Not a fairytale

Final

Yuri's life wasn't an easy one, but he had always been a fighter, too stubborn to give up on living.

His life started with silence, no scream emitting from his small, weak lungs. He was born way too early, due to his mothers drinking stunts during pregnancy and the doctors predicted he wouldn't make it. But Yuri did.

He grew up without father and with a mother who was more of a ghost in his grandfather's small house than a real person. The only things indicating she was actually alive, were the empty alcohol bottles piling up and the drunken insults occasionally thrown at Yuri.

When the boy finally entered elementary school, filled with hopes and expectations, he was tormented by other kids. He was too small, too lanky, too feminine. They laughed at him, made fun of his family, excluded him from their games and made him feel like the most worthless person alive.
It was during this time that he discovered skating.

Skating was easy. All he had to do was get on the skates, enter the ice and put one foot in front of the other, gliding over the frozen water, again and again. If he fell, all he had to do was stand up again and begin anew. When he was skating, it was only him, the ice, and his thoughts. It was as easy as breathing, and felt like starting over.

He was seven when he looked at his grandfather with determined green eyes, exclaiming he would start skating professionally and become the best skater in the whole world, better than anyone before him had ever been. Nikolai simply smiled and called one of his dear friends in the evening. It was the day Yuri found a coach who wanted to make his dream reality.

-

When Yuri moved to St. Petersburg, his determination rose. It was his chance to start over, just the way he had always wanted to. This time he'd make sure to get friends, this time everything would turn out great for him. It didn't.

Young, innocent Yuri hadn't taken the cruelty kids could have into account when he introduced himself and told his new class he liked skating and danced ballet in his free time. That day, Yuri found himself laying on the dirty ground with tears in his round, green eyes because he refused to give a stranger his lunch. On the same day, Yuri landed his first punch on a guy almost two years older than him.

During this time, he met the other side of his beloved ice. He learned of bleeding feet after hours and hours of training, learned of ballet practice until late in the evening, and learned that everyone was competition, and no one was a friend.

-

The first weeks after he left his grandfather (and mother) behind to pursue his dream, he cried himself to sleep and let self pity drown him. After four weeks he decided all the useless tears wouldn't get him nowhere, and his grandfather didn't work hard for him to get lost in fears and mistakes. It was time for Yuri to start fighting for what we wanted.

And so he did.

The following years, Yuri learned treating everyone with caution was a great way to ensure his mental and physical safety. He also learned how to properly punch someone and how to get others to respect him and keep their distance. His life during these years was as safe as it was lonely.

But no matter how horrible his life off-ice was, as soon as he entered the rink his soul was free. There were things discouraging him, jumps he failed again and again, the bleeding feet and the ballet practices with smug older skaters. However, it didn't matter anymore. Yuri had been taught how to accept failure and how to turn it into something greater, something stronger. He became the best skater in the junior division, knowing he had made his grandfather proud. But he wasn't finished yet.

-

When Yuri was 12, he realized he didn't like girls and never would. He let the loneliness overpower him, and desperately searched for a friend. When he finally found one, he was ecstatic, so happy to finally have someone to talk to. The skater didn't recognize the trap before it was too late and about 10 boys had formed a circle around him, shoving him around, hitting him, insulting him.