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fivetimechamp) wrote2017-03-23 12:28 pm
fivetimechamp) wrote2017-03-23 12:28 pm
Entry tags:
November 14-15, 2014 - Between Moscow and Tokyo
It's a much longer plane ride, this way.
(It's actually an hour less to go east from Moscow to Tokyo than the other way around, but if anyone told Victor right now that he's on the shorter flight, he'd call them a liar, and to their face, no less.)
In the end, it was faster to get a direct flight to Tokyo and take a commuter flight from there to KMJ than to Kumamoto directly: he couldn't stand one lay-over, let alone two. If nine and a half hours (and then a wait, and another two, and then the time it will take to get to Hasetsu from Kumamoto) seems unbearable, fifteen would have driven him to madness.
Not that it doesn't seem like he'll be heading that way soon enough, as it is.
It didn't take longer than getting into the taxi outside the hotel to regret leaving, the first moment he'd had a chance to breathe and think since Yuri cornered him in the hall after the interviews ––
(you have to go!)
–– and pushed him out the door.
Or, just stood there, as he left, looking more alone than Victor can bear. Stricken and pale, and stubborn.
(He should never have left. His duty is there. He's a coach, and he'd abandoned his skater. A lover, who'd selfishly left. Yanked Yuri's support out from under him.
Even if Yuri was the one to tell him to go.)
Yakov will take care of him, Victor knows, but Yakov doesn't know Yuri, and he isn't overly fond of Victor these days, either, and Victor's fingers have been drumming such an anxious tarentella on his thigh that the nice old lady sitting next to him pats his hand gently and tells him there's no need to be afraid of flying.
(Nine hours to go. Plus two. Plus...)
His phone is in his hand, and he keeps checking it, until he remembers he has to actually connect to the inflight wifi in order to get (or send) anything, and once he does, he flounders, thumb hovering over the text box in the thread in his messages with Yuri's name at the top.
(To text anything now would be unbearably selfish. Wouldn't it? Him reaching out for comfort, when what he should be doing is helping Yuri get ready for tomorrow's free skate.
He won't even see it, unless he can find a way to be near a television. It might be over before he even reaches Hasetsu.
He should be there.
Maybe he really is too inexperienced as a coach.)
Either way, he scrolls through pictures he doesn't really see, and updates he never reads, until a brush against his shoulder makes him jump, and he looks to find the flight attendant offering him a selection of canned sodas, with a smile, but water is all he wants, and when he looks at his watch, it's beginning to turn towards night in Moscow. Close enough that Yuri should be going to bed, and getting some sleep.
Which reminds him, collecting his scattered and shattered thoughts like pieces of a broken toy on the floor, that when he does get in, it will be too early to call Yuri. That if he hears anything during the flight (no texts from Mari yet), it will be the middle of the night in Moscow, and Yuri needs sleep more than he needs to hear from Victor. Tomorrow is important.
(He should be there.)
But he can do this: hit that text box, and write out a few sentences.
this seat is less co he deletes, along with I'm sor and I know you'll and in the end, he just closes the app with a sigh, to lean his head against the window.
Six hours to go.
(It's actually an hour less to go east from Moscow to Tokyo than the other way around, but if anyone told Victor right now that he's on the shorter flight, he'd call them a liar, and to their face, no less.)
In the end, it was faster to get a direct flight to Tokyo and take a commuter flight from there to KMJ than to Kumamoto directly: he couldn't stand one lay-over, let alone two. If nine and a half hours (and then a wait, and another two, and then the time it will take to get to Hasetsu from Kumamoto) seems unbearable, fifteen would have driven him to madness.
Not that it doesn't seem like he'll be heading that way soon enough, as it is.
It didn't take longer than getting into the taxi outside the hotel to regret leaving, the first moment he'd had a chance to breathe and think since Yuri cornered him in the hall after the interviews ––
(you have to go!)
–– and pushed him out the door.
Or, just stood there, as he left, looking more alone than Victor can bear. Stricken and pale, and stubborn.
(He should never have left. His duty is there. He's a coach, and he'd abandoned his skater. A lover, who'd selfishly left. Yanked Yuri's support out from under him.
