Yuri Plisetsky (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yuri_plisetsky) wrote2017-04-13 11:20 pm
yuri_plisetsky) wrote2017-04-13 11:20 pm
Entry tags:
Milliways: Chopsticks Instructional Hour [1.09-1.10]
Seated at a booth, Yuri has a bowl of food in front of him and an expression of tight, absolute concentration more likely to be found on a surgeon in the middle of a major operation.
Today is the day that he finally gets it right.
The bar had listened to his somewhat vague request (plain noodles, some normal Japanese kind or something, and, uh, a bunch of steamed vegetables on top, cut a little small but not TOO small) and thankfully had provided about as close to what he'd wanted as he might have imagined. The noodles were plain yellow ones, though they were dressed with some sort of light sesame sauce that was keeping them from sticking together in clumps, and the bowl was piled high with chunks of steamed broccoli, carrots, and those little green beans that he'd had as a snack at Yu-topia a couple of times. (Edo-something? Whatever, he'd eat it.) The bar had also provided several napkins and, for some reason, not one but two pairs of chopsticks: the disposable kind in the wrapper, and a set of regular wooden ones.
(He can take the disposable ones home, at least.)
He's got his phone on the table next to the bowl, one headphone plugged into his ear and three videos queued up, and he's in the middle of the first video, using his left hand to try to reposition the chopsticks in his right hand until they look like they do on the demonstration. It's close enough to make a first attempt, so he keeps his eye on the video as he moves the chopsticks into position to grab a piece of broccoli.
He almost manages to make contact with it before his grip fails and the chopsticks cross.
An annoyed huff, and he taps the phone to restart the video, and goes back to repositioning his hand.
Today is the day that he finally gets it right.
The bar had listened to his somewhat vague request (plain noodles, some normal Japanese kind or something, and, uh, a bunch of steamed vegetables on top, cut a little small but not TOO small) and thankfully had provided about as close to what he'd wanted as he might have imagined. The noodles were plain yellow ones, though they were dressed with some sort of light sesame sauce that was keeping them from sticking together in clumps, and the bowl was piled high with chunks of steamed broccoli, carrots, and those little green beans that he'd had as a snack at Yu-topia a couple of times. (Edo-something? Whatever, he'd eat it.) The bar had also provided several napkins and, for some reason, not one but two pairs of chopsticks: the disposable kind in the wrapper, and a set of regular wooden ones.
(He can take the disposable ones home, at least.)
He's got his phone on the table next to the bowl, one headphone plugged into his ear and three videos queued up, and he's in the middle of the first video, using his left hand to try to reposition the chopsticks in his right hand until they look like they do on the demonstration. It's close enough to make a first attempt, so he keeps his eye on the video as he moves the chopsticks into position to grab a piece of broccoli.
He almost manages to make contact with it before his grip fails and the chopsticks cross.
An annoyed huff, and he taps the phone to restart the video, and goes back to repositioning his hand.
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He could keep going with the rice, but the next level of the challenge is right beside him. And it might be easier to combine them both, rather than trying to go straight for the noodles again. 'I should probably...' he mutters, thinking aloud, as he straightens up and sets the chopsticks down. It's the work of a moment to pick up the bowl of vegetables and noodles and shake it gently over the bowl of rice, just enough to let a few pieces of broccoli and carrot and soybean tumble off the top of one bowl to land in the other.
Before he can put the first bowl down, however, he thinks better of it -- and abruptly holds it out to Katsudon, tilted in open offering. 'You can have some, if you want,' he says, his serious expression at odds with the fact that his is face still somewhat pink with residual embarrassment. 'It's just vegetables.'
If Katsudon is putting off his dinner at home for this -- to help him here -- it's only fair to offer to share.
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There's a second, uncertain, wavered, mouth opening just a little and closing, as he almost and then doesn't speak. To tell Yurio he doesn't have to rush himself. That he can take it slow with the basics he's getting. It's not a contest. (A competition.) But that reminds him of Yurio on the ice. The all-but-body-breaking attack that was his last Appassionato. Yuri doesn't do good at anything like slow even at the things he's already good at.
