#bakayuri

“Taya, what’s your favorite food?” Anatoli asks her one day. Anatoli is her best friend from school. Taisiya thinks he’s kinda dumb and a bit of a crybaby, but he’s funny and makes her laugh. Plus he falls for all of her jokes and eagerly participates in her shenanigans. He’s not a boring goody-two shoes like some of her other classmates.

Without missing a beat, Taisiya replies, “It’s katsudon pirozhki, duuuuuuh.”

Anatoli looks at her like she has five heads. “What’s that?” He asks

“What do you mean, Tolya? It’s a kind of pirozhki! The best kind!” Now it’s her turn to be confused! Surely Tolya is just being dumb again!

“That’s not a kind of pirozhki!” Anatoli cries back. Taisiya is making up things again to pull his leg, she has to be!

“Yes it is! Daddy and Papa make it for me all the time! They make it with pork cutlet and egg and rice!”

Now Anatoli is really looking at her like she’s grown five heads. “That’s so weird, Taya! You don’t put pork cutlet in pirozhki! That’s not a thing, no one does that! You’re making things up again to fool me! You’re not fooling me this time!”

“I’m telling the truth!” She yells back, stomping her foot in defiance “It’s the best kind of pirozhki there is!”

“No it’s not! That sounds weird and gross!”

Taisiya crosses her arms and huffs in frustration. Ugh, she’s done talking to him! Stupid Tolya! “Baka!” She says to him, her voice drenched in annoyance. She can say that, because Daddy’s not here to yell at her for it this time, and Tolya doesn’t know what it means since he doesn’t speak Japanese like she does, so it’s okay to call him a baka, especially if he’s being dumb and mean.

Later that night, Yuri and Yuuri can’t help but notice their daughter’s foul mood. Instead of eating, she’s angrily stabbing her plate of yakisoba with a fork, because try as he might, Yuuri still can’t convince Taisiya to learn how to eat with chopsticks. She truly is Yuri’s daughter.

Eventually, Yuri decides he’s had enough of her fuming and playing with her food and asks, “What’s wrong, Tayenka? Are you actually going to eat or just stab your food all night? It’s going to get cold if you don’t eat it soon.”

All Taisiya does in response is make an angry noise and shove way too many noodles into her mouth, and Yuri has to quickly shove a cup of juice into her hands so she’ll drink and not choke herself to death.

Yuuri just sighs and pats his daughters back to get her to calm down. “Feeling better?” He asks. For whatever reason, Taisiya had a tendency to throw these tiny mini tantrums before she actually says what is bothering her, and no matter what they did to help teach her more appropriate ways to deal with her not so great feelings, nothing worked. Just one of those things she’d eventually grow out of, they hoped.

Taisiya nods before she blurts out, “Tolya’s dumb and mean!”

“Language, Tayenka!” Yuuri scolds. Another trait she got from Yuri, he supposes. Slowly they were working on the lesson of don’t call people mean names, even if you are mad at them but progress was slow on that, considering she got Yuri’s temper. Yuri agreed that the sooner they pounded that lesson into her head, the better off she’d be later on, lest she end up like Yuri did and struggling to learn that as a teenager or even an adult when such things are not so easily changed.

She looks down at her plate, looking a bit sheepish and embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I don’t mean it, I’m just mad at Tolya.”  

“We understand,” Yuri reassures her before asking, “Now, what did Tolya do to upset you?” Really, Yuri feels for his daughter since she was cursed with his hot-headed temper.

Their daughter sighs, and for a moment, she looks genuinely hurt. “He asked me what my favorite food was, so I told him, it’s katsudon pirozhki of course! But then he gave me a funny look and asked me what that was, and I was confused because it’s just a kind of pirozhki! Daddy and Papa make it for me all the time! I told him that, and that it’s made with pork cutlet and egg and rice. And then he was mean and said I’m a liar and that it sounds weird and gross. I don’t get it, Papa, isn’t it just another kind of pirozhki that everyone eats?”

Yuuri and Yuri instantly look at each other. Oh dear. Is that what this was about? Sounds like they had some explaining to do.

