Chapter Text
After Yuuri’s short program at the Grand Prix Final, Celestino tells him to turn off his phone.
Yuuri protests. “I want to keep up with Phichit and my family.”
“Your anxiety gets to you after the short program. Turning off your phone will shut off one source of anxiety and keep your head in the game. I don’t need you going down a rabbit hole of skating accidents online or reading arguments on social media. I know it’s a way to connect to the people you love, but it’s a double-edged sword. We need to keep you calm and focused for the next twenty-four hours.”
It’s a good argument. He shuts off his phone, willing himself to forget about it for the evening. It’s surprisingly difficult; he keeps pulling it out to check one thing or another, then stares blankly at the black screen and returns it to his pocket. Instead of worrying about social media, he’s worrying about the missed contact, but his coach is right: It’s only for a day.
The change leaves him bored in the evening. He reads a book, takes a walk, and ultimately finds himself with a marker in hand and his sleeve drawn up.
Hi, he writes.
A heart appears on his wrist shortly afterwards. So his soulmate is up.
Yuuri wipes the ink off his arm, the heart staying behind. It will remain as long as it’s on his other half’s skin. Tired, but bored. Coach stole my phone. It’s a close enough explanation that doesn’t involve having to write a novel on his skin.
Mine’s about to. Social media’s a mess today but I need to focus. Comp wknd.
Same. Good luck, Yuuri writes.
And you!!! So… Tell me about your day.
The man he only knows through his skin has been with him for as long as he can remember. They’ve spent many nights like this, talking about their interests or their days, sometimes for hours on end. They both trust each other deeply, yet they continue to play the societal dance of keeping their identities to themselves. It’s widely considered bad luck and a portent of an unhappy future for partners to disclose their identities without meeting organically. His partner has teased naming himself, but Yuuri insists on sticking with tradition. He’s stubborn like that. It’s incredibly rare for soulmates to never meet each other and often said that they bump into each other at just the right time to improve each other’s lives. That might be a misinformed assumption—if soulmates are perfect matches, then no matter when they meet, it should be good—but he follows the superstition regardless. His partner respects that.
Yuuri doesn’t mind not knowing. He knows this man’s heart, and that’s more important than the little details.
His partner is a professional athlete and an ice skater, but may not be a professional skater. Given the lineup at the GPF, he suspects not. His partner knows the same of him. Disclosure of the sport and exact competitions would all but identify the two of them to each other. Instead, they talk about their days in vague words, referring to practice and exercise and uniforms, filling Yuuri’s dreams with a man who’s simultaneously a professional ice skater, footballer, swimmer, and more. Based on time zones and bits and pieces of information he’s picked up over time, Yuuri assumes he lives in eastern Europe.
They each know the other is a man. He thinks his partner is unaware that he’s trans—he doesn’t recall mentioning his gender until he was sure he was a boy, and his partner was the first who knew Yuuri to refer to himself that way, though he wouldn’t know about that or the comfort and joy Yuuri felt about his acceptance at the time—but they’re on the same page regarding respect for trans people. The media had a field day when he switched from women’s to men’s skating in his last year of juniors, but it didn’t make too many waves in the skating community since he wasn’t big at the time. He’s glad to have put that behind him, and gladder still to always have someone with him who is guaranteed to accept him.
His heart is light when he finally turns in. He’s at the Grand Prix Final, skating against Victor Nikiforov in the men’s division and doing a damn good job of it. His coach, family, and Phichit are completely supportive of him. He’s comfortable with his image and body, and deeply in love with his soulmate. It’s a perfect combination. The only way this week could get better is if he were to meet said soulmate. It’s a long shot, but he falls asleep with a dopey smile on his face at that thought.
Yuuri’s free skate is clean. A little underwhelming with a fumble on one of the triples, but he does a great job and gets to watch Victor skate in person a few turns later. It’s exhilarating, especially since, after JJ’s final score turns out to be a hair under his, he’s going to medal. He doesn’t have an ounce of anxiety left as he watches Chris and Victor’s performances.
