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Yuri didn't mind the katsudon living in St. Petersburg as much as he had thought that he would. He and Victor were still pretty gooey, ugh, and it made Yuri throw up a little in his mouth every time somebody on his feed tagged them as #Victuri, but at least he had Victor back. Things had been boring here without him, only Mila to gossip with, only Georgi for melodrama, only Yakov to casually tell Yuri off for being lazy with his free leg after he nailed a quad flip for the second time ever.
It was weird how Yuri had missed that, but he had. Victor's first day back at the rink, Yuri skated a purposefully sloppy first half of his potential short program just to give Victor an excuse to lecture him about the details of it for twenty minutes. It was the closest Yuri could come to telling Victor welcome home.
But that was Victor, and Victor had always been here, so Yuri figured most of that was just his deep-seated suspicion of change. It was only natural that he'd feel more at ease with Victor back where he belonged. Yuuri on the other hand, couldn't belong in St. Petersburg less than if he were an emperor penguin. No, wait, those lived on ice. Something tropical. Something cutesy but helpless. A koala?
"Good morning," Yuuri said, sitting down on the bench beside Yuri to put on his skates.
"Morning," Yuri grumbled back, in Russian just to be a dick. Yuuri only laughed and repeated it back. He'd been working on learning basic chitchat phrases, practicing on rinkmates enough that now his accent had gone from atrociously monotone to almost cute. "Your accent still sucks."
"Probably. I keep asking Victor to correct me, but he just says everything I say sounds sexy." Yuuri finished tying one skate and switched to the other. "He's useless, right?"
"The worst," Yuri agreed, and then realized that they were having a moment, and shoved himself off the bench. "Later, loser."
Yuri tried to focus on his own practice, but his eyes kept straying down to where Yakov was trying to get across why Yuuri routinely under-rotated the Salchow, and mostly failing, if his sweeping hand motions were any indication. Yuri had been surprised that Yuuri hadn't just melted into a puddle after one practice of Yakov's yelling, but it turned out Yuuri had a spine buried in there somewhere. Yuuri didn't even seem to mind the yelling itself, just tended to turn it inwards and accept that he was doing something wrong himself, and when he fixed it, the yelling would stop.
Yuri could see both Yakov and Yuuri were getting frustrated, nobody's point getting across, and it wasn't that Yuri wanted to help, so much as it was so fucking frustrating watching them both go at it so uselessly. Even after a week in Hasetsu, Yuri had understood that you could explain all day long to Yuuri but it was useless if you couldn't physically show him what the problem was.
Giving up on the spins he was supposed to be refining, Yuri cut across the ice towards them with irritated footwork, skidding to a stop so that ice sprayed onto Yakov's pants.
"You're giving me a migraine," he snapped, and then in Russian to Yakov, "You have to show him what you mean, not just yell it. Have you gone senile, old man?"
"OH, Mr. Genius Coach!" Yakov stayed in English. Yuri thought he sounded like an overblown daytime television actor, his red face and waving hands only making the image more apt. "Such an expert, then you can try it! Davai!"
"Come on," Yuri said, skating away to the other side of the rink, not looking back to see whether Yuuri was following or not. He stopped nearly at the opposite boards, pivoting neatly to see Yuuri trailing after him. He was chewing on his lower lip, a habit Victor had been trying and failing to break him of, and as he slid to a more gentle stop, he glanced over his shoulder at Yakov.
"You don't have to," Yuuri said, frowning. "It's a bother during your practice time, right?"
"Shut up about it," Yuri told him, not interested in delving into his reasons. "You want to fix it, right?" Yuuri nodded, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Fine, then show me the problem and let's go."
Yuri watched critically, hands on his hips, as Yuuri repeated the Salchow three times, landing it twice, although shakily, and coming down hard to the ice on the third. He always got back up right away, Yuri had to give him that; he'd hit the ice hard enough to bounce, and Yuri had gritted his teeth against a wince.
"Okay, okay," he stopped Yuuri when it looked like he was going to shake it off and try for a fourth. "I get it. Just watch. This is what it's supposed to look like."
Yuuri skated far enough in that Yuri would have the corner of the rink clear for the jump, limping just perceptibly enough that Yuri could see it. Yuri focused on his own run-up and jump, because it would be more than a little humiliating if he fucked it up while offering advice. He landed it solidly, skating out his momentum in a wide loop before turning back to restart.
"And this is what you're doing!" he called over. Yuuri nodded to show he was paying attention.
