YOI07

by keiveela

Bear Your Soul on the Ice-SassySalchow At age fourteen, Katsuki Yuuri had been determined to be Japan's next great figure skating hope, but with no coach that would never happen, so his ballet instructor packs him up off to Russia to train with Yakov Feltsman. The Yakov Feltsman, otherwise known as the coach to rising figure skating star - and Yuuri's idol - Viktor Nikiforov.

43. Chapter 43

Viktor

I know you have your phone set to DND, but

I wanted to leave a message for you to wake

up to.

頑張って!

Yuuri

Copy Paste or did you actually figure out the

keyboard?

Viktor

!

Why are you up? You should be asleep!

… Copy Paste

Yuuri

I had a feeling.

Thank you, Vitya

I can't sleep

I am so exhausted

But my brain won't shut off

It's like I know that if I skate well tomorrow I will

take the gold, but my brain is determined to point

out all the ways it could go wrong and I end up

screwing up

I know it's just the anxiety and I don't actually want to

dwell on it. I just want my brain to shut up so I can

actually sleep so I can skate and win gold tom

because I know I can

Viktor

What do you usually do at a competition when

this happens?

Yuuri

Sometimes listening to music helps. Even listening

to one of my recorded class lectures helps

But I can't because I have a roommate this time

As it is I'm blocking the light from the phone by

having it under the covers with me

Then there was this time my coach asked my best

friend to convince me to take a nap

Viktor

How'd you find out?

Yuuri

I jogged past the TV while you were talking

It worked though

Viktor

So if storytime helped, why don't I tell you a story

about Makka's favorite toy?

Yuuri

For the same reason I don't listen to music?

Roommate.

Viktor

No. This could work!

Plug in your earbuds and only put one in your ear

so you don't get tangled

Then call.

I'll do all the talking

Yuuri

Vitya…

If I'm doing that then I could just put on the music

or a lecture. You don't need to actually tell me

another Makka story

Viktor

Yura

Just do as you're told.

You need to earn gold tomorrow

And to do that you need sleep

Now earbud in and call so I can tell you another

story about our best girl and her toy.

If you don't, I'm going to text Kai and tell her you

can't skate in morning practice because you didn't

sleep

Your choice.

You gave all her contact info to Katya which

means I have access to it now.

Yuuri sighed and grabbed his iPod from the nightstand next to the bed, unplugging his earbuds and switching them to the iPhone before curling up on his side. With a last deep breath, he went into his contacts, found Viktor's number near the top of his favorites list, and hit "Call."

It barely made it through one ring. "Алло, Yura." Yuuri just breathed, but knew the phone's mic was likely in close enough proximity to pick up the sound. "Are you ready to hear about Makka's favorite toy? You don't have to an-"

"Да." It was barely a whisper.

"Good. So, I got back from Moscow and picked Makka up from Mila's parents. She was pretty good, though Mila mentioned that she called you at one point and you talked to Makka over speaker, which she thought was adorable. It was very sweet of you and helped my dear princess. I only wish I could have listened in, but then if I had been available, Mila wouldn't have called you."

Yuuri huffed a laugh.

"But that's not the story." Yuuri closed his eyes, focusing on the sound of Viktor's voice in his ear. "I told her I had a special present all the way from Detroit for her, but that she had to be a very patient girl so I could get her Yura present out of my suitcase. And she was. She just laid down on the floor next to the case and watched with her head on her paws as I piled everything up on the bed because, of course, I thought I had packed it on top, but ended up packing the case upside down and it was on the bottom. I might have been drunk when I packed. Pretty sure I was. Katya and I dragged your assistant coach out, but she was not nearly as easy to ply with vodka as Katya hoped. It was almost like someone warned her in advance, Yura."

Accusation laced Viktor's tone at the end, and for good reason. Yuuri smiled; someone had indeed.

"But again that isn't the story, is it? No, it isn't. This is a Makka story. She's currently laying across my legs on the couch, listening to me talk to you. She always knows when I'm talking to you. And she wants me to get back on topic. Especially since that topic is her. So I finally found the bag and as soon as I opened it, Makka knew what I had brought her because dog nose, of course. But she was so good and waited until I pulled it out. She's been carrying it everywhere. I think she no longer likes your pillow best, but I might start doing the thing you do with Vicchan's and wash it and then sleep with it for a few days before going to competitions, which will make it less a Yuuri pillow and more a me pillow. But it'll make her happier, and I have a lot of work trips coming up. Like, one right after the Grand Prix Final and before Nationals that I've been putting off. It's actually a couple of skating things in New York City for a few days, and it's annoying that I can't just add in a side trip to Detroit, but by the time I'm finished in New York, you'll be flying to Japan again for Nationals. And of course I have Russian Nationals after that, so I wouldn't have been able to add the side trip in anyway." Viktor sighed. "But back to Makka and her new toy. I thought she'd be rougher with it, but she's actually pretty gentle. You did a good job on the braiding, but I shouldn't be surprised about that, I guess, as the braids you did in my hair were always the best and most secure. As for her special Yuuri braided toy, Makka even carries it with her at meal times and sets it down next to her…"

Yuuri took a deep breath and slept.

The phone alarm went off too early for decent humans to be awake, but Yuuri was a figure skater and not a decent human, so he pulled his covers further over his head to pretend that he could go back to sleep. In the background, he could hear the shower running; all the more reason not to get up, as the bathroom was currently occupied.

After a few moments, the shower shut off and he heard Murata moving about the room – not quietly, but not loud, either. They both knew he should be awake, but Yuuri was pretending he didn't have to be, same as the day before.

At that point his phone rang and he sat up, glaring at the screen and declining the call before groaning and burying his face in his hands. It started ringing again almost immediately; this time, Yuuri begrudgingly accepted the call, pulling the earbuds out of the jack and bringing the smartphone to his ear. "What?"

"Good morning to you too. Are you out of bed?" Kai's voice was patient, and not as booming and energetic as Ciao Ciao's was when he did the whole "get Yuuri out of bed" wake up call on competition days. Small blessings.

"I'm sitting up. Does that count?"

"No. You need to be in the banquet hall where they've set up breakfast in thirty minutes or less. Did you sleep?"

"Thirty minutes?" That was doable, but did not leave time for dozing. Which was probably the point. "Yes, I slept."

"Enough?"

Yuuri took a deep breath and frowned at the space in front of him. "Yes. I didn't stay up too late. Just a little. I had trouble falling asleep."

"Katya mentioned. I had a text."

"勘弁してよ！"

Murata snorted from his side of the room.

"I'm sure that whatever you said was incredibly complimentary and she'd love to hear it." Kai paused. "Breakfast in twenty-seven minutes or less and counting. Minute docked for being grumpy." On that note, the call disconnected.

Yuuri shoved the covers off. Time to face the music. "Murata-kun, おはようございます。"

"Katsuki-kun, おはよう。" The other athlete had already finished getting dressed and was running a comb through his hair. "You better hurry if you don't want a search party to come looking for you, from the sound of things. I guess I'll see you at breakfast."

Yuuri just nodded and ambled into the bathroom.

With five minutes to spare, he stepped into the banquet hall where the organizers had set up a breakfast buffet for everyone involved with the competition. This was actually the highlight of attending events in Japan, at least for Yuuri: a Japanese breakfast that he didn't have to cook himself. And he got to eat white rice, as opposed to the brown he substituted in his normal diet. He went and took a tray, then started piling little dishes of his favorites onto it, ignoring the many more Western options before grabbing a cup of tea and then turning to grab a seat somewhere.

And this was the dilemma.

There was a table full of Japanese team members: Keiko-chan and Masao-chan, and even little Ayako-chan with their coaches. Jun and Paul were probably off getting ready to leave soon, since the Pairs practices were right after the ice dance practices. The JSF had loaded as many Japanese skaters into the NHK as they could get away with; having the NHK Trophy in Sendai less than two years after the earthquake was very much a big deal in their book.

On the other hand, there was the table with Aaron and Manu and Madison on the other side of the room, plus a few others that Yuuri didn't know well.

He knew and liked people at both those tables, but shuddered at the thought of going to either. That meant he'd have to talk and he was not awake enough for that.

Alternately, he could sit in the corner with Celestino and Kai and some of the other coaches, but that wasn't happening either. He hadn't had time to caffeinate himself before making his way down, and coaches before tea was usually a horrible idea in his experience.

He took a deep breath and looked around one more time. There was one sparsely populated table with only three occupants, and no one there would think anything of Yuuri sitting with them; they also would leave him mostly alone. Probably. His odds were better there than elsewhere, in any case. So he headed over and set his tray down across from Murata-kun, who was making small talk in stilted English with Georgi a few seats away. Yakov was sitting next to Georgi and not talking, instead glaring at a notebook.

Yuuri sat down and let his head hit the table.

"Доброе утро, Yura." Georgi said.

"Доброе утро."

Georgi started speaking to Murata-kun again. "Yura hates mornings more than anyone I know. You get used to it." He paused. "There are worse things. Like being a morning person."

"Is that actually worse though? I'm a morning person," Murata commented.

Yuuri glanced up and caught Georgi looking at him with a smile before the Russian skater replied. "You do not know the meaning of the words 'morning person' until you have met Viktor. Have you met Viktor, Murata-san?"

"Ah, no. I haven't been assigned to an international competition with him yet. This is my only Grand Prix assignment."

"Ah, well, he is a morning person, Isn't that right, Yura?"

Yuuri didn't answer; he just sat up and pulled his tray closer so he could grab his tea, take a sip, and stare at Georgi over the rim. That question didn't even need an answer.

"See, Yura stayed with Viktor for a bit over the summer and got dragged to the rink two hours before he needed to be there almost every day during his visit. It is fun to tease Yura before he wakes up."

"No, it is not fun to tease Yura before he wakes up," Yuuri muttered.

"Did you sleep this time?" The last comment was in Russian, from Yakov.

"Да." The code switch from English to Russian was almost second nature at this point.

"Well?"

"Yes. Enough? Yes." Yuuri paused. "I've never been first at a Grand Prix going into the free before. Not in Seniors, anyway."

"Hmph. And there is the other thing that Lyosha was telling me about, which is why I assume you picked the relative safety of this table over all your other choices."

Yuuri shoved one of the pieces of fish into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed before answering. By now, Georgi and Murata-kun had returned to their conversation. It was generic skating small talk: music, boot brands, training regimens, etc. "Why can't they all just let me skate and gang up on me later?"

