O Fortune

Six for Hell

"Beka, are you still mad at me?"

Otabek didn't look at Timur. He looked at Timur's hands, folded loosely on the coffeeshop table, at the pinched line of his eyebrows, at the soft fold of displeasure that formed under his lower lip.

"I'm not mad," Otabek replied quietly. The sickening lurch in his stomach, the tightness of his chest, that had never been anger.

"You've been really distant lately," Timur continued, as if Otabek hadn't spoken. "I said I was sorry that upset you, but I feel like you're still taking it out on me."

"I'm not trying to, I promise." Otabek sipped the dregs of his tea, grimacing at the cold bitterness. Skating, midterms, Worlds, his mother's birthday, Timur - Otabek felt like a poorly trained juggler, his attempts at balance leaving everyone vaguely discontent. "I'm sorry. I've just been really busy."

Timur caught his expression and sighed. "I know, Beka, but we're all busy. I can't be there for you all the time if you're never there for me, especially when you keep getting mad at me and won't say why."

"I-"

"Let me talk for once, okay?" Timur ran long fingers through his hair, and held Otabek's gaze. "I care about you so much, and sometimes you make me feel like you only spend time with me because I stroke your ego. It's not fair, you know?"

Something in Otabek cracked. It wasn't the clean snap of wood, or the discrete, glittering shards of broken glass, but a more subtle fracture; bones weakening in hair-thin lines, their fragility invisible and creeping.

"I'm really sorry," he whispered, his heart caught in a frenzied pause, unsure whether it should hammer or stop completely. "I'm not- I don't-"

Timur stood up.

"Most people would say something like I love you," he said softly. His dark eyes were sad behind their glasses. He turned towards the door, but stopped when Otabek rose to follow. "I want some time by myself, Otabek. We'll work on it later, okay?"

Then, Otabek was alone.

He paid for their drinks and smiled at the waitress when she asked if he was the figure skater. Her answering grin snuck into his lungs, a writhing, biting thing.

The air outside nipped at Otabek's fingers as he held his phone, its screen black and dead, reflecting only a glittering display of shop lights. He should text Timur, apologize again. That was the right answer, the answer most people would know to give.

The emptiness by his side had a physical presence, a harsh shadow of absence. In Almaty - in Kazakhstan - the people he spent time with were Timur's friends, his family, and his coach. The others were more than an ocean away, asleep or in class, and what would he say to them anyway?

Tell me it's not my fault.

Make me feel better.

Otabek put his phone away and walked home.

:: :: ::

The ice was the same as it always was.

Moving away from Almaty would have been more difficult if it wasn't - but in each city, each country, the ice was the ice. What was around, who was around, none of that mattered to it. None of that mattered to him, Otabek told himself, and he didn't wish for Leo's easy laugh or JJ's crowing delight to echo throughout the complex.

"Otabek, repeat that section," Ali called from the side.

He did. It had been a problem before, at the beginning of the season, but he had thought it was decent enough now.