(Not that there's time for slow there, is there? Only so few days and weeks to Barcelona.)
He is, at least, relieved a step back when Yurio chooses to take some of the vegetables, tumbling them onto the rice bowl, instead of simply leaping from two bites into his rice back to the baston of his ire and contempt in the first bowl. The last thing Yuri is expecting, bowl of rice in one hand and chopsticks in the other, is to suddenly have Yurio thrust his first bowl at him.
He's still blinking in the wave of the first surprised-confusion when Yurio, stern-faced and flushing a color more like Yuri's only normal, (forces himself into?) begins offering Yuri some of the vegetables piled on the top of that bowl. When the first sounds is foolishly, owlishly, falling out of his mouth, with more surprise than thought, as well as unexpected memory. "Oh."
"Uh--" Is a sound trying to contain itself back to some semblance of control, torn between reminded, polite acceptance (for bland polite involvement? because he helped, the smallest bit?), the question of why (and why again), and, again, the reminder, still. His family was waiting. Dinner. (Victor.) Confusing or not, it still cobbles its coltish legs together to get back to. "--okay. Thanks."
Yuri had to shift slightly toward him to use his chopsticks and coax some of the broccoli and carrot pieces into his rice bowl from the other. "I can't take a lot. I'll still have to go back, and there's no knowing what they will have made."
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(Not like the spectacular fuck-up of last time, of course.)
Pushing those thoughts aside, he picks up the chopsticks again, flexing his right hand a few times to keep it from stiffening up. He's careful to adjust his grip from the start, moving his thumb until he feels comfortable with the positioning. And when he takes aim at the same offending piece of broccoli, he goes for the rice beneath it as well. Thanks to his earlier efforts, he has enough control over the chopsticks to manage to wedge one tip into a space between the branches of the florets and secure the other one on the outside edge, along with the rice. It's precarious, but now that he knows more about how it's supposed to feel in his hand, it's enough to let him quickly raise the chopsticks to his mouth and get his teeth into both rice and broccoli before the whole thing falls off.
A bit like touching a hand on a shaky jump landing; succeeding on technical grounds, with enough rotations, but the execution leaves much to be desired. Not exactly a resounding triumph. All the same, it's warm and crunchy and good, the first piece of something solid and not-rice that he's managed so far with the chopsticks, and any food is welcome when your stomach is noisily trying to digest itself.
Yuri's eyes close a little, and the breath huffed out through his nose as he chews is definitely relieved. Though as he swallows, his eyes flick briefly in Katsudon's direction -- possibly from some subconscious need for a final confirmation, or in search of any further instructions. Or perhaps neither of these, because he looks back down at his bowl just as quickly, as if to determine which vegetable looks most promising for a second try.
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"It's okay," Yuri says, a little faster than even he expects of his mouth, of the implication he might not want to stay, of the flush of something that was not quite not-true of that mingled with shame for the feeling being pinpointed and still the residual, lingering, building wary quiet staring at all of this uncertainly. It makes his heart jump to his throat even as he's finishing, quickly, "I can stay a little while."
That part is honest, isn't it? No one on the other side will even know he was gone, if the people here are correct about time outside the door freezing when you are on this side. Even if time passes on both sides when you're on the other, which he's never really figured out if made sense or not. This place is confusing. Just existing, it's confusing. Impossible, except that it keeps just ... being. Real. Solid. Peopled. Appearing.
His parents would know to be missing him. Not Victor, or Mari, or Minako, if she stopped by tonight, or even Maccachin, who might even still be waiting around outside after following Yuri up to the third floor to collect clothes and back down to the second for his shower. No one. Just himself, Yurio, all the people in this place who had no clue at all who he was. The idea of changing that equation even a little spiking his heart a beat too anxiously.
