CHAPTER THREE HUNDRED NINETY THREE
The changing room had a different feel to it. Not just because of the fact that there were other people sharing it in the present moment, but because of what had happened there before, and how much had changed in such a short period of time.
Asahi tied the laces on his second skate and pulled the bottom hem of the pant-leg over it. Putting the roll of clothing into his gear bag, the whole thing felt like déjà vu to him. He could practically hear the room going silent all around him, only for the thump of the door being pushed open to resonate and bounce through his head, along with the conversation Yuri had been having at the same time.
'...So the RSF fired Viktor...because of me...?'
He shook his head to get the memory out, then pushed roughly upward to his feet. The gear bag was pulled over his shoulder and the door pulled inward to open, letting Asahi back out into the main area. He was surprised to realize that the chamber had, in fact, gone quiet for real, not just in his head. It was especially poignant when he saw three muted figures in the open space near the door. One standing, staring straight at him, and two others, kneeling on the floor, facing one another.
Riku...
Asahi felt a slight panic flutter through his chest, as though the entire fight from after the Short Program was playing out in front of him, but this time, with himself and his dead partner watching it from opposite sides. It was impossible to hear what was being said...the whole conversation was barely as loud as distant echoes...but the look on Riku's face, staring at him from the far wall, spoke volumes.
"I never meant for it to be this way..." He tried to explain, even as the contentious sight of his reflection grabbed the arms of Yuri's shade, and leaned in for that...attack. Asahi looked down and away, closing his eyes to the hallucination, "Why is this all coming back again now...? I've worked so hard...to prove to them both that I'm sorry... Am I going to be haunted by this sight forever...? Until they forgive me, if they ever do? ...What will it take...?"
"Forgiving yourself." Riku's voice answered.
Asahi lifted his head, and the figures were gone. Like the night before, the image of that ghost faded from sight, leaving the skater to just look at the ragged sight of his own face in the mirror. He drew in a suffered breath and pressed a hand to his chest, "...I can't forgive myself. I have no right. That kind of thing is earned from others...and until they forgive me, I just..."
The door to his left pushed open, and a few other people came in, completely oblivious to what was going on. Asahi quickly excused himself and left, trying to hurry back to the prep-area before his turn came and went without him.
Still, the seconds that had just passed lingered on him like paint.
I'm worried that everything that's happened today will be nothing but a dream... That I'll wake up soon, and it'll just be this morning again... Not even this morning, but last night...before Minako called me over.
He sighed and slowed his pace, reaching up to rub his face, and pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers.
All this stuff that's become possible because of those two... I wish I had the guts to ask more questions, because no matter what, it's still so confusing that they would do all this for me, to help me, after the pain I put them both through...
Pausing for a moment in the hall, Asahi slid his hand down and opened his eyes. Fingers pressed against his mouth for a few seconds...only to have the sleeve of his jacket come and rub against them instead.
Viktor especially. I've never known Yuri to hold a grudge, even against people who were never nice to him... But Viktor... Yuri was right about how that man is always full of surprises.
By the time he'd gotten back to where most people were gathered, Asahi had regained some of his wits. Through the sparse crowd, he could see the silver legend and his protégé messing around for the fun of those watching, doing a slow, really slow reenactment of the Death Spiral from the program they'd abandoned after Viktor's ankle snafu.
The Russian stood in center, free hand extended to his partner's while the other held a certain puppy against his shoulder like before. He turned in place as Yuri walked around him in a big circle, then was eventually pulled inward to the man's embrace.
"Ah it's a tragedy that we can't do this show tonight..." Viktor whined, "Even moreso, I think, that we can't even do the one we had planned for Euros anymore."
Yuri nodded, "Yeah it really threw a wrench into those plans. Oh well..."
"Aren't you guys still going to Euros though...?" Asahi wondered quietly, approaching closely enough to be heard then, "Or did I remember that wrong?"
They both looked up, but Yuri spoke, "No, you're right. We're still physically going to be there, but since Viktor isn't competing, we can't skate."
