Yuri Plisetsky (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yuri_plisetsky) wrote2017-03-21 08:09 pm
yuri_plisetsky) wrote2017-03-21 08:09 pm
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Moscow: Pirozh-katsu!...and the Rostelecom Cup Free Skate (1.09)
To say that Yuri had been able to go back into his room and go to sleep after leaving Milliways was an accurate but misleading statement. He had indeed gone back into his room, spent ten minutes staring out the window at the Moscow lights as he iced his aching hip with the bag of fresh ice he'd grabbed at the bar, half-assed some stretches, taken a shower in water turned up as hot as he could stand it, pulled the blackout curtains over the windows, checked his phone alarms, and flopped into bed. Between the day's physical (and mental, and emotional) exertions, the scalding shower, and the several cups of mint tea he'd consumed, it was only a few minutes before his eyes closed. But the sleep that came over him was less like sleep and more like simply not-being-awake: it was a heavy, overwhelming sort of blankness that wasn't particularly restful or refreshing.
When his alarm goes off, shrill and disorienting in the darkened hotel room, it takes a moment for him to resurface from the blankness into a groggy half-awareness as he paws at his phone to shut off the noise. As consciousness trickles in, it brings with it a steady flow of memories of everything that had happened the night before -- Viktor, Yakov, Katsudon, the hotel, the bar, the door -- and Yuri grinds his teeth hard enough to hurt as he rolls over and pounds the lumpy hotel mattress twice with his fist.
Idiot. You idiot. Could you have fucked things up any more than they already were?
On any other day, he'd pull the covers back over his head and give himself five more minutes to wallow in his own misery before hauling himself out of bed. But Lilia is expecting him at her door in fifteen minutes, with all of his gear and a polite good morning for her. He can't sit around and sulk. Besides, there's still an asshole Canadian who needs taking down a peg or two or twelve -- and considering how badly he'd screwed up yesterday (on and off the ice) he can't afford to think about anything else.
When his alarm goes off, shrill and disorienting in the darkened hotel room, it takes a moment for him to resurface from the blankness into a groggy half-awareness as he paws at his phone to shut off the noise. As consciousness trickles in, it brings with it a steady flow of memories of everything that had happened the night before -- Viktor, Yakov, Katsudon, the hotel, the bar, the door -- and Yuri grinds his teeth hard enough to hurt as he rolls over and pounds the lumpy hotel mattress twice with his fist.
Idiot. You idiot. Could you have fucked things up any more than they already were?
On any other day, he'd pull the covers back over his head and give himself five more minutes to wallow in his own misery before hauling himself out of bed. But Lilia is expecting him at her door in fifteen minutes, with all of his gear and a polite good morning for her. He can't sit around and sulk. Besides, there's still an asshole Canadian who needs taking down a peg or two or twelve -- and considering how badly he'd screwed up yesterday (on and off the ice) he can't afford to think about anything else.
Pirozh-katsu!
He packs his suitcase, removing all of the last whispers of himself from the room, and even though he could leave his bag in there, when he walks out of the room, he's not coming back to it (and he already wants to walk out of it and not return). It's overdramatic. He has a little while still that feels like far, far too long. That doesn't change the fact he leaves his bag with the desk and turns in the matching door keys.
He stays in the hotel lobby, only until he realizes he's studying the air between the main opening and the door, like it's going to produce answers. Or a phantom of Victor's face, his voice, from last night. It hardly feels like last night. It was five years ago, and five seconds. He puts his jacket it on, digging in the pockets for his mask, and tells the, far too cheerful for how late it is, lady at the desk he'll be back to get his bag.
Russia's great long night is a dark stretch across everything.
Broken up only by street lights, car lights, and the fresh falling snow,
that catching it as it falls, of in patches where the light does. Cold, and sparkling.
Like Russia. Like his win. With a little more rest, a hot shower, ice, painkillers, and a meal in him, his mind focuses slightly better. The exhaustion is there, but the paralysis of shock and stress -- it doesn't let go entirely, but the nails and the fingers aren't digging straight into his brain and his lungs so hard. He's going to the Grand Prix. He can't change today, but that won't stop him trying to think about his skate, about his morning, bout Yakov and Yurio, like maybe somehow he could.
