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Vitya is a difficult child, his father warns Yakov. If he isn’t talking a mile a minute he’s fidgeting or daydreaming or wandering off to cause chaos. Ask him to do something and he’s forgotten five minutes later. He doesn’t listen. He’s constantly in trouble at school. He’s slow, too; at seven years old he can barely read or write.
“At least he’s well-behaved at the rink, his teacher tells me,” says Alexander Nikiforov, weary hope in his eyes as he watches Vitya tie his skates. “He works hard. God knows, I’m glad there’s one thing he’s good at.”
Yakov isn’t expecting much to come of the meeting. He doesn’t usually offer individual coaching to children so young, particularly not troublesome ones. He only arranged to meet Vitya at all because three different friends have told him: you have to see this boy skate.
“Papa!” calls Vitya. “I’m ready!”
He’s on his feet, a slender reed of a child, angelically pretty with his striking silver-blond hair and wide blue eyes, vibrating with energy and eagerness.
Alexander snorts. “Sure, he’s ready to skate. It takes me a solid fifteen minutes to get him to put his shoes on for school.” Then, louder, he calls, “Vityusha, I’ll leave you with Coach Yakov. I’ll be back to collect you in half an hour.”
“Half an hour? No!” Vitya runs over to them in a clatter of skate guards. “Papa, it’s not long enough. Please can I stay longer? Please, please, please?”
“Half an hour.”
“But Papa…”
“Vitya, behave yourself. Coaches don’t like little boys who whine.”
VItya pouts, but he takes a sideways glance at Yakov’s face and stops pestering.
Alexander departs without fuss. Yakov approves. Hovering skating parents are one of the banes of his existence. Vitya shows no anxiety about being left alone with a stranger. He’s a chatty child, keen to tell Yakov everything about himself, his skating teacher, and a seemingly random array of facts. It’s all ‘did you know?’ and ‘can I tell you?’ as Yakov checks his skates.
Yakov breaks in on the flow. “Who’s your favourite skater?” he asks.
“Alexei Yagudin.”
“Why?”
The question elicits a rare, brief pause in Vitya’s chatter as he considers. “Um… I think because lots of reasons. He’s so brave with his jumps. And he moves like… like I don’t know how to say. Like the music is inside his body.”
Yakov is momentarily taken aback. Yagudin is the obvious skater to choose, but he’d expected to hear some version of ‘because he’s Russian’ or ‘because he’s a champion’. It’s an articulate answer for such a young child, and an accurate assessment of Yagudin’s strengths.
“Isn’t he just the best?” enthuses Vitya. “Is he your favourite too?”
Yakov ignores the question. “On the ice, please,” he orders.
Vitya steps out onto the rink and pushes off unnecessarily fast the way children his age often do. Unlike other children, there’s no ungainliness to his speed, no flailing limbs, no wasted movement. His blades hiss lightly as he shifts his weight. Unbidden, he turns, picks up yet more speed, and launches into a double loop.
Yakov calls him back with a reprimand for impetuosity, but inside his heart is racing. Seven years old, and the boy can land a double as easy as breathing.
They run through some easier moves. Vitya is focused as he performs them. He pays as much attention to a simple inside edge as he does to a jump or a spin. He’s a perfectionist. He hits every edge without a wobble. His body position is flawless. Then they try with music, and Vitya moves to it like a dream.
By the time Alexander comes back, they’re working to refine Vitya’s entry into the Lutz and Yakov has already made up his mind.
“Your father’s here. Go on. I’ll talk to him while you take off your skates.”
Vitya’s face is a picture of dismay. “But we’re not finished!”
“We are for now.”
“No, five more minutes. Please? Just five more minutes.”
“Next time,” says Yakov, then rebukes himself silently. They haven’t even agreed that there will be a next time.
Victor’s face crumples. “You have to show me again. I don’t want to stop.”
“Vitya, we’re done. Get off the ice.”
“No,” says Vitya, “I don’t want to.” His face is turning red, as though tears are just over the horizon.
Yakov sighs. This is why he doesn’t work one-on-one with children Vitya’s age. “If you ever want me to teach you again, you’ll do as I say.”
Vitya drags his feet as he skates to the gate, and he stomps past his father without a hello.
“Vityusha, what’s wrong?”
“You came back too early!”
