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"Landings like that are why skaters retire at 25!" Yurio belted from the edge of the rink where he leaned against the short wall, laying all his weight onto his arms as his legs dangled a scant inch off the ground. One tennis shoe tapped idly against the concrete, scatterings of silver sequins glinting off the floor.
"What are you talking about? My weight was perfectly balanced!" Yuuri glided by breezily, his floating body not matching the end-of-practice scowl on his tired face.
"Sure it was, Katsudon. I'd think someone as petite as you would be able to float a little better."
"I think you're just taking out your issues on me again." The rink became eerily silent as Yuuri made the transition from ice to floor, leaning at the barrier to clip the covers back over his freshly-sharpened blades.
Yurio suppressed a growl. It was true but like hell he'd tell cutlet bowl that. In the six months since the GPF, Yurio had shot up 3 inches and it seemed to be all leg. This would be great if ballet was his primarily focus in life; longer legs meant prettier extensions and more split to show off, but on the ice it just threw off his balance. Twice since March he'd face-planted onto the ice and for weeks afterwards every photo on his Instagram was marred by bruises in ever-evolving shades of plum. Viktor had assured him confidently that he'd find his center again, reminding the boy that he went from Yuuri's size at 17 to over 6 god damned feet tall in just over a year. Ginormous freak. With a shudder, Yurio plopped himself down from the divider and shoved his hands into the pocket of his hoodie, trying not to notice how it barely reached his hips now.
"You wanna grab ramen?" he asked his temporary host as he slipped off his skates to replace them with his runners.
"Didn't Yakov warn you not to eat out every night?" Yuuri asked slyly, smirking up at Yurio through his newly-shaggy black bangs.
"It's not every night, it's only the second time!"
"Yeah and we've been in Japan 3 days!" It was their last chance to sneak out for some fun before training for the next season began in earnest, though it's not like their skates ever went untouched long enough to collect dust. Living in St. Petersburg, the three of them, it was all too easy to stay motivated, especially for Yurio. GPF Gold medalist at 15 was an astounding accomplishment but also an intimidating title to live up to; 16 now, and with a body that felt like it was trying to betray him, Yurio spent almost every day on the ice.
"I skate more than enough to indulge in some fucking egg and noodle soup." Zippers and velcro filled the echoey, empty Ice Castle as they packed up their duffle bags and hoisted them over their shoulders. "Besides, you know if we leave it up to Vitya he's just gonna want Katsudon and then he's gonna make a gross nasty-ass joke and then I'll have to hit him and then you'll cry and I want to avoid that whole ugly fiasco."
"...I don't cry that often!" Yuuri tried to defend himself, and Yurio just scoffed, despite a faint grin painting his fair face. Katsudon had...grown on him a little. Really it was Viktor who would be the obnoxious asshole and Yurio let him know that, and often, though he was glad to have him back in Russia, even if it WAS with Yuuri on his arm. Poor fucker was making do as best he could, Rosetta Stone and Duolingo open near-constantly on his laptop as he begrudged the Russian alphabet. Yurio mocked him often for it, poking his plush cheeks and taunting him in slang he hadn't yet picked up, but truthfully, being back in Japan, he was starting to regret it a little. He'd almost forgotten how it felt to be so out of place. Many of the townspeople had at least a basic understanding of English, but it was mostly vocabulary involving how to help lost tourists find an address or a good place to eat. On top of that, sometimes after a long practice or an empty belly or a particularly satisfying screaming match, Yurio's brain just refused to English, leaving him fairly dependant on Katsudon and, to a lesser extent, Vitya. Bastards.
Dusk painted the sky as they left the rink that night, deep indigo bleeding down into fright, fiery pink on the horizon. The cherry trees had long lost their pink blossoms and now bore dense, brilliant green foliage. Summers in Japan were so much different than Russia, but Yurio savored them, and always enjoyed the smell of the ocean around them at dusk. After several more blocks of wheedling and moaning, Yuuri finally agreed that Ramen was a good idea for dinner, and suggested they drop their bags off at home and wait for Viktor. Both their stomachs protested the wait, and Yurio would rather just order several bowls of edamame to munch on while Viktor got his shit together and stopped sucking up to his future in-laws, but considering he won the dinner fight, he remained silent.