"Lyosha and I are on your side. This is all coming from the Japanese side of things, where there are very few skaters involved."

Yuuri pressed his lips together.

"Don't skip breakfast. You need fuel for skating. Don't eat fast, you'll get indigestion. Don't skip practice, you need to work out the nerves. Find your coach and stick to him. Don't get distracted by nonsense." 'Nonsense' being Yakov-speak for anything that wasn't skating-related.

"Yes, Coach Yakov."

Yakov gathered his things and stood up before looking over at Georgi. "I'll be in the lobby when you're ready." Georgi just nodded. Yakov then turned to the other Japanese skater and switched to English. "Murata, right? You skated your program well in the short." He nodded his head and left the table.

"Th…Thank you, Feltsman-sensei!" Murata-kun called out before turning to look at Yuuri. "Do you think he meant that?" he asked in Japanese. "Or was he just being polite? I mean, he's Yakov Feltsman ."

"Coach Yakov doesn't give compliments he does not mean. If he says you skated it well, you did. So good job." And it was the truth. Yakov never gave a compliment that wasn't deserved; there were skaters in Saint Petersburg who would be ecstatic just to be told that Yakov thought they were passably mediocre.

Yuuri could even understand it; he still remembered the delight he'd felt the first time Yakov had talked to him about how impressive his edge control and step sequences were for his age just a few days into working together. And after almost six years of speaking with the coach off and on, Yuuri even knew how to spot praise when it was hidden in the middle of a rant about Yuuri not focusing enough.

He frowned at his plate. He wasn't sure he was awake enough for any epiphanies, but that didn't seem to matter because now Yuuri couldn't seem to stop replaying all the conversations he'd had with the old Russian coach. An unexpected warmth filled his chest as six years worth of unbelieved compliments finally started to take root, because there were two things that Yuuri definitely knew: Yakov Feltsman didn't give undeserved compliments and Yakov Feltsman had been complimenting Yuuri's skating since he was fourteen.

Yuuri thought that he'd sorted out his brain by the time he gathered his things and headed downstairs to catch his shuttle to the arena. Madison and Celestino had already left thirty minutes prior, since Ladies' practice was first. The next shuttle to the rink wouldn't be for another twenty minutes, one having just left a few minutes prior. Kai would be going with him to keep him on task, since Celestino mentioned distractions - which probably was code for "Yuuri's Japanese Friends" and was not entirely inaccurate - and they would arrive just as the Ladies' practices started, at which point he'd be left to warm up for his on-ice time while she went to work with Celestino and Madison.

But apparently he hadn't sorted out his brain as much as he'd thought he had, because the thing that finally broke Yuuri after almost two weeks in Japan was seeing his sister sitting in one of the plush chairs in the lobby chatting to Alexei. From the corner of his eye, he spotted Kai walking up to him, but he didn't even glance her way. He hadn't known his sister had planned to be here, in Sendai, at his competition. She certainly hadn't mentioned it the last time they had talked, but then the last time they had talked on the phone had been… months ago. He hadn't even really seen her since she helped him move, as he'd avoided her at Nationals last year. Then again, he'd avoided everyone, even Yuuko and Takeshi, and they'd been competing and incredibly difficult to dodge.

He took a step forward and then another one, his chest tightening and eyes stinging.

"There's my otouto!" Mari stood up and walked over to him to ruffle his hair, making it more of a mess than it usually was. Oh, she was definitely getting him back for not calling home more. "I was hoping to catch you before you had to head to the rink for morning practice, so I got up early. Minako is probably sleeping off a hangover. I'm assuming you'll be back after practice? We can grab lunch." Despite the phrasing, it was not a request. Yuuri nodded. "Mom and Dad really wanted to come up, but your skates are way too good for business to shut the onsen down. They're only sparing me since Minako was coming up to Sendai anyway, and therefore a handful that they won't have to deal with." She grinned and Yuuri felt himself grinning in return, though his words were still caught in his throat.

Mari continued. "It was really close this time, though. We even put the reservation page up late because they wanted to see you. Especially since your birthday is in just a couple of days and you're not coming home for-"

Yuuri took a deep breath, and it escaped, broken as his whole body shuddered and tears started pouring out of his eyes. He swiped furiously at his face, trying to wipe them off and stop himself from crying, but just sobbed harder as Mari wrapped her arms around him.

"Hey, kiddo, no one's mad. No one is mad?" He could hear the question in her voice, but he couldn't breathe and so couldn't answer that yes, everyone was mad. He let himself be pushed and pulled somewhere, his sister's arm still tight around his shoulders and her voice still telling him that it was OK, but it wasn't. Vaguely, somewhere in the background, he heard Kai's voice, slightly raised, asking what just happened. But even that felt like it was a million miles away and he didn't have the breath or mental capacity to answer her. It took the sound of a door being shut to snap him out of it; at that, he pushed himself away from Mari and took a couple steps away to scrub at his face with the heels of his palms, setting his glasses askew. After a second, he fixed them and looked around as he sniffled. They were in some sort of office area, probably the business center for the hotel. But it was empty except for them.

"OK, tell me what just happened? Is this about January? Because we're fine, kiddo, no one expects you to come home. Not for New Years and not for Seijin no Hi. I mean, we all want you to-"

"It's so hard, Mari-neechan! Everything is so hard!"

"Well, you're an adult now, or will be in a few days." She grinned at him after finally getting him to look at her. "And being an adult is hard. You don't need me to tell you that. And you have to know how proud we are of you. Of everything you've done."

He nodded furiously. "I know! You'd all be proud even if I came in last and made a fool of myself because you wouldn't know not to be." He breathed out harshly, breath still tight in his lungs, and turned his face toward a picture of Sendai that hung on the wall.

"That's not true at all, because you'd still deserve it. We will always be proud of you. You're my little brother, flesh and blood; you used to follow me around like a baby chick. Whatever I did, you did. I needed to vacuum the family living room, you'd have out your toy vacuum to follow me around. I took dance classes, you took dance classes. You know, I was old enough to change your diapers when you were born-"

"Maaaaaariiiiiii!" He spun around to glare at her before burying his face in his hands in embarrassment.

She laughed. "Talk to me. But not this nonsense about how we shouldn't be proud of you because you don't deserve it. That's just you being stupid and rude. Help me understand."

Yuuri took a deep breath and dropped his hands. This was Mari, his first confidant in life; before he knew what a confidant was, before he knew that siblings were annoying and not to be trusted, before he unlearned that and she earned the title again. He sniffled and his hands balled into fists at his sides.

"If I go home to Hasetsu even for just a visit, I'm not going to want to leave, and I'm not ready to give up yet. I'm not done yet. I have so much skating left in me. I have so much left to do , but I miss home, Mari. I miss everything . Mom, Dad, you, the onsen, the Ice Castle, the run to Minako's studio. I even miss her yelling at me that I've had one katsudon too many and beating me back into proper form. Yuu-chan sends pictures of the triplets and part of me just thinks: 'this is huge, look at how much they've grown and I've missed it .' I was there when they were born, and they're not going to even know who I am because I'm halfway around the world training. And if I'm going to miss EVERYTHING , I need to make it worth it. Not to you or mom or dad or Minako, but to me. It has to be worth it to me ." Yuuri took a ragged breath and leaned against the door, suddenly exhausted. "Last year at this time I felt like I couldn't go home because I was lost. Like I'd made a wrong turn and didn't know how to fix it, and I couldn't just run home because that'd be the easy way out."

"Ah." Mari's arms were crossed over her chest; she'd just been watching him. "And now?"

He pushed off the door and looked at her. "Do you know how close I was to breaking Viktor's world record last night? Less than two points, Mari. TWO."

Mari grinned. "It's a good thing that friend of yours is as competitive as you are." She paused. "I don't think you're done chasing him yet, though. He's not going to make it easy for you to pass him."

Yuuri shook his head. "He's going to change that Salchow to a flip by the GPF and break his own world record, I know it. He usually just leaves it as a Salchow in the short, but he won't be able to get away with that this season."

Mari pointed to herself. "Not Minako. Not Yuu-chan. Not Alexei. You know the skating stuff goes over my head." She paused and leaned against the desk behind her. " But if I'm understanding you: right now, at this point in your season this year, Hatsetsu's a bad idea. OK. That's fine. Mom and Dad will be fine. You know Mom just wants the pictures of you in montsuki hakama haori anyway, and it's not like this will be the only time in your life that it can happen. Just dress up on a random Tuesday next visit and take pictures. Or, I don't know, get married. You'll be able to do that in a few days without getting their permission."

Yuuri laughed because it was ridiculous, but it was also entirely true. But there was also so much more to it than that, and he knew Mari knew that and that Mari knew he knew that. Life was complicated and there weren't always easy fixes, but sometimes there were ways to soothe the wounds. Sometimes there were ways to avoid them altogether, too. He took a breath. It wasn't the best option, but there was one that didn't involve going back to Hasetsu. "What if I stayed in Osaka for it?"

"For Seijin no Hi?" Mari took a breath, then shook her head. "That's not important right this second. We can figure that out after this. Right now, you're here to skate and win and make not coming home worth it for yourself. And that means a pretty medal for me to take home to mom and dad. Right, kiddo?"

Yuuri nodded.

There was a knock on the door and Yuuri took a second to compose himself before opening it. Riku was there, worry visible in the lines around her eyes and across her brow; behind her, Kai and Alexei were looking confused and annoyed, respectively. "They're holding the shuttle for two minutes. If you think you can take this one, you have to go now. If you need more time, the next one will be in thirty minutes." Riku-san paused. "It's up to you."

Before Yuuri could answer, his sister pushed him through the door with enough force to send him stumbling forward a few steps. "He's good. Just homesick. Take him and go." Mari ruffled his hair again. "But we're doing lunch, kiddo. I mean it. You're coming back here after practice and you and I are having lunch. We'll talk more then."

"Hai."

Kai had his bag, which must have been taken from him at some point in the general confusion. He followed her at a brisk pace out the doors and to the waiting shuttle, bowing to everybody in apology as he climbed aboard. Fortunately, no one seemed mad, and when he passed Aaron Reyes, the other skater insistently pulled him down into the seat next to him.

"You look like a little music therapy might help. Found out my boyfriend was cheating on me while I was in China, so I'm listening to some 'I broke up with an asshole' music and I have a splitter."

