He took the box with him. It didn't contain only the letters and drawings now. After Otabek had cried for some time, sobbing into the silence of the abandoned apartment, he had gotten up with more determination than ever before. He wanted to find Yuri. He needed to. He would never give up.

But before leaving he walked around the apartment once more. He wanted to fill the box with things - important things. He took the white tiger plush doll from Yuri's bed. Yuri had told him the story of how his grandfather had bought it for the first birthday that Yuri had celebrated after moving in with him. It was strange enough that his friend had left such a treasure behind, but it added up to the impression that Yuri had abandoned everything that had been essential to him. It hurt in Otabek's chest to realize that fact. He also took one of the photos of Yuri he had seen in Nikolai's room. It showed the blonde boy in front of the entrance of the Gorki amusement park with the brightest smile. His hair was shoulder length already, he must have been 15 or 16. After pondering Otabek decided to take it out of the frame. That way he could keep it close to him in his purse. In the kitchen he found an old handwritten notebook with recipes, among them a pirozhki recipe. It was stained and tattered, showing that it had been used many, many times. He also took a mug with a stylized illustration of an angora cat. He had a feeling he had seen the thing before, it seemed familiar. From the bathroom he took the hairbrush with some long blonde hair in it. The shimmer of the gold threads almost made him burst into tears again.

A look in the mirror showed him his reddened eyes in a face full of scars. Inhaling shakily he ran his fingers through his hair, feeling the scar on his scalp. "I will find you", he whispered. A broken man stared back at him from the mirror and he turned away.

Otabek had no hope that Yuri would ever come back to this place. JJ had been right, Yuri was a thorough person. Nevertheless he wrote a little note and placed it on the bed, where the box had sat. It had only four words: I miss you too. Then his name.

He left the apartment without a look back.

"Did you find what you were looking for?", the guard asked when Otabek came to the counter and the Kazakh shook his head.

"Thank you for your cooperation", Otabek said and turned to leave.

Behind him the guard called "Anytime, Officer", then the door fell shut.

It was dark and cold outside. The kids still lurked around the tree, joking and yelling, their breaths visible as white clouds in the freezing air. When they caught sight of him again they fell silent. After a moment the girl who had scolded her friend earlier disengaged from the group and came over to where he was walking.

"Hey", she said when she was only a few steps away.

Otabek threw her a glance and kept walking. She looked like 15 or 16 with short curly auburn hair that bobbed up and down with every step she took.

"Sorry about earlier, Vitaly is a jerk, he didn't want to insult you, he's just like that."

Otabek didn't answer, half hoping she'd give up whatever her purpose was, but of course it wasn't that easy.

"Do you live here?", she kept asking. Her voice was high but melodic. "I've never seen you around here before. And I'm sure I'd remember a pretty face like yours."

Otabek kept silent. He had an idea now where this was going.

"You're quiet", she chuckled. "I like that in a guy. Do you think we could go have a coffee or something one day?"

Otabek's frown deepened when he shot her another glance. "How old are you?"

"14", she said with a smile that he would have considered cute ten years ago. Now he found it disgusting.

"Go and play with your dolls", he said and turned away.

The girl stood and as he walked away he heard her friends howl like a pack of wolves and a "Well, fuck yourself, shithead!"

He came to think that he disliked Moscow and possibly everybody who inhabited it.

On the taxi ride home he stared out of the window. He had no idea what to do next. His hopes to discover something that gave him a hint towards what had happened to Yuri had been futile. The realization hurt so much that he bent over and felt like screaming in agony, but he straightened his shoulders and focused on the houses rolling by, trying to ignore the pain. The only thing he could do was going through the letters again and hope that he had just overlooked something. Maybe if he was thorough enough he'd discover something. He decided that writing down his thoughts might help him as well.

He got off the taxi close to the hotel when he spotted a small stationary shop. As he walked in a small bell rang above the door. The shop was old, dusty and looked unprofitable. It likely was owned and run by the old man behind the counter whose skin looked thin as paper and therefore suited the shop perfectly.

Otabek picked out a notebook. It was small enough to fit in the inside pocket of his jacket, black with 48 blank white pages. He walked over to the shelf with the fountain pens thinking that a refillable pen was the best option when someone bumped into him. A strange sound was audible, like hailstones on a window pane.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!", someone said and Otabek turned to spot a young man bending over to collect the felt tips in various shades of blue and green that he had dropped. "I didn't pay attention."

"Don't worry." Otabek bent down to help picking up the pens.

"I'm so stupid", the young man gibbered. "I should have taken a basket. I really didn't think that so many new shades came in."

