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It was on a day in April when Yuri realised that he had greatly underestimated the man he called his boyfriend.
Otabek’s request to move in with him had not surprised him. After all, they had talked about the possibility of living together for months, discussing their options and ideas during thousands of phone and skype calls, but they had just never found the right time. But now, Otabek seemed to have enough of switching between St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Almaty, and had asked Yuri during one of his visits to finally follow through with it.
It was high time, anyway. Although Yuri was no way near the age of retirement for a figure skater, for Otabek, it was slowly coming closer, and Yuri was sure that his boyfriend was tired of living on his own – even if Otabek would have never said so out loud.
In Yuri’s eyes, Otabek was anything but old. If anything, Otabek was in his prime. What he lacked in height he compensated with his talent, and only a fool would dare to cross him after a look into those dark, stoic eyes that Yuri loved so much. Of course it was all just a façade, and Yuri knew that Otabek could be actually sweet behind closed doors. But to a stranger, Otabek was dark and mysterious, and a secret to those that did not bother to get to know him.
Otabek seemed content with his life as it was. But sometimes, Yuri wondered what his boyfriend would do after his retirement.
He stood at the edge of the rink, watching Otabek lean against the railing on the other side, where a group of school children had taken a seat with their teachers and told Otabek the questions they had prepared for him. His boyfriend seemed calm, albeit a little uncomfortable with so many people trying to talk to him at once. Yuri huffed. His boyfriend was far too nice. When Yakov had approached him and had asked him if he were willing to answer the questions of some local children, he had told him to find another idiot for that task.
That idiot had turned out to be Otabek, much to Yuri’s surprise, and he wondered what had made him do it. Perhaps he owed Yakov a favour, or perhaps he wanted to thank him in this way for allowing him to join his team. It would certainly be his last, Yuri thought and got off the ice, never taking his eyes off Otabek. He seemed surprisingly patient with the kids, and for a moment, Yuri wondered if Otabek would make a good trainer. The mere thought made him laugh. No, Otabek would make a horrible trainer. Albeit he had the knowledge for it, Otabek always tried to avoid confrontations and arguments – the very things that happened between skaters and their trainers on an almost daily basis.
Yuri stretched, making his way across the hall to Otabek.
One of the kids had raised his hand, leaning forward on his seat. “I want to be a skater too when I’m big!” The boy exclaimed. “Can’t I just quit school and start right now? Wouldn’t that be better?”
Otabek shook his head. “Stay in school, kiddo,” he said calmly. “You never know when your career ends in this business. I could slip on the ice any day and get hurt in a way that could end it all for me.”
The teacher smiled. “So what you mean is that everyone needs a backup plan?”
Otabek nodded. “Yes.”
“That is very wise of you, Mr. Altin,” the teacher said and looked at the young boy on the bench beside her.
“Do you have a backup plan?” A girl chirped, looking at him curiously.
Yuri came to stand near Otabek, leaning against the railing.
Their eyes met briefly.
“I already went through with it,” Otabek replied to the girl’s question, just as Yakov came in and reminded the teacher of the time. Apparently, they were friends – or former lovers, judging by the way they looked at each other. It made Yuri almost gag.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Altin,” the teacher said and rose. “Children, what do we say?”
“Thank you, Mr. Altin!” The kids chanted and waved at him on their way out. Otabek raised his hand briefly, sighing in relief and stretching as he was finally relieved of this surprisingly exhausting task.
“Hey,” Yuri said.
“Hey,” Otabek murmured with a yawn, getting off the ice.
“Finally free?”
“Yep.”
“Hungry?”
“Yeah.”
Otabek sat down and took off his skates, reaching for his shoes and a pair of warm socks. For someone who had grown up in freezing temperatures, he always had cold feet. Yuri had often complained about it, as Otabek seemed to use him as his personal radiator at night.
Well. Not that Yuri did mind.
After all, sleeping at his side every night was the proof that they had finally begun to live together.
“I’d cook something,” Otabek said on the way out, stuffing his hands into his pockets in search for his phone. “But the fridge is still empty.”
“Yeah, I couldn’t find the time to go shopping yet,” Yuri yawned.
Otabek shot him a glance. “You mean you didn’t want to.”
“You know me.”
Otabek had begun to scroll through google results. “There are a few takeaway places near the apartment,” he murmured. “Get whatever you want.”
“I’d be in the mood for katsudon,” Yuri muttered and took the phone from Otabek, but sadly, none of the places in their neighbourhood was Japanese.
“Then get German food,” Otabek said and pulled out the keys for his car.
“Why German?”
“Aren’t schnitzel and katsudon the same?”
“That is blasphemy.”
“Name of your sex tape.”
Yuri stared at him. “You did it.”
“What?”
“You watched Brooklyn 99.”
“Maybe.”
