.

If Lilia is surprised, she doesn’t show it. “That is your choice.”

“Yeah, but that won’t stop me from putting him in his place,” he says.

She smiles at him, a little cruelly, and he kisses her cheek. He gets out of the car and enters the building. Otabek is in the living room when he comes in, and the somewhat imploring look he gives him makes Yuri rather happy.

“You are sleeping on the couch tonight,” he says coldly. “And your apology had better be a good one.”

“I was worried about you.”

Yuri drops his backpack on the floor and takes off his sneakers. “I’m only half an hour late, Otabek. I’m a big boy, I have the right to come home past curfew. My phone battery died, and you had no right to call Lilia. You’ve crossed a line, and to be honest it’s getting on my nerves.”

Otabek seems to hesitate, then he crosses his arms over his chest. Yuri looks at him, calm and unappeasable. This anger he feels is familiar, but painful.

“What if something had happened to you?”

“You’re on my list of emergency contacts. The cops or the hospital would have called you. And I’ll remind you I always carry mace and I know how to fend for myself.”

Otabek winces and Yuri sighs. “I’m going to take a bath,” he says. “Don’t try to speak to me before tomorrow. And don’t even think of touching me. Good night.”

They make up the next day, and Otabek doesn’t do it again.

11

Sergei acknowledges his return with a vague sigh and a shrug. They resume training as if Yuri had never left, and Sergei watches him rehearse his programs for the season with a certain degree of satisfaction.

“Did you work with Victor?”

“No. Yuuri Katsuki.”

Strangely, Sergei is hardly surprised by his choice of song. “There are some cliches even you can’t escape, Plisetsky. All breakups look the same.”

He makes him an appointment with their usual tailor for costumes, and calls instructions to him from the bleachers. Whenever Yuri looks up from the ice, he can see him sitting there, quiet and motionless, his angular face half-hidden by the visor of his baseball cap. At the end of the day, Sergei wishes him a good evening and leaves the keys to the rink with him. Yuri appreciates it. He works on his jumps for a while longer, showers in the locker room, stretches slowly and painstakingly, and enjoys the silence. It’s nearly midnight when he’s finally done, and he has no desire to go back to the apartment. It’s so empty, and too large, too beautiful, too haunted.

Yuri picks up his backpack, locks the doors of the rink behind him, and sits out front. The street is fast asleep, revived only by the occasional car whose headlights make him blink. He’s getting cold, which he hopes will motivate him to get going. But he doesn’t budge. Finally his phone vibrates in his pocket, and he moves, just a little. He presses it to his ear mechanically, without looking at the number. He figures it’s probably Victor.

“Hey.” It’s Otabek’s voice—husky, deep, so familiar—and Yuri tells himself he should have expected it.

“Hey.”

“I’d like to see you.”

Yuri closes his eyes. “Me too,” he confesses. “But I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

Otabek laughs faintly at the other end of the line. Yuri pictures him at Mila’s, sprawled across her sofa, probably griping about the heat.

“We didn’t build our relationship on good ideas, Yura.”

“That’s for sure.”

“If I tried to come by the apartment now, you wouldn’t be there, would you?”

Yuri grinds his teeth. He’s seriously cold, but he doesn’t budge. “No. And if I told you I was coming over to Mila’s, you’d vanish too, and you know it.”

Otabek is quiet for a while, then he sighs. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

“I’m dying to see you,” Yuri says slowly. “But I really think it’s the worst thing I could do. And anyway, I have a plan.”

“Really?”

“Mila gave you the tickets, didn’t she?”

He can hear a rustling of papers. Otabek has the envelope with him. Yuri is starting to believe he isn’t the only one who’s desperate, who’s dying for the smallest contact, for the slightest chance.

“You should come. I worked my ass off.”

“You always do,” Otabek points out.

“Yeah, but usually it’s just for myself.”

“I’m flattered.” He sounds almost sincere, but Yuri knows how sarcastic he can be when he’s perplexed.

“I love you,” Yuri says plainly.

He can hear him smile. He can hear him close his eyes and try to remember his scent. Or maybe he’s just making things up.

“I love you too,” Beka says in a whisper. “I never should have let you go.”

“No, I’m the one who should have stayed.”

Then he adds, before he has the chance to regret it and swallow down the words that have been stuck in his throat for far too long—

“I need you to do something for me. Call your mother and ask her to tell you what she said to me five years ago on the veranda. And insist, don’t let her convince you that she doesn’t remember. Because I remember.”

Otabek seems to hesitate, but his instincts still lean toward the trust he’s placed in Yuri. “All right, I’ll do it. Good night, Yura.”

“Good night, Beka.”