Easy as it was to mis-time or touch down on a jump in competition, trying to purposely do one wrong in a particular way was deceptively hard. Yuuri's problem seemed mostly like a timing issue, so Yuri kicked off purposely late. He gritted his teeth against the wobble in his rotation and counted himself lucky when he only had to put a hand down on the ice rather than taking an ugly spill.
"I hope you got that, because I'm not doing it again," Yuri grumbled, loping back to where Yuuri was standing. The last thing on the green earth he needed was to accidentally teach his muscles how to fuck up a jump he already had.
Yuuri nodded, brow furrowed, chewing on the edge of a thumbnail. "Can I see your regular jump again? Sorry."
"Fine," Yuri huffed, as if it were a chore instead of a jump he should have been practicing anyway. He focused on his timing, making sure none of the bad timing muscle memory had stuck. When he landed it square, rotation smooth, he huffed in satisfaction. He made sure to force his face back into his usual unimpressed expression as he looped back to Yuuri. "Got it? I don't have all day."
"I think so." The tense furrow of Yuuri's brow smoothed out to offer Yuri a smile. "Thank you."
"Whatever, loser," Yuri brushed him off, turning away.
It wasn't like he didn't have plenty of things to work on on his own. But if he glanced back towards the other end of the rink once in a while and happened to see Yakov correcting Yuuri, that was only normal.
He might have smiled just the tiniest bit when he saw Yuuri land the Salchow smoothly, but only because it was satisfying to be right.
"I saaaaw that," Victor sing-songed, making Yuri whip his head around to glare. Victor was at rink's edge, coat still on and hair still at wild angles from the wind outside.
"Go fuck yourself, old man," Yuri sniffed, skating away. He definitely was not trying to watch the touching Nikiforov-Katsuki reunion after having been separated for a whole two hours, but it wasn't like you could avoid it when Victor's "YUUUURI" echoed off the ice and Yuuri zipped across the ice as if drawn by magnets.
When he took a break a half-hour later, his phone was blowing up for no reason. A few scrolls took him to the source of the excitement: an instagram by v-nikiforov of Yuri explaining the Salchow to Yuuri, captioned one big happy family~, tagging both Yuris.
"Ugh, you," Yuri grumbled. He got his revenge snapping a selfie sticking his tongue out with a thumbs-down, angled so Victor and Yuuri passing a water bottle was visible over his shoulder. He labeled it GROSS and added a bunch of angry marks for good measure.
[Good to see you all getting along] Otabek's text buzzed against Yuri's palm a minute later.
Yuri rolled his eyes. [fuck u too Altin]
"Is it so hard for you to admit that you like him?" Otabek asked a few days later, the yellowish cast of his desk lamp making him look warm over the Skype connection. The blue of Yuri's laptop light always washed out his own features unattractively in the tiny box reflecting his image back at himself.
"I don't like him, what the fuck?" Yuri wrinkled his nose. "Did you just call me a homewrecker? Go fuck yourself."
"Not like him, like him," Otabek said patiently. "Just regular like. You don't hate him. Seeing him in a regular manner doesn't make you want to kill yourself."
"It sort of does," Yuri responded, but it was distracted. Yuuri wasn't loud like Yakov, wasn't grabby like Mila, wasn't forgetful like Victor. Training with Yuuri hadn't been 100% awful. Yuuri talked to Yuri like they were equal, and after being the youngest kid at the rink for so long, it was…different.
Otabek was watching him, waiting with arms crossed, expression somehow amused despite being entirely neutral.
"So fucking what?" Yuri demanded. "Do I have to hate everybody? It's too much energy!"
"I think it would be nice if you two became friends." Otabek shrugged. "He doesn't know anyone else there."
"He doesn't exactly have tons of friends in Hasetsu either," Yuri said, a second before he caught himself. "And we aren't friends either! You're my friend. It's nothing like that."
"You can have more than one," Otabek chuckled, an actual smile sneaking out this time. "They don't have to be all the same."
"You some kind of expert? How many friends do you have?" Yuri snapped, a weird bubble of jealousy rising in his chest.
"Just one," Otabek assured; Yuri's jealousy faded as quickly as it had risen. "But I'm me and you're you, yeah? It's fine if you do better."
"Quality over quantity, asshole," Yuri sniffed.
Over the next few days, Yuri thought about Otabek's words on and off. Did he like Yuuri? Were they friends when they tied their skates next to each other without needing to talk? Were they friends when Yuuri shyly asked Yuri to watch his Salchow now that he had fixed it? When Yuuri offered to take him out to lunch to say thank you?
"It wasn't anything," Yuri said, feeling a little uncomfortable with the idea that Yuuri thought he owed him something.