Angry break up music was definitely a way to take his mind off things. "Sure. I think it might help kick some melancholy out of me."

"That's what I thought. It's good for that, even if you haven't just broken up with an asshole."

Yuuri took out his earbuds and plugged them into Aaron's splitter. P!nk's "So What" started blasting in his ears, loud enough to give him a jolt but not loud enough that Yuuri couldn't hear it when Aaron leaned in and said, "When I manage to kick your butt tonight and win that gold, I think I might just skate to this for the gala."

Yuuri grinned. "Bring it." He paused. "Start it over again?"

"You know I will." Yuuri knew it was an answer to both of his statements even a split second before P!nk started singing from the top.

[selfie of Yuuri and Aaron on the shuttle with earbuds in smiling]

a_sun_reyes with katsukiyuuri Just a couple of skating rock stars with their rock moves. We'll show you tonight! #nananananana #we'rehavingmorefun #sowhat #nhktrophy #grandprixfs #grandprixfs2012 #figureskating #rockstars

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tagakik_sk8s ? ﾟﾑﾏ? Have some help with the tags #aaronreyes #勝生ユーリ #yuurikatsuki #フィギュアスケート

sunreyes AH! THIS IS AWESOME! WISH I WAS THERE! GO AARON!

phichit+chu SWEET! I WANT TO BE THERE!

pak_ur_skates ? ﾟﾑﾍ

lovelyharuka ❤❤❤

Kai grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to the side the second they were inside the arena. "I left you alone on the shuttle and it seemed to have helped, but now you talk. Spill. What do I need to know about what happened at the hotel?"

Yuuri shook his head. "Nothing. I'm good." And that was true; there was a calmness that wasn't there earlier. There was still a lot going on and plenty that needed his attention, but crying to Mari always made things fall into place. He now knew exactly what he needed to do and the order it all needed to get done in; nothing was jumbled up anymore. "I'm fine."

"I have no idea what happened in the lobby. One second you're heading to meet me, then you stop to talk to someone and start crying and get pushed into an office, then your jump coach starts arguing with some JSF official in RUSSIAN, and no one tells your poor assistant coach anything! I trust that Alexei wouldn't go off on the wrong official, but still, why would he do that at all?!"

Yuuri grimaced. "Lyosha was arguing in Russian? Not Japanese? You're sure? Arguing in Russian isn't good because that means he's mad. Japanese means she's mad."

"I don't care if they were arguing in Martian . I want to know what happened. You have to talk to me, Yuuri!"

Fair enough. Yuuri nodded. "It's nothing, really. You know I've been really anxious and stressed out since we got to Japan. So when I saw my sister there, I just couldn't hold it together anymore." He paused and started walking to the warm up area. He needed to start getting ready to get on the ice and desperately wanted to wake up his muscles now. "But I'm good now. I mean it. Crying to Mari always helps. I'm not hiding anything."

" That was the sister you've told me about? She's older than I expected, and um..."

Yuuri nodded, knowing exactly what Kai meant. "I look more like our mother and she took after our dad. On top of that, we aren't that close in age. She's almost 27, actually, so, you know. I forgot that you hadn't met her, though, because she never went to the rink when she helped me move. She's not into skating beyond supporting me doing it. The only reason she could even come to the competition and not need to help out at the onsen was because Minako-sensei came too, and usually Mari would be on Minako-sensei duty - you saw her at the restaurant on the lake, and that was well behaved for her." Yuuri shrugged. "So that was Mari-neechan. I didn't know that they'd be here in Sendai. Neither of them told me, so I was surprised seeing her and it just... broke me, I guess."

Kai's jaw was still tight for some reason. "You're coming to the ice before you go warm up. Celestino wants to see that you're OK."

With a sigh, Yuuri followed Kai into the rink and to the boards where Celestino had set up. Madison was already on the ice working on a spin; judging by her form, she was in for a good performance. Further down the rink, Yuuri could see Keiko prepping for a jump; she landed a double Axel before skating along the edge and waving to Yuuri, so he waved back. Keiko-chan actually had a decent shot of making the Final this year for the first time, and he hoped it all worked out for her, too.

Celestino's expression brightened as he saw them approaching. "Yuuri! There you are! You look OK." He looked at Kai and then back at Yuuri. "He looks all right."

"I am all right, Coach."

Celestino clapped him on the back with a smile. Thankfully, dealing with Ciao Ciao was usually pretty straightforward and he took what he saw at face value. If Yuuri didn't seem like he was going to fall apart, Celestino would assume that he wasn't. Since Yuuri wasn't terribly good at hiding his anxiety when it was really bad, it was sort of working out for them. Maybe.

Yuuri turned to Kai. "See. Coach says I'm fine. Can I go warm up now?

Kai sighed but nodded her approval. Yuuri was about to turn away, but stole a last look at the ice and the other skaters warming up. Masao-chan had a look in her eye that he hadn't seen since last year's Nationals practice. It didn't go well then, but it might today with any luck. "You might want to keep an eye on Masao-chan's practice, by the way. I think she's going to try for the triple Axel in her free skate."

Celestino narrowed his eyes at him. "She got it back?"

Yuuri nodded. "In practice, anyway. She was landing it pretty solidly in the summer ice shows during practices."

"And you're only mentioning this now?" Celestino crossed his arms over his chest.

Yuuri shrugged. "I'm not like a spy or anything."

With that, he turned and headed for the rink exit. Behind him, he could hear the landing and the applause from the crowd watching the practice as Kai muttered, "Shit. That was a triple Axel."

"Remember what Roberto and you worked on. You have the energy to get that Lutz up and clean now." Celestino was now running through his final instructions before the skate. "You should run through that, but don't jump the Lutz now. Break off before that or single it." He paused. "Remember that you can always go with the Salchow like you did during the runthrough this morning. You have a decent point buffer from the short."

Yuuri took a deep breath. The final six skaters had only been on the ice for a minute out of their six and Yuuri had only done a couple laps; he still had quite a bit of warm-up to do. "The quad toe in the front and the Salchow in the back can get me close to gold, but it's not guaranteed. Manu has been skating strong this series." He was about to pull away from the boards to run through his step sequence when there was a crash at the other end of the rink.

Yuuri turned to look. Both Aaron and Georgi were laid out on the ice, and Georgi was cradling his head and staring straight down. Worse than that, he wasn't getting up.

A voice barked out from the PA system: "Skaters, please move aside so medical can get through."

Yuuri's heart jumped into his throat. "What happened?"

"Stay where you are, Yuuri. I know they're your friends, but you've got to stay focused." Celestino's hand settled hard on his shoulder as the medical team approached.

"Popovich probably has a concussion and will have to withdraw; that looked like a hit to the head when he went down," Kai remarked. "Not the worst I've seen, but still not great. Can't tell how Reyes went down, so I don't know. But he got up on his own."

By now, the two stricken skaters were being helped off the ice. Yuuri tried to twist out of Celestino's grip to get a better look, but the Italian's coach's hand was firm. He could only make out Yakov standing next to Georgi, arguing with him. Then the Russian coach huffed, stepping back as the medical team swarmed around the injured skater. With a nod of his head, Yakov turned and quickly walked over to them.

"He's fine. Told me to come over here and tell you he's fine and he'll see you tomorrow morning." Yakov's jaw was tight. "It's probably a mild concussion, so we're withdrawing him. We'll still get the confirmation, though. At least Georgi isn't as stubborn as Viktor. He probably would have tried to skate." He clapped his hand down on Yuuri's other shoulder. "This can't get to you. Skate, Yura." With that, Yakov left as quickly as he came over; Georgi had been strapped down to the stretcher and Yakov walked next to him as he was carried out of the rink by several members of the medical team.

"Skaters can continue their warm up," the PA announced.

"They're restarting the clock." Celestino remarked, but Yuuri only partially heard him. His heart was still in his throat. It could have been any of them in that collision, with dashed hopes for a placement in the Final and a potential injury instead. "Go and skate."

With a nod, Yuuri skated away from the boards, but instantly felt the hesitancy in his own movements. He couldn't shake the feeling through the six minutes of warm-up and exited the ice unsure how he was going to go out there and skate the way that he needed to. Thoughts that had been so clear earlier were now all tangled up again, and he didn't feel nearly as sure about snatching the gold anymore.

Yuuri kept an eye on the monitors while he switched between light jogging and simple stretches, biding his time before he needed to put his skates back on. Aaron did end up skating, but fell on most of his jumps, and when his scores came in they were low enough to knock him down from third place going into the free to fifth with two skaters left to go. Yuuri let his hands fall away from the laces on his boot once he was done and simply stared at his footwear.

"Manuel is on the ice now," Kai announced as she put her hand on his shoulder. "We have to head into the rink, Yuuri."

"OK." He didn't sound sure, even to his own ears.

"Come on. You have to move." Celestino's arm wrapped around his shoulder and led him back into the rink. The Italian's grip was tight enough that Yuuri didn't really have a choice but to move in step with his coach – a good thing, because Yuuri was certain that there was no way he'd be getting to the ice on his own at that moment.

The air was so much colder right next to the rink and Yuuri shivered even in his jacket. He knew it wasn't just the chill, though; he still hadn't gotten back the calm that he'd had in the morning after crying to Mari, and at this point it wasn't going to come back, either. He frowned as Manu finished his skate, pumping his fist in celebration as he left the ice. He must have landed his 4Lz in the front half cleanly, though it remained to be seen whether that was enough to place him ahead of Cao Bin.

Yuuri watched as Manu stepped into the Kiss and Cry before the gate was opened for him. He skated out on the ice, speeding around the edge, twisting back and forth before jumping a single Axel. His skates felt good; muscles were warm, body was loose. Physically speaking, he could skate his program as he'd choreographed it. Mentally, though… he took a breath.

The smart tactic would be to go for beautiful and clean, and hope his lead from the high marks in the short would carry him to a win. But Yuuri hated the smart route. If he had been smart, he would be skating a different free; Viktor wasn't wrong about that.

He stripped off his jacket as he skated back to the boards to hand it off. Manu's scores still hadn't come in, so he grabbed his Team Pipsqueak water bottle and took a sip before handing it back to Kai, then took a tissue and thoroughly blew his nose. She took that as well.

