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"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Yurochka, happy birthday to you!"
"Aren't I getting a little too old for this, Grandpa?" Yuri asked as his grandpa placed a large vanilla-frosted cupcake in front of him on the rickety kitchen table. He couldn't help smiling, though, secretly pleased. Though he knew it was important as an athlete to watch what he ate, he always looked forward to the birthday cake his grandpa baked from scratch.
"Nonsense! You're never too old for birthday cake," Grandpa said with an affectionate slap on Yuri's shoulder. "Now blow out the candle and make a wish."
He really was too old to believe that blowing out candles on a birthday cake would make his wishes come true, but Yuri humored his grandfather anyway, closing his eyes. He only had one wish – to win gold at the upcoming World Championships in Helsinki, only a couple of weeks away. As he puffed out his cheeks and blew out the single candle with more force than was probably necessary, Grandpa clapped and cheered.
"I still can't believe you're sixteen years old already," he said with a wistful sigh, not for the first time. He'd been mentioning it throughout the day, starting from the moment Yuri woke up to the smell of him cooking his delicious blini for breakfast. "It seems like only yesterday I was holding you in my arms after you were born…"
Yuri rolled his eyes. "Enough with the mushiness already." Standing up from the table, he grabbed the cupcake and kissed Grandpa on the cheek. "I'm gonna take this to my room, if you don't mind. Beka's supposed to be FaceTiming me in about fifteen minutes."
"Wait, I have one more thing I want to give you."
"Another present?" Yuri frowned. "Grandpa, the cupcake and the sneakers are more than enough. You didn't need to get me anything else."
Especially since he knew finances were tight. The prize money he had won during the Grand Prix series, Nationals, and Europeans helped, but Grandpa only accepted the bare minimum of assistance from him, insisting that Yuri should save the majority of his earnings for his training and the future. Truthfully, instead of gifts, Yuri would much rather his grandfather spend his money on himself, on things like a new dining table and dishes or replacing that old clunker of his that he called a car.
Grandpa chuckled. "Don't worry. It's nothing extravagant. Just wait here a second."
"Okay, okay."
Yuri slumped back down in the chair, using his finger to swipe some of the homemade white frosting off the top of the cupcake and bringing it to his mouth. Yakov would probably yell bloody murder at him if he saw, but what the hell. It was his birthday; he deserved a cheat day. Besides, one cupcake wasn't going to derail his diet. He wasn't like that pig, Yuuri, who gained ten pounds if he even glanced at a cake.
Sighing, Yuri licked off another dollop of frosting. He was lucky to be blessed with a fast metabolism, but how long was that going to last? Birthdays reminded him that his time as an elite figure skater was probably coming to an end soon. His technique and trademark flexibility relied on his slender body-type. Once he hit his growth spurt… He was already beginning to have some trouble landing his jumps despite the fact that he was training harder than he ever had before. Yuri hadn't measured himself lately, but he suspected he had grown at least a couple of centimeters since the Grand Prix Final back in December.
One more season. One more season was all he asked for, a chance to compete at the Olympics, win the gold, and earn enough money in endorsements so that they would never have to worry again...
So preoccupied with his concerns, Yuri didn't notice when his grandpa returned from his bedroom, setting an unwrapped box down on the table beside his plate. "Here," Grandpa said.
Yuri's eyes flickered over to the box, almost choking on his frosting when he realized what it contained.
"What the fuck?!"
Grandpa gave him a disapproving look. "Language, Yurochka."
"Come on, I'm sixteen now! I'm old enough to say 'fuck' and 'shit'." Not that he hadn't been using those words for years already...
Shaking his head, Grandpa rubbed at his temple. "I swear, you and Sasha…"
At the mention of his mother's name, Yuri scowled, for the moment forgetting about the condoms his grandfather for some reason deemed an appropriate birthday gift. She hadn't even the courtesy to send him a card – not that he was surprised. Mother of the year, she was not. They hadn't seen or spoken to each other in years, and as far as Yuri was concerned, he no longer had a mother. Grandpa was the only family he needed.
"Why are you even giving me these?" he asked, pushing the reminder of his mother aside to return to the topic at hand. "I don't need them. I'm not dating anybody."
Taking a deep breath, Grandpa sat down in the chair beside him. "Maybe not at the moment, but I want you to be prepared when the time comes. Perhaps if your grandmother and I had been more open with Sasha…"
"I'm not my mother," Yuri said bitterly, crossing his arms over his chest. "Stop bringing her up. You know I don't like talking about that bi— I mean, about her."