On their way home, they had eventually decided on getting Chinese food, and the smell of it filled their apartment as soon as they set down the plastic bags on the table. Their home was still a mess, with tons of boxes blocking the way that still needed to be sorted out. But between eating, sleeping, and training, they hardly found the time to work on what they now called their first shared home.
At least the furniture had already been set up, albeit the fact that Otabek had requested a massive bookshelf for the living room had surprised Yuri quite a lot. The reason, however, was the fact that Otabek apparently owned the whole library of Alexandria.
“I’ve never seen you read,” Yuri muttered, pushing one of the large boxes out of the way to get to the table, reaching for his portion of Chinese food as Otabek’s phone began to buzz, stopping him from giving an answer. Otabek raised an eyebrow as he looked at the screen, but answered the video call, sitting down at the table.
“Bekaaaa!” Yuri heard a familiar voice squeal, and he rolled his eyes. “So good to see you! Where’s Yurio? Is he also there?”
“That’s not my fucking name,” Yuri growled and glared at the video of Viktor Nikiforov as Otabek turned the phone towards him.
“Yurio!” Viktor cheered and beamed at him like an idiot. “It’s been so long! Look, Yuuri, Yurio is there as well!”
“Hey there,” a rather tired Yuuri Katsuki replied from somewhere behind Viktor.
“My poor baby has been playing outside with Makkachin all day,” Viktor sighed. “I’m really disappointed I can’t get him to entertain me tonight.”
“Keep the details of your love life to your own fucking self,” Yuri barked.
Otabek smiled lightly, turning the phone around to him. “What’s the cause of your call, Viktor?”
“Oh yes, that,” Viktor said, clearing his throat. “Okay, so, I’ve been working on this new routine recently and I wanted to include some elements you’ve been using in your last free skate, and I was wondering about the right order. The theme of the skate is ‘Renaissance’.”
Otabek nodded. “Go on.”
“Right, so, as I was saying…”
Yuri rolled his eyes, focusing on his meal again while lazily scrolling through his Instagram feed. JJ, kissing his now wife in front of the Eiffel tower. Phichit, posting fifty selfies in one day. Minami with his new skates. A half-naked Chris, hugging a lamp post. Pictures of Yuuri, posted by Viktor, including disgustingly cheesy comments. A picture of Otabek that he had taken this morning after showering, his hair still wet.
He only listened with one ear to what Viktor said to Otabek, Yuuri’s worse half going on about his ideas for the routine. “You see, I just want to make sure the feelings get across. I’ve been reading that play, you know, and turning the dilemma of it into a performance on the ice just seemed perfect! Yuuri loves it. Right, Yuuri?”
Otabek nodded lightly while Yuuri gave a faint reply. “That Middleton play was it, right?”
“Yes,” Viktor said. “So?”
"So, that's a city comedy thing. Quite carnivalesque in some parts, but with the trope of the madwoman in the attic. Could make a good choreography background."
“Just what I was thinking!” Viktor exclaimed and beamed at him as if he were an angel descended from Heaven.
“Just don’t overdo the madwoman part,” Otabek added. “It’s a trope more common in the 19th century. Bronte and Austen, you know. Do it slightly but with a pinch of Shakespearean salt. You could use Hamlet as a reference, the ‘Get thee to a nunnery’ dialogue might be a good basis if you want to do some reading on it, but I suggest that you take the Arden edition if you do that, as it comes with good annotations.”
“I will, I will! Thanks, Beka, that helps me so much!” Viktor assured him and glanced over his shoulder at Yuuri, who had fallen asleep on the couch. “Ah, I better get going before my little angel can’t find the way to bed anymore. Night!”
“Night, Viktor,” Otabek said and hung up, putting the phone down and starting to eat.
Yuri stared at him.
“What the hell was that.”
Otabek looked up, chopsticks frozen in mid-air.
“What the hell was what.”
“What you said to Viktor,” Yuri replied. “Carniva-what? Mad girls in an attic? Shakespearean salt?”
Otabek frowned a little. “He asked me for advice on his new routine,” he answered. “Based on this play that I recommended to him.”
“You recommended a play to him?” Yuri repeated, his confusion becoming bigger by the minute.
Otabek nodded. “Yes.”
“What play?”
“The Roaring Girl and Women beware Women. Although I’m not sure if he read the last one,” Otabek said and continued with his meal as if he were talking about these things on a daily basis.
Yuri, however, was not sure if he was actually speaking to Otabek Altin or to an alien.
“But how do you know stuff like that?!” Yuri wanted to know.
Otabek paused, raising his head again to look at Yuri. However, with the strangest expression on his face.
“Yuri, I’ve got a Ph.D. in English literature,” he said slowly, as if he were pointing out a well-known truth.
Yuri stared at him.
“Yuri?”
“You got a what?”
The silence that followed between them was deafening.
Slowly, Otabek put the chopsticks down, shifting on his seat uncomfortably as he cleared his throat, slightly leaning forward. “I did tell you that, right.”
“No, you didn’t!” Yuri breathed.
