It would be so easy to shut this conversation down right now, and any number of reasons for doing so are crowded at the forefront of Yuri's mind. (Don't make excuses for yourself. Katsudon doesn't care. He doesn't need to know. He's got enough to deal with. It won't help you anyway.) But it's late, and it's been a very long day, and he's tired, and he's currently in third behind Katsudon and that prick JJ, and Katsudon's right there and for once he isn't falling all over himself with apologies or flailing because of something stupid that Viktor said or did. And Viktor isn't there, because he's on a plane and his dog might be dying right this very minute and that, as much as anything else, is what makes Yuri say what he says next.

'Before I moved to St. Petersburg, I grew up in Moscow. My grandfather still lives there.' And once he's said that much, there's no point in stopping there. 'He hasn't been well lately -- he's got a bad back, and he doesn't get out as much as he should.'

A pause, his gaze still fixed on the bottom of his teacup. 'He wasn't there today, at the rink.'

So much of the anger has bled out of his voice that it almost doesn't sound like his own.