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Yuuri’s breath came in sharp, rattling puffs as he held the final pose of the final skate of his competitive career. The roar of the crowd washed over him in waves. His body screamed exhaustion at him, but as his mind finally processed what he had accomplished, a strong second wind overtook him. His arms raised to the sky, lungs letting loose a cry of victory that bellowed up from his guts. Cooling perspiration trickled down his body as tears threatened to spill over his lower lashes. He breathed hard, closing his eyes to take the moment in before letting his arms drop to his sides.

To execute his routine in a way that would honor the skating and coaching legacy of Viktor Nikiforov…

He never could have imagined it before, but now, it was as if he could feel the performance still vibrating on the surface of his skin. Like he might never stop trembling from it. (Or maybe that was the exhaustion and the cold truly hitting him for the first time.)

“Yuuri!”

Even on the center ice with the thunderous accolades coming from all sides, he could pick out Viktor’s voice, and if Katsuki Yuuri could hear only one sound for the rest of his life, he’d probably pick the sound of his name in that Russian accent. Still, in that moment, the call felt bittersweet. He turned his face to the boards, spotting Viktor holding his arms open wide and inviting an embrace in a broad, unmissable gesture that even Yuuri’s blurry vision could spot from his place on the ice. His stomach knotted painfully. I don’t want to go to the kiss and cry...because going back there means that it’s over.

He flashed Viktor a demure smile of apology, ignoring his summons for a moment longer as he turned his attentions to the enthusiastic crowd—the spectators who all season had been both ally and adversary in his quest to prove his worth to the world, to Viktor and to himself. He skated a small loop, stooping to pick up a sushi shaped plush that had been thrown to the ice. His procrastination was cut short by the sharp protest of his aching legs. They had kept him upright through every spin and jump of his free skate, but he could feel the burn in his thighs and blistering pain in his feet as he clung desperately to these last few moments of competition. With a final wave to the crowd, he skated his way woozily to his coach, feeling spent and more than a little melancholic as he stepped off the ice into Viktor’s arms.

Up close, he could see his favorite pair of blue eyes glistening more brightly than normal. As if the effusive praise being murmured softly to him was not enough, his performance had apparently moved the man to tears. His insides gave another sharp tug, and his whole body shivered.

“Oh Yuuri…” Viktor clucked sympathetically as he scrambled to drape Yuuri’s Japanese team jacket over his shoulders as they made their way to the kiss and cry. This being Yuuri’s big moment, his fiance was showing remarkable restraint, pressing only two soft kisses against his hairline as they settled down in front of the news cameras. The affection only served to make the anxious gnawing inside of Yuuri sharper as he sat down on the bench and pressed his forehead to his folded hands.

After adding flaws into his previously strong short program, Yuuri was going to need an  impossibly high free skate score to secure the gold over Yuri Plisetsky, whose record breaking performance had put Yuuri at deficit of over twenty points. Yurio had made such vast improvements to an already immaculate short program. Standing on the ice after his free skate, his own efforts had seemed like enough to close the gap — the kind of performance that could actually hold a candle to Viktor Nikiforov (an accomplishment he’d been chasing his entire career). On the unforgiving bench, with every eye trying to read the emotions on his face, he felt suddenly less certain. After all, he had no way of knowing what improvements the Russian Yuri had made to his elegant, exhaustive free skate. Would it be enough? Could anything be enough?

His breathing was coming in shorter and shorter gasps the longer they waited for his score. Viktor seemed frustratingly hellbent on exuding calm confidence. His hand slid to Yuuri’s back and ran comforting circles there. Yuuri spared a glance at the overhead screens to see if there was any sign of his score. The final quad flip of the skate played over and over on loop...the flip he had added to surprise Viktor, the flip he cleanly performed for the first time mere moments ago. For all that he had felt its weightless flight in the moment, staring at the jump made it all too easy for his anxious mind to pick it apart. Could he have done more with his posture? Had he kept his lines extended in those moments when exhaustion began to creep in? Were the connections between the many reworked elements of his performance as clean and graceful as they could be? His thoughts drifted to Yurio’s elegant quad salchow, triple toe loop combination from this short program. The boy had floated weightless through the jumps, arms sliding smooth as glass in their motions even as he used all his strength to launch himself through the difficult combination. He’d resembled Viktor in that way—all strength and effortless grace. Viktor could make the hardest jumps look easy and never let them overpower the emotion of a performance. He poured his soul into every movement until you found yourself unable to look away. The weight of Yuuri’s own aspiration suddenly crashed into him, and he lurched in his seat, thinking he might just vomit (and on international TV no less!) Suddenly, the floor became a safe and fascinating place to lock in his gaze.

“Don’t worry. Your performance was so perfect, I’m sure you’ll get a great score.”

Viktor’s soft words of encouragement only made his chest constrict that much more tightly. So much so, that when the announcement of his scores began, Yuuri gasped in a high pitched whistle of air that brought a twinge to his lungs. He glanced upward, feeling Viktor’s arm slide all the way around his shoulders as though he were preparing himself for any outcome — to give his pupil comfort or congratulations.

“His free skate score is 221.58!”

Yuuri’s eyes went wide. He felt his brain cramping like a sore muscle. Was that even a number? Was this real life? That couldn’t be his score because that would mean —

“He’s broken Viktor Nikiforov’s long-time world record for the Men’s Singles Free Skate!”

He remembered watching when that record was set, much to the amazement of all the skaters crowding around the broadcast being held in the Detroit Skate Club’s practice space. The juniors had looked to Yuuri first (not Celestino) as to what they had just witnessed. After all, he had always been Viktor’s number one fan and was the most qualified to explain just how a living legend at the top of his game could go out there and best himself. He could see a different question in the eyes of the older skaters, one he pushed deep down because considering it would mean giving up forever and never standing on the same stage as his idol. How could the short gains of training feel meaningful, how was trying even possible when Nikiforov kept pushing the medal further and further away? Awkward as he was, unsure of what to say, he’d deferred to his brash lion of a coach to find the right words to make sense of it. And now, in the present, Katsuki Yuuri, Japan’s top skater but a dime a dozen in the international circuits, was struggling to come to terms with the fact that of all the skaters in the world he was the one who had pushed the top score that much further out of the reach. Grand Prix gold would likely hang around his neck before this day was over.

Viktor’s arm slid away from his shoulders, and this was enough to shake Yuuri from his stupor. He whipped his gaze to Viktor beside him, almost expecting to see the kind of stony introspection he’d witnessed when Yurio had demolished his short program record two days prior. Instead, he smiled as he held a hand out to Yuuri in a gesture that seemed a little too stiff and a little too polite.

