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Yuri doesn’t understand what Victor means when he says he had to wait an eternity to meet the love of his life.
Because Yuri thinks he has known his since he was fifteen.
He thought love was unconditional support and encouragement, protection and occasional affection. He rejected the notion that deep, true love had to be attachment and dependence. Yuri knows it can be, he gets to see it every day with Yuuri and Victor at the rink and it must be fine for them but he knows it’s not what he wants. And he doesn’t get it, because love is comfortable silence and bandaging other’s feet when you’re way too tired to do it yourself; and that is what he does have.
Yuri thought love was faith and confidence, maybe occasional laughter and sharing music when there was nothing to be done, nothing to be said. He thought love was having lunch together and loud screaming at tournaments and competitions, empty threats at training and long video calls in the night when distance got in the way,
Yuri thinks he has found love in Otabek.
And it’s embarrassing to think about it because he knows Otabek feels the same but they’re so young and Victor might be right, they can change their minds later in time and it’s fucking frightening but he won’t, he can’t, have it any other way.
Who’s going to love him like Otabek?
Who’s going to be better than Otabek?
It started a year or so after Barcelona and Yuri regrets keeping it in for so long after that because he had to wait another two years for him to be single again and for Yuri to gather up the fucking courage to just tell him after his first Olympics when he was a little drunk and far too bothered with some other dude’s flirting at the village that Yuri almost threw up in his feet.
But then it was just fine because Otabek laughed, kissed his lips and pulled him into the bed of his room whispering ‘we’ll talk in the morning’ and lulling Yuri into the safest night of his life.
After that, it all had been the best.
There were summers together, traveling around and training in the same rinks before they had to part and wait for world tournaments to begin and see each other again. Otherwise it was too much FaceTime, too much phone calls, bills too large and sleepless nights that earned them several rounds of fighting with their coaches. It was complicated, then the Holidays arrived and they were back together for a moment before they had to leave once more and this whole cycle of trying to find perfect timing repeated itself for months and months.
Then Yuri couldn’t stand being away from him, hated the distance and dared to escape in the middle of the season to just visit him and kiss him senseless until he had to be back at Russia and stand Yakov’s endless bickering. And after that Otabek would text him, telling him how much he appreciated him and how grateful he was for his boldness and how he loved him.
Yuri would do it again anytime.
So it went like that, days that turned into months and months that became some of the best years of his life. And it was amazing. It was perfect.
From their meeting, the one he remembers, when he ran away in a motorcycle with a fellow competitor he barely knew into the streets of a foreign city he had never been in, to the long lazy days after training where they would curl up side by side at the window with the last remains of sunlight bathing them in warm, low, golden light that flared up their faces and bones.
And it didn’t make sense why Victor and Yuuri wanted him to take a time away with them in Japan, why they said he had to meet other people and it just confused Yuri until he was fucking angry.
All he wanted was Otabek.
It didn’t get any better than that, he thought.
Otabek was the best man he had known in the last years, growing up paired with him had taught him so much and it did prove that no one would ever be as good, smart and talented as him. He had been seventeen, once, when he was already matching Victor bloody Nikiforov at worlds and since then he was only going up and up. He managed to push Yuri, to test him and get him to the limit where he would come crashing down in pieces until he couldn’t even move and the best part was that he was there, instantly, helping him to get back up and never stop. Otabek was just unparalleled.
But he knew it could be temporal.
“I don’t think I can make it to St. Petersburg this summer.” He pressed his lips together on a tight line and Yuri frowned.
“Why is that?” He wondered out loud.
Otabek breathed in and shook his head, just like he did every time to clear his head and think coolly.
“I’m leaving my coach and I have to be here in Almaty for some interviews with other local coaches.”
Yuri tilted his head, waiting for him to finish.
“And then I’m travelling to America to meet a couple more…” He tried not to look too hard at the screen in front of him. “Chances are I might end up with Jean’s parents once more.”
“I’ll go, it’s fine.” Yuri said without a doubt, then.
“You know you can’t. Victor will teach you that new exhibition choreo and I can’t interfere anymore than I already do.” Otabek said.
“You don’t interfere.” Yuri snarled. “I always do better when you’re around. I’m still pissed for that silver at the Grand Prix. Having your face around fuels me to go harder.”
Otabek chuckled, looking over his shoulder at the wall clock behind him.
“It’s late, Yura. We’ll speak about this later.” He stared at him cautiously and then smiled, those raw, bitten, red lips curling up so wonderfully Yuri couldn’t tear his eyes away from them. They were so full and he would give anything to taste them in that same moment, letting his tongue lavish the tender flesh until he could taste the iron tang from them, kissing the pain away.
“I’ll visit you anyway. I’ll cut my pre-season training one week before.” Yuri said quickly, almost breathlessly. “I’ll be there.”
Otabek bit his lip, breaking open the skin once more and tainting his teeth a slight shade of salmon that bled deeply. Yuri blushed even darker, thinking about his own lips doing so, too.
“We’ll see about that.” He said after a while, smiling once more. “Good night, rest well Yura.”