For all intents and purposes he did basically lose here, without actually losing. It's too close, the blunt edge of a razored blade. But he's not done. Not done skating. Not done training. Not done fighting. Not done, because the thing he set out do is in his hands now. His career didn't end today. (Without Victor.) He has another month. The whole season. He's this close to the peak of his competitive career, and he really does want the gold now. Still. (With Victor.)
The Grand Prix Final would be his last chance.
Even if he didn't win, he'd have Victor step down as his coach after the Grand Prix Finale, and
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It still doesn't stop him from putting on an extra burst of speed when he finally spots the figure leaning against the railing, staring out at the hazy city lights -- a familiar hunch to his shoulders, as if he's trying to make himself look smaller, make it so the world won't notice him. Like he doesn't even want to exist.
(Too late. You're not getting away that easily.)
His target is as oblivious as usual, and so when Yuri launches himself into the air there's a very satisfying moment as his foot connects and he sends Katsudon flying.
Solid approach, well-executed jump, perfect landing: full points. He doesn't even lose his grip on the paper bag in his hand.
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Before he even makes it to getting his arms, his hands under him, to more than looking over his shoulder, there's already yelling. Which makes sense when he does get there. With his hands, the looking over his shoulder, the coercion of making his body conform to his will of turning over to face the familiar, biting wrath of -- "Oh, Yurio..."
Not sure if that mumble of words is for him, or for the boy.
He's not sure what it says that he finds the disgust written clear there a numb relief.
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Does Yuri sound more reproachful, or relieved? Hard to tell, because they both sound almost exactly alike. From his perspective, a tired-out Japanese skater with pork cutlets for brains at the best of times shouldn't be out wandering around Moscow on his own like this. At any rate, whatever bizarre...thing had possessed Katsudon earlier seems to have disappeared. (Thank fuck.) But this is almost as bad, because now Katsudon is out here moping in the snow and Yuri isn't about to let that go so easily. He can't be that upset about the final results -- yes, whatever, fourth place, but to hell with a pity bronze when you've got what you really wanted. And Yuri hasn't seen much of anything from Viktor on social media since that sappy Instagram post earlier, but no news is good news, right? Right?
(Regardless, there's a lot of frustration in him that's been waiting to find an appropriate outlet, so congratulations, Yuuri Katsuki, you're getting an unexpected dose of angry Russian teenager this evening to boost your flagging morale.)
'What the hell was that earlier? Were you trying to gross me out?' That's not even what he came out here to say, but it's a good warm-up for what comes next. 'And what was that free skate, anyway? You can make the excuse that you couldn't do your best because Viktor wasn't there, but I was in top form and earned a new personal best, and I still lost to JJ again!'
That last comes out rather plaintive, but it all bubbles up inside him, nowhere to go but out, as Yuri points an accusing finger at the sadsack lying on the wet ground. 'You have no right to feel more down than me, Katsudon!'
It sounded a lot more encouraging in his head.
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He thinks, maybe, it's still not right.
It's still not the right person, voice, face. His head is heavy, his body is exhausted, but his mind has cleared far too much to not make the comparision and connection in his head, exactly on line with the immeadiacy of his feelings, with his thoughts, anymore.
Yurio isn't Victor, anymore than Yakov wasn't Victor.
No one who isn't Victor is Victor.
Unlike Yakov who stopped yelling at him after being hugged suddenly, Yurio just yowls louder about almost being hugged, and Yuri stays there, already cold bare hands getting colder and colder in the snow, turning to freezing water on his skin's fading heat (and he thinks Victor would have words to say about that, too). He doesn't look away. Doesn't even cringe this time. Almost doesn't blink.
Yurio keeps on yelling about how Yuri can't possibly feel this bad without Victor (without Victor), not in comparison to his getting a better score, and still losing to JJ. The way his face is a perfect riot of angry insult and something else. Something that has the mask of anger, but is, also, something else. Scalding cracks in worth. Again. Again? Like Yuri, even on that second highest rise.
He thinks, maybe, he's right, too. About how Yurio needed so much.
