CHAPTER THREE HUNDRED THIRTY FOUR
After a long flight to Russia, it wasn't unrealistic for the troupe of four to call it an early night...and then rise early as well. It was well before dawn when Yurio was wide awake. In the Superior Suite of the Lotte Hotel and Resort, he was able to sneak out of the bedroom space, and close the sliding door behind him to avoid waking anyone else up while he spent his conscious hours in the lounge-like front room. He dragged the blanket from his fancy roll-away bed with him, curling up in it on the curved grey couch in front of the big screen television. With the t.v. propped up on the wall between the lounge room and the bedroom, Yurio decided against turning it on, in case the sound system reverberated within. Instead, he toyed on his phone.
To his right, a set of three huge windows, but through the sheer white curtains, it was still pitch as night outside. Even with St. Isaac's Square directly below, light coming in was sparse. Yurio's phone showed a time of 5:23AM, which more annoyed him than anything.
With the alarm the old man set, it'll be 3 hours before anyone else starts to wake up. I don't think I can go back to sleep tho-
The door he'd just come through slid aside unexpectedly, and the very old man he'd just thought about was stepping through. Mikhail looked a bit hazy, but had been awake at least long enough to stumble into the bedroom-attached bathroom suite to grab the bathrobe and start tying it around himself before coming out. He quietly slid the door closed behind him again, leaving his girls to sleep as long as they could.
"You can't sleep either?" The teen dared to wonder, quietly.
Mikhail took a few sluggish steps forward, yawning behind one wrist until he got to the arm-chair between the television and the window closest to that corner of the room. He slumped into it, and then rather dramatically turned his head towards the teen and uttered only two sleepy words, "Dad powers."
Green eyes blinked at the man incredulously, "...O...kay...?"
Another yawn, and Mikhail slid down slightly where he sat, turning his head to look around the dimly lit room, looking for where he knew the coffee maker was set up, "You're one of mine now, right?" He wondered idly, standing up, pushing himself off the chair with a hand on each arm-rest, "If I woke up, it's cuz something's wrong. It's obviously not the girls..." He thumbed back at the two sliding doors leading to the bedroom as he passed the couch Yurio was huddled on, "So that leaves you and Sergio...but we already took care of his problems before we left Canada."
"Did you have a weird sense about him too? Is that how you knew about his car problem?"
"A sense...and an email. Mostly the email...not unlike yours. You really are one of mine. The girls email me too when there's something wrong but they don't want to say it out loud." The silver elder explained, "Shine a light over here, would you? I can't see much."
Yurio turned on the flashlight app on his phone, and set the camera towards the wall behind the couch. Within seconds, Mikhail was able to find the light switch for the room, and moved the sliding switch to half-brightness, letting him see without it being too bright. The skater pulled his phone back and turned the flashlight off, returning to his reading of his Instagram feed. He could hear the sound of the coffee maker turning on, and water starting to sputter as it heated and dripped down into the clear pot beneath the spout, but not the sound of bare feet on the carpet as Mikhail came back around.
"It was your idea to come here before going back to your apartment. Even though you said you wanted to see Potya right away, you changed your mind. I'm just curious if everything's okay. You're up shockingly early."
Yurio stared at his phone, but wasn't really looking at it. He pulled his arms and hands back within the warmth of the blanket, and shook his head lightly, "I wouldn't be able to bring Potya here. I'd rather not go back, see her, and then have to leave again for the night. When I see Potya next, I want it to be the last time I return to that place after leaving her behind."
"Yeah, it's a little harder to convince a hotel's managers to let us keep a cat in the room when there's no advanced warning. At least, in Moscow, they already know she's going to be there, so I could pay in advance for the pet insurance." Mikhail agreed, "But I get this weird feeling that your cat isn't the only reason you've delayed our trek by a day."
"My mom is there." The teen said simply, "The guy that checks on Potya while I'm away says she turned up yesterday when he was making his rounds. I got the text while we were taking a break after getting into town. I...wasn't ready to deal with her."
"You think she'll still be there when we turn up?"
"Practically guaranteed." Yurio sighed, dropping to his side in the blanket bundle, "When she comes back from one of her drunken benders, she sticks around to recover for a day or two, then leaves again. Usually she sleeps the whole time, but I don't think she'll sleep through us coming in and me moving out."
"What if you went in on your own just to get your things and Potya, and leave the rest? I can replace what you can't bring..." Mikhail wondered, "Or is there a lot of stuff you can't leave behind?"
"...I can't get it all in one trip. It's not a lot, but it's more than I can carry myself. I'll need at least one extra set of hands. One for my stuff, the other for Potya and her stuff." The blonde explained, feeling an upset starting in his stomach over the thought of it all, "...I can live without the rest."
"That shouldn't be too much trouble. I'll go in with you."
"...Mh..."