Even if Yuri was the one to tell him to go.)
Yakov will take care of him, Victor knows, but Yakov doesn't know Yuri, and he isn't overly fond of Victor these days, either, and Victor's fingers have been drumming such an anxious tarentella on his thigh that the nice old lady sitting next to him pats his hand gently and tells him there's no need to be afraid of flying.
(Nine hours to go. Plus two. Plus...)
His phone is in his hand, and he keeps checking it, until he remembers he has to actually connect to the inflight wifi in order to get (or send) anything, and once he does, he flounders, thumb hovering over the text box in the thread in his messages with Yuri's name at the top.
(To text anything now would be unbearably selfish. Wouldn't it? Him reaching out for comfort, when what he should be doing is helping Yuri get ready for tomorrow's free skate.
He won't even see it, unless he can find a way to be near a television. It might be over before he even reaches Hasetsu.
He should be there.
He should be there.
Either way, he scrolls through pictures he doesn't really see, and updates he never reads, until a brush against his shoulder makes him jump, and he looks to find the flight attendant offering him a selection of canned sodas, with a smile, but water is all he wants, and when he looks at his watch, it's beginning to turn towards night in Moscow. Close enough that Yuri should be going to bed, and getting some sleep.
Which reminds him, collecting his scattered and shattered thoughts like pieces of a broken toy on the floor, that when he does get in, it will be too early to call Yuri. That if he hears anything during the flight (no texts from Mari yet), it will be the middle of the night in Moscow, and Yuri needs sleep more than he needs to hear from Victor. Tomorrow is important.
(He should be there.)
But he can do this: hit that text box, and write out a few sentences.
Good flight so far
Remember not to eat anything heavy tonight
get some sleep
I'll let you know how things look in the morning
Remember not to eat anything heavy tonight
get some sleep
I'll let you know how things look in the morning
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Six hours to go.
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Each of them feels like an order. A very sudden ending.
Everything sinking in his chest, hardening in his center.
He should be hungry. That would be normal. But he isn't. Wasn't.
Doesn't want food. Doesn't want people. He just wants --
But it wipes out. Obliterates. Drowns. Under Victor's next words.
The sudden catch in his chest that forces everything else out.
That only has Victor. Telling him to dream of him.
To close his eyes and believe he's right there.
And he does. Just for a moment. Squeeze his eyes closed.
Squeeze his hand around his phone. The way his heart does.
Opening his eyes the next second. Needing to be able to see it.
For it the be real. The words, if not Victor. Drawing a breath in and starting
Typing I'll tr before pressing back and back and back. Deleting. Then.
Not even realizing until after he presses send, it could go for all of them.
Will. Eventually. But it isn't for them. Nothing else grabs him like that one.
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Instagram. Scrolling through his photo library, until he comes across the picture he's looking for: one taken last summer of Yuri and Maccachin down at the beach: the boy laughing, the poodle splashing in the water. Both looking perfectly carefree and happy.
He posts it with the caption A favorite moment with my favorites #lastsummer #Hasetsu #poodles #dogsofinstagram and closes the app before any updates can come through, to sit back with a sigh, phone to his chest, as if holding the screen there by his heart might make up for having neither of the two bodies there he wants.
And he tries to sleep.
He does doze, on and off, but his dreams are troubled and they wake him up in starts, of Yuri crashing and burning in the free skate, of Maccachin dead on the floor of his old apartment at St. Petersburg, of himself on the ice, tripping and falling, falling, falling ––
Blinking awake, hard, into the light streaming through the window and the announcement that they're beginning the descent to Tokyo. Feeling like an egg hit by a tractor trailer, and run under every one of its eighteen wheels.
Glancing at his watch with his mouth a thin line: it's the middle of the night in Moscow, and even with his jet lag, Yuri would
(should)
be sleeping, but there's not much time to think about that when he has to get off one plane and head to another, much smaller, sit again, and watch Japan roll by beneath him. Another two hours to Kumamoto, and another half hour before his train arrives, and by then, it's past noon, and headed towards one, and once he's texted Mari to let her know what time he'd be getting in to Fukuoka, and received her reply, and the news that Maccachin was still with the vet but that they'd go straight there from the train station, it's rounding towards seven in the morning in Moscow, and that's enough. Just enough.