Hasetsu's tourism was picking up again with the summer season, and Yurio could see the bliss and relief across his friend's face as he watched a group of Spanish tourists pose for a photo by the water, all holding up large, elaborate confections wrapped in lace paper from a crepe stall. No matter how long they spent away during the year, traveling everywhere from Tokyo to Los Angeles, home still waited for them; Hasetsu for Yuuri, St. Petersburg for Yurio, wherever their family was.
Yuuri's pleased face melted a tad as they rounded a corner and came face to face with what looked like a blockade; a building took up several lots and was surrounded with caution tape, obviously condemned. There were more than a few spots around town like htis, evidence of Hasetsu's dry period, so that couldn't be what had Katsudon's brows furrowing; following his gaze, Yurio spotted several young men loitering around the front steps of what looked like a former theatre, passing around a couple bottles.
"Ok, no short cut, let's head the other way-"
"Oh come on Katsudon they're just drinking, that's legal in Japan isn't it?" Exasperated at what a giant baby Yuuri could be, Yurio grabbed his hand and yanked him down the street; it was faster this way and he was STARVING.
"Well yeah but-" Yuuri tried to argue, but sighed behind Yurio and seemed to relent. Yurio rolled his eyes; honestly, he'd think Yuuri had never seen a bunch of guys drinking! Though a worldly, well-traveled boy who was loathe to rely on stereotypes, he'd grown up in Russia, raised by a generation that brought up their families in Communism and were more than entitled to a glass or two of hard liquor in the evenings. This was nothing.
He hadn't realized he'd neglected to let go of Katsudon's hand till one of the older boys let out a low whistle, followed by a string of words Yurio couldn't understand. When they elicited no response other than to have Yuuri walking faster, they tried again in English.
"Hey there pretty thing come hold my hand instead!"
Instantly Yurio bristled, and peered over his shoulder towards the group questioningly, as though unsure that they had spoken to them. Seeing that they had his attention, another called out, "I got something else you can hold!" followed by a chorus of congratulation laughter.
"Are they talking to me or you?" Yurio demanded of Katsudon, who was pushing himself closer to his younger companion.
"Don't know, don't care, let's just go, Yura."
Yura, however, dug the heels of his glittery cheetah print tennis shoes into the pavement and refused to budge.
"Katsudon's taken, sorry!" he hollered across the street and God damn but Yuuri looked ready to crawl into a gutter with shame.
One of the boys, who looked maybe 18 or 19, finished a last pull from his bottle and tossed it back to a friend. "Talking to you, cutie."
Something in Yurio told him this was a bad idea. Some iota of common sense hadn't been frozen or smashed out of his skull, and right now it was telling him to grab Katsudon and just get the hell out...but that voice was small and shaky compared to the roar of his pride.
"Not interested," he called back, squaring his full 5'7 frame. Back home he'd be in deep shit; growth spurt be damned, he was still small compared to a lot of boys his age, but these guys were closer to Katsudon's height, and people often underestimated the strength of a dancer, of a figure skater, if they only looked at the thin wrists and braided hair.
"YU RI O," Yuuri groaned, punctuating each syllable of his pet name with desperation. "Come on, just drop it, that guy in the back was just a year behind me in school and he's not exactly known for playing nice with the other kids so can we just go get some ra-"
Too late. One by one they were already crossing the street, looking eager for something to entertain themselves with for a while, and suddenly Yurio wasn't so sure ignoring that logical part of his brain was the best idea. To his left, Yuuri seemed to agree, if the high pitched noise erupting from his throat was any indication.
"Not interested? Aw, come on, we're just looking to pass an evening, cutie! How old are you, eh? 17, 18?"
Yurio scowled, but before he could send over another volley of retorts, Yuuri took his hand firmly and began to haul him off.
"Drop it, guys, especially you Akihiro. Come on, I was nice to you in school wasn't I? Leave us alone."
Akihiro, it seemed, was not in fact about to drop it.
"Whats up, Kutsuki? You turn into some big shot Olympian or whatever and now you think you're too good for us?"
"Oh come on," Yurio groaned, his Russian accent thick with his long-suffering voice. "Katsudon has the confidence of a shaking Chihuahua in a Christmas sweater, if you think he's snubbing you it's just cause you're fucking insecure."
Yurio's shaking Chihuahua analogy was not too far off considering the yipping noise Yuuri let out. Akihiro looked far more like a doberman or a boxer, suddenly appearing solid and unapologetically furious.