Standing on the podium next to Victor with a bronze medal makes him feel like he’s on top of the world. He can’t stop grinning. It’s a dream come true. Victor even shakes his hand, and as they walk off the ice, invites him for dinner along with Chris and one of the Russian women medalists. He says yes in a heartbeat. Victor himself recognizing him and seeing him as an equal—nothing compares.
They’ve all had post-performance interviews, but those were the easy questions. Now that medals have been awarded for one of the biggest competitions in the skating world, the more annoying ones will come along: What’s your plan for next season? Will you change anything for Worlds? How does it feel to take the podium at your first GPF? Yuuri has answers, but it’s hard to put them into words when people expect something more creative than “I’m going to do the same things I always do” or “I’m very happy.” He has to slog through this before he can change, shower, and head out for dinner.
Regardless of the tedium, nothing could bring him down from this high.
Reporters swarm them in the green room. Celestino beckons sharply at Yuuri, who just smiles and waves at him. He does not look happy about something, but Yuuri’s feeling so great that he’s certain he won’t fumble an interview. And if he does, well, that’s alright, too. Anyone would stutter standing next to Victor Nikiforov.
One of the reporters gets to Victor first. “Congratulations on your fifth Grand Prix gold! How does it feel to be on top yet again?”
As Victor says something about hard work and admiration for his competitors, Celestino frantically gestures to Yuuri, just out of sight of the cameras. Yuuri continues to smile at him. Morooka and a camera man that Yuuri vaguely recognizes stand in another corner of the room and he heads for them, but the other pair in the room, who he’d assumed were there for Chris (he sees Chris raise an eyebrow as they turn away from him, so apparently the other man had the same assumption) head straight for Yuuri. The cameras are already rolling.
The unfamiliar reporter stops before him with a bright smile. “Skater Katsuki! Congratulations on your bronze medal. How does it feel to be the first female to claim a medal in the men’s Grand Prix Final?”
At the tail end of that question, he hears the person interviewing Victor say, “Do you think it was fair to make Katsuki compete in the men’s division, taking JJ’s spot on the podium and removing Katsuki’s chance at gold in the women’s?”
He has never heard an interview room turn so silent.
Actually, he’s not so sure whether it’s silent or there’s white noise in his ears, or maybe he’s imagining this all as some kind of pre-competition nightmare and he’s about to wake up on the plane to Sochi and be offered a meal that tastes of cardboard. He would really, really prefer that. He blinks slowly, twice, but the scene does not change.
It’s been years since he came out. There were no questions like this at the qualifiers, not this year nor those prior, and he had believed this to be behind him. That he could keep moving forward with that part of his life put away in an old box and for everyone to now see him as a man. Many people don’t even know he’s trans, but now…
Morooka breaks the silence. “Congratulations, Yuuri! Your journey here has been a long time in the making. How does it feel to make your name alongside giants like Victor and represent Japan on the podium?”
Everyone in the room is looking at him. He stands frozen save for his shaking hands. “Um,” he says, feeling like he should say something, but unable to get any words out. He’s somewhat aware of Celestino striding towards him.
“How do you feel about the recent spotlight on the open secret of your gender?” asks the unfamiliar reporter. Other voices all begin to speak at the same time: “Mr. Nikiforov? How do you feel about…” “Yuuri Katsuki is a fair and equal competitor in the men’s…” “Don’t air that, we’ll sort out…” “Arrête, Vitya, ils ne méritent pas…” “Get those fucking cameras out of his face, you…”
A firm arm wraps around his shoulders and guides him past the cameras and into the locker room. Celestino sits him down next to his bag. “Get changed and we’ll get out of here.” He offers Yuuri some privacy by standing and looking down at his own phone.
Yuuri’s hands are trembling hard enough that it’s difficult to unlace his skates. He eventually manages. The familiar routine is hampered by the worry that he’ll be chased down any minute now by the people from that room. “What happened?” he asks when he feels like he can actually string together a few words.
“Assholes online made some kind of exposé regarding your transition. It went viral shortly before your short program. It’s nothing that wasn’t already out there, but your past has flown under a lot of people’s radars, especially since you were a junior when you made the switch. It’s news to a lot of people.”
When he takes off his top, he’s self-conscious of his scars in a way he hasn’t been for a couple years now. “You knew. You knew… and you kept me in the dark.”
