Fandom the colors of your soul [Otayuri]

[Ivory Ashes]

Yuri Plisetsky had never seen color - of course he hadn't. Like most people, he saw the world in shades of white and black and grey and would continue to see the world that way, until he met his 'soulmate'. Which he didn't care to. While the whole world was enamored with the idea of finding the one person made for you, Yuri could care less. It wasn't like being someone's soulmate made a difference. Relationships still ended in heartbreak, betrayals still ripped families apart. All soulmates guaranteed was a literal pain in the ass.

Yet still, despite his cynical attitude, his grandfather's words still stuck with him. 'The colors you'll see will be so beautiful Yurochka, but the love you will feel will be even more beautiful'.

Standing there on the ice, overlooking the crowd, he didn't think the colors were beautiful. He thought they were too damn bright.

This was not the time. This was not the time. At the age of eighteen Yuri was finally making his debut as a senior at the Grand Prix. He had a beautiful program planned for him, one that he had spent so many hours perfecting till he knew it like the back of his hand. This was where he was supposed to win, to take home that gold metal and start him on the way to becoming the greatest skater alive. This was not the time. He couldn't be dealing with this right now! Everything was too distracting, the colors were too distracting.

But he'd be damned if he let that stop him.

He blinked furiously, gritting his teeth and forcing himself to focus, just in time to nearly miss his cue. He started skating, and though he was sloppy on one of his jumps and a little more robotic than usual, he did well. Not that it made him feel any better. Once he was finished, he angrily skated off of the ice, pushing past Yakov.

"What the hell was that?!" His coach snarled as Yuri pulled his jacket on over his costume. Yuri just ignored him, curling his lip a little.

 

[ThatLizard]

Otabek had never been a person that was connected with his feelings in a specially deep way, since he had always seemed to be too cool and detached for his own good. Therefore, he had never really been too preoccupied with the idea of seeing colour; of course, he wondered how different things would look when -or if- he got to see colour, but never really thinking too much about the fact that he was never going to be able to unless he found his soulmate, who might as well be in the other side of the world. He though it was extremely improbable to find that person without putting enormous amounts of effort to it, and he had enough to worry about with skating.

He had been in the world of competitive figure skating ever since he was a child, and now at age 22, he finally had the chance of making his name go down in history: he had been a senior for a couple of years, and although he was famous in his home country and surrounding places, this was the very first time he had qualified for the Grand Prix, so for the first time he had the chance to have everyone knowing his name.

He was stretching and warming up his muscles beside the ice rink, since he was up next in the ice, being the last in the competition and knowing it would be extremely hard to impress the public and judges, since he was right after the man who was the favourite to win. He tried his best to not pay attention to the other one, since he didn't want to be nervous right before his big act, but couldn't help glancing over every once in a while.

Closing his eyes, he took a couple of deep breaths as he finished stretching and was just moments away from the end Plisetsky's presentation and the start of his own. When he opened his eyes, though, he couldn't help but gasp and loose his cool demeanour for a moment: everything had colours and he didn't know why.

He had always thought that seeing colour would be a rather intimate experience and that people would know right away who made them see it, falling inlove and having a very film-like experience surrounding it all; yet, he was about to have the greatest moment of his career in the middle of a very crowded room, and had no idea who had made him see colour.

He sighed, took a deep breath and closed his eyes, resuming his stretching and warming up just to calm himself down a bit before stepping into the ice, doing his best to focus and keep himself from wondering about colours, giving everything he had within him to his act, and somehow managing to do it the best he could, almost as if nothing had changed.

Once he was off the ice again, he was unable to keep himself from staring around at flowers, uniforms and even the signs surrounding the arena. Everything was beautiful.

 

[Ivory Ashes]

Yakov wasn't going to let him be, he made that much clear as Yuri stomped his way out of the rink. Despite his usual grace, he bumped into several people on his way out, dazzled by the flashing colors of shirts and banners. He couldn't even name any of them. To make his behavior even stranger, he didn't even snap at anyone in his way, which Yakov picked up on, frowning. Once they were at least somewhat set apart from the crowd, Yakov grabbed him gruffly by the arm. "Yuri, what is wrong with you? What has got you so distracted?"

