Yuri Plisetsky growled. "Who thought it would be a good idea to hold Skate America in a tiny little rotten town nobody's even heard of?"
Yakov, who had been tired of hearing a steady diet of similar complaints ever since Yuri was assigned to Skate America, had finally had his fill and ordered him out of his sight until the next morning.
"'Spokane.' Even the name is stupid. Ridiculous little one-horse town with two hotels and no room service."
It was cold, but not for someone who had grown up in Moscow winters. Yuri grumped through an empty park on a river.
"France, China, Russia, Japan… they always hold their competitions in big cities. But no, America has to be different."
He walked past a storefront and smelled something. Something he didn't hate. Pizza.
He stepped inside. "Excuse me, do you have the kind of pizza with pineapple on it?"
After he ordered, Yuri was led to a table. He saw someone he recognized. "Seung-Gil?"
The quiet Korean skater at the next table looked up from his phone, saw him, nodded, and looked down again.
Yuri didn't really know him, apart from the way that he knew of all the world's top 80 or so male figure skaters. All he really know about him was he didn't make many mistakes, that he instagrammed his dog a lot, and that he didn't talk much (which he appreciated-and which reminded him of a certain someone.)
Yuri's phone buzzed. Text from Mila. "Davai!" She was in some place called 'Saskatoon', getting ready for Skate Canada the weekend after Skate America.
There was a picture attachment. He opened it.
Mila, JJ, and JJ's girlfriend, all doing a peace sign to the camera.
He closed the image as violently as he could. "Dammit, Mila, you're gonna make me lose my appetite."
Another text, this one from Yuuri. "Where are you eating? We'll join you!"
Yuri decided to ignore that one. He wanted a quiet dinner. He looked over at Seung-Gil.
Yeah, Seung-Gil probably wanted a quiet dinner, too.
Yuri's salad arrived.
He checked his social media sites as he ate. Nothing from Otabek, but he'd be asleep right now. He'd blocked Christophe, but that didn't stop people from sending him anonymous messages of screen shots of Christophe's posts. He half-expected the culprit to be Christophe himself, but surely there's no way someone could be that narcissistic, could there?
Someone walked over. "Thanks, Miss… hey, Seung-Gil! And Yuri!"
Yuri looked up and scowled at the two arrivals. One of them, Guang Hong Ji, was tolerable enough-he was usually shy and other one, Phichit Chulanont, was annoyingly outgoing. He currently ranked sixth on Yuri's list of "Most Obnoxious Skaters in the world" (JJ, obviously, was number one on that list).
Phichit turned to the waitress. "Miss? Could you bring our orders over here when they are ready? We want to sit with our friends."
"Who the hell invited you to sit with us? Go sit somewhere else. Outside, preferably."
"Ouch, so cold. We used to be so close, Yuri."
"We were never close. And besides, Seung-Gil doesn't want you sitting here, either."
The three looked at Seung-Gil who looked back at them nonplussed. He shrugged his shoulders.
"There, Seung-Gil is cool with it." Phichit and Guang Hong pushed the tables together and sit down. "Besides, the next one will be along in a minute."
"What do you mean, 'the next one'? Hey, I'm just here to have a quiet dinner, this wasn't meant to be some kind of party."
"Hey, is this where the party is?" asked Emil Nekola as he walked up.
Yuri swore in Russian.
"Hi, Yuri, same to you too." Oh yeah, Emil trained in Moscow for awhile. Yuri sometimes forgot that there were some people outside of Russia who spoke his language.
Phichit had apparently appointed himself host of the gathering. "Hey there, Emil, pull a chair up."
"Thanks, Phichit. And guess who I saw out on the street?"
Yuri knew before he even saw or heard them.
Yeah, of course. Victor and Yuuri.
Guang Hong turned red seeing his idol. Yuri scoffed. The little dweeb. Little do you know how annoying he is, Yuri wanted to tell him.
Apart from Yuri (in a cloud of anger) and Seung-Gil (in a cloud of indifference), everyone seemed happy at the arrival of men's skating power couple. As usual, Victor seemed assured and confident and Yuuri was nervous, although Yuuri wouldn't even be skating the next day-he was there only as a spectator/cheering squad/apprentice coach.