After an all-night flight that shattered his nerves and the last twelve hours that have exhausted him and he had promised, after all.
Thumbing open the app on his phone that let's him make international calls with little more than some wifi and hitting Yuri's name, before bringing the phone to his ear, and trying to blink grit out of his eyes, listening to it ring with as much focus as he can muster, even if it sounds like it's ringing underwater.
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There are still dreams that plague him into startling awake. He doesn't make it back to Yuri and Yakov in time, and they left without him. His sister calls to tell him that Maccachin didn't make it, and Victor won't get on the phone or pick his own. He's at the rink, and it's his turn, but he can't go out there, has forgotten everything, from his routine, his training, even how to use his ice skates. He's at the rink, and does remember how to skate, remembers all Victor taught him, and still messes up everything.
That isn't the part that pierces everything with even more exhausted confusion.
Every ime, without fail, without remembering, he turns to find Victor on waking. Same as the night before and the weekend before that. Across the room, and more times than he wants to count, nearby. Next to him. Searching the blanket before remembering and curling up tighter, with a confused sound muffled in his throat and his pillow. That shouldn't be a habit. It's not really. (Yet?) And his tired head, tattered and torn and tearing, nails into anything he manages to hold on to. Finds comfort, pain, confusion, anxiety-laced into.
It's only been days. Not even a week since China. Nothing about that is long enough to be a habit for anything. (Anyone.)
It's not like either of them have ever had to time to think about it. They came right from China to Moscow, from The Cup to Cup.
If he's being even more honest, they haven't been apart, until tonight, for more months than Yuri thought to count.
And it's something else to hold it. Like this. Alone. In the dark. In an empty bed. Before an empty day.
(If he still doesn't know -- the why and how that led to Victor training him -- he's accepted that it's happening, has been, isn't stopping yet. Sometimes long term. Sometimes on a case by case, day by day, competition by competition, basis, depending on his head.
But this?)
He doesn't know where this started. Because it didn't suddenly change six days ago.
He still feels the same way about things. Even if there's a more attached to it.
To Victor and the days, to this slide between constant training and practice, and Victor redefining even closer and more often what Victor being everywhere, all the time means. And he is. Always trying to make Yuri laugh, or smile, or try new things, or to get him talking about everything and anything that can come into Victor's mind.
(And if he's worked very hard at Victor being Victor, the man with an abashed love for his dog, a grueling taskmaster, a forgetful promise-maker, an odd genius, as blindly blunt as he is carelessly physical, and on and on ... it wasn't ever this. This thing. This new-new thing. Where his mind can't stop for a few seconds now and then.
Because this is Victor Nikiforov.
It's not even the screaming confusion of that name in his ears, drowning his thoughts from months ago. It's this alien thing. Hushed in the whisper of him, as a small child, watching Victor skate the first time. It's that version of him in his beginning teens, all steely dedication, that had him practicing every single routine the senior ever knocked out. It's that voice of him, just making the choice to compete, to train across the world, with a burning fire to get the same stage as his idol.
Victor
Nikiforov. Who is his coach. His friend. The first person he's afraid to lose.Victor Nikiforov. Who touches him. Pulls him in. Curls around him. Kisses him.)
Maybe he'll change his mind. Maybe he'll change his mind about everything. He couldn't stop questioning whether Victor wanted to leave him and coaching entirely only that same number of days ago, knowing he was wrong, but unable to stop thinking it, stop looking for it, and it's the first time Victor's been away from him, in all these days, and all these months, too. Had time to think about things without Yuri or anything Yuri needed to distract him.
It aches. Confused. Wanting. Doubtful. Yearning. It comes and goes. Seconds.
Flickers. Awake, groaning at catching himself, again, and sliding under again.
Somewhere around three he ends up with his phone again. To find the words he couldn't write earlier. He doesn't want to say it in English, and Victor's Japanese is coming along, but it's not his language, and Russian, at least the most important words he's been picking up both from Victor and for getting around this weekend ... and it's Victor's language. He wants to say it that way. His way.
