CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED EIGHTY ONE

Viktor could feel the small pit in his gut starting to grow, getting bigger the further away Yuri moved. He hummed a soft, nervous grumble to himself, and slowly looked away, glancing down at the woman still clinging to his side, "Must be important if you're telling Yuri to take a hike."

"I'm old enough to be his mum." She answered simply, watching the younger skater veer around to go towards center, joining Otabek and Yurio with the rest, "And I've been around since before he was born. So in a lot of ways, watching him grow up, encouraging him to get into skating, and being a part of so many important milestones in his life...I kind of feel like he's mine, too. The way I see Yuri isn't all that different from how Mikhail sees you."

"Ah." The Russian felt his whole frame stiffening up under his coat, "So what's what this is about. I'm in trouble."

Minako said nothing to that, letting the skater simmer in his brooding discomfort for a while. She let him guide her slowly around the curve of the rink, keeping him between herself and the eyes watching them go by from the middle, "...This isn't about you, Viktor."

"That just makes me worry even more for some reason." He said, keeping his eyes forward, golden blades leaving light scratches in the ice as he meandered on his path, "Who is this about, then?"

"Me."

The pit became a chasm to hear that singular word, and Viktor raised his free hand up to pull at his already-loose scarf, the bare skin of his gloveless fingers touching at his throat nervously, "I see." He tried to swallow, but he could feel a cramp there stopping him, so he just coughed quietly and then went silent, waiting for the ballerina to continue.

"Sorry." Was all she managed in short order, her eyes having been captured for a moment when she heard Nikki suddenly shriek for no reason. Looking past the Russian's shoulder, she spotted where the silver teen's up-turned leg had been grabbed and pulled slightly higher up, while a second hand had gone down on her back, forcing her head a little further down.

"It should feel like this when you're level!" Yurio was telling her, "Can't you tell the difference?"

"You could've warned me you were gonna grab me!" She harped back, "I about had a heart attack!"

"This is how my coaches always used to do it to me!"

"The abused becomes the abuser! I see how it is!" Nikki huffed, suddenly reaching to the side to grab one of Yurio's own legs and pulling it up unexpectedly, "See how you like it!"

The older teen wasn't about to be put on his arse a second time in less than 5 minutes, and he clung to the silver lady's leg like it was all that held him up, and sneered at her as well as he could, "This is a Pair spin, dummy! I was teaching you a camel spin!"

"I know that! I saw Yuri and Cousin Viktor doing this at their Exhibition last weekend!" She argued, "That's how I know it at all!"

"Hasetsu is going to be a noisy place pretty soon." Minako huffed, pulling her mind back from the boisterous distraction, "Nikkita is taking her sister-duties pretty seriously."

Viktor wordlessly agreed, wishing he could find the humor in watching his partner skating around the duo, pushing them around in a frantic circle by the boot of the blonde's outstretched leg. He, too, eventually turned his eyes away from it though, "I don't think I've ever seen Yurio teach anyone anything in his whole life. I'd heard legends of his doing so to get his spot back on the Russian team, but..."

"He's caught in a weird place...desperately wanting to be a kid, but being surrounded by adults and all their problems. Coming up from such a young age and having as much responsibility as he did..." The ballerina explained quietly, "...I think half his issue was about how much he resented having to take on so much by himself. He got so used to doing everything alone that it was hard for him to consider asking for help when things got away from him. Having Yuri jump in to save him when he was about to lose everything, and not really giving him a choice about it, made him really uncomfortable. So as grateful as he was for what Yuri did, and by extension, you and Mikhail, it just forced him to question his self-worth and his capabilities. At the edge of turning 16, he was too young to handle what most 30-year-olds can't even deal with."

"For a conversation that's supposed to be about you, that's an awful lot of stuff about someone who isn't you." The Russian pointed out.

"I'm trying to work my way up to it." The woman sighed, "Mikhail told me during Opening Ceremonies that you'd agreed to be Yura's choreographer, but no one had told him that yet. I guess everyone was just waiting for you all to cool down before saying anything. But then, when you were on your rampage earlier, you told everyone that you'd agreed...and yet, at this point, I doubt either of you have exchanged words to one another. About that, or anything else."

