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"Are you okay?" says Nishigori. It's probably a fair question. Victor's leaning against the boards of the rink like he's about to faint. He might be.
No, thinks Victor. Yuri Katsuki is very beautiful and I still haven't kissed him, and he just looked at me very shyly and asked did I think it would be weird if he did "Stay Close To Me" for his exhibition skate. If. If you know, he got asked to do one. If he did all right.
"It's been—a long day," is what Victor says instead.
Nishigori nods sympathetically. "When I was sixteen years old," he says, "Yuri and Yuuko spent three months trying to decide if they wanted to do ice dancing competitively."
Victor can see that.
Victor can also see what agony Nishigori must have been in—every choreographed flirtatious look and touch must have been torture. "That seems—"
Nishigori holds up his hand to stop him, and pulls out his phone. After a minute, he seems to find what he's looking for, and hands it over it Victor. The picture is of Yuri and Yuuko. Yuuko must be about seventeen or so, very young and fresh looking, wearing a black satin dress and a ribbon in her hair that looked a little like bunny ears. Yuri is dressed in black pants and a black button down shirt, with white buttons and a white bow tie. He has a fedora with a white band tilted rakishly over one eye. Victor coos involuntarily. Yuri's so handsome. So charming.
Behind them, Nishigori wears the look of someone who is plumbing the depths of human suffering.
"Imagine," says Nishigori, "coming to the rink, every day, and having to watch the prettiest girl you knew and the handsomest boy in school do cute pair skates in front of you, every day, for months."
Victor winces.
"I thought I was going to die," says Nishigori. "I think I would have welcomed death. You know how Yuri does that thing where he kind of looks at you from under his eyelashes?"
Yes, Victor does. Victor knows every different coquettishly shy and enticing look Yuri Katsuki can send at a person. Yuri can say more with one slow, sweet blink than Victor can in four minutes with full orchestration behind him. If it wasn't Yuri, Victor might be annoyed at it.
"He had to give Yuuko one of those looks and bite his lip a little during the step sequence," says Nishigori. He sounds like he's remembering a distant but vivid hell. "And you know how he is. He practiced it over and over and over—"
"Oh no," says Victor.
"—and over and over and over again," says Nishigori. "I know you got it rough, buddy, but at least you're not sixteen and trying to not take Yuri up on that 'if you want this kiss come and take it' look for two hours a day."
"Oh my God," says Victor. That look is the worst. Victor knows—he knows!—that look is just part of the routine but he's lost count of the times he's almost climbed the boards to take that kiss like Yuri might actually mean it—or have any idea he's driving Victor crazy.
"Good luck," says Nishigori, thumping Victor on the back so hard he staggers, and walks away, leaving Victor to think about it the rest of the afternoon. What did Yuri look like, dancing with a partner beside Victor? Yuri was so good at dancing that he would look beautiful leading a hippo in a waltz.
Victor brings it up that afternoon. Yuri's been dragged forcibly from the rink and made to start cooling down, and Victor is trying not to look at the long, lithe line of Yuri's body as he stretches.
Yuri's pouting. He'd much rather still be skating, but Victor is just slightly meaner than him and not above bullying. He's pretty sure if it came down to it, he could carry Yuri off the ice kicking and screaming. It's tempting. It seems like even now, at his competition weight, Yuri would be a lovely bundle to carry in his arms. Maybe he would wrap his legs around Victor's waist, and Victor could—
Yuri senses Victor's distraction and tries to make a break for the ice, but Victor hooks his finger into his shirt collar and pulls him back, much to Yuri's clear disgust. "Locker room!" chirps Victor, herding Yuri with brutal efficiency.
"I'm not tired!" lies Yuri indignantly.
