Chapter Text
It started out with a very innocent text message from Yuri.
To: Otabek
Flying into Pyeongchang tomorrow at 10 am. Hope to see you there <3
Only it wasn’t very innocent and Yuri hadn’t been the one to send it.
In fact, Yuri hadn’t talked to Otabek in over two months. Not after he had discovered the older skater kissing Mila in an empty room backstage at the Grand Prix Finals back in December. Nobody knew that he had seen them…well nobody but Yuuri, who had stumbled upon the half-frozen, mostly catatonic younger skater sitting outside of the hotel lobby that night, just staring off with a blank expression on his face. It had taken 4 cups of hot chocolate in the hotel cafe (something they both mentally promised to never mention to Lilia) before Yuuri was able to drag any information out of the surly teen.
What followed was one of the most awkward conversations that the city of Vancouver had ever hosted. Even though he had gotten lucky with Viktor, Yuuri had never considered himself to be some sort of expert about love. So his clumsy fumbling advice coupled with Yuri’s loud and indignant cries that this had nothing to do with love how gross not everyone is gross like you, you big gross katsudon, made it so that nothing really effective had happened that night. And Yuuri had been trying to remedy the situation ever since.
“Yurio never types that properly. And a heart? Otabek's going to know something is up, solnishko”
Yuuri froze, guiltily, his fingers hovering over the trackpad of Yuri’s phone as Viktor unceremoniously draped himself over his back. Fluffy silver hair tickled the side of his quickly heating cheeks.
“I would expect this kind of trickery from me” Viktor continued, voice sounding way too amused for Yuuri’s liking “but never from you”
Yuuri bit the inside of his cheek as he sent the text message, proper grammar and all, before tossing the phone back into the abandoned gym bag that lay open on the floor in front of him. “I’m just worried about Yurio. He’s been so grumpy ever since Vancouver”
“He’s always grumpy”
“But not like this and you know it, Viktor”
“Does this have something to do with that mysterious incident at the Grand Prix Finals that you won’t tell anyone about?” Viktor asked, eyebrows raised even though Yuuri couldn’t see his expression.
“Don’t you even try to ask me about that again. Yurio would murder me if he knew I told you, and that’s not even a joke. Remember last week when we found him in our kitchen switching all our skim milk with half and half because he thought he heard me tell Lilia that he was getting fat when all I said was that he was getting another cat and…”
“Solnishko, I don’t care about knowing” Viktor interrupted. Yuuri snorted and was promptly ignored, “but I’m just worried about Mila. Yurio has been sending her murderous glares for the past two months and the poor girl has no idea why”
“I think she probably has some idea why” Yuuri huffed. He had nothing against Mila and even felt sorry that the girl had been on the receiving end of Yuri’s death glares. The two Russian skaters had always had a strange brother-sister dynamic and Yuuri knew that Yuri’s not-so-random mood change bothered Mila more than she let on. The girl had no idea that Yuri had seen her that night two months ago, but surely she had to have some idea of what would cause such sudden anger…
“So it does have something to do with Mila!” Viktor cried out happily. Yuuri groaned and buried his face in his arms. “I’m guessing it’s about how Mila has a crush on a certain Kazakh skater that you were so sneakily texting?”
Yuuri mumbled something into his arm.
Viktor sighed “Ah to be young and in love again…”
“What are you two idiots talking about?”
Both men turned in time to see Yuri storming into the dressing room, tight practice shirt soaked through with sweat and a leopard print hoodie hanging casually off one of his shoulders. He had changed in the past couple of years: shot up quicker than any of them had thought he would, his limbs becoming longer and even more lanky in a body that still refused to fill out. His eighteenth birthday was only a few weeks after the Olympics and he was still getting used to skating with his ever-changing body.
“We were just discussing how we should do your hair in Pyeongchang, kotyonok” Viktor lied casually. Yuri’s hair, like the rest of him, had grown at an alarming rate and now lay at a comfortable point halfway down his back.
Viktor sometimes thought it was cute, how similar him and Yuri looked at 17.
“Yeah, like there’s any way in hell that I’m taking hairstyle advice from a balding guy”
Okay, never mind, Viktor took that back. There wasn’t anything cute about Yuri at all.
“Did you finish practicing your short program for the team skate?” Yuuri quickly asked, moving the topic as far away as possible from Viktor’s hairline. The older man tended to blurt out the most ill-timed things whenever he felt insulted.
Yuri sneered as he dramatically flopped onto the bench next to two other men. “Yeah. It’s total shit, though. I don’t know why you two lazy asses couldn’t have just choreographed it like you did with my free skate”
Both Yuuri and Viktor looked at the younger boy as if he had just sprouted horns.
