"Look at me," his body sings.
"Look at me," his body cries.
"Look at me," his body begs.
"Look at me," he spins.
"Look at me," he glides.
"Look at me," he spirals.
Look at me.
Look at me.
Look at me.
LOOK. AT. ME.
Look at me—just me. Юрий Плисецкий. Yuri Plisetsky. Yurochka. Russian Fairy. Yurio.
He'll never be the progenitor of his own legacy. He may be the rising star in the figure skating world but he'll always be eclipsed by the blinding star of Viktor Nikiforov. Even in the end, he'll burn, burn far brighter in his supernova than Yuri could ever do in his prime.
What can he do in the face of a titan? Does he not wither away in its shadow? Nobody ever cares about the shadow. What can he do if the titan ever falls? Does he not get crushed? Nobody ever cares about the aftermath.
He'll never be the progenitor of his own success. He may be the rising star in the figure skating world but he'll always know that he's been molded by Yakov Feltsman. Even though he has been transplanted from Moscow to St. Petersburg, he knows his roots still ache with the thought of home—his grandfather and his pirozhki.
What does he have in St. Petersburg? His skating. His skates. His coach. His rinkmates. His cat.
It's hard to tell if he feels lonely. It's hard to tell much of anything when he is a void—a hungry void of anger. He's already skipped to being a black hole. Absent of everything. Empty, bitter, boring, and hollow. (What would you see if you carved him up? Peered into his insides? Shiny viscera? Matte blackness?) He doesn't feel anything until he smashes it up. Welcome to the madness.
All he wants to do is win and transcend the confines of his life, his reputation. He wants to become a titan—a figure skating giant. Let his name go down in history. Be a history maker. He's tired of feeling never enough. He wants the darkness to end. Let him illuminate the hollows of his soul in glory.
The moment of truth. "If selling my soul is what it takes to win, I'll give you this body, no holds barred," he says to the former prima ballerina. He wants to sharpen the knives of his skates on her high, high cheekbones. He wants her to mold him into the avatar of victory. Will he bend or snap under her pressure? His spine is a bough bowing under her pressure. ("I only have a short window before my body changes.") She is remaking him. And he wonders, will she make him shine? Will she make him unstoppable? Will she make him the progenitor of his own legacy?
In time, he realizes he is lonely. All he wants is a confidante to laugh it all off. What he wants, what he desires is friendship. And he finds it in the winding streets of Barcelona. In the dust kicked up by a motorcycle. Otabek Altin, with a name like gold, says, "Yuri Plisetsky had the unforgettable eyes of a soldier." If he can't be a monolithic titan, then he could perhaps be Otabek's soldier.
For the first time in a long time, he can feel. He is not without hope. In short, he becomes agape. Memories of his grandfather isn't colored by the longing and the desolation of their inevitable partings. He feels selfless and all-encompassing. He is agape. Love is a vine creeping up his form, twining with his veins until even he can't separate himself. He blooms.
Yuri is a star. Yuri is a titan. Yuri is alive.