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People say that they love the silence of the Scottish islands called the Outer Hebrides. There was nothing but the wind, cries of seagulls and occasionally cattle, if not for your own car.

Growing up, Rain loved the wind in his face and ginger hair just as much as watching the seagulls and cattle. But he hated the silence. He hated how he never knew when the family dog, a big and scary Irish wolfhound; was mad with him for riding on his back, because he didn't hear him growl. He hated how he could never tell if his parents were arguing, he hated how he didn't hear when dinner was ready and he hated how he couldn't go to the island school. That was because, unlike the people coming to the Outer Hebrides, or all people he knew, for that matter, he didn't choose the silence.

From the moment he was born, he did not hear a single seagull cry. His mother Nadia blamed herself for his deafness. It really wasn't her fault though that she had caught that illness while she was pregnant. And Rain, her bright child, fitted the silence of the Island. He quickly learned the sign language, and continued to study all other languages he could get a read on in the small library the island shop offered.

Fascinated by the enjoyment of people around him when a violin was played or people moved their mouth melodically at ceilidhs, he searched for it himself. By the age of eight, he fluently clapped all the traditional songs the island had to offer, despite never having heard them. Seeing how immersed he was in music, Rain's mother let him practice on the home piano and another year past, Rain could play that, too.

With just two weeks of guidance by Nadia, Rain had swiftly figured out how to feel the notes with his foot against the case of the piano.

His father Shawn, a fisherman, who'd never quite been on good terms with a mute son and had only spent time with him on his boat or at Christmas, showed up at home a lot more often and started making song requests. Rain, deaf as he was, could hear the praise from him just the same.

Years later, Shawn ended up being the one to take the piano apart on one late-summer evening when Rain recognized that the sounds didn't feel right any more. He was just as sad about the piano breaking as Nadia was. Shawn bit down into his ginger beard and left, probably for the pub. Rains mother hugged Rain tightly and they clapped songs together until late, ignoring that she had to work the next day. Despite his mother's efforts, Rain cried himself to sleep that night, only comforted by Raksha.

Things went back to normal for the next months, after Rain's mother had him visit the grandparents. At theirs, Rain tried playing the violin for the first time. Feeling the sounds was a lot more difficult here, he had to play without the chin-rest to just have a general idea of what he was playing. Still, he enjoyed the feeling of snuggling a fiddle and was moved by his grandparents crying at his music as it improved.

On the next Christmas Morning, he woke everyone up by playing the violin. Rain had been practicing by himself, by the sea. With only the big family dog Raksha there to listen, he had mixed his silence with the silence of seagulls crying and wind ruffling his hair. Christmas Songs proved to be quite hard.

Even Shawn climbed down the stairs with a smile that morning, despite not having seen his son at all those last months. „Busy with work and drinking“, Rain couldn't help but think.

Rain played after everyone had unwrapped their presents, only stopping when Nadia asked him to join the family for breakfast. Although he didn't hear a word spoken that day, he understood the grandparents praising him and scolding their son for not properly supporting Rain. Nadia must have agreed, because Shawn stood up to leave, Raksha following him out. Big and muscular as he was, not even his parents were trying to stop him.

Everyone was going to continue with their breakfast, Rain's mother passing out more eggs, when Rain's father re-entered the living room. He motioned Rain to follow him, with a surprising smile shining though his greying beard.

Puzzled, Rain left with him, briefly remembering how Nadia wanted that beard to be properly cut, especially at Christmas.

The light of the garage startled him. In the moment it took for him to regain orientation, Shawn had pulled a giant thing forward Raksha was running around it, barking happily. Maybe the big Irish Wolfshound knew what was inside the wrapping. He signed in surprisingly good sign language “your grandfather helped me with this. It was his, but we fitted it to you”. Now Rain realized his grandparents having joined, he hadn't heard them follow him. They all urged Rain to unwrap the giant thing.

And so Rain did, awkwardly touched at first, not having expected that fondness from Shawn. Once he recognised the black and white piano keys, he tore the paper to shreds in no time, Raksha helping. He could not hear himself squeal in bliss when the glorious thing finally stood before him in all his might, but the islanders still speak of screaming ghosts on Christmas.

With tears of joy flowing from all ends, Rain hugged everyone, dog included. He moved the piano to the living room where he immediately sat down. By the end of breakfast, he had the thing figured out. The pedals had been moved so Rain could check the sounds with one foot whilst using the pedals with the other. Overall, it just seemed to be made for him.

Of course he had no problems playing on other pianos, too. He played the piano in the community at every ceilidh that year. Sometimes the other islands had musical festivals he would play at.

Personally, Rain didn't enjoy them much. He clearly wasn't cut out for crowds, as no one was fluent in sign language. Mostly, he just finished his performance and dug in his free food before leaving. It was not like he didn't want to socialize.

As he grew up and hit puberty, the internet proved as a miracle. People there didn't care jack shit about him being him, as long as he could type in the correct language. Another miracle was Nadia, who had invited a friend in the summer of his thirteenth year.

She came from Russia and had grown up in the same city as Rain's mum. With her not knowing Scottish tradition, of course the whole family went to show her a ceilidh. Naturally, his grandmother made Rain play a song or two. And so he did, even on the violin, which he was not entirely comfortable with in front of crowds.

And of course the friend was completely enchanted by the performance. Rain did not understand her praise, and since it was Russian, neither did anyone but Nadia. Clearly though, she was being very passionate about it.

She treated Rain to his first whisky. He hated the taste but still appreciated the gesture. The alcohol was making Rain all sleepy and as soon as he was home, he looked up why the hell he was such a lightweight. Given his Russian and Scottish genes, there was no way he would get drunk so easily. It said something about how much muscles and fat you had. That made sense, as Rain had always been able to feel his ribs, even through the thickest sweater. He decided to do something about his body. Not necessarily to be able to drink more. It sure wouldn’t look to bad either. All that thinking (and maybe the alcohol) had dried him out.

As he came downstairs to fetch some water, Rain saw light in the living room. Curious and not being able to hear what's going on in there just yet, he opened the door to find Nadia and her friend arguing in what looked like Russian.

Confused, Rain would have left, if it hadn't been for her friend to wave him over. Rain sat down and watched Nadia explain what her friend wanted her to.

It was about him. About him being such a bright child and about her having a place for people like him. Rain's mother seemed to dislike the idea but Rain had to admit that, despite hating crowds, he would really appreciate a change. Maybe there would be someone like him out there. There would be so much to learn.

After fifteen minutes of intense arguing, it was settled. Rain would move to St. Petersburg, Russia. There he would stay at with Nadia and his family. And if he was lucky, he could join a musical academy. According to Nadia, that was out of the question, a musical school required you to hear shit.

Her friend seemed to not care. She rather continued to book them flights and shoo Rain's mother to call her family.

The week after that, Rain sat in a very tight plane seat, a Russian leaflet of St Petersburg's Musical Academy in hand. He really struggled with reading. Only after half the flight was over, he noticed that he couldn't concentrate because his ears hurt. Having never paid much mind to his ears, Rain ended up irritatedly covering them for the rest of the flight.

It didn't stop though, even after they landed, even when they arrived at their family's house. That family urged them to see a doctor the next day. And so, Rain spend his first weekend in Russia in a hospital after they performed a form of surgery that Rain's mother hadn't been able to explain to him in sign language.

Waking up, from that Rain still had a weird ringing in his ears, something completely foreign to him. The ringing didn’t let up, it occurred in a rhythm that Rain knew from somewhere but couldn't place. It was none of the traditional songs. He sat up carefully and tried to get orientated in the Hospital room. Nadia was sleeping in a chair next to his bed but Rain didn't want to wake her up. She looked tired. Rain felt a minor twist because he knew it was his fault.

Next to him was a display with lines that spiked in sync with the ringing in his ears. Weird. He attempted to stand up, the ringing getting quicker. At that, Nadia woke up. “Rain!” She yelped and shot up from the chair. She gestured Rain to lay back down, then left to find a nurse.

Although Rain could watch her leave, he was surprised by the sound of the door closing. He'd never heard anything like it before. Or anything at all, for that matter. Unconsciously, Rain wanted to touch his ears, wanted to know what was going on, but was stopped by a thick bandage around them.

There was a...a sound when he touched it. Thud

Eyes wide open, he touched the bandage again. Thud.

There was a very high noise. Rain took a second to realize it was him, squealing out of joy. He slapped his hands on his mouth to stop himself. Slap.

Whosh, the door opened. Rain's mother entered the room and signed to him why he screamed. Rain didn’t answer, he didn't know how. He didn't know what to say. But he enjoyed the sound of steps on the floor, as the nurse and Nadia joined him at the bed side.

Then, the weirdest thing happened. The nurse's mouth opened and sounds similar to his squeal earlier came out. They were considerably lower, though, and in a very weird, inconsistent rhythm. Rain, who had thought he knew Russian, let his jaw drop.

When Nadia had ended the nurse's flow of words, she asked Rain if he was okay again. She signed, and Rain signed “Sounds” back. His own confusion was now mirrored on Nadia's face. Finally, Rain heard her take a deep breath.

“Rain?” She asked carefully, but speaking extra clear. To which he nodded, not comfortable with trying out speech for himself.

“You can hear?” Nadia asked then, less clearly because the words got stuck in her throat. Rain nodded again.

With the nurse watching in shock, Nadia jumped at Rain to hug him tightly, tears now flowing from her grey eyes. It was then that realization finally hit Rain.

He could hear. Whatever it had been that blocked his hearing before was now gone. It was a mircale. The third in his life already.

Nadia let go of him, went over to his bag and took the violin case out. She handed it to Rain and motioned him to play. And carefully, Rain did.

His first attempt startled him. What odd sounds that were. Rain paused and took a deep breath. Then he settled the violin against his chin again and concentrated on the vibrations, like he had before. Even so, the music reached Rain and he came to enjoy it. When the song ended, he was both exhausted and disappointed that it was over.

Nadia stopped Rain before he could start playing again, still not having caught his breath. He looked up to her, entranced by the beauty of music. He now understood what everyone felt whenever he had played.

Getting back to the family, they celebrated, with a lot of music of course. With hearing and a full family of support, Rain caught on the Russian language. He joined the music academy without problems and quickly made it to the highest score of his classes.

From time to time, Nadia's friend would come over and bring him show offerings, that he gladly took. His academy also contacted him sometimes, to play small things like advertisement jingles for big companies. By the age of sixteen, Rain was quite well-known and Nadia printed him business cards.

He was lucky. Because of that friend, he never had to do the talking. And in the academy, as long as he the music on his side, he didn't have to say a word. Rain had never quite come to terms with his voice, on the rare occasions that he couldn't control it, it irritated him. Like that, he now understood five languages fluently, but never could bring himself to speak them. And there never quite was a need to, as he had the music to speak for him.

His life in Russia seemed like a dream to him. It started with a miracle and continued to be overwhelming. It was like an entirely new world had been opened for him, as if he had left behind the silence in the plane and was thrown into a confusing mess of sounds and music in the city of St Petersburg.

One of the wonders of the city was shown to him by his Russian cousins, who teased Rain about his unusual red and curly hair, but loved and accepted him. They showed him around St Petersburg. In winter, they introduced him to ice skating. They told him that he could be glad his ears were fine now, as otherwise he might not have been able to skate at all.

In fact, he entire family seemed to be obsessed with ice skating, as his aunt never got tired of explaining the ranking system and how she had nearly participated in the Grand Prix twenty years ago.

They made Rain watch the competitions, which he enjoyed. But he was always the first one to see when the music didn't fit a skater's programme. Sometimes he got upset when the skaters who didn't choose their music well got high scores.

Rather than watching bad music, Rain really enjoyed going to the ice rink himself. He would skate to the rhythm to the music and, depending on the song, he could skate so that the sounds of the shoes on ice expended the rhythm. Even that his cousins teased, saying he was a music nerd. He couldn't care less and spend every free minute he had in the rink.

One October evening a few years later, the day of the first snow of the year, Rain came home to exited voices and he knew, his mum's friend had come to visit again. He quickly kicked of his snowy boots, not taking time to enjoy his forming ice skating muscles and proceeded to the living room.

Deciding to let the adults finish their talking, Rain grabbed some dinner, sat down at the piano that he had brought from Scotland, still the one Shawn had built, and started playing with one had, while stuffing himself with the other. After two songs he noticed that the room around him had gone quiet. He was used to the silence, but they had guests and felt embarrassed from being watched.

As he turned around, mouth half-full with potato and mildly flustered, he found all eyes on him. Finally, Nadia spoke.

“See, this song, for example, he came up with it himself” In the silence that followed, only Rain swallowing could be heard.

“Huh. Seems good. And you say he has composed for ballet before?” Rain, feeling addressed despite the third person pronouns, nodded.

“That was a fairly short piece.”, Nadia answered for him. Even with music, Rain could not have expressed how thankful he was for Nadia to be here and talk for him. “Rain, would you please?”

And so he did. It really was short, only four beats, but they had been missing in the ballet piece and he'd been paid to write it, so what of it.

“Nice.”, came the voice from a person Rain didn't know. He looked behind himself to find a very serious-looking man with greying hair and eyebrows worth mentioning. Rain took a deep breath and wanted to thank him for the praise, in all sincerity, because he seemed to know her stuff. He got ahead of him and startled the breath out Rain's lunge when he encouragingly put his hand on his shoulder.

“Are you free tomorrow? You can compose for a really famous person. I am Yakov, by the way, the coach of that person.”

Noticing the pride in that statement, Rain didn't answer straight away, because tomorrow would be a Sunday and he had planned to go to the ice rink and build up more muscle. They played the best music on Sundays.

“You can't say no. Your mother already sealed the deal. Oh, and you can bring your skates, if you must.” he left Rain sitting at the piano, feeling a bit overwhelmed.

When had this gone over his head? And why did Nadia make him work on a Sunday? Were they running out of money? She probably had her reasons, Rain concluded, deciding to call it a day and go sleep. He still trusted Nadia to wake him up tomorrow and give him the address.

Of course she did. She even drove Rain to the place and promised to pick him up later.

Rain enjoyed the crunching of snow beneath his feet as he walked into the stadium-like facility that build up in front of him. Yakov was awaiting him. After the greeting, which came poorly from Rain's side, Yakov asked him whether he wanted to put on his skates.

Rain, happy that his mum urged him to bring them, nodded and they proceeded to the changing rooms. While he tied the skates, it was easy to avoid Yakov's good-willing questions but after he tied his hair together and they stepped into the rink, there were no more excuses, and Yakov's questions were getting very difficult to answer with a nod.

“Oi, old man, what were you leaving for?” Rain could not express the gratitude he had towards the bearer of that high and flimsy voice, that came skating towards them now. Ignoring the rude language, Yakov greeted the small and tender figure, that now pouted, squinting his greenish eyes suspiciously at Rain and tilting his blond head.

Rain knew this face from somewhere. The entire situation screamed "ice skater" and although his family hardly watched junior skating competitions, he knew that kid exactly. This was the best junior ice skater in Russia, Yuri Plisetsky.

“And who is that ape you brought?”, the boy added. Rain wished his hair wasn't tied back so the red curls would cover his blushing face. It was no use, though. And he wouldn't answer this rude brat anyway, famous ice skater or not.

“Yuri, I'm not asking you to be polite but just don’t randomly go around insulting people, please. This is Rain, he will try to fill for Olga, isn't that right Rain?” after that speech, Yakov turned to a less red Rain and nodded in encouragement. Rain was glad he could answer that with a firm nod although he had no idea who Olga was, because he trusted his voice less than normal right now.

“I guess you want me to show him the programme then?” Yuri said, his pout softening at the prospect of skating.

“Yes please.” Yakov said annoyed, turning to Rain again “and you watch closely, I want you to come up with music for this, al.right?”

Another nod of confirmation from everyone and Yuri started. The programme was beautiful and unique. Unlike the senior skaters that Rain had watched with his family, the brat used a lot of step sequences and no too complicated jumps. Rain smiled and couldn't help but hum along with the natural rhythm of skates cutting ice. He liked Yuri's skating. It was rhythmical, dynamic. That brat could be a great dancer, with the way he moved so naturally musical.

So, fast step sequences, that Rain associated with a violin, and simple jumps. This would be easy. Notes were already taking shape in his head and he caught himself looking around for something to write.

“What do you say, Rain?” the brat's voice drawled from over the ice, challenging Rain and butchering his name at once. Finding himself caught, he frantically searched his brain for ways to express awesomeness. He gave Yuri a thumbs up. The brat found this surprisingly funny and nearly fell on the ice laughing.

Yakov sent him a death stare before addressing Rain “Think you can come up with something for that programme?” A nod from Rain. “nice, OK, let me give you my email so you can send it to me when you’re ready...”, Yakov trailed off, searching his pockets. Finally, he delivered a notebook and pen.

Before he could even think of his address, Rain had taken the notebook and began scribbling notes on it like crazy. He was so glad he wouldn't have to speak, after all.

Luckily, Yakov got it after a bit and waited patiently. The brat left the ice to steal a glance at the paper. When Rain had stopped scribbling, he took a deep breath, looked over what he's written contently, and handed it to Yuri. He wanted the brat to have it. That music had been created by the brat, he should be the one receiving it.

The brat, however, looked at I once and looked at him all pissed off. “I can't read music.”, he blurted out. Rain wasn't actually surprised. As Yakov could read notes either, apparently, Rain saw himself forced to perform them.

With singing not being an option and no musical instruments in sight, which was a shame really, Rain stepped on the ice. He couldn't help but smile at the brat's upset face. Sorry kiddo, not just your ice.

One last glance at the notes, putting the paper away, then Rain set himself into motion. If Yuri's performance before had been nothing fancy, Rain's performance was outright basic. Not that he cared. He listened intently to his own steps, only keeping his eyes open so he would crash into anything, and considered extending the piece while he was at it.

He decided not to and came to a stop somewhere by Yuri and Yakov, loose strands curling in his face and breathing intense. This had been fun.

Their faces were really something, he could've sworn the brat's eye was twitching. Yakov helped him step off the ice, which he always struggled with.

“You really are awfully talented, Rain. Please give me those notes. Tell your mother the money will be coming. I will lead you outside.”

That would not have been it? Surely they wanted to hear the piece on a real instrument before paying for it? Rain was confused and he didn't exactly want to leave the ice rink, either. So he shook his head. An he remembered, that the backpage of the notes was still blank.

“Can I stay and skate a bit more, please? Also, I can tell my mum to bring my violin when she comes to pick me up, so I can show you the piece properly.”, with all available courage, Rain held that scribbling in front of Yakov's face to read.

“Oi, what is this? Is the ape mute or something?”, he hears the brat snarl next to him. Someone there didn't like to be left out. Rain didn't want to provoke the brat further and just shrugged.

“Yuri, you’re being rude again!” Yakov burst out and appeared behind the paper in his face. Before Yuri could fully realize what's happening, Yakov is whipping his hand in Yuri's direction, who closes his eyes instinctively.

Rain on the other hand had had more time to act and so he had. Yakov's hand hung in mid-air, with Rain's attached. Rain had never been more proud of his newly attained muscles. In that moment, he even appreciated his masculine features, which must have threatened Yakov to some extent. Yuri stared at them in disbelief. Poor thing, he was probably used to being hit.

Rain scribbled again. ”There is no reason to hit him.”, he held into Yakov's face with the fiercest impression he could offer.

“Rain, you don't understand, this kid doesn't have parents. He would be out of control if I didn't show him right from wring from time to time”, Yakov tried to justify. No, Rain wouldn't have that shit. He could not fit all of his thoughts on this tiny paper, but he shook it, stressing his statement from before.

“I get it, al-right. Let me call your mother. You will leave, but before that, I want to hear that music of yours. And you will play it. It's my money after all.” Rain understood the threat. He bit on his lip and tried to not let the anger flush him too hard.

“Oi, ape, I can tell you like skating, and you helped my performance, so move your ass on here and skate while you can”

This request surprised Rain, but he was more than happy to follow it. Sharing the rink, they quickly settled into Yuri doing his routines and Rain being where he wasn't, but Rain still really enjoyed it, matching his steps to the brat's ever-changing rhythms.

Before he noticed Yakov standing at the side, that is. Rain obeyed when he was waved over. “your mother is going to be here in ten minutes. You should leave the ice and change. Yuri has training to do, after all.”

After he changed he went back to the rink, watching Yuri being yelled at until Nadia appeared next to him.

When they were finally seated in the car, Nadia apologized.