His friends, his sister, Minako, and Alexei were all in the stands. Kai and Celestino were at the boards. Riku was somewhere out there too, and he knew she was watching him. Georgi had told him to skate, even concussed . And Aaron went out and skated when he was injured.

So Yuuri was not going to do the smart thing.

"I'm skating the Lutz and going for gold," he announced. "I don't think I'm going to pull it off, but I'm going for it anyway."

Celestino reached out and pounded him on the back with a nod.

Yuuri sat in the Kiss and Cry and waited for his scores. At this point, there was no telling which way things would go. There had definitely been issues with his skate. He'd gotten off time with his step sequence and fell out of sync with the music, and it was so precisely choreographed that it was going to impact his GOE for it, not to mention his overall PCS. That in turn had screwed up his timing on the Lutz, and while he managed to save the landing – barely – he was not going to get the positive GOE that he needed. But neither would it be as bad as a fall; a negative would eat up the points that he needed, especially when combined with the PCS hit.

If he'd done enough everywhere else, though, his score plus the higher short score could maybe carry him to first. But if not…

He dragged in one harsh breath after another as he stared at the monitors and waited for the announcer to reveal his scores, not hearing a single thing Celestino said. After a minute, he relented and grabbed the large onigiri plush that one of the sweepers had handed him on his way to the Kiss and Cry, squeezing it tight.

Finally, his scores came in.

Still a Season's best. Still a Personal best. Enough for silver.

But just shy of enough for gold.

He nodded. "I should be happy."

Celestino pounded his back. "You should be! Silver at the NHK, Yuuri! Be proud."

Yuuri stood up and waved to the cheering crowd. As he stepped down from the Kiss and Cry, he heard people calling at him from above and looked up. Wrapped flowers and stuffed animals were tossed at him from all angles; he managed to catch a few, bowing multiple times as he left the rink desperate to regain his breath before having to deal with the press and then the medal ceremony.

Why would they literally shower him with gifts? He didn't deserve them. He'd been good. But not good enough.

And he could have done so much better.

Grand Prix Final of Figure Skating 2012 - Men's Singles

Qualified

RUS Viktor NIKIFOROV

FRA Pierre FOURNIER

CHE Christophe GIACOMETTI

CHN Cao BIN

CAN Keith RYANS

ESP Manuel GONZALEZ

Alternates

JAP Yuuri KATSUKI

CZE Dusan BLAZEK

ITA Michele CRISPINO

"I just think you really like being first alternate for things," Shouta grinned as he fingered Yuuri's silver medal, turning it over in his hands. Yuuri's former classmates had taken over the lobby of the competition hotel and were waiting for him when he came in. A classic ambush.

"Stop it. I need to give that to Mari-neechan to take back to Hatsetsu."

Shouta started to hand the medal back, but Shuji grabbed it before Yuuri could take it, running his finger critically along the edge. "Pretty sure Shouta's medal was bigger."

Yuuri rolled his eyes. "Of course it was. Those were Olympic medals, but you know that. I doubt you've ever paid any attention to his normal competition medals. Will you give that back?"

"I thought you said you were aiming for gold, Yuu-kun?" And now Noda-chan had it. Yuuri groaned. "This is not gold. Gold would have gone much better with your complexion. And you would have gotten a vase."

Yuuri hated his friends, he really did. "A trophy. The gold medalist won the NHK Trophy . And I was. My skating didn't cooperate with me today, and ate up my usually guaranteed PCS points." Even now, he was still annoyed with the dings his PCS on performance and interpretation took.

Kanon-chan took the medal out of Noda-chan's hands and flipped it over in her own before rubbing her index finger along the front. She smiled and stepped closer, giving Yuuri the hope that he would actually be able to get his silver back before Fumika-chan, Atsuo-kun or Yui-chan grabbed it. "Yeah, I think that's just an excuse," she said. With that, she reached out and draped the medal around Yuuri's neck instead of handing it back over. "That's better."

Yuuri took a breath then shook his head. "Thank you. But it's not an excuse. I spent most of the time before I skated worrying about the skaters that got into that collision during warm up. I wasn't focused enough."

"Do you know them?" The question came from Noda-chan.

He nodded again. "I've been skating against Aaron since my first year in Juniors, so basically my whole career and Georgi was a rinkmate in Russia. They're... friends."

"Are they all right?" Shouta asked.

Yuuri sighed. "Viktor texted me that Georgi is fine and is already back here at the hotel. He has a mild concussion, though. I'll make a point of seeing him tomorrow; Yakov is trying to move their flight forward. Aaron said his ankle hurts but he doesn't think it's serious. Don't know if I believe him."

"Oh." Shuji wrapped an arm around his shoulder. "You wanted to do well for them, right? Since they couldn't skate as they normally would. You scored a personal best for your friends, Yuu-kun. You did great!"

No, great would have been gold. Great would have been actually skating the program the way he'd managed to in practice in Detroit and Tokyo. Yuuri puffed out his cheeks and didn't answer, but it didn't matter. Most of the group surrounding him knew that he was unsatisfied with the silver, which was why they'd spent so much time teasing him and playing keep-away with the medal. They were trying to make him feel better.

"You should go out with us tomorrow," Noda-chan smiled. "We can do karaoke, or an izakaya! Oh! I heard about a bar with really good music, all eclectic and weird. We can reserve their private function room! It'll be fun!"

Yuuri shook his head. "I can't."

"Don't you dare say you don't want to because you'll be tired." Yui-chan chirped. "Shouta-kun and I competed in our events in London and went out the same night!"

Yuuri remembered; he'd been there, and more importantly, he'd carried Yui back from the bus drop-off on his back. "That is exactly what I'm saying. I've been competing for two days straight and still have to skate tomorrow in the gala. Besides, after that I have to go to a banquet and socialize until ten."

Shouta bumped his shoulder. "You make it sound like a punishment, Yuuri."

Yuuri looked at him pointedly in response. "I have to wear an extremely expensive suit and talk to sponsors. It is a punishment."

Kanon-chan pushed her lip out in a pout. "You should come anyway. There's no guarantee that we'll be able to pull off a group this size for Nationals, and then you'll be in Detroit until who knows when."

He almost replied "Four Continents," because that was in Osaka and he knew that most of them probably knew that. But that wasn't what they were getting at. Besides, there was no guarantee he'd be assigned to 4CC anyway. He was just operating under the assumption that as long as he made the podium at Nationals, the JSF would assign him.

Yuuri took a breath. There were many expectant eyes looking at him, so he might as well tell them his decision now instead of waiting a few more days to drop the info into the group chat and then just not say anything else about it. "I'm not leaving Japan immediately after nationals; I'll be in Osaka until the sixteenth of January. I'm changing my flights when I get back to Detroit."

"Yuuri-kun!" Noda-chan jumped at him. He barely caught her and stumbled back against Shouta and Shuji, who propped him up. Everyone else just piled on from there.

Yuuri pulled his phone under the table after the third time it vibrated from its spot next to his dinner plate. Kai, who was sitting next to him, raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"It's nothing." He looked down at the text on the screen and sighed.

Keiko snorted from her seat across from him. "I know perfectly well what's going on." She leaned forward. "I'm in the chat too."

"So do me a favor and tell them all to stop," Yuuri replied as he typed in a response.

"I wasn't invited, so I don't care." A couple of seats away, Masao-chan laughed into her hand. Keiko looked over. "No really, I don't care. Unless he actually manages to leave early, in which case, I will not forgive Yuuri-senpai for abandoning me."

Yuuri rolled his eyes and kept typing under the table. "We both know that you're going to go and find Manu the moment the sponsors leave. So if anyone is being abandoned, it's me."

Keiko gaped at him before muttering "traitor," like whatever was going on between her and Manu was a grand secret. It might have been for her, but the truth was that they were so bad at keeping it under wraps that their relationship was common knowledge among most of the other skaters. And Yuuri knew first-hand that it wasn't that hard to keep a hook-up with a fellow athlete from becoming circuit gossip. You just had to be smart about it.

Kai poked him in the shoulder. Yuuri looked over at her, but ignored the unspoken question. He didn't even have an answer for what was going on yet, so just looked back down at his phone.

"Are they always like this?" Murata-kun muttered from his seat.

"Yes. Yes, they are," Masao-chan replied. "Be glad that you weren't booked on any ice shows with Yuuri-kun this summer, because I was."

Keiko laughed. "Come on, Masao-chan. You had fun with us. Admit it."

"Maybe a little. You are awfully loud in the morning, though, Keiko-chan."

"Not just the mornings. I've been saying that she's loud all the time for the last five years, but no one listens to me. Don't forget, we used to be rinkmates." Yuuri set his phone back down and leaned back in his chair and looked over at Keiko, who was currently sticking her tongue out at him. "There's a plan. It's not going to work, but it's a plan. They want you to confirm that I actually follow through with trying, though. Because I've already been accused of lying, even though I didn't even have a chance to do the thing yet."

Keiko hummed. "I guess I can."

"She knows your idol friends?" Kai asked.

"Technically, some of them are her friends too. In fact, the "pop star" is one of her best friends. Keiko-senpai went to the same idol school I did; she was just one year ahead of me. The two figure skaters had to stick together. According to Keiko-senpai."

Keiko smiled and nodded.

"So what's this plan about you leaving early?" Kai asked.

Keiko leaned forward. "They want to take him out for his birthday."

"I forgot that's coming up!" Masao-chan chirped. "Happy early Birthday, Yuuri-kun!"

Yuuri quickly bowed his head in her direction. "Arigatou gozaimasu."

"Celestino is not going to want you to go out after the banquet." Kai crossed her arms. "And I agree with him on this. It will be late and we leave tomorrow."

Yuuri nodded. "And I told them that."

"So they want him to go over your heads." Keiko supplied.

"Oh?" Kai seemed a little amused. "And how is that going to work?"

"If the de facto head of PR in regards to figure skating for the Japanese Skating Federation doesn't have a problem with Yuuri-kun going out, would you have a problem with it?" Keiko replied. "I mean, she's the one who would have to clean up the mess if he did something stupid.

"All right, you have a point." Kai leaned back in her chair with a small smile. "But that is not going to happen. I still remember what Celestino said happened the last time you went out with your idol friends, Yuuri. You got a reprimand."

"But that was Miyabayashi-san. And Miyabayashi-san only dealt with us figure skaters while Riku-san was on maternity leave." Keiko looked like she was actually having a lot of fun with the situation. "He was a speed skater."

