fivetimechamp | November 14-15, 2014 - Between Moscow and Tokyo

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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.

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.

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

...
...
...
...
...

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.

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There's a chuckle over the line, no less fond or warm for its weariness. "I saw."

At the kiss-and-cry, after Yakov grumbled something, and Yuri's future was still up in the air, before Yuri leaned over and hugged the old Russian and made him lose his entire train of thought on live television. "I was watching you."

Just like he promised.

Running his free hand up into his hair, and exhaling something that's supposed to be a laugh, but sounds more like a sigh. "What was with that quad Salchow, huh? Didn't I tell you to take it easy earlier?"

As if he might be able to lecture Yuri, like he'd been waiting right there at the rinkside for him. As if he had the right. As if he hadn't been in tears, hand clutched at his heart, by the time Yuri slid to the ice, panting.

Quieter. "Your step sequence was beautiful. I'm proud of you for pulling through. I know it was hard."

When hard doesn't seem like the right word, but his brain is too tired to search for another, and nothing is written on the bedroom ceiling (the old banquet room) to help him, and he's helpless to say anything but:

"I'm sorry for not being there."

Yuri's hand finds a wall and his eyes almost close at that laugh. It's too far away, and the warmth that should be there he can't quite hear through the phone, and still it wraps around some part of his shoulders like an arm, like a blanket. It's almost as dizzying as when he hit the ice, arms and knees and forehead collapsing in one, feeling like he'd never be able to breathe right again.

Sticks, stay, phantom-like when he just lets his shoulder catch the wall next. His temple.

There is not an arm. (But he wishes there was so much suddenly.)

Even when Victor picks up where Yakov left off. The both of them. A lecture right after. (Even if hugging Victor wouldn't have left Victor rigid and surprised, looking at him like he was a strange, foreign creature all over again.) He hasn't seen a replay yet. But he knows what he did wrong, and so does Victor. So does the world. Yuri's eyes stare at a blank spot trying to find a word, and he's not expecting the compliment that comes right after it. A breath between them, and only one more, before Victor apologizes.

Victor who should have been here. Victor who couldn't be here.
(Victor who knows how hard it was. How hard it would be still even if he was.)

But there's no changing that now. (And he made it. Narrowly.) There was a reason. Every reason. Why Yuri insisted and Victor went. He thinks of that post Victor left this morning. Maccachin in the waves. (The words my favorites. How devestated he'd been over Vicchan right before the Prix the last time he made it this far.) "Maccachin? Is everything--?"

Edited 2017-03-25 18:43 (UTC)

"They think he's going to be just fine."

That, at least, he can say without hesitation or self-flagellation, and his relief is probably as clear over the phone as it was when he first got the call. "They have him for another night, but they said I can probably come pick him up tomorrow afternoon or evening."

He still isn't sure they made the right choice, or that Yuri did the right thing, pushing him away, or that he did the right thing by listening and leaving, but none of that can quite dim his relief that Maccachin –– who has been his only family, here in Japan, and who has been with him so long –– will be alright.

Making him laugh, again, a little rusty and rueful. "I hope he learned his lesson about being so greedy."

Something. Something he can't name. Can't place. Can't point at. Shifts. Cracks. Finally. Finally. Drains out of him. Almost painfully. He can feel it in his heart beat. He can feel it in the breath he lets out. It's every bit of Victor's relieved tone, and Yuri is, too. Relieved. For Victor.

(And, maybe, selfishly,
Sour in his stomach, for it;
for himself, for Maccachin,

for himself; for the Prix.)

He pushes that away. Hard. Not real. Not important. Terrible. Maccachin is okay, which means Victor is okay. That's what is important. As Victor makes it a joke, and Yuri, who might have once not understood, leans into it. The sound of his newest laugh. The teasing-complaint of a tone that means Victor is happy, Victor is ... Victor. Won't have a reason to not be Victor. Not today. "Good."

"Yeah."

He hates being this far away. Hates the way he waits for each word, as if he might be able to pull them from thin air the way he can sometimes pull them from Yuri if Yuri's right there and Victor can tease or coax or annoy or startle him into talking, or into laughter, or into his shy but brilliant smile.

(It sounds different. Better. Like he's just as relieved, and probably he is.

Even if it turned out there was no reason for Victor to rush back here, at all. Maccachin's okay.

He can't help the feeling that he should have stayed.)

But more important:

"And we're going to the Grand Prix Final."

