CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED TWO

The evening chill seemed particularly cold after Viktor and Yuri had left. The remaining group, frozen more by the stunning turn of events than the winter wind, could hardly stand to look at one another. Minako was the first to move, letting go of Mikhail's tie only long enough to step the few paces to where Yuri's broken glasses were left forgotten in the snow. She'd seen his own foot come down on them, moving too quickly to realize they'd even fallen off, let alone hear the glass crunch under his sneaker. Lifting them off the ground with a delicate touch, she held them in the palms of her hands and looked on them quietly. It didn't take much for the last bit of strength in the blue frame to crack, and the smashed lens popped out, landing softly against her skin. She closed her fingers around them lightly, and turned back towards the elder silver Russian.

"Take Viktor's father and Yura back to the Leopalace. Message me when you're done."

Grey-green eyes nodded without question.

"Why just us?" Yurio wondered, "Don't you need to go back?"

"You three are probably the only ones here who don't want to kill each other."

"Hah, you didn't understand what they were all yelling at one another." The teen countered.

Minako gave him 'that' look, and the Russian Punk quickly took the hint, starting to follow after the cloudy man who'd already broken off. Daringly, she then turned towards Konstantin, and just pointed after the other two with a scowl on her face. He gave a meager shrug of one shoulder and followed for lack of anything else to do.

That left Yakov and Mila. They didn't require so much directing though.

The ballerina turned towards them and sighed, "I'm sorry you had to walk in on all that." She started, reaching to grab one arm with the opposite hand, and spoke a little lower, "Konstantin...caught us by surprise."

The redhead glanced at her coach briefly, but stepped forward, "That's the first time I've ever seen Viktor angry. About anything."

"Thank you for yanking Mikhail out of the middle of it when you did." Minako lifted her eyes a little, "It's slightly his fault this is all even happening."

"I don't really know him beyond the fact that he's Yuri's sponsor and Viktor's Uncle. Everything I'd heard about him from Yuri made him seem like a decent guy, but for Viktor to be this mad at him..." She turned deep blue eyes in the direction the skating duo had left in, seeing their footsteps and suitcase trail in the snow, fading under new frost-fall, "Why would he bring someone like that to a competition?" She gestured to where Konstantin was still slowly plodding along, moving under the covered driveway to avoid more snow, "I can only assume he knew what their relationship was like before."

"He had his own part in it, but he wasn't there for most of it. He's just heard stories, and I'm not even sure he knows all of it anyway. So while I can't be sure what Viktor and his father were yelling at each other about, I can assume it's about the stuff Mikhail wasn't there for..."

Yakov lifted his head, seeing the moon glowing dimly behind a thin cloud, "Viktor's mother left a letter and photos for him, and tasked Konstantin with making sure he got it, in the event that something ever happened to her. She must've put it together a while back though, because..."

Both women looked on at him curiously.

"...I read it. Before letting Vitya have it." He admitted, looking back down again, towards Minako, "I wanted to make sure there wasn't anything particularly offensive or confrontational in it, and it didn't mention the money she'd put aside for him. It mentioned Viktor's father, and Mikhail, and it said that both of them had gotten letters as well. Tatiyana, Viktor's mother, had hoped that if she passed away before any of the rest of them, that they could put aside their differences and come back together again. I already knew it was a lost cause between Viktor and Konstantin, given how volatile they were when we met him in St. Petersburg...but I'd heard vague stories about this strange 'Uncle Mimi' from when Vitya was very young... " He turned his eyes to Mila after that, "So when he popped up at the Skate Club, and Vitya seemed willing to talk to him, I thought it meant that maybe Tatiyana was right at least about this one hope of hers. Up until now, slow as the thaw was, it seemed like they were getting along. I don't know what kind of inhuman stupidity entered into Mikhail's head when he came up with the idea of bringing Konstantin here, but it seems like Vitya is dead set on making sure he stays. Come Hell or high water, we have to make sure that happens."

"Coach Yakov..." Mila said quietly, disagreeing if only in tone.