"Mmm," says Victor. He learned three days into training that when Yuri felt the need to say he wasn't tired, it was a sure sign he was going to fall asleep over his carefully designed dinner and again in the onsen. Then Mama Hiroko sighs over him and looks at Victor as if it was his fault for letting Yuri work so hard. Victor can't help but 'let' Yuri do whatever he wants. If he thought he could convince Yuri about anything, Yuri would be sleeping in his bed with him and Makkachin, rather than Victor sleeping sullenly alone in a king size bed while Yuri and Makkachin squished up cozily together in Yuri's single. It wasn't fair. "As your coach, I can't have you overworking yourself, you know."
Yuri heaves a deep, disgusted sigh, and slinks off to the showers. Victor follows, but only to wash his face. It always seems to him that taking a shower with Yuri anywhere other than the onsen is opening himself up to the sort of sordid fantasies featured in the type of fanfiction Chris is always forwarding to him.
Yuri only takes five minutes in the shower anyway, so by the time Victor is done touching up his eyeliner and mascara and is carefully reapplying his gloss, Yuri is dressed and pretending not to watch Victor. He can't help peeking over at Victor though. He flushes bright red and turns away when Victor looks back at him in the mirror. It's so cute. Victor wants to kiss his nose and also his mouth, and take that kiss that's always sitting right there, daring Victor to do it.
Yuri gets so flustered that he tries to hide his face by roughly towelling his hair dry, and Victor cringes with all of his soul. "You can't do that!" he says.
"Do what?" says Yuri, obviously confused.
Victor more or less teleports over to Yuri and rips the towel from Yuri's hands. "Your poor hair!" he says. Yuri's hair is beautiful, wavy and thick, and Yuri refuses to treat it with the respect it deserves. He squeezes the water gently out of it until it falls in damp curls all over his forehead. Victor hesitates. He should take his hands away or make a joke, to break the moment, but Yuri's head is so warm under the towel, and Yuri is looking up at him so seriously. He probably can't see shit, but it's still very sweet.
Yuri finally looks away. His cheeks are pink and Victor tamps down the urge to kiss them all over. He isn't used to wanting to kiss someone this much. It makes him feel very strange and light. He's wanted to fuck people before, to make out with them, to touch their bodies, but this is different. He definitely wants to touch every micrometer of Yuri's beautiful body, but he's not used to wanting to put his head on someone's lap, or kiss them without going further, to hold their hand and cling to their arm while they're walking.
Victor can't say anything like that, so he says, "You should take better care of your hair!"
"It's just hair," says Yuri, taking the towel away from Victor.
"Your hair is very important," Victor tells him, very seriously. Yuri studies him carefully, and then suddenly gives him one of his rare, delighted smiles. Victor has no idea what he did to earn it and it's very hard not to beg to know. It's even harder to steal the kiss that always appears when Yuri dimples up like that and refuse to give it back unless Yuri gives him five—no, ten—more.
"You're very strange," says Yuri, but his tone says that he thinks Victor is very interesting.
Victor doesn't really have an excuse for it, but he blurts out anyway, "Nishigori says you and Yuuko used to ice dance."
Yuri goes pale, and then scarlet. He squawks and then yells, "What? No! I mean—yes! Why would he tell you that?"
Because he thinks me dying of thirst is hilarious, thinks Victor, and it was funny to make me suffer more. "He showed me a picture! It was very cute. Do you have any—"
"NO," says Yuri, in the way that has turned out to always mean 'yes, but you'll have to bribe Minako or Mari heavily to see them'.
"You should have lots of footage of yourself!" says Victor. "How will you see your improvement otherwise?"
"Oh God," wails Yuri. He snatches up his skate bag and flees the locker room.
Victor follows more slowly, carrying his own bag. He might as well just walk. When Yuri's in one of these moods he'll run to the onsen and hide from Victor the rest of the evening. Even if Victor joins him in the hot spring, Yuri will pick the furthest possible spot away from Victor and just close himself off. Much better to let Yuri calm down and realize Victor isn't trying to make fun of him.
When he gets to the front desk, Yuuko is watching the front doors slide shut with a fond smile on her face.
