Archive of Our Own

Yuuri is not surprised when he wakes the morning after the banquet with a crack in his heart. It’s more surprising, he thinks, that it waited until then to manifest. At least a full twenty hours after… well.

But he’s glad for it. For the way he can’t remember it at all, and the gap in his memory feels like gift. He doesn’t know if he could bear watching it splinter. It’s easily the largest blemish in the glass, and it looks painful.

He wonders if the crack is why his memory is blank after arriving at the banquet last night. He doesn’t remember learning about that specific symptom of heart break, but he never did pay much attention in health class.

Yuuri runs his fingers along the small fissure, lets a sharp edge catch his thumb, and instead of pulling away, he digs in, pressing harder. He wonders what Victor’s heart looks like, if it’s as smooth and shiny as the rest of him. It probably is. Yuuri has seen the edges of it, the result of a particularly risqué photoshoot. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the way the soft pink peeked out of Victor’s low-cut shirt, contrasting against pale skin.

For the briefest moment, he imagines smooth pink in his own marred blue. Even in his mind it looks ridiculous. He laughs softly to himself for picturing it, because otherwise he might cry.

He pulls a shirt on, hiding his heart from sight, and begins the hurried process of packing. He shoves the suit he wore last night into his suitcase, uncaring of wrinkles, and doesn’t notice the shard of pink glass stuffed into a pocket of the slacks.

---

Sometimes when the nights are rough and self-doubts are wreaking havoc in his brain, Yuuri will lay in bed and remind himself of everyone who loves him.

He pulls his shirt up, but not off, and uses the light of his phone screen to examine the glass set into his skin. He’ll ignore the blue at first. The scratches that are evidence of past panic attacks or breakdowns are too much to think about when he’s already so fragile. No, first, he’ll find the purple.

It’s a soft, lavender color that really shouldn’t fit Yuuko at all. When he was younger, he used to think red would suit her, and he’d imagine how well it would complement his own heart. When she did eventually show him her heart, he’d been… disappointed.

That hadn’t stopped them from exchanging pieces, setting inch-long shards into each other’s hearts. Yuuri had been so anxiety ridden about the entire process, convinced Yuuko’s heart would reject him - a rare occurrence, but he had been so sure - and afterwards, seeing how naturally their hearts fit together (though, never the way he had imagined all those years ago) was so overwhelming that Yuuri didn’t bother trying to stop the tears. He and Yuuko had cried in each other’s arms for ten minutes before Takeshi found them.

Yuuko was the first non-family member that he shared his heart with, but she wasn’t the last, and it never got less overwhelming. The piece of Takeshi’s heart is small, but the green chip fits perfectly next to Yuuko’s, like even in other people’s hearts, they can’t stand to be apart.

Minako’s piece is bigger, though not as noticeable as it’s almost transparent, the orange tint just barely there. It’s easily the size of Yuuko and Takeshi’s put together, but the only way to tell is by the way it distorts the color of Yuuri’s own heart.

Phichit’s is the newest, a brilliant, rounded, red lump in the upper left. He’s used to the others, though he adores them all the same, but he can’t but tear up whenever he sees this fragment of Phichit’s heart. He’s known everyone else for years, has the kind of relationships with them that are born more from time and commitment than an actual drive to stick together. And though that doesn’t lessen how much he loves everyone else, it does make Phichit stand out even more to him.

Only after his heart feels lighter from his friends, does he search out his family. Their blues are all different shades, but they’re close enough that if he didn’t know where to look, he might not be able to find them at all.

Typically, he would trace the evidence of their love on his chest until he falls asleep, his heart too full to hear the panicked self-loathing in his brain.

Except, it’s one of these nights, only a few days after the Grand Prix Final, that he notices the chip in his heart, and really, there goes any chance that he’ll be able to sleep.

Yuuri is a master by now at silent panic attacks, so Phichit doesn’t find him until morning, curled up in bed, chest aching as he struggles to find the right rhythm to breathe. Phichit pries Yuuri’s phone from his hand, uses it to send an email to Yuuri’s professor, then curls into his side.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Phichit asks. It’s not the first time he’s seen Yuuri in this state, hell, it’s not even the first time this month - the lead up to the GPF was stressful for both of them - but it’s clear he’s still out of his depth with the way his hands hesitantly clasp Yuuri’s in his own. Yuuri almost wants to laugh at him, to scream maybe, to make Phichit realize how little of Yuuri’s mind is left.

Instead, Yuuri clutches at him, buries his face in Phichit’s shoulder. Words have utterly failed him, his heart aches, and he swears the pain is localized in the empty space where no one bothered to return his love.

