yuri_plisetsky | Milliways: Chopsticks Instructional Hour [1.09-1.10]

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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.

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Yuri's more a little red in the face by the time he recovers from that skirmish with the noodle. Thankfully, whatever Katsudon must be doing to keep from busting a gut laughing at him seems to be working, because even when Yuri exhales forcefully and goes after another bite, he doesn't hear a peep from the seat next to his own.

The silence, however, reminds him that he himself is not doing anything to fill it. It's not like having dinner with Yakov and Lilia, who are usually as worn out as he is by the end of the day and also have the whole used to be married thing where a raised eyebrow or a tilt of the head can be an entire half of a conversation all by itself, without a single word said. And it's not like being at home, either, where he and his grandfather don't even need to talk (except that Yuri does, because texts and emails and phone calls and even the occasional awkward video chat can't ever replace the real thing, but it's still not the same). Not like the cafeteria at the rink, not like the dining table at Yu-topia...especially not that. But at the same time, it's not like it was the last time they were here in this place, two cups of tea in front of them, when Yuri had had to talk because it was the only thing he could think of that would keep them both distracted from everything on the opposite side of the door. There's none of that sense of urgency, or the hellish prospect of a long night and an unknown tomorrow hanging over them. It's just Yuri having dinner, and Katsudon eating whatever he felt he could get away with before he has his dinner, and if he keeps quiet any longer without cramming the whole bowl of noodles down his throat in one fell swoop, it's going to start to feel weird. Weirder.

'Lilia choreographed my exhibition skate,' is what comes out of his mouth, once he's finished chewing his next carefully managed bite, complete with a bonus soybean that gets stuck to one of the noodles. Which, yes, duh, of course she would've, why the fuck had he started off like that? 'In case you were wondering, from earlier,' he adds, trying to power through it. 'It went okay, I guess -- I wasn't a hundred percent feeling it at the time.' His shoulders twitch a shrug. 'Could've been better.'

No layer of freshly frozen ice could be thinner, or more transparent. It wasn't the best I could do. Don't think for a second you've seen the best I can do.

Silence is rarely settled. Outside of it is the pressure to somehow find the right words to say, the right order to string them in, how to even properly express himself, without falling on his face. Inside of it, at least when there are other people around, it's a presence that grows and fills, nagging at him to say something, do something, and even when do doesn't, or doesn't have to, it gives his mind, like gears the chance to start spinning faster about everything unsaid, by himself and anyone near him.

There are peaceful silences. Most of them are fully exhausted. Half-asleep while talking after practice, or trying to melt into a puddle and merge into being one with the hot water of the onsen. In his room, alone, at the end of the night, and sometimes with Victor. Rare end of day, and end of trip, words worn thin moments. Seldom seconds when he doesn't need to worry -- or more doesn't need to worry quite yet, or his mind is too tired to rouse the energy to worry properly.

Which isn't here really. There's a tension in his shoulders, even as he eats. Not looking at other people. Not quite looking over or not looking over at Yurio, while putting together another bite between himself and his real hunger. Still on an edge, of the stool and whatever all is happening right now. Already at attention, triggered to the noise of a single word in that voice, when Yurio speaks again. That sharper defensiveness in his words again stringing on his own line of tension, even while it's almost relieving more expected.

About Lilia (all dark pinched hair, hard eyes in his memory, and crisp sharp Russian), and how she'd choreographed everything for Yurio this season. Yuri knew. But more, he knew because he'd known from Yuu-san months and months ago. Not from Yurio, and so he listens, without pointing that out. Not certain if it was known, or if it would maybe make Yurio mad, and then get him mad at Yuu-san, too. It was given to him now, though, by Yurio, and skipping the other he could just comment on that. Right?

"It was good," Yuri said, soft and maybe a little too fast, in the spiral of which words from which thoughts, and the way it brought everything back that weekend because everything kept doing it. Making the noddles in his stomach slither. Which is, perhaps, why he adds a second later: "Even better than in Canada."

There's no missing the moment when Yuri's eyes widen, the tips of his chopsticks hovering over his bowl as the compliment rolls over and sinks in.