Victor hesitates for a moment. He probably should just wait until Yuri feels comfortable showing him the footage. But if he waits for that, he's probably going to waiting until he's as bald and wrinkly as Yakov. He puts on his Famous Skater Victor Nikiforov Smile and approaches the front desk. "Yuuko!"
Yuuko blinks at him, dazzled, and Victor follows up his advantage. "Your husband showed me such a cute picture," he chirps. Yuuko looks slightly wary, so Victor rushes to say, "It was you and Yuri ice dancing! Yuri was so cute, wasn't he?"
Yuuko brightens up. The cuteness of Yuri Katsuki is a guaranteed icebreaker throughout Hatetsu. Everybody loves talking about how cute Yuri is, which is lucky for Victor, because he loves to hear about it. "Wasn't he?"
Victor leans one elbow on the counter and looks at Yuuko from under his lashes. Not in like, a flirty way, exactly, but Yuuko turns a little pink anyway. "I wonder...."
"Hmm?" says Yuuko.
"You wouldn't happen to have any video.....?" suggests Victor. "I'm curious to see his abilities."
Yuuko bites her lip.
"Please?" says Victor. If someone had told him six months ago he'd be pulling out the charm offensive just on the chance that he could convince someone to let him see video of someone's Juniors-era experiments, he'd have laughed in their face.
"It's just, you know how he gets," says Yuuko. "He's so -- so."
Victor knows exactly what she means. "I won't laugh," he promises.
Yuuko studies him for a long moment, her mouth pressed in a firm line. She seems to come to a decision, and opens the half-door that leads to the office area and beckons him in. "Don't let the girls know this exists," she orders him.
Victor crosses his heart solemnly. He doesn't want the world to find out about this anyway. It seems like it's something special for Yuri and Yuuko, and that's enough to make him want to hoard it up for himself.
The footage is on a DVD, clearly ripped from someone's phone or an older camcorder. It's kind of fuzzy, but it's still clear enough to see Yuri and Yuuko dancing across the ice.
It's immediately clear that Yuri's natural ability outstrips Yuuko's, even in the flush of her youth and strength. This was the best Yuuko would ever be. And she's good. Very good. Regionals good, maybe even top ten at Nationals good.
But compared to Yuri, even as young as he is, she's clearly only a very talented amateur.
When he looks up, Yuuko is watching the video with a fond smile on her face. She doesn't look upset at all, like you might imagine someone would if they were facing the glories of their past. She just looks—like she's reliving a good memory. "Don't I look awful next to him?" she says.
Victor has no idea what to say. She does. Honestly, truly, it's like watching a duck try to keep pace with a swan. "You were very young," he says finally.
"Haha," says Yuuko. "You're always so polite! It's funny, though. I think Yuri was more upset than I was when Minako told him I was at my limits."
"That must have been--" begins Victor. He doesn't know what it must have been like. The only limits Victor has ever faced were how high and fast he could aim for.
"It was a little sad," says Yuuko. "I wanted to go further. But I knew I'd done my best." She's quiet for a moment. "It was awful, actually. But then I realized how much he was trying to hold himself back for my sake."
"Oh," says Victor. He can't imagine it. "Do you - do you miss it?"
"Not as much as I thought I would!" says Yuuko, laughing a little. "Isn't it funny? But I had the girls so quickly that I didn't really have time to think about it."
Victor thinks about it. He supposes it makes sense, that if you find a life outside of the ice you wouldn't miss it so badly, but—he can't imagine a life off the ice, ever. He wants to though, so badly.
Victor gets so muddled up thinking about Yuri and retiring and not knowing what to do that he stays up until Makkachin gets up in disgust and retires to Yuri's room, with a parting look that suggests that if Victor wasn't such an idiotic human, he could be sharing the bed with them.
Victor knows that, but he doesn't yell it after Makkachin for fear of waking up Yuri. He does stick his head out of the door and stick his tongue out at Makkachin.