It takes a few more seconds before Yuri realizes he's been sitting there silently looking between Yurio and the rest of the people closest to them -- at the bar, at the tables, at the booths. That it's Yurio's glance in his direction, so fast he blinks and questions if he imagined it (like he's a few times questioned whether he imagined the whole of Milliways, and the whole of what happened the last night in Moscow, out in the snow, and the whole of anything that involves Victor wanting to kiss him), still it prompts action of some kind.
Yuri cleared his throat, finishing a bite of rice with carrot and broccoli with a pushed swallow to start with, "Uh--" and shove past it, a little awkwardly but without letting himself pause. "Why did you decide to start learning how to use chopsticks now?"
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'I want to show my grandfather how to use them.' He's talking more to the rice than to Katsudon, but his voice is steady. 'When I was at home, he was asking me about the food I had at your house, and what it tasted like. So I was telling him about some of the things I ate there.'
A true statement, but not quite accurate. Nikolai Plisetsky might have asked a few quiet questions here and there, but his grandson hadn't needed much encouragement to describe everything he could about his short stay in Japan. About the katsudon, of course, so they could figure out how to make their experimental pirozhki best approximate the taste of the original dish. But also about having fish and rice and soup for breakfast, and smoky grilled squid on a stick, and greasy fried noodles slurped from a carton, and little rice dumplings made with sweet bean paste, and salty-sweet crunchy snacks from packages with writing that he couldn't read, and hot and cold tea that came in bottles from vending machines all over the place. And more than that, about Hasetsu itself, and how the fresh salt smell of the sea air was similar to and yet totally different from the air in St. Petersburg, somehow. About Yu-topia, with the outdoor bath that was sort of like the old neighbourhood banya, and how good the steaming hot water felt against his sore muscles after a long day of training. About Katsudon's parents and big sister, and Yuuko and her family. About the Ice Castle, and the waterfall, and the morning market and the spring festival and the shrine and the floats. (Even, a little awkwardly, about the red brocade good-luck charm tucked deep inside his skating bag, in a pocket where it wouldn't be damaged.) Everything, anything he could think of, while he pounded pork cutlets flat with a mallet and his grandfather kneaded a bowl full of dough, while the oil sizzled and the rice steamed.
Things he hadn't thought that he'd remembered. Things that probably weren't all that important. Even some things, like his performance at Onsen on Ice -- and leaving Japan alone, defeated, without Viktor -- that he didn't really like thinking about, let alone talking about. But he didn't want to leave anything out, when his grandfather was right there and listening.
'We never really had anything like this' -- a small circular gesture with the chopsticks, again indicating both them and the bowls of food -- 'near where I grew up. And he's never used chopsticks before. So I told him that I'd learn how to do it, and show it to him when I go home next time. Probably for a couple of days around New Year's and Christmas, if Yakov says I can.' It feels like he's said a lot, though he hasn't really said much of anything at all, but he finishes with a certain firmness that underscores his original purpose. 'So I decided to come here to work on it.'
He chooses to punctuate that final statement by digging into the rice and extricating the second piece of broccoli to jam into his mouth.
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It's that he's not as surprised as he would have been a few weeks ago. A month ago. Before half-laying, half-sitting there in the snow as he looked confused at the paper bag that had landed on him -- standing there, laughing, at the surprise, shortly after. Before the unexpected picture of what must have been the next batch being made.
It's less that he is. He has a general grasp of what, lining up events, lining up responses, and almost none of why, but that is in a lot of places the story of his life. Of this last year, of Victor, of skating, even his determination to make everything of this very last chance, to put everything he left into taking Gold at his very last Grand Prix Finale.
Why not Yurio, too. Except that's another why, and it's not a why question or answer either. It's already just happening, like all the rest of them. Yurio, too. The mention of Christmas only strengthens the reminder of how close the end of the month is, and the GPF before it, all of them with things riding on before it, itself, and the precarious nature of anything planned after.
At least Yuri wouldn't have to worry about that.
He'd have his grandfather afterward, even if he lost.)