That, he can be as thrilled about as he wants, even if he's exhausted, even if it was by the skin of Yuri's teeth, even if he couldn't be there to help Yuri pull it through.

They're going. And they're going to win.

Pure confidence and affectionate pride in his voice when he continues: "I told you we would, didn't I?"

Never stopped believing it. How could they do anything but, when Yuri has the skill to get there and to win, and Victor was helping him?

It was never a question.

The first word is easy. The silence is almost as companionable as it is crushing. He's still alone, but he's not entirely, too. Somewhere, at home, Victor is there, on the other end of an invisible line, and even an invisible line that might choke him, is better than having nothing at all. Especially after today.

The next eight are not. Or the ones after it. Victor's voice. Victor's word.

But Yuri can see it. The combination he messed up entirely. At least one landing he took wrong. Or maybe it was two. His exhausted, unfocused, start that fed right into going too fast, too soon, coming off jittery, slamming straight into nerves, into panic, into not having his jumps. Even if it didn't stay that way. Even if he knows --

He knows it's not like the last Grand Prix, where he lost control of everything.
He knows it's not like the Championship, where he couldn't do a single thing.

He earned those points. He knows that, too.
Even if one point less might have canned him.

He earned that one point, and every other on his board.
Because he managed to put it back together. Because it mattered.
Not even because he had to show them...or even show Russia ...

Because of Victor. Because at some point, somewhere in the middle, without meaning to or specifically choosing that path, all it was, was Victor. To Victor. About Victor. Every second since he'd shown up. Every terrible and beautiful thing to echo out from that moment, ripples around a rock thrown into the stagnant water, filling it with light and direction. (And love.)

Which almost feels worse. He should have done better then. Because of that. Earlier than that. It shouldn't have taken messing up his elements. He shouldn't have still almost fallen, and caught himself on his fingers near the end. Not once he was driven to keep going. Not once he was chasing it so hard and it was finally almost in his fingers. Keeping, holding on. To fight back. To touch every bit of that light he never deserved, but got, and had to show to everyone watching him. Fighting harder than he thought he could, through each hushed silence. What it felt like, in him, on the ice ...

... what it felt like to have Victor ...

... something that had no words to describe it.
It only existed out there. Something that deserved so much more.

He still can't stop the words, stop how much he means it, the choked whisper, "ごめんなさい."

Edited 2017-03-25 23:21 (UTC)

Whatever answer he was expecting, it wasn't this.

The long pause. And then Yuri's whisper, so close to tears.

Making Victor sit himself upright, pushing the phone against his ear to tightly it hurts, as if that might somehow bridge the divide. As if he might somehow will Yuri to feel him, there, closer. Right next to him.

A sudden frantic scrabble in his chest, like his heart is trying to shove straight through his ribs. "Why?"

Training Yuri has always been a little like walking a tightrope, ever since that morning by the ocean. Pushing only works sometimes; criticism, similarly so. Yakov's style had always been to focus on the imperfections and to scold his students into a stoked fire of competition to continually better themselves –– but it hadn't worked for everyone.

And Yuri doesn't work that way. One day he might accept Victor's blunt criticism, and another it might deflate him completely.

(Victor always though Yakov should praise his skaters more, anyway.)

So he keeps it gentle, even as that scrabbling, aching thing in his chest is desperate at the thought that, somewhere in Moscow, Yuri might be crying alone.

"There's nothing to be sorry about. You proved you have every right to be there, after the Cup of China, after yesterday, after today. No one could say otherwise. You've made us all proud."

He says us and Yuri isn't sure if he means everyone from the we he used earlier, or his country. Or. He just doesn't know. Even Victor started about the salchow at the beginning of this conversation. But other things got in the way. He already knows why.

He couldn't be in the Kiss-and-Cry, but Yuri's certain he will hear about it. This won't be the end.

Not with the practice they'll have to do for the Prix. Not with working on everything he flubbed this time.

Yuri isn't sure how to even touch the last word Victor said.

(誇りに思う.
He wonders what it is in Russian.

Yuri would be glad to tell him today.)

It echoes in the halls of his head, like it's calling for something, but there's nothing there in those hallways to answer. The way there's nothing down the one that Yuri is staring at. Closed doors and empty chairs. The echo and whispers of voices in the distance behind him. He doesn't know how to hold it in his hands anymore than he'll be able to hold Victor's voice in his hands once they hang up.

