Yuri goes right back to hard nails and threads, which (even if Yuuri's mouth tightens in the unexpected surprise of it coming so suddenly) does not hit with the same kind of power as more than half of Yuri's threats and posturing do. Not when it's only seconds ago Yuri looked as uncertain and young as he never had before.

Speaking about what had tripped up his ever constant unflappability. His grandfather. His country.

Maybe Yuri didn't understand entirely. Maybe it was something lost in translation. But it still changed things, too. That moment's glance (not stolen, not blundered on to, but given to him) at something between and under all the sharp edges and defiant demand of the world.

Something fragile -- no, important enough to shake everything,
and to need, maybe even more, the sudden sharp demand for control, to be met.

It's not that he won't be watching, not like he won't know, but it just comes differently to Yuuri's ears, his head, watching Yuri pour the tea, before asking that question and Yuuri shook his head. "No. I should probably try to sleep after this." That with a faint movement of his now, once, again, full cup.

Even if sleep felt like the last thing that would come to him, he should try.
Victor would want him to. His performance would need him to. And it ...


... it just might be easier to take this back to that empty room, where Victor wasn't,
and just put his face in his pillow until there was some update or the morning, and the free skate, came.