Chapter Text
Barcellona was a great city to visit in any time of the year. Everybody that had the opportunity to visit say this same thing, doesn’t matter if it is summer or winter, the city is beautiful. At that time it was December, the breeze was soft and the sun was shining so bright that he often wondered if it wasn’t better to get stuck inside the hotel. It was a pity he hadn’t gone for a walk in the city.
It was two days before the year’s last big competition , the one that would tell him if he would finally have a chance to continue with a name as big as Vikor Nikiforov, the twenty-seven-year-old skater who had taken a year out of the competition to train so much Yuuri Katsuki and Yuri Plisetsky in their performances opposite their personalities.
Everyone was enjoying themselves to have fun and enjoy the city, but with fans calling themselves Yuri Angels , it was impossible for Yurio to leave the hotel without being approached by thousands of girls wearing kitten ears asking to take a picture and tell him how incredible he was.
It was in such an escape that Otabek Altin, another competitor of the finals, appeared with a motorcycle, helping him to get out a little of the suffocation that his fans created there. Otabek had emerged when Yurio needed help when he needed to forget about the competition.
He took the boy up a hill with a wonderful view. It was a way out of that pattern of being close to the other competitors, the perfect time to dump the head and think of any nonsense other than skating.
"You did not change anything, did you?" The dark-haired boy stared at the landscape ahead. "It's still the same person five years ago."
“Five years…? Did we already know each other?”
“Yuri Plisetsky always had the eyes of a Russian military man. Otabek laughed. He was the most graceful child skating, but it was only to look into his eyes that the feeling changed. Yurio's expression had shown to Otabek that it would have to be more explanatory.”
"I attended a coach's summer training. I should train with the junior skaters, but I could not keep up with the Russians, so I was put in the beginner's class. Only one student in this class excelled. He smiled a little. The boy with a frigid look enough that no one came near him.”
Yuri smiled at the comment. He knew he had a strong temper, but he could not remember much how he had begun in St. Petersburg. He remembered his belly aching with anxiety, the looks of the coach and the words the man almost always shouted at him. But he did not remember the other students.
“After St. Petersburg I trained in the United States, Canada, until finally I returned to Kazakhstan. Tomorrow I want to win for my country.”
"Why are you telling me all this?" The boy tried his best not to scream, but it was impossible not to be nervous. "We're enemies, right? Competitors.”
"I always thought we were alike. He turned to the blonde for the first time. - Only that. He raised his voice, matching Yurio. "Are you going to be my friend or not?"
The wind made his hair grow more and more messy, but Yurio still could not close his mouth or even open his eyes at such a question. Otabek was known as the monosyllabic competitor, who did not interact with anyone, even in interviews.
They both shaked their hands. After that, the madness got bigger and bigger.
The night had gotten even busier, with dinner with the other competitors, telling stories and perks about the next day's competition. Even Otabek, who until then had been so quiet, seemed to talk a little more to the other people at the table. But it had been Viktor's great revelation that had made Yurio so angry.
It was not possible that Viktor would leave his whole career to serve as a sort of private cheerleader for Yuuri. Viktor was still one of the best skaters today, and it looked like something from another world the idea that he would leave that title to live as a standard skater for the competitions.
“YOU'RE AN IDIOT!” Yuri was saying as he approached the man. "You're going to leave Russia, one of the best skating rinks in the world, to live next to that pig that only knows how to live eating katsudon!"
Viktor approached the boy, smiling at him, bending down so he could keep his eyes at the same height as the boy's.
"You wanted to compete against me?" Viktor's superior air made Yurio even more irritated.
"Don't be so full of yourself. Not everyone wants to be like you. Just go. Viktor was still smiling at Yurio, holding his cheeks and pulling hair out of his face, so that Yurio could see him completely. "The ring you have with that pig‘s crap. And I will win the competition just to show you how incompetent the owner of it is.” Yurio tapped Viktor's arm, letting go of him. “Let me go.”
Viktor spent five minutes in silence, just watching the sea and the seagulls flying over in search of food. As much as he had already gone to Barcelona several times for the competitions, this was the first time that nostalgia seemed to touch the former skater.
"This place reminds me of Hasetsu.” Yurio said in a grunt, moving away from Viktor. "Do not send me regards, send me good ice skaters so I can show you they'll never be better than me."
Viktor laughed at the boy, letting him go and continuing to enjoy the view. It would be the last minute that both would pass outside the ring in Barcelona. It was a moment of relaxation, even as the nerves for the competition began to grow even stronger.