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“And this year’s recipient of the Palme d’Or is… Ai ni Tsuite!”
The noise is at once too deafening and too distant, echoing to Yuuri Katsuki from the other side of a long tunnel. His heart swoops; his hands have gone clammy against his knees as he slowly rises up and feels the blinding glare of the spotlight and cameras on him. The music — the theme of his film? — has swelled along with the applause, though he barely hears it as he makes his way through the row of well-wishers on his way to the stage.
The stage is blindingly white. So much bigger than he’d anticipated. Does it really take this many steps to get up to the top? To the lectern? To the case that holds the shining golden palm leaf that is now his? His footsteps seem to squeak against the marble as he finally reaches the woman presenting the award; she kisses him on both cheeks and he turns to smile out at the vast sea of blurred faces and flashing lights.
“Oh my god,” he breathes after a moment. How long is everyone going to take to clap? They’re all standing up, cheering, beaming. He searches out his cast and crew instead. Phichit is wiping at his eyes, his phone trained on the stage. Guang-Hong and Jean-Jacques are beaming at him. And Viktor —
Viktor is still seated, not applauding, but the way his hand is on his chest and the way his eyes are shining even at this distance tells Yuuri more than even the loudest congratulations ever could.
And Yuuri remembers, then, this time two years ago when their spots had been traded, when Viktor was getting a Palme for Stay Close to Me and Yuuri had been grateful just for the opportunity to have his short film “Lohengrin” screened at Cannes at all. Viktor Nikiforov is an auteur, a bright star in the filament of film history, a mastermind whose works were going to end up on film class syllabi, dissected frame-by-frame in dissertations and textbooks for their meticulous attention to editing, cinematography, mise-en-scène. And Yuuri?
Yuuri had loved him from the first film he saw.
It starts twelve years ago, on a boxy old family computer in a living room in Japan.
“Hi! I’m Viktor Nikiforov! This is just something silly my friends and I put together,” a sixteen-year-old boy with a thick Russian accent chirps from a video on YouTube. Yuuri’s eyes widen as he takes in the expansive cardboard set and the intricate homemade costumes. The story is about a fairy determined to save a princess from an evil witch, and Viktor is immaculate as the fairy with his long silver hair and iridescent foil wings.
Yuuri loves it. Loves the way the camera moves, loves the attention paid to every detail of the set. Loves the heart-shaped smile and the bright laughter of the boy with the iridescent foil wings that stars in it.
He understands none of the words, and the English subtitles aren’t that great (not that he’s exactly the best judge of English grammar, at thirteen with only his English classes at school under his belt), but there’s something in this small video that tells him that this boy has a passion for film, just like himself. Yuuri had been saving money for his own Super 8 camera, so that he could learn how to develop and edit film like Ozu and Kurosawa and the other great Japanese auteurs, and now he can’t wait for the day when he can make a film that Viktor Nikiforov will watch and enjoy.
The credits of the short film roll, and Yuuri excitedly clicks on the channel name, in the hopes of finding more films that Viktor has done.
“I’m… well.” Yuuri stands at the lectern now. The Palme d’Or is cold against his sweaty, nervous hands. “I’m so honoured to be here. I honestly didn’t know that I would, though. Everything just happened so fast.”
And it has. The production of On Love had been a whirlwind. It had been a passion project incubating for for four years, made in two after Viktor had inexplicably found Yuuri’s fundraising videos about the project and offered to be his producer.
“I’d wanted to explore this sort of story for such a long time, but I never had the guts to do it, or the funds, and I’m so glad I took a leap of faith and had all of it pay off. I wouldn’t be where I am today without that, and without the people who love me — and who I love — helping me every step of the way. So this is really their award.” The words come out of him in a rush, exhilarating in their release. The crowd is an enraptured blur, hanging onto all of his utterances. Yuuri takes a deep breath, seeks out Viktor’s kind eyes for some sort of reassurance.
Viktor’s smile broadens. Yuuri’s heart stutters.
“It’s for you,” he says quietly, looking at him directly. “Thank you for everything.”
And if the cameras train on Viktor’s tear-stained expression for the benefit of the people watching at home, Yuuri wouldn’t know.
Two years ago, the story looks something like this:
Viktor Nikiforov had been on this stage, giving his acceptance speech for Stay Close to Me. “Surely the longing and searching for meaning in this vast, uncaring world must end in something,” he says. “Surely there must be something out there worth protecting, worth fighting for. It is our responsibility to find that thing, that beautiful unknown. And to stay close to them and never let them go.”
Yuuri has followed Viktor Nikiforov for ten years already. He knows what the man means. Going from silly childish YouTube videos to Hollywood productions is honestly any young filmmaker’s dream, but it had happened to Viktor so fast that he had barely had time to breathe. At twenty-six, Viktor is one of the youngest directors to have achieved such a prestigious award. He’s also got five Academy Awards under his belt, and numerous accolades from other film festivals all around the world.