"There's another reason I'm buttering you up," Yuuri explained, handing Yuri's water bottle to him over the barrier. "I have a favor to ask."
"Uuugh," Yuri grunted, as if even listening were a chore, but the truth was this was more comfortable ground. "Well? Spit it out, already."
"Victor's going to be gone all next Saturday for that charity appearance, do you remember?"
Yuri raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? What's the matter, can't even make it a whole day by yourself?"
"No, no," Yuuri laughed quietly, unoffended. "My mother gave him a Japanese cookbook before we moved here, and he's been cooking things out of it for me. I wanted to learn to make some Russian things that he likes too. I was wondering if you'd teach me? I remembered you said you cook with your grandfather."
"O-oh," Yuri said, too surprised to come up with something snappish. He barely remembered saying that to Yuuri himself. "Well…"
"If you have plans, it's all right," Yuuri said, clearly about to back off and tell Yuri to forget it.
"I don't," Yuri said quickly. "If you want, I guess it's fine."
"Really?" Yuuri asked, face relaxing into a smile. Yuri nodded and looked away with a scowl. "I appreciate it. If you give me a list of what we need, I'll do all the shopping before. Oh, and don't tell Victor, please? I want it to be a surprise."
"Whatever."
Yuri skated off, leaving Yuuri behind at the barrier. He studiously ignored Yuuri for the rest of morning practice until Victor hollered across the ice that they were going for lunch soon and anybody who didn't want to be left behind should get their rear in gear, Yuuuuurioooooo.
"…they have the cutest little desserts," Victor was waxing rhapsodic, curled around Yuuri's back in that clingy way he often did. Yuri rolled his eyes at them, noting that for all their hassle neither one of them even so much as had their skates off.
"Yurio should get to pick, since we're thanking him," Yuuri scolded. "Besides, somebody was saying this morning that Russia hasn't exactly been good for my diet plan, as I recall."
Victor squeezed Yuuri tighter around the waist until he huffed a breath out. "I take it all back, darling. You're perfect the way you are!"
"For fuck's sake!" Yuri protested, hip-checking them further to the side as he flopped down on the bench to unlace his skates. "Would you go sprinkle your glittery gay cooties on your own shit instead of mine?!"
"You didn't mind my glittery gay cooties when they were spandexed to your body for your senior division debut," Victor purred. Yuuri put a hand up to his mouth to cover his smile, and Yuri gave them both a black glare. "So where should we go to lunch, then?"
Yuri debated refusing to answer, but he was starving and he only had an hour and a half before he had to be at dance. He muttered, mostly to his skates, "That cafe a couple blocks over usually isn't crowded by now."
"Aha!" Victor snapped his fingers, as if it had been his idea all along. "That's perfect! Yuuri, you'll love it!"
"I'm sure I will." Yuuri tried to pull away from Victor's arm, without much success. "Assuming you let go…"
Yuri focused on undoing his laces faster, doing his level best not to look at the cutesy scuffle Victor and Yuuri were engaged in, although it was impossible to block out the noise of it, especially Victor's yelp when Yuuri dug fingers into the ticklish spot under Victor's ribs. He consoled himself with thoughts of texting his complaints to Otabek during lunch.
At least they seem to have gotten most of it out of their system before the short walk to the cafe, or maybe that was because they'd been paparazzi'ed kissing on the sidewalk last week and Yuuri had been obviously uncomfortable about it. Either way it was a relief, and Yuri didn't mind as much trailing a few steps behind them on the sidewalk when they were just talking like normal people. He was focused on his phone mostly, but he did notice Yuuri looking back every now and again as if to make sure they hadn't lost him. When their eyes happened to meet, Yuuri offered a small smile before turning back to look where he was going.
That was…nice, Yuri guessed. He could take care of himself and all that shit, but nice to think somebody cared whether or not Yuri had been left behind.
As advertised, the cafe was already done with their lunch rush, and Yuri had no trouble snagging the table he preferred, tucked in a corner but with a window to people-watch. The waitress handed them the lunch menus as she took their drink orders; Yuri only gave it a casual glance because he always ordered whatever the daily soup was. Anything heavier would not agree with Lilia's dance practice afterwards, he'd learned from painful experience.
"Ehh," Yuuri said quietly, and when Yuri flicked his eyes up from his phone, Yuuri was squinting at the menu, the skin between his eyebrows pinched in concentration.
"You should order this one," Victor announced, leaning casually into Yuuri's space to point. "You'll love it! It's called—"
"You know, if you let him alone maybe he'd learn to read it himself," Yuri cut in sharply. Victor made an affronted noise; Yuri shrugged him off. "Hell if I care, but are you gonna follow him to every restaurant in St. Petersburg all fucking year?"