“You…specifically, and rather graphically, told us that you would rather slice your head open with your own skates than have us come within 10 meters of your short program” Yuuri gently reminded.
“You said that we were boring old men and that the short program we wanted to give you was something only boring old men would like and that unless every judge at the Olympics was a grandpa, we would make you lose the gold” Viktor added on.
“You wanted me to skate to fucking Elvis” Yuri seethed.
“What’s wrong with Elvis? I like Elvis” Viktor asked.
“Yeah, well no one under the age of 40 does”
“How…old do you think I am, kotyonok?”
“Ancient” Yuri bit out. “Besides, the fact you two have me dancing to some gay shit from Romeo and Juliet for my free skating program is bad enough”
“Language” Yuuri sighed. “And you’re the last one to be talking about gay shit seeing as how you picked a Beyonce song to do for your exhibition”
“Oh, I changed that” Yuri said casually, causing both of his coaches to have a mini heart attack. Again.
Viktor clutched at his chest. “You….changed….your exhibition skate…….one….day before….we leave to….”
“I changed it right after the Grand Prix Finals, grandpa, don’t be so dramatic. Besides, it’s just the exhibition skate. It doesn’t even count for anything”
“What did you change it to?” Yuuri asked, the dangerous look in the young skater’s eyes already telling him he wasn’t going to like the answer at all.
“Black Mamba. From the Kill Bill soundtrack. I thought it was more fitting for my situation”
“You thought a rap song about killing people you hate with swords was more fitting for your situation?” Yuuri deadpanned.
“Don’t forget the having sex with tons of women part, either”
“He’s all yours, solnishko” Viktor said, standing up and walking away, his hand still clutched to his chest. “I think I really am too old to handle this…”
Yuuri looked at his fiance with pity, feeling a bit sorry for himself too, even though they both had known exactly what they were getting themselves into when they agreed to stay in St Petersburg for a year after retiring to help Lila and Yakov coach Yuri for the 2018 season, which would include the boy’s Olympic debut. Well, that was a little unfair…they knew they were going to get normal surly teen Yuri. They hadn’t anticipated on crazy-self-sabotaging-heartbroken Yuri.
“Yurio, you know that you can’t change your short skate now, right?” Yuuri said. It was a ridiculous question to ask, especially of someone who had won more senior medals in 3 years than most people did in their lifetime. But it was obvious that Yuri wasn’t exactly thinking straight right now.
“Of course I know that. I just think it’s shit” Yuri answered, kicking at the ground.
“You didn’t seem to think it was shit a few months ago”
Yuri made a noncommittal grunting sound as he resolutely dug the toe of his already worn combat boots into the cement floor.
“Does this have anything to do with the fact that Mila was the one who chose the music for it?”
“Why would I care about anything that stupid grandma does, she doesn’t matter to me or anyone else here” Yuri spat out, eyes turning murderous.
Yuuri really wanted to get up and join Viktor in wherever the older man had gone off to, but he also knew that if he didn’t try to take of things now that the whole trip to Pyeongchang would be a continuation of the current nightmare.
“Listen, Yurio. I know that you don’t like Otabek romantically” It was a lie, anyone with eyes could see the idiot Russian teen was head over heels for the idiot Kazakh boy who was just as clueless and oblivious, but Yuuri needed to keep the peace and not blow it up “But you’re obviously angry with him and Mila over what happened in Vancouver. Which is okay” another lie, but who was even counting now “You can’t let them affect you this much, though. Mila is going to be skating in the team trophy event with you so you’ll be spending a lot of time with her…on camera. You have to at least play nice”
Yuri scowled.
“And, if nothing else” Yuuri continued “At least don’t let them distract you from the ultimate goal. Viktor and I only agreed to stay behind and coach you for a year because we knew that you can get it. The Triple Crown”
“The Triple Crown” Yuri repeated, his kicking feet stilling as the words left his mouth. The Triple Crown—a gold at the Grand Prix Final, the Olympics, and Worlds—was something that a skater rarely received over the course of their whole careers. But, of course, Yuri Plisetsky wasn’t content with just being like other skaters. He wanted to get the full Triple Crown in one season, something no one had done since the 70s. And something no one as young as him had done ever.
“You already took gold in Prix this year” Yuuri said, nudging the boy a little. He took it as a good sign that Yuri didn’t throw him off or hiss at him for it. “And both your short and free skates have the highest technical points….even if they’re shit”
The words seemed to work their magic as Yuri visibly deflated, the defiant tenseness of his shoulders giving way to a more relaxed posture, his feet resuming their casual kicking against the ground. He sat in silence for a few seconds as the color started to return to his whitened knuckles.
