The mumbled, more than not possibly disinterested, first response is about what Yuri was thinking it might be, but what comes next is back to all the fire and brimstone intensity that most of Yurio's declarations come. Not just a hello, he wants Yuri to take back what amounts to a challenge and promise to beat him in Barcelona. The way he already beat Yuri in Russia.

Except it was different in Russia. A little ways out from that he could see that. Running forward, practicing until he nearly collapsed after the tasks of each new day, only reaching forward and trying not to spend what little time he had before sleep fretting backwards. Which was never going to be not at all, but the exhaustion and Victor's certainly helped to buoy a lot of it.

"Alright." Yuri nods some. Not oblivious to the fact that was to him as much as Victor and in some ways more. Victor wouldn't be on the ice, itself, when he left the boards for his last two times. Maybe after. Maybe next year. But not in so few days away from now. He'd be at the boards. He'd be there. At Yuri's side, from beginning to end of this one, like every other competition before Russia. But out there. Beyond it. It was between them, and the other four contenders coming. All or nothing. It was all brought out and left on the ice.

The same as it had been almost a year ago now. Something reminds him, and;


He can try to do it right. This one last time, on his very last skates of his very last year.
It's something new, something uncertain, squirming and yet driven that decides him though.

Yuri puts his bowl down and stood up from his stool, offering a hand to shake,
and somehow, what comes to mind are words he's heard and met before, too.
"We won't take it easy on you." We. "It won't be like last time."