"You could always do it for Four Continents though, right?" Asahi followed, "Since Viktor wasn't supposed to compete there...regardless of the podium, you could do two pair skates there, one for each of your turns."
"Yeah but then I'd lose another solo show."
Asahi nodded and lowered his head slightly, "...Mh."
"Huh?" Yuri's attention was piqued, "You okay? Wouldn't think you'd be down about our problems. It's just vanity, really...not a big deal."
"It's not that." Asahi shook his head a little, and pulled his gear bag up a bit higher against his shoulder. He looked around and spotted the rest of his team not too far away, each of them still tracking progress on their phones, as though they'd been dropped into the midst of El Dorado. Their excitement didn't seem to penetrate him anymore though, and he looked back to the skaters in front of him, "Maybe I'm just getting pre-skate jitters or something."
"I'm sure you'll do great." Yuri offered, kept close to his spouse by an arm that came around his side and across his stomach, "Or is it something else?" I still have such a hard time reading him... I can only tell when something's bothering him when he says so... Does he want me to go fishing...?
Asahi just shrugged a little, feeling the weight of it all even as he maintained the neutral facade on his face, "I'm not sure how much more of my burden you want to hear about after everything else. This morning was set-up for it, but now..."
"It's only a burden when you bear it alone," Viktor suggested, rubbing his thumb gently against his husband's skinny frame, "There's still a little while before your turn if you want to unburden yourself a little."
"...Senpai..." The younger figure mumbled, barely loud enough to hear it himself. He cleared his throat and gathered his courage, "Uhm...I mean, if you want to hear it..."
"That's what friends are for, right?"
Asahi could've died in that moment, but he managed to hold his ground, "...Y-Yeah..." He nervously stepped a little closer, and swallowed his old habits before speaking with a hushed voice, "...My Exhibition...is the first program I put together after the accident. I did it without a coach or choreographer...so it's 100% from my own head... They don't even know what the music is."
They both blinked at him.
"The thing of it is though... This program was...how I handled my grief after everything happened. It wasn't even the program I intended to skate tonight, but after what you guys have done today, I..." He drew a shaky breath, "I mean, when we were on the train ride back from the other skating rink...I was practically begging the JSF to let me switch out. They'd already done the sound testing on the song I practiced with, so this was a big burden on them..."
"Oh, I did the exact same thing." Yuri laughed suddenly. After a second though, he coughed unexpectedly and brought his hands up defensively, "I mean, I did that on the train ride back to Osaka! Begging the JSF to let me do a different show! Cuz Viktor can't skate now!"
"...You're getting awfully weird." The Russian pointed out, "We already knew all that."
"Oh right, never mind then." He just laughed nervously until he quieted down again, "...Continue, sorry."
Asahi nervously looked aside with just his eyes, then forward again, "Ahem...y-yeah..." He cleared his throat under his breath, "I didn't get a change to go back to Imari to get a different outfit, so the one I'm wearing now is meant for the original show... But, suffice it to say...the JSF allowed it for some reason... Knowing I'll be doing this different show now, I guess my heart's just starting to race, because of what the whole thing means to me. Skating was the only way I was ever able to express myself honestly, even if I was the only one who ever knew that's what I was doing."
"I know what that's like." Viktor said, "Since Yuri won me over in Sochi, only for him to stop coming to big competitions after that...all the subsequent times I skated 'Aria,' it was for him, even though he had no idea."
Yuri's face just went pink, even as he made a weird face at the mention of that show.
"I think this Exhibition will be the hardest thing I ever skate..." Asahi lowered his eyes slightly, "But after everything you guys did for me just today, and how much everything is going to change after I leave here...it just felt like the right thing to do. The whole thing just means so much more than it did before."
"Was it about Riku?" Yuri wondered.
"It was Riku." The older figure answered, "From start to finish...it was all Riku... At least, I guess, from my perspective of him. How I imagined he saw me, our situation...his final moments...all of it. But now that I think about it, it almost feels like it's about me, too. He wasn't the only one who died that day. I had just...made myself so numb to it all, that I didn't even realize what a zombie I'd become. Today...in this moment...here, right now... This is the closest I've felt to being alive again for a very long time."
