Для твоего здоровья

He hadn’t expected Victor to come after him. But he was more than pleased that he did. Even if they were walking in a terse silence that felt unnatural for all the affection that had always been natural between them.

But there existed too many things between them now. The conclusion to their partnership had always loomed sinister, as a consequence of both the necessity of success and the ephemerality of time. With this first of the competitions out the way, it only seemed more portentous. 

Not to mention the kiss that neither of them seemed capable of addressing: one through brilliant omission, the other through a timidity that felt less pernicious than death might. Less harrowing, for sure. 

Yuri doesn’t know what he’s allowed to talk about. Or how. Or when. There’s too many variables that he doesn’t know how to navigate …. so he doesn’t. Elects the distress of silence over the sure possibility of sticking his foot in his mouth over this.

When Victor suggests plans, it feels like pity. At least he’s sure it does, in his mournful mind. “I think I’d rather just get back to the room,” he answers automatically, and then immediately regrets it. Victor wants to spend time with him. And all he wants to do is spend and cherish every waking moment with Victor. 

A pause. “I think I’m feeling more tired than I’d realized,” he explains, slowing his pace. “A compromise? We could … go back to the room and watch a movie?” 

     Stomach sinks the deepest darkest part of the ocean as he’s shot down again. Whatever offense he’s caused seems to have been the final nail in his coffin and for a brief and terrible moment it feels like his world is tilting, axle shifting to deposit him back into the cold depths of his loneliness where life and light were always just beyond the tips of his fingers. So close he can almost imagine their warmth. It strikes him at his very core and he draws in his bottom lip, staving off tears with the sting of his teeth in his own flesh.

     A compromise? We could ... go back to the room and watch a movie?

     Elation! Hope! That light ever out of reach seems willing to reach back for him! Oh and even in the bitter cold of winter when his breath rises like the morning fog he can feel its warmth kissing his skin! Too thrilled perhaps for the situation at hand, Victor all but vaults the short distance between them to stoke that feeling of companionship again, his hand sliding into the curve of Yuri’s. He can excuse this one, he’s going to lead the skater back to their hotel! How else does one lead when their heart is full?

Yuri’s eyes widen as he watches Victor move to him, near to him, though he doesn’t replace his hands. Or their blessed warmth. 

He wonders when he will. He wonders if he will. 

                                  « I want to spend more time with you …. »

His heart races, thunders foolishly in his chest. He’s never quite gotten used to the disquiet Victor inspires. While at first, Yuri had been overwhelmed with anxieties of nervousness simply being in his mentor’s illustrious presence, then with the frustration of the early necessities of training, that disquiet of the heart had never left him in Victor’s presence. But it had evolved, cured into something lovely as the pair had grown closer, into a thrill trust and devotion between them that sparks even now—

For the first time in years, Yuri cannot wait to open his eyes and wake up to the darkened dawn wherein he and Victor begin their quotidian rituals of coaching and practice and choreography and sharing a bento until it’s time to do everything again and then all at once. It’s the happiest moments he can think of. The happiest time of his life. 

                                                         «  … It’ll all be over soon

                                                                                            …too soon. »

The happiest time of his life appears to have an expiration date. 

Yuri smiles, because it’s all he can do. Because an infinite whorl of possibilities flood his thoughts like a deluge, twist and whorl with the devastation of a dark vortex as he tries to sort out exactly what he might mean by that. The Grand Prix gold had always been the goal. But he’d never quite thought of it as the end until now. 

It made sense. Stood to reason. Victor would be wanting to get back on the ice, himself. Of course he would. As fun as all of this is, it’s just a simulacrum of reality for him. It’s playing ‘house’ when real responsibilities await. And reality’s got to set in sometime. 

“Yes, of course,” Yuri agrees. Because he ought to. 

It’s Yuri who reaches out to find the smoothness of that hand, and squeezes it firmly. The smile he wears isn’t the warmest, but he tries for one, scrunching his nose and letting the ancillary  squint of his eyes obscure what his smile cannot. “I owe you everything. And I’ll always do my best to make you proud. I hope … I hope you know that.”

Suddenly, he’s lost his appetite, and he fishes in his wallet for some cash to throw down. “I should get going,” he mumbles, using the opportunity to avoid Victor’s eyes. “If we’re up early tomorrow, then I think I should start winding down for bed. Um. T-thanks for dinner.” And with an awkward nod of his head, he takes a halting step away from the table to leave.

     The pit in his stomach yawns wider, a voice somewhere inside echoing ‘I told you so’ and a resounding response of ‘this was never going to work’. But it isn’t the truth, is it? Somewhere in that lithe body pulling away from him he knows there’s something waiting there. A loneliness to equal his own. Or maybe...there isn’t. Maybe Yuri’s life is already full enough without him cramming himself in somewhere. The sheer number of people who support what Yuri wants, no matter if those interests shift mid-stride.

          A whole rink to himself.

               A ballet instructor to sacrifice her evenings for him.

                    A mother and father who know nothing of his chosen career and still cheer him on.

     Maybe now isn’t the time to be forcing himself into cracks far too small to house what little of him is left. But he must. No other human being on this planet has ever elicited such an incredible yearning to be part of whatever it is the skater wants. Even if it isn’t forever...just let him be a part of it for a little while longer.

