Chapter Text
Yuri is doing his damndest to focus. He really is. The problem is that now Yuuri is catching up. He has to put on the performance of his life if he’s going to bag gold, so he zeroes in on the music playing from his earbuds.
Step sequence, combination, loop into a quad. I’ve got this. I’ve beaten Victor Nikiforov’s world record. I’ve done this piece flawlessly. Oh, there’s another quad at this part. Yuuri Katsuki will not beat me here. Not after everything I’ve had to give up to get here. Combination, into the step sequence. I have to remember to pace myself, or I’m going to fuck up in the second half. That step sequence at the end is brutal.
The feathers on his costume are itching his neck, and his binder presses down on his chest as tightly as ever, but he ignores it. At this point, he’s used to those feelings. I’m going to win. I have to win.
The announcers call out his name. It’s his turn. He turns to get out onto the center of the ice.
“Davai.” Otabek calls out. Yuri mirrors his thumbs up from yesterday. I’m going to nail this. I have to.
Anna’s not in the stands today, but that doesn’t matter. He knows that she’s watching, just like he knows that Grandpa and Mother and Father are watching. He’ll show everyone. Even those goddamned kids from school, when he still went to school. After today, everyone will see. Maybe he’ll be able to finally, finally get rid of her.
The music is blasting in his ear, drowning out the rest of the world. The noise of the crowd, the incessant clicking of the press cameras, the whispers and coos when he walks by. All of it is muted, overpowered by a whirlwind of music.
Allegro Appassionato. A passionate allegro. Yuri has always poured his anger, his desperation, into this piece. The emotions that give him strength fuel him to do this inhuman, grueling program and perfect it every time.
His mind clears of everything but the program. When he messes up, he immediately raises the difficulty of the next jump. Earn back those points. Yuri isn’t angry. Not right now.
But he is desperate. It would be stupid to pretend that he isn’t; they all are. He’s going to be the youngest gold medalist in the world. He’s going to prove Mama and Papa and everyone wrong. All of them.
That damned pig thinks that he can just retire, after finally getting to Victor’s level. As if Yuri is going to let him. I have to win gold. I have to. I can’t let Yuuri win. We’ve already beaten Victor. I have to beat Yuuri now. He can’t retire. Not when we’re finally on a level playing field. He’s not even that old, for fuck’s sake.
If I don’t get a total score higher than Yuuri’s, if Yuuri wins gold…
His skates skid to a stop and he poses for a moment, lungs and muscles burning pleasantly as he collapses. Next season will be boring, he realizes. But right now, he’s just skated one of the most difficult programs of the year, and he’s done a damn good job of it. He feels… good. Not just about his chances of winning, but about everything. Yuri isn’t entirely used to being happy, but he’s finding that he kind of likes it.
Especially when he gets his gold medal, and everything he’s been hoping for finally happens all at once. It’s almost too much.
Though, he’s not sure exactly how JJ managed to scrape his way onto the podium. Literally any of the others should have been up there. Yuri also isn’t accustomed to feeling sympathy, he realizes when they leave the rink, but he feels his heart twisting painfully when he looks at Otabek, though the other boy’s expression hasn’t changed much from it’s usual blankness. He makes a mental note to pay for dinner tonight before he gets rushed through an hour of cameras and questions and the changing rooms and more cameras and more questions. Miraculously, he doesn’t actually snap at anyone.
When he finally gets a moment to check his phone, he’s already in the elevator at the hotel. There are texts there from Yuuri, Victor, Grandpa, Father (he assumes that it’s Anna; despite being ten and begging their parents, she still doesn’t have a phone of her own), and, surprisingly, Mother. She hasn’t sent him a text in… years, at this point.
Yuri doesn’t open any of them. He’s unwilling to be pulled into a conversation (and maybe he’s avoiding Mother, but no one would be able to prove that). The adrenaline rush is fading fast, and if he doesn’t get food, he’s going to rage. The banquet food was kind of shit, so none of them ate much. He’s in too good of a mood to go back to being angry so soon, so he puts his phone in his pocket and knocks on Otabek’s door.
