CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY ONE
Sleeping in a chair had its benefits, but a good night's sleep was not one of them. The bag of ice had melted long ago, leaving little more than a cool, soaking wet towel in its place, and a big soggy spot on the leather it had been set against. Grey-green eyes slowly opened, one at a time, to the darkness of the small hotel room, and the man they belonged to grudgingly took his feet off the desk they'd been propped up on earlier. He reached out from under his blanket and pawed for where he knew he'd left his phone, found it, clicked it on, and saw that it was close to 4:45am. He grunted a sigh quietly as he reached with his free hand to rub his eyes, and then slowly pushed off the chair to get to his feet.
His back was still a little sore, but the shooting, cramping pain had long gone. Minako's torture and the ice had seen to that. There was still a bit of tightness along the left though, so the old man pulled the blanket over his shoulders and started shuffling quietly towards the door, grabbing for the empty ice bucket as he went.
It took a few minutes to find the ice machine, and the sound of each small block hitting the inside of the plastic holder was like the sound of gunfire to his ears, still too used to the quiet to tolerate such a sound. He pulled the bucket off the small shelf with one hand and turned back around slowly, and as soon as he rounded the corner out of the small alcove, he stopped.
Dark grey-blue eyes were looking at him squarely, and the woman they belonged to was blocking his way back.
Mikhail stood a little bit more upright after that, caught a little off guard, "...Hi?"
"How's your back?"
"...Can't complain? I think...?"
The silence that followed felt uncomfortable and awkward, even by Mikhail's standards. The ice bucket felt like it was getting heavier the longer it went on, so he rolled his shoulder a little and cleared his throat before finally side-stepping the woman and headed back down the way he came, holding the blanket closed in front of his chest with his free hand.
"You keep saying..." Minako's voice followed him quietly, forcing the Russian to pause and look slightly back over his shoulder to see her, "...That Viktor's father basically isn't who we all think he is. But in all the weird stories you've told me, about you, or Russia, or you in Russia..." She turned around to face him, holding a night-robe closed near her collarbone, even though it was tied already at her waist, "...You never once mentioned anything from that far back. I can't understand how you and Konstantin have such a cheeky relationship given what you know he did to his own son."
Mikhail's expression hadn't changed, but he blinked at her a little before turning his eyes away, "Viktor keeps making excuses for why he doesn't even want to talk to Yuri about his past. As much as I want him to, it would be shitty of me to go around his back and spill all his secrets by explaining it to someone else. Yakov all but had a gun to my back at Worlds last year when the media mob hurled questions at me about Viktor, making sure I didn't say too much."
"I get that." The ballerina said, "But you're older than Viktor. You knew his father before all that bad stuff happened." She hesitated briefly, but then took a nervous step forward, leaning a bit into her question, "Help me understand what makes you think bringing him here was anything other than a mistake."
He gave the woman a skeptical look, trying to rationalize it all in his head before he opened his mouth, but it wasn't coming to him easily at that hour. He just nudged his head back down the hall, "Let me put this ice away first."
The lobby was almost empty when they got down there, but at least there were a few chairs and sofas to sit in that were comfortable. There was a small alcove on the white tile floor, between the main stairwell and the railing of the raised part of the first floor. There was a small decorative wall nearby, with what looked like spun cotton to represent snow, a bunch of small evergreen bushes, and five, tall, tree-like sticks that were wrapped densely in purple lights.
Minako took a seat first, but Mikhail stayed standing; mostly because the effort of sitting put a strain on his back and he'd rather not feel it. He still had the thin blanket over his shoulders, but he wore it more like a toga by then, folding it carefully around his shoulders and arms so it would hold itself to his frame without needing to be pinned somewhere.
The ballerina watched him carefully, but wordlessly, waiting for him to find his own starting place. It felt like forever before he finally did, and he spoke quietly, towards the glowing purple 'trees.'
