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The first time Yuri Plisetsky spoke to Otabek Altin was the first week of Yakov’s training camp.
The sound of blades on the ice was a familiar and soothing sound to most, he was sure, but to Otabek Altin it was overstimulating and noisy. He was still fairly new to skating and he was very painfully—and obviously, he was sure—out of his element. All of the sights and sounds were still new and terrifyingly foreign to him, and he was trying his best to overcompensate for this by coming to the rink even more than his fellow skaters. Well, more than most of his fellow skaters.
The other outlier, Otabek realized, had just walked through the door. Most of the skaters at Yakov Feltsman’s training camp were dropped off at the rink by their parents, or by their coaches, if they were not natives of Saint Petersburg. Yuri Plisetsky, however, arrived by himself every day. The skaters were allowed unlimited free rink time as part of their attendance to the camp, as long as they didn’t have any workshops or classes scheduled for that time.
Whenever they had free time, Otabek would come to the rink and rather clumsily practice on his own on the ice, focusing on his weaker jumps—no quads yet, though—and work at it until his feet were too sore to continue. And it seemed that Yuri did the same. Almost every time Otabek arrived, he was already there, and when he wasn’t, he would slam through the doors with the confident and entitled flair of someone who already knew where he was going with his life. Today he was wearing a pair of rhinestone sunglasses, and he had his skating camp jacket slung over his shoulder. Otabek stopped and stared.
Yuri Plisetsky was very small. He was short and he was scrawny, and he had blonde hair that hung in his face like an edgy emo kid. Otabek was completely and totally transfixed by him. He had the sort of talent that most skaters could kill for, both on the ice and on the ballet bar, along with a flexibility that Otabek could not even imagine possessing himself. Currently, he was receiving some advice from Yakov about how to not over-rotate, and he found himself unable to make sense of the words as Yuri came into the rink. Yakov trailed off as Yuri stormed up to them, a determined look on his face. He took of his sunglasses and flung them off to the side dramatically. Otabek watched them go in wonder.
“Yakov!” he said firmly, and the elderly man’s eyes moved to the blonde. “I have a bone to pick with you!”
“I am busy with another student, Yura!” Yakov told him, waving his arms for emphasis, but Yuri ignored him.
“I thought you said that if I could land a triple Salchow you would be my coach full time, but I don’t see that happening!” Yuri looked exaggeratedly furious, and Otabek took a step back almost involuntarily. Yuri was more intimidating than he’d realized.
“I never said that, Yura!” Yakov argued, figurative steam coming out of his ears. “You were the only one who said that, and I told you to attempt no such thing, but you tried it right in front of my very eyes!”
“I landed it, so what’s the big deal?” Yuri asked, stamping his foot. Yuri was younger than Otabek, but right now he had the intimidation factor of a grown man, and Otabek feared for his life.
“I told you not to,” Yakov reminded him, rocking forward onto the balls of his feet, and Otabek began to feel like he was watching a clash of the Titans. “And I told you that no matter what, there is no way that can happen right now! You are not ready for a full time coach! Finish this training camp, and then contact me and I will see if you’re ready! Your grandfather and I have both been over this with you!”
“I am ready! You just don’t want to give me a chance!”
“Yura, please.” At this point, Yakov was massaging his temples. “I don’t have the patience for this today! If you are going to behave like a child, you can come back later!”
“Whatever.” Yuri turned away from Yakov, throwing up his hands, and his eyes came to rest on Otabek. “And what are you staring at, douchebag?” he asked. Otabek silently opened his mouth a few times, trying to figure out what to say, but before he had the chance to respond, Yuri turned and walked calmly to the benches to put on his skates.
The second time Yuri Plisetsky spoke to Otabek Altin, it was nearly two weeks into the training camp.
Otabek had managed to keep his head down and not attract the attention of those around him. The other students were younger and yet more experienced than he was, and he felt fiercely inadequate in comparison despite his extreme determination. He didn’t want to highlight the difficulty he was having with Yakov’s particular methods. This meant that he had managed to go the entire time with only minimal social contact with anyone. So when Yuri Plisetsky himself skated right up to him while he was stretching on the edge of the ice during their free time, he immediately froze up. Otabek was an awkward child, and Yuri seemed to just make it worse.
“Hey!” Yuri barked, leaning against the divider edge. “You’re doing that wrong.”
“What?” Otabek stammered dumbly.
“Stretching. You’re doing it wrong. You’re gonna strain your hamstring if you pull your leg like that. Do it like this.” Yuri demonstrated, and Otabek watched in awe. He was definitely doing it very differently from the way Otabek had been. “Like this, eh?” Yuri sounded grudging, like he didn’t actually want to be helping him, and Otabek wondered why he was bothering to. If he had learned anything about the other boy during the time he had been around him, it was that Yuri wasn’t the sort of person to seek out conversation or go out of his way to give others advice. This seemed like odd behavior for him, and Otabek wasn’t entirely sure how to react to it.