Skipping all of the updates and every feed. Just his translator to find it, and it's easy enough. (Я скучаю по тебе.) Until he reaches the second option (Мне тебя не хватает) with the second meaning, and he can feel the coals rising under his cheekbones. He presses it several times, listening. He says it to himself. To the empty room. To his pillow and phone.
His accent is probably still horrendous and he doesn't know if he'll ever be able to say it to Victor, but it might be a number of days, half a week, before he sees him, again. Victor who won't come back to Moscow. Maybe that many days longer won't make it feel foolish, fool hearted, too fast, too big, too much, too soon.
"Мне тебя не хватает," he still whispers,
(hoping for Maccachin, for Victor, eyes closing again)
I missed you.
(hoping for himself, for Yuri, for Yuri's grandfather,
before falling asleep again.)
I need you with me.
For a night that feels like it just won't pass, and won't end -- when the first alarm goes off, phone still in his hand, accidentally smacking it into his forehead trying to flail away from the blaring siren -- it, also, feels like he only just tried to close his eyes the first time, and every first time ever that, and those. He still feels worn, heavy, tired. Strings on his hands, ankles, thoughts. There's nothing new waiting on his phone. Not from Victor. Or Mari. Or his parents.
He pushes himself up. Stopping for a too long moment looking at the still untouched bed. In the dark. Then with the room light on. He huffs out a breath, too loud, louder than he would if Victor were here. Victor would jump on it instantly, even from dead asleep. He rubs his eyes, up across his forehead and then into his hair. He can do this. He can handle all of this. He has to. It's a morning, like every other. He knows the routine. (He can do this.)
Still when the phone rings, not too long later, hair still dripping and towel just being wrapped,
he's out of the bathroom in seconds and back to where he left it on the charger.
He could say he's hoping for any of the four of them, and he is, but he'd be lying, too. Everything in him gives that away when he sees the name flashing next to the green and red buttons to pick up or hang up. Picking it up and ruffling the window curtain, Yuri tried for something calmer that the sudden fight of staccato and rush over his heart.
"It's still dark out." As well as still snowing. Maybe lighter, but any sun was probably still another hour away from them. Or longer. It might just stay bright grey and snowing. But it wasn't even there yet. The dark was still out there, clinging to Moscow the way the night was still clinging to Yuri. The way Yuri's fingers weren't a little too tight on the curtain, clinging for the last second before he'd hear Victor's voice again.
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Thousands of miles aways. Voice tinny on the phone speaker.
Victor closes his eyes, free hand going to his chest. (Is this what it feels like?)
"Did I wake you up?"
If he is, he's sorry, but just hearing Yuri, after being apart for the last fifteen hours, or more, is relieving, and he tries: "Gomen."
It almost comes fluidly, after the months in Hasetsu, with Yuri. "I didn't mean to."
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Those new words press against the back of his tongue, caught in his teeth, forgotten until this second, when it feels suddenly truer than in the dark. Victor's voice in his ear. But the empty room, he can feel around him .. the dark frosted window, in front of him... the curtain falling from his fingers, only making it somehow sharper.
How can he miss Victor even more right now? How does that make any sense?
"いえいえ --" Yuri turned back to his bed, shaking his head, even though he didn't need to. "I got up a little while ago."
He could get dressed while talking, but he can wait, too. A few minutes. A while. He does at least find his glasses.
"I wanted to make sure I had enough time to find the buffet downstairs, or somewhere nearby, if it's not good, without being late to meet Yakov, and Yuri, and the others. Someone--" He tries for levity, in a gentle accusation and acknowledgment, pinioned on that word, but he feels like it sticks sore in his throat, not funny in the slightest in his chest or in his mouth. "--told me to eat breakfast."
Maybe it's the reason he tacks on, without pause. "Are you there yet?"
He almost said home, but he swallows that down, too.
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All the steps they took, together, to here. "Sounds like someone with good advice that you should probably listen to."