He turns, putting his back against the wall. It hurts, but it lessens the pressure on his shoulder, evens the pressure ration of which parts of him where. He doesn't close his eyes and he tries so hard not to let a sigh out. "I won't skate tomorrow. I could--" He had no real reason to be here tomorrow. Nothing anyone needed of him. He wouldn't skate the Exhibition, wasn't needed at the Banquet. He could come h--

Except.

"But Yuri--" Yuri would. Be here. Be needed. Skate tomorrow morning, in the exhibitions.

Yuri who had hadn't seen since the medals. Yuri, who had ordered him to bed. Yuri, who he still had no clue if had his grandfather here today. Yuri, who took him to Milliways and gave him tea. Yuri, who tried to make it better. He could see that, suddenly, in retrospect, even as the idea of another day in these hallways made him want to curl down to where his feet were.

Yuri probably hadn't wanted him around last night, and he'd managed.
Better than managed. For him. (And he'd won, too.)

He wanted so badly, suddenly, to tell Victor. Maybe not everything, but some of it. About last night. About Yuri, and his grandfather. But not here. This felt ... so wrong. Over the phone. So far. And now, because he was the best person to sabotage his own light, and because someone else might need him, it might be longer.

Edited 2017-03-26 00:28 (UTC)

Despite the fact that Yuri kept him on the hook for fifteen months with no sign or word or call or signal, he's not a selfish person.

It's one of the things Victor loves about him, that part of Yuri's problem is that he is forever worried about letting down the people who believe in him most: Victor, Minako, his parents, Yuuko and Nishigori and their girls. The whole of Japan.

So it stands to reason that he would torture himself, stay another day, alone, in order to support someone who has been almost wholly antagonistic towards him.

(Victor watched the Allegro, Lilia's deft hand and absolute precision all over the piece, pushing Yurio further than he's capable of, turning him from a half-grown and moody teenager to a tongue of flame that licked around the rink and set the whole arena ablaze. That was not Yakov: that was Lilia Baranovskaya, the principal ballerina of the Bolshoi, wielding beauty like a weapon and perfection like the absolute truth of the Earth's spin about the sun.

Yuri can still win. But if Yurio has reached these heights...

And isn't it strange, a little, to feel something like ––

pride?)

But Yurio will have his people there, tomorrow. Yakov, Lilia. His grandfather, probably.

And all of Yuri's people are here.

"Do you think Yurio would stay for yours?"

Is one way to put it, and it's a little wry, because it's unlikely in the extreme. Yurio is a brilliant talent, but he still lacks the ability to socialize well with the other skaters, and most of his relationships are built on competition.

(It's all familiar to Victor. It's not like he wasn't the same, viewing other skaters mostly as amusing distractions or barriers to the top of the podium, before this last year.)

But he tries for something a little gentler, a little more wheedling. "If you leave tonight, we can watch him together tomorrow night." It'd be late, again, but he doesn't mind: has a vision of sitting here, in this bed, with Yuri leaning into him and Maccachin at their feet and the exhibition on the laptop in front of them, to cheer Yurio on together.

But it's still not enough, still not what he means, and what he means is: "Come home."

Quiet, but certain, and maybe a little more than a little longing. It's only been a day.

(It's been too long.

It's been forever.)

Before today, Yuri would have said no. It's on his mouth to say no. That Yurio might not have stayed to watch if they'd been in each other's shoes (they aren't; he didn't win; he did; narrowly). But he's not certain still. He knows how hard Yuri would have taken it. Yuri, who snuck out of their first competition, with only a goodbye to Yuu-san.

But the Yurio who skated Allegro isn't the one who skated that first Agape;

The Yurio who shoved him through two doors and into a counter,
isn't the one who shoved him into the bar, into a booth, and stayed.

Yes, it had ended with snapping insults and anger.
Yes, Yuri hadn't so much as looked at him or talked to him today.

But that didn't make last night not real. That didn't make it so he didn't try. Didn't make him have to tell Yuri what had happened, why about his skate and his grandfather. He's not certain whether Yurio, fifteen and with no one near his age, in his first senior year, even if he did win, even if he wouldn't come in Yuri's shoes, is the right reason not to.

But Victor keeps talking, and some of the words wipe through all of his thought, simple as though he's wiping away fog off the glasses Yuri still isn't wearing, starting with if you, while he leans his head back, and changing to we, which almost makes his eyelids drift down, and ending on those words. Those simple two words. In that tone. And he can't breathe for the millionth time today.

But this is different. This one. It's is a quick breath in his mouth, before his mouth closes and his body freezes.