Yuri ends the call and gets up. He takes a hot shower when he gets back to the apartment, then goes to bed. He doesn’t fall asleep immediately. He lingers on Twitter a while, then lies back, arms outstretched, and focuses on his breathing. When that doesn’t work, he plays with his piercing, pushing his tongue between his teeth and turning the little metal ball over and over. He quickly grows bored of this, turns over on his stomach, and is out cold in a couple of breaths.

9

The sky is white, cold, and heavy—populated with motionless gray clouds that extend to infinity against a morose horizon. Its austerity and inaccessibility are characteristic of Russia’s beauty, which only its own people can understand and appreciate. It’s a color that Otabek can’t get used to and never will. He’s learned to love this country, much the way he learned to love Yuri: with all his faults and his excesses, but with his energy too, and his unique character and his implacability. His lust for life, his rancor toward the world, and his green eyes haunted by universal wars.

One must not lie to such a creature. Yet Otabek looks at the love of his life every evening and conceals where he’s really going, and what he’s really doing there.

He hates it, but he can’t resolve himself to the inevitable—he’s terrified Yuri will persuade him to change his mind. And this is a career change he wants .

“What do you want to do first?” Otabek says tentatively.

Yuri doesn’t reply right away. They’re sitting in Georgi’s car, which the skater agreed to loan them for the day, parked in front of Kresty II prison. Dmitri Plisetsky is supposed to be released at 10 o’clock. That was fifteen minutes ago. Yuri had warned him that there might be a delay, but he didn’t say why. Otabek didn’t ask.

“Show him around the apartment, show him the rink. Go have lunch at some overpriced place. Then we’ll take the night train to Moscow this evening.”

“I’ll drop you two off at the restaurant before I go see Mila.”

Yuri turns, but his eyes are still fixed on a point beyond the open window of the car door. The prison doors remain motionless. He squeezes Otabek’s hand, which has been resting on his thigh for sixteen minutes now, his fingers warm among his own.

“No, I want you to come with us.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I really want you to meet him.”

Otabek watches him out of the corner of his eye, his free hand still on the steering wheel.

“Are you afraid he won’t like me?” he asks vaguely.

Yuri’s laugh is dry and nervous. He’s put up his hair in a strict bun, which reminds him of the hairstyles Lilia would give him during competitions. It’s been almost a year since she died, but Otabek still sees traces of her presence in Yuri—in the elegance of his movements, in the precision of each smile, in his calculated expressions of contentment or disgust.

“Grandpa adored you, I don’t see why Dmitri shouldn’t like you. And even if he hates you, I don’t give a fuck,” he sniffs. “It’s the opposite that worries me.”

“Yura. He’s your father, and you know how well I understand how attached a person can be to his family.”

“No, Beka. As far as you’re concerned, my father is Grandpa, or Victor, or Yuuri, or even Yakov. The man exiting the prison and having lunch with us today is a criminal who ditched his girlfriend when she was pregnant, then abandoned his son when she died. That’s what you’re going to see. That’s what everyone sees.”

Otabek wishes he knew the right words to say, but he’s already lying enough to Yuri these days. When he looks at the motionless prison doors, he thinks that this man was absent for almost all his son’s life, and didn’t know how to provide the stability and the affection he deserved. That meeting Yuri at age twelve didn’t stop him from continuing a life of lawlessness and violence. That if he should promise today to give it all up, Otabek wouldn’t believe him.

“All right, I’m sure I’ll need some time to get used to it,” Otabek concedes. “But if your father had lived a different life, I might never have met you, and for that I will be eternally grateful to him.”

Yuri turns and looks him in the eyes. In the white light of the Russian sky, his skin has the texture of porcelain. His pale lashes cast shadows across his cheeks, and his rosy lips open and close without a sound. His metal tongue piercing clicks against his teeth. Otabek seems to recall that Yuri is also wearing the tiny golden tiger’s head he gave him for his twenty-second birthday.

“After all this time, I can still manage to surprise you,” Otabek murmurs.

Yuri smiles at him. “I think you’ll still be surprising me when we’re in our forties.”

Otabek leans over to kiss him, and shivers as he feels the metal piercing in his mouth. When he leans back and opens his eyes again, he can see the prison doors open.

“Your father looks more like you than I expected,” he says, as if they’re discussing the weather.

Yuri curses, lets go of his hand, and gets out of the car, leaving the door open. When Otabek catches up to him, he’s already hugging his father. Dmitri says something that makes him laugh, then lets him go, keeping an arm around his shoulders. He’s just slightly taller than Yuri, and taller than Otabek. He extends a hand to him when he sees him, giving him a huge smile, his eyes intelligent and laughing.

“Otabek Altin. So you’re the man who stole my child’s heart,” Dmitri says bluntly.

Otabek shakes his hand and nods. “I haven’t stolen a thing. Unlike some.”

He’s sorry even before he finishes the sentence, but Dmitri bursts out laughing and turns toward his son, kissing his forehead. “I like this guy. He says what he thinks, and he’s not afraid to throw the first punch.”

