Let's get hotpot! 6 November, 2014 - Shanghai, China

[fivetimechamp]

 Probably he should be more bothered by what Yakov said –

(I feel sick when I see you playing pretend-coach)

 

– but it's difficult to worry too much about a cranky old Russian coach when he's in Shanghai, and it's competition season, and Yuri has two of the best programs he's ever choreographed up his sleeve to wow the judges with. He has no interest in discussing with Yakov whether or not he plans to return to competitive skating, or if he ever wants to come back to St. Petersburg, or his own skills as a coach.

(All right. That last is a bit of a lie: Yakov is the best coach he knows, and there have been more times than he'd anticipated when he'd wished he could ask the old man's advice.

But he's not pretending. He never was, and he isn't now.)

And, anyway, his focus is on Yuri.

As it should be, as a coach. Over the last eight months, he's gotten attuned to the shifts of Yuri's moods, his nervous tics, the tells when he's feeling stressed or uncertain, and right now, Yuri is distracted. He's been lost in thought since their arrival interview, and quiet during their walk through the Shanghai streets, although not uncharacterisically so.

Sometimes Yuri speaks loudest when he uses no words at all. It's another thing Victor's learned about him, noted, kept in the back of his mind for afternoons like this. Yuri gets nervous near competition, and there's already mounting pressure to succeed after the failure of the last season. There's a nervous energy Victor can feel humming under the arm he's got slung around Yuri's shoulders, distraction in the short, one-word or belated answers to Victor's comments. He's not even sure Yuri notices when Victor's steered them into a hot pot place (almost universally agreed upon as the best one by the fans he'd asked for recommendations on social media), or when they're seated in a private booth, or when Victor orders.

It's all right, Victor decides, smiling gently across the table at him. Yuri's been able to overcome his nerves on the ice, and they both have absolute faith in the programs they've built together, practiced together, perfected together. Tomorrow, Yuri will seduce the whole of China, and everyone else watching: Victor has every certainty in his ability to win.

He could hardly be more confident if he were skating them himself. "Look, Yuri!"

(But he still needs to find a way to distract Yuri tonight.) "Shanghai crab! Drunken shrimp! Duck blood!"

Everything looks so colorful and delicious, he almost doesn't know where to start: hands up, an expression of pure bliss settling over his face.

"Doesn't it all look great?"

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[fivetimechamp]

Yuri rolls in on himself, like some small animal trying to get away from a prodding finger, but all it does is make him look even cuter, and Victor's smile just widens. Cute hardly seems the word, when he's watched Yuri light the ice on fire with Eros and win the love of the entire audience with his story during Yuri on Ice, but it fits. Nothing else quite does.

Mussed hair, bleary eyes, flushed cheeks, and the way he's patting around himself, looking for something –– oh, his glasses.

Victor's not sure where they are, only knows he's not sitting on them.

But that reminds him: "Yuri."

All his amusement tied up in that one word, warm and fond and just on the edge of a laugh. "What are you doing over here?"

In his bed, he means. Not that it matters in a hotel, and not that he minds –– quite the opposite –– but it was a surprise, despite being a nice one, and last night is foggy. Well ... last night is ...

Pretty much a blank slate.

But his memory is poor at the best of times, so it's possible he just forgot whatever chain of events led to this delightful result, so he'd like to be reminded.

What they were, and if they can, at some point in the future, be replicated. "You slept in your clothes?"

How strange.

[theglassheart]

Yuri had just spotted his glasses, on the floor, not even folded closed, when Victor is sing-songing his name in a fashion that is so familiar and overused it's almost ignorable. Even though something prickles, somewhere, in his head, when he's leaning to get his glasses and Victor is over there popping off a question that makes Yuri blink and look back.

Mouth still somewhere in the heaviness, first is, "何?"

Fingers nearly on his glasses, but head turning back to look at Victor while reaching.

