CHAPTER THREE HUNDRED EIGHTY ONE

The entire couch was turned to be perpendicular to the television, with the kotatsu in the center of the room set right up against it to hold mugs of hot wine. Makkachin was curled up happily on one end, snoozing under a doggy blanket, while Jiro was curled up on top of a blanket, between Yuri's knees. Yuri himself leaned his back against Viktor's frame, sitting between those long athletic legs, head resting against the man's broad chest, just high enough for Viktor to nuzzle against his hair.

Connected to a LiveStream through Viktor's phone, their flatpanel displayed the already-started Men's Singles event in Moscow. Without it being an international event, there were no English announcers, and being live, there were no subtitles or close captions either, leaving Yuri to miss out on a small fraction of the experience. He didn't mind though. There was only one skater in the Men's event he was truly interested in watching, and that skater was at the end. It was about 7pm in Moscow by then, and the event was only half over.

Viktor reached for his mug and pulled it up, taking a sip from it before resting it on his partner's stomach, balancing it with the fingers that were already settled there on Yuri's other side, "This was actually a pretty great idea, all things considered."

"Makes me wish we could take off from every competition when we want to," Yuri agreed, moving one hand down to give ear-scritches to the Akita pup resting its head on his leg. Jiro gave a tired whimper-sigh, eyes barely able to stay open, "Aside from this little guy though, I'm kind of getting déjà vu to our St. Petersburg days."

The older figure nodded against his husband's hair, then looked around the room a little, "A few structural differences, too...but yeah, I can see why you would. Same couch, same poodle, same me..."

"It'll be interesting to go back." Yuri added, "Even though we're just passing through." He turned his head to look back at his spouse, "What are we going to do about sleeping arrangements out there though? You sounded like you had some genius idea."

Viktor nodded again, "My papa and I may be mending things, but I'm still not going to sleep in that house. I was thinking we could rent a camper or something instead."

"A camper?" Yuri echoed, "...That sounds okay. Do you think your ankle will be good to drive it by next week though?"

"Better be." The Russian answered tepidly, "Otherwise we'll be having to ask my father to come pick us up, and we won't have the option for the camper at all."

"At which point, we won't be going at all."

"Da."

"Maybe I should learn how to drive at some point...that way I can at least be a back-up in case something like this happens."

Viktor huffed a laugh and sighed, "It just had to be my driving leg that got tweaked, didn't it?"

"Mhm..."

"I'm actually a little surprised on all that..."

Yuri looked at him again, "About what?"

The silver legend set his mug back down on the kotatsu, then brought that hand up to run his fingers against that shock of black hair, "I figured you'd be blaming yourself for what happened, but you haven't even suggested it."

"Why would I feel like it was my fault? You stepped out onto the ice yourself. I thought you were going to pull me off of it." Yuri explained, "When I realized you were coming forward, I already knew you'd slip...that's how I caught you so fast."

"Oh." Viktor made a face at that, "...I guess you're right. It was my fault."

"I don't really think of it as anyone being at fault," Yuri explained, bringing his hand up to stroke the side of his spouse's face, and pressed his head against the other, "It was just an accident. You've got the ice-pack on it again right now like the medic said, and we'll make sure you see a specialist on Monday."

The Russian grumbled a little and hugged his partner a little tighter then, "Hopefully it's nothing. I don't want to be benched for very long."

"Suffer now so you can get back on the ice sooner. I don't want you to have to skip competition at 4C because you started working it too early."

"I'm surprised the JSF brass hasn't reached out yet. There's no chance they don't know what happened. You'd think they'd have called by now." Viktor pointed out, "Or have they and you just haven't told me?"

"They sent me an email." Yuri explained, "They said they got the medic's report and were relieved that your injury didn't seem serious, but were sad to find out that I was going to bench you for the Exhibition."

"Oh..." Viktor whined, "So you've already sent them your solo music then."

"Not yet." The younger man shook his head lightly, "I can't attach music from my phone to an email, so I was going to do it in the morning before we leave."

"Was all this before or after I told you that you could have my spot?"

"Before. It was when we were in the shuttle on the way back to the hotel. I wouldn't have asked them to make that switch for me anyway...would've been presumptuous."

"Yeah, I guess so... I'll have to suggest it myself tomorrow."

"Mhm."

.

