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Viktor has done his best to avoid face-to-face interactions with Yakov ever since Yakov blew him off for hot pot at the Cup of China. Viktor doesn’t take it personally. Yakov is harsh; Lilia is harsh; they all are. Viktor does not think too much about the fact that his most important familial relationship is with his coach. He’s not that kind of person. He leaves the thinking to Yuuri. Yuuri does enough thinking for both of them.
He can’t escape a last phone call before Yakov and Georgi fly home to Moscow, and Viktor and Yuuri to St. Petersburg, however. Standing guard over their luggage as Yuuri uses the washroom, Viktor sighs, looking down at his text messages, and switches from the English to the Cyrillic keyboard on his phone.
Before he can finish typing out a reply, his phone lights up with an incoming call from Yakov, because Yakov is an impatient old man who’ll never change.
All Yakov says is: ‘Really?’
‘Yakov! Send my congratulations to Georgi!’
‘I am appalled by your — oh, it’s time you stopped looking down on Georgi, Vitya! He is Russia’s top skater now that you’re gone,’ says Yakov. Yakov’s not nearly so nice to Georgi’s face. Viktor knows what kind of lecture Georgi must’ve received after messing up his free skate — can imagine the words and tone of voice as intimately as the back of his hand. Sometimes Viktor wonders how many compliments Yakov has paid him behind his back. It’s okay. Viktor has never had to feed on praise in order to thrive.
‘Yes, he is,’ Viktor agrees immediately. ‘Now that I’m gone.’
Yakov lets out a noise of sheer vexation that triples in force and volume over the staticky line. Viktor presses his knuckles to his mouth and tries very hard not to laugh. He mostly succeeds.
‘You’ve got a long way to go, boy! And what was with…’ Yakov splutters. ‘What was —’
‘I am sure I don’t know what you are talking about, Yakov,’ Viktor says, leaning against the pillar. He is very good at interrupting Yakov; he’s had years of practice. ‘Oh, Yuuri’s out! Dasvidaniya.’
‘I am not done talking to you —’
‘Why are you yelling in Russian?’ Yuuri asks. His hands are still wet — Beijing airport bathrooms never have enough paper towels — and he awkwardly uses them to slick back his hair, pauses, and (apparently without thinking about it) wipes them on his jeans. It’s stupid how endearing Viktor finds that.
Viktor lifts the phone away from his ear. Blinks at Yuuri. Puts the phone back against his cheek and says, again slipping in smoothly in the middle of Yakov’s rant, ‘Yuuri says hello, by the way.’
‘I’m just going to sit down,’ Yuuri mutters. He settles down on top of Viktor’s upturned suitcase, rests his elbows on his knees and waits.
‘Yura says that kiss is all over Russian Twitter! What have you done, Vitya?’
‘I haven’t checked Twitter in a while. I’m busy being a coach,’ replies Viktor cheerily. ‘You’ve been talking to Yurio? Did you tell him I said hi?’
‘Why can’t you just call the boy what he wants to be called? God, Vitya —’
‘Oh, calm down, Yakov. Take deep breaths,’ Viktor says, deliberately using his most patronising voice. He could never get away with this if it were Lilia. He’s relishing that knowledge. ‘Trust me, I know what I’m doing. Trust me.’
Yuuri — uncomprehending, but recognising Viktor’s tone — offers Viktor a tentative half-smile. Viktor smiles back.
Yakov sighs. It’s a resigned sort of sigh, and Viktor counts this a small victory. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Looking at Yuuri, he thinks: Yuuri wouldn’t be able to take your style, Yakov. He’d crumble. Georgi and I are tough; you made us that way.
‘You always did think you knew best.’
‘This time I’m right.’ Yuuri is struggling to unscrew the cap of his water bottle, so Viktor tucks the phone between his ear and shoulder, takes the bottle from Yuuri and opens it for him. ‘Listen, when have I ever made a serious mistake? In the past ten years? I’ll see you at the Grand Prix Final. When they’re pinning the gold medal on my Yuuri maybe you’ll regret underestimating him, though I know you’d never admit being wrong — I’d die of shock if you did.’
‘I doubt your boy will even qualify —’
Viktor hangs up. He shoves the phone back into his jeans pocket a little more forcefully than necessary. It’s been a long day.