"My first memory of Kon... My sister and I were really young, but we'd snuck out to go to the nearby river. He's 4 years older than us, and he was always big, even as a kid. This one time, my foot got caught between two rocks, and I panicked in a big hurry... Tatiyana started screaming, and the next thing either of us knew, this huge kid came running out of the woods towards us." He explained, reaching one hand forward to touch at the glowing branch nearest to him, "I don't even remember if that was the first time I saw Kon, or if that's actually the moment when we first met...but I remember clear as day how he lifted that rock off my ankle and pulled me out of the river like both were as light as air." He huffed a quiet laugh to himself and closed his eyes, "He put each of us on one of his shoulders and carried us out of the woods like that. We were so small compared to him, it was like having two silver birds perched on him, like he was some Disney Princess...or maybe a pirate."
Minako just raised her eyebrows at that, even if Mikhail thought it was funny.
"It was like that for years though. One of us would get into mischief and Kon would always come bail us out. Usually it was me though, and Tat would have to go find Kon to help me undo whatever I'd done. Eventually, we were something of a unit... If people weren't referring to us as MikTat, it was MikTatKon. We were always together." He turned so one eye could see the woman, "There's these tanks out behind Kon's house, a bit of a way into the woods...we used to always go back there when we wanted to avoid adults. Tat and I were around 12 or something, and she'd wandered off for something...and like always, if something happened, she froze in place and just screamed. Kon was with her at the time though, so it was me who came running...and I saw him fight off a damn bear that had snuck up on them. At the time, I thought it was the biggest beast in the whole world, but thinking back on it now, it was probably a yearling or something. Still, back then, I was really impressed...and so was my sister." He looked back at the glowing purple 'trees' again and raised his head, eyes following the tall wall behind them, "I always used to think that I could feel the same thing she felt...we were always so in tune with each other. We were even 'those creepy twins' who had their own secret language when we were really young. But after that incident, I realized things were starting to change. She started acting differently, and I couldn't always tell what she was thinking anymore. I thought something was wrong with me because I was the only one between us who seemed all that bothered, and the more obvious it became, the worst I felt about it."
"She started to like Konstantin as more than just a friend?" Minako guessed.
"...Not romantically, at least not yet. But she drifted from me, seeing Kon as her giant protective teddy bear. More and more I became this weird 3rd wheel to my own sister, and when things did start to change, I really didn't take it well. Like most kids, even most similarly-aged siblings, when we got to that age, we started experimenting, figuring things out...truly starting to realize, maybe even for the first time, that we were actually different at some level. I was the one who rebelled against it the most though, probably as a result of how we looked so alike before that, and thus making sure that never changed. I was the one to keep up appearances, letting my hair grow long. I was the one who refused to let others treat us differently, as folks started to think we needed to act like the man and woman we were going to be one day. If someone made me go cut wood, I made Tat do it, too. If someone made her learn to cook, so did I. There was no Mikhail and Tatiyana. It was MikTat, and I was going to make sure it stayed that way. But...then it slowly became TatKon, and oh boy I wa'n't gonna have none o' that." He shook his head and sighed, "I swear...Kon never deserved half the shit I did to him."
"...How bad was it?" The ballerina wondered, watching as the silver Russian finally turned to take a reluctant seat on the end of her same couch, though staying on the edge of it.
"...Bad enough...that Viktor was still feeling the repercussions of it as recently as last year."
Minako blinked at him in confusion, "How did what you did have anything to do with Viktor?"
"No one is born with an innate hatred for things that are different from themselves. That's learned behavior." Mikhail explained hesitantly, "I'm the one who taught him those 'values,' if you could call them that." He paused and twiddled his fingers a little nervously, "Kon tries to pass off his disgust for Viktor and Yuri as being religious, and that reinforced it, no doubt...but it's deeply rooted in the fact that I went so far out of my way to try and sabotage his relationship with my sister. I was willing to take her place at times just to make him paranoid. And that's why I can safely say that Kon was always a really gentle person, and that what happened with Viktor was a fucked up anomaly... The absolute worst thing Kon ever did to me, even after what I did to him, was drag me back into town and ask permission to punish me somehow...and I deserved way worse."
"Please don't tell me you actually slept with him."