---

Apparently not remembering giving a piece of your heart away to someone isn’t as uncommon as Yuuri had thought. At least according to the magazine articles that Phichit strategically leaves scattered around their apartment. Eventually, Yuuri learns to deal with the phantom ache, but the uncertainty is still too fresh sometimes. Knowing that a piece of his heart is out there, and he doesn’t know where is a special kind of torture.

He wonders sometimes if he actually gave it to someone, or if he crammed it underneath the door to Victor Nikiforov’s hotel room, which, and Yuuri is only a little ashamed to admit this, he wouldn’t put past himself.

(He even prefers it that way, because if anyone deserves a fraction of Yuuri’s heart, it’s Victor Nikiforov. Better him than some faceless stranger.)

Yuuri throws himself into his finals with a vigor that surprises both Phichit and Celestino, and then, when those are finished, he throws himself into packing. He won’t give himself time to dwell on it. No one needs to know that the rough nights are even rougher. That he falls asleep much too late, if he even sleeps at all, and he wakes up even later. That he can’t find comfort in the patchwork heart in his chest because it’s no longer whole.

After a tearful goodbye to Phichit, Yuuri boards a plane that’s Japan bound. He tries to convince himself that it won’t matter once he pushes ice skating from his mind and surrounds himself by people who love him.

He almost succeeds.

---

There are two things that Yuuri notices about Victor Nikiforov as he stands completely naked in his family’s onsen.

The first being the whole naked thing, really. It’s a lot - and Yuuri does mean a lot - to take in. Honestly, it’s a miracle he even notices anything else.

But he does, even if only it’s because he’s valiantly trying not to notice, ahem , something else. In forcing his eyes upward, Yuuri is confronted with Victor's chest, and he zeroes in on the glass set into it.

Victor’s heart is beautiful; a smooth, shining, pink wonderful thing that sits just off center in his chest. Yuuri aches to touch it, to see up close whether it's as unblemished as it looks.

It's gorgeous, breathtaking in its intensity, but the longer Yuuri looks at it, the more uncomfortable - disconcerted even - he feels. And it takes a moment for him to realize why.

It's only one color, the same shimmering pink, that fits Victor so perfectly, encompasses the entirety of his heart. There's no telltale variations of the shade from family members, no bright splashes of other people who might have touched Victor’s life.

It's empty. Alone.

The sight almost brings Yuuri to tears. His hand distantly clutches at his own chest through the fabric of his shirt. He’s overcome with the desire to tear his own heart apart so Victor’s isn’t as lonely.

Luckily, before he does something so incredibly stupid, Victor’s words finally register in his mind.

“What?”

----

Being around Victor is a special kind of hell.

It’s not that Yuuri is disappointed, though he half expected to be since he’s been half in love with Victor since he and Yuuko crowded around the tiny television in the rink all those years ago. No, Yuuri’s not disappointed at all. Victor is perfect.

Yuuri feels lied to, cheated out of the side of Victor that none of his interviews were able to capture. This Victor, while just as beautiful, is real in the ways that magazines were always too wary to delve into. Victor is loud, obnoxious, and spends around fifty percent of his day at least partially naked.

Victor sleeps in, complains about practice, drinks too much, and still manages to skate circles around Yuuri like, well, like he’s a five-time world champion.

Yuuri adores him.

It’s a different kind of adoration than before, a different intensity. Before, it was distant in the most literal sense, but no less all-consuming. Throughout college there were some nights Yuuri couldn’t breathe for how much he admired Victor, how much he longed for his recognition. He could never really fantasize, too ashamed of his own yearning to let any tangible dreams surface, but sometimes his very skin seemed to thrum with the need to be in Victor’s life.

Now Yuuri is in Victor’s life, one might even say he’s a pretty important part of it, being Victor’s only student and all, and it’s overwhelming. Every look between them burns with something unsaid, and sometimes Yuuri imagines that maybe it’s not one sided.

All of this though, Yuuri would be able to deal with no problem. He’s used to adoring Victor, and it’s not hard to let that adoration evolve into whatever that feeling in his chest is that consumes him whenever Victor walks into a room. There’s only one thing about the entire situation that Yuuri has no idea how to handle.

Victor is absolutely shameless about his heart.

It’s baffling, the way he’ll parade around without a shirt, or in one of the inn’s robes, his chest on display, like he’s proud of the emptiness. Like he knows he’s untouchable and he wants to rub it in everyone’s face. Sometimes Yuuri will catch Victor looking at him when he does this and the smirk on his face always seems to say, “I never let anyone else into my heart, why would you think you would be any different.”

