It turned out that the intensive rehabilitation phase would at least take three months. He'd have to learn how to breathe without relying on the machine. He'd have to learn how to move his body again without collapsing back onto the mattress exhausted after mere seconds. He'd have to learn how to speak properly again (surprisingly enough he had been able to communicate, but later on he got told that it had been hard to understand).

He spent his birthday in the hospital. Khaligaz came for a visit with her family. She had married his cousin Belek and they had a two-year old daughter, Zarina, who looked at him with pitch-black button eyes.

"We didn't wait a year", she had explained when she had first visited him a few days after he had woken up. She referred to the custom to wait a year with a marriage after a family member had died from an accident, disease or murder. "My parents thought it would be disrespectful, but I really wanted to marry before the year had passed, because I knew you would live. I knew you would come back. And I wanted to let them all know how confident I was in your strength."

So now she introduced him her little daughter, and Otabek, who had sat up in his bed, let her play with his fingers, grasping them with small tan hands.

"We named her after you", his cousin explained. "We wanted the gold in her name."

Otabek gave him a thankful look, then focused on the clumsy little girl again. "She's beautiful", he said, then addressing oblivious Zarina: "You are beautiful."

The girl looked up at him with a wide smile, but Otabek sat in shock. He had said those words before. He didn't know when or where or towards whom, but they rang a bell, deep, deep inside. The echo of it in his mind gave him goosebumps. He had forgotten something. Something important.

"Careful with uncle Otabek, Rina", Khaligaz sang and caught her daughter's hands who found the bandaids on the back of his hand very interesting. The words made him startle and come back from his thoughts.

"You don't need to stay with me all day", he said, smiling lightly. But there was an emptiness in his chest he couldn't explain. Of course Khaligaz noticed, giving her husband a loving look, when he added: "It's your birthday as well, I'm sure you have a lot to prepare before your guests arrive."

Khaligaz smiled and took his hand. "I wish you could be with us."

"Next year", he replied. "I promise."

Belek plucked his daughter from Otabek and left the room with a nod, leaving the two of them alone.

They sat in silence for some moments. It was past noon already, his lunch would arrive soon. Nurse Aitmukhambetova had promised him cake.

"Khaligaz", he said and she looked away from the window to meet his eyes.

She resembled her daughter a lot with her big black eyes and glossy black hair that Belek had insisted she showed even after the marriage. She smiled at him knowingly.

"What did I do in Moscow?", he asked. No one had told him, like it was a big secret or like no one even knew. Neither his mother nor his father. She was the only person who might know and from how she sighed he could tell that she did.

"You still don't remember", she said and tilted her head a little. "Oh my lovely Erasyl, how much pain must you endure not remembering him." The name, Erasyl, rolled off her tongue like a distant memory, familiar and warm. But everything else hurt like a thousand needles.

"Who?", he breathed.

"Him, who you have followed all your life, until it almost ended, up there, with him, in Moscow. Yuri."

She smiled sadly but he didn't even see it. Yuri. Yuri Plisetsky. His Yuri. How could he have forgotten!

It was like he dived into a pool of memories, warm and cold at the same time. Laughter was there, and pain, porcelain skin, long hair so light blonde it shimmered like spun gold coated in ice. A pinkish blush on a lovely nose tip. Hesitating fingers taking his hand. His dark voice whispering his name, saying his name, screaming his name. Piercing eyes, green as tourmaline.

"Yuri", he whispered. Tears fell from his eyes.

He had forgotten him. The love of his life.

"Yuri", he whispered, raising his hands to hide his tears behind them. "I forgot him." He was shocked. Of all people in the world the one he needed to remember was Yuri, at all times! How could he have forgotten him, his adorable, fragile, beautiful Yuri.

(Beautiful. He remembered now. Yuri on his couch, in his apartment, in one of Otabek's wrinkled old t-shirts, the neckline so loose that it has slipped from one of the skinny but well-toned shoulders. Yuri looks up at him, pushing a strand of wonderful hair behind his ear and Otabek says: "You are beautiful." Yuri laughs with his enchanting deep voice and wrestles him down on the padding in a rough boyish embrace. "Shut up, you sound like a fucking weirdo." Otabek nods and is incredibly in love but doesn't say so.)