Grandpa pursed his lips at his self-censored swear, but let it pass without comment. "Of course. Forgive me, I didn't…" He shook his head. "Anyway, you're sixteen now. It's perfectly natural that you're starting to become interested in the opposite sex – or is it the same sex?" He glanced over at Yuri. "It's okay if you are. You know, interested in boys? I-I don't know much about that, but –"
Yuri tilted his head back, groaning as he covered his face with his hands. He wished a giant hole would open in the linoleum floor beneath him and swallow him up, sparing him from the conversation that was about to happen. "We already had the sex talk when I was twelve, Grandpa!" And once was more than enough; he saw no need to rehash it.
"This is important, Yurochka. You need to be safe and responsible when you decide to have sex."
If I decide to have sex, you mean, Yuri thought but didn't say aloud.
"Condoms aren't only for preventing pregnancy," Grandpa continued, his finger tapping against the top of the box. "Even if she says she's on another method of birth control or if your partner is, well, you know, another man, you should still use them. There are a lot of scary diseases and infections –"
The legs of his chair scrapped against the floor as Yuri stood back up, not wanting to hear another word. "I know all this crap already! Can I please just go back to my room now? I'm gonna miss my call with Beka."
"Yes, fine, go ahead," Grandpa said after a brief pause, his shoulders slumping as he waved his hand in dismissal.
Yuri grabbed his cupcake and turned to leave.
"Wait, don't forget these." His grandpa held out the box of condoms.
"But I –" Yuri sighed, realizing it was pointless to argue. He knew Grandpa was only trying to prevent him from making the same mistakes his mother made at his age; the least he could do was accept the damn condoms. "Thanks."
"Yurochka…" He reached for Yuri's elbow. "If you ever have any questions… Well, I might not have all the answers, but I'm here if you ever want to talk, okay? About anything."
"Y-Yeah, okay."
"Happy birthday."
Upon entering his childhood bedroom, Yuri set his cupcake down on the nightstand, then crashed face-forward on his unmade bed, tossing the box of condoms aside. Honestly, he had no use for them. Like his grandpa said, Yuri was well aware that he was at an age when a lot of people began dating and engaging in sexual activity, but that had never held any real interest to him. He didn't even know if he liked girls or boys or both. That was weird, right? Didn't people usually know by the time they were sixteen? Or at least have some sort of an inkling?
And sex, quite frankly, sounded gross.
Sighing, Yuri pulled his phone out of his pocket and rolled over on his back. He still had a few minutes to waste before Otabek was due to call, so he decided to fool around on Instagram, posting a picture of his cupcake before checking out what was new. Absentmindedly, he took bites of the sugary confection, ignoring the crumbs that fell over his T-shirt, as he scrolled through his feed.
Some of the people he followed, like Mila, Yuuko, Viktor, and Yuuri, had posted him birthday wishes, which Yuri "liked". None from Otabek, of course, but he expected that. Otabek wasn't a huge fan of social media, mainly using his Instagram account to post training videos and the occasional podium pic. The last time he had updated was during Four Continents about a month ago, when he had won the bronze behind Yuuri and JJ. Yuri kept trying to encourage Otabek to be more active online, but so far, he hadn't been very successful in convincing him.
Then again, maybe a little discretion was wise. Yuri frowned when he saw Viktor's latest update, a picture of him and Yuuri kissing in front of the famed Bronze Horseman statue in honor of Peter the Great. Did those two ever give it a rest? It was bad enough that they could barely keep their hands off each other at the rink, Yuri managing to walk in on them several times in compromising positions; they didn't need to subject the whole world to their grossness.
His scowl deepened when he saw that the next few photos were all of various couples captured during romantic moments, each more disgustingly sappy than the next: Georgi giving his new girlfriend a piggyback ride through the park, JJ and Isabella feeding each other samples during the tasting for their wedding cake, an obviously nude Christophe cuddling in bed with his equally naked mystery man, Yuuko wishing her husband a happy anniversary with a throwback picture from their wedding day… By the time he got to a photo of Mila pecking the cheek of some blonde girl he didn't recognize – new girlfriend? – Yuri had enough.
He closed out of the app and sat back up, placing his phone on the nightstand next to his empty plate. Noticing the forgotten box of condoms still laying at the foot of his bed, he sighed and picked it up, walking over to the chest of drawers in the corner of the room. He considered just throwing the condoms away, but he didn't want Grandpa to see them in the trash can and think him ungrateful. Instead, Yuri hid the box in the bottom drawer, knowing his grandfather never dared to open what he called "The Junkyard".
"One of these days, I really should clean this out," he said to himself, raising an eyebrow when he smoothed out a piece of crumpled notebook paper and saw that it was a spelling test he had failed all the way back in the fifth grade.