He marches over to the bench, sits down, and sniffles over untying his laces. Alexander gives a helpless eye-roll and turns to Yakov.
“I’m sorry. I did warn you that he’s difficult. I hope he wasn’t too much trouble.”
After that little display, Yakov can well believe that Vitya will be plenty of trouble. It hasn’t changed his mind at all.
“How often can you get him here?” he asks.
“What?”
“Early mornings, if possible, before school. I want him every day except Sunday. He can come for my regular novice group and three private sessions. I’ll see what I can do about finding him a ballet class that suits.”
“Are you joking?”
“I don’t joke about skating. Is it the money? We can work something out.”
“It’s not the money. It sounds like some kind of… of training regimen. He’s just a little boy.”
“It will be a training regimen,” says Yakov. “He’s a champion.”
***
Nearly a decade later, Vitya is still difficult. He’s infuriating.
His charming smile hides the attention span of an overexcited puppy, and he’s about as useful as one. Thank god Yakov has a housekeeper, because Vitya can’t be trusted with the simplest chore or errand. His school was glad to see the back of him when he dropped out, having long ago given up on him getting any kind of academic qualification. Paradoxically, he’s by no means stupid. He soaked up the French language like a sponge just from hanging around Yakov’s go-to choreographer. He’s not lazy, either. If Yakov doesn’t monitor his solo practice sessions, Vitya works until he falls over from exhaustion. But if he’s not interested in whatever he’s asked to do he doesn’t do it. He used to walk out in the middle of class despite the trouble it got him in. When faced with something as simple as peeling carrots he stares dreamily into space or abandons his task completely and goes off to play with the dog Yakov shouldn’t have let him have. At press conferences Yakov keeps him occupied with chocolate and kicks him in warning when he starts bouncing his leg or shifting in his seat.
There are plenty of press conferences. Vitya has a good shot at the world title this year.
“I’ve told him I can’t come to watch the national championships,” says Alexander Nikiforov, looking out over the ice to where Vitya is intently tracing through the steps of his short programme. “Kazan is a long way and it’s not a good time, with work and with the children.”
He didn’t come the previous year either. Yakov can’t remember what the excuse was that time.
Alexander has other children now, with his second wife. Pavel is seven, and save for his dark hair he looks astonishingly like his older brother. He got moved up a grade and is still top of his class. Maxim, at four, is already reading fluently. Katya is only two and can count and recognise the letters in her name. They’re gifted and well-behaved. Alexander’s pride in them is obvious.
“Do what you think best,” says Yakov. There’s no point in making an issue of it. Vitya won’t mind. He doesn’t often think about other people.
“We’ll send a birthday present along with you. Something small, if you have a little space in your suitcase…?”
“Yes, fine.”
“He’ll be seventeen,” says Alexander. “Would you believe it? He’s almost a man. Other boys his age are planning their careers, thinking about college.” He snorts at the thought. “Poor Vitya. God knows what he’d be doing if he didn’t have his skating.”
Yakov grits his teeth, biting back an angry retort. Over the years, he’s learned that Alexander has no respect for athletes. He respects professional people: doctors, lawyers, scientists, businessmen. His eldest son is both a mystery and a disappointment to him. With his second son he got the child he had always been hoping for.
Out on the rink, Vitya comes to the end of the umpteenth repetition of his step sequence and skates over to them in a long, flowing dance that plays with the same steps, forwards-backwards-forwards.
“Yakov,” he says cheerfully when he hisses to a stop at the rinkside, “I think I should cut my hair.”
“Of course you should. I’ve been telling you that for the past three years,” Yakov snaps. “I don’t know how you haven’t strangled yourself with it by now.”
“I want a fringe, like this,” says Vitya, drawing an imaginary line across his forehead at eyebrow height. “Hi, Papa. What are you doing here?”
“You’re coming to the house for dinner tonight, Vitya. We arranged it last week,” says Alexander, with long-suffering patience.
Vitya casts a longing glance back at the rink. For a moment his lips threaten to form a pout. Then he smiles, dazzling.
“Oops, I forgot! What’s for dinner?”
“I don’t know. Your stepmother is cooking.”
“Well, I’m sure it’ll be delicious!” declares Vitya. “I’ll go change. I won’t be long.”
