Otabek didn't even feel the cold. He knew it was there, but it couldn't affect him. Not now, not here; not with Yuri's arms around his waist. Not with the lean body pressed against his, the wind tugging on his sleeves. It felt like a memory. This time however it was not one of those the injuries had buried in the darkness. This time it was one of the memories he had always been aware of.
History repeated itself. He had been here, on a bike, Yuri clinging onto him. It was like a repetition of that time in Barcelona when he had saved Yuri. Only now he was saving them both.
The Russian night was dark and clear, more quiet than he had expected.
"Where are you taking me?", Yuri asked when they stopped. He could have been doubtful. He could have been scared. But his voice was low and calm and Otabek knew that for some reason Yuri still trusted him. The way he looked at him when Otabek struggled inside, the way his eyes were so green and vivid he looked so at peace, so optimistic that Otabek just bit his lip and held out his hand.
Yuri took it. His smile was fond.
It was late, long after nightfall, long after the doors had been locked. Otabek didn't know for sure what time it was. 10 pm or midnight or 2 am, it didn't really matter. What mattered was that they were here and that they were the only persons far and near.
He pulled the gun from the holster and aimed at the lock of the door. The crack of the shot was loud but over so fast that after a second Otabek wasn't sure anymore that there had ever been a sound. He turned around and Yuri took his hand to let him lead him inside. He felt invincible.
"I've been here before", Yuri murmured. His voice echoed from the high ceiling. The ice was smooth and dark, like a puddle of shadows waiting for them to go under in it. "It feels like it was in another life."
Otabek found the switch for the lamp in the lobby. With the door open the light from the neon tube seeped over to the rink, illuminating the hall just enough to see but not enough to break the spell. He took skates for them from the shelf, then watched Yuri tying the laces slowly, thoroughly. It was a ritual.
Skating with Zhenya had felt like coming home. But watching Yuri placing the first blade on the ice was like his heart got ripped out of his chest.
The blonde froze, then turned to where Otabek stood. "I'm scared", he murmured. His hand on the board showed no sign of tension.
Otabek stepped closer. With his right hand he reached out, brushing the tips of his fingers over the back of Yuri's hand. Looking back up to the shimmer in Yuri's eyes he shook his head. "You don't need to be scared ever again. I'm here with you."
And then the sound of metal on ice.
No sound could ever be more wonderful to Otabek's ears. Nothing could ever be more perfect than the singing of Yuri's blades against the ice, hesitant first, then faster, daring, confident. A sonata changing in pace, in rhythm, in key; introduction, exposition, development and then more of that. A transformation. Accelerating he plucked the tie from his braid, the golden strands loosening in a whirlwind of sunrays in the twilight. Katyusha became Yuri. Yuri skating in wide curves, forwards, backwards, faster, faster. Like a storm that had been locked away and was now let free for the first time in what felt like forever.
The slender hands rose in the air, the back bent. A look back and then - a triple salchow. Overrotating one of the blades dug into the frozen mirror and sent Yuri crashing down on the ice. His hair spilled on the shimmering surface like golden ink from a broken phial. Otabek's breath caught in his throat, then without even noticing he had skated over to Yuri, kneeling on the ice next to him.
Yuri looked up at him, lying on his back, silent for a moment. But after the blink of an eye laughter spilled from his lips, his low, hoarse laughter and he rose his hand to cup Otabek's cheek. His smile was warm and beautiful and Otabek couldn't move.
"Aren't you going to kiss me?"
There was a blush on Yuri's cheeks. His lips looked full and pink even in the almost dark. His eyes were as green as tourmaline and Otabek wasn't sure if he had ever before noticed the extent of Yuri's beauty.
The lump in the back of his throat didn't disappear when he swallowed. His knees were frozen to the ice, his arms and shoulders stiff and numb. With the clarity of a lightning bolt he knew that he was making the most terrible mistake of his life. He knew and still, there was nothing he could do about it. He stared at Yuri as the smile on the boy's lips died and his golden brows crinkled and his hand wasn't on Otabek's skin anymore. He sat back and watched Yuri sitting up, his expression hurt.