"That's a lot of smack coming from a pretty boy," he observed. A smirk pulled at his face, and he raised one hand to brush aside some of the loose blonde hair that trailed across Yurio's eyes. Blanching, Yurio balled his hand into a fist, more than ready to swing, but Yuuri beat his reaction time
"Don't fucking touch him you nasty freak!" With a lurch, he yanked Yurio backwards, outside his circle of reach, and shook his hair out as though trying to displace the man's germs. "Seriously, Yura's a kid with a big mouth, just leave him alone!"
Akihiro glowered at Yuuri, and this seemed to be when the pair remembered that they were quite, quite outnumbered. Scattered around them, Yurio now counted 4, though one hung back as though unsure whether this was the kind of bullshit he wanted to get involved in tonight. Ok, this was fine, plenty fine, they wanted to fight? GO for it! He loved the look on another boy's face after he clocked him, having to carry around the bruised and bloodied shame of getting his ass kicked by a ballerina. Of course it had been some time since Yurio had let himself get this goaded into a fight (hip-checking JJ in the locker room notwithstanding); he had to be careful of his public image, after all, but 4 against 2? there was no way to spin this against their favor, what was the worst that could happen?
"Well your pretty friend's big mouth just cost you, Katsuki, how much money you got?"
"We're broke."
"Bullshit, you guys are famous, you're probably loaded!"
"If we had the kind of money you think we do my grandpa wouldn't be driving a fucking Soviet era melon," Yurio spat with eyes rolling, hoping he got that expression right. "I had 100 yen and I bought a fucking Kit Kat with it. It was fucking GREEN, what the hell is with that anyway? Green chocolate-"
"His point is we have sweats and water bottles and not much else, Akihiro so just back off- Don't fucking touch-!"
The groups leader had grabbed at Yurio's bag, the blonde being the closer of the two, and as it was draped across his slim frame, the action lurched the teenager forward. Yurio's reaction was instantaneous, the heel of his hand colliding with the older boys face with amazing force, and both immediately screamed. He'd been aiming for the guy’s nose, but he'd moved just enough just in time that instead, Yurio's bone collided with his front teeth, bloodying Akihiro's mouth and slicing Yurio's hand open. Pro; he dropped Yurio's shoulder strap. Con; his buddy behind him grabbed Yurio by the arm before they had a chance to bolt.
"Sick sonofa-!" Yurio howled, planting his feet and using his own leverage to drag the man onto the sidewalk for him, hoping the momentum would knock him off balance. This man, however, was stronger, stockier and heavier than Akihiro (little bitch was on the ground with tears streaming down his face, which Yurio noted with pride) and they just ended up spinning around in a bastardized pirouette. When Yurio's back hit a brick wall, he lost his breath, all of it rushing out in a pained gasp, and he wasn't given a chance to gain it back. He saw the man's knuckles blanche white as he curled a fist, and almost in slow motion, he swung. Yura was strong, he knew this, and had he not been winded, had he been given just three more seconds, he KNOWS he could have swiped the guys legs out from under him, knows he could have punched him right in the throat. As it was, he had the upper hand, and Yura soon had the experience of a fist to the face, hard enough to knock his head back onto the solid stone behind him, and everything went quiet. Well, not exactly quiet; his ears were ringing like fucking Notre Dame, and he felt as though he'd suddenly gained the ability to hear those infamous dog whistles. Something hot streaked down his face, and he choked on it as he finally sputtered in a breath. Just the one, though, before the experience repeated itself; this time, without the initial shock, Yurio felt the blow land, both to his face, and to his skull, and for a few moments he wasn't sure what was happening. Everything went black, and when awareness returned, he had no way of telling left from right, up from down. Bracing himself for a third, Yurio realized he couldn't do anything to fight back- he couldn't even open his eyes to look for his attacker- so he tried defense and struggled to figure out where his arms were. Lead and sand seemed to fill them, and they had become almost numb; he couldn't' figure out how to guard his face, wasn't even sure if he was still standing...where was the next punch? Where was...fuck it, this kind of higher logic wasn't to be right now. Slowly (he thought? Maybe it was quicker than he realized) his hearing started to even out, with actual real world sounds reaching him through the tinny, buzzing ring. Someone was screaming, furious Japanese mingling in with a language Yurio couldn't name, but he knew curse words when he heard them, and he swore he heard a familiar voice scream out "Bastardo!" at least once.