It turned out Yuuri was right to be suspicious. The moment their hands linked, his lover pulled him close, his free arm lifting up to tug the Japanese skater into a fierce embrace. “Congratulations, Yuuri.” The shock of it pushed the more intense emotions out of Yuuri’s body, and he sank against Viktor, eyes wide and face flushed. There was no one else in the world he would rather be sharing this moment with. Certainly, Viktor had been in this seat many times before, on that elusive next level which he and Yurio had only just ascended to, so when Viktor kept whispering his thoughts, breath hot against Yuuri’s ear, he could do nothing but patiently absorb what the other man was saying. “Having both Yuris break my record is the ultimate bliss as your choreographer and coach…but it’s the ultimate diss as a competitor.”

An electric spark ran through Yuuri’s body, and he shot backwards, eyes searching Viktor’s face to make sure he had understood correctly. The record breaking performance had come from his desire to show the world everything Viktor had taught him and to break through to Viktor following their pain misunderstanding the night prior. It was almost too much to hope that he’d swayed his coach somehow, so he needed to be sure of what Viktor was saying. The question came, soft and awestruck when he asked it. “Huh? Does that mean you’ll come back?” His face lit up, unable to hide his joy that finally, finally Viktor was done putting his career aside for him. For his part Viktor said nothing but answered with a coy, incredulous smile as if to imply that Yuuri’s record-smashing free skate had given him very little choice in the matter.

Yuuri blushed, about to open his mouth to say something more when their intimate exchange was interrupted by a raucous cheer from the crowd as Chris made his way onto the ice. With two records already broken in this one competition alone, the audience was eager to see what someone as competitively consistent as Christophe Giacometti could do. Yuuri’s eyes darted to the figure out on the ice, a momentary flicker of apprehension licking at his insides before his brain reminded itself that he sat firmly atop the leaderboard, that Chris’s program would have had to radically change to alter the outcome.

The corners of his mouth twitched with the faintest hint of amusement, as he pulled the stuffed tamago roll he’d gathered from the ice into his lap, fiercely clinging to it as though it might help contain the sudden swell of feelings inside of his body. He had struggled all season to imagine winning and had even failed to medal at the talent heavy Rostelecom Cup, but here he was, in a spot where he could allow himself to feel victorious. The sounds of “Rapsodie Espagnole” faded into so much background noise. Yuuri felt the tension he’d been holding leave his shoulders as he realized there was some small bit of relief in it being over, in no longer having to agonize and crunch numbers and cringe at how well the others were doing because he had left everything on the ice and, amazingly, had been rewarded for his efforts.

Viktor’s voice came into focus as he gushed enthusiastically to the press photographers snapping hundreds of pictures of them. “Yuuri! Yuuri! They want a picture of the champion. Come on!” The arm around his shoulder gave him an affectionate squeeze as Viktor pressed in close to his side and Yuuri turned his face to the cameramen. The dazed smile on his face was one of genuine self-satisfaction. Viktor threw his free hand out in a V for victory. “Yay! Oh--” he shifted far enough away from Yuuri to fish his cellphone out of his coat. “Please take our picture with this phone!”

Yuuri’s expression shifted to exasperation in an instant, transitioning smoothly from Yuuri the champion figure skater to Yuuri the long-suffering companion of Viktor Nikiforov. “Viktor, they’re here to get our picture for the media. We can have someone get a personal picture backstage…”

“But these are professional photographers. They’ll do a much better job,” Viktor answered with a pout, and in the end, one of the cameramen happily agreed to take the photograph. Yuuri had to shake his head. It seemed no one was immune to Viktor’s charms. When the Russian suggested something, no matter how absurd it seemed, it suddenly became possible. After all, he had been the first to ever suggest Yuuri would win a gold medal, back in the onsen all those months ago. As Viktor took his phone back, Yuuri offered an embarrassingly long string of thank yous to the photographer who waved it off as nothing before turning away to review his work in his camera's digital display.

Yuuri turned his attention back to the ice, watching Chris’s performance with renewed interest now that his first wave of media obligations was over. He and his coach let out twin gasps of shock as Chris failed to gain proper momentum for his quad salchow, and it was downgraded to a single.

“Allez~!”

“Allez, Chris!”

Yuuri could remember Viktor watching Christophe’s short program with the same attentiveness as he saw now, and yet today Yuuri’s newfound awareness cast the gaze in a different light. He understood more clearly now how Viktor appreciated his competitors and the aspirations of their craft. It was almost shameful to Yuuri how badly he had misunderstood his fellow skaters before, the truth of the matter only truly clicking when he saw himself reflected back in JJ’s disastrous skate. All of them were doing their best on the ice. Each sacrificed time and energy and even their bodies in pursuit of this huge dream, and though the man was a living legend so far apart from the rest of them, Viktor genuinely thrilled to see the others fight on, especially a good friend like Chris, with whom he had shared the podium innumerous times.

Despite the setback, Chris kept fighting, moving around key elements of his program for a higher score, and Yuuri could feel his own spirits rising. The end of the skate was rapidly approaching, and Viktor stood, helping the volunteers to gather up their things and get them out of the way for Chris’s turn in the kiss and cry.

Yuuri reached out, looping his arm around Viktor’s  and earning a warm smile from his fiance. They walked in a silence that felt warm and full. This man, this life, that skate...Yuuri would have thought his heart would be ready to burst, and yet all he felt was a quiet contentment, a magical stillness so different from the frenetic anxiety that usually drummed away at his ribcage. He eased into his hold on Viktor, allowing himself a moment to press closer to his fiance with an affectionate squeeze. The calm was enough.

As they approached the spot where post-skate interviews were being conducted, he felt Viktor’s arm slip away from his. “Yuuri, if it’s alright with you, I think you should take this round of questions on your own.”

Yuuri knew he must have made a strange face, because suddenly the Russian was in pure distracting cheerfulness mode, his mouth a bashful grin. “Ah, don’t look at me like that—you’re the man of the hour that everyone wants to talk to anyway. And I need to try and catch Yakov and get on his good side before…” His words trailed off, eyes darting to the nearby reporters. “Well, he and I have some things to discuss.”

Yuuri gave a solemn nod, daring to draw Viktor into a brief hug. He understood how big of a deal this moment was and that Viktor would want to handle his return to the ice as carefully as possible. There was so much he needed to negotiate with Yakov, and it would take some care to keep the media from breaking the news prematurely. The best thing Yuuri could do was buy the Russian skater time to make good with his former coach.  Viktor needed to go take back his shot at the ice.

Yuuri had none of the man’s natural charisma when it came to dealing with reporters, but if everything went well, the media would soon have more than enough Viktor to satisfy them once again. “I can do this,” he told his fiance.