But today wasn't that day.
A glance at the alarm clock on his desk showed that it was close to time for Otabek to FaceTime him, so after pushing the drawer closed, Yuri took a seat in his desk chair, straddling it backwards, and lifted the lid on the laptop he had bought himself with some of the prize money he won at the Grand Prix Final – his one major splurge. His cell took care of most of his online needs, but video-chatting was much more comfortable when he didn't have to hold up the phone the whole time.
At seven o'clock sharp, a notification from FaceTime appeared on the screen. Otabek was right on time, as always. Yuri brushed away the remaining crumbs that clung to his T-shirt, then clicked to accept his call.
"Hey, happy birthday," Otabek said as soon as they connected. As Almaty was three hours ahead of St. Petersburg, he was already dressed in his nightclothes, his hair wet from the shower he must have taken right beforehand. "Did you enjoy your cake?"
"My cake?" Had Otabek actually checked his Instagram for once?
"You have a little…" He rubbed his finger above his upper lip.
Mirroring him, Yuri did the same, coming in contact with some icing he hadn't realized was there. "Oh, crap!" He used his pointer finger to flick the icing away, bringing it to his mouth. "Is that all of it?" he asked after licking it off. "Beka?"
Otabek stared straight ahead, not reacting at all to his question. Was there a technical issue with the video? It appeared to be working fine on his side, but the wi-fi available at Grandpa's apartment admittedly wasn't the greatest.
Yuri waved his hand in front of the web camera. "Uh, Beka? Earth to Beka? Can you hear me?"
Otabek finally blinked, coming out of whatever trance he was in and shaking his head. "Uh, sorry. You were saying?"
"Did I get all the frosting off my face?"
"Yeah, that's all of it," he said. "It must have been a pretty good cake."
"Cupcake, technically, and it was freakin' delicious. Strawberry with vanilla frosting, my favorite. Grandpa made it for me."
"You're at his place, right? Sorry, I didn't know until I got your message yesterday, so I sent your present to Madame Baranovskaya's house."
"Yeah, I visit Grandpa every year on my birthday," Yuri said. "Yakov's pissed because I should be training for Worlds, but…" He shrugged. "Whatever. It's my birthday. I can do what I fucking want."
"Is the triple axel still giving you trouble?" Otabek asked, seeing right through him in that annoying way Yuri would have hated if it was anybody else.
"Yeah." He rested his chin on the back of his chair, black-painted fingernails digging into the worn upholstery. To be honest, Yuri originally wasn't going to come home for his birthday, intending to focus on his preparation for Worlds like Yakov wanted, but after a week of disastrous practices, he had needed a break. "Man, getting older totally sucks."
"Aren't you a little young to already hate your birthday?"
"It's not funny, Beka. It's starting to affect my quads, too. If I lose those…" He could forget about winning the world title; he wouldn't even make the podium at that rate. Maybe someone like Leo de la Iglesia could be satisfied with doing no-quad programs and making the top ten on the strength of his musicality and presentation, but that wasn't him.
"Yura, it'll take some time to adjust, but I promise things will get better as long as you keep working at it," Otabek said gently. "I went through the same thing when I was around your age. Most skaters do."
"I know." That's what everybody kept telling him, although, funny, for some reason, it sounded more believable coming from Otabek's mouth. "Thanks."
"There are some fun things about turning sixteen, though."
"Yeah, like what?" Nothing good about it came to mind. He was still too young to drive a car, order a drink, or go to any of those cool clubs where Otabek played DJ without getting bounced out.
"You're old enough to get a motorcycle license."
True, he had been wanting one ever since Otabek rescued him that time in Barcelona, but… "I don't have anybody to teach me. You're the only person I know who rides," Yuri said.
"I can teach you."
"Uh, I don't think learning to drive through FaceTime is the best idea, Beka…"
"I meant, in person. Over the summer." Otabek scratched the side of his nose. "I wanted it to be a surprise, but that birthday present I sent you? It's a plane ticket to Almaty. You don't have anything planned for the last week of June, do you? I already checked your current post-season tour schedule."
"I don't think so, but let me check." Yuri pushed himself up from the chair and retrieved his cell from the nightstand to pull up his calendar. "No, nothing urgent," he said, turning his chair around and sitting back down the correct way. "Lilia was going to start choreographing my new free that week, but I can push that to some other time." He – or rather, Yakov – had already decided he would keep his Agape short for the upcoming Olympic season, seeing no reason to drop the current world-record holding short program – although if Yuuri skated his Eros program at Worlds like he had been during practice the past couple of weeks, there was a good chance he would surpass Yuri's record from the Grand Prix Final. "You really want me to come visit you?"