The quiet, low-frequency chant and the hum of the singing bowl had gone on for some time. Minako listened, and watched for any changes in the tormented skater's affect, seeing that over the 20 minutes since the meditation began, he'd at least stopped hiccupping his breaths. He seemed serene and at peace, at least from and outside perspective.

The ballerina turned her eyes back towards her phone, and the conversation she'd struck up with her Russian boyfriend, reading over her last reply while she waited for the next to answer it.

[I just don't know what to do to help him.] She'd written, [He only barely gives me enough information to know what's going on, and nothing more. I'm really worried about some of the stuff he said earlier.]

The jumping dots had been going for a while, but then vanished for a few seconds. What she got back was a surprisingly big blurb for a text message.

[It's hard to really know what's going through someone's head when they're not used to being open with anyone, never mind strangers.] Mikhail wrote, [Considering what you've said about him though, the fact that he's said THAT much is probably a huge step for him. He seems pretty invested in Yuri's happiness though, even if it means letting go of him and trying to be happy for what he's got with Viktor. But I can see the problem there. This kid can't get close enough to apologize because Viktor's ready to eat him alive if he tries, so he can't even properly express how much he regrets what happened. After all, it's one thing to tell YOU he's sorry, but it'd be a different thing entirely if he was able to tell YURI he's sorry. Has he considered saying so to Viktor, too?]

Minako glanced over, but made a face and turned back to type, [The way he talks about Viktor, it's like Viktor isn't even part of all this. He's just an obstacle. I had to work him over just to get him to accept that Viktor's a regular human like everyone else...] She wrote, side-eyeing the skater when she thought she saw him move, only to realize he'd just sat a bit straighter and nothing more, [I was hoping that if Asahi saw Viktor as involved, that he'd understand that Viktor's being protective over Yuri was because he himself was hurt by what happened, too, not JUST Yuri. Maybe I should be more direct? I doubt Viktor will let him near unless he gets an apology first.]

[Probably]

[Then there's the fact that neither of the boys has talked to me since they saw me standing around with Asahi in the audience...]

[Not talking to you could mean anything. Viktor is pretty direct with his indignation. You'd know if it he had it out for you.] Mikhail pointed out, [They're probably just avoiding you by proxy, because they're avoiding this Asahi kid.]

[I hope so... I haven't tried to reach out to them because I was worried they'd GET mad at me if they weren't already. I want to have something to show for this supposed 'treason' they're seeing me do. If I can crack Asahi and get ]

"Sorry for all this trouble." The skater said suddenly, leaving Minako to hit send before she meant to just from the surprise of it. He uncrossed his legs and put his phone away, standing up to find his things, "I'll go now so you can have your space back."

Minako quickly stood up, watching the athlete get his coat from the closet and find his shoes again, "I really don't mind you being here. This was my idea after all, right?" She heard her phone beep as a new text came, but she didn't move to read it just yet.

Asahi hesitated, a finger in the heel of his second shoe, but he shook his head and pulled it the rest of the way onto his foot, "...I barely know you, but I've unloaded more on you than I've ever told to everyone else combined. I'm not even sure why I did."

"I kind of made you...sort of..."

"Still."

She watched almost helplessly as Asahi reached for the door handle and pulled the panel open, "So what are you going to do now...? Did coming here help at all?"

He paused in the open frame, looking at the floor in the hall for a moment before shrugging, "I'm not sure. ...Uhm...to both, I mean."

"If I could figure out a way for you to talk to Yuri and Viktor, would you?"

That made Asahi turn around, looking at the woman with his dark, reddened eyes. He blinked at her, then turned his eyes away again, "...What good would that do?"

"You said you wanted to tell Yuri how sorry you were. I think Viktor deserves to hear that, too... But if you want to get to that point, you have to give Viktor what he wants."

"What Viktor wants is what he's already getting. I'll never speak to Yuri again as long as I live."

"But you're all going to be going to Four Continents together...and it's looking likely that you'll be chosen for the Olympics, too. You won't be able to avoid them. Wouldn't you rather be able to be around them withou-"

"Maybe I won't." He cut her off simply, and took another step through the doorway.

"...Huh?" Minako blanched, reaching to hold the door open before it could close behind the man, "You're not even willing to entertain that you might get picked?"

He sighed, back towards her, "I meant that maybe I won't go to any of those events."