Of course they all keep track of each other's performances. It's a key part of the training regimen, to study a competitor's style and technique, compare new programs to old ones, gauge strengths and identify weaknesses, acquire every scrap of knowledge you can get. Even a dinosaur like Yakov was, in Yuri's reluctant opinion, halfway decent at working with livestreams and internet uploads, the obvious successor of the bulky VHS tapes stored in boxes at the rink, crammed with fuzzy videos labelled by competition and year. But for all that he still can't entirely think of Skate Canada without a pang of disappointment over his second-place finish, that discontent is immediately engulfed in something that makes his chest tighten in an entirely different way, a slower and stronger squeeze than the brief constriction that he's been pushing to one side for most of his senior debut season.

He hadn't been able to ask Viktor about it, that time before Rostelecom. But now he knows -- he knows that Katsudon, at least had watched his performance there. And for some inexplicable reason, he doesn't know what to do with that knowledge. He has to swallow hard, first, and look down at his bowl, and mutter a barely intelligible yeah, sure to the food within it. The chopsticks stay where they are, for lack of any better reason to move them. But when he looks up again, the surprise has given way to his usual sharp intensity, though it's devoid of his usual hostility.

'When I told Dedka that I gave you the rest of the pirozh-katsu, he asked me -- ' No, that's not how to start it, because the end of that sentence -- he asked me what kind of person you were -- was something that Yuri hadn't been able to answer without a long-winded rant that doesn't belong here in this place. Not while they're sitting with chopsticks and noodles, like this is an actual thing that is happening right this second. 'He asked me about your skating. So I showed him a video of your free skate, from Shanghai...so he'd know what to look for when he watches the Final.'

Yuri had, of course, cut the video short as soon as the performance ended, before the cameras picked up the horrifying sight of Viktor flinging himself on Katsudon and nearly cracking both of their skulls open on the ice. His grandfather didn't need to see that ridiculous stunt.

(And Nikolai Plisetsky, who knows his grandson better than anyone else, had picked up on much more from Yuri's commentary and occasional silences during the video than he would ever think to let on.)

Yurio pauses, stock still entirely, posture and chopsticks both, at his words and Yuri's shoulders tighten. His chest tightens. His back. (Sore muscles complaining at the abuse of even stricken posture in a reaction that has no control and wouldn't let go if he ordered it.)

He braces for what is likely to be a tirade about not needing Yuri's approval or his pity, or his mealy-mouthed unthought out words, or, maybe, just his opinions from beginning to end, no matter what they happen to be. But the words don't come, and that. That is worse. Because he can only imagine that whatever it is that's coming needs time to ramp up hard and high enough.

The first response is not far off, is it? Quiet, dismissive, sounding about as unneeded as Yuri thought it.
Which makes Yurio looking up to say the words that follow a few seconds later unexpected a bit.

He's not surprised he's been mentioned -- because of the recipe, because of his mother -- but it still sets off a nervous net of bees in his stomach, just as dangerous with their vibrating too tight, too fast wings against the edges, as biting stingers about the idea of Yurio explaining his skating. Yurio who had to show him one of his jumps. Yurio who fumed at them cheering him on. Who yelled at him at the end of tea, and kicked him into the snow, even if he was laughing before he left, giving him instructions for the cab.

What did he tell his grandfather? Did he? Or was it really only an inquiry since Yuri must have been a competitor?
How terrible could it have been in Yurio's own opinions of Yuri's skating, from this year? And two years ago?
He's glad there isn't any food in his mouth. He's not sure he could swallow even air at this second.

"Oh," is quiet, is late, is absolutely worthless expelled sound in his own mouth. Worse than the last words, against those stingers in his guts. He doesn't want to imagine a millionth-and-one person watching the last two days of his very last year. Judging. Hoping, with everyone else, that he fails. (Because that was expected loyalty, too, wasn't it? He'd want his grandson to win, which meant hoping everyone else didn't.)

Edited 2017-10-28 16:01 (UTC)

It's a strange sort of oh that Katsudon makes, after a pause that makes Yuri wonder if somehow the translation hadn't quite allowed the message to go through. Because what could be more straightforward than that? Even Katsudon would have to admit that his Rostelecom free skate hadn't been great, in spite of how anyone with a pair of eyes in their head could see that it should have been something more than it had been. You can't count on him to choke there like he did here, Yakov had said, and Yakov would be one to know, wouldn't he? So why wouldn't Yuri have shown his grandfather that free skate from Shanghai -- the one he'd watched in the cafe, a ferocious hunger gnawing at him from the inside out while his borscht sat untouched in front of him -- so he could know exactly what Yuri had to beat in Barcelona?