He is long. After fifteen minutes of awkward conversation with Alexander, Yakov goes into the changing room and finds Vitya damp haired and half-dressed, drawing pictures of skaters on the steamed-up mirror by the showers.
“Vitya, you’re keeping your father waiting.”
Vitya runs one hand over the mirror, turning his figures into a smear before he turns. “Oh, yes. I got distracted.”
“Hurry up,” Yakov orders. “No more dawdling. You have two minutes.”
He leaves, and leans against the wall outside the changing room with his eye on his watch, ready to bang on the door and yell if Vitya doesn’t emerge within the prescribed time. As he waits, he wonders about Alexander’s off-the-cuff comment. If Vitya didn’t have his skating, if he had struggled his way through school with nothing but the label of the problem child, the dunce, would he still be the bubbly, captivating, impossible boy Yakov is crafting into an international phenomenon?
God only knows, and thank god they will never have to find out.
***
When Vitya is eighteen, he takes his first Grand Prix Final gold medal and wins his first truly life-changing endorsement deal. He’s done small stuff before – magazine spreads, interviews, one-off adverts. This is a year as the face of a major fashion brand, with the option to extend. It’ll be the first of many contracts, Yakov’s sure. Vitya has grown up stunningly photogenic.
That evening Vitya doesn’t come down for dinner, which isn’t unusual – he often loses track of time. Yakov shouts up the stairs to him, and eventually grumbles to himself and goes up to bang on his door.
“Vitya! Dinner.”
There’s no response. Yakov pokes his head into the room. It’s dark, lit only by the streetlights through the open curtains. Vitya is sitting on the edge of his bed, silhouetted in profile, completely still aside from his hands moving over Makkachin’s ears.
“What’s the matter with you?”
Vitya glances his way and gives a tiny shrug. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
“Vitya? Did something happen?”
“No,” Vitya says. His mouth is expressionless but his eyes are wide and worried. “No, but… I signed up to do something I can’t do. That’s all.”
“Is this about the endorsement?” says Yakov. For a moment his mind flares with suspicion, but no – surely no one would dare ask an athlete of Vitya’s standing for any… extra services in exchange for a contract. “What do you mean you can’t do it? It’s a few photoshoots, a couple of days of filming –nothing you haven’t done before.”
“A few photoshoots,” says Vitya bleakly. “I hate photoshoots. They’re so boring.”
“They’re paying you a fortune and you’re making a fuss because you’ll be bored?” says Yakov.
He has no idea how to handle this particular nonsensical tantrum. Of course Vitya doesn’t like photoshoots. Who does? He doesn’t like press conferences either, or interviews. It’s always, “Yakov, can we go yet? I’m hungry. I need to check my phone. There’s Stephane, I want to talk to him. Listen, what do you think about this song for an exhibition piece? Yaaakooooov, how much longer?” His restlessness is such a familiar annoyance that Yakov barely notices it. But whining about press conferences is one thing, and wallowing in overdramatic despair over a deal that will earn him millions is quite another. Not that he’s ever had to worry about money – his father still pays his training fees and travel expenses out of some sense of obligation, even though Vitya’s winnings would more than cover it.
“It’s like being sent back to school,” says Vitya. “Sitting still all day.” He sighs and gets to his feet. “I’m going to take Makkachin for a walk. I’ll find something to eat while I’m out.”
“You have a meal plan.”
“I’m going out,” snaps Vitya, with a rare flare of real temper. He flings himself past Yakov and down the stairs in a graceless, impetuous scramble, and is out of the door, coat half-on and shoes still unlaced, before Yakov can get his creaking old bones as far as the hall.
“Can’t you ever do anything I say?” Yakov yells down the street at the retreating figure. Only the dog glances back at him. Vitya puts his head down and marches on.
For days on end, Vitya exists under a heavy cloud of gloom. Yakov can’t make any sense out of it. At his wits’ end, he calls Lilia. He doesn’t speak to her often – in general their relationship is frosty – but she understands modelling and photoshoots, and she’s an expert at browbeating highly-strung teenagers. He can only hope she will have some insight into whatever mysterious aspect of standing around looking pretty has got Vitya so upset. She probably has a good shot at prying out the truth. In her mercifully short stint as Vitya’s teacher she managed to instil in him a lingering distaste for ballet and a marked wariness of her temper.