Yuri shoved that down in the same dark, tiny place he always did. Not yet. Not yet. Still days to go, still weeks to go. Still practices, still early mornings, still blades and blisters to wear through, still grueling ballet hours with Minako, and miles of running with Maccachin half the time behind him, of Victor's stern frown and his bursts of inspiration and his absurdly perfect heart of a smile. (The feel of his fingers on Yuri's hand. Every kiss.) Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.
But. Not yet.)
Yuri nodded, without raising his chopsticks for a bite that time, not sure he could swallow about the well of questions sitting in the shape of the young boy in front of him or the one of emotion fighting to get outside the cage of his ribs again. "That's a pretty good amount of time. Especially if you take a set home with you, and you can come here a few times in between."
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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.
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He's not too surprised to hear Yurio is taking part in the Challenger Series, either. It's not on the same level as the GPF, but it was Yurio's first year at the Senior Level and it would give him both more practice with his routines, more experience, possibly more prestige and more confidence at the level he'd transitioned into. Especially when compared the age and experience of everyone else he was up against. No one else was as young, or as new.
He wouldn't have been surprised if there were other unaffiliated ones at the international level Yakov put him toward either.
Yuri had done a good bit of both in Seniors before he'd ever transition up toward the Grand Prix. Before that disastrous debut had cut off any and all dreams of even getting beyond the Prix to Four Continents or the World Championship. He'd managed to stand on the ice with his childhood idol and by it only fall apart completely. All of them, once upon a dreams of a younger version of him that seemed so much further away than a few years. Words on a paper folded and put far far away, or maybe even lost along the way.
A conflicted and confusing ache of the memory trickling from his heart at the thought,
bleeding straight into the tension of the panic he was trying to keep at bay already.
Still trying to think of something worthwhile of Yurio's time to respond with, or at least not deserving of all of this turning scathing and swearing at a moment's notice, he blinks in some confusion at the sudden entire shift of the topic. Of the picture Yurio had sent of that kitchen, that he hadn't known what to say back to. The same as the message he'd sent, that there hadn't been, exactly, an answer to either.
It makes him blurt out, "My mother is making a small package to help. It's probably almost done."
She'd been delighted when Yuri had finally remembered to ask, but she seemed easily delighted by all of the events of the last year, while whether she understood anymore than she ever had about skating remained mostly the same. She was delighted with Victor on a daily basis, whether in his company or out of it. She was delighted with having Maccachin around to spoil. She'd been delighted to have Yurio in their home originally.
She'd been delighted with this, too. Maybe even more so because it was something that directly related to her, and her infamous dish. Beyond Yuri's own love for it. Someone had love her cooking enough to try and replicate it in their own way. Wven though he hadn't anything to show her as an example by that time. Victor's had gone, and it would have been incredibly old and cold by then. But it hadn't matter, not that morning and not still, as she puttered at it.
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(Made it home in time to watch the Gala. Victor said to tell you that you looked good.)
And that thought sends something else swirling uneasily through Yuri's gut. Of course, if Katsudon had told his mother about it, then Viktor must know about it as well. And Yuri is...not sure how he feels about that. Because there's a thin, twisting line from that moment on a grimy Moscow street, leading back through the hours to the night before the free skate. To this place. To the split-second decision he'd made in the Star Hotel lobby. And if Viktor knows about all of that --
'I need your address, too,' Yuri says suddenly. Perhaps a little too loudly. 'The one where you get letters and stuff.' By this point, he could find the physical address for Yu-topia Katsuki on his phone, but the address that shows up on a map search isn't always the same as the one the post office uses. 'I have something to send to your parents.'
Focus. One problem at a time.
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The utter unexpected words and loudness make Yuri startles just slightly, shoulders up and in, repeating, "My parents?"
Confused complete surprise, clashing against the mostly flash burned only-there-a-second-ago thought he needs Yuri's address still, too. Something better than 'Russia,' or even 'Moscow,' which happened to both take up a vast amount of space for a small box to get lost in.