Mikhail looked at Yurio carefully, but his eyeballing wasn't returned. For the moment, he left the teen alone, stepping back to find the coffee he'd started making. With a few minutes of silence as he fixed his cuppa, he hoped it was enough for the teen to decompress from the things he'd said. Mikhail took a seat at the end of the long curved grey couch, and pulled his ankle over the opposite knee as he leaned back, "We'll go after breakfast. Get it overwith, so you have all day to be with Potya and forget about the rest."
"You're not going to make me talk about my relationship with my mom?"
The elder paused a moment, sipping at the brew while he thought on his answer. He drew a breath and shook his head, "You don't have one. You had your sport, your grandpa, Viktor, and Yakov. Your mother was little more than an egg donor."
Yurio gaped at the older man, and pushed up slightly onto one elbow.
"I think I've said it before...but if I haven't, then I'll say it now. Any man can be a father, but it takes a real man to be a dad. The same can be said for women as mothers. Some are...eehhh...just not made for it." Mikhail explained, shrugging and pulling his cuppa up again for another quick sip, "You can make up your own mind about how you think of the different adults in your life. I'm not here to judge you on what you think of the woman who birthed you into the world. You don't have to call her your 'mom' for my sake if you don't see her that way."
"Galina then."
The silver man nodded, and reached over to pat the Tiger's leg through the thick blanket, "I have your back. We'll get through this thing with Galina together."
.
Standing outside the brick building, Yurio looked up, staring at the 3rd floor corner apartment window where he knew his bedroom was located. He swallowed nervously, but didn't look back when he felt the three Rozovskys step up behind him on the sidewalk.
"So this is it?" Nikki wondered aloud, looking around.
"Mhm."
"Girls," Mikhail said, turning to the pair, "When we get up there, I want you two to just stand inside the door and not wander around. Yuri and I are going to get his things and his cat, and then we're gone. If his mother is still here, don't talk to her, even if she tries to talk to you first. Yuri said she speaks a little English and she knows who I am. I don't want to start a fight, but she's going to know what's happening if she sees Potya being removed from the apartment...so keep a low profile if she's wandering around."
"Okay." They both agreed, and the trio looked to Yurio.
He looked a little paler than normal, but nodded at them, and turned to start heading up the stairs that lead into the building. By the time they'd made it to his floor, and were standing in front of his door, his hands were shaking and he couldn't hold his keys straight to unlock the door. Mikhail covered the teen's hand with his own, and felt the keys released into his grip while Yurio took a step back, "You do it." He said stiffly.
"Okay." The elder answered reassuringly, flipping the keys in his hand to grip the bronze one he'd seen making an attempt at the lock. A few seconds later, the lock was undone, and the door was opening, with the scent of the apartment falling over the group like a fine mist.
Mikhail stepped in first, looking around as he pulled off his flatcap. Nothing caught his eye, but he did hear the telltale mew of a very excited ragdoll.
"Potya!" Yurio chimed, pushing past the taller man to see his fuzzball of a feline come rushing from around the corner. Her tail was straight up and she came running straight into Yurio's waiting arms where he'd knelt down on a knee, rubbing on the side of his head like a dog that hadn't seen its human in years. She licked the teen's nose and rubbed even more, trying to wiggle out of his grasp to roam all over him. He laughed quietly as his cat went about the task of covering all his clothing in shed fur.
"Yuri, come, let's get this done..." Mikhail whispered, trying to encourage a faster pace.
The Russian Tiger nodded, and reluctantly turned the feline over to Nikki, "Here, get to know each other."
"O-Oh!" She blinked wide and scrambled to hold the incredibly fluffy cat. Potya seemed friendly, looking at those jade eyes curiously, and thankfully didn't hiss at her, "...Uh...hi...Potya? I'm Nikki...this is Viktoria..."
Yurio and Mikhail made their way through the apartment, rounding the corner to the room at the end. The blonde had an empty backpack and a travel case to fill, and Mikhail stood 'guard' in the doorway while a swift inventory was made and the most important items packed. It took a mere five minutes for Yurio to get through all his things, grabbing mostly skating awards and a few articles of clothing he liked. He tossed the backpack to the man standing behind him, and then pushed by to go find his cat's things. They already had a plan, and Yurio went straight for the feline's ceramic food bowls, dumping the water from one into the sink and cleaned the dried-up remains of yesterday's dinner from the other. A quick dry with a paper towel was enough, and the two dishes went into the small rolling suitcase, along with a half-empty bag of litter, a tupperware container of kibble, the last 3 cans of tuna, one of cooked chicken, and a small jar of turkey gizzards from the fridge.
Viktoria took a good look around the apartment while she was waiting, holding one hand up to the feline's nose in the meantime. The apartment looked like it had been decorated once, a decade or two ago, and never modernized. Photos were framed all around of a glamorous blonde woman, dressed fancy and looking like quite the socialite. But, the woman looked a bit too young to be the mother of a 17 year old. She could only assume they were photos from the days before Yurio.