Mikhail kept his eyes low, "No, it never got that far. In my head, I was willing to let it, though. If that's what it took to keep my sister to myself, that's what I'd do. She was part of me, and I didn't want to lose her. Konstantin Nikiforov is no fool though...and even a big fluff like him eventually got pushed too far by my shit. When I'd gotten to the last straw, he cut all my hair off in front of half the town, making sure everyone knew it was happening, and why. I'd committed crimes against man and God and nature, and it had to be stopped. The way I changed after that...being this merciless little punk as a kid, and turning into this reclusive, angry, hateful little creature as a teen...Kon felt sorry for me. Enough to forgive me for what I'd done, anyway, but only because I hadn't been able to do it to him again. I, on the other hand, refused to forgive or forget. I blamed Tat as much as Kon for how things changed, because she didn't try to stop him, and then took his side after it happened. I felt betrayed and abandoned." The Russian rubbed his nose a little on the blanket-toga, "I never once considered how the things I'd done to Kon would follow any of us into our adulthood though, or even into the lives of those who weren't involved. But it never really came up. Tat and Kon got married, moved away for a little while, came back, had Viktor...and the torment I inflicted on Kon never got addressed. I thought it was in the past. But then, like a knife in my chest...last year, when Tat died in that blizzard... When I went back to Russia for the funeral, and saw Viktor getting pummeled...and he started yelling about how he was going to marry some scrub named Yuri, using the fact that Yuri was a guy like it was a weapon... That's when it all started coming back to me. This kid that I loved like my own, this kid that I left behind...grew up to get involved in the two things Kon hated the absolute most; figure skating and guy-on-guy action. And both of them were my fault."
"...How was the figure skating your fault?"
The Russian scratched the side of his jaw, "There's a pond behind Kon's house that us kids used to skate on in the winter. This one time, he tripped on a rock poking up from the bottom, and tore his pants to shreds on his skates as he fell. I thought it was the funniest goddamn thing, so I teased him...and teased him...and for a year and a half, I teased him. It got to a point where I could just mention skates or skating and he'd go off the deep end raging about it. People stopped skating on the pond after that, and Kon's size made it scary when he was mad, so people stopped talking about it around him, too. Combine that with Kon's attempts at courting my sister, only to realize it was me, and the guy was set up to hate everything Viktor stood for by the time he got back for that funeral. It's truly a wonder I made it out of my formative years alive and with all my teeth."
"It seems like Viktor took the punishment for what you did." Minako said, almost too bluntly.
"...Yeah." Mikhail agreed, lowering his head until his bangs covered his eyes, "He got what I deserved. Viktor told me about all the things that happened after I'd left, and I felt like I could've done something about it if I never had...or if I'd tried harder to take him with me when I came back that one time to get him. I couldn't do anything for Tatiyana, but I could have helped Viktor, so I really and truly failed him." He snuffled a pained laugh, his throat starting to hurt a little, "I told Yuri about how I'd gone back, and Viktor actually thought it was a lie. He just didn't know, because I didn't see him while I was there. If I had, I would've grabbed him up and never looked back. Things would be very different if he'd been there. Instead...Yakov got him, and only after taking a shot to the eye for my mistakes."
"Have you told Viktor about all these things you did?" The ballerina wondered, a bit shocked to hear it all herself.
"Yeah. I told him about the skating thing the day I caught up with him in St. Petersburg. The rest...didn't come up until Tuesday, and that's part of why I wanted Kon to come to Japan." Mikhail lifted his head a little to look at the woman, though a bit indirectly, "Before I fell off Kon's roof, I had made him watch a bunch of Viktor's programs. I've been trying to gradually get Kon used to the idea that Viktor's success should be something he can be proud of, not something he should resent as rebellion. Russia calls Viktor a National Hero for Christ's sake! How can Kon be angry about that!?"
"...So, I guess, in a way...bringing him here to see Viktor skate...is your attempt at making up for your own contribution to how things turned out." Minako surmised, "That's noble, even if misguided. You're doing all this at the expense of Yuri's health and peace of mind. That's a bit selfish."
