Chapter Text
Mari gets a call a few weeks after Viktor shows up and the time of day plus the familiar ringtone means she doesn’t even look at the caller ID before picking up. “Katsuki-san,” a young woman on the other end of the phone says softly, voice harried as she tries to be heard over the loud, explosive Russian chiming in the background without yelling. “I have a young man here who says he knows your younger brother.”
Mari hums, pointing at the phone as she excuses herself from the bar, her father nodding in understanding as he takes her place with a riotous grin. She just hopes he doesn’t get roped into partaking this early in the evening. She gets the feeling that this isn’t just a social call from the lovely ladies in the Japanese Embassy in Moscow.
Yuri Plisetsky arrives in Yutopia Katsuki with a surprising lack of fanfare and a significant amount of teenage angst which is only marginally abated by the fact that Mari had made sure there was a clear room for him to stay in… on the opposite side of the inn from where Viktor was staying. When he asks why she simply shrugs and asks if he’d like a different room. His response is as expected.
Mari sees the whole Onsen on Ice thing coming before the words get plastered across the inn’s dining room. She seeks out Yuri, and finds him sitting on the back porch watching the koi swirl around the small pond in the backyard. The water is slightly warm from the hot springs year-round, so even though the ground is dusted with snow, they continue to swim.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” She says, in the casual way of older sisters who got used to stepping around an issue when dealing with anxious little brothers. If Yuri realizes her disinterest is feigned, he doesn’t let on.
“Ugh,” is his answer, and she leaves it at that until he elaborates a few minutes later. “I mean, all I really want is for Viktor to pull his head out of his ass and stop skating like he’s missing something.”
Mari nods, blowing the smoke in her lungs into the cool air of the open window. She keeps her eyes fixed on a particularly square-shaped arrangement of stars as she asks, “have you ever thought that maybe he skates that way because he is?”
Yuri is silent, but she knows she’s planted the seeds when he huffs and turns to look at the moon. Anyone else would think his face is pinched in anger, but Mari’s spent years puzzling the feelings out of her stubborn little brother through the exact angle of his pinched eyebrow. She knows that look.
“Just something to think about,” she says offhand on another ash gray exhale, “I heard mom’s making Katsudon for dinner, though, so you might want to get ready for dinner.”
Yuri blinks. “What’s cats-don?”
Mari smirks, stamping out her cigarette on the bottom of her shoe before tossing the butt in the little bin her mother keeps on the porch for that very reason. “Come to dinner and find out,” she says. And so he does.
Viktor Nikiforov, Mari has come to find out, is as dumb as a rock when it comes to anything that isn’t figure skating related in some way.
He’s also a wellspring of random knowledge for the exact same reason, which Mari discovers when he waxes on for a good half hour about the proper technique for knife throwing which he apparently knows how to do quite well. “It was for a program,” he says when Mari asks how he knows all these things. “I was playing the gallant assassin in Her Majesty’s Secret Service for my short a few years back.”
Yuuri hums, distractedly thoughtful as he picks at his rice. “2014,” he says. “Your theme was ‘more than meets the eye’.”
It takes him a minute to realize just what he’s said, and when he looks up he sees Mari’s teasing simper and VIktor’s ecstatic grin. “I have an eidetic memory!” he tries to protest. “It’s not like I was… which is to say, I,” but his attempts to deflect are thwarted by the large hug Viktor drags him into, cooing over how cute Yuuri is when he flushes.
Mari meets Yuri’s eye over their heads and nods sympathetically to his affronted scowl.
Poor kid, she things with a snort as she downs her drink and makes to take the dishes back to the kitchen. It’s only just begun.
Yuri “loses” the Onsen on Ice event, and Mari watches him leave the rink with a frown on her face. Again, she saw this coming as well. She ignores the rest of her little brother’s Booty Call on Ice in favor of going after him, and pats Yuuko on the shoulder when she sees the other girl have the same idea. “You stay here and help reign in your terrors,” she says with a smile. “I’ve got this one.”
Yuuko scoffs and smiles and slaps Mari on the shoulder in turn. “Alright,” she says, and goes back to cheering for her friend.
Mari sighs, drawing her scarf closer to her neck, and sets out to follow after the rambunctious little teenager that she’s quickly coming to regard as another little brother. “Hey,” she calls, once his tiny angry form is in sight. “What do you think you’re doing out here?”
