On Love: Agape!!!

Chapter 8

DISCLAIMER: I have some chunks of this chapter in Japanese (straight from Google translate. I Know google translate sinks, and I hate it too, but I don't know good enough Japanese to be able to do the Japanese  want to do in the chapter without it.) The only parts that are in English are the parts Yurio can understand because he is struggling to learn Japanese. So when you soo large chunks of Japanese and freak out because you have no idea what they mean, that's ok! Neither does yurio. Thank you so much for reading see you later!

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"Hello, Yurio!" Viktor smiled as he skipped into the ice rink. Yurio rolled his eyes and just kept skating. "Make any progress in the last 5 minutes while I was out talking to Yuri?"

"OF COURSE NOT!!" Yurio screamed. Viktor put his hand up to his chin and stroked it like he was thinking of an idea. Oh crap. Yurio thought. Not one of Viktor's wild field trips! While training for the Hot Springs On ice!, Yurio had come to associate that look with Viktor forcing him to go to all of these mind-numbing boring places, like temples and waterfalls. It had been a while since the look had come out, but yurio was already mentally planning his escape route when Viktor finally opened his mouth.

"To the arcade!"

"huh?

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The arcade was loud, colorful, yet relatively empty, after all, it was Tuesday morning smack dab in the middle of the school year. While this was more interesting than any of the mind-numbingly boring places Viktor had brought him when they were working on On love: Agape, it pissed Yurio off that he would have to stay very close to Viktor. The reason for this being despite his best efforts, Yurio stunk at Japanese.

"You are going to look around at and play some of the games, and you will pick one or two to inspire your programs. Here is some money."

"This is stupid," Yurio muttered.

"I know it's stupid, but it works. Even if something in here jogs a memory, like that time in the waterfall, we can work with that. But before I set you free, we are going to go to one game in particular!"

Viktor grabbed Yuri's hand and ran him over to a beat-up looking game. It was red, and it had 5 holes on the lower, flatter section. The electronic board said: モグラ退治, and showed cartoon moles running around, and snapping away when a mallet crashed into the scene, hitting one, who suppressing wasn't dead, just dizzy. Then a cartoon demonstration showed plastic moles(wearing helmets for some odd reason) popping out of the holes, and a mallet (which was suspended by nothing) whacked the moles.

Viktor put some money in the machine, took the mallet off of the side, and handed it to Yurio, whose eyes lit up.

"I trust you know what to do?" Viktor challenged a slightly excited smile across his face.

"Да" Yurio replied, as the game started up. He felt this strange sensation, a warm, happy feeling he couldn't quite place. In an instant, however, he remembered he hadn't felt this way since Viktor and Yuri's wedding when he had seen Otabek. Was this excitement?

As the first mole rose out of his little hole, Yurio swung the hammer hard on the little plastic rodent's head. The ring around the whole lit up, and something happened on the board, but Yuri didn't notice. Even just smashing one little plastic shape with a large piece of fluff encased in a leather casing, on the end of a stick, felt more freeing than he had felt in a long time.

As the second mole rose up, Yuri's thoughts twisted back to Otabek. He hadn't contacted Yurio since that night in the café, dispute Yuri's multiple attempts. He was still skating, and under Kazakhstan, and Yurio imaged that Otabek must be going through the same hell he was, but all the same, why couldn't he TELL him that?! Yurio whacked the mole with about 50 times the force that he had hit the last one. He had given up skating for his country for Otabek, and Otabek hadn't even answered him.

Third mole. Why did he even have to leave Russia anyway?! He was Russian, he had always been Russian, and would always be Russian, so why did he have to skate for Japan?! This mole was hit so hard, the game nearly shook.

Fourth and fifth mole. Yakov, that's why. The man who had rescued Yurio from his home in Moscow and had acted like a father to him for all of those years was the same asshole who had tried to destroy Yuri's skating career, all based on one thing that didn't even matter. This time when the moles were smacked in rapid succession, the game did shake. Yurio also silently hoped he was working up a sweat because he could feel burning tears on anger welling up in his eyes.

Sixth mole. Burning tears made Yurio think of his mother, who had often caused them to fall. Was she the reason he needed to go to an arcade and hit plastic moles with a soft mallet? Did being at the brunt of her anger somehow tell him that violence was the correct way to deal with your own problems?

Seventh mole and eighth mole. And Grandpa, why didn't he do anything to stop her? The Tears he had been holding back finally started to roll when he thought of his grandfather. Did he just not know? After all, they did work exactly opposite shifts so someone would always be at home with him. And why hadn't Grandpa made any effort to contact him? Did he still support Yurio? Did he have any Idea what was happening to his grandson? He had cried, in public, twice in the last 2 months, he clearly wasn't ok, but he couldn't call Grandpa himself. He would need Grandpa to call him, the last thing Yurio needed was to sound desperate.

ninth, tenth, and eleventh mole. What if the reason Grandpa hadn't called him was that he physically couldn't? Just calls from St.petersburg to Moscow were rather expensive, so calls from Moscow to Japan would probably be astronomical if he could even find a phone that had international service. Ever since Yurio had been skating professionally, he had sent most of his money back to his mother and Grandpa, trying to help them out. It had helped, but Yuriko's mother had racked up so much debt from before Yurio was born, by trying to become a singer, that most of the money Yurio was able to send them didn't help out their daily lives.

Twelfth, 13th and 14th moles. Yurio would have to do it himself. Once he got his first paycheck, he would call his grandfather. He needed to know, he would have to give in to defeat. Defeat. Deafaye. THAT'S IT!!!! At least One of his programs would have to deal with defeat!

最終ラウンド, the game changed. 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th.
It was perfect. It was something that no one would ever expect him to do, which would make Viktor happy, and there was so much he could do. Maybe his short program could be about him giving into defeat, while the free program could be him rising up and putting defeat back in its place because he was NOT going to let all of this udder insanity stop him from Skating. Ever.

Yurio snapped out of his mole-whacking daze, wiped his eyes, and smiled. The screen said: 1025ポイント,高得点! Excellent work!, then he turned around to Viktor, who was laughing so hard he was bent over and crying.

"What's so funny?"

"You broke the mallet!" Victor laughed. Yurio checked, and out of the black leather, a seam was split, allowing bits of white fluff to run ragged. Yurio quickly shoved the mallet back in its hanging spot, and speeded away, feeling much better about the whole situation, but still not wanting to be known as the boy who broke the モグラ退治 machine.