Yuuri knows. He knows he’s not worthy of Victor’s heart, but that only makes him work harder, like maybe sweat on his brow, the bruises on his hips, or the blisters on his feet will convince Yuuri that he deserves the place Victor carved out of his life for him.

And when Victor gets that look in his eye, the one that’s similarly proud and impressed, Yuuri can almost believe that one day he might earn a piece.

He doesn’t dare to hope that Victor might ever want one in return.

----

When Yuuri is getting ready for his press conference, he pulls on the slacks he wore to the banquet. He hasn’t had them washed, not wanting to waste the money on dry cleaning them when he wasn’t sure he’d ever have a reason to wear them again, but they’re clean enough and also are the only ones he owns that fit him right now.

An official appears to give them a two minute warning. While she’s talking, Yuuri shoves his hands in his pocket, because he suddenly can’t remember what to do with them.

He’s more than a little confused when he feels something in his pocket that’s not his phone. He pulls whatever it is out, it’s smooth and cool to the touch.

And then he promptly loses his goddamn mind.

Because he’s looking at a piece of Victor’s heart. It has to be, right? He doesn’t know anyone else with this exact shade of pink. But. But Yuuri doesn’t think Victor’s heart is missing any pieces.

But. Yuuri has been avoiding looking too closely at Victor’s heart, too afraid of the way his own will ache if he looks for too long.

Maybe.

But probably not, right?

What else could it be? When did it even-

And then Yuuri’s onstage, being called forward, and he’s still clutching the glass in his fist, taking comfort in the pain from the sharp edges digging into his palm. And he makes a bit of a fool of himself, mind spinning too fast to do anything but declare his love for Victor on television.

It’s fine. It’s in Japanese. Victor doesn’t have to know.

Somehow, somehow he makes his way home. He doesn’t even remember the press conference ending. Victor greets him first, as soon as Yuuri’s steps across the threshold, all smiles and hands as he pulls Yuuri against his side and marches him to the dining room.

Yuuri’s still clutching the glass. He doesn’t mention it to Victor.

----

Now that Yuuri’s looking for it, the empty space in Victor’s heart is glaringly obvious. He doesn’t know how he missed it, maybe the curvature of the glass hid it, but it’s definitely there. Right in the center. The rest of his heart looks strangely vulnerable with a piece of it missing.

(Not missing, no. Yuuri shoved it under his bed, between his two favorite posters. He tries to forget it’s there.)

Yuuri wants to bring it up, to find out how he ended up with a piece of a heart that no one else in the world gets to have, but every time he thinks he works up the courage the broach the topic, his anxiety snaps back at him. Why hasn’t Victor said anything?

He must regret it. What kind of person gives someone a piece of their heart and then doesn’t even acknowledge it? Victor must be trying to forget about it. Occasionally, Yuuri wonders why he doesn’t just ask for it back. He hates how his throat closes up at the thought.

He would give it back though, if Victor asked.

He probably only has it by accident anyway. He doesn’t even know when Victor might have slipped it into his pocket, probably one night when he was drunk. That’s the only explanation Yuuri’s own heart can accept.

After a week, Victor still hasn’t brought it up, and Yuuri still needs to work on his Quad Salchow, so he throws himself into that during the day until his head is full of the ice and Victor, and far, far away from the underside of his bed.

No one but Makkachin needs to know how he’ll crawl under his bed at night and hold Victor’s heart shard in his hand, imagining how it would feel in his own heart. He likes to think that it would fit perfectly where his own missing piece used to be.

----

Victor kisses him.

Victor kisses him.

Victor kisses him.

Victor kisses him?

Every time Yuuri repeats that in mind it makes less and less sense. Victor doesn’t... He can’t, right? There’s no way he actually likes Yuuri. Not dime-a-dozen skater Katsuki Yuuri. There’s no way.

Yuuri keeps telling himself this until they get back to the hotel after making rounds with the press. Once the door closes on the rest of the world, Victor levels Yuuri with a considering look, a finger on his chin and a smile on his lips.

The lips that were kissing Yuuri only a few hours before.

Nope, Yuuri still can’t believe it. He must have hallucinated the entire thing. He only got like maybe an hour of sleep after all. Sleep deprivation can lead to delusions, right? Did Yuuri even medal? He can’t be sure anym-

Oh. Victor’s kissing him again. That sure is happening.

It’s incredible how quickly Yuuri’s brain just shuts down when Victor’s lips are on his. Yuui has spent his entire life trying to get it to be quiet and leave him alone, using various methods such as therapy, or even drinking for a brief few weeks in college before Phichit showed him a video so he could see exactly how he acted while drunk. Apparently all he had to do to accomplish this is kiss Victor Nikiforov.

