It's different, that's Yuri's first though, with a blink of surprise at the question.

Though, he supposes, he shouldn't be surprised. Phichit would be the one to ask, and it's not like Yuu-chan or Minkao haven't asked similiar things in their own ways across different parts of this year, during the, admittedly rare, times he was alone at one of their places. Doing figures on the ice, in the middle of the night, still. Continuing to learn new ways to move his body, express even more feminine sexuality the way he can see it in his piece.

But that is it. The first thought. It's different.

It's not like with Celestino, and the rink full of skaters he shared Celestino with, and his room with Phichit, and his tutors. It was his home, his family. It was Victor everyday, from morning to night. It was practice, and family dinners. It was Victor dragging him to anything one of his family members or friends mentioned, like he couldn't live without it. It was doing whatever new hair-brained scheme got into Victor's head to make him connect with his pieces, learn his jumps. It was Victor, and Victor, and Victor, without pause.

Which makes his answer a little too waffle, a little too weak, "It's not that different."

Because in the end it's not, right? Not really?

"We're still on the ice just as often," No, not exactly, "maybe more." But not because of Victor alone. Because he felt driven to make it happen. To reach higher, go father, find a way to express everything Victor had handed him, to show him, over and over and over, that he'd made the right choice, choosing Yuri's season instead of his own. "He's more demanding. Sometimes."

He's more specific. He doesn't let Yuri waffle. Even if he waits for the why to be told to him.
Then he works Yuri through that, too. Whether it's in his feet or in his head.

Like it's theirs, instead. Sometimes that's more exhausting.

"And?" Phichit is leaning into him as though he's gathering the secrets of the world, and Yuri would rather he'd picked a different topic. He could probably talk about the strange way Victor fell in love with every food dish and festival he ever went to, or tried, more than about how it was different. When it wasn't. (But it was.)

Which was stupid, he knew. Saying he could explain something that wasn't happening every day better.

"And nothing?" Yuri countered, even though the expression on Phichit's face looked like the one he made in Detroit, when Yuri was refusing to get up off his bed, and Phichit was calculating how much force it would take to drag him out by his hands, heels unhelping, because it would be absolutely worth it. He'd see. It looks like that face. But somehow not, too.

There was ... more there? What was that even. Curiosity? Suspicion?

There really wasn't more to it.

Sometimes he tangled it up in all the wrong ways. But that wasn't about Victor coaching him.

Sometimes it started blurring. The feeling of Eros seemed to suddenly fit, suddenly fill everything.
The story of Love in him, his life, name such, extended to Victor, to his family, to his home.
The fact is was all Victor, and Victor, and Victor.

When everything was just dizzying sureness exploding in him, when something went right, on the ice (or, even off sometimes, when he forgot to worry, forgot to count, forgot to remember), and those glass cut eyes that never left him. Not even in his dreams. Where ... it just ... blurred. In ways it shouldn't have, but did. That wasn't the right answer either. Only And nothing?

His shoes didn't have any answer for him, and it was good they were rounding the wall to their table.




Where he tried not to translate the fact something in his chest felt relieved just to see Victor, and not talk about him.