Tag. That's one way to think about it. After all, it started out as a game (and, it turned out, ended as one), but to make it into a program that will surprise and delight, he'll have to focus it, refine it. Drill down and down and down until he finds that feeling again, and flips it. Seduction treats love like a game, and that's what he envisions for this.


(But if he can't decide if he's the chaser or the chased, the program will be muddled and hard to understand.)


Still, Yuri isn't wrong, and that makes his grin flash, pleased. "Very good." Right now it does feel like tag, as he's chased around the ice by his own indecision. Purity or iniquity? Angel or demon? Does he let it all go, and continue chasing immortality, or give in to human desires?

"Do you think an audience will want to watch a grown man playing child's games on the ice in a serious competition?" Yakov is grumbling, but he's not telling Victor to forget about it: after so many years together, they've reached a kind of understanding about each others' foibles.

... or he's learned to cut his losses where he can.

Victor doesn't say I think they'd want to watch me, but it's in the light arch of his eyebrow and the knowing glance he shoots Yakov before turning back to Yuri. "I want to know who wins, too."