Victor blustered that he was just helping, but Yuri ignored him, already done with the conversation, already focused back on his phone. He'd seen the flash of relief on Yuuri's face, and that was enough for him.
Saturday rolled around. Yuri was due a rest day but still went for a run, preferring to get it out of the way first thing in the morning, shower, and then crawl back into bed with the cat. The cat didn't think much of this turn of events, used to having the bed to herself most of the day. She relented when Yuri stroked her just so, kneading her claws into the thigh of his sweats.
[Home from the rink] Yuuri's text message eventually buzzed in Yuri's hand. [Come over any time.]
Yuri took his time about it, but the metro route from Lilia's to Victor's apartment was direct and familiar. Only an hour later, Yuuri was buzzing him inside and leading him into the kitchen. The apartment was starting to change, signs of Yuuri's homeyness creeping in against Victor's clean, uncluttered style, and Yuri looked around curiously while trying to look like he was entirely uninterested.
"I got everything that you told me to from the store this morning," Yuuri said once they were in the kitchen. The large counter was covered in an unusual assortment of food, from cabbage to strawberries to flour to ground beef to potatoes to plums to eggs. "But I can't figure out what you want to make from all of this."
"It's not all for the same recipe, idiot," Yuri snorted. "Honestly, strawberries and cabbage?"
"I didn't know!" Yuuri protested. And then, more slyly, "In Soviet Russia, cuisine fuses you?"
"NO," Yuri scolded, just barely managing to keep down a smile. "Shut up and find a cutting board."
Cooking in Yuuri and Victor's kitchen was much more relaxing than cooking in Lilia's, where Yuri always felt like a guest who might break something expensive any moment. They peeled potatoes and chopped cabbage, the companionable silence between them only underscored by the Spotify playlist Yuuri had going through the kitchen's bluetooth speaker.
"This really isn't what I expected you to want to cook," Yuuri confessed when they were putting everything together in the stockpot he'd found under the sink.
"It's called schi," Yuri explained, stirring briskly to make sure none of the potatoes stuck themselves to the bottom and burnt. Yuuri was peering over his shoulder curiously. "There's a lot of famous Russian soups. You and Victor can't eat a bunch of fried stuff all the time, right?"
"Well, one of us can't," Yuuri muttered darkly, sneaking a look down at the way Yuri's shirt hung loose down over sharp collarbones.
"Anytime you want this growth spurt, you can fucking have it," Yuri snapped, making Yuuri shut his mouth, expression apologetic. "Whatever. Anyway, this one's pretty easy and I know Victor likes it. We could have done borscht but I thought the beets might be too intense for you, so we'll have to work you up to that this winter."
For a second, Yuuri didn't seem to know what to say, looking Yuri over. "You thought about this pretty thoroughly."
"You asked," Yuri pointed out. "Wouldn't it suck to put all the effort into cooking something and not really like it yourself?"
"Thank you for doing all this." Yuuri smiled, looking so thoroughly pleased that it made Yuri's skin itch. "I tried to look up recipes online, but I didn't know what would be best. This is a huge help."
"We aren't even close to done, so keep your thank yous to yourself," Yuri told him brusquely. The warmth across his cheeks was definitely from leaning over the soup pot. "Make yourself useful and wash off the strawberries so we can simmer the kompot at the same time."
"What's kompot?" Yuuri asked, turning around to obey.
"For fuck's sake, isn't that moron teaching you anything?" Yuri demanded, rolling his eyes. "It's like the most Russian drink possible after vodka and kvass, and it's fucking amazing. You simmer whatever kind of fruit for a while, add some sugar, and drink it."
"He's not," Yuuri said, eyes focused on the strawberries. "Teaching me that much. He wants to help too much and he's trying to make feel comfortable and I don't want to complain about it, but the only reason I learned English was because people corrected me. But we're so busy, so I don't want to fight about it."
"Fuck that," Yuri announced, making Yuuri pop his head up in surprise. He shrugged a shoulder towards the strawberries. "Klubnika." Yuuri stared at him. "Say it, moron. Klubnika."
"Oh! Kurabnika?"
"No. Klubnika." Yuri grunted in satisfaction when Yuuri's attempt was much closer to Russian. He quizzed Yuuri on other kitchen words while they cut up the strawberries and plums and then set them boiling on the stovetop. Yuri was merciless about the way Yuuri's Japanese accent tended to flatten the Russian into monotone, until Yuuri started imitating the stresses better. "Next we're going to make a fuckton of pelmeni. Flour is muka."
