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He's not saying he chose to become a sports psychologist because of Victor and Katsudon's many and varied issues (including, but not limited to:
-compulsive public nudity
-mistaking themselves for his parents for going on twenty years now
-confusing skating with actual communication, and
-being super disgusting at all times, oh my god, stop kissing his skates in public what's wrong with you).
But he's, you know, not not saying that, either.
"So what's your motivation?" he asks Katerina, who has what it takes to be great but always seems to fall just one rotation short. Figuratively and literally.
"I love skating," she says passionately, so young and pure he kind of wants to gag. He resists; his patients generally don't react well to open disgust. It's been quite a learning curve. "It's so...freeing." Then her face falls and she adds, more quietly, "Well. Usually. But I see the other girls, and they're all so good, and that Canadian girl is so--"
She cuts herself off, going red, and scowls down at her hands.
Well, Yuri thinks to himself with a slight smirk. This is more like it.
"Today, Katerina," he says, leaning forward, "We're going to talk about the incredible gold-winning power of spite."
A week later, as she cries softly into her plush...what the hell is that, anyway? Some kind of golden fish thing? Well, whatever. The point is, Yuri...might have misread things.
"Last week," he says awkwardly. "You weren't about to say that the Canadian girl is so gross and awful, were you?"
"SHE'S SO PRETTY," Katerina wails. "SO PRETTY. And now she thinks I only care about winning!"
What feels like ten lifetimes of suffering through Victor and Katsudon's histrionics is, in some small, inadequate way, finally paying off. Yuri is prepared for this.
"Does she have a signature jump?" he asks intently.
Katerina sniffles. "Noooo, but she has this adorable pose and a catchphrase--I guess she got it from her dad?"
His blood freezes in his veins. Don't, he thinks, don't say it--
She drops the gold fish thing and, red-eyed and snot-nosed, makes Js with both her hands and says--
"Oh my gosh," Jeanette-Jacqueline Leroy breathes as Katerina spins into her final stance, wrists crossing gracefully in front of her, fingers arranged into Js. It's hands-down Katerina's best performance to date, and she is, thank any and every god out there, too out of breath from it to shout anything about JJ Style. Yuri cannot believe he's a part of this. Yuri cannot believe this was his suggestion.
Her coach is screaming and bouncing in place, because her coach is Mila and Mila exists to cause him pain.
"Oh my gosh," JJ Junior repeats, wide-eyed. "Is this what it feels like to fall in love?"
"You're like five years old," Yuri tells her. "No. No it's not."
Her coaches--JJ and Isabella, of freaking course--trade sappy looks. "It was just like that for us, too, honey," Isabella says with a loving smile.
"This is a nightmare," Yuri groans.
"Dr Plisetsky, you changed my life," Katerina tells him, eyes shimmering with happy tears.
"You're like two years old, don't be ridiculous," Yuri says. He is absolutely not smiling at all.