About how he wasn't wrong. About what he said to Victor.
Even more about what he didn't say to Victor, when he crumbled.
(He's going home. He's going home so soon. He's going home to Victor.
Victor's voice repeats.
Yuro's a little too aware to let the echo form.
Of the day. His feelings, thoughts. Yurio.
The one in his head, all foreign curves.
It hovers at the edge anyway.)
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(it doesn't make the glass any less broken)
-- that the tightness in Yuri's chest tells him to make a different decision.
With a flick of his wrist, he tosses the entire bag at Katsudon, and turns his head away, letting his gaze drift across the twinkling fairy lights of his city. 'You can have it,' he says with a faint huff. 'It's almost your birthday, right?' Don't ask him why he remembers that; blame it on social media.
The paper bag has a lumpy weight and a lingering smell of risen bread dough. Its contents aren't really warm any longer, but they were still made earlier in the day and the ingredients were bought fresh not two days before. Somewhere out there in the great expanse of the Moscow metropolis is a small but warm kitchen with not enough counter space and an old table with a mended leg.
The only place on this earth where Yuri Plisetsky doesn't have to prove anything to anyone.
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Because Yurio mentions his birthday, which is as true as it's not, there's still time, but it leaves him startle-struck, only able to elicit another confused sound, by the confusion of the word birthday. How does Yurio know when his birthday is? Why was he just handed something, framed as a birthday gift, by Yurio, who is now doing his best to not even look at him?
Shock has him finally picking up his chill-soaked hands, curling toward the bag and opening that flap.
Tipping the bag forward so he can look into it, not expecting what's inside it either. "Pirozhki?"
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Yuri lives in St. Petersburg, but it's not home. This is where he first laced up a second-hand pair of skates, took his first wavering steps on the ice, fell flat on his face doing his first waltz jump and got right back up with no thought in his mind other than to try it again, do it better. If St. Petersburg is Russia's head, then Moscow is its heart -- and even though Yuri's head knows that he's made it to the Grand Prix Final, his treacherous heart still wishes that he'd won his first gold of his senior debut today, right here, in this ugly, beautiful city.
The pirozhki. Now that they're out of his hands...it's out of his hands. 'Eat.'
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"Huh? Right here?" On the ground? His pants getting wetter? And the snow falling on the pirozhki already?
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Hands in his pockets, suddenly clammy. Because this could be a very, very bad idea, giving this to Katsudon. Last night had been a disaster, but tonight -- this isn't tea in a magic bar at the end of the freaking universe.
This is something much more important than that.
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He brushed the snow off his pants, and then off his fingers on a part of his jacket. He pulled a pirozhki out. Cool and solid, even though everytime he's seen them anywhere in these days they've been steaming, but he doesn't think of that long. The logic between asking and being shouted at again is a very short line.
The world might still be too big and too heavy, but he'd still like to avoid more screaming and swearing.
He does what he's told. Hoping that it'll make some sense, or do whatever it is Yurio seems to think he is doing.
He takes a bite and starts chewing, talking as he is, like it's a report he owes Yurio and his strange birthday present. Warm and filling in his mouth, familiar, with the glimmer of a surprise. "There's rice in this..." Not potato, like all the ones he'd seen, and he keeps chewing, before it hits him, what those other flavors in his mouth are. "Pork cutlet and egg, too."
His mouth dropping open in sudden surprise, so wide, it's under his scarf, when he looks down at the inside of the pirozhki for the first time. Pork, surrounded by egg, surrounded by rice. The surprise is grander than anything else, wiping away all of it for a delighted shock. "It's katsudon!"
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'That's right!' he says, with unmitigated pride. 'My dedka made them himself! Aren't they great?'
Even in his excitement, he knows that they don't taste exactly like the katsudon he'd had at Yu-topia. He'd explained the dish only vaguely to his grandfather, with no real knowledge of Hiroko Katsuki's exact recipe, and so even though it has the proper main ingredients there's no dashi or mirin to season the eggs and rice. The pork cutlet is thicker than the flat breaded one that Yuuri would be used to eating. It could use some more onion to balance out the egg. But the rice has absorbed the rich pork juices and the eggs are fluffy and tender, and the surrounding bread has a solid crust that lets none of the filling escape.
