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It was the finest day yet in a summer that was stacked with perfect days, like a house of cards climbing to a brilliant peak. The sun had faded away beneath the horizon, and they had watched it together on the sand, Victor’s arms thrown over Yuuri’s shoulders as Yuuri sat almost in his lap. The sky above them turned pink and gold, then deep violet, and finally faded to navy, but at a certain point they stopped looking at the sky. It was only much later, when Yuuri looked up from Victor stretched out beneath him in the sand and saw the first pinprick stars, that he suggested they go home.
After their late snow in April, it was a hot summer, and the air might have been sweltering if not for the cool, salty breezes sweeping in from the sea. Despite his shorts and tank top, Yuuri was flushed and damp. The sweat dotting his forehead may have been caused by the heat, but the flush lighting his cheeks had other roots. His hand was firm around Victor's, their fingers intertwined as he towed Victor up the hill from the beach to the onsen.
Yuuri glanced back over his shoulder, everything new enough that he still needed confirmation that Victor was really there. The proof of his eyes did nothing to dull his flush, as Victor's nose was pink and his plush lips swollen. He was grinning, his eyes dancing, and Yuuri could see the beginnings of a sunburn blooming on Victor's pale, bare chest. Yuuri was positive Victor had been wearing a shirt when they left the house in the afternoon, but it was gone now.
(They would find it three days later, buried in a dune beneath one of the docks and stiff with salt and sand.)
If someone had stopped Yuuri at that moment and asked where he was running to, he wouldn't have had an answer. His plan was mapped out as far as the hallway outside his room, and from there—well—he had time to sort it out.
The front door of Yu-topia clacked as Victor pulled it closed in their wake, and he followed Yuuri through the lobby, a willing captive.
As they passed the main dining room, a strange sound caught Yuuri’s ear, and he paused, stopping so abruptly that Victor bumped up against him, then took advantage of the moment to wrap an arm around Yuuri’s waist.
“Shhh,” Yuuri whispered, though Victor hadn’t spoken. The lights in the main dining room were out, with no guests in sight, but a golden glow spilled forth from the kitchen, and with it the sound of quiet voices and—was that a giggle?
“Yuuri,” Victor murmured, trying to reclaim his attention. Things had been going so well all day, and Victor was looking forward to seeing where the rest of the night took them—hopefully not into the kitchen.
But Yuuri was distracted, focusing in on the sounds in the other room. “I just want to check,” he said. Victor, sighing, released his hold and followed Yuuri through the dining room.
The kitchen was bright, and as they got closer there was more rapid-fire Japanese, then another brilliant, high-pitched giggle. Pushing inside, they were greeted by a bizarre sight—Hiroko was perched on a stool by the counter still in her apron, with Minako lounging at her side. Mari, her faded hair pulled back in a headband, was attempting to clean around them as the two older woman laughed into matching cups of sake, the bottle still open on the counter behind them.
“Mama?” Yuuri gasped, standing still in the doorway. Victor rose up on his tiptoes for a better view over Yuuri’s shoulder.
Hiroko’s round face was flushed from the wine in a way that seemed quite familiar to Victor, and she grinned widely at the sight of her son. “Yuuri!” She exclaimed, waving to them. Sake dripped and sloshed over the edges of her cup at the movement. “And Vicchan too! Did you have a nice day at the beach?”
“Seems like it,” Minako muttered, her eyes lingering deliberately on Victor’s bare chest. He’d never been self-conscious about his body, but in that moment he was struck with an instinct to cover himself up.
“Minako-sensei,” Yuuri protested, his ears turning red with embarrassment. “What are you doing? And why is Mama drunk?”
“I’m not drunk,” Hiroko declared. Her stubborn pout was adorable, and Victor couldn’t help noticing that it was another trait that clearly ran in the family. “I’m just a bit… warm…” She trailed off on another giggle, sharing a bright grin with Minako, and then sighed. Her smile faded from enthusiastic to wistful. “Ah, I missed this.”
Mari waved a sponge at Yuuri and Victor, declaring in English, “Are you going to stand there in the door all night, or are you going to help me?” With a brief squeeze of Yuuri’s shoulder, Victor slipped into the kitchen to join Mari in her chores. Too much of the conversation happening was in Japanese, and his language skills weren’t yet up to conversations with his inebriated future mother-in-law.
“Missed what?” Yuuri asked. In all his life, Yuuri could never recall seeing his mother drink outside of special occasions, so the ease with which she tilted her head back and sipped her sake threw him for a loop.
Rolling her eyes, Minako tossed back the last of her drink and then turned to pour herself a new one. “You know your mama hasn’t just been a mother her whole life, right?” She winked at Hiroko, who giggled again. “When we were young—ah—we used to be quite the pair. Hiroko-chan always knew how to party, and she was so popular that we always had an invite, no matter who was hosting.”
“That’s how I met Toshiya,” Hiroko sighed, smiling fondly.
“Which obviously did nothing to slow you down,” Minako added, rolling her eyes. “Even after you got married, it seemed like you were always writing me about some party, even when it meant towing Mari along to a couple.”