“Okay,” Otabek replied. He was still not entirely proficient in Russian, and trying to speak it still made him feel a bit self-conscious, so he tried to keep his sentences as short as possible, and Yuri looked like he was expecting him to say something else. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” Yuri replied, skating away from him. “Just stop making an ass of yourself on the ice. It’s embarrassing.”
The third time Yuri Plisetsky spoke to Otabek Altin was over halfway through the camp.
Otabek was by himself before a ballet class, trying out some of the ballet stances from the day before just to give himself a bit of an edge over his usual awkwardness. He was so focused that he barely noticed Yuri until he sighed heavily, and Otabek looked up to see him shaking his head. When he had come into the room was anyone’s guess, but now he was standing there with his arms crossed, giving Otabek a critical look that made his blood run cold.
“You should quit ballet,” he told him point-blank, and Otabek was so surprised that he couldn’t even respond. “At this point you’re just making an ass of yourself, and nobody wants to see you flop around like a horse in the ballet studio. You’re bad at ballet. You can’t do it.”
“I want to skate…” was all Otabek could say, and he let his words trail off, because he was so intimidated and awestruck in this moment that he had no idea how to externalize more than just those five words. Yuri glared at him, his bright green eyes narrowing. In that moment Otabek was struck by the thought that those eyes looked more like they belonged on the battlefield than in a ballet studio. Instantly, he was humbled.
“So skate, then. Nobody’s stopping you. You’re okay at that,” Yuri said with an elegant wave of his hand. “You’re not doing anybody any favors by being in ballet. You suck at it. It makes me wanna puke.” With that he turned his head away and leaned on the ballet bar beside Otabek and started stretching as though nothing had happened. Otabek stared at him in wonder for a few moments, completely in awe that he had the balls to say something like that to someone, right to their face.
Especially something that was so completely and honestly true.
As soon as the training camp was over, Otabek quit ballet. He didn’t inform his coach first, just went and removed his name from the sign up sheet for the next block of ballet classes with resolution and walked away. He was sure there was another way to do things. Ballet was not the path he needed to take. No matter what he had to do, he would find a way to forge his own path to victory, and nothing was going to stop him.
While he was leaving the building where the ballet classes were held, he saw Yuri Plisetsky stretching on the steps. A little awkwardly, he smiled at the Russian skater, and Yuri impassively flashed him a thumbs up. He was staring straight ahead while he stretched with a look of utter determination on his face, and for the first time Otabek thought that they might have more in common than he had originally thought. That was the day, as he waited for his bus to come to take him back to where his coach had him lodged, that he decided he was going to become friends with the great Yuri Plisetsky, no matter how much time or effort it took.
The fourth time Yuri Plisetsky spoke to Otabek Altin, he didn’t remember any of the other times they had spoken.
Otabek wasn’t sure whether to be offended or relieved. Relieved, because none of it had been exactly flattering. Offended, because after all of those significantly embarrassing interactions, Otabek felt he should have at least made some sort of impression. He decided to go with relieved because it meant a fresh start, and he bought them coffees in a shop in Barcelona. This time, the way Yuri spoke to him was so infinitely different that Otabek didn’t even know how to react.
Otabek was older now. More mature, less awkward, more self-assured and ten times as determined. But somehow, Yuri still managed to awe him into silence. Otabek sat across the table from him and contentedly listened to him talk, smiling genuinely and completely blown away by having the good fortune to have once again crossed paths with someone who had had such a significant impact on his life. He bought Yuri four coffees, not bothering to cut him off when his hands started to shake and he started squirming around in the booth on a caffeine high. Palming his fourth cup of overly sweet caramel coffee, Yuri had stopped talking roughly three minutes ago and now was simply staring at Otabek. Otabek chose not to ask, opting instead to look back and wait for Yuri to say whatever it was that he was going to say.
“Hey, Otabek,” the blonde said after what would probably be an uncomfortable silence for anyone else, but for someone as quiet as Otabek, it felt routine.
“Yes?”
“You said we met at the training camp?”
“Yes.”
“So you’ve been wanting to be my friend for five years?” the look on his face was unreadable, but he didn’t look unhappy, and Otabek nodded.
“Yes. For five years.”
“Wow.” Yuri sat back in his chair and stared into his cup of coffee, and Otabek smiled at him. This felt almost unreal, and Otabek felt immensely accomplished.
Yuri had changed, and he could tell. He looked roughly the same, but much older. However, his appearance was definitely not the most significant change. No, there was something about his aura, an air of immense strength and focus that was a far cry from his slightly entitled, overly confident attitude as a child. This was a Yuri Plisetsky who had found himself on the ice, and Otabek, who had accomplished the same thing through all of his rink-hopping before he was able to return to Almaty, felt a surge of pride that his friend had found his way. There was an intense and burning seriousness in Yuri’s eyes now, and Otabek knew that he would stop at nothing to win. However, now his focused expression was one of sheer determination and will, not of recklessness and a willingness to push his boundaries as far as he had to. It was with a smile that Otabek reflected on how much he looked forward to learning more about this boy.
He was about to try to figure out a subtle way to put this into words when suddenly, Yuri’s expression changed, his lips twitching upward into a smirk.
“So…were you that kid? The one who sucked ass at ballet?”