“Well you see, Tayenka, katsudon pirozhki is special,” Yuuri begins to tell her, “It’s Daddy and Papa’s special thing.”

Taisiya scrunches her face in confusion. Special? How was it special? They have it all the time!

Yuri can't help but fondly laugh at Taisiya’s confusion. “Daddy’s from Japan, katsudon is a Japanese food and it happens to be his favorite one. Russians don’t eat katsudon, and they certainly don’t make it into a pirozhki. Of course Tolya is confused and thinks it’s weird.”

Now she looks even more confused. “Then why do you make it into one? It’s not a real kind of pirozhki?” Suddenly everything she knew was a lie. What’s the truth? Who can she trust anymore?!

Yuuri opens his mouth to say something, to explain the story of how the katsudon pirozhki came to be, but Yuri nudges him from underneath the table and gives him a look of No, shut up, I’m telling this story.

“Oh, it’s real alright, but it’s special to us. No other place will have it because when Papa first met Daddy, he was always mean to him, but he really liked Daddy and wanted to be friends with him, so Great Grandpa came up with something special to help Daddy and Papa be friends.”

Yuuri stifles a laugh at Yuri’s kid-friendly retelling of the tale, and Yuri can feel the tips of his ears go red with embarrassment as he tells the story in such a way. He knows if their daughter wasn’t sitting right there in front of them, his husband would be teasing him right about now, telling him how cute he is when his ears blush red.

Yes, Yuri remembers being fifteen years old and having the world’s biggest crush on Yuuri, remembers babbling excitedly about Japan and katsudon to his Grandpa, and in his excitement, accidentally babbled about the cute Japanese skater whose favorite food was katsudon.

You like him, don’t you, Yurochka? Nikolai had asked him.

Yuri had immediately denied it, but he knew his flustered face gave everything away. He couldn’t hide anything from his grandpa, he knew everything. It was true though, he’s had a crush on Yuuri since he was fourteen, ever since Yuuri drunkenly walked up to him and challenged him to a dance off at some boring skating party he was forced to attend.

It’s whatever, Grandpa. I’m always nasty to him anyway.

He remembers his grandpa handing him a bag of pirozhki before a competition one night, telling him to try one. So Yuri does, because how can he say no to pirozhki? And he remembers being so confused when he bit into it and it was katsudon in pirozhki form. It was so weird! But it was...good?

How’s that, Yurochka?

It’s weird, but I like it.

Good, but don’t eat them all. They’re not for you, they’re for that boy you like. Share them with him.

Yuri doesn’t tell Taisiya those details of the story, she doesn’t need to know, but it’s the reason that weird little concoction will always be special in their household.

Taisiya seems to accept the story, seems to realize that katsudon pirozhki isn’t really traditional, but then they both see the flash of panic in her eyes.

“Is katsudon pirozhki weird?!” She anxiously blurts out.

“I thought it was weird the first time I had it, but I also thought it was really good. To be honest, I still think it’s a bit weird,” Yuri says with a shrug. He can totally see how Tolya would think it sounds weird and gross if he’s never had it before, “Daddy didn’t think it was weird, but Daddy’s also not Russian and hardly knows anything about Russian food. He still hardly knows anything about Russian food, but back then he really didn’t.”

She looks down sadly at her plate of noodles, pokes at it a bit more with her fork, and then says, “But it tastes so good. I don’t want Tolya to think it’s gross. He made me so mad and sad when he said that!”

“I have an idea, why don’t you invite Tolya over this weekend? We can go to the ice skating rink, and then we can have him over for dinner so he can try some for himself,” Yuuri suggests before adding on, “But before you do that, I want you to tell him he hurt your feelings and ask him to apologize. If he apologizes, then you can ask him if he wants to come over and try some this weekend.”

Yuri nods in agreement before asking, “Also, did you say anything mean to him? Be honest with us, we can tell when you’re lying.”

Taisiya looks everywhere but at her parents. She shifts uncomfortably in her seat, knowing there was no getting out of this; she’d have to tell her parents she called her friend a baka.

“No…” She tries to get out of it anyway, even though it’s hopeless.