“One day, Yuuri. I wanted to give you one day so that you could focus, chase the gold, and feel good about yourself. I’m damn proud of what you’ve achieved here.”
“Don’t you think I had a right to know? This is really big. This is going to have a huge impact on me,” Yuuri says bitterly, tugging on his jacket.
“That’s exactly why I didn’t want you to know right away, and exactly why I tried to intercept you before the reporters got to you. I’m going to see what we can do about those two because that was deeply inappropriate. I’m not surprised they brought it up, but the way they did…” Celestino huffs. “We’ll need to reschedule with Morooka. This evening. It should help cut through some of this bullshit.”
“I’m not fragile, Celestino. If something like this happens, I should know. Especially when it’s about me.” He picks up his bag. His hands are still shaking. “I get why you did it. Just… don’t do it again. Let’s get out of here.”
Yuuri reads the articles. They’re junk and he knows it, but they’re being shared worldwide and he should know what they’re saying about him. One of the most popular stories claims that he’s a confused, self-hating woman who transitioned to escape misogyny in Japan, giving up his dreams of gold to stand beneath men instead. Another claims he was coerced by his coach. A third calls him a yaoi-obsessed fujoshi who wants to play at being gay, as if the pseudonymous writer can glean his sexual orientation from his nonexistent love life. The list goes on. Many imply that he’s a victim of one agenda or another, while others claim he’s actively hurting himself, others, or the gay community. The constant between them all is that they accuse him of keeping this a secret to trick the world into treating him as a man.
The hardest part is seeing his deadname trend on social media.
He scrolls until he can’t handle it anymore. The good posts—Phichit making a proud post featuring him on the podium; Guang Hong and Leo posting in support of him “despite the haters”; and Minami, whom he barely remembers, commenting on transphobic posts to demand that Yuuri be respected—can’t outweigh the bad. The furor when he initially came out was bad enough, but it pales in comparison to this. Even those uninvolved with ice skating are talking about him. Clips from the green room have already started circulating, capturing his shock, Victor’s defensiveness, and Chris’ anger at the reporters
The texts he’s missed include a lot of good luck texts and a few sparse ones offering support despite the negative attention. There’s only one from Phichit: Call me when Ciao Ciao restores your phone privileges. He saves the voicemail from Mari for later.
Yuuri texts Morooka and Celestino on his way out of his hotel room after gelling back his hair and putting his costume back on. Celestino’s right; the strongest force against this wave of hate will be his own words. He’s never cared to dress up for an interview before, but he wants to look good for this one. His costume clearly has a masculine frame and would be unusual in women’s competitions. The medal around his neck almost feels arrogant, but he needs to hold that feeling of power to get him through the interview. He’s allowed to show off a little bit.
He won this medal. He skated his heart out and stood next to Victor. And, though he could hardly pick out the voices, he heard Victor sternly telling off the reporter for treating him as anything less than an equal competitor. That acknowledgement, more than anything, pushes him forward.
The hotel lobby is a much more comfortable venue than the rink. It’s quiet with few guests out here. It’s overly clean, formal, and muted, but the seats are comfortable. He picks a cluster of seats against the wall rather than the windows.
Though his anxiety rises when the others arrive, a casual chat dispels the worst of his nerves. Morooka isn’t just a reporter, but also a fan and long-time acquaintance, having been part of the mix since nearly the beginning of his professional career. He’s only ever touched on Yuuri’s gender once before with a question on what it was like shifting from women’s skating to men’s.
“For starters, no one’s surprised to see me wearing pants,” he had said back then, following it up with a comment about how very little was different aside from free skate length. They had moved on shortly after. It was a side note in the interview, just as Yuuri wanted it to be. At the time, Celestino had congratulated him on a good interview. Now that same question has been amplified thousandfold as people pick apart and highlight every nuance of the clip.
Yuuri and Celestino take Morooka’s word for it that his lineup of questions is standard aside from a couple of them, which he runs past them before they start filming. Yuuri would rather not talk about his gender at all, but at least this way, he has the agency to manage the framing himself.
They go through the questions comfortably. Yuuri’s become used to cameras and interviews by now. Usually he’s running off adrenaline after a performance, but his familiarity with Morooka and determination coming into this interview keep his nerves steady until they finally reach the topic everyone’s talking about.
