❆ come on out ❆

4 ❆ VICTOR

Author's notes, TW & CW 
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November 19

The night of the 19th he falls asleep staring at the ceiling of his borrowed room and wondering, what now?

For now, the answer seems to be, try your best. So he falls back on pretending. He's good at pretending.

❆

November 20

He wakes up at eight. He's woken up at a lot of different times across the years, but almost never much later than seven-thirty, and that's at one extreme. Tracking his history back through the years, he can't remember a time since he was six when he'd had the luxury of waking up late for more than a couple days. Actually, it's more than that. He can't remember a time when he hadn't known what he was going to do next. Of course there was the creative element of his skating, something unpredictable, but there was always something. There was always going to the rink, there was always practice practice practice, always more to do, always the next competition to get excited about, the next season, the next project. Now? There's nothing. So he wakes up at eight and stares at the ceiling until nine, then he flounders his way out of bed and digs up something comfortable to wear.

Yuri's family greets him with big smiles as he enters the common area. He never has to cook for himself, Yuri's mom always seems to have something ready just when he needs it. On this particular morning she serves him a bowl of rice and some miso soup. "It's on the house," she says with a wink.

He smiles at her, practiced earnesty hiding his sullen mood. "Thanks, Mrs. Katsuki."

He eats and they chat about nothing in particular, and then he sits and reads a while. He's got time to read books again. He hadn't, for a while. It's nice, even though what he's actually reading is this kind-of-terrible detective novel he bought in the airport on the way here the first time and forgot about. He reads the first chapter and decides, the wife definitely did it. Does Yuri read a lot? Maybe he has some better books. Well, they're probably in Japanese. Actually, maybe not, since he went to university in America. Whatever, he should just focus on... Secret of the Misshapen Tuba: a mystery thriller...

...Or not.

When he's finished digesting a bit, he goes for a run. Yeah, so it's all out of order. He should probably run before breakfast. What does it matter? He's not training for the Olympics anymore, he can afford a little sloppiness in his schedule. Yakov would yell at him for that, which makes him feel odd and a bit smug. It's at times like that when he aches so badly for Russia that he gets out of breath. He keeps thinking about it anyway.

Hasetsu's a very pretty place, and as it grows familiar and comfortable, Victor feels more at home. It reminds him of when he'd just arrived here, biking and watching Yuri run around. Where did that bike get to, anyway? The Nishigori triplets peer at him from around corners as he runs, which he puts up with with all the grace he can manage—he ignores them.

His run turns into a long walk. He gets back around noon, only because his ankles are starting to hurt. He takes a bath in the hot springs, alone. Nobody bothers him, there's only the gentle sound of flowing water and rustling branches. He misses Yuri's embarrassed company. He'll give him a week, he decides—a whole week to mope, and then he'll drag him out to the rink whether he likes it or not. That's more than generous. Yakov would have given him fifteen minutes if he was lucky.

He goes back inside. It's one o'clock, now, only ten hours until bedtime.Wow, looking forward to bedtime? How depressing.

That train of thought is interrupted when he sees that Yuri's up, just recently by the looks of it. His hair is a mess and his eyes are drooping, but Victor feels a spark of hope nonetheless. "Yuri!" he calls, "good morning!" Not morning anymore. Whatever. What can he invite Yuri to do, get him out of his room? Movies? No. Walk? No, he just got back from one. Run? Ditto. "Wanna go skate?" he asks, and promptly cringes at himself.