‘I didn’t understand any of that, but I am concerned,’ says Yuuri.
‘It’s nothing. I’ve hung up on him thousands of times.’ Running one hand through his hair, Viktor makes a shooing motion with the other. Yuuri gets up and Viktor reaches for his suitcase, pulling the handle out to its full length. ‘Promise me you’ll be nicer to your coach than I was, Yuuri.’
Yuuri doesn’t grin widely like Viktor does. His amusement is soft around the corners. Here in the crowded airport, the check-in queues trailing behind them, he turns — turns away from Viktor — picks up his suitcase, checking the labels with deft careful fingers. He’s dressed for cold weather, because Viktor has told him what November temperatures are like in St. Petersburg, and concealed under those layers of clothing is hot skin and so, so much heart. Viktor aches to touch. He zips up his jacket and puts his phone in flight mode.
It’s barely evening when they arrive, far too early for dinner, but St. Petersburg is five hours behind Beijing and Viktor has never liked the food on Aeroflot flights. He’s starving. Yuuri’s ears turn pink in seconds and he sneezes once, then twice. Viktor curses sharply, surprising Yuuri; he takes off his coat and wraps it around them both. By the time they get to the taxi stand, Yuuri’s flushed and laughing.
‘You’re ridiculous,’ Yuuri tells Viktor lowly. His glasses are fogged up, and he takes them off and wipes them on Viktor’s sleeve. The whistle of the wind outside leaves his cheeks cool and his lips chapped.
‘Do you think we can button up my coat? Will we fit?’
‘Viktor,’ Yuuri hisses, a little bit flustered and entirely in love. His fingers are tight around Viktor’s wrist within the safe darkness of their coat. ‘People are staring.’
‘Of course,’ says Viktor, not looking at anyone except Yuuri. He flags down a taxi. ‘I’m very famous.’
They head to Viktor’s apartment to drop off their suitcases before going out for dinner. Viktor doesn’t cook and Yuuri doesn’t particularly want to order takeout — Viktor wants to show Yuuri around, at any rate. Yuuri spends the whole taxi ride gazing out of the window, asking the occasional question: what does that sign say? Is that a palace — a mosque? Is this a school? Is this your street? Do you like this restaurant? Viktor doesn’t remember.
He’s not used to this. He’s a little nervous about the idea of bringing Yuuri home. Letting Yuuri in. Viktor hasn’t been here in months, but there are still traces of himself all over the apartment — telling you everything, if you only know where to look. Strands of Viktor’s hair sticking to the carpet. The shards of a smashed vase still sitting in the dustbin, since Viktor broke it by accident and can’t bring himself to throw them out. The locked drawer in his nightstand full of postcards and handwritten notes, courtesy of a series of ex-girlfriends in whom Viktor was deeply uninterested. The ghosts of his past selves. The glory of the music in his lungs. His hands shake a little as he turns the key in the lock.
‘Where are we going to eat?’ asks Yuuri, the words practically unintelligible through his yawn. Viktor can’t help himself. He reaches out to cup Yuuri’s face, thumb sweeping over the plush curve of Yuuri’s bottom lip. There’s a pause. The evening glints on Yuuri’s high, delicate cheekbones. The tip of his nose red with cold, his clear brown eyes drowsy but unsurprised. He closes them. Turns his cheek into Viktor’s palm.
At last Viktor answers, ‘Wrap up warm,’ and realises that Yuuri — all but dozing on his feet — has forgotten the question.
Then the door opposite them bursts open and a black Labrador puppy carrying a ball of yarn in its mouth shoots out, followed closely by Viktor’s neighbour’s grandson. Mikhail promptly runs headlong into Yuuri, then looks up, sees Viktor over Yuuri’s shoulder and gasps. Viktor is good with children — has been ever since he was a slight teenager winning European titles left and right while his feet bled. From somewhere within the apartment, a sharp female voice calls: ‘Bring her back with my yarn!’
‘Viktor Alexandrovich! I didn’t know you were home!’
‘Yes, yes,’ says Viktor hastily, hand on Yuuri’s elbow as Mikhail’s grandmother appears in the doorway, ‘see you later, Mishka — good evening, Daria Nikolaevna — my friend does not speak Russian — have a good day, I mean a good night, I hope your dogs are well!’