"Like Vitya said...making Konstantin watch tomorrow's Free Skate is the only thing he can think of to get this off his chest. If he can make it through the weekend in one piece, it may be the last ordeal he needs to go through before he can go back to being the happy reckless idiot he used to be." He started moving towards the last remaining shuttles, the same direction Yuri and Viktor had gone in, and nudged his head for Mila to follow, "He started skating as a depressed, angry, and sleepless youth. I'd really rather he not end it in the same state of mind. He's come way too far to let his father...or his uncle, for that matter...bring it all crashing down around him."

"Mikhail didn't mean for this to happen." Minako pointed out, "He had no real idea how the two of them were like kerosene waiting for a match to light them up. Maybe things were calmer before, but as soon as I saw Yuri's reaction to Konstantin being there at the airport...I knew it would eventually come to this. I just didn't think it would mess up Viktor's skating on top of it all."

"Mikhail should've waited."

"Viktor won't be skating for much longer at his age."

"That's all the more reason he should've waited. Go on long enough and Konstantin would have lost his chance, and maybe things would be better for it." The coach adjusted his jacket a little, "Viktor didn't think he needed this until Mikhail forced him to."

.

Tracks through the snow lead out well beyond the last 2 parked shuttles, taking a sharp left around them and disappearing into the distance, even beyond the last part of the car-accessible roadway going around Makomanai stadium. Leaf-barren trees changed to frost-kissed Evergreens, planted evenly along both sides of the path in 10ft increments. What few other footprints traversed the paths in that unshoveled snow, were covered over easily enough, leaving only the two pairs of feet and the one stubborn 'hobbling' suitcase.

The tracks lead down the center of the trees, scuffed to the side a little where the suitcase looked to have been dropped, thrashed around, and then picked up entirely. A little further down...the source of the prints.

Viktor had the suitcase by the side-handle, and his carry bag on the shoulder of that same arm, free hand still clinging to the fingers of the practically-traumatized figure walking slightly behind him. The Russian finally stopped trying to walk, slow as he'd been going before anyway. He turned his eyes back, then twisted around side-face towards the younger man, rubbing his thumb gently across where he still held to those cold fingers. The suitcase dropped 15 inches to the ground, hitting the snow with a sudden but quiet thud, and the carry-bag slid down the skater's arm after it, leaning against the bigger plastic shell where it came to rest.

"...I...I should n-never...have sent that text..." Yuri quivered. He'd done his best to hold onto the numb feeling after the adrenaline had faded, but it was getting harder to ignore the clenching pain in his throat.

"It's not your fault this happened." Viktor said quietly, "I don't want to hear you blame yourself for this ever again."

"But it...it is..." He went on, voice raspy and strained, tears clinging to his eyes where he held them back by sheer force of will alone, "Things we-were going so well before... If I h-hadn't... If I hadn't..."

The Russian managed to pull his partner to his shoulder just moments before Yuri lost the fight to keep himself together. The younger man's arms went around him tightly and he screamed a barely-muffed cry against the black and red jacket, his whole body trembling. Viktor just held for dear life, pressing his eyes against the crook of his husband's neck.

"W-why does this k-keep happening to us!?" Yuri begged, "W-what did we do to deserve this!?"

"...I don't know..."

"I w-wish I could go back...to Four Continents... I wish I could j-just take your phone...and chuck it off the roof of the hotel before you ever saw that message from Yakov..."

"I should've done it myself." Viktor sighed, his partner's despair becoming contagious, "I should've gone with my gut and told him I didn't care. If I hadn't convinced myself I was a horrible person for being so apathetic, it would've stopped everything before it ever began."

"Y-You couldn't have known...it would become like this..."

"I had a pretty good idea it would be bad." The silver skater answered, "I just hoped it would be quick, and then it would be over, and it would never come up again. If I had fi-finished...the letter..."

Yuri opened his eyes a little, pulling back to look at the man's pale face, "What do you mean...?"

Viktor shook his head a little, recomposing himself, "Earlier, they said the letter my mom wrote to me...the one in the envelope that we got when we met my father in the park."

"...T-The one you burned...?"

The older man nodded quietly, pulling one hand back to rub his eyes on the back of it, "They said they both got letters, too... The messages in each one apparently had written of the hope that the three of us would one day reconcile. If I knew that...if I knew... I would never have gone to the funeral at all..." He dipped his head low, burying his face against his partner's scarf again, cold-numb fingers clenching at the thick jacket, "...If I hadn't shown my face there, Mikhail would never have come to the Skate Club..."