No one so decorated at such young an age could possibly be anything other than lonely.
Two years ago, the beautiful unknown sweeps into Yuuri’s life when Viktor Nikiforov shows up in his parents’ ryokan and — to his extreme consternation — rises from the steam of the onsen buck naked, his hand extended as he offers to become Yuuri’s producer for his first feature film.
And from then on, it’s been a never-ending chain of surprises.
They’re taking photos now, all of the laureates together, gathered with the hosts and the jury and the president of the festival. The press is gathered, eager for the opportunity to ask questions, to get a slice of the news.
“Mr Katsuki, how do you feel about your victory?” a newscaster asks, his microphone jutting into Yuuri’s face. Yuuri blanches at the camera, but then recovers, putting on something he hopes looks like a smile.
“I’m humbled to receive it,” he says, feeling hot under his collar at the lights and the sounds and the stifling need to get out of the spotlight as soon as possible. “I have a lot of people to thank.”
At the first possible opening, he drops off his award with Phichit and slips away from the crowd. The upper terraces of the Palais des Festivals are relatively devoid of people, so out here he breathes in the sea-tinged air, watching the faint twinkle of boats out on the sea heading to the harbour of the Cannes waterfront.
“They said I’d find you here,” a voice says from behind him, and Yuuri turns back to see Viktor Nikiforov, five-time Academy Award-winning director and now the producer of a Palme d’Or-winning feature film. “Enjoying the view?”
Yuuri chuckles. “Yeah, it’s…” he trails off, gesturing out at the vista, at the glittering lights of the buildings surrounding the bay. “I can’t capture this as perfectly with a camera as I can with my eyes.”
“It’s always a little difficult to do that,” agrees Viktor, coming to stand next to him. Yuuri can smell the remnants of his cologne, faded as it is to just the low musky base. It’s intoxicating; he wants to drink it in as badly as he wants to drink the flute of champagne in Viktor’s hand.
“Where?” he asks, gesturing to the champagne. Viktor chuckles.
“They’ve laid out a reception in the back,” he replies. “You can have mine.”
“Oh. That’s fine.” Yuuri shakes his head. “I probably shouldn’t.”
Viktor looks down at his glass, almost contemplatively. “Maybe not,” he concedes after a moment. “Can’t have a repeat of the last Cannes afterparty we were both at, after all.”
Yuuri swallows, remembering the rumours, the whispers. Mila and Christophe, who had been there last time, had photographic evidence of the mayhem as well.
Memory is such a fickle thing sometimes. Maybe that’s why cameras exist.
“I can’t believe your producer got you an Alexa 65,” Phichit Chulanont mutters as they stand in an apartment in Prague a couple days before shooting begins, staring at the shiny camera snug in its case. “Do I even know how to operate an Alexa 65? I should figure out how to operate an Alexa 65.”
“How.” Yuuri gapes, torn between his need to test out the camera and his desire to protect it from the world. He would guard this camera with his life. Maybe also Phichit’s. Based on the tender strokes of his cinematographer’s hand across the case, Phichit is already thinking the same thing.
“He’s Viktor Nikiforov, of course he can get an Alexa 65,” Phichit replies.
Yuuri snorts. “You’re probably not wrong, Phichit, but…” He shakes his head, rubbing at his temples. “Why?”
“You made a short film good enough for Cannes, so he reckons you want the best?”
“Why me? There’s billions of young directors out there. Why me, specifically?”
“The short version of On Love that went viral?”
“No thanks to Yuuko’s triplets,” mutters Yuuri. He’s still a little embarrassed about that, honestly.
“Yeah but at least they linked to your Kickstarter,” says Phichit, laughing. “And I’m guessing Viktor took it from there. He offered to be your producer, right?”
“By showing up naked in my parents’ onsen, yes.” Yuuri nods, closing the case on the Alexa, lest a speck of dust fall onto it already. He turns from the table, looking around at all of the other equipment piled around. Some of it is Phichit’s, but others are clearly rental equipment procured for them via Viktor’s connections. ”Where’s the lens case for the Alexa?”
“Near the big bag of flags,” replies Phichit, nodding towards the corner. “I can’t wait to load all this stuff into my very own G&E truck instead of the back of some stranger’s car. Can you believe it? I get to have my own team, too, instead of doing double and triple duty. You know how many cables had to be wrangled for “Lohengrin”? Too many.”
Yuuri shakes his head. “I can’t do this,” he says.
Phichit snorts. “Yes you can,” he replies, with that tone of voice that clearly says he thinks very little of Yuuri’s terrible self-doubting spirals that tend to crop up close to shooting dates.
“If it’s just because of the short, then he’s going to be disappointed halfway through and pull out of the project and then we’ll be stuck in production hell forever,” mumbles Yuuri, almost in one breath, and feels Phichit patting his back before he properly registers it.