But that's not the end of it, not really. 'He said I should wish you good luck from him, if I saw you before then.' A slight huff through his nose, like a line drawn under that statement, and he picks at the noodles without trying to lift them fully out of the bowl. 'I know he didn't mean that I'd see you here, but...whatever, that's what he said to me. So now you know.'

It's not really even a begrudging sort of good luck, as Yuri sees it. You can wish someone luck, even hope that they're lucky, and still not want them to win. But his grandfather's not the sort who just says that sort of thing without meaning it. Because it's a reminder to Yuri as well, that fortune often smiles brightest on those who are willing to do what it takes to succeed.

Good luck and do your best: two sides of the same coin.

It's still hard to picture Yuri having a guardian figure. They all have them, but not everyone's parents or family come to competitions. The cost of flying, feeding, and putting into a hotel one skater, their coach, and all of their gear was a high enough cost already, before you added in extra flights, rooms, and food, but it was even harder to imagine with Yurip. Always set apart, even so young, and never seen with more than Yakov and Lilia.

Further back than even that, the first time Yurio had made a dent into this year, was defying Yakov entirely to go to Japan. It's hard to imagine someone who caused this kind of reluctant deference. The way it looked and felt entirely different than the trained way he referred to Lilia, or her training. It was hard to picture what kind of person Yurio went home with, and who managed to handle all of the loud, swearing, hungry, brilliant on the ice, sometimes violent bundle of him at home in Moscow.

What kind of person was his Grandfather? Was he just like Yurio?

Someone who was asking about him, had watched him ... and sent him a casual Good Luck (that couldn't much truly be meant, could it, for what they all wanted)? There's a small kind of nod, looking somewhere between his bowl, and the bar, and sort of to the side around, more than at, Yurio. "Yeah. That makes sense."

He got that. No one planned for the bar. This impossible place. That didn't stop existing even for logic. Most everyone knew nothing of it. He'd had to wit until after dinner to even tell Victor about, given his own family didn't know about it, and the last thing he needed was them thinking, even more, might be wrong with his head. "I guess ..." He was still searching for something that matched. It felt the way trying to figure out words for the press did.

Too much light. Too many eyes. No answers. " ... tell him I said thank you, whenever it seems best?"
He could do polite. Or at least attempt, before another question strings along. "Will he come to Barcelona?"

Even if what's really poised on the edge of the cliff face is that question twisted, Did he make it to the Gala in Moscow?

Yuri shakes his head. 'He doesn't have a passport,' he says. 'Not the kind we need to travel abroad, that is. And it costs a lot to travel, anyway, with the visas and the tickets and everything.' Especially when the state pension buys less and less every year, and the bills are always higher in the winter, when the skating season really hits its stride. And even if the skating federation had been willing to foot the bill, how could he leave his grandfather alone, with his bad back and his poor English, in a strange city for hours on end? 'Even for our Nationals, whether they're in Saransk or Sochi or wherever, I wouldn't expect him to try to come for them. That was why Rostelecom....'

The thought slows to a stop, landing with the equivalent of a soft thud between them. Katsudon knows this already. Some of it. Enough of it. There's no point in rehashing all the familiar reasons why the cheers that skaters tend to care about most have so often been silent ones. Besides, one of these days he'll have made enough of a name for himself that the money won't even be a factor anymore if he wants to pay for that extra hotel room in Saransk or Sochi. Buy the plane tickets. Cover the meals. Maybe even hire a car service so his grandfather can relax comfortably at the hotel for as long as he wants until the skating starts.

It'll happen, because he'll make it happen.

'Anyway, whatever, it's fine.' It isn't fine, of course, but it is what it is. 'I'll mention it to him.' He's got his next bite of noodles all geared up and ready to consume, but pauses before he can lift them from the bowl. 'Are your parents coming?'

(You know, if Katsudon had had someone else there in Moscow, his unhelpful brain cheerfully informs him, with uncharacteristic logic, he wouldn't have needed you to drag him to this place at all.)

"No, they don't really--" Except it cloys hard and fast, too thick in his mouth, before he can blurt out something shamefully along the lines of understand skating. Or maybe it would have been come to my competitions. Either way it feels wrong. Dishonorably low. Like a complaint against them, or some part of their actions.

