Chapter Text
The costume-selection process is a complicated one, and in the past years, it involved everything from poring over fashion catalogs, to trading mock-runway poses with Phichit, to staring at patches upon patches of fabric that all started to look the same after an hour or two. Yuuri goes through all of that again, in addition to a new element unique and new to this year: ransacking Viktor’s closet on a random Wednesday evening.
“You know, if you tell me what exactly you’re looking for, maybe I’ll be able to help?”
“That’s exactly it, I don’t know.” He has exactly twelve hours to go before the ‘point of no return’ after which, if he hasn’t sent any concrete ideas by then, Celestino claims carte blanche to start sourcing out ideas for costumes for Yuuri Katsuki, from people not named Yuuri Katsuki. He stops rifling through a series of white dress shirts long enough to poke his head out of the closet. “Wait, is this rude? Sorry, this is rude, isn’t it?”
Viktor shakes his head. “I did tell you that you could help yourself.” The sip he takes from his mug of tea hides everything from the nose down, but his eyes are clearly laughing. “That said, I’m not sure there’s anything there that will, ah, fit you.”
“I’m just looking for ideas,” Yuuri says. “I need to put a few things together to show to my coach and choreographer. I’ve got the most basic stuff, but I don’t have any of these.” He pulls down a collapsible garment box filled with scarves, and a matching box that holds an assortment of suspenders. “Or those,” he adds, pointing to the row of hats sitting on the topmost shelf in the closet. “And I have a grand total of one tie to my name, not…” He trails off as he counts out the contents of the crowded tie rack that swings down from the side of the closet wall. “Thirty-five. Oh my God.”
“Ah, you mean that baby blue thing you wore to the bar that one time?” The smile on Viktor’s face turns strained. “Let’s get you some better ties someday, okay?”
He has some semblance of a possible costume idea forming in his head while they do the dishes after dinner. Mostly it’s because he manages to steal a glance at the outfit Viktor plans to wear to work tonight, which he’s laid out across the bed, and thinks that looks nice. Obviously this leads to Viktor asking about his Free Skate costume, which Yuuri hasn’t even started thinking about.
That’s not even the worst of his issues with that program, though. Even after having fully choreographed it from end to end, with a Spartan step sequence courtesy of Minako-sensei’s input, and an aggressive jump arrangement he spent countless hours negotiating with Celestino over, he still feels like he’s not quite there yet. He feels like there’s something missing, but he has no idea what it is, or if it even has a name.
He doesn’t tell Viktor any of that, though. And besides, there are some upsides to these qualifiers being structured the way they are. No Exhibition Skate means he at least doesn’t have to worry about yet another costume and program just yet. And at least the Short Program and Free Skate are going to be on consecutive days, unlike the Grand Prix events which would sometimes have an extra day to burn in between.
Viktor hums, taking the already-clean plate that Yuuri’s just been running under the tap for the past thirty seconds or so. “Is that really so bad?”
“I mean, it’s an extra day for me to get stuck in my head. Bad things tend to happen when I do. At last year’s Final…” Just calling that event to mind is enough to bring back the feeling of trying to fight down the steadily-growing anxiety of the day before the Free Skate, and oh God all his jumps -- even now, the memory of each fall causes him to suffer a mild panic, until he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “W-will you come with me to my Grand Prix events this year?!”
Viktor stops, his face a mix of confusion and surprise.
“I, uh, I don’t expect you to come to my other competitions,” Yuuri stammers. “Four Continents and Worlds are both going to be in Asia this year, and that’s… pretty far, I guess.” He wouldn’t dream of imposing that kind of financial burden on Viktor, and he can’t exactly afford it himself either. It’s the same reason he’s not asking Viktor to come for his Qualifiers. “But, for the events that are closer to home…”
When he trails off, Viktor dries his hands and reaches over to turn off the faucet.
“Would it help? Would you want me to distract you,” he leans in closer, letting his voice drop to a murmur, his lips an inch away from Yuuri’s cheek, “the same way you distracted me last week?”
Yuuri remembers that. He flushes, because he also remembers what came after that, the moment the song ended and Viktor couldn’t seem to tear his hands away from the piano fast enough. As great as that experience was, and as eager as he is to repeat it sometime, it’s not what he needs tonight. “I… just really want you to be there. If you want to come.”
Viktor chuckles softly, and pulls him into a hug. Yuuri wraps his arms around Viktor’s waist, counting seconds in his head as the warmth calms him down, bit by bit. Until he’s no longer thinking of failed jumps and panic attacks, but of Viktor: the beat of his heart and the scent of his aftershave, and the tips of his hair tickling the side of Yuuri’s face.
“Skate America,” he finally says. “That’s in November, right? I’ll be there.”
Yuuri lets out a breath. “Thanks.”
“And the Final… where is it again?”
“Barcelona.”
“Then I’ll be there too.”
He sounds so sure of that that Yuuri wishes, for not the first time, that he had half as much confidence in himself as Viktor seems to have in him. “If I make it,” Yuuri mumbles.
“When you make it,” Viktor corrects him.
In the end, they don’t even speak of the Rostelecom Cup at all. But Yuuri understands, so he doesn’t bring it up.
Ten minutes before the expected arrival time for the Uber that’s supposed to take him to the airport, Yuuri is pretty positive that he’s going to scare Viktor away this time for good, as he tears apart his and Phichit’s dorm room in a rush of last-minute packing.
“Okay, so if you were me, what would you have forgotten to bring?”
Phichit’s at the dance studio with his choreographer all day, so Viktor is free to marvel at the chubby hamsters in their cage on his side of the room. Makkachin’s trying to ‘dig’ through the floor in the corner near the closet. “We’ve had this conversation so many times already,” Viktor laughs. “You’ll be fine.”
Yuuri’s throat makes a vague, wordless sound.
“Besides, you’ll be visiting your family first, right? If you forgot anything then, just get it from there.”
“I guess.” He’s going to be in Japan for a little over two weeks, because it would be a mortal sin not to visit home if he’s going to be in the country for the regional Qualifiers anyway. His schedule didn’t exactly align with Celestino’s, so he’ll be flying there a week before his coach does, and staying a couple days longer after the competition. He imagines he won’t be doing much else besides skating and training anyway, but he should probably be able to squeeze in some quality time with his family in there. Somehow.
“Are you excited?” Viktor taps a finger against the bars of the cage. He’s got the fattest hamster, the one with golden fur, staring at him curiously. “It’s been a long time since you last visited home, right?”
“Five years,” Yuuri murmurs. “Almost six.”
“Wow. That’s quite a long time.”
“Haven’t you been away from home even longer?”
…Shit. Shit. Yuuri freezes in his attempt to stuff an entire sweater into a side pocket and tries to gauge Viktor’s reaction, cursing his stupid brain-to-mouth filter.
“I’m sorry. I am so sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
Viktor shrugs. “Well, you aren’t wrong.”
“It’s in my head. I’m sorry. I get like this when I get nervous, even though I really shouldn’t be by now.” Yuuri sighs. “It’s not an excuse. I don’t know…”
“Hey, come here.” Viktor beckons for him to come closer, and for a moment Yuuri thinks -- hopes -- that he might kiss him. But Viktor just places his hands on Yuuri’s shoulders, and looks him square in the eye. “You’ve been training and practicing like a madman over these past few weeks. Yes?”
“Uh… yes?”
“To the point that you could skate both of your programs at the drop of a hat, at gunpoint, if you had to. Yes?”
Why does his brain conjure up an image of Yuri Plisetsky holding the gun? “I guess.”