"...So you're just going to retire? Because of one bad weekend? You skated your heart out, Asahi. No one outside of us even knows that anything is wrong."

The hall was eerily quiet for a few seconds, but it suddenly felt like a war-front when the skater turned on a heel, and stared straight into her eyes, "When I said before that Hell couldn't possibly be worse than what I'm going through right now? Well, maybe going there will be a relief. Then I won't have to worry about being a burden to Yuri or Viktor at competitions to come." He gave a singular dark laugh at himself, and started to walk away, "It'll even make it easier on the JSF to decide who gets that jacket, too."

Minako was instantly mortified, barely managing to keep the tip of her foot in the door as she lunged forward to throw her arms over the skater's shoulders. The heavy panel closed on her, but she wouldn't budge, "How can you say something like that!? You said you already lost everything...but you still have your life, Asahi! You can still make things better!"

"My life is worthless. Yuri made that abundantly clear." He explained, trying to shrug the woman off but finding her latched on quite securely, "Without Riku, I have nothing to live for...and with everything that's happened this weekend already, after everything Yuri said to me...I don't even have anything to hope for, either. I'm nothing but a walking, talking Pain Totem, to myself, and to everyone around me..."

"What about Coach Nagisa and your choreographer? What about all your fans...? You're worried about causing them all pain now, but if you take your own life, that'll just make everyone hurt...!"

"What do those people care!?" He argued back, "I'm just a pretty face that dances for them. Should I really be that concerned with the opinions of people who will spend maybe 15 seconds writing out a fucking Tweet with a sadface emoji and then they're done!? They don't actually give a shit about me. They don't know anything about me!"

"THAT'S BECAUSE YOU WON'T LET THEM!"

Doors were starting to open down the rest of the hall as people took note of the yelling. Many were instantly shocked to spot one of the competition's athletes at the center of it, then surprised that he was in their spectator hotel...then worried about what was actually being said.

Minako looked around desperately, seeing all the worried faces, then turned forward to the man still trying to get away. In a fit of adrenalin, she pulled him back as hard as she could, shoved the door open with her hip, and brought him back inside. She pressed herself against the door to stop him from trying to open it again, and tried to catch her breath, "...I think half the floor is worried about you now..."

"Please just let me go..." He begged, "...I told myself I could've shoved Yuri out of the way to get out, and I didn't...and now we're here... I won't make that mistake twice..."

Minako became even more nervous to hear it, and leveled the athlete a bargaining glance, "...I'm scared of what you'll do to yourself if I let you out of my sight... I'd never forgive myself if something happened to you. I...I can't let you leave unless I know you'll be okay..."

Frustration and despair were mixing and boiling, but the dark figure held himself back anyway, "...I can't comprehend why you care so much..."

"Asahi...! You're important!" She pleaded, though kept her ground against the door, "You're smart and kind and incredibly talented! You can't understand why I care so much about you, but I can't understand why you're depreciating yourself so much! You're torturing yourself over how Yuri reacted to what happened, but to me that just shows how much you still care about him! You can recover from this! From all of this!"

Her phone started ringing where it had been abandoned on the bed.

.

"Pick upppp...pick uuppppp!" Mikhail begged quietly, eyes on the ice but not seeing anything happening on it. Beside him, his daughters and in-law were starting to see how nervous he was getting.

.

Yuri gently ran his fingers from Jiro's nose, down over his brow, behind his head and down his back, flattening his hand as he went, then starting again. The skater on the screen was novice and didn't hold his interest that well, but something that did get his attention was the sound of the audience's mood shifting. The polite quiet of their observance suddenly changed, to the point where an audible murmur could be heard over the LiveStream. Both men's eyes were on it, and even though the camera continued to follow the skater, they could see in the background where four members of the audience, including one man who was rather gargantuan, had suddenly stood up to leave, hastily forcing their way through so one of them in particular could get out.

"Is that...Kon?" Yuri asked, a brow quirked.

"...I think so..." Viktor agreed, "What in the world is going on...?"

.

Mikhail darted into the underbelly of the Megasport Arena, trying to get away from the noise of the rink-side area, even as his connection went to voice-mail for the second time, "Minako I swear to GOD if you don't pick up...!" He argued with himself, dialing again.

Nikki pulled out her phone as well, and loaded up the yet-untouched text message window to send a message.

.