“Take a deep breath,” suggests his friend with a sigh. Yuuri obeys. “Now listen, Yuuri. Viktor is here. He put his own projects on hiatus to produce On Love; he’s clearly serious about seeing it through. And no one gives you an Alexa just to bail out on you halfway through production, alright? It’s going to be okay.”
Yuuri inhales. Exhales. Phichit cups his face, grins brightly at him.
“You got that?” he asks. Yuuri nods, dimly. “Good. Let’s go make something to eat. I’m starving.”
Yuuri can only numbly follow Phichit into the kitchen, his mind still a million miles away. But at least it feels a couple miles closer, so at least that ought to count for something.
“Yeah, that was…” Yuuri sighs now, his mind still wandering as far out as the distant invisible stars in the night sky above Cannes. “I’m sorry. I should have known.”
Viktor chuckles. “We were both drunk,” he says. “You moreso than me, though. I should probably have stopped you before you kissed me.”
Yuuri laughs. “But you didn’t regret it,” he points out.
“Never,” says Viktor. “You were so bright, so beautiful. You danced with me and you asked me to collaborate on a film with you. How could I refuse?”
“Oh, I can think of a lot of different reasons,” Yuuri says, laughing harshly as he scuffs his old worn dress shoes against the concrete.
“And none of them would’ve brought you to where you are right now,” replies Viktor, extending his hand. “I’m so proud of you.”
Yuuri reaches out, takes Viktor’s hand. It’s so big, so warm, so reassuring in his. His stomach swoops, like the drone shot they’d used on the last day of filming, like the pounding of his heart as he worked up the nerve to approach Viktor at the wrap party that night.
How long had he known, unknowingly, just how badly he wanted this man? How many restless nights had he lain awake, trying to justify to himself the sparks that flare in his blood whenever Viktor looks at him? He has loved Viktor’s work ever since he first saw that YouTube video at 13, and now —
“The wrap party,” says Viktor after a moment. He still hasn’t let go of Yuuri’s hand. Yuuri looks up at him, cold unease settling in his gut at the shadow that passes over Viktor’s face.
“I…” he fumbles for his words, suddenly unsure. Slowly, he extricates his hand from Viktor’s, looks down at their shoes. The air between them seems to ferment, to sour into something tense and uneasy. Yuuri feels a lump in his throat.
“I know we said we’d talk about it after the awards,” he says quietly. “About… about what we’d like to do from here on out.”
“You know what my thoughts are,” says Viktor, only the faintest hint of a smile playing at his lips. Yuuri swallows.
“Yeah,” he says, blinking wildly as if to stem the inevitable tears. “I know.”
“Yuuri,” says Viktor, pulling him aside from the laughing and dancing cast and crew in their back room of this dimly-lit Czech pub. “You said you had something you wanted to tell me?”
“Yeah.” Yuuri finishes his shot of vodka. He looks up at Viktor, tries to fix him with a steady, sober gaze. “After Cannes, let’s end this.”
Let’s end this. The words hang in the air between them, testament to Yuuri’s own panic about the success of On Love. But all the dailies had looked perfect, all the sounds captured had been wonderful. They’d even decided to try and tell the story using as little dialogue as possible, resorting instead to the aural qualities of sound design and scoring as well as the visual language of film to convey the romance between the nurse and the novelist who kept on finding themselves torn apart and back together.
Beautiful unknowns, searching for a way to line their broken edges up.
Beautiful unknowns — but Viktor is known now, and no less beautiful, and Yuuri still doesn’t know how to edit them together. Still doesn’t know how any of this could have possibly happened to an ordinary small filmmaker like him.
“Seung-gil did a great job with post,” he says after a moment. “But I… I doubted for a moment there that I would ever get the chance to make another movie again.”
“What?” Viktor’s face is a picture of confusion, his eyes stunned as if he isn’t sure why his heart is lying in pieces on the floor. But he’ll realise it soon, Yuuri knows. He’s a clever man.
“I’m probably never going to make another film after this,” says Yuuri. “Or at least, nothing as long or as big or — it’s just — thank you for what you’ve done for me. I hope to see your next project very soon.”
He bows, and then he notices the wetness falling onto Viktor’s patent leather shoes, and he looks up to see tears falling from the man’s eyes like translucent pearls, and his heart sinks.
“You do seem to do that a lot,” Viktor remarks. “All throughout the production the others kept on saying you were freaking out at the smallest hiccups, constantly wondering if it had been a good idea for you to move to features after spending so long in shorts.”
“That’s —!” Yuuri shakes his head. “I was worried at the time! Don’t tell me you never get worried on set!”
“We all do; it’s a very high-stress environment,” replies Viktor. “And yet you pulled through and created something beautiful, Yuuri. Something worthy of the Palme d’Or. That should count for something, shouldn’t it?”
