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Chapter Text

“Papa?”

Yuuri paused at the call of his name, glancing up from the letter Nikolai had sent him regarding his latest visit to the doctor concerning his health.

“In the kitchen,” he replied, placing the letter down and turning towards the doorway.

“Papa! I have a present for you!” Yuri shouted, moments before he hurried into the kitchen.

Yuuri couldn’t help but gape at his six-year-old who was covered head-to-toe in mud.

Everything from his shoes to the ends of his hair were covered in mud.

Despite his appearance, Yuri was grinning widely, holding up proudly a stunning bundle of tulips.

“I got these for you, papa,” Yuri said, hurrying towards him and thrusting the Tulips into his hands.

The tulips ranged in colour – going from red all the way to a bright yellow.

“Yurochka, they are so pretty,” he said softly before turning his gaze back to his son, “But why are you covered in mud?”

Yuri stood there for a moment, staring at him with wide eyes before leaning up and pressing a messy, muddy kiss to his cheek before bolting out of the room, giggling to himself as he left a trail of muddy foot prints after him.

“YURI!” he groaned as he stumbled to his feet while cradling the bundle of tulips to his chest. He needed to catch his hellcat of a son before a single spot of mud ended up on the carpet.

Chapter Text

“You’ve gained some weight.”

Yuuri couldn’t help but freeze at his sensei’s comment.

Was he getting fat? Was his stomach too large now? Did he need to start cutting back on food? Or exercising more?

“You look good. Healthier,” Minako-sensei stated simply with a nod of her head as she walked around him slowly, nodding her head in approval.

“What?” he questioned, throwing a confused look as he followed his sensei with his eyes.

He had gained weight, a lot of weight and was still gaining more.

He had recently had to go through his wardrobe and throw away over half of his clothes because he had gotten too big for them – and apparently stealing your fiancé clothes was not a permanent answer to his issue.

It had been rather frustrating, because despite his concerns on his increasing weight, Victor didn’t seem to care. Well, that wasn’t exactly true, Victor didn’t seem worried about it. The Russian actually seemed proud that he had put on some weight, that he had gone up a size or two.

“You look healthier. You have more meat on your bones,” Minako-sensei explained, “That Russian boy did you some good.”

“Excuse me?” he gaped, earning a smirk for his life-long teacher.

“That Russian boy has been fattening you up, it’s good to see.”

“How is me gaining weight good?” he questioned in horror, only causing Minako-sensei to laugh at him.

“Now, if only we could get him to boost your self-esteem,” Minako-sensei hummed, completely ignoring his previous question.

“MINAKO-SENSEI!?”

Chapter Text

“Um, Yurasha?”

“Yes?” he replied as he carefully ironed the creased out of one Victor’s dress shirts. He still couldn’t fathom how Victor had survived without him. The man hadn’t even owned an iron when they met. An iron!? With all the fancy galas Victor went too, how did he manage to go to every single one with a shirt that didn’t have any creases.

“Um,” Victor mumbled, “Are these yours?”

“Are what-” he turned to his fiancé in confusion, only to see a familiar pair of garments being held up by Victor.

He gasped, before quickly scrambling towards his fiancé and snatching the held up garment out of Victor’s hands.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Victor said, a smirk rising to his lips.

“Don’t go through my underwear draw,” he huffed, trying to hide his embarrassment.

“But Yurasha,” Victor whined, though the smirk never left his lips, “But I’m out.”

He threw a pointed look at his fiancé as he dug into the clean pile of washing he was currently folding and ironing and threw a clean pair of underwear at Victor.

“Stay out of my underwear draw,” he repeated again, moving to stuff the removed garments back into the draw.

“You know, if you wear that to bed,” Victor said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“Another comment and you can sleep on the couch tonight,” he huffed while returning to his ironing.

“Yurasha-”

“And tomorrow night too!”

Chapter Text

“SPIDER!”

