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yuri vividly remembered true viktor. or, at least, the person so many believed to be true viktor for years; with cold eyes scanning his surroundings, looking for the tiniest flaw. half smile you could see in every photo, every interview and performance – the one that looked too perfect not to be a result of hours upon hours spent in front of a mirror. his posture, motions, the way he used to speak, looks he gave the camera to make people in front of the screen fall in love with him, regardless who they were.
he was considered a perfect man, a godsent hero in the world full of mortals, whose lives were merely devoted to worship him, the ice prince – in every meaning.
but him? this man who stood in front of him right now was a different person.
yes, he still had the same ice-blue eyes. but now they didn’t remind him of two bottomless lakes, created for men to drown in them and die from the cold. now they looked more like fire – the hottest, the bluest part of the flame, yet they didn’t burn. quite the opposite – the blue was comforting, inviting you closer, drawing you into proximity, attracting you the way light attracted moths.
his impeccable skin has also changed over the few months he was away.
it wasn’t the same milky-white it used to be for years – result of spending too much time inside the rink, working himself to exhaustion, until his feet bleed through his socks. he looked healthier. well-rested. toned arms acquired tan – outcome of his free time spent on the beach somewhere in japan.
the biggest difference was his face, and it wasn’t only the matter of his expression.
the sun gave him other things than just tan. if you looked closely enough, you could spot small dots covering his high cheekbones. tiny freckles under his eyes and across the bridge of his nose. you could see them move, dance across his skin every time his nose wrinkled, like he was a child, not knowing how to control his countenance.
speaking about wrinkles – he hadn’t have them before, and they weren’t a result of him getting older. his skin was no longer pristine, no longer looked like a sculpture carved in marble: beautiful, but emotionless.
he had wrinkles now – around his mouth, at the corners of his eyes. he used to be careful; his smirks and grins never too wide to leave long-lasting marks, but calculated to be enough to leave people with weak knees.
now he didn’t seem to care; overflowing with happiness, excited like a child, couldn’t hold back his feelings and not let them show on his face. once, his smile never seemed to quite reach his eyes, a perfect act by a perfect performer – on and off ice. now his eyes sparkled with every smile, crinkling at the corners, leaving wrinkles, impossible to be smoothened.
yuri remembered his gestures and bored expression when he glanced at the skaters moving on the ice; hand to his chin, fringe covering his eye, trying to escape as soon as possible; to find a way to do anything else, but to wait for his turn. he didn’t seem to care about other skaters – no matter if they were at their home rink in st. petersburg or in the middle of a competition – he always seemed to wish he was anywhere else, until it was his time, his turn to enchant the crowd, to delight the judges with his effortless grace, the sway of his hips, with the fluidity of his steps.
and everyone knew what, or rather who, made him into that completely different person. and simultaneously they had no idea how or when it ensued.
in such short span of time the untouchable ice prince they knew for years turned into something they were yet to see in all its glory.
and now he stood there, at the entrance of the rink. a scene everyone here knew so well, yet there were many things that had changed since the last time he trained with them in st. petersburg. the sky outside was getting darker with every passing minute, the person on ice slowly turning into just a silhouette. and he just stood there, like he always did over past years, and yet it was all different. arms crossed over his chest, one hand holding white and red blade guards, the other at his chin, fingers hiding a smile that couldn’t seem to vanish from his lips since he got back home.
and he was glowing – from the last rays of sunshine reflecting off his slightly mussed hair, through his eyes – sparkling with joy and love and never moving from the figure on ice, and finally, to the gold ring shining on his finger.
viktor nikiforov was inviolable once. but then katsuki yuuri appeared in his life and turned everything upside down. it wasn’t much of a progress; he didn’t let viktor change gradually. he was unstoppable force that made viktor another person. or rather, helped the true viktor show his face to the world