Lilia arrives after dinner with a ring of the doorbell that manages to sound impatient despite being the same electronic buzzing noise the button would make for anyone. Yakov leaves her to take off her things in the hall and pokes his head into the lounge where Vitya is despondently watching a recording of the European Championships.
“It’s Lilya. I called her to talk some sense into you.”
Vitya makes a brief horrified expression before jumping to his feet and smoothing down his hair and his clothes. By the time Lilia walks in, his face is carefully blank.
“Hello, Vitya.”
“Lilia Ivanovna,” says Vitya. “How nice to see you.”
“Well,” she says, looking him up and down critically, “you’re learning how to dress, at any rate. You will never understand dance, but you might understand beauty.”
Vitya looks down at his sweater, cashmere in a soft dusky rose. “Thank you,” he says, without warmth.
“Yakov, leave us.”
Yakov makes his exit, ignoring Vitya’s sideways glare of betrayal. He goes into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea, considers offering Lilia some kind of refreshment, and then thinks better of it. She used to live here. If she wants anything she can get it herself.
As he takes his mug up to his study he pauses by the door to the lounge. Lilia’s sharp voice is just audible through it.
“Ridiculous boy. You are the star now. You don’t have to sit in the makeup chair for hours. Get out of it. Dance. Make them follow you around with their brushes and powders. If you are difficult to work with, what of it? The contract is signed.”
There’s a faint mumble from Vitya.
Lilia gives an impatient snort. “Nonsense. Ask for what you want and they will give it to you. You are exquisite. If they won’t walk through fire to make you happy, you can find someone else who will.”
Yakov smiles despite himself. Only Lilia, could call someone exquisite in a tone that makes it clear she also finds them painfully stupid.
He goes on up the stairs, deciding there’s nothing to be gained from trying to work out what she’s talking about. Dancing around makeup chairs? Bizarre. Well, either it will work or it won’t.
Ten minutes later her voice echoes up the stairs, calling for him imperiously. He stalks down to the hall to meet her and she fixes him with a glare as she arranges her scarf.
“That boy does not know his own value,” she says, “Educate him, Yasha.”
She sweeps out of the front door before Yakov can point out that Vitya is perfectly well aware of his own value and has a packed cabinet of medals as evidence.
Back in the lounge, Vitya is sprawled across the couch like a fainting damsel. “Yakov,” he says pitifully, “you don’t love me at all.”
“You brought it on yourself. If you don’t cheer up I’ll call her again.”
“So cruel,” Vitya complains, with a theatrical pout.
Yakov breathes a sigh of relief. Vitya is going to be fine.
***
It’s 2009, and Yakov is in a clinical exam room, listening as the doctor goes through the familiar checklist of concussion symptoms.
The medics had looked Vitya over after the fall and there hadn’t seemed to be any after-effects, but back home in St. Petersburg things are obviously not okay. At practice that morning Vitya had lasted a bare few minutes before coming off the ice and sitting down in a hurry. His head hurt, he said, and he felt sick. He hadn’t complained when Yakov marched him here for evaluation.
“Any vision problems?” asks the doctor. “Blurring? Bright spots.”
“No.”
“Dizziness?”
“Not really.”
“How about memory problems?”
The doctor is a serious man doing a serious job. He’s probably not expecting his patient to snort with laughter. Vitya covers his mouth, trying to smother a fit of the giggles.
“He has the worst memory of anyone I’ve ever met,” Yakov grunts. “I don’t know how we’d tell the difference.”
The doctor frowns, unamused, and goes on to quiz Vitya about concentration. A couple of minutes later Yakov’s phone rings. After a glance at the caller ID he excuses himself, goes out into the corridor and picks up the call with a curt, “Hello, Sasha.”
“I thought I’d check in,” says Alexander.
“He should be fine,” Yakov reports. “A mild concussion, I think. He’s being evaluated now. We’ll monitor him carefully, but I’m not worried.”
He is worried, of course. He worries about all his athletes, but Vitya is special. Vitya is the only one who has lived with him long-term, the only one whose family suggested it and the only one Yakov would ever conceivably have agreed to accommodate. The spare room is still ‘Vitya’s room’, two years after Vitya bought his own place. Even now, Vitya stays over sometimes, when he’s sick or tired or injured. He probably will tonight.
“A concussion?” says Alexander, taken aback. “He has a concussion? How did that happen?”