He felt the mattress shifting when Khaligaz sat down on it, pulling him in a tight embrace. Her body was warm and soft, her big breasts pressed against his chest, as she kissed his temple. "It's alright", she murmured, "You were badly injured. Isn't that what the doctor said? It will come back with time. You didn't forget him. You just didn't remember him right away, that's all."

Another thought struck Otabek like lightning and he sat up. He had been in a fight. In Moscow. Had Yuri been with him? "What happened to him?", he asked his friend. He didn't remember anything of what had happened, neither the fight, and much less the outcome or the reason. Anything. "Is he alright? Where is he?"

Khaligaz wiped his cheeks with her small hands. "I don't know. I'm sorry." He sobbed and she took his hands that he had clenched into fists. "He must have made it out unharmed. We would have heard if something had happened to him."

With a nod he kept crying, a little relieved though. She was right. If something had happened to him, someone would have been informed. But the worry was drilling itself into his chest.

Khaligaz wiped his tears and held him close for a long time until he stopped crying. She was still as reliable as she had been all their lives and he enjoyed it a lot. "I'll be there whenever you need me, my brave friend", she murmured and kissed his hair. It almost made him cry again to hear her say that. He was incredibly thankful.

д

After some time he could get up from his bed. The rehabilitation was hell, but he pushed himself beyond his limits day after day.

"You're a maniac", nurse Aitmukhambetova said with a shrug when she found him doing routines in the early morning.

Everything hurt. He wondered how he had been capable of skating back in the day. He remembered the movements, like it was etched into his muscles but couldn't make his body move like that. It made him so angry.

They released him.

His apartment had been sold, so he had to move in with his parents again.

"We needed the money", his father said. "It's not exactly cheap to keep your son alive over three years when he can't breathe by himself." He shrugged, knowing that Otabek would feel bad about causing so much trouble, so he added: "You'll care for us when in the end we can't breathe by ourselves. That's what family is for." Otabek nodded, thankful.

No one mentioned Yuri. He asked his mother about him one time and she froze in her movement, her hands levitating over the dough she was preparing. "I don't know", she said. "He was your friend, I know that much. But since we brought you home I never heard of him."

He had been in the hospital in Moscow for two weeks. After his condition had kind of stabilized they took him home to Almaty. The hospital was remote and after a short time the media gave up trying to break his parents' silence and left them alone. Since then it seemed that the world had forgotten about Otabek Altin.

It gave him time to return. He could prepare for his comeback to the world. He worked hard, ran, swam, read, had his uncle who had been a professional kickboxer help him with his workout.

He had grown when he had been in coma, four centimeters. He found it strange, but didn't complain. Measuring a meter and seventysix now and his shoulders and chest broader from the workout all his clothes were too small. Khaligaz took him shopping and cut his hair back to his old hairstyle.

"I'll leave the top a little longer, so it covers the scar. And it looks really good on you like that, too", she said, smiling, and although he didn't really share that opinion there was nothing he could do, as she was in possession of the scissors. When he showered after training the next day the front strands hung in his eyes, so he slicked it back with a frown.

Of course he had scars.

The biggest one was from the knife. It ran down his shoulder blade, a straight dark relief on his tan skin. He had been lucky enough, the bone had prevented the blade from going any deeper where it might had damaged muscles or organs. That guy had been a total jerk, but that fact might have saved his life.

The most obvious scars were those in his face: one splitting his left eyebrow, one on the back of his nose bridge, one following his jaw line up to his left ear lobe, making it appear even sharper than before. Those adding to the small acne scars on his cheek bones.

There were more, from the operations, on his shin that had been shambles, on his elbow, his chest and of course from his appendix operation when he had been a child. He looked like a ragdoll.

The one on the back of his head was invisible under his thick black hair, but he could feel it with his fingers. When he felt if for the first time it gave him the chills. So, this had almost killed him. This had cost him three years, his career, his strength and his best friend who he had been desperately in love with. It had ruined his life. How fragile the human body was. How easy to break. And what for? It was brutality, stupidity, hate that had almost ended his life. He still didn't remember, but he had never been violent and he couldn't imagine that he had done something to anyone. But still they – whoever they had been – had decided to attack him, to hurt him, maybe to kill him. They had decided to break his body, possibly even to forcefully end his life. Most likely just for the sake of hurting him (because, what other reason was there for any kind of violence in the end?). At first he was just scared by the thought. But the more often he ran his fingers through his hair, feeling the scar on his scalp, the more he felt the anger grow in his chest. It flourished like an evil flower, like a creature lingering between his heart and his soul. And as much as he wanted it to disappear it grew and grew there in the dark.