Yuri's grown up eating his grandfather's pirozhki, including any number of experimental recipes, and he knows that this is only a first attempt. You don't start busting out triples in a brand-new pair of skates; you need to break them in first. The next batch of katsudon pirozhki will be even better. The one after that, better still.
But for now? Everything is fine. (Even if it feels like it might be a little colder outside, because his cheeks weren't that warm a few minutes ago, were they?)
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He's going to the Grand Prix Finale, and he's eating celebratory katsudon.
Right now. Right here. In the snow, in Russia. With Yurio.
It's not Victor, but for a second, that thought doesn't hurt. Victor is coming, soon and this is -- this is the second best thing he can even think to that. With the only other person who understands. Who heard him say those words, so long ago. Who knows what it is for him. Who brought it to him. As a gift. Who looks so happy to be sharing it. And Yurio must have seen his grandfather then, and he's almost laughing from where he doesn't know, doesn't care, when he's chewing. It's the lightest he's felt, even briefly in more than a day.
"They're вкусно!" He can't even stop himself eating more quickly than he's eaten anything since midday the day before.
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'Your accent seriously sucks,' he says cheerfully, with no hint of a sneer anywhere in it. Because really, Katsudon's Russian has weird bits of vowels mushed into places where vowels shouldn't exist. With a Muscovite's pride in his own language, how can he stand here and let that slide? If Katsudon's going to truly appreciate what he's eating, he should at least be able to say it right.
'Listen to me now.' He points to the half-eaten pirozhok in Katsudon's hands. 'Pi-ro-zhok,' he says slowly, voice lilting up slightly as he lays the stress on the middle syllable with its flattened vowel. He then points to the bag, turning his finger in a small circle to indicate the whole of its contents. 'Pi-rozh-ki,' he declares, again with the lilt that slurs into the consonants before hardening on the final syllable. He holds up a warning finger, but the genuine smile hasn't left his face. 'Don't forget it, Katsudon.'
It would be easier if he could write it out to show the difference, but translating simple Cyrillic into whatever crazy script Katsudon uses is absolutely beyond him. He'll probably have to settle for hearing it said like pi-ro-sho-ku and pi-ro-shu-ki -- for now. As long as Katsudon looks this happy to be eating it, Yuri won't mind too much.
(Tonight, he'll message Yuuko to get the actual recipe. Once his exhibition skate is over and the sponsors are off his back, the moment he's free of Yakov's grip, he'll be off to the markets without so much as a backwards glance. He already knows that he and his grandfather will be doing a lot of cooking in the day or two they'll have together before he has to leave again.)
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Knows how proud he was of Victor and Yurio both loving his mother's famous katsudon dish. His favorite.
The number of times they made it, and it warms in that same place, that somehow it's translated here, too.
Not just language. But katsudon. That isn't just katsudon anymore either.
Because it's piroshki, too. A translation of two different places, and people. Together.
"Pi-ros-" He tries, except Yuri moved on to another word and then a threat with a smile. Which was almost distracting. Yurio looking happy. Happy in a way Yuri hasn't ever seen. It's so completely different from the death glare at JJ on the silver box. Or the disgusted yelling at the beginning of these minutes, which feels a million miles away, as he loses the end of that new word.
It's brilliant. This look on him. It changes him, changes everything, and Yuri doesn't try to stop the slightly sideways shift he takes it, when even blushing faintly for forgetting, and even the fact he's talking about bites of food, because stopping is not an option for every reason now. He still tilts to, "Pi-ro-" He feels for it, dragging the vowel too long, but it isn't. He's already lost it. Only the word he know is there, and he instead changes it midword, the second half going higher, "-katsu?"
Half of two worlds, half of two languages, half of two words.
Something he would have bounced harmlessly, fearlessly off Victor.
It's foolish and silly, but he can't help smiling at the warmth in his chest and belly.