Except Yuri's mouth stops where it starts, as he's sitting back up, because his cursory glance of Victor becomes just as instantly not as cursory, and just as suddenly not on Victor. Because Yuri is positive that Victor had pants when Victor drag him on to this bed. But. Victor does not have pants. Which is not as bad as it could be. But when did that even. How.

There might be a little too much to pushing his glasses back on, under his hair, hitting the bridge of his nose. He doesn't want to think the thought that collides next in his head. About even having had a single stitch less clothing. A thought that swims in his head, knocking into and dragging up something to clear. Victor's mouth brushing down from his neck, across his shoulder. Speaking ... and more? Was there ... ?

Yuri frowns, focusing back at Victor and the light, and his far too clear face. "How are you not even hungover?"

Yuri felt hungover from the whole night, himself. Like somehow it'd been poured into him vicariously. Had he actually slept at all? Even more, how was it that, now in perfect focus, Victor didn't look more than like his hair was mussed up? Like he'd just put his hands in it and fluffed it. Not even like he'd slept on it. The rest of him carelessly all but completely bare, bright smile and clear eyes.

Yuri just wanted to fall back to his pillow, with a sound of disgust, and pull the blanket over him.

[fivetimechamp]

The question takes him aback, but leaves him laughing, amused. "Oh, I had a little much last night, huh?"

That would explain the gap in his memory, at least, but he feels fine now. A little tired, perhaps, but it's difficult to focus on anything that could be wrong when there is so much right (if bewildering) happening right in front of him.

Yuri. Here is his bed. (In all his clothes, but still.) Looking more annoyed than anything else, and definitely not the blushing, stammering, uncertain innocent who Victor had to consciously stop flirting with, who would probably have sunk into the floor in embarrassment if this was even suggested.

And even since then –– but it's been nothing like this, has it? He'd stepped back, re-focused himself. Coach, not lover. Even if, lately, the lines have felt more and more blurred.

Was that it? Did he say something, do something, ask something last night? The somethings he's been trying to pretend aren't there, eating away at his ribs and lungs and stomach ...

But Yuri wouldn't be looking at him like this if he had, would he? He wouldn't be just this side of annoyed, sounding like all he wants to do is roll his eyes or throw his pillow at Victor.

So maybe it was just a late night. Maybe it really is as innocent as it all appears to be.

He has no way of knowing, and it doesn't seem like Yuri is interested in sharing, so he just smiles, and shrugs. "Well, we have plenty of time for breakfast before we have to get to the rink for the morning practice. "

Thank goodness. He's starving.

[theglassheart]

Victor's doesn't even answer the question. Victor just laughs at Yuri's question and asks his own question. Like he's laughing at his own joke before the words are fully formed, leaving him asking it all amused and innocent of anything so much as being drunk enough Yuri had to half carry him here, and then wasn't even allowed to leave his bed.

Which just tastes sour to hear, and makes his teeth meet, and reminds him, sideways, that his mouth is actually kind of sour, and he wants to brush his teeth at some not too distant point. Another thing he hadn't gotten to do last night. Which turned out to be absolutely everything he could have ever wanted or expected to do.

That all gets thrown under the bus again when Victor mentions practice.

His heart contracting with recognition. Morning. Day. The China Cup. The Prix Qualifier. Catching him maybe liked he'd fallen off the bed, except he's sitting still. (He's had far experience with that feeling lately, hasn't he?) Practice, and then, Eros. (Tomorrow Yuri on Ice, no matter how well or terribly today goes.) With everyone else. With everyone watching. With. But. Away from here. This room, and this bed. Victor said something about breakfast, and before, but all Yuri suddenly wants is to be there. To be on the ice. To feel the bite on his cheeks, the weight on his feet, the air whistling.

(To be allowed to run. Just from here to the rink. Now. Instead of eating.
Or sleep. Even though it's probably fully impossible by this point already.

Sunlight thick in the room. Catching on Victor's hair, and his shoulders.
Adding the faintest shadows to his face while he's smiling.


