All About Us [Yuri Katsuki x Reader]

143 - Harmless

You remembered getting separated from your parents once when you were way younger. You don't remember all the exact details but you did recall your franticness and your desperation to find them. Your eyes were stinging with tears and you pitifully wiped your runny nose with your sleeve. You had no idea what to do or who to turn to. You had always been warned about 'stranger danger' so you thought, at the time, that it was best to keep to yourself. After looking back at the memory you could not help but feel sorry for your past self. To succumb to such a state was...rather unbecoming and pitiful. Sure, you were a child then but it doesn't excuse the fact that you made a spectacle of yourself with all the sniveling and whining. You should have done something to find your way back...

Maybe you were being to hard on yourself.

You sighed.

You weren't exactly lost now. You just aimlessly wandered about losing sight of both your companions completely as dozens of people flocked in from everywhere. You weren't all that worried about them, they had a lot on their plate at the momemnt and best get ready for later on. However, you on the other hand...not so much. Your only reason for being here was to support Yuri but other than that, you were pretty much just an 'extra'. You were just another person in the audience eager to watch the contenders skate. Instead of frantically looking around for them like a headless chicken, you allowed yourself to be swept away by the flow of the crowds.

You decided to lay low a for a little while. You wanted to avoid everyone's calculating stares in fear of being subjected to their tedious lines of questioning of which you were sure would ensue once you make eye contact. Or maybe that was just you overly active imagination doing the talking. Your paranoia was starting to get the better of you. But, whatever the case, it felt as if the walls were closing in on you, inching towards you ever so slowly, threatening to box you in. You were frazzled which was just the funniest thing. You weren't even going to compete for goodness' sake and yet you were a jumbled ball of nerves! You tried to even out your breathing however, calming down seemed like the last thing your mind wanted to do right now.

It was, admittedly, strange to think that being in a setting which you were very much familiar with, now scares you. You've been in this sort of thing countless times before wherein you swore that the pressure was just unbearable. You were usually a contender, a participant in the competition along side Yuri. So being kept around here as a guest of sorts was new to you. You were at a loss of what to do. You were fine on the way here. Heck, you were even excited. This might as well have been the highlight of your day but now it was turning out to be the opposite.

But you had every right to be here. It was something that you had been repeatedly telling yourself since you had arrived at the venue. Being granted a 'back stage' pass, if you will, earlier on by Victor was very generous of him. Though it was true that you would have been fine watching on the stands with the rest of the audience would have been fine with you really. You still would still be able to cheer Yuri on from there. However, once you initially turned him down on the offer, the coach simply smiled and pretended not to hear any of your uttered protests, ignoring you for most of the day onwards when it regards of you (sneakily or forwardly) trying to return his little present for you.

Which was now weighing heavily down on your neck as it dangled. It was starting to feel more like a tag numbering you for the slaughter house, the feeling of dread was saturated in the air.

Now you wished you had been more insistent on just watching from the stands. You fiddled with the lanyard attached to your pass, not knowing quite what else to do than pick a secluded corner, far away from any onlooker and just...stay there until you come across either Yuri or Victor (or honestly just anyone else that you know) later on. In all honesty​, you felt really awkward just standing there. To anyone else it might even look as if though you were lurking in the shadows. You could always just go against Victor and head out, nothing has stopped you from going against him before. But there was just something in the back of your mind that was stopping you from leaving. What it was, you weren't certain.