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'Pirozh-katsu?' Yuri's own voice goes up at the end as well, rolling the strange combination around in his mouth, but damned if it doesn't make some bizarre kind of sense on his tongue. It shouldn't work, but it does. Because it's both and it's neither, and fitting the two pieces together makes it feel different. Special. Like something they can share. It's a spark of warmth that soothes away some of the residual pain from this afternoon -- and from last night as well. 'Fine, fine, I'll tell Dedka he's invented pirozh-katsu. And...and that you liked it.'
This last comes out a little awkwardly, and suddenly Yuri isn't quite sure where to look. He glances away, but that's not right, and when his eyes dart back to Katsudon he can't fully manage that, so it's easier to stare at the bag in his hands.
'He gave them to me earlier today,' he says, by way of a belated explanation. 'Before the free skate.'
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That makes his own smile soften, to something whisper small, but so genuine. The softest of echoes of it's earlier startled delight. Settling less in his face and more in strange new looseness of his shoulder, and the pink flush that finds Yuri's cheeks, without chagrin as he starts coming down. "да, do!"
They are delightful and Yuri's stomach rumbles with actual hunger with his unexpected seconds of happiness, even as everything quiets for The fact Yurioi has seen his grandfather (his ... De-ed-a-kah, his mind tries turning over the word) and it makes his next question a tentative assumption, based on Yurio's lingering brightness, even as he furtively looks away and back. "He came today, then?"
He knows, Yuri does, what it is to push yourself,
to shine like a star, willing to burn alive,
for the right person watching.
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Eat them, and do well in today's free skate, Yuratchka.
He had. He'd tried. (Do you have a death wish? Yakov had said, but he couldn't have been further from the truth.) And he had done well -- to a point. A personal best, but not the Rostelecom gold. But his grandfather had been there to see it, and when Yuri had come out of the locker room with his hair still damp from the showers and his silver medal stuffed deep into his jacket pocket, there were three people waiting for him in the arena's public lobby.
No words of congratulation or commiseration or critique from his coaches could compare with Nikolai Plisetsky's hand on his shoulder and the little understanding squeeze that had followed.
The cold air is dry, and Yuri has to clear his throat before he can pick up his train of thought again. 'I wasn't expecting him to bring those, either,' he says, nodding at the bag. 'But he likes to experiment with new things. I was telling him about katsudon in the car, when he picked me up from the airport the other day. Must've given him the idea for it then.'
He tips his head back, looking up at the small flakes of snow still falling from the sky. 'I mentioned that I'd had it at your place.'
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But Yurio, also, did another thing for him. Last time an escape.
This time a gift. A birthday, and celebration for winning, gift.
A gift from his grandfather he was under no need to share.
But still had. Without anything to be gained.
It's enough to make that guilt well from a different spring.
"In one day?" Yuri's words are a quiet amazement. There's not a single thing he thinks he could make that he's been handed, aside from that open breakfast sandwich, that he's eaten since touching down in Russia. But to not even know what it looked like or to have had it, and he made it and made it like this? "He did a very good job. It's very much like it. He could use more--" But Yuri chokes a little at catching himself in offering to help correct or even imply any error of the man who did this for Yuri, without knowing it. Sullying any notion of his gratitude.
It's a little softer, even trying to push on, as an idea strikes him quietly in the next second. "There are some spices and ingredient if he's still testing it. If he can't find them here, we could probably have them shipped here?"
The internet was probably full of places Yurio could find them if he needed them, and recipes to tweak, too. But Yuri loved his mother's best, and if he was going to even pretend anyone knew better than the internet, it would have been her. She'd know what he needed, or they needed. (She'd love knowing all about this.) If they ever wanted any help to begin with, and he hadn't just stepped over the line unwittingly.
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'I'll ask,' is what he says after a moment. 'I've only got an extra day here at home, after everything, so there wouldn't be enough time to have anything sent while I'm here. But Dedka...he'd want them to be the best. Like how your mother makes it. So...so I'll ask.'
One extra day. He's not free yet. Even after the exhibitions and the gala, there'll be press-cons and meetings and some awful dinner with the sponsors, where they'll be drowning in a sea of overpriced caviar and Yuri knows he'll eat next to nothing and let Yakov do most of the talking. Maybe he'll stare at some of the old drunks a little too long, just to see if he can make them squirm in their seats. (If that one piece of scum who was ogling Mila the other night is there, he'll definitely be in Yuri's sights.)
