His grandfather has never been anything less than proud of him, ever. That's what makes the whole thing so much worse.
'You know what the commentators were calling me today? The usurper skater. Usurper.' Yuri all but spits the word out. (It's never a good idea to go on social media during a competition, and today he'd learned that lesson the hard way.) 'Like Viktor's the fucking Emperor of All Russia, and I'm just some little bastard who's trying to stab him in the back, who thinks he has a right to his throne -- '
In his haste, he moves the teacup a little too quickly, and some of the tea splashes over the rim and onto the skin of his hand. It's not hot enough to burn any longer, but Yuri makes a quiet, disgusted noise and lets go of the cup, shaking the water off his hand with a single impatient flick of the wrist. In that moment, at least, it's enough of a distraction for him to lose his tight grasp on that particular flare of anger, and by the time his hand is dry the fire inside him has burned itself out, and humiliation at what he's just confessed to Katsudon floods into its place.
It would be one thing if he'd won all those months ago. If Viktor were his coach instead, Yuri might have had a different word attached to his name. Protégé.Successor. He'd even have accepted tsarevitch, if they really wanted to talk about Viktor as if he were God's Own Anointed instead of a mere national hero. But Yuri is none of these things...and here he is, complaining about it to the one person who probably doesn't have the slightest clue about what he's walked into at the Rostelecom Cup. Who's got enough to freak out about without dumping something else onto him, and wasn't that the whole reason why Yuri dragged them to the bar in the first place?
'Forget it. Never mind.' He drinks some more tea, trying to lower the level in the cup so it won't splash on him again. 'I shouldn't have expected it would be any different for me. Not in Russia, at least.'
no subject
'You know what the commentators were calling me today? The usurper skater. Usurper.' Yuri all but spits the word out. (It's never a good idea to go on social media during a competition, and today he'd learned that lesson the hard way.) 'Like Viktor's the fucking Emperor of All Russia, and I'm just some little bastard who's trying to stab him in the back, who thinks he has a right to his throne -- '
In his haste, he moves the teacup a little too quickly, and some of the tea splashes over the rim and onto the skin of his hand. It's not hot enough to burn any longer, but Yuri makes a quiet, disgusted noise and lets go of the cup, shaking the water off his hand with a single impatient flick of the wrist. In that moment, at least, it's enough of a distraction for him to lose his tight grasp on that particular flare of anger, and by the time his hand is dry the fire inside him has burned itself out, and humiliation at what he's just confessed to Katsudon floods into its place.
It would be one thing if he'd won all those months ago. If Viktor were his coach instead, Yuri might have had a different word attached to his name. Protégé. Successor. He'd even have accepted tsarevitch, if they really wanted to talk about Viktor as if he were God's Own Anointed instead of a mere national hero. But Yuri is none of these things...and here he is, complaining about it to the one person who probably doesn't have the slightest clue about what he's walked into at the Rostelecom Cup. Who's got enough to freak out about without dumping something else onto him, and wasn't that the whole reason why Yuri dragged them to the bar in the first place?
'Forget it. Never mind.' He drinks some more tea, trying to lower the level in the cup so it won't splash on him again. 'I shouldn't have expected it would be any different for me. Not in Russia, at least.'