“As you are aware, rumors began circulating yesterday regarding your gender. Although it wasn’t a secret, many fans didn’t know you were transgender until this weekend. What does it mean to you to compete and place in men’s figure skating?”
Yuuri is glad the question was given to him in advance and he had a few minutes to decide how to approach it, because he would have gotten stuck if this had been sprung onto him like it had in the green room. “I’ve heard the rumors and the speculation. My decision to transition and skate as a man is simple: I am a man. I live as a man, see myself as a man, and want to be treated as a man. I am more comfortable with my masculine body than I was before I transitioned. I don’t think of myself as ever having been a woman, and while I appreciate the name my parents gave me as a child, that name isn’t the true me,” Yuuri says. “My transition is a very personal journey. My family, fellow skaters, fans, Coach Cialdini, the ISU, JSF, and you, Morooka-san, have all respected that and treated me like any other man in figure skating, making it a welcoming space for me. The support and acceptance I’ve received have made all the difference. Placing at this competition means a lot to me, but that’s in my capacity as a professional figure skater and is not something I associate with my transition.”
“As a follow-up question, how do you feel about people sharing your programs from before your transition, when you were known under a different name?”
“I’m proud of the work that I did, but I would rather be credited as Yuuri Katsuki regardless of my name at the time.” He hesitates, then adds: “I wasn’t comfortable with my body or my image when competing in women’s. It isn’t what I want people to think of when they think of me, and I don’t want to see those performances again myself because of my discomfort, but I don’t mind if they’re shared because I still worked hard on them.”
“Thank you for the insight, Katsuki-senshu. Speaking of your career,” Morooka says, launching into a question that has nothing to do with gender or transition. Yuuri hadn’t realized how tense he’d gotten, but he feels like he comes back to himself now that they’ve passed that hurdle.
He’s done his part. Now he just needs to ignore social media and wait until it all dies down.
Victor enjoys banquets. They’re another chance to perform, showing off his charm and impressing others with his wit. He flusters women when he dances with them, his effortless and well-practiced steps adding another layer to the seductive persona he wears. In this room, he is not just the winner, but the prize.
Today, he sulks through stale conversations while sipping a glass of champagne. Every chance he gets, he redirects the conversation onto Yuri Plisetsky, who is behaving more politely than ever since Yakov drilled the importance of proper etiquette into him. He’ll need to convince sponsors he’s the right image for their brand; a hot headed twerp won’t appeal to many.
Christophe steals Victor away mid-conversation. Yuri looks back at them, eyes wide as he notices he’s being abandoned, but plasters a smile right back on his face as he speaks with someone who he clearly doesn’t know.
“This is dreadful. Let’s ditch. We’ve been here a couple hours already,” Chris complains in French. “Yuuri left, so it would be socially acceptable for us, as well.”
“He probably just took a breather after drinking too much.” Victor wasn’t staring at him, but he had noticed Yuuri downing glasses of wine like water and pointedly avoiding pretty much everyone.
“My dear, no one with anxiety is reentering an event like this once they get an out, especially when the wolves are prowling.”
“Walking out on reporters doesn’t mean he has anxiety,” Victor points out.
“You know what they and fans are like. No public moment of anxiety goes unnoticed and he has had a lot of those. It’s probably why he didn’t join us for dinner last night. It can’t be easy to handle that amount of stress.”
Victor smiles and shakes hands with someone as they pass by and congratulate him on another win. “We should catch up with him before our flights tomorrow. I want to talk with him about his step sequence in his free skate; it was enthralling and he made it look so easy. I can’t believe I haven’t paid attention to him this season.”
“He will be a good contender for Worlds,” Chris says. He looks sideways at Victor, then does a double-take and sets down his glass on the nearest table. “Vitya, dear.” He presses a thumb to Victor’s upper lip, then his eyebrows furrow.
“Is there something on my face?”
Chris looks hard at him, touching his upper lip again, then takes Victor’s wrist and guides him towards the exit. He makes a detour to pass by a table with snacks, picking up a napkin and pressing it against Victor’s mouth and nose. “Hold this.”