Then he feels bad for being rude to Makkachin, and then he wonders if Yuri thinks he's been rude to Makkachin. Then he wonders if Yuri is going to still admire him, a person who is rude to his own dog, and before he realizes what's going on, it's two am and Victor is staring at a spider crawling across the ceiling and wondering if it was nice to be a spider, and not care about anything.
"Fuck," says Victor.
He manages to drag his attention from the spider, but then he spends three hours trying to make himself fall asleep. He didn't think this would happen to him in Japan. He thought he was doing better. Nothing works. Not the deep breathing. Not the visualization. Not even masturbating -- which turns out to be a terrible idea because the only thing Victor can think of to jerk off to is Yuri's shoulders in the soft, oversized shirts he likes to wear when they're not at the rink practicing, and he feels creepy as hell. But not creepy enough to not imagine Yuri's powerful thighs over Victor's shoulders.
"Fuck shit," says Victor.
He falls into a heavy, nasty sleep around five am, and dreams that he's trying to get his skates on to help Yuri on the ice, but every time he gets his skates on, his laces slither off, or his blades fan out into spikes -- or he looks up and Yuri's impossibly far away, ignoring him.
Makkachin wakes him up at last by hopping onto the bed and flinging himself on Victor to lick his chin, which jolts Victor awake from wandering around the rink looking for Yuri and trying to walk on his skates with the blades uncovered.
Victor puts his hand in the curly fur on the top of Makkachin's head and curls his fingers through it until his heart stops pounding.
"Everything is horrible," Victor tells Makkachin.
Makkachin hears this with much less sympathy than Victor honestly expected. It's very hurtful, and Victor tells him so. Makkachin rolls on his back and waves his paws in the air, but somehow Victor feels like he's being laughed at anyway. Victor turns away with a huff, and Makkachin heaves himself up and trots out of the room.
"Fine!" shouts Victor after him. "Leave me in my suffering! It's not like I raised you from a puppy!"
Makkachin doesn't respond. Of course he doesn't, thinks Victor, he's a dog. It just makes him feel stupider and more cross, though.
His back hurts. He's 27 years old and his back hurts like he's 50 years old. His back hurts and his dog has deserted him, probably to get cuddled by the boy Victor wants to be cuddled by. His knee hurts too. He ought to get a heat pack, or some ibuprofen, but it's just too much effort to do anything but stare down the abyss of life stretching out him toward a dogless—and Yuriless—eternity.
After a while, he feels a cold, wet nose poke at him. He turns his head to see Makkachin with his squeaky hedgehog in his mouth. Makkachin drops it beside Victor's head. All Victor can see is Yezh's soggy, worn acrylic fur and his accusing plastic eyes staring back at him.
"Thank you," he says.
Makkachin studies him for a moment and pushes Yezh's form closer with his nose. When Victor doesn't accept the toy, he heaves a long, doggy-scented sigh in Victor's face and disappears again.
Victor's too—too something for even his dog. He doesn't care, he thinks. It's fine. He closes his eyes. Everything smells like damp dog toy and a little bit like the sweatshirt that Yuri had forgotten to take back to his room and that Victor had stuffed shamelessly under his pillows.
Another eternity later, Victor hears footsteps coming down the hall. Makkachin is whining softly too, the way he does when he's leading Victor to something that he wants.
Victor ought to get up.
After another minute the footsteps' sound resolve themselves into Yuri's. Victor could tell his walk, maybe, in a crowded airport full of people rushing everywhere. His footsteps are so light and balanced that it's almost as much of a pleasure to listen to him walk as it is to watch him.
"Victor?" says Yuri.
Victor ought to tell him that he's fine, that he should go away. But if he does, Yuri might actually leave. He's so busy trying to decide which would be worse that he doesn't say anything in time to prevent Yuri from coming into the room.
"You're still in bed," says Yuri. "Are you all right?"
No. Yes. No. Everything is dull and stupid, and Victor doesn't want Yuri to know how dull and stupid Victor is some days.
"I'm fine," says Victor.