“I'm sorry that went so far over your head. And I shouldn't have left you alone with those people. Are you al-right? Yakov called you a punk on the phone. Did anything happen?” Rain couldn't help but answer Nadia's honest concern with a smile and a shake of his head.

“Great.”, Nadia smiled, relief clearly showing on her face as she started the engine. “I know it's a Sunday. Is there anything you wanna do?” Of course Rain wanted to go skating.

Never having gone skating with Nadia before, it was a bit awkward, but she surprised him with her agility and they ended up having a lot of fun.

“Your aunt nearly got to the Grand Prix, after all. What kind of sister would I be if I didn't copy her!“, Nadia laughed when Rain pointed out how good he thought her skating was.

After such an exciting day, Rain could have happily gone to bed without any more surprises. His cousins, however, had different plans, when they confronted him in his after-dinner piano session.

“Hey Rain do you think it's fair that you have to work so hard now? Like, wouldn't you like a choice?”, his younger cousin's squeaky voice asked him. Confused, Rain looked up, not quite sure whether this conversation was worth it to stop playing.

“Oh come on” his older cousin mocked him, probably playing with her hair like always, “don't play dumb! You know you’re supposed to give your earned money to us because you live here, and now you stop just like that. It's really hurting our feelings, you know.” “And our wallets!”, the younger one wanted to add.

“Stop that!”, his aunt called from the kitchen, accompanied with the sound of pots clashing, “His father could have died and you’re making fun of him for trying to help!” At that, Rain made a mistake and the song came to an abrupt stop. What? Why didn't he know what they were on about?

Now, Rain's grandfather entered the living room dynamically, with a lit cigarette in hand. The cousins now knew they were in trouble; when grandfather gave up a smoke to scold them, they had screwed up. “You idiots! Who even told you that? Didn't Nadia ask you not to tell him?!” He swung his fist at them and Rain looked away; he couldn't stand violence.

Nothing like that happened though. Rain felt a hand-shaped weight added to his head, gently patting over his curls. When grandfather spoke, all aggression had disappeared from his voice. In the best raspy Russian-Grandfather voice, he made Rain look at him and explained. “We don't know what happened, but your father was found in his house a week ago. The islanders didn't know what to do. He now lies in the Glasgow hospital. But- none knows what happened. And the hospital won't put effort into finding out before they have money.”

In whatever time it took for grandfather to explain, Rain had forgotten the entire day so far and forgiven his mother for making him work more. At the same time, he was angry at Nadia for not telling him. But he could even understand that. Of course she would not want her gifted child to worry.

“Rain. You understand why we couldn't tell you, don't you? Your mother is working late tonight but we can stay up together and wait. She might be able to tell you more.”, His aunt finally said, having entered the gathering in the living room. No. Rain shook his head vigorously. He just wanted time for himself now.

In the solitude and quiet of his room, Rain thought about how ridiculously childish he had been. Just the day before, he had laid there thinking about how his muscles developed. It seemed unreal how irrelevant those things were now. So much had changed today.

Even his family here. Everyone was so quiet now. Normally, he could hear pots clattering, doors opening or his cousins arguing, if nothing else. Today, the silence was killing him. Rain hated the silence.

Whenever Rain thought back to before his father got into hospital in the next three years, he laughed about how he always thought he was busy back then. Busy with only the academy and going ice skating whenever he wanted.

Over those three years, Rain had worked himself very far up. Now he had worked with almost every Theatre in St Petersburg and every advertisement company Russia could offer.

He had so many connections that, after graduating the musical academy with only 17 years, he had moved to Moscow and gotten a very central and affortable flat. Apart from studying music there, he now composed for the Russian Ballet. Occasionally, he would play in the Russian Philharmony when the musicians got sick.

And that was only the peak of the iceberg. He did not decline any offers, no matter how small and shabby the enterprise seemed; he played for them and got paid from them. Nadia would often scold him for being exploited, that he should take more money or only work for bigger estates. Rain understood but he found he would then exploit the smaller estates, which for him was out of the question. Being an artist himself, he admired the independent theatres, of which Moscow offered infinite.

Rain came to love the city for its creative heads and free thinkers. Of course it was still Russia and they got arrested left and right, but that never happened before they paid him so it wasn't his problem.

There was a total of only two things he hated about Moscow. The first was that there was only a non-professional ice rink in winter, not that he would have the leisure time to go skating, but still, he missed it. The second was that it was a landlocked city. Rain missed the sea breeze in his ever-growing hair, no matter how cold it had been, and the seagulls in the sky, although he had never quite gotten used to their screams, a sky without them looked empty. Those things were not going to make him turn back to St Petersburg though.

The independence he had gained when moving out, the need to actually talk to people, he had grown with his challenges.

Half a year ago, Shawn had been able to get examined. Rain refused to think about how horrible two and a half years of waiting had been, but the fact that he helped his father get treatment filled him with pride. The news had been the best 18^th-birthday present he could have wished for.

They also meant that now he had to work hard for the actual treatment, but Rain didn't exactly mind. He was doing what he loved. The work was keeping him busy but also let him live his passion to its fullest. Every night when he fell into bed, exhausted but happy, he thought of how lucky he was, after all.

On one of her visits, it was early July, Nadia asked Rain if he was following the ice skating scene at all.

Filled with warmth at the thought of his family still following their passion, Rain said no, but asked if this year was any good.

“Well, it's all old acquaintances, you know. The only thing surprising me is that the world champion is not going to skate competitive this year at all. But what can you say, he has gotten old.” Rain shrugged, not knowing what to say to that. He didn't feel all that old yet.

His mother didn't seem to keen of the topic either and they left the small apartment. Nadia had promised to treat Rin to new clothes and although loved his motive print shirts, he followed. On every other street, Nadia would find a hairdresser and try to drag Rain in the shop. Tolerant as Rain might have been, he didn't let anyone mess with his hair.

Like that, they crossed nearly all of Moscow's inner city without having bought anything. The sun was burning hot in the sky despite it being only June and they decided to sit down somewhere and cool down. Rain was in a good mood.

He always enjoyed his mother's visits because then he could take days off and go shopping of see movies. Work normally didn't let him do that. He didn't exactly have friends either, he rarely hung out with anyone.

“You know, you really look like your father now.”

Rain, after nearly choking on his drink, shook his head so fast that the locks were hitting his face painfully.

“Well you’re not him, but with the muscle you put on you’re reminding me of a lumberjack just as much as he did, when we met.” Nadia said, shrugging dismissively. “It's not like you have his beard. And you look like a girl with that pretty little head of yours, anyway.”

Rain scoffed at that but couldn't help blushing a little. And here he had thought he had grown out of the age where people say you look like a girl. Given how often he was told to be pretty, it was a miracle he hadn't gotten used to it, actually.

Rain decided to change the topic and ask for his father.

“Oh, he seems well enough. Treatment started two weeks ago. I can't remember the name of what he has, but apparently it's worse than they thought. Nothing the experts at Glasgow wouldn't know how to fix, though.” Rain was happy to hear that, of course, though he seemed more unsettled about the “worse than they thought” than his mother.

“Anyway, are you done with the drink? Let's see if we can find something for you after all. My train won't wait for me, and there's only two more hours!” with that, she slapped money on the table and they left, continuing their odyssey through Moscow's city.

Two hours of his mother throwing garments at him, Rain saw her off at the station, thanking her for coming in his best Russian. Once the train set into motion, so did he, letting his feet find their way, lost in thought about what Nadia had said about his appearance.

The next time Rain looked up, he found himself in a fairly rich district with a few expensive shops lining the street. One of them was a extravagant Ballet Studio. Curious, and because self-promotion could never hurt, Rain opened the door and was greeted by a chime.

“Oi what the hell do you think you’re doing! This is a private studio! Get out of my way you barstard!”

Now that wasn't what Rain had expected in a high-class ballet studio. Instead, there was a brat standing in front of him. An oddly familiar one, at that. There was no other way to describe it.

“Sorry!” Rain managed, ignoring that he was using English, and opened the door again.

“Wait.” The brat said, his voice nearly lost over the sound of the chime, making Rain turn around on the doorstep. The brat's eyes widened, suddenly fixed on his shirt, which was showing a sleeping cat “woah. Nice Shirt. I mean-” and here he changed to Russian, “Was there any reason for you to come? Did you have an appointment or something?”

Rain shook his head and, after a short moment of consideration, took out a business card, handing it to the brat. As soon as his hand was free, he used it to wave and stepped out of the studio as fast as he could, ringing the chime one last time.

It took Rain half an hour to find the next Metro station. As he boarded the train, he smiled at his own ridiculousness. That guy was definitely more interested in his shirt than any of his music. So of course Rain would choose him as someone to give a business card to.

Suddenly it dawned on him that the business cards were the ones his mother had printed in St Petersburg. He texted his mother that he'd just given someone the old business card and his mother laughed at him in an unnecessarily long voice memo. Once Rain was home, he joined her, still giggling about it at work the next day.

Rain would probably just have forgotten about the whole thing if his mother hadn't called him Three Weeks later, laughing.

“So I got a call from Moscow. Apparently some ballet person wants you to music for them.” What the hell, did Rain think, noting down the address and phone number (not like he was going to call someone ever).

It took him another week to actually drop by the studio because university got in the way, but eventually he stood in front of that ballet studio again. Before he could step in the door opened and the brat stood before him again.

“What're you standing around there for. Hurry up and come in!” he snarled, forcing Rain to follow him inside. Only now Rain noticed how beautiful the studio was with the summer sun shining through the glass front.

In that beautiful setting, the brat looked less like himself and more like a Prima Ballerina as he repositioned himself to dance.”So you’re that Rain, huh”, dry female voice said. It was followed by a very strict-looking woman. She screamed ballet teacher and given her look, she was judging him to the point where she probably would have examined his teeth.

Rain nodded and straightened himself under the cold gaze of – what was her name?

“Lilia Baranovskaya”, the woman said, extending her hand to Rain. “I'm currently his trainer. We need music for his program.” Rain met her challenging look with another signature nod, to which Lilia clicked her tongue. “You don't talk much, do you?”

“He's mute.”, the brat threw in and pulled a hair tie out of his blond mess. Rain's eyes widened with realization when the brat's green gaze hit him. He suddenly knew why the brat had looked familiar to him. That boy was the same person he had made a violin piece for. He was an ice skater. Yuri Plisetsky, the best junior in Russia. Or, was he even a junior any more. Rain wouldn't bother doing the maths now. Junior or not, what the hell was he doing in a ballet studio?

“Mute? How inconvenient. I hope your music makes up for that, Rain.”

Feeling challenged, Rain looked for an instrument, as a ballet studio would surely offer one. He found a piano, that looked so dusty and unused it nearly broke his heart, and sat down at it without further ado.

The first thing coming to his mind was the piece he had made for Yuri back then. Hoping the brat would recognize it, after he hadn't even recognized the brat earlier, Rain played it.

Lilia however ended it prematurely by simply saying “Stop.” then she shot Rain the most hateful look he had ever received in his lifetime. “This is no classical piece. You couldn't even dance to that. If this is a joke, you sure are in trouble, Rain!”

“That's because it wasn't made for dancing. He wrote it for my ice skating routine three years ago, didn't you, ape?” So Yuri remembered him and his music. Rain couldn't hold back a smile and nodded happily.

“Three years ago?” Lilia repeated, not liking how she was dumbfounded.

“Yep. That was the third time I won the Grand Prix. Thanks for that, by the way.” Now really proud, Rain's smile broadened to a big grin and he shrugged, accepting the thanks. Music was his thing, after all.

“I see. That wasn't so bad, then.” That sure was big praise, coming from Lilia.

“We were going to meet up with Yakov today anyway. Let's go through the choreo here one more time and then get going.”

“Yes, Ma'am!” Yuri said, quickly tying his hair back again.

Set into motion by a clap and yell from Lilia, the brat -no, Yuri – beautifully caught the light of the studio.

Because of work, Rain had seen his fair share of ballet, of dancers from as good as all levels of profession. But even when he had helped out with the annual “Nutcracker” Show in the Opera, the Prima hadn't shown him that. Yuri was moving in a way that made him fly. He seemed to defy physics and if you squinted a bit and the ground below him disappeared, it was as if he was on the ice again, gliding through the heavens. Like he's never done anything else.

When Yuri finished, Rain found himself flustered and enchanted, almost disappointed that it was over.

“That's something I can work with. You made quite a bit of progress since yesterday. Don’t think I didn’t hear you train at night. Anyway.”

She turned to Rain, who's turn it was to be dumbfounded. “Well get going soon, don’t worry. If someone has said goodbye to their cat, that is.”

They waited for Yuri to return, Rain of course having nodded.

A few minutes passed before Yuri came back, now in shoes and a leo-print jacket that had enormous amounts of cat hair stuck on it. He carried a black bag with a skating brand name on it, Rain noticed there was a Hello Kitty charm on it. This brat sure loved cats.

They left the studio, walking out of the posh district into the outskirts of Moscow. It wasn't particularly far but Rain itched to take Yuri's bag for him. Just when he had brought up the courage to ask, they came to a stop in front of a massive complex, the letters over the door reading “Imperial World”.

Yakov was waiting for them in front of the doors and Rain remembered that Lilia had called him on their way here.

“So it's you again.” Yakov said dryly upon recognizing Rain. Then, suddenly, he smiled and shook Rain's hand excitedly. “I’m really looking forward to working with you again, you helped us out so well last time!” he babbled, gesturing everyone to follow.

Finding their way to the rink, Yakov introduced him to skater folks left and right, all of them faces that Rain had seen before. Rain only had time to wonder what actually was happening to him when they had reached the rink.

“So, Lilia, you say he's ready for the ice?”, Yakov interrupted Rain's thoughts.

“Oh yes, he kept practising in secret at night. One time he actually fell over the cat because he couldn't see her in the dark.” She laughed and Yakov joined her, “Sounds just like him if you ask me!”

“And Rain here joined us for morning practise and can surely agree that he's doing good. He would be, he is a Prima, of course.” he paused again, smiling and looking at Rain, who wasn't sure if his confirmatory nod was really needed here.

“Seriously, Yakov, you should have seen his face when he watched Yuri dance. It was like suddenly he had an angel appear before him.” That remark earned Lilia a snicker from Yakov and Rain the worst embarrassment he had felt in a while. Here, his long hair didn't help to cover his blush and he was glad that Yuri was finally entering the rink.

“Give me back my phone, old hag!”, he screamed after a young woman who ran into their direction. She came to a stop before Yakov and gave him a phone in a tiger case, most definitely Yuri's. “He kept babbling about Victor” The woman said with a wide grin.

“Yuri! No phone while we work! We talked about this.”, Lilia snarled, snatching the phone from Yakov and putting it away. “You know exactly that you don't need that guy to win.”

“Yes Ma'am.”, Yuri answered obediently. Whatever Lilia had done to that brat, he had changed. He seemed a lot more calm and sociable now. Rain wasn't sure if it fit Yuri but he seemed to make progress with it. And he was glad that Yakov didn't seem that strict of a coach any more either.

Rain shook off the image of a small Yuri being hit by his trainer, who knew exactly how Yuri had none except him, when he noticed Yuri on the ice.

“Pay good attention now, Rain. We need you to music this.” Yakov instructed him, his tone being friendly. “Lilia, expect nothing lesser than perfection from that guy.” he added, smiling up to Rain fondly.

“Good. I wasn't, anyway.” Lilia said dryly, being back to nothing but strict teacher. “We want him to win.”

Not giving Rain time to react to that statement, she gave Yuri the sign to start.

This time Rain tried hard and did not lose himself in Yuri's beautiful movements. The performance was not really different from what he had seen in the ballet studio. It was a lot more fluent and dynamic because it was ice skating but the core remained the same. Because of that, Rain could concentrate on the rhythm better.

Despite that, he had nothing put together by the end of the routine. Last time had been fierce step sequences, the violin had been obvious. This one featured quite a lot of ballet poses, or at least poses that looked very ballet, making Rain consider a piano, the classical ballet instrument (as far as he knew).

For the first time in his life, Rain felt very limited with being able to play only two instruments. He sighed frustratedly. Someone cleared their throat, bringing him back into reality.

“So?” Lilia asked, judging him for spacing out. Under everyone's anticipating looks, Rain didn't know what to do. He didn't even know what he was thinking, just how would he express this.

“I think”, the young woman broke the silence, “He needs more time to put it together. I saw him tap his foot but he doesn't have it completely put together yet.”

Although Rain was sure he had not tapped his foot and actually he was sure he had quite a lot of things not put together, he nodded, being glad that someone spoke for him. Time wasn't the only issue, he knew, but it could be a start.

“It would probably help if he watched the routine again, Ma'am” Yuri glanced threatening at the young woman when he spoke, clearly wanting to help Rain, who thankfully nodded again.

“Why, though, last time, he had a perfect piece done by the end of watching it once.”, Yakov muttered, disappointment showing on him and Lilia's faces clearly. She actually clicked her tongue again. “We do have some time before competitions start. But we shouldn't just rely on him. I say if he doesn't have at least a concept by next month, we hire someone else.”

Everyone seemed to think that was a good idea. Only Rain was internally screaming. He felt immensely pressured. He normally got his ideas straight upon watching a performance for the first time. But this? Nothing. There must be something wrong with him. Was he losing his talent now? Before rational thoughts could kick in, Rain was overwhelmed by desperation.

As everyone else had decided for Yuri to take a break, none stopped Rain when he sat down against the walls of the rink, his vision blurring until he saw birds flying through clouds instead of ice skaters.

“Hey.”, a nice female voice said. It was that young woman. “I got you a drink.” Rain took the plastic cup and smiled up to her thankfully. Something seemed to be on her mind when she sat down next to Rain and began to speak. “I heard what Lilia and Yakov said before Yuri did his thing. You must be feeling very pressured now, huh.”

There was no point in denying it. Rain shrugged head hanging and staring at the cup in his hands. Not only pressured but frustrated, questioning his own ability. If he was completely honest with himself, he was even jealous of Yuri for being able to skate so beautifully. His own skating must have looked so basic to him those three years ago, and then he was not even as pro as today. Sighing, Rain buried himself deeper in self-doubt.

A hand on his shoulder brought him back to life. “Woah, muscles...er-” The hand was pulled back and when Rain turned to her, the young woman had adorably pink cheeks.

”R-Rain you really shouldn't let them get to you. They want Yuri to win. I mean, of course I also want that. But Yuri can win, even with music that isn't perfect. You saw his choreography, he is working hard. In the changing rooms earlier, he was mumbling about being reborn perfect. OK, what I’m trying to say is, as long as your music doesn't disturb Yuri's state of mind during the performance, it will be enough.”

Rain nodded. He really appreciated what this woman said. It didn't exactly help him with his self-doubt, yet still made him confident that he could do this. Unsure of how to express his gratitude, Rain put his hand on her shoulder and smiled as genuine as he could.

He knew what he wanted to do now. He wanted to skate as well. Standing up, Rain looked around for Yakov or someone else to ask for skates.

“What is it?”, the woman wondered and stood up as well. Rain pointed to her feet and then to his. “Oh, skates? In your size? Ok then.” Puffing her cheeks, she thought for a moment. “C'mon, follow me. We should hurry though, break's nearly over.”, she concluded, pointing at Yuri, who was already stretching.

So they ran to some storage room, arriving there, the young woman laughed. Rain couldn't help but follow.

“My name's Mila, by the way.” she said while Rain tied the skates she had searched out for him. Out of all skates in the storage, did it have to be the ones with tiger stripes? When he was done and stood up, Mila giggled, understandably so, and Rain struck the most ridiculous pose showing off the shoes and holding his hand as a paw.

Mila laughed so hard she had to lean against the wall, giving Rain something to laugh at as well.

An angry-looking Yakov waited for them outside the door. “I don’t even want to know what you two did in there, but you’ll get right to work now, Rain. And Mila, I haven't seen you practise at all so far today. Get a move on, you have Grand Prixs to win.”

“Okay, coach!”, Mila chanted with considerably less respect than Yuri used when addressing Lilia. She waved to Rain before setting off on the ice, beautifully and completely unique. She was definitely one of the high-tear female skaters. Even only briefly watching her, Rain found he rhythm immediately and considered asking if Mila had music yet.

“So. Yuri, are you all warmed up?” Yakov questioned Yuri. Yuri however did not seem to receive the sound waves. He kept staring at Rain's skates in awe.

“My face is up here, you know”, Rain wanted to say. He would love to see Yuri get all flustered if he got the hint. It didn't happen, though.

“Yes he is, I watched him.” Lilia answered for her student. “Yuri.” she hissed, making Yuri look back up like normal, where his gaze crossed Rains for a moment, before he stated “Yes, ma'am.” and went back on the ice.