Concrete met ass with almost the same force that his skull had met brick, and it was then that Yurio realized oh...I'm sitting? ok good sitting sounds good. He was drenched with a warm but rapidly cooling liquid, something thick and sticky. Even through his bell-tower haze, Yurio knew the texture well, not to mention the thick, cloying, metallic stench.
Thunder rained down around him, reverberating across the asphalt, the cement, and rattling his own bones. Jesus even that vague, far-off hollering made him feel disoriented...or was that the blood dripping off his face? yeah, yeah, probably that. Fucking hell-
"Yura! Hey, Yura come on, get up we gotta go!" Good God could Katsudon scream! Of course he already knew this. He refused to stay the night with them without headphones for this very reason, he had learned his lesson the first time! Just recalling the noises he heard while relaxing in Viktor's spacious garden tub was enough to make him nauseous!
...really nauseous, actually. Groaning was the only response he could give his cutler bowl companion at the time.
"God damn it, shit shit shit-" there he was, the yipping Chihuahua again! "Ok, uh...!" There was the sound of a zipper being ripped open and Yuuri rooting through his sports bag. Ok, yeah, good, he could dig for whatever, Yurio was gonna just. Lie down a second. Just to settle his stomach.
"Vitya!" Came Yuuri's screeching voice, followed by a catching cough. Yurio winced at the sound; it grated in his ears painfully. "Vitya, you’re sober right? Get my dad's keys, you gotta come pick us up- No no, I'm ok...I'm mostly ok...it's Yura-Yura get up!"
Yuuri's hand encircled his arm and hauled the boy back up from his spot of relative comfort lying on the pavement, and Yura couldn't be sure he didn't full-on hiss at him. He was fucking tired! Finally he pried his eyes open- well, one of them. His right eye seemed stubbornly stuck closed, and everything was swimmy and distorted in front of his left anyway. Katsudon's face looked about as pale and wide-eyed as it did before a big competition, always on the brink of tears.
"Baby," Yura spat out, but it didn't seem that his word reached Yuuri, as though he didn't even hear him. He was still frantically yelling into the phone, looking around to give some direction or address.
"Yura? Viktors on his way," he told him, his tone away from the mouthpiece far softer than his tone to it, as though the phone was some kind of magical barrier and he assumed Yurio couldn't hear any of that wailing.
"Good f'him," he slurred. God, his head was pounding. Sluggish and staggering, he raised a hand to massage the back of his head where the throbbing was the worst. Several things happened at once; Yuuri dropped his phone as he struggled to beat Yurio's time and grab at his wrist, Yurio's fingers sank into a mess of hot, sticky, matted hair, and he felt ready to pass out again, for just a couple heartbeats, before everything came into sharp, crystal focus.
"Omigod."
"It's ok! Yura, Yuuura, it's fine!" Yuuri sing-songed as he scrambled for his phone. His soft face was papered with a broad and jovially fake grin as he pressed his phone back up to his ear. "It's fine Yura, just a gash, I'm sure you've had worse in practice! One time when I wa about your age I-"
Whatever anecdote Katsudon chose to try and placate Yurio into believing that his injury was just a scratch would have to be saved for another time; Yura was suddenly far too busy being quite sick to listen. That rumbling nausea that had begun upon those traumatizing recollections of Cutlet's bedroom noises now reaches its peak and be bent double between his legs to spit up the green Kit-Kat, gatorade, lemon water and lunch, in that order. Tears pricked at his tired eyes and seeped down to mingle with the thick caking of blood drying on his face. He gagged again, his throat burning. Beside him came more shuffling and finally something cold and solid pressed to his hands.
"Come on, take a few drinks, Yura, you'll feel better. At least rinse your mouth- No, Vitya, just get here please?!"
Yurio had no way to mark the passage of time. The bells in his brain ebbed and flowed, sometimes growing so loud he had to press his hands to his temples. Yuuri drug him further down the concrete, away from the blood and mess and, using a clean shirt from his bag and the water from his bottle, he dabbed gently at the blood around Yura's wounds, which drew more hisses from the boy.
"Sorry, sorry, I know," he murmured, pulling his hand back hesitantly. Through heavy, tear-soaked lashes, Yurio spied a deep purple bruise blossoming across Yuuri's right hand, and he wondered when the hell he got that.