Yuuri laughs into Victor’s mouth, loud and high, bordering on hysteric. Victor pulls back, brows furrowed in question.

“Sorry,” Yuuri says, a little breathless, “I was just thinking about something.”

“Thinking?” Victor pulls Yuuri close with a hand on his neck, “I must not be doing this right.” He captures Yuuri’s lips again, eager to do it right apparently. Yuuri smiles against Victor’s mouth and lets his brain shut up.

----

One would think that being kissed senseless on national television would give Yuuri enough confidence to confront Victor about the piece of glass that Yuuri has now taken to carrying everywhere with him in his gym bag. It does not.

Yuuri knows that he should say something, he does, but everything is so perfect right now. They’re training harder than ever, trying to get Yuuri’s quad flip in shape for Rostelecom. Long days of practice are bookended with Victor closer even than he was before, constantly finding reasons to touch Yuuri, and Yuuri can’t bring himself to pull away anymore.

He’s too wary of the fragility of their situation, of Victor’s declaration in April about coaching him through the GPF, with no mention of staying longer. He would give anything to stay right here, right now, on the ice with Victor.

So Yuuri doesn’t say anything, tries desperately not to think about it, even as he’s hyper aware of where the glass sits, tucked into a side pocket that Yuuri doesn’t use.

Yuuri skates and allows Victor to hang all over him, and tells himself that he’s content.

----

Yuuri, who has spent the past ten years of his life surrounded by Victor, either in posters and interviews, or in the flesh, spends the first half of Rostelecom in a constant state of sensory overload.

It’s not entirely Victor’s fault, a lot of it is just from being in Russia, a country that is entirely inseparable from Victor in Yuuri’s mind. Everything here just feels so much more intense, so much clearer. The fans are more devoted, the press more shameless, and Victor can’t leave the hotel room for longer than five minutes without being stopped.

Yuuri’s only a little bit jealous. He can’t entirely subdue the clawing beast in his chest that demands Victor’s attention at all times, so when Victor pays more attention to his fans, people he doesn’t even know , than to Yuuri before his short program, well. Yuuri loses it a little.

Yuuri takes Victor by the tie, fingers ghosting over Victor chest, and Yuuri feels electrified just from the phantom touch of his hand against Victor’s heart, even separated by a layer of fabric as they are. Yuuri’s not even sure what he says, but it’s probably something he would be horribly embarrassed by judging by the flush on Victor’s face as he skates away.

After his short program, Victor bends down to kiss Yuuri’s skate, looking up at him like he would burn the whole world down just to make Yuuri happy. Yuuri’s chest fills with so much warmth that he thinks he might explode.

Maybe… Maybe he can have this.

But then, then Mari calls him, and Victor leaves - he has to, Yuuri can’t be the reason that - and Yuuri’s alone again and suddenly the emptiness in his heart feels heavier than ever, pushing down on his ribs until he can’t breathe and everything is just too much, but he can’t disappoint Victor. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t.

Yuuri barely remembers the free skate, it doesn’t feel like it actually happened, but he remembers sitting in the kiss and cry with Yakov, he remembers Yakov’s feedback. He remembers seeing his score, his eyes burning. He pulls Yakov into a hug, burying his face in his shoulder, and tries to stop feeling.

It doesn’t work.

He watches the medal ceremony from the sidelines, an unrelenting ache in his throat. He grips his phone in his pocket, the case slippery with sweat from how long he’s been clutching it. He should call Victor.

He doesn’t.

He hugs everyone he can reach afterwards, searching for someone, anyone, to ease the pain in his chest. Trying to find anything that even comes close to how Victor makes him feel. When he fails, he retreats away from the rink, and hopefully anyone who might recognize him.

The Moscow air chills him to the bone, numbing the ache for a moment, just long enough to allow him to think.

He made it to the Grand Prix Final, but he’s not relieved. There’s a sense of dread crawling up his throat as he is suddenly confronted with the deadline Victor placed on their relationship.

What’s going to happen after the Grand Prix Final? It’s not even the end of the season. Does Victor expect Yuuri to continue on his own for Nationals and Four Continents, or maybe Victor was just pre-emptively giving himself an excuse to leave if Yuuri didn’t make it in the first place. But.

Yuuri barely made it. He’s pretty much only going to be there on a technicality. Yuuri looks at the blank screen of his phone. He hasn’t turned it back on yet. Victor must be disappointed. Maybe. Maybe it would be better if Yuuri were the one to break things off after the Grand Prix Final. Then he wouldn’t be burdening Victor more than he already is.