     Staring down at the myriad of food they’d yet to truly dig into, Victor weighs the merits of letting Yuri walk away alone against the innate desire to follow after him as a lost dog shown kindness for the first time. He can’t sit here alone and pathetic and Yuri can’t be left to stew over whatever it is that upset him so he rifles through the bills in his wallet to match the leftover cost and he’s up and jogging for his companion.

     They walk silent down the street and Victor feels the weight of guilt seeping in to every muscle and with it comes doubt. A disastrous feeling he has to root out but- he has absolutely no idea where to begin. The first step, he supposes, is to break the ice that’s forming between them and get conversation flowing again.

Victor flirts as Victor does, with an ease and candor that feels so charmingly natural that Yuri never once dares to think it’s anything peculiar to him in particular. he’s graceful and gracious as a storybook prince, refined and renown and it’s everything Yuri has ever loved about him, and could never have hoped to be.

So it’s only slightly disheartening when Victor gives him a perfectly hollow stock answer. Like he’s talking to a news camera or a fan. Something palatable and proscribed, glancing just shy of a true emotion, a real intention. A connection.

He’s hard to read in that way. It’s like he’s pretending an intimacy, while keeping him at arm’s length. So when he calls Yuri’s name with a softness that catches hold of his heart, he feels the rent and cracks gouge within the hollow of his chest, hope overwhelmed for something deeper. Something truer. Something clear.

“Ah,” Yuri replies, nodding through a polite smile. “Yes, of course. I didn’t land the jump cleanly. It wouldn’t be right, your student trying to execute your signature jump without even coming close to your skill in it, yeah?” He winces when the truth of his own words clarify to a scintillate degree. It had been intended as a gesture of his abstract love. But perhaps the intention was lost in the mess of the bad execution.  “I mean—we don’t have to keep it in!”

     All at once that compounding guilt piling on top of an already weary head cascades like an avalanche across silver brow, twisting serenity into a quiet panic.

     “Ah! That’s- no I didn’t mean it like that! I only meant-” He’s starving, the man mere feet from him and already he’s feeling that itch to scratch, incessant and thrumming at the base of his skull, the back of his throat. Nothing will appease it but the touch of his Yuri. So he reaches! Hands clasp around the figure skaters, burying those delicate fingers between his own and he leans forward, tie threatening to go swimming with the shrimp.

     “I didn’t mean that. I know you can land the jumps, Yuri I-...” Breathing out. This won’t do! He’s too far away and the table is uncomfortable to reach across so he’s releasing the man to sidle around the edge of the table and plant himself firmly.

He blushes anew, without even the ruse of liquor (yet) to excuse him. Sits back in his chair with his shoulders curled in defeat and a shy smile curling on a delicately-bitten lip. “I heard someone say it years ago,” Yuuri admits, rubbing nervously at the back of his neck where he’s sure to sport a splotch of red indicative of his embarrassment. “I thought it sounded … I don’t know … glamorous, or something. Exotic’s not a good word, but really … mysterious and beautiful.” 

Kind of like you. 

“Never had a reason to say it to anyone,” he goes on, picking up a spoon to poke at the steaming seafood stew between them, red with spices and bubbling over happily upon the portable burner. “I was kind of excited to say it to you.” 

His thoughts trail away as new ones replace them, comical recollections of Victor trying to gesticulate to his parents, communicating with varying degrees of success, sometimes including Makkachin within his pantomimed tableaux. Yuuri grins at the memories, and scoops a fire-red shrimp into his mouth like victory. “They’d be so pleased if you did,” he chirps, hiding his full mouth behind his hand as he grins at the thought. “Imagine asking for a pork cutlet bowl in flawless Japanese. Though, they’d probably assume that also means I’ve won something.”

He grimaces slightly, and fishes another shrimp from the stew, and eats it happily. It’s not quite katsudon. But it’s a whole other sort of satisfaction that fills him. Sates him. “Speaking of that,” he begins carefully, swallowing hard as he does. “I know you wanted to kiss gold. But.” He takes a deep breath. “There are so many smaller victories I’m grateful for today. And I hope those are enough for you. For now. Because I promise more. So many more.”

     Victor is far too engrossed in the silken sheen of oil left behind on the skater’s lips, the way that mouth opens wide enough to admit the shrimp, the glow in those eyes as his taste buds explode with flavor. That’s why I love you, Yuri. There is so much life in you, you relish the smallest things like they’re always new. 

     Nothing about his gaze is decent. Nothing to misconstrue or leave to the imagination. He feels certain he’s safe from the analytical mind before him and yet when wandering eyes fall back to him his attentions drift over the calm milling of voices filling the restaurant. Nothing like American bistros to be sure. Where sight and sound are synonymous with assault.

     Though he listens with all the rapt attention of a hyena starving at the edge of a kill, the tiny little promise (which isn’t so tiny for Yuri) makes bloom a smile across the elder’s face and he swears its audible how his skin creases beneath his enjoyment.

     “I really want to kiss gold, Yuri.” A high keening for the young man’s ears alone. “But I know you’ll continue to amaze me as you always have.” Relinquishing his comfortable chin rest to turn that hand upon Yuri’s, reaching far across the table in such terrible etiquette it would shame him to witness were it anyone else just to have the chance to lay the tips of his fingers along the brunette’s.

     “I want those moments. All of them!” Fingers curl against the warmth of that hand and for a moment, a heartbeat, he breathes out something akin to a prayer. “Yuri...” No, maybe now isn’t the time? When this is all over, when? His heart flutters and his lips tighten into a thin line, stalling any thought he hasn’t yet processed through. Better not.