This time, they gave Rain paper and pencil to take notes while Yuri skated. Or did he dance? It was hard to tell. At least this time watching, Rain figured out the of the performance. Of course it was something he'd never done before. But he managed to think of a concept for the beginning sequence, which was very ballet and seemed doable with just a piano. Even after Yuri had finished and returned to his training rotation, Rain kept sitting there and figuring it out.

Lilia left him alone and, after talking to Yuri, left altogether. Yakov let him work by himself but brought him a drink whenever he was not busy yelling at any other skaters.

“Hey, Rain, can you pass me that water bottle?”

Rain laid the pencil down and took the bottle, stood up without thinking that he was still wearing skates and nearly fell. He almost hadn't noticed that Yuri had just called him by his name for the first time.

Yuri opened the bottle, mumbling “thanks” and took a few big gulps. Rain couldn't help but stare at drops of water that were running down Yuri's jaw and throat. He only barely managed to pull his eyes away before Yuri faced him again, handing the bottle back.

“So, did you put these skates on for nothing?” Rain looked down to his feet that were still stuck in the orange and black nightmare. “Come on, get on the ice, will you! It's getting pretty boring. And I think you need a break anyway.”

Those words did not at all fit the image Rain had had of Yuri until then. As if Yuri Plisetsky paid attention to him while he was skating. And offering him to skate, what an odd thing to do when Yuri needed all the space to himself. Of course Rain followed the offer through, it was skating in summer, after all.

“Okay, you're gonna have to warm up first. You'll manage that on your own, right?” The boy instructed him after Rain had stepped on the ice. Feeling light-headed, Rain would have like to answer with “Yes, Ma'am!” but just saluted and took off.

It had been half a year since Christmas, when he had visited St Petersburg and gone skating with the family. He enjoyed the ache of his muscles when he took on some serious speed for the first time in months, smiled at the wind in his face and the hair swooshing around him as he followed invisible patterns on the ice, always careful not to disrupt Yuri's routine. He wasn't even sure what piece of music he was skating, that's how immersed he was in the act.

In fact so immersed that he didn't notice when Yuri stopped and kept skating until he heard his name. Something about Yuri saying his name really caught his attention, he stopped as soon as he could.

“I wanna try something out” Yuri explained once Rain had joined him. “I can see that you struggle with the music. But your music is good. Because I want my music to be perfect, I’m going to help you” Now that sounded slightly more like that brat Rain was used to.

“Ever tried figure skating?” Yuri asked cheeky. Rain sadly shook his head.

“That's a shame. In that case, you just copy the steps I take during the routine, okay? I mean, you can try to copy the figures, but I don't see that happening, no offence.” Rain did not take any offence, being aware of his skating level. He was more irritated that Yuri acted as if he cared about Rain being offended in the first place.

Although he didn't see what Yuri wanted to accomplish with Rain copying him, he agreed, taking starting positions next to Yuri.

A short countdown and Yuri set off. Rain knew roughly in which direction Yuri would be skating, he had watched this routine two times, after all. A rough idea wasn't helping him right now, though. Only with extreme concentration did he manage to not lose track and fall or run into Yuri. Why did Yuri have to skate so close to him, anyway?

By the end of the routine though, when Yuri nailed his last jump, Rain was distracted by watching him, his mind going blank. Then, his feet continued to move in synch with Yuri's and once he noticed that, the routine came to an end.

“Can...”Rain huffed, struggling with spoken words more than usual because he was out of breath.

“Did you say something?” Yuri said instinctively, clasping his mouth immediately, eyes wide. “I’m sorry, of course you didn't-”

“Can we do this again?”

Yuri's eyes went even wider. Rain cleared his throat. His vocal chords were a bit rusty.

“It's really not that big a deal.” Rain said, watching Yuri lower his hands. “I apologized to you, remember?” Now Yuri's eyes were back to green normal again and he laughed awkwardly. “I guess. You don't like talking though, do you?”

Rain shrugged and Yuri copied the movement mockingly, making them both smile. “It's cool. You don’t need to talk if you don’t want to.” The boys face set back to professional ice skater “So, let's have one more go.”

Back to staring position. Another countdown. This time around, Rain let his feet find the rhythm, which they flawlessly did, and had his mind focus on Yuri next to him. Following his example, Rain tried to move at least his arms in this beautiful way. We was probably looking like an octopus in pain, but he was enjoying himself. Yuri next to him had put on a smile again, which he had never seen before when the boy was skating. Rain found it looked very good, especially with the theme of the performance in mind.

Again, Rain thought the routine ended too soon. This time though, it was solely because he wanted to keep watching Yuri skate from up close. It was like dancing with an angel, Rain thought, shocking himself with his own cheesiness.

“Al-right. Not bad at all.” Yuri called out. He held up a hand for Rain to clap and they high-fived, the impact knocking them a few centimetres apart.

“Let's call it a day.” Yakov told them from the side and they both got off the ice. Rain was glad to have solid ground under his tiger-striped feet and proceeded to the changing rooms without complaining.

“Now, where did you find these skates?” Yuri asked, bowing down to pull off his own. “Mila” was the obvious answer, met with Yuri laughing dryly. “Of course...”

When Yuri went on changing his shirt, Rain came to realize how completely soaked he was. Yuri probably wasn't any better, but he would start to get smelly soon. And he would really appreciate a clean shirt.

Yuri must have noticed, or smelled, the problem and started searching the lockers for something wearable. Finally, he found something and threw it at Rains back, who had taken his shoes off so he wouldn't make Yuri uncomfortable with his staring.

“Oh, and there's showers through there”, Yuri said, pointing at some door.

“Thanks”, Rain said gladly. Nothing like showers instead of running around in front of world-famous people smelly. He even found soap that someone left behind and caught himself imagining Victor Nikiforov using it. Erm. Rain quickly shoved this thought away and hurried his ass out of the shower.

Yuri had waited for him and watched him pull the shirt-thing on with clear amusement. Of course it was a nyan-cat shirt. Knowing Yuri, that hardly surprised Rain now. To be fair, Yuri himself was wearing a “I ♥ Hello-Kitty”-Shirt and Rain was glad he wouldn't have to put up with that.

“How do I look?” Rain asked jokingly, posing with his hip tilted. That really cracked Yuri up. Ten seconds of laughter later, Yuri wiped tears from his green eyes.

“Actually, you look dripping.” He spit out, a little breathless and ready to burst out into laughter again. Of course he meant Rain's thick hair. None insulted Rain's hair though, and got away without punishment.

Rain did not answer beyond crooking an eyebrow and adjusting his stand to make it more stable. “What are you-” Yuri was rudely interrupted by water droplets hitting his face as Rain shook his head like crazy. He kept that up for about half a minute, then he nearly dropped from feeling very dizzy.

He slowly regained posture, taking another deep breath before he looked Yuri straight in the eye with a grin.

“Better?”

Yuri was just rubbing his face with the shirt he was wearing “You look like Makkachin now.”, emerged from the textile. “Who?”

“The dog of the guy who's shirt you’re wearing.” Yuri straightened himself and returned Rain's grin. “But don't worry, he's a very good boy.”

Rain felt something itch in his head at that. He was seriously offended. Mostly because he had no idea what to answer with. Rain refrained, only throwing his hair out of his face.

“Won't he need the shirt back?”, Rain wondered aloud, sniffing the topic of conversation. Yes, definitely. A dog had drolled on this.

Yuri shook his head, suddenly seeming very upset. “The bastard left for a Japanese skater. Have you heard of 'Onsen on Ice'?” upon Rain denying, Yuri seemed somewhat relieved. “I don’t think he's coming back any time soon. And he’s forgettable like no other. You can keep the shirt.” There was a certain bitterness in Yuri's words, but he was being tough about it, so Rain wouldn't question him.

Turning back from Yuri, he looked for his shoes. They must still be in that storage room. While he was at it, he decided to go fetch the paper that he had of course forgot in the rink. Before Rain left, Yuri promised to wait in front of the entrance.

Once he was back in his shoes and had the paper in his pockets, Rain tried to get oriented. Hours ago, when they had come, he had not paid attention to the way at all. The rink, was totally deserted, too, meaning no one to show him the way. So Rain bit the bullet and set off to find his way out.

He knew he was lost when he found the female changing rooms. And he got desperate when he found it again. Desperate enough to knock at the door. Mila opened. Rain had to hold himself back to not hug her, overjoyed with seeing a human face that he knew.

“Are you alright? What are you doing here?” Mila asked, clearly not having expected Rain. Now it was Rain's turn to explain to her that he was lost. Without using words. For a moment Mila watched him opening and closing his mouth in random intervals.

“Are you searching for Yuri or Yakov?” she guessed, ruffling her artificially red hair in confusion. Shaking of head from Rain's side.

“Could it be that you’re just lost?” A flustered nod this time, making Mila's eyes shine. “Oh why didn't you just say so!”, Mila joked and winked at him.

Mila's directions and only three minutes later, Rain stepped out of the complex, joining Yuri, who was talking to Yakov. When they finished, Yakov asked Rain to bring Yuri back home safely, pissing both of them off.

They walked back together nonetheless, Rain thinking about what Mila had told him besides the directions.

“I watched you skate with Yuri earlier...”, she had breathed, quite obviously seductively, even Rain could tell. “The two of us should try that...” and Rain had never been more glad that Mila would not actually expect him to say anything.

“Hey, Rain, wanna come up for dinner? Lilia actually told me to invite you so you’re very much welcome.” Yuri managed to make the invitation sound earnest and warm despite cold words. Rain had not actually been invited “up for dinner” before, so he accepted, a bit anxious about how to behave.

“So he tagged along.”, Lilia greeted them when Yuri had shoved him into the high-end apartment. Rain, who only knew small cottages and smaller Russian flats, felt like he was entering another opera house. He felt bad entering with his still-wet hair, fearing that the occasional drops would ruin the wood floor.

Yuri ignored his awkward self and walked directly to a flower pot on the window ledge. He seemingly magically pulled a cat out from behind it, taking it on his arm. The white ball of fur made herself comfortable in the boy's arm, rubbing the white hair into Yuri's jacket while having her perfect blue eyes on him. If it wasn't adorable enough, star-shaped rays of white contrasted to her dark face. Setting her dark paw on Yuri's chest, it softly meowed.

“Did you feed Belle yet?”, the boy asked softly, bumping his fair nose with the cat's. Ignoring Lilia coldly stating that feeding Belle was Yuri's job, he carried the cat over to Rain. “Rain-Belle; Belle-Rain”

When he was laying in bed that night, a bit later than usual, Rain enjoyed the fullness of a three-course dinner and blurring memories of the day. He especially liked thinking back to skating with Yuri. All jealousy that he could not skate as beautifully had been banished from his mind, rather than that, he now felt at piece when he recalled Yuri moving on the ice. It quickly lured him to sleep.

After University on the last day before Rain would have to finish the piece, Yuri sent him a selfie with Lilia and Yakov arguing in the background, him rolling his eyes. It was captured “Help me”.

Rain wasn't sure how to reply, he should answer, that was clear, the picture had been sent to him personally. Why was this so hard, he wondered, sighing.

There were quite a few things he could say to Yuri, for example that every morning when he saw the sun shining through the curtains, he thought he saw and angel and instantly recognized Yuri.

Eventually Rain decided to go with a humorous approach, responding with a scared-cat emoji and “<- you” next to it. With a mix of anticipation and anxiety Rain waited Yuri's reaction.

Shortly after, Rain had just gotten to work, it came with Yuri being sent on the ice by an annoyed-looking Lilia. The picture was taken selfie-style by Mila, Rain noticed. She had probably nicked the phone again.

Although that annoyed Rain, he would thank Mila for taking that picture later. Yuri was such a poser, looking at him in his natural state, he felt his heart skip a beat. Surprised at the sensation and embarrassed, he turned lobster red.

When Rain stepped out of work later than usual but having made some serious cash, He checked his phone to find a string of word cursing Mila in very creative ways. At the end of it was a paragraph with less cursing.

“Lilias makin me work long today wanna stop by?”

Of course he wanted to stop by. Rain would even go as far as saying that he wanted to skate with Yuri again. Having felt exhausted just a moment before, Rain now sprinted to the next metro station. Surely the physical exercise was what made his heart pound the entire ride.

This time Rain didn’t need help from Mila or likewise to find the rink. Yuri was the only one skating and except for him there was only Lilia and Yakov. Dawn has set already and the entire rink was dipped in an orange light, which was mirrored on the ice. As Yuri glided over it it looked almost a dance in hell, Rain mused.

“You sure are one to space out, huh?”, Yakov greeted him and clapped on his shoulder smiling.

“He said you should join him asap.” Lilia stated, dry as ever and she didn’t even need to click her tongue to make clear how much she disliked the idea.

Quickly pulling off his pullover and squeezing himself into the tiger skates, Rain followed Yuri's order. When he stepped on the even hell Yuri stopped and got into starting position.

“Warm up first.”, he said when Rain wanted to join him. And so Rain did. It was weird with Yuri standing there and more or less watching him. Of course Yuri had every right to take a break, he had probably worked all day.

After Rain had finished his interpretation of “Becoming a Geisha” he joined Yuri. Instead of a countdown, the boy extended a hand to Rain.

“Huh?”, Rain made, feeling not only his heart-rate spike but the urge to take the hand. But really, what was going on?

“Hair ties.” Yuri said matter-of-factly.

Rain struggled abnormally with pulling the purple gum off. He almost lost balance and touched Yuri's fingers more than would probably have been necessary. And once his hair was up, really up this time, not just back, it didn’t cover his shame any more.

“Geez. Next time just let me do that. Your head looks like a bird's nest.”

Rain didn't answer because Lilia and Yakov were still watching and also because he really didn't trust his voice when imagining to let Yuri touch his hair. Before long, the countdown started and without thinking, Rain set off.

During this last month, he had written to his aunt. He had asked what she thought about his notes and how well that'd work with Yuri's theme. With her advice, he had gone to the opera's director. Together, they had put together the instruments that Rain couldn't do on his own. The result was very satisfying to listen but absolutely perfect to skate to, Rain thought.

Only that they weren't skating to it yet. Rain was following the piece's rhythm, he had it in his head, of course. But Yuri was only following his routine sternly disciplined as always. Rain definitely wanted to see Yuri skate with his music. It might relax him. The boy looked kind of troubled right now.

“You’re getting better at this!” Yakov called over to Rain when they finished. Rain, who was at the time busy catching his breath felt oddly flattered. He hadn't concentrating at all.

Shortly after, Rain found himself on a bench between Yuri and Yakov, who had to “sit down because of his old bones” but clearly like Rain, having put his arm around his shoulders all friendly. On his other side, Lilia was disciplining Yuri.

Of course it was her job to make Yuri improve but wasn't “Don't act all high and mighty you haven't made any progress in six days and four hours” a bit overkill? Rain was sure that Yuri, being his ambitious self, was completely aware of how much progress there had been.

“I understand Ma'am. But didn't you say-” that was the boy finally throwing in some words.

Lilia cut him off; “That was two months ago, Yuri, and you are still beautiful, but that doesn't make it perfect. Actually it's very far from it.”

“Then tell me what I'm lacking!” Yuri snapped, frustration on clearly showing.

“Not with that attitude.” Lilia turned around, obviously wanting to leave. While walking away graciously, she dropped “If you can't figure it out yourself, you're going to have to wait.”

Yakov stood up as soon as the door closed behind her. “Al-right, boys, good work today. You go change and I get us some dinner, what do you say?”

“Cool, thanks”, Yuri agreed, Rain reinforcing his agreement with a nod.

Yakov left them alone on the bench and Yuri bowed down to get rid of his shoes. He twitched in surprise when Rain told him to wait.

“Don’t scare me like that!”, he whined angrily and kicked one shoe flying. “Oh shit. But seriously, I keep forgetting you can do that voice thing.”

“Wait. Music”, Rain repeated, pulling up his phone and opening the music app with shaky fingers.

“You should fix your hands” Yuri observed, quickly adding “So you’re done with the music?” Rain just nodded, showing Yuri the screen as if he was asking for permission.

Sighing, Yuri tapped the play button himself. His still extended finger curled surprised when the beat started. By the time violins had set in to carry the rhythm, that finger had settled against Yuri's lip while that foot that hadn't kicked the skate off earlier was following the rhythm.

When the piece was over, the boy stood up and picked that skate up again, tugging it on. He then stepped on the ice and got to starting position, still quiet.

“You know you can just admit that you’re speechless”, Rain tried to relax the situation, earning himself a scoff. “look who's talking. Now start that song.”

Rain followed order. Normally when music played, Rain was the one to not get lost in it and rather analyse it, regardless of whether it was his own. Now he didn't even know what happened. Someone could have threatened him to death and he would not have cared.

What Rain saw in those two minutes and forty-seven seconds was perfection. There was no other word to describe it. It was neither the music or Yuri's movements. Rather, it was how those two perfectly fit together, how the music guided Yuri to gracefully lift his arm where it might have been stiff otherwise or how the beat stopped during the quads, empathizing the significance they had without disrupting the music. Rain was really proud of this one.

Of course he didn't rationally think that, watching perfection for the first time. He pretty much lost his mortal body before the magic ended. Rain managed to stop the music before it looped but was too caught up by that to notice Yuri skating over to him.

“Are you OK?” he asked. If Rain's vision hadn't been so blurry for no reason, he would have found Yuri being worried and slightly red from physical exertion.

When Rain didn't answer, Yuri forced himself in his field of vision. “Seriously, you look like you’re about to cry...I wasn't that bad, was I?”

“huh?”, Rain asked, finally coming back to sanity. “You were perfect.” Now he felt his eyes being weirdly wet. “Oh. I guess I forgot to blink. Didn't want to miss anything”, Rain supported that with a sheepish smile.

“Tsk”, Yuri commented. “Do you wanna try too? Get on the ice, c'mon!”

“uh can't start the music from there”, Rain quickly said. That probably sounded like a very bad excuse, but Rain did not want to ruin this performance.

“True. Let's leave, then.” With that, they scrambled their stuff together and moved to the changing room. After a shower that Rain just used to get away from the awkwardness with Yuri, Rain pulled a pullover back on and attempted to put his skates away.

“Let me”, Yuri insisted, taking them from Rain's hands and putting them into his personal locker. “Um”, Rain made.

“What? You don't have a locker yourself. And you should maybe put your jeans on.” That should have shut Rain up. Unfortunately for Yuri, Rain was rational.

“I could just wear any others in my size.”, he argued.

“But I like you in them.” Yuri still wasn’t looking at him but he did not seem embarrassed to say things like that. That boy sure had nerves.

Painful untangling of hair and a dinner with Yakov later, he walked Yuri home again. It had been dark quite early, summer was ending. Soon snow would start to fall. Rain loved snow in Russia. It had rarely snowed on the Outer Hebrides so he still found it very precious.

“You’re going to come bring us the music tomorrow, right?” Yuri asked when they turned the last corner. Now, with the river coming into view, Rain couldn't help but wonder if one could skate on it in winter.

“Of course I will.” He assured Yuri. When they stood in front of the studio, Rain shared his thoughts on skating outdoors.

“I don't think that's gonna happen. The river needs to be clear for ships...but if the ice should get thick enough, count me in.” And there was a mischievous smile on all of Yuri's face when he opened the door and waved Rain goodbye.

The next day, Rain struggled with university on an entirely new level. After that, he sprinted to the nearest Metro station, setting a new personal record. His heart didn’t stop thumbing against his chest until he was facing Yuri again. And then it dropped, giving him a feeling similar to fainting. It wasn't Yuri's fault.

It was that Mila stood next to him and they were laughing. Rain briefly remembered the Mila from one month ago, desperate as she had been and really wished she didn't remember him.

Of course she did. By the looks of it, they were even laughing about him. Rain gritted his teeth, pulse going up for an entirely different reason than before.

“Can you concentrate.” That wasn’t a question. That was an order. And for the first time since meeting her, Rain was thankful for Lilia being her cold self.

“Yes Ma'am” Yuri shot back immediately. Their conflict from the day before was completely ignored. Then again, he lived with that woman. He could resolve those things immediately.

Regardless, Rain got out his phone, following Yuri's wordless order and waited for an OK to start. He was actually curious if it would be Lilia or Yuri to give it.

During the performance, everyone except Lilia was enchanted but even she was concentrating on Yuri. That gave Rain opportunity to get away from Mila who had positioned herself way too close to him. What even did this woman want?