Victor could move on, could stop wasting his time with a dime-a-dozen skater from Japan.

Yurio sweeps in with a fierce yell and a jarring pain in Yuuri’s gut from the collision of his foot. The piroshky warms him, but it’s nothing compared to the fondness that fills him from Yurio’s smile. It dulls the pain even more than the cold, and later, Yuuri will turn his phone back on and facetime with Victor and Makkachin until he passes out, wondering how he got so lucky to be surrounded by such wonderful people.

----

Yuuri forces himself to sleep through most of the flight home. He makes his way through customs groggily, only half aware of his surroundings, too used to the entire process to actually process it anymore.

When he hears Makkachin’s bark, when he sees Victor on the other side of the glass, it’s like his entire being has been doused in electricity. He forgets his tiredness and sprints, his heart singing at how Victor mirrors him. And when he finally, finally, has Victor in his arms again, he knows that he can’t ever let him go.

Victor is his . And Yuuri’s going to prove that he’s worthy of Victor’s love, even if it takes years.

And when Victor says, “It’s almost like a marriage proposal,” Yuuri’s chest burns with yearning. And for once in his life, his dreams don’t seem so unattainable.

----

He still doesn’t mention the piece of Victor’s heart tucked into his skate bag. It’s been too long, it would surely be even more awkward to bring it up now.

--

Barcelona is wonderful. Victor takes him around the city, clutching his arm the entire time, and Yuuri thinks he could die right now and not have a single regret. Yuuri never wants to let go of this feeling, and that’s probably why he pulls Victor into a jewelry store on a whim.

Yuuri spends too much time looking at silver rings, thinking about how every time he looked at it, it would remind him of Victor’s hair. But then he catches the glint of a golden ring, and he thinks of the blades of Victor’s skates, of Victor’s promise. And well. There’s more than one type of gold, and this one might be better than all of Victor’s medals combined.

Yuuri allows himself this selfish thought for just barely a moment before he’s horrified for even thinking it.

Still, the gold calls to him. And it’s more noticeable, a clear declaration that Victor is Yuuri’s and Yuuri is Victor’s. And his mind is made up before he has a chance to think about it farther. Yuuri drags them out of the shop, away from the delighted stare of the jeweler.

They just sort of end up at the church. Though, Yuuri suspects that Victor was leading him there a little bit.

Victor wearing his ring is way more than Yuuri ever thought he would get. It’s more than enough, more than he deserves. He hasn’t proven himself worthy yet, but Victor is somehow, miraculously happy with him. With Yuuri.

He doesn’t need more than this, no matter how much he wants to press a piece of his own heart into Victor’s, to really make a mark on him. He wants it, more than he wants a gold medal, more than he wants to marry Victor, but.

He doesn’t need it.

----

Dinner goes by in a blur, and before Yuuri knows it, they’re back at the hotel.

“You don’t remember,” Victor says, wonderingly, his eyes shining.

“N-no, I don’t. I’m sorry,” Yuuri dips his head in a slight bow, just barely restraining himself from throwing himself at Victor’s feet to grovel.

“You don’t remember…” Victor repeats, his voice trembling.

“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you,” Yuuri says, his face heats with a flush.

“No, you were wonderful,” Victor steps closer and takes Yuuri’s hands. “I must have seemed so shameless when I showed up in Hasetsu.” Victor rubs his thumbs over Yuuri’s knuckles, back and forth in a soothing motion.

“A bit,” Yuuri says, a wry smile tugging at his lips.

Victor groans, falling forward to bury his face in the crook of Yuuri’s neck. He stays there for a moment, and Yuuri lets the silence wash over them, tugging his hands free so he can wrap his arms around Victor.

“I thought maybe you changed your mind.” Victor’s voice is soft, vulnerable.

Yuuri hums in question. Victor places a hand over Yuuri’s heart, a deliberate touch that makes Yuuri’s breath hitch.

Yuuri stutters out a mess of incomprehensible syllables, his brain refusing to cooperate long enough to string them together into a coherent word.

“You never said anything,” Victor’s whispering, but it feels impossibly loud in the stillness of their hotel room. “Your heart is already so full, I thought maybe there wasn’t room for me.” Victor’s voice cracks, going a little too high pitched to be considered normal, and Yuuri’s heart plummets.

“No!” Yuuri says, loud and a little panicked at the thought of Victor being hurt by him. “Never, I-” Yuuri swallows past the lump in his throat. “There will always be room for you. There always has been.” Yuuri draws in a shaky breath. “I just- I didn’t know.”