And without an answer, he hung up.
Yuri breathed out the air he didn’t know he was holding back. He rubbed his eyes with his hands and threw his phone to the night table besides him.
“Love you.” He muttered into the empty room, running his fingers through his hair and dropping his back to the mattress.
It’s the fear that pins him down into the bed, over the cold sheets, and holds him down, still. It’s the fear that Otabek might be getting tired of him, might want something more, something else, something different and it haunts Yuri in his sleep because he has never known anyone that could even come close to Otabek. There’s no one like him, and there will never be. Nowhere in the world.
Yuri thinks he wouldn’t know what to do without him, even though he also knows in the end he would manage just fine. Before him, he was used to be all by himself. But that doesn’t mean he’s willing to it.
He has lived through his best and worst with Otabek, all of his highs and lows have been with him and, god bless him, even through all of that he stuck around with the same fierce loyalty he had since Spain.
Barcelona was already a long, distant and dark memory that was somehow shadowed by even better days, brighter nights and longer moments that they shared. And they were all powerful enough to make Yuri forget that there was a day that they met, which was almost funny to him because he thought he had known Otabek all of his life. Sometimes it was like the two of them were put together, on their lives and ways, long before they were born.
What could even be better than that?
Yuri somehow wished he could care just a bit less about matters of the heart. They weakened him, he wasn’t lucky enough like Yuuri to pressurize self-hatred and heartbreak into breathtaking choreographies and jumps so high he would land dizzy and nauseous. He wasn’t like fucking JJ who pushed past his anxiety and broke wall after wall with that incredible determination to win that could even put Yuri’s own to shame. He wasn’t like Georgi once was, honest and open enough to let the whole world see him through the clearest of glasses as he glided through the ice and managed to deliver well executed, all-around, numbers with great numbers behind.
Yuri wasn’t that good.
He had grown like Victor, who had an ounce of love to taste and dropped everything to get just a bit more like an addict with no self-control after years and years of being a soul-less, insensitive skating god whose only purpose in a life he truly didn’t have was to keep hoarding gold like a dragon. And Yuri had never been better, even before making it to the senior division he never had friends nor someone to turn to when training got too hard and the bruises on his skin didn’t quite fade. All he wanted was those medals to make his grandpa happy and pay the rent of their little, tiny flat in the north of Moscow where the sun never reached the windows. And it cost him more than any international prize could give him, ever.
But now he had Otabek, and even if he would never say it out loud, Yuuri and Victor and many other friends that come from his same background and know how bloody hard everything can get. And he likes them, all of them. And Yuri is very, very thankful for their presence in their lives.
But they’re not Otabek.
Who could ever be? Yuri knows he’s helpless, but he’s so gone for the man that to this point he doesn’t even give a fuck about it because he knows all of it is true.
With his black, cool eyes, bitten lips and the whole word at his feet Otabek has managed to conquer everything he ever set his mind to. From Yuri, to the Olympics, every international competition and Asia itself after one Yuuri Katsuki. He’s unstoppable and even when Yuri should be jealous he only looks up to him, smiling and whispering to himself how badly he wants to be with him for the rest of his life; and it has nothing to do with the fact that Yuri would never, ever be Otabek.
And he’s fine with it because there’s just nothing that could ever compare. And that is all Yuri knows; like the sky is blue, oh so blue and how this summer will be the saddest of his life so far if he doesn’t get to see Beka once before the season starts.
The worst thing of all is that Yuri has a lot to do, much to practice and maybe a few pounds to put up if he actually wants to look grown on the ice this year. There are a lot of things that should worry him more than the absence of his boyfriend but somehow that manages to overshadow everything and it annoys Yuri even more.
What is he thinking?
Yet, when he grabs his phone and unlocks it to find a text from Otabek with an attached image of himself lying in bed just as Yuri is right now, he smiles uncontrollably and snaps one of his own fashion before sitting up in the mattress once more.
Yuri wants to see him so badly it’s almost aching right in the bottom of his chest, between his ribs and under a heart that feels just a little bit heavier.
He won’t get it this time and he will have to deal with it.
His phone chimes once more and Yuri, of course, reads quickly over the reply before answering mindlessly until he finds himself crying silently. God isn’t he stupid? And he’s also smiling, face red and eyes tired as he stares at the black screen of his phone and he knows he looks ridiculous but there’s so much he’s feeling he will never be able to exactly tell what is it that he thinks that will eat him alive if it keeps going like this.
This strong, this maddening and impossibly raw sensation that holds him by the throat and chokes him with doubt and fear- and he loves it because it almost reminds him of Otabek.
Yuri doesn’t understand what Victor means when he says he had to wait an eternity to meet the love of his life.
Because Yuri thinks he has known his since he was fifteen.
His name is Otabek Altin; he’s a 23-year old Kazakh who doesn’t know when to quit and manages to push all of Yuri’s buttons at once with one single glance but it’s fine because he’s the best thing that ever happened to him and he wishes with all of his heart, even if he knows it’s futile, that he never gets tired of him so Yuri can stay by his side for as long as his heart allows him to.