“I’m still skating to Black Mamba” he grunted out.
Yuuri just grinned and shook his head almost affectionately, thinking in the back of his mind that if someday—in the far off future—him and Viktor ever adopted a kid, they’d already be experts in dealing with the moody teenage years.
“Whatever you want, Yurio”
~~~
Their flight the next day pulled in at 10:30, half an hour delayed because of icy conditions in St Petersburg, but still giving the Russian delegation enough time to get their luggage and settle into the Olympic village before opening ceremonies that night. The government had chartered a plane just for them so the ride over had been full of nothing but loud, obnoxious chattering from overly-excited and adrenaline pumped athletes.
Yuri had slipped his headphones on before they had even boarded the plane and spent the entire flight crouched down low in his seat, a tiger print blanket covering 99% of his body as he pretended to sleep. It was no secret that the other athletes had a bit of a fascination with the so called ‘Fairy of Russia’, which was understandable. At 17, Yuri was well on his way to becoming one of Russia’s most legendary figure skaters and had gained enough company endorsements and sponsorships to have become a bit of a celebrity figure in Russia. The young boy’s face was a common site on billboards, television, and even in the supermarket—advertising everything from soap to coffee.
And, Viktor noted with a bit of a smile as the grumpy teen made his way through immigration, underneath all the scowls and black animal prints, Yuri Plisetsky was a strikingly handsome boy. The tall, willowy ballerina build of his body contrasted with the fierceness of his eyes and strong cut of his jaw. Where Viktor had been a soft and graceful beauty, Yuri was an ice cold one—and it seemed to attract a lot of attention from the fellow athletes of Team Russia.
“Plisetsky!” Alexi, a hockey player with floppy brown hair and brilliant blue eyes, looped his arm over Yuri’s shoulder with a good-natured smile “who did they assign to be your roommate? I heard that all the skaters are staying near each other since we all compete in the same venue”
“Do I know you?” Yuri spat out.
Alexi gasped in mock hurt. “Our training rinks are near each other, so I’ve seen you around all the time. I even went to Chelyabinisk to cheer you on in the Russian Championship.”
Yuri just grunted. He shrugged his shoulders in an effort to buck the other boy’s hands off of him but Alexi held on steadfast.
“We’re bringing 19 people on our team, so I volunteered to be the odd man out for room assignments since I’m the captain. I got assigned to the same room as Maxim Voronov, the speed skater. You know him? Total tool. I’ll see whoever you’re assigned with and ask them if they’ll be cool with trading. It would be fun to room together, wouldn’t it?”
Yuri looked as though he was three seconds away from murdering the boy, which was Viktor’s cue to step in and separate the cheerful hockey player from his homicidal young student.
“Alexi, your teammates are looking for you. Something about luggage” Viktor said. The boy quickly said bye to the two skaters as he ran over to the baggage claim.
“It wouldn’t hurt you to make some friends on the team, kotyonok” Viktor sighed.
Yuri bristled “I don’t want to be friends with that psycho! What’s he so happy about anyways? Probably some type of creepy ass stalker”
“Alexi Petrov, youngest professional hockey player in Russia. And apparently a fan” Viktor said with a smirk “I saw him buying a poster of yours at the championships”
“Oh so you’re the stalker now?”
“I wasn’t stalking him. I just thought it was kind of cute”
“Not everyone is like you and wants to bang one of their crazed fans, grandpa” Yuri bit out. Viktor narrowed his eyes and let a sly grin creep onto his face.
“Now who said anything about banging, kotyonok? I just said you should be friends. Not my fault your teenage hormones are out of control”
“Do you actually want to get murdered, Nikiforov? Because…”
“Haha, no murdering today, please” Yuuri interjected as he stepped between the two of them. His Russian had improved over the past two years he had spent in St Petersburg and though it still wasn’t great, being around Yuri made murder a word that he learned quite early on.
“Your luggage all came” Yuuri said, waving his hand towards a pile of leopard print suitcases. “Yakov said that he’d take them through customs and then send them over to the village. We are going to meet Phichit. He told me Seung gil showed him all the best places to eat last time he came to Korea…”
“It’s not even 11 yet” Yuri pointed out, but let the older man grab him by the shoulder and lead him out into the arrival area anyways.
Yuuri smiled at the boy “If we went to the olympic village with everyone else right now, you’d be roped into going to the Russian team lunch and I figured you wanted to avoid that. So I asked Phichit to take us somewhere else instead”
Yuri felt his cheeks heat up a little at the older man’s thoughtfulness. Sometimes the gross old katsudon could actually maybe be okay. He mumbled something that sounded a bit like a ‘thanks’, which earned him 2 straight minutes of coo-ing from both Yuuri and Viktor.