“I know.” Yuuri steps closer. “Phichit keeps telling me I keep doubting my ability. But I just…”
“Being an auteur doesn’t mean everyone else on your crew just vanishes,” Viktor replies, folding his hands behind his back. Yuuri misses even just the view of his fingers, long and graceful — smooth, gentle, lovingly stroking through his hair — and swallows down the thought before it goes anywhere dangerous. “You still have to trust that the people around you will do their job to carry out your artistic vision.”
“How could you ask me such a thing?”
The tears are falling, thick and fast. Too many, too hot. He’s never cried this amount before in his life, he’s certain. And still Yuuri lingers there, his face confused, as if he couldn’t comprehend how he has rendered Viktor like this.
“I just thought… maybe after this you’d want to go back to directing or something.”
True. Viktor has so many ideas for films he knows only he can pull off. He’s bursting to the seams with ideas that he hadn’t thought were possible for him, until Yuuri came along. Until Yuuri reminded him that not every director wants to cater to Hollywood. But then what’s the point of making any of these without Yuuri by his side? Without Yuuri’s input and support?
“That’s not the point,” Viktor grinds out. “I didn’t know you could be so selfish, Yuuri Katsuki.”
Yuuri’s expression falls. His eyes are enigmatic, unreadable — an emotion Viktor has never quite seen on him before. “I thought you wanted to be set free,” he says quietly.
But there is no freedom without you, Viktor wants to shout. There is no life or love without you. It’s taken me this long to realise there’s more to life than just the next big project.
Those days off spent at Yuuri’s Prague apartment, those evenings after the martini shot talking with him into the night at various dive bars, those long drives out to the other locations, singing along to Yuuri’s playlist of loud bubblegum pop. When they don’t need to focus specifically on the next scene to film, the next shots to frame, Viktor had been able to breathe. Listen to the birds, feel the breeze on his face. He hadn’t quite realised how beautiful the Czech countryside was, until now.
And Yuuri wants things to go back to the way they were before Viktor had met him.
Before he knows it, he’s surging forward, capturing Yuuri’s lips with his own. Trying to convey the frustration in his heart that Yuuri doesn’t know exactly how much he’s changed Viktor for the better, and if he’d really be so willing to throw all of this away if he did.
“I’m sorry,” Yuuri says now. Viktor looks at him, at the glow of the lights from inside the Palais playing across his handsome features, and feels his heart skip a beat. “I just… I thought you’d be done with me after this. I didn’t… well. I thought about it, like you said after you kissed me, and…”
“And?” Viktor’s heart is in his throat. It beats all the more harder here than it had ever done so in his chest. His fingers twist and slide, uncertain, yearning.
“When Seung-gil and I started editing, I asked him… I asked him to edit it like it was the novelist's love letter to the nurse. To that patient, sweet nurse who believed in him even when he didn’t believe in himself. I wanted… I wanted you to see that. And to understand.”
Viktor’s heart is light. A balloon, slowly buoying him up into the air and above the sparkling streetlights of Cannes. He reaches forward, tucks a stray strand of hair behind Yuuri’s ear.
“I couldn’t look away,” he says, and Yuuri kisses him.
Yuuri kisses him, and Viktor feels his resolve crumble. Feels his knees buckle as he braces against the door of the hotel room, feels his head spin from a combination of afterparty alcohol and Yuuri’s hot fingers sneaking under his shirt.
“Please,” Viktor begs into Yuuri’s mouth, though he isn’t quite sure what he’s asking for. The stars and the moon, perhaps, or the beautiful unknown he had just talked about mere hours ago when he accepted the Palme d’Or for Stay Close to Me, finally walking — dancing — into his life. “I need — I need —”
“What do you need?” Yuuri is lithe, beautiful, already half-naked from his drunken exertions on the dance floor at the afterparty. It’d be so easy to unbutton his rumpled shirt, undo his tie, pull down those tented briefs rubbing needily up against him. Viktor wants to. Oh god, he wants to.
But then he looks into Yuuri’s eyes and sees how clouded with drink the man is, and he suddenly realises with a sickening jolt to his stomach that they can’t continue like this.
“The bathroom,” he says, lurching away from Yuuri, and isn’t it rich that he can feel the man’s disappointment rolling off him in waves even through the bathroom door?
They’d always said third time’s the charm.
And maybe it really is, because kissing Yuuri is wonderful. They’re both sober, with no words of anger lingering between them, only an acknowledgement of what they’ve tiptoed around for ages since the pre-production days two years ago. Kissing Yuuri is wonderful, like coming home to the heart of a supernova, and Viktor would rather burn in this moment than to live every other moment left in his life alone.
Yuuri’s lips are soft against his. Soft and sure, and the next thing Viktor knows he’s being pressed against the railing and there must be people walking below, cars rumbling past. They’re silhouetted in the lights from the Palais; maybe everyone knows about it by now.
And he doesn’t care.
“Are we going back to the party?” Yuuri asks quietly. Viktor laughs, because he’s slightly more inclined to call them a taxi and head back to their hotel room right now, so that he can peel Yuuri out of his suit and finally put a satisfactory halt to his burning need for this other man. But good things come to those who wait, and he nods, extending his arm for Yuuri to take.