When Yuri had finished, Yakov was the first one to speak. Rain like to think that even Lilia was speechless.

“See? Nothing less than perfection.” he announced cheerfully, clapping Rain's back. Encouraged by Rain's thankful look to Yakov, Mila tried hanging her arm around Rain's shoulders. She didn't even earn herself a look.

“Your co-operative skating really helped.” Lilia finally said, adding “And the music is helping Yuri to get what his performance was missing before.”

“Perfection?” Mila asked nosily. That earned her the look she wanted. It just came from Lilia and was colder than any look he could've given her. Rain thankfully let her arm slip off him.

“Perfection?” Yuri asked, having skated to them by now and not knowing what they were talking about.

“Well, we're getting there.” Lilia admitted, making Yuri's eyes sparkle. He stepped off the ice, knowing exactly that he was supposed to stay on it and practice, and looked directly at Rain. Rain had hoped for a hug or something likewise but he'd get money later, he couldn't complain. “Thank you.” Yuri said.

Rain had planned to leave after getting the money but Mila waved him over. Where was everyone getting all those drinks from? Still, Rain took the cup and, being his usual untalkative self, was caught up in a very one-sided conversation about competitive ice skating this season. If it hadn't been ice skating Rain would have come up with some excuse to leave. But this way, he actually learned something.

For example he had no clue that Victor Nikiforov, his cousins were fans, had retired from active skating, after last season and was now training a promising-looking looking guy in Japan. Mila seemed to be a fan of him “and he just copied that high-level performance after such a long break”.

Rain also learned that Yuri had followed Victor to Japan to hold him up to a promise. That apparently hadn't worked. “He was really frustrated when he came back. Like, the person he had trusted to choreograph his début had let him down. Just imagine that. And then Lilia came along, rolled him together and kicked him around long enough to become what you are seeing”.

Rain hoped that was only a metaphor. He didn't want anyone to kick Yuri.

Soon after that, Yuri was granted a break. Rain followed him into the changing room for the sole purpose of getting away from Mila.

“So what were the two of you giggling about earlier?” Rain asked as soon as the door closed behind him.

“None of your business!” Yuri snarled, feeling attacked for some reason, and hurled his shirt over in Rain's direction. Rain caught it easily.

A short silence. “Have you ever considered being a model?”, Rain asked more to himself than to Yuri, realizing too late how it slipped out.

“What?!” Yuri screamed, quite high-pitched. He instinctively covered his bare chest with his hands, which didn’t quite work. Was that a blush?

“I mean have you actually felt your hair?”, Rain walked so he was standing behind Yuri and easily pulled the hair tie out. The blond strains beautifully fell onto Yuri's nude shoulders and Rain ruffled them gently. “Huh” made a shy Yuri a bit under him. Huh. The height difference had not occurred to Rain before.

“Because you’re worth it.” Rain whispered in Yuri's ear, clearly seeing a shiver.

“Oh god. I guess I earned that one...” Yuri sighted, now smiling. He turned around to face Rain “I admit it, al-right, Mila told me about that cat pose you made.”

“So, did you like what you hear?” Rain smirked. When had he become so...

“It's actually hard to imagine a lumberjack cat, so not particularly.”

“Fisherman” Rain corrected, crooking one eyebrow.

“It's not that hard to imagine, I just sit down like this...” so flirty. Was that the word? Rain had settled on a bench with spread legs, one hand between then, leaned forward with his head angled just right for feline cuteness.”...and then, you embrace the cat” he completed, bringing the other hand up to Yuri's chest, resting it against the bare skin similar to what Belle had done. And then he meowed.

It must have been pretty accurate, because Yuri turned white as a sheet.

After Rain took his hand away, there was a moment of silence. “Stop” Yuri finally breathed. It sounded really weak but respecting Yuri completely, Rain obeyed, standing up and picking up Yuri's shirt from earlier, offering it to the confused boy.

That was right, he was just a boy. What was he even doing here, fooling around with a 15-year-old?

“I'm supposed to get into costume.” Yuri declined. He pulled something black and pink out of his locker and pulled it over his head. Rain threw Yuri's shirt in the locker before following him out.

To be honest, Rain did not like the costume. It made everything look fancy although both the theme and Yuri's interpretation of it were quite minimalistic. The simple black training suit Yuri wore most of the time had looked just fine to Rain, Although he admit tht he liked the way one shoulder was left bare.

Rain stuck around the ice rink for the entire afternoon. Mila asked him to skate with her at some point and who was Rain to decline. But Rain refused to skate in sync with her. Her performance was on a different level than Yuri. She was by no means bad, actually the third-best world-wide, but Rain felt bored keeping up with her steps alone as figures were still out of the question for him. Instead, he just musiced for himself.

Of course he could tell that Mila was a bit disappointed, she probably blamed herself for being too bad of a skater for Rain. Which was ridiculous, really. Rain would never reach her level.

When he saw Lilia ending practice for Yuri, Rain just left Mila to skate alone. He knew he was being rude, especially after everything Mila had helped him with time and time again. It was not like it mattered, he had been paid and he could not say if he'd ever see this place again.

Yesterday evening when he had laid in bed, a purple hair tie around his wrist so he wouldn't forget it, he had been thinking that he didn't want to leave Yuri behind once he had been paid for the music. Rain felt bright awake at just thinking how much he had come to like that brat. He wouldn't let Yuri slip out of his life again, like he had three years ago.

Not that he regretted working hard for his father.

He would ask Yuri to go out with him. Not like that. He would ask him to go see the musical “cats” with him. The tickets had been free because he had done so much work for the opera and he could hardly ask his mum to tag along. Or worse, Mila. And who would want to see such a musical more than Yuri Plisetsky?

This time, before he entered the changing room Rain knocked. He took a deep breath before entering.

“Oh it's you.” Yuri said, briefly looking up from his shoes. “You know, you could have left like three hours ago. You sure love it here. I was thinking” he looked up “Something wrong?” was Rain really that obviously nervous?

“No”, he assured quickly, sitting down to take his own skates off. “I was wondering where you were going with that”

“Right. I was going to invite you to come over here whenever you have the time. It's more fun when you’re around.” Yuri had gone back to his shoes so his hair was covering his face, making it unable for Rain to read. Was he really serious about that?

“Sure. Don’t have much free time normally but I'll come by whenever.” Yuri just nodded and kicked off the second skate.

“I came to ask you”, Rain paused to pull his own skates off “I got tickets for the musical 'cats'. Do you want-ok” The shine on Yuri's face had answered his question prematurely. Yuri got all excited and fan-girly, grabbing for the tickets to check the date. “Yes, It's not on a competition date!!”, he squealed, jumping about a metre in the air.

“That's lucky, but it's another two months till the show? Awe man...” Yuri stopped flapping his arms and handed the ticket back, starting to pull the costume off.

So did Rain, only that he didn't get stuck in his simple t-shirt. “Help”.

Wobbly without visual orientation, Yuri stood there all awkward.

After a long struggle and a shorter shower, they stepped out of the changing rooms.

“Do you actually like ice skating?” Yuri asked suddenly.

“Huh? Yes. I mean my family always made me watch it and it's beautiful?”

Satisfied by that answer, Yuri tugged at Rain's sleeve to make them look at each other. “Wanna come over and watch the qualifiers with me?” Yuri asked, with a seriousness in his voice that Rain briefly wondered if he heard it right. Finally, he smiled. “Sure. When?”

At first Rain was confused with how long Yuri needed to figure it out. Then Yuri pulled his phone out and started vigorously typing. “You’re not gonna remember anyway, so that way you can check.”

When Rain was home and had the leisure and internet to check he saw the problem. Apparently Yuri wanted to watch all Russian and all Japanese qualifiers and all nationals. Sighing, Rain fell back on his bed. But he found himself smiling. He was looking forward to it.

One month later, they met to watch the Japanese regionals for that Victuri-guy. That's what Yuri called him, at least. His answer to Rain's question as to why they had to watch this was just a “Know your enemies”.

Rain came by the apartment for dinner. Lilia was nowhere to be found, Rain quickly realized. There was a bit of awkward silence without her nagging Yuri left and right. Dinner was good though and soon they proceeded to Yuri's room.

Or rather, to the practise room that Yuri's bed happened to stand in. There was a piano, Rain noted, instantly coming to like the arrangement.

“Lilia said we can't use the TV because I always throw my phone at it.” Yuri explained while he sat down on the bed, ignoring Rain's amusement and pulling a laptop on his, well, lap. “So we're gonna watch it on here. It's not live anyway.”

“Why not? I thought you want to watch everything live?”

“Six hours time difference. Besides, the event was on two days and that way we can watch it all at once. That cool? You gonna sit down now?” Yuri sounded annoyed but Rain knew that it was fake. He still did what he was told, making himself comfortable on the duvet. No cat duvet cover? Disappointing.

Yuri had the stream ready and loaded already. No other tabs or windows were open and Rain thought that it would just have been cat videos anyway.

He clicked play and yawned at the intro. Rain was bored too as he didn't understand Japanese at all. There didn't seem to be subtitles either. When the contestants were announced, or at least Rain assumed that was what they were talking about, Yuri shoved the laptop over onto his lap. “hold on. I think I need myself some alcohol for this. No need to pause.”

Rain paused nonetheless. “You’re 15, Yuri, you’re not gonna drink” he said, determined to protect his ang- Yuri.

“I turned 16 last month. You even gave me tickets fpor a musical as present. Drinking is legal so don’t make a fuss.” Yuri pulled a green bottle titled “Vodka Mix” out from under his bed. Damn, it couldn't just have been Vodka, could it? Rain could've easily resisted vodka, but this made him want to try some.

“OK OK but let me try some, too?” Rain asked. Suddenly there was a competitive spark in Yuri's eyes. “Yes! And were gonna take turns to see who's more of a light-weight!” He announced, raising the bottle like some sort of prize.

“Seriously? I’m half-Scottish. You don’t have a chance.” Rain laughed, feeling challenged.

“Nothing better than a true Russian!” Yuri argued and sat back down next to Rain. They popped the bottle and reached it back and forth while watching. Rain always took his time when it was his turn to drink. He didn't want to get a hangover or anything and that way, Yuri wouldn't drink too much as well. Or so he hoped.

On top of that, it was hard to concentrate on the stream. Rain had only been able to enjoy the very first performance, the Victuri guy with “On love: Eros”, a beautiful piece, really. It seemed very passionate, especially with -wait was that Victor Nikiforov- hugging the skater before his run. The music fit the skater very well, Rain mused. He could understand why Victor had left Yuri for that, as cruel as it sounded, because he could see how passionately the skater created his music.

Rains' brain slurred the next two performances together. They were both quite mediocre, the Victuri guy would win pretty easily. The last one of that day was slightly better, the guy performing a young potato with a red streak. He was young though, clearly not as experienced as the first guy.

The intro sequence for the second day started. “That's free skating now. Basically they do whatever they want.” Yuri explained, reaching for the bottle. His gaze seemed unhealthily fixed on the screen now.

This time, the potato was first. He clearly enjoyed himself although he fell and terribly lost his rhythm afterwards. Potato even got cheers from the Victuri guy during his performance. “What's that guy's name?” Rain asked Yuri for the potato with honest interest.

“He won't make it. Don’t bother.” Yuri replied bluntly, lifting the bottle.

“It's my turn. Wait, how much did you just drink?” Rain grabbed the bottle. It had gotten considerably less full than the last time he had it.

“It's mine, who cares” Yuri hissed and snapped it back, clutching it his chest.

Like that, they had missed most of the second performance, but Rain saw that it wasn't any good anyway. The third performance was boring too and Rain decided to go play the piano. Irrational as he was when intoxicated.

He played along to the piece that was skated to. No, actually the piece was too simple for him. He created a variation for it. Rain didn't stop before he heard the music for the last performance start. That would be the Victuri guy again, right?

What was this performance? The guy stepped out of his routine and messed up his jumps left and right. Rain could tell because the music didn't fit to what he actually did at all. At one point that guy actually crashed head-first into the rink barrier. Over the gasp of the audience, Rain would nearly have missed Yuri face-palming. That was the same gesture Victor made when the performance finished.

“Exactly, Victor, what were you even thinking.” Yuri commented, cut off by Victor now opening his arms for the Japanese skater who came rushing with his nose blood flowing freely. It was quite a sight.

Rain felt a weight on his shoulder and found Yuri's forehead leaned against it.

Before Rain could ask, he heard a sniffing sound. Now he was sure he shouldn't be asking. Instead, he stroked Yuri's hair, whispering “It's all good” over and over. He wished he knew where Yuri's problem was. It must have something to do with Victor and that Japanese guy.

Getting the laptop out of the way and putting the alcohol to safety, Rain thought he had found the reason. Yuri was probably just some to get depressed when he was drunk. That was fair, considering Rain had played horribly before. And that kid probably wasn't used to alcohol at all. Rain continued the stroking until Yuri seemed to have calmed down.

Then Yuri looked up and sniffed. His eyes were blood-shot, making his green irises pop out even more. “Do you wanna play again?”

Rain took that as a request and nodded, standing up. He wasn't at all sure what to play so he just played and old Gaelic song. Even without the singing that originally accompanied it, Yuri seemed to like it. In fact he liked it so much that he was fast asleep the next time Rain checked on him.

Apparently Yuri had forgotten all of his nocturnal shenanigans by morning. He seemed genuinely surprised to find Rain at the breakfast table and asked when during the stream he had fallen asleep. Before Rain could answer, Lilia joined them, Belle following her. “You forgot to feed her yesterday.” she noted, clearly displeased.

“Oh no”, Yuri said sweetly to Belle and picked her up. With her on his arm he danced around the kitchen, filling up a cat bowl and setting her down in front of it.

After University, Rain came to the ice rink again, finding Yuri on his phone and Mila watching him. “Hey Rain”, Mila said quietly, waving him over. “He's reading up the winners of some Japanese qualifiers. Don't disturb him”, she whispered and winked, for no reason as far as Rain was concerned.

Reading up the winner. That meant Yuri really couldn't remember anything of last night. To be fair, Rain hadn't waited to watch the announcement of the winner but Japanese guy and Victor must have won.

It was just that moment that Yuri had scrolled down the article and found the winners, together with a photo that Rain wasn't able to see clearly. Without thinking, Yuri screamed and threw the phone away, luckily against a very solid window.

“Oh, so did you find that picture of the winners?” Mila laughed “Jealous?”

“Shut up, old hag! Anyone could win when they get cuddled through by their coach every other minute!” Yuri yelled, turning around angrily. He froze when he saw Rain next to Mila. Rain tipped his head to the side.

“Rain.” Yuri breathed, eyes blown wide. Rain raised his hand and smiled.

“I should get back on the ice.” Yuri said quickly and left them standing there.

“You forgot to put up your hair”, Rain stated, extending his hand to Yuri.

Ignoring Mila's shriek “Omygod Rain can talk?!” Yuri nodded and pulled the tie off Rain's wrist.

Yuri wasn't concentrating on the routine at all today. He let his body find the steps, guided by the music, while Rain could practically see his mind slipping and his face heating up. The step sequences, usually tender like ballet, became fierce with Yuri's temper flowing in. It looked quite scary.

“He sure is upset that Victor's man won...” Rain said in thought. He was surprised that Mila didn't ignore her completely. She had just found out Rain could actually do the voice thing.

“It's not just that. Those were regional qualifiers and that guy had made it to the Grand Prix last year. He would have won either way, I'm sure Yuri knew that.” Mila said, honest worry showing in her blue eyes. “But this...it's like before he went to Japan all over again. Lilia yelled at him earlier for running all their progress.”

“But then what is it? I mean if it's not the Japanese guy winning...” Rain wondered. “He said something about being hugged before performance earlier. Maybe he’s just a little lonely.” Mila didn’t see Rain's flabbergasted expression and continued. “Or maybe we should get him a girlfriend.”

“You know I can hear you, right?” Yuri had suddenly appeared in front of them. While Rain hid the red of face, Mila handed him his water bottle. “So what?”, she asked innocently. “We can get Rain one too. And I get a boyfriend!”

“Well you two sure fit together nicely in that aspect”, Yuri said dryly, setting down his bottle in front of Rain. Now it was Mila's turn to blush. “Yuri no”, she pleaded with her face turned away from Rain.

“Seriously Mila, what are you even blushing for, you’re so obvious.”

With that, Yuri left them alone to their awkward selves.

“Am I really that obvious...”, Mila finally said, more to herself.

“Even I could tell and I never can.” Rain said, guilt for making her feel bad instantly setting in. He decided to concentrate on Yuri skating to get away from the conversation.

Nothing had changed there though. Yuri still stomped his way through the routine. It stressed Rain out. Yuri wasn't even listening to the music any more.

Suddenly determined to act, Rain left for the changing room. The skates were still in Yuri's personal locker and Rain pulled them on with ease. Moments later, he joined Yuri on the ice. Normally, Lilia would have yelled for him so not interrupt practise but Rain was sure today would be fine. He wanted to help, after all.

Rain gestured for Yakov to restart the music and got into start position, Yuri following suit, puzzled. “Don’t you need your hair up” he heard Yuri next to him. Ignoring that, he started a countdown. Although he accidentally used English numbers, they started on sync.

Hand in hand with the music, Rain now led Yuri through the program, who was too busy watching him to make up his mind about whatever upset him before. It took no time for Yuri to regain his beauty and concentration. When he trusted the music again, the perfection returned as well. The second half of the routine was performed in Yuri's normal serious and discipline.

Rain was glad but also felt his chest tighten for a moment when Yuri lost vision of him, becoming immersed in the performance again. By the end of the routine, Rain had completely forgotten about that though, being nothing but happy when Yuri skated over to him after they finished.

There now was a smile on his face, a huge contrast to the worry some faces from before. They just stood there facing another with wide smiles and just when Rain figured that maybe he should give Yuri a hug, Yakov called them over.

The two of them were bombarded by words as soon as they were within earshot. It was a mix of appreciation towards Rain and questions towards Yuri, asking what Rain had done to him. Questions none of them could answer.

Lilia ended practise after that. “I'm done for today.”

For the first time, they didn't walk back to the ballet studio directly but checked out the main street. Initially they had just wanted to grab dinner, but now they were window shopping. Rain usually wasn't the one to enjoy shopping but Yuri kept dragging him to very interesting shops.

“Oh since were here already, we should check out that new shop over there!”, he sang now, knowing exactly that Rain would just follow him.

Yuri had shrieked and ran inside before Rain could really check out the display window. He finally identified the shop as a cat-lover-paradise. Smirking, he entered. If they were still friends like this by Christmas, Rain would get Yuri something from here.

“Look at thi- no check this out!” Yuri was completely lost in the big selection this shop offered. He hovered over a stand with motive shirts and Rain scooted closer. He liked motive shirts a fair bit, himself. Yuri now pulled two out that he held before Rain.

Rain couldn't see what was printed on the front so when Yuri made him choose one, he rolled his eyes and pointed to the left one. Yuri nodded with the expression of a business man who's just made a good deal.

“Go try it on” Yuri urged, pressing it to Rains chest.

“Yuri, you really don't have to get me anything. Besides I have enough shirts, really.” Rain fought, trying to push the shirt away.

“None's talking about buying, just put it on, will you?” Yuri insisted.

When Rain stepped out of the changing room, Yuri shook his head. “No, this isn't right.” He looked for a shop assistant and talked in very excited and fast Russian so that Rain had no chance to understand what Yuri actually wanted.

He did use the time of their heated discussion to look around the shop a bit himself, though. Quickly he found something he could make Yuri put on for revenge.

“Please change into this one” Yuri said and pressed a new shirt against Rain's chest. He sure liked doing that. Of course Rain agreed and a few minutes passed before he left the changing room, this time with a neatly folded shirt in his hands.

Rain didn't notice Yuri's reaction before he had put the first shirt back in place. When he finally did, he felt his heart drop and rise to his brain at once.

There was only one word to describe Yuri's face. Bliss.

“I guess you want me to buy that one.” Rain sighed. He felt his resistance melt when Yuri nodded, making puppy eyes.

“Under one condition.” Rain negotiated, making Yuri lose his adorable pose.

“What?” He asked and was answered with Rain throwing some garment in his face. “What is this?” Yuri muttered but Rain had fled back into the changing room. Just what about this shirt was it that made Yuri so happy?

It was just black, with a white cat sitting in the front. The cat had a moustache and was wearing a top hat which was supposed to look British. There were words printed under the cat “Jeeves you Jolly good old cat” Overall, the shirt was ridiculous, not even particularly cute or anything. Rain couldn't understand Yuri's excitement about him.