Yakov grinds his teeth. “He had a bad fall at the European Championships.”
“I didn’t know. He didn’t call me.”
“It was on international television,” snaps Yakov. “Why were you calling, if you didn’t want to know how he’s doing?”
“I wanted to catch up.”
“And you called me?”
“Look, I don’t have a lot of time to spare. Work is intense right now, and you know what he’s like when he gets going. I can’t spend an hour on the phone.”
“I’m not here to help you wriggle out of talking to your son. Call him yourself,” says Yakov.
He doesn’t quite hang up on Alexander, but he does end the call shortly after, and spends a couple of minutes fuming in the corridor before heading back in to find Vitya.
A week later Vitya is perfectly free of symptoms and back at practice as usual, none the worse for his bump on the head. At a break in the session, Yakov asks, “Has your father called you lately?”
Vitya shrugs. “I don’t remember.”
***
Five consecutive world championships. A total of twenty years spent coaching Vitya. Yakov has put up with a quite incredible amount of bullshit since the seven-year-old champion turned up in his life. And now Vitya is gone. He’s taken his dog and roughly half the contents of his apartment, and he’s disappeared to Japan.
The whole world is talking about it. Possibly even Alexander has noticed, though it’s not terribly likely. Yakov hasn’t heard anything from the man in longer than he cares to think about.
He can’t exactly say he’s surprised at the turn of events. ‘Whimsical’ would be a polite way to describe Vitya. ‘Erratic’, ‘capricious’, and ‘flighty’ would be more honest choices. All it takes is that drunk pole-dancing boy from the banquet skating one of his routines and Vitya ditches his upcoming season and flies halfway around the world. Yuuri Katsuki. Good footwork, lacklustre jumps, expressive movement marred by chronic nerves. Absolutely nothing special.
And now Yakov’s future champion has run off too.
Little Yurachka might well match Vitya in raw natural talent. He’s a furious mass of passions. His overarching passions are for skating and for winning, but that’s not all; he can be roused to deep emotion over almost anything - his clothing style, his cat, the way people treat him. It throws Vitya into sharp relief. Vitya enjoys what the world has to offer – good food, willing partners, beautiful places – but it’s a fleeting enjoyment. Off the ice, nothing really touches him.
Yakov sighs over his phone, considers calling Yura back, and then changes his mind. While another shouting match might relieve his feelings, it would only end up with Yura hanging up on him again. Instead, he calls Yura’s grandpa.
“Hello, Yasha,” says Nikolai. “What has my Yurachka done now?”
He sounds so fond that Yakov has to supress a groan. Nikolai can be gruff and sharp with his grandson, but he’s also vastly over-indulgent.
“That blasted boy has followed Vitya to Japan.”
“What? Do you know where he is? Is he safe?”
“He’s perfectly safe. He’s staying at a hot spring hotel with Vitya and some dime-a-dozen Japanese skater. Of all the deluded nonsense – he knows Vitya, he should know better than to follow his example!”
“Ah, Yurachka has always worshiped that man,” says Nikolai with a laugh. “Well, if he’s safe and happy I don’t mind. I’ll call him now. Thank you for letting me know.”
Yakov tucks his phone back into his jacket and sighs. This isn’t good for his blood pressure. And now on top of that he has to face Georgi’s romantic drama. That’s enough for anyone to deal with all on its own.
Maybe it’s better this way. Vitya will come crawling back soon enough, and in the meantime, good riddance. Yakov had been getting tired of watching him endlessly vacillate between the two arrangements of his short programme music.
Pointless. They both knew he would pick agape in the end. Eros would be no kind of challenge.
***
Vitya does come crawling back, and he’s not alone.
Yakov will never understand why Vitya thinks himself capable of coaching anyone, but it’s hard to dislike Yuuri Katsuki. He’s reserved, respectful, retiring. He saves his temper and intensity for his own coach – which Vitya seems to have no objection to at all. Vitya always arrives at the rink for his morning sessions with Yakov looking smug, a cat who very definitely got the cream.
The rink atmosphere has never been more charged. Three contenders for the world title in one place might sound like a recipe for conflict and hostility, but the energy in the air is positive. It’s perfect for Yura. Yuuri’s dedication and hard work is an excellent example, and having Vitya as competition is just the push he needs to stay motivated.