By the time that they reached arrivals, Yuri was ready to explode. But all the anger and annoyance swirling around in side of him suddenly froze ice-cold as his eyes zeroed in on a very familiar man.
Was that…
“Yo Otabek!” Viktor cried out, waving his arms as he followed Yuri’s laser-sharp stare to where the young man was standing amongst the crowd of people waiting for family and friends. “What are you doing here?”
It was a valid question. Otabek hated airports. Hated anywhere that there were large crowds. It was a weird quality to have in an athlete—a figure skater in particular, but it was just one of the many weird things about Otabek that they all had learned to accept over the years. The man never felt comfortable in crowds.
And even so, there he was walking towards them, his clothes a little too rumpled and his hair a little too mussed and fluffy than what he normally allowed it to be like. His eyes looked tired.
“What time did your flight come in?” Yuuri asked, taking in the boy’s appearance.
“Seven” Otabek said simply. Yuuri winced. The flight from Almaty was 6 hours at least, which meant that Otabek had been up since before midnight.
“Seven?” Viktor asked “And you’ve been here in the airport since then? Where’s the rest of your team at? Your coach?”
“The village.” He turned to Yuri, who has been standing rather frozen the entire time “I…got your text yesterday so I thought I would wait here. For you”
Yuri was silent for a moment before muttering a rather sharp “the fuck?”
It was the first thing that he had said to Otabek in months and the Kazakh skater couldn’t help but think it was a rather Yuri-like way to break the silence.
“I never texted you, what are you on about?” Yuri said.
Otabek’s brows drew together, his mouth pulled tight—the corners drooping every so slightly in his version of a frown. He pulled out his phone and quickly tapped onto his messenger app, showing Yuri the text in question.
The blonde teen read it, ears and cheeks heating up a terrible shade of red when he reached the heart at the end of the message. Oh, someone was definitely going to get murdered today.
“Oi, you fucking old man…”
“It wasn’t me” Viktor said, backing away quickly with his hands waving in the air. He nodded his head in the direction of Yuuri, who just gaped at him.
“Viktor! At least wait to be threatened before you sell me out like that”
“Listen, solnishko, you are the light and love of my life but you know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of those kicks and you also know I have a bad back”
“Oh so now you have a bad back? You didn’t seem to have a bad back last night when you…”
“You two nasties did it last night?” Yuri yelled, eyes turning even more murderous “when you were in MY APARTMENT!?!”
The two bickering coaches fell silent in horror at the seething tomcat in front of them.
“Ha…haha….uh, I think we forgot one of our suitcases in the baggage claim area” Yuuri said, grabbing onto the front of Viktor’s sweater and quickly pulling him away “how forgetful!”
“Haha yeah, you know us, always so forgetful” Viktor added in with the fakest of laughs as he clasped Yuuri’s arm and moved even faster “We gotta go get our bag, you two head on over to the village, okay, we’ll meet you there later!”
They were both gone before Yuri even had the chance to blink. “What the ever-loving fuck….”
“So you didn’t send that text?”
Yuri turned back around to find Otabek standing there with that tiny little frown still on his face, apparently completely unaffected by the almost-murder that had been about to unfold before him.
“No. Katsudon must have sent it from my phone”
“Oh” Otabek said, pocketing his phone, frown growing a little deeper. “I should have known by the heart”
“Yeah, like I’d ever send that kind of gross shit” Yuri mumbled, not really knowing what to do or say. He wanted to go away, but of course those two idiots had all but stranded him in a Korean airport without any sort of transportation…
“You haven’t been sending me anything lately” Otabek said. His voice didn’t sound accusing or sad or any sort of discernible emotion. Normally Yuri appreciated the other boy’s calmness, but right now it just felt infuriating.
“I’ve been busy practicing”
“You always sent me messages even when you were practicing”
“Well this is the fucking Olympics. Practicing for it is different”
Otabek didn’t say anything for a few seconds. The crowd shifted around them and Yuri couldn’t help but feel a pang when the Kazakh skater winced the slightest bit at the press of all the people against them. It must really have been uncomfortable for him to be there…
“You’re not upset at me?” Otabek finally asked. Yuri narrowed his eyes.
“Do I have a reason to be upset at you?”
“I don’t know” Otabek never really knew what Yuri was thinking. It wasn’t that the Russian skater didn’t have emotions—it was that he had too many that moved through him too fast. Over the course of their 3 year friendship, Otabek had gotten better at reading Yuri’s emotions, but they still overwhelmed him at times.
