The way Yuri sees it, he had three opportunities to kiss Otabek Altin in those days before the Grand Prix final, and he somehow managed to not do it all three times, despite wanting to more than he's ever wanted to do anything.
The first time Yuri doesn't kiss him is two days after they met, and in that short amount of time, Yuri feels like they have known each other for years. The process of getting to know him is the easiest thing he's ever done. Otabek manages to surprise him constantly while never disappointing him.
Yuri knows, for instance, that his father was in fact the Olympian Sabir Altin, and Yuri spends an embarrassing ten minutes gushing to Otabek about the incredible free program his father did in 1992 that broke the then-world record and was only surpassed by Victor over ten years later. He gushes despite the fact that Otabek knows, obviously he knows, he's his son, but Otabek smiles at him through Yuri's whole ridiculous monologue about how he spent eight hours on YouTube when he was nine frantically looking up all his programs and ice dances because they were just that good, even years later.
"I can't believe I didn't put it together!" Yuri says finally. They've spent the last twenty minutes jogging together through the nearby park, although they've had to slow down significantly because apparently Yuri can't jog while rambling about figure skating. "I mean, a Kazakh skater named Altin, I should have known right away!"
"It's all right," Otabek laughs, and they stop together near a park bench where they can do a few post-run stretches. "I've gone rather out of my way to avoid the privileges of pedigree."
"Did your father teach you how to skate?"
"He did," Otabek says, putting one foot up on the bench seat and lunging forward. "Some of my earliest memories are of the rink by my childhood home."
"That's so cool," Yuri says, and immediately regrets it, but Otabek only grins at him.
"You're cute when you hero worship," he teases.
Yuri goes hot in the face and does a full forward bend, which has the advantage of stretching his hamstrings and hiding his blush. "Shut up," he mumbles into his shins.
"He died when I was pretty young," Otabek continues. "Nine or ten. Complications from the accident."
At first, Yuri doesn't know what he means, though by Otabek's choice of words, presumably he should. As he starts hunting through his memory, Otabek elaborates.
"At the Grand Prix in 2008."
Recognition flashes cold in Yuri's mind. "Oh," he says. Then, "Oh. Oh, right. I'm sorry, I should have—"
"It's fine."
Yuri rises up out of the forward bend. Otabek has sat down on the bench and is tugging a water bottle off from a clip on his belt, drinking deeply. Yuri knows the look on his face. It's the same one he gets whenever anyone brings up his mother.
Yuri sits down next to him. Otabek offers him his water bottle wordlessly, and Yuri takes a few grateful mouthfuls.
"After the accident, I stopped skating for a while," he says. "A long while. I didn't even start juniors until I was fourteen."
Yuri can imagine.
"My mother was furious when I told her I wanted to go to boot camp. I guess she just permanently associated skating with Dad's death. She still hasn't really forgiven me for competing."
"It's in your blood," Yuri says, which he feels is a neutral enough response.
"Sorry," Otabek says, rubbing the side of his face with one hand. "Am I talking too much?"
Yuri smiles. "Not nearly enough."
Otabek hesitates a moment. "Do you remember that day – it was early spring, I think, before the Easter break – when you screamed in the middle of cool downs about your mother being dead?"
Yuri doesn't say anything, but there must be an answer on his face.
"I'd noticed you on day one, but I think that was the first time I really wanted to know you. Crazy as it sounds, I wanted to be able to do what you did. I wanted to scream at people about my father being dead."
He can't imagine Otabek, so gentle and taciturn, yelling at anyone, but doesn't say so.
"When people find out, it's always the same reaction. Surprise, then sympathy, then some stupid platitude." Otabek sighs, leans back on the bench. "And you always just have to stand there and smile and thank them, even when it's the last thing you want to do. I wanted to be like you and just scream."
Yuri leans backward, resting more fully on the bench. There's an older man on the other side feeding a group of pigeons, so Yuri has to sidle up closer to Otabek to give the stranger his space.
"Well, for what it's worth," Yuri says, "I think I could stand to be more like you. I probably scream a little too much."