“Good. I won’t be gone long.” They parted ways then, Viktor depositing tissue box and water bottle near enough that Yuuri could get to them. Yuuri stepped towards the backdrop and bright lights meant to better illuminate the athletes for the news cameras. Someone was waving a hand in his direction, and, squinting, he realized that he was being signaled to step onto a designated mark. He shifted, nodding his thanks and feeling sheepish for forgetting to look for one.

Even after his months in the Grand Prix circuit, he still hadn’t adjusted to the attention he now commanded from reporters. Mr. Morooka had, of course, always been at the ready to hound him for a comment about his career, but it wasn’t until this year, with Viktor by his side, that the rest of the reporters had all turned their attention to his sudden and improbable rising star. It had been Viktor (not Yuuri) that they had all chased to Hasetsu. It had taken Viktor’s constant insistence that he sincerely wanted to coach—and wanted to coach Yuuri —as well as some hard fought battles on the ice for them to take Yuuri seriously. After that, they had shown up in increasing numbers, in and around each competition, all trying to catch a word with Katsuki or Nikiforov, prodding for details of Yuuri’s professional ambitions and personal life. Was Viktor a good coach? Was it hard living up to a living legend? What did each climb or descent on the leaderboard mean for his future? He had kept his answers simple. The theme of the season was love, and he and Viktor had poured all the love they could into these programs. Even when he doubted it himself, Yuuri always promised the reporters following him closely that it would be enough to win.

He couldn’t help but marvel at how nice it felt to have a performance that showed his press talk was more than just words and empty promises.

The fact that the ISF limited Grand Prix Final press access to only the top media outlets meant there were less reporters vying for the attention of Yuuri and the other finalists. Still, the men and women there exhibited the same tenacity he’d seen all season, barely giving him a moment to settle on his mark before they all began asking their questions at once. He listened carefully, trying to keep track of everything they were asking without the help of his coach.

“Congratulations on an amazing free skate—your coach must be very proud. Why isn’t Viktor here with you?”

“What was Viktor’s reaction to losing another world record? Does he have any plans to try and earn them back?”

Yuuri felt a small twinge of annoyance that the first questions lobbed at him were more about Viktor than about his skating itself. Even after all these performances, it burned when eyes turned off of him. Still, there was a part of him that understood this common theme in the questions he received from the press. Learning from Viktor, admiring Viktor, knowing and loving Viktor had carried him in moments when he doubted his feet could move forward. “I’m afraid I keep him very busy with his responsibilities as coach, and I can’t speak for how Viktor feels about the new record beyond to say that it would not have been possible without his choreography and the inspiration he provides to the skating world.”

He could practically hear the groans the reporters were suppressing. He knew how to be diplomatic with his responses, but the press didn’t want diplomatic. Yuuri was uncomfortable speaking candidly with just about anyone, and cameras were no exception. He hated feeling that vulnerable, and to his logic, speaking politely didn’t make the words any less sincere.

“You changed a fair deal of composition in your routine when it came to your selection of jumps.” Yuuri’s eyes lit up a bit as he turned to the blonde haired woman. Finally, someone who wanted to talk technique and not emotion. “Clearly, it had the right result. How did you and your coach approach these changes?”

An instant grin spread across his face. The press asking Yuuri to try and articulate Viktor’s current mindset had been impossible and a little grating, but this line of questioning he could handle with ease. After all, Yuuri had spent his entire life gushing about the skating genius of Viktor Nikiforov to anyone who would listen. This was no different. This, he could do in his sleep. He dove into an explanation of how Viktor pushed hard on maximizing his PCS score while he was not content to shy away from more difficult jumps. He was midway through an ebullient ramble about finally being able to finally master Viktor’s signature quad flip when Chris’s score cut through the interview. Over the PA, an announcer remarked that the Swiss skater’s current standing guaranteed Yuuri a spot on the podium.

The reporter he had been speaking with offered congratulations, and, for a moment, Yuuri didn’t know how to react. He still felt quite energized about speaking to his jump composition, and deep down, he knew what a score like his meant. The podium had been a foregone conclusion, and yet he had to remind himself for a moment that most of these reporters had also witnessed his failings the year prior. He gave a warm smile, trying to convey gratitude for whatever medal he received that day (even though his gut was convinced it would be gold.) “Thank you!”

The rest of the interviewing went well, with a focus on Yuuri’s rise from a disappointing sixth place finish in Sochi to guaranteed hardware in Barcelona. He couldn’t help but marvel at what an ascent it had been. He’d been so heartsick over Vicchan and embarrassed over his skating that he’d barely wanted to speak to the press in Sochi, and they had answered his silence with a lot of mean-spirited speculation about his retirement. Today, he had nothing to regret and nothing but amenity as he spoke to reporters. It took a surprising amount of self-control to not blurt out that he was happy that his career would end on a turnaround so triumphant—retirement on his own terms instead of the world’s. The only thing that held him back was Viktor, who by now must have surely talked his way back into Coach Yakov’s good graces.

Otabek Altin’s free skate music thundered through the stadium, signaling that soon Chris would be heading backstage to talk with the press. Yuuri thanked the reporters for their time, before scanning the hallway for his fiance. “...Viktor?”

Instead of Viktor’s smiling face greeting him or warm honey voice calling his name back in response, only the tissue box and water bottle awaited Yuuri nearby. For the first time since Moscow, Yuuri stood alone. Even in Moscow, he’d had Yakov beside him, Viktor’s insurance that Yuuri would not be left to his own devices. At the time, he’d been too worried for Viktor and Makkachin to ponder Viktor’s motivations too deeply. He’d partly assumed that, following his breakdown at the Cup of China, his coach just didn’t put much faith in his self-confidence (which had been a valid and proven constant in Yuuri’s life thus far), but maybe that hadn’t been the whole story. He felt a sudden stab of loneliness that had nothing to do with his performance or his self worth.

Skating was a solitary sport, and for most of Yuuri’s life, it had been his solitary retreat from a world that so often overwhelmed him. Still, Viktor had shown up in the onsen and proved to him that he’d never truly been alone, and all season, Yuuri had learned just how many people had always been standing beside him, their love expressed in ways he had never recognized until this magical season. To be standing there, in his most victorious moment but feeling so alone, made his heart drop into his stomach. Was this what it would be like all the time now that Viktor was going back to skating? He shivered, reaching down to touch plush Makkachin’s ear. It would be hard, giving Viktor back to the world, but Yuuri knew it would be worth it to see Viktor skate again.

Before he could dwell on that bittersweet feeling, the arena was filled with applause. Otabek’s free skate had concluded, which left Yuuri little time to get where he needed to be. Yurio would skate next, and he wanted the chance to properly cheer him on before his routine began. He hurried down the hallway as fast as he could without bowling anyone over, making his way to where the competitors and other professionals could watch the performances. Otabek’s scores had just been announced, and Yuuri sprinted up the steps to make it on time. Once again, he was grateful for his stamina, sweating but not particularly winded when he reached the top of the steps that he couldn’t call out to the blonde skater already getting into position on the ice.