Otabek gave him one of his rare smiles. "Yeah, I really do. That is, if you want to."
"Of course I want to!" he said perhaps a little too quickly. Embarrassed, Yuri ran a hand through his hair. "I mean, yeah, that sounds really cool. Thanks, man."
"You're welcome," Otabek said with a chuckle, propping his cheek on his fist. "You know, there's another pretty good thing about turning sixteen."
"Yeah?"
"You can legally consent to having sex, if you want."
"Oh…right." He had forgotten about that. Yuri drew his knees up to his chest, his toes curling over the edge of his seat. "I guess I can, huh?"
His eyes wandered over at the dresser where he had hidden the condoms. That was probably the reason behind Grandpa deciding to give them to him for his sixteenth birthday.
"Um, Beka, so you're bi, right?" Yuri asked, turning his attention back to the computer.
"Yeah."
"I was just wondering…" He pushed a strand of hair back behind his ear. "When did you know?"
"I guess I was around thirteen or so?" Otabek rubbed the back of his neck. "I kind of suspected before then, but that's when I knew for sure."
"Oh."
Thirteen.
That was pretty young. Or maybe that was normal? Yuri had no idea. By the time he was thirteen, he had already long moved from Moscow to St. Petersburg to train with Yakov, leaving all his childhood friends behind. He never really managed to make new ones, either, the other boys his age at the rink jealous of his obvious talent. Only Viktor and later Mila, when she joined Yakov's group a few years after him, had reached out to him in any meaningful way, but they were older – and Mila was a girl to boot – so he had no real means of comparison.
"I don't think there's any real timeline for figuring it out, though," Otabek said when Yuri didn't say anything else. "Some people know when they're really young; others take a little more time. Everyone's different. Sexuality can be confusing, and it's not always a clear-cut thing."
"That makes sense, I guess. But how…?" Yuri shook his head, thinking better of asking the question on his mind. Not knowing who you were attracted to was understandable; not feeling any sexual attraction or desire at all… Well, that was just strange, and the last thing he wanted was for Otabek to look at him like he was some kind of freak of nature, the one teenage boy in the universe who wasn't a walking mass of uncontrollable hormones. "Never mind. Sorry for the weird questions."
"No, I'm sorry."
"For what?" Otabek hadn't done anything he needed to apologize for.
"Don't worry about it. It's nothing."
They talked a little while longer, mostly making plans for when Yuri visited Otabek during the summer, but it was getting late in Almaty. Otabek had an early practice in the morning and needed to go to sleep, so around ten-thirty his time, he said good night and ended the call.
Starting to close the lid on his laptop, Yuri changed his mind and lifted it up again at the last moment, pulling up the Google homepage.
He had gone to the doctor just last month for his yearly physical and had been given a clean bill of health, but maybe there really was something wrong with him, some medical reason why he didn't have the same interest in sex as everybody else on the planet. Despite his grandpa's earlier offer, Yuri couldn't bring himself to talk to him about it, and admitting it to someone as cool and (probably) experienced as Otabek was too mortifying for words, so he typed the words "no desire to have sex" in the search engine and clicked on the first link just as somebody knocked on the door.
Startled, Yuri quickly closed out of the browser and slammed the lid of his laptop shut. "Yeah?"
His grandpa opened the door, poking his head in. "Are you finished with your call?" he asked.
"Uh, yeah, it was getting late in Almaty, so Beka had to go to sleep," Yuri said, turning around in his chair. "Did you need something?"
"I was wondering if you wanted to watch a movie with me." Grandpa held up an ancient VHS copy of The Lion King with the Russian dub. "Remember this one? We used to watch it every year on your birthday."
"We haven't done that since I was ten, Grandpa."
"So? That's no reason why we can't resume the tradition. Come on, I'll make some popcorn, too."
Yuri looked back at his laptop. Maybe he was being paranoid. He was probably just a late bloomer, that's all. Like Otabek said, there was no timeline for a person to figure out their sexuality. All he had to do was look at Yuuri as an example. How long did it take him to understand what Eros was? And he was a twenty-three year old man! Maybe when he met his own Viktor or Viktoria…
"Okay, I'm in," he said, deciding he had enough thinking about sex for one night. Yuri walked over and snatched the tape from his grandpa's hand. "But only if you let me buy you a Blu-Ray player for your birthday next month. Seriously, VHS? I can't believe you still have this thing. It's so twentieth century."
"My video cassette player still works perfectly fine!" Grandpa protested as Yuri closed the door behind him and led him back to the living room. "Don't waste your money on something like that."
"Oh, Grandpa…"