“If it’s to protect me, he is invincible,” Yuri replies. “Watch out.”

Dmitri laughs even louder, and hugs Yuri. He closes his eyes briefly, placing his lips against his temple and his free hand on Yuri’s head, barely touching his carefully styled hair. Otabek sees it in a flash: the love of a father for his son, awkward and new, but very real.

“Yura’s going to hold it against me,” Otabek says when they separate.

“Something tells me he’s always going to like you more than me, Altin.”

Otabek glances at Yuri, who smiles and silently mouths I love you.

“I think we can share. He’s a big boy, he can support both of us.”

Dmitri agrees. “Perfect,” he says, as if it’s a done deal.

Above them, the sky is white and implacable.

3

They took the night train to Moscow. The berths are uncomfortable, the man sharing their compartment snores, and Otabek isn’t allowed to touch Yuri. At least in Almaty they can hold hands in the orchard and go out to dinner together in places Otabek knows are safe. In Russia, things are more precarious. There are suspicious disappearances every year, muggings in broad daylight. He kissed Yuri one final time in the hallway of his building, and promised he wouldn’t try anything, however unfair and frustrating that was. Otabek was surprised at his calm resignation. He’d often heard him lose his temper over trivialities, but here he was, keeping his head down and agreeing to live in the shadows, as though they were doing something wrong.

“Fine,” he’d conceded, “ I’d love to open my big mouth, but not when my own survival is at stake.”

Otabek had sighed, but he didn’t try anything during the journey. He watches Yuri sleep. He can’t, himself, still being on Kazakhstan time, and watches the darkening countryside. Moscow, he learns, is more modern and cold than St. Petersburg. Yuri’s grandfather is already waiting on the platform. Yuri jumps into his arms as soon as he sees him, apparently forgetting he’s much heavier now than he was when he was ten.

“I missed you,” he breathes.

Nikolai Plisetsky seems perplexed, or maybe stunned, then he smiles at his grandson. “I missed you too, Yurotchka.”

The old man looks immediately at Otabek, who extends his hand for a firm handshake.

“Pleased to meet you, sir.”

He can sense the judgment in his eyes—his ripped jeans, his worn sneakers, his biker jacket with the studded shoulders, his undercut, his gleaming piercings. Then Nikolai seems to see something in his face that pleases him, and nods as if giving his blessing.

“Don’t harm my Yurotchka,” he says plainly. “I’m too old and tired to commit another murder.”

Otabek blinks. Nikolai has already turned away, leading them to his car. Otabek tries to catch Yuri’s eye. Yuri raises his head, arches an eyebrow. Beka mouths Another murder? and Yuri shrugs. He’s starting to understand where the Russian skater’s personality comes from. Nikolai drives very slowly, and the trip takes forever. Other drivers honk and shout at him the whole time, which he ignores regally, while Yuri gripes about the music on the radio. They speak a rapid, clipped Russian to each other, which Otabek has trouble following despite the similarities with his native tongue. Sitting in the back, he begins to feel like an outsider.

When they finally arrive at the house, he falls onto Yuri’s bed, barely noticing the outdated style of his childhood bedroom. Yuri spends some time downstairs with Nikolai, then goes up to find Otabek and snuggles with him on top of the covers. He smiles, looking more relaxed than ever. When Otabek presses a kiss to his lips, he purrs like a cat and begs for another.

“Your grandfather seems like an amazing man,” Otabek says softly.

“He’s an old grouch who still won’t use the internet and hates everything about Russia, from the snow to Putin. Don’t even try to suck up to him, it’s a lost cause.”

Otabek smiles between their kisses. “I finally understand how a creature like you could exist.”

Yuri shifts back, puts his arm around Otabek’s waist. His nails are short and cold on the exposed skin of Otabek’s back.

“It’s more complicated than that,” he admits. “But that’s the main part.”

“Yura, I’ve already told you that I’m willing to hear anything you want to tell me, and that nothing will ever be able to change my opinion of you.”

His eyes are so green. “Not right now, Beka,” he murmurs. “But thank you.”

Yuri kisses him gently, almost tenderly, his movements simple and delicate. He kisses him with a pure, innocent adoration, with reverence. Otabek would like to find a verse that comes close, a poem that might speak to him of this—but he’s beginning to think that this love only exists for him and Yuri.

“I love you,” Otabek says compulsively.

Yuri smiles faintly and doesn’t reply. Otabek wasn’t expecting anything anyway. He knows that Yura has his own ways of showing his feelings—Yura, who wears his emotions like a flag or a coat of arms—and Otabek needs nothing from him except his sincerity.

“Come on, Grandpa made pirozhki.”