"Yuri! Èto ty?" (Yuri, is that you?) A woman's sleepy voice suddenly came from the opposite side of the flat.
All eyes were up and looking to the other side of the room in an instant. Bright green eyes spotted Mikhail first, but then Yurio in the kitchen to her left.
"Čto vse èto značit?" (What are you doing?)
Nikki and Viktoria took a step back towards the front door as the woman, slightly disheveled from the look of her messy, unbrushed hair, and smeared night-before make-up, stepped into the middle of the room. Slightly sleepy before, but wide awake now, the former 'life of the party' looked quite irate.
"Yuri!" She barked again, looking at the teen with the small rolling suitcase.
"Ja uhožu." (I'm leaving.) He answered, going right back to what he was doing, and zipped up the case.
"Kto vse èti ljudi?" (Who are all these people?) The woman demanded, gesturing mostly at the girls, which made them uneasy.
"Tolʹko požalujsta, sohranjaj spokojstvie." (Everyone, please, stay calm.) Mikhail said, stepping between Yurio's mother and his own daughters.
"Ne ukazyvaj mne, čto delatʹ ћik!" (Don't tell me to stay out of it!)
"Galina-" The silver Russian tried instead, but she just marched right up into his face with her finger pointing right between his eyes.
"Ne nazyvaj menja po imeni!" (Don't call me by my first name!)
"Ženŝina-" (Woman/ma'am (older))
"Ženŝina!?" She repeated in a rage, reaching her hand far back like she was winding up.
Nikki held Potya tight when she saw it, squeak-screaming in fear, but Viktoria had tried to take half a step closer. Yurio barely saw it in time, eyes wide open at the last second.
The slap filled the air like a gunshot...but it wasn't a slap across the elder man's face. He'd caught the woman's attempt by the wrist, mere inches from his skin, the sound of her arm hitting the palm of his hand causing the sudden noise. By all accounts, Mikhail towered over her as it was, him being 6'1" and her being a petite thing at 5'4", but the way he loomed over the woman now made him seem like a giant. He stared down at her, grey-green eyes fixed like a wolf's, and he moved her arm away from where he'd caught it.
"Esli ty popytaešsja udaritʹ menja snova..." (If you try to hit me again...) He said rather darkly, "...Ty ob ètom požaleešʹ." (...you'll regret it.)
"Počemu vy zanjali v žizni takuju oboronitelʹnuju poziciju!?" (Why are you always so defensive!?) Yurio barked suddenly, "Vot počemu ja nenavižu s toboj obŝatʹsja!" (This is why I hate being around you!) He turned his eyes to Mikhail, a nervous bead of sweat rolling down his face, "My možem ehatʹ dalʹše? Požalujsta!" (Can we leave!? Please!)
"Da." The elder agreed, "Tak čto tebe eŝe neobhodimo dlja operacii?" (Do you have everything you need?)
"Yes, let's please just go, I don't want to be here anymore." The teen answered, lowering his face as he started marching towards the door. Viktoria quickly opened it and the two girls stepped outside, carrying Potya with them, but just before Yurio could get out with them, he stopped on a heel and turned back briefly. Mikhail was about to squeeze out as well, but stopped next to the Tiger. Yurio was incensed though, staring at his mother, "Ne vzdumaj menja trogatʹ." (Don't ever talk to me again.)
He stormed off after that, letting Mikhail pull the door closed as he stalked down the hall, and then stop in place.
"Yuri!" Nikki called after him, hopping forward to catch up. She was stunned to see tears rolling down the Russian Punk's face "...Yuri..."
"I hate that woman..." He answered through clenched teeth, "She's always done this... If she's not making promises she never keeps, she's making a huge scene when confronted on absolutely anything." He looked straight at the younger girl and gestured to Mikhail, "He didn't even say anything wrong! He just said we should all keep cool! Then she lost her fucking mind and tried to smack him!"
Potya's ears went back, tail curling around Nikki's back, and she tried to calm the anxious feline with a few strokes down her back, "It's okay...don't be scared..."
"I'm sorry..." Yurio choked, trying to dry his face on the back of a sleeve. He felt the rolling suitcase pulled from his hand as Viktoria stepped up behind him, putting a hand on his back.
"It's fine. Let's get to the car. We don't have to come back here ever again." She said calmly.
Mikhail came up behind the pair, and turned Yurio on his heel to face him, pulling him close with both arms around the teen's back, "Vikki's right. Let's go somewhere quiet and safe. We have Potya now. It's okay."
The young skater's fingers just clung to the thick black wool of the man's long-coat, and he screamed against the long, grey scarf, volume muffled only by the thickness of the fabric. The two girls moved in close as well, arms going around their 'brother' as well as they could.