"Viktor suggested waiting until Russian Nationals...but I killed that idea by making up some bit about how he'd have to lie to Yuri about his father being there." Mikhail sighed, "I really just want Kon to know what a good kid Yuri is. I know it's hard on him, and I feel terrible about it, but... Yuri is the only one who can prove what kind of person he is, and how much he and Viktor care about each other."
"Yuri didn't come here to prove himself to anyone." Minako pointed out, giving the man a look again, "That's not fair."
"I know, I know...I'm sorry! I didn't think it all the way through... Everyone probably hates me now. I just wanted to fix things and I made a giant mess of them instead..." He held his face in his hands, leaning over his knees, "I was so caught up in what I know about Kon that I didn't consider how he looked to everyone else... To me, the man that picked Yuri and Viktor up off the floor is the man that Kon has always been... A big Russian puff who would fight off bears to protect the people he cares about, who literally let me torture him for years and never once raised his...hand against me...even though he...had every reason to..." His voice started to crack, "...I don't know this person who would hit his own child...Viktor was everything to them... But I ruined it all...and then I left..."
The ballerina was taken aback by the man's sudden breakdown, seeing the tears falling past his hands even if she couldn't see them in his eyes, "...Mikhail..."
He just moved his hands to pull the blanket up over his shoulders a little more, hiding his face within the fabric instead, and muffling his cracked, shaky breaths. He twitched a little as he felt an arm go around his back, and a chin rest against his shoulder.
"I don't hate you."
Grey-green eyes peeked past the edge of the blanket, through damp silver hair, "...You...don't?"
"No one does." Minako went on, "We were just...unprepared for this. If you say that Konstantin is a better man than we've thought so far...then I believe you..." She pulled on him a little and guided him back, careful not to go too fast as she leaned against the couch, moving the hand around his shoulder to the side of his head and pressing her cheek to the other side in turn, "But...the situation is what it is now, so we'll have to make the best of it."
The Russian just nervously turned his eyes towards her, entirely unsure what to say, if anything at all.
"At any rate, it's almost 5am, and I'm still sleepy." The ballerina went on instead, "You brought Konstantin here to watch the competition, but it doesn't start until Friday. So we'll figure out something for him to do to keep him occupied today...and then let's go to the Sapporo Beer Museum. Just us."
Mikhail had to lift his head at that, refusing to acknowledge the tears still on his face even enough to wipe them away, and looked at her, "...Really?"
"Mh." She nodded, reaching up her free hand to rub the last two drops away with her thumb, "It'll be fun. You can put on the Rozovsky Charm like you wanted to last weekend."
He blinked in confusion, "...You...still want me to...? After the shit I pulled...?"
"You made a mistake, even if you had the best intentions...and you understand why the rest of us aren't thrilled with it. It's still your problem to fix, but you've been resourceful so far, so I'm sure you'll figure it out." She explained, fingers moving up from his cheeks to his hair, putting it back into place where the blanket and tears had messed it up a little. When she was done, she booped the end of his nose, "But I'm banning him from coming back with us to Hasetsu and to the Final, and if you want to drag him to Russian Nationals after that, you'd better be sure Viktor actually wants him there first."
Those eyes just stared for a minute, the man completely surprised at her. Without even thinking, he leaned forward and kissed her, barely pulling back half an inch to open his eyes and see her reaction...hoping she wouldn't beat him over the head and run off. To his surprise, and relief, she didn't...she just brought her hand back up to his cheek again, and brought him closer to kiss him back.
He held as long as she'd let him, and only reluctantly pulled back when he felt her moving again. He swallowed nervously as those eyes opened into his once more, "...Would it be premature to ask you to marry me?"
Minako just cackled loudly at him, "One step at a time. I think we only just officially started dating right now. We can come back to it later though."
Another wave of relief washed over the tense Russian, but when she finished speaking, and laughing, at him...he unfolded his arms from where they'd gotten tangled in the blankets and wrapped them tightly around her, heaving a loud sigh against her neck.