Yuri got on his feet and skated away a meter or two, then stood.
Otabek got up as well and looked at his friend, not daring to approach him. He had distanced himself from Otabek. Somehow it felt like more than just a few steps of ice between them. It was like suddenly an entire fate separated them.
After a long moment of silence as solid as ice he could hear Yuri speak.
"Is this a dream? Is this reality?", he whispered and it sounded spooky in the silence of the rink. "I don't know what's real anymore. Things that I knew were true aren't anymore. Things I was sure of. Things I relied on. Everything is so blurred. Nothing matters anymore. I can't make things true by believing in them. I need to accept. I need to handle things no matter if they feel true or not. There's nothing I can change about that. My emotions can't change things. My dreams can't change things. What I wish for, what I hope for, it's all worthless. I treasured this part in me, this innocence. But it seems I have lost that without even noticing. I'm an adult now. There's no point in dreaming anymore. Dreams don't come true. Fairytales are a lie." He turned and looked at Otabek with the eyes of a soldier. "I never heard your answer." He tucked a wavy lock behind his ear and looked at him.
He was waiting for an answer but Otabek didn't know the question. Those green eyes pierced his heart - why didn't it hurt? He felt empty. It was like everything depended on this answer Yuri was asking for. Everything was about to fall and crash beyond repair. What he'd say would tip the both of them over the edge, in one direction or the other. But there was nothing he could think of. So he balled his hands into fists and said: "I don't know."
And that was the reason. He realized it right that moment. He didn't know. He had never known. Yuri was here but at the same time there was so much of him missing that Otabek couldn't make sense of it. It wasn't just a few steps of ice between them. It was three and a half years. Three and a half years in which Yuri had changed but Otabek hadn't. Of course he could not understand. Of course he did not know. He hadn't had time to think. He hadn't had time to change. No matter how fast he had run in the past few months, he could not catch up and the world hadn't waited for him either. He was like his notebook: hastily scribbled fragments of his life, but there were so many blank pages, pages he couldn't fill himself. He needed help. He needed the questions before he could even think about the answer.
"Yuri", he sighed and tried to relax his hands. "I want to tell you. I want to give you all the answers you need to hear. But it's more complicated than you probably realize." He pushed one foot against the ice and slid closer to Yuri, ironically effortless when on the inside everything convulsed. It was so hard to form the thoughts so that he himself could kind of understand them, and much harder to make words somehow express what he thought they meant.
"Yuri, I'm broken", he eventually confessed. "You saw it happen. You were there. You were with me when they ruined me and I don't know how much you remember but I… I don't. I'm failing. I don't know how bad it is, I just know it's worse than I want to admit. It's hard to explain." He shrugged and looked away from the anger in Yuri's eyes. "It's just that sometimes I feel like I'm missing parts. Like a… like a machine that somehow functions but there are moments when things just don't work. Because the parts that make that process run are just not there. They took that from me. They damaged me. And I still am here but I'm not… complete. Not like everyone else is." He looked up apologetically. "Not like you are. I'm my own flawed diary. The time between my 20th birthday and when I woke up was never written down. Some pages from before were ripped out or are illegible. Important pages. And the past months are chaos. My thoughts are. My brain is. My life is. I don't remember everything. And I can never be sure if what I remember really happened like I think it did. I just… don't know a lot of things. And I don't realize what's missing until you ask me. Ask me about an answer I never gave you and that I can never give you because I don't know it. Because I can not remember. And I… I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Yuri, I really am. I'm aware you need to know. I know you deserve it. But I can't do anything about it. I can not give you the answer you are waiting for. It's just… not there."
He looked at Yuri. There was something in the boy's eyes, many different things actually. Things that looked like anger and disbelief, annoyance and hope. A mixture of emotions. It was those emotions who made his voice shaky when he asked: "You don't remember?" Maybe it wasn't even a question, but more of a summary of the dilemma.