"It's a long road to travel," Viktor agreed, "But hopefully by the end of it, you'll be in a better place."
"It's a pretty sensitive topic for you though," Yuri added, "Are you sure you're ready to do this?"
"No turning back now."
"I guess not, but...still." He sighed slightly and leaned his head back against his husband's shoulder, feeling a puppy-paw tap on his arm. Hazel eyes turned to see the pup, and he brought up a free hand to press a finger to those nubbins, "At Worlds last year, when Viktor did his 'goodbye' show...it was hard to watch, because I knew that the whole thing had been put together with the intention of being Viktor's last performance. Even some of his shows this season have been hard to watch, for the same reasons...knowing what it all meant, under the surface."
"Be glad you were only watching me." Viktor teased, "If you could've seen what I saw during some of those events...especially my SP at NHK...ugh..." He cringed a little at the memory of it.
"Considering how you didn't even break 90, I can imagine the kind of things you were seeing out there." Yuri retorted, reaching up with his paw-tapping finger to tap it against his husband's nose instead, "At least you didn't score as badly as I did at Cup of China. Can you imagine..." He turned back towards Asahi, and thumbed up at the Russian behind him, "...If Viktor scored in the 70s?"
"...Yikes."
"Although if you had," Yuri went on, looking back up to that pale face, "It would've made Phichit-kun's entire lifetime."
Viktor just puffed his chest out a little and got a cocky-determined look on his face, "I have a reputation to uphold. No offense to your friend, but...if I'd lost Gold to him, I wouldn't have been able to look at myself in the mirror for weeks."
"And then Chris wouldn't have gotten to go to the Final, because Phichit-kun would've gotten more ranking-points..."
"But maybe you wouldn't have gotten hurt in that case." Viktor shrugged, "Because I wouldn't have had anyone to leave with to find snacks, so I would've either stayed with you and practiced at the same time, or I would've made you come with me in Chris' place."
"And then I would've won Gold right and proper," Yuri mused, but then sighed dramatically at his own expense, "But I guess I'll just have to swipe it from you again at Worlds."
"You'll win Gold at the Olympics, too, my love."
"Sorry, who is winning Gold at the Olympics?"
"Me, of course." Viktor teased, "I'll show the RSF what a big mistake they made."
Yuri just laughed and shook his head, turning back to Asahi again, "He's always like this... Saying we'll both win Gold, only for his brain to break when I win it instead of him."
"That's literally only happened once." The silver legend hugged his arm a little tighter, making his partner squeak slightly, "What kind of coach or husband would I be if I didn't try to motivate you though?"
"Iguessso." Yuri said quickly with what little breath he had left in him. He heaved as Viktor gave him slack again though, "...Well, you know that it doesn't take much for you to motivate me. That, and the promise of katsudon at the end..."
They both sighed happily at the thought of that pork cutlet bowl waiting for them when they got home.
Asahi just moved his eyes between them as they each spoke, only to center on Yuri again as the man caught his attention.
"You should come with us." He said suddenly, making Viktor blanch slightly behind his head, "I mean, unless you're taking a plane back to Imari or something..."
"Uhm...n-no...I'm taking the train..." Asahi explained pensively, "Even though it would take longer, it feels like taking the train is faster since it leaves at a set time and I don't have to wait for it, or go through security check-points just to get to my seat."
"Right?" Yuri laughed, "But that's great! You can take the train with us! We'll be getting back to Hasetsu around lunch-time, so you can come get a katsudon with us as a reward for getting Silver. You can even take a dip in the onsen since you skipped out on us the other ni-ghkt-"
Viktor squashed him hard with that same arm, and spoke jovially over his shoulder as though nothing was amiss, "Katsudon sounds lovely, doesn't it?"
Asahi just backed up a step, "Uhm...y-yes, Senpai..."
"V-Viktor...Ican'tbreathe..."