yuri_plisetsky | Moscow: Rostelecom Cup, GPF Qualifer Short Program (1.08)

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Moscow: Rostelecom Cup, GPF Qualifer Short Program (1.08)

The Rostelecom Cup is the last event of the 2014 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating series. In the men's figure skating division, two competitors -- Otabek Altin of Kazakhstan and Christophe Giacometti of Switzerland -- have secured their places in the Grand Prix Final. The remaining four slots will be determined by the final standings of the six skaters competing in Moscow, based on their scores in previous ISU Grand Prix events:

- Michele Crispino (Italy): 3rd Place, NHK Trophy
- Yuuri Katsuki (Japan): 2nd Place, Cup of China
- Seung-gil Lee (Republic of Korea): 2nd Place, NHK Trophy
- Jean-Jacques Leroy (Canada): 1st Place, Skate Canada
- Emil Nekola (Czech Republic): 3rd Place, Skate Canada
- Yuri Plisetsky (Russian Federation): 2nd Place, Skate Canada

As the competitors arrive in Moscow, two particular skaters are the focus of much press and fan speculation. Fifteen-year-old Yuri Plisetsky is making his senior debut in his first major competitive event in his home country, after a strong showing at Skate Canada in Kelowna, British Columbia. At the same time, Japanese skater Yuuri Katsuki has arrived in Moscow with his coach, the long-reigning world champion Viktor Nikiforov, and based on his remarkable performance at the Cup of China in Shanghai...

...but all of this is only to be expected from the official press coverage.

On the ground, the reality is a little more complicated than that.

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Sheremetyevo is always a madhouse.

When it was first built in Soviet times, it was effectively two airports side by side: Sheremetyevo-1 mostly served domestic flights, while the larger and newer Sheremetyevo-2 catered to (and monitored the foreigners travelling on) international airlines. Years of ongoing construction have mashed the two main terminals together, and passengers coming off the regional Aeroflot shuttles from places like St. Petersburg now have to fight their way through the crowds of confused, jet-lagged foreigners and returning citizens exiting the immigration and customs halls. So as Yakov Feltsman, Lilia Baranovskaya, and their skaters join the flow of traffic with their luggage, and the crowd seems to thicken and slow down as they approach the exits, nothing appears out of the ordinary -- until women's voices start to ring out in front of and around them, first in surprise and then in delight:

'Hey, look!'
'It's Yakov's team!'

'Ee, it's Yuri! Yuratchka, over here!'

At the sound of his name, Yuri's head jerks up, and he blenches at the sight of a slew of excited girls and young women, some of whom are wearing headbands with cat ears on them, waving all sorts of flags and banners with his name and picture and any number of cheerful and encouraging slogans on them. They're happy, they're cheering for him, they're clearly overjoyed to be catching a glimpse of him on his arrival in Moscow for the Rostelecom Cup. So of course the first thought in his mind is a definitely ungrateful one: Oh, fuck, why now?

Whatever. He knows Sheremetyevo, and this isn't the only exit by a long shot. So he hikes his backpack higher on his shoulders and grabs the edge of his hood with one hand, ready to make a break for it. 'Mila, watch my luggage,' he says in a low voice -- and then darts back into the main terminal without waiting for her to respond.

Confused, Mila looks around, but Yuri is nowhere to be seen. And as their entire team knows, it's not a good idea for Yuri Plisetsky to be out of anyone's sight for too long. 'Coach Yakov,' she says, a little worriedly, 'Yuri's disappeared.'

Yakov and Lilia glance back, confirming her statement, but for once Yakov doesn't seem inclined to keep his younger skater on a leash. 'Ah,' he says knowingly. 'His family in Moscow is coming to pick him up.'

They aren't the first to arrive, but they're nowhere near the last, either, and that's by design. Jetlag hits Yuri like a train and Victor wants to make sure they have plenty of time to settle in, time for Yuri to nap if he needs to, or practice if he'd prefer to push himself until bed tonight, and it was a long flight from Shanghai. Too long: all he wants is a shower and some food, and then as large a coffee as he can find. They were both a little rumpled and tired coming off the plane –– although not tired enough he forgot they had to go through different gates, no matter what Yurio might have implied –– and it was a relief to get into the taxi and head towards the hotel, even it seems strange to be so exhausted just from sitting.

Except it wasn't really just from sitting, was it? It's from the people, too.