Yuri considered brushing it off as nothing even though it wasn't, but he knew his coach at least deserved to know why he had messed up so. "The colors," he grunted simply in response, rubbing roughly at his eyes. "They're too damn bright. How can everyone stand it?"

"The colors," Yakov repeated, dumbfounded, realization dawning over his features. Yakov himself had already met his soulmate, Yuri had heard the story many times. She had been the most beautiful woman he had ever met, and they had fallen in love. But it hadn't lasted. They always said it was a freak mistake when soulmates actually weren't made for each other, that something had gone wrong in nature. Yet still, they all fawned over the idea when to Yuri it only proved that soulmates really weren't anything special. "You found your soulmate?! Who is it? Where are they?"

"I don't know!" He snapped irritably, starting walking again. The next skater was about to go up and Yuri needed to get his score. "I was in a crowd." When he sat and glanced over, Yakov was giving him one of those looks. Yuri glared back but at least his coach hadn't said anything. He was glad he hadn't because there were reporters around and Yuri would rather nobody else knew that he had been in the presence of his soulmate. If the press found out, he'd have the whole of Yuri's Angels on his doorstep claiming they had started seeing color too, and just had to be his soulmate. It wouldn't be as bad if he knew who his soulmate actually was, but that was impossible. There had been millions of people in that rink and it didn't matter anyway because he didn't care. At least, that's what he told himself.

Yuri didn't get as bad of a score as he had feared he would, it had still been in the high nineties. Not as high as he would've liked, or it would've been if he hadn't been so distracted, but it would do. Yakov went off to who knew where, while Yuri moved to sit on a bench on the side of some room where he could watch the next skater finishing up his program on some TV. Altin, Yuri thought his name was, Otabek Altin. He was a good skater, Yuri had to admit, at least from what he had seen.

He sighed, reaching up to flip up his hood and turning his gaze to the flowers some fan had tossed at him. Yuri ran his finger over one of the petals. He logically knew the names of colors - that the color of the flower stems had to be green, and the color of the sky had to be blue. The rest though, were a mystery since he didn't have anything to compare them to. It was all so new and so overwhelming and he just wished he could go back to the black and white world he was used to. In a fit of frustration, he abruptly crushed the flower in his fist, proceeding to rip the rest of them up and toss them in the nearest trash can. "Stupid colors," he growled under his breath in Russian.

 

[ThatLizard]

Otabek tried his best to keep his focus as he made his way to the ice rink to start his routine, finding himself dizzy due the the amount of colours surrounding him, thinking it was just too much stimulation for him, which wasn't exactly useful given the usual nervousness he had right before his act.

He took a deep breath and stepped into the rink, skating into the very centre as he heard his fans cheer for him as the presenter mentioned his name. As soon as music started, he felt himself forget about his anxiousness regarding colours and somehow using that newly found energy to chanel it towards his routine. He was amazed by the fact that he seemed to find some sort of peace in the change in his vision (even if he knew that that peace would very likely come to an end as soon as he stepped off the ice), managing to do his routine close to perfect and feeling quite proud of himself.

When his act finished, he quietly left the rink and went to sit by himself as he waited for his score to be published, letting through a small smile when he learned he had achived a score in the mid nineties as well, just under Plisetsky, which would very likely help him secure a place in the podium if he kept his performance up. He was congratulated by his coach and thanked him, deciding to keep to himself the fact that he could now see in colour, always preferring to keep himself to himself, unlike many other skaters that seemed to make their lovelives or anger issues public.

Once the event was through, Otabek started gathering his things to leave, still in company of some of the skaters. He congratulated his competitors for their performances, but didn't really participate in much smalltalk.

When he congratulated Yuri Plisetsky, who was so far in first place, he seemed to see colours brighter for a second, not giving it much importance, since he thought his eyes were still adjusting to colour.