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Yuri has plans for the weekend, alright. They involve being lazy and relaxing his aching muscles because Yakov and Lilia, those poor excuses for sadistic torturers, have chased him around the rink all week and now he just hurts all over from all the stretching and whatnot. At least he lives in his own small apartment now; sure, Yakov is the one renting it but Yuri lives on his own and with his cat and fuck if it’s not an utter relief to finally be able to do whatever he wants whenever he wants. Like watch shows at 3 am. Or take bubble baths for as long as he wants without anyone impatiently knocking on the door.
So yeah, Yuri has plans. Plans that are destroyed the very second his doorbell rings right when he’s about to get into the bathtub and he lets out a loud, annoyed groan because who the fuck is this and why him GOD can’t you bother anybody else. He has half a mind to just ignore his stupid doorbell and whoever the fuck decided to visit at 8 pm on a Friday but his grandfather’s upbringing gets the better of him. So he puts on his bathrobe (a beautiful, soft leopard print he found for sale in a mall in Almaty when he last visited Otabek) and stalks to his apartment door, picking up the inter phone and barking a rather unfriendly, “WHAT” into it. There’s a moment of silence before somebody replies in English,
“Er, Yurio? Is that you?”
Yuri is this close to just turning around on the spot and ignoring the Japanese pork cutlet bowl who decided to pester him, on a free evening no less. The fuck. Really. Yuri sees enough of him and Viktor during training, why would they annoy him at home too?
“Who else would it be,” he huffs, effortlessly switching to English. “You rang my fucking doorbell.”
“I wasn’t sure,” Yuuri admits, sounding embarrassed and Yuri almost sees the blush through the intercom. “You know I still can’t read Russian very well…” That, frankly, is the understatement of the century. Yuri has watched Katsudon walk into closets and offices more times than he can count when all the Japanese idiot wanted was to find a toilet. It never gets less hilarious.
“Yeah, yeah,” he waves off impatiently. “Just – just come up, ugh.” He pushes the button to buzz Yuuri inside, waiting for the familiar, too loud ping of the elevator before he opens the door, letting in freezing cold air from the stairway and glaring at Yuuri who in return simply stares at his bathrobe.
“I was about to take a bath, asshole,” Yuri defends himself and his cuddly, perfect bathrobe. “Some people have plans, you know.”
“Oh, I’m... I’m sorry, I didn’t know…” Yuuri blushes and Yuri rolls his eyes.
“Come in, already,” he barks and thinks of what his grandfather would say if he knew about the way his grandson abuses the Russian etiquette of caring for guests. “You’re letting in the cold!” So Yuuri hurries inside and apologizes over and over until Yuri has enough and pushes a pair of house shoes at him.
“God, just… shut up, okay? Put these on and go sit in the kitchen, I’ll be there in a second…”
He stalks off to change clothes because no matter how familiar he is with Yuuri by now, no way in hell will he sit here butt naked save for a bathrobe, he’s not a desperate housewife waiting for a plumber. When Yuri emerges from his bedroom in sweatpants and a comfy hoodie, Yuuri is awkwardly sitting at his kitchen table, looking at the Matryoshka doll made to look like a cat; Yuri’s own cat, Nika, is rubbing her furry body against Katsudon’s legs, purring loudly. Traitor.
“You want tea?” Yuri asks, striding past his visitor and the cat to the water kettle, stretching up on his toes to reach into one of the cupboards in search for mugs and tea.
“Er, you don’t have to… really, I…”
“Yes or no?” Yuri asks again, annoyance now clear in his voice. Broad Russian soul, his ass. Damn Japanese people and their politeness, why can’t they just say what they mean without apologizing fifty million times first??
“Y-Yes…” With a satisfied huff at the desired answer, Yuri fishes out two giant mugs and two tea bags from the emergency stash of strawberry vanilla blend Mila gave him for his last birthday (Katsudon better fucking appreciate it, Yuri doesn’t share with just anybody) before filling his kettle with water and setting it to boil. Then he turns around, leaning against the sideboard with crossed arms, and asks,
“So what’s the matter?”
“I, um… it’s not really a matter, I just…” Yuuri sighs heavily, adjusting his glasses. He’s still wearing his winter jacket like he’s planning to bolt any second but at least he opened it and put on the house shoes. Yuri lifts an eyebrow and waits not exactly patiently for him to continue. Just when he’s about to lose his calm again, Yuuri finally continues,
“Did you know that Viktor’s parents died in a car crash when he was ten?” Yuri blinks and frowns at him.