He's never minded being surrounded by people: fans, reporters, sponsors, fellow skaters, he enjoys them all. He's used to it, even being away in Japan for the last eight months. The experiences of almost two decades have made the relative quiet of Hasetsu the abnormal, not the usual. There was a strange sensation of homecoming not simply from being back in Russia, seeing the familiar Cyrillic letters on the signage, hearing the language spoken fluidly all around him, but the attention, too. Fans and well-wishers, wanting photographs or a greeting, many flying in for the same competition he's here for.

It's nice. But tiring.

And not nearly as fun for Yuri, who dislikes being in the spotlight nearly as much as Victor enjoys it, and that gives him an excuse to shuffle them out of the airport and into a waiting cab as soon as possible, before slumping back against the seat and smiling over at Yuri, wanting to reach and take his hand. "That could have been worse."

Better still is actually getting to the hotel, even if it's not the best possible choice. It's still a hotel, not a plane or a taxi, and he's grateful for it, and for the ease of checking in before the real rush of skaters and visitors floods the lobby.

But best will be actually getting to the room itself, and taking full advantage of a hotel shower, with all the accompanying hot water and pressure it can offer.

It's a week for nerves, and one with no room for breaks. Short, shot between action and exhaustion.

Giving up all of his daytime hours to running his programs again and again, back to back, until even Victor is certain he should take a breather, because most people like them, even the best of the best of them, wouldn't do even that much without between each one. To the harness and pushing himself hard to learn the quad flip landing, while, also, not injuring anything this close to Rostelcom. Giving up his nights two to tthe NHK Trophy, and two to the Trophée de France, following close, too close, just close enough, as Grand Prix Finalist slots begin to fill.

(And Victor.

Victor, too.
In a whole new way.
In every single one of them.)

The first real pause comes with travel, and as much as his body is desperate for it, it makes the rest of him more restless. The flight is long. It doesn't matter whether it would be shorter or longer from home, or from anywhere else. It makes him restless, fills him with the feeling of being trapped, when he should be up, running, doing something, anything, but there's nothing to be but still. Stay sitting. Wait.

Wait for the airplane to arrive. Wait for the airplane to takeoff. Wait for the airplane to touch down.

Wait to walk out into the world of Moscow. Russia. Land of the dozen or so half-phrases Victor has been helping him with over the last week. Weekend where he has two days left. Two. To prove he deserves to be sent to Barcelona. To compete against the other top five skaters in the world. (To be one of those top six.)

The airport on arrival is madness, and for the first time since getting up at something that shouldn't even be considered a relative of morning yet, and especially anytime in the last any number of hours, he wants to get back on the plane. Or be back in Pudong, where so many fewer people were actually left to watch them leave. Not no one. Just. Nothing like the crowds that greet them beyond baggage and held back by security to specific spaces. Pandemonium that drills into Yuri's head like actual nails, while Victor effortlessly waves and laughs.

Minako isn't there to make any comments (isn't going to be there at all, this time, for the first time [again]), but Yuri pastes an ungainly smile on his mouth. Already hearing in his head the message she might leave if he doesn't in some picture or video she finds. Still it's really nothing like ease either while he waits on Victor who is only too glad to have pictures taken, or to toss out amusing one-liners and his signature smile or wink.

(And how is that something that just coils too tight in the center of him?
When this is normal. Absolutely normal. It always was. Even a week ago.

Was.)

The taxi is a relief, if marginally, and he spends most of the ride staring out the window at a million things he can't read. Taking in the look of the buildings, the streets, and cars, and the gray, gray, gray sk ywith its matching thick, thick snow. Heavy and impending at him from above and below. Cold and white to cloud up his head. Victor says it isn't too bad, and Yuri just slides a look at him, having to turn his head to find him, and then almost back to the window. But he stops himself. "Yeah."

Though at this second he doesn't have an image from something he'd consider worse
(that isn't his favorite go-to, and that doesn't apply to airports so much as tomorrow on the ice).

Edited 2017-05-24 02:19 (UTC)

Thankfully, the hotel shuttles, taxi ranks, and passenger pick-up areas are a reasonable distance away from each other. And months of ballet training give Yuri an advantage in dodging lightly through the terminal's crowds, even with a full backpack bumping against him the whole time. Soon enough, he's outside in the grimy Moscow air, scanning the rows of slow-moving vehicles in the traffic lanes, slightly out of breath but with his heart pounding as if he'd been running sprints all morning.

