Disclaimer: Yuuri! On Ice doesn't belong to me.
AN: Hello there~! "от надежды родится вечность" / ot nadezhdy roditsya vechnost'- the title of this fanfic means "Dalla speranza nascera l'eternità" which, well, some of you might recognise? ;D
Just as a heads up, I'm NOT AT ALL familiar with Russian customs on Easter. I made stuff up, watched some Youtube How-to's and here we are.
Translations of any words that are not English can be found in the end notes.
Enjoy?
от надежды родится вечность
When Yuuri awoke, the sheets on the other side of the bed had been thrown haphazardly to the side, as per usual. The spot that his boyfriend-slash-fiancé (and no, he hadn't quite gotten over that, yet, it still rendered him happy and giddy and nervous beyond belief) usually occupied was cool to the touch already, meaning he'd gotten up early, probably at an unholy hour, where the sun hadn't yet painted the sky grey or blue or yellow.
One difference between St. Petersburg and Hasetsu was this: the sun's colours - in particular those in the mornings - seemed to be both brighter and chillier, here. At the beginning of his having moved there, it had made for his homesickness to rear its head even moreso than usual.
These days, it had slowly transformed into something he'd grown used to, along with the crisp morning air, the people's forms being clad in more clothes than he'd ever seen one wear in Japan and the Russian script that adorned any packaging in the supermarkets.
It was more of "just another thing" that his new home came to consist of.
Accepted into his reality as it was, he had, from the start, noticed that Victor was an absolute morning person, whereas he was decidedly not.
Choosing not to ruminate on their different inner clocks again, he put both his hands underneath his body and heaved himself up with a groan. Mornings, grah.
A grimace turned into a yawn quickly, and he moved to get off the bed at a snail's pace. One foot grazed the floor and his brain worked out that the floor was cool to the touch immediately, making him want to bring the bed around himself to fend off the cold.
But he couldn't, could he? Not if he wanted to find out what Victor was up to. Curiosity warred with his desire to go back to bed briefly, before the need to see what his boyfriend was doing won out. It was half to do with self-preservation and half not wanting to see the flat in a worse condition than what he'd left it in the day before, really.
The older man had taken to trying "something new" in the mornings every day and on more than one occasion Yuuri had had to help him out of a sticky situation. He could clearly remember the day nigh a week ago where his boyfriend had gotten the bright idea to build a "castle" out of a cardboard shoe box that they'd then be able to send to Yuuko and Takeshi for the triplets to play with, because it would be "one that they could fold in half, Yuuri, see?"
Oh, it would have gone quite well, had it not been for the conjunctive notion of his to create a "rainmaker" out of an old umbrella of theirs and, long story short, it had taken a whole day to get the confetti that had served as "rain" to be sprinkled over the "castle" cleaned out of their flat.
The Japanese could still pick out little confetti pieces from unassuming places to this day. At least the castle had been sent off without too much of a fuss.
Judging from the smell, Victor's current occupation was most probably to do with the kitchen. Hastening his steps a little, Yuuri was relieved to find that the coffee smell was honestly just that: the former figure skating legend had switched on the coffeemaker and, apparently having heard Yuuri get up, had poured him a cup.
"Good morning, Yuuri!" he chirped, cheerfulness personified at an hour that was less than gold in Yuuri's humble opinion. How he could be this chipper this early was a mystery best left unsolved and the Japanese greeted him back, albeit a bit less enthusiastically but no less fond.
It was a good day that started with coffee, although it got even better once Yuuri noticed that the breakfast foods that Victor had tried out two weeks ago and which had more than made the cut into their normally-used recipe book were laid out on the table before him, smelling absolutely divine.
Blinking because he'd thought they were saved for special occasions, he asked, "Is there... has something special happened?"
Bemused, Victor spent a second looking at him in askance, before he recovered and realised that he was indeed dealing with someone non-native to his country. "No, Yuuri? It's for Easter! Today is Easter Sunday!" he said with a heart-shaped smile that grew when he considered that he'd be the one to introduce Yuuri to the custom!