“Uh, yes? That’s common knowledge.” Yuuri nods slowly, as if he just wanted to make sure that they’re on the same page, and finally looks up from the Matryoshka.
“He hasn’t visited their grave in ages and I thought… Well, it’s tradition to honor the dead, back home.” He fidgets a bit but his expression is weirdly determined. “The anniversary of their death is coming up and I thought that we could visit the grave but I don’t know much Russian yet so… could you maybe teach me?” Yuri blinks. Then blinks some more.
“What,” is what comes out of his mouth as his brain tries to come up with a better response. Yuuri blushes and chews on his lower lip, looking away.
“Well,” he shrugs, “I thought it’d be nice to talk to them in Russian, you know? And I don’t want to ask Viktor so it can be something of a surprise…” Yuri instantly thinks of about a million reasons why visiting somebody’s grave is anything but a nice surprise. Instead of voicing them, however, he says,
“And you want me to teach you Russian.” Yuuri nods and looks up again.
“You don’t have to, of course,” he says hurriedly. “I mean, I know you’re busy with your own routines but I just… I thought it would be nice to learn from a native speaker?” For a moment, Yuri has a glorious, evil vision of teaching Yuuri nothing but the Russian sub-language of profanity just to see the shocked look on Viktor’s face but not even he’s that much of an asshole, contrary to what everyone seems to think. The idea is actually kind of sweet but Yuri will die sooner than ever voicing THAT particular thought.
Instead, he busies himself with pouring boiling water into the tea mugs and carrying them over to the table, along with the sugar pot, some milk from the fridge and the last of the cookies his grandfather has sent in the last care package from home.
“You two are disgusting,” he declares as he plops down in the chair opposite Yuuri, wringing out the tea bag in his own mug. “Like, really. How you two are real is beyond me.” Yuuri shrugs a little helplessly because really, what can he say to that? Yuri huffs a bit and leans down to give Nika a lost treat he found in his hoodie pocket before sighing and adding, “Fine. I’ll teach you.”
“Really?” Yuuri’s honest face lights up with disbelief and joy and Yuri just. He can’t, okay? Too many emotions.
“Yes, yes, just turn off the sunshine, okay? Seriously.” Yuuri snickers a little but does tone down the obvious happiness at least a little bit. Honestly, he spends way too much time with Viktor. Yuri kind of regrets ever talking to both of them (at least that’s what he tries to tell himself as his heart stupidly swells with affection and he desperately tries to fight it down).
And that’s how it starts, really. Yuuri barging in on a Friday night and then forgetting to leave for so long that a very frantic Viktor calls him sixty times to make sure everything is okay until Yuri yells into the phone that Yuuri is staying over, okay, just calm the fuck down! Yuuri tries to say he can walk home, really, but Yuri glares him into submission. The idiot Katsudon is going nowhere, does he even know how fucking dangerous it is at night in St. Petersburg? How all the scum of the underworld decides to rise once normal citizens go to sleep? Hell, Yuri wouldn’t walk on his own after certain hours of the day, much less let a stupid Japanese pork cutlet wander the city all on his own. But then, Yuri grew up in fucking Moscow which is a hell hole in itself.
So Yuuri stays over and they spend the next day making pirozhki because Yuri firmly believes in the power of his grandfather’s cooking, okay? They make pirozhki and continue the Russian lessons from last night and Yuri cringes at every botched word and pronunciation but soldiers on with the teaching. Otabek did call him a soldier, right? So soldier on he does, past Yuuri’s hopeless attempts at conjugation and the painful butchering of his mother tongue.
“Blyacha-mucha,” he mutters to himself, hours later, while Yuuri pours over some long forgotten children’s book Yuri had lying around for the simple reason that it had his grandpa’s handwriting in it, carefully outlining letters and writing words that little Yuri once found difficult to read.
“What?” Yuuri looks up from the book, adjusting his glasses. Yuri glares at him until the Japanese skater clears his throat, blushing slightly and repeats the question in horrid Russian,
“Skazal,” Yuri corrects with an eyeroll. “Nothing. Just… Ugh, I need a break.”