It might be true. That they didn't know, that they didn't come -- hadn't come to the Regional Championships in Japan only two months back, even when Minako and Takeshi had -- but they had never balked at a single bill since before he could remember, however far back it went to ballet lessons starting and Minako directing him into skating, too.

"Mari and Minako are coming, but Yu-topia can't lose everyone either."
Which was true, even as an evasive sideways excuse band-aided roughly into what he'd been about to say only seconds earlier.

It might have been just short of two decades he'd been skating, and they did understand that Minako championed him as good, good enough to skate, to compete, to need to go to America, to another, more famous, more knowledgeable coach, and that it was worth celebrating when he moved to Seniors, when he was named Japan's Ace, when he went to the Grand Prix for his first time, and made it to the GPF in his first year in the Prix, and even when he made it, again, only a few days ago ...

But ...

... they didn't really understand skating itself, even after all of that nearly two decades. Just that is was his. Which had never stopped their support one bit, or the celebratory steps as they happened ... but it left a space there, too. One that felt disingenuous to put into words, after all of these years and all of their absolutely unwavering support in their own ways and especially all of the costs, but one that nonetheless never stopped feeling a little empty, a little distant, a little ... apart from them, as well.

'I mean, I figured that was how it was,' Yuri says quickly, once it's clear that that's all Katsudon has to say about his parents. 'It's a business, and there's customers -- they can't just close whenever they want to.'

All the same, it does make him wonder a little. He couldn't be sure, what with the language barrier and all, but in that short time he'd been in Hasetsu he hadn't quite been able to shake the feeling that Katsudon's parents really didn't...get what was going on the whole time. Who Viktor was. Why he was there. Why Yuri was there. Everything that was at stake. His grandfather might not know a toe loop from a salchow on sight, but he certainly would've understood the gravity of the situation at the time. And yet he'd never seen the Katsukis look anything other than cheerful about it, and it hadn't felt awkward or fake -- somehow they'd seemed more pleased than anything else to have so many people in their house all at once.

(Damn it. That thank-you note gets written tonight.)

'But if you've got people coming, your sister and your teacher...that's good, at least.' It's a lame way to finish the thought, and the only way to make it feel less like he'd run out of words to say himself is to lift the noodles and shove them into his mouth. Somehow it's easier to use them when he isn't thinking too much about what he's doing.

It's not really even just that. That is what comes up first; raises to close its fingers around his throat and those few words. The next part just fists tighter as Yurio mentions money, again, and maybe he missed it. He was there during the point when Victor had only been there a short time, and then the competition was happening.

Maybe he missed how much Hasetsu was not a busy place. Not nearly so busy as any of the cities they gone to for the Grand Prix. Maybe it wasn't even an obvious jump from that one, to the fact even if Victor did not have people swarming the city anymore, paying for Victor's coaching was likely going to kill so much more than any other coach Yuri'd had in his, and his parent's, life.

If he wanted to go on never breathing, again, he could pretend that number wasn't probably the sum of every one before it. As though his parents could even consider that number, and then traveling to Europe, on top of being the only Onsen not closed in a place where less and less people came every year. It only pulls tighter, thinking of the money he won in Shanghai, or Russia, where he collected maybe enough to cover plane tickets. Whether 1st in Barcelona would ever even help out in that total.

"Yeah." Yuri's throat stayed dry with the renewed knowledge he still didn't know what the bill for this year would look like. It's an absent impossible thing to try to even envision. What does a year in the life of Victor, as not Just-Victor, but a Five-Time Champion, Olympian even, rack up to looking like on a check? Would he go blind before he saw the end of the zeroes?

[ Or before money happened,
when the end came first. ]

And now Katsudon's gone quiet again. Is it always this exhausting to try to have actual conversations with people? No wonder it's easier to just kick someone through a door.

Yuri's hand is starting to shake a little from the tension of holding the sticks, so he sets them down on the chopstick rest (which is super-convenient; he'll have to see if these things exist outside the bar, too) and flexes the ache away, splaying the upper part of his fingers against the edge of the tabletop and pressing down and into the empty space above his knees to bend his hand back, stretching out the little cluster of tendons and ligaments right below the bony part of his wrist. It's hard to build a space to think when there's too much on your mind, and stretching has always been his go-to response when his body is left at loose ends.