“Yuri! Davai!”

The look on the young skater’s face was one of intense focus. Yurio had always been quite passionate when it came to improving his performances, but something felt different today. Yuuri stood at the top of the steps, transfixed as the blonde boy turned to center rink and unfurled his arms, palms outward, shoulders back, into the starting position of his routine. The piercing soprano notes of the program started, and Yuuri watched as Yurio flung himself immediately into the fluid, spinning moves of his initial connecting steps, blades sliding aggressively over the ice, his costume suggesting a lick of flame tearing away at its cold facade. He had first seen the choreography in person at the Rostelecom Cup, and it had been impressive enough to make his ballet dancing muscles ache at the sight of it. The dance elements on their own were lightning fast, combining with jumps and spins to create a routine that left no room for error or breath.

He watched as Yuri whipped around his stage with the usual grace that the audience had come to expect of him, so confident in each of his movements that it almost made one forget he was doing this on a knife’s edge, speeding around on a smooth sheet of ice. In a split second, he was slipping into position for his first jump, a quad salchow that was over in the blink of an eye, landed effortlessly to the cheers of an adoring audience.

Yuuri could feel hot flames crawling up his insides. The routine was going just as well as it had at the Rostelecom Cup (maybe even better), and it had barely begun. Next was the spiral into a triple axel, elements that together would increase the difficulty of entry into the jump and raise the base for his GOE score. Here, Yuri managed to not only land another clean jump but also extend an elegant arm above his head while doing so. This was a technique he had used to great effect during his short program, making subtle adjustments to raise his possible score by increments until it was enough to carry him to first place and to a world record score.

Before the start of Yuri’s final skate, the anticipation of a gold medal had weighed on Yuuri’s chest like a promise, but with each precise adjustment that Yurio made, Yuuri could feel old insecurities creeping in. When they were training together, Yuuri had been fearful of the way Yurio could adjust and grow at a paced that outmatched him. Now, Yuri Plisetsky was turning that frightening ability towards carving every point he could out of an exhausting routine, clinging onto the buffer he’d earned himself with his perfect short program score. Still, Yuuri knew where his score currently stood, as well as what Yurio had earned on this performance in Moscow. Even with the twenty point head start, any shot the boy had of winning would be a battle to the end.

The results of his opponent’s struggle were mesmerizing. Afraid to even blink, lest he miss a moment of it, Yuuri’s eyes followed those dizzying turns with rapt attention. Was this the same boy who had struggled to infuse his serpentine limbs with a feeling of agape all those months ago? Was this the boy who had kicked him into the snow and offered him an unexpected birthday present in one fell swoop? The sudden clarity that Yurio brought to his free skate had Yuuri feeling jealous. Who had known that a fifteen year old could make these kinds of delicate adjustments? Was this what Yakov had been trying to warn him was missing from his training? Or had he been underestimating just how far Yurio’s passion could carry him?

He caught a flash of something hot and angry in the boy’s eyes as he came out of the triple flip — another perfect jump. The expression brought Yuuri back down to earth. No, Yurio was not an untouchable prodigy or skating robot. He still felt and fought through every exhausting leg of his routine. He was giving everything he had to the ice, same as Yuuri had done in his free skate. Yurio could not take away the world record, but he still had a chance to take the top spot on the podium. The idea of losing to Yurio fanned those flames again inside of Yuuri, and yet it wasn’t the thought of losing the medal itself that made him burn up inside.

Yurio was showing such talent on the ice, but damn if Yuuri didn’t want to be better than him when the dust settled. This wasn’t to say he wanted to see Yurio fail — quite the opposite. He needed to know, regardless of outcome, that this competitor had given his all. Gold wouldn’t be satisfying without seeing the best Yurio could do.

Hang in there, Yurio. Here come the second half jumps.

Yuri was still a fifteen year old boy, and this was still his first competitive year in the senior division.  His body had not yet finished developing, and beyond that, Yuuri knew Yurio didn’t have the stamina that he did — born from years of battering his body with endless practice as his only retreat from his otherwise inescapable mental anxiety.

Still, Yurio had developed so much mental sharpness and fortitude over the season. Yuuri had to wonder if mind over matter would really have such an effect on the outcome of the free skate.

Yurio pushed onward, spinning into the setup for his next quad. His arm rose upward again, another strike chipping away mercilessly at Yuuri’s lead, but in the blink of an eye, the momentum of the performance changed. Yuuri gasped as the young skater flubbed the landing, over-accelerated and underbalanced. His hands caught the surface of the ice, and he tumbled through the bad landing, using the momentum to get back onto his feet. Strategically, it was a bad fall, one that would weaken Yurio’s chances of beating Yuuri’s overall score. Still, Yuuri knew it was far from a disaster — a lesser skater would have botched the recovery and fallen behind the pace of an already impossibly fast-paced routine.

He couldn’t count Yurio out because even the fall underscored a fundamental difference in their skating. Yuri was on his feet in milliseconds. All of Yuuri’s falls at Sochi had been devastating, each a trauma that had taken him months to overcome. Even with what was a relatively minor touchdown in his free skate, Yuuri had barely been able to recover, and his performance score had suffered for it. No wonder, then, that the first time he had met the Russian punk, the boy had told him off for his crying retreat and inability to steel his resolve.

He watched carefully as Yuri flowed beautifully into a Biellmann spiral, seemingly unaffected by his tumble. He was one of the few skaters in the men’s final with the flexibility to pull off such a move. Yuri had so many talents that it was nerve-wracking, and, while he wasn’t perfect, he was constantly evolving. Yuuri felt a momentary pang of envy. The other skater was only fifteen and could already mentally power through the toughest of setbacks.

He understood the mechanics of jumps and had a fearlessness that kept him airborne. But that wasn’t the whole truth of Yurio, was it?

Yuuri watched as the boy powered through a quad salchow, double toe loop combination, determinedly pressing his arms up and outward again through the landing, and this time he wore the struggle plainly on his face, teeth gritted. Yuuko had once mentioned the expression of disappointment in Yurio’s face when he abruptly left the Onsen on Ice. Yuuri himself remembered the boy lamenting his spot stuck behind JJ at both Rostelecom and Skate Canada. Yurio might try to keep his nerves hidden someplace deep inside, but his feelings had a way of bleeding out through the struggle of a difficult routine.