They drink tea, eat pirozhki and then Yuri sends him home because stupid affection or not, he needs his time alone before he throttles the bespectacled lovebird. Yuuri leaves with bows and thank yous and apologies but as much as it annoys him, it’s kinda all worth it when Yuuri casually skates up to him during practice on Monday morning, sporting a bright, proud smile and says,
“Dobroe utro, Yura.” His r’s sound horrifying but Yuri is still stupidly fond of the way Katsudon is at least trying. He nods and mumbles a good morning in return before swiftly skating away, lest they be caught by Viktor who just entered the rink and isn’t supposed to know about his surprise, anyway. Yuri also has the sneaking suspicion that if anybody learns about their learning arrangement, they will proceed to teach Yuuri all kinds of weird stuff he can say to Viktor in bed and Yuri is SO NOT READY to know anything about their sex lives. Seriously. He’ll probably have to bleach his brain just for thinking about it, eww.
But their lessons continue peacefully, sometimes after training and sometimes on the weekends and before he knows, two months have passed and while Yuuri’s Russian is nothing close to good, it’s… passable. He doesn’t butcher the pronunciation too much and while his verb declination and understanding of direction prefixes for verbs of moving is atrocious at best (“No, no, no, vchodit is to come inside, vychodit is to go outside, goddamnit, are you even listening?”), he’s honestly, really trying and it’s weirdly endearing, his too soft Rs and wrong emphasis in words and his stupid, bright smile whenever Yuri grudgingly praises him for getting something right.
They drink lots of tea and talk about the differences between Japan and Russia and watch Russian cartoons for children and while Yuri has no intention of ever stopping to swear like a sailor, he does tone it down a bit for Yuuri. In return, Yuuri stops calling him Yurio which is, in itself, a gift because fuck it all, he fucking hates that stupid nickname even more than he already hates nicknames in general. He does, however, graciously allow Yuuri to call him Yura because, well. At this point, they’re kind of friends, right? Not the way Yuri is friends with Otabek – like ew, no, he wouldn’t want to be like that with Yuuri, it’s enough that Viktor was crushing on him for like, an entire year before those two idiots got their shit together, Yuri is not gonna join in on that one – but more… like family.
As an only child with ever-absent parents, Yura has never thought much about family. His grandfather was all he ever knew and needed – but it’s different now. Now, he also has Otabek and, no matter how much he loudly complains about them at any given time, Yuuri and Viktor and Yakov and Lilia and even Mila and Georgi. He has all of them and Nika and his grandfather and… he realizes that he doesn’t miss his parents anymore.
“I’m nervous”, Yuuri admits one evening, the last one before he plans to take Viktor to the Nikiforov’s grave and pay their respects on the anniversary of their death. “What if this was a bad idea?” He nervously adjusts his glasses and looks away, staring down at Nika who’s sprawled across his lap, leaving white cat hairs everywhere. They’re sitting on the couch of Yuri’s two-bedroom apartment and going over what Yuuri is planning to say tomorrow one last time. Yuri looks up at him from the photographs he’s been sorting for a scrapbook he’s planning to give his grandfather for his birthday (God, what even was his haircut at 12?) and frowns at him.
“That only occurs to you now?” Yuuri blushes and gets even more nervous and agitated, stroking over Nika’s fur who immediately picks up on his distress and settles in his lap more firmly, pushing her paws against Yuuri’s thigh and purring loudly against the cotton of his shirt.
“I just… what if it’s too much? I mean… I know our cultures are so very different, but what if… what if he gets offended or angry or-or sad? I don’t… I don’t know what to do, how to deal when he’s sad, it’s just… I get so worried a-and th-”
“Stop,” Yuri interrupts him, only mildly irritated at the emotional ranting. Yuuri snaps his mouth shut and looks at him, eyes wide and huge behind the glasses. “First of all, you’re worried that Viktor, the one who flew across half the world to be your coach after you drunkenly rubbed yourself all over him – which, by the way, still ew, blyat, that was disgusting and disturbing to watch – that this Viktor will get offended at you wanting to pay respects to his parents? Seriously?”
“Well… when you put it this way…”
“And secondly – shouldn’t I be the one to receive relationship advice from you and not the other way around?!” Yuuri stares at him, now clearly confused. He blinks at him for several seconds and then asks,
“Are you having problems with Otabek?” Now it’s Yuri’s time to stare because what the fuck? How does the damn Katsudon even know about that?! They haven’t even really spoken about it themselves, just… a few late night Skype sessions and… well yes, there have been some kisses the last time Otabek came up to St. Petersburg a month ago but – not even Yuri’s grandpa knows about it yet. It’s too fresh and too raw and he doesn’t want to ruin it by talking about it and making it… worse, somehow.