But it's only two more days. Two more days, and he'll be free. Yakov had promised that he could fly back to St. Petersburg on his own, have that precious extra day at home, if he behaved himself. And for that Yuri will be obedience incarnate...or nearly so. It's not like he's going to run off to another country again any time soon, after all.
The thought of Hasetsu strikes a dull note in his mind, and when he looks back at Katsudon there's a different sort of thoughtfulness in his expression. 'You're going home tonight,' he says. It's a statement, not a question.
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(He's going home to Victor.
"In a few hours." And a good half a day, or a whole day, depending how you counted. Too long still, standing here in the snow, with the uncertain feelings of different guilts and yearnings, and the echo of delight drifting away with the falling snow, all tangled up together. In his head and on his tongue. Making him use Victor's words, like it somehow isn't a cover. "I should be there in time for us to watch the exhibition still."
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Is it bad, that that's the first thing he thinks of? The first words that come out of his mouth? If you're going to eat your heart out about it, do it somewhere other than the podium, Yakov's stern voice echoes in his mind. But if it wasn't right on the podium, it isn't any better here. It doesn't feel right in his head or his heart. And it's in the effort of casting around for something that does feel right that the next words out of his mouth come out with a sudden vehemence:
'He shouldn't have left you here alone.'
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There's some part of him aware, he wouldn't really care otherwise.
He probably wouldn't watch it live, if he'd lost and he'd known no one here.
He'd have found it a day or two later, watching it with his blanket over his head.
It's a strange feeling. All of this, wherever they are now, that is still in the snow the side of a road, but is somehow changed, too. Especially when it comes a step out of context, and then, again, when Yurio suddenly snaps those words, and Yuri's eyebrows shoot up too high for a second. Not certain how to take it, or consider it something that ever held an option. Not even now, with how it turned out. There was only one option ever.
There's something solemn, even if it tinges disappointment. "He had to."
Not disappointment in Victor.
Disappointment in himself.
Responsibility for all that came after.
He should have done better. He should have found a way. Somewhere before he was in the middle of Yuri on Ice, gripping his performance like he'd never had to before. Before he was in fourth place, and sliding into the Grand Prix Finale on a five-hundredths of a point, and his earlier Silver. He has to do better in the next month. He has to do better at the Grand Prix Finale. There's no question that either now. Not if he's going to get the Gold.
But he has tomorrow, and whatever lecture Victor will have ready, and the next month for that.
"He called earlier." A point that might not need making. But. "Maccachin is going to be okay."
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'It still wasn't right.' Said with a fifteen-year-old's absolute, unflinching conviction in the proper order of the universe, in which Viktor Nikiforov's consignment to the outer darkness is the only fitting punishment for his sins. 'He left you here alone, and I couldn't -- '
There's no good place to go with that thought, because it spirals out in too many directions, none of which lead to anything he wants to dwell on. He's tired of feeling defeated. So he stops, and looks away.
The snow's starting to thin out, or perhaps the wind has shifted slightly.
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But it isn't right. Whatever the amorphous unshaped 'is' is. It hasn't been since Victor vanished into a taxi.
A bruise he's pressed his fingers to, just to feel the pain, feel anything real for hours and hours, while so much else went on.
It's the background for the confused surprise at Yurio's last word before he looks away. I, like Yurio (Yurio?) ... had to save him if Victor wasn't there, couldn't? Like Yurio ... had tried? Last night in Milliways. Before swearing and ordering him away, and ignoring him entirely until now. And Yuri doesn't think he's wrong, he's somehow impossibly positive in the confusion of feelings. That Victor is wrong. That Yurio would have watched him tomorrow, whether it was here or somewhere else, whether he'd made it, himself, or not.
And when did that happen? How ... and where ... and why?
But he did, they both ... cold comfort, but truth all the same and the only words that form -- "We both made it."
For better or worse, nothing is over yet. (And Yurio has his dead-kah. And soon Yuri will have Victor back.)
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