"...And you'd be correct. What's your point though?"

"It wasn't just him that you surprised with that rant." Minako explained, "When you singled out Mikhail after that, you put me on the spot, too."

"...Sorry." The Russian sighed, "I got a bit carried away."

"It's fine. I think...I'm leaning towards thanking you for it rather than condemning you."

"...Eh?"

"I know it hasn't been long since you called him on it, but telling Mikhail that he's basically doing all these things that you specifically told him not to...I guess it just...made the wheels turn in my head a bit." The ballerina said hesitantly, "While everyone was figuring out how to get you to wake up again after Yuri made you drop, I kind of started thinking about things. I have to ask...what did you warn Mikhail not to do?"

Viktor drew in a breath, and started listing things off on his fingers, "Don't contact Yuri behind my back, don't tell my father about my life, don't get too comfortable around the people I know, be on your best behavior...that sort of thing."

"...I see."

"Don't get me wrong." The silver legend tried to walk back his words, "Mikhail did exactly what I told him to, for a really long time. Right up until the end of the Trophée de France, I didn't have a single thing to complain about. So while I spent all last year looking for reasons to send him away, I could never justify if. My grudge from childhood eventually just...evaporated, and I was left with this uncomfortable realization that I had to take him for who he really was...as my Uncle Mimi, not as this boogeyman that was going to hurt me again. I think..." He looked up into the clear sky, barely a few puffs of clouds hovering above the tallest buildings, "...I was just happier blaming him for the things that happened after he left. I hated him enough for the fact that he left at all...so I just kept heaping up the rest onto him, too."

"I'm afraid that, of all the stories Mikhail has told me, the things that happened to you while he was gone were not among them." Minako pointed out, feeling the ice curving under them again where Viktor leaned them into the turn, "I'm not even sure he knows what you're blaming him for."

"Nothing that was actually his fault, in the end." The Russian shrugged, "It was just easier than blaming myself. But then I finally let it all go, and dropped my guard around him...and it seemed like as soon as I did, Mikhail really did start doing things. I tried to ignore it all, or justify it as normal behavior...or at least, as something that I had no right to be mad at him for, like everything I'd smeared onto him before. But then he said he was going to move to Hasetsu...and I just kind of hit a wall with it all. It was my last straw...and I had to sit there and suffer in silence, because really, what right did I have to complain? I even told Yuri at one point...I had no business contesting his plans, because they were about the life he wanted with you, not me."

"He wouldn't even know I existed if not for you."

Viktor nodded and sighed, cold vapor escaping him like dragon's breath into the frigid night, "That's part of why I'm still mad at him." He confessed bitterly, "I feel like he owes me something, somehow, for what he has with you now...and yet I'm such a non-participant in everything. He's just walking all over me. I was naive enough to think he'd actually talk to Yuri and I before deciding to move to Hasetsu, back when it was still just an idea...but then he made that choice without us, and invited his kids, and then invited Yurio. I know he means well and he's doing all of this with the hope that everyone will be happy in the end, but...it still feels like he's just some-"

"...Benevolent dictator." Minako finished, "I know."

The silver Russian just looked at her in confusion.

"That's some of the stuff I started to realize...or rather, allowed myself to become aware of...after you laid into him earlier." She explained, "I didn't really think anything of it in the beginning. All these choices he made worked out for me, and I was basically happy with it all, so I didn't question the fact that he never actually asked for my opinion on much. I think, the first time he did, it was when he sweet-talked me into agreeing to be Yura's coach."

"He made it sound like a brilliant idea, didn't he?" Viktor wondered dryly.

"Mh."

"That's what he did to me when he suggested dragging my father to NHK. He made it sound like such a grand thing, that if I disagreed or argued, I was being needlessly unreasonable." He sighed again, carefully watching the aforementioned elder as they moved along, "Even after everything my father had done...to me, to him, to Yuri even...to the entire family...I was still the badguy."