Having changed back to normal, Rain stepped back into the shop and had a look at headphones with cat ears before he heard Yuri step out, swearing to himself.

Rain was not even that big of a cat fan. Yes, he had always wanted a cat as a child, but he didn't dig them nearly as much as Yuri. Seeing Yuri in a tiger onesie however, warmed his heart. Yuri had even put the hood up which gave him tiger ears. There was a striped tail dangling behind him and actually, Yuri didn’t even look mad for having to wear this.

Instead, he walked over to Rain, testing out the flexibility of the baggy striped textile. Then he raised his hand at Rain but the sleeve was so long that Rain could only see one finger tip pointing at him. “Huh?” Rain made.

Clicking his tongue, Yuri shook his hand so the sleeve fell down. While he was at it, he put the other hand on his hips, trying to look fierce. He did not manage beyond the fierceness of a tiger cub with the way he gazed up to Rain from under the massive hood, head tipped to the side. At least now he was openly pointing at Rain.

“You should get one to fit your tiger skates.” the tiger finally said.

“No, thank you” Rain smirked. He was answered by a growl that really was worthy of a tiger, before Yuri turned around and paced back into the changing room.

Yuri did not get the tiger onesie but he bought Rain the shirt. It was a shame, in Rain's opinion, he had looked very good in it. Very wild. But he had a new shirt he could wear to make Yuri happy, so that was a plus.

“I know what you’re thinking. Don’t do it.” Yuri spoke suddenly.

He ignored Rain's obvious confusion for a while before suddenly stopping and facing Rain. “There is no use in buying me that thing. I'd grow out of it within the next half year. Otherwise I would've gotten it. So don’t bother.”

Yuri was probably right. He would have another growth spurt and he would get all manly and like a grown tiger. But Rain didn't like how gloomy Yuri was about that at all. It was scary, of course and Rain couldn't say that he had enjoyed puberty himself, but it was part of life, right?

“I'll get you one when you've grown then.” Rain assured and smiled at Yuri.

That apparently didn't help and Rain wondered if he had said something wrong. He followed Yuri, who had picked up a pace again and walked him home as usual. They didn't talk any more besides the “see you” when Yuri got home.

After a stress-full month of work and rehearsals in the opera starting, Rain found himself refreshed by snow falling. He was waiting in front of the opera house. With the concert season starting, he hadn't seen Yuri in two weeks and had been happy when Yuri had confirmed him that he'd come see the musical after all.

Rain enjoyed snow settling in his hair and looked over the crowd that was pressing into the foyer. Everyone was so formally dressed, he noted. Hopefully Yuri wouldn't show up in a smoking as well.

He didn't. He was wearing a traditional Russian coat, without the fitting hat, and as Rain noted when they stepped inside, a white kosovorotka underneath. The red belt he had loosely bound around his hip fit the embroidery on it's front perfectly. Rain had really not expected Yuri to wear something like that.

Rain suddenly felt very shabby and refused to take his Jacket off before the lights were turned off in the theatre. Unfortunately that was exactly when Yuri had decided to lean over to him.

“Hey”, he whispered; ”is it just me or did you get us the best seats in the entire theatre.”

Rain just shrugged. What were connections for if not to get the best seats in the opera for his tiger. He wanted Yuri to enjoy himself tonight, after all.

A sharp intake of air next to him made Rain look back at Yuri. The musical hadn't even started yet. Next to him, Yuri had turned in Rain’s direction but stared straight on Rain's chest.

“My eyes are up here, you know”, Rain sassed, hoping that the relative darkness around them would help cover his excitement. As he could clearly see Yuri's though, it was hopeless. At least the shirt had fulfilled its purpose of making Yuri happy then.

“I know that, baka.” Yuri said quietly and shifted his gaze to meet Rain's grey eyes.

They smiled at another derpily and suddenly music set in. The performance had started.

Rain found himself unable to get immersed in the musical. His concentration had moved to how Yuri was still turned to him in the seat and how he pulled up his legs at some point. How, when there was a plot twist that Rain completely missed, Yuri gasped and his air looked like it filled with air just like his lungs did.

Another part of him was wondering what “baka” meant. It didn't seem to be a language Rain knew, but the way Yuri had said it so warmly made him think it was a loving nickname.

When the curtains closed for break, both of them awoke from stasis and stood up. Rain's knees were wobbly and he didn't like how rushed Yuri looked. It meant Rain wouldn't have time to put his jacket back on.

“It looks a lot better in good lightning.” Yuri commented after coming out of the toilet a few minutes later. Of course he was talking about the cat-print shirt that Rain was wearing for him.

“You sure? I keep getting weird looks left and right” Rain mumbled from behind the hair that he was covering his face with at the moment. Yuri parted the wild locks and stroked them back carefully.

“They are just jealous”, he assured and with that determined face, he even convinced Rain.

For the rest of the break they hovered around the bar where Rain playfully stopped Yuri from ordering drinks over and over. By the time they had both settled with a shot, of course just to test who'd get more drunk from it, they were talking about ice skating again.

Rain had missed a few competitions because of work and Yuri was happily providing him with the results. Rain wasn't even trying to remember all of the names, but he admired Yuri for having them all in his head, plus their personal strengths. It was also really nice to relax his own vocal chords, seeing as they were still not used to this much talking at once.

They fell back into their seats, both pretty hyper, both not going to admit that it was the alcohol, and watched the second half of the plot unravel.

Yuri gave standing ovations at the end and because Rain wasn't an asshole, he joined in.

Until Yuri next to him stopped clapping and turned to Rain instead. “Thanks for this” he said with the most honest smile on his face. That was when Rain gave in to himself and wrapped Yuri in his arms. He felt strong muscles and a heart beating faster than his own. Yuri could have easily shoved him away.

“You're welcome.” Rain said while he loosened his grip and re-postured.

On their walk back, Rain watched the snow while he tried to listen to Yuri marvelling over the musical. He enjoyed Yuri's voice in combination with the snow crunching under their feet. It was monotone but rhythmical and Rain would have like to play the violin right then and there.

But right and there, Yuri's voice suddenly squeaked. Rain's head darted up and they stopped walking. Yuri was looking very shocked and Rain wondered if maybe he wasn't feeling well.

“Did you catch a cold or something?” he asked and moved to put his hand on Yuri's forehead. The kid dodged, of course, eyes still wide in shock and shaking his head in disbelief. When the frequency of head-shaking reached an unhealthy level, Rain couldn't stand it any more and grabbed Yuri's hand, squeezing it instinctively.

That made him stop. He now shook his hand and Rain let go of it.

Without explaining himself, Yuri set back into motion again. Now there was only the crunching of the snow as they walked and Rain didn't even hear that, swearing at himself mentally for having been rude enough to take Yuri's hand.

When he was finally done with that, they turned the last corner and Rain shot Yuri a look from the side to see if he had calmed down. His eyes weren't wide any more but he was chewing on his lip. That didn't seem like progress at all.

Yuri didn't even say anything when they had arrived at the studio. He just turned to Rain again. He sighed. And then he looked up and down the dark and empty street to confirm that they were alone before he leaned his head against Rain's neck and brought his arms around his torso gently.

Surprised by the unexpected affection, Rain didn't know what to do at first. Then he just stroked Yuri's head with one hand while the other arm held his fragile figure against his own.

Rain hadn't noticed Yuri trembling until he stopped. And he didn't realize that his shirt was wet before Yuri had left for the apartment, still not speaking. Tears, Rain concluded.

After a restless night full of worry about Yuri, Rain awoke to his phone ringing. Who the hell would call him? He picked up before he could read the contact info, dead tired and hoping Yuri had decided to talk to him.

“Hello darling!” Nadia's voice greeted her son. It was enough to wake Rain up and make him remember there were more people to this planet than Yuri and him.

“I haven't heard from you in a while! I think its been three months, can you believe it?” His mother continued cheerfully, ignoring how her son didn't talk; she was used to it. That gave Rain the leisure to see through Nadia's act of happiness.

“Mum, what's wrong?” He asked sharply, answered with his mother shrieking on the other hand. “Geez Rain, don’t scare me like that!” That was not denying that something was wrong, Rain noticed.

“Is it something with dad? Do we need more money?” Rain demanded, suddenly standing.

Nadia sighed; “I should tell you in person. I know it's much to ask but can you cancel all appointments after next week?” His mother had now dropped the act and sounded nothing but tired.

“A week?”- “That's when the flight to Glasgow goes.” Nadia clarified.

“So this is about dad.”, Rain sat down and put his head in his hands. He wouldn't be able to hold back tears for long now. “Okay, send me the flight data and I'll cancel everything before that.

“Thank you Rain”, Nadia told him and Rain heard choking noises. She was crying already. “Rain, you were so strong these last years. I am so proud of you.” And with that she hung up. Rain let his phone drop and his tears flow.

The week had felt like an entire year, given how long it stretched out for Rain. With the opera season beginning, he was needed at work. He was yelled at a lot in that week. No one cared about family reasons. But word spread fast in the entertainment industry and soon his reputation was so ruined that the people cancelled themselves. That saved Rain a lot of time, although it broke his heart. He had worked hard for his reputation, seeing it crumble so quickly...

In the spare time he gained, Rain could go to the ice rink one last time. He didn't talk to anyone, as usual. Not even Yuri, who still hadn't gotten his voice back, apparently. He didn't stay long and only let Mila know that he wouldn't be coming for a while. But she asked.

Just when Rain turned to leave, Yuri started skating to some music that he distinctively remembered. Something to do with love. Rain's mind was too gloomy to think about that.

Without telling anyone good bye, Rain left in the middle of Yuri's performance.

It wasn’t until he was sitting on the plane that Rain understood that him leaving just like that might have hurt Yuri. That he felt all alone now. That being told by Mila, of all people, was probably not going to help.

Even without the ear pain from last time, Rain spent the entire flight in agony. It didn't exactly get better once they arrived in Glasgow. Nadia had gotten them a cheap hotel room in which neither of them slept. At least Nadia had time to actually tell Rain the reason that they came for.

The reason why the hospital had charged so much was that Shawn was actually the first one with that condition that they ever had at the Glasgow Hospital, according to the head surgeon. For most time, they had no idea what had been eating his body away. The only thing they could be completely sure of was that it was getting worse. As so, they tried literally every treatment the clinic had to offer.

Nadia showed Rain hospital bills. He saw Chemotherapy next to the stabilizing of bone structure. “And we paid them to do all that to Shawn.” Rain's mother spat out. “All your years of hard work were for nothing. I’m so sorry, Rain. You were so brave, you took every job there was, for him. And this hospital had nothing better in mind than to abuse your father like this.” She had started crying again. Rain's hands balled to fists next to his thighs. He would fight for his father even more, if necessary.

And so they sued the Glasgow University Clinic. In the month that the trial took, Rain spent way too much time in courtyards, he learned a lot about the British legal system, first and foremost, that it was absolute rubbish, just like any other. Rain was hardly ever needed for the hearings but he always came to support his mother. From the very beginning, they knew they didn't stand a chance. To have a chance, they'd have had to spend all the money they had made in those three years. They were fighting for Shawn's honour here.

On the day they announced the final sentence, Rain listened. The judge briefly mentioned that Shawn had been Rain's dad. It sounded wrong. For the first time, Rain was taken aback.

Rain left the hall. It all felt so wrong all of a sudden. He couldn't stand it. Shawn had only ever accepted him when he could produce music. Day after day, he had spent the little money they had had in the pub. Money that could have sent Rain to an education.

Shawn had never even learned sign language properly. He had neglected the part of his son that made him Rain. Why did Rain have to realize all of this now? He had never felt so betrayed in his life. All this time he spent working instead of going skating and being young. All this money he had mindlessly sent away; for a person who had never cared about him in the first place!

Even the old story with the piano breaking couldn't bring Rain out of this state of mind. The old guy had just done that for his own sake, wanting to listen to music whenever. Rain was sure. Raksha had felt more like a father than Shawn ever could.

After the announcement, Nadia couldn't find Rain anywhere, not even at the hotel. She had wanted to go celebrate. That they hadn't completely lost the case, but managed to get some of the money back. That after that last month of struggle they had fought for something together.

Rain didn't want to be found. He had fled to the hotel first but then realized that his mum might return so he had gone on the roof. Glasgow was looking beautiful at night, but Rain didn't spare that a single look. He had been laying on the roof since mid-day. Now it was dark and with his eyes finally clearing from tears, Rain could see a few stars sparkle at him. The entire scene was peaceful but Rain's mind was still racing. If he was shivering from the cold or the chaos inside of him, he couldn't tell.

Clutching his phone, there were still too many thoughts. Too many emotions mixing together. Too many voices screaming in Rain's head. There was only one voice he wanted to hear right now. That voice would part his mind and bring it back to order. But even when Rain was holding the phone in front of his face, fingers trembling for more reasons than the cold, Rain could not bring himself to tap the call option next to Yuri's contact.

Somehow, the message application opened and the camera turned on. Calling was not an option and with his entire body shaking, there was no way Rain could type. But neither could he stand seeing his own face on his phone screen. With his eyes closed, he took a selfie and sent it to Yuri.

He hadn't expected a reply. It was even later in Russia than it was in Scotland and Yuri was supposed to sleep.

“Can't sleep either? Where even are you?” his text read. Rain was relieved. Yuri didn't seem mad at him for leaving just like that. Rain still didn't feel ready to type so he sent a picture of Glasgow from the top of the Hotel and his location.

Yuri replied with sparky eyes. Then, after a short pause, another text appeared.

“Whenre you coming back?”

Now Rain didn't know what to do. He hadn't asked his mother yet. He probably should. Sighing, Rain sat up for the first time in hours. He took the stairs down and knocked.

“Rain!” Nadia called out when she saw him. Split-seconds later she was hanging around his neck and squeezing her son through. When had he grown taller than his mother? She finally let Rain enter and asked where the hell Rain had been. Rain showed her the picture he had taken from the roof top. Before she could comment on it, Rain signed “When are we going home?”

After all the hours spent on the roof with no progress, Rain now had a goal again. Yuri had cleared Rain's head with just two simple messages. And Rain hadn't even heard his voice yet.

“My lawyer told me we can take the ferry the day after tomorrow.” Rain's mother said, smiling at him brightly. That wasn't what Rain had meant. “And you’re gonna see your grandparents again. Its been, what, six years?” She sighed happily “They'll be so excited to see how much you've grown. Your violin play has improved, they will be thrilled.”

It nearly broke Rain's heart to see Nadia all hyped to go when all he wanted right now was to see Yuri again. Finally, his mother realized something being wrong. “What is it? Do you not want to see them again?”

And now Rain didn't know what to tell her. He had never introduced Yuri to his mother but he didn't exactly want to lie. Neither did he want to hurt his mother's or his grandparent's feelings.

“After the funeral, may I leave for Russia?” Rain finally asked. Nadia didn’t understand.

“Not before you've paid a visit to your grandparent's, that's for sure.” She answered after thinking about it. Rain was relieved that she didn't ask. He quickly typed an answer for Yuri.

“Damn.” Yuri replied immediately. “I wanted to have you here for the Russia Rostelecom Cup” Rain couldn't hide his blush at “I wanted you here” and his mother, who was still sitting opposite him, got curious, snatching his phone.

The following scene resembled every exchange between Yuri and Mila, with Rain chasing Nadia through the room. She managed to lock herself in the bath despite Rain's struggles and Rain would probably never forget her delighted giggles of victory.

“So. Who is Yuri?” She asked when she left the bathroom a moment later.

Rain snatched his phone back and googled “Yuri Plisetsky” then held the device in Nadia's face. “YURI PLISETSKY?!” she squealed. That was right, his family was into ice skating. She had probably heard a lot about Yuri.

“So you mean to tell me that my son has Yuri Plisetsky's contact and exchanges texts with him privately” Nadia clarified in a weird tone of voice so that Rain couldn't tell if she was angry. “And that Yuri Plisetsky wants my son to be there for the Russia Rostelecom Cup.” she added. Rain confirmed all of that with a nod. It sounded so intimate when his mother said it.

For a while Nadia just stood in the hotel room, intensely thinking. Then she sighed and sat down, looking at that same son.

“You know.” She spoke sincerely “If it was the Grand Prix Finals, I'd let you go. But I'm not gonna let you skip your father's funeral for the Russia Rostelecom Cup. He's gonna win that anyway. Now...” she started, her voice softening “How did you two meet?”

Nadia was supposed to know how they had met. Actually, she had arranged all of that those three years ago. Of course that wasn't what she meant.

Rain couldn't bring himself to speak. His throat was still ruined from all the sobbing he had done today. Instead, he typed his thoughts down on that same phone. “I ran into him. Trainer contacted me to compose for a routine again. So I did. They allowed me to skate at the rink any time, so we got closer. I was looking forward to him performing to my music.” That last part hadn't really been necessary but as Rain had typed it, he had known that it was true.

Upon reading the explanation, Nadia laughed. “That's really sweet Rain.” she said, the laughter shaking her. “But did you have to type that in the messenger and send it to Yuri?” with that, Rain got his phone back.

When he saw it himself, he felt very sick all of a sudden. Yuri had already seen the text, too. He even was typing an answer already.

“What the fuck Rain” it read “first you let me wait this long and then you send me that bullshit?” Only his mother's chuckled, pulling him back out of the pit of shame Rain had spontaneously found himself quite comfortable in.

“Just tell him what happened” Nadia said. When Rain stared at her blankly, she took the phone herself.

“Hey Yuri Plisetsky. Nadia Lionheart here. You know, Rain's mum. He was just explaining to me why he has the number of a famous skater such a yourself, because I'm a huge fan. He probably wasn't thinking when he typed it in the messenger. Anyway, good luck at the Russia Rostelecom Cup!” she chanted.

How could she just send a voice memo to Yuri Plisetsky so easily. It was probably because she knew her son was listening. In fact, that son stared at her in shock right now.

“What?” She asked Rain and gave him the phone. Rain didn't answer, of course. His mother hadn't even said anything embarrassing. There was no reason to be awkward now. By the time he had calmed down enough that his hands weren't shaking furiously any more, Yuri had send an answer.

“That was not what I had imagined meeting your parents would be like.”

“Oh, god.” Rain's mother made when he showed her.

On the last day that they had in Glasgow, Nadia dragged Rain shopping again. This time to buy an appropriate formal outfit for a funeral. They really found something but Rain insisted that he wouldn't need a formal shirt.

The next morning they boarded the ferry. On the four-hour long ship journey Rain finally found the peace to think everything through. Eventually, he even let his mother into what he thought about his father. They talked about Shawn for hours and Nadia told Rain a lot that he could never have imagined before.

Apparently Shawn had been the one to give Nadia that illness that had made their son deaf for his entire childhood. He had suffered a lot under the guilt, his mother assured him.

“Seeing you try so hard every day, having to try so hard in the first place- it broke his heart”

Rain thought he finally understood. When he was sandwiched between his grandparents on the church bench later, Rain didn't feel any more rage towards his father. He felt at piece with his father now. That brought him to piece with his entire childhood.

When Rain stood in front of the fresh grave, he heard seagulls scream over his head. It reminded him a lot of St Petersburg, where he had heard them for the first time but most of all it was nostalgia from his early years. Back when he had practised the Christmas songs with Raksha by the sea, seagulls always above them. Back when he had ran home crying because Raksha wouldn't let him ride his back any more. Rain smiled into the cold November air around him.

What even had happened to that old family dog, he wondered when he turned around to follow his family home. Thick white flakes were in the air all of a sudden and Rain looked up in wonder. He still loved the snow.

Feeling bubbly, Rain laughed before he set off to run after his grandparents.

The Islanders held a ceilidh on that evening and they all went, amusing themselves rather than sitting around gloomy funeral-style. On various occasions, Rain found himself clapping to the songs that he had grown up with but never heard before. Other songs were so beautiful that he felt like crying.

Of course a lot of people wanted to hear Rain play again. So, after a lot of comments about how much he had grown and how handsome he was, Rain stood there, violin in hand, and carefully set the crowd into motion. He played a song that had been stuck in his head ever since he was curious enough to google “Onsen on Ice” and watch the entire event on stream.

None of the Islanders had ever heard “On Love: Eros” before but Rain managed to get everyone fired up. When Rain had finished, half of the people present wanted to dance to it and asked him to play it again. The Scottish dance that they did fit really well to the music, Rain thought. He was really proud that his playing could hype up a crowd like this.

When the Islanders finished their stream of praise and applause and Rain sat down again, his Grandmother tugged at his shirt.

“Rain, let's have a talk outside.”