In the cramped kitchen,  Nikolai loads up their plates, despite Yuri’s weak protests about his diet and Lilia. Otabek eats slowly, thinking about those nature documentaries where a deep voice always explains that animals are more vulnerable when they are eating, and that predators always wait until that moment to strike. Nikolai starts a conversation about current political events, and seems surprised by Otabek’s replies.

“His father is a diplomat,” Yuri says proudly. “He probably knows more than you, old man.”

Beka blushes, swallowing his tea too quickly, and manages not to choke. There’s a strange glow in Yuri’s eyes, and when he turns to his grandfather, it’s with a determination he usually reserves for skating.

“Grandpa likes to test people who are close to me,” he explains without taking his eyes off Nikolai. “He did the same with Victor and Yuuri, and with Yakov and Mila before them. He liked Lilia so much, I thought he was about to ask her to dinner.”

“I thought she was back with Yakov,” Otabek says vaguely.

Nikolai shakes his head. “A woman of her caliber deserves better.”

“I already told you, don’t get mixed up in their business,” Yuri says.

“I’m too old to take orders from a kid like you. Sit still and let the grown-ups talk.”

Yuri doesn’t protest, and Otabek can see his respect under the affection and teasing. He’s also starting to see how intimidating Nikolai can be. He sets down his fork and turns to the old man.

“You live far away, so you must be serious in your intentions toward my grandson. I’m not going to let some coward break my Yurotchka’s heart, especially if he can run and hide in his own country and escape the wrath of the Plisetskys. Are you prepared to make sacrifices and come live in Russia with him?”

Otabek gulps noisily, glancing at Yuri. “We haven’t discussed it yet. I’d rather he and I decide that together.”

Nikolai’s smile is thin, slicing like a razor blade. “Good answer. Has he told you about Dmitri, his biological father and my son?”

“No.”

“You must be curious.”

Yuri grits his teeth. “Grandpa,” he says sharply. Nikolai ignores him.

“Dmitri is in prison. He is a criminal and a thief, a man without principles. And he is your boyfriend’s father.”

Otabek takes a deep breath and resists the impulse to look at Yuri. He suspected he was keeping something from him that would be difficult to admit to, but he hadn’t expected this.

“There is no reason to be ashamed,” he says at last. “Unlike his father, Yuri is an admirable person who works hard to earn a living.”

He can hear Yuri holding his breath a moment. In front of him, Nikolai nods.

“I could not have said it better. Only, it is something Yuri struggles with, and in the future, you will need to support and reassure him. It is something you need to understand and be ready for.”

“I would be honored to help Yuri in every possible way.”

Nikolai is quiet a moment, then he leans toward Otabek and places a warm, rough hand on his shoulder. “Good,” he says simply.

He returns to his meal, and shortly afterward Otabek follows his lead. He tries to catch Yuri’s eye, but his boyfriend’s eyes are fixed on his plate. At the end of the meal, Nikolai parks himself in front of the little TV set in the living room, and Beka and Yuri go back to Yuri’s room. Yuri is unexpectedly silent, but when his boyfriend finally gets his attention, he shrugs and comes to kiss him on the cheek. They fall asleep in each other’s arms, and sleep without dreaming.

11

He spends the two days preceding the Cup of China in his hotel room, on Skype with Yuuri and Victor in turns. He talks to Yuuri when he starts having doubts about his program and his choice of music, and when he needs someone who understands his increasing anxiety. He talks to Victor when he needs to take his mind off it all and dish with him about the other skaters on Instagram. He ignores the vibrant, saturated Beijing skyline beyond the windows,  the frantic rhythm and intensified energy of the city. He hangs out in his bathrobe, orders a single, exorbitant bottle of vodka, and tries to convince himself it will all go well. When that doesn’t work, he consoles himself by looking at old photos of Otabek on his phone. Beka is surprisingly not photogenic, and he giggles like an idiot the whole time.

“I understand why Yakov retired,” Sergei says to him, coming up to see him two hours before the final warm-up.

“You have no idea how lucky you are, Sergei. I’ve mellowed in my old age.”

His coach seems surprised to find him showered and dressed, and sober, and in a relatively good mood. Yuri doesn’t like him bringing up Yakov, but he smiles icily and doesn’t talk back. His former coach doesn’t seek him out much since he retired. There was a time, early on, when they got together regularly for a drink, not talking much, but at least it was something. Nowadays, Yakov will send him a congratulatory text after an awards ceremony, but nothing more. Yuri thinks he reminds him too much of Lilia.

“Time for your big romantic gesture, Plisetsky.”

Yuri flips him off, and they go down to the rink. He manages to focus during warm-ups, and relaxes a little before the competition begins. Returning to the familiar world of ice and rivalry is good for him. He takes pains to wait his turn before glancing up into the stands; it takes a few minutes, but he finally spots Mila’s new pink velour jacket, and Otabek next to her. Beka is watching him, seems to be about to wave, and Yuri thinks he sees Mila stopping him. She gives him a conspiratorial wink, and he dramatically blows her a kiss.