Of course they're both still dancing around the real subject. The thing that binds them most specifically, here and elsewhere. And if he doesn't want to lose this particular dance-off, he's going to have to act rather than react.

'So, uh,' he begins, which is not nearly as coherent as he wants to be, but fuck it, this isn't easy. 'So is everything...okay with Viktor's dog now?'

It seems best to start with a question for which he already knows (or can guess) the correct answer. Katsudon probably would have said something sooner, otherwise.

Yuri blinks and looks over, startled from the phantom army of drowning dollar signs to one of the most recent memory of Maccachin, bouncing and playing with them as they got in the doors of the house, returning from the Ice Palace and trying to help divest them of snowy coats and boots, less than an hour ago. Looking for all the world like them being home was the best gift ever given to anyone in the world. It was so much simpler, being a dog, wasn't it?

"Good. Maccachin is good. Everything turned out okay in the end."

Maccachin might still be outside the bathroom door, or have gone down, when nosing at the door did not produce Yuri from the shower, to find where Victor had ended up, or one of Yuri's family members. Minako, if she'd turned up after some time at her bar, the way she did often lately, too. Another reminder of how much closer it was all getting.

"There's more care placed on making sure food stay out of reach, but back to normal." Yuri can say with a blissfully easier, endless relief and gladness. "Still getting into everything, and chasing everyone everywhere. Shaking snow on anything that could be covered in snow."

Katsudon always did seem a lot more comfortable around Viktor's dog than around Viktor himself. Or at least he had been, when Yuri had been there. Whatever tangled-up logic (or lack of it) had led to Viktor flying back to Japan that night, it was obvious that it wouldn't have happened without Katsudon agreeing to it. Encouraging it, even.

It doesn't change the thought that's seeded too deeply inside of him to root out: It still wasn't right.
Or the one entwined with it, like a parasitic plant: He left you there alone, and I couldn't --

'Mm,' is what he says, the bare minimum of agreement. He's stopped stretching out his hand, and lets it rest on the tabletop for the moment, flat and unmoving. He's not going to back down from this now, not with Barcelona looming over them...but he's not sure whether it'll be worse if the next answer is yes or no.

Then, quietly, without looking over:

'Did you tell him? About that night?'

Yurio's noise is not quite to his common begrudged but it's closer to noncommittal after the first question. He'd answered it in the snow that night, after talking to Victor, but there was a difference in more than hearing he was fine. It's not that he didn't believe Victor's words, but it wasn't the same as the feeling that released, even more, bands from his chest as Maccachin went snuffling and shuffling in the backseat of the car, or following him around the house.

The reality of it being okay against the phantom unseen fear, that took Victor back home,
which made it real, even if not something he had memory proof, too, it had mattered, too:
the seeing of it, the seeing of that fact Maccachin was okay.

That every day since getting home had seemed normal.

Again, his through process had wandered of entirely from the next unjointed question to come out of Yurio's mouth, and Yuri couldn't entire tell if he was stricken into an awkward stillness or if he was moving through that syrupy sticky awkward uncertainty. He's almost startled entire from the one to the other that nani? nearly falls out first, but it doesn't. Sticks, stuck in his throat.

"Some." It wasn't as though Victor lacked for a world of questions about anything and everything he could ask Yuri when Yuri was in his presence and never out of it for days that turned into weeks that turned into months without end, and yet the questions never really did either. It hadn't seem like suddenly having to leave had either.

If it had waited past that first night, and exhausted relief, and his convincing Yuri to stay with him. (A few times.)

Apparently, there is an even worse answer than yes or no, and it's some.

Yes means there's nothing to hide. No means that he can keep his own mouth shut. Some...but really, should he have expected more than that? Of course Katsudon would want to forget all about that night, to not talk about it unless there was no way to avoid it. It's not as if Yuri had told his grandfather about it, not even by cutting out all references to being anywhere other than Moscow. But Viktor's the only other one who knows about this place, has been here before -- and might have understood, at least a little bit, why Yuri had done what he did.

(And why it hadn't worked, in the end.)

'Some,' Yuri repeats, on an exhale of breath. He flexes his right hand one last time, tightens it into a fist -- feeling and hearing several of his knuckles crack from the effort -- and then reaches for the chopsticks again. 'Fine, whatever,' he says, in the same quiet voice. 'He's your coach -- you can tell him whatever the hell you want. Just so long as I know that I don't have to play dumb about it.'