“Let’s go play nice a little longer before we make our escape,” he suggests, and he feels Yuuri trembling in anticipation.
Anticipation’s one way to put it, Viktor thinks as he sits in the onsen awaiting Yuuri’s arrival. Cannes had been months ago; he’d just seen the fundraising trailer for On Love, and this is the stupidest decision he’d ever made in his life.
The warmth from the onsen contrasts starkly with the crisp autumnal breeze. A maple leaf falls nearby, and Viktor scoops it out of the water, sighing as he leans against the rocks. There’s the scramble of footsteps from the locker rooms, and Viktor turns to see the sight of Yuuri Katsuki — the afterparty boy who’d stolen his heart and has yet to return it — crashing into the onsen, wide-eyed.
“Viktor?” he gasps. “What are you doing here?”
And from then on Viktor is tumbling forward with no thoughts on stopping or looking back. An offer to be his producer. A look at the script. Long hours revising and tweaking together, longer hours on the phone with Barrandov Studios and ARRI Rental.
And then an international casting call, an international posting for crew, a flight to Prague in February, and Viktor would be lying if he said the flame had died out as soon as it became clear Yuuri really did mean business, smothered in the stress and expectations of making a movie.
If anything, it had become an ember, glowing bright in his chest and looking only for the slightest provocation to spark into flame once more.
“So strange to work with you as a producer,” says Christophe one afternoon as the cast and crew are gathered around the craft table, helping themselves to salad and pasta. “But then given who you’re working with…” he nods towards Yuuri with a slight smile. “Have you told him yet?”
Viktor swallows, shakes his head. “What if that was just because he was drunk that night?”
Christophe snorts. “Viktor, that man’s raison d’être is to work on a project with you. Have you even seen half of the videos he has on YouTube? He gushes endlessly about your mise-en-scène. And have you see him lately? He keeps staring at you like you’re going to disappear if he blinks too hard or something.”
“Not when I’m watching, clearly,” says Viktor, though he wishes that weren’t the case. Over at the craft table, Yuuri finishes a cup of coffee and looks over at Viktor with a bright smile. Viktor returns it, feeling his chest lighten and his breath hitch at the way Yuuri’s eyes crinkle in the afternoon light.
“Good luck with this,” Christophe remarks, his expression endlessly amused. “You’re going to need it.”
Viktor pouts at him, but he knows it’s true. Yuuri Katsuki is a beautiful unknown, but Viktor can only hope that he’s his.
The party drags on forever. Or so it feels to Viktor, for each minute that he’s not touching Yuuri in some way, shape, or form.
When they enter the banquet room, Yuuri is immediately swept up in conversation by potential investors and producers. He fields their congratulations and questions about future projects, a determined mask slipping over his features so quick that Viktor almost doesn’t catch it. It’s one of those things that fascinates him, this duality between the shy, nervous young man who keeps doubting his artistic ability and the confident, smooth director who smiles brightly for the cameras and talks about his visions for future projects without hesitation.
Yuuri’s unbelievably sexy like this, and the thought of that makes Viktor’s heart race.
After a while, when the fatigue in Yuuri’s smile gets a little more pronounced, Viktor goes over and guides him away to the refreshments table, where Phichit and their editor Seung-gil are waiting. Seung-gil is helping himself to a small platter of canapés, while Phichit hands Yuuri the leather box containing his Palme d’Or with a smile.
“Come on, have some champagne,” the cinematographer suggests, gesturing to the table full of champagne flutes.
“Just this one,” says Yuuri, nabbing one of the glasses and downing its contents. Viktor has to hide a chuckle at the longing expression he sends the other glasses. “Thanks for rescuing me.”
“How’re you holding up?” asks Phichit.
Yuuri grimaces. “I could be worse, honestly,” he admits. “Have you been enjoying yourself?”
“Hasn’t he made a career out of enjoying himself in completely blank rooms?” Seung-gil wonders drily.
“You’re the one who enjoys being locked in a dark basement with only Premiere for company,” retorts Phichit, elbowing him good-naturedly. Seung-gil rolls his eyes, and pops a canapé into his mouth instead.
“Congratulations on the Palme,” he says once he’s done, nodding towards the box. Yuuri smile, shifting it in his hands.
“I couldn’t have done it without your editing,” he replies, with a brief glance towards Viktor. Viktor smiles at that, shifting a little closer to Yuuri as he does so. “Or Phichit’s camerawork. It’s as much your award as it is mine.”
Phichit laughs. “You’re ridiculous, Yuuri. Tonight’s your night; own it a little more.” He nods towards the glasses with a slight pout. “Are you sure you don’t want more champagne?”
“I’m tempted,” admits Yuuri, though he sends Viktor a knowing look which gets him a little hot under the collar.
