Yuri Plisetsky (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yuri_plisetsky) wrote2017-05-23 02:39 pm
yuri_plisetsky) wrote2017-05-23 02:39 pm
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.
- 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.
Arrivals - Sheremetyevo and the Star Hotel, Moscow
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!'
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.'
Re: Arrivals - Sheremetyevo and the Star Hotel, Moscow
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.
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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.
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.
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).
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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.
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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."
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He knows that even more the more he starts looking into it. Because of this weekend.
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.
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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.'
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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.
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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.
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(One day at home, after all this is over. He wants that gold medal, that spot at the top of the podium, but the real reward is right here.)
'You've got the schedule for our first day, right?' he asks. Before his grandfather can reply, he's already onto the next thing, and the next, and the next. 'If you call Yakov's number when you get to the rink, he'll let you know where to pick up your ticket. I told him to find a good spot, something right on the aisle where there aren't too many stairs, nothing where the cameras will block the view. We're after the ladies' and the pairs' skates, so don't worry about leaving home too early to make it here on time. I probably won't be able to come out and see you beforehand, but as soon as I'm done with the short program I can -- '
'Yuratchka.'
His name, said in that simple but meaningful tone, is all it takes to cut Yuri off in mid-ramble, and he subsides against the seat. But skating isn't the only thing on his mind. 'You should go home and get some rest,' he says, more quietly. 'You've still got those painkillers that the doctor gave you?' He bites down on the inside of his lip. 'I'm sorry about jumping on you like that at the airport. I should've been more careful.'
His grandfather shakes his head a little. 'I'll be fine,' he says, which is what he always says when Yuri starts fretting about him. 'Go and rest yourself as well.' His gaze falls on the paper bag on Yuri's lap. 'Don't forget the pirozhki.'
As if he could. As if he ever would. But the paper bag crinkles between them as he unbuckles his seatbelt and leans over to give his grandfather a quick (and much more gentle) hug. 'See you soon, Dedka.'
Once he's out of the car, he bends down to put the bag of pirozhki in his backpack so he won't have to watch his grandfather drive away. When he straightens up again, the little green car is nowhere in sight. So Yuri sighs quietly, and turns to head into the hotel.
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Well, back by way of a small café near the hotel, which offers a wide variety of the sort of sweets Victor never thought he'd crave, but found himself missing in Japan: pastila, bird's milk cake, vatrushka, piles of chak-chak glinting with hardened honey. All of it toothsome and tempting, all of it too heavy for Yuri to eat right now, but that doesn't stop Victor from hauling them off their route to beg for samples from a rosy-cheeked, laughing girl behind the counter, who willingly hands over not only a few bites of pastry, but also the large coffee in a to-go cup Victor requests.
(Yuri needs to sleep well tonight, but he still has some preparations to see through, has old sponsors to meet and catch up with, has too much on his mind to succumb to the coaxing, gentle fingers of jet-lag, even if the prospect of stealing a few hours to curl up with Yuri in a dim and quiet room away from the hubbub is a tempting one.)
It's still in his hand when they walk back in through the hotel doors, only for the call to go up –– his name, Yuri's, the scurry of shoes against the lobby floor, the sudden flash of cameras –– before they're surrounded. Not unexpected, but Yuri looks like he'd rather be anywhere else than answering questions or taking pictures, and Victor leans down to him, first.
"Yuri, why don't you go on up? I'll be right behind you."
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(He's definitely not expecting to round one of the corners and catch Victor's face on a far away building billboard, he can't tell whether is a hanging or attached there, three, or four streets up the way they aren't going, with letters beside it too far away and too small to read, in a language he probably wouldn't be able to read anyway, even if it was right above them.)
Victor stops them by a cafe wher his stomach gives some combination of whining about wanting desperately for more, being unable to survive without it, and gurgling about already being stuff with unknown foods it hasn't made up its mind about being in him, and he doesn't buy anything. He samples what he's handed, but he knows the fact he feels hungry has absolutely nothing to do with being hungry. He can feel it attaching itself to the back of his spine and the bottom of his lungs, like another whole lifeform.
A presence that has so much more to do with being here.
Wanting to bury himself again the ramping realization of being here.
Rostelcom is tomorrow, and he'd been on a strict enough diet all of the last few months. One meal doesn't change that. Or being a foreign confusing place, that is only foreign and confusing to him, and not Victor, putting a glass wall of longing and uncertainty into him. Between them. Being hungry, as a reaction to all it, doesn't change that. It's actually the most normal thing that could be, is, happening.