Then, finally, his eye lands on a small, weather-beaten car that is as green from rust as it is from paint, and his heart gives an extra leap.

At almost the same time, the driver of the car -- a man perhaps a few years older and a few inches shorter than Yakov Feltsman, with a worn cloth cap and a thick, greying beard -- slowly gets out of it, and as he turns and catches sight of Yuri watching him a smile lights up his face. 'Oh, Yuri!' he calls out.

'Dedka!' And then Yuri Plisetsky, the fierce and driven Ice Tiger of Russia who will stop at nothing to be the best in the world, is running at full tilt to fling himself straight into the arms of his grandfather --

(crack!)

-- having momentarily forgotten that he isn't five years old anymore, and that it isn't a good idea to expect someone with back problems to catch you in mid-air as if the two of you spend hours every day working on lifts and throws.

Not, perhaps, the long-awaited reunion that either of them might have hoped for. For a moment, both Plisetskys are hunched over on the pavement in the middle of the road outside Sheremetyevo International Airport, as Nikolai tries to make the world stop spinning around him and his grandson flails anxiously beside him, stammering apologies as he pats and rubs ineffectually at the places he hopes he hasn't hurt too badly. But it isn't all that long before they manage to help each other into the car, and leave the airport behind them for the too-short drive to the competition hotel.

He's never liked Moscow much –– no one who considers themselves to be from St. Petersburg does. The two cities are as unlike each other in character and image as ... well, as him and Yurio. Moscow isn't as beautiful, it lacks the ocean setting and the calm cries of the gulls, and it isn't as refined or sophisticated as St. Petersburg ––

But it is closer to home than anywhere he's been in the last eight months, and that means something. It means he knows to wave off the cab driver when he tries to take their bags, and can converse easily with the concierge in the hotel, and the food on offer at the hotel restaurant is so familiar it almost aches just to see the names on the menu. All of it mixing with the weariness of travel and the simmering excitement about tomorrow, and it leaves him feeling wired and exhausted all at the same time. If it were just him, he'd go for a run, or to a rink for laps and jumps, and then find a local bar and wait for his friends to roll into town, but it isn't just him. It's him and Yuri in the elevator, on the way up to this newest hotel room (it feels somehow as if they've been in hotels forever), and that makes him smile over at his skater.

Maybe he could have been doing all those things. His own prep. Food and company. A night out enjoying the town and socializing.

This is still better.

Even when he sighs, and pushes his sunglasses up onto his head while he leans back against the elevator wall. "Oh, I could use a shower. It's nice to be off the plane, isn't it? We can take our time unpacking and getting something to eat."

The hotel is like the cab, is like the way he assumes a number of things here might be -- outside of the arena, where everything whille be clearly translated in a dozen languages at all times in different areas. He waits, and listen to Victor talk. Smooth Russian, and something light about it. It's not a light language. Russian. It's nothing like light.

He knows that even more the more he starts looking into it. Because of this weekend.

( ... because of other things.)

Which means it's not the Russian that is light. It's Victor. Light. Smiling. Even through the edges Yuri can see, too. Hanging on the way he moves, or the press of his mouth. It's still there. Through it. Like a light rippling through water, travelworn edges. While interacting with people and exchanging words Yuri gets by context, but not translation. Seeing Victor from the outside -- but not all at once. Seeing him here. In Russia. Talking the way he hasn't been able to for months maybe. Unfettered. His language. His world.

A juxtaposition of things, when Victor is standing in the elevator, leaning on the wall, travel clothes and dark sunglasses. Like a few minutes back was a track skipping, where this looks absolutely normal. Which maybe makes Yuri stare more. Even if it's not exactly head on, until Victor speaks again. Sighs first, and pushes his glasses up, tired familiar smile, fading from the center out, as Yuri nods.

"Anything has to be better than airplane food."

Victor had said honey cakes, Yuri hadn't forgotten. What he might want most.

(And the Red Square. The one Yuri has looked up since it was originally brought up, and had to be told the name again. With its hanging lights and massive glowing austere buildings, almost like American holiday decorations. That even on a screen still seemed so far away. Across the world, and across a divide of something so much greater than distance or time.

With The Rostelcom Cup between here and there, and the wholly realistic question of whether it would exist at all in two days, if Yuri didn't make it, couldn't make it, if Yuri had no reason to be here the last day and Victor would, instead, be figuring out what he needed to do now that he had no reason to return to Hasetsu.)