He sends Beka a quick smile, then lowers his head and pushes off, onto the ice.

Yuri quickly reaches the center of the rink, perhaps too quickly, and the music begins to flow from the loudspeakers. He starts his program with a triple Axel and trembling hands, but as often happens, his vision blurs and his body skates without his having to think about it. When the George Michael song ends, his muscles burn deliciously and he’s short of breath. He thinks I landed all my jumps, then the applause is really loud before he begins to panic.

He didn’t plan what he would do afterward, and now that he’s laid himself bare before Beijing and Otabek, he doesn’t know what to do any more.

“Not bad,” Sergei says when he meets him at the kiss and cry.

Yuri doesn’t hear his score, but from Sergei’s satisfied smile, he can tell he skated well. He scans the stands where he’d seen Mila and Otabek. She’s alone, making big hand gestures at him. He frowns, and she holds up her phone. Breathing hard, Yuri checks his own, and finds something from Otabek among the landslide of texts from the Nikiforov-Katsukis. There’s no message, just a detailed address and a time. After saying a few words to the press, Yuri Googles the location, and finds it’s a chic restaurant downtown.

“I’m going to have that stupid song stuck in my head all night,” Sergei says next to him.

Yuri looks up, starts humming the tune, and thinks about what he’s going to wear to go see his ex-boyfriend after three months of separation. Something sexy, he decides. Something completely inappropriate and over the top, so he’ll be sure to recognize me.

Chapter Text

10

He’s crouching beside the laundry machine when Yuri comes up behind him and sighs. At first he ignores him, and keeps separating colors and checking the labels on new clothes, then Yuri leans down until his blond hair brushes Otabek’s shoulders. Otabek lifts a hand and captures a few strands, tugging them gently.

“If you’re bored, you could go clean the fridge,” he says flatly.

“You’re the only person in the world who does that, Beka. I wouldn’t deprive you of your little personal pleasure.”

Otabek smiles, letting go of his hair. Yuri crouches behind him and puts his arms around his waist.

“I thought you were my little personal pleasure.”

“You suck, Altin,” Yuri says into his T-shirt.

Otabek finishes loading the machine, adds detergent, and presses start.

“What’s up, love?”

“Do you think we’ve become boring?” Yuri moans into his back.

The Kazakh says nothing, rolling his eyes and turning around so Yuri has to let go of his shirt. He kisses his forehead, pushes the hair off his face, and waits.

“Victor says we’re an old couple. And he should know, he’s, like, fifty.”

“You know, one day he really will be fifty, and you’ll have to update all your insults,” Otabek points out.

“I don’t want to be old, Beka.”

Otabek stops himself from sighing, and looks into Yuri’s eyes—those big green eyes that have always fascinated him, all by themselves.

“Yura, you’re only twenty-five. They still card you when you buy alcohol in Europe.”

“I’m tired all the time, Beka.”

“You’re a professional athlete, love. It’s an occupational hazard.”

Yuri mumbles I used to be able to train all day and go to clubs at night . Otabek slides his hands through his blond hair, the strands soft and smooth in his rough fingers. His hands are becoming those of a manual laborer, the skin scarred and tough, the nails always a little blackened. It bothered him at first, but Yura thinks they’re sexy, and Mila won’t stop calling him comrade. He’s gotten used to it.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Otabek says softly.

Yuri looks away, looking at a section of the wall past his shoulder. Otabek knows Yuri is still afraid to admit to his weaknesses, because his boyfriend will work to erase them until his own doubts seem ludicrous—but sometimes Yuri just wants to express what’s making him sad, just wants to say what’s pissing him off. He hates being changed; his joys and his pains alike, his strengths and his weaknesses.

“I’ve put on weight, because we often get take-out instead of cooking the way we used to,” he says to the wall. “We go out less, too, and since you don’t come running with me as often, I don’t try as hard. It doesn’t affect my performance or my training, but I feel like my body is deteriorating. I feel older, and uglier. And I’m afraid that the older and uglier I get, the less you’ll want to stay with me.”

Otabek pushes down his first instinct, which is to take Yuri in his arms and say reassuring things. He knows how Yuri struggles with his fears, and how he wins, most of the time. But he still has his bad days.

“I’ve lost muscle mass, Yura. And I come home exhausted every night, and I don’t have the energy to take you out dancing any more. I’m no longer the ideal man you used to know.”

Yuri just looks at him, and Otabek smiles. He mumbles something, blushing, and Otabek leans closer, his laborer’s hands plunged in Yuri’s hair. He can feel his warm breath on his jaw. He can count every delicate blond eyelash casting pale shadows across his paler face; he can admire the texture of his lips and the soft velour of his skin.