Yuri scoffs and turns, suitcase clacking behind him. Mari takes one look at it and knows it’s not just his gear the same way she knows who’s going to win next season’s election and just how long it will take to get that same-sex marriage bill passed. Yuri scowls, but she also sees the way his eyes dart away from her face and back towards the rink, the way his lips purse at the sight of it.
He opens his mouth to response, primed and ready to scream all sorts of denials and vitriol at her and probably at her brother and Viktor and everyone with a hundred meters with a pulse and cognitive thought. Mari sighs and holds up a hand.
“Look,” she says. “I’ll be the first to admit that I know absolutely nothing about this figure skating thing. And maybe I don’t understand the subtleties of it the way I do gang politics,” and she waves away his suddenly concerned face. “Bad example.”
She huffs, one hand going to her hair while the other pats her back pocket for a cigarette. “Anyway,” she says as the lighter sparks and the nicotine starts puffing away into her bloodstream. “What you’ve got is good, kid, and if there’s anything I’ve learned in the past few weeks it’s that Viktor Nikiforov is a goddamn idiot.”
Yuri snorts, and Mari smiles, and it’s good.
“Here’s an idea for you,” she says, because as always the way to get through to teenagers is to let them do it themselves. “Why don’t you come back to the rink with me, you don’t have to talk to anyone or anything. But maybe make an appearance. Accept your subjective loss gracefully,” Yuri snorts and Mari has to admit the image of an acquiescing Yuri is hilarious. “And then, when all is said and done, come back to the inn and partake of the celebratory katsudon. I’ll drive you to the airport myself in the morning, if you like.”
Yuri thinks about it, and Mari uses every diplomatic bone in her body to appear inviting but not coercing. Eventually, Yuri nods, turning his suitcase around to face the rink once more. “Why not,” he says, and then adds, “I’m only doing it for the katsudon,” as Mari swings her arm around his shoulder and leads them back.
“Sure, kid,” she says. And that’s that.
Yuri doesn’t really catch on to the Katsuki brand of weirdness until Viktor moves his silver medaling fiancé to St. Petersburg and tries to play at skater again.
If Yuri’s honest he’s pretty impressed by Viktor’s progress considering how many bowls of Katsudon he must’ve eaten in the past year or so. Yakov, however, if far from happy about any of it.
“Vitya!” he barks one day as he enters the rink, eyes glaring into Yuuri’s back where he stands watching Viktor skate figures across the ice. He’s got a clipboard in hand, but Yuri never paid much attention to it. He pays attention now though, as Yakov is making quite a scene. “I just got off the phone with the physical therapist and she says you still haven’t gone to see her!”
Viktor smiles, skating up to the barrier and speaking in English for Yuuri’s benefit. “Of course not, Yakov. I don’t need to.”
Yakov’s face turns a new shade of purple and Yuri skates closer so he can better recount the story to Mila later. She’ll hate that she missed it.
“Vitya!” Yakov booms. “How do you expect to get back into comptetition shape without seeing a physical therapist!? Your knees aren’t what they used to be, and I’ll be damned if I let your little game get you injured or worse!”
Viktor chuckles, laying his arm across the barrier so he can stick his hip out in what he must think is a sassy pose. Yuri just snorts.
“Yakov,” Viktor says patiently. “I said I didn’t need to see the rink’s physical therapist. Not that I wasn’t seeing one at all. I’m not an idiot, you know.”
Yakov snorts. “Why would you need a different therapist?” he grumbles. “Ana is the best in all of Russia!”
Viktor snorts and winks at Yuuri who flushes immediately, clutching that damn clipboard to his chest. “She may be the best in Russia,” Viktor says, still setting bedroom eyes on his poor, flustered fiancé, “but I snagged myself one of the best in the whole wide world.”
Once Yuuri’s face could practically give a tomato a run for it’s money, Viktor shows mercy and shifts his gaze to Yakov once more. Yuri is riveted, Yakov is enraged.
“Oh,” Viktor says in mock surprise. “Did I never properly introduce you to him?” He straightens, gesturing from Yuuri to Yakov and back again as he says, “Yuuri, meet Yakov. Yakov, meet Dr. Yuuri Katsuki, Ph.D in Applied Physics and Kinetics with a focus in Physical Therapy.”
Yakov chokes.
Yuri pulls out his phone.