Yuri bristled and looked away, staring holes into the ground. He knew that he was stupid for being so mad, that there was no reason for him to be so mad. Of course he wished that Otabek had told him that he was dating Mila—they were best friends, after all. Didn’t best friends share this kind of thing? And there was still some confusing part of him that felt a burning anger whenever he thought about that kiss he had accidentally witnessed.
But…this was Otabek. His only friend. And he found it impossible to stay angry at him. Especially when he was standing right in front of him—disheveled, tired, obviously a little panicked and uncomfortable—waiting in a place he hated for hours, by himself, just to greet Yuri.
So Yuri just looked back up at his friend and gave him a little smile. “I’m not upset, Beka. Just been really busy practicing. I’ve got to win gold or else I’ll never hear the end of it from those two idiots”
Otabek returned the smile. His eyes remained the same, but his shoulders sagged down a little in relief as he heard that familiar nickname leave Yuri’s mouth. “Don’t let them stress you, Yuratchka. Everyone knows you’re the best skater in the league”
Yuri grinned. “You’re just saying that so I’ll let my guard down and you can steal my medal”
Just then, the rest of Team Russia came barreling out into arrivals—a sea of white and red, talking just as loudly as ever. Both Yuri and Otabek winced at the crowd of them.
“Hey, let’s get out of here” Yuri said quickly. Otabek was in the process of nodding and collecting his backpack when Alexi came bounding over to them as fast as his large, bulky frame would let him. Yuri was already as tall as Viktor, but Alexi was taller still.
“Plisetsky!” he cried out once again. Yuri tried his hardest to stop himself from groaning aloud. Viktor and his piggy would be proud. “I managed to talk to my coach and…oh, who are you?” he asked, switching to english as he looked over Otabek.
Otabek glanced at the other man impassively, not letting the uncomfortableness of being looked up and down show on his face. He was used to people making judgements based on how he looked. He never said much to strangers, so it was the only thing people really had to go off of.
“Otabek Altin”
“Not a Russian name”
“Because I am not a Russian” Otabek answered, in perfect Russian. He didn’t offer anything else and the other boy looked bit taken aback.
“Well…I’m Alexi” he said after a few uncomfortable minutes. He turned back to Yuri. “Anyways, I talked to my coach and he was able to switch our rooms around so now we’re rooming together. It’ll be fun! You coming to the village with us?”
Yuri looked at Otabek and then back at Alexi “I’ll come later. Tell them to leave my key with Yakov”
It was the most that Yuri had ever said to Alexi and it left the other boy beaming. “Sure! See you later, then!”
The large boy turned and went back to his team, the majority who were subtly looking at their captain’s interaction with the ‘Fairy of Russia’ with interest and knowing grins. A couple of them even elbowed a blushing Alexi as he returned. Yuri scoffed at the lot of them. Gross, overgrown, overly-hormonal…
“Who was that?”
Yuri looked back at Otabek, who was staring after Alexi. His face was as blank as always, but his eyes were sharp and intense as they looked over the hockey player.
And the rational part of Yuri wanted to just shrug and say ‘some loser nobody who’s stalking me’ like he normally would…
But the petty part of Yuri, the part that had been roaring with anger and confusion and confused anger ever since he had walked into that seemingly deserted back room at the Grand Prix Finals, caused him to turn back to Otabek with what he hoped was a semi-dreamy expression on his face.
“Oh, that’s Alexi Petrov. Captain of the hockey team. Youngest pro player in Russia” the image of Mila and Otabek kissing burned hot in his mind as he continued talking. “His Olympics practice rink was right next to mine, so we became really good friends lately”
Who’s keeping things from his best friend now, Beka?
Otabek’s mouth was a straight line and his face showed no emotions. His fingers gripped his backpack tighter than before, knuckles turning a bit white. “Oh”
Yuri wanted to roll his eyes at the one word answer, but this was Otabek so what did he really expect? He was about to comment on it when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mila and a younger skater laughing and chatting about something as they stood by their luggage.
Yuri quickly turned to Otabek, hoping that the other skater hadn’t noticed Mila yet. Luckily for him, Otabek was still looking over at the hockey players. Yuri did wonder briefly why the other boy was waiting for him instead of Mila. Wouldn’t it make more sense for Otabek to greet his girlfriend at the airport?
But Yuri didn’t want to think about that. For whatever reason, Otabek had chosen him instead of Mila for the day and the young Russian teen would accept it without question. Instead, he just grabbed onto Otabek’s arm and dragged him away from the crowd.
“Let’s get out of here. I swiped the Old Man’s credit card before we got off the plane, so lunch is on me”