“Maybe another glass,” Viktor suggests, reaching for one himself. Yuuri’s smile is broad in response; Phichit looks between the two of them with a raised eyebrow.
“I have no idea what that look is, but congratulations,” he says, swiping a canapé from Seung-gil’s plate. “Please use protection.”
Yuuri’s face flushes bright crimson, and Viktor can only chuckle as his fingers hover, uncertain, against the small of Yuuri’s back. Yuuri leans into it, sending him a brief but heated look, and Viktor feels his heart skip a beat.
Despite Yuuri’s affirmations that he and Phichit have just been close friends since their stint in UCLA’s film programme together, Viktor still can’t help but keep a close eye on the other man. He’s not proud of this — he honestly has no reason to be — but all the same, he can’t help the pangs in his chest whenever he sees Yuuri and Phichit laughing together, bent over the monitor of the camera or the dailies at the end of the day.
“Oh, that’s gorgeous,” Yuuri says for the umpteenth time in the past hour. “You’re a genius, Phichit.”
“That’s why I’m operating the camera, “ says Phichit, winking. “Okay, you think that take was great? Look at… this one.”
The clip plays. Viktor looks over, watching how the nurse and the novelist move against one another on the screen, longing etched in each line of their faces yet saying nothing. Unspoken love, unknown glances. Viktor’s heart thuds in his chest.
“That’s sexy,” says Yuuri, and the way his voice sounds when he says the word ‘sexy’ should not turn Viktor on so desperately, and yet here he is. “I’m so glad we decided to cut as many of their lines as we can.”
Phichit laughs at that. “Yeah, less chances for them to fuck things up,” he agrees. “Lemme see… we did this shot from the 75 as well, so it’s tight on Guang-Hong before he turns…”
Is Yuuri moaning? Viktor wouldn’t blame him, in any case. He’s gotten that excited about certain shots sometimes. Chris once claimed to have come at the sight of a perfect focus-pulled panning shot while working as first assistant camera for one of Viktor’s older films.
(Viktor’s kinda glad he relegated the man to crafty instead of his usual job; he’d never hear the end of it if Chris was let near the Alexa.)
“That’s lovely,” Yuuri hums. “Seung-gil’s going to love this material.”
“Oh, you betcha.” Phichit’s cheeks flush visibly even from where Viktor can see him. “Finally, he won’t have an excuse to kill me.”
“And you’ve given him enough to work with,” agrees Yuuri, smiling softly. Viktor watches, though he quickly wishes he had been looking somewhere else when Yuuri looks up at him, brown eyes sparkling.
“Viktor, you wanna see any of these?” Yuuri asks sweetly, and Viktor wants to melt. Dissolve into nothing more sophisticated than a pile of goo in Yuuri’s hands.
“Sure,” he says, though he doesn’t really pay attention to the clips so much as Yuuri’s fascination with them when he comes over.
“Are you staying for the afterparty?” Phichit asks, clapping an arm around Seung-gil’s shoulder as he does so. Seung-gil scowls, but doesn’t move away. “I hear the best stories about Cannes come from the afterparty!”
Yuuri’s face is approaching the exact shade of the carpet leading into the entire dratted complex. However, Seung-gil cuts in first. “We’re not staying past one-thirty, Phichit,” he says. “We’ve got a flight to catch in the morning.”
“But the best decisions come after two!” whines Phichit.
“You mean the worst ones,” deadpans Seung-gil. “Like impromptu gambling trips to Monaco.”
“What’s wrong with letting loose for a night?” wonders Phichit, rolling his eyes. “I’d love to go to Monaco.”
“We’re actually probably going to skip the afterparty,” Yuuri confesses. Viktor feels his fingers sneaking to rest just against his hip, one finger hooking teasingly into his belt loop. “I need to fix my sleeping schedule.”
“Oh, boo, not tonight,” says Phichit, shaking his head. “Man of the hour won’t even show up to his own celebrations.”
“I’m not the only one who won a prize,” says Yuuri, shrugging. “They won’t be looking for me.”
Phichit snorts. “Right, famous last words.” He shakes his head, leans in a little harder against Seung-gil. “We’ll tell you everything you missed, then! Viktor, you’re coming, right?”
“No, I think I should take Yuuri back,” says Viktor, feeling his ears burn a little harder. Phichit’s demeanour shifts into something more teasing at that, causing Yuuri’s face to turn redder, something Viktor didn’t think was possible.
“Oh, right. ‘Fix my sleeping schedule’. I see.” The cinematographer gives a deliberately bad wink. “Like I said, please use protection.”
Yuuri shakes his head. “You’re the worst,” he says, but he’s already tugging at Viktor’s wrist, intent on finding them the nearest possible exit out of the room.
“Excuse me! I’m a fucking delight!” Phichit exclaims at their retreating backs. Viktor laughs, waving at Phichit from over his shoulder as Yuuri starts leading them away. His hand is warm and sure in Viktor’s, as they make their excuses to the jurors and the presidents and the studio executives on their way out of the banquet room and the building.