Victor complies. “It can’t be that bad,” he says, but continues holding the napkin in place regardless. Chris drags him all the way to the nearest bathroom. “Or is this your getaway excuse?” He lowers the napkin once they’re in the bathroom and takes a look in the mirror to see what little thing seemed to concern his friend so much.
Blood covers the lower half of Victor’s face. He reaches up to touch, but finds that his skin is dry—and there’s a smear and flecks on his hand as well. He immediately rinses his hands, but the red remains. He ends up staring at himself in the mirror, filled with horror as the man he loves keeps getting hurt. A red line appears on his lip, then a nick on his forehead, and he turns away.
This isn’t an accident. Someone is attacking his soulmate. He can only see the pigment that comes from the blood. How many bruises does he bear that Victor can’t see? Is his nose bent and broken? Why would anyone hurt such a sweet man in the first place?
His soulmate hasn’t written for an entire day. Could he have stopped this if he had pestered him some more?
“You haven’t met, have you?” Chris asks quietly.
Victor shakes his head. He starts pacing, making it across the bathroom a few times before Chris guides him out. They end up in the brisk evening air, at which point Chris helps him into his coat (when did he pick that up?) and a scarf of unknown origin that Chris adjusts to cover his lower face. Victor isn’t sure where they’re going. He isn’t sure Chris knows, either, but Victor has the urgent need to do something, and right now, walking at least gets him moving.
Chris guides him around corners, keeping them both within a populated area. The noise does little for Victor’s racing mind. What if his soulmate is writing him right now? He keeps checking the back of his left hand and sees nothing but blood and scrapes. What if this is the last he ever sees of his soulmate? The thought makes him walk faster and he starts talking. “He has a competition this weekend. His coach took his phone. He traveled, but I don’t know where to. I don’t know what he does. God, what if he can’t call anyone because he doesn’t have his phone? What if he’s lost in a foreign country? He sounds capable, but I don’t know.”
“Tell me about him,” Chris says.
He knows much about Victor’s soulmate already. Victor doesn’t know what talking will accomplish, but he does so at Chris’s insistence. “He’s a few years younger than I am. Strong. I think he does professional ballet or some other dance, but he knows how to skate and has the skills to jump. He’s been working hard studying at university abroad. We only write in English. Based on language and time zones, he must be studying in the US or Canada, and he must have grown up in Australia. He’s a fan of my skating. Not the me that he knows, but the Victor that he sees on the screen. Those conversations can get awkward, but they’re flattering. I’ve often wondered if we might meet in person at an event like this,” Victor says. He almost smiles. “He’s a gentle man who misses his dog back home. Five years at university; could you imagine? I never even went. He works so hard to balance athletics and education. He says he’s nervous at events, but he works through it because he wants to win. The other night, he said he did well on the first day and felt good going into the second. I may not know what he does, but I’m proud of him. He seemed so excited.” When he turns his head, he sees Chris typing quickly on his phone. “Tell me Yakov isn’t trying to chase me down.” His own phone is on silent for the evening.
“I’ve never been able to picture you with an Australian. Or in Australia. I’m certain you would melt.”
“I have been wondering what to do when we meet. I love him, Chris, and I believe he loves me. I would move across the world for him if he asked. I have enough sense that I would get to know him in person first, of course, but I have been dreaming of such a day when we know each other well enough for that. I need to meet him. I need to believe he will be okay.”
“Trust that he will be. Few go their lives without meeting their other half.”
“How are we supposed to meet when we’re always on different continents?” Victor bumps his arm. “You’re distracted.”
“Your words reminded me of something. Of someone.”
“Texting your other half?”
“For once, I am not.”
An incredulous thought hits Victor. “Don’t tell me you’re trying to figure out who he is. Even if you somehow managed to, we could not help him. Do not give me some kind of cruel hope.”
“I am trying to find someone who I know is here and may be doing unwell. He shares a remarkable amount of similarities to your soulmate, but unlike your soulmate, you may actually be able to help him.”
“Whoever it is, you think he is my soulmate,” Victor says slowly.
“I did not say that.”
“Do you have any idea how worried I am right now? You cannot try to force a solution to a problem that has no solution. We don’t even know any Australians!”