The boy was whip smart and talented, but his performances were more than just the byproduct of natural talent. He crafted them through exhaustive, hard work.  In that moment, Yuuri knew that training alongside him at the start of the season had made him a better and more ambitious skater. Viktor had always told him to focus on performance, and maybe if the younger Russian hadn’t been there for the earliest days of training, Yuuri would have been content to do as Viktor suggested and play to his own strengths. Yurio had scoffed (loudly and perpetually) at the idea that Yuuri wasn’t executing more ambitious jumps, and it had riled up Yuuri’s anxieties and competitiveness enough to try something new, to keep falling over and over until he had a strong enough foundation to believe a improvised quad flip at the Cup of China was feasible.

Yuri’s expression appeared to have cooled as he worked his way into the setup of his next jump. To everyone’s amazement, the boy executed a quad toe loop, double toe loop combination — adding in a quad to make up for his earlier botched effort. Yuuri’s eyes went wide with shock. Yuri had already been fighting his way through the second-half quads, and while he needed the points if he wanted to win gold, making an adjustment like that while already exhausted was risky enough to jeopardize his spot on the podium altogether. Why chance it?

Yuri circled the rink, the back of his hand caressing his cheek and flicking away his ponytail before extending to the booth where his fellow competitors were watching. Yuuri felt a chill as that icy, green gaze landed on him. The Russian boy had been gunning for the gold all season, but in that moment, the young skater seemed to have something personal to prove. Complex difficult jumps late in the routine were Yuuri’s new signature, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that Yuri Plisetsky was purposefully using Yuuri’s own techniques as a personal attack to drive him off the top of the podium.

As he successfully finished his final jump combination, Yuuri looked on in wide eyed realization that he just might do it. The Japanese skater wasn’t sure if it was shock that he was feeling or awe, but he knew that there was no one else among the top six who would fully understand the battle he had just borne witness to — the culmination of everything he’d come to learn about Yuri Plisetsky as a competitor over the past season. He watched the final graceful turns and spirals of the routine, stunned into silence even as the crowd in the stadium roared and applauded the Herculean effort of Yuri’s free skate program. The boy was barely able to hold his final pose before breaking form, chest heaving, desperate for air, wracked by some unnameable emotion.

Yuri Plisetsky fell to his knees. Yuri Plisetsky sobbed into his gloved hands. The world seemed to tilt upside down as Yuuri stared wide eyed at the boy who had left absolutely everything on the ice. He could feel the gaze of some of the nearby pros drift in his direction as if trying to determine whether or not he felt threatened by the performance. He certainly could have felt that way, the threat being implicitly stated in every gesture of the routine. Instead, he felt a strange sense of awe, as though he was seeing skating anew yet again. Maybe it was because he had always kept his competitors at an arm’s length, but he’d never before felt the thrill of competition so acutely. Yurio was, in fact, the first person he’d challenged this season in the Onsen on Ice. He had taken it seriously then for the sake of keeping Viktor close, but today had nothing to do with their choreographer. The results would be skill versus skill, with a decisive victor.

Clamping down on the thought, Yuuri chided himself. One way or another, this would end soon — end forever. That reality was suddenly impossibly bitter to swallow. He needed to be with Viktor, wanted to hold onto Viktor before whatever happened next.

He walked away from the rink, hurrying down the steps and blocking out the sounds of the crowds and announcers. Where was Viktor? He had gone to speak to Yakov, but surely Yakov would be with Yuri at the kiss and cry awaiting the final scores by now. Viktor hadn’t been anywhere near the viewing section either. Yuuri glanced around the backstage area, anxiety drumming a restless beat in his chest. He picked a direction, taking quick strides to cover as much ground as possible, because he had no idea where to look and a text message might not reveal Viktor’s location before the final scores were announced.

As he passed the nearest restroom, a strange thought crossed his mind. Wouldn’t it be ironic?

He turned and pushed the door open, and let out a breath he hadn’t consciously known he was holding. Viktor’s glassy eyed reflection in the bathroom mirror blinked back at him as he stood there, water running, phone in hand, and was that the picture of them from the kiss and cry? He didn’t have time to verify it as his coach hastily shoved the phone away, and Yuuri crossed the few feet of distance between them, pressing himself to Viktor’s back and wrapping his arms around the other man’s waist. Finding Viktor like this was something he would need to unpack later when he was feeling less anxious. For now, he just needed Viktor there in his arms.

Seconds of silence passed between them before he felt the tense muscles in Viktor’s back expand to take a deep and steadying breath. The Russian skater cleared his throat. “Yurio finished his skate?” Yuuri nodded but otherwise remained silent. Viktor twisted gently in Yuuri’s embrace, turning his body so that he could face Yuuri. He ran a gloved hand over Yuuri’s back, contemplating his skater’s body language for a long moment. “So he did his best, then…”

With gentle touches, Yuuri felt himself eased back from his pressing grip on Viktor, pushed back only far enough for the taller man to tip his chin upwards. The look between them was full of messy emotions that Yuuri was too anxious to unpack, but he fought to keep from looking away.

“You should be very proud of yourself, Yuuri. I know you think very well of me as a skater and somewhat well of me as a coach — ” his lips quirked into a joking grin that almost reached his eyes. “ — but everything that was done to transform your free skate today, you did. Honestly, it kind of makes me mad that I didn’t think of the changes myself, but you just have to keep on surprising me, don’t you?”

He pressed a gentle kiss to Yuuri’s forehead and a second one to his lips that cleared most of the nervous cobwebs from Yuuri’s brain. “I’m sure you’ve worried yourself about the scores, but you need to put it out of your mind. You’ve already won in all the ways that matter. Sochi is in the past, and you aren’t that skater anymore. You are someone whose potential surprises me every day. You did what you promised you would in that cathedral. You showed me the skating you liked best. You showed it to the whole world…I couldn’t be more proud.”

Yuuri’s heart swelled with emotion. His dream had always been to skate on the same ice as Viktor and show his idol something worthwhile, and while this wasn’t exactly the same, he felt the strength of his accomplishments surrounding him, giving him the final boost he needed to let Viktor guide him to rinkside to face the final results. He felt prepared for the final outcome.

“Yuri Plisetsky’s free skate score is 200.97! His total score narrowly beats Katsuki’s by 0.12 points to win the gold!”

He was not prepared for that. The difference between gold and silver was impossibly close. He felt a hot lick of anger, his natural competitive streak coming out, as cameras swarmed Yuri Plisetsky and a few stragglers turned their attention to him. He felt a steadying hand around his waist and then Viktor’s hand sliding down to his white knuckled fist, working its way past the tension until Yuuri’s right hand relaxed and his body language softened. What was the point in getting fired up now?

It was over.