"Hello, everyone. Hey, has anyone ordered beer yet? Who wants beer? Me, Yuuri, Phichit, Emil… one for you, Seung-Gil? No? I guess Yurio and Guang Hong are too young."
Phichit tapped Victor's shoulder. "Actually, Emil is too young, too."
"What? The hell I am. I'm 19 now."
"Yeah, but this isn't Canada or Europe. The drinking age is 21 here."
"Are you kidding? 21? Dammit. I hate America."
Almost everyone laughed. Even Yuri felt his mouth twitch at that one.
The party was lively, but not obnoxious. Yuuri cut off his fiancé after one beer, and out of sympathy, only had one himself. Phichit, succumbing to the wisdom of not being the only hungover skater the next day, also was moderate in his drinking.
A few other skaters had joined the party as well. A German kid making his debut in the Junior circuit who was here with his coach as an observer. A pairs skating couple (Czech and Chinese, representing China) that Emil and Guang Hong both knew. A girl from Estonia, who Yuri recognized as one of Mila's friends.
When the time came to go back to the hotel, the combined check arrived. Emil picked it up and whistled. "That's… more than I expected. Uh, I'm not sure how much I owe? Maybe $15?"
Phichit held his hand up. "I know the perfect way to deal with this." He handed to the check over to Seung-Gil, who had been silent the entire evening. "Seung-Gil, what do you make of this?"
The Korean skater looked it over for a few seconds, then spoke. "I had the small mushroom pizza with a soft drink. With a sales tax rate of 8.7% and a minimum pre-tax gratuity of 15%, that comes to $16.07. Russian Yuri had a small Hawaiian special, salad and soft drink, for a total of $21.02. Guang Hong and Phichit shared a medium thin-crust barbeque pizza; Guang Hong had a soft drink, so his share is $14.29, while Phichit had two beers, and with the 12.7% alcoholic beverage tax, his share comes to $24.66. Next is Emil…"
He continued through the entire list of diners, flawlessly remembering everyone's ordered items, splitting up the shared orders, and calculating the appropriate tax and tips. Guang Hong jotted down on a napkin all the numbers Seung-Gil came up with
By the time he was finished everyone else, apart from Phichit, sat with slackened jaws at Seung-Gil's performance.
He stood up. "That being said…" He pulled out a $20 bill and set it down on the table. "Please tip the wait staff generously. My mother used to work in a restaurant. It's a hard job. Good night, everyone." Without a further word, he put his earbuds in and left.
Guang Hong tapped Phichit on the shoulder. "Hey…"
"Yeah?"
"I know that Victor is right there and everything… but that just now was maybe the coolest thing I ever saw."
"I know, right? That's Seung-Gil's party trick. Or it would be, if he ever went to parties."
Along with everyone else, Yuri prepared to go back to the hotel. The others seemed to want to walk together as a group, but Yuri didn't feel like it. He felt like he needed some alone time.
He slowly walked through the park back to the hotel. Along the waterfront he saw some swans, which made him smile. He saw some young couples in love, which made him roll his eyes. Maybe it was just too much exposure to them, but when he saw young couples, in his mind they turned into Victor and Yuuri, the world's most annoying couple.
Still… tonight hadn't been so bad. Yeah, just about everyone was annoying, but, it could have been worse.
Later tonight he'd message Otabek. And Grandpa. He found himself smiling a little.
And hey, at least JJ wasn't here.
And then he smiled a lot.
Notes: This started off as just a joke story about how Seung-Gil can flawlessly split a restaurant bill in his head. For it to work, the story needed to take place in America, since we have the hinkiest rules about sales tax and "optional" tips that serving staff actually do need to survive (seriously, people, tip your servers.) But then, there was more and more setup, and Yurio grabbed the spotlight, the brat. :)
Skate America actually was held in Spokane once, in 2002. I'm sort of familiar with the area, having been there for work purposes a few times. It's not quite as bereft of hotels and restaurants as the story indicates, but it's a far cry from what you'd find in Tokyo or Paris.
Thanks for reading!