“You were saying?” murmurs Otabek.

“You will always be my ideal,” Yuri mutters begrudgingly. “See, you don’t have a monopoly on romantic garbage.”

Otabek plants a kiss on his cheek, pressing his lips into his cheekbone.

“I’m not supposed to tell you this, but Yuuri told me that Victor has started to need glasses.”

He can feel Yuri smile, putting his arms around his neck. “You always know what to say to seduce me, Beka.”

Yuri kisses him, closing his eyes. Otabek breathes the air from his lungs, taking in each of his sighs and murmurs and moans. When he feels a cool hand slide beneath his T-shirt, he pushes Yuri away gently.

“If we’re going to fuck, let’s do it on the bed. Last time, I nearly cracked your skull open on the kitchen floor, and I had bruises for a week.”

Yuri sighs dramatically into his neck. “It’s official. We’re old.”

Otabek laughs gently, takes his hand, and stands up.

8

Everything’s changed a little since Lilia died. Yuri is quieter, more reserved, and Otabek often has to ask him how he’s feeling and what he’d like to do—simple things he hasn’t had to do in a long time, because they’d grown so intimate. Sometimes he finds him just staring at the sky-blue wall in their bedroom, sitting cross-legged on the bed. Yuri doesn’t know what to do with mourning. Otabek had caught a glimpse of it after Nikolai died, but infrequently, and from a distance. These days, the realization is harsh. Yuri hadn’t received much, he understands. Dmitri, despite his qualities, was absent, and he associates Yakov with his career and with suffering. Victor and Yuuri have done a lot for him, but even they didn’t stay in Russia for long, and they’re far away these days.

Losing Lilia just three years after his grandfather died is such a shock that he can’t manage to absorb it. Otabek wants to help. He gives him space at first, then grows impatient and waits for an evening when Yuri seems really in bad shape so he can confront him. Over the years, he’s learned that Yuri pushes down his emotions until he implodes—and Beka hates that. He’d rather see him bloody but unbowed.

“Baby,” he says. “Talk to me.”

Yuri looks up. They’re sitting on the living room floor, the radio tuned at random to some dull political program. He says nothing, begins to open his mouth, and reflexively smiles at him. Otabek wants to scream.

“Yura, she wouldn’t want to see you this way.”

Yuri shrugs. His large green eyes are cruel. “So what?” he says coldly. “She’s dead, she doesn’t know. She’ll never know.”

Otabek comes a little closer, slipping his hands around his waist. He’s wearing the oversized sweater he stole from Victor, some priceless pastel blue cashmere thing that makes his porcelain skin look more delicious than ever, and makes his svelte figure appear even more delicate than it is. Yuri doesn’t look away. He stops smiling.

“You wanted to say something to her. You wanted to pay her homage,” Otabek guesses.

“Yeah.”

He seems so tired, but Beka knows he’s getting his customary sleep. Beka wakes up at the slightest sound. He’d hear him tossing and turning, or getting out of bed.

“Yura, I need you to talk about what you’re feeling. If not to me, then maybe Mila or Yuuri.”

This time he takes a while to respond. His expression is uncertain—and Yuri always says that uncertainty is weakness, and weakness is for losers.

“I don’t know how I feel.”

Otabek pushes away the blond hair tumbling into Yuri’s face. Yuri lets him, then grabs his wrists and holds them down, pressing Otabek’s forearms against his thighs. His hands are flat against his skin, and Beka doesn’t try to push them off. He’d let Yuri tear out his heart with his teeth if it would help him feel better—even if it would just make him smile again, like he used to.

“I wanted her to see my program.”

He doesn’t go on, so Otabek suggests, “You wanted to make her proud?”

Yuri’s nails are digging into Otabek’s flesh. He doesn’t seem to notice. “No. A little. But she already told me she was proud of me.”

“You had something you wanted to tell her, for once.”

“Yeah,” he says slowly. Yuri frowns, and Otabek suppresses a wince of pain. Yuri’s nails are short but sharp, and they’re starting to hurt.

“I think,” he begins. “I think I wanted to tell her I love you. I think I never told her before. I never even said thank you. ”

His voice breaks a little. Otabek wants to take him in his arms, but he can’t. Maybe this is how Yuri protects himself now, and creates some distance where he needs to.

“She knew, Yura. Don’t doubt it.”

He seems to hesitate again.

“I told you, love. You have your own way of showing the people you love that you love them. Lilia knew that too.”

He says nothing, nodding slowly and releasing Otabek’s wrists. The skin isn’t broken, but there are white semi-circles marking his brown skin. He’ll have bruises tomorrow where Yura gripped him too hard, but he’ll tell him he bumped into something. For now, he opens his arms, and lets Yuri take a deep breath before nestling against him.