Well. And the siege of faces and cameras at the door. Sending him back toward ramrod stillness, like his spine only had two settings for the day -- and when exactly had he relaxed even enough to feel that snap back, frozen-stiff? Somewhere between Victor's laughing and constant familiar chatter, a tune he never could shut out. Not like the crowd. Not like the newest barrage of questions, beginning to come fluently in both languages as different crews of interviews make their appearances finally in Moscow, here, too.
He isn't expecting Victor's suggestion, but it doesn't take even needing to glance around to know he will. Even if something tightens and sinks in his stomach all at the same time. But away is a relief, and Victor always liked this. The attention. Yuri nodded, and let Victor excuse him. In a way Yuri never could have, where the interviewers were smiling and tittering good-natured, supportive laughs at the reason for Yuri's exodus.
If he stops just before turning the corner toward where he'll find the hallway to take him to the right tower of the hotel, just to watch Victor surrounded on all sides by the lights and microphones and buzzing questions, it's not like Victor or anyone around Victor is looking at him to catch it either.
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At the moment, all he wants to do is go flop on his hotel bed with his feet up on the wall and listen to something loud, full of screaming, and totally unconnected with his skating, but that's not an option right now. He'll probably only have time for a shower and some light stretching before he has to show up at Lilia's door, second-best suit on and necktie in hand, for her inspection and approval. Tonight's the standard clusterfuck of pre-event publicity, where he'll have to play the Russian Fairy flitting around the sponsors and the sports ministry representatives like some demented reject from Tchaikovsky's own personal hell, but he knows that it has to be done. This is his senior debut, and the ice isn't the only place he'll have to perform this weekend.
Maybe Mila will let him stick close to her for a little while. It'll be more tolerable than being paraded around by Yakov or Lilia the whole time. Or maybe --
It's at that point that Yuri notices a gaggle of press off to one side of the lobby, and his train of thought promptly derails itself.
Because right in the middle of the group of reporters, wearing his designer sunglasses indoors like the royal asshole he is, is Russia's National Hero, casually giving an off-the-cuff press conference as if he hadn't fucked off to Japan to skate with a pig for most of the past year.
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That's not even the right term. He enjoys it. The attention, the questions, the photos. He loves talking about skating, and he's never minded being open about himself and his personal life, and he's still the reigning champion, and that makes him a favorite of the press. He knows that would be a vain thing to say, but that doesn't make it any less true: what might come across as simple arrogance from someone else is often charming, even magnetic, from him.
So he's glad Yuri took the out. He'll have to talk to all of these people sooner or later, but right now, Victor just wants him to rest and focus, and he'll have a harder time doing that when "How do you feel about returning to Russia?" is one of the first questions launched his way, swiftly followed by: "When will you return to skating?"
It's not surprising that the press corp here is focused more on his return than on Yuri's comeback, but Victor's an old hand at deflecting them, easily, with a polite enough delivery that he can appear flattered by their interest but remain firm on this line. "Until the Grand Prix Final is over, I won't comment on any future plans."
He'd looked forward to coming back here, he'd said earlier. As a coach. He might be the problem with the press right now, but he can also be the solution: if he wants them to focus on something other than him, they will. "Right now, I see a lot of potential in Katsuki Yuri's skating. I'd like you all to focus on Yuri at the Rostelecom Cup."
It's a good line, and a firm one, and he's mentally patting himself on the back for directing attention away from himself and towards Yuri, when another reporter leans in, smiling. "If the skater Katsuki has that much charisma, don't you want to face him as a fellow competitor?"
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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.')
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A sudden distraction he can see, just over the shoulders of the reporters in front of him, and he's pointing, even as he grins. "Oh, it's Yurio!"
It's the perfect bait-and-switch, as the reporters look, their curiosity about his plans giving way to the necessity of covering Russia's newest up-and-coming elite skater, the little hellion who is as ready to break his own neck as he is to shout at everyone around him or to slink off on his own in sullen silence. That last conversation had been like getting repeatedly bitten on the ankle ––
See you in Moscow, Coach Nikiforov.
–– and it's running through his head as the attention and cameras and tape recorders turn towards Yurio, as he pushes forward.
Yurio who looks startled, who looks unsettled, who looks off-footed in a way that brings another memory floating to the top: If you're not too busy showing off for the cameras to remember that anyone else even exists. That face, wide-eyed and uncertain, with teeth baring as if to bite, reminding him of another day, much longer ago: warm weather and large crowds and the smoky, salty scent of grilling squid.
He'd sent the dogs after Yurio (and was it because he was a convenient distraction, or because he knew Yurio would hate it?) but he can run interference for him, too. An arm going around Yurio's shoulders, companionably, while he slips off his sunglasses for the pictures that are getting snapped in quick succession. "Did you all see the short program I put together for Yurio?"
