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When he was twenty-seven years old, Viktor Nikiforov finally discovered what love was. It wasn’t that love was something that he hadn’t considered before, it wasn’t even that love was something that he hadn’t encountered (at least claimed to), it was just that love was… something undefined. When he was twenty-seven, that definition started to grow a little clearer – in the form of Katuski Yuuri.
Viktor Nikiforov found love in the form of a drunk, pole-dancing figure skater from Japan, and he was shocked to realize that. It wasn’t immediate, and every moment he spent in love with Yuuri, he realized there were a thousand things that he should be saying, things that he would never actually have the chance to say.
The first was that night of the banquet, with Yuuri gyrating his hips against him, Viktor’s cheeks flushed with the slightest bit of alcohol, but Yuuri’s wild. Wild, uncontrolled, and beautiful. In that moment, Yuuri was the most beautiful thing that he’d ever seen, and Viktor held his hips carefully, trying to keep him from toppling over (a legitimate fear, with how much it seemed that Yuuri had to drink), and he wished that he had looked Yuuri in the eyes right then and spoken to him.
He wished..
“I’ve never felt as alive as I am now.”
He wished that he could hold Yuuri tight in his arms and spin him around, and never for a thousand years let go. But Yuuri was drunk, and Viktor couldn’t, Viktor didn’t have the courage to hold onto the thing that had felt most important to him after all this time, and to tell him never to leave him alone.
Viktor let Yuuri leave that night, and Yuuri disappeared for months. After his uncharacteristic failure at the Grand Prix, Yuuri went on to fail at Nationals, and at Worlds, both competitions Viktor watched with a heavy heart, trying to cheer on the man that had brought life back to his programs, to his life.
When Viktor told Yakov that he was quitting skating, he wished that he could have said more, then, too. He wished he could have told Yakov how he really felt.
“I’m uninspired.” But even that wasn’t enough, because that wasn’t true. Viktor had all of the inspiration in the world, for the first time in his life, it was more… “I don’t want to.”
But that was too frightening. It was too frightening to march right back up to Yakov and announce, “I think that I found my reason to live at the Grand Prix Final, and I want to find him again.” It was too frightening to email Yuuri, to track him down.
And so he started to write it all down. He started to write down every time that he thought of Yuuri, the small and the large. He wrote the “Wow, I just looked at the albums from the banquet and I never noticed that weird face Yura was making in the background of my favorite picture”, but he also wrote the more serious. He wrote, “I didn’t know how uninspired I was until I became inspired.”
He wrote: “What if Yuuri doesn’t even remember? Or what if he was so drunk that he’s too embarrassed to ever mention it? Or what if he didn’t actually want me? Or, worse, doesn’t want me now?”
Which was why months passed until he saw Yuuri again. Until he watched the video of Yuuri skating his skate, of Yuuri saying everything that Viktor wished he knew how to, but without the need for the words that had bogged him down for so long.
It was in Japan, watching Yuuri stare at him with shock and not a hint of recognition other than as a world champion figure skater that Viktor’s heart broke. That Viktor wanted to look Yuuri in the eyes and announce, “You’re the only reason I even considered coming back next season.” It was Yuuri’s scared smile, shocked look of recognition when Viktor told him that he was going to make him win that made Viktor want to wrap his arms around him, hold him close, and whisper in his ear, “You’re not going to lose.” and “You’re better than you could even imagine.” and “Trust me.”
But Viktor had never been good at words, and those stayed unspoken as well, adding to a long list of missed opportunities with Katsuki Yuuri.
The worst was during practice, where he saw Yuuri skate. “You have more passion than I ever have. You’re my inspiration. I could watch you skate forever. I wish I could skate like you.” But he knew Yuuri, and he knew that he had to keep them quiet, he knew that he couldn’t reveal this to Yuuri, not yet. He needed Yuuri to be comfortable with him.
It hurt his heart every time that Yuuri fell, that Yuuri doubted himself, and Viktor could only speak as a coach, and hope that he could convey everything that he wasn’t saying.
It was watching Yuuri when he performed Eros, the fear in his eyes, but the determination strong as well. As time went on, it was that fear developing to confidence, to outright sex appeal that made Viktor feel faint. It was, “You’re not the only one impregnated by this routine.” and “I have never wanted to be an item of food so badly, holy shit, Yuuri, how the hell did katsudon bring out this side of you, I want it to be me.” and “Please just marry me on the spot I don’t care we can get married on the ice right now with the whole world watching, I never want to live a day without you.”
Yuri on Ice was a different program, with different emotions, but there were still a thousand things that Viktor wished he was saying. He wished he could tell Yuuri, “There is no darkness in you.” (Something another skater had been brave enough to do, but not Viktor.) He wished he could join him on the ice, set his arms around him, and whisper, “I didn’t realize I meant so much.” He wished that he could grab him into his arms, and kiss him so hard that he forgot his name and promise him, “I know how much that flip meant to both of us.”
… So, maybe he got part of that wish, kissing Yuuri at the Cup of China, but it was never enough.
In Barcelona, he wished he could say a thousand more things than ever before. The time before he’d found Yuuri was a single notebook, the time between Japan and Barcelona was another. And in Barcelona? Viktor could fill an entire other notebook of things he wished he said to Yuuri in that day, but most of all…
“I want to marry you. I want you to move to Russia and never leave my life. I want you to be mine.”
Instead, he said, “I want you to show me the skating you can honestly say you liked best.” And that wasn’t enough.
Yuuri got silver, and Viktor was proud. He wished he could say it, could pull Yuuri in for another deep kiss, could tell him, “I’m proud of you, and more proud of this silver medal than I have been with any of my gold in the past years.” Instead, he told him that they’d keep trying to find a gold.
“I haven’t said a lot of things,” Viktor announced at their wedding, his hands clutched at his sides, nervously opening and closing. The nerves were surprising – why would he be nervous about marrying this man that was everything in his life? “But I’m not going to regret not saying this now.”
And he took Yuuri’s hands, bringing them to his mouth and setting a soft kiss against them.
It was every word he’d left unspoken in one, and everything that Yuuri needed to hear from him. A simple recognition of everything between them, and more than a thousand unspoken words could say.
It was too late to go back, too late to go back, too late to say all of the things that he wished he had, that could have brought him to this point so much quicker, but none of that was necessary.
Not any more.
He could express all of those thousands of unspoken words and lost moments in a simple three, that meant more than those ever could have:
“I love you.”
Those words were never unspoken after that moment, but that didn’t mean that everything was said. Viktor never hid his love for Yuuri, but he didn’t stop having to write his regrets, either.
“I like your blue shoes, you should wear them more often.”
“I cried when I went to get the new puppy because I wanted you to come with me but it was supposed to be a surprise.”
“We’re babysitting Yura’s cat.”
“I wish we didn’t have to skate in different competitions.”
“I knew for a while that it was my last season.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I wish we could have skated together for longer.”
“I burnt dinner and that’s why we’re having takeaway, but I swear it was Chris’s fault.”
It was maybe the last notebook that was the worst, because it only contained a few lines.
“I wanted you to read these, one day.”
“I love you.”
And, in tiny writing, scratched out in the corner in a fit of upset rage:
“Why did you have to die first?”
Because Yuuri being gone meant he never got to know. He never got to know everything that Viktor wanted to tell him.
“I didn’t want to have to live without you ever again.”
“I thought I was done being alone.”
“I miss you.”