“Sorry,” he says into Otabek’s shoulder. “When I get that way, I don’t like to be touched. I feel like if someone touches me, I’ll disappear.”

Otabek nods as if he understands—and in a sense, he actually does—and kisses his hair.

11

The restaurant is located on the fifteenth floor of a huge tower of polished glass and reinforced steel. It’s ugly, brutal, and unyielding, and Yuri already hates it a little. When he enters, a hostess with a bland smile shows him to the elevator. He thanks her in English, and ignores the confused look she gives him. He’d taken a nap after the competition, and had just enough time to shower before calling a taxi. His hair is still damp, shining in cascades over his shoulders. The collar of his aviator jacket—Mexican Eagle, by Outlaw Moscow—is damp, and he keeps touching the back of his neck, bothered by the feeling. He’s wearing the faux leather pants Beka bought him a couple of years ago after he ruined the first pair while painting the garage, and his leopard-print Chelsea boots.

Yuri can’t stop looking at his reflection in the elevator’s mirror. He’s aware he looks a little ridiculous. He’s aware that Otabek has seen him in every possible state and still finds him desirable, even after training, even after waking up with a hangover. But he can’t help feeling weirdly nervous, just as he did on their first date in Almaty. More viciously, he thinks Beka chose this overpriced restaurant out of pity and kindness, so Yuri would feel better when he tells him it’s over for good. He tries not to think about it too much, and when the elevator doors open, he steps into the hallway.

He hasn’t told anyone where he was going. Mila knows, and insisted that he call her afterward, but he told Sergei he was going out for a drink, and sent Victor and Yuuri some vague words of thanks after their flotilla of congratulations. It’s the timing that surprised him a little. Otabek asked him to be there at midnight, which seems late for a restaurant. In any case, he’s already eaten, famished from stress and the competition. There’s nobody at the entrance, no hostess or waitress, so Yuri keeps walking until he finds the main dining room. All of the tables are set, but empty, and no sound comes from the kitchen. He thinks briefly of all the horror movies he’s ever seen, and stops short. He takes his hands out of his aviator jacket pockets and clears his throat.

“Otabek?”

He hears footsteps coming from the kitchen, and then Otabek approaches him. He smiles, looking halfway surprised to see him, and offers him his hand. Yuri hesitates for just a moment before taking it. It is rough and warm against his skin, and familiar. He has a thousand questions, but he just wants to look at Otabek—three months, three whole months of nothing but his memories and a few badly framed photos. Otabek’s hair is carefully pulled into a bun, exposing his forehead and his brown eyes. His face seems a little gaunt, but that could be the restaurant’s dim lighting. His lips are a little ruddy, probably from gnawing on them, as he always does when something’s bothering him.

He hasn’t changed, and at the same time Yuri finds him more handsome than ever.

“Just this once, you are going to let me speak,” he says slowly.

Just the sound of his voice, to which the telephone could not do justice, is enough to make Yuri want to throw his arms around him. He nods vaguely, squeezing his hand a little harder. Beka smiles at him—my Beka, he repeats to himself like a mantra.

“My father knows the restaurant owner, and he agreed to close early so we could have it to ourselves. I imagine you’ve already eaten, but if you’d like a drink, we’re welcome to make use of the wine cellar. I think we need to have a real discussion, and I’ve had my fill of hotel rooms. I wanted a place where we would be left alone.”

Yuri nods again. The simple, clean restaurant is pure luxury—tables in exotic woods, designer dinnerware without the kitschy embellishments. Otabek watches Yuri look around, a smile beginning to form on his lips.

“I also wanted to impress you a little.”

“That’s not difficult,” Yuri says.

“I missed you.”

Yuri blinks, feeling lava surge in his throat. “I missed you too. But I think you’re right, we need to talk for real.”

Otabek looks at him a moment, his eyes soft and tender, then sighs a little and guides Yuri to a table in the middle of the dining room. Even though there are no other customers, Yuri feels incredibly exposed, and wonders if Beka is doing it on purpose. He feels like he cannot escape. Nobody is here to judge him, but there is also nowhere he can hide.

“I’ll have a beer,” he says when Otabek offers him something to drink.

Otabek arches an eyebrow. “They have an extraordinary wine list, Yuri.”

“Fuck that. Beer’s fine.”

Otabek shakes his head, bringing back a ginger beer and a bottle of white wine. They sip their drinks, then Otabek takes a deep breath, placing his palms flat on the table.

“I talked to my mother.”

Yuri sets down his glass carefully.

“She admitted to the awful things she said to you five years ago.”

“Beka.”

“No, don’t try to defend her. What she did was vicious and uncalled-for, and she shouldn’t have. She’s still my mother and I love her, but I cannot forgive her for that. She had no right to speak on my behalf. And to be honest, Yura, you should have told me about it immediately.”