He hadn't really been planning to ever ask for that in person, had he? Or even ever by his person. He's told his mother he'd ask Yuu-san, and if they didn't pan out, he'd planned to ask Yuu-san to ask, as he assumed they still talked, and if they didn't, that at least they'd been on friendly enough terms for the spring for her to be able to ask and know she'd hear something.
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'I never sent your parents a thank-you note for letting me stay at your place,' he says, and his expression has turned serious again. A little less intensely focused than the one he'd had while watching the chopsticks demonstration, but not by much. 'So I need your address.'
It's amazing how much disapproval Nikolai Plisetsky's furrowed brow and silent pause had been able to convey, when Yuri had hesitated before admitting that he had left Hasetsu without thanking the Katsukis for their hospitality. It had been enough to immediately impress upon Yuri exactly how nekulturny he had been -- and how badly it reflected on his upbringing at the same time. So he had promised, naturally, to rectify matters as soon as possible...and as luck would have it, rather than his planned roundabout approach of asking Yuuko for the address, getting it now directly from the source will save the trouble of having it arrive without warning, or explanation.
(No matter what Katsudon might say in response, he knows that there's only one right thing to do.)
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"Oh--" seems to fall out of his mouth with as little thought as the earlier question. Yuri trying to process what it is that could have truly made it seem necessary now. All these months later. When, not to be rude, and not to be ever said out loud, because it was, wasn't it -- it wasn't the kind of thing Yuri associated with the young boy. Ever.
Not that he was a saint in that regard, having gone the better part of the time after his first GPF avoiding Celestino and anything like a polite, respectful ending, until Victor's call in the spring ... but it wasn't something he connected in the slightest with Yurio, and Yurio's short stay. (Even Victor's stay was probably a pitance of what it would cost in the end for eight months of Victor's time and training.)
"--that's probably fine." Even if he was a little pink at the thought he couldn't quite imagine Yurio saying thank you for anything, to anyone, as far as things went and had gone and how he was, Yuri doubted his parents had held on to whether he had or hadn't said goodbye, or thank you, more than half a year ago.
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He breaks off, though it's not completely the result of a reluctance to dig deeper into his own shortcomings. For the past few minutes, his grip on the chopsticks has been tightening incrementally to the point where his hand is starting to cramp. It's finally reached the point where he can't ignore it any longer, and so he has to set the chopsticks down next to his bowl and flex his fingers again.
It's not easy. None of this is easy. But he doesn't know how else to make things right.
(Viktor Nikiforov could show up on the doorstep of Yu-topia without warning, with most of his worldly possessions and an elderly poodle in tow, because he had come with something to offer. The chance of a lifetime. The promise of victory. Everything to gain, and nothing to lose. And Yuri had followed him there with nothing but himself and his white-hot rage and a maxed-out credit card, and yet he'd received the same warm bowl of katsudon and a fork to eat it with. Until he'd explained it to his grandfather, he hadn't really seen it for what it was. Even if he hadn't known it then, he knows it now.)
' -- especially if your mother has something for me,' he finishes, as he reaches for the chopsticks again. 'If you want my address, I need yours.'
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Yurio continues like this is something important to him when Yuri's not certain he's ever seen anything matter to Yurio that wasn't a) skating, b) his grandfather, or c) things he could take edgey-strange pictures of for his Instagram. The concept that it is important and of being important right now, eludes really taking root. From the furthest field, making it feel like he's somehow sitting with someone who looks like Yurio, mostly sounds like Yurio, and somehow isn't.
Yurio pauses only to stretch his hand, something he'll probably get used to and overly aggravated at, knowing Yurio, as he continues to learn. Especially if it's few and far between for his practice times. In the long run it wouldn't be anything compared to what they managed, but it Yuri wondered if he was glad he wouldn't be there for it.
(Probably.
After all, somehow he was here, again.)