Yuri is quiet. Victor knows that if he looks up, he'll see Yuri looking at him with that tiny dear crease in his forehead, the one he always gets when he's trying to work something out. He'd look up to see it because he already loves it so much—but he's afraid, too, that he might see pity suffusing Yuri's features, and he can't bear the thought of it.
Yuri puts his hand on Victor's forehead. "You don't feel feverish."
Honestly if Yuri Katsuki keeps his hand on Victor's forehead, he's going to get feverish, but he doesn't say anything. It's another long moment while Victor tries to think of something to say. Before he can, Makkachin hops up on the bed and flops over Victor. "Don't you have practice with Minako?" says Victor finally.
"I think she's going to cancel," says Yuri, absentmindedly, like he's thinking of something else, and then he pushes Victor's hair back from his forehead with the air of someone who's decided on something. "Let's go to the beach."
"You should go to the rink," says Victor, more because he thinks he ought to than because he wants Yuri to go. He turns a little to look at Yuri. "Even if I'm not feeling well." Somehow his hand reaches out to pinch the hem of Yuri's shirt gently. It's not that he wants to hold Yuri down. It's more—he doesn't know.
"I know a spot," says Yuri, "where everybody takes their dogs."
"Oh, well, if there's dogs," says Victor, but it still takes him a second to push Makkachin off and sit up. Yuri waits patiently. He doesn't even leave when Victor gets out from under the covers and he realizes that Victor's only wearing one of the black silk thongs Chris had dared Victor to buy in Paris. His face turns scarlet, but he doesn't look away. Victor, a little meanly, moves toward the dresser the long way, so Yuri has to look at him or be obvious in looking away.
Yuri flushes up more, clear to his hairline, but he doesn't look away.
After Victor gets dressed, Yuri doesn't hover over him, exactly, but somehow Victor finds himself being bundled into one of Yuri's warm hoodies and eating a large bowl of rice porridge with shaved ginger and pork along with two or three cups of genmaicha, as if Yuri is afraid he's going to catch a cold in mid-spring.
Being fussed over is nicer than Victor imagined it would be.
They're almost out the door when Yuri's phone rings. Victor's kind of surprised Yuri even has it on, but it blares out The Dying Swan and Yuri's shoulder's go up defensively. "Scuse me," he says, and scurries off to where he apparently thinks Victor can't hear Minako methodically dissect him and every choice Yuri's ever made in his life, starting from the day a tiny Yuri had told her he would have to skip a lesson because he was going to go skating with Mari-oneechan.
"Yes, sensei," says Yuri. "No, sensei. Of course not, sensei."A guilty look flashes over his face. "What? No! Minako-sensei!"
Victor tries to imagine someone talking to Madame Lilia like Yuri is talking to Minako, and his brain grinds to a halt. He's struck by a sudden desire to to just -- just take Yuri to Russia, for real, and see what Madame thinks of him.
"I'll -- I'll call you back," says Yuri. "No, I won't forget. Yes. No. OH my God. Bye, sensei!"
He takes the phone from his ear and taps it with the air of someone who would have much preferred to slam down a receiver instead, and turns to Victor again. "Are you ready?" he says.
It's probably mean of him but Victor is so happy that Yuri wants to spend time with him, even at the expense of his beloved studio time. He doesn't say anything, though, and just follows Yuri out of the onsen and through the streets until they reach a little path that Victor hasn't noticed before.
Yuri goes down it and Victor follows. The path is pretty uneven and full of rocks, but it only takes a few moments before it open into a sandy section of the beach that Victor doesn't recognize.
There's already a few people here with their dogs, but they don't seem to notice Victor and Yuri, and Yuri takes no notice of them. Makkachin barks and rushes over to join a group of dogs dragging around a huge piece of driftwood, and Yuri goes over to a large boulder by the edge of the beach and sits down.
There's a fresh wind dancing down the beach, bringing the scent of the ocean close to them. Victor takes a deep breath in and feels a little of the fog in his head dissipate with it.