Eventually there was the sound of gravel crunching beneath the tires of Katsudon's dads car with Viktors voice hollering over the engine, "Holy crap Yuuri what happened?!" and for the next minute they exchanged a hodge-podge language of explanations and questions back and forth to one another, with Viktor finally kneeling down in front of Yura and brushing back his damp hair.
"Lucky he didn't break your nose, Yuratchka," he murmured, tenderly pressing his cheek; Yurio winced, cursed under his breath and shoved himself as close to the wall as he could, away from Viktor. Regret marred his face as he apologized profusely, and between he and Katsudon, they got him into the back seat of the car, where he immediately curled up on the bench. Under the assumption that he was being taken to a hospital, Yurio finally said fuck it, closed his eyes, and wanted desperately to sleep. Rest escaped him, though; his stomach twisted more with every turn, despite Viktor's cautious driving, and he feared that a sudden stop might lurch his aching body forward and off the seat. Besides, Katsudon's constant stream of chatter seemed to be under the explicit purpose to KEEP him from sleeping. bastard.
A gentle stop, car doors opening, an arm snaked beneath each shoulder, and he was hauled into the ER through sliding glass doors. Either it was a slow day at Hatsetsu's hospital or Yurio looked more like fresh hell than he expected, because they barely had to greet a nurse before being ushered into a back room. Well, Yurio was; the others were told at the door that there was only room to permit one person back with him. Immediately Yuuri slipped out from beneath his hold, passing him off to Viktor, but Yurio let out another feral growl.
"I wan' Katsudon," he grumbled.
"I'll get you something to eat here soon Yuratchka, let's get you sat down-"
"No," he snit again, his tennis shoes squeaking across the polished hospital tile, balking at the curtain. "I want THAT Katsudon!"
And he pointed at Yuuri. Well. He waved a hand in Yuuri's general direction; his whole outline was fuzzy and kinda swaying in Yura's vision so he couldn't EXACTLY pinpoint where he stood.
"...Yura you don't like Yuuri," Viktor pointed out with a chuckle and Yurio winced at even that slightly jarring movement.
"Don't like no one," he reminded him with another slur- God, it was getting harder to stand up, even with Viktor's help. He sighed deeply, as though hoping expelling the air in his chest might alleviate the lightness in his head, that spinning sensation that trailed all the way down to his shaking legs-
"Woah, woah, come on!" Viktor chirped as he, Yuuri, and an unfamiliar and smaller pair of hands all drug him back up and away from his much sought after ground. "Ok, I'll wait out here Yura, Yuuri will go with you, alright?"
Yurio nodded, immediately regretted that decision, and let Yuuri and the nurse drag him into a small curtained cubicle and onto a bed that crinkled like plastic when he sat on it. Immediately, not waiting for further invitation, he drew his legs up, clinging to the side rail as another round of vertigo took him, and laid his tired ass down, immediately staining the paper pillow with blood.
Unwrapping what looked to be a whole box of alcohol swabs, the nurse began to ask a slew of questions, none of which Yurio understood. His Japanese knowledge involved the names of several feline species, his favorite foods, and how to insult his current guardian. Beyond that it was chatter. For the first few minutes this didn't bother him, until the nurse said something to him, just before running a wet, acrid-smelling cloth right over what must have been a gash on his face; it felt like salt and lemon juice and he screamed loud enough to startle the poor woman before he sent out a volley in his own language.
"God damn it hag that HURT, warn a guy before you jab him in the face like that!" he cried, cupping his face to try and hide the fact that his eyes were watering up, both from the still-present sting and from the sickness churning in his middle again. God, why did that happen every time he moved? He clamped his mouth shut quickly, and pressed the back of his hand to his pursed lips.
"Here, Yura," Yuuri's calm voice reached him over the sound of what he guessed was the nurse's apology, and he pressed a small pink pan into his lap, which Yuri took advantage of with as much dignity as he had left. Which...wasn't much, honestly. Throat burning, he let the nurse exchange the pan for a plastic cup of water, which he sipped at hesitantly. Yuuri, he soon realized, was still standing right by the bed, picking at the fingernails on his left hand.
"So uh...she's sorry she startled you...she figured since you with me you spoke Japanese," He murmured in English, and Yurio stared up at him for several long moments, trying to process even that simple a sentence. "She's just gonna clean around the uh...you got cut up pretty bad here," he continued, drawing a line with his fingertip from just below his own nose to nearly the corner of his mouth. "And then a doctor will come in soon to get you stitched up, ok?"