His face must be saying it all because Yuuri backpedals quickly and holds up both hands, apologizing quickly.
“I didn’t mean to put you on the spot, I’m sorry – I just thought… Well, you know.”
“I don’t, actually,” Yuri grumbles, glaring at Yuuri with all his might and desperately trying to hide how panicked he feels inside about having this conversation. He hasn’t talked to anyone about it. He doesn’t particularly plan on doing it now. Or ever, really.
“You smile a lot, when he’s here or you text him,” Yuuri explains hurriedly, still satisfyingly nervous about Yuri’s glare. “And uh, well… your instagram is sort of full of him?” Yuri practically feels himself blushing a violent red, spluttering helplessly because he is not ready for this conversation. So all that comes out of his mouth, instead of a string of expletives that would make his grandfather smack him over the head in horror, is,
“Wh-Why are we talking about this now? We were talking about you and Viktor!” He may yelp this. Yuuri, the giant Japanese dick, has the gall to laugh at him and gets hit in the face by a pillow for that. It evolves into a silly pillow fight that has Nika huffing at them and marching away because clearly, her humans have lost their minds (and by now, even Yuri ahs to admit that Yuuri is also kind of Nika’s human, considering how well they get along). In the end, all the photos are scattered on the floor and both of them are lying on their backs, trying to catch their breath. Yuuri, still giggling slightly, adjusts his glasses (that Yuri managed to knock away with an epically aimed pillow just a few seconds earlier) and then sighs a bit. It’s silent for a few minutes, then Yuri says slowly,
“You know… you don’t have to be nervous. He’s head over heels for you. It’s so obvious and just… don’t stress. You’re doing fine.” A few years ago – hell, even a few months ago! – he would rather have cut his own tongue off than ever saying mushy stuff like this. But… well. Family and all that crap, right?
When they say goodbye to each other a bit later, Yuuri lunges forward to hug him before Yuri can protest and whispers a heartfelt,
Yuri does not think about those two idiots the next day, okay. He absolutely does not. He cleans his apartment and cuddles Nika and skypes with Otabek who just smiles and says,
“It’ll be okay, you know. I’m sure you did a great job.” Yuri doesn’t reply anything to that and instead just sighs. Otabek’s grainy face watches him for a few minutes and then says,
“I miss you, Yura.”
“I…” He swallows hard against the sudden lump in his throat, thinking back to the kisses they shared just a few weeks ago. “I miss you too, Beka.”
“Listen… we never really talked about…”
“Do you think we…”
They speak at the same time and break off, embarrassed. An awkward silence stretches in between them and Yuri is making a valiant effort to hide behind the curtain of his hair, seriously thinking about just ending the call, packing his things and moving to Antarctica to never speak with Otabek ever again when Otabek – always, always the braver one of the two of them – softly says,
“I’m coming to St. Petersburg next weekend. We’ll talk about it then, okay?” Yuri opens his mouth, closes it again and feels himself blush. But from the safety of Nika’s soft black and white fur, almost drowned out by her loud purring, he mumbles,
“Okay.” Otabek is smiling at him, warm and beautiful as the Kazakhstan sun over Almaty, and looks like he’s about to say something but before he can do so, Yuri’s doorbell rings, so loud and shrill that Nika hisses angrily in the direction of the door and runs away. Otabek laughs and tells Yuri to go answer the door and that they’ll talk and ends the call. Meanwhile, the doorbell rings again and again, an almost obnoxious rhythm and Yuri instantly knows just who the fuck the goddamn proverbial cat dragged in.
“I will kill you, Viktor,” is what comes out of Yuri’s mouth as he answers the door.
“Yurio!” Viktor proceeds to warble into the intercom. “Come out, come out!”
“Yob tvoyu mat, what for?”
“Just come out, come on, we’re waiting!” Yuri is very tempted to not do anything that Viktor asks him to do but by now, Otabek is probably gone anyway and Nika is still hating the world for interrupting cuddle time, so he might as well go take a look what the hell the goddamned idiot wants from him. Grumbling, Yuri pulls on his favorite hoodie and jeans jacket and puts on comfy boots before grabbing his keys and heading downstairs, only to be greeted by happy barking. Next thing he knows, he’s been knocked on his ass by 50 pounds of poodle who proceeds to lick his face and pant his disgusting dog breath right into Yuri’s face.