And he can't. For a moment he just can't. Word are irrelevant. Languages incomprehensible.

It just replays.

Come home.
(Away from this too big, too full,
yet so achingly empty, building.)

Come home.
(Away from that suffocating room,
it's suffocating beds.)

Come home.

( ... to him?)

"Yuri?"

He waits, but there's no answer, and what is there else to say, really?

Soft and clear all at once, lying back against the pillows, free hand landing on his chest. How did it get like this?

(How did he?)

How had he ever made it through fifteen months?

"I miss you."

It's more plaintive than he should be, switched somewhere in the last few moments from supportive coach to lonely lover. Not using the need to get to training again as quickly as possible, or cut the costs of being in Moscow another night, or even the emotional and mental benefits of returning home to support and pride and warmth:

Just this. That he misses him.

And Yuri might not be selfish, but Victor is.

(That man thinks only of himself!)

And he can be selfish enough for Yuri, too, and take the pressure of deciding off. "Please."

If he were here, Yuri might not have to say anything it at all.

(If he were here, Victor would have given him a lecture, and a hug, and already have what came next planned. He'd have already told Yuri where they were going, when, why, where. What the plan was. This morning. This afternoon. Now, again. Ready to get on to the next stage.)

If he could just appear now, Yuri thinks it would be easier.

It's not always easy. He knows he's not always easy.

But he thinks, he nearly sure, if Victor was here, he wouldn't even have to say a word.
He could just look at Victor and Victor would know. It happens more times than it should.

He squeezes his eyes tight and reaches up to rub them, nodding, head digging in the wall. No tears, but it's bigger than that. It feels bigger than his body, and his disappointment, a pang that answers from every single cell in his body to every single word after his name. Something amorphous and explosive, and if his voice is even or not he can't tell, when he manages, "はい."

The first one nothing but straight from the crescendo of response.
He doesn't think about which or why, only that it comes from his center.

(He's sorry, already. Sorry, if he should have stayed. Sorry, if Yurio needed him back, in the same way Yuri would have never said, or even thought that, he needed Yurio in the first place. But somehow Yurio figured it out anyway. Did it. Anyway. Without him knowing. And. He's sorry.

Because, in one breath, he needs Victor more.
More than any thought. Any debt. Anything.

It returns, from nowhere,
Мне тебя не хватает.)

He makes himself swallow, open his eyes. Try. More words. "I'll need to look at flights."

Edited 2017-03-26 03:16 (UTC)

"Okay."

It comes out a sigh of relief, and he takes a deep breath in, to try and settle himself. His impatience.

It'll still be another day, almost, and that's if Yuri manages to find something over night or early in the morning. Soon, but not soon enough. He can already feel it biting at the back of his neck, along with his exhaustion, fatigue poisons rolling merrily through his bloodstream.

He'll sleep tonight, he knows, because he's too tired not to, but he doubts it'll be as restful as it could be.

"Put it on my card. I can text you the information, just get a ticket and let me know when you'll be home."

Just get here. Just come back.

Okay and okay, and he should have more to say, shouldn't he?

Where are the words to express this desperation that has swung from never wanting to release his grip on his phone, and the impermanence of Victor's voice, to wanting to hang up suddenly, so that he can figure it out. Get a ticket. Pack up everything left in the hotel. Go the airport. Pray madly, before he can even get to those steps, that all the flights he needs haven't already left for the day, from any place he might need them.

"I'll send it the moment I have it," is the most lackluster turnout for his effort to find even more words. How long has it been since it was hard to find so many words for even one conversation with Victor? Had he had more than this, this morning? He couldn't remember now. That blurred. And last night. He wants to look. To ask. Never to ask, never to imply he forgot. The whole day is blurring. That he wants to put his head in his lap.

That he just wants to close his eyes tight and open them and be home.

(But as experiences with that goes, he's been more desperate and devastated begging for that wish, and it never worked then.)

It takes some acrobatics, doing it on his phone instead of waiting to get back to the hotel and use a laptop, but not too long. He chooses the first thing available and reasonable. The middle of the night, even by Russia's protracted night standards, but it's better than waiting until morning, better than the hellish consideration of trying to sleep in that room again.

When he's forwarded Victor a copy of his email receipt, and screen shots of his mobile boarding pass, he finally stops.

Finally, breathes in, and out, in and out, feeling like it might be the very first time since Mari called.

Edited 2017-03-26 04:56 (UTC)

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November 14-15, 2014 - Between Moscow and Tokyo

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