He takes his time fitting the chopsticks back into his hand. He's managed to eat a little less than half of the bowl of noodles so far, and he still has a ways to go.

Yuri's not certain before he said the word if or what the right answer is, but as soon as Yurio repeats it, fisting his chopsticks into an awkward angle with a loud series of bone-rubbing-bone cracks, and himself back into his bowl, Yuri's certain, by uncertain, whatever the right answer was, it wasn't what he'd chosen to say, or do. Again.

He couldn't exactly tell Victor nothing, if that was what Yurio had wanted. That would have been impossible. Not when he was with the Russian's the whole of the hours he was gone, and after what he brought home from Yurio. Which brings a whole other point to bear, when Yurio is already glowering and devouring his food like Yuri misstepped entirely.

Not certain why Yurio would feel the need to play dumb with Victor to begin with.
They were, antagonism included and excluded, still rink mates.
It was still back to Russia and them Victor would go at the end.

But.

If the whole point is not needing to pretend. If Yuri was standing, he might have shuffled his feet, as it is he tries not to shift awkwardly and hopes the reaction to saying this part isn't even worse. "I saved the last Pirozh-katsu for him, too."

It's a good thing that Yuri still feels like he needs to use his left hand to secure his right hand's grip on the chopsticks...if only because it ensures that he doesn't drop them this time when Katsudon adds this new bit of information, a revelation that grates across Yuri's nerves like a bad stop on worn-down blades.

His hand does tighten, almost into a fist, but with his left hand to cover it the chopsticks don't move very far.

'Why would -- ' he begins, then stops. No, wrong question. After all, he'd said that the pirozh-katsu were a gift. A fucking birthday present, for whatever that had meant at the time. Katsudon could do whatever he wanted with them. And if for whatever bizarre reason he'd ended up saving one of them to haul it over a dozen time zones to give it to his asshat of a coach, it's not Yuri's place to say anything about it. It would be nekulturny, to give a gift and then make demands of the recipient. Except....

'Did he eat it?' is what he finally manages to ask, tight and clipped and tense. Still, he can be calm. He can be reasonable. He's not going to trap Katsudon into telling an outright lie by asking a more loaded, specific question -- did he like it? -- because even Viktor Nikiforov would probably find it a challenge to slap on a plastic smile while eating a single cold, stale pirozhok out of a greasy paper bag. Given by Yuri Plisetsky, no less. Why would he want to choke that down, even to please Katsudon?

(But if it had gone to waste --)

"Of course!" Yuri's immediate words are neatly amused with sharable triumph.

He can't imagine Victor doing much else with food, with his nye on constant obsession with it, and watching Victor's dubious confusion turned surprise had given Yuri a window in what his own reaction in the snow that night must have been like. That complete misunderstanding, laden with slightly suspicious questions, that seemed not quite reachable again once on the other side of the realization.

It might have gotten a little forgotten among things after that, both involving the Gala watching itself and things that were decidedly not the Gala watching. But, it's easy to stay on track, even if he feels a little warm around his collar, and just roll onward. "He was surprised, and it wasn't hot anymore by that the time, but he liked it."

It's not as if Katsudon's a particularly good liar, when all is said and done. His stupidly pleased face and oddly delighted voice make Yuri really want to believe him -- with a need so strong that it's almost unnerving, because why should he actually care so much about any of this? And yet somehow, even what seems like an honest answer makes Yuri feel as if he really had been eating ground glass, alongside the rice and noodles and vegetables he's been swallowing all evening. An ache deep in his gut, a vaguely sick feeling, a soreness in the back of his throat. It feels wrong, where it should feel right.

He hadn't been there. Hadn't seen Viktor's expression, or watched him eat it.

Is a gift good enough, if it's second-hand? Is it worth it, if you can't know for certain how it was received?

All of this lies behind and beneath the pinched caution of Yuri's expression, and the slightly too long pause before he replies. 'Okay,' he says at last, which feels like the lamest thing ever, but it's all he can manage to start with. A small nod, then he swallows, and nods again more firmly. 'If you say so. If you saved it for him, and he ate it...that's what counts.'