Yuri's phone buzzed from where he'd left it on the counter near the stove, making quite the rattle as it vibrated against the hard surface. He lifted his head when he heard it, "...Am I wrong in thinking that buzz is related to what's going on in Moscow right now...?"

Viktor shook his head, a curious and bewildered look on his face, "Better check just in case?"

"Yeah..." He agreed, putting Jiro close to where Makkachin was curled up at their feet, and threw off the blanket, striding his naked frame back to the kitchen to find his phone, "It's your cousin..."

"What's she saying?"

"...Hi Yuri, it's Nikkita, sorry to bother, but do you know what Minako is up to right now?" He read aloud, "Minako-sensei...?"

"Sleeping, probably." Viktor commented, eyeballing the 1:34am timestamp on the microwave clock.

"...If they all got up like that, and Nikki is texting me, I doubt it's just because Minako-sensei isn't answering a late-night phone-call." Yuri pointed out, feeling nervous all of a sudden, "I'm going to call her back."

Blue eyes watched quietly as the younger man put the phone up to his ear and slowly started walking back towards the couch.

"Hey Nikki..." Yuri started, "It's 1:30 in the morning. Minako-sensei is probably asleep right now." He explained, waiting a moment, but then shook his head, "Hang on I'm going to put you on speaker."

Viktor quirked a brow, "Well this is turning out oddly."

"I know." Yuri shook his head again and set the phone down on the kotatsu, pressing the Speaker button just as Jiro insisted on sitting in his lap again, "Okay go ahead..."

"Ahhhh this is embarrassing...!" Nikki started, her voice a bit hollow through the phone's speakers, "Papa isn't just calling Minako out of the blue. He knows perfectly well what time is it in Japan right now...but they've been texting back and forth for the last little while and then she sent an unfinished message, and now she's not answering. We hoped maybe you knew what's going on? Did she drop her phone in the toilet or something?" She asked, laughing anxiously like she'd hoped that's all it was.

"We're not with her." Yuri answered, "We came home after the Free Program. We won't get back to Osaka until tomorrow afternoon sometime."

"Oh..."

"What were they talking about?" Viktor asked cautiously, "Something important?"

"Ahhhh I'm not completely sure... Minako was asking for Papa's advice about how to help someone. That's all I know."

The two skaters looked at one another, "She couldn't be asking about...?"

"Oh, do you know who she's referring to?" Nikki asked, "It sounded like it might've been someone that you'd kn-"

"MINAKO!" Mikhail's voice resonated in the background, "Why didn't you pick up the phone!? I've been trying to call you!"

"Opps...looks like she finally answered." Nikki stated, "I guess it's fine then..."

Yuri made a face, one hand on the pup and the other on his husband's where a palm had settled on his leg, "...Fine...?" He echoed, "Uh...well, text me back as soon as they're off the phone with each other, okay? We're watching a LiveStream of the event, so...we'll be up until the end of the medaling ceremony."

"I will." The silver teen answered, about ready to hang up, but then spoke in a more hushed tone, "I want to talk to you about something later anyway, Yuri...if that's okay..."

"Just me?" He asked, surprised.

"Y-yeah...it's nothing seriously important right now. It can wait. I'm not even sure why I asked. Sorry...I'll message you when Papa's done talking to Minako. Bye."

"Cya."

The line disconnected, and Yuri flopped backward, dropping against his husband's stomach as his head hit the backrest, "...It never ends..."

"I don't want to speculate, but..."

Yuri turned his head and gave his partner a coy look, "But?"

"...Minako sat-in with me during the meeting with Saito this morning...and then she watched the Free Skate with him from the audience." Viktor explained, "Now we're finding out that she was asking my uncle for advice on how to help someone, and then randomly doesn't answer her phone for a while... Do you think she's with Saito right now?"

"Pfft...no." He shook his head and lifted Jiro off his lap, twisting around to retake his place from earlier. Viktor reached around him for the blanket and pulled it up to his chest again before he set the pup back down on his lap, "Why would she do that at this hour anyway?"

"Why was she standing with him in the audience?"

"Stop making sense. It's too late at night for me to brain right now."

Viktor gave a wry smile and reached for the last of his mulled wine, "I guess we'll just wait and see. Maybe Minako did just drop her phone in the toilet." He gave a quiet chuckle at the thought.

"Can't leave her alone for 5 minutes." Yuri sighed, trying to find the humor in it as well.

.

