Chapter Text
Do you belive in fate? That everything is decided since the beginning? That we can only follow the path of destiny which was decided for us? A path since we were born?
Yuuri learned the word “fate” and its meaning so much earlier than most children do. When he was little, Hiroko told him the story of how she met her husband. She was radiant with joy, when she spoke of it for the first time. With a broad smile and rosy cheeks, she started to tell Yuuri about the very special day.
“I needed to buy melon bead from the favorite backery of my obaasan even though it was always the job of my little sister. But just like our father, she caught a terrible cold that day and couldn’t get out of bed.”
Yuuri still remebers the way he was kneeling on the floor beside his mother when he was five years old, how he helped her to fold the laundry and listened to her story stock-still, almost as if he was afraid that the smallest noise could break the magic of the story. The look in his mother’ eyes was so warm, that he couldn’t help himself but to tug on his mother's sleeve and to eagerly ask her to continue, “And what happened after that?”
Hiroko let the laundry lay in her lap and stroked his son’s hair affectionately, “Instead of my little sister, my mother asked me to go and when I did, I decided to take a detour and walk alongside the river.”
“And there you saw Papa?” Yuuri interrupted his mother and looked at her with big, excited eyes. She just laughed, “I actually slipped on a leaf and when your Papa tried to help me, I ended up tugging him down with me. I was so embarrassed at that time but he just helped me up and asked if I was hurt.”
“And that man was Papa?” Yuuri asked, his voice no louder than a murmur.
“That was Papa,” Hiroko confirmed with a gentle smile, “in my case it was love at first sight. It feels as if our meeting was fate and if I didn’t know better, I would say that your father is my soulmate,” she chuckled.
At that time Yuuri could only furrow his brows. He didn’t understand why his mother laughed and why that, what she said, was so funny, “I don’t get it.”
Hiroko shook her head bemused. “You will know when you get older,” she started to fold the forgotten laundry in her lap again and nudged her son to do the same, “Everything in due time, Yuuri. One day... one day you will understand.”
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Sergei Nikiforov was an old man. When he lost his only son in a car crash, he didn’t think that he could be happy anymore. He already lost his smile when his wife died years ago. He didn't want to find out what the death of his child would do to him. What he didn’t expect was to find his forgotten happiness in the form of his nephew. His nephew Victor, started to mean the world to Sergei. Money never played a big role to him, if it meant that it would make Victor happy. Everything his nephew wanted, he would get. Nothing made Sergei happier than seeing Victor smile.
That’s also the reason why Sergei was in the ice rink at the crack of dawn and watched with a blank expression but a warm heart, how Victor tried to conquer the ice with shaking and clumsy steps.
“Careful, Vitya. You will fall if you don’t grab on something first.“
Victor just grinned and slid with his spread arms further into the middle of the ice, “But grandpa! Being careful is so boring.”
Sergei sighed. If he just didn’t find the skates who once belonged to his wife, then Victor wouldn't have asked to know more about his grandmother, they wouldn't be here now and Sergei wouldn’t need to watch his nephew dancing on the ice just as the love of his life once did. There were just too many wounds which waited to be reopened by this sight. But as he watched how overjoyed Victor looked on the ice, how he clumsily tried to spin around with a bright smile, how Victor looked like he found a second home on the ice, Sergei taught that maybe it wasn't so bad. Filled with melancholy, Sergei smiled for the first time since a long long time.