“You’ve worked so hard, Yuuri. And you’re a phenomenally talented skater. Everyone knows it, except you it seems.” Viktor offers him a soft smile, and leans in for a peck on the cheek. “For luck,” he whispers into his ear. “Now, you should have everything you need.”
“It’ll take more than a kiss on the cheek for that,” Yuuri mumbles. His face burning, he pulls Viktor in for a proper kiss before he loses his nerve.
When he gets the alert that his Uber has arrived, and as Viktor tries to coax Makkachin out of the new lair she’s designated for herself at the foot of Yuuri’s bed, Yuuri has one final, brief moment of unsurety. At the very last second, behind Viktor’s back, he takes out a few items from the very back of his half of the closet -- an insurance policy, he tells himself -- and stuffs it into his carry-on bag.
He remembers reading somewhere that smell, of all things, is the sense most intimately tied to memory. That sounds about right, he thinks as he exits the platform to the main concourse of the train station, takes a deep breath, and knows immediately that he’s home.
A first glance might have actually fooled him, though. Motorized walkways, escalators where there used to be only stairs, monitors mounted from the ceiling every few meters or so, displaying everything from weather to the news… everything looks different. This old station even has elevated tracks now, he notes with a passing glance. Who’d have thought?
Then again, five years is five years, he reminds himself. All of a sudden, a part of him wishes that Celestino were here, or that he would have chosen to wait to fly to Japan with his coach instead of coming earlier. It should feel stranger than it does, that he now considers Celestino as something familiar to hold on to, like his comfort zone uprooted itself some time in the past and settled in Detroit, without him even having noticed. Five years is five years. He feels the time, the distance, keenly.
He turns a corner with a sigh. He looks up, a beat passes, and he suddenly forgets all about Detroit and whatever the opposite of homesickness is. “Wh-what?!”
Posters: dozens of them line the wall he’s facing from end to end, and if that weren’t enough, shrunken versions of the same image flap from streamers strung along the length of the concourse. There must be a hundred copies in his field of view alone: of himself, skating with his arm outstretched, Hasetsu Castle and cherry blossoms in the background.
We’re Rooting For You!!! Hasetsu Native Figure Skater Katsuki Yuuri!
Oh God.
“Yu~uri!”
The voice cuts through him with all the precision of a scalpel, but absolutely none of its subtlety. He flails.
“Why are you skulking around??”
He can think of a few reasons. Actually, he could think of a hundred. “M-Minako-sensei?”
There she is, in the flesh, looking no different from when he last saw her in person five years ago. She launches herself into a perfect twirl, before raising her leg impossibly high and unfurling a homemade banner. Oh dear God. “Finally, after five long years, welcome home!!”
Yuuri approaches her gingerly, like he’s not quite sure she’s for real. There’s a chance of that, right? That this is all a hallucination, and he’ll wake up back on the plane as it’s preparing to land, and then he won’t be greeted by the sight of his face plastered a hundred times over the station walls? “W-what are you doing here?”
“Hey! Stand up straight, will you?!”
He wasn’t expecting Minako-sensei to pick him up from the station. He wasn’t expecting anyone to be here at all, but apparently this is a special occasion, because it’s the longest he’s ever been away from home, and he needs a proper welcoming party for his ‘grand comeback’. That certainly seems to be the phrase of the hour; it’s among the first ten words out of Takeshi’s mouth once he gets Yuuri into a headlock, and the triplets have scrawled the same in bright colors all over their homemade banner. Yuuko, flashing him a smile that makes five years seem like the blink of an eye, simply tells him, “Welcome home.”
Yuuri smiles back. “Tadaima.”
He has to wait a few more hours before he can actually go home, because Minako-sensei drags him around to meet and greet various townspeople, with the entirety of the Nishigori family tagging along. By the time they get to the onsen -- through the front door, because Minako-sensei’s entrances have never been inspired by the concept of subtlety -- it’s already dark outside, and Yuuri is ready to be one with his bed.
“Do you want some katsudon? ” his mother asks with a huge, beaming smile.
“Ah, um.” He does now, but… “I haven’t won anything yet.”
She waves away all of his protests and disappears into the kitchen. When everyone else leaves, he goes for a long-overdue soak in the onsen, and finally starts to feel like himself again.
He spends a week reacquainting himself with a city that feels at once familiar, yet so alien to him. Between ballet at Minako-sensei’s studio and off-ice conditioning at the gym with Takeshi yelling in his ear, there isn’t much time to be idle. But Hasetsu is several orders of magnitude quieter than Detroit, and it’s easier to get lost in his thoughts as he runs along the beach at night, or skates endless figures at Ice Castle.
Celestino flies in at the end of the week, fresh from a family wedding and ready to put Yuuri back through the wringer in the remaining days leading up to his Qualifiers. Suddenly his days at Ice Castle become a lot longer, and because Celestino rents a proper guest room in their house for his stay, dinner is spent poring over choreography notes and training videos: what went wrong today, what went well, and so on.
Nights in Japan are mornings in Detroit, and his days start to wrap up usually at around the time Viktor gets back home from a night’s work at the bar. Every night, they catch up and take turns unloading to each other about their day. Celestino and Minako-sensei were arguing about part of his Free Skate, for example, and Yuuri’s afraid of getting involved because it would mean telling them that he wants to go with neither of their ideas. Viktor comes back with how today, one of the patrons got completely smashed on too much scotch -- not in the fun way like Yuuri was the night they met, he makes sure to say -- and so they actually had to kick him out of the bar. Yuuri laughs, which is a mistake, because his side hurts from a fall that happened while practicing his quad flip.
Finally, the day before the Qualifiers comes, and Yuuri’s an absolute mess. He’s tired, he’s nervous, and he’s trying desperately to be neither of those things, because who has time for that when he’s going to be skating for the first time since his last disaster of a season, and at a home rink no less? Minako-sensei and Takeshi are going to be in the audience, and everyone else will be watching on TV back home; God, they might even play it in the main room of the onsen!
Breathe, Viktor reminds him when he forgets.
“Thank you,” Yuuri murmurs when he finally manages to calm down. “That helped.”
“I’m glad.” Viktor’s voice is warm, and Yuuri feels that warmth somehow, even though he knows it’s coming from thousands of miles away. “You’ll do great tomorrow, and the next day. Don’t let the nerves get to you. You’ve got this.”
“I say that to myself every year.” He sighs. “I guess I’m not very convincing.”
Viktor lets out a thoughtful hum. Unlike Phichit, he’s not really a Facetime kind of person, preferring phone calls like this instead. “When I was competing, sometimes it helped to think about what I wanted to do after the competition was over. Try to imagine how good you’ll feel two days from now, and all the fun things you can do before you fly back to Detroit.”
Yuuri thinks about that. What would he do? He would probably request katsudon again, and spend some much-needed time relaxing with his family. Maybe he’ll take a day trip to the beach with the Nishigori family if they have time. But he’s also looking forward to being back in Detroit, curled up against Makkachin on Viktor’s couch, sated and lazy from too much pizza, listening as Viktor practices concertos and jazz improv on the piano. “I’ll give that a try, I guess. Thank you.”
“Always happy to help.”
There’s a pause, and then some rustling of paper on the other end of the line. Yuuri hasn’t said anything, but he’s noticed a lot more background noise on this call than usual. It doesn’t sound like Viktor’s outdoors; there’s no roar of wind or any of the sounds he associates with traffic. But if he strains his ears, he can just make out the low din of unfamiliar voices, though he can never make out what they’re saying. “Everything okay over there?”