The younger figure could feel his partner drawing his shakier breaths, his whole frame cringing as he spoke.

"...I should've j-just...sent him away...as soon as he showed up..."

"You s-seemed so happy to see him though." Yuri pointed out, his throat raw, "Once you realized who he w-was..."

Viktor abruptly pulled back and looked into those hazel eyes straight-on, "That was a show. I hated him."

"...Huh?"

"For leaving me. For leaving me behind. I-If I had just been honest...about how much of that pain came back the second I recognized him on the rink-wall... If I had just...said what I m-meant...all along..." Tears rolled down his face, eyes getting red, "...I would've y-yelled at him for crawling out of the h-hole he'd come out of, after all t-these years... Then Y-Yakov would never have g-given you his number..."

"It's Yakov's fault..." Yuri choked, "It's Mikhail's fault. It's your fault...it's my fault... Maybe it's no one's fault at all..." The words came heavily, reluctantly, "It was always s-so easy to...blame someone...anyone...even ourselves... Just, putting blame somewhere, trying to make sense of it all... Maybe nothing in the whole world could've ever stopped this from happening... It all just...g-goes so far back, to a time before either of us even existed... I'm tired of b-blaming people..."

Those pale blue eyes looked on at him, but then looked down slightly, the man nodding quietly, "...Me too..."

"Let's just...try to finish out this weekend...as well as we can..." Yuri went on, reaching one arm up to rub his wind-chafed nose on the back of his sleeve, and drawing in a deep breath, "When we're done here...we're going back to Hasetsu again for a while anyway. Let's just leave this place behind...and go back to being us again. You, me, Makkachin, the Ice Castle, Yu-Topia Katsuki...all the stuff that brought us together in the first place... We'll leave everything about this place behind...and go home."

"...Well..." The Russian shied from the description, much as he liked it, "...We have to take one thing with us..."

"...One thing...?" The younger skater echoed, his throat still sore, but not feeling on the verge of tears anymore, "...What?"

"The gold medal I'm going to win for you tomorrow."

Yuri blinked at him, but tried to put on a smile, "You'll break Phichit-kun's heart."

"Well...I'm tired of breaking yours. He'll just have to forgive me, I guess." The Russian purred, leaning in to touch the tip of his nose to his husband's. Instead of kissing him right there and then, however, Viktor paused, his smile fading a little as he tilted his face forward. He closed those Nikiforov eyes and held there a moment, forehead feeling the soft, spiky black hair pressed against it, "...I'm going to make a new Free Skate for the Final."

"...You'll...what...?" The younger skater wondered, thoroughly confused, "But it's barely a week and some change away..."

Slate eyes half-opened again, looking gently down into the cherry-hazel orbits in front of him, "I'm tired of tending the fires of rage inside me." He explained quietly, "Keeping the embers lit so I can throw gas on it from time to time. I made that program because my father ignited an inferno in my soul...and now my father's here to witness what his 'scorched earth' style of parenting has wrought. The only fire I want burning in me is the one you set on my heart. The fire of life, love, passion, inspiration... That's a flame I would gladly feed."

Yuri's cheeks flushed, "V-Viktor..."

The Russian's eyes seemed to warm at the sight of it, and he smiled a bit again despite the tears still clinging to his eyelashes, "Yuri..."

There was no time for hesitation anymore. Fingers went through silver hair and lips met. The shorter figure went up on his toes to make sure of it, and he felt arms get tighter around his back as it happened. One hand went lower on him as the other went up behind his shoulders, tilting him a little to the side. He partly opened his eyes as he felt the warmth pull back from him, seeing the blue he loved so much, "...For more than half my life, I've been trying to catch up to you..." He started, his own hand coming back down from behind the Russian's head, cupping his cheek, "And along the way, it's been a never-ending string of surprises. You're a genius that never ceases to amaze me."

"You're flirting with me now."

"This is the biggest surprise you've ever given me...well, second only to Barcelona last year, when you pulled that matching ring out of your coat.*" Yuri explained, closing his eyes again where he felt his partner's cheek against the side of his forehead, "I don't have a clue how you're going to pull it off...but...I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear that you're going to..."