“I remember that,” Mari said with confidence, throwing her cleaning rag into the sink.
“You do not!” Hiroko, already flushed, turned an even more brilliant shade of red. “You were just a baby. At first, I thought after having you, things would go right back to normal. But you changed everything. We couldn’t go back.”
“Yeah, right,” Mari muttered, switching to English so her mother wouldn’t understand. “I’m pretty sure my first errand as a kid was running to the store for beer.”
Yuuri sank down onto one of the spare stools in the kitchen, his eyes wide as he processed all the new information he was getting. Victor looked over his shoulder at Yuuri, a wry twist to his mouth, and Yuuri remembered—they had been going upstairs, but that mood was certainly wrecked now.
“But you always scold Minako about her drinking,” Yuuri said. “You always told Mari it would age her early.”
“Ah yes,” Minako said, raising her glass. “The familiar voice of Hayami-san. Hiroko-chan’s mother used to make those same comments to us both in school, You girls shouldn’t drink so much. You shouldn’t party so much. You’ll age badly and no man will marry you.”
Hiroko slapped her hands over her mouth to hide her grin. “Minako-senpai,” she protested. “Oh no. You sound too much like her.”
Yuuri considered that, trying to match it up to a memory of his grandmother, but all he had to work off was a blurry, sepia-toned image. He couldn’t recall her voice. “I don’t remember obaasan very well,” he admitted.
Mari snorted, commenting in English again. “You didn’t miss much.” At Victor’s curious look, she explained, “Our grandmother was sort of a sour old bat. Mama and Minako are talking about how she used to shame them for having fun in their youth.”
“Ah, sounds familiar,” Victor mused. “Our grandmothers would have gotten along, then.”
“I missed out on too many of Hiroko-chan’s fun years,” Minako said mournfully. “We could have really painted the town if I’d stayed a bit longer.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Hiroko said, an extra flush creeping into her cheeks at the idea. “You were off seeing the world and dancing for so many important people. You’d have been miserable in Hasetsu with babies to tend and elderly parents to care for. You wouldn’t have missed that for anything.”
“That’s right,” Mari said. “Could you really have made yourself stay here? You could never settle down like Mama did—not that there’s anything wrong with that.” She rushed to excuse her comments, but Hiroko didn’t seem phased by Mari’s statement. It was no secret, after all, that Mari had no intention of becoming a traditional wife and mother.
Minako, however, seemed to deflate at the idea. She finished her glass and poured yet another, turning the cup in her fingers, as if fascinated by the patterns in the glaze. “I’m not a total rebel,” she said quietly. “I was engaged once too, you know.”
Yuuri did not know, and from the widening of Mari’s eyes, neither had his sister.
“Oh, right!” Hiroko said, patting her friend’s shoulder. “I remember when you wrote to me about it. What was her name again? Ana? Angeline?”
“Elena,” Minako answered, switching to English for Victor’s sake. She sipped at her sake, her eyes distant. “I met her in Spain, during one of my European tours. She was a bullfighter, and her movement in the arena was a whole other form of dance. We were introduced at a party, and she gave me a white rose, because it matched my dress. Within two months, she gave me a ring.
“But I wasn’t ready.” Minako shook her head. “My tour was moving on soon, and I still wanted to dance. We took a break, and I went with the ballet from Spain to Germany, expecting to go back to Madrid when the tour ended and reconsider her offer. Then, I got word in Berlin that my father was ill. I came back to Hasetsu to help care for him and,” she gestured at the onsen around her with a small smile, “here I am.”
“What happened to the bullfighter?” Yuuri asked quietly, though he was a little afraid to hear the answer.
But Minako’s smile never faltered. “She met someone else, who was ready for everything I wasn’t. I flew back to Spain a few years later to attend the wedding, and I danced with both brides at the party after. We’re still friends, and they have a beautiful family together.”
As endings went, it was a pretty happy one. Still, the story left the room pensive. All were silent save for an occasional little hiccup that Hiroko couldn’t hold in. After a moment, the quiet was broken by the clink of glasses tipping together as Victor retrieved three more sake cups from storage and set them out on the counter. He filled the three, then topped up Minako and Hiroko before raising his own glass.
“A toast?” he suggested. The others all picked up their own cups, raising them in the air. In the past months, they’d each become accustomed to Victor’s traditional Russian toasts. He looked up at the glass in his hand with a thoughtful expression.
“To… choices,” Victor declared, smiling as he looked around the little kitchen at the others, “the big choices, and the little choices,” his eyes meet Yuuri’s across the room, and he stepped closer, wrapping his free arm around Yuuri’s shoulders, “and to the unexpected choices most of all.”
“To choices,” Mari and Minako both murmured in agreement. They all downed their drinks, and Hiroko tugged on Minako’s sleeve, whispering loudly in her ear to ask what Victor had said. When Minako translated, her smile widened.
“No matter what route we took,” Hiroko chimed in as Yuuri quietly translated, his hand warm in Victor’s, “I’m happy our choices lead us all to be here, together.”
No one could possibly object to that, and instead, they reached for the bottle, raising one final toast to call a good end to the night.