Work Text:
“You know,” Mari adjusts her Yukata. She’s had to switch from the burgundy ones she usually wears for work to the ones that her mother had tucked away. When those started to get small, she had to trade out for the ones that other women in Hasetsu had stowed away for years in closets and chests and underneath beds. The one that Mari wears now is one of her mother’s. It’s not really her style, pale pink with green creeping vines and pale ivory flowers. The garment is more feminine and more showy than she’s used to.
Mari hikes the skirt high and rests the fistful of crumpled fabric up onto her growing stomach. Slowly, she carefully lowers herself to the smooth rocks which outline the onsen. Mari lowers her feet into the water, and perches on the edge. “You’re an awful lot of trouble.” She says finally. “Do you even know how badly my back hurts? How much I want to get into the water? How much my back hurts?” It’s worth repeating, because this little person makes her hurt so much all over.
Mari sprawls out across the smooth rocks and tries to enjoy the feeling of at least having her feet in the hot water. The cool of the stones soak through her autumn yukata and slip into her aching bones. It’s not as good as the water, but it’s better than nothing.
Mari moves her hand across her stomach. There’s a flutter of activity there. No matter how many weeks elapse, it always surprises her. Startles her awake in the middle of the night, and causes her to drop hot mugs of tea on the floor. “I guess you do know huh,” but as strange as it is, she’s grown accustomed to talking to the little future person in her womb as if they’re already here.
Mari lets her other hand slip from covering her eyes to move down to clasp her other hand across her stomach. “I guess you’re just lucky that your father, I mean your other father, my brother-“ Mari giggles. “God, it all sounds so weird, doesn’t it? Do you care? Do you care that we’re all so fucked up and we don’t care at all?”
Mari laughs again. It’s all she can do when she hurts this much, and wants a cigarette this much, but can’t stop smiling despite the fact that her body seems to hate her so much.
“Well he means the world to me. That’s why I have you.”
It’s clear out tonight, and the stars look like vibrant little electric bulbs against the navy blue black of the sky. People email her all the time. Her best friend from high school who moved to Tokyo for her husband’s work. Her ex, who never seemed to have time for her while they were dating. He lives in Sendai now, with the girl that she cheated on him with. Funny how those kinds of things worked out…He sends her instant messages from time to time whenever they’re about to travel home to see family and asks what restaurants are still open.
Not many.
They all seem so happy, but she can’t help but wonder…Especially when the moon looks like a dainty little biscuit that you’d serve up with tea, if any of them can see the sky like this. Even if they can, do they even take the time to look at the sky like this?
Can they make their own broth from scratch? Can they pound out katsu until it’s thin like paper? Do they even notice the difference, between broth that’s homemade or the kind that comes from a jar?
“You’ll know,” Mari decides finally. “Maybe if your fathers let you off the ice, we can cook together.”
Mari is seemingly answered with more turbulence in her abdomen. Movement that starts rapid and slows. “Yeah, I know that’s a tall order, cause ballet lessons too,” she says with a sigh. “It’s a good skill to learn though. Yuuri was much better at controlling his weight when I actually taught him how to cook instead of letting mom put whatever in front of him. He thought about it more.”
Mari removes her left hand from her stomach and moves to scratch at the hairband. She slips a finger underneath, scratches at the scalp, before finally deciding to pull the band off completely. She tosses it to the side. “I always thought Yuuri would move back home someday,” she admits out loud for the first time. “I just never ever thought he’d get married.” She laughs again, because life any other way seems strange now. “I thought we’d grow old together as spinsters, but then somehow he met your father. You know, your actual father…Your-”Mari struggles for the word. Biological sounds too clinical. Actual is an oversimplification.
Achoo! The sound is barely there. If she hadn’t heard it so many times, she would’ve missed it. But now, through the years the sound is unmistakable. She’s not alone outside, and it’s just a question of where that certain platinum haired man was hiding.
“Now I’m pregnant with his baby. Can you believe that?” She raises her voice, just to let him know that she knows he’s nearby. “So he should come sit with me, so I’m not talking to my stomach alone. So he’s not freezing in the October wind outside the onsen.”
“Mari-Neesan,” Viktor’s voice is soft, barely a whisper. “Would you believe me I said you were glowing?” Viktor steps into her field of vision and beams at her in only the way Viktor Nikiforov can. Makes the moon look dirty and tarnished in comparison to the way that he shines.
