It's strange how something so simple as agreement with a statement can trickle into a warmth that makes the tips of Yuri's ears burn beneath the curtain of his hair. Even if it's not much...somehow, it's enough.
(And it was like that the last time, wasn't it? Over cups of cooling tea, with the bitter tension of worry and the threat of failure and loss hanging above their heads like row upon row of knives. You'll show them that tomorrow, too. Even with everything that had happened afterwards, that terrible night and the following chaotic day, it had been enough.)
'It'll have to be here,' Yuri says absently, chasing a carrot around the edge of the bowl. 'Even if I take these home, I've got to be in Zagreb soon for the Golden Spin.' It's the sole event of the ISU Challenger series that Yakov would let him compete in this year, on top of the Grand Prix events. 'That's part of why I only had one day at home, after Rostelecom. I had to get back.'
He pauses, letting the carrot escape its fate for the moment. 'The second batch came out okay, by the way,' he adds, with the same careful sidelong glance as before. 'Closer to what I remembered -- with more onion, and some soy sauce. If I'm able to go home at Christmas, we'll test out a third batch then.'
There might, if he can manage it, be an additional test-run of the second recipe...but the trip to Croatia comes first. Even now, he knows where his priorities have to lie.
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(And it was like that the last time, wasn't it? Over cups of cooling tea, with the bitter tension of worry and the threat of failure and loss hanging above their heads like row upon row of knives. You'll show them that tomorrow, too. Even with everything that had happened afterwards, that terrible night and the following chaotic day, it had been enough.)
'It'll have to be here,' Yuri says absently, chasing a carrot around the edge of the bowl. 'Even if I take these home, I've got to be in Zagreb soon for the Golden Spin.' It's the sole event of the ISU Challenger series that Yakov would let him compete in this year, on top of the Grand Prix events. 'That's part of why I only had one day at home, after Rostelecom. I had to get back.'
He pauses, letting the carrot escape its fate for the moment. 'The second batch came out okay, by the way,' he adds, with the same careful sidelong glance as before. 'Closer to what I remembered -- with more onion, and some soy sauce. If I'm able to go home at Christmas, we'll test out a third batch then.'
There might, if he can manage it, be an additional test-run of the second recipe...but the trip to Croatia comes first. Even now, he knows where his priorities have to lie.