Victor looks up at that, tears caught in the corners of his eyes. He’s silent for a moment, searching for something in Yuuri’s face. He must find it because he relaxes, going almost limp in Yuuri’s arms, letting him take most of his weight.

“I should have said something sooner,” Victor mumbles into Yuuri’s scarf that he hasn’t yet gotten around to removing.

“Maybe, but…” Yuuri extracts himself from Victor’s octopus arms so he can dig into his suitcase in the corner of the room. “I should have too.” Yuuri holds out his hand, showing Victor the glass he couldn’t help but bring along.

“Yuuri,” Victor’s voice is heavy, laden with so many emotions that Yuuri couldn’t even begin to decode it. But he doesn’t sounds upset, and Yuuri clings to that, steeling himself.

“I don’t.” Yuuri starts, clears his throat, and tries again, “I couldn’t remember how I got this. I thought-” Yuuri’s throat tightens, remembering the doubt that plagued him. Looking back, it seems unfair of him to think Victor would give him his heart and just ignore him. He feels silly. “Well, I don’t really know what I thought. But I was scared that you might regret it, that that’s why you didn’t bring it up.”

“I will never regret you,” Victor said, nothing but surety in his voice, his face. Yuuri’s heart sings.

Yuuri looks at the floor, at Victor’s shoes that, after their day of sightseeing, really need a polish. Shame colors Yuuri’s cheeks, and he doesn’t want Victor to see that, he doesn’t want to show this weakness. “I’m sorry for doubting you.”

“Do you-”

“Can we-”

They both look at each other, a hesitant smile on Victor’s face, and god only knows that Yuuri’s face is doing. It’s probably something ridiculous and soppy.

“You first,” Victor says. He runs his fingers through his hair and Yuuri’s brain stutters to a brief halt at the sight of him, mussed and flushed.

“I…” Yuuri shakes it off, trying to focus on what’s important. No one needs to know that he memorizes the sight before getting back on track. “Do you have it with you?” He asks, almost afraid of the answer.

“Yeah. Yes.” Victor turns to his own suitcase, unzipping an inside pocket and pulling out the piece of Yuuri’s heart that’s been missing for the past year. Something uncoils in his chest, and Yuuri feels like he can finally breathe for the first time since he noticed the absence.

Yuuri reaches out, trails his finger along the length of it. And he smiles, a soft curve of his lips. “I thought, maybe I shoved it under your hotel room door or something.” Yuuri shrugs, hoping Victor doesn’t detect the self deprecation in his voice.

“Actually,” Victor says lightly, teasingly even, stepping close enough that Yuuri has to tilt his head to see Victor’s face. “You gave it to me while I was trying to get a shirt back on you after your pole dance with Chris.”

“No!” Yuuri gasps, horrified. His face feels hot, and he knows he must be redder than Victor’s heart.

“No,” Victor agrees, and Yuuri’s relief at that is short-lived. “It was the only time we were alone that night. I helped you back to your hotel room and you were quite insistent.”

“I wasn’t,” Yuuri groans, letting his head fall onto Victor’s chest.

“I didn’t complain.” Victor threads his fingers through Yuuri’s hair. They don’t move to pet him, but just their presence is soothing. “I was, ah, very much onboard. I gave you mine first, tucked it into your pocket for safekeeping, as a promise to be fulfilled when you were sober.”

It’s easier to listen to Victor like this, when they can’t see each other’s faces. Yuuri presses closer in embarrassment, his face smushing against the hardness of Victor’s heart until he can hear the faint rhythm of it. Yuuri can almost picture how it happened, but even with Victor’s steady voice in his ear it feels like a dream he doesn’t deserve.

“You started crying,” Victor continues, and yeah, Yuuri can believe that. Even now, he’s currently trying to figure out how to not sniffle and give himself away, while also avoiding getting snot on Victor’s coat.

“I thought I’d done something wrong,” Victor says, the hand in Yuuri’s hair tensing for a moment, “but then you broke this piece off of your heart, and well,” Victor smiles, a brittle, breakable thing like he expects Yuuri to ruin him, “I’ve been a bit obsessed since.”

“Obsessed?” Yuuri says, stunned.

He tries to imagine it. Imagine Victor Nikiforov, his childhood idol, star of all of his teenage fantasies and wet dreams, and a truly wondrous amount of his adult ones, obsessing over him. He’s just Yuuri. A nobody skater from Japan, who was mediocre at best before Victor came along. He can’t wrap his mind around the idea.

“Yuuri,” Victor’s voice goes flat. He pulls away to look at Yuuri’s face, holding him at arm’s length. “You’ve got that look on you face.”