"Muka," Yuuri muttered to himself. "Let me just find a bowl…"
"Bowls are for amateurs," Yuri announced, dumping his scoop of flour right on the counter and making Yuuri squawk. "Oh, calm down and get the eggs."
Yuuri looked suitably impressed when Yuri used the edge of his fist to create a small volcano crater in the top of his flour mountain, containing the cracked eggs perfectly, but less impressed when Yuri told him just to mix it with his hands.
"Let me wash my hands," Yuuri sighed, turning back to the sink.
"It tastes better if you don't," Yuri said, smirking at Yuuri's low ehhhh of distaste.
Dough and filling done, they set about the task of rolling out small circles of the dough and dropping a spoonful of filling onto each other. Yuri's recipe made dozens of pelmeni; they were making so many, Yuri explained, so that they could freeze most of them, and then Yuuri could pull some out and cook them without a lot of fuss on nights after long practices. Dough circles covered all the counter space that they had before they could finally start folding them.
"Oh, I see," Yuuri said as Yuri folded the first one over, then folded the sides around to meet in the front, pressing them together neatly. "It's like gyoza." Yuuri picked up the next one and did something more complicated after folding it in half, almost like a magic trick, so that a neatly crimped gyoza laid in his palm at the end. "Teach me yours and I'll teach you mine?"
"Deal," Yuri agreed.
Folding pelmeni was tedious but somehow soothing, the repetitive nature of the task lulling Yuri into letting his thoughts drift. Yuuri was the same way after they got into a rhythm, not feeling the need to fill up the small space between them with unnecessary words. Yuri thought that was fine. They ended up with trays half folded Russian style and half Japanese, and Yuri thought that was fine too.
"They're so cute! We should take a picture," Yuuri announced, wiping off his hands with a dishtowel before reaching for his phone and missing entirely the big smudge of flour down his cheek from when he'd pushed up his glasses. Yuri tilted one of the trays up for the picture, but Yuuri paused. "Wait, we should be in it too! I worked hard on these!"
"Is that okay?" Yuri asked, mostly teasing, but a tiny part of him was actually asking. "Otabek called me a home wrecker, you know. People will say weird stuff if you post a cutesy domestic picture of us. Won't Victor be jealous?"
"Good!" Yuuri laughed, slotting himself in against Yuri's side neatly, fussing with the flip and angle of the camera. On the screen of Yuuri's phone, Yuri could see Yuuri's smirk, how his eyes had just a spark of sass that Yuri had learned to spot only recently. "Let's show him how much fun we're having without him, it'll drive him crazy. Peace~!"
Later, stretched out across Victor's couch, pleasantly full of soup and dumplings and kompot, Yuri scrolled down his Instagram until he came to the picture of the two of them. It had a couple hundred likes already, a thumbs-up from Otabek, and a long wailing comment from Victor showing his angst via the medium of crying emoji. Yuri saved the picture to his phone, without thinking very hard about why he was doing that, and then liked the post himself.
yuri-plisetsky @v-nikiforov our pelmeni bring all the boys to the yard sucker
Victor's welcome home dinner must have gone well, because on Monday Yuri came into the rink and nearly tripped over Mila hassling Yuuri over the bite mark on his neck that his jacket didn't quite cover. She was in Yuuri's personal space, poking at him cheerfully and completely oblivious to the way Yuuri's smile was strained, the way his shoulders were starting to creep up towards his ears.
"And you're so cute when you blush, too!" Mila was exclaiming. She threw an arm around Yuuri's shoulders as if they were bosom buddies. "No wonder Victor's always so quick to sneak you out of here for some alone time—"
"Fuck, hag, shut up already," Yuri cut her off, marching straight between the two of them instead of going around, hip-checking Yuuri out of Mila's reach. "Some of us have practice to get on with, or at least those of us who are going to the Grand Prix again this year. Guess you can fuck around and do whatever."
"Brat!" Mila called, hands on her hips. Yuri ignored her, striding forward with Yuuri trailing along in his wake.
Sitting on opposite ends of a bench to lace up their skates, Yuuri didn't say thank you and Yuri didn't have to say you're welcome. Yuri felt absolutely no need to fill the small space between them with unnecessary words when he could see it in the relaxed slope of Yuuri's shoulders, the casual pass of Yuri's water bottle. Soon enough Victor would swoop in and fill up every single space with all of his words, and Yuri was all right with that, too.
"Ready to go?" Yuuri asked, standing up from the bench, balanced lightly on his skate guards.
Yuri let the barest edge of a smile show as he stood up on his own, ignoring the hand Yuuri was offering and brushing past him towards the ice. "Catch me if you can, loser."