The question opens his eyes a weary crack, and he glances out the window at the scenery rolling by, the train rumbling beneath him. "Not yet. I'm on the train from Kumamoto. Mari will pick me up in Fukuoka."
But that's not why he called, even if it is, even if his only reason was to hear the quiet voice on the other end of the line, even if he's trying to make this call for Yuri, what Yuri might need, because Victor is still his coach, even if he isn't right there watching him.
"Did you sleep all right?"
Or was it like last weekend in Shanghai, when Yuri didn't sleep and didn't nap and finally shattered like a glass ornament dropped on a marble floor, before ––
Before ––
Before everything changed. "You sound tired."
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His shoulders curl, elbow on the towel over his thigh, trying to keep it from his voice.
His worry. How tired he is. Victor shouldn't be worrying about him. "Enough."
Enough to skate. Enough to be fine. He'll be fine. He has to be fine. Even if it's already started, which is just as much a lie to think. In someways it feels like it's never stopped. Not since last weekend. There've been distractions. Victor is too good at distracting sometimes. (Victor isn't here.) But that hasn't stopped the bag of bricks in his stomach from existing any. From dropping them, often, in front of his toes.
From flubbing his jumps. Taking his focus in practice. From pushing himself hours beyond when Victor first suggests they stop.
He'll be fine. He'll be fine. (He won the silver last weekend. He wants to win. Even if that thought is nauseating, too.) He'll be fine. Even alone today. (Again.) Has to be. Fine. Even if he wants to hide in the closet more than pull his outfit out of it. Even if he can't stop thinking about how bad it was only a week ago. When nothing would hold. When he burst into tears and yelled at Victor even. But that's not new, right? That's part of this. That might always be part of this.
Every morning before competition. Every day until he does retire at the end of the season.
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Tapping a finger on his thigh, and wondering.
It's not that he doesn't believe Yuri, exactly. Yuri (probably) (hopefully) (ideally) wouldn't lie to him.
(He thinks.)
But it's harder to tell, over the phone, when he's not able to see the way Yuri can or can't meet his eyes, the telltale flush of pink on his cheeks when he's not being entirely honest. He can hear it, a little, but it's not the same.
"Well, take it easy during morning practice, and if you're still tired this afternoon, no jumps in the warm-up."
Mouth firming, and he lifts his free hand to shake his finger, as if Yuri were right there, in front of him. "I mean it, Yuri. Save your energy and warm up nice and slow. Listen to Yakov."
Someone else he needs to call, or text, he reminds himself. It sounds like a sigh, even in his head: this impossible choice. Maccachin is his family. Yuri is ...
Yuri.
"When are you meeting them to go over?"
Maybe he gave up the right to know, but he wants to, for two reasons:
The first, he won't call or text when it might distract Yuri from the goal ahead of him.
The second...
At least that way, he can imagine himself there.
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Listen to Yakov, Victor says, and what Yuri remembers suddenly is Yuri saying the opposite.
Saying he did not have to talk to Yakov or Lilia, or the skaters with him, at all just to be polite.
He might have trained Victor, been his coach through even single win, but ... he isn't Victor.
Doesn't seem anything like him at all. Yuri's not sure he's ever seen the man more than stand somewhere with his arms crossed.
He doesn't want someone else to tell him what to do. He'd even take Victor frowning, his face all lines and eyes gone sharp, bluntly and exactly detailing every single second Yuri had done something wrong, something they'd already perfected. Hadn't been in the right headspace. Was thinking harder than he was skating. He'd rather take all of the worst seconds ... than someone else.
But. Victor wants him to. Victor is telling him to. Had to give him to the one person Victor could, or would. Had to.
(His coach. Even if they haven't been seen much near each other.
Or the first convenient one he could lay his eyes on? Both?)
He hates this. It's suddenly, strangelingy, clear. As his eyes sting at the edges.
He can't change it -- it's not more important; weak -- and he hates this.
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His eyes are open, but he doesn't see the train car, or the other passengers, or the little towns rolling by out the window under a gray November sky.