“What a photo finish,” Viktor murmured to him, just loud enough to be heard over the cheers and shock of the crowd. They stood there together, taking it all in as the crew rushed around to stage the men’s individual medal ceremony. The Russian skating delegation were still in full celebration even as they ushered a happy, albeit dazed-looking, Yuri Plisetsky away from the rink. He couldn’t imagine what it was like being a champion at fifteen, and though it had been the boy’s aim all season, Yuuri could only imagine how hard it would be to process the reality of it.

The next minutes passed in a blur. With the competition over and adrenaline out of his body, Yuuri suddenly felt ready for a nice, long nap. Instead, he had Viktor carefully ushering him to their prep space backstage. His hair was redone, his team and costume jackets were removed long enough for Viktor to run a damp cloth along his face, neck and arms to remove the accumulated sweat and grime of the day. He pressed his lips together after Viktor applied his outrageously expensive lip balm to them. He suffered through a meticulous dusting of itchy face powder that Viktor insisted was necessary to keep him from looking shiny in the podium press photos. He stared down from his seat, watching as Viktor stooped to get him back into skates. He resisted the urge to poke Viktor’s hairline and marveled at the amount of work that went into getting a skater up to the podium. (The hard part was, of course, the skating itself — wasn’t all this a somewhat excessive last step?) Viktor helped him up and back into his costume jacket before letting an attendant guide them to where Yuuri needed to be for the medal ceremony.

Yurio was the first to skate out onto the ice, his face grim and serious as he looped around, nodding his acknowledgements to the crowd with the occasional bow of gratitude. He skated back to the podium, deftly hopping up to the top spot. Next came Yuuri’s moment, and he glided out onto the rink, greeted by cheers so enthusiastic that he felt a warm wave of gratitude wash over him. He bowed deeply to all sides of the rink, head bowed in awe as he made his way to the podium. He stopped in front of Yuri Plisetsky and was met with a gaze of intense scrutiny that he’d come to associate with the prickly young man. What’d I do this time? Yuuri wondered as he reached out to offer Yuri a firm handshake. Then, he bowed to the skater who had bested him before taking his spot on the podium. When JJ stepped onto the ice, the screams of his Girls were piercing. He took a lazy loop around the rink, blowing kisses and taking time to show gratitude to the fans who had clearly carried him back from the brink of disaster. Yuuri had a passing thought that maybe there was more to JJ than just his outlandish behavior. This thought was quickly disregarded when JJ forewent the traditional handshake and kissed the back of Yurio’s hand with a wink. Yuuri was worried for a moment that JJ would get a skate to the face for his teasing, but Yuri just snatched back his hand and crossed his arms, gritting his teeth as he waited for JJ to get over himself and step onto the podium.

Medals and bouquets followed, and Yuuri held back a brief swell of feeling as the medal was placed over his head and the ISU officials offered their congratulations for his work. He took a deep breath, blinking back his emotions as they stood and waited for the victory anthem. The chords of the State Anthem of the Russian Federation were instantly familiar to Yuuri, having been played during all of Viktor Nikiforov’s wins (all of which Yuuri had watched). For all the times that this song had been played at the Grand Prix Final in recent years, there was a running joke that the ISF was considering making it the official ending theme of the competition. Yet, standing on only the second highest tier of the podium, listening to the anthem of another country, Yuuri felt proud. He could feel the weight of the medal on his chest, the eyes of the audience and the world on the three medalists, the love radiating from half a world away in Japan, but most of all, Viktor’s words were with him. The ways he had grown, the things he had overcome, the battle he had fought to get to this place — there was no diminishing it. Silver was worth just as much as gold.

He spared a glance to his left, at the spot that had almost been his and the fifteen year old who stood there with a complicated mix of emotions on his face that looked nothing like the pride or self-satisfaction that Yuuri felt. At the end of the day, skating was a sport of personal perfection, with skaters and coaches concocting a plan each season to squeeze every possible point out of a skater’s mind, body and talent. Everyone was competing against each other, but in the end, a skater’s biggest competition and obstacle to victory was himself. And yet, every so often, there would be murmurs of a rivalry — two skaters rising to prominence at the same time, with shared or contrasting styles, with stories that ran parallel to one another, competitive blows exchanged, medals won or medals lost, names mentioned perpetually in the same breath.

We don’t need two Yuris in the senior division . Yuuri could imagine the kind of rivalry they would have — two skaters with the same name, both classically trained in ballet, both favoring dizzying step sequences in their skating routines, the one beating the other to the gold medal by a mere fraction of a point. Thinking back on the competitions they’d shared in the past, today felt different. Onsen on Ice had really been more of an exhibition than anything, and when Viktor had hurried back to Japan during the Rostelecom cup, Yuri had shown the Japanese skater as much sensitivity as a teenager could muster, providing Yuuri with some much needed respite from his normally biting attitude as well as a birthday present and words of camaraderie.  It wasn’t until the final, when the stakes were at their highest and Viktor was already bragging about his and Yuuri’s gold medal engagement, that Yuri Plisetsky set aside their tenuous friendship and pointedly challenged Yuuri. He had given it his all, as Yuuri had expected, and Yurio had only won by the barest of margins. The end result was so close that thinking about it too hard made Yuuri’s whole body itch with frustration again.

What a shame it was that Yuri was so young, that his first season in the senior division was the one Yuuri had earmarked as his last, that their careers would end up only briefly eclipsing each others’. Looking at the gold medalist, Yuuri felt sure that he would have been happy to do this many times more (and maybe let the fans hear another country’s victory anthem, for a change).

Then they were being ushered off the podium for a lap around the rink and then an official photograph. As they skated, JJ caught up to Yuri and leaned in to say, “that free skate, kitty cat. I didn’t know you had enough stamina to keep up with the King,“ which sent Yuri bristling but had Yuuri breaking out into surprised laughter. By the time they had to pose for the photo,Yuri was all but hissing like an unhappy cat. Yuuri just slung a friendly arm around his shoulders, unafraid of Yurio’s temper as he stood beside him.

“Make sure they can see that,” Yuuri remarked, nodding to the medal. The tension in Yuri’s shoulders eased, as he quirked a half smile and held his prize up proudly for all to see.

“Tch, I don’t need some second-rate piggy lecturing me about medals...as if they’d forget who won gold.” The photography went on for a moment longer, and then abruptly, it was over, with the three skaters breaking off to their respective coaches and family. Yuuri lingered on the ice a moment longer, taking a moment for himself. The photographers and press were packing up. (There would be more structured interviews in the following days.) The staff was breaking down the ceremony dressings. He knelt down, running a hand across the surface of the battle scarred ice. He found himself longing for more time.

He expelled the feeling with a heavy sigh, forcing any silly notions about regret from his head. He had skated well, and was proud of himself. That would have to be enough. He stood, turning to the boards where Viktor was waiting for him, a glint of gold on the man’s right hand. Yuuri was sure that sight would never fail to make his chest ache in the best possible way. He was lucky. This season had given him so much. Asking for any more was simply too much. Right?