Otabek grins. His arms are stretched out over the top of the bench, and Yuri realizes that the heat of Otabek's bicep is pressing into his back. He suddenly realizes that they're very, very close, and his heart rate picks up from where it had just started to fall.
"I got my skating genes from my father, too," Yuri says, hoping that a change of topic will stop this intense and unwelcome fluttering in his stomach.
"Yeah?"
"He wasn't a figure skater. He played hockey professionally, or at least that's what dedushka told me. He died when I was still a toddler. I don't remember him at all."
Otabek hums.
"Apparently his hobbies included screaming and fighting people, including Mama. He got into a nasty fight on the rink and ended up fucking up his eye so badly that he couldn't play anymore. And the story just gets more boring from there – depression to alcoholism to financial instability to more depression and alcoholism to fiery car wreck."
"Sounds like a shitbag," Otabek says.
Yuri can't help but burst into laughter. "Yeah, he was kind of a shitbag."
"Well, at least he managed to bring one good thing into the world," he says, smiling.
It takes Yuri a moment to realize that Otabek is talking about him.
He's more flustered by the comment than he cares to admit.
Yuri doesn't get compliments. The people who admire him assume he knows his own strengths already, which he does. So hearing something so straightforward and sweet is – well, Yuri's not sure what it is. It's different. And it twists things around in his gut.
In the same way he realized he was complimented, Yuri realizes that Otabek is looking at him through half-lidded eyes, and that the edges of his olive skin are shining golden from the sunlight behind him, and that if Yuri leaned just a little bit closer, he could probably get away with kissing him.
But he doesn't, and Otabek looks forward, and Yuri spends the whole walk back to the hotel kicking himself
The second time Yuri doesn't kiss him is at the rink at three o'clock in the morning.
"I can't believe you actually got us in," Otabek says.
"I stole a paparazzi's press pass," Yuri replies, grinning. He's lacing up his skates. "Come on, I want to see your short program."
"Sabotage?" Otabek guesses.
"Obviously," Yuri says, and they both laugh.
"I'm sick to death of my short program, to be honest," Otabek sighs. He tucks his sweatpants down over his skates and sits upright, sighing. "I like my free skate fine, but my original choice of music for my short program got overruled."
"Ugh." Yuri hates it when that happens. "Your coach?"
"My mother, actually. I wanted to base it on my father's 1996 record-breaker—"
"Scheherazade!" Yuri says at once, sitting bolt upright on the bench. "The pair skate? God, that was incredible!"
Otabek grins. "You saw it?"
"Saw it? I memorized it!" Yuri gushes. "God, that lift in the second half – pure genius!"
"I wanted to skate to the same song," Otabek says. "But when I told my mother, she just—"
Otabek sighs. The smile on Yuri's face trips and falls off.
"That sucks," is the only thing Yuri can think to say.
"Yeah," Otabek agrees.
"Do you…"
Yuri worries his lower lip with his teeth. Otabek looks up at him, eyebrow raised.
"Do you want to skate to it now?"
Otabek frowns in confusion. "What?"
"I have the music on my phone," Yuri says, tugging it out of his hoodie pocket. "And like I said, I've memorized the whole program. If you want to, we could…"
He seems genuinely lost for words, and Yuri feels a stab of nervousness. At once his head is filled with ten thousand reasons why suggesting it was a terrible idea. It was insensitive, for a start, and what are the odds Otabek knows the program front to back like Yuri does, and that's not even mentioning—
"Do you think you can manage the throw?" Otabek asks, drawing Yuri back out of his head.
Yuri's heart starts racing and his face splits into a grin. "Do you think you can manage the lift?"
"I'm pretty sure I bench press your weight as a daily warm-up."
"Well, then put your money where your mouth is, Altin," Yuri says, and stands up. Otabek grins and follows him out onto the ice.
Yuri pulls his headphones out of the jack and turns his phone's volume up as high as it will go. When it's tucked into the front pocket of his hoodie, they can just hear the music through the fabric.