“What look?” Yuuri asks.

“The one that tells me you’re thinking untrue things. Probably about yourself,” Victor’s frown is maybe a bit exaggerated to make his displeasure clear. Yuuri can’t help but crack a smile at the melodrama of it all.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri says. Victor reaches out, cupping Yuuri’s cheek. Yuuri’s breath catches as Victor tilts his face up and leans down, slotting their lips together.

When they separate a few moments later, both a little more dazed than before, Victor leads Yuuri to the beds. He sits Yuuri down and kneels between his legs, gently prying the piece of his heart out of Yuuri’s grasp.

“Let me do this properly,” Victor says, and he presents the glass shard to Yuuri as if it were an engagement ring. Wow, they really did this backwards, didn’t they?

Victor is quiet for a moment too long, clearly struggling with the words. Yuuri’s heart aches with adoration. He reaches out, palms Victor’s cheek. Another moment of quiet, and Yuuri strokes downward to cup the side of Victor’s neck, rubbing small circles into the hollow of his throat. Victor leans into Yuuri’s hand and lets out a shaky breath.

Victor looks up at Yuuri through his eyelashes, presenting the shard more insistently as he says, “Will you keep it safe for me?”

Yuuri starts crying in earnest then. It’s too much too fast - or not fast enough, really it’s been a year. A sob tears through him as he throws himself into Victor’s arms, banging his knee on the floor, but he doesn’t even care because this is so much more than he deserves.

But he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

----

They decide to wait until after the Grand Prix Final to properly share their hearts. Victor is worried too much about how it might affect Yuuri’s hormones, spouting out a bunch of nonsense he learned in his grade 9 health class.

Yuuri doesn’t bother explaining that since his hormones have mostly evened out by now - he’s twenty-three, honestly - he won’t be affected too much by it. He’s too charmed by Victor’s obvious excitement, a gentle reminder that this is the first time Victor’s done something like this.

Victor had lamented to Yuuri the night of their engagement about how humans can’t share their hearts with dogs, because if they could he would have done so with Makkachin ages ago.

Not long after, he explains how he never found anyone worth sharing something so intimate with. No one that wanted to anyway. The set of Victor’s mouth as he says this makes Yuuri’s stomach twist unpleasantly and Victor falls asleep in Yuuri’s arms that night.

When they return to Hasetsu, a newly bemedaled Yuuri, and an unretired Victor, they both sit, shirtless, on the floor of Yuuri’s childhood bedroom and they give themselves to each other.

Yuuri lets Victor go first, and Victor’s hand shakes as he presses his heart shard into Yuuri, right into the empty space where the glass that Yuuri is grasping used to be.

Yuuko told him once how exchanging heart pieces with Takeshi was unlike anything she’s ever felt before. Something utterly different to how it feels with family or friends. Something indescribable. Yuuri hadn’t believed her until now.

It’s warm, very warm, almost scorching, but not painful. Yuuri’s heart accepts Victor so easily, like it was meant to hold a piece of Victor’s heart, with none of the resistance it had with Yuuko or Phichit. It’s suffocating in its intensity and Yuuri wouldn’t mind drowning in this, if this was the last thing he ever experienced he would have no regrets.

His head swims, submerged in the wonderfulness of having a piece of Victor for himself. He feels like he’s floating, like Victor is the only thing tethering him to earth, and he drifts like that for as long as he can hold onto the feeling.

Coming out of it is like breaking the surface of water, and Yuuri has to pull deep breaths into his lungs to steady himself. Victor looks worried and Yuuri almost regrets that this is going to be Victor’s first experience with this.

He’s too selfish to actually feel remorse about it though.

Yuuri leans forward and pulls Victor into a kiss. Somehow it feels more intense than usual, the ever present sparks shimmering up Yuuri’s spine are just more and Yuuri can’t hold back the shivers they cause as he moans into Victor’s mouth.

Victor’s the one who pulls back, worry slanting his brows. Yuuri has to blink a few times before he rests a reassuring hand on Victor’s thigh.

“Don’t worry so much,” Yuuri smiles, “you’ll get wrinkles.” He pokes the space between Victor’s eyebrows and laughs at the offended look on Victor’s face.

“My fiancé is so cruel,” Victor pouts, seemingly unaware of the way Yuuri’s heart jolts, then soars at his words.

“It’s okay, I’ll still love you when you’re all bald and wrinkly,” Yuuri says, mostly to mess with Victor, but also completely and totally honest.

“ Yuuri!”