“Yeah…” Viktor seems to hedge for a bit, but he continues before Yuuri can ask again. “Listen, I would have wanted to tell you this sooner, but it kind of only got finalized today: I’m going to be travelling for work over the next couple of weeks. Just letting you know because there might be some instances where I’ll be slow to reply. And I won’t be back in Detroit until after you are.”
“Oh. Thanks for the heads-up.” He feels a bit bad now, realizing that he probably hasn’t been asking about Viktor, and how he’s doing, as much as he should during these calls. He’ll just have to start remedying that now, then. “Flying?”
“God, no.” Viktor laughs. “It’s just a couple of cities over, so I’m driving.”
That’s not too bad then, Yuuri thinks to himself. Idly, he wonders if Viktor is usually the designated driver whenever the band hits the road, or if he volunteered for this. Or maybe they rotate? It’s not something that’s ever come up in conversation before, now that he thinks about it.
He’s only thinking about this because there’s something else that he doesn’t want to think about, looming. But he can’t even fool himself.
“Good luck on your Qualifiers. I really wish that I could see you perform live.”
As it turns out, he can’t fool Viktor either. “It’s fine,” Yuuri assures him. “You won’t be missing much, honest. They’re holding it at a small venue, and the commentary will all be in Japanese.”
“Please. You know I wouldn’t be there for the commentary.”
Yuuri smiles. He wonders if he imagines it, or if his cheeks really did warm up just a little bit in that moment. It’s unfair, that even from so far away, Viktor can still have this effect on him.
I miss you, he doesn’t say. It’s harder than he thought it would be, being apart like this. Even though there were plenty of days in which he and Viktor didn’t physically see each other back in Detroit, simply knowing that he was a bus ride and a quick jog away made all the difference.
“So I figure it’s probably late where you are. You should get some sleep.”
But that would mean ending this conversation. “Aren’t you going to offer to sing me a lullaby?”
He can hear the grin in Viktor’s voice when he comes back with, “Of Birdland?” He laughs as Yuuri groans. “Unfortunately, I’m nowhere near a piano right now.”
“Oh. Right.”
“I know. It’s a travesty, isn’t it? Wait a bit.”
Yuuri listens through some shuffling, and a few words murmured to someone else that he doesn’t quite catch. He hears footsteps, tapping out a brisk but unhurried pace, and halfway through they get louder -- a change of flooring, maybe? Every so often he hears voices, different ones each time, rising and peaking and fading out, never loud enough for him to actually make out words. Finally, he he hears a couple of quick beeps, and then a bang, before the line suddenly becomes very quiet.
Was that… a car door? “Still here,” he reminds him.
“Ahh, right, right, sorry for the wait.”
“Are you in a car?”
“Mm-hmmm. You’ll have to bear with me. This is kind of at the drop of a hat, and these acoustics -- I might sound legitimately terrible.”
“You?” Yuuri laughs. “Never.”
“Flatterer.” And then, because Viktor has never been one to indulge in fancy introductions for times like this, he just starts singing without any further preamble. “I love you… for sentimental reasons…”
“Wow,” Yuuri says under his breath. He can’t stop the smile from forming on his face as he whispers, “You’re so cheesy.”
Viktor doesn’t dispute that, but Yuuri can hear him smiling too.
“I hope you do believe me
I'll give you my heart…”
This is one of those few jazz songs that Yuuri was already familiar with even before meeting Viktor, and one of those fewer still that weren’t songs or pieces used by his competitors in skating programs in the past. It’s a classic, one of those ‘standards’ as he’s learned they’re called, and he recognizes the melody easily; he figures he must have heard it from his father’s record player or Celestino’s car, or some random store or restaurant more times than he can remember.
Still, there’s something special about the way Viktor sings it, like he’s hearing it for the very first time. Viktor seems to have that effect on any song that he sings for him, Yuuri realizes.
“I love you
And you alone were meant for me
Please give your loving heart to me
And say we'll never part…”
Yuuri finally switches off the lamp on his bedside table, and crawls under the covers. When he closes his eyes, he hears a soft, rhythmic tapping in the background, and likes to imagine Viktor ‘playing’ the accompaniment against the top of the dashboard, or onto the steering wheel. The mental image makes him feel warmer than these layers of hotel sheets are doing right now, and he thinks: maybe, if he hadn’t completely messed up last season, he might have had a bye to Nationals at this point. And then he wouldn’t have to be here, and he could be in the passenger’s seat of Viktor’s car instead, listening to him sing in person and not over speakerphone.
Then again, if he weren’t here, Viktor wouldn’t have to be singing him a lullaby right now. Maybe that’s something.
“I think of you every morning
Dream of you every night
Darling I'm never lonely
Whenever you're in sight…
I love you for sentimental reasons
I hope you do believe me
I've given you my heart.”
When Yuuri opens his eyes again, he does so just enough to make out the buttons on his phone, so he can take himself off speaker mode and bring the phone to his ear. “Thank you,” he whispers, and means it. If there were any vestiges of the anxiety over tomorrow’s looming Qualifiers that had been building over the past few days, he can’t quite feel them now. Or, they’ve just been covered by something else, something far more pleasant and sweet. “Good night, Viktor.”
“Good night, Yuuri.”
Whatever magic Viktor cast over the phone didn’t last through the night, because Yuuri finds himself a tangled mess of nerves from the moment he wakes up the next morning, to when they finally pull up to Okayama International Skate Rink. ‘Let’s Send the Power of Sports Throughout Japan!’ the banners hanging on the outside of the building read. ‘Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Figure Skating Championship.’
A warm hand is clasped over his shoulder. “I have a good feeling about today, Yuuri,” Celestino tells him. “You’re going to do just fine.”
“Yeah! Today you’ll be kicking off your comeback!” And that’s Takeshi’s contribution, capped off by a too-hard slap on his other shoulder. “It’ll be a piece of cake!”
“Do your best, okay?” Minako-sensei sings. “Even if you’ll be competing against little kids!”
That’s how he learns that he’s the oldest of the four skating in the senior men’s singles division today. Okay, that’s awesome. Not that he didn’t really expect it -- as far as the age of competitors goes, he knows very well that he’s on the higher end of the distribution. It’s part of why retiring after this season makes a lot of sense in his mind.
He tries not to think about that too much as he’s called to choose his random number to determine where he’ll be in the skating order. Anything but the first spot, he prays silently as he reaches into the bag. Anything but the first spot…
“Skater Katsuki Yuuri, you’re up first.”
Not again! Honestly, the universe must hate him. He can think of no other explanation for why he consistently has the most horrible luck of the draw.
“I can’t believe I got to see you draw the first spot in person again, Yuuri-kun!” a voice says from somewhere in his vicinity. “I love it!”
Yuuri turns to face him. He takes in the younger man’s wide, shining eyes, the flash of white from the tip of a pointed tooth sticking out from between his lips, and the swish of red in a shock of dirty blond hair. He draws a complete blank. “Um…”
“What, you don’t remember me??” His voice hikes up a full octave at what Yuuri thinks might have been offense, if they weren’t interrupted by the organizer on stage calling out for… “Yes, present! Minami Kenjirou here!”
Who is that again? He thinks he’s heard that name somewhere before. Yuuri watches him the whole time as he digs through the bag of numbers on stage. He’s one of the three other skaters in Yuuri’s event, that’s for sure. But aside from that…? The synapses in Yuuri’s brain try, but sadly fail, to make the connection.
Well, whoever he is, he draws fourth. Maybe the universe just likes him a lot.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this event is the senior men’s short program…”
As always, Celestino is giving him pointers until the very last second. “Don’t forget to make use of of that free leg coming around to help get the rotation going for your quad sal.”