"Most of the top ranks in the JSF are speed skaters," Masao-chan added. "Speed skating was so much bigger than figure skating for a long time here in Japan."

Yuuri watched the smile leave Kai's face as the skaters at the table looked around at each other, and then at him. He was, in fact, unlikely to get reprimanded again. That didn't mean he thought this plan was going to work, but there was a better chance of it working than Kai assumed.

Later, around an hour before he could reasonably be allowed to leave, Yuuri found Kai sitting at a table with Madison and Aaron, chatting away. Celestino was still with Riku and Alexei. Miyabayashi-san would have left as soon as the top sponsors did; Yuuri wasn't worth the attention of anyone higher up, and the only other JSF official still sitting with them was Hiro-san, the Team Japan Leader for the NHK Trophy. It was practically the best-case scenario.

"Hi!" Yuuri clasped his hands behind his back after tapping Kai on the shoulder to get her attention. "It occurred to me that I've never actually introduced you to Katya's mortal enemy, and I should rectify that."

Beside him, Keiko-chan snickered. "She is not Katya's mortal enemy."

Yuuri looked over at her. "When she met Kai, Katya asked if Kai thought that she had skated better than ' that Japanese skater '."

Kai nodded. "Katya did ask. I did not answer."

"Wise move," Keiko replied.

Madison stood up and stared at them. "Yuuri. Are you telling me that you're going to introduce Kai to Riku Imamura and not me?! I loved her Sakura program!"

"Not as much as I love that program." He smiled. "But you can come along anyway. Aaron?"

Aaron shook his head. "I'm going to keep my foot up and watch Maddy's reaction from here. Say 'hi' for me." He glanced over at the still-wide-eyed Madison and stuck out his tongue. "He introduced me ages ago."

Kai looked at him. "What is going on? What are you up to?"

Before Yuuri could say anything, Keiko answered for him. "The Plan. The two of you are The Distraction."

Sighing, Kai stood. "All right. I'm not quite sure how this fits in with everything else, but let's go. I still say this isn't going to work."

So they all walked over to the table where Celestino was talking with Alexei. Riku had a glass of water in her hand and was quietly listening, but showed no sign of really engaging in the conversation at all. As they approached, she turned to look at Yuuri with a smile. "Yuuri-kun."

"It's occurred to me that I never introduced you to Kai, and this is my rinkmate in Detroit, Madison." He paused before glancing at Madison, who was grasping his bicep with painful intensity. "Kai, Maddy, this is Imamura Riku."

Riku smiled and bowed her head. "It's a pleasure."

"She's a bit of a romantic, however, and goes by Turov mostly."

Kai snapped her head around to look at him, but Yuuri ignored her. "So I'm going to let you talk, because I'm sure Maddy has a million things that she wants to ask you and that Kai would love to get to know you. I just needed to let you know that I'm leaving." Yuuri took a step back and started to turn away from the group before Riku pointedly shook her head.

"No. You are not, Yuuri-kun. Masao-chan's coach already told me about this 'plan'."

Keiko laughed next to him. "That went about as well as I expected it to. Shouta-kun's plans are always so dumb and only ever worked because Alexei liked him. I mean, really. 'Alexei-coachi, I know Yuuri-kun has another on ice session, but I needed to ask him something about our Math homework. Oh no, I left my notes in the locker room! I'll have him back by the time the ice is finished being resurfaced!'"

"To be fair, Math was not Shouta's best subject." Yuuri muttered, ignoring Keiko's laughter and more importantly, the fact that he was turning bright red.

Keiko rolled her eyes in response. "Shouta didn't have a best subject. He's lucky he can swim and looks the way he does. And has abs. Those are definitely a plus for him. Kept him out of cram school."

Yuuri was well aware of his ex's strong points and weak points, and while he hadn't actually thought this stupid plan would work, right now he desperately wished it had. That left just one thing that could probably change Riku's mind. "I'll babysit."

From the corner of his eye, Yuuri saw Alexei crane his head toward the conversation. "Hmm? Did I actually hear that? Someone is breaking out the big guns. Babysitting . What do you think, моя золотая? I know that I would like a date night without your mother coming in from Kyoto and spending the night with us." Alexei grinned at Yuuri before looking back at his wife. "Besides, aren't you the one who is always saying that the JSF shouldn't try and control his friendships? I mean, look at all the attention the NHK Trophy got this year, what with Olympic athletes from the London Games, two idol groups, and a well known gravure model all attending just because they're Yuuri's friends."

Yuuri shifted uncomfortably on his feet. Behind him, he could hear Madison hiss, "What's a gravure model?" at Keiko, who just whispered back, "Um, somewhere between swimsuit model and pin-up girl. Furuse-chan started young, but she had the rack for it."

That was enough for Madison to finally drop the death grip on his arm, but now she was just staring at him. As was Kai, for that matter; he could feel it like pinpricks on the back of his neck. Maybe offering babysitting had been a tactical mistake; now Lyosha was invested in Yuuri getting permission to leave.

Shouta always had the stupidest plans. Yuuri should have just agreed to this farce and then gone with his own idea, which was to offer babysitting services directly to Lyosha while he was in Osaka an hour ago in exchange for Lyosha covering for him with the coaches, officials, and Riku. One quick conversation in Russian, and he could have already been at the other hotel and changing.

"I also remember you saying that if you hadn't been on maternity leave last year, he probably wouldn't have gotten that dressing down in the first place because you can't punish someone for what amounted to a pretty innocent Instagram post. You're the one who looked at the picture and told your boss that there was no proof it showed Yuuri consuming alcohol, and that his glass could have easily been just plain lemonade. It wasn't like it was hashtagged 'yuzu sours' because not even Shuji-kun is that stupid."

Yuuri almost opened his mouth to comment that Shuji-kun wasn't stupid at all – he just didn't care about grades – but figured it was best to just keep his mouth closed.

Riku continued to stare at Yuuri for a minute, then relented. "Twice. You need to babysit Sen-chan twice. Once in the afternoon and once at night. All night. You'd have the monitor in your room."

"All right." Obviously he'd keep the monitor in his room; he knew what he was getting into when he offered. It wasn't like it'd be hard. Roma had been sleeping through the night for ages, and if it was a bad night… Well, there was only one of him, not three like the triplets, who woke each other up like clockwork. And it couldn't be that hard to get an 18-ish-month-old back to sleep, right?.

He looked at Celestino, who just sighed and nodded his approval. Yuuri hadn't made it to the Final, so he didn't need to maintain focus. He'd been on his best behavior in regards to press and other duties while in Sendai, and he had made a point to talk to all the sponsors at the banquet, even the ones he didn't work with personally. If Riku didn't have a problem with it, there really wasn't any reason for Celestino to not agree, either.

"Thanks, Coach."

"Don't be late for the shuttle," Celestino added.

"I won't." Yuuri took a step backwards, but Riku raised a finger before he could get any further.

"No joyriding mopeds. And no pictures of you at a bar ordering alcohol. They might be taking you out to celebrate you turning twenty in a few days, but you are still nineteen for a couple more days."

That wasn't specific at all. As if Yuuri would do something that would get his JSF funding pulled and land him a blurb in sports sections needing things to fill out their column inches. "It's not like they'd serve me even if I tried. As you pointed out, I'm only nineteen. I don't know why you think I'd be drinking."

Riku obviously didn't believe him. "Because everyone else is already twenty. You're one of the youngest in that class. I know what's going to happen. Just be circumspect. All of this goes for when you're back in Osaka after Nationals too, twenty years old or not. Think of it as updated House Rules."

"Noda-chan's the one who planned this excursion, so it'll be fine." Yuuri ducked away with barely a glance at his coaches and waved to Alexei. "Sorry, Keiko-senpai."

"Riku-san–"

"No, Keiko-chan. If I let you go, you'll spend the time gossiping with Kanon-chan and Haruka-chan, which will leave Shuji-kun and Shouta-kun in charge. Those two aren't to be trusted. Or need I remind you about the hangover you had before the Osaka ice show? Besides, you live in Osaka and see them plenty.

"In our defense, that was a good luck party for Shouta-kun."

Yuuri insistently clamped his hand over Shouta's mouth. "Shh. I have a roommate. He knows I'm coming back really late, but he's a light sleeper so we have to be super quiet and can't turn on the lights or anything. Don't make me regret taking pity on you because Yamato-kun kicked you out of the hotel room you were sharing."

After a second, Shouta pulled Yuuri's hand away. "Yuu-kun, you wouldn't actually have made me stay up in the lobby, would you?"

Yuuri sighed. "You could have seen if there was an opening at a capsule or headed to an internet cafe, or even McDonald's. You would have been fine. I still don't quite understand how I was your only option."

"That's the alcohol. It'll make more sense in the morning, I bet." Shouta leaned against him. "I promise I'll be so quiet and I won't steal your pillow."

Yuuri nodded. "OK." With that, he swiped his keycard and opened the door.

Yuuri didn't know how they managed to make it across the room and fall into his bed on the far side without running into anything or making too much noise, but they did and before too long Yuuri fell asleep with his face pressed into his pillow and his ex-boyfriend's face pressed against his shoulder. It didn't even seem all that weird, but that could probably be chalked up to the alcohol that he certainly hadn't ordered, but somehow just kept magically appearing in front of him.

Obviously, that was the work of a well-meaning yokai.

When the room light turned on sometime later, Yuuri just groaned and pulled the blanket up over his head.

"Yuuri, your roommate is staring at us."

Yuuri sighed. "My apologies, Murata-kun. Shouta-kun lost his room. We're just sleeping. Sorry for the lack of warning." His reply was mostly muffled against a pillow, but hopefully made sense. With that, he reached out and pulled Shouta closer so he was blocking the light the gap in the covers was allowing in. "Go back to sleep, Рыбка, the alarm hasn't gone off yet."

"Sorry about this." Shouta sounded both sleepy and amused. "Nice to meet you."

"Right. Un. Sorry for waking you, Katsuki-kun and... Un…"

"Nakagawa Shouta." Drunk Yuuri hadn't completely thought this plan through. Drunk Yuuri was an idiot and shouldn't be allowed to make decisions, ever. Drunk Yuuri should have left Shouta to spend the night at an internet cafe. Now, Hungover Yuuri just wanted to go back to sleep.

"Ah. Right. Nice to meet you, Nakagawa-senshu." The light flicked off again.