“Papa, Vicchan is being a baby again.”

He glanced up from the cookbook he was flipping through to stare at his six-year-old who was happily drawing away – tongue stuck out in concentration and everything.

“Yurochka,” he sighed.

“What?” the boy asked, eyes flickering up at him for a moment before returning to his book.

“You can’t say stuff like that,” he told the boy, earning a huff in response.

“YUURI! SPIDER!” Victor’s voice rung through the house again, sounding even more panicked than before.

He sighed as he set the book down and stared at Yuri for a moment.

“I’ll give you five dollars if you go kill the spider,” he offered, quickly earning Yuri’s full attention.

“Ten,” Yuri stated.

“Five and I’ll make pirozhki on the weekend,” he offered. Yuri eyed him for a moment before setting the pencil in his hand down.

“What type of pirozhki?” Yuri questioned.

“Katsudon,” he confirmed.

Yuri continued to stare at him for a moment before sighing dramatically as he slipped from his chair and began to walk in the direction of the full-grown man calling for help.

He held back a grin until the boy was out of the room before turning to Potya who was laying on the table, having been watching Yuri draw.

“What do you think, Potya?” he asked, reaching over to rub the cat’s plump cheeks, “Do you think he’ll be able to kill it this time?” His question was cut off by a squeal of horror.

“PAPA! IT’S A BIG ONE!” Yuri’s voice called out in a panic.

He sighed as he slowly got to his feet, heading off to find his two children and the so called ‘big spider’.

Chapter Text

“Inhale.”

There was a soft inhale of breath beside him.

“And exhale as you-”

“What are you two doing?”

There was a gasp beside him before he heard something hit the ground.

“Vicchan!” Yuri whined from beside him as he exhaled and moved into a sitting position.

“What?” He glanced towards his fiancé, biting back a chuckle at the confused look written across his face.

“It’s yoga time,” Yuri huffed.

“Yo…ga?” Victor repeated slowly, turning towards him with a confused look.

“Yes, yoga. You know-“ he started, only to be cut off.

“Yes, I know what yoga is. But why are you two doing it in the lounge room?” Victor asked.

Yuri let out a dramatic sigh from beside him while bouncing to his feet and moving in front of him.

“Vicchan! It’s yoga time! You other join papa and me, or you go away,” Yuri stated simply, crossing his arms across his chest.

Victor eyes seemed to flicker between Yuri and him for a moment before he held his hands up in surrender.

“No, I’m good, I’m pretty sure you two will just show me up anyway,” Victor said simply while turning and heading towards the kitchen. Yuri stood in front of him for a moment, watching Victor retreat before turning back to him.

“We don’t have to go back to the breathing patterns, right, papa?” the boy asked with a whine.

He couldn’t help it any longer, and burst into a light chuckle while shaking his head.

Sometimes, even the most simplest of mornings were an event in their household.

Chapter Text

“Hi.”

Yuri almost jumped in surprise at the loud greeting, having been too busy adjusting his screen to notice that his video call had been accepted.

“Oh, um, hi?” he responded, leaning back to look at his screen properly.

His school – if you could call it a school when it was a website with worksheets and assignments all available for download and upload online – had assigned him a ‘pen pal’ as part of his Japanese unit – his pa had insisted he do it to help with his written Japanese more than anything else.

The unit had been simple at first. Email his pen pal in Japanese and receive a response in Russian and correct any issues.

It had been simple at first and whoever had set them had clearly read through the ‘information sheet’ they had been forced to fill out to help pair everyone with someone they could hold a conversation with.

He had been paired with Kenjirou Minami – or Minami Kenjirou in Japanese – a fellow skater.

It had taken a little googling – not that he wanted to admit it – to remember who Minami was, Japan’s current number one skater as of the previous season.

“Hey Minami,” he greeted properly, earning a bright grin in response – a grin that seemed a little too bright.