Outside, the night is warm and bright with celebration. The Boulevard de la Croisette is lined with cars and taxis taking people to bars and clubs. Across the street from them, a brasserie is open for dinner, every single table occupied by people enjoying their food and the late spring warmth.
Their hotel is not far from the Palais des Festivals, so they decide to walk together, hand-in-hand beneath the bright streetlamps and swaying palms. Yuuri’s presence is a beacon, burning brightly at the periphery of Viktor’s senses. It’s as if every emotion that he has bottled up inside himself regarding Yuuri has been freed, rushing through his veins more intoxicating than even the most potent of liqueurs.
But finally they’re stepping into the lobby of their hotel, Viktor grabbing the key from reception on their way up. The climb up the staircase in this tiny townhouse hotel is cramped, tense with their heated gazes. By the time they reach the door to Viktor’s room, Viktor’s hands are aching like they’re afflicted with a longing that only the touch of Yuuri’s skin can cure.
And cure he does, cupping Yuuri’s face just as soon as he kicks the door closed behind them so that he can kiss him again, long and slow. Yuuri blooms into the kiss, surging up on his tiptoes and wrapping his arms around Viktor’s neck.
They break apart after a moment, leaning their foreheads together. Yuuri is flushed in the dim light of the room; his chest heaving with the breaths he’s trying to catch. Viktor has never seen anything so remarkable, and he tries to put that into the next kiss he presses to Yuuri’s lips, pulling their bodies flush against one another as he licks into Yuuri’s mouth.
Yuuri breaks the kiss after a moment and steps back, setting the box containing the Palme on the desk. Looking at Viktor’s reflection in the mirror above, he starts to loosen his tie and the buttons on his suit.
Viktor copies him, his fingers fumbling in their eagerness. Yuuri carelessly tosses his jacket over the chair, kicking his shoes and socks off as well before walking back to Viktor and pulling him in by the belt loops of his trousers.
“I’m still not sure if I’m dreaming or not,” he says.
“Mm,” Viktor hums in agreement, inhaling the base notes of Yuuri’s aftershave along the curve of his neck. He feels the other men tremble a little, and his stomach swoops in response. Looking up at the earnest expression on Yuuri’s face, then, makes his heart skip yet another beat.
“Viktor, please.” Yuuri’s eyes are now downcast, the flush now slowly creeping from his face down his neck. Viktor watches, entranced, as Yuuri reaches up to unbutton his shirt, exposing more and more flushed, smooth skin to his feasting gaze.
“Please?” he echoes, his voice hoarse with want. Yuuri reaches down, grabs his hand and sliding it under his open shirt to rest against his heartbeat.
“I don’t… I don’t remember what we did two years ago, but maybe you wanted to continue that?” he asks quietly.
Viktor runs a thumb along the spot of skin where Yuuri’s heartbeat is fluttering against his ribcage like a bird, fragile yet excitable. Slowly he takes Yuuri’s hand, brings it to his lips to brush a kiss across the knuckles.
“I want to start something new,” he says, slowly walking them back towards the bed.
Yuuri swallows, nods. “I’m sorry in advance if I’m not very good,” he admits, and Viktor laughs.
“You won the Palme d’Or tonight, Yuuri,” he teases, pressing Yuuri down to sit on the bed. “I think that deserves a reward all on its own.”
And as he sinks down on his knees in front of Yuuri, his hands playing with the fly of Yuuri’s trousers, he thinks back to the spark struck two years ago, and its slow inexorable burn up to this very moment. Yuuri is just as beautiful as he had been the night of that other party, but now —
Now Yuuri tangles his fingers in Viktor’s hair just the way he likes it, and Viktor surrenders himself completely.
The morning light pours soft and golden through the sheer drapes into the room, diffusing onto Viktor’s naked body as he lies in the bed next to Yuuri.
Slowly, Yuuri raises himself up to admire the other man better. Viktor is still asleep, silver hair tossed in a careless halo across the pillow, the column of his neck mottled with love-bites. Yuuri longs to reach out and touch them, but he also doesn’t want to risk waking Viktor. So he remains in place, his gaze trailing instead across the sweep of Viktor’s collar and the planes of his chest.
He thinks back to the night before, plays back the memories as if they’re a set of dailies to be reviewed before shooting today. Thinks about how Viktor had felt beneath him, above him, beside him, behind him. How well they had fit together in all of their exertions both in the bed and in other parts of the room. There’s still the faintest fingerprints from where Viktor had hoisted him against the window, the hastily-jostled brochures and menus from where he had pressed Viktor against the desk in response.
The Palme d’Or had fallen from the desk last night, amid several empty condom wrappers and a travel-size tube of lubricant. Yuuri slowly clambers out of the bed, careful not to disturb Viktor, and slowly walks over to fish his award out of the mess from last night. He opens the box, ascertaining that neither the golden palm nor the cut crystal it’s mounted on had been damaged, and then sets the box back onto the desk with a small exhale.