That didn't give Yuuri a lot of information to go on, to be honest, never having been one to celebrate religious holidays all that much and not being Christian, himself. He'd figure it out, though, he hoped, making a mental note to look up what Easter celebrations consisted of in Russia.
They'd only really spoken about Christmas and New Year's traditions thus far and Yuuri hadn't really thought about customs outside of that, other than that there might be some they'd overlooked and would get to when they happened.
To be fair, when the quarantine hit, he'd utterly lost track of time, relying on Victor to tell him when the weekend was etc. He trusted the older man to guide him through whatever Easter was and what was expected of him in relation to the custom.
The black-haired figure skater sat down gingerly in the chair, noticing for the first time that, after Victor deposited the steaming cup of coffee in front of him, his boyfriend went back to look at the stove, ostensibly cooking something in the pot he'd set up.
"What is that?" his curious nature demanded he asked, hands warming themselves clutching the cup. Its smell reminded Yuuri of... onions? Seeing some of them lying peeled and disregarded to the side of the counter, he concluded it was probably another project of Victor's.
"It's er... how to say? I colour the eggs?" the platinum-haired skater put a finger to his mouth and glanced upwards as though the ceiling of their flat could provide him with a vocabulary to use, before he went on with a determined "With onions!"
Yuuri sat in silence for a moment. Then he said, "Okay." and devoted his attention to the cup of coffee, once more. That statement hadn't been the silliest he'd ever heard come out of the other's mouth so far and he'd gotten used to quite a lot of strange happenings in their lives, brought into it curtesy of one Victor Nikiforov for most of the time.
For the time being, he was content with not being awake enough to properly process exactly what the older man had meant by that utterance.
Nodding once, his boyfriend turned around again to pay attention to the pot and a timer he'd apparently set up a while ago already. It was down to five minutes by now. The humming that he'd interrupted to reply to Yuuri's question - and which Yuuri had ignored up until now - started up again, plunging the room into a comfortable sort of atmosphere.
Helping himself to a cherry pancake, he commenced to eat. A few minutes later, Victor joined him, taking a bite from the half-eaten croissant on his own plate. His eyes never strayed far from the stove, though.
Life never was boring for the two of them, nowadays.
Victor ceased his humming only for the time it took to devour his food, picking up again where he'd left off as soon as he could. Cradling the cup, Yuuri smiled in contentment, already feeling much more awake now that he'd taken a sip.
Curious though he was about whatever the older skater was up to, he hadn't forgotten what Victor had said. Easter, huh?
His eyes quickly located his phone on the cupboard where he'd left it to charge overnight the day before. The chair scraped against the floor when he got up to retrieve it and search for Russian Easter traditions on the way back to his claimed seat at the breakfast table.
Searching in Japanese yielded helpful results fast. The first site that popped up informed him about the general tradition and worldwide holiday that was the Easter one. Scrolling down brought him to customs around the world. He closed the site and put his mobile aside, feeling that if he dived into the information dump that was the world wide net now, he'd get lost easily and what exactly did he have a live Russian at his side for but for explanations concerning local festivities?
His dip into an overview of the information available aside, Victor would be much better at clearing things up for him and he'd most likely sprinkle it with personal anecdotes to boot, knowing him.
Oh, don't get him wrong - naturally, he'd heard about Easter before. But he'd never found the need to celebrate the holiday himself and his family wasn't one to do so, either. His life in Detroit hadn't brought him much closer to what exactly people did on that day, besides it being a holiday, and Phichit certainly was the last person to ask, not being all that religious - and not a Christian - too.
Looking over to the stove where the Russian skater had by then put the pot to the side and was busy extracting eggs - eggs? Were those red eggs he pulled out of the pot? - from it, Yuuri decided to go for it, absentmindedly eating his breakfast, "Ne? Victor?"
That granted him an immediate smile from the Russian and his attention, as well. "What's with the eggs?"
"Those? They're traditional. We're going to hide them." Hide them? Yes, Yuuri was aware that there were events like "Easter Hunts" being organised in the US, but he hadn't been interested to learn more than that people went looking for eggs on them. Was that a worldwide phenomenon?