"It's like he carries himself in permanent-dad-mode, for everyone, not just the people he's actually a dad to." Minako added, "He gives you the illusion of democracy by making you think you're part of the process, but really...he's just letting you say whatever you want, so you feel better about the choice he makes for you. Like you had some role to play, or that your opinion mattered."

"Or that you were wrong to disagree."

"If you did." She huffed a grumble under her breath, "I was so agreeable for so long that I forgot how much I liked making decisions for myself. He just made it so easy not to worry about it. He'd take care of everything and it would all work out in the end."

Viktor silently agreed, unsure what else to say after that. He could feel the ballerina starting to drift though, and when he moved to try and correct it, realized that her drift was purposeful, and he let her move them towards the rink-wall, setting a hand against it so she could hold herself up. He dug in the heel of his right blade and stood casually in front of the woman, waiting for her next move.

She took a moment, but then reached up for the mitten covering her left hand, and pulled it off, looking at the white gold and cluster of diamonds across the entire band of her engagement ring. She kept her eyes on it, seeing how the light shimmered in the clear facets, glimmering like a thousand stars on her finger, "I think the first, and last, decision I ever made about him...was choosing to get close to him. When Mari joked about him being a vintage version of you...I think, part of me kind of loved the novelty of it. But the more time I spent with him, the less the joke mattered, because I liked him for who he was, not for who he was related to or who he resembled."

The silver Russian listened closely, but said nothing.

"I saw how much he took to Yura, and how much that kid mattered to him. I thought it was really endearing, that he would go so far out of his way to help someone who he only knew because he'd been asked a favor. I liked that he never tried to define our situationship by any kind of normal social construct...it was just us, hanging out, enjoying each other's company, without any kind of baggage or expectation. I never once felt pressured to pay him back somehow, or that I owed him anything. Then I finally met his kids, and I started to really understand where most of his personality came from. He wants so badly for people to be able to count on him, and never to let them down...it all makes sense now, knowing that it's because of how badly he failed you." The ballerina said quietly, the quiet scratch of a dozen skates passing them by like an icy river, "I won't make excuses for how that trait can come across as controlling. I see that myself now, more clearly than ever...because like you...in a way, I kind of feel like I've lost my own agency."

Cool blue eyes watched in nervous surprise as the older woman fingered at the ring...and then slowly pulled it off, cupping it in her hand before curling her fingers around it, "...Minako-sensei...?"

She shook her head lightly, turning where she stood to look back at the skater, "Don't get the wrong idea... I don't feel differently about him. I enjoy him quite a lot. But...the both of us have kind of let him take too much control away. I think, if we support each other, maybe we can get some of it back." She lifted her still-mittened right hand and pressed it to the Russian legend's chest, "He's a good man, and he thinks the world of you. Give him a chance to make this right. I think one of his greatest fears is feeling like he let you down a second time. He's just...human, like the rest of us, and needs to learn what the rules are with every new relationship. Sometimes we have to learn the rules for ourselves, too, so we can let others know how we want to be treated."

"...So you're going to call off your engagement?" Viktor wondered, looking to the hand that had the ring in it, "It's only been a few days since you agreed to it in the first place."

Minako's brow ruffled slightly, but she closed her eyes and shook her head, "...I wasn't feeling good when he asked me. I think I...might've agreed to it because I got scared, not...because I wanted to say yes."

"...Scared? You?" The Russian was perplexed, "You always came across as fearless to me."

"Mmmnhh..." She mumbled in reply, eyes shifting aside even more.

Viktor felt unsure at that answer, and gave a worried look, "...Minako?"

"Mmmnnnnhhh...!" She hesitated more urgently, the look on her face changing like she knew she didn't want to mention anything. When she felt Viktor's hand on her shoulder though, it was like an eggshell cracked and she could do nothing to stop the yolk from oozing out, "...Mikhail's the only other person who knows this is even a thing, so you had better not say a single word when I finish telling you. Not to anyone." Minako started, keeping her eyes on the rink wall for the nerve of it, "Finding out was the entire reason why Mikhail's joking request for me to marry him suddenly turned serious. Even he was half-upset about it, when it dawned on him what might be going on."