Otabek nodded. He was embarrassed. After all he had appeared so strong, so secure. He was nothing of that in the end. He was just the same old Otabek Altin and not even entirely. A mere 85% perhaps. "When you demand an answer", he murmured, "I don't know what you are referring to."
Yuri's forehead twitched into a frown, then it was gone again. "You're fucking kidding me…" He sighed when Otabek didn't know how to answer and just shrugged, biting his lip. There was no point denying it. It made Yuri comb thin fingers through his hair and moan in desperation that Otabek didn't understand. "The day before your birthday", Yuri explained and wrapped his arms around his waist. "When we went to the cinema. Do you not remember that?"
"I do. Some of it at least." He exhaled slowly. "I don't remember most of the attack though."
"And before that?" The tone of Yuri's voice became pressing. "Before they came. After we left the theater. Do you remember?"
It was blurry, but it was there an a way. "We… we went home", he tried, squinting his eyes as if it helped him to focus. He had remembered that, somewhen. That street, when Dima had come to look for him. That street. "We went home and you wanted to talk. You took my hand and…" He looked down at the glittering tips of Yuri's skates. "You took me there and you wanted to talk, because… there was… something…" He stopped. There was no way he could tell what had been there, between them. He knew what he had felt himself, it was still the same basically. He had been in love with Yuri. He had been in love with Yuri for a long, long time. But the way his friend had dragged him into that backstreet. The way he had stepped forward, a little too close. So close, so close. ( "I can't bear that anymore, I can't be silent about that anymore." He looks up at Otabek.) He sighed, shuddered. "You wanted to talk. About us. About how you couldn't stand it. You wanted to tell me the truth."
Right. Yuri had rejected him. He remembered. But did he?
Within a second Yuri was close again, just like back then. His hands gripped the collar of Otabek's jacket. "What did I say?", he hissed and it scared Otabek. The memory scared him and the reality scared him. "Otabek, what did I say?!"
"I don't remember." It wasn't more than a whisper, but it solved everything.
With three of four seconds delay Yuri let go of him, took a step backwards. "I see", he said, his voice calm and low. And relieved? Was that relief? "You don't remember the one moment that means everything." He chuckled lowly. The sound was so misplaced it sent chills down Otabek's spine. Then Yuri sighed and shook his head slowly, still smiling. "Well, at least it explains why you behave so bizarre. I mean I never knew what you really felt for me back then, but the way you are and the way you act and the way you look at me… I mean nothing you do makes sense at all. That hug… That fucking Altin hug that seems to be your entire family's standard action right before shredding my heart into pieces… The way you hugged me back then and the way your father hugged me right before he told me that they'd let you die… This fucking painful hug that has brought me nothing but misery… And basically everything you did since you showed up here: carrying me to the car and holding me close until my hair had dried and kissing my forehead. So goddamn gentle, like you had forgotten that you didn't want me because - yes, basically you have forgotten that you didn't want me!" He laughed in a way Otabek wasn't sure that it wasn't a sob. "You are so fucking confusing Otabek, bringing me here, worrying about me. Giving me everything I ever needed from you but not the answer that I have been waiting for so long and that I thought I'd never hear from you. Because you forgot how I put myself in your hands. When I told you that…" He inhaled shakily. "Do you want to know?", he asked, looking up to him with lashes glittering from moisture. "Do you want to know what I told you back then?" And when Otabek nodded, silently because he couldn't make his vocal chords work, Yuri said: "I told you that I fell in love with you." His words not more than a whisper now, "deeply", and when Otabek only stared at him speechless he added: "Don't you dare hugging me now, Otabek Altin, or I swear to God I'll kill you with my own hands this time, do you hear me?"