“Taisiya…”

Taisiya gulps, that’s the voice Papa uses when he means business and she'd better tell the truth.

“I called him a baka,” She mumbles.

They both sigh. Well, that’s progress at least. At least she didn’t call him an idiot in Russian, at least she said it in a language he doesn’t understand. Baby steps. It’s all about the baby steps.

“I want you to apologize to him too, it’s not nice to call people a baka, but make sure he apologizes first. After he does, then you need to apologize to him,” Yuuri’s voice is stern, but gentle. They might be trying to raise her to be polite and not be rude to people, but they also want her to grow up being able to get the respect she deserves in such situations.

“But he doesn’t speak Japanese! He doesn’t know what it means!” She whines.

“We don’t say mean things to other people, even in languages they don’t know, understand?” Yuri tells her. He guiltily remembers saying mean things to Yuuri in Russian, just because he could since Yuuri didn’t speak a word of Russian when they first met. He also remembers saying dumb, mushy lovey-dovey things to Yuuri in Russian for the same reason, sometimes both at the same time simply because he could get away with it. Needless to say, it was an extremely embarrassing situation once Yuuri began learning Russian. Karma sure bit him in the behind.

She simply nods in response, “Yes, Papa, I understand.”

“Good, now finish eating.”

Taisiya eats a bite of her yakisoba, and makes a face since it was now cold.

The next day at school, both Taisiya and Anatoli are reluctant to talk to each other. In fact, neither of them say a word to each other until lunchtime, when he walks up to her and shyly asks, “Are you mad at me, Taya?”

She slowly nods before saying, “You made me so mad! I want you to apologize!” She says it with a bit too much force, and she feels a bit bad for yelling at him already, but not too bad.

“I’m sorry Taya, I didn’t mean to make you mad. I thought you were making up weird stories again,” He looks around before quietly adding, “I forgot you’re part Japanese. Is it a Japanese thing? Do Japanese people put pork cutlets in their pirozhki?”

“It’s okay, Tolya. I forgive you.” She pauses for a moment, and considers her friend’s question before she realizes, she actually has no idea, but whatever, it doesn’t matter. “I don’t know, but Papa said katsudon pirozhki is a special food Great Grandpa made to help Daddy and Papa be friends.”

They’re both quiet for a minute, and she twiddles with her thumbs before she awkwardly says, “And I’m sorry for calling you a baka.”

Anatoli has no idea what baka means, but he figured it wasn’t a nice thing of her to say. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” He says.

“Do you want to come over this weekend and try some katsudon pirozhki?” The idea of her best friend trying her favorite food makes her excited, and she can barely contain her excitement enough to finish the rest of what she was saying. “Daddy and Papa said they’ll make it for you! We can go to the ice rink too!”

“That sounds fun! Will they do those cool jumps again?” He loves watching her parents do those cool jumps at the ice skating rink. Taya can skate really good too, but she doesn’t look as cool as they do. (He’ll never say that to her face, though)

“I’m sure they will! And then you can eat the best food in the world!” She’s practically bouncing with excitement over the idea that Tolya would be coming over this weekend and eating katsudon pirozhki with her. Who cares about her parents dumb jumping!

The weekend comes soon enough, and while ice skating fun enough, the real excitement for Taisiya was at the dinner table. She can barely contain herself when Daddy and Papa serve them large katsudon pirozhkis, warm and straight from the oven. She stares eagerly at Tolya as he carefully takes one and stares apprehensively at it. She had to admit, she was feeling nervous too. What if he thought it was weird and gross like he originally said?

“Don’t just look at it! Eat it!” She says, trying to encourage him into eating it.

So Anatoli does, he takes a huge bite of it figuring he has nothing to lose.

“Well?!” She eagerly says, barely giving him time to finish chewing, “Do you like it?! It’s great, isn’t it?!”

It’s definitely different, that’s for sure, not like the pirozhki he used to having. He doesn’t answer Taisiya right away, and takes a few more bites before he does. It’s actually...very good, weirdly enough.

“I like it a lot. It’s not gross at all!”

Immediately, Taisiya explodes of happiness, giddy with the fact her best friend in the whole world also likes her most favorite food in the whole world.