He skated to the edge of the rink, pulling the medal from around his neck. Even with all the thoughts swirling around in his head, he hadn’t forgotten Viktor saying he wanted to kiss his gold medal. (Skates, medals, his lips — Viktor seemed to want to kiss a lot of things unexpectedly at competitions.)

“It’s not a gold medal, but…” He held the silver out to Viktor, who let out a breathy laugh and tilted his head but didn’t lean in any closer.

“I don’t feel like kissing it unless it’s gold.”

Yuuri’s eyes went wide with disbelief. Was he serious? After all that… But, of course, Viktor wasn’t serious. The playful tone in his voice as he rambled on said it all. “Maaan, I really wanted to kiss Yuuri’s gold medal. I’m such a failure as a coach.” He stepped closer and closer with a wicked, teasing look on his face, until Yuuri found himself pressed against the boards, leaning backwards.

“Yuuri, do you have any suggestions? Something that would excite me…?” Viktor leaned in close, eyes hooded as he kept his gaze on Yuuri’s face. He quirked a grin, a thoughtful finger still pressed to his own lips, seemingly reading a message on Yuuri’s face. Yuuri felt his skin flush as Viktor’s low rumbling voice and handsome smile had their intended effect. He was certain his whole body was telegraphing a message to Viktor, even if it was not exactly the one he wanted to say.  “What did you think of just now?”

“Umm, well…” Yuuri wasn’t oblivious. He’d had nearly a whole season’s worth of Viktor’s flirtations and knew the desire burning just beyond those silver eyelashes. But amazingly when Yuuri closed his eyes, thoughts of kissing Viktor were not the first thing to come to mind. This time when he looked deep inside to where thoughts of his coach and idol often pulled him through the toughest of storms, a different voice spoke up for him—brash and confident, so unlike his own. I’ll show you exciting, Old Man.

With a swell of emotion, he shot forward, bowling over the tall Russian. His medal clattered to the ground. Perhaps Viktor would chide him for being too careless with this accomplishment, but to Yuuri, it just wasn’t enough. Not with his hero returning to the ice...and certainly not when the gold medal hung around the neck of the only rival he’d ever known. 

(It was no flirtation from a katsudon fatale, but when Yuuri announced that he would keep skating competitively, he was pretty sure his fiance was excited.)

---

As Yuuri stepped into the hotel ballroom where the banquet was being held, he couldn’t help but marvel at the difference a year could make. Of course, there was the fact that he was walking in on the arm of Viktor Nikiforov, sharply dressed in an outrageously expensive suit that his fiance had insisted they go out and acquire as both a birthday present and something to commemorate Yuuri’s medal. He even carried himself differently. Gone was the misery of his mood at Sochi, when he’d been so ashamed that he’d elected to get blackout drunk. Instead, the air in Barcelona felt electric with a sense of possibility.  He was sure some of the feeling could be attributed to returning skaters’ expectations in the wake of his drunken performance the year prior—he’d already established a precautionary drink limit for the night, much to Viktor’s disappointment.

Still, he liked to think some of it had to do with the events of earlier that day. The exhibition skate had marked Viktor’s welcomed return to the ice. Truthfully, sharing the ice with Viktor for the world to see had been something straight out of his most intimate fantasies. It had been an appropriate homage to Yuuri’s Grand Prix run under Viktor’s coaching — after all, everything had started with Stammi Vicino, and he was certain that if nothing else, the skating otaku appreciated the gesture.

And then Yurio had performed.

It made a blush of embarrassment creep up into Yuuri’s ears just thinking of it. On the one hand, it was nice to see the intense and tightly wound Yurio simply expressing himself, having fun and showing off. On the other...well, the fifteen year old had done things on the ice that Yuuri could never imagine his fifteen year old self pulling off. Heck, he wasn’t even sure he could pull that off at twenty-four. (Eros training aside.)

There was something a little scandalous about it, but in a way, even that seemed to fit the season — a skating world open to possibility without the usual presumed gold medalist at the front of the pack. Everything was new, and everything was shocking. Without Viktor Nikiforov competing, the gold could have gone to anyone. Why should the exhibition performance with its men’s pair skating and salacious rock performance and bizarre Canadian self-love pageant be any less outrageous?

As Yuuri and Viktor made their rounds through the party, the reactions fell into two neat buckets — the younger skaters all clamored over to gush about Viktor’s return to the ice, while the ISU officials and sponsors focused on capturing the attention of the hitherto overlooked Japanese skating prodigy in order to praise him. Yuuri couldn’t help but smile as Viktor deftly worked to charm and negotiate on his behalf — if any of them knew how close he’d come to quitting…

“My Yuuri cuts a very handsome silhouette in most clothes. It’s just one of his many criminally overlooked charms — ”

At a table not far away, in the middle of another cluster of well-dressed non-athletes, Yuuri caught the blonde haired Yuri Plisetsky staring back at him with sharp green eyes. They watched each other for a brief moment before Yuri gave a scowl of displeasure, set his glass down a little too roughy and gruffly excused himself from his own conversation, much to Yakov’s frustration. Yurio loosened his tie with a brutal yank, and Yuuri watched as he stomped decisively out to the ballroom balcony.

Yuuri realized belatedly that he was all but ignoring the conversation Viktor was having with a nice woman from Nike. This turned out to be a blessing since he quickly realized that Viktor was currently waxing poetic about how his thighs looked in spandex. He blushed, deciding to both shut down this line of conversation and give himself a moment to see what it was that had Yurio so agitated.

He leaned into Viktor’s shoulder. “Okay, maybe I’ll have a glass of champagne now,” he murmured. Viktor’s eyes lit up at Yuuri’s roundabout admission that he was reversing his self-enforced drinking policy. It was a surefire way to get Viktor to wrap up the sponsor talk. The Russian skater smoothly extracted them from the conversation, his puppy dog expression only mildly wounded when Yuuri told him to grab their drinks and that he would be right back.

On the ice, at the podium, and even now, there was something bloodthirsty in the looks that Yurio was giving him. Yuuri knew it would bother him until he got to the bottom of it, and so he made his way out to the balcony. The brisk fall air seemed to be keeping the partygoers inside because the only person he found out there was Yurio, who was looking out at the beautiful cityscape of Barcelona with an uninterested scowl on his face.

“Congratulations, again, on your win.” Yuuri’s words were met with an empty silence. Yurio didn’t bother turning to face him, but eventually muttered a polite “thank you.” Another long silence stretched out between them. Yuuri opened his mouth to ask Yurio if everything was alright, only to be cut short by the teenager.