Mari rolls her eyes. “I’m already pregnant with your baby, Viktor. Stop talking like you want something from me.”
“Mari-Neesan,” Viktor’s face falls slightly, from a grin to a regular smile. Which is to say, he’s very disappointed in being treated this way. “I don’t want anything. See?” He pulls a small cream colored can from behind his back. “I come bearing gifts.”
“Oof,” Mari moves to sit up. Viktor sits beside her and offers her the can. “I can’t have that,” she squints at him, as if she suspects a trap. Everyone’s been thoughtful enough to tell her what she can and cannot do with her body ever since all this started. If another person asks her if she’s still smoking, she’s socking them in the jaw. Yuuri actually had to hold her back at the green grocer’s the other day.
“Says who?” Viktor nudges his smile back up to a 110%. “You had to give up a lot. One little coffee milk won’t hurt.” Viktor procures a second can and pops it open. He carefully sips the excess liquid off the top.
Mari mirrors his actions and takes a minute sip of the liquid. “So sweet,” she screws her eyes shut.
“The machine out front was out of BlackBlack.”
Mari smiles. That was her absolute favorite. A cold bottle of BlackBlack and a cigarette on a hot morning a few hours after work had started was simply the best. By then the breakfast crowd had been mostly served, and she didn’t have to start thinking about lunch just yet. Some of her best memories after Yuuri moved away for college were of those times she spent leaning out the kitchen side door and stubbing out butts on the old fence post while she listened to the radio.
Guess that was over. It would be stupid to start smoking again after nine or ten months of not doing it, no matter how much she missed it.
“It’s good. Thank you Viktor.” She adds after awhile, because she can probably count on both hands, the amount of time she’s spent with Viktor, and just Viktor. Which is odd, because she considered him a close friend before all of this even began… “Yuri sleeping?”
“Out like a-“ Viktor interrupts himself with a laugh.
“Like a baby?” Mari finishes.
“Hm,” Viktor hums.
“How much of all that did you hear?” Mari asks. Not that any of it matters.
“Enough to find it funny that Yuri used to worry that he took me from the world,” Viktor sinks his ankles into the water too, which Mari thinks is stupid. The weather is perfect for a soak. An actual honest to god soak would be so good right now. She’d turn her head and hide her gaze while he gets in. Someone should enjoy the onsen, even if she can’t. “When really it was me that took him from his big sister.”
“Ugh,” Mari hides her head in her hand. “Of course you heard that.”
“It’s cute,” Viktor admits.
“It’s nothing I lose sleep over,” Mari responds. “Trust me. I’ve gotten to do a lot of things I wouldn’t have gotten to do otherwise because of Yuuri. I’d like to think they’ve made me a better person.” Barcelona, and PyeongChang, and last year when they all went to Paris on vacation with Minako and their parents too. “Finally got me out of Hasetsu at the very least,” and a lot further than all the people that left her behind for big cities in Japan…
“I feel the same way,” Viktor says it with some heaviness and finality that makes it sound like it’s something that isn’t painfully obvious. But they all live together under the same roof. She’d have to be stupid to not see how Viktor, even after all of this time, looks at things as if he’s seeing them for the first time because of her brother.
“Oh my god, settle down.” Mari’s hand flutters back to her mid-section. “They figured out you were here.”
“Really?” Viktor’s eyes go wide with a silent question. A question that strangers in the supermarket and patrons of the onsen don’t have the nerve to ask, but the father of her own baby asks every single time.
“Yeah, feel.” She grabs his hand and shoves it onto her stomach. She watches Viktor’s hand, long fingers, gold ring, perfectly manicured nails, rise and fall with the heaviness of her breath. “Doing triple axels tonight or something.”
“Quads,” Viktor corrects. There’s a tinge of certainty in his voice. “Baby Katsuki-Nikiforov will be the first to land a quad axel.”
“What if it’s a girl?” Mari asks. None of them new at Viktor and Yuuri’s insistence, but Mari knew for a fact that quads were uncommon in women’s skating.
“It doesn’t matter,” Viktor insists. “The first. Unless they don’t like skating and then-“ Mari doesn’t miss the way his voice cracks slightly in the histrionic kind of spur of the moment way that Viktor, and only Viktor can get.