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Minako followed the path quietly. Other than herself, there wasn't another soul in the field around Makomanai. The footprints and suitcase drag-marks were easy enough to follow, but she was hesitant to come up on the end of the trail too quickly, staying behind only far enough to still see the prints as they became covered in new snowfall. She could practically see the story being told in their shapes; the initial hasty retreat, slowing to a steady pace. Just after she passed the yellow barrier-posts on the sidewalk, she saw the scuffle where the suitcase had been shaken in frustration, dropped, picked up again, and dragged along. Not much farther up, it was shaken a second time, but after that, it was carried instead, and the pace picked up again for a little while. But, inevitably, it slowed again, and she came across the spot where both suitcase and carry-bag had been dropped to the ground together. There was a circle of footprints next to the imprint of the bags; they'd been standing in that same spot for a while, it seemed, facing each other. Like before though, they had to continue on, since neither of the men were standing in their shoeprints anymore. The trail continued further up the path, all the way to a bridge crossing a much-smaller branch of the Toyohira River.

She heard the voices and a quiet laugh before she saw where the footprints lead though. When she arrived at the start of the bridge, the voices were still muffled and difficult to understand, but they were a little louder, and she saw where the shoeprints had diverged from the path.

Putting her fingers on the railing to the left, she looked around, and eventually caught sight of a certain pair of skaters lying down on a long-coat against the artificially-constructed incline of the river wall. They hadn't noticed her yet, and she wasn't about to call out to them and interrupt whatever they were doing, deciding instead to just watch and listen quietly for a while.

"There," Viktor said, pointing up to the left of a big grey cloud, "The Big Dipper."

"Looks pretty black."

"If you follow the two stars at the end of the dipper, and follow their path upward, you can find the North Star at the tail-end of the Little Dipper."

"Pretty neat." Yuri went on, "...That'll be helpful to know when I can see again and I'm lost in the woods somewhere."

The Russian just laughed quietly, pointing his free hand up at a cloud instead, "What kind of blob does that look like?"

"Like a cloud-shaped bowl of katsudon." He admitted, "Two of them. No, four of them, after tomorrow."

"You're taking my katsudon now, too?"

"I'll keep my two, and you can have your two, and we'll eat them together like always."

"But not all at once."

"No...one at a time."

"We have to pace ourselves. Can't have you getting a squishy tummy before the Final." Viktor mused, rolling onto his side, pressing their hands against his own tummy where he held them together, his free hand coming up to rest on the younger skater's chest, "There's a fifth katsudon, too."

"A fifth katsudon? You mean the one up for grabs at the Final?"

"...Six then. The fifth is you." The Russian teased, tracing a finger across the man's jaw, "A very special pork-cutlet fatale that enthralls men."

Hazel eyes looked into azure, and the dark-haired skater spoke a little quieter, "Only you."

Viktor nosed his partner's lip gently, "That's exactly the kind of thing I like to hear." He whispered, closing his eyes quickly and smiling as he felt the man rise up towards him. A cold hand snaked around the back of his neck and pulled him down after that, and the Russian responded in kind by weaving one knee between his husband's.

The first kiss became three before Yuri slid his hand back again, and Viktor laid his head down against the man's chest, keeping his eyes closed for a moment just to savor it against the quiet and peace of the night.

A wad of snow fell off the banister of the bridge, landing with a paft against the ground, and those blue eyes opened again...looking straight at the woman who'd turned her flushed face away from them. Viktor's quiet sigh caught his partner's attention, and Yuri looked aside, seeing Minako there as well, or at least he thought it was Minako. The blur was difficult to distinguish, but it seemed like the person was wearing the same colors and had the same general shape of the ballerina he knew.

"Are you alone at least?" Viktor asked, addressing her first and directly.

She jumped, quickly backing up a foot or two from the railing, "Y-Yeah...! ...It's just me. I saw where your footprints lead and I knew that if you were gone too long, the shuttles wouldn't be there when you got back, so..."