Agape is something he never gets to talk about anymore, and there's so much to be said, about how Yurio fought for it, found it, began to make it his own. How much it's changed, and how he's ––
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(Can't retreat. Can't escape.)
He doesn't know how Viktor manages to end up at his side before everyone else can get there, but when Viktor's arm goes around his shoulders and pulls him even closer, all perfect hair and clean clothes and coffee breath right next to his face, Yuri can't do anything but be swept along for the ride. His brain is not processing any of this fast enough to be remotely helpful, so takes him a second to actually hear the words that Viktor is saying as the cameras click and flash, something about the short program, his short program, his Agape --
And that's enough of a bolt to his ego to shatter the paralysis that had come over him.
When in doubt, lash out. A growl rises up from his chest, and as he starts to twist himself free his right hand automatically shoots up to dislodge the arm draped around his back. When he smacks Viktor's hand away from him, he feels as much as sees the coffee cup that had been in Viktor's hand go flying through the air to land with a heavy splash, its steaming contents cascading across the hotel lobby's polished floor. At least one of the reporters gasps in alarm at his violent reaction, but Yuri doesn't give a shit about them now. With the surge of territorial possessiveness racing through him, retreat or escape is suddenly the furthest thing from his mind.
'Quit acting like you're still the top Russian figure skater,' he snarls at Viktor, full of contempt. 'I'm the star in this event!'
The Russian flag flies for him here at this Rostelecom Cup. He'll carve it into their hearts with his skate blades before he lets anyone forget that.
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There's a short gasp, and a hush that makes the falling coffee cup sound like the crash of a guillotine, but while the reporters murmur behind him, Victor says nothing. He's been dealing with Yurio all wrong from the beginning, it seems. It's not even unusual to be smacked away, even if it's normally verbally, rather than with actual physical violence. He'd probably love it if Victor rose to the attack.
Not as much as the reporters would, though, and Victor's been doing this too long to let anything slip past the carefully curated half-smile on his face, all the animation he'd just been deploying wiped away and replaced with something bland and blank, although those looking at him head-on might feel a sudden shiver, the way one might if a chilly wind had blown across an otherwise mild spring day.
There's nothing to do but to let him stalk off, before bending to retrieve the fallen coffee cup, shrugging off that sudden cool stillness like someone had hit a button marked play on his back, only to turn with a wide smile to the reporters, shoulders relaxed, to lift the cup and lid in exaggerated mournfulness. "Looks like I'll need a refill."
It gets the laugh he'd intended, which relaxes the mood, and as he focuses back on the questions coming his way, it leaves him with his back turned to the elevators and the black storm cloud currently headed that direction.
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(That being said, Yakov and Lilia would never have let things escalate in such a manner in the first place. But the necessity of keeping Viktor Nikiforov and Yuri Plisetsky apart had not entered into their minds as a top priority in these early hours of the Rostelecom Cup.)
Yuri, of course, doesn't need to actually hear the lectures to feel himself writhing under their combined attack. They're already playing out in his mind, their words burning like acid in his blood and making his eyes sting treacherously. His backpack is a solid weight on his shoulders, and right now it feels like it's the only thing keeping him from completely flying apart.
Fuck everything, and everyone, and Viktor Nikiforov in particular.
Once he's on the ice, at least, none of it will matter anymore. He'll get through tonight somehow, and tomorrow he'll be where he needs to be. For now, he can go up to his room and crank up his music as loud as it'll go. The elevators are right around the corner; soon, he'll be away from all of them.
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Yuri rubbed at his cheek and kept walking. He wouldn’t mind laying down. He’s not certain he could sleep exactly yet, but he wouldn’t mind laying down. Maybe to just lay down and scroll his feed, and listen to his music for a while. Think over the pieces he needs to most work on, most focus on tomorrow. Before Victor would reappear, and they'd end up going over the same things for tomorrow.
The first sound to bring Yuri back from his thoughts to the empty space, is the sound of steps that has Yuri looking to his side to find Seung-Gil Lee. The Korean skater, who got approval for a mambo, and showed up last week in the NHK Trophy. Yuri is certain it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out how to open his mouth, but all he finds is the feeling of suddenly being further adrift from the skaters that will be here for Rostelecom than China.
There isn’t anyone he knows here. Not like he’d known Phichit.
Which was almost like being drug into knowing everyone.
The elevator doors open the next second, on a far more unexpected scene as Yuri blinks at two more of his competitors — Michele Crispino, also, from the NHK Trophy, and Emil Nekola, from Skate Canada — in the middle of what almost looks like a fight. The Italian skater, clutching a girl to his chest, who it becomes quickly obvious is his sister, due to the yelling about her.