“Mmm.” Yuuri fiddles with the buttons on his suspenders -- well actually, they’re Viktor’s suspenders, and they’re silky and black and they catch the light as he moves, and they’re distracting him because everything is distracting him right now. He’s nervous. Long ago, he thought this was one of those things that got better with experience, and with age. Christophe certainly looks calm as a cucumber whenever he takes to the ice. Yuuri’s psyche must have missed the memo, because here he is, seven full years older than the next-oldest competitor, nervous as all hell.
“Just skate it the way you did in practice.” When his name is called, Celestino gives him one last clap on the back, his ‘good luck’ send-off. “Show them how it’s done!”
It’s surreal, how it feels like he hasn’t skated in a proper competition since forever ago, even if he knows it’s been less than a year. As he glides slowly along the ice, he hears his name being shouted left and right. ‘Welcome back!’ some of them are saying. Is he? Is he really? There’s a moment where he just stands there, realizing with growing horror that these people came in here with expectations, and that a good number of them are anticipating some kind of glorious comeback, because who doesn’t love a narrative like that? What if he disappoints them?
Then the tinkling of piano keys, high and flirty, fills the rink, and Yuuri’s moving before he even realizes it.
He extends his arm out all the way, bending ever so slightly to sweep his leg into a circle. The satisfying scrape of his blade against the ice is a kind of music all its own, as Viktor’s piano echoes from the speakers in the ceiling. Stop. Turn. A measured roll of the hips, cocking his head back with a smirk as his barely-fuzzy vision allows him to imagine that Viktor is there in the audience, near the Kiss and Cry.
Well, then. Here goes nothing.
The first verse is a series of steps, fast-paced and flashy like the piano itself, but secretly letting him build up speed for his first jump. Honestly, he would have preferred to have all of the jumps in the second half, because the bonus to his score would have been more than welcome, and he’s tried to convince Celestino multiple times that he has the stamina for it, no really, he does. In the end, Celestino agreed to putting one jump and the jump combo in the second half, as a compromise.
It’s an arrangement Yuuri doesn’t mind too much, because this way he gets the quad salchow done at the end of the first verse… which, at this very moment, is about five seconds away. He’s already set up the three turn, and as he waits for the musical cue, he calls to mind a young, short-tempered Russian skater yelling at him: “Don’t you dare bend your fucking free knee until the takeoff, piggy!”
Noted, he thinks as pulls his arms in and jumps. One-two-three-four --
The landing is a dream, and when he sweeps out his free leg, it hits nothing but air. Yuuri’s eyes widen as the crowd goes wild. Oh my God. That actually worked!
Viktor’s hands crashing down for the refrain propel him into a flying sit spin. He doesn’t count it out in his head, but he doesn’t have to; he paces himself against the music, and he knows almost on a subconscious level how many measures to wait before changing to the other foot. And he knows when to break out of the spin so that by the time the second verse starts, he’s just about ready for the step sequence.
It’s perfect that this verse, which was almost entirely improvised on Viktor’s part, plays during the step sequence. It’s playful, like all of Viktor’s improvisations tend to be, and projects a sassy kind of confidence that’s unique to this piece alone, playing off of its charms. Yuuri isn’t sure he’s able to project all of that sass, but this is the best way he knows how to try, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try. Minako-sensei’s choreography helps, all turn and twist and twizzle, half of it coming to life from his hips. All he has to do is execute.
He wonders if it’s working; this lukewarm reception isn’t telling him much at all. Honestly, the random stragglers at the Detroit Skating Club were more enthusiastic than this.
No matter. If Viktor were here, would he have liked that sequence? Would he have considered it worthy of his music? Those are the questions that burn in Yuuri’s mind.
Another spin comes up, a camel spin with a change of foot. He holds it until he hears Leo’s section, frantic on the drums. And then he has a few seconds to build up momentum, to glide…
Into a triple axel -- and he lands this one too, coming down perfectly as the low notes boom, heralding the beginning of the end. The crowd laps it all up, and the rush of relief quickly turns into something much more decisive. He’s almost there. Just a little more!
He throws a wink at the judges’ table -- this was Phichit’s idea, not his own, but it was met with enthusiastic approval from both Celestino and Minako-sensei, so there it goes. It feels right, anyway, and the hoots and cheers from the row just behind the judges give him the extra boost as he takes off into his last jumps.
Quadruple toe loop, triple toe loop combo. The fact that it doesn’t end in a pop or a fall is the ultimate relief, but it’s the roar of the crowd, deafening even as he starts his final combination spin, that drives it home: here, in his first real return to competition after the disaster that was last year’s Nationals, he just nailed every single one of his jumps. Holy hell.
When it’s all over, Minako-sensei and Takeshi are on their feet, screaming -- hell, half of the audience is. Celestino is yelling in Italian, but it’s his happy kind of yelling; after five years, he and Phichit certainly know the difference.
Yuuri can’t stop smiling if his life depended on it. He takes a deep bow, just as it starts to rain sushi plushies onto the ice.
He still hasn’t quite come down from the high when he heads back to his hotel room after the event. He knows that his Free Skate is still rough around the edges; that’s what he gets from waffling on it so much, and for starting to piece together the program so late. Still, he’s built a comfortable lead with his Short Program earlier that day, over thirty points ahead of his next competitor, Minami Kenjirou, whom he now actually remembers from last year’s Nationals debacle. Tomorrow’s not going to be a perfect debut, he already knows, but he’s made peace with that. Who knows, maybe he’ll manage to come to some epiphany while he’s skating it live.
There’s another thing, too. His quad flip isn’t quite ready yet either. He’d love it, and he’s sure Japan would love it, if he could manage to land the first ratified quad flip here, at home. But his success rate in practice isn’t anything to brag about, and he’s being very generous with ‘success’ there, including all the jumps that come out wobbly, or that he saves at the very last second. Celestino’s vote was a hard ‘No’ to trying the flip live any time before the Grand Prix Final, much less now. Minako-sensei and everyone else agreed too. But there’s a stubborn part of him that wants to do it anyway.
When he finally checks his phone, he sees congratulations from his parents and Mari, a picture from Yuuko of the triplets glued to the TV screen, captioned ‘Ganba!!’ And… seven missed calls from Phichit?
Phichit
omg call me
YUURI
CALL ME?!?!
or ykw nvm
maybe im overreacting
still
plot twist of the CENTURY
Yuuri frowns. Huh?
Phichit
didn’t u say he knew other-yuri too?
dude ur bf knows so many skaters is2g in
another universe hed be one of usone of us one of us
ONE OF US
He has to scroll through several more screens of less-than-helpful messages before Phichit finally remembers to give him some context: something about Christophe, though he never really specifies what. Does Chris even have any events this early in the season?
No, it turns out, is the answer to that. But the top post on his Instagram, sitting with more likes than Yuuri would have even thought possible for a six-hour post, is a picture of Chris already in Chicago a month early, training on local ice for Skate America. And he’s got his arm slung around another man who’s sporting dark glasses and a newsboy cap, but Yuuri recognizes the line of his jaw, that silvery fringe, and that small but distinctly heart-shaped smile.
christophe-gc
Guess who i ran into today??! Reunited and it feels so good / it’s a small world after all!
It takes a remarkably long time for Yuuri to even react at all. He understands each of the words by themselves, sure, and Christophe’s face is unmistakable; he’s seen that face at countless competitions and interviews, and from hours spent mindlessly scrolling through his Instagram feed in the past, like he’s doing right now. So he isn’t sure why it takes the curve of Viktor’s lips -- and an errant thought, I’ve kissed those lips, a casual reminder -- for him to understand.