The Russian huffed a quiet sigh, but then reluctantly pushed to sitting up, resting his forearms on his up-turned knees where he and Yuri were sitting on his winter jacket; one he normally used while in coach-mode, but brought in case it got too cold or windy. Yuri sat up soon after, and Viktor extended his arm over the man's shoulders, listening to the sound of the ballerina's shoes crunching against the snow as she approached.

"I didn't mean to butt into things." She explained, crouching down on her knees in the light and fluffy frost, holding out both of her hands, "I thought you'd want these back, at any rate."

Yuri glanced at her palms, and saw the broken blue frames there. His brow furrowed, but he reached for them, and held the limp plastic in his fingers, seeing how they barely connected together anymore. He swallowed nervously, "Well...I guess it's a good thing I didn't start this Grand Prix Series meaning to wear these all the time... I still have my contact lenses in our luggage."

"I'm really sorry." Minako said solemnly, resting her hands on her lap after that, "They just flew off when you jumped in front of Vikt-"

"You can share the seat, Minako." He cut her off, scooting over a little to make room for Yuri to move as well, which he did intuitively, "No sense getting your pants all wet and cold for standing on ceremony."

She nodded and twisted around, sitting against the bottom of the coat and holding her arms around her knees like the two skaters were already doing, "You guys have been through so much this season already. I really didn't want it to be like this."

Cherry-hazel eyes glanced aside for a moment, but the Russian appeared rather cerebral about it, and watched quietly as the younger man reached his own arm out to put it over his sensei's, "...It's okay."

Minako could feel Viktor's hand patting her back as well, just under where Yuri's arm was resting over her shoulders, and she dipped her head against the back of her hands where she had them cupped over her knees. She waited a moment, drawing in a shaky breath before reaching her right hand up to feel for her former student's fingers just by her neck, "I don't blame you two for taking off. I honestly didn't expect to find you like this though."

"Like this?" Viktor echoed.

She lifted her head, looking at the starry sky, "Naming constellations and cloud formations, laughing, and teasing Yuri about how he's half-blind."

The young skater looked back down at the broken frames in his free hand. For a moment, he really wasn't sure what to do with them...so he just broke the mangled side off at the nose and pulled the normal half up across his left eye, closing the right, "Now I'm half-blind."

The other two dared to find the humor in the gesture, smiling at least, if not huffing a quiet laugh, but they quickly went quiet again. The glasses wouldn't be broken at all if not for what had happened, after all.

Viktor pulled his arm back, leaning against his husband instead, and reaching for the broken frames, "That was really brave of you, by the way." He said quietly, thumbing the jagged plastic, "Crazy. Absolutely mad. But brave."

"...I was on auto-pilot." The younger skater said simply, "I don't know what set him off, but when he took that first huge step, everything went into slow motion. I saw his hand come forward and I just...couldn't..." He pulled his arm back from Minako's shoulders and rubbed the side of his hand against his eyes, "Jeeze..." He lamented quietly, setting his palms in front of himself, "I'm shaking again just thinking about it."

"You won't have to worry about it happening again." Minako explained, reaching her left hand out to clasp over his, "We've already made arrangements so that man won't be able to surprise you guys again. Yura is staying with Konstantin tonight, since they seem to be able to tolerate each other, and Mikhail will take over watch in the morning. He'll stay with Konstantin until the end of the Free Skate, and make sure he only gets to talk to you if you want to."

"I will want to have words." Viktor said, a bit stiffly, "Maybe this time those two won't start an argument just to drag me into the middle of it."

"What did that whole thing start for anyway?" Yuri asked, turning his head to face the man.

"My father was going to say something about my Short Program, but Mikhail told him not to bother, and criticized him for never having anything nice to say. My father just turned it right back on him, saying he always sticks his nose into other peoples' business and basically tries to make it about himself."

"Downgraded from Mimi to Mikhail, huh?" Minako noticed, looking back up at the sky, "That'll wound him."

"'Mimi' is a title; he has to earn it." Viktor pointed out, "Anyway though...while they were bickering, I tried to bail, but they pulled me right back into it. Konstantin pointed out that he recognized that my program was garbage because of him being there, and I just...lost it. It was like he hadn't kept track of everything he'd done over the years. The only thing he would cop to was when he popped me as a kid. I gently reminded him of everything he's done just in the last year... At any rate, I'm sure someone recorded it." He sighed, leaning his head down, "I won't be shocked if the subtitled version is out sometime tonight. There's a smartphone around every corner, it seems."