Yuuri laughs, bright and loud, and Victor tackles him to the floor in revenge. They struggle for a moment, Yuuri trying in vain to flip them over and gain the upper hand, but he’s laughing too hard and the way Victor keeps wriggling his fingers along his ribcage isn’t helping with that.

They end the struggle with Victor on top of Yuuri, arms bracketing Yuuri’s head, both of them flushed and breathing heavy. It would be so easy for Yuuri to pull Victor close, to lose himself in the moment and drown in Victor’s presence. It’s a hard prospect to resist.

But, they were in the middle of something, so Victor retreats, giving Yuuri room to sit up. They both sit cross-legged, a little further apart than they normally would be. Yuuri’s skin itches with the need to be closer.

The space between them is heavy, and much too big, so Yuuri closes the gap until their knees are touching. But it still feels like too much.

Victor must feel the same because he opens his arms, a clear invitation, and Yuuri slides into his lap. It takes a moment for them to situate themselves comfortably, and Yuuri has no idea what to do with his legs until Victor guides him, with a hand on his thigh, to wrap them around his waist.

“Hi,” Yuuri says.

“Hey you,” Victor smiles, not a trace of concern in his face. Yuuri couldn’t refrain from answering with a grin of his own even if he wanted to.

“You ready?” Yuuri asks, hand going to the back of Victor’s neck, scratching ever so lightly at the hair there.

“Of course,” Victor says, and his face is so open and loving that Yuuri forgets how to breathe for a moment.

Yuuri leans back, just enough for his to worm his hand between their chests. Victor’s hand is on his lower back, steadying him. Yuuri positions the shard right over the emptiness in Victor’s heart, thumb and forefinger posed to push it in. Yuuri’s eyes flick up to see Victor staring at Yuuri’s face.

Yuuri gazes into Victor’s beautiful, enchanting eyes and joins his heart with Victor’s.

If experiencing it was intense, then watching it happen to the love of his life is on a whole other level.

Victor’s response to the sensation is immediate, his back arches, pressing their chests together, trapping Yuuri’s hand between them. Victor’s hand on Yuuri’s back clenches, the fabric of Yuuri’s shirt the only thing protecting Yuuri’s skin from Victor’s nails. Victor moans, not in a sexual way, but an almost innocent, wondering one, like he’s having a religious experience, and Yuuri flushes at the thought.

Yuuri’s trapped between Victor’s hand and his chest, but he wouldn’t ever want to be anywhere but here, no matter the circumstances.

Victor comes down in waves, Yuuri thinks the experience must have been more intense for him, since he hasn’t even done familial or platonic bonds to work up to it. Victor’s back relaxes first, he slouches and Yuuri pulls him in so he can rest his head on Yuuri’s shoulder. His hand goes limp not soon after that, but he shakes through the aftershock of it all for a few minutes still.

“Is it always like that?” Victor asks ten minutes later, his voice heavy with satisfaction.

“No.” Yuuri strokes Victor’s hair, mostly to soothe him, but also to calm himself. “Was it alright?”

“It was wonderful ,” Victor gasps out against Yuuri’s collarbone, and Yuuri feels a weight lift off his shoulders.

Yuuri doesn’t know how long they sit like that, just basking in each other’s presence. Everything that’s not Victor feels muted, but Yuuri couldn’t care less, because Victor’s always been the clearest thing in his life. His eyes have always been for Victor, he’s glad the rest of his body seems to be catching up.

Later, Victor presses Yuuri into the mattress, and Yuuri can’t help but stare at Victor’s heart, at his own imperfect, blue glass slotted perfectly along the soft pink of Victor. He tears up, and Victor seems to be affected similarly because they’re crying, gross and happy, in each other’s arms not a moment later.

“Thank you,” Victor says, tracing the skin around Yuuri’s heart, his hand breaking free of its path occasionally to brush against the patch of pink.  

Yuuri doesn’t have to ask what Victor is thanking him for, because he remembers Victor’s words in Barcelona, how he didn’t think he had a place in Yuuri’s life, in his love. It’s utterly ridiculous, and Yuuri has to wonder if this incredulity is the same thing Victor feels when Yuuri worries about not being good enough.

It’s so silly. Doesn’t Victor know that Yuuri would tear apart his entire being if it meant getting to have even a piece of Victor? Yuuri would ruin the world if it meant keeping Victor at his side.

Which should really be a worrying thought, but that’s a problem for future-Yuuri who isn’t drowning in Victor’s presence.

“Always,” Yuuri says instead of all of that. Victor presses a kiss against Yuuri’s forehead, and they fall asleep in each other’s arms, tears dried on their face, happier than they’ve ever been before.