It’s an awkward pause, as the two men in the elevator keep talking but don’t yet get off, and Yuri and Seung-Gil stand there staring at them. Yuri would already like to be somewhere that is not here, even as it’s clarifying that it seems to all mostly belong to Crispino overreacting to something, while Emil is laughing through an apology and his sister is defending whatever it was.
The girl turns and says hello to both of them outside the elevator, and Yuri wonders for a long second, with no response poised or appearing by any stray strike of luck, if he’s met the smiling girl who winks at him, before. If she was in China, as well. But he never has to decided on a response, because Seung-Gil soldier’s into movement and moves to walk into the elevator, brushing off the hello from the girl.
Stumbling right over her invitation to come out with them.
Then, right into asking if there is any value in being polite to her.
With a not quite hunch of shoulders, Yuri slides toward the other elevator, as it dings to announce itself, wanting nothing more than to escape without being the next person drug into everything over in the other elevator.
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He'd assumed, seeing Viktor in the hotel lobby preening for the press, that the pig had been somewhere else. Taking a nap or unpacking or out for a run, doing something useful with his time. But if he's at the elevators, with Viktor right over there....
(if you're not too busy showing off for the cameras to remember that anyone else even exists)
The elevator is starting to close. And so Yuri stalks past the squabbling morons and jams his foot into the closing door before it can shut all the way.
Inside the elevator, the startled look on the pig's face untwists a knot inside him. Yes, this is how it's supposed to be, throwing off his competitors' balance even before the competition starts. 'Why are you sneaking around?' he asks, half-accusation and half-criticism.
Why aren't you with Viktor? Why isn't he parading you around on a leash? Why isn't he showing you off, if he's so proud of how well you've been imitating him all this time?
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His shoulders drop with the surprise and some of that gathered tension goes right out of him. There's something that never truly makes itself into a smile, but it heads in the gray nebulous direction of that realm more than the one it had been in. The words are perfunctory, but he's alarmed to note that it's true, too. "Good to see you again."
It's been months and even the whole of a good amount of time since he was last following Yuri in the Skate Canada performances and scores.
"Um." Even if the words are true, it makes having any clue what to say after those perfunctory words as completely new kind of grey and fogged endlessness. Has him reaching his hands into, even just to produce something else perfunctory. "Good luck to both of us in the Rostelecom Cup."
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'Huh?' he says, laying the scorn on as thick as he can. 'You'll suffer a miserable defeat here in Moscow. I'll make sure Viktor stays behind in Russia.'
To be honest, at this point he really doesn't give a flying fuck what Viktor does with himself. All he wants is for Viktor's little travelling shitshow to crash and burn, preferably as spectacularly as possible, right here in Moscow. The pig can take his good luck and shove it right up his ass; Yuri knows what's expected of him at this competition, and luck doesn't have anything to do with it.
(Very lightly, almost imperceptibly, he's tapping the fingers of his right hand against the side of his leg.)
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It’s familiar. It’s exactly what Yurio should be like.
Sullen and shatteringly sharp, unwavering about Yuri’s doom.
He shouldn’t smile, but he does at the beginning. It’s the first truly normal thing aside from Victor (who even seems a little different here, too). Which is an odd half-thought to already be in, when Yuri mentions he’s going to have Victor stay when he wins, and Yuri's smile does fall away, like it was gossamer dissolved against the touch of the air, and …
Hadn’t Yuri been thinking that earlier?
If he doesn’t rank high enough.
If he doesn’t make it to the Grand Prix Finale.
If Victor no longer has a reason to return to Hasetsu.
What would Victor do, then?
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When it finally does, Yuri wastes no time in stepping up to the door and shouldering through it before it can open all the way. At least this means that the pig and Viktor aren't on his floor; he'll take whatever small comforts the universe can throw his way right now.
The keycard opens onto a single room, looking much like any of the dozens of hotel rooms he's been in for competitions. Single bed, single desk and chair, door to the closet and bathroom off to the side. There's a large bottle of some fancy European water and a grossly over-the-top bouquet of flowers in a vase on the desk -- he doesn't have to look at it to know that it's from Rostelecom, the usual welcome gift to the members of the national team -- and his luggage is set to the side of his bed. He takes off his backpack and drops it on the bed, then opens it to take out the bag of pirozhki. They're mostly cool now, but he grabs one anyway, and takes a bite of it as he walks over to the window to look out over the sprawling panorama of Moscow at night, the glittering lights of cars and billboards and buildings all casting a wan glow onto the overcast winter sky.
I'll show them all, Dedka. The hand that isn't holding the pirozhok fists in the drapes, wadding the thin fabric in a crushing grip. I won't let anyone beat me this time. You'll see how far I've come.
He'll win his first senior gold here. No matter what it takes.
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