м

January came. Then February. It was at the end of the month when his parents made two confessions to him, one each of them.

First was his father. "We don't know where the money comes from", he said, his face a mirror image of Otabek's, just older. "It started almost a year after it had happened to you." His parents avoided the term coma like the name of a devil. Whenever they were forced to use the word they added the name of Allah like to make up for the evil the term provided. Otabek found it superstitious, but after all his parents had been through he was in no position to judge them, so he kept quiet. "The amount has been the same from the first time. Almost a million tenge. Every month." He looked at Otabek for a moment like he was not sure if his son should know all this, but then continued: "Of course we tried our best to find out where the money came from. But whatever we tried, who ever we asked, it remained a secret. All we found out is that it was deposited cash, every 30th of the month, source unknown. And as it remained a mystery we accepted it. We had just sold your apartment. We made good use of the money. It paid the bills for your hospital. One could say it saved your life and we thanked Allah everyday for the good soul who shared their wealth to keep you alive."

Otabek sat down on the seat in his parents' dark furnished sitting room. He felt dizzy. A million tenge, twelve times a year, for three years. That was a fortune. "And it hasn't stopped."

His father nodded. "The money still arrives, every month on the 30th. There are two ways to make it stop. Either we close down the bank account or we make the world know that you are fine again."

Otabek nodded. He was fine again, physically at least, mentally very close to it. Only the last few months before the coma had not come back to him. But despite that there was no reason for him to hide. "That's what we are going to do", he said. "Why haven't you told me earlier, we cannot take the money, now that I'm doing well again."

His father made a face. "We only wanted you to get better", he justified. "This money saved us all. The costs had ruined us if it hadn't been for that money."

"But I'm fine again", Otabek said, his voice loud. He never yelled, normally. But it felt wrong to take money from someone although he didn't have to rely on it anymore. And he had been awake for almost half a year now. He was in perfectly good shape again, maybe even better than before thanks to his training and still his father had kept it a secret that they still received such a huge amount every month. "I'm fine and I have been for weeks, and still you didn't bother to tell me!"

His father rose from his seat on the opposite side of the table. "Don't you dare talking to your father like that!", he growled, but it made Otabek even more angry and he rose from his seat as well.

"Then stop keeping secrets from me!", he gave back, his whole body tensed. "I have a right to know the truth! It's my life that money saved and I already feel guilty about it, so you could at least have had the modesty to tell me right away!"

His father grit his teeth like he was about to blow off, but instead he snorted and sat down again. "Do what you want", he said. "It's your decision, it's your life. But don't forget that you owe Allah for it. Be thankful."

Otabek swallowed an answer and nodded. "Yes", he then said. "I sure am." He didn't say towards who though.

Only two days later his mother looked at him that strange way. "There is something I haven't told you", she said, wringing her hands.

Otabek felt his insides tense. He wasn't exactly in the mood for more secrets, but he didn't let it show.

"Mr Nikiforov visited a few times after it happened. You know, this very friendly young man..."

"Yes", he said. "Viktor."

His mother nodded. "He was very friendly, a very friendly young man. He was very concerned about you. He always asked for permission before he came, so that we could be there. It was in spring, every spring we would call and then come from Russia, all the way to Almaty. He would sit beside your bed and talk to us, his friend next to him, this Chinese man."

"Japanese", Otabek said automatically. He hadn't thought of Viktor and Yuuri before his mother had brought it up. He didn't feel like he had forgotten them, he just hadn't had a reason to think about them. Now that he did, it felt all really natural, like it had been there all the time. He didn't feel bad, not how he had when he had remembered Yuri for the first time.

"They were both very nice. They came in spring, every year in march. They came to see you and after an hour they bid farewell and went home again." She smiled. "It's almost that time again, you know."

He nodded, understanding. "Is there a way to get in contact with them?"