So really, Yakov should be glad to have them there. But what he can’t deal with is how cute they are.
Vitya has always had plenty of people to have fun with – what the kids these days call ‘friends with benefits’, Yakov supposes – but this is the first time he’s been in a serious relationship. He’s obsessed with Yuuri. The two of them are joined at the hip. They walk with their arms around each other. They skate together, side by side, perfectly in sync. They live and work and spend all their time together.
It’s a mystery how Yuuri can stand it. Yakov has lived with Vitya. He wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
Vitya is disorganised. He’s forgetful. He doesn’t get things done. When he first moved out Yakov had to call a cleaning company for him, and grocery delivery, and laundry, because Vitya just never got around to setting anything up. He’s older now and presumably not quite so terrible at managing his own life, but there are still plenty of signs that he hasn’t changed all that much,
Today is a case in point.
Yuuri, having somehow managed to spill water all over himself, called Vitya to ask him to bring him a spare jacket when he came to the rink. Vitya, of course, turned up an hour later minus the jacket.
Yakov has long ago learned that this is the result of asking Vitya to do anything at all. It’s incredibly irritating. What’s even more irritating is how Vitya always laughs off his failures as though they don’t matter.
But Yuuri isn’t irritated, and Vitya isn’t laughing. They’re cooing at each other, all saccharine tenderness.
“Solnyshko, I’m so sorry. I wrote it down, I just…”
“You didn’t look at your list. It’s fine, I promise. I know you didn’t mean to forget.”
“It isn’t fine if you get cold. Here, take mine.”
“Then you’ll get cold.”
“Well, you’ll just have to come and hug me to keep me warm.”
“I guess that wouldn’t be so terrible,” says Yuuri, blushing and giggling like a thirteen-year-old on a first date.
From across the ice, Yura yells, “Ugh, you two make me want to hurl. I’m going to humiliate you both at Worlds, so stop being gross and start practising.”
Sometimes Yakov really loves that boy.
They do practise, but it doesn’t altogether solve the problem. During a break, Yakov goes over to talk to Victor about Yura’s quad flip and finds the pair of them cuddling on the bench, still being sweet to one another about the forgotten jacket.
“I know what I need for practice,” Vitya is explaining earnestly, “but anything else, anything different… it’s hard.”
“Okay, how about next time I ask you to bring something, you find it that minute while we’re on the phone. We can keep talking until you’ve put it in your bag. Then you can’t forget, huh?”
Victor’s face lights up. “That could work! You’re so good to me,” he declares, nuzzling into Yuuri’s neck and then nibbling gently on his ear.
“Victor, Yakov’s right there! Get off!”
“Mmmmmmmmno,” Vitya says, and starts kissing whichever bits of him are accessible.
Yakov is too old for this nonsense. He goes to yell at Yura instead.
***
Vitya marries Yuuri in a characteristically over-the-top event that fills Hasetsu to bursting point with skaters, friends and hangers-on. The whole town is celebrating. In the run-up to the big day, Yuuri and Vitya are showered with congratulations wherever they go. Yuuri is constantly flushed pink with embarrassment and happiness. Vitya glows.
Yakov soaks in the hot springs and ignores it all.
The day of the wedding is bright, sunny with a light breeze, as though even the weather is eager to please. The ceremony, in a pretty park overlooking the ocean, is smaller than he expected – still bewildering, but on nowhere near the scale of the party and ice gala due to come after. He recognises a lot of the guests milling around the garland-hung paths, waiting until it’s time to take their seats. There are skaters from all over the world, various friends from different times of Vitya’s life. His eyes catch on a little group of three standing to one side watching the throng. They’re teenagers, siblings, by the looks of them, with matching slim figures and chestnut hair. Yakov can’t identify them as anyone’s students or children, and they’re too young to be college friends of Yuuri’s. He almost turns away, discarding it as a not-terribly-interesting mystery. Then the eldest turns his head to say something to his sister. Yakov gets a clear view of his face, sees bright sea-blue eyes, a narrow nose with finely moulded nostrils, brows slightly tilted beneath a high forehead.
Pavel Nikiforov. Still astonishingly like his half-brother.
Yakov makes his way over to them.
“Pasha,” he greets the boy. “I haven’t seen you since you were very small. Do you remember me?”