One hand held a phone to her ear while the other gently stroked a certain man's back. Minako had a strained smile on her face as she focused on each, "I know, I'm sorry...!" She said, sitting sideways against her knees on the edge of the bed, offering the distraught skater next to her what little comfort she knew she could give. It was enough that he'd at least agreed to stay for a few minutes, even if he'd just leaned over his knees and buried his face in his hands there, "...No, the phone was on the bed. I had jumped out into the hall for a minute and didn't hear it before. ...Yes, I heard the text but I'd dropped the phone by then. I think I had my thumb hovering close to the Send button and hit it by mistake while I was still typing." She explained, or at least tried to, as another 8 questions followed every single answer, "Mikhail! Hun! Calm down! Everything is fine!"

Asahi heard the words, but wasn't listening. He was, in some sense, too focused on the strange feeling of that hand moving across his back.

"Yes, he's still here." She went on, waiting a moment as another flurry of questions came at her, but she deadpanned the wall and glowered at her phone briefly, then put the receiver back against her ear, "Of course I know what time it is, but sometimes the hour doesn't matter. You know that better than anyone, Mr. I'm FaceTiming my kids at 3 in the morning to teach them math." She teased, listening to the Russian's flustered admission that she had a point, "Anyway...everything here is okay right now. We were just going to wait a few minutes, and then I was going to help make sure he got back to the competitor's hotel without being mobbed by fans, then I'm going to sleep. ...Yes, of course I'll message you before I cut the lights. Just don't go worrying about me if it's only 30 minutes and I still haven't done it. ...I promise! Give me at least an hour or two! Okay, okay...thanks, talk to you later." She shook her head and gave a nervous laugh, but clicked out of the call and put the phone down, turning her attention back to Asahi, "Sorry about all that. Like his nephew, Mikhail can be very overprotective, and he feels a bit helpless cuz he's in Moscow right now." She made a dour expression then, "He'll probably be hovering over me for days after we all get back to Hasetsu..."

The younger figure could do little more than cringe a pained breath.

Minako leaned slightly towards him, "Thanks for agreeing to stay for a few more minutes. I know this is all really hard for you...but I promise, things can and will get better."

"H-how...can you possibly kn-know...?"

"Because I've known Yuri his entire life, and he's never held a grudge against anyone, ever." She answered easily, "And he's told me himself that he understands what happened wasn't something you'd normally do. I think he wants to forgive you...he just needs to hear from you that you want to say sorry."

"I c-can't...not with V-Viktor around..."

Minako pursed her lips for a moment and made a face, but then shrugged it away, "Apologize to him first. Viktor's the gate-keeper here, as is his duty...and if he's convinced you mean well, and mean it truly, then..."

He snuffled another pained breath, but at least managed to nod into his hands.

"Let's leave it at that though. For now, I'm going to walk you back to your room, and I'm going to tell your coach something about where you've been for the last little while." She explained, "Just enough so she knows to keep an eye on you for a little while, but not more than is necessary. You've trusted me with all this information...I'm not going to betray it by telling people who don't need to know."

"You we-were telling Viktor's uncle..."

Minako shook her head, "That's not exactly right. I gave him a skin-deep idea of what was going on so he'd know what I was up to, but the rest of that conversation was him helping me out with my thoughts. We all need a little help sometimes."

He nodded again, but Minako wasn't sure that meant he understood or accepted her words.

"Anyway...what I was trying to say before," She went on, continuing that soothing stroke like she'd do for her youngest ballet students, years ago, "Everything about what's happened can be worked through... But something that you need to do, other than the obvious, is learn that relationships are a two-way street. You've shut yourself down from having any kind of real, deep, meaningful attachments to people because of the fear you've had about whether it was acceptable or appropriate. You don't even know what it's like. So in a lot of ways, you're just like Yuri used to be, trying to skate his Eros but having to think about food because he had no real eros experience to draw from. But the time for thinking about katsudon is over, Asahi... It's time to grow up. There's a whole wide world out there, ready and waiting for you...but only you can take that first step."

The athlete sat still for a few moments after that, pulling his hands away just enough to look at the floor between his feet. His mind raced from all the things he'd heard and seen and felt for the last hour, so much so that it felt like his brain was vibrating in his skull. Eventually though, he lowered his hands, pivoting his elbows over his knees...and nodded, genuinely, "...Okay..."