“Ugh! Get off me, you…!” He’s half inclined to kick the dog away in his anger but remembers that despite it all, he actually kind of likes Makkachin. So instead, he gently but forcefully pushes the sloppy tongue-wagging head away from his face and pats Makkachin while glaring up to his owner who’s standing close, smiles obnoxiously wide – but it’s not one of his fake angry smiles, it’s that disgustingly happy wide smile Viktor has adopted since running off to Japan to coach the asshole who got drunk, rubbed himself all over him and then proceeded to demand Russian lessons and is currently standing next to Viktor with a soft smile.
“Privet, Yura,” Yuuri says in his horrible accented Russian.
“We’re taking you out for lunch!” Viktor announces while Yuri gets up (with some effort, considering how Makkachin still tries to lick his face, the dumb animal) and dusts off his pants, glowering at him.
“Why would I want to go out for lunch with you?” he grumbles, very much not thinking of the fact that they possibly just saved him from the embarrassment of talking about feelings and his relationship with Otabek over Skype. Feelings, ugh.
“As a thank you,” Yuuri explains. “For the Russian lessons.”
“I can’t believe you taught him Russian!” Viktor adds, happily bounding towards Yuri much like his dog and hugging him with one arm so Yuri’s face ends up half smushed into Viktor’s chest. “We were just so busy, you know, and used to talking in English anyway, I would never have thought…!”
“Anyway,” Yuuri interrupts his idiot of a fiancé. “We wanted to thank you. And it’s a nice day out, too.”
That is true. Yuri squints up at the sky to see a bright baby blue, not a single cloud in sight, the St. Petersburg shining bright and warming the early spring day. But still – because he’s Yuri Plisetsky and Yuri Plisetsky never goes down without a fight – he frees himself from Viktor’s enthusiastic hug and takes a step back, glaring at the older man and practically daring him to touch him again.
They both look so open and happy; you’d never think that they just visited a graveyard. Yuri frowns because what the fuck does love even do to people? Does everybody turn into weird pod people, always smiling and holding hands? He remembers the way Viktor was, before that banquet in Sochi; withdrawn, his smiles fake and wide, never reaching his eyes, serious and focused on his own work. He remembers the way Yuuri looked before Viktor ran off to Japan; sad, hopeless, anxious.
It’s not like they changed fundamentally – Viktor will still smile at you when he’s angry and scare the ever-living shit out of you (which Yuri would never, ever admit out loud) and Yuuri still has bounds of anxiety and self-doubt. But… there’s some weird kind of glow to them now as they stand next to each other, smiling at him honestly with crinkled eyes and dimpling cheeks.
It scares him, to be honest. Family and feelings and he just doesn’t know what to do because he’s not used to it all, having spent too long fighting on his own.
So he does what he always does – masks that weird, warm feeling in his chest (family and friends and warmth and home just like with grandpa and way too much for his small body) with a scoff and a glare and huffs, like he’s doing them a favor by agreeing,
“Fine, but you better buy me the greasiest burger you can find!”
Viktor laughs and hugs him again and Yuuri smiles this small happy smile of his as they lead him to Viktor’s stupid red cabriolet and Makkachin trots after them. Yuri sits on the backseat with the dog, watching the two older men interact in the front seats, all soft faces and gentle eyes and Viktor squeezing Yuuri’s hand for a second before putting his hand on the gear shift and hitting reverse. They drive through St. Petersburg’s noisy and crowded streets with the warm spring wind in their faces and as they turn a corner towards the city center, Yuri suddenly notices the song playing on the radio.
“Vo blya,” he mumbles, half amused and half annoyed. But it fits those two idiots in love, doesn’t it? So he leans back and scratches Makkachin’s ear and if he starts smiling softly to himself, well.
That’s a secret between him and the dog.
Ты и я, нас разделить нельзя,
Без тебя нет для меня ни дня.
Пусть любовь далека и близка как весна,
Но навсегда в нашу жизнь я влюблена!
Мы с тобой в блеске свеч,
Нас любовь смогла сберечь.
Я живу для новых встреч с тобой,
Я наяву счастьем живу,
Ты мой единственный нежный!