His mother nodded. "He left me his phone number in case I needed his help." Getting up she went to fetch her address book from the corridor where she had kept it in the drawer under the small board with the phone on top. She handed him the note. A Russian cell phone number was written in it in her neat handwriting and he thanked her low voiced and excused himself to the hallway. He found that the appropriate place to make this call, next to the little board with the low bench attached to it, old dark wood and a worn green cover over the deformed padding.

He had a new cell phone so he had to copy the number to his contact list first. When he was finished he stared at the display, then touched the speaker icon. It was no use hesitating.

Viktor picked up after a few seconds with a curious "Hellooo?", as he didn't recognize the number calling.

"Hello Viktor", he said slowly. "It's Otabek Altin." He waited, but received no response. Had the connection been cut? "Hello?"

He heard a sharp inhale, then a whispered "Ohmygod", then a yelled "Yuuri, Yuuri! Oh my God, come here! Fast! Fast! Otabek is awake!"

There was a loud metallic noise in the background, then a "Shimatta!" and he heard fast footsteps approach. "What did you say?!", Yuuri exclaimed.

"It's Otabek, he's on the phone, he's awake!"

Some strange sound was to be heard, then Yuuri was on the phone, breathless. "Otabek?"

He almost grinned. "Hello Yuuri. It's been a while", he said calmly, making the Japanese yelp.

"Oh my God, it's really you!", Yuuri squealed, then started to cry audibly.

"Solnishko", Viktor said in the background, his voice still as gentle and loving towards the Japanese man as it had been three years ago.

"Can I put you on speaker?", Yuuri asked him with shaky voice and Otabek nodded.

"Sure."

The sound changed a little, then Viktor cleared his throat. "Otabek", he said, slowly like he tried to test how the name sounded after all that time. "You have no idea how good it is to have you call." His voice was a little raspy, like he was struggling with his emotions as well.

"I am really glad as well", he answered.

"How are you? When did you… come back?", Yuuri asked choosing his words carefully.

"It has been some time actually", he replied. "I had to do a lot of rehabilitation before I could call though. To be honest I only just now learned that you had been coming over frequently. I am very thankful for your concern."

A low chuckle came from the speaker. "You are still as awkward as usual", Viktor commented, causing a hissed "Vicchan, behave!" from his Japanese husband.

"It's okay", Otabek said, smiling himself now. "It is relaxing to finally have people interact with me normally. I gained consciousness in September last year already, couldn't move, couldn't talk properly. I even had to learn how to breathe by myself. So it took me some time until I could really live again." He heard Yuuri whisper something in Japanese and continued: "The training was really hard, but I think I am in better shape than ever before now. I'm taller as well, seems you still grow even in a coma." He laughed lowly, on the other end of the line he heard the couple do the same.

"How tall are you know?", Viktor asked.

"One seventysix."

"Maji?!" Yuri again. "You're taller than me now, how is that fair?" They all laughed, then Viktor asked: "Have you talked to… someone else already?" It was clear from the pause who he was referring to.

"No", Otabek said hesitating. "I don't have any contact information other than yours."

"You'll find Phichit on any social network existing", Yuuri said. "Not very surprising I guess."

The short laughter faded into an awkward silence, that was broken by Viktor after some moments. "Yuri suffered a lot", he began, pain in his voice that Otabek didn't understand yet. "After they had brought you to the hospital he had a breakdown of some sort. His grandfather called me from the hospital in the morning and told us that there had been an attack, that Yuri was unharmed, but that you… well..." He sighed. "When we came over Yuri didn't talk, he just sat in the corridor and cried while you were in the E.R. He was devastated, I was so scared, because I had never seen him like that before. We took him to Mr Plisetsky's place and he slept a whole day, just to wake up and cry again. It was terrible to see him like that. He calmed down after we took him to the hospital again, where they let him see you." He fell silent, so Yuuri jumped in:

"It was the worst seeing you like that in the hospital bed with all the injuries and tubes and... But they said that you'd live so we had high hopes. We returned to St. Petersburg the next day. After some time they transferred you to Almaty and Yuri came back to St. Petersburg as well. He was still so sad though, wasn't he Vitya?"

"He was", the Russian said. "He locked himself up in his room for weeks and didn't talk to anyone. He didn't come to the rink either of course. Then he disappeared."