Yuri tried not to shift too much, fingers loose on the handle of his bag, swallowing and glancing toward the screen counting up the numbers to their floor. Pushing it back, taking a breath in. Something more. Something here, and now. "Do you want to order something while you shower? Or did you have somewhere in mind?"

This was his world, and it was Victor.

There was no doubt Victor could, without warning, whip out a plan detailed enough to make Yuri regret asking.

Edited 2017-05-24 03:28 (UTC)

The Moscow roads are as good as they always are, which is to say that they're awful, and his grandfather's car sounds like it continues to be held together out of sheer inertia; unlike the roads beneath them, falling apart would require too much effort on the car's part for it to be worthwhile. But Yuri can relax into every bit of this drive, from the tinny speakers playing a sprightly violin piece on Radio Orpheus to the fact that he has to move the passenger seat back a little bit to make more room for his legs -- he's grown since the last time he was home. And best of all, the entire car smells like the greatest food in the world, and Yuri's mouth is already watering even before his grandfather reaches behind him, into the minuscule back seat area, and takes out a folded-over paper bag. 'Yuri, I made my usual pirozhki for you.'

The first bite is heaven, of course. Perfectly seasoned beef and mushrooms in soft fluffy dough, and all it takes it one taste to transport him back to the kitchen of his childhood, where he can practically hear the sound of onions being minced and soup bubbling on the stove. There's only one other food he knows that even comes close to tasting this good, and so he says, almost without thinking about it, 'Say, Dedka, have you ever had katsudon?'

'Kat-su-don?' his grandfather repeats, stumbling a little over the unfamiliar syllables.

Yuri gives a little nod, savouring the deliciousness of the first few mouthfuls. 'I had it when I was in in Japan. It's super-tasty.'

For such a casual comment, the answering silence lasts an odd few seconds longer than it ought to, before his grandfather says, abruptly, '...are the pirozhki not very good?'

'Huh?' Yuri's eyes go wide. (Why would -- what did he -- how could Dedka even think something like that?) 'N-no, that's not what I meant --' he begins hastily, but just then the piece ends, and the voice of the Radio Orpheus announcer cuts into his explanation.

'Our national hero, Viktor Nikiforov, has returned to Russia as a coach in the Figure Skating Grand Prix Series --'

-- and Yuri jams the pirozhok halfway into his mouth and angrily switches off the radio before he can hear the rest of it. Can't he escape from that asshole for ten goddamned minutes? He almost doesn't even want to look out the windows of the car for fear that he'll see some advertisement with Viktor-fucking-Nikiforov's face beaming down at him like he's got a laser sight pointed right at Yuri's forehead. Like a target.

But then his grandfather is saying something, into the sudden silence that the radio has left behind. 'What's in this kat-su-don you said that you had in Japan?'

'Mreh?' With effort, Yuri wrenches himself back into the conversation, and takes the pirozhok out of his mouth. 'Oh, uh, katsudon, yeah. It's, uh, fried pork cutlet and scrambled egg on a big bowl of rice. There's onion in it, too, and some kind of sauce....' He doesn't know how to describe it, so he shrugs. 'It's a little like that soy sauce they had at that Chinese place near my old dance studio, I think.'

'Pork cutlet, egg, and rice.' Nikolai puts on his turn signal to change lanes. Their exit must be coming up soon. 'Hm.' It's a quiet, thoughtful sound in the back of his throat.

'But your pirozhki are still the best, Dedka!' Yuri takes a huge, panicked bite of the one in his hands, suddenly and irrationally afraid that it'll disappear from his hands before he can finish it. 'Irh cwould -- mmrph, I mean, I could eat them every day and never get tired of them, ever.'

That brings a bit of a smile to his grandfather's face, as he glances over at Yuri. 'Well, you don't need to eat them all now, Yuratchka,' he says, as he takes the exit that will lead them to the Star Hotel. 'There'll be more where those come from soon enough.'

"I'm not very familiar with Moscow."

Not to the point he'd know where to go, or what to do first. Unlike Barcelona, Tokyo, all the cities he's traveled to for competitions, he hadn't ever spent much time sight-seeing in his home country. Not much in Moscow, and not much in Sochi, either –– although Sochi at least had the benefit of being a travel destination even for Russians. "We can ask the concierge where to go. I think I want to get out for a little while, don't you?"