Whoever was in charge of their units had decided to give them an assignment that involved video calling and communicating in the language they were learning, something he was a bit annoyed at seeing as this was their first verbal assignment and if his ‘teacher’ had bothered to test him first, they would know that his verbal communication was perfect.

“Yuri! Hi! It’s so exciting to talk to you, you know, like properly! Ah-Not that we weren’t talking properly before! But you-“

“I get it,” he ensured the blabbering teen, “Let’s stick with English until you calm down.” He was given a sheepish smile but his fellow skater nodded his head.

“Can I just say I loved your short program this season,” Minami blurted out, causing him to pause.

“Oh? It’s rather simple, da-Victor won’t give me anything harder until I make it to seniors,” he explained with a sigh, hoping that Minami didn’t pick up on his slip up.

“You are so lucky! Having all your programs being choreographed by Victor Nikiforov! Are the rumours true of him replacing Mister Feltsman as your coach?” Minami asked, staring at him with wide, excited eyes through the camera.

He gave a small shrug, not wanting to confirm or deny. It’s not that he didn’t trust Minami, it’s just… he had learnt not to think everyone was a friend. Some people… just wanted to get to Victor.

“Sorry, sorry,” Minami laughed before he could say anything, seeming to shrug off the question before pulling a notepad into view of the camera.

“Okay, do we… want to get started? Do you have your questions?” He held his notebook up in response. “Good, I’ll… I’ll start. I apologise beforehand.” Minami gave a small bow towards the camera as he apologised before he started to slowly read – in Russian – the question he was meant to ask.

Though he spoke slow, Minami was putting in a lot of effort to pronounce each word correctly.

He let Minami finish his question before repeating it slowly and clearly, giving Minami a chance to write down his mistakes – or whatever he needed to write down.

The next twenty minutes or so went like that, as they lowly went through Minami’s five questions.

Minami was clearly trying and it made him feel even worse about how the second half of the call would go.

“Urg,” Minami whined as he finally finished, slumping into his desk with a sigh, “My mouth hurts now.” Yuri snorted out a chuckle, only to be cut off as Potya suddenly jumped onto his lap.

“Hey!” he huffed as the cat made herself comfortable on his lap, not giving him a chance to move her or even sit properly, leaving him stuck with his legs crossed and his notepad half covered.

He sighed and scratched her under the chin, he looked up to see Minami staring at Potya with an excited look.

“Her name is Potya - Puma Tiger Scorpion – and she is old.” Almost like she understood his words, she dug her claws into his stomach, causing him to hiss in pain.

Minami seemed to laugh in delight – he hoped to god it wasn’t at his pain or he was going to punch the Japanese skater if he ever saw his face in real life.

“Cute! She’s so big! My Hana is tiny,” Minami said before spinning around and getting up from his chair. After a minute of banging and crushing and the soft call of the name ‘Hana’ that the mic picked up, Minami returned with a little cat. She was tiny, but obviously not a kitten. She was a white colour with cream – or maybe ginger? – spots all over her face, including a flower sort of spot on her face.

“She’s three – san – and she likes my haha – mother – more than me but she still lets me cuddle,” Minami explained as he set the cat down in his lap and gently stroked its head until it seemed to accept its new position and settle down to continue that nap it clearly been interrupted from.

“Cute,” he said honestly, unable to help the smile that rose to his lips.

“Okay! Let’s finish this work,” Minami declared, causing him to sigh softly.

“ What’s your favourite thing about living in Japan? ” he questioned in clear Japanese.

Minami seemed to pause at his question and stare at him blankly for a moment.

“Huh?” Minami voice rang through the speakers.

“ How do you find the season – as in weather – in Japan, compared to other countries you have visited? ” he questioned.

“You speak Japanese.” it was more of a statement then a question.

He was silent for a moment before nodding his head.

“I’m taking the unit for the writing aspect, not the verbal,” he explained, continuing to speak in Japanese.