He understands.
And before he can help it, before he can even think about it, there’s already something twisting, heavy, in the pit of his stomach.
He brings up the video Phichit showed him before, partly because he’s a glutton for punishment, but mostly because he needs to be sure. He supposes he should have already known; a ‘bartender in Canada’, wasn’t that what Chris said before? One that he spent the night with, and inspired much of what he’s doing this season? Viktor had never ascribed dates or years to the cities he stayed in when he told Yuuri his story, but the more he thinks about it, the more it makes sense.
It’s possible.
Hell, he doesn’t even need any of this complicated analysis -- Chris said ‘reunited’, and it’s his Viktor right there in that photo, isn’t it?
Yuuri swallows. His Viktor, huh?
He’s smart enough not to read through the comments; they probably all speculate about the same thing he’s trying so hard not to think about right now. That leaves him staring at the picture, unblinking, as he takes in the comfortable loop of Chris’ arm around Viktor’s shoulder, the inviting jut of his hip, his brilliant smile. Chris has always been good at working the camera. He’s good at a lot of things, actually. Yuuri doesn’t know what all of those things are, but he’s a hell of a lot better at skating, that’s for sure.
To think that Viktor was able to inspire him… ah, but that makes sense, doesn’t it? He can’t help a small smile at that, but it tastes bitter in his mouth.
Of all the skaters in all the world, he finds himself thinking. He swallows again, feeling something that might or might not be déjà vu.
But… Viktor would have been aware that he and Chris know each other. Yuuri must have mentioned Chris’ name dozens of times by now, if only because the current Grand Prix gold medalist and World champion is bound to come up somewhere in the panicked drivel that Yuuri blurts out when he shows up at Viktor’s doorstep on bad days. Surely he would have said something about knowing him too, at least once. But he never did. Did he just forget?
Did he… did he do it on purpose?
A sudden rapping on his door makes him jump.
It’s strange -- it’s like he’s making his way through fog, like he’s not really aware of his legs moving as he gets up and walks to the door. It takes him several seconds too long to disengage the lock.
Takeshi greets him with a huge grin. Yuuri is only half paying attention, because he’s trying not to think too much about anything, so maybe Takeshi has to repeat himself. What? Something about dinner, he’s saying. Dinner now. “Uh,” Yuuri manages, struggling to focus. “Who else is coming?”
“All of us. We’re all heading out, it isn’t too far. Your coach is already waiting in the lobby, ‘cause he thought you’d already be there.” Takeshi notices something from the look on Yuuri’s face that makes him frown. “Everything okay?”
No. No, it’s really not. Christophe knows Viktor, as it turns out, knows him in what seems like a lot of ways, and this is… a problem. Isn’t it? Is it? It must be, because the pit in his stomach has not gone away, and it shifts every time he moves.
“Of course.” Yuuri forces a smile, and hopes it didn’t come out as crooked as it felt. “Everything’s okay.”
It’s a universal truth that the more you try not to think about something, the more you do. Yuuri is hopelessly distracted throughout dinner, which doesn’t go unnoticed when everyone else sitting at the table has known him for at least five years. Yuuri has a grab bag of excuses as to why he’s quieter than he should be, because the real reason would be too complicated, and stupid, to explain. Tired? Anxious about tomorrow’s Free Skate? Still jet lagged?? Yes, it’s all of those, it’s none of those, it’s stupid. They accept his excuses easily, because they’re all so happy, because he just smashed his previous personal best and this is a celebration, Yuuri! When he reminds them that he doesn’t drink before competitions, they nod sagely. Of course, of course. Then Takeshi makes a bet that he can drink Celestino under the table, and that becomes the new topic of discussion.
It gets worse once he’s back at the hotel. He spends countless minutes staring up at the ceiling in the dark, because that heavy, unsettling feeling never went away, it just sank further and spread and morphed into something that’s now gnawing on his insides, keeping him awake.
It doesn’t help that he hasn’t heard from Viktor since before his Short Program, which could either mean anything or nothing at all. Maybe he’s still on the road. Maybe he’s busy. Or maybe he thought that Yuuri would be asleep by this time. That would make two of them wrong tonight.
It was one picture. One picture. Fretting about this is so stupid, and the most frustrating thing is that he knows it’s stupid. But he can’t quell the storms already raging inside his head.
Grabbing his phone from the side table, he opens up his messages with Viktor, and scrolls up blindly. Viktor is almost always the one to initiate their conversations, he notices now, at any given time. He never really gave much thought to it before, but in a way, it kind of makes sense. Viktor was the one who left a note in his pocket, Viktor was the one who agreed to be his musical consultant, and Viktor was the one who poured out the contents of his heart and soul, a story twenty-seven years running that he packed into a single night. The only times Yuuri ever reached out to him first were when he was either drunk or remorseful. What does that say about him?
And maybe he can end this, so very easily. Just start the damn conversation. There are a million and one ways. ‘Hey’. ‘How’s it going?’ ‘Guess what, today I learned Minako-sensei can outdrink both Celestino AND Takeshi.’ Just send something. Anything.
But his thumbs mostly just hover over the text box. When he does start writing something, he makes it about halfway before tearing into the backspace key, hating himself with every passing second.
Why is this so hard? It shouldn’t be so hard. What the hell is wrong with him?!
Yuuri stares at the screen so long that it gives up on him, plunging the room into darkness.
What’s wrong with him… it’s the same as it’s always been, he supposes. And when he finally gives up, fighting back a treacherous burning in his eyes that he tells himself is not what he thinks it is, he ends up silently begging Viktor to just call him. Or email, or send some silly picture of a typo on a takeout menu with zero captions, like he’s done so many times before. He knows very well that this, too, is stupid, absolutely stupid. But he feels that if he somehow bites the bullet and starts that conversation, he’ll wind up asking why are you in Chicago, why do you know Chris, why didn’t you tell me, why, why, why, why.
His phone stays dormant the whole night.
The day of the Free Skate starts with Yuuri submerging his head into a sink full of ice-cold water, hoping it would make up for not having slept a wink. It doesn’t work.
“Not even a little bit?” Celestino takes a look at him and mutters something in Italian. Yuuri doesn’t know what he just said, but he’s inclined to agree. “Let’s play it safe today, then. First of all, you’re absolutely not going to be trying that quad flip.”
“Okay,” Yuuri whispers.
“And don’t practice any jumps during the warmup. You’re skating last, but you should save your strength for the actual program.”
“Okay.”
He only starts to really feel the fatigue a couple of hours later, as Minako-sensei is smoothing his hair back with gel and trying to keep him distracted with talk of Hasetsu: people are leaving in droves, she says, and she hardly has any students left anymore. But it looks like his comeback yesterday breathed some new life into this sad, struggling town, and isn’t that just a kick in the teeth.
“Just do your best out there today.” Minako-sensei finishes up with his hair and rests her hands on his shoulders. She smooths out the few creases on his costume, meets his eyes in the mirror, and gives him a warm smile. “You look so good in this. Very handsome.”
Yuuri doesn’t say anything back, but he manages a weak smile. This rich blue number, with gleaming golden cords holding the jacket closed in front, was mostly a product of Minako-sensei’s mind. It makes you look like a prince! the triplets gushed in near-unison when they first saw him in this costume a few days ago. Yuuri stares at his reflection in the mirror, at the dark circles under his eyes that Minako-sensei will try to hide with makeup in a few minutes. He doesn’t feel anything remotely close to regal at all.