When Otabek handed the seven or eight pens over he looked at the other for the first time. He was around his age, maybe a bit younger, with tousled reddish blonde hair, fair skin and a lot of light brown freckles. In his attractive face sat glasses with a brazen frame that had almost the same color as his hair. His eyes were a light blue, sparkling keen-witted when he looked up to Otabek. "Thank you", he said with a smile and a light blush. It reminded Otabek of Yuuri Katsuki in its honesty.

They unbent and Otabek turned towards the shelf again, when the young man spoke again.

"Those are very good", he said and gestured towards a box on the shelf that held elegant black fountain pens with his chin as his hands were occupied with holding his felt tips. "You can fill them with china ink instead of cartridges and the tip runs very smooth even on abrasive papers."

Otabek took one of those out of the small box as well as one of the small bottles of black ink next to it. "Thank you."

"Did you draw that?" The redhead asked, looking at the box that Otabek held with his left. "It's really elaborate."

"No", Otabek said. "A friend of mine made that."

"Oh", the other said. "It's really nice. He sure has talent. Drawing fur is so hard, especially on this kind of material. Has he drawn for a long time? It looks like he practiced a lot."

Otabek looked down on the box. "I don't know", he then confessed slowly. "I didn't even know he had that talent." He inhaled shakily, feeling tears burning in his eyes when he murmured: "I should have known though. I should have known so much more about him."

Blue eyes narrowed with concern. "Is he alright?"

Otabek shrugged. "I hope so." Closing his eyes he swallowed the tears. A mental breakdown in a stationary shop was the last thing he needed right now.

"Are you alright?", the other asked. "Sorry if I brought something bad up now. You look like you suffer a lot thinking of him. You are very close for sure."

Otabek nodded. He didn't even know why he told that stranger all that. But then he remembered when he had talked to JJ earlier and how good it had felt to open up to someone even if it was only a little. Maybe he had kept it inside for too long. Maybe he craved for a little relief unwittingly.

"Your boyfriend?", a low voiced question came.

Otabek didn't know how to answer that, so he nodded, but shook his head right afterwards. "We never made it that far", he explained frowning. He watched the pale hands of the young man tighten around the bunch of felt tips and straightened up. "It doesn't matter", he said, his voice low. "He's gone now." He'd figure out how to find him when he was at the hotel. For now he just needed to make it out of the shop without bursting into tears.

"If you…", the redhead said hesitantly, "well, if you need someone to talk about it… or someone to distract you from… him…" He blushed slightly. "I… I could give you my info and you could drop me a line…" With a low chuckle he hunched his shoulders.

A frown showed on Otabek's face as he thought about it. Maybe the idea wasn't too bad. He didn't know anyone in Moscow and he had not much to do until he figured out what his next step would be. And maybe talking would help him. Maybe it would put him in another perspective to explain it to someone, maybe he would see things differently or notice details he had not seen before.

"Okay."

The blue eyes lit up. "Really? Cool!", the redhead said. He pulled off the cap of a dark blue felt tip and had Otabek open the black note book. Holding the other pens against his chest he wrote down a URL in a nice, artistic handwriting. "I don't have VK, but this will do. You can write me a message if you like. My name's Dimitrij, but Dima is fine as well." He wrote the nickname down as well. The pen smelled like alcohol. With a smile he looked up and put the cap back on the felt tip.

"Thank you", Otabek said, closing the book. "For the recommendation as well", he then added holding up the pen and Dima smiled. His cheeks were a little pink now, but Otabek didn't even give it a second thought but turned around to go and pay.

Later, when he closed the door of his hotel room behind him, he came to think that not exactly everybody in Moscow was dislikable.

к

In the evening Otabek went to get some take-out from the chinese place down the street. He had tried to get his thoughts in order without much of a result other than the conclusion that he was helpless. He still hadn't gone through the letters once more, he didn't know if he could stand that pain again. He had cried so much today and needed to replenish a little before he could approach the task of analyzing the letters sober and factually. Just in case he was capable of doing that at all.

After filling the pen with ink he had placed the stationary on the small desk in his room, next to the box he designated as the treasure box for now. It would wait for him there, like a monument reminding him of his duty. Only once had he opened the box to take out the photo and store it away in his purse, then he had closed it again without paying it more attention. The mere thought that maybe it contained the last things he'd ever get a hold of, that he'd ever know about Yuri felt like he got stabbed again, but in his chest this time.