The last words synch in, too, don't they? He needs the address and that means giving up his own. The same as anyone else would have with the reason given, even if it does seem strange now. (His mother would probably still be pleased, even all these months later. Even if he didn't have to, and she wasn't expecting anything. From then, or the box of supplies, likely.)
There's a press of his mouth and he sets his bowl down, looking at the wooden piece of furniture, again, thinking he'll never get used to this. "Could we have some paper and pens, please?"
There are certain moments he realizes what he says here and what he hears are almost two different things. He can feel the respectful formality of the words he chooses, the phrasing, which means they are not English -- because he's not certain he wants to know what happens if you anger the whatever it was in the wood that could make anything appear -- and thus it's strange, because he's certain other people do understand what he's saying, too.
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'Here,' he says at last, and pushes the paper over to Katsudon. 'I don't know which'll work better. I've never sent anything home from outside the country. But they're the same thing.'
In an absolute worst-case scenario, Katsudon could probably get Viktor to double-check it. But it's not a very complicated address. Just a small place in an old block of flats, one amongst thousands in the great sprawl of the Moscow metropolis.
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This part Yuri did know well enough, even when Yurio was excusing his uncertainty in an explanation. Yuri had all those years abroad, with enough time that certain things were shipped both directions, to and from. Then, again, at the end, early this year, sending it all back home, along with himself.
It was surprising what you could accumulate, even in a small, efficiency for two, across five years.
Yuri wrote his address in both English and Japanese, with all the appended pieces necessary.
"If you take this with you when you send it, they can use whichever one is easiest from where you are. In the US, it was the English, but--" There's was a not-quite-awkward and not-quite-not-either shrug as if to say that made perfect sense. It was English being used in a predominantly English speaking country.
But he hadn't ever so much as sent a letter to Moscow.
Officially he wasn't even now. But they were both bound to learn.
(Though if he were being perfectly honest, and it was another thing that wouldn't be offered, or admitted, it would not -- by any stretch of imagination or reality -- be the first thing to arrive at Yu-topia, through the non-business, personal address, from Russia. There had, perhaps, been a five-year, almost six now, gap in said happenstance, but who was really keeping track.)
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'I'll let Dedka know to look for a package. He doesn't speak much English, but whatever's in there, I can try to explain it to him.' For the first time all evening, something relaxes around his eyes, and his mouth quirks in a manner approaching a smile. 'I'm sure he'll want send your mother a thank-you note, too.'
Even if Yuri ends up writing that one as well...perhaps it'll make up for lost time.
All the same, his stomach is starting to make its displeasure known again, so it's back to the chopsticks. The muscle memory isn't solid quite yet; he has to fiddle with them some more to find a semi-comfortable grip.
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Yuri takes his own paper, in the all too familiar Cyrillic that had surrounded him so recently. Familiar and foreign in one. There isn't much he can make out of it besides one, maybe two, words. Learning a few phrases to be able to say them in passing was not nearly anything like learning a third alphabet entirely so you could piece the words together, or like he knew what the system for it was.
There's a nod, more than an answer this time, as it starts feeling like air doesn't quite know what to do with itself, or maybe that's just Yuri. Not that it is anything like new. He's done both things that could possibly need doing or be done now, and Yurio is back to setting his chopsticks in his hand and attempting to eat, and Yuri's own gaze moves back to his bowl, but it makes him wonder more about home than need to pick it up.
Maybe there is, almost warily, a glance off his shoulder to finally (finally) see if the door is still there.
(It is, of course. Solid.
Shaped. Shining handle.)
was last time, too. ]
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'Look,' he says, head still bent over the chopsticks, 'if you want to go back, I told you it's fine.' His hair is starting to fall into his eyes, so he reaches up to push it back over one ear. 'I'm going to be here for a -- '
It's then that he turns his head enough to catch sight of the look on Katsudon's face, and the last word stops in his mouth.
Of course he looks back as well.
Of course the door is there.
(It can't be his fault this time.)
