ぶるぶる buru buru
Trembling from cold, fear, or anger
Yuuri's nerves only got worse the closer they got to Hasetsu. The only reprieve was when he fell asleep for the last two hours of the flight, and the light dozing on the express train from Hakata. They rolled onto the platform of Hasetsu station in the dark, the station mostly empty. Yuuri rolled to a stop a few steps from the top of the escalators, staring up at the posters plastered against the wall of the corridor. Years ago, when he returned from Detroit, they were cleverly edited shots of Yuuri against a backdrop of cherry blossoms and Hasetsu castle.
Today, although a little faded, there was a new poster. Alongside with the promotional shoot he and Viktor had shot before retirement, was a shot from their final Olympic pair skate. Yuuri and Viktor, their arms forming a perfect circle. Their costumes, a callback to their Stammi Vicino Duet, were a little faded, the background full of sparkles and fancy script.
Viktor made a soft nostalgic noise as Yuuri reached up, lightly brushing a finger over their printed profiles.
"Tadaima," Viktor said with a soft smile. "Who are we looking for?"
"I said we'd get a taxi…tonight's the Hawks game, it'll be busy." Yuuri mumbled. Viktor sang Kuroneko Yamato's praises, thankful that they had paid for their luggage to be sent directly to their door at the airport.
"Yuuri…do they know we're coming?" Viktor said it very slowly, and carefully.
Yuuri could still hear the nerves in his voice.
"Of course!" Yuuri bit out, waving his hands. He dropped them to the side, watching Mochi as he sniffed at the base of their poster wall.
"Did you tell them?" Viktor's gaze dropped down to Yuuri's stomach. He wasn't sure if Yuuri knew it or not, but his arms moved to cover his stomach.
"No." Yuuri said weakly. "I…couldn't. There wasn't a good moment, and then we were so busy packing." The anxiety started to crawl up Yuuri's shoulders again. He fidgeted, and both Makkachin and Mochi stopped to look up at him.
"Well. No time like the present!" Viktor sing-sang, trying to ignore the spark of nerves in his own stomach. It wasn't as icy in Hasetsu as it was in St. Petersburg, but he could still imagine a repeat of his own family dinner announcement.
Viktor tried taking some of his own advice, focusing on the world outside of his head instead of the worry inside of it. He listened to the click of the automatic opening taxi door, the roughness of the white lace seat covers. He relished in hearing the smooth rhythm of Yuuri's voice in his native language. He could tell- the taxi driver knew exactly where to go, and knew enough about Yuuri to ask how skating was going. Yuuri chatted politely, his fingers digging into Mochi's fur as he sat in Yuuri's lap. (Makkachin, much to the humor of the taxi driver, took the entire front seat.)
The landmarks rushing past the window became more and more familiar, even in the dark. When Viktor tore his eyes away from drinking in his second—really, his first true home, Mochi was staring at him imploringly. Yuuri's knuckles were white, tangled in Mochi's short curly fur.
Viktor was about to say something when they pulled into the gravel driveway of Yuutopia. Viktor rushed to get out and get to the luggage first, leaving Yuuri to deal with paying the fare. The garden glowed with the ambient light from Yuutopia, a happy roar coming from inside.
Home.
"Tadaima!" Viktor called, expecting Yuuri's voice to join him, as the guest bell in the entry way rang. Yuuri looked like he swallowed a frog as he set Mochi down. Makkachin pushed past them, hopping up onto the main floor and sniffing a trail, disappearing down a hallway like she owned the place.
"Ara! Vicchan!" Katsuki-mama danced down the hall, emerging from the common room with a bright smile. She stopped short of the step down into the genkan, still in her slippers, her sons still in their shoes.
Yuuri choked. Viktor, for some odd reason, heard the click of Mochi's claws on the wooden floor as he walked back, staring at his papa as tears streamed down his cheeks.
"Yuuri, doushitan?" What happened, Yuuri? His mother asked, and Viktor didn't know where to start. What didn't happen? Hiroko softened with concern, her head tilting to the side as she opened up her arms.
"Gomen, mama, iwanakatta, " Yuuri hiccupped, "ninshinshichatta"
I'm sorry. Viktor knew that, despite their years-long break for training in Russia.
I didn't say anything. A phrase said many times during the early part of their relationship.
Viktor didn't have to guess what ninshin meant. Hiroko's eyes went immediately to Yuuri's stomach, her hands fluttering over her heart.
What bothered Viktor was not Yuuri's incessant apologies. It was a habit he still didn't break.
It was that he remembered, from the Japanese lessons he took with a family friend, the text from his Genki textbook like a photograph in his mind.