"Are those onion peels?" was all Yuuri could think of to say in light of the most recent information.
"Ah! Yes, they're peels! Onion peels make the eggs red, see?" Holding one up helpfully, Victor grinned in Yuuri's direction. The Japanese meanwhile had to blink, not having heard that before. "They make the eggs red?"
"Yes, it works just like food colouring. And I've made nests - here, look!" Dragging his head to the far left, Yuuri could make out green cardboard paper nests and... grass? Green paper grass in them. Right. "We'll put the eggs into those and then you hide some for me and I hide some for you and then we look for them!"
The pride he took in his accomplishments of making cardboard nests and managing to hide them from Yuuri's view for what had to have been at least a day, despite their shared living arrangements, was frankly endearing. Warmth rose up in Yuuri as he considered his next words, "Is that what you do, on Easter Sunday?"
With a smile, he took another sip from his cooling coffee, grateful to be included in this holiday tradition in spite of him not having the same religion - or even being of the same country of origin, in the first place. That was... thoughtful, on Victor's part.
"Ah, no, not just that, though that's the main attaction. In Russia, we eat cake, too! Here, look, it's this one!" If possible, the smile he got turned up several watts, and Victor showed him a wooden box to the side of the pile of peeled onions on the counter. It didn't look much like a cake from the outside, although Yuuri could easily imagine a Russian delicacy hidden within.
Yuuri shook his head, "If we are to eat this, it has to be in the afternoon. I'm going to be full after this breakfast, Vitya."
Pouting a bit, Victor said, "Ah, well. It is a holiday, after all. We can... uhm. Crack eggs, once they're done?"
"Crack eggs?" Yuuri asked, befuddled by the strange custom.
"Yes, well. We... hit them against each other and the egg that doesn't have a crack wins." It was intriguing and he could already see their competitiveness emerge from the shadows, when Victor went on to add with a laugh, "In some valleys, people bonk them onto other people's heads until one cracks!" That sounded a tad painful.
"Ah! Right, we have to lighten the candle!" Candle? There wasn't an end to the new things he learned that day, Yuuri felt, and he looked on as Victor got a lighter out of their "misc-drawer". Everybody had one of these, the Japanese knew, where all the important tools and things were gathered and could be found whenever there was a need for them.
With the lighter in hand, he lit a candle that sat on top of yet another cake on their living room table. A bit incredulous, Yuuri asked, "Just how many cakes do you eat on Easter Sunday?"
Turning, Victor replied cheerily, "Two! At least." Bringing another finger to his mouth, the platinum-haired man thought hard about it for a second, rising his eyes to the ceiling once more, before he nodded, "Yup. Two. Кулич and пасха."
Together with the breakfast spread that made for a rather filling food intake, Yuuri mused to himself, already forgetting the names of the two cakes he'd be eating later in the day. Walking Makkachin had never seemed this purposive, before. And their shared workout routine would practically guarantee they'd lose whatever excess they'd gain from that one-time-splurge, as well. They'd just have to make sure not to overdo it in the next week and they'd be fine.
Finished with his breakfast, the black-haired figure skater shrugged and smiled, "What else do you do?"
The Russian's face fell a little, "Well, usually, I visit my parents and the Skating Team or at least call them..." perking up a bit, he added, "This year, we could do a conference call?"
"With Yakov?" Yuuri wanted to know. Having been warmly welcomed into the fold, the Japanese felt quite at home with the Russian figure skating team by now. But he wasn't certain how technology-affine the coach was. "We can do that." he regarded Victor fondly, resolving to make the conference call happen regardless of the others' knowledge of modern technology. There ought to be a way, it wasn't like it was rocket science, after all.
Standing up, he got himself another cup of coffee. It didn't do to dawdle on such an important day. They had nests to hide and find.
They'd decided that while one hid in the bathroom, the other would hide the nests. Feeling quite ridiculous, Yuuri - and Makkachin, once the dog had woken from his nap and pounced on them and been infected by the anticipatory energy in the air - decided to get comfortable sitting on the closed toilet seat while his boyfriend tried to find the best spots he could to hide the three he would afterwards need to find.
