It was a beautiful day in St Petersburg. Clouds skimmed lazily across the summer sky. The city streets were dotted with busy people going about their lives. Nearly everybody was outdoors.

Everyone, that is, except for Yuri Plisetsky.

Yuri was indoors, not only because he generally hated being outdoors but also because he was in a bad mood. And when he was in a bad mood he preferred to stay well away from fresh air and happy people, and those feelings were thoroughly reciprocated. Since he was usually in some varying degree of a bad mood, Yuri spent more time indoors than out.

Yuri heartily wished he had something better to blame his current mood on, like JJ or Yakov or the two idiots he was sharing a flat with. Things like that could easily be abused until the bad mood was worked off, but he happened to be annoyed at something more inconvenient, which was his homework. Yuri had never been good at math, and for the life of him couldn't fathom why he had to be.

"This is ridiculous," he spat through gritted teeth for the forty-seventh time. "I am a world-renowned figure skater! The youngest ever Grand Prix gold medalist! What sense in any universe does it make to have me struggle through algebra!"

He considered flinging his pencil at something and throwing his fourteenth temper tantrum for the day, but right now he felt too spent to even do that. He sighed and wished fervently that his arch enemy, JJ Leroy, was even worse at math than he was.

Angry death metal shattered the silence. It was Yakov.

"YURI PLISETSKY! Why am I not seeing you at practice this morning!"

"Because I didn't come?"

"Don't be impertinent, young man! What possible reason could you have for not coming?"

Yuri sighed, frustrated. "Yakov, I can't. I've got homework to finish."

Yakov nearly told him to do something to the homework which he held back because he remembered he was talking to a fifteen-year-old. "Forget the homework! You don't care that much about school, surely? Get your sorry self down here to the ice rink!"

"Yakov, I can't!" shouted Yuri, blushing furiously because he had hoped not to tell this to anyone. "I suck at math, okay? And if I don't turn in perfect homework this time around, they said they'd keep me back after school for a month for extra tuition. So then I can't come for practice for a whole month. Happy?"

There was a noise on the other side which momentarily had Yuri worried that there had been a terrorist attack on St Petersburg. "A WHOLE MONTH! This is insane! I've never heard of such a thing in my life!"

"I know, right?" protested Yuri, delighted. "What an outrage! Taking valuable practice time off a national athlete-"

"Just how bad are you at math, Yuri?" Yakov cut him off. "Shelve that ego for a few hours and make sure you get that homework done! THAT'S AN ORDER FROM YOUR COACH!"

"Wait, what!" spluttered Yuri, but Yakov had hung up. Yuri stared at his phone in disbelief. You too, Yakov? Don't screw with me, old man! I bet you were as bad at math as I am too, you old bastard!

This was terrible. Nobody was on his side. Yakov would murder him if he had to miss practice for a week, let alone a whole month. And he still had absolutely no idea how to do his homework.

"This calls for emergency action," said Yuri aloud.

He stood up, books in hand, threw his leopard print hoodie over his shoulders and marched out of the flat with a purposeful stride. A few seconds later, he came back, left his ego on the shelf and exited again. Yuri Plisetsky had a job to do.