So Rain was dragged out into the snowy island cold. Night had fallen and it was dark but Rain could clearly see her face when grandmother spoke.

“You are such a source of happiness for us, Rain. Your grandparents are so proud of you. Did we ever tell you that?” She started, a motherly hand on his shoulder. Then she took Rains hand in hers' and Rain felt something cold between the warm skin. Metal?

“Our son was not a good father, we know that. Neither was he a good husband. Therefore we want you to have this.” And with that, she had closed Rains hand around the metal and let go of him. Rain didn't have to open and look at it because he could clearly feel the ring shape in his palm. His eyes widened. No way.

“He never wore it after the ceremony. And your mother...” Rain's other hand was taken this time, again he felt metal being set into his palm “had to take it off at the hospital. Once you were there, she never had the heart to put it back on.” Rain heart himself swallow.

To answer his head-shake, his grandmother just reassured him “But you are our pride and we are sure that you, gentle as you have grown up to be, will make someone very happy with those rings”. After speaking, she pulled out a handkerchief and wiped Rain's cheeks. When had he started to cry?

Rain hugged his grandmother tightly, overwhelmed by the most different emotions, his fists still around those rings. Rain didn't even think he would ever use them. Still, it was a very grand gesture from his grandparents.

The next morning, Rain was thrown out of his childhood bed by his mother, who drove him to the Island's tiny airport.

Hours later, Rain stood back in Moscow and laughed about how he had been amazed at that little amounts of snow on the island. Stomping his way to all entertaining establishments he knew in Moscow, Rain worked hard to regain his image from before he had to leave for Scotland. He had quite a busy week. Of course he wanted to go see Yuri, but he would need to have a bit of financial stability to survive.

After a week of hard work and really humiliating conversations, Rain was back in a reasonable place. He gave himself the leisure to go to the ice rink.

Of course, he ran into Mila on the way in. She greeted him with a hug “We missed you so much!” She squealed and sounded so differently and genuine than she had three months ago, when they had met for the first time. Rain hugged her back and when he let go, he saw Mila roll his eyes “Now Yuri might finally stop being such a pain is the a-”

She was interrupted by an Asian man running into her from the side. After that person had apologized in something Asian and very broken English, he babbled something about “Having to find Makkachin and ran off” Rain looked at Mila, demanding an explanation.

“That's the guy who got first place at the Rostelecom Cup. He participated in last year's Grand Prix. Well, you might know his coach, Victor Nikiforov.” Mila told Rain annoyedly.

“Did someone just say my name?” Someone behind Rain suddenly spoke, accompanied by a bark. Rain turned around to find a very familiar face. How many evenings had he spend watching that man on TV?

“Victor Nikiforov, Rain Lionheart. Rain Lionheart, Victor Nikiforov.” Mila introduced before she pointed to Victors knee level, where a grey poodle was looking up at Rin “Makkachin.”

“Nice to meet you” Victor said in that same lovely voice Rain had heard in interviews. “Are you a fan of mine? Do you want to take my picture?” Before Rain could be held up by thinking how arrogant of Victor it was to just ask, he was nodding furiously.

A selfie to his family later, the Japanese man joined them and knelt down before Makkachin. He said something to him affectionately before asking Victor who “that guy was and why the hell he was wearing my shirt”. Which was when Rain lost control of his face's colour. Of course he was wearing that shirt today.

“Oh just a fan who wanted a photo.” Victor smiled at him. “maybe he wants one with you too?” And they turned to Rain, who couldn’t refuse a free picture with Japan's best skater.

“Geez, Rain, didn't know you’re such a fan-boy” Mila whispered to Rain when they finally headed for the rink. “And you never asked me for a photo...” she acted all hurt and although Rain knew it was a joke, Rain took out his phone and they took a selfie as well.

With Mila's arm still around him, they entered the rink. Yuri was on the ice practising that new thing. Rain recognized the music as the “In regards to Love: Agape” that Yuri had also skated to at that “Onsen on Ice” event. Apparently, he had gotten a different costume since then. To his own disappointment, Rain had to note that Yuri was not looking good at all.

Not good beyond his body, that is. This time it was not the costume. How did his hair even grow so quickly? Regardless, even on that day after they had watched the Japanese qualifiers, Yuri hadn't struggled so much. Sighing, Rain stepped to Yakov. He would have to help Yuri again, he saw is coming.

“Rain, it's so good to have you back!” Yakov shouted happily upon noticing Rain stand next to him. Rain was pulled into yet another hug and over Yakov's shoulder, he saw Lilia who was smiling at him. Lilia. Smiling. What was happening here? She seemed relieved to see him? Lilia?!

“Do you want to get on the ice, Rain? Yuri will be thrilled to see you!” She said. Did Lilia just care about Yuri's feelings? Did she just allow Rain to interrupt practise?

After finding his tiger skates, thinking that Yuri would get mad if he was wearing any others, and pulling them on, Rain awkwardly shuffled onto the ice.

Nothing had changed in that month, had it? Did anything significant happen between Yuri and him? Rain started warming up on his own and joined Yuri the next time the music was over.

It took Yuri a moment to acknowledge that Rain on the ice as real. Then he dashed over to Rain so fast that his blond ponytail laid vertically in the air behind him. Rain wasn't sure if Yuri had intended to stop but he didn't, only slowing down slightly before he clashed against Rain's chest and knocked them back a few metres. The fact that Rain didn't fall was a miracle in itself.

Rain was way too busy digging his nose into Yuri's hair to notice. Maybe things had changed. He would not have reached Yuri's hair with his nose before. Yuri suddenly reached up to his chin. That was quite the surprise seeing as Yuri had hardly reached to Rain's shoulder the last time they were this close.

Of course the hug itself also felt very different from anything he'd done with Yuri before.

Rain enjoyed the pleasantly intimate embrace and hoped Yuri could feel him trying to return all of the emotions that had clashed against his chest together with Yuri's growing body.

“Oh my, Yuuri, they are worse than us.” was the thing that finally brought the two of them back into the realm of the living. Rain turned to see that grey-haired man watching them. He himself was holding that Japanese skater from behind, the poor guy was scarlet red. Rain understood and smiled back at them.

“If you two are done for now we would like to see Yuri try the routine again.” Yakov cheerfully announced, without the smallest bit of mockery in his voice. What was going on here?

“Just keep standing there and watch” Lilia told him when Rain tried to copy Yuri's starting position. Of course Rain obeyed but he had to wonder why Lilia was telling him that rather than Yuri.

Yuri's starting pose melted with the music starting, enchanting Rain like usual. That was almost the Yuri Rain knew and loved. In the beginning, Yuri had been immersed in the theme completely. He had lost himself in the performance and trusted his body to find the moves. And that was why he was completely irritated within seconds, which turned him back into that stumbling bad mess that Rain had seen when he arrived earlier.

So that was his problem. Yuri didn't trust his body any more, and how can an ice skater succeed without being able to trust his body. But Rain knew the feeling. When he had hit the growth spurts in puberty, he had often felt like flying without control.

That also explained why Yuri wouldn't talk to Rain. The poor bean was probably suffering from his voice break. Rain couldn't blame him at all, he hadn't spoken a word in a month himself.

Still, Yuri couldn't continue like this. He had to accept his body and its development in order to stay competitive. And the changes would be over eventually. Rain started to muse about what a Yuri would look like all grown up, possibly with long hair. He liked it. And he wanted to make Yuri like it, too. Rain hadn't heard the performance finish.

“So?” Yuri asked the ones who had watched from the side. He sounded normal but his expression gave away that he did not really need to hear their observations.

“Well.” Lilia waved them over so she didn't have to scream across the ice. She spoke when they had settled against the railing. “Yuri still looks like a baby octopus trying to figure out its tentacles.”

“But he was so close this time. Did anyone see those first few seconds?” Mila interjected, nosy as always.

Victor Nikiforov pulled his lips away from “Yuuri”'s cheek at that and turned to them. “I think I know what you mean...at first he looked all fine. Like...” Victor pulled a fist to his chin while he searched for an accurate comparison. ”Ah! Like the baby octopus had forgotten that he's a baby octopus! Do you know what I mean?”

Mila and Lilia nodded. That made sense, even for Rain. Yuri had forgotten that he wasn't on good terms with his body and had just skated there. In that few moments, he had only had “Agape” in mind. And then baby octopus had stumbled over its own tentacle, bringing the frustration back.

Yuri next to Rain looked miserable and conscience-stricken, even now that they had uncovered the issue. But of course Yuri had been aware of it. Was he really blaming himself?

Rain followed Yuri to the changing rooms as always but Yuri shut the door before his face and locked it from inside, surprising Rain. But Rain understood. How could he be OK with having others see his body if he couldn't stand it himself? Rain turned back to the rink and skated with Mila. Talkative as always, she gladly told Rain that Yuri had been mumbling about “not having much time left before his body changes” for about a year. “He was always scared that he'd have to give up skating then” was the last thing she would tell Rain.

That got Rain thinking. Was it really Yuri's body or Yuri thinking his body would ruin his career and therefore ruining his career out of fear? H knocked at the changing room door again.

Yuri opened and let Rain in. He hadn't changed clothes at all.

There were so many things Rain wanted to talk about. He didn't have the courage to say any of them out loud, not trusting his voice and knowing that Yuri would avoid answering. With that in mind, Rain was startled when Yuri suddenly spoke.

“Can you help me please?” He sighed, hunched over and apparently having problems with his skates. With Yuri's right eye glinting up to Rain nervously from between loose blond strains of hair, of course Rain helped him.

When Rain had finally managed to pull the skates off, Yuri's bare feet flew back so fast that Yuri was nearly knocked off the bench. Skating with bare feet? That was not like Yuri at all. And Rain audibly gasped when he saw how bruised they were, blisters at every possible spot.

“Stop staring!” Yuri snarled at Rain and put his on his feet to protect them from Rain's appalled gaze, visibly twitching under his own touch.

Rain finally looked away, away being the skates he had just pulled off Yuri, to check their size. It was six and a half. Six. And. A. Half. Rain heard himself swallow. This kid was sixteen and growing like mad. Rain's own skates were like nine and he was afraid Yuri could need more than that.

“Yuri.” Rain felt his vocal chords protest when he woke them “we're getting you new skates.”

“No!” Yuri yelled, in absolute denial, and snatched the skate from Rain.

Although Rain understood him, he knew he'd have to force Yuri on this one. He sighed, standing up and hoping this would work. Without a warning, Rain picked up the other skate and sprinted out of the changing room, straight to Yakov. As expected, Yuri followed him immediately.

Luckily, Yakov was just talking with Mila nearby so that he saw them coming and shielded Rain from Yuri's mad attacks before he could take the skate. “What is it?”, he asked cluelessly and turned it in his hand. Rain pointed to Yuri's feet, which were still bare and now trying to hide from Yakov's enraging view. Yakov then checked the size finally. Mila screamed upon reading it.

“Even I have seven, are you crazy?” She shook his sholders, making Yuri swat her away defensively.

“Yuri...” Yakov started in a threatening tone. However he looked at Yuri in a very warm, motherly way before he dumped the skate in the next trash can.

“No” Yuri yelled with tears forming in his eyes. He looked like he wanted to jump straight after that skate, and not to get in back out. He quickly recomposed himself though and shot Rain the most hateful look before walking back to the changing room.

“You should probably go apologize, Rain” Mila advised. As if Rain didn't know.

The door wasn't locked so Rain didn't knock. The room was empty. Yuri wasn't even in one of the lockers, Rain concluded after illogically searching them. Oh, the showers.

Rain didn't knock here either, because he highly doubted Yuri was taking a normal shower now. He finally found Yuri in the very last cabin. The door stood open and Yuri was sitting on the floor, knees against his chest. His maltreated feet were closest to the other skate out of that damn pair, which he had thrown onto the drain. Now they were the subject of all the hatred in his green eyes.

Rain kicked the damn thing out of the cabin and his life. He stepped under the shower and sat down next to Yuri before taking the kid's hand. It felt like the natural thing to do. Rain didn't want to force himself onto Yuri any more than he just had with Yakov. Yuri seemed like he wanted some space, still.

Or maybe he didn’t. After a minute had passed without any of them speaking, Yuri shuffled out of his corner next to Rain, bumping his shoulder. They were nearly head-to-head now. Rain roughly recalled how Yuri had been able to cry into his biceps just months before.

“its kinda hard to cry into someone's shoulder when your nowhere next to that shoulder in the first place” Yuri said bitterly, staring straight ahead. Over the course of those nineteen words, Yuri's voice did some crazy things and Yuri looked very ashamed. Instead of an answer, Rain squeezed his hand. Yuri let go of it in order to shuffle again, this time so that he could lay his head on Rain's shoulder comfortably. So he wanted to play smol Yuri now. Fine by Rain.

Bringing his hand up to stroke Yuri's hair, he whispered down to Yuri “You're not even crying.” Yuri stirred under him but Rain was sure. “baka-” Yuri couldn’t properly finish the word because Rain was pressing a kiss on his head without thinking.

“What does that even mean?” Rain asked. His voice was already getting raspy, great.

“Japanese for 'idiot'” Yuri mumbled, more high-pitched than usual. “That's not very nice of you.” Rain purred. He didn't intend for it to be a purr, his voice chords were just acting up. Not that he was complaining, Yuri definitely sounded worse.

“I am dearly sorry.” Yuri responded, not even trying to sound anything else than voice-breaking. Rain caught himself trying to imagine Yuri's voice after that would be over. He giggled.

“Hey, don't laugh at me when I'm apologizing”, he now squeaked. Rain went silent at once.

Rain was the first one to stand up. He pulled Yuri up once he stood and briefly considered carrying him with the excuse to give Yuri's feet a break.

While they were finally changing, Rain had turned his back to Yuri out of decency, Rain found himself dissatisfied with how this had gone. He should have made Yuri more comfortable with his body. Better start now.

“You’re beautiful”, he said after facing Yuri, then turned back around, suddenly becoming aware of what he had done and feeling his pulse rise because of that.

“What the” Yuri hissed behind him. He probably didn't believe that Rain had been serious.

When Rain attempted to speak now to right things, he got a coughing fit. His throat was just as raspy as back when he had practised speaking with his mother almost six years ago. He needed Nadia to tell him what they had done against that. Maybe they had placed Yuri Plisetsky's hand on his naked back. Because that was helping him to stop coughing right now.

“Hey, what's wrong?” Yuri inquired worriedly, pressing him gently down on the bench. For a moment, their faces were mere centimetres apart, making Rain unconsciously lean closer. Yuri's grip tightened. “Hey, don’t you pass out now.”

That was definitely not what Rain had had in mind, he felt like a kid that's caught doing something forbidden. The didn't want Yuri to worry unnecessarily now and shook his head vigorously. Then he took Yuri's hand from his shoulder, Yuri watching him with the slightest amount of pink on his cheeks.

“ф-о-н-а” he spelled out on Yuri's hand. Finally, the penny dropped. Yuri came back with Rain's backpack and Rain thankfully ruffled his hair, earning himself a pout.

Minutes later, Rain had asked his mother for advice and typed out an explanation for Yuri. It was rather short and just involved always having troubles speaking after not using his vocal cords for a while. Rain was not going to bother Yuri with his entire biography.

When Rain was sure Yuri had read it all, he deleted the text to type something completely different. It was just a question, but it had Yuri bite his bottom lip while he read. He then shook his head, handing Rain the phone back without looking up.

Rain typed frantically. This time when he gave Yuri the phone, he also wrapped his arms around his torso. When Yuri had finished reading he looked up to Rain in awe. Rain nodded, relieved that Yuri had finally made progress.

Yuri wiped his eyes and directed his eyes away from Rain. He had deeply blushed at first but as he let the words sink in, both his skin and his look normalized until he was facing Rain's encouraging look with a confident one. Rain was finally satisfied and hoped the result, a confident Yuri, would last.

He squeezed Yuri's side affectionately, wanting to change the mood. But that just made Yuri laugh and stand up, brushing his arms off playfully. Rain felt his chest itch at that but laughed it off.

Things were back to usual after that, changing in quiet and stomping through the snow together when Rain walked Yuri home. But there was a new taste to it. Rain felt really hyper doing those usual things with Yuri again after a month apart. He was overjoyed when Yuri hugged him back for goodbye and when Yuri asked him to hang out whenever, Rain couldn't even nod with how much he was already looking forward to that.

Busy as they both were with work and training, they didn't meet at all until December started. Rain had gotten lucky, the director of the national Ballet couldn't make it to a rehearsal and Rain got the afternoon off. To his surprise, Yuri told him to come to the ballet studio.

Lilia has a cold and wants me to work with her here”, he explained, creaking, when Rain had closed the glass door behind him, chime ringing.

“That chime sure is nostalgic.” Rain said when he said down in front of the piano out of reflex. His voice had stabilized through a lot of tea so he asked which song he could play.

“Any, really, we wanted to call it a day for now anyway”, a nasal but still strict voice said from another corner of the room. “Yuri, I’m not gonna cook today. Don’t wake me up.”

“Yes, Ma'am!” Yuri saluted after Lilia, who apparently didn't notice Belle sneaking through her legs when she left for upstairs.

Rain started playing mindlessly, he didn't even have a song in mind, while Yuri picked Belle up and started dancing through the room with her. The white ball of fur seemed to enjoy herself until Yuri turned a few times to much, at which she jumped off his arms and ran over to Rain, which earned her a very hurt look from Yuri. As cats usually do, she walked over the piano keys and then settled in Rain's lap.

“How much cat hair does it take to break a piano?” Rain wondered aloud, letting his hand drift through the soft fur while his other went back to operating the black and white keys before him.

This time, Yuri actually danced. The choreography was definitely new for him, it seemed like he was only just trying it out himself. Although it reminded Rain of something he had seen before, Rain couldn't place it. Luckily, his fingers managed to find a rhythm naturally.

As to be expected from Yuri, his movements were enchanting and pleasant to look at. However, this choreography seemed to have the intention of enchanting Rain, to lure him in, him personally, and to please him alone. Rain really liked how that seemed and enjoyed all the smiles and waves Yuri was sending in his direction.

“Why did you stop?” Yuri asked breathlessly. That was funny, because Rain wanted to ask the same. “Yes, you!” Yuri pointed out when Rain stared at him aghastly.

“Did I” Rain started after a minute, finally hitting enlightenment. “Did I stop playing?”

Yuri nodded and walked over to the piano, making Rain blush with realization. He picked up Belle from Rain's lap and nuzzled his nose into her fur. “It's okay.” his voice squeaked against her skin “I was getting exhausted any ways.”

Now it was Rain's turn to nod, closing the piano. “I couldn't help being enchanted by you, I’m sorry” he said with all of the confidence he could muster right now.

Yuri raised his head from the cat, revealing a wide winning grin. “No need to apologize”

That was the confident Yuri Rain knew and loved. His eyes shining at how well he had managed to seduce Rain with that dance. Because he really had.

“Wanna come upstairs with me?”, Yuri purred now. Yes, he purred, despite his voice breaking halfway, this had definitely been a purr. Did this guy have any idea how hot that sounded in this context. Rain quickly agreed before he became too obvious.

Rain wasn't even disappointed when “coming upstairs” meant Yuri having a shower and Rain taking care of dinner. He even found delight in feeding the cat, which had completely accepted him as a feeder. Rain knew that was a big compliment, coming from a cat. Apparently Yuri really liked his cooking and Rain could have watched a freshly showered Yuri with wet hair dig into Borschtsch all evening for all he cared.

Rain's conscience kept nagging him about enjoying this domestic atmosphere way too much but by the time Yuri offered to do the dishes so he could have a shower, too. Rain had decided that he didn't care. He was not making Yuri do any of this, Yuri was confident enough to kick him out in case he would be too much.

Later, they played silly video games and watched even sillier things on the internet. Yuri still didn't have anywhere to sit in his room except his bed so that nothing stopped Rain from falling asleep by Yuri's side.

Rain woke up from Yuri swearing at his alarm in the early morning hours.

“Turn that thing off, you don’t want to wake Lilia up”, Yuri was clearly pissed when he threw a phone in Rain's face. It wasn't his alarm, after all. It was his mother calling. Yuri wouldn't know, Rain's phone used English and the Latin alphabet. Yawning, Rain picked up.

“Morning sweetheart, did I wake you up?” His mother chanted, in a great mood as always.

“Not me”, Rain said, pausing to tug Yuri's shirt back down from where is had pulled up to when Yuri had thrown himself back on the bed. “but Yuri.” Rain felt himself smile when he spoke the name, probably for the first time ever. Yuri, however, suddenly perked up, eyes wide.