He slams the door behind him. Yuuri looks at him curiously.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘What? Oh! Nothing. I’m not used to having people over, that’s all.’
The sun is setting by the time they get back to Viktor’s block of apartments. Yuuri, jet-lagged and full, insists he isn’t tired even as his speech slurs and his eyelids droop. Stepping out of the lift, Viktor presses his lips to Yuuri’s hair and looks up to find little Mikhail’s grandmother watching them narrowly. Viktor’s lived down the hallway for years. He’s walked Mikhail home from school on days when the hospital calls her up for extra shifts; she’s baked him pies for Christmas. He smiles and waves.
After he’s herded Yuuri into the shower Viktor decides, at last, to take out the trash. And bring in the stack of morning papers sitting outside his door, happily accumulating dust — he forgot to tell the newspaper girl that he’d be away. At this point, Viktor’s irresponsibility surprises no one. He ties off the plastic bag (with a last pang of regret for the porcelain rattling inside) and goes down the corridor, where his elderly neighbour is watering her flower-boxes. She meets his gaze. He says by way of explanation, ‘My friend is tired.’
‘Mmm-hmm,’ Daria Nikolaevna responds, very dry. Very bland.
The problem is that Viktor falls hard. He’s spent his career winning the hearts of the audience and the press, skating by on his looks, his talent, his effortless charm; and now he opens his eyes after twenty-seven years and the world has left him behind. He knows how his fellow skaters see him. He knows. Admiration, tremendous respect, that hint of competitors’ resentment — you can forget about that gold medal if Viktor Nikiforov is in the lineup, now — but not like this. Not familiarity. Not affection. His purpose has always been go out there and make people like you, and on the rink, only on the rink, he has always succeeded.
He gets away with things no one else can. This has more or less defined Viktor up till now. He wears his hair waist-length, wears a flower crown, and provokes only a minimum of mocking laughter from his home crowd because seventeen-year-old Viktor Nikiforov is so goddamned pretty. He cuts his hair short and it falls perfectly into his eyes and he knows it. His audience doesn’t need to look far to read into him, to think they know him; they look at his heavy-lidded eyes and his sharp, clean-cut bone structure and they create him. Viktor is a natural. He knows this. He eats up the spotlight. He just.
He doesn’t miss skating.
Sitting at his kitchen table while he waits for his turn in the shower, Viktor skims through a week’s worth of newspaper headlines. He doesn’t bother to flip to the sports section. He’s spent enough Moscow nights studying his rivals as a teenager — their sleek movements, their ruined jumps and injuries, the step sequences Viktor can do better. His chin propped in his hand, his eyes burning. Reading the gossip about their private lives, relying on Google Translate when he came across English words he didn’t know. Girlfriends, boyfriends, family, friends. The nights were freezing and Viktor’s habits bordered on obsession. He frowned at program scores on the ISU website — this one deserved more points, he brought out more emotion — and scrolled down and worried and wondered till the numbers blurred into each other, into sleep.
He hasn’t skated for pleasure, as he used to do, for a long time. He used to enjoy that when he was alone at the rink — put the music on full blast, throw his choreography to the wind and improvise. But he’s twenty-seven and his bones are tired. Minako’s ballet studio brings him something like nostalgia, almost, as he watches Yuuri soar through the steps Viktor has forgotten. He’s not as flexible as he once was. Yurio’s fae-like grace makes his chest hurt. This is a sport where you can peak and stagnate and age out of the game in the time it takes most people to earn a master’s degree. He lands cleaner jumps than anyone he’s ever seen. He can choreograph technically difficult routines in under a week. He’s better than Yagudin. Better than Plushenko. These are the things he tells himself.
(This is what most people don’t realise. It’s not about how good you are. That Yuuri made it to last year’s Grand Prix Final at all is proof of his potential. It’s about how good your competition is.)
One of Yakov’s friends put together a medley of the program music from Viktor’s past performances, all the gold medals he’s won, all the records he’s broken, favourites that have slipped from Viktor’s own memory: ‘Best of Nikiforov’, sitting unused in an mp3 file on Viktor’s computer. Waiting. He still hasn’t used the track for any programs. He thinks… no, he doesn’t intend to. No. It’s strange to think about his legacy. The impact he’s had. Viktor is very, very good at inspiring younger skaters — with a gesture, a nod of approval as they come sweat-drenched and panting off the rink after their programs, a few kind words. Watching the awe blossom in their eyes. For a skater, he’s old. For a coach he is fairly young. He has time. He has Yuuri. He has all the time in the world.