Pavel does – or at least can place him. He’s flawlessly polite as he says hello and performs introductions for his siblings. Yakov had forgotten their names. It’s been a long time. Maxim is less like Vitya, with a square jaw and a total lack of cheekbones. The girl, Ekaterina, can be no more than fifteen and must take after her mother. There’s nothing of Vitya in her face until she smiles a bright, heart-shaped smile.
“Is your father here?”
The three exchange glances.
“He wasn’t invited,” says Katya.
Yakov tries not to show his surprise. He doesn’t think he manages it.
“I’m not even sure why we were. We don’t know Victor Alexandrovich at all,” she continues disingenuously, unconcerned or unaware that she just used a respectful patronymic to refer to her brother. “I was too small to remember him when he lived with us. But he paid for our tickets and the hotel room, so he must have wanted us to come. He seems nice. And Yuuri, too.”
“We’re very glad to be here to wish our brother happiness,” puts in Pasha. His formal, prim expression shifts Vitya’s features into unfamiliar shapes. “It was kind of him to think of us.”
Yakov makes an effort with small talk, and learns that Pavel is studying law, Maxim plays the violin, and Ekaterina is interested in mathematics. All three are clearly academically inclined. Katya possesses an appealing youthful chattiness, while her brothers are poised and self-contained with excellent company manners. Pleasant enough kids.
After a few minutes they’re called to their places. The three Nikiforovs make their way into one of the middle rows, while Yakov goes to the front, the spaces reserved for close family and friends. As he waits for the ceremony to start he puzzles over the situation. Vitya isn’t close to his family, and it’s a long way to Hasetsu, so he hadn’t expected to see Alexander here. But to invite the children and not him… it‘s so strange. He can’t imagine that Vitya would want to deliver such a deliberate snub to his father.
Later, at the party, he sees Vitya twirling Katya around the dancefloor. Their matching smiles light up the room.
***
After four years in St. Petersburg, Yuuri retires and the happy couple decide to move to the States.
“My Yuuri wants to go back to school,” says Vitya proudly. “For postgraduate study.”
“There are schools in Russia,” Yakov grumbles, though he knows Katsuki’s conversational Russian wouldn’t stand up to the trials of academia. “Bah. You could actually offer something valuable to my students as a coach, but no. Why do I waste my time with you?”
Yura determinedly pretends he doesn’t care that they’re leaving. Once they’re gone, he mopes solidly. Yakov knows he’s lonely. At the St. Petersburg rink he’s the only candidate for the men’s singles these days, now that Victor, Georgi and Yuuri are gone. There are a few promising boys among the novices, but nobody whose skating makes Yakov’s heart race the way it did when he first saw seven-year-old Vitya step out onto the ice.
Yura wants him to take on the Altin boy from Kazakhstan. Yakov will be damned if he lets Yura spend any more time than necessary with someone who owns a motorcycle. He sometimes wonders if all skaters are born without common sense.
Truth be told, he doesn’t want a new student. He’s about to turn seventy-five. These days Yura is enough – and occasionally feels like too much. Maybe one day soon he’ll send the boy off to the States, to Vitya and Yuuri.
The pair of them seem happy, over there, now they’ve settled in. Vitya, of course, is terrible at keeping in touch. Yuuri is better at it. He Skypes every few weeks to share their news. It’s all little domestic details, stories of Yuuri’s studies and Vitya’s students, the new puppy, the renovated apartment. And then one day Yuuri tells him that Victor has signed up for classes, aiming for a high school diploma.
“Vitya in a classroom?” says Yakov. “He won’t last five minutes.”
“You don’t know what he’s capable of,” says Yuuri, uncharacteristically sharp and annoyed. “He’s doing much better now he’s on medication. I don’t know why you didn’t encourage him to try it.”
“Medication?” says Yakov, baffled. “For what?”
There’s a long pause. Then, in a small voice, Yuuri says, “Forget I said anything.”
The call cuts off abruptly.
***
Yakov, more unnerved than he’d like to admit, calls Vitya instantly to demand what’s wrong with him.
“Nothing serious,” says Vitya. “I’m not ill. I’m taking medication for ADHD.”
“ADHD?” repeats Yakov, with a sense of mingled relief and confusion. As far as he’s aware, ADHD is a disease of four-year-olds who’ve been given too much sugar. “What do you mean? Who says you have ADHD?”