-te shimau, chau
To do completely, with attitude of finality, regret. (Viktor remembered, as he had spent a good half hour trying to figure out how to say "Oopsie, I lost my panties" without making the Google Translate mistake.)
Viktor ached as he watched Yuuri fold into himself. His mother stepped down into the genkan, cautiously reaching her arms around him, patting his back and rubbing soft circles between his shoulder blades. Viktor stood awkwardly as Mochi lost interest and followed Makkachin's trail. The conversation between Yuuri and his mother continued, but in low voices and too fast for Viktor to parse. Viktor only started to listen when Hiroko's halted NHK-English grew louder. "Vicchan, come on!" She waved gently to the family room, away from the common room. It was cold, unused and unheated, but offered privacy that the other rooms didn't. She patted Yuuri lovingly, wrapping him in a blanket before padding a short way down the hall, calling out for her husband.
Yuuri looked awful in the light. His eyes were red rimmed and puffy, with dark circles underneath them from their long day of travel. He hiccupped and shuddered, wiping his cheek on the edge of a blanket.
Viktor sank into the couch next to Yuuri, leaning into him, offering the weight of his presence as his mother-in-law returned with Mari and Toshiya in tow. Mari looked generally unimpressed—she had grown up with Yuuri's intricacies, and Toshiya's jolly and unassuming expression meant that Hiroko hadn't broken the news.
Yuuri had just stopped sobbing. He couldn't put him through that again.
"Okaeri, Yuukun, Vicchan." Mari sat down on the arm of a worn and overstuffed armchair, her hands on her knees.
"Tadaima!" Viktor said a breathlessly and a little too loudly. "Yuuri is pregnant!" He slid am arm around and rested his hand on Yuuri's stomach, just in case he somehow muddled the word he had just plucked out of earlier conversation.
Mari choked, which was the least cool move he had ever seen from her. Toshiya gaped, repeating the word for clarification. Yuuri nodded weakly, paying close attention to the weave of the tatami floor.
"We're due in June," Viktor added, taking a moment to count the months to make sure he had the right one.
"Yuuri…did you…change your mind?" Toshiya said it carefully, as if he knew how much the words would hurt Yuuri.
Viktor bit back the urge to push Toshiya out of the room. They had barely been home ten minutes, and Yuuri's most vulnerable and tender spots of his soul were being attacked.
"No! Never." Yuuri nearly shouted it, shrinking back into Viktor's side. "It…. It was Viktor's idea…. We got rejected for another adoption… and I haven't had bottom surgery yet."
"I saw an….a website, about many couples that… like Yuuri and me, who have done it. I don't think it changes us at all." Viktor stumbled over the words. He felt cold. Yuuri probably felt awful, pushing blame onto him, but Viktor couldn't care less. "I know you won't understand, but to me, this doesn't make Yuuri any less of a man to me."
The eloquence finally reached his tongue, and Viktor said it with a tone of finality that seemed to put Yuuri at ease. Yuuri grasped at Viktor's hands, before folding his own fingers over Viktor's. Too nervous to move.
"Well, yeah. Yuuri is Yuuri. No matter if he's fat or skinny or pregnant or wearing a flamenco suit." Mari said it so easily, trying to alleviate the tension in the room.
It occurred to Viktor…that maybe this wasn't the first time an awkward family conversation had happened between them.
"If you're due in June, then you've had a checkup, right? Do you know?" Hiroko gasped with reverence, her hands pressed together in front of her face. Viktor looked at Yuuri, who could somehow sense it, looking up at him and forcing a smile.
"A girl…we're thinking… Akari Ekaterina…" Yuuri flushed, a truer smile stretching his lips. Viktor smiled back, pressing a kiss to his cheek. They had a list two pages long at home, but after they had explained their own choices, it had been easier. Akari was written with the same kanji in Yuuri, Mari and Toshiya's names, and the baby's Russian name would be after her grandmother.
"Akari Ekaterina Katsuki Nikiforov…" Mari murmured, counting out the kana on her fingers. "That's a lot for a passport…"
"We know!" Viktor and Yuuri said in unison, earning a burst of laughter from their family.
"She'll have her Russian name on the Russian passport, and her Japanese in her Japanese passport. I did some research... it's easier that way." Viktor found himself subconsciously rubbing his hand over Yuuri's belly.
"Yuuri, moya svevdza, are you okay?" Viktor turned his head at the twitch of Yuuri's stomach. They had years of a relationship built on Viktor's Yuuri worship, and the belly had been a part of it for a long time. There was no reason for him to shrink away now, of all time.
"Did you feel that?" Yuuri sat up straighter.