It didn't make sense. Nothing of it. But it was true. It was back in a glimpse just like Yuri just had told him. Yuri had confessed his love and Otabek had hugged him and the confusion was the same he had felt back then. Yuri had wanted him all along. He should have known. How had he been so blind? It had always been there, right before his eyes. Yuri's hands in his, that look in his eyes, that smile, the blush on his nose tip. So close. There had been something. There could have been something. But that had been so long ago. And now, what now?
It wasn't that complicated, really: He loved Yuri. Time had changed a lot of things. But that at least had never changed: he loved Yuri.
"I hear you", he murmured and he did want to hug Yuri, but he resisted. "And I think I can give you that answer you demand."
Otabek could see the fear in Yuri's eyes when the blonde looked at him. "Say it."
"I love you, too."
Yuri bit his lip, then shook his head, lowering his eyes. He seemed to wither like a flower. "Why didn't you tell me back then?"
"I guess I was overwhelmed", Otabek said, still fighting the urge to pull Yuri in an embrace. "I hadn't expected you to tell me that. The way you started… It sounded like you were pushing me away." He jumped when Yuri yelled with tears in his eyes:
"So you hugged me like you wanna say you're sorry and made me think that you didn't want me before you sacrificed yourself for me?!" He snuffled violently. "What's with that hug anyway?! Why does it feel like an apology? Why couldn't you just kiss me and let me know that I wasn't imagining everything? Why are you so fucking awkward? And how long have you been laughing behind my back pretending you were not more than a friend? When you were... " He shot Otabek a glance that was so angry but in a childish way that it made him smile a little. "How long had you known you were in love with me? Since Antalya? Since Almaty?" His eyes widened in disbelief. "Since Barcelona?!"
Otabek reached out and took Yuri's hands, carefully. The thin white fingers were trembling from the cold and from the emotions. "Always", he said, then looked up at Yuri whose eyes were overflowing with tears now. "I've always loved you."
"What does that mean?", Yuri whispered, tears glittering in the twilight.
"It means", Otabek murmured, remembering when he had told his mother. He had made a mistake back then, not counting the years of his coma in, but he did now. It sounded awkward when he said: "I've loved you for ten years. I've loved you all my life. Since I was in that summer camp and didn't even recognize love when it struck me." And eventually: "I've always only loved you. And I always will."
Yuri flew into his arms. "Otabek", he sobbed, his breath so warm against Otabek's skin and his arms so tight around his ribs.
It felt right, somehow. It was warm and sharp at the edges, just like Yuri. He wasn't scared anymore, nor embarrassed, nor sad. For the first time in a very, very long time he was happy. Honestly, sincerely happy.
"Then why didn't you kiss me just now?", Yuri asked, letting Otabek caress his hair.
With a blush Otabek frowned. "I... I didn't know how", he murmured, making Yuri look up at him with a confused expression. "I was surprised. I have never…" He sighed. "But I want to." He rose his hands to wipe the tears from Yuri's face.
"I understand", the blonde said softly.
The smile came back to Otabek's lips. "I wanted it to be you."
Now Yuri smiled too. It was a pretty smile. Light and silky, coming with a blush like pastel pink rose petals framed by spun gold.
Otabek leaned forward and kissed him.
It was soft. Softer than he had imagined. Warmer too. He closed his eyes. On his skin he felt Yuri's breath, like butterflies' wings. His fingers were still wet from Yuri's tears, but there were no new tears falling from Yuri's lashes. When Yuri tilted his head a little Otabek felt thin arms pulling him closer. His hands shifted to be buried in the golden mane, silky strands running through his fingers just like he had always dreamt of. Yuri pressed his lips against Otabek's a little more, sighing and it made Otabek's insides clench. His heart felt like it was breaking from all the love he felt. But it was wonderful. It was all he needed.
When Yuri broke the kiss it felt perfect. He looked up at Otabek with his big green eyes and smiled. "So", he said. "That was your first kiss then?" And when Otabek nodded he said: "I'm very happy, Otabek. You make me very happy." And then he kissed him again.