"You're going to get into so much trouble with Riku-san," Shouta murmured as he shifted and wrapped his arm around Yuuri's waist.

"'Don't bring guys you used to date who lost access to their hotel room because their best friend managed to hook up with someone at a bar back to your room' wasn't on her list of things I couldn't do. I followed the list she gave me." Shouta chuckled against his shoulder. "Shut up."

"Hai, hai."

Skype Group Chat

Scythecapades

32 active participants

Stephen Pak ? ﾟﾇ

Aaron How's the ankle?

Mickey Crispino ? ﾟﾇﾹ

Aaron Are you going to be able to skate?

Aaron Reyes ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Could be better. My coach had wanted me to withdraw like Georgi, but I skated anyway, and that was probably not the best decision.

Stephen Pak ? ﾟﾇ

Does your coach hate when you get stubborn too?

Matt Smith ? ﾟﾇﾸ

What coach doesn't?

I think Aaron is still sulking because he was basically stuck at the table the whole of the banquet

Mickey Crispino ? ﾟﾇﾹ

Aaron You should have saved your ankle.

Aaron Reyes ? ﾟﾇﾸ

You are not the only skater who has informed me of that, Mickey

Yuuri already made a point of saying it as well

And yes, I am sulking.

The banquet was kinda fun for once, and I was stuck at the table with a side of crutches. But at least I got to watch Caro and Yuuri do a jive. But I think I liked the waltz better.

Stephanie Miller ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Aaron Yuuri cheated on me?! With CARO?

Sara Crispino ? ﾟﾇﾹ

Matt Do you have video to share with us again?

Madison Cobb ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Steph Yes he did, but no tricks. So don't feel too bad. He had a new suit which is very two thumbs up and I don't think he wanted to risk it.

Aaron Reyes ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Steph are you two a thing? Because there was this other girl at the NHK… Could have sworn he had a boyfriend at some point, but I assume they broke up because I haven't heard about him in forever

Chris Giacometti ? ﾟﾇﾭ

! ! !

Why was I not assigned to any qualifiers with Yuuri this year?

Skate Canada last year was straight up dull compared to all this

This is the sort of thing that I'm never around for and it's starting to be not fair.

What is going on?

I'm going to text him.

Jeremy Anderson ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Aaron No they aren't. It's because Steph has claimed him for ballroom with my blessing.

Matt Smith ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Sara No videos. That I'm allowed to post anyway. He told me that he doesn't care what Steph, Jeremy, Maddy, Phichit, Viktor, Keiko, Chris or anyone else who knows him says. No videos on Scythecapades please. He was really polite about it and completely blamed Viktor

But I have a picture from the waltz! And he didn't say no pictures.

[img]

HMU at the GPF and I'll show you the videos

Sara Crispino ? ﾟﾇﾹ

That's a gorgeous waltz lift! I didn't realize Keiko knew how to do that!

Madison Cobb ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Aaron The girl was actually just a friend who got in early or something. He introduced all of us, but there were a lot of people…

Speaking of, I have better Yuuri gossip than him having friends that are girls. Because remember how the 11 am shuttle we were supposed to be on to the airport on was overbooked?

Jeremy Anderson ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Sara That one isn't too complicated, and as long as Keiko knew to maintain her grip and keep her legs straight, Yuuri would do most of the work in that.

Stephanie Miller ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Sara Yeah, Yuuri wouldn't have a problem with that. My problem with it is that Keiko and her dress completely are blocking the suit. I have yet to see a good picture of it.

Carolyn Jones ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Madison Yeah, I know the JSF was trying to sort it out, and that DSC got bumped from it

Madison Cobb ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Caro We didn't get bumped. Yuuri's school friends also had a shuttle that was leaving around the same time to take them to the airport and his friends volunteered to take us because they had room.

Aaron Reyes ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Maddy You all took a shuttle to the airport with Yuuri's friends from highschool?

Sara Crispino ? ﾟﾇﾹ

What are they like?

Chris Giacometti ? ﾟﾇﾭ

This is going to be good

I have never actually met any of his friends from high school. Even Viktor has only met a couple.

All I got out of Yuuri was ". . ." followed by "why is this interesting? they're just people I went to highschool with."

I think he's starting to be resigned to the fact that skaters like gossip

Genevieve Haak ? ﾟﾇﾪ

All right, you people all need to start spilling. Delphine and I need the details!

Aaron Reyes ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Madison I'm still trying to figure out how pop star fits in. Coach Kai mentioned a pop star

Madison Cobb ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Sara They're nice and really close knit for a high school class. I can't even remember half the people I went to highschool with.

He was just normal with them, I guess. Normal human being, not Yuuri normal.

Christophe Giacometti ? ﾟﾇﾭ

"Normal human being, not Yuuri normal."

How can I turn this into a meme? This needs to be a meme.

Someone message this to Keiko so she can share it with people!

Madison Cobb ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Yuuri being a normal human being is boring compared to this tidbit that was dropped as I was discussing summer "vacations" with a couple of his classmates:

See, I knew Yuuri went to London this summer, but I just thought he was like a crazy person who wanted to go watch the Olympics.

No. That's not why he went.

YUURI DATED AN OLYMPIC BRONZE MEDALIST In SWIMMING

Stephanie Miller ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Maddy HOW DID WE NOT KNOW THIS?

Madison Cobb ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Steph RIGHT?

Aaron because some of them are Japanese pop stars apparently. I'm still processing that. I'm not even entirely sure what it means

Genevieve Why doesn't Delphine just log in herself?

Chris Giacometti ? ﾟﾇﾭ

LOL That cat is out of the bag now and not going back in

But, for the record, since I happen to know and Yuuri would not want a false rumor to go around:

They dated before the Olympics happened back when Yuuri lived in Japan

So he went to see his EX swim in the Olympics.

And the swimmer also has a team silver medal from the Olympics too. Two medals

Park Eun-ji ? ﾟﾇﾷ

Madison I don't actually care about the Olympics person. When you say pop stars, do you mean like Japanese idols? And which ones does he know?

Matt Smith ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Chris Pretty sure Yuuri doesn't want ANY rumors going around and that's coming from someone who doesn't know him nearly as well as you

Genevieve Haak ? ﾟﾇﾪ

Madison Because she doesn't want to. She says trying to follow the chat gives her anxiety and I'll just tell her the best parts anyway so why bother

Also, you might have just killed Delphine. She's making a really weird sound over the phone

Stephanie Miller ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Chris and Maddy What's the ex like?

Sara Crispino ? ﾟﾇﾹ

Chris I agree with Matt on Yuuri's opinion when it comes to rumors and I know him better than Matt.

Jeremy Anderson ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Yuuri's going to be so mad when he gets in. Not only did he not make the final, but now he's Scythecapades gossip again.

Stephen Pak ? ﾟﾇ

I mean really, Jeremy. What else are we going to talk about?

There are only so many interesting things that happened at the NHK.

1- Aaron messed up his ankle. Which is depressing and not fun to talk about.

1A- Georgi having to withdraw, but he's already said he's fine and will compete at nationals, so yeah. Non-issue. Him following around that ice dancer Anya at that domestic competition was a lot more interesting, but even then, no one wanted to talk about that when it happened

Madison Cobb ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Eun-ji Sorry, I don't actually remember any of their names. Didn't realize you were into J-pop

Aaron Reyes ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Stephen It is in fact depressing and not fun to talk about. You are correct.

Phichit Chulanot ? ﾟﾇﾭ

Jeremy So we just don't tell him. My lips are sealed.

Stephen Pak ? ﾟﾇ

2- Masao landed her 3A finally and now all the women are quaking in their skates about what that means. Sorry Ladies. You have my sympathy since we were all there back when Viktor landed the 4F. And thanks to the Lutz trio we're all there again.

Jeremy Anderson ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Phichit So he's going to know within five seconds of parking in the lot is what you're saying

Stephen I know but I feel bad sometimes. I'd prefer it if he told me these things, but he doesn't, so I'm going to eat up the gossip anyway.

Madison Cobb ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Stephen That is also not fun to talk about. I am not ready to be competing against someone with that clean of a triple Axel. Or for my rinkmate to say "I bet you could pull off a spread eagle entrance on that" to her during gala practice

Christophe Giacometti ? ﾟﾇﾭ

Stephen On behalf of the two other members of the Lutz trio, you're welcome

Phichit Don't worry about it. I'm planning on teasing him about all this. He literally already knows for those that missed the "why are you talking about this?" comment I posted earlier.

Stephen Pak ? ﾟﾇ

3- Japan getting a Pairs Team into the GPF which no one saw coming, but their free is amazing. I mean, I guess we could talk about that. It deserves recognition. (subset to 3- Keiko managing to pull off silver over Maddy and making it to the GPF for the first time. She skated her heart out for that and I totally understand why she started crying in the K&C)

But let's be honest with ourselves for a minute. We want something a bit juicyier. We're not actually in here for skating talk. Which brings me to:

4- Yuuri Katsuki, one of the most secretive anti-social skaters in the circuit, is apparently friends with famous people and dated an Olympic Swimmer. Ding Ding Ding We have a winner for fun content!

Sara Crispino ? ﾟﾇﾹ

Madison Same. Also please tell me Yuuri didn't.

Matt Smith ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Stephen has a point. I vote for juicy and fun

Phichit Chulanont ? ﾟﾇﾭ

Eun-ji EXCITE and some of the other "Osaka idols"

Madison Cobb ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Sara Oh, he did. National Pride or something. And he apparently knew she's been landing it cleanly since THE SUMMER

Phichit At least Chris took the need to tell him out of your hands

Steph He's kinda cute, I guess. And very swimmer shaped. Not my type though.

Chris Giacometti ? ﾟﾇﾭ

Steph And the swimmer's abs are still really nice

Matt Yes, Stephen is correct. We want things JUICY in here!

Park Eun-ji ? ﾟﾇﾷ

He knows TATSUNO SHUJI!?

Stephanie Miller ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Chris How do you know that Yuuri's ex has nice abs!?

Phichit Chulanont ? ﾟﾇﾭ

Eun-ji Yep! That's who Yuuri stays with when he's in Tokyo working.

Chris Giacometti ? ﾟﾇﾭ

Steph Yuuri. Well, indirectly. I asked if he would take a shirtless pic of the ex for me, so I got one from the NHK. ;)

But even if I didn't do that, his events are on youtube and you all can see the abs for yourself! 200m men's butterfly is the bronze. The rest of the final line up isn't hard on the eyes either.