“Was Viktor wrangling you some lucrative commentary job or something?” Yurio asked, unable to keep the venom or disdain from his voice. “I can’t imagine you doing any sort of public speaking, but big endorsement deals don’t fall into the laps of silver medalist babies who give up before the fight has even begun.”

“What are you — ?”

“Or maybe he was just promoting his own comeback tour, and you’re what? Arm candy?”

Yuuri felt a twinge of frustration at being cut off, but his confusion was great enough to hold back the retort on his tongue. “I’m confused,” he said instead, holding his hands up to request that Yurio pause and let him catch up. He cocked his head to the side. “Does this have something to do with why you’ve been glaring at me more than usual since the free skate?”

“You really are an idiot,” Yurio spat back. “Who goes through all the effort and gets good enough to skate like that , gets the highest score of any single program ever and then throws in the towel? How can you even think that’s an acceptable thought? You should just be getting started! You should be — ”

“You think I’m retiring,” Yuuri replied, understanding dawning on him. He had never said anything to anyone besides Viktor about retiring after the grand prix final, but the timing made sense. When Viktor sought out his former coach, Yakov would have been at Yuri’s side, getting the boy ready for his free skate. And the idea of someone acting as both coach and skater was unheard of, so Viktor’s return had clearly left the Russian teenager jumping to conclusions. “I’m not retiring.”

“But — what?”

“I’m not retiring. Once Nationals are over, I’m moving to St. Petersburg to train with Viktor. I guess Yakov didn’t mention it…” His eyes studied Yurio, whose anger had deflated, processing the new information. He muttered words in Russian that Yuuri could only imagine meant something along the lines of ‘stupid bald old man’ in response to the knowledge that his coach hadn’t let him in on the news.

Finally, those green eyes fixed a steely gaze on Yuuri, a genuine grin on his face. “Well then, we can both agree that Old Man Nikiforov can’t be allowed to win gold, right?”

Yuuri blanched, casting the boy an incredulous look. “I mean, I’m pretty sure he can win regardless of what we do...”

“No. I know you want to beat me, and it’s only a matter of time before I crush your free skate record, too. This has nothing to do with Viktor.” His expression turned fiery, a mocking grin on his lips. “Or are you going to tell me that I spent all that effort trying to beat someone I thought was a champion but who is actually just a pathetic pig ready to let someone else win because of something as gross as love ?”

Part of Yuuri wanted to laugh because underneath all that bluster and all those mean looks was the confused, blonde-haired boy he’d pulled out from under a waterfall — a boy who was, like Yuuri, only beginning to understand the strength and love all around him. Love wasn’t weakness or a concession, it was enduring and inspiring. “Yurio, I’ve wanted to skate on the same ice as him since you were in diapers — ”

“Please spare me the eternal love crap.”

“Let me finish,” Yuuri barked, fixing a disapproving look on Yurio that said he would brook no further interruption. “All I wanted was to skate on the same ice as him and show Viktor that I had learned all the things that made his skating so magnificent, and that I could do all those things too. That I could do them better . That I could beat him.” He let out a strangled laugh and a sigh. “Whether that’s true or not yet...what skater goes out there wanting to be anything less than the best? Of course, I want to beat him. I wanted to beat you .”

Yuri winced, wrapping his arms around himself to stave off a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. “...oh.”

“I don’t skate for the sparkly costumes or the attention, you know. I hate that you beat me...it really pisses me off,” Yuuri added with a laugh, reaching out to pat Yurio on the shoulder. “But just because I’m your rival doesn’t mean you should underestimate Viktor’s return.” Yuri sputtered, and Yuuri just smiled. “And you ought to work on your toeloop. Our season isn’t over yet, and I won’t be so reckless with my short program at Worlds.”

“Tch. Who said anything about us being rivals?” Yurio muttered unconvincingly under his breath. “Don’t flatter yourself, Katsudon.”

Yuuri paused at the door and shook his head. “You said it yourself, Yurio. There’s no room for two Yuris in the senior division…” He flashed the boy a smile that toed the line between politeness and challenge. “Enjoy the banquet, Yurio. And the gold medal. You earned it.”

Back inside, Viktor was looking around for him and protecting a small kingdom of champagne flutes nestled atop a hightop table. As Yuuri approached, his face lit up, flashing Yuuri one of his giant, heart-shaped smiles. “You were gone so long,” he whined, handing Yuuri a glass of champagne before sipping his own. “Where were you?”

“I was just talking to Yurio,” Yuuri replied, taking a long sip of his drink. Viktor watched this intently, his lips pressed into a grin. Yuuri let out a nervous laugh. “What?”

“Have I told you how cute you look tonight?”

“Yes, we almost didn’t make it out of the room.”

“But I really, really need you to know how cute you look. You look like a gold medalist.”

“Well, I only won silver.”

“Yes, but you look like a winner. I want to kiss you anyway.”

Without any sponsors or officials in the conversation, they had easily drifted close to one another. Yuuri was grateful for his silver medal, his skating and his career, but mostly he was grateful to have a lifetime to spend with this man. Viktor’s hand was resting on the small of his back, fingers teasing downward as he leaned in for a kiss.

The balcony doors opened with a slam. The banquet attendees stopped and stared at Yuri Plisetsky, who scanned the room with a dark gaze until his eyes settled on Viktor and Yuuri. “HEY! YOU! PIG!” He stomped his way over, stretching to his full height to yell at Yuuri just as he had in that Sochi bathroom. “I don’t need to wait for Worlds to beat you again. Let’s do this!”

He tossed his jacket at Viktor’s face and rolled up his sleeves, making his way to the dance floor. He paused briefly near the Kazakh delegation. “Beka, go put on some better music than this crap.” The man nodded once, pulling out his phone and scrolling through some music as he made his way to the audio board in the back of the ballroom. Most of the crowd seemed confused, but Phichit was already standing at the edge of the dance floor with his phone at the ready.

“You’d think that boy would learn some modesty now that he’s a gold medalist,” his fiance muttered as he removed the jacket from his head. Yuuri didn’t point out the irony of those words coming from Viktor ‘I like to make professional introductions totally naked’ Nikiforov. Instead, he stared after the boy, momentarily perplexed until Viktor stepped in to clarify some of the fuzzier details from last year’s banquet. “He’s—I believe he’s challenging you to a dance off. He must still be sore about last year. I mean, he did spend a lot of time before Worlds yelling about how he was going to learn breakdancing...but you don’t have to do it! I can go tell him off for you.”

Yuuri just laughed, loosening the knot of his tie and handing his jacket to his fiance. “No, it’s okay…” He untucked his button down and flashed Viktor a wink before turning to the dance floor. Something appropriately bass heavy had started to play through the PA system. “I know I can beat him.”