Rain's mother was choking on the other end of the line. “Um Rain. Maybe you shouldn't be telling your mother that you just spend the night at another guy's place over telephone. This is Russia, after all.” She said that in English, maybe to stop any eavesdropping agencies to understand the warning. Rain was mirroring Yuri's expression of shock now. Nadia was right. This was Russia.

How could he have been so careless? Of course that had sounded wrong to Yuri. And not only to Yuri.

“Why did you call”, he changed the topic after a short silence in which he tried to make Yuri see that everything was alright.

“Oh right. Are you coming to see your family this Christmas, too?” Nadia changed back to Russian. This was something any government agency would love to hear.

“I think so. Have not booked the ticked yet, though. I’m looking forward to the skating already.” Yuri's expression clearly softened when he could understand the conversation and the word “skating”.

“Yuri, do you have anything planned around Christmas?” Rain asked after a short thinking pause, ignoring his mother who was just saying something on the other end.

“Training, as usual. No longer trips” Yuri responded, tilting his head in wonder about what Rain wanted from him.

“I'll text you the date when I have the tickets, OK?” Rain said, not paying attention to whether Nadia was just talking or not and ending the call.

“Sorry about that”, Rain laughed and explained how he always went to St Petersburg for Christmas. Then, it was almost time for Yuri to go to the ice rink and Rain shouldn't exactly skip work.

Sadly, there wouldn't be time for the two of them to meet up before Rain would leave for Christmas. There wasn't even time for a proper good-bye now. Yuri just waved before he sprinted off to the rink by himself, Lilia was probably to sick still to join them.

As Rain walked through the city, his only orientation the towers of the cathdral towers, he wondered if they had remembered to feed Belle. They hadn't, and Rain stopped to text Yuri. When he looked up, there was a familiar cat-utensil shop before his eyes. Since he would be late for work anyway, Rain decided to drop in. He left with a smirk and a parcel.

After three more stressful weeks of Christmas Concerts and “The Nutcracker”, Rain had immersed himself with buying presents and taking a long train ride to St Peterburg.

Of course, his Cousins took him ice skating as soon as they laid eyes on him. Rain was showered with compliments about how good he had gotten at skating figures, but he wouldn't tell them where he learned it.

On Christmas Morning, Rain was just helping his youngest cousin unwrap her new plush when his phone started vibrating violently under a swarm of texts from Yuri.

“You got me something?”-”You got me something with cat ears?”-”What are those? Speakers?”-and lastly, a string of Emojis with heart eyes. Rain laughed out, getting him the attention of his cousins. Rain briefly saw a picture of Yuri appearing before his phone was taken from his hand.

“How very rude of you to be on your phone on Christmas”, the brat said before laying eyes on the screen. Then he quickly showed it to Rain's oldest Cousin, who's eyes threatened to fall out at the sight. Now, Rain had stood up to reclaim his property, and, possibly, his honour, but the older cousin had taken the phone and now ran into the kitchen to her mother.

A shriek and then the usual clattering of plates stopped. Rain now stood in the open door and watched as his aunt slowly took the device and clasped her heart with the other hand, sighing deeply in satisfaction. After a moment of loving looks, she turned to Rain, who had come a few steps in their direction.

“If that is who I think it is, I am very disappointed in you, Rain”, she breathed still dazed from whatever the picture showed. Rain took the opportunity to get his phone back and check.

“You could have just told us you know Yuri Plisetsky personally.” Rain didn't hear her. He was busy taking the sight before him in.

Yuri seemed to like the cat-ear headphones that Rain had bought him. He had put them on right after unwrapping them. And also before getting dressed. In that picture, he was holding Belle against his naked chest, which Rain was thankful for, or else he would have given all of Rain's relatives a very wrong idea or their relationship. Still, it did look kind of wrong.

At the same time, the way the headphones were integrated in Yuri's hair didn't look wrong at all, actually, it looked very natural.

“He's fucking winking in the picture, Mama!” Rain felt his middle cousin against his back and the youngest hugging his leg from behind. He was right though, Yuri was winking. How did Rain not see that before?

“Let me see, too!” the youngest demanded and who was Rain to refuse, really.

Rain had a minor issue telling Yuri that his entire family had seen a fairly private picture of him, but Yuri took it well and blamed Rain being an airhead and clumsy. He liked to hear that his entire family were fans of him and had been thrilled to know Rain was friends with an internationally known ice skater, on the other hand.

“Next time, maybe put something on in pictures you send via internet” Rain suggested.

“Oh, you know you like it” was Yuri's immediate reply.

“That's not the point at all.” Rain snapped. He wasn’t even going to deny it, but did Yuri have to be so cheeky?

“Okay. I'll make sure to only be naked around you irl now.” Rain's red face had his cousins target him again and only through Rain's most desperate attempts at dodging, they didn't succeeded in reading that conversation. In fear of them watching, Rain didn't respond at all.

Yuri ignored Rain for an entire month after he returned to Moscow, mad for having been ignored himself after giving something flirty a try. Rain understood completely. If it hadn't been for the Grand Prix Finals coming up and Yuri needing his help, they might just never have spoken again.

“The thing is” Yakov explained to Rain “that the theme of that music is 'Agape', unconditional love. However” he made a pause for dramatic effect and stared at Yuri,”this kid here has decided to interpret and perform it in a very fierce way.”

With Yuri scoffing and crossing his arms in front of his chest next to him, Rain could not really understand the issue.

“He can't perform 'Agape' because his agape is turning into something stronger” Lilia elaborated. Rain looked at Yuri, who was copying Rain's typical gesture of hiding a blush behind his long hair. It looked very adorable on him and Rain got it. He nodded and asked for the musical notes for “Agape”.

After watching Yuri perform, from the ice, because Yuri seemed to want that, he sat down and rewrote the musical notes. This wasn't particularly easy but Rain finished quickly. He was enthusiastic, and he wanted to see Yuri perform that “Agape” for him as soon as possible.

By the next day, Rain had put that “Agape” together. He was still using the original music but he had added a variation to it that developed over the course of the piece, becoming stronger and less “agape” as the piece progressed. Just when that different kind of love would break free, the performance would end. Rain was very satisfied with his work. This had been the first time he had truly felt passion while composing and playing. Even with Yuri's perfect free routine, it hadn't been this strong.

Again, Rain was watching Yuri from the ice, Yuri swirled around him, the music and him pulling him in more and more. Just when he thought it would be too much to just stand there and watch, Yuri entered the final position and the performance finished.

Rain stood there in trance until the applause of Yuri's small audience came through to him.

And then he felt the crushing yet delightful weight of Yuri's body against his and the sensation of arms embracing him. But not for long. Yuri let go of him before Rain could react and turned to his audience.

The two of them skated over. Shielded from the view of Yakov, Lilia and Mila by the high rink barrier, Yuri took Rain's hand and interlocked their fingers while he proudly listened to everyone's praise. When he laughed and creaked that he couldn't have done it with Rain, Rain bit his lips. Did he really have to say it like that?

Rain felt the urge to hide his flustered face Yuri squeezing his hand made him unable to. He thankfully looked up to the blond beauty next to him, smiling shyly.

“With this, Yuri has to win the Grand Prix Final next month!” Yakov exclaimed in his best mood yet. He spontaneously started dancing around with Mila and Lilia watched them, amusement twitching in the corners of her mouth.

On the big day, Rain took the day of the Grand Prix Finals off, ignoring how much that pissed the Opera's director off. He was very early and could watch Victor Nikiforov arrive with his Japanese boyfrie- trainee. He finally asked for his name, to which he confidently introduced himself as “Yuuri Katsuki, a Katsudon fatale.”Well, whatever that meant.

Rain saw quite a lot of famous ice skaters that day but once Yuri had arrived, of course he only had eyes for him. He had gotten a new costume, probably because he grew out of the other one and Rain loved it.

Although that could be attributed ot the fact that Yuri was wearing it, Rain really had to congratulate whoever had made this. The different greens perfectly fit Yuri's eyes while red fabric with gold embroidery appropiately lined Yuri's hips and legs and wrapped around his shoulders, between which a red tulle gave view of his collarbones and was defined by a beautifully crafted red collar. The collar was made of the same golden-embroided red textile and had stones dangling from it. Equal to Yuri's eyes in colour and sparkle, however not in beauty, Rain thought, before his looks were directed away by how the collar pointed downwards. There, the red tulle ended in a sparkly and semi-transparent fabric, over Yuri's chest, that Rain didn't know but very much enjoyed, looking at it. His eyes were about to proceed to the wonderfully tight green belt when Rains jaw was touched by a green-gloved hand and gently nudged upwards so Rain would look at Yuri's face.

“Stop staring” he said softly and with a smirk on his lips, despite obviously being flustered.

“Sorry”, Rain mouthed, not trusting his voice right now, and covered Yuri's hand with his naturally. Of course he hand was pulled away immediately at that. Yuri left for warm-up.

When Yuri came back six minutes later, Lilia was waiting next to Rain to deliver a wonderfully motivating speech. Yuri hadn't looked like he particularly needed one, but he was all fired up by the time Lilia finished. “Yes Ma'am”, he chanted, punching the air above him, victory already showing on his face.

Before he would be called out onto the ice, Yuri joined Rain in watching the performance.

“All ready” he said with a stern expression. Then he grinned at Rain while his hand moved to pull the purple hair tie out of his blond ponytail. It was that hair tie, Rain recognized, and he was crazy for suddenly feeling so attached to a hair tie. “Can you hold on to this for me?” Yuri asked and held it in Rain's face.

Rain took the hair tie and put it into the chest pocked of the formal shirt he had gotten just for this occasion, not looking away from Yuri, who combed through his meanwhile shoulder-long hair with green-gloved fingers, even when he patted the hair tie against his heart. He briefly wondered if he was staring again, when “Yuri Plisetsky” was called onto the ice.

“Break a leg” Rain wanted to say but he just gasped because suddenly Yuri was against him again. Chest to chest, closer than any time before They were even cheek to cheek now with the crazy growing Yuri was doing. Rain shook Yuri a bit, steam-rolled by feelings as he was, and patted his back encouragingly before he pulled them apart. If Yuri took to long, people would check on him. Rain didn't want the entire world to see him embrace Yuri Plisetsky. This was Russia, after all.

Yuri let Rain pull them apart but took the time to sigh deeply. That melted Rain's insides as well as his rational thinking and he suddenly found himself leaning forward and aiming for Yuri's lips. The thing that ultimately stopped him was those lips moving, asking him a question.

“Why do you think Pluto walks on all fours when Goofy who is also a dog is a functioning member of society?” He said with flat breaths, voice more instable than normal.

Rain stared at him for a bit, blinking slowly. “I just had to stop you with something.” Yuri explained before he turned to the ice and entered it of greet the audience with a lot momentum. Rain had no time to feel left alone because Yakov came to lean against the barrier at his side.

“This kid...” he said as Yuri started to swirled to the short routine, “Agape” as always. “We'll invite you out to dinner after this, Rain, I hope you have nothing planned.” he laughed and clapped Rain's back in goodwill. “of course we'll invite Yuri, too, when he has won. And oh, he will win.”

Rain just wondered how Yakov could be so sure and Yakov answered his unspoken thoughts “he has to win. We got him this far. His senior début started off bumpy but we'll have him win, what do you say?” After mirroring Rain's enthusiastic nod, Yakov added “Did you even see him at Skate America?” Rain nodded, his determined smile fading a bit.

Last night, he had watched it. Those three-and-something months ago, Yuri had only just gotten to know Rain and Rain had completely missed how Yuri must have left for an entire week in the States only to return with a silver medal. That had probably not been the senior début Yuri had had in mind, but even Rain could see that Yuri's short program had been lacking back then. That made him all the more confident that Yuri would nail it this time. Which he was doing right before his eyes in those very moments.

“We owe you so much, Rain.”, Yakov spoke out of nowhere. “You gave us perfect music and whatever else he needed to perfect his free routine. And then for his entire being. That confidence you’re seeing, Rain, it's all you.” Rain turned away from Yuri's routine when he heard Yakov sniffle next to him.

“I'm so glad I could work with Yuri all those years. I'm so proud of what he's become. And again, Rain, I would have completely destroyed our relationship if it wasn't for you. Do you not remember how you stopped me from hitting him those years ago?” Now Yakov was interrupting himself to blow his nose. Rain was touched as well but he would not have expected Yakov, of all people, to cry over Yuri.

“Just because he saw me being a human after all, we could work together...well I guess that's also where he's got the disrespect from.” He laughed at that and Rain, sniffling himself now, joined in. “Thanks a lot for that” Rain could do no more than shrug and turn back to the performance, which was about to end.

Rain was a bit disappointed that he had missed most of it because of Yakov, but he had seen it in practise and Yuri would put that costume on again when Rain asked him to, wouldn't he?

Lilia was the one to receive Yuri first, she talked to him about his performance so technically that Rain didn't even understand every second word, but it sounded very positive by Lilia standards and Yuri finally answered with “Thank you, Ma'am!” before he turned around and smiled in their direction. Yakov apparently took that as an opportunity to force Yuri into a bear hug. Then a voice called them over to the cameras to receive Yuri's score.

When Rain waved them goodbye for that, Yakov just shook his head sadly and Lilia clicked her tongue. “You're coming with us, numty” Yuri told him excitedly. Hyper as he was, he took Rain's wrist to pull him along.

Once they were in front of cameras, Yuri let go and sat down on the bench, Yakov and Lilia on either side of him. After short consideration, Rain stepped behind the sitting Yuri and shook hair in his face to hide his nervousness. Not only were they on international Television, he also couldn't wait to know Yuri's score. “The scores, please”, the announcer called through the booth and Rain was disturbed in his anticipation when Yuri reached for his hand and pulled it on his shoulder.

Once it was there, he threaded their fingers together and held onto Rain so hard that Rain actually forgot the cameras and that they were broadcasting. The moment didn't last more than a second, then the score appeared on the screen before them. Rain nearly screamed.

It was high. “one hundred and five point thirty-seven points” the announcer voice called. Yuri had squeezed down on Rain's hand even harder before Yakov's arm had come around Yuri's shoulders, forcing Rain to let go. “Yuri Plisetsky is currently in first place” was the only thing Rain heard for the rest on the day.

They really did go out for dinner that night. There still was a free program to perform for Yuri the next day, but everyone was completely sure that Yuri would nail that just as much as the short program today. Victory was in arm's reach and Yuri would undoubtedly take it.

Luckily, that day was a Sunday, so Rain wouldn't be kicked out of the opera for not working. He arrived at the ice rink even earlier than the day before and was pulled aside by Mila as soon as he entered the backstage area.

“What do you think you’re doing with Yuri?” she hissed as soon as they were alone.

Rain had a bad gut feeling about what she would mean, but he held onto a naïve hope that she hadn't seen through him.

That hope was shattered when Mila held her phone out into Rain's face. There were pictures upon pictures of Yuri and him. Rain couldn't tell exactly because they were fairly small, but he was sure some of them were drawn or painted. Why would people draw us?, Rain wanted to wonder, but the other pictures made it obvious. Photos of him hugging Yuri before the performance, photos of Yuri dragging Rain by the hand, Photos of them in the booth, Rain's hand intertwined with Yuri's on his shoulder. Rain swallowed dryly.

This was scary. And so was Mila, who was now going on about how they shouldn't touch any more in public “This is Russia, Rain! Do you want Yuri's career to end because of that? He would blame himself for that, and you know it!” Rain took her stampede to his heart. He knew that Mila was completely right. This was Russia. He could not continue whatever he was trying to have with Yuri.

With his head hanging, he was left alone by Mila.

Hours later, Rain was tugged between the Rink barrier and Yuri. He hadn't wanted to hug Yuri. That was because firstly, he didn't want any more pictures of Yuri and him on the internet and secondly, he did not trust himself to stop once he got close to Yuri.

Earlier, Yuri had insisted that Rain braided his hair along the sides of his head, and Rain had done so, twitching whenever his hands touched Yuri's scalp, not to mention that his entire body had trembled. But he had wanted Yuri to be happy and have beautiful hair today. Today was his big day. Rain wouldn't make a fuss. That's what he had thought, getting more nervous than Yuri.

Apparently, not wanting to hug Yuri was making a fuss and now he found himself in that awkward situation. Yuri's face, beautifully framed by blond hair, hovered centimetres in front of his. This was not good, this was not good at all. Rain could practically feel the paparazzi readying their cameras and everyone's watchful gaze dig into his back like daggers.

Yuri parted his perfect lips now and Rain couldn't help himself; he slammed the two of them together. The paparazzi had seen them hug already, right? One more time wouldn't hurt. Therefore, this was definitely less hurtful for Yuri's career than whatever Rain's instincts had wanted him to do. Yuri huffed in surprise but Rain explained with the same words that Yuri had used to bring him to reason yesterday “I had to stop you somehow”.

Then he added, leaning close to Yuri's ear “get 'em, tiger” and let Yuri go from his death grip. Yuri's eyes were filled with determination now. Rain sighed internally, that had been a close one.

“Rawr”, Yuri made and Rain felt blood rush to his cheeks when Yuri clearly mocked the cat pose that Rain had struck for him months ago. Yuri even put his “paw” on Rain's furiously beating heart. Then he left for the ice.

Rain's breathing hadn't normalized by the time Yuri started his free programme. Once Yuri had set into motion, his breathing adapted to Yuri's naturally. This was Rain's music and Yuri had always shared the performance with Rain.

The had skated the programme together so often that seeing it skated by only Yuri and from afar was really weird for Rain. Still, Rain remembered all of it and just standing and watching did not stop his body from wanting to join in with Yuri, didn't stop his breathing from synchronizing, didn’t stop Rain's feet from tapping the rhythm.

He almost didn't notice a certain gray-haired figure stepping up next to him. “Whatever you did to Yuri, you’re a genius.” Rain was not prepared for Victor Nikiforov lauding him at all and hastily turned to his grinning face.

“I'm joking” Victor laughed, then calmed his features to a friendly smile. “I saw you two earlier”- the paused to wink at Rain -”I liked what I saw. Never would have thought this would work out in Russia? But there you are, and you two are obviously-” Rain's dignity and Yuri's career were saved when a phone suddenly started ringing next to them, the lyrics in English for a change.

“Can you see my nose bleed?

Tired of feeling never enough

I close my eyes and tell myself that my ship will come true

there'll be no more straight boys when you believe in

this ship, they are unstoppable!

Where their destiny lies

dancing on their wedding sets my heart on my fire!

Don’t stop me now!

The moment of truth!

I was born to write fan-fiction!

I'll make it happen, they'll come together!

Yes, I was born to write fan-fiction!

Born to write fanfi-”

Finally, the small grey figure of Yakov had appeared from backstage in a mad sprint and picked his phone up. Rain blinked confused and exchanged puzzled looks with Victor, who then shrugged. Victor might have not even understood all of the lyrics. Rain had. He was half-Scottish after all. English was his native language and from what he had just heard, he dearly wished it wasn't. Rain tried to not think about why that was Yakov's ring tone. Without success. The picture of a cutely blushing Yakov writing fan-fiction on a pink laptop just wouldn't leave his head any more.

Luckily, Rain found distraction in Yuri, who was about to wrap up his performance.

When he finished, Rain applauded enthusiastically. He had missed half of it again, but knowing Yuri, it had been just perfect. He greeted Yuri with open arms after the usual speech from Lilia. Victor was busy readying his trainee, the Katsudon fatale, meaning none judged the two of them. At least Yakov and Lilia hopefully didn't.

This time when they awaited Yuri's score, Rain was sat next to Yuri. He had his hand on his shoulder again, on its way there it had touched Yuri's braids again, but this time that meant he almost had Yuri pulled to his chest. Yuri hadn't taken his hand this time for homophobia reasons. With Lilia and Yakov behind them, they sat there in anticipation.

Everyone's jaw dropped when the screen finally showed new numbers. “In the free programme, Yuri Plisetsky earned one hundred and thirty-three points. Total points is two hundred and thirty-three point thirty-seven” Rain clapped on Yuri's shoulder. That sounded good.

“With that, Plisetsky is currently in second place.”

Rain had felt Yuri tense next to him and now even he froze. Yuri stood up after a moment of cheers from the silence. Even Yuri knew this wasn't a bad score, not at all, but he also knew that anything except a gold medal would be unacceptable. He left the booth quietly, ignoring interviewers as well as his trainers.