Otabek blinked. “Oh,” he said, looking just as confused as his boyfriend, who was still staring at him with wide eyes and a now dropped jaw. “Sorry,” he added, reaching for his chopsticks again to continue with his meal.
“You… you have a Ph.D. in literature?” Yuri repeated. “But how did you…”
“What do you think I did off season?” Otabek asked between bites.
“How the hell should I know? You said you were working!”
“I did,” Otabek shrugged, briefly gesturing at the boxes surrounding them.
Yuri’s eyes widened even more. “That’s your Ph.D. stuff?”
“My books, yes,” Otabek said. “I really didn’t tell you?”
“If you had I would certainly know!”
Otabek sighed. “Sorry, then. I guess it just never came up.”
Yuri groaned, his head meeting the surface of the table.
Otabek frowned. “Yuri? You ok there?”
“I’m fine,” Yuri muttered into the wooden table, not lifting his head. It didn’t bother him that Otabek had a Ph.D. – hell, he had known the guy was smart the day he’d talked to him the first time – or that he had forgotten to tell him about it. That was just so Otabek.
But it bothered him that he, Yuri, had never really asked about the things he did when he was not skating or doing his music thing.
He felt like the worst boyfriend ever.
“So,” Yuri sighed, slowly lifting his head again. “You have a Ph.D.”
“Yes,” Otabek nodded, watching Yuri cautiously.
“In English literature.”
“Yes.”
“You literally are Dr. Otabek Altin.”
“Yes.”
Yuri groaned, rubbing his face with his hands. “Why literature of all subjects?” He asked with a sigh. “Not that I give a fuck but I’m surprised that you…”
“That I read?” Otabek asked with a chuckle.
“Um. Yeah.”
Otabek rose from his chair and went over to the boxes that they had pushed into a corner, reaching for the one on top. Yuri frowned, watching as his boyfriend carried it to the table and set it down beside their meal, opening it and searching through it with a concentrated look on his face. Finally, he seemed to find what he had been looking for, and he pulled out a collection of what seemed to be children’s books.
“My Grandma used to read them to me,” Otabek said, showing the books to Yuri. It was a children’s version of Shakespeare’s works. The books looked worn out and well-used. In Otabek’s case, that meant they were well-loved. “I have no idea where she got those, but I always loved these the most. I did literature in high school and later in college. At the rink I used to listen to the audio books to prepare for class.”
Yuri took the books from Otabek, weighing them in his hands, feeling terribly guilty. He had never asked about Otabek’s other interest, and as Otabek had never talked about them, it had just never come up. But the feeling of having missed such a big part of Otabek’s life was haunting him now, and it became even worse when Otabek went through another box and pulled out a big book and handed it to Yuri. It looked plain, with no picture on the cover, only text.
“What’s this?” Yuri asked, putting the Shakespeare books down and taking the book from Otabek.
Otabek cleared his throat. “Uh, my dissertation,” he said, suddenly sounding nervous. “I just got it in the mail a few weeks ago and haven’t really looked at it since. I meant to show you earlier but we were busy with moving and…”
Yuri looked down at the book, opening it to reveal the front page with the title.
The Representation of Good and Evil in Jacobean City Comedy. A dissertation by Dr. Otabek Altin. Approved by the Dissertation Committee of the Al-Farabi University, Almaty.
His gaze dropped to the small writing below the title.
For Yuri.
Otabek shifted awkwardly beside him.
“I meant to tell you, Yuratchka, but we were-“
Before he could continue, Yuri had wrapped his arms around him and held him close, burying his face in his shoulder. Otabek immediately stopped talking and embraced him in return, waiting patiently for Yuri to say something, hoping desperately that his boyfriend would not be disappointed.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Yuri said eventually, pulling back again, but keeping his arms loosely around Otabek’s neck. “A fucking smart idiot, that is. Dr. Otabek Altin. I swear to God this makes my fucking day.”
Otabek blinked. “It does?”
“Hell, yeah!” Yuri exclaimed. “How cool is that? You’ve got a Ph.D., man! Not even Mr. Viktor I’m-so-smart-and-handsome Nikiforov can say that about himself!”
“You’re not mad that I-“
“To be fair, I really never asked,” Yuri interrupted him. “So that’s your plan b? Being a smartass about literature?”
Otabek scratched the back of his head. “Makes me quite the nerd, I know.”
“But you’re my nerd,” Yuri shrugged and pulled him in for a kiss to which Otabek responded almost instantly, the food and the books completely forgotten on the table beside them.
Otabek couldn’t remember the last time they had kissed like that, out of sheer relief.
“So, Dr. Altin, I think I might have developed a fever,” Yuri purred against his lips.
Otabek grinned lightly into the kiss. “You do know that I’m not that kind of doctor, right,” he mumbled, burying his hands in Yuri’s hair.
“Let me live,” Yuri hummed, and began to pull Otabek towards their bedroom.