Chapter Ten: Yuuri vs. Guilt: Bad Coping Mechanisms and the People Who Rely on Them

House Tanuki as a whole was noticeably less glum than usual about the loss. It seemed to be the collective opinion of all the students that the blame for their defeat could be attributed solely to the fog and bad luck. Absolutely nobody blamed Yuuri—and the guilt was eating him alive from the inside out. He considered standing on the table in the shokudou during dinner to dramatically announce his failure, but in the end decided that he could relieve most of his agony by telling Victor.

Yuuri wasn't sure if the stress of keeping a secret made him crack or if he'd finally built up enough courage to come clean, but he finally broke the news to Victor.

"I'm not sure why your dives have been suffering," Victor mused aloud as they hovered in the air over the pitch after Yuuri did something he had not done since their first practice and smacked headfirst into the cliff. "Why is this loss affecting you so strongly? I keep telling you it was a fluke— "

"It wasn't a fluke!" Yuuri burst out, covering his face with his hands. "The Snitch was right behind me and I didn't even know she'd caught it until I heard the whistle."

Victor was quiet for a moment and Yuuri envisioned him slowly descending and walking away from the pitch, never to come back.

"So that's what's been bothering you," he replied quietly. Yuuri just nodded, face still hidden in his hands. "I wish you'd told me sooner."

"Why?" Yuuri sulked. "So you wouldn't have to keep wasting your time with me?"

Victor was silent again, for long enough that Yuuri peeked through his fingers to see if he hadn't actually left. The moment he did, he wished he hadn't. Victor looked genuinely hurt.

"Why would you say something like that?" he asked. "When have I ever given any indication that I wanted to leave?"

"Sorry," Yuuri mumbled, wishing he could've just kept his stupid mouth shut and let Victor keep believing he'd lost due to the fog.

"That's okay!" Victor seemed to snap right back into his usual cheerful self. "But I see now that your confidence isn't getting any better. So I've decided that we're not going to practice again until the next match."

Yuuri tore his hands away from his face and almost fell off his broomstick.

"What?!"

"You had a point—we are wasting time if you're so distraught you can't even do the dives you had perfected before. So we're taking a break."

"But...but...but..." Yuuri stuttered.

"You wouldn't argue with your coach, would you?"

"I— "

"Good then," Victor said, turning and beginning his descent. "Come on. The onsen is probably empty right now—let's go for a soak. After that you can help me with my essay for Defensive Magic—you know I'm no good at the theoretical stuff."

Yuuri stared after him incredulously. No practice for two weeks! What was Yuuko going to say?

Apparently not much. Yuuko smiled, patted him on the back and told him that whatever Victor suggested was certainly for the best, then went back to practicing some kind of nonverbal charm that seemed to mostly involve pelting Takeshi with her Quidditch socks.

So, that was that. Yuuri was supposed to just take it easy for two weeks and...do extra credit work for classes? Arrange more Student Council meetings? Yuuri wasn't sure how he was expected to fill the time he normally spent drilling with Victor until the following morning at five o'clock when Victor poked him awake.

"Time to go running," he sang.

"You're not serious," Yuuri groaned into his pillow.

"We can't have you getting out of shape again, can we?" Victor shook his shoulder.

It was like the first month of school all over again. Yuuri ran, and did sit-ups and crunches and all the other awful stuff that Victor could think up for him to do every day up until the next match.

Yuuko and Phichit (Yuuri suspected that she had enlisted him) took it upon themselves to remind Yuuri at every opportunity that the House Kirin Quidditch team was basically Arvin Cantre babysitting a bunch of twelve-year-olds who didn't know what they were doing.

"They'll definitely be a great team in a few years," Phichit told him for the tenth time. "But by then they won't be our problem!"

"Uh huh," Yuuri responded. "Got it. Yeah."

Logically he knew they were trying to make him feel better, but all Yuuri heard was the unintentional undertone of if you screw up against a bunch of kids, there's no hope for you.

The Saturday before the match, Yuuri woke to a pounding on the door, but not the sliding doors of his dormitory. It took him a couple of minutes for his groggy brain to process that someone was banging on the door of the shoin outside the House Tanuki dormitories. Who on earth would be doing that at this hour? Yuuri squinted at the clock through the darkness.

"Hey! Katsudon!" Only one person ever called him that. Victor showed no signs of stirring, but the knocking was just getting louder. Yuuri got out of bed and tiptoed through the shoin before Yurio woke up the whole house.

"Yurio?"

"What took you so long?" Yurio demanded in lieu of a greeting. He was wearing a slightly different ensemble of overwhelming cat prints and behaving as though he'd been up for hours.

"It's six in the morning," Yuuri told him.

"Then get me Victor, lazy pig," Yurio ordered. Yuuri raised his eyebrows at him and said nothing.