Otabek froze.

"We thought that he had gone back to his grandfather's place again, right Vitya?"

"He showed up there almost a week later - Mr Plisetsky called us again when he reappeared - but didn't tell anyone what had happened in the meantime. He quit skating officially and deleted all his social network appearances after a last statement the same day. He wrote that due to personal reasons he couldn't compete in this years Worlds and that was it."

"We never heard of him since then."

The silence stretched like on the brink of a black hole. Otabek felt like something inside him had turned to stone.

"We tried to get through to him. But the phone number didn't work after some time. And when we went to where they had lived the house was abandoned." Yuuri sounded apologetic.

Viktor did, too, when he said: "That must be a shock to you. We are so sorry."

"It is okay", Otabek answered, his voice betraying him. Of course it was not okay at all, but what was he supposed to say? "I could not have expected everyone to wait for me", he eventually managed to get out more or less convincing. "Time has changed a lot of things."

"I'm sorry, Otabek", Yuuri whispered and the Kazakh could almost see the Japanese man bending in a sincere apology.

"It's fine, really. Thank you, Yuuri. Both of you, thank you."

"What are you going to do now?", Viktor asked after a moment.

The question made Otabek shrug. "I don't know yet. Maybe I will go back to university."

"That sounds like a good idea", Yuuri said.

There was silence and then Viktor said: "I can send you a backup of my contact list, so you can call people."

"I'd appreciate it." Silence.

"So, if you want to talk or something...", Yuuri's voice had an insecure ring to it.

"Thank you." He inhaled deeply. "I am sorry, right now it's all a little too much to swallow. I will have to think about all that, sort things out. I apologize."

"It's okay, Otabek." Now Yuuri seemed to cry again and Otabek could feel why. He felt like it as well. "Just, you know, if we can do something for you, anything..."

"Thanks", he said. "We will stay in contact."

"Take care, Otabek", Viktor said, then they hung up.

He sank onto the low bench. The shock sat deep in his chest. Not only there actually. It filled that space between his heart and his ribs, but it clung to his spine as well and lingered like a pulsing pain in his lower arms and throat. It was hard to breathe. It was hard not to scream in agony.

Yuri was gone. But not only that. He was lost. Like he himself had been for so long, lost in the nothingness, where time didn't exist, nor pain, nor hope, nor light. Nothing and nothing and Yuri in between.

Otabek felt tears falling on his knees, even through the material of his pants, so heavy were they. The corridor was dim, he could hear his mother work in the kitchen. Outside in the street he heard the sound of the cars passing by, a steady, lowly humming stream of noise, almost harmonic.

He had lost him. After all he had been through, and his parents and his family and every soul on this miserable planet. He had survived. Only to wake up in a world where Yuri didn't exist anymore. Or maybe did exist but was out of reach and that was maybe even worse.

Memories flooded his mind, like tears flooded his cheeks: Yuri's long, slender fingers in the fur of his cat, his narrowed eyebrows, his scent, the way he tilted his head to get his long bangs out of his vision. His smile. His eyes. So very green.

He had lost him. Time had taken him from Otabek. The coma had taken him. The guys who had attacked them, sending him to a coma, ruining everything, they had taken Yuri from him.

'What are you going to do now?', Viktor's voice echoed in his head and he grit his teeth. Staring at the old yellowish-gray wallpaper of the hallway he knew now what he was going to do.

1000000 Kazakh tenge is approximately 3000 USD. I have no idea how high the costs are for life supporting during a coma or if it's covered by health insurance or if there's a general health insurance in KAZ at all, so please bear with those lovey little plot holes. ^^br /

Also that waiting-one-year custom is totally made up by me. I just wanted Khaligaz to show how much she loves /

Zarina means "golden girl" and also "Queen" (says google)br /

Solnishko is a Russian pet name and means sunshine (says google, too)br /

Shimatta literally translates "It's a bad thing that this happened" and from what I experienced is used a lot more than kuso because it's not that vulgar. Maji means "for real", you hear that a lot /

Also, this story takes place in 2020, I hope they still use smartphones by then XD

If you have questions, feel free to ask. If you liked it, feel free to review. Also if you think this is crap. I crave for feedback!