O Fortune

Five for Heaven

"Beka, will you be home for dinner?" Otabek's mother pushed his bedroom door open with her foot and sighed as it hit a stack of books. "Sorry, zhanym, your father promised to start clearing these out over the weekend."

"It's fine, ana, I have plenty of space." Otabek stood up, surveying the scattered heaps of clothing. As small as his childhood bedroom was, the emptiness still managed to loom. The bare walls were an uninterrupted sky blue, and his suitcases formed an ungainly heap at the foot of his bed. "I'm not sure, I'm sorry. Coach Karimov wants to finish all the paperwork this afternoon, it might take a while."

It felt strange to fit his life back into the plurality of lives, the nesting schedules that made up a family, like the last three years were a summer camp or a fever dream - something tiny stretched into eternity, perhaps, or the largeness of it trimmed until it could comfortably fit back into his family's Almaty apartment.

Had it been a mistake to leave, if he was just going to end up in the same place he'd started?

Taimas, a knee-high mutt with coarse black fur and ears caught in the confusion between upright and floppy, nosed his way into the bedroom and sneezed. His sister, Gulshat, had joked that Taimas was the perfect replacement for Otabek: short, scrappy, and permanently judgmental (though, in Otabek's opinion, the dog was more inclined to watch the goings-on with a vague air of amusement than evaluation).

"The coach and I will grab dinner if it goes too late," Otabek added, as his mother hesitated. "Sorry," he said again, "it's just hectic now."

Life would slowly settle back into an almost predictable schedule. More importantly, Otabek would relearn the little mundanities of his day, about meals that weren't served in a cafeteria and coming home to a home instead of an empty dorm room.

"See you later," Otabek said, pausing to kiss his mother's cheek and give Taimas a scratch behind the ears before grabbing his duffel bag.

As Otabek stepped into the streets of Almaty, he decided that hope was a special sort of fear.

:: :: ::

"I want you to enter in as many competitions and exhibitions as is physically possible." Ali Karimov propped his elbows up on the paper-covered desk, folding his gangling limbs into some semblance of order as he met Otabek's eyes. "At this point, you need exposure and experience more than anything else."

"Okay," replied Otabek, blinking. "Are you sure, I haven't-"

"You score a new personal best at almost every competition. The photo of you and Berik at Worlds was in every sports journal for weeks, and enrollment in figure skating classes has spiked across Kazakhstan," Ali told him, his expression serious. "Medals aren't the only measure of success, Otabek."

"Oh." Otabek could barely remember the picture Ali mentioned, but the moment it captured was clear in his mind: the shock and warmth as a small boy launched himself across the room, thanked Otabek for the opportunity, and hugged him tightly enough to make his ribs ache. The other junior skater from Kazakhstan, someone explained to him, the one whose slot in the competition had been secured by his tenth-place victory the year before. Even through the haze of disappointment about his failure to qualify for the Grand Prix, Otabek felt a spark of joy ignite. "I- okay. Which events?"

Ali winked and handed him a sheet of paper. Otabek skimmed the list, his eyes widening as he took in the seemingly endless names, places, and dates.

"All that you can."

Otabek smiled.

:: :: ::

His phone buzzed.