Phichit Chulanot ? ﾟﾇﾭ

Chris ! ! !

Park Eun-ji ? ﾟﾇﾷ

Sara I really need you to introduce me to Yuuri. Like a lot. Please.

Aaron Reyes ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Chris That seems like a very not Yuuri thing to do

Did you really watch them? I don't think I could watch them now. It seems wrong to watch them just to see what Yuuri's ex looks like.

Phichit Chulanont ? ﾟﾇﾭ

Eun-ji You didn't know about this? Yuuri skated in a music video for them too.

I even got into EXCITE for a while after that, but then I heard something about copying some K-pop group and I didn't want to ask Yuuri about it and then just sort of lost track of things.

Chris Giacometti ? ﾟﾇﾭ

Aaron It's not nearly so lascivious on Yuuri's part, just mine. He was just a middle man. I asked, ex offered, Yuuri sent while they were changing to go out after he left the banquet.

Phichit Oh yeah! I almost forgot about the bondage gear costume that the idol with the blue bangs designed for him. That was hilarious

Stephen Pak ? ﾟﾇ

Chris I can't believe you. You asked a friend for a recent photo of their ex? Without a shirt.

Also, as I have already found the video on youtube. [link] for those that are interested.

Jeremy Anderson ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Bondage gear?

Park Eun-ji? ﾟﾇﾷ

Chris That's SHUJI. His blue bangs are ICONIC. And I can't believe that Yuuri was the skater in that video. I have watched that video a lot. I … I am going to have to go and die now.

Phichit You've been talking too much to Seung Gil. EXCITE came first and STATIC started a year later. Some people get that wrong because the guys in STATIC are older since they were almost finished with high school when they formed, but they were not a thing until after EXCITE. Shuji is a legitimate musician and writes a lot of their music. He taught himself guitar in order to audition and before that was a classically trained pianist.

Sara Please. I promise I won't be weird. All right, I might be a little weird, but introduce me anyway.

Stephen Pak ? ﾟﾇ

Chris ok. I would have been tempted to ask for a recent pic too, I'll admit. 3:17 in that link for those who want to jump straight to Yuuri's ex without a shirt…

Genevieve Haak ? ﾟﾇﾪ

Oh my god…. That is the most words that I've ever seen Eun-ji say at one time. Ot type.

Should I look up a picture of this Shuji guy?

Jeremy Anderson ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Stephen Why am I watching this…

Sara Crispino ? ﾟﾇﾹ

Eun-ji Ok. I mean, he didn't make the GPF, so the next time we'll all be at a competition with him (hopefully as long as his nationals go all right) will be Worlds. But he'll most likely be at 4CC and you could introduce yourself.

Park Eun-j i? ﾟﾇﾷ

Sara No I can't do that! It'd be rude!

Chris Giacometti ? ﾟﾇﾭ

Stephen And now you understand having seen that boy's abs. I want to lick them. I can be forgiven.

Phichit Chulanont ? ﾟﾇﾭ

Eun-ji I've already been named to 4CC for Thailand. I can introduce you. And seriously, Yuuri isn't scary, he just has resting murder face when he's at competitions and everything is blurry because he doesn't like wearing his glasses in mixed zones.

Madison Cobb ? ﾟﾇﾸ

Phichit lol resting murder face!

Eun-ji I am also hoping to be at 4CC and I also know Yuuri. So, you know. You have options that aren't Sara

Phichit looked up from the screen and watched intently as Yuuri walked from his room toward the kitchen, earbuds in and attention firmly focused on his phone. The bad piggies could wait for their destruction by bird foe for a few minutes, because as long as Yuuri wasn't in one of his completely oblivious moods, any second now would see the culmination of Phichit's morning's work.

Sure enough, Yuuri paused in front of the fridge and stared before slowly turning to look at where his housemate was settled on the couch, watching and waiting.

"PHICHIT!"

"You asked me to take the old memes down! You never said that I couldn't replace them with anything else!" Phichit started cackling.

"What are these? Tweets? 'I want Yuuri Katsuki to skate over me' What the –" Yuuri broke off. "No, I am not turning the camera so you can read them!"

"Are you on FaceTime with Viktor?" Phichit managed to choke out between bouts of laughter. Yuuri had gone redder in the face than he'd ever seen him. "You should really share the thirst tweets with him. I bet he'll think they're hilarious! And to think, this started trending because you were actually thirsty!" In fact, Phichit was the one responsible for the picture that had launched a thousand lusty messages and now proudly served as the centerpiece of his refrigerator art: Yuuri taking a long drink from his water bottle at an NHK practice with "#thirst trap" in bold white Impact letters at the bottom.

Yuuri sighed as he opened the fridge to pull out the water pitcher and pour himself a glass, awkwardly juggling the phone as he did so. "Why are you both so annoying?" he groused before sighing and putting the pitcher back, shutting the door with a little more force than needed. "Fine!" Yuuri tugged the cord to his earbuds out of the phonejack and then pointed the phone squarely at the fridge and flipped the camera.

"AH! Yuu-kun, put the phone closer! We can't read them!" That gave Phichit pause. The laughing voice was a girl's, and definitely not Viktor.

Yuuri glanced over at his housemate. "See what you've done? I am never going to hear the end of this now and I may never forgive you, Phichit-kun."

A different girl's voice piped up. "Don't believe him. Yuu-kun would never hold someone tweeting… does that really say that they want you to stick your tongue down their throat?"

"The one below it says that they want you to crush them with your thighs." There was a giggle. "Wow, Yuu-kun. You probably shouldn't do that though. I've seen your thighs; you'd do permanent damage."

Yuuri pressed his free hand to his face. "Please stop reading them. I showed you, isn't that enough?"

"Someone says they're pretty sure they could bounce a quarter off your ass. A quarter is a coin, right?"

"It's like 25 yen!" Phichit helpfully supplied.

"By size it's probably closer to a 100 yen coin. But, seriously, both of you, stop encouraging him," Yuuri muttered and stabbed at the screen with his finger, returning the camera to its original orientation.

"Hey! There were like ten more that I didn't get a chance to read yet!"

"Such a shame. I'm so sorry, Kanon-chan." Yuuri set his water glass down on the coffee table, then plopped down onto the couch next to Phichit to give him a better view of two girls sitting close together on his screen. "No-chan, Kanon-chan, this is Phichit." Yuuri looked over at his housemate. "Phichit, Noda Haruka and Kanon."

"Most people call me Haruka-chan, though!" The one with the chin-length bob smiled and waved. "I hope that Kanon and I aren't interrupting any plans. We just wanted to talk Yuuri into doing us a favor."

Yuuri sighed. "They are so demanding. Got their way when I extended my trip after Nationals, and they're already asking for something else." But Phichit could hear the smile, and instantly knew that Yuuri didn't mind at all.

"Of course we are! So, Phichit-kun, if you could tell Yuu-kun to just agree with us, that would be great," Kanon added.

It was admittedly a little strange being invited into this side of Yuuri's life, but Phichit wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He laughed. "I think you should probably agree with them. They seem to know best." That was definitely the right answer, since the girls started giggling brightly through the phone.

"Or I could not agree with them, not do an exhibition skate to some weird space pirate anime theme song, and instead do the exhibition skate at Nationals to the boppy song I like while dressed like a LOVE-ly otaku, since they originally said I could pick any song off the album that is dropping in January." Yuuri tilted his head to the side and just stared at his phone.

Phichit let that thought run through his head. Yuuri dressed as a J-pop otaku while skating? Hm.

"Noooo! He's thinking about it! Yuuri, no!" Kanon whined. "Phichit-kun already said we were right!"

"Can I borrow your phone?" Yuuri asked. Phichit just handed it to him because he was still mentally debating pirate Yuuri, which could be funny, or otaku Yuuri, which could be hilarious . Yuuri shook the phone screen and Phichit glanced over. "That's from their current line of fan merch and the shirt I'd wear."

The item in question was a black tee with a rainbow of boxes offset from each other in a jagged line across the front with the name, plus an anime-style drawing of each member of LOVE-ly in the separate boxes. Phichit whimpered at the dilemma he was now facing. Please Yuuri's friends, or get potential blackmail/meme pics of otaku Yuuri in probably a too-tight shirt…

"Figure I'd start by wearing headphones and an old pair of my glasses with my hair all messy and the shirt hidden by a uniform jacket or something–"

"Boppy otaku Yuuri has to win!" Damn it. Yuuri doing something potentially campy with costume shenanigans versus overdone pirate – there was no contest. "I have failed your friends!"

Haruka-chan laughed at his dismay, so at least there would be no hard feelings. "It's all right, but why did you go with otaku over pirate?"

Phichit sighed. "Pirate-themed programs were big a few years ago, with lots of variations off the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack. Since it'd be for a JSF thing, he'd probably just modify the costume from the EXCITE skate with the white shirt to turn it from post-apocalyptic warrior to pirate. Maybe get a pair of piratey boot covers. I bet he could even just borrow a pair from someone if he didn't want to order them." Phichit paused. "But Yuuri being playful with a costume and props, plus wearing a shirt at least one size smaller than he usually would… that is a Yuuri we haven't seen before! Or at least I haven't!"

Kanon leaned forward, taking up more space on the screen. "What makes you think he'd ask for the shirt to be too small?"

Yuuri just frowned at the phone like he was going to argue, but Phichit actually knew the answer. "Not too small, just tight . And because he wouldn't want it to ride up while doing any camel spins. His camel spins are amazing, so I can't imagine he'd not do one. It's one thing if his shirt rides up at practice, but even then, he tends to wear his shirts tighter than if he was at the gym or running. But for an exhibition skate that's broadcast on television in Japan, he wouldn't want that, especially if he's representing his friends. So he'd go with a tighter fit to make it even less likely."

Haruka-chan hummed. "Should we sacrifice the more well-known song for Yuu-kun in a tight shirt?"

"I never said I was going to be wearing a tight shirt!"

On screen, Kanon nodded, ignoring Yuuri's protest. "We don't really just want a rehash of the costume Shuji-kun designed, and there isn't time for him to get a new costume made from scratch."

"Somehow I feel like I lost, even though you sided with me." Yuuri muttered.

Phichit patted Yuuri's shoulder. "That's how you know that the right side won."