Viktor looked on in nervous confusion, but slid his hand up the woman's shoulder to settle his whole arm over both, drawing her closer to reassure, and rubbing one thumb against her where he held it.

"I think he's probably more freaked out than I am right now." Minako said, her voice quieter than before, "I'm just...more in shock, trying to wrap my brain around it. He's trying to do the right thing in light of the circumstances." She paused a moment though, and pulled back from the younger man's offered comfort, glancing up at him with a look of worry and concern crossing her face, "I didn't even want to mention it. Really...all I wanted by this conversation was to tell you what my plans were for this engagement situation, because I thought it might relieve some of the stress on you. Saying the rest might just make things ten times worse."

"...I appreciate that, but now you're just worrying me by not saying what's going on." Viktor explained, feeling the nerves rattling around in his gut, "Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be okay in the end."

"I hadn't expected you to be this inquisitive about things...but..." Minako grumbled under her breath a little, "If that's what you want..." She lowered her head for a moment, but then lifted it half-way again, like she was trying to work up the nerve to get on with it, "Just to preface this...we were only ever like that on two occasions, this whole time. Two. And both times, I kind of pressured him into it. The first time, we were both drunk and flirty, and for a long time he thought I didn't even remember it. Then, the next time, was to relieve a bit of the stress at NHK. For whatever reason, Mikhail never really wanted to let me get that close, so he was always really careful to keep me at arm's length on some things. He'd use Plisetsky being around, or the timing, as an excuse to keep things between us kind of...low key. If there's one thing I know about your Uncle after this past year, it's that he's extremely guarded. He doesn't like people getting too close to him, knowing too much about him, or letting anyone take advantage of him, but if you manage to get past all those hurdles, he's the kind of person who would take a bullet for you, no questions asked. I think all of that is part of why he also happens to be the kind of person who likes to be in control of everything...not because he doesn't trust anyone to do what he considers the right thing, but because it means there won't be any surprises. He...kind of hates surprises. So...this thing I'm trying to explain...he's trying to do right by me in the only way he knows how, given how he's entirely not in control of it."

Viktor gave her a dubious look, I really don't want to think about this...but the more she says, the less likely it could be anything else... His eyes rose out towards the middle of the rink, first giving something of a longing expression to his unsuspecting husband, ...Ah, Yuri...save me... But then this eyes roamed over towards his Uncle, Mikhail, you stupid idiot...if this is what she's making it sound like, you should've been more careful.

"...It's not for sure..." Minako said, getting the Russian's attention back again, "...And that's why I didn't want to say anything about it. I don't want everyone getting all freaked out about it when it might be nothing."

"It can't be nothing if you agreed to marry my uncle over it." Viktor said nervously, dreading the answer to come, and hoping beyond hope that it was somehow, some way, something else, "...What is it?"

The apprehensive ballerina had no more words to say about it, simply lifting her hands and gently putting them palms-down against her abdomen. She clenched her eyes shut and waited for the scolding, screaming, fussing, crying...anything...but nothing came. She cracked one eye open, and then the other, seeing the silver legend just staring at her with his eyes glazed over, "...V-Viktor...?"

Still nothing.

The older woman carefully tip-toed a step closer, holding steady to the rink wall as she moved, and waved a hand in front of the man's vacant face.

Viktor_Nikiforov. exe has stopped working _

"YURI." She yelled, "YURI, I BROKE YOUR HUSBAND. SORRY."

"...Eh?" The younger skater lifted his head, attention pulled away from where Yurio had moved on from the camel spin to teaching basic moves in the field. He could see where the tall Russian had gone stiff where he stood, and started moving off to get closer. Viktor hadn't responded even as he got closer, or set a hand against the man's arm, "Viktor...?"

The slight nudge was all it took, and the five-time consecutive World Champion went face-first to the ice without a word.

"V-Viktor...!"