“Don’t worry about it. I totally get what you mean.”
It goes silent between them after that. There’s nothing but the rustle of the branches above in the crisp autumn wind, and the feeling of Viktor’s hand splayed across her middle. It would be strange, if this weren’t just one in a series of many strange and wonderful moments with her brother and her brother-in-law.
“Who knew it would be so hard to not expect things from someone who isn’t even born yet,” Mari struggles over the words, but she understands Viktor’s fear. She was just waxing about teaching the child to make broth moments ago.
“Right?” Viktor laughs. “It’s late, are these the questions that keep you awake mama?” and it rolls off his tongue so that his accent is thicker and his whole voice sounds much much happier, if that were somehow possible.
“Ah,” It’s no secret that Mari is up before everyone else. She’s been waking up before the sun for decades now. When she last looked at the clock, the one shaped like a cat in the kitchen, it was almost one in the morning. “Maybe.”
Viktor’s hand leaves her stomach. With his finger he tucks her hair behind her ear. It’s a gesture that’s strangely intimate, which in and of itself is strange considering her current condition.
“Like should I even be mama? I know that we talked about it, but…”
“Why wouldn’t you be mama?”
“Otosan and отец” her mouth fumbles awkwardly over the word. “Is normal. Otosan, отец, and mama-auntie? Eh?” She grimaces. “Weird right?”
“It’s only strange if you put it like that,” Viktor insists. “I mean, more people to love them. That’s good right?”
Mari doesn’t miss the way that his voice is tinged with worry now. She’s hit a nerve, and then she remembers little bits of prior conversation. There are plenty of things that she overheard that she knew for a fact that she wasn’t supposed to. There were the furious texts sent by Yuuri when he and Viktor went back to St. Petersburg from time to time. She doesn’t know everything, but she’s come to understand that Viktor’s family is quite small. According to Yuuri, they woefully underestimate Viktor’s wonderfulness.
Mari takes several too-big mouthfuls of the drink Viktor brought. They don’t taste good when they get room temperature, and the contrast between cool drink and warm water at her feet is nice. She puts the can down onto the stones next to his and turns the tab sideways so she can remember which one is hers. “Yeah, Vic-chan.” She leans over, and it feels like for a moment she’s going to fall into the onsen belly first.
Viktor steadies her with a firm hand on her elbow. Perfect. “I guess that’s true.” She dips her hand into the water, and flicks a few drops at him. The water, scented like sulfur, and minerals, and the earth itself, splashes across his nose, and his cheeks, and the top part of his chest which peaks out from his constantly near-undone Yukata.
Viktor’s smile falls. Looks mortified that he could be treated this way. “Mari, why do you treat me this way?”
Before she knows what’s going on, Viktor’s leaning down into the onsen too. His grip is still firm on her elbow, and then she’s getting splashed. Where Mari opted for just a few droplets, Viktor splashes enough to soak through the collar on her Yukata. “Viktor!?”
“See? We’re so weird.” Her gaze settles back on her stomach, because the message is for baby Katsuki-Nikiforov. “And you’re stuck with us.” She reaches for Viktor’s hand, because she might as well be talking to him too.
“Mari-Neesan.” There’s a slight stutter in Viktor’s voice. “Can I tell you something?”
“Sure,” Mari lays back against the rocks, but doesn’t let go of Viktor. She’s not good with disclosure, confessions, and all the complicated little things that make them human.
Maybe she’ll be able to accept and interpret whatever it is that Viktor is about to say if she isn’t staring directly into those intense blue eyes. His expression glimmers in a way that takes so may little things too seriously, and so many important things not seriously enough.
“When I first came to Hasetsu, there was a moment where I really thought I’d made a mistake.”
“Oh yeah?” But she already knows. Everyone did. They could see it in the awkward way that Viktor and Yuuri would look at each other over the dinner table, but their gaze would miss each other each time. She could see it in the way that Yuuri locked Viktor out of his room, and then slunk out the back door to go running in the early morning hours.
“So, I went out drinking all night. I was late to practice with my Yuuri and Yurio the next day.”