He didn’t really get to use his Japanese often. His pa and Aunt Minako made sure he used it on a somewhat regular bases, but he really only got to use it when he was in Japan.

Having another person to talk to…

“How is it going? Do you need help?”

He glanced up at Minami with wide eyes for a moment before pulling the notepad out from under Potya – much to her annoyance – and flipped a few pages back.

“Actually…”

Chapter Text

Yuuri let out a small sigh as he balanced Yuri in his lap while flipping through the book Nikolai had sent to him. It was another book on learning Russian for beginners and he was a little proud at just how much he was able to read while flipping through it.

He had distracted Yuri with some apple slices – which the toddler held in each hand as well as one shoved into his mouth.

“He reminds me of you when you were younger.”

He glanced up at Minako-sensei who sat on the other side of the table, watching him with an amused smile.

“What are you talking about?” he questioned curiously while lifting a hand to brush some hair out of Yuri’s face before he accidentally shoved it into his mouth with his next apple piece.

“He’s just so obsessed with food and gets upset when you aren’t in eyesight. You were the same with your mother,” Minako-sensei explained, amusement obvious in her tone.

“Minako-sensei,” he said with a roll of his eyes, “You know why Yu-chan is so obsessed with food.”

“I know, I know. What did the doctor say on your last visit? I forgot to ask,” Minako questioned, gaze dropping to Yuri as she took a sip of her tea.

“All good things. She said to stick to the diet that was recommended by the dietitian for at least a couple more months, just to get some more fat in him,” he explained.

He barely finished speaking before Yuri was letting out little whining noises and trying to grab another piece of apple to replace the one he had shoved in his mouth. Unable to deny the boy, he handed over another piece of apple.

Yuri cheered in delight at getting the newest piece of apple and turned in his lap enough to offer him one of his pieces of apple.

“No thank you,” he said in Japanese before repeating the words in Russian. Yuri blinked up at him and after a moment returned to leaning against his chest and chewing on his apple pieces.

“He’s too precious,” Minako cooed, causing him to smile bright in response.

“He is,” he agreed.

Chapter Text

“Your papa is so silly.”

Minako sighed softly as she balanced Yuri on her hip while staring down at his favourite pupil.

Yuuri was out like a light, wrapped up in her thickest blankets in the spare bedroom that use to be the young mans before he moved out with his little boy.

Almost on cue, Yuri let out a giggle and began clapping his adorable, little hands together, something she couldn’t help but smile at.

If only her favourite pupil wasn’t running a fever, she could image the smile Yuuri would make at the sight of Yuri giggling and clapping his hands in delight.

“Are you hungry, my little dumpling?” she cooed while poking at the boy’s plump cheek – she was now beginning to wonder when Yuri’s cheeks got so plump, it only felt like yesterday that she met the small, slim baby that had clung to Yuuri’s shirt like his life depended on it.

She took the giggle she received in response as a positive and made her way to the kitchen.

She gently sat Yuri down in his high chair and bulked him up – so there was no chance of him falling out – before moving to sever him up some of the rice she had put on earlier.
She served Yuri a small amount into one of the plastic bowls Yuuri had left here for the small boy. She made sure to break it up and check the temperature, to check it wasn’t too hot, before setting it down in front of Yuri.

She watched with a smile as Yuri glanced up at her with wide eyes – acting almost surprised that she had given him food – before clapping his hands together and letting out a random word she couldn’t translate but could concluded it was baby talk for ‘Itadakimasu’ or something similar.

“Eat up, Yu-chan, so you can become big and strong like your papa,” she chuckled as she watched the boy dive into his food, grabbing a handful of rice in both hands and shoving it – and his fist – into his mouth.

She turned to serve up her own dinner before sitting down beside the boy.

It was a quiet dinner, but she supposed she could forgive Yuuri this once for being too sick to eat with her. It wasn’t like she was eating alone after all – Yuri was making sure of that.