Hotel to plane to cab to hotel: his lungs are crying out for fresh air and his legs need to be stretched. "And then you can go to bed early so you won't be too jetlagged tomorrow."

The room itself is the same as every other hotel room: basic furniture, tiny bottles of shampoo and lotion, bedside table, thick drapes to cut out the light from the Moscow nightlife, such as it is. For a moment, there's a strange sense of deja vu, as if they've just arrived in Shanghai all over again, doomed to repeat the same week in a constant loop without ever leaving the hotel –– but there's Russian on the instructions for room service and for the phone, and the view out the window is nothing like Shanghai's glittering streets. It's gray and cold and it isn't home, but it's not a stranger, either.

The shower is satisfying, and so is changing into fresh, clean clothes. The kind he doesn't wear as often anymore: not his black and comfortable work clothes, not one of his suits, which he sends along with Yuri's costumes to be pressed before they're needed tomorrow and the day after. The sun has broken through the clouds by the time they leave, and he slips his sunglasses back on while his other arm goes companionably around Yuri's shoulders to direct him back out towards the elevator. "Let's go!"

Except it takes longer than he'd hoped to actually get food, because the lobby is beginning to be choked with arriving skaters and fans, and the reporters are out in full force. It takes nearly ten minutes to navigate his way just back to the front desk to even get a restaurant recommendation, and fifteen to get out of the lobby entirely, while deflecting questions in English so Yuri can understand, and smiling for pictures, dragging Yuri in alongside him every time a new camera or phone lifts.

But the food is good, and the restaurant is mostly quiet and tries to comp their food, each piece of which Victor explains and watches Yuri try with a look of pure delight on his own face, laughing at each reaction whether good or bad. (The tip he leaves is substantial.)

All of it only making that buzz under his skin grow a little louder, a little more insistent, with each bite of food that used to be familiar, and is now almost novel.

The borscht is particularly good.

Yuri is not certain he wants to be anywhere like 'out,' but he's not in bad mood and it sounds no more or less taxing than it normally does, and given Victor's lived for need to to go out first thing somewhere new (or even not-quite-new, but not known) pretty much since he first arrived? There's something of a non-verbal sound and shrug, but there's nothing like dread in his expression.

He lays down on the furthest bed, while Victor showers. On top of the covers. Feeling as restless as he does exhausted, but that's normal enough, too. It's been a frozen day, without all the driven, pushing, reaching, demanding movement of the last at least week, and its the ramping energy for tomorrow and the day after.

The two days, of moments only five minutes and less, twice.
Minutes to make everything this whole week look like he was only playing.

He doesn't actually mind the way Victor grabs his shoulder to steer him from the room, through the hallways, into the elevator -- until the elevator opens. Until any number of surprised and suddenly delighted eyes shoot from one of them to the other, back and then back, and it's not new. But the flavor is just slightly different. It is.

(He hates how relieved he is when Victor has to let go to cross the lobby.

Then, only minutes later, how awkwardly he can't seem to smile right
every time Victor drags him back in for a photo,
or a conversation of questions he only half understands.)

Still, they do get out of there.

To a restaurant where everyone is, once they've been there longer than half a minute, still smiling, and the whispering, which might be normal everywhere he's been with Victor has been since leaving home -- it's another different here, too. More buzz. More staring. More laughing. Pride and excitement that doesn't at all center on Yuri. He's not lucky enough to miss it or lack inclusion, but it's Victor's. Not his. That is clear.

Every glint in every eye of people who seat them, serve them, fill their water. The faintest tremble, here. Blushing cheeks, there. Conversations from nearby tables that he doesn't know the language of, but he can't miss hearing either of Victor's names even in other mouths or blurred ocean of only partly familiar sounds.

The food is distracting, as is the fact that no matter how many people say Victor's name and don't stop staring at Victor, Victor won't stop staring at him. As though every single thing dropped on the table has to be pushed to Yuri fist, as though everything puts in his mouth needs to be related.

Even prepared for the idea, the tea still tastes more like a dessert. The olivier reminds him a little American chicken salad. The pelmeni is, if folded differently, just like dumplings from home. The borsct is ... very red, but nothing like the spice he expects from the color. He rather likes the shashlik, but the cabbage rolls are a slightly embarrassing mess.

Arrivals - Sheremetyevo and the Star Hotel, Moscow

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Men's Short Program

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Wherein it all starts to go wrong

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