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He's too exhausted from the day, and half-distracted by everything that has his sitting here, for anything like outright panic.
Especially still being this far away. But that doesn't keep the rest of his head from worrying. From the consideration. From the concern. From the question. From an overdone, all too viscerally imprinted reminder of the dreams, the flash sudden overwhelming panic, fear, desperation, despair that sometimes woke him up. To rooms that reminded him only seconds later he wasn't there.
Which doesn't keep his guts from twisting up at the memory of the real, and not-real, times it's happened, cementing the feeling deeper and deeper. Doesn't entirely help to think it's not real here, like he could in bed. When it could be. Has been. Has proven it can.
A door in the way. A wall. A world, a universe, millions.
He doesn't need to be told.
Knows exactly how many days.
Even if he tries not to. He knows.)
He blinks back to Yurio talking and staring at him, and then the door, and Yuri flushes, like the sun decided it should sit right against the sides of his neck. Hastily stumbling right into, "Sorry." He doesn't know entirely what to do with his hands. The papers is in his pockets, and the sudden cold, coiled hissing in his stomach doesn't really want to swallow food. "I --uh--" am a mess, works really well here, and Yuri's fingers clench into his pants not to come up and touch, or cover, his face. "--probably should in a few minutes."
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'You opened the door to get here, right? It's not like when I....' He has to force out a breath before he can complete that thought, shift the weight of it slightly to one side so it doesn't press on the rawest, sorest point inside of him. 'It's not like what happened last time. So it won't be like what happened last time.'
He doesn't give Katsudon a chance to respond to that statement, which already sounds nonsensical in his own ears. Instead, he slides out of his seat, food and chopsticks left behind on the tabletop.
'Get up,' he says, and jerks his head in the direction of the door. 'We're trying it now. You can stay, or go, but we're trying it now.'
(You're coming with me. Right now.)
But this time, he's not going to push and shove. Only Yuuri Katsuki can open that door and make it go where he wants it to go. Because where he wants to go...well, Yuri is pretty fucking sure that it isn't here.
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Looking over his shoulder had not needed an audience. It was a simple enough movement. A simple enough point. But that flash of heat in his cheeks, his neck, and the tension squeezing his chest makes it anything but simple now that it's garnered its own attention. Enough that that his thought race too fast between thinkings like it shouldn't matter and of course, Yurio would notice, because he couldn't not-notice last time and he's here and that's all Yurio needs, another reason to laugh at him or yell at him.
The first words being said next to him half-going past the roar of heat and embarrassment,
and half-drowned under it.
Until Yurio's eating stops entirely for ordering Yuri to the door beyond them.
That makes his heart jump so hard at the first understand that it feels like it ricochets into the bottom of his chin, maybe doesn't' stop until it slams the top of his skull. An inversion, and invasion, too fast, too firm, too absolutely what he doesn't have, it doesn't need, shooting fear before anything like rationality can balance or back it up. "W-we really don't have to."
If he was stuck again, he was stuck, and if he wasn't, then he'd go home. That was it. Maybe it was on where you opened the door, and who did. But none of those four struck and stuck to that single cord of feat that easily laced itself at the first touch of direct pressure.
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Oh, yes, he's angry. But for some reason, though, it's hard for Yuri to keep a nice tight grip on his anger. It's slipping out of his grasp like grains of sand...or like the chopsticks he's been wrestling with all evening. And in its place is a strange sort of weariness that makes him scrub at his face with one hand, fighting the urge to sigh out loud.
'Look, Katsudon, I don't know how this place works any more than you do.' The words come out muted and tired, slightly muffled by his hand. 'Maybe I fucked up last time by bringing you here. I had to get us out of that damned hotel, and this was the only place I could think of.'
Away from the pressure of the countless pairs of eyes that followed them on and off the ice. Away from the people who'd called him a usurper, somehow unworthy of the only thing that gave his life meaning. Away from the wintry blasts of air from the opening and closing doors of the Star Hotel lobby. Away from loss, and grief, and despair, and the long emptiness of a solitary hotel room, and the uncertain promises of the morning to come.