Makkachin was huffing, but stayed with him for the time being, letting him run his fingers through the slightly-curly fur. What had he gotten into, this time?
That was his life, now, sitting on a toilet seat while his ridiculous, earnest and fun-loving boyfriend-slash-fiancé was hiding Easter nests in their flat for him to search.
Huffing a laugh, he proceeded to stay in this content bubble of warmth and fondness. That was the best thing about living together with someone you loved, he'd found out: they care for you, openly and without inhibitions.
He couldn't help the grin and neither could he help the fond, content, warm feelings curling up in his stomach, settling in and cradling his heart safe for Victor to keep.
His anxiety still invaded his brain every now and again and it wasn't as though the love from Victor had cured him. But the Russian had given him a lot already just by loving him the way he did and Yuuri took those little moments in which Victor's caring nature became obvious - such as when he'd shown him the nests he'd made for Yuuri to search - to let himself feel the love Victor kept handing out to him.
The dog's tongue lolled out, happiness radiating off him in spades. Yuuri's mood didn't currently need any more lifting, he thought, patiently waiting for the knock at the door that would signal that Victor was done and the Easter Egg Hunt could begin.
As promised, cake awaited them afterwards - they'd made certain to put it onto the counter where Makkachin couldn't reach it while they looked for the nests. Also, Victor had lied. He'd not only put real eggs in, he'd made sure to crowd the nests with small chocolate eggs and cheer-me-ups in the form of little pieces of paper where he'd written a few love notes.
Yuuri already had a few ideas in mind to pay him back for those and share the love. Easter wasn't a holiday he celebrated, coming from Japan, but he had come to appreciate it, feeling that Victor might've changed the custom a little bit to fit with his ideas more than the traditional ones. Knowing his forgetfulness, that character trait could also have played a part in the love notes making an appearance in the nests (maybe he'd substituted something else that he'd forgotten? Yuuri couldn't know for sure).
Victor vibrated with energy besides him. "Христос воскресе!" the Russian said as soon as the connection was established. Kreeshto bashkrays? What was that?
A measured "Воистину воскресе." came back in the deep voice of their coach. It sounded almost like Way shto bashkrays? That was new. Was that a greeting Yuuri hadn't yet come across in his studies?
Carefully, he sounded out the word that had appeared in both their sentences. "Bashkrays...?" Yuuri's butchering of the Russian language never failed to make the Japanese cringe, nevermind the fact that no one else minded his mistakes.
At his utterance, Victor got hefted with a judgemental look. "Vitya, you didn't tell him about Easter greetings?"
Victor handled the reproachful tone as he usually did: he ploughed right on, "Yakov! How have you been?"
"Better without you in view, I bet." came, predictably, from the youngest member of the Russian figure skating team. Yuri's disgruntled frown was softened by the cat that he had in his lap and which continuously tried to look - or maybe even paw - at the laptop he was sitting in front of on what was either a sofa or his bed.
"Mila! Hi!" Victor's hand waved at the new screen that appeared in the call window, bissfully dismissing anything negative thrown his way from anywhich direction as unimportant.
Yuuri couldn't help but admire that, at least a little bit, because while that certainly was an admirable trait at certain times, he knew that Victor's dismissive behaviour would - three, two, one, "Oi! Old man! What the hell, don't just ignore me like that!" - inevitably set Yuri off somehow.
And to think, sometimes he felt Victor was being ridiculous...
"Are they going at it again?" Georgi's voice filled the room, before Mila seamlessly interjected by picking up the thread of conversation, "If so, can we reschedule the call? I don't want my afternoon interrupted by squabbling, of all things."
"Now, now, we're not squabbling." Victor reassured the group, to noises of disbelief from the monitor and Yuuri's exasperated sigh at his side.
"Vitya, seriously! He's been living in Russia for how long now? And you haven't told him about Russian traditions at Easter yet?" Yakov's voice took on a lecturing melody.