Yuuri frowned at him, visibly confused. "Wait, what?"

Haruka-chan and Kanon-chan just started laughing.

.com

Famitsu pictures Nov 30

(translated from Russian)

Not a typical magazine for us. Didn't even know he did this until my brother asked if this was that skater I liked.

I took some pictures from my brother's copy, but I'm going to have to go and buy my own to scan.

I'll take better scans and hopefully be done translating before Japanese nationals.

It's a good interview! Completely different from his usual ones, focusing on his gaming habits, not his skating, but it is mentioned, like how he does most of his gaming while travelling for competitions! Lots of little tidbits I've never come across before!

Usually I don't like reading about gaming, but you can definitely tell it's a hobby he enjoys

There's even a rare picture of their apartment and Yuura's console set up among the photo spread.

As for the rest of the photo spread… I have no words. None. At all. Just look at it! This video game magazine has truly blessed us.

And I'll include the advertisement that was placed on the next page for the Playstation Vita since the background is Yuura in his Shake it Out costume playing the console while leaning on the boards

- Keep Reading —

#yuuri katsuki #figure skating #famitsu #фигурное катание #fan translation

translation of ON ICE Oct 2012 - Grand Prix of Figure Skating Profile

(translated from Russian)

The scans were posted here.

This translation is the best I can do.

- Keep Reading —

#yuuri katsuki #figure skating #on ice #фигурное катание #fan translation

↪(reblog) shemakesmeforget

Yuuri-kun fanart for his 20th!

[img drawing of Yuuri from short program]

#yuuri katsuki #figure skating #fanart #3 #фигурное катание #У меня нет слов, чтобы выразить восхищение!

HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY YUURA!

[img photo collage]

#yuuri katsuki #figure skating #фигурное катание #С днем рождения #Желаю всего того, что ты

↪(reblog) threesk8musketeers

[gif set from Yuuri's short program]

#yuuri katsuki #figure skating #nhk trophy #фигурное катание

"Малыш?"

Yuuri instantly stopped lacing his skates and sat up straight before turning around to look at Kai. "What did you say?"

Seeing his reaction, Kai immediately frowned and sat down next to him on the bench. "Is it bad? Rude? What does it mean?"

Yuuri shook his head and took a deep breath. "Katya?" he asked.

Kai nodded. "She said it when we were hanging up before I came over here." She paused. "She wanted to know how you're handling the whole Final thing before we all leave tomorrow." Another pause. "I told her that you were fine. Working on your programs and getting ready for Nationals."

"Well, she would never call me that, so it was directed at you." He paused and smiled. "I take it things are going well."

Kai's eyes widened. "What. Does. It. Mean. Yuuri?" Each word bit out from between clenched teeth. He understood that feeling quite well. The Russians.

"'Baby'. She called you baby." He could feel his face heat as he shook his head. "So please just don't use it without preamble again. That was a bit awkward."

Kai bent over and pushed her face into her hands. "Oh my god. I thought it meant something like 'bye' or 'talk later!'"

"Ah. No. Endearment. There are looooooots of possible pet names and endearments in Russian. Whole menageries of them." Yuuri took a deep breath and bent back over his skate, pulled the laces taut and breathed out while he finished tying his skates. His fingers paused over the laces of his other skate, however. Yuuri wanted to get back at Katya for this. And since Katya was kind of dating his assistant coach – or something reasonably close to it – she had a way of getting information on Yuuri. The Russians telling Kai things, Kai telling the Russians things – it was cheating, and he wasn't going to stand for it. "Want to get back at her?"

Kai had settled her hands on her lap and was frowning, but the color was still high in her cheeks. "So much."

Yuuri nodded and sat up before reaching into his skate bag to pull out a small notebook with a pen run through the spiral. He flipped it open to the back page and started writing; first the Cyrillic, then trying for the romanization. It looked rightish; satisfied, he turned the page toward Kai. "Lisichka. Call her that."

Narrowing her eyes, Kai looked at the written words with visible suspicion. "And what does that mean?"

Yuuri grinned. "Little Fox."

Kai shook her head. "No!"

"Why not? It's just a cute pet name for a redhead. She'll get all flustered, I guarantee it." Yuuri set the book between them and bent back over his skates. "You don't have to if you don't want to, though. But it'd be good payback since she's obviously using Russian to get to you. I'd say pick something Estonian or Hawaiian, but you are distressingly monolingual."

" Mostly monolingual. I speak Hawaiian pidgin, but that's basically just a dialect now and not a full language. So much has been lost. And I can, for the most part, understand Estonian. Just don't ask me to speak it, because I can't. My father is still a little annoyed about that. One day…" There was a sigh. "The Russian… I thought it was similar to 'foxy,' which is old fashioned here, but still has a different meaning." She paused. "Sexy."

"Ah, no. Redhead, because foxes have red fur. As far as I'm aware, anyway. You could always go with Lapochka, 'Little Paw,' which is more common, not as specific, and won't have as much effect. She'll like it – it's cute – but, well, less impactful. Lisichka is really the perfect balance. Cute, but not flowery, specific . Russian . She won't know what to say for at least a minute." Yuuri grinned and returned to finish tying his skate. Alexei had been a good teacher on the power of Russian nicknames, and now it was time to put that knowledge to good use.

"You aren't the least bit ruthless at all." Kai picked up the book and looked at the page. "Li - sish - ka?"

Yuuri nodded. "Not bad." He paused. "If things are going really well with you two, I can teach you a new diminutive for her, too."

"Like Katya's a diminutive?"

Yuuri nodded. "Yeah, sort of. There are ones for people in relationships, too."

"And you don't use those with Viktor, I take it?"

Yuuri shook his head. "No. Because we're just friends . So I don't." He knew this was just Kai checking to see if things had changed, so he wasn't going to make a thing out of it. He had promised he'd answer her honestly if they did. But they wouldn't, so it didn't matter. "If I teach it to you, though, it's a private thing. Don't just say it at a group dinner or something. Just between the two of you." Kai nodded. Yuuri picked up the notebook. "'Katyushka.' That's probably the ending she'd like the best." He quickly wrote down the romanization. "And I have one more very important thing to tell you, Kai."

"What's that?"

"Stop telling the Russians things. It's cheating!" He ripped out the piece of paper from his notebook and handed it over to Kai, who took it and immediately stuffed it into her pocket with a laugh.

"Not having fun being in the middle?"

Yuuri shook his head. "Not at all. Especially when you're all taking advantage of these new lines of communication to use against me." Yuuri stood up and took a couple of steps to the ice, but stopped when he saw Ciao Ciao heading straight for him with a serious expression on his face. "Coach?"

Celestino stopped in front of them and crossed his arms over his chest. "Skates off, Yuuri. Go home and start getting things ready to go." He looked like he might have smiled if things weren't so serious.

Yuuri frowned; Kai stood up and walked over to join them. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Cao Bin has withdrawn from the Grand Prix Final due to injury. You're first alternate. So that means you're skating in the Final." The feeling of Celestino's hand landing on his shoulder was supposed to be exciting and celebratory, but the news made his stomach drop. It was Sunday. Kai, Celestino, Madison and Phichit were all flying out tomorrow because Phichit needed to be at the Final by Tuesday. Senior competitors needed to be there by Wednesday, preferably early.

Yuuri took a few quick breaths until Kai's hand landed on his other shoulder, tethering him. Celestino frowned. "All right there, Yuuri? I thought you'd be excited? You wanted to go to the Final."

Yuuri nodded dumbly. He did, but not like this. Never because another skater injured themselves. But he needed to push that concern out of his head. There wasn't time for that. "I do. I just… how am I even going to get there on time? I don't have plane tickets or anything!"

"The French Federation and the Japanese Federation are working on that now. You know that travel for Grand Prix competitors is paid for by the organizing Federation. Someone from the JSF will call you with your travel itinerary, and as soon as you have it you need to forward it to me." Again, Yuuri nodded. "You'll be flying on your own, since I don't think they'll be able to get you onto our flight for tomorrow. But I know they're trying to."

Yuuri frowned. Not ideal, but it wasn't like he hadn't flown internationally alone before. Just usually not to a competition that wasn't in Japan. "I can do that."

"So, skates off. Go home and pack. Cheer Phichit up by telling him that you'll actually be there, because he's been grumbling about it all week. That way, if they manage to get you on the same flight, you'll be ready. And if they don't, you'll still be ready to leave on Tuesday. You can come back to the rink this evening for final ice time with Phichit and Madison."

"OK." Yuuri sat down on the bench and started unlacing. The anxiety caused by the sudden upheaval and not knowing just how he was going to get to France was still in the forefront of his mind, causing that familiar crawling feeling under his skin. But underneath that, creeping up along his spine, was genuine excitement.

He was going to the Grand Prix Final.

Flight Departures

Time Destination Flight Gate Remarks

15:30 Kyiv KL 8991 C24

15:40 Bucharest NW 8367 D44

15:40 Barcelona KL 1671 D73

15:45 Nuremberg NW 8283 C23

15:50 Athens KQ 1575 D85

15:50 Moscow SU 0404 C29

16:00 Lyon KL 2025 B24 DELAYED 17:30

16:15 Zurich LX 1225 B12

[still image of a walking art performance involving a person on stilts dressed as a Christmas tree in an airport]

a2F0c3Vkb24 This is just weird and does not make me feel better about my current situation at all.

[img of ad on wall reading "there's so much to do, it's not just an airport! Share your experience with #layoverinams" underneath are pictures and locations of shops, restaurants, relaxation areas, takeoff views; the edge of the same advertisement but in French is visible]

a2F0c3Vkb24 Oh… I see… That wasn't how you were supposed to use it… … I bet no one is watching the tag because come on? Who actually looks at those things who isn't in marketing?

[img half eaten grilled chicken salad arranged with restaurant logo out of focus but legible]

a2F0c3Vkb24 It looks better than it tastes. Flight getting more delayed. Not enjoying this experience. 0 out of 5. #layoverinams

Time Destination Flight Gate Remarks

15:40 Bucharest NW 8367 D44

15:40 Barcelona KL 1671 D73

15:45 Nuremberg NW 8283 C23 DELAYED

15:50 Athens KQ 1575 D85

15:50 Moscow SU 0404 C29

16:00 Lyon KL 2025 B24 CANCELLED

16:15 Zurich LX 1225 B12

16:20 Berlin NW 8473 C21