It twinkles in the morning light, and for a moment (and not the first time) Yuuri feels unworthy of having received such an honour. How did he manage to win it, when so many other interesting and amazing films had been competing against On Love this year?
“I can hear you doubting yourself from over here,” Viktor’s voice says suddenly. Yuuri startles, turning around to see Viktor sitting up in bed, his hair artfully tousled. Quietly he curses the lack of a camera, so that he could properly preserve how Viktor looks when he smiles in this light.
“Anyone ever tell you you could be an actor?” he wonders instead, stepping away from the desk to head back to the bed, taking a seat on the plush bedspread. “You could look amazing on the other side of the camera.”
“People could say the same of you,” Viktor points out.
Yuuri feels his cheeks colouring. “You’d be better at it,” he deflects, and Viktor raises an eyebrow.
“Maybe that should be our next big project,” he jokes. “Pass off the camera between the two of us, and see what happens.”
Yuuri isn’t sure why he’s choking up at that, but one moment he’s fine and the next Viktor’s face is swimming in his vision.
“I’ve only ever wanted to make something beautiful with you,” he admits, wiping absently at his eyes. Viktor leans forward, cupping his cheek and turning him back to face him.
“My unknown, known at last,” he breathes, taking Yuuri’s hand. Their lips are only centimeters apart. “With you, anything we make will be beautiful.”
Yuuri can’t help but laugh at that. “That’s the sappiest thing I’ve ever heard,” he says, though he leans in as well, pressing their foreheads together as he looks down at their hands. “I would be honoured,” he adds quietly.
“Good,” Viktor replies. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” replies Yuuri as he waits, his heartbeats thudding in loud anticipation against his ears. He is drowning again in his proximity to Viktor, burning again in the remembrance of just how long it has taken for the two of them to get to this moment. From the first time he watched a bright-eyed sixteen-year-old in a video on YouTube to breaths before a kiss in a hotel in Cannes, everything seems to have fallen in place in the most perfect way.
And in the moment their lips meet, Yuuri’s heart soars up towards the stars, leaving far below him the gleaming morning rooftops of a small seaside city on the French Riviera.
On Love (Ai ni Tsuite)
dir. Yuuri Katsuki
★★★★ | Shayna Englebert
8 July 2017
Premiering this year at the Cannes Film Festival and then promptly netting its director Yuuri Katsuki the Palme d’Or, On Love tells the story of a novelist (Jean-Jacques Leroy) and a nurse (Guang-Hong Ji) whose whirlwind relationship is dissected, examined, and celebrated by the medium of the film itself. At first glance, it reads like your everyday romantic drama, but at its base — using the very language of film and its conventions — the story is a lushly-detailed examination of love stories themselves.
The self-awareness of the film is evident from the first cut; each one seems to play off the previous, creating a dialogue in their juxtapositions that conveys the story just as effectively as the few moments of dialogue between the characters. In a vein similar to Hiroshima Mon Amour, the traits of the protagonists themselves are not as important to the story as their relationship with one another and the experience they are carving out together within the film itself. Like Hiroshima Mon Amour, the protagonists of On Love do not have names, which prevents them from being tied down into simply one narrative as the film then proceeds to turn them and their worlds inside-out in its examination of the love story.
Katsuki has always had a deep intuitive grasp for storytelling and emotion, as can be seen in his powerful short film “Lohengrin”, screened at Cannes, Berlin, and Venice in 2015 to great acclaim. Each shot in “Lohengrin” is exquisitely detailed with foreshadowing for the following minutes and scenes; there is so much to unpack visually about it that it requires multiple rewatches to even begin to understand the depth of Katsuki’s vision. On Love is no different, and not just because Katsuki utilised the same cinematographer, Phichit Chulanont, for the two films. If “Lohengrin” is an indicator of the potential that Katsuki has as an emerging director, then On Love is the first actualisation of this potential which will take him far in the field.
Through the ups and downs, the rewinds and the do-overs, and even the depersonalisation of the entire setting in order to save a loved one, On Love tells a brutally frank story about love itself. About the different choices and challenges that one must face in order to pursue a happy ending. It allows the nurse and the novelist to be flawed human beings, to hurt and heal one another by bending even the fabric of reality. And perhaps that is a powerful message about love itself — that it gives anyone the determination to do supposedly impossible things. This complex portrayal of a complicated love has been attempted by numerous other directors in the past, but only Katsuki has managed to pull it off with such style and flair (and an undercurrent of sexiness).
On Love is also the production debut for Viktor Nikiforov, a five-time Academy Award-winning director who had also won the Palme d’Or in 2015 for Stay Close to Me. In a sense, On Love seems to be a response to the wistful message of Stay Close to Me, a letter to the one seeking Nikiforov’s ‘beautiful unknown’: love is complex, love is brutal, and finding the beautiful unknown is not the end of the story.