There’s a cloud hanging over him, stalking him as he makes his way across the ice during the six-minute warm-up. ‘Play it safe,’ Celestino said, as though that would make everything okay. What is that even supposed to mean? If it wasn’t enough that he still has so many doubts about the program he’s about to skate publicly for the first time in the next half-hour, his head is stuffed full of thoughts of Viktor, and of Chris and Chicago and Chris’ jazzy Short Program, and Viktor.
Yuuri is so distracted that he forgets completely about Celestino’s earlier warning about jumps, and only remembers when he’s already pushed off of the ice. And the trouble with being mid-air is that you have very little control over where you go; by the time he sees the shock of red and gold, and realizes that he’s on a collision course with Minami, it’s already too late.
He pops the jump at the soonest possible second, and manages to avoid hitting Minami at all, if barely. But he fails to stick the landing, and goes down hard. Though his shoulder takes the brunt of the impact, his head still slams into the ice before it’s all over.
Yuuri doesn’t register the initial ripple of shock throughout the audience, but he does hear some of the organizers talking frantically in Japanese. Minami is screaming or crying out his name, he can’t tell which. The sound of skates -- probably the medics’ -- comes closer and closer. At that moment, he wants to curl into a ball, make himself as small as possible until he might disappear, but he can’t. He can’t. He hates this.
He hates himself.
“The good news is, it doesn’t look like there’s any serious damage…”
Yuuri winces from the penlight being shone into his eyes. It’s already too bright in this room, though it’s really less of a ‘room’ and more of just a cordoned-off area where Celestino dragged him to be evaluated by one of the medics on-site.
His head is pounding, and his shoulder is killing him even more. The head medic’s and Celestino’s voices are too loud; the lights overhead are too bright. The penlight shines into his eyes again, and he has to fight down a wave of nausea.
“What do you recommend?” Celestino asks.
“Well, everything seems clear.” He turns to Yuuri and finally clicks the penlight off. “You might have a bump on your head over the next few days, and maybe a nasty bruise on your shoulder. Other than that, you’re fine.”
He supposes that that is good news, but he’s not sure if it’s what he wanted to hear.
“What about the Free Skate?” Minako-sensei speaks in English for Celestino’s benefit. “Should he withdraw?”
“That’s up to him.”
Through the muffled speakers, he hears the announcer calling Minami Kenjirou to the ice. He doesn’t have long to decide.
He surveys everyone else who’s in the room, because he can’t think of anything else to do. Takeshi wants him to fight. Celestino wants to pull him out, arguing that given the circumstances -- and so long as he does decently at his Grand Prix events -- he should be able to get Yuuri a bye to the Four Continents easily.
Minako-sensei touches his hand. “What do you want to do, Yuuri?”
If only he had an easy answer to that. He wants to skate, in the sense that he wants to finish this competition, and he wants to earn that spot at Nationals. He wants so badly to be able to live up to everyone’s expectations of his grand comeback, to show them that yes, yes, it was worth it to believe in him after all. He doesn’t want to waste their goodwill. But he’s a wreck, in more ways than one, and he just knows that if he tries to skate to Stammi Vicino now -- a piece he was already struggling with, even before he got derailed by all this -- he’s only setting himself up to fail.
In that case… there’s one other thing he can do. He has one last gamble to make.
“I’ll need to change,” he finally says. “Can I have my bag, please?”
Celestino, Takeshi, and Minako-sensei all stare at him.
“My bag, please,” he says again, trying to stop his voice from shaking. “I really don’t have much time.”
They stare at each other.
When he pulls out a single disc in a worn case, wrapped up in a white turtleneck with blue flame-like designs, in turn wrapped in a flashy blue jacket -- the ‘insurance policy’, his Free Skate costume from last season -- Celestino understands. “Yuuri. They might not let you do this,” he warns him. “And if they do, you’re looking at a hefty deduction.”
“It’s okay,” Yuuri says. “It’s better than nothing. I’ll take it.”
As Celestino leaves to go talk to the organizers, Minako-sensei asks if he’s sure about this. But he doesn’t have the heart to lie.
It’s a long, painful battle to keep his mind empty when he glides to the center of the rink. It’s also one that he’s losing.
No. Stop. Focus.
The words are useless, and smothered by all of the noises causing a ruckus in his head. The slow-building, tentative applause as his name is announced. The murmurings from the announcers’ table that he’s glad he can’t make sense of as he skates past. The sound of his blades against the ice, loud, somehow growing louder with every passing second.
The surface of the ice seems to expand in real time, the edges escaping from him, leaving him behind. Was it always this cold? Yuuri swallows, and the pain in his head throbs in response.
At the very last second, he thinks maybe Celestino was right. A no-show at Nationals this year isn’t much better than 11th place last year. Maybe he should have withdrawn after all. But then the music starts, and pulls him into a dance that, even with long months of atrophy and too many false starts and stops since then, his limbs and muscles somehow still remember after all this time.
As he skates, he can’t help but wonder if all that much has really changed since then, in the grand scheme of things. He remembers dimly that this time last year, he only really knew one quad jump, and Celestino didn’t trust him enough with it to put it in a combo. In fact, he’d arranged Yuuri’s jumps so that the single quad toe loop would come practically right out of the gate, at the end of the first verse. That was how he was with Yuuri’s programs: safe, practical, get the risky stuff out of the way first so that you’re left with the stuff you’re comfortable with. Not that it helped in Sochi, but last year’s Yuuri had appreciated his pragmatism.
Now, he’s not so sure. But he knows he’s screwed it up when he leaves the ice -- he takes off halfway through that prolonged, unresolved note before the violin retreats back to repeat the theme, and it’s too early, and just feels wrong. He two-foots the landing, hears the crowd’s reaction, and feels something start to sting in his eyes.
Yuuri keeps going, because there’s not much else he can do. There’s another jump coming up, after this closed mohawk that he didn’t even realize he was doing right now. It’s arguably his strongest jump, too. Just a little more space, just a little more speed. He moves almost on autopilot, trusting that whatever his ballet training had imbued into his limbs would be enough to carry him through. Spread-eagle, here we go.
It’s not the worst triple axel in the world. But the landing leaves something to be desired, and his leg wobbles. He extends his arms to try to reclaim his balance, barely saves it, and only hopes that that maneuver somehow ended up looking remotely graceful.
Maybe Sochi wasn’t just a one-time blunder after all.
Maybe it was the beginning of the end.
(“Shake it off.”)
It’s salt on an open wound, to hear Viktor Nikiforov’s voice popping up in his head as Yuuri fights to salvage this program. Wasn’t it Viktor, and his own endless worrying about Viktor, that got him into this terrible headspace to begin with? Yuuri grits his teeth and wishes, for not the first time, that he’d never seen that damn Instagram post to begin with. That he’d never allowed Phichit’s barrage of texts to pique his curiosity, that he’d just given Minako-sensei his phone to lock in a box until these Qualifiers ended.
Oh, but those are all just secondary, aren’t they? Afterthoughts. If only he hadn’t grown so close -- if only he hadn’t cared too much, enough to be jealous and hurt and unable to help it despite a multitude of reasonable explanations -- then none of this would be an issue. Right?
If he ends up nailing the triple axel, single loop, and triple flip combo that follows, well, it might be at least partly out of spite. Still, finally, the crowd roars.
(“Wow!”)
Shut up, he wants to say as he launches himself into a spin.
But that’s telling, isn’t it? How often has Viktor cheered him up and cheered him on like this, over many a late-night practice session on his precious nights off? It must have been often enough, if Yuuri can hear his voice ringing so clearly over the music, the ice, and the sounds of the crowd.