The two Asians were quiet, knowing it was probably true.

"In the end, my father offered a half-baked apology for the first time he hit me, and went out of his way to proudly say that God had forgiven him for the rest, as though that means a damn thing to me." Viktor went on, feeling where his partner was trying to snake an arm around his leg. He leaned back a little to let him, and moved his right arm over the man's shoulder again, feeling where Yuri was slowly rubbing a thumb back and forth against where he'd perched a hand on the inside of his knee, "God was never the one who suffered for what happened. My father might as well have asked the neighbors' forgiveness, for all the good it did. I don't think he understands what any of it means. He may never understand. But at least he said the word, once, and not just colloquially."

"...What did he say?" Yuri wondered, "I didn't hear 'izvinite' in there..."

"No, he used 'prosti,' which is a level up from 'izvinite.' It's a bit more genuine, but...he kind of ruined it with the follow-up."

"Yeah..." The younger man nodded and turned his eyes forward again, "So what do we do now? Start walking back to the Prince hotel?"

Minako nudged him with a shoulder, "Mikhail's coming back to get me. He can drive you, too."

"I don't really want to deal with him right now." The Russian said flatly.

"He's sorry."

"I know."

"And he's willing to do just about anything to make it right again." The ballerina went on, "After everything he's done over the last year...taking your calls in the middle of the night, sponsoring Yura because you asked, been there for you when you needed it...can't you forgive him for this? As far as I'm aware, this is the first mistake he's made, and he's really feeling it right now. He's terrified that you're going to tell him to leave."

Viktor was quiet for a moment, but then looked up into the falling snow, "...I don't want him to leave, I just..." He paused, and shook his head, "...I don't know what I want. I wish I could put my experience into his head so he could really understand what it is that I went through. I've told him the kind of Hell it was, but...it's just a story to him. He saw what happened at the funeral, did nothing to stop it because he was too scared to step in, and then tried to pick up where he left off with me, minus the 'chasing a car while screaming for him not to go and then falling in the mud' part." He explained, raising his hands up for air-quotes for the last part, then settling back again, "The five-year-old in me that admired him is still heartbroken he left. He's said he's sorry, and told me why he did it, but I'm still salty about it."

Yuri thought on the man's words for a moment, but then leaned into his shoulder, "Mikhail will be sitting with Konstantin tomorrow. Do your Rage Skate for both of them. Gather it all up and incinerate it...and be done with it. For now though..." He looked up and considered the possibilities, "...Make him be your manservant for the night. Tell him to keep his mouth shut like back at Worlds, when you told him not to talk to anyone without your permission. Make him work for it."

"Hmm..." The Russian considered it, flopping back, landing over the edge of the jacket so his arms and head were in the snow. He reached his hands up, dragging a trail through the fluff as they went, feeling the cold against his hair, "Maybe...it's not such a bad idea. ...If I hear him say sorry one more time though, I'm gonna dropkick him, I swear."

"Then I'll tell him before we even see him that he's forbidden from speaking until you tell him otherwise." Minako offered, "So...?"

Viktor looked up into the night, watching as each snowflake fluttered by him to land all around. He closed his eyes, drew in a breath, and sat back up again, looking at the ballerina opposite him, "First thing he has to do then, after that...is find me a skating rink. I have unfinished business with my Short Program."

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*For those who don't know (I didn't until recently,) apparently Yuri only bought ONE ring in Barcelona. You can barely make out the numbers/pricing on the receipt when he's paying for it. One ring cost like 700EUR, and the total didn't double as though he bought two, so it means Viktor must've bought to matching ring sometime immediately after that. I'm guessing he saw the ring cushion get put back with one of the rings missing, and realized what Yuri did, so he quickly bought the other while Yuri was too busy admiring the one he'd just gotten himself. I'll eventually go back and add this sequence to Ch2, but for now, I'll leave it be. (They also have matching snowflake engravings on the inside of the rings. This was shown at some panel or another where they showed some fun behind-the-scenes concept sketches.)