....Yurio barely got any of that. He stared blankly up at Katsudon with a throbbing skull and a stinging face and shook his head once, quietly.
"....Uh, she's gonna clean it? I'm speaking English aren't I?"
He was, but Yurio was so damn tired and so damned stressed out that processing that hodge-podge nonsense language required more effort than he had available to give. With a groan he lowered himself back onto his crinkly bed, pressed a hand to his brow and grumbled "Fuck off." Language, unknown.
A soft, warm hand joined his own cool one, threading into his still sweat-caked hair, hesitant but steady.
"Yura, um...God let's see...Sewing...thread...for the bruise?"
Through the daze of the concussion he was quite sure he was still developing, Yurio scoffed and had to wonder how Yuuri didn't have a working vocabulary of Russian injury words, considering he spent about as much time with his ass on the ice as he did his skates!
"...Cut, Katsudon. Not bruise." blearily he pried his eyes open, took Yuuri's hand by the wrist and turned it over for them to both see the blooming riot of purple, blue, and red blotches. "THIS is a bruise....fuck you even get'at?"
"How'd I get it?" He repeated Yurio's Russian, staring quizzically between his own hand and Yurio's face (the nurse behind him also shared his befuddled mood, with a growing dash of exasperation). "Fucking punched that guy in the face that's what, then chased him halfway down the street digging through my bag and threatened to slice his neck open with an ice skate."
Yurio lie still for a minute, eyes unfocused upwards towards the ceiling tiles; he was sure they had the same speckling of holes as any other, but with his dizziness and swimming vision it was just a pattern of gray and grayer. He struggled to shift through the word salad, untangling the languages like a necklace chain left to knot in a jewellry box.
"Oh," was all he chanced to say, not having the confidence to be sure of what Katsudon told him. All the same, with Yuuri beside him struggling to play translator, he finally stilled enough to get his face wiped down and a gauze pressed to the throbbing wound, before rolling over to let her repeat this to the gash on the back of his head, hollering each time she tugged at his hair. He knew it was rude, and gave just about enough shit to CARE that it was rude, but he couldn't help it. Usually he dealt fine with a bump or bruise or a little blood, but right now everything seemed to be assaulting him at once, his stomach still twisted in sick knots, and even moving his eyes around too much made him feel completely disjointed from his body, until another dab of alcohol on his wound brought his soul back to said body and water to his eyes.
"You are a very bad patient," Yuuri pointed out, letting Yura claw at the hand that was NOT currently swollen with a bruise.
"And you're a very bad skater but I don't holler that at you every time you're on the ice, idiot!"
"I understood bad skater, ice, and idiot."
"Fatass."
"That one too."
They didn't even attempt much translation by the time an elderly doctor came in to poke at him; he spoke too fast to Yuuri as he poked at Yurio's face, the back of his head, and flashed a light into his mouth, his ears, and finally his eyes, the last of which nearly got the old man's hand ripped off; his head was pounding enough with his loud speech and the blisteringly bright lights of his ER cubicle, he didn't need a pin-point aimed straight at him! Obviously a little embarrassed by his foreigner friend's attitude, Yuuri tried to smooth down his rumpled hair while chattering away to the doctor on Yurio's behalf, no doubt trying to say he was /young/ and /tired/ and wasn't thinking right. Whatever...Yurio allowed the petting, though. Surrounded by strange people and a language he barely knew and the stinging smell of antiseptic, it was nice to have ONE sense at the moment not assaulted by the painful and the unfamiliar.
Like the roaring wildcat he was, Yurio just 'tskd' away Yuuri's offer to hold his hand while getting the split stitched up. Instead he took it the manly way, with a set jaw and calm hands. Until he glanced over to find the source of so much packaging noises and new smells and saw several sterile bits of plastic ripped open. Yurio felt himself go pale at the sight of the black-threaded needle, eerily curved and looking far to broad for this, and as the doctor tipped his head back towards the light and murmured to him in more words he couldn't understand, Yurio groped blindly beside him, reaching for Yuuri through the cold metal railings. He finally grabbed a solid fistful of tshirt and, if Yuuri’s yelping was any indication, a pinch of skin too. He tried to turn his gaze away, towards Yuuri, but his eye was still too swollen to see out of, and the doctor kept grumbling and turning his jaw back towards him every time he moved. He may have whimpered once, it was hard to say for sure over the sound of those bells again.
