Love is a Battlefield (Yuri!!! On Ice - Otayuri)

Chapter 5: Someone Like You

A/N: This chapter is broken into two sections: the first in Otabek's POV, the second in Yuri's. It should be clearly marked. This chapter was beta-ed by the lovely Altergravity.

Otabek POV

Otabek checked his phone. Again. It had become something of a habit, in the weeks since Yura had abruptly left to stay with his grandfather. A tiny flicker of hope flared to life as he tapped the screen, opening his Instagram.

0 messages

He felt the flicker of hope die. Again. He hadn't heard from Yura - not once. Not a call, or a text, or an email. Not even a mention or a hashtag. Nothing. It was unprecedented. It was depressing.

Otabek slumped forward, ignoring the plate of pancakes in front of him. Mila deftly shifted it out of the way of his hair. He'd been dragged along on this 'traditional' diner run nearly every night since he arrived in St. Petersburg. He wasn't sure exactly what prompted the skaters to decide that any given night was a 'Pancake Night' - but he suspected it had something to do with getting yelled at in practice. Now that he'd spent some time in a rink with Yakov, he had a greater appreciation for Yura and Victor's stoic acceptance of his tirades. He also wondered how on earth they managed to keep their weight down eating like this nearly every night.

He appreciated their efforts to include him, truly he did, but he had little patience for Victor and Yuuri and Georgi's antics. Of all of them, Mila was the most sensible, but that wasn't saying much. He would attribute it to Russians being in general more prone to dramatics, except that Yuuri was Japanese. And, anyway, Yura was Russian, wasn't he? And he certainly wasn't as ridiculous as this lot.

He lifted his head enough to look around him, then dropped it again with a quiet thump. Honestly. How were these children grown adults? Hell, Victor and Yuuri were getting married soon, and they'd both been floating the idea of adoption. Not immediately, but, still. He imagined the two of them trying to raise a child and gave an involuntary shudder.

He missed Yuri. The spiky fluffball (as he privately referred to him) had grown on him. He missed him, as he had never missed any other human in his life. And he was obviously not missed in return. His fingers twitched toward his pocket and he jerked them back, cracking his wrist against the edge of the table in the process. He swore softly in Kazakh.

"Are you all right, Otabek?" Mila asked.

"Of course I-"

He looked up, saw the genuine concern in her eyes, and cut off the harsh reply he'd meant to make. He cast about for an acceptable answer that wouldn't reveal too much.

"I was just wondering what Yuri's been working on. He was having trouble with that jump, but I know he'd been landing it cleanly in practice, and then there's a new season's programs to work out, and-"

Victor looked up, puzzled, from his whispered conversation with Yuuri. "He's not."

Otabek frowned at him. "What do you mean 'he's not.' Not what?"

"He hasn't skated at all - hadn't, anyway, when I called him the other day."

Yuuri touched his fiancée's wrist, brows drawn down in puzzlement. "Victor... that was more than a week ago."

Victor's smile was bright, guileless. "Was it? You know, you really must try some of this, it's-"

Otabek surged to his feet, leaning over the table into Victor's space and slamming his hands down, without really registering what he was doing. The dishes rattled. "You haven't talked to him since?" His jaw clenched with the effort of modulating his voice, of maintaining a veneer of civility. He could hear his mother's strident voice in his head, admonishing him.