He's so focused on getting everything together, on checking off all the items on his increasingly short list of things he needs to do, that he hadn't even noticed Yuri wasn't in the main part of the room with him until the small toiletry case gets set on the corner of the bed, and he hears Yuri's voice for the first time in what feels like hours. Making him look up, from where he's setting his unworn gray suit on top of the pile of clothing, to see Yuri already turning away, scanning the room, and ––
(He can't remember the last time he hugged Yuri. Touched him, aside from taking his hand in the cab. Was it back in the kiss and cry, that felt like years ago?
When was the last time he kissed Yuri? Was it really last night?)
–– overwhelmed by a flood of gratitude mixed with guilt, he reaches for Yuri, not the case Yuri had just set down for him.
It's nothing like hugging Yakov, except for this feeling of helplessness that's in every cell of his body: impossible to go, impossible to stay. Impossible to leave Yuri, except for how easy it is in every way but the most important one. He can buy a plane ticket, sign a piece of paper, call a cab, but none of it will stop this thing inside him that's tearing and tearing and tearing.
He isn't being a very good coach right now, but maybe Yuri won't mind if, for tonight, he's just Victor again, the way Yuri asked him to be on the beach, who Yuri could trust and befriend and, yes. Even love.
He doesn't know what to say. All of his words in moments like these have been to support and help and inspire Yuri, and now that he's the one breaking, he finds he has nothing, no words of wisdom, no advice. All the firm foundation under his feet is slipping away. (Maybe he really couldn't ever do this.)
Finding, in the end, only the same thing he'd said to Yakov, with the same apology beneath it: not in Russian this time, or even English, but scraped out of the few words of Japanese he knows. "Thank you."
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(He can't remember the last time he hugged Yuri. Touched him, aside from taking his hand in the cab. Was it back in the kiss and cry, that felt like years ago?
When was the last time he kissed Yuri? Was it really last night?)
–– overwhelmed by a flood of gratitude mixed with guilt, he reaches for Yuri, not the case Yuri had just set down for him.
It's nothing like hugging Yakov, except for this feeling of helplessness that's in every cell of his body: impossible to go, impossible to stay. Impossible to leave Yuri, except for how easy it is in every way but the most important one. He can buy a plane ticket, sign a piece of paper, call a cab, but none of it will stop this thing inside him that's tearing and tearing and tearing.
He isn't being a very good coach right now, but maybe Yuri won't mind if, for tonight, he's just Victor again, the way Yuri asked him to be on the beach, who Yuri could trust and befriend and, yes. Even love.
He doesn't know what to say. All of his words in moments like these have been to support and help and inspire Yuri, and now that he's the one breaking, he finds he has nothing, no words of wisdom, no advice. All the firm foundation under his feet is slipping away. (Maybe he really couldn't ever do this.)
Finding, in the end, only the same thing he'd said to Yakov, with the same apology beneath it: not in Russian this time, or even English, but scraped out of the few words of Japanese he knows. "Thank you."
It isn't actually easier to say than goodbye.