"Please," Yurio gritted out. It looked like it had caused him physical pain to say it.

Yuuri let him into the shoin and went to fetch Victor.

"Victor," Yuuri whispered, poking at Victor's shoulder. Victor snuggled deeper into his blankets.

"Victor. Victor."

"Mmm," Victor hummed. He opened his eyes halfway and lifted the covers as if to invite Yuuri in.

"Get in, it's warm," he offered.

"Yurio is here," Yuuri told him, though the idea of snuggling up with Victor and sleeping for a couple more hours was incredibly tempting.

"So? He can sleep in your bed then," Victor said with a smile. "Come here."

And then Victor's hand snaked out and yanked Yuuri into the bed. He slotted Yuuri up against him back-to-front and—gulp!—Yuuri felt himself being poked in the back by something that was definitely not a knee.

"I was having a wonderful dream..." Victor murmured in his ear. Yeah, Yuuri thought, I noticed. "...about you..."

Yuuri forgot all about Yurio in an instant. He closed his eyes and relaxed back into Victor, feeling the warmth of his body and his arm wrapped around Yuuri's waist...

There was a ripping sound and Yuuri's eyes snapped open. Yurio had evidently attempted to knock on the sliding door but, not understanding that it was made of shoji paper (or just not caring), had torn right through it.

Yurio peered at them through the hole made by his fist. He made a noise of disgust and his green eyes narrowed.

"Get up!" he barked. "Victor, teach me the Wronski Feint."

"Maybe later," Victor murmured, hugging Yuuri tighter against him, tucking his knees under Yuuri's.

"No!" Yurio insisted. "Right now. Before breakfast. Other people are going to use the pitch later in the day."

Victor huffed near Yuuri's ear. It was such a small thing, but Yuuri thought it was the first time Victor had demonstrated even the slightest bit of annoyance with Yurio.

"Coming," he told Yurio. "It's cold out there, wear a jacket."

"You think this is cold?" Yurio said. "I played last week in a blizzard. The snow was up to my shoulders when we finished. And we still went swimming afterwards."

"Next time," Victor whispered, planted a kiss in Yuuri's hair—next time what?—and got out of bed. Yuuri watched him get dressed. Before he stepped into the shoin, Victor took a moment to stare at Yuuri, who was covered up to his chin in blankets, and based on the look on his face, it couldn't have been plainer that Victor didn't want to leave.

"What is taking so long?" Yurio whined. "Hurry up!"

Victor walked out of the room, leaving Yuuri to fall asleep basking in Victor's remaining body warmth and breathing in the smell of him.

Yuuri napped for only a short time before Victor's silk sheets got too cold and he forced himself to get out of bed. He decided to skip the run today and headed straight down to breakfast after getting dressed.

Victor and Yurio were already there, looking windswept and red-nosed. Yuuri agreed with Yurio that Victor was being sensitive about the weather because Mahoutokoro was pretty much always warm, and they got snowstorms back in Hasetsu. Victor was drinking coffee—Yurio was stubbornly chugging cold mugicha.

"How did practice go?" Yuuri asked them, sitting down next to Victor. "Did you learn the Wronski Feint?"

One look at their faces and Yuuri could tell that he had not.

"We worked on some basics," Victor said lightly, taking another sip of his coffee.

Yurio snarled and then his eyes darted over to the Komainu section as though he couldn't help himself, despite the fact that the shokudou was empty except for the three of them.

"Why do you keep doing that?" Yuuri asked him. He was starting to think Yurio might have a nervous tic.

"Doing what?"

"Looking over there."

"I'm not looking at anyone," Yurio insisted, though he clearly was.

He did it again. Yuuri sighed and tapped his wand on the table. Another coffee soared through the doorway and onto his placemat.

"Did you go running this morning?" Victor asked him. Yuuri shook his head.

"Good. I forgot to tell you that I don't want you doing anything today," Victor said.

"Nothing?"

People started filing in then, including the rest of the House Tanuki Quidditch team. Once Victor had greeted them all, he went back to the previous conversation.

"In fact, I want you to take it easy tomorrow too. No fancy dives, no feints. Just focus on flying your best."

Yuuri's insides went cold. Victor just wanted him to float around like a blob during a match? The rest of the team and Yurio were watching their conversation.

"I don't know if you just forgot or what, but we've talked about this a million times," he whispered furiously. "You were there. You saw what happened in the last match. I did so incredibly bad that everyone thought it was the fog but there was nothing actually wrong. Do you understand? Despite having every advantage I lost because I fall apart under pressure and now you're telling me— "

Victor clapped his hand over Yuuri's mouth. "Wow, grumpypants."

Yuuri got up and stomped off because he felt like he was about to explode. His best wasn't good enough and now Victor didn't even want him to try his best? In what world did that make any sense?