"Am I able to see Otabek Altin?" Phichit leaned on the reception desk, slightly out of breath from jogging around the hospital, looking for the fracture clinic, still exhausted from his midnight run.
"Altin?" The nurse behind the desk typed the name into his computer. "He should be released as soon as his cast is put on, you can wait here until then." He smiled but there was a hint of 'don't mess with me I've been up all night' in his eyes.
"Do you have any idea how long he'll be?" Phichit pressed, not wanting to piss anyone off, just concerned for Otabek.
"Not long, twenty minutes maybe?" The nurse sighed, still smiling but the look of annoyance building.
"Thank you very much." Phichit smiled and nodded, turning on his heel before he could make the man behind the desk angry.
Phichit sighed and plopped down in a plastic chair among the few other, exhausted looking people in the waiting room. He pulled out his phone, scrolling through Instagram in an attempt to calm his jittery nerves. The night had not been enjoyable, and to end it in a hospital to top it off… Phichit just wanted to fall into a bed and sleep for a week. He mindlessly scrolled thorugh his feed, not really paying attention as he double-tapped every picture he passed.
"Excuse me…" a small voice shook him out of his thoughts, Phichit looked up to see a young girl, maybe ten or eleven, standing a few feet away with her arm wrapped in blue plaster from the wrist to the elbow. "You're Phichit Chulanont, aren't you?" Her face immediately went red and she let her hair fall forward to cover her eyes.
"Yeah." Phichit smiled, finding the encounter to be quite adorable. "What's your name?"
"Anastasiya." She peered over her shoulder at a woman who was standing over by the wall, and looked like she was probably Anastasiya's mother. Her mother nodded in an encouraging way, seeing Phichit's genuine smile when her daughter had approached.
"Are you a skater, too Anastasiya?" She was clearly star struck, so Phichit tried to make the conversation as easy for her as possible. He'd seen so many fans react the same way in the past, and had figured out how to ease them into asking for a selfie or an autograph by now.
"Yes." She nodded, peeking up at Phichit through her bangs. "I was actually practicing when I fell and broke my arm." She giggled slightly, thinking of how silly the whole thing has been. A double toe loop. She'd fallen out of a double toe loop. She'd had that jump in her roster for almost a year now
"You were practicing this early in the morning?" Phichit almost gasped. It wasn't even six and this girl had already injured herself.
"Yeah, I like practicing before school so I have time to do homework after." She explained, slowly emerging from behind her hair to show her face.
"What time did you start at?"
"Five."
"Wow, I don't even go to practice that early!" Phichit smiled broader at Anastasiya's giggle. "I complain that seven thirty is too early for me."
"Well I want to compete at the Grand Prix Final someday, but I want to get good grades in school too, so I practice before school every day, then after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On weekends I usually get at least eight hours of training in."
"That's so cool!" Phichit was genuinely impressed at the level of dedication Anastasiya had at such a young age. "I love that you want to devote that much of your time to it."
"Well you have to work hard to go far."
"You're right about that." Phichit nodded.
"Umm… So…" Phichit let Anastasiya form her question. "Would it be possible to… I mean if you don't mind of course… can I please get a picture with you?"
"Of course!" Phichit smiled, thrilled that she'd gotten the words out. "Is your mom going to take one?"
"Yeah." Anastasiya practically skipped over to her mom, quiet cries of "he said yes!" audible from where Phichit sat.
"Thank you, you're one of her idols." Anastasiya's mother smiled as Phichit posed with her, throwing a peace sign and a huge smile.
"No problem." Phichit smiled again.
"Well, thanks for talking to me." Anastasiya turned red at her mother's comment, and looked like she wanted to run away,
"Wait!" Phichit scrambled for his phone. "I need one for my Instagram!"
"You… You're going to…?"
"Well of course, I always put pictures of me with my friends on my Instagram."
Phichit wasn't sure, but he could have sworn he heard Anastasiya mumble something about this being the best day of her life as he opened his camera and the two posed again.
"Wait." He said again before he took the picture, a thought having popped into his head. "hold on a sec."
Phichit ran up to the desk, asking for his desired item, and returned to Anastasiya and her mother, who looked slightly confused.
"Would you do me the honour of allowing me to be the first person to sign your cast?" He asked, kneeling down to Anastasiya's height and displaying the sharpie he'd obtained as if it were an enchanted blade.
Anastasiya squealed with joy, practically jumping up and down as her head bobbed, at a loss for words.
Phichit grinned again as Anastasiya held out her arm. Phichit carefully wrote out his name, adding a heart and his best attempt at a skate to dress it up a bit.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Anastasiya squeaked, looking overjoyed at the autograph she'd be wearing for the next six weeks.
"You're very welcome, now how about that picture?"
They posed, Anastasiya smiling even wider than in the one her mother took, displaying her cast proudly. As soon as the click went off, Phichit heard a familiar voice call out to him.
"Phichit?" He turned his head to see a very confused-looking Otabek walking over.
"Oh my gosh!" Anastasiya squealed again at the sight of the other skater.
"Otabek!" Phichit kept his smile on for Anastasiya's sake. "This is Anastasiya, she's a skater too!"
"Is that so?" Otabek kept his stoic expression as always but a friendly tone accompanied it. "Well in that case I think I need to sign your cast, right?"
"I… if you wouldn't mind, I would love that." Anastasiya worked to regain her composer while her mother chuckled and Otabek smirked.
"Of course I wouldn't, under one condition."
"What condition?"
"You have to sign mine too."
"Do you really mean that?" Anastasiya's eyes widened beyond what should have been possible at the prospect of having her name on a Grand Prix Finalist's cast.
"It's only fair, don't you think?"
"Sure!" she squealed again.
They signed, Otabek carefully drawing out a smiley face next to his name, and Anastasiya encasing her name in a heart.
"Did you want a picture too?" Otabek asked when he was finished.
"Yes, please, if you're okay with it."
"Of course."
Anastasiya's mom took the photo, both subjects displaying their casts and the new signatures on them.
"Thank you both so much, I think you just made her year." Anastasiya's mother nodded as he daughter looked about ready to pass out from all the excitement.
"No problem." Otabek nodded back.
"Anytime!" Phichit added in. "Anastasiya!" he called as they began to walk away. "I'll be watching for you at the junior finals!"
She just nodded, blushing too hard and shaking too much to reply.
"I needed that." Phichit sighed, his smile lingering for just a moment before the weight of the night came rolling back to the forefront of his mind.
"Yeah…" Otabek agreed. "Have you seen Yura yet?"
"Yeah, I went there before I came here, Yuuri and Viktor are still with him." Phichit nodded, losing any trace of a smile as he and Otabek headed back through the hospital. "He's asleep for now."
"Yuuri's okay?"
"Physically, yes. Mentally…"
"I think we're all pretty shaken." Otabek grumbled, forcing the memory of Yurio flatlining out of his mind.
"How are you feeling?" Phichit took in the stitched, bruised knuckles and blue plaster around his forearm; it was the same cast Anastasiya was given, but for very different reasons.
"I'm fine." Otabek shook his head.
"No you're not." Phichit countered. He'd seen the look on Otabek's face before he'd said anything about Anastasiya. Something was very, very wrong.
"No." Otabek sighed as he agreed. "I'm not. But I'm also not ready to talk about it."
"Okay." Phichit nodded. "Let me know when you are."
"I will."
"Good. Turn right here."