Yuuri is a lot more awake after coming out of the shower. Viktor makes them tea — the milk has gone sour and he has to throw out the fruit jam, which is crawling with ants. He doesn’t have lemon, or sugar. He ends up leaving it black, after struggling to remember how his water-kettle works for longer than he should. Yuuri doesn’t mind.
Yuuri, polishing his skates with a sponge dipped into Viktor’s jar, has a slight flush in his cheeks as he watches a blow-by-blow clip of his free skate on YouTube. Viktor makes him do this as often as he can — makes him listen to the commentators’ shock and delight, which Yuuri is too absorbed to notice when he’s skating — and they have already gone through Yuuri’s short program, Viktor smiling helplessly at every jump. Tomorrow they’ll work on perfecting Yuuri’s quadruple flip. It’s growing dark, and the trees rustle in the breeze outside the windows.
‘I hope they don’t laugh at me at Rostelecom,’ Yuuri mumbles, ducking his head into his lap as he sweeps his sponge across the flat of the blade.
Viktor checks his own blades for rust. ‘Why would they laugh at you?’
Yuuri trips over his own words. Viktor holds out his hand and Yuuri passes him his skates, letting Viktor test the sharpness of Yuuri’s blades with the pad of his finger. ‘Well, there’s Yurio — and — and they’ll be watching you, watching me steal away Russia’s top skater!’
‘He is Japan’s top skater, and yet he is still like this,’ Viktor tells the ceiling. He wishes Makkachin were here — he can imagine how Makkachin’s ears would flop sympathetically.
‘Ah, to be fair,’ says Yuuri wryly, ‘Japan is a lot smaller than Russia —’
Viktor throws Yuuri’s skates down on the table. The force of the gesture is enough to make Yuuri start. ‘Stop that.’ He leans over and kisses Yuuri on the mouth. Kisses him once, twice; leaves Yuuri gasping. ‘Stop.’
You’d think he would be more fluent in giving emotional support by now. He’s not. He’s a slow learner and languages have never been his strong point. He’s not any better at this in Russian than he is in English, or Japanese. His native tongue is physical touch.
Yuuri’s eyes flutter open. He swallows, Adam’s apple moving in his throat. He watches Viktor’s face. His pupils are wide and very dark.
‘I can’t. You can’t make me… you know, you can’t change what I, what I think, just like that.’
‘I know,’ Viktor says. ‘Tell me what to do.’
Viktor goes to bed early while Yuuri talks to his parents and Yuuko on the phone. It’s almost midnight when Yuuri pushes the door open and slips into Viktor’s room, climbing into bed beside him with a contented sigh.
Through the fluttering curtains, the dim sky is quiet. Viktor’s mind is quiet. Yuuri’s cool palm finds the back of Viktor’s neck, bringing their faces closer together. Viktor’s eyes have already gotten used to the darkness but Yuuri’s almost blind, and he gazes at Viktor with a sort of blurry tenderness, eyelashes brushing Viktor’s nose.
‘I like your apartment,’ Yuuri murmurs.
‘Really?’ Viktor asks. He fishes for his I’m-a-beautiful-person smile, which he’s nearly forgotten how to wear. ‘Win gold at Rostelecom and we’ll stay here forever — I’ll show you the pond where I skated as a child.’
‘Don’t try to reward me,’ Yuuri says, ‘and don’t ever threaten to leave me again.’
Viktor breathes. He’s grateful for the darkness — no, Yuuri probably knows what Viktor’s expression must look like. The silence leaves him reeling. Then Yuuri, as forgiveness, pushes his mouth against Viktor’s. His thumb brushes Viktor’s jaw, absent-minded and fond. His nose is surprisingly cold. Viktor closes his eyes and swallows the kiss. There’s not enough air for the two of them.
‘Okay.’ He can feel Yuuri carding his fingers through Viktor’s hair. ‘I’m sorry.’
Yuuri hums, his lips warm against Viktor’s cheek. He’s about to drift off: his breathing is already evening out. Viktor tucks his chin on Yuuri’s shoulder and thinks stay close to me, stay.