“Do you remember when I got that concussion at Europeans? The doctor referred me to a specialist. She diagnosed me right away. Classic symptoms – forgetfulness, impulsiveness, inability to pay attention or focus on a task.” He gives a light laugh. “It explains a lot, don’t you think?”
“How can it-” Yakov begins, and then stops in exasperated bewilderment. He wants to say, but that’s just who you are. Vitya has always been mercurial, distractible with everything but skating. He never concentrates on things he isn’t interested in. “Wait, that concussion? That was ten years ago!”
“Yes.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me back then?”
“It didn’t seem important. Now, I have to go. My angel is worried. Goodbye, Yakov!”
“Vitya--!”
Vitya has already hung up, of course. Yakov stands there for a few moments with his phone in his hand, looking at nothing. Then he gives himself a shake and goes to his computer to spend a solid two hours reading about ADHD.
***
Yakov flies 7000 km for an inconsequential little GED graduation ceremony at a nondescript community college.
Vitya’s dove grey Armani three-piece suit is half-hidden under a graduation robe that is cheap-looking, badly made, and horrendously ugly. Vitya obviously doesn’t care about the effect. He flits around exchanging congratulations and taking selfies with his classmates, part of a yellow polyester ocean.
Almost all of the others are older than high school age, some by a handful of years, others by a handful of decades. Vitya stands out, with his arresting looks and movie-star aura, but he also fits in. He shares their air of excitement, an astonished happiness at the trifling achievement.
Before Yuuri and Yakov take their seats, before Vitya lines up to be called on stage, Yuuri hugs his husband so hard that Yakov can hear the breath being squeezed out of Vitya’s lungs.
“I’m so, so proud of you. I knew you could do it.”
Vitya kisses him. “Thank you, solnyshko. For everything."
Yuuri cries during the ceremony, which is convenient. He’s far too busy sniffing into his pack of tissues to notice that Yakov has to dab at his own eyes a couple of times.
There’s a party afterwards, more lavish than anything the school could afford to lay on. It’s obvious, from the amount of champagne alone, that Vitya had a hand in it.
While Yuuri goes to get them drinks, Yakov turns to Vitya.
“I’m proud of you too,” he says. Then, honestly, “I didn’t think you could do it.”
Vitya laughs. “I didn’t either,” he admits. “Yuuri has more faith in me than I do. Surprisingly enough, it was… well, not easy, perhaps, but not nearly as hard as it used to be. The pills make a big difference. Not just for this,” he says, gesturing around at the graduating class. “For everything. For managing the little things. For looking after Yuuri, being a good husband.” He gives a long, satisfied sigh. “It’s such a relief, you know? I didn’t know what I would do once I couldn’t rely on the ice to get me through the day. Now it feels like I can do anything.”
It’s amazing, Yakov thinks, how you can know someone most of their life and still have no idea what goes on in their head.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he says. His voice comes out gruff with the effort of sounding calm. “So what ‘anything’ will you do next?”
“I’ll still coach, of course, and I’ve got plenty of people interested in commissioning choreography. But I’ll take more classes too. Maybe you’ll come to my college graduation one day.”
“Maybe,” says Yakov. He doubts it but he’s learned his lesson. He won’t rule it out.
Vitya smiles, blue eyes twinkling as though he can read Yakov’s scepticism and is amused by it. “Thank you for coming today,” he says.
“You could have studied in Russia and saved me the flight,” grumbles Yakov. But when Vitya hugs him he hugs back, smoothing his hands over the hideous yellow robe. In that moment, he pictures how Alexander Nikiforov’s face might look on hearing that Vitya was finally graduating high school, aged thirty-four. Perhaps he’d be pleased. More likely he’d roll his eyes and sigh, just as he always had.
Alexander had looked at Vitya and seen a problem child where he should have seen his son. Yakov himself – well, he’d looked at Vitya and seen a champion skater. Perhaps he should have seen the struggles going on beneath the surface.
Yuuri comes back and distributes champagne.
“To Victor,” he says, raising his glass.
“To Yuuri,” Vitya counters. “I wouldn’t be here without you.”
It’s true, Yakov thinks. Vitya needed Yuuri, who saw what was actually there.
“To both of you,” he says, and smiles.