“Ah, I got his number from a friend.” Chris adds the contact and calls the number, speaking to Victor as he waits. “Very well, you are right. I think he is your soulmate. If he is, then he is in trouble and needs help. If not, then he is likely having a very bad weekend for unrelated reasons and it would be remiss of us not to check up on him.” Chris frowns at the screen and taps it once, presumably to redial. “You feel better when you’re doing something and it would keep your mind off of this.”
“No, I don’t think it would.”
“Perhaps not. Unfortunately, he isn’t picking up.” Chris stops walking as they near a corner. The street is narrow and filled with many small restaurants. The smell of delicious meats and other foods more filling than whatever the banquet had wafts through the street. Chris taps at his phone a few more times.
“I’m not hungry,” Victor says. He wouldn’t want to eat with his face covered in red, anyway. He’s grateful for Chris’s decision to grab the scarf.
“I’m not inclined, either.”
Victor waits quietly for half a minute. He’s too restless. “Whoever your friend is, he’s probably busy. Or you’ve misread the situation.”
He sees the moment Chris’s face lights up. “I requested his location and he sent a pin. Come on.” He takes Victor’s hand and leads him down the street. They ignore the vendors trying to tempt them into their businesses and continue along, taking a couple of turns down streets Victor doesn’t recognize from his few jaunts out into the city.
Victor does not believe for a moment that his soulmate is in Sochi. It would be a joke for their first meeting to go like this instead of meeting at a place like the competition or banquet. For all that Victor was looking forward to this competition, the weekend has done its best to chip away at his patience and drag down his good mood. The press circus, his soulmate going quiet, his soulmate getting hurt, Yakov getting on his case more than usual, and a fall during practice (which is likely the reason Yakov’s mood turned sour)... He is ready to go home.
They walk around the front of a couple businesses where Chris is clearly looking for something or someone. One place is closed and another is open, so they walk inside. Chris scans the place and walks back out the same minute. “Care to tell me who we’re looking for?” Victor asks. He is ready to start walking away on his own. It’s getting dark already, and darker still in the small alleyways.
Chris brings him to circle back around the businesses and walk behind them. There’s nothing back here but crates and a large dumpster.
“No one’s out here, Chris.”
They keep walking towards the wall at the end, passing the dumpster, and that’s when Victor sees him.
Yuuri Katsuki sits on the ground, nestled between the dumpster and the wall of the restaurant they had just dipped into. Blood coats his face from a broken nose, split lip, and nicks on his forehead, the red half-hiding the bruises starting to show. It trails down his neck and has soaked into his black jacket. His scraped, blood-flecked hands sit in his lap, holding his phone. His eyes are swollen and half-open, making him look dazed, and when he looks over at them, it doesn’t seem like he’s really seeing them.
Victor drops to his knees beside him. “Yuuri?” he says shakily, taking Yuuri’s hand. His skin is cold. When he looks down, he can see the tips of Yuuri’s fingers tinged red with chill. The touch smears some of the blood onto Victor’s palm, a matching mark showing on Yuuri’s own at the same time. “Yuuri, stay with me,” he says in English. He slips out of his coat and drapes it over Yuuri.
Chris kneels beside him, speaking in English as well. “Call emergency services, Vitya. We shouldn’t move him in case something’s broken.” When Victor doesn’t move, Chris pokes him hard. “Call them, damnit!”
Victor stands and calls, pacing and glancing back down at those two. Chris checks over Yuuri for obvious injuries and keeps him awake, talking to him quietly. It’s too much. That’s why Chris has him on the phone; he needs to do something. He only belatedly realizes that he had to be the one to call because Chris doesn’t speak Russian.
Everything passes in a blur. Medics arrive and take Yuuri away in a stretcher. Victor manages to join in the ambulance only after lowering his scarf. Though the government does not count gay partners as family, soulmates—presumed platonic in cases like this—get a pass. It makes him feel bitter to need to show the blood like that, but he is grateful to not need to part from Yuuri for the trip. Chris would have had to guide him through the streets to the hospital.
His heart aches to see Yuuri nearly unconscious with an IV pressed into his arm. How can he know this man so intimately yet not at all?