Yuri never thought a day like this would come. Yet here he was, standing before a gravestone he'd never thought he'd see.
Here lies Nikolai Plisetsky; a doting grandfather who will be greatly missed.
There was no emotion as his soldier eyes turned to stone. He didn't feel anything. He couldn't feel anything. How could he? His grandfather was the pillar for his emotion. But where was he?
Six feet under, after succumbing to kidney failure and cardiac arrest.
"Yurochka..." a rough voice—with an ironic softness to it—mumbled. Yuri processed the voice as Yakov Feltsman, his coach. "Yurochka, it's only going to hurt more if you stay so long..."
"Yakov, leave him be..." a female voice—Mila Babicheva—whispers, "you know how close he was to his grandfather..."
Silence, before a deep sigh was drawn from the coach's lungs. "Alright... Yurochka, give one of us a call when you're ready to leave... we'll come pick you up."
Yuri didn't answer. There was nothing for him to say to anyone. Footsteps resonated in the dark, empty atmosphere of the graveyard.
The boy was alone; far more alone than he'd ever felt before.
There was a tug at his chest—well, if a tug was the same as a harsh yanking feeling. Emotion was slowly filling the numb void of his heart, formulating into a scream that desperately tore at his throat. But the scream would do little justice to what he was finally beginning to feel. Yet the scream came anyway.
The agonized, lonely cry broke free from its vocal prison, and Yuri dropped to the ground, wracked with sobs and wails. He choked and cried, pouring out every feeling he had within him, which were all slowly growing heavier on the teen's shoulders.
Centurial minutes passed, and Yuri was soon silent. His throat, eyes and cheeks all burned with the strain of emotion. He was now empty once more, with no more energy to vent the pollution of his despair. The only thing Yuri could hear was his own shaking, heavy breathing as he sat there on his knees, hunched over and numb. Minutes passed once again, before footsteps sounded in the air.
"Yura..."
Otabek... Yuri's mind registered the voice. The Kazakh figure skater Otabek Altin, his closest friend.
Yuri could feel Otabek's eyes looking him over, taking in the sight in front of him; Yuri Plisetsky, Grand Prix wonder, curled up in a ball in the middle of a graveyard, so numb he couldn't bring himself to properly function anymore.
"Yura, come..." the deep voice mumbled, "I'm going to take you home..."
Yuri shook his head, throat tightening to the point where he couldn't speak. He desperately tried to form words, but failed.
"Yura..."
Footsteps, followed by a feeling of constriction that surrounded his body. Yuri felt a surge flow through him, and without a second thought he began to struggle against Otabek's hold. "Let me go!" he cried, flailing about.
"Yura, no, you n–"
"I SAID LET ME GO!" Yuri broke free from the Kazakh male's arms. He scrambled away, stumbling as he did. Instead of stopping to turn towards Otabek, however, he kept running. As he fled, the echoes of Otabek's pleas haunted his ears, with little variation in volume though they were slowly growing further away.
Yuri never stopped running after that—there was no way he could stop, even if he wanted to. It was like his muscles kept pushing his legs against his brain's will. He desperately wanted to stop; he couldn't feel his lower limbs, and his throat, eyes, cheeks, and lungs burned like hell.
His feet hit the asphalt of the road, his position impaired to the centre of the crosswalk's white edges. As he ran, time began to slow down. His eyes—just as slowly as everything else—slid over to see the front of a truck barrelling towards him. Then, there was nothing but a splurge of red and black all around him.
xXXx
I had a great coach, a promising career in figure skating, the best rink mates, and you. There was everything in my life. And just like that, there was nothing.
xXXx
The blips began to fade into sensory registry. Green orbs opened to a haze of fuzzy colours. Between many of those fuzzy colours there were dark patches that hindered his vision.
"Yuri, you're awake..."
A female voice. Who? Yuri couldn't place a name to the voice. Nor could he really move his neck to look around. Everything ached and burned.
"Yuri, can you hear me...? It's Mila..."
Mila... Yuri repeated in his head, Babicheva... Baba...
"Yes, that's it... Mila..."
Did he say it loud as well? He must have...
Yuri felt long, slender fingers reach and brush some of his hair out of his face. It was so much longer than he had remembered... he felt the locks brushing his shoulders; his hair wasn't so long before, was it?
"You've been in a coma for a long time, Yuri..." Mila's voice mumbled, "almost eleven months..."
C... c-coma...? Yuri thought, wh... what...
"What..." Yuri forced out through weakness and dizziness, "hap... what happened...?"
Mila sighed. "Well..."
x
"Ah, Viktor Nikiforov. Funny running into you here."
"I could say the same for you, Mila. You aren't really a coffee person."
Mila walked out of a coffee shop with Viktor Nikiforov at her side—they both carried extra large cups, with Viktor having a latte and Mila having all black coffee.
"Today's been stressful, Viktor..."
"Ah, yes... today was Nikolai's funeral and burial, wasn't it?" there was a melancholy tone to Viktor's voice. "I'm sorry I couldn't have been there..."
"That's an apology for Yuri, not me."
"Right..."
The two Russians stood quietly next to each other for a few moments, each taking sips from their coffees every few seconds.
Viktor then broke the silence. "How has Yuri been taking his grandfather's passing?"