(Yuri, focused with earbuds and music, arms circling under a warm-up jacket. Yuri, sparkling in black and silver, tossing a look that burns across the ice. Yuri, who was perfect yesterday. Yuri, stubborn and impossible, exceeding every expectation, shocking the world. Yuri, proving Victor wrong with a single jump.
How can he reassure Yuri when he's so far away?
What can he say or do, at all, across all these miles, all too like that last year, but flipped, now. He in Hasetsu. Yuri in Russia. Where he was supposed to prove to his own country that he was still Victor Nikiforov. That he can do this, too.)
"He won't bother you unless you ask him for help."
Not sure if that's part of this, or not. Yakov is ... there, but Yakov, for all he calls Victor a pretend-coach, won't step on his toes with his skater. Won't contradict his training, or confuse Yuri. "You already know it all. Just remember how many times we've gone over it together, and do it exactly like that."
As if he's right there. On the other side of the wall, and not on the other side of a six hour time difference.
(His head is pounding: lack of sleep, stress, jet lag, worry. Maccachin and Yuri. His inability to be in two places at once.
He lifts a hand to rub a thumb into his temple.)
He tries a small smile, to see if it will help lighten his voice, and it sort of works, he thinks, even if it feels pasted on and imperfect, but, maybe, it might help with the lie.
"Me watching you on tv won't be so different from watching you at the rink, after all."
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When he's not ready for that. Even to think about it. Victor not there, when he looks over.
(Victor's fine with it. Victor doesn't. He can't finish. He feels so alone. In this room. This day.)
He can't lose everything this early. Today is only minutes into started.
(He can't start crying. Not again. He can't. He can't, he can't, he can't.)
He needs. Has to. The day is only.
It's everything in him, fingers hard on his phone,
clutching the towel end at his knees,
to say, "I should get dressed." Beat. "Go eat."
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He can't tell the truth. That it won't be anything like being there. That there's nowhere in the world he would be, if he could, aside from right at that wall, feeling like maybe if he focuses hard enough, he can lift Yuri through his jumps and guide him through his steps and inspire him to greater levels of artistry in his performance.
There waiting for him at the kiss-and-cry. There to remind him what to focus on. Just.
There.
But it wouldn't do any good to say any of that now, when Yuri needs to focus, and it won't help to remind him of all the things Victor should be doing and the place where Victor ought to be. He doesn't need to hear that Victor's heart is breaking or that Victor already misses him more than he thought he could miss anything other than air or the ice, or that Victor misunderstood the depth to which he needs to be there. With him. There. Next to him. Wherever.
He misjudged how terrible it is to be without him. And isn't that the worst of all? That it isn't simply his guilt at not being there as a coach, but feeling like something has been cut away from his side, leaving an open and bleeding wound.
"Okay," is what he says, in the end, because what else is there to say? It isn't. But he has to pretend it is, for Yuri.
Even if it comes with a faint, tired, sigh. "Go eat. I'll talk to Yakov, and ..."
Mouth firming, as he looks back out the window,. "Mari and I are going straight to the vet when she picks me up, so I'll be able to text you news as soon as I know anything. But I don't want you to be distracted, so promise me you'll just focus on your free skate, today, and do your best."
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(But without Victor ... Victor who says it's the same.) Words aren't going to work much longer.
"I'll check after my skate." He doesn't know if he'll make it that long, with all of this. The tumble. Jumble. The seizing feeling. The endless number of hours between. The need to know. If Maccachin is okay. The want to hear Victor voice (even if he, if he--) Even if he doesn't. Tries to avoid seeing commentary that will mess him up even more. It's bad enough. In his head. Bad enough with the tv's, watching the others, with reporters trying to find them everywhere, with all their questions.
When he never made it more than portions of the night. Even knowing there would be nothing.
The nothing that felt so overwhelming already. Teaming. Circling. Slamming.
He needs to change. Needs to eat. To change. To eat.
"До свидания."
Not the polite words he's been working on this week.
Hello. Goodbye. Thank you. How much. Numbers.
Back and forth, with Victor there, like a ball.
It's nettles and ice shards, and still true;
Мне тебя не хватает.)
Even after hanging up, he just stays there, phone to his head, staring at the carpet.