He skates with purpose through his choreographic sequence, and through the next section as the music swells into something richer. It’s a struggle, all of it. How many minutes has it been? One? Less? It feels like it’s already been ten, and it seems like the ice never ends. He needs something to hold on to, when the pain in his head pulses, or when his shoulder screams in protest as he moves.
(“You’ve got this.”)
No, I don’t.
(“You’re doing so great.”)
Triple lutz, triple loop. He stumbles at the end of the combo, the fingers of one hand grazing the ice before he can right himself.
So that’s how it is, then. For all that his feelings for Viktor have been a liability to him, kept him awake and distracted and anxious, so anxious… it’s still Viktor, on the other side of that same coin, that’s keeping him from falling apart right now. The soft whisper that’s a permanent undercurrent to his voice whenever he speaks, doubly so when he sings, and the way Yuuri just knows if he’s smiling or pouting or scowling, or fighting not to cry, without having to look at him -- it’s all so clear and perfect in his mind.
Even when he’s so far away… even when the last thing Yuuri wants to do is keep thinking about him… he still manages to drown away all the noise of the world, and quiets the cacophony in Yuuri’s mind.
The frantic, jittery notes die down as the music returns to the familiar melody of the first two verses, the violin calming itself at around the same time that Yuuri does, a little bit. He skates out of a spin towards the center of the rink, building up speed. Shutting his eyes, he imagines that he’s just practicing, with only Viktor in the audience.
(“When you skate, it’s like you’re creating music with your body.”)
Triple lutz.
(“Beats and notes in every sweep of your leg, a crescendo before you jump.”)
Triple flip, triple toe combo. This one is less clean, because he pops it half a second too early, and so he’s not sure he got all the rotations in for the triple toe.
What would Viktor say, if he were here? Yuuri shushes the useless voice in his head that says but he’s not, he’s in Chicago, with Chris, and replaces it with Viktor’s instead. It’s fine, he’d say. It could have been worse. You’ll nail the next one. Viktor would encourage him.
The triple loop that follows is clean, textbook even. The crowd certainly seems to think so. But Yuuri’s not listening to them.
Because Viktor would always encourage him.
(“It’s entrancing.”)
And… he’s certainly had to do it a lot, hasn’t he? As he skates his heart out to the step sequence, fighting the pain and the exhaustion that’s seeped into his bones, he thinks of how many times he’s shown up a mess at Viktor’s door, and how many times Viktor’s talked him down, again and again and again, and… he thinks he understands, now.
This pit in his stomach… this bitterness, ugly and the loud, that’s had a stranglehold of his emotions and his sanity since yesterday… maybe it has nothing to do with Chris at all. That Instagram post and all of the speculation it caused probably made up the proverbial last straw, sure. But at the end of the day, it’s something much, much simpler:
I’m… not good enough for him.
How could he ever hope to have been? Viktor is a fount of talent, haunted yes but perfect, who swept all of the competitions of his chosen craft in his prime. He’s kind, and he’s eloquent, and he’s travelled the world and drawn people far and wide to his side like moths to a bright, brilliant flame. He’s beautiful -- he’s so beautiful. So much so that it hurts.
And for all that he’s supposed to have fallen for Yuuri himself, or so he claims anyway, how did that happen? When Yuuri was so drunk that he didn’t remember any of what he might have said or done the morning after? How is he supposed to live up to, or compete with, a version of himself that he doesn’t even know?
How is he supposed to trust that this will last, now that Viktor knows who he really is?
Yuuri feels the doubt, and the self-loathing, squeezing at his chest as he prepares for his last jump. It’s a triple salchow; he should be able to do it in his sleep. Play it safe, Celestino’s voice echoes in his mind. Play it safe, his aching muscles and bones beg of him. Play it safe.
But he’s already building up more speed, and before he knows it, he’s already turned it into a quad.
He falls, landing hard on his hip. Everything else protests, threatening to break; he has to bite back a scream. But he gets up, and forces himself to push on.
There’s a small ghost of a smile that tugs at the corner of his lips, sad, as he finishes up his combination spin. I’m a dime-a-dozen figure skater certified by the Japan Skating Federation. What a tragic mistake on the JSF’s part, he thinks to himself. Though he got all four rotations in, that sorry excuse for a landing dashed any hopes of that gamble paying off. But that’s just like him, though, isn’t it? When he tries his best to rise above, so often, he falls short anyway.
…Viktor deserves better.
In the end, he still gets first place. His Short Program score from yesterday blew everyone else’s out of the water, and it was more than enough to win.
Later, when he looks at the official picture of the winners that the triplets manage to get their hands on from somewhere online, he looks at the image of himself standing on top of the podium, and thinks that despite his smile, he’s never quite looked so sad.
The car that Celestino hired to take him to the airport picks him up at the stadium, because he has a very long flight to look forward to, and a very small buffer between the time he lands in Detroit and the time he has to hit the road again to accompany one of his junior students to a competition. Yuuri has a couple more days to spend here, but the moment he lands in Detroit, Celestino promises, they’re going to sit down, and have a long talk.
Yuuri is decidedly not looking forward to that talk. He spends most of the train ride back home with his head buried in a sushi plushie, pretending to nap. This seems to be the one time in his life where ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ actually works, because at some point he realizes he’s too tired to mope, and the next second Minako-sensei is shaking him gently awake.
“We’re here,” she says softly. She doesn’t say much more, but he feels her eyes on him as they disembark.
He still won, and so he still gets an extra large bowl of katsudon for dinner. All of his attempts to help clean up after the meal are waved away. “Get some rest, dear,” his mother says. She presses a kiss onto the top of his head. “You’ve had a very long day.”
When he finally checks his phone again, as he’s just about to turn in for the night, there’s a single text from Viktor waiting.
Viktor
Hey! How did it go?
Yuuri stares at the message for a long time, thinking about how to respond. Honesty would mean ‘awful’, or ‘terrible’. Glad it’s over, but I’m in a lot of pain. He’s typing up something close to that last one when he hesitates, because he knows that what will come next is Viktor worrying about him, asking a million questions. And Yuuri will placate him on each one of them even though, deep down, no, no, he’s not fine at all. But, as he decided today, Viktor deserves better than to be a constant dumping ground of Yuuri’s sadness and insecurities.
Viktor
Good. Managed to get 1st. Qualified
for nationals.Congratulations!!
So proud of you. I knew you could do
it :)
He starts composing a response: I’m sorry. I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry. He couldn’t skate to the piece Viktor worked so hard to compose and play, music he didn’t have to give to Yuuri at all, but he did anyway. And Yuuri squandered all of that love, and he’s not even sure he would have had the guts to use it even if he hadn’t taken that nasty fall during the warm-up. His head hurts, but his heart hurts something worse.
Viktor
Have you watched it?
Not yet
Trying to find a site that doesn’t look like it
might give my computer chlamydia
It really was a small event, much smaller than any of the Grand Prix competitions for sure, but Yuuri knows that there should be footage of it floating around on the internet by now. Not all of the material that the triplets use for the yearly mashup videos they send him on his birthday is self-filmed, and they must be getting the rest of it from somewhere. It’s only a matter of time.
Yuuri hopes that whatever website Viktor eventually finds won’t include video of the warm-up. But he’s been having a terrible track record for hopes and outcomes lately.
Viktor
I’m going to bed now
Oh of course, it’s late there isn’t it?
Good night!
Sleep well
He’s nowhere near asleep when his phone buzzes relentlessly. Viktor is calling him. Yuuri lets it go on until the buzzing stops, but soon it starts up again, and he has to wait it out again. “Don’t,” he whispers. “Don’t waste your time on me.”
Viktor tries three more times, before finally, finally, Yuuri gets silence.