"He's taking it horribly..." Mila responded, "he hasn't eaten anything in three days, and he's barely spoken a word outside of 'leave me alone' and 'he can't be gone...'" She sighed. "I've been trying to help him cope, but... he just... he can't deal with this. You know how close he was to Nikolai—he loved that man more than he loved his own mother."
"I know..." Viktor nodded, "he based his Agape program on that love–" he stopped mid-sentence.
"Viktor?" Mila asked.
"He's running," Viktor pointed across the street, "over there."
Mila looked to where Viktor was pointing, seeing a young blond boy charging his way across the street.
Where is he go– Mila began to think, but her thoughts immediately cut off as a truck came into her field of view. "Yuri!" she screamed on instinct. Panic began to surge through her veins, and nearly forced her to faint as the truck slammed into the fragile, beautiful body and sent it soaring down the street, turning it into a mangle of blood and broken bones.
"YURI!"
Truck... Yuri thought.
As he ran, time seemed to slow down.
Then, there was nothing but a red and black splurge all around him.
x
"Truck..."
"Yes, a truck..." Mila gently took Yuri's left hand in her own and intertwined their fingers; he could feel her digits brushing the bandages on the back of his hands. "Yuri, they... they told us you weren't going to wake up." He heard her sigh. "That truck hit you so hard... you'd stopped breathing, and they said your heart stopped for six whole minutes..."
Yuri took all of this information in. Was it really that bad? As he was thinking, a soft whirring sound entered his eardrums. What was it? His eyes travelled down, and he could see what looked to be an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. How did he not notice it before...?
"Mm..." there was a quiet mumble from somewhere in the room—however it was opposite to Mila's location.
"Ah... Otabek is here," Mila murmured, "he's asleep, though."
Quiet.
"He's been worrying nonstop, Yuri."
Silence again.
"I don't think anyone has ever seen that boy cry so much before, if at all..."
This is what caught Yuri's attention. Otabek crying was an abstract thought, something that no one thought he could do due to his incredulous stoicism. But Otabek crying over Yuri falling into a coma... no...
He didn't cry over him. No way.
"Oh, Beka's waking up... Beka, Yuri's awake."
"What!?" the emotion from the deep voice was shocking. The sound of a chair sliding across a floor echoed in the room, followed by footsteps. Otabek's face then entered Yuri's field of vision, though it was concealed in some places by the dark patches in his view. "Yura... oh, my God, Yura, you had me so worried..." Otabek reached and took Yuri's other hand—the one Mila wasn't holding.
The position of Yuri's left arm registered in his brain; draped over his chest, unable to move.
"Yura, can you speak...?" Otabek asked. There was emotion in his voice that was disturbing to hear.
"D..." Yuri choked out, "d-damage..."
"What?" Otabek question.
"H... how bad... is it...?"
"Oh..." Otabek mumbled, "um... well... the force of the crash completely broke your rib cage..."
"That should be mostly healed by now, though..." Mila added, "the bones in your left arm were shattered. They still need quite a bit more time to heal..."
"Severe brain damage..." Otabek continued, "they said your brain's never going to fully heal, the degree of damage was that high..."
"There were other minor damages that healed months ago, but..." Mila's voice dropped to a murmur, "you... aren't going to be happy about this last thing, I know..."
Oh, no... Yuri thought.
"Let's..." Mila sighed, "let's just say you'll never be on the ice again..."
Yuri's eyes widened. What!?
"Your spine was snapped and your legs were pretty much shattered, worse than your arm..."
"N-no..." Yuri whispered. He felt his eyes beginning to water, and the salty, liquid emotion falling down his temples.
"I'm sorry, Yuri..." Otabek whispered, "this is my fault..." he sighed. "I shouldn't have..."
"Sh... shouldn't have what...?" Yuri asked; speaking was slowly coming easier to him, however moving was not. He remained still, waiting for a response.
"I... you don't remember?" Otabek seemed surprised.
"No..." Yuri responded. He didn't remember what had happened. Come to think of it, there wasn't much he could remember. There were names and faces that remained in his brain. There were the memories of skating on the ice, and pouring blood and sweat and tears into Agape and Allegro Apassionato. He could vaguely remember his childhood, and last year's Grand Prix competition. But anything else that he tried to recall just slipped right through his mental fingertips. "I don't... really remember... anything..."
"No?" Mila asked.
"No..."
Otabek looked over to Mila. "I was trying to bring him home. Went to hug him and he freaked out and ran..."
Why...? thought Yuri, why would I...
Suddenly, as if he were shot in the head with a bullet, images began to flash before his eyes.
Nikolai Plisetsky. A hospital bed. A flatlining heart monitor. A coffin. A tombstone.
The splurge of red and black.
"Yura, snap out of it."
He couldn't.
"Yura?"
He couldn't respond.
"Yura!"
There was nothing in his mind but those images, flashing over and over again.
"Yurochka, please, you're scaring us..."
Tears began to well in Yuri's eyes again. All he could choke out was, "he's gone..."
He was.
His grandfather was gone, wasn't he? He really was.
Everything Yuri loved was gone.
He had a great coach, a promising career in figure skating, the best rink mates, and his grandfather. There was everything in his life. And just like that, there was nothing.