Of course they sent Rain after him. Preparing for everything, Rain got his bag before he went to find Yuri in the labyrinth that was the backstage-area. He didn’t find Yuri. Instead, he ran into Mila for the second time. She was on her way to Yuri herself, after watching him place second and knowing him, she had come for comfort. Because she shared everyone's faith in Rain to comfort Yuri now, she offered to search together immediately.

“You know, that Japanese guy who is performing right now will most definitely place over Yuri as well. Every time they competed so far, the Japanese guy won. Yuri knew that from the start. So being second place at the end would have been fine by him, but now he's second already and that Jap hasn't even gotten his points yet. Have you seen him skate at the Cup of China?”

Rain had. He had not gotten much sleep last night. Exited as he had been, no Grand Prix stream had been safe. The Katsudon guy had bypassed Yuri by ten points at the Rostelecom cup.

But at the cup of China, he had set up a personal best in both short programme and free, easily winning. Suddenly, Rain was scared of that Katsudon guy. He looked so innocent, too.

“Well, you saw his score. And you should be glad you didn't see Yuri's face when he did. If he's only half of that today, he will easily get first. Either way, he'll be better than Yuri. That'll move Yuri to the third place.” Mila stopped in the middle of her explanation. He knocked at the nearest door. There was a crash. “Found him” she whispered.

And with that, Rain was thrown into the room, they were alone. Yuri hadn't turned around, which Rain understood as a sign that he could come closer. As he did, he noticed that this room was probably that storage room where Mila had given him the tiger skates. That gave him an idea.

Yuri had stood up on his socks and peeled his shoulders out of pinkishly red-striped black fabric. Rain knew that was the costume from Skate America and Yuri's didn't like to think back to that at all. But he tried to claim that opportunity to normalise the situation.

“Can I help you with that?” he asked softly, extending a helping a hand.

Contrary to the intended effect, that made Yuri jerk around angrily. He slapped Rain's hand away before he started to scream.

“Don't you just walk in on me like that! You were looking at me all creepy again, weren't you?!” Yuri pulled that disgusting costume back in place. Oh, how Rain hated this piece of clothing. Then he continued, not any less angry but less loud.

“There is no way they will keep funding me after I score only third on my début! Its not like they even needed that excuse, right? Because you just had to hug me at every god-damn opportunity, didn't you?” This was weird timing of Yuri's voice to settle into its final male version and to Rain it was mostly very scary. “This is fucking Russia!” Yuri growled, pressing Rain against the line of lockers behind him.

With Yuri's angry face over his intimidated own, Rain frantically searched his mind for any thing that would calm Yuri down. He had taken his bag with him to be set for all cases, but he didn't have anything for changing Yuri Plisetsky's anger at him by 180°. He couldn't even solve Yuri's problems rationally. Or could he?

“I...don't understand the problem.” Rain finally blurted, buying himself time, and because he genuinely felt like he needed to understand.

“You don’t...okay” Yuri got off Rain and let himself fall on the lockers next to him. “Russia has never had problems to cover up their skater's same-sex-relationships, so long as they stay at the top. Victor Nikiforov, just saying. But happens to the young skater who messes up their senior début and is caught on camera smooching around with a fucking hot half-Scot, huh?”

Yuri had raised his voice again and punched down on the lockers behind him. When he had his anger, voice, breathing, just everything, back under control, he looked at a scared-to-shit Rain.

“Tell me, Rain, what happens to him?”

Rain didn't answer for a while. He needed some time to come to terms with the “fucking hot half-Scot”, although he knew that was not the point at all. In that time, Yuri had sat down on the floor against the opposite wall and watched him.

“We didn't exactly-” Rain tried but he couldn't even say it.

“Even you’re not naïve enough to think they care about such details.”

“Can't you just...retire and go home?” Rain asked stupidly.

Yuri shook his head to that, loosening Rain's braidwork further. “This has been my home for the last four years, Rain. I haven't seen my mother since.” There was a short pause where Rain could clearly see Yuri discussing whether Rain was worthy of being told, mixed with a pain that Rain didn't like seeing on Yuri's angelic face at all.

“My mother was never too loving in the first place” There was an audible gulp. “I don’t even want to know how homophobic she is. Rain.” He desperately looked at Rain, who suddenly remembered Yakov saying that he was the only one Yuri had left. ”I really can't go back and spend the two years left until adulthood there. I'd rather die.”

Rain believed him. He felt so guilty now. He had ruined so much for Yuri, hadn't he?

There was a long silence in which Rain slid down to the ground as well. They looked at each other for ages. Neither of them was denying that there was something love-like between them. Rain felt the urge to be happy about that. But this was Russia, after all. In Russia, Yuri could never be happy with Rain.

Finally, Rain brought his bag forward and reached in a side pocked, feeling cold metal that had waited since that ceilidh back on the island. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was doing this.

“Have you ever thought about becoming a British skater?” Rain asked, his throat dry as dust.

“What are you talking about?” Yuri leaned forward in curiosity and confusion.

“Yuri Plisetsky.” Rain started, pulling his closed fist out of the bag before kicking that out of the way. Then he waved Yuri to him. Still curious and clueless, Yuri crawled over. When he was in arm's range, Rain offered him his opened hand, the cold metal shining dully gold in the bad storage room light. “Will you marry me?” Rain managed when Yuri had finally freed his eyes from the ring.

“What? Rain, this is really no time for jokes.” Yuri looked torn between disbelief and feeling confused. “I'm serious. I am offering you British citizenship. You'd have to leave Russia though.”

“Fuck Russia” Yuri mumbled before returning Rain's serious look, his face cleared from any confusion.

Just a moment later, it had clouded again. “Rain, you can't do this. Just think of how bothersome I'll be in the first few months until I've learned proper English and can actually get citizenship. I mean have you heard my English?

Besides, do you really want to marry me? I’m just a brat. Maybe I'll be a complete pain in the ass in two years, and then you want to get rid of me. I mean I don't know what I want in the future. Or I want to get away from you for silly reasons!

Rain, have you really thought about this. Do you want to possibly spend the rest of your life with this?” He pulled a bit of the costume from his skin to stress the words. ”Rain, you are way too good for me! You should go out and find the love of your life or something.

What even will your mother say when her son suddenly turns up with me as his husband? Look at me, all girly and long hair.”

Rains jaw dropped as he listened to Yuri's monologue unfold. Those worries were are so adorably irrational. Rain could not bring himself to care about any of the things Yuri threw at him.

“Is that a Yes?” He just asked, raising the hand with ring a centimetre to remind Yuri.

Yuri blushed first. Then tears started dropping from his green eyes, before he buried his face in Rain's neck. Finally, the blissful feeling that Rain had felt coming since “fucking hot half-Scot” took over. He finally followed his desire and kissed Yuri's hair.

When they parted, Rain took Yuri's hand and heard Yuri laugh breathily when he kissed the knuckle of every finger. Only then, Rain's trembling fingers slipped the ring in place. It looked stunning on Yuri's slenderly long finger. Gold was definitely Yuri's colour.

“Is there one for you, too?” Yuri asked after a moment of admiration. There was, actually. As soon as Rain pulled it out, Yuri snatched it.

“I really have no idea what I’m doing” Yuri admitted after two failed attempts.

“It's okay. You're nervous. I was, too. But you can do it” Rain smiled at Yuri openly. “Your fingers are trembling...” Rain put his hand on Yuri's chest. Through the thin hated fabric, he could feel Yuri's heart beat abnormally fast. “But I’m here, so there is no need to be afraid, okay?”

Finally, Yuri calmed down enough to pick up the ring again. Apparently he had settled enough to even look up during the act, meeting Rain's sheepish look with loving happiness.

When the ring was in place, Yuri did not care to look at it, he kept their eyes interlocked. Only once did he look down to Rain's lips while he leaned forward carefully. Rain felt the butterflies preparing to take flight in his stomach.

There were slapped to the ground by a knock on the door, Mila entering immediately after that “Yuri. They're awarding the winners.”

Rain will never know how Yuri put on skates, took Rain by the hand and followed Mila back through the backstage and on the ice that quickly. But moments later, Rain stood next to Yuri who bowed down to proudly receive his bronze medal. This was a complete contrast to the unsatisfied brat from Skate Canada who had “only” gotten a silver medal.

After the victory poses were filmed thoroughly, Japanese guy in the middle and some Kazakhstan douche who had gotten silver, everyone showing off their flags, Yuri was surrounded by Yakov, Lilia and a lot of people from Moskov's ice rink that Rain had seen quite a lot in the past months, but of whom he only recognized Mila.

It was heartbreaking to watch, given that Yuri would leave all of this skating family behind if he left with Rain. He should give Yuri another chance to refuse, he thought. Then his attention got caught on the ring that was currently shining over to him from Yuri's finger.

Rain waited patiently at side until Yuri would be all done. He wasn't apparently, because he brought Yakov and Lilia once he finally came over.

“So you two have decided to make it official?” Lilia asked. Her tone said “don't stain the concept of marriage” but her eyes gleamed motherly. Rain really wondered what Yuri had told them.

“You were growing over my head anyway”, Yakov tried to cover his emotion with jokes, because Yuri really was growing, but had to add “Be sure to come say hello on international competitions, al-right?”, before he hugged everyone proudly.

Ten months passed before Yuri and Rain came back to Russia. Ten months full of never-ending blank forms and paperworks and excruciating discussions with authorities. But also a year of introducing Yuri to his family and his home to Yuri.

The family in St Peterburg was thrilled to get to know Yuri Plisetsky, although Nadia and Rain had decided to leave then in the dark about the marriage so that the Russian government would leave them alone.

So were Rain's grandparents, which Rain and Yuri often visited on the Island although they now shared an apartment with Belle in Glasgow. Not only did the grandparents instantly integrated Yuri into the family, making him dance with Rain's grandmother, but they also made him made him feel welcome and homely.

There weren't many times when Rain caught Yuri's green eyes drift off to revive what he had left his eyes. At those times, Rain would take his hand and remind him that they were visiting Moscow as soon as he had British citizenship. Then their determined looks would meet and Yuri would squeeze Rains hand thankfully.

And so, they visited Moscow in their new year's holidays. Rain just hadn't been able to get Christmas off, too many Christmas Concerts and ballets. It wasn't like Yuri was going to slack off his training, either.

With Yuri's Cat-Earphones still in place hours after the flight to Russia, when they had listened to rammstein together, they strolled through Moscow. Saying that stomping through the Moscow snow with Yuri by his side was anything but nostalgic would have been an outright lie. They weren't holding hands like they always did in Scotland, this was Russia after all.

They had told no one but Lilia about their visit, they had to stay at someone's place, so everyone in the ice rink was all over Yuri when they suddenly entered.

Georgi Popovich, who Rain hadn’t spoken to before, but who was also internationally known, raised his voice over all the others. "I'll retire next year, Yuri, so be sure to come back then and make everyone proud!" his speech was met by cheers from all sides and a whistle from Mila.

Yuri had trouble smiling at the crowd in front of him, obviously feeling bad for leaving them. But when Rain wrapped his arms around and kissed his neck from behind, Yuri had gotten so much taller than him, he dared answering "Guys I'm not your team any more" His baritone voice was shaky and his hand held onto Rain's over his belly.

But Yuri's former rink mates apparently couldn't care less, they protested that Yuri was still one of them. All of them Russian, yet all of them supporting him, his relationship and his choice to save his career without giving up Rain. All of them had seen the wonders Rain had worked that last year and all of them were happy for the young couple.

Until late, laughter and music filled the rink. Mila was the last one to go home, leaving Yuri and Rain by themselves. Having all the time in the world, they took turns braiding each other's hair in the changing room, which was actually one of their favourite activities.

With closed eyes, Rain sat there and enjoyed the quiet yet intimate touch. This was actually the only silence he could enjoy. It was a silence that he'd never face by himself but with a loved one. To think that a year ago he wouldn't let anyone touch his hair made both of them smile in retrospect.

“So...do I connect the tails now?” Yuri's voice tickled his ear, still making Rain go pink after a year of knowing Yuri. Rain responded with an affectionate hum, using the opportunity to steal a look at his beautiful boy- no, husband. Yuri correctly interpreted Rain's answer as a yes and finished his work by tugging a loose strain behind Rain's ear after tying the braids in place with a certain purple piece of gum.

His finger brushed scar tissue which Rain hardly noticed or paid any meaning to.

Yuri, however, leaned close to examine the padded skin. Rain had always been aware that there were scars from the ear surgery, but he had never considered them special at all.

“I didn't hurt you, did I?” Yuri questioned Rain and stroked his jaw to underline genuine concern. Rain was touched but he knew that it was ridiculous. Although that surgery had been a major turning point in his life, Rain didn't consider it such an important memory.

“That was more than six years ago, Yuri. It's all good.” He assured Yuri and returned his affection by pulling Yuri closely next to him on the bench.

Yuri fought with himself before he quietly spoke again “What happened? If I may ask.”

“Sure you can. When I flew to Russia for the first time, my ears acted up, no big deal. But after the surgery I could finally hear. I guess that explains why I don’t like planes...”, Rain quickly explained. He was not used to standing in the spotlight without music, so he's kept it extremely short.

“What do you mean, 'finally hear'?” Yuri dug deeper, adorably eager to know.

“Oh, I guess I never told you that I was born deaf, huh?” Rain explained matter-of-factly. Yuri's eyes looked at him in disbelief. Then he counted something down on his fingers.

“So you’re telling me that you spent like the first thirteen years of your life deaf?” Rain nodded. “And you speak four languages?” Rain shrugged. He didn't actually speak any of them particularly often. “And you currently earn your, no our livelihood with music, something that requires hearing by definition?”

“I learned the piano as a child. You can feel the vibrations and it made my mum happy-”

“You learned the piano when you were deaf” Yuri repeated, his voice slightly higher than usual. Rain slowly understood how special a deaf kid playing music was.

“Yes.” He finally confirmed, which was answered by Yuri jumping to a stand, pacing up in the changing room, down again. “Is that why you hardly speak? I hear deaf people are usually mute, too...”

Rain confirmed again, with a nod this time. Yuri reacted by bringing his arms to his face and shaking his entire body. What was his problem?

“Are you-” Rain started, but interrupted by Yuri suddenly kicking the lockers next to him. Now, the Russian Punk was looking at that locker with a mix of hurt and insight. But just for a moment, before Rain's fixed and careful look spotted signs of amusement.

When those signs had grown to an outright smile, Yuri turned to Rain, who was worried about Yuri's sanity at that point, and giggled “do you recognize them?”

Rain hadn't noticed Yuri's pointing finger before. He also hadn't noticed a very suspicious-looking pair of skates on the floor before. They must have fallen out of a locker when Yuri had kicked down on those mindlessly. Rain was about to scold Yuri for his reckless behaviour when he recognized that orange-black pattern.

He picked them up, now understanding what Yuri had found so funny.

The first thing coming to his mind was to check for their size in hopes that he could make Yuri wear them. No luck there. Sighing, Rain passed them to Yuri to admire.

“You not gonna put them on?” Yuri asked, a childish disappointment clear on his face.

“It's late.” Rain explained. Yuri was going to make him wear the tiger skates all day for the rest of their stay anyway, he was too tired to start now.

Both of them had completely forgotten that it was new year's eve with all of the partying they did in the ice rink. Lilia was the one to remind them when they came back to her apartment, late, but not after midnight. Even Yuri was not in a mood to party though, so they ended up comfortably entangled on the sofa and watching TV.

Yuri was already peacefully dozing off against Rain's chest when the late news at eleven came on. Rain wondered if there seriously were people who were interested in a weather forecast at eleven in the evening, but he kept watching nonetheless.

“Temperatures in Moscow tonight will reach a millennium low with temperatures dropping under minus 20° Celsius. Experts predict that by midnight, the Moscva River will have frozen over.”

Rain was just reaching for the remote to turn the volume down, Yuri was a light sleeper, when the words sank into his conscious and reminded him of something, making his hand stop mid-air. Yuri stirred at his sudden tensing and looked up at Rain with sleepy eyes.

“You al-right?” he slurred, still half-dreaming. Rain nodded and stroked his still-braided hair.

“The river is freezing over”. Rain told Yuri and nuzzled his nose into the artwork that was Yuri's hair. “I remembered that a year ago, we said that if the Moscva was to freeze over,-” ”-were gonna skate on it!” he was interrupted with a joyful squeal. Yuri was wide awake now.

Just ten minutes later, they climbed down some stairs down to the water level, finding a naturally perfect plain of ice, perfectly aware of how dangerous outdoor skating was. But even with their heated breath forming clouds around them and hindering sight, it was obvious that the Moscva was completely locked under at least half a metre of ice. Weather forecasts just had to understate everything, didn't they?

Yuri took off as soon as he noticed the solidness. He had walked the few metres from Lilia's apartment in his skates, just because he could, but Rain sat at the bottom of the stairs and watched his husband skate pirouette after pirouette as he tried to tie the tiger skates.

Finally, Rain turned on a very special play-list on his phone and let the music play from his pocket while he skated over to Yuri, who recognized the piece quickly and tried to put together the program he had skated to it back when he was a thirteen-year old brat.

Rain had only seen that programme one time before, but he congratulated himself for how well the music he had composed suited the story Yuri's body was telling. Halfway through, Yuri grabbed Rain's hand and pulled him into the rhythm. Their two pairs of feet added a completely new variation to the music and Rain loved it.

This had been a great idea. Yuri almost seemed to enjoy himself more than Rain.

Next on the play-list, the music for Yuri's free program. Rain personally had named it “perfection”, and he felt Yuri get into start position when their hands let go. But Rain could also do this. He had skated this in sync with Yuri several times, after all.

This time, there was no countdown needed for the two of them to set off at the perfect time. But Rain, who still hadn't advanced in skating and was going through his strongly simplified version of the program, noticed Yuri completely changing the choreography, while stressing the theme out to the fullest. Rain was impressed by what Yuri could do with that little bit of music.

“I just got inspired there” Yuri laughed at the end and glided over to Rain to stop just in front of him. Instead of continuing to skate and heat up Rain's face when the play-list moved onto “Yuri's Agape”, Yuri laid his hands on Rain's sides, pulling them chest to chest. Rain had to look up for Yuri's sapphire eyes now. In the dim midnight light, they were dully cozy, something Rain could comfortably sink in.

He realized almost to late that he was not actually sinking in but it was them coming closer. And that was the last thing he saw before his own grey eyes fluttered shut and he awaited the touch of Yuri's warm lips.

It was a tender and short kiss, filled with love from both sides nonetheless. Rain would have dragged it out but they were both startled when weird whistling sounds filled the sky.

It was midnight, the start of a new year, and fireworks were shot from both sides of the river now. Rain, who had only spent new year's with his family in St Petersburg or on the small Outer- Hebridean island, was completely overwhelmed. The sparkling display lit up their faces and Rain found himself thinking that the reflection in Yuri's eyes was more beautiful than the original.

When Yuri attempted to speak, Rain first thought he was going to complain about Rin staring, which happened way too often. “What we talked about earlier...”

Set aback by those unsettling words, spoken in this very settling voice, Rain twitched.

But without taking his eyes off the sky, Yuri laid one hand on Rain's shoulder in a very comforting manner. “I'm sorry I reacted so strongly. It had nothing to do with you. I was just surprised and wished that you had told me sooner, that's all.”

“It's all good, tiger” Rain turned away from the firework, Yuri's arm moving down to his waist in the process. He really liked calling Yuri that.

“You're right, that's something my husband should have known sooner” Rain tried to speak clearly, but when Yuri squeezed his his waist unintentionally at “husband”, his voice started shaking. “Also, if you hadn't reacted like that, I wouldn't be wearing your favourite tiger skates now” With that, Rain looped his arms around Yuri's neck and pulled him down to have their smiling lips meet.

“You're so right“, Yuri purred before they connected, tickling Rain's lips with his breath.

This time, the kiss tasted more of passion and when they parted there hung a cloud of hot breath in the cold winter air around them.

“Hey, you're shaking” Rain managed, Yuri's pupils dilated over him and were reflecting a lonely last rocket exploding. “If you're cold we should go back”

Yuri hurried off in the direction of the stairs and started to scramble together the few things Rain had brought. Rain had followed until he was finished and wobbled off the ice. While he changed his shoes back, Yuri's slim figure stood next to him, eyes fixed at the now dark winter night sky again.

“Hey.” He said when Rain stood up and wanted to hurry up the stairs. If Yuri was cold, they shouldn't lose time, he had thought, but now stopped and turned around to find Yuri embracing him.

There wouldn't be any kissing as soon as they were back on the street. This was Russia, after all. Yuri used the opportunity to peck Rain’s lips again, blushing when he pulled back.

“с новым годом”