Otabek knew that it wasn't healthy what he was doing. If his mother knew what was going on she would be very angry at him and disappointed. She had wanted him to promise that he didn't get himself in trouble and he knew that she meant a situation that would possibly threaten his life like the previous time that he had gone to Russia, and he'd try his best to avoid that. But in fact the constant pain and despair he felt was worse for him than any physical damage he could take. While he had sat on the bed after coming back to his room he realized that everything inside him hurt, but unlike an injury there was nothing he could do about that. No pain killer, no anesthetic could make this pain go away. The one sole thing that could cure him was finding Yuri. He didn't even think about what he would do if he couldn't find his friend. Giving up wasn't an option. His mental health, no, his life depended on it. Even if he'd have to search the whole world for him - he needed to find him. He was going to find him eventually (he made desperate efforts to believe that ).

The air was chill outside. No wonder, it was the 25th of February and winter still held Moscow in it's freezing grasp. He had decided to wear his scarf, tugged his hands in the pockets of his jacket. Tomorrow he would go and buy gloves as well. At least it didn't snow at the moment, but it was still far below zero. Luckily the restaurant was only a few hundred meters down the street. He had seen it on his way from the shop earlier and remembered it when the angry growling of his stomach reminded him that he hadn't eaten since this morning.

The name was Tsing-Tao. He suspected that at least 30 percent of all Chinese restaurants were called Tsing-Tao, along with Beijing and Shanghai, if he didn't count Hongkong in. The place wasn't very busy so that when he entered and the door fell shut behind him an elderly lady immediately greeted him from behind the counter.

"Eat in or take out?", she asked with a friendly smile and he answered the latter. She gave him the menu-pamphlet printed on light blue paper and he read over the many small lines. It took him only seconds to decide on tofu in soy sauce with vegetables and rice. He didn't really care what he ate to be honest, he just wanted to make his stomach be quiet. When he had ordered the lady offered him to sit down at one of the empty tables near the door for the time being and he did so, staring out of the large front window, but not seeing anything.

Someone whistled a song in the kitchen and the melody as well as the sound of the pots and sizzling oil was soothing somehow. It reminded Otabek of his childhood when Khaligaz and Belek and him had spent their summer breaks cycling over to Lake Sairan to watch Belek steering his model motorboat on the greenish water. When they'd get hungry they would walk over to the small Chinese diner and share a dish of fried noodles or chicken in peanut sauce. Eventually Belek managed to sink the boat though, receiving a serious scold from Otabek's uncle. Otabek remembered that he had found it unfair back then, because Belek was so sad about losing his boat that he had not deserved to be chided for it on top of everything. He wondered if the boat was still there, somewhere on the bottom of the lake.

When it started to snow outside Otabek came to his senses again, catching himself smiling absentmindedly. The snowflakes were big and resembled feathers wafting down from the sky. It was beautiful to look at, but made him feel melancholic at the same time. It was a strange feeling to know that he would leave the restaurant again soon, the place having given him a warm memory of his childhood with the serene whistling and the kitchen sounds, only to release him into the cold of the city that had taken everything from him.

When the lady called him over to the counter to pick up his order with a cheerful "Sir, your meal is ready" he got up with a sigh.

It was the moment that he set the chair in order again when he caught sight of someone outside. It was a man, about 30, accompanied by three other guys. He wore a woolen hat and a dark blue coat as well as fingerless gloves, a cigarette hanging from his rubbery lips. He wore no scarf and that exact detail made Otabek's breath catch in his throat and his head spin, because only for that reason he could see the tattoo that decorated the neck of the guy: A stylized eagle holding a diamond and above it the word brotherhood in bold Cyrillic letters.

Otabek's heart stopped beating when the memories flooded his mind: A dark backstreet, Yuri's green eyes wide with fear, someone holding him by the throat, a big, raw hand with a tattoo of an eagle holding a diamond, wrapped around Yuri's white, delicate, fragile windpipe and endless, burning rage in his chest.

"Sir? Your order...", the lady repeated, her voice showing a slight ring of worry, but Otabek didn't hear it. His fingers clung on the wooden chair painfully, his knuckles white.

"Yuri", he whispered, trying to fight back the streaks of black that crept into his field of vision. He had tried to protect him, he remembered now. He had tried to save him. And he had failed. Memories flickered before his eyes, like a movie fast forward. This guy with the tattoo on his hand, the pain of the punches, the pain of the kick in his knee pit, the pain of the knife, Yuri calling his name, Yuri screaming, Yuri crying, a sound more painful than any punch and any stab.

"Yuri", he whispered again and the sound brought him back. When he shot a glance at the window the group was long gone.

"You okay?", the Chinese lady asked concerned and he looked up.

"Yes." He straightened up and finally walked over to the counter. When he took the plastic bag the lady smiled at him reassuringly and he nodded in response before leaving the restaurant without another word.

Snowflakes sank down on him like feathers made of cold. Tears he hadn't even realized were falling from his eyes felt freezing on his cheeks.