Otabek puts both hands around Yuri's waist and suddenly Yuri is drowning in a potent mixture of sharp regret and fiery anticipation. He doesn't have time to analyze it, because within moments the first swelling chords of Scheherazade are echoing mutely off the ice, and they are dancing.
It is a piece that is by turns epic, playful, and intensely romantic, and the expertly crafted choreography follows each emotion with precision. They glide through a diagonal step, spin through the twizzles, and Yuri's heart races in his chest when Otabek holds his thighs and dips him into a low spin.
When Yuri is lifted onto his shoulder through a camel spin, he is lightheaded. When they part for synchronized triple salchows, he is bereft. When they reunite for the transition, he is thrumming with energy and excitement and fun.
This is fun. Skating with Otabek, Yuri is having fun. He'd almost forgotten how fun skating could be. He feels light and airy, and when Otabek throws him nearly eight feet in the air, Yuri lands in a flawless triple toe and it is the easiest thing in the world.
In the final third of the piece, the tone shifts into something that is grand and sweeping and seductive. Otabek's hands are on his waist, his breath on Yuri's cheek. Yuri feels like he can barely breathe as Otabek dips him back and Yuri lets his fingertips brush just barely along the surface of the ice.
When the song ends, they are pressed together, panting and silent. Yuri's phone starts playing something full of soft and sweet piano chords.
They are so close that Yuri can't stand it. Otabek smells like minty shampoo and coriander, and Yuri wants to tangle his fingers in his hair and kiss him until neither of them can remember their own names.
"You're incredible," Otabek says breathlessly.
Yuri wants to say something back, like I can't remember the last time I've felt this good, or you are the most wonderful person I've ever met, or if we don't kiss in the next thirty seconds I might lose my mind.
But he doesn't say any of those things, and he doesn't kiss Otabek. At the same time, they both withdraw, hesitant and nervous about things neither of them can quite name, and Yuri hates himself for the rest of the night.
The third time Yuri doesn't kiss Otabek, the Grand Prix final is over, and Yuri has won.
He broke Victor's record. He beat Katsudon. He earned a gold medal in his senior debut. He has achieved exactly what he wanted to achieve, and it had nothing to do with Yuri's self-destructive drive.
"Yuri," Otabek says when they see each other in the lobby after the pressers, pulling him immediately into his arms. "God, Yuri, you were incredible."
They're both still in their free skate costumes. Yuri hugs him back tightly.
"You were perfect," he says, "flawless. I've never seen a better free program in my life."
Yuri grips him all the tighter and buries his face in the crux of Otabek's neck.
"Beka, I…"
God, he feels like he's going to cry. Again. Breaking down into tears in the middle of the rink was bad enough. Get it together, Plisetsky, get it together.
"Thank you," Yuri says, hoarse, pulling away and looking up at him.
"Thank me?" Otabek echoes. "What the hell for?"
"For…"
Isn't it obvious? Yuri wants to say, but doesn't. For everything!
He can't force the words out of his throat. Yuri knows Otabek has to go back to Almaty in just a few hours. He knows that if he doesn't say something now, he might never work up the nerve again.
"Yura?"
Yuri knows that he didn't start the climb out of his depression on his own. He knows he didn't perform as flawlessly as he did on practice and mettle alone. He knows that from the moment Otabek exploded into his life two weeks ago, he has been picking up all the pieces of himself he'd left behind on the ice. He can't just let him fly back to Kazakhstan without – without—
In a sudden surge of bravery, Yuri grabs Otabek by the lapels of his jacket and pulls him forward into a—
"Yura!"
—Yuri nearly chokes on his own heart.
He whirls in time to see his grandfather, pushing his way through the crowds of reporters and fans at the rope line, angrily waving his friends & family pass at the security who stop him up.
Yuri looks back at Otabek, whose lips are still parted, whose face is flushed.
Yuri doesn't kiss him again. And he hates himself for it again, this time with more intensity.
He leaves for Moscow that night feeling like he left a part of himself behind in Barcelona.