This whole interlude is made of Yuri being only ever half certain of what Yurio's reaction might be, and only ever maybe close to half right in those guesses. Never quite expecting when he'll snap, or tense, or look like he's about to kick Yuri off the stool. Never in a million years would he have guessed the quiet request to stay, or the intense focus on being taught how to hold chopsticks. Or this, either.

The quiet way Yurio seems to hold still. Like he's not so much reacting to what Yuri was telling him about Victor enjoying his birthday surprise, as he was taking it in and trying to process it. Maybe like it's another language or something he wasn't sure he wanted to know. Or maybe something Yuri shouldn't have shared. Given the first bark of surprise only seconds before his own last words.

Instead, it's just that small single word first. Dug from somewhere deeper in than it sounds like should be able to be held in two syllables. Small and ... uncertain? Is that it? Is it that Yurio seems uncertain if that's the right word. Or reaction. Or how to. Yuri looked at the boy, quietly, as he took another bit of his food and Yurio seemed to still be reaching for just what to say or how. Which gave Yuri the oddest inspiration, words coming out before fully thought.

"I can tell him you said hello." There's the smallest uncertainty wavered there.
Not that Yurio had offered, or had said. But. "If you want."

With that offer on the table, it's more obvious than ever that Viktor hadn't told Katsudon about his last run-in with Yuri, either here or in Moscow. The thought lies sour on the surface of his stomach like a layer of curdled cream, but at the same time it makes him that much more determined to swallow that bitterness down so that not a hint of nauseated sweat will show on his upper lip. It's not like he's truly sorry for what he said the last time he ran into Viktor. Maybe he could have dialed it back a little at the Star Hotel -- he'd been an idiot to give the reporters the satisfaction of seeing him fly off the handle at another skater's coach, and at Viktor Nikiforov no less -- but fuck it all, what was he supposed to do? Pretend to be all buddy-buddy with his former rinkmate, as if everything was nothing but smiles and roses for Team Russia? Or play the starstruck little kid who should've been thrilled for whatever scraps of attention might be flung his way from his country's darling prince?

It had mostly blown up in his own face, anyway, in his shambles of a short program. And with everything that had come after that...but then again, maybe he's looking at it all wrong. Maybe this is a chance for him to scrape his ass off the ice and get up, move forward, in a way that he hadn't been able to do in Moscow. If he's going to seize this chance, it's not going to be the petulant demand of a jilted former rinkmate, or the snide viciousness of a figurist-uzurpator. He has two Grand Prix silver medals to his name and a Challenger gold within his reach; he can stand his ground and declare his intent.

'Yeah, I guess,' he says, somewhat muted, as if he's giving himself permission to agree with the idea. At the next breath, though, all the hesitation vanishes from his face, a sudden fierce resolve rising to take its place. 'But you can also tell him this: I'm going to hand you your ass in Barcelona, so you'd both better come at me with everything you've got.' It's cold but not hostile, sharp but not angry -- and then there's a pause before he strikes the landing. 'No games. No excuses. Just us. Got it?'

He won't look away or back down. He needs this here, now, in this impossible place.

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."

Yuri blinks a little when Katsudon agrees, and then stands up, but he isn't really surprised. Even if neither of them have properly looked back at the door since they tried it last -- since Yuri had asked for help, so I can get it right, because that's what he'd done, and no twitchy scrabbling with his pride can contradict that fact -- it's long past the time that Katsudon probably wanted to stay in the first place. Of course he'd be leaving --

-- but then, right in front of him, there's an outstretched hand.

(we won't take it easy on you)
(it won't be like last time)

And suddenly Barcelona's too far away, can't come fast enough, because if he had his skates here and now he'd be ready to take on the world.

When he gets to his feet, he's not exactly smiling. It's too serious a moment to smile about. But something's glittering right below the surface of his expression -- a little like the unspoken promise of a freshly polished rink, or the glint off a blade that's just been sharpened to the perfect angle. A challenge. An opportunity.

A chance to shine so brightly that no one -- no one -- will be able to look away.

'Damned right it won't be.' Even though his hand still aches from his practice with the chopsticks, Yuri's grip in response is firm and unyielding, just as he'd always been taught. 'You haven't seen anything yet.'

Don't disappoint me, Katsudon. This time, I'll beat you for real.

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Milliways: Chopsticks Instructional Hour [1.09-1.10]

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