Mari closes her eyes in an attempt to hide the fact that she’s rolling them. “My Yuuri.” She could sit with them and watch them cuddle and whisper to one another for hours in the common area, but that one got her. Made her understand why Yurio feigned gagging noises, and rolled his own eyes, and made a big show of his disgust even years after they were at the altar.
“The next day, even though it was late and breakfast hours had ended, you made me a full breakfast. Snow crab with miso, an omelet, onigiri, some baked salmon. It was quite good.”
“That’s quite a memory you have Viktor,” Mari notes.
“I remember because I couldn’t turn it down even though I was quite queasy and very hungover. I was really late to practice because I couldn’t turn down all the food you made for me. So I spent a good twenty minutes kind of-“
Mari tilts her head upward when Viktor can’t find the words. He’s making a patented Yurio gagging face. “Really?” Because she’s never seen this man at anything less than perfect, even when he’s stumbling toward the bathroom at six in the morning with bed head and one eye barely open.
“Everyone has always been so nice to me here, even from the beginning…But you always intimidated me,” Viktor confesses.
It makes Mari giggle. “What? No way?” As much as she’d love to be interpreted as the intimidating older sister, she never thought she’d actually succeed at cultivating that image. When they were kids if Yuri was bullied, she wouldn’t really do anything other than hug Yuri and try not to cry.
It’s hard to intimidate a flea when you’re Hiroko and Toshiya’s kid.
“Yeah, so I thought it was a test. I ate everything you put in front of me that morning and suffered for it later.”
“Viktor that’s awful,” she unlaces their hands and slaps him playfully on the shoulder. “Still afraid of me?”
“A little, ah-“ Viktor interrupts himself. “Maybe not afraid. Revere? You hold a lot of power over me now Mari.”
“Viktor, stop talking like you want something from me. Remember? Already pregnant.”
Viktor leans back so he’s laying against the stones too. Mari is still upset that he’s not enjoying the onsen.
“I don’t think I ever felt that way…Suspicious.” It’s almost the truth. She might’ve been suspicious for few days. It was strange that her brother finished the worst season of his professional career, and his childhood idol suddenly arrived. By the time Yurio arrived, the suspicion had all but vanished. Yuu-topia was brimming with people by that point, and it was impossible for any of them to have a moment alone.
She’ll never forget the moment her opinion changed. It was just past three a.m. and she couldn’t sleep. She’d started chopping cucumbers for breakfast salad. The door to the kitchen was wide open, because she’d been chain smoking since one. They hadn’t dealt with this many guests for as long as she could remember, and quite frankly she questioned whether or not she was up for it.
She could hear the faint hiccup sigh cough sound of sobbing in the distance. Out in the onsen, or over in the path that led to the shrine up the mountain, she couldn’t quite tell where the noise came from.
It was then she understood that whatever Viktor’s intentions were, he was human just like the rest of them. He didn’t expect for any of this to blow up on social media. He didn’t expect for a child to hold him responsible for past promises.
Mari doesn’t say anything for a long time. Instead, she thinks about how Yuuri will hold this little bundle of cells and flesh and movement in her stomach soon. How he’ll be called tousan, or papa. She finds it strange really, how she’s able to do something for Yuuri even after he’s competed in two Olympic games, and medaled in Worlds, and gotten married.
“Do you think that the baby will have that cute little Katsuki nose?”
Mari arches an eyebrow. She’s grateful that they’re both staring at the sky right now. She can’t imagine what hideous position she’s contorted her expression into. “What are you talking about?”
She feels Viktor rock upward into a sitting position. The water splashes as he does, and his feet knock against her ankle. “You know,” Viktor insists.
“Um.”
“You know,” Viktor’s index finger taps against the tip of his own nose, and he presses it upward. “It looks like you know a….You know Mari!”
“No, I don’t,” Mari deadpans. Viktor should’ve never told her she held this much power, even so many years onward. “Explain it.” She knows. She’s heard him call her brother “Piggy,” playfully in the past.
“Look Viktor,” Mari lets out a long sigh. The kind she’d give if there were a cigarette pursed between her lips. The kind that would make smoke crawl upward, and outward, and envelop them both. “Yuuri liked you. Yuuri wanted you here. That was enough back then,” and that was the truth. One hundred percent. “And that’s enough now. So,” because she’s not good with disclosure, confessions, and all the complicated little things that make them human. “So it’s okay. You can say we have pig noses.”