He shouldn't have stopped. He should have kept going. He doesn't want to have to deal with anything remotely related to the press or His Imperial Majesty right now, he'll be facing more than enough of that all weekend...and yet he can't help watching the effortless ease with which Viktor is handling the reporters, to the point where they're practically eating out of his hand.
It's not like listening to Yakov or Lilia respond to questions. Every word that comes out of their mouths is perfectly calibrated to have the correct effect, lessons learned in a time when saying the wrong thing to the press -- especially to the foreign press -- could end much more than their own careers. (Which is not to say that the local crews come off any better with them; Yakov will still sometimes mutter things about TASS sports reporters that Yuri doesn't fully understand, and frankly doesn't want to understand.) Mila and Georgi, with their bright cheerfulness and serious intensity, are less inclined to treat each reporter's question as a potential interrogation, but they still have their rehearsed answers even if they're delivered with relative ease. Whereas Viktor...is Viktor, and that really explains most of it, doesn't it?
It also explains why Yuri not infrequently wants to set him on fire these days.
Still, Viktor's noncommittal answer about waiting until after the Grand Prix Final is pat enough, a perfect soundbite. And even though it makes sense that he'd follow it up with a plug encouraging everyone to watch his own skater, the bloom of black jealousy that unfurls in Yuri's stomach has him gritting his teeth, remembering the feeling of the plastic spoon snapping in his hand back in the Sports Champions Club cafe. I'm in it, too!
But it's the follow-up question, by a reporter with more cunning than Yuri has come to expect from the usual crowd, that really makes him frown. Viktor skating against Katsudon? What the hell kind of question is that?
(And yet it tugs on his memory, a prickle of discomfort: 'I wanted to skate against him, not against you.')
no subject
It's not like listening to Yakov or Lilia respond to questions. Every word that comes out of their mouths is perfectly calibrated to have the correct effect, lessons learned in a time when saying the wrong thing to the press -- especially to the foreign press -- could end much more than their own careers. (Which is not to say that the local crews come off any better with them; Yakov will still sometimes mutter things about TASS sports reporters that Yuri doesn't fully understand, and frankly doesn't want to understand.) Mila and Georgi, with their bright cheerfulness and serious intensity, are less inclined to treat each reporter's question as a potential interrogation, but they still have their rehearsed answers even if they're delivered with relative ease. Whereas Viktor...is Viktor, and that really explains most of it, doesn't it?
It also explains why Yuri not infrequently wants to set him on fire these days.
Still, Viktor's noncommittal answer about waiting until after the Grand Prix Final is pat enough, a perfect soundbite. And even though it makes sense that he'd follow it up with a plug encouraging everyone to watch his own skater, the bloom of black jealousy that unfurls in Yuri's stomach has him gritting his teeth, remembering the feeling of the plastic spoon snapping in his hand back in the Sports Champions Club cafe. I'm in it, too!
But it's the follow-up question, by a reporter with more cunning than Yuri has come to expect from the usual crowd, that really makes him frown. Viktor skating against Katsudon? What the hell kind of question is that?
(And yet it tugs on his memory, a prickle of discomfort: 'I wanted to skate against him, not against you.')