Long since having gotten used to the group's antics and comfortable at nipping an argument he sensed forming in the bud, Yuuri interjected, "No, no, he did tell me!" That very day, but what Yakov didn't need to know, he didn't need to know (Victor was most definitely a bad influence on him on that front), "We're just eating the... Kulitsh?" Glancing at Victor, he questioned, sure he'd mispronounced the name of the cake, again.
When he got a nod in return, he was sure he'd at least managed to make it somewhat intelligible to the others, as well. The cake was delicious, and he sat back, having said his piece, when Victor took over entertaining their "guests". They'd decided to write the other skaters and Yakov and invite them for a virtual "get-together" sometime in the morning, before they'd hidden the nests.
At first, Yuuri hadn't been sure - they'd had families to celebrate Easter with? Wouldn't he and Victor interfere in their activities and bother them? But Victor had simply told him "If they don't want to, they can say so. We don't force them to go and have a chat with us, after all." and that was that.
Makkachin sat curled up at their feet, having spent the day rushing from this corner to that one and helping search, even if his help had more than once toppled over a chair and they'd spent quite a bit of time getting Makkachin to not eat anything that the dog shouldn't, hyper-aware of what could result from that.
In the end, it had worked out and the dog had tired himself out fast, being at quite an advanced age, already.
"... day, Yuuri?" Mila voicing his name brought him out of the daze he'd fallen into.
"Huh?" he eloquently countered, cheeks reddening in quiet embarrassment. Receiving his questioning glance and seeing him fumble for words, Victor smiled at him and asked in his stead, "Could you repeat that?"
"Did you enjoy the day, Yuuri? Victor just said that he's made you search for Easter eggs all over the appartment, after all..."
"I, er, no. I did enjoy today. It was a nice holiday so far." the corners of his mouth rose up in remembrance of his own befuddlement at the morning. Waking up, he hadn't counted on it being Easter Sunday. Nor had he given thought to his boyfriend's enthusiasm for holiday celebrations and festivities.
Truth be spoken, he was very happy to be here, together with Victor.
Seeing as it was only two o'clock in the afternoon, his scheduled call to his family would start in an hour, too.
Yuuri hadn't chosen their quarantined status, no. The Japanese would have been happier to at least have the option of going to different places and see his friends and other people than the one he lived with. But if he couldn't do so, then he rested reassured in the knowledge that their staying home had the desired impact of less people who got infected with that virus that had been set loose on the world.
And if he couldn't do anything with a global impact himself, he could at least keep Vitya entertained and happy until such a time that they were allowed out again.
от надежды родится вечность
AN: Victor says "Кулич and пасха." - Kulich and Paskha, the names of the cakes that Russian people devour at Easter.
The traditional Russian Easter Greeting that I found out was used there on Easter Sunday is:
"Христос воскресе!" / Hristos voskrese! - Christ is risen.
which is answered by the other person saying "Воистину воскресе!" / Voistinu voskrese! - Indeed, he is risen.
Nope, I can't Russian for the life of me, but I'm willing to take critique should I have made a language mistake in this one? I wasn't kidding in the tags, I used Google Translate for a LOT of the sentences I used in this fic. Beautiful language that it is, its alphabet is utterly ignoring my attempts at learning it and remains unintelligible to this day. First fanfic that I wrote but can't even read the title of - that's new. :D
Ye gawds, I can't say I've ever written and posted anything this cheesy before.
Easter how I imagine it, with Victor and Yuuri as guests-of-honour in my fanfic! :) Clumsy worldbuilding aside, this fic has been written within a day, so please be gentle with me, people? It's mostly just been written because I'm frustrated that I can't build the holiday (and its festivities) into my fanfic "IT support, how can I help?" which you can find over on AO3 without it being kind of not-believeable, thus here it goes.
I know quarantine is dragging a lot of you down these days - and it has me in its grasp quite a bit - so I decided to make a little fic about my current favourite pairing celebrating it. :) And I learned something, too, win-win!
Hope you're managing to celebrate Easter as best as you can, as well - for those of you who do - and have fun regardless of constrictions and annoying viruses making the world go weird on us!
Happy Easter holidays, folks~!
Leave a comment if you have the time and are in the mood to?