He'd tried, and it hadn't been enough.
He lets his hand drop, and this time there's more resignation than rage in his face and voice. 'So just try the stupid door so I know whether I need to buy you a plane ticket back from St. Petersburg or not.'
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"I looked at it once!" These are the words that decide to shoot themselves out his mouth first, very likely because his mouth and his head hate him. It's likely the last thing he needed to point out. Like a point of order or defense, and it's all effort to stop up his mouth and not point out he knows that because he's been not-looking-at-it this whole time and that one time was just finally not being able to not do it.
Not entirely because of this reason, but because of it, too. Especially now. When he hadn't thought of it first, but now Yurio was pointing it out. Like it would be one slip and he'd never stop. The flare of heat, that's embarrassment and defense, heating the inside of his chest as much as the outside of his skin, leaving him trapped within and between both as Yurio rubs at his face and keeps talking.
About the number of things Yuri still hardly has any idea how to put into words. The things that happened, why they happened. The resignation settling into Yurio's face and posture make him almost look tired in the way Yuri's own muscles feel, even after the long time spent in the hot water. Even if it's been ... a while. Not long enough. Not long enough by far, though, either. Only long enough to not be today, or yesterday, or a few days ago.
There wasn't even a month to be had between when they had been to where they were going.
It's a strange feeling -- between watch Yurio, as he's talking about that, barely having a clue still what to really say to it, about it, about living it, about having a hundred of his own questions, that only sometimes even formed into actual words that could be said out loud and that of the door, existing right off their corner, the point of the whole thing, tingling at his shoulder, as though he has to look and go there now.
Because he does, doesn't he? For Yurio now, too? Yuri can at least find the decency to stand up, right? He can. He does. He's still not sure he wants to know. It's bad enough to fear something in his own head (he fears things in his own head all the time, hundreds, thousands, millions, real and not real, stupid and sensible), but to have someone else holding it ...
Yuri didn't know if that made it better or worse.
(And real meant he couldn't just tell himself he was being an idiot, which he usually was, or that his head had run away with itself, and any sense of reality, which it usually had, and that it would be fine if he could just breathe and stop his head from spinning and spinning, which it -- well -- results were always a mixed bag, but so was thinking he could control it, wasn't it?)
But he does get up, and his dry barefeet do shuffle in that direction. Toward the Door that seems larger, and his chest smaller, with each of those shuffling steps. He doesn't want to know. He's not sure he really likes this place at all already. He stops not far from. Maybe a foot. Wondering again, in a loop (he's always in loops), if he's blocking the door from someone again. If it works inside and out of some radius.
He's never seen people run into each other. He's never thought watched anyone else using it.
"You wouldn't have to buy me a ticket." Certain, if a touch dry and pressed out his mouth. Just. Just ... in case.
Before Yuri places his hand on the door handle. (He's stuck in the loop of that second, too. The reminder. The desperation. That torn feeling between where his heart wanted and needed to be: on the ice, with Victor. The cold feeling drilling into his lungs now that he might not have ever left it. He left the bar. He left Moscow. He was home. He had Victor. Why did he still feel that tearing just as keenly, then? Why wasn't it new, again, just this second?)
It opens easy as a whisper this time under his fingers. The bathroom on the other side. The air from the bathroom still a roll of warmth as though hot water was still running somewhere, and the cling of condensation beading on the edge of a mirror as the fog that had been all over it was slowly finding a way to finally dissipate. Yuri's heart giving a thunderously relieved beat.
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...how can you miss something you barely remember?
'Fine,' he says quietly. 'All right. It works.'
He really should go back and finish eating. But if Katsudon's leaving now, he wants to watch that door close behind him, just to be absolutely sure that everything's all right this time. And if he's not leaving....
Fuck, what does it matter, anyway? It's enough to make him scrub at his face again, mostly to run a hand back through his hair and shove it out of his eyes.
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