"Feel you twitch? Of course, moya—"
"No. "Yuuri pushed his hand away, cutting him off. "That. I think. I think it was the baby. Or I'm going to throw up, but I think it's the baby." The words tumbled out of Yuuri's mouth, back in their shared English.
Viktor gasped his smile wide and bright as he slid off the couch to face Yuuri and press both his hands to his husband's belly. "You felt our BABY?" He sang.
"Taidou?" Hiroko hummed, just as confused as her husband and daughter.
Yuuri nodded, not wanting to disappoint Viktor. He wished it would happen again—that someone else could feel it just as he just had, and tell him exactly what it was. That is was the first time, and it wasn't just nerves, or his brain, or anything else his anxiety was plagued with. He couldn't trust himself—was it really the first time? But then Rational Yuuri came in. Even if it wasn't... it was the first time he acknowledged it, and it happened with Viktor. It counted.
Yuuri switched back to his native language, explaining the revelation to his family. Hiroko cooed, doing a little dance—the quickening, right in their own home! Like a tradition!
Viktor learned that Katsuki-mama had first felt Yuuri move while she was in the kitchen. Mari had been mistaken for a shindo 3 earthquake, but had continued moving and kicking until she was born, two weeks before her due date.
"What about Yuuri?" Viktor's eyes shone—he had made this plan so he and Yuuri could be alone, but he now realized what living in your husbands childhood home entailed.
Hiroko laughed. "Three weeks late! Yuu-chan slept through the night before Mari did." Yuuri and Mari both looked embarrassed, but Hiroko glowed with happiness.
"I wonder if Akari will take after you!" Viktor gasped, turning starry-eyed toward his husband.
"Oh god, I hope not," Yuuri squirmed, patting Viktor's knee as he pressed a warm kiss to his cheek.
Yuuri knew exactly how many weeks and days lay between the present moment and the due date. It had started as a vague knowledge, until the nightmares had started. They picked up with a new fervor after the hospital visit the night of the skating family dinner. Yuuri would do his best to block the contents of the actual dream, focusing on anything else once he woke up, bathed in a cold sweat. But the techniques Yuuri had learned to combat his anxiety did not reach the sensation of being violated that stuck to his skin and made his knees weak.
The feeling would fade with a hot shower and tender attention from his husband. But the feeling of his body not belonging to him alone persisted.
Even with the practice of a lifetime with a disconnect between brain and body, it never was easier. It was easier in the way that a bad smell fades after the nerves wear out. It was background noise, with a new beat.
In short… Yuuri knew the exact day he could call the hospital and beg for a C-section.
"You must be hungry!" Hiroko clapped her hands, wise enough to change the subject.
Viktor felt fine. He had nibbled at the fruit and cheese plate and the crab rigatoni on their longest leg. Yuuri, however, had fallen asleep before liftoff. The last solid meal (not counting the cheese puffs and the bottle of hot chocolate from the vending machine at Hakata station) Yuuri had eaten had been in Russia.
The family went their separate ways, Hiroko herding them to the kitchen, Mari returning to make sure the guests had enough sake. Viktor sat Yuuri down closest to the space heater, taking the spot next to him at the kitchen table. Another two chairs were nudged into the small space, a small gesture that warmed Viktor's heart. Hiroko stopped, setting a glass of Calpis in front of Viktor. It had been years, but she still remembered Viktor's first self-discovered favorite drink. Yuuri leaned over, and Viktor held the glass to his lips after taking a sip of his own. Yuuri sighed, leaning into him as Hiroko bustled in the kitchen. Viktor worked on his rusty Japanese, answering all the small-talk questions as Yuuri melted into him.
"Really,mom?" Yuuri flushed, looking embarrassed but happy as Hiroko set down two steaming bowls in front of them. She giggled, waving her hand.
"Really what?" Viktor suddenly felt hungry again, watching the raw egg melt into the rice.
"Oyakodon" Yuuri wrapped his hands around the bowl, treasuring the warmth. "Parents and child...don." Yuuri clarified, his lips curled into a smile.
"Is it a tradition?" Viktor held the bowl closer to himself, about to cry. Yuuri laughed.
"I hope not. Egg and chicken," Yuuri pointed to each ingredient. Viktor blinked, before his expression turned from touched to horrified.
Hiroko giggled. "Japanese joke!" She said, before patting Viktor's cheek. He assumed she would leave, and go back to the never ending work of Yuutopia.
Instead, she sat down on the other side of the table with a cup of tea.
"Yuu-chan," She said softly, waiting until Yuuri looked up from his food. "Don't worry about your father, okay? He doesn't understand, but he loves you."
Viktor knew the words weren't met for him, but they struck him regardless.
He doesn't understand, but he loves you.