... why does he have to notice now?)


"良い." Yuri drove his fingers up into his hair, itching his fingertips and clipped nails against his scalp, trying to push back something, but not sure what it was or which. He just needed a moment. He needed to think straight. He-- "I should shower. Unless you--" He left it as an opening, eyes shifting over to Victor, kicking himself as he did. Making it an option. Wanting to know. If Victor wanted or needed anything first. Of him, of the bathroom. If he needed to use it, or wanted to go first.

[fivetimechamp]

The question, and the questioning tone, get waved off, and he motions towards the bathroom. "Go ahead." He can wait. Today, and tomorrow, and potentially the day after that ––

(and the next month and a half)

–– are about what Yuri needs, and that includes the hotel bathroom and shower, the gym, the breakfast buffet downstairs or food sent up, or whatever else he needs.

"Do you want me to order any food up while you're in there, or do you want to go down to breakfast once you're finished?"

It's a bit of a coin flip. Yuri might want the chance to socialize with the other skaters (that friend of his, the Thai skater, he's here, right?), but he also might prefer to keep to himself. The last time Yuri competed at this level, Victor barely knew him, and hardly paid attention to anything but his skating: two years ago at this time, all he knew of Katsuki Yuri was that he was a skillful and artistic but inconsistent skater who mostly kept to himself. At no point was Victor wrestling for the gold with him, so it hadn't seemed pertinent.

Now, he wishes he could go back and learn everything he'd missed, watch everything he hadn't seen ... but there's no use in wishing for a second chance, especially when it wouldn't make a difference. Without knowing what was to come, his focus was always going to be on his own career.

It feels a little strange to wonder what someone else might need, the day of a competition, but a good coach would know, and he will accept being nothing but excellent, even in this arena.

It's too important for Yuri.

[theglassheart]

Yuri's not certain even as he's using a hand to push himself off, one foot touching the floor, and it gives him away, entirely, that he looks back toward Victor, uncertaintly certain he's about to be stopped, no matter how light and helpful Victor's tone sounds. Victor who hasn't let him off this bed in what feels like years, even if he knows it was one night.

But one foot goes down and the next, and he's standing. Starting to walk to the bathroom as Victor's bouncing off another question, and it's too fast, the way he looks over his shoulder, hearing the question, even as some part of him is certain Victor has changed his mind about letting him up, which makes him react too fast.

"Downstairs," exploding out of his mouth with too much force,
when even comparing the idea of out of this room and being stuck in it longer.

Which just combines to make him vanish behind that bathroom door. The door hitting the jam, and Yuri's back the door, and he's clenching his eyes at his absolute stupidity. He lets his head fall back against it, eyes on the ceiling, unseeing, before he's groping for where he vaguely remembers that light switch was. Not wanting more darkness. Not liking the way it makes something in him sieze even more. Tightening the skin on the base of his neck, until light takes it all

Making him push off the door, and look at himself in the mirror.

He's a mess. He needs to start getting ready. Brush his teeth. Take his shower. He looks like a mess. Eyes dark, and hair everywhere, and -- are those circles under his eyes? No? Yes? Yuri squinted at himself, and leaned closer to the mirror, pushing his glasses up into his hair. Then, sighed. Outside the small room, Victor was doing whatever Victor was doing, looking like he'd already spent however long it took to look like that, except like he just woke up that way. And Yuri looked like a train had run over him in his sleep. Lack of sleep. Whichever.

(A train with a far too perfect face. Who.

Words flickered at the edge of his head. The touch of--)

Yuri cringed, forehead and nose wrinkling, and turned away from the mess of his reflection to the shower. He needed to focus. He needed to focus. Focus. Direction. A list. Shower. Teeth. Hair styled back. Breakfast. China. (China, China.) The name catching in his teeth. He only had a few hours. Only a few hours and then it would be up to him. To show everyone he belonged here. He was a different person than the one that crashed into the ice two years ago.