When it opens, Beka’s eye widen in surprise, as if he didn’t expect Yuri to be there. “Hi.”
“Come on.” Yuri holds his hand out for his helmet. “You drive, I’ll buy.”
Otabek blinks. Pauses for a second, as if he’s wondering if Yuri is serious. Then he nods. “Give me a second to get my coat.”
When they get downstairs, the lobby is still swarming with cameras. For a second, Yuri regrets leaving his hair up. It would be so much easier to avoid them if he could pretend not to see them. Then there are the Angels, who seem even more obsessive than usual now that Yuri has a medal. One in particular manages to fight her way to the front of the pack, brandishing a pen and a photo at him.
“Yuri! Please sign my picture!” she wails in Russian. She’s about his age, it looks like. There’s something slightly familiar about her face; she must be one of the really crazy ones that follows him and thinks he doesn’t notice.
She’s blocking the entrance, so he looks at Otabek and rolls his eyes before taking the pen and picture. He doesn’t do autographs often, but he knows how. He looks at the girl balefully; because of how he is in public, he can get away with being an asshole. In fact, the Angels seem to thrive on it.
“Whose name do I put on it?”
The girl twirls her brown hair nervously; again, Yuri is struck with that feeling that he knows her. “Um, make it out to Vera Kozlov, please.”
It hits him like a ton of bricks. Vera Kozlov. The girl that made his life so miserable that he chose homeschool over middle school. Boys can’t be skaters, she’d said. Not just once, but for years. Yuri wants to laugh and hit her over the head with his fucking gold medal. Instead, he just hands the paper back to her, unsigned, with a blindingly bright smile on his face. “I’m sorry, Vera. I’m afraid I made a promise to someone that I would never sign anything for you.”
She looks shocked and heartbroken. “Who?”
“Another Plizetsky that I happen to be very close to. We met because of a project for school when I was thirteen, and became good friends. Does the name Yulia ring any bells?” Yuri is still smiling, even though Otabek looks mildly confused.
Vera, on the other hand, looks like she was just slapped. “You’re friends with that butch bitch?”
“I am.” Yuri does laugh this time. Something releases in his chest at the chance to get back at Vera like this, like a knot of tension that’s been there for years. “And she’s very much into boys, by the way. Not butch at all. But the way you’re acting makes me hate you even more than she does. I can see why she told me to stay the fuck away from you.”
“Yurio!” Yuuri’s voice rings out from behind them. Yuri turns, still laughing. Yuuri looks surprised, but he just smiles with Victor on his arm, as usual. “Do you and your boyfriend want to come get dinner with us?”
He's not my... Fuck it, he thinks, when Otabek doesn’t even make a token protest at the label. He seems pretty uncomfortable because of Vera, so Yuri will end it here. He can always clear it up with Beka later. “Sure!”
He turns back to Vera, who’s looking from Otabek to Yuri and back again, mouth gaping. “You… You’re…”
“Get the fuck out of the way,” Yuri says, with a smile on his face. “You’re blocking the door.”
He and Beka walk past her without another word and wait for the other two. They decide to meet up at a good Asian place Yuuri found the other day.
Yuri knows that there are going to be pictures of him smiling all over the internet by morning, but none of the Angels are close enough to have heard them; besides, he knows that most of them are also “Victuuri shippers,” whatever the hell that means. None of them will hold any of this against him even if Vera does say anything.
For right now, he’s hungry as hell and riding the high that comes with winning a battle he’s been fighting for years. He’s overcome his goals- several of them, in fact. But seeing Yuuri and Victor and Vera reminds him that there’s still a lot of work ahead.
Good, Yuri thinks, strapping on his helmet and straddling the motorcycle. He wrap his arms around Beka’s waist like it’s second nature. The wind whips his hair all over and bites through his jacket. At least it’ll be interesting.