Or so he thinks, because about ten minutes later, when he still hasn’t quite fallen asleep, his phone buzzes once. It’s an email this time, still from Viktor, but with an audio file attached to the message:
A little something if you need help getting to sleep. Sorry if the quality isn’t the best.
Love,
Viktor
It hurts, just how well Viktor knows him. Yuuri plugs in his headphones and holds his phone to his chest, and he lets Viktor’s piano lull him to rest.
The long, long journey back to Detroit is made longer by the fact that his flight out of Japan remains grounded for the first two hours. This starts a chain reaction of misfortune that has him missing his connecting flight, and he has to wait even longer before he can get on the next one. He keeps his phone on airplane mode the whole time he’s waiting, starting a mobile game about raising koi fish that Yuuko recommended. It was supposed to help with anxiety, she told him. It kind of works, but his phone is dead by the time he finally lands in Detroit.
Yuuri heaves a sigh as he finally retrieves his bag from the carousel. He’ll have to pay through the nose if he wants a cab, but he’s tired and everything hurts, so it’s a price he’ll play gladly tonight.
With half of his mind focused on following the signs for ‘Ground Transportation’, Yuuri finally forces himself to come to terms with what he’s supposed to do. He spent his last two days in Japan doing anything but thinking, from helping out a bit at the onsen to taking the triplets out for ramen. On his last night there, he paused in the middle of a run across the bridge, staring at Hasetsu against the sunset, a sleepy town already winding down for the day. He wondered, then, if the next time he comes back home might be for good.
It may very well be. This season was supposed to be his last shot, one more try to shoot for the moon and see if he can make it even halfway there. He’ll still finish the season; he’s already invested so much time and effort into it, and so many other people have given him so much support. If only for them, he needs to see this through to the end.
And after that…?
The Arrivals area is full of people waiting and talking in a loud, unintelligible din. Somewhere in the distance, a baby cries; somewhere closer, a dog barks. Yuuri keeps his head down low, and moves on.
He supposes he’s already made up his mind. After this season, he’ll retire.
What comes after that isn’t too clear to him yet -- maybe he’ll finish his degree, maybe he’ll go home to Hasetsu. He can figure out the rest of the details then. As for Viktor… well, though it hurts to think about it, this is probably for the best as well. All Yuuri does is hold him back and cause trouble for him. And when he’s not doing that, he’s stewing in jealousy over something small, something that he’s too much of a coward to confront Viktor or Chris about anyway. Though he tries so hard, he’s unable to just… trust.
And that’s unfair, and that’s wrong. Love is supposed to be selfless and self-sacrificing, isn’t it? That’s the thought that he turned over and over in his head on the plane, until by the time it touched down, there was only one possible outcome that made sense.
If he loves Viktor… really loves him… then the one, good thing that he can do for him is…
Another bark interrupts his thoughts. It sounds like the same dog from earlier, but the sound is even closer now. Yuuri raises his head and scans the Arrivals area, trying to find the source of the sound. His eyes eventually land on… a very familiar brown poodle, straining against her leash which has been wound around an armrest.
“Makkachin?” Yuuri shifts his gaze just a bit to the left, and locks eyes with the person on the seat next to her.
A beat passes, and before he knows it, he’s already running.
Despite everything -- all of the worry and guilt, and all of the resolve he built up to do right by Viktor by one day walking away -- there’s something inside of Yuuri that buckles and snaps at the sight of him here. And he’s unable to even breathe until he’s finally closed the distance between them, and thrown himself into Viktor’s waiting, open arms.
“It’s okay. Shhhh, I’ve got you.” Yuuri barely even registers that he’s sobbing into Viktor’s shoulder, or that he’s got a death grip on the back of Viktor’s coat like he’s terrified to let go. Maybe he is, on some level. Viktor’s hand finds the back of his head and he pulls Yuuri closer, shielding him from the whispers and the stares. “I’ve got you,” he says again, quietly, into Yuuri’s ear.
Yuuri doesn’t know how long they stand there, and how much time he spends crying it out. All of the hurt and frustration he’s bottled up over the past few days -- because Hasetsu sees him as a hero, and he can’t break in front of them without shattering something else -- come rushing out of him in a torrent that doesn’t seem to end. And he hates that he’s doing this, because exactly the last thing he wants to do is be a burden on Viktor again.
But… maybe it’s not so bad? To let himself have this moment of selfishness, knowing that these moments will end someday?
He finally pulls back when he feels he can breathe again. Makkachin is standing on her hind legs, pawing at his arm, and he lets out a broken little laugh and greets her too. “I… don’t understand,” he says to Viktor when he finds his voice. “W-why are you here? You said, your work trip -- ”
“I cut it short.”
Yuuri feels the guilt flooding back. Really?
“I learned about what happened.” Viktor wipes away some of the tears on his cheeks with the pad of his thumb. “You clearly didn’t want to talk about it, and I respect it if you still don’t. But I thought, maybe you’d be tired, and you’d be travelling alone and…” He finally smiles, and jerks his head in the vague direction of one of the exits. “I still have that rental car. Let me take you home? Or wherever you want to go from here. Just say the word.”
There are many words to say, words about Chicago and Chris and crutches and self-sacrifice. But Yuuri only nods, and manages one. “Home.”
“Yours?” He shakes his head. “Okay. Now?” He shakes his head again. “Okay. That’s okay. Whenever you’re ready.”
Yuuri rests his head on Viktor’s shoulder again, and Viktor lets him. The people who were watching them earlier must have lost interest, because the crowd is in a constant flux as he stares into space.
Just like them, he needs to move on.
“Viktor, I need to know -- ”
“Yuuri, I was thinking -- ”
They both start at the same time, and stop at the same time. Yuuri pulls back as Viktor chuckles. Despite the bags under his eyes and his slightly-tousled hair, probably from having slept in this airport, he’s still the most beautiful man Yuuri has ever seen.
One last moment of weakness, of selfishness. If this season was meant to be his last shot… if there’s already one long chapter of his life that he’s decided to close after Worlds… then he might as well make the most of the time he has left.
“Will -- will you keep making music for me?” he says. “For as long as I’m skating?”
If Viktor looks surprised at that, it only lasts for a moment. He takes one of Yuuri’s hands and brings it to his lips, kissing it in the same tender, fervent way as he did when Yuuri once locked them both out of the bar -- the night they promised to ‘start over’. “It kind of sounds like a marriage proposal,” he murmurs, “doesn’t it?”
What? Yuuri can’t help the huff of a laugh that leaves his lips. He’s right, he realizes, recalling the vague, traditional Japanese proposals mired in language that’s soft, and gentle, but eternally indirect. Will you make miso soup for me every morning? Would you like to lie in the same grave with me one day? And then the person proposed to would respond with something equally vague, and just as sweet.
How Viktor even knows about that is a mystery to him. I guess so? he doesn’t say, but a tiny lift of his shoulders says it doesn’t matter. He’s still waiting for an answer, after all.
The answer he gets is Viktor pulling him into another embrace. Caged in his arms, Yuuri feels his resolve crack when Viktor whispers, “Then I wish you would keep skating forever.”
One last moment of weakness, is what he tells himself again, when the tears return and the words threaten to rend his heart into pieces. At that moment, with the weight of his failures and the words he hasn’t said, and the challenges still lined up for the rest of the season to come, he makes one final concession to himself, and sketches his line in the sand once and for all.
“I’ll do my best to win,” he says, somehow finding the strength to keep his voice steady. “The Grand Prix, Worlds -- everything. I’ll win it all for you.”
And if I don’t… I’ll let you go.