Otabek looks like he’s already angry, and Yuri winces, looking down at his empty plate. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Not as sorry as I am,” Otabek goes on. “Yes, I want to have children, and I always have, and I’d love to have them with you—because I love you, and because part of me thought you’d go along with it. I know it’s practically impossible, but it doesn’t stop me from hoping. And when you told me you didn’t want to, I have to admit—it broke my heart.”

His voice is calm and composed, like that of someone who has put a lot of thought into what he’d say, but Yuri can see the bitterness and pain in his eyes.

“But... I do love you. I love what we built together, I love our life the way it is—was—and I was ready to make sacrifices. I understand that starting a family terrifies you, or it doesn’t interest you, but I don’t give a damn about that. I just want us to talk about it. I just want you to be open to the conversation, and that you don’t tell me to fuck off as soon as I bring up a topic you don’t like. It isn’t healthy , Yuri.”

He looks up and nods. His throat is too tight for him to be able to speak, and when Otabek holds out his hand again, Yuri seizes it gratefully.

“I love you. It’s naive and probably stupid to think that that could be enough, or that it’s the only thing that matters, but I want to believe it is. So tell me what’s wrong and how I can fix it.”

Yuri says slowly, “I want you to be happy.”

Otabek stares at him, incredulous. “I was happy with you, love.”

“Not the way you deserved to be. I’m nothing special without skating, Beka. I know that never mattered to you, but it does to me. When my career is over, I don’t know what I’ll do. And I doubt you’ll be happy living with an ex-athlete with no job and no ambition.”

“Yura, you have time to think about it.”

“Oh, but I already have. I’ve been thinking about it since you opened your garage, and... there’s just nothing.”

“You never said anything,” Otabek murmurs.

Yuri gives him a somewhat bitter smile. “You were tired most of the time, and for the rest I just wanted to spend time with you without you worrying. We’re bad at communicating, Beka. I spend more time convincing you than listening to you, and you never refused me a thing. You’re so rarely angry with me, even when I deserve it. By the end I figured you didn’t give a shit, or that you didn’t have the balls to risk offending me. And I don’t want to love someone who isn’t capable of telling me to piss off from time to time.”

Otabek winces. “I see what you mean,” he concedes. “Often, I’d rather just leave you alone than argue with you.”

“You’ve got to make an effort to stand up to me, Beka. Or else it’ll drive me crazy, and I’ll end up doing stupid shit just to push you over the edge and reassure myself you can treat me like an ordinary person, and not like this perfect creature you can’t bear to harm. I need us to shout, sometimes. I get bored quickly, you know. And I don’t want to get bored with you.”

“All right.”

Yuri asks, “Did you like my program?”

Otabek’s smile is familiar. “You were superb. On the other hand, the music was shit.”

Yuri’s laugh is dry, vital. He takes his free hand, the one Otabek isn’t currently holding on the tablecloth, and places it on the cheek of the man he fell in love with some ten years ago. His face is a little rough with his three-day beard, suntanned beneath Yuri’s pale fingers.

“What were you thinking about while you were skating?” Otabek asks softly.

“That first summer in our apartment in Almaty. Remember? You’d brought your stuff from the castle, and we were putting things away all afternoon. You put that horrible LP on the record player, and when I realized it was ‘Careless Whisper,’ I cursed you and your descendants for three generations.”

“I remember.”

He kisses his fingers lightly, shivering when Yuri runs his hand through his hair. He needs to lean forward over the table, and it isn’t comfortable, but Otabek feels frozen in his seat. He’s afraid that if he moves, it’ll shatter the moment.

“We danced in the kitchen,” Beka recalls. “You griped the whole time, but you never stopped dancing, even when the song was over. You were so beautiful.”

“I had bags under my eyes and greasy hair. You have no taste, Beka.”

Yura smiles at him, and Otabek closes his eyes, feeling Yura’s hand on his face.

“I thought about that while I skated,” he adds. “I thought about how good we were at the beginning, and how we stopped trying, and how we left the best of ourselves in the past, because we both knew we were too cowardly to leave each other, even if it ended up making us miserable.”

He sighs. “I don’t regret leaving you. It was horrible, but I’m not sorry. It made us stronger in the end.”

Otabek opens his eyes. “You’re terrible. I love you.”

Yuri arches an eyebrow, and leans in to kiss him. His mouth is warm and familiar. Their kiss doesn’t last very long, because they can’t stop smiling. Yuri feels somewhat drunk, overwhelmed by a joy that overtakes him and takes his breath away.

“I love you,” he replies.

Otabek simply looks at him, saying nothing. He grips his hand, his skin warm and rough against his own. Yuri falls in love once more.

But what I do is always come back to you
My heart is oh so true
But I might hurt you again
You know that it’s true
I’m loving you
Metronomy, “Trouble”