"...You know, you shouldn't be on skates for a couple days, meaning you're officially off training," Yuuri spoke up just a little too loudly to be polite, and Yurio side-eyed him but made no reply; it wasn't exactly easy to talk when someone was tugging thread through one's upper lip. He just grunted, twice; once in response to Yuuri’s remark, and again as he felt a pinch to his lip, and a slight burning as it began to numb.
"So if you're not training, I just don't think I'll be able to either, you know. I need you to scream backhanded compliments at me to get my ass moving."
Yurio was calculatingly quiet for a minute, breathing slow and heavy through his nose and hopeing for each breath to ground him more.
"uh huh.."
"So how about we ditch the rink tomorrow and go see a movie? There's a theatre one down over that plays new ones in English, with Japanese subtitles, and since you're not practicing you're not on any diet, we can get snacks."
Yurio's first response was a hiss, his good eye squeezing shut as a particularly tender spot, obviously not yet numb, was stabbed too roughly, and grip Katsudon so hard he got drug forward and whacked his chest onto the bed rails.
"....na...not gree' " He mumbled as well as he could without moving his lip.
"No, no green tea Kit-Kat's, promise. I'll get you some jelly filled marshmallows, they're nice and soft."
"...kay....'Iktor?"
Katsudon let out a brief chuckle, almost dark, and he brushed his fingers over Yurio's white knuckles ones. "We'll take him with us for supper, but I don't wanna hear him bitch the whole movie about us gaining weight."
"Tha's ‘y jovuh."
"Damn right it is."
It was 10 pm before Yurio was patched up, given several fun little white pills, and sent on his merry little angry tiger way. Even still, he was reluctant to leave the stability of that small cot; standing made him dizzy and being dizzy made him nauseous and he really didn't want to throw up again. He also refused the doctor's insistence that he sit, and his friend could wheel him back out to the car; he felt dizzy enough to keel over but he'd had his share of humiliation for the day, and would prefer to just cling to Katsudon instead. He was cold and clammy from drying sweat and blood anyway, and damn it, Yuuri was warm... One eye still nearly swollen shut and his coordination leaving much to be desired, Yurio flung one arm over Yuuri's shoulder and allowed him to help teeter back out to the waiting room, where Viktor had been apparently live-tweeting his experiences in a Japanese hospital, including a glowing review of the free coffee and many varieties of creamer available for said bitter bean juice.
"Yuratchka! You look like hell still, but it's a much higher level!" he praised, and Yurio promptly told him to go jump in the Pit himself.
)o(
Yurio didn't remember falling asleep in the back of the car. All he recalled was Katsudon eschewing the front seat in favor of crawling in the back next to him, which he appreciated fervently but wouldn't admit to. Streetlights and shop fronts provided the only light on the 15 minute drive back to Yu-Topia, brief patches of it flooding through the windows as Viktor "practiced his Japanese" by singing along to a bubbly pop song on the radio. Yurio closed his eyes with exhaustion, hoping somehow his senses would trade places and his eyelids could block out Viktor's less-than-stellar voice. At some point, he must have leaned over onto Yuuri's shoulder, perhaps during a turn, and at some point, Yuuri must have slipped that arm around his shoulder and held him close, perhaps to make sure he wasn't jostled further, he didn't know. All he did know was that when he drug himself out of a near coma at 3 am to pee and flipped on his phone to use as a light, he had a complete blowup of notifications on instagram. Ignoring the throbbing on his face and the back of his head, he drowsily flipped up the icon, only to see himself tagged on Viktor_Nikiforov's page-
"Little accident this afternoon, nothing my beautiful Yuuri couldn't handle! #Yuri_Plisetsky, #Yuuri_Katsuki, #ice tiger, #Yuri Angels, #17 stitches, #sleepy fairy"
Accompanying a photo of him, swollen mouth gaping open and eye swollen shut, practically DROOLING on Katsudon’s shoulder
"....that shon of a bith," Yurio tried to growl, lisping around a VERY swollen lip instead. "When I'm thinking straight I-"
A grumble from across the room both shut him the hell up and scared the piss out of him, and he turned his phone light over towards the corner, to catch the serial killer in his tracks, only to see a lump on a spare futon that had a distinctly Katsudon shape to it and, between them, an assortment of bottled water, sports drinks, wash cloths and his pain meds, laid out within easy reach.
...Ok, maybe he wouldn't call Katsudon any mean names for a week. Or at least a few days.