Victor sits down on the sandy soil next to Yuri's boulder, and doesn't quite lean his head against Yuri's leg. Everything is quiet except for the sighing wind and the barking of the dogs, far off enough to ignore, if Victor wants. Makkachin bounds over to check on them once, or twice, but otherwise the only sign of time passing is the slow, steady beat of the waves coming up to the shore.
Victor's never had someone that he could be quiet with, before this.
Finally Makkachin gets tired and comes trotting back to them. He flings himself at Victor's feet, and Yuri shifts so that Victor really could lean his head against his leg, if he really wanted to. Yuri sighs. "Do you want to talk about it?"
He sounds like he'd rather be murdered. Victor is swept under a wave of fondness for Yuri. It soaks into him, like the water of the hot spring into his aching joints. "Not really, no."
Yuri sags in relief and then tenses up again. "I'm not that good at this," says Yuri.
"This?" says Victor.
"Comforting people," says Yuri.
Victor almost says something. He bites his tongue with a heroic effort instead of reminding Yuri of the YouTube video of Yuri gently whacking a crying Phichit with a blade cover and mumbling "there there" as if he expected it to do something. He says, "You're terrible at it, actually."
Yuri relaxes.
After a minute, Victor says, "You could --" and tilts his head toward Yuri. He's afraid that Yuri won't figure out what he's talking about, but right away Yuri's hand carefully.settles on Victor's head and his fingers slide through Victor's hair, very carefully.
Crinkles of sensation start at the crown of Victor's head, radiating from his scalp and glittering down his spine to his toes. He shivers.
Yuri stops for a minute, but Victor makes a wordless noise of impatience and shoves his head up against Yuri's hand again. Yuri scritches his head, very gently, and Victor heaves out a deep sigh. He relaxes all at once and leans against Yuri's knee without quite realizing he's going to do it before he does.
"You're like Makkachin," says Yuri.
Victor doesn't care if he's like Makkachin. He wouldn't care if he was like - like Godzilla, if Yuri keeps on petting him like this.
"You're so weird," says Yuri, but he sounds so fond that Victor just closes his eyes and concentrates on the sensation.
"Can you tell me about it?" says Yuri finally. "You don't have to. But - I think I'd like to hear."
Victor really, really doesn't want to, but he's so relaxed that it comes out anyway. "Do you miss it?"
"Miss what?"
"Ice dancing. With Yuuko." He tilts his head back to look at Yuri's face. Yuri's face is either completely unreadable or beautifully transparent -- and just when Victor most wants it to be transparent, it's unreadable.
Still, Yuri seems to think about it carefully before he answers Victor. "In some ways, I guess. But I always knew she would move on."
"That's what she said about you," says Victor.
Yuri mumbles something in Japanese that sounds grumpy. Then he takes his hand away from Victor's head and curls up on the rock, arms around his knees. He stares out at nothing for a moment and then he says, slowly, "I think -- I think we both knew it was something to cherish while it lasted. I don't know how to say it in English. It was good because it was only for a little while?"
"English is awful," says Victor.
It's a good thing Victor is looking at him, or he'd have missed the way that Yuri goes suddenly, sweetly pink. "Oh, I don't know," he says. "English --"
Victor twists to see his face more clearly. "English what?"
Yuri lifts his head and meets Victor's face, even though he's flushing to his throat and his ears are bright with embarrassment. "If I didn't speak English, we couldn't talk, could we?"
Victor blushes too, much more horribly thanks to his pale Russian skin, and then blurts out, "I think we'd be able to communicate anyway," without even realizing how it sounds until Yuri makes a terrible sound and hides his face from Victor in his hands.
Victor bursts out laughing and can't even stop when Yuri kicks at him blindly until Victor falls over onto the sand. Makkachin rushes over to make sure he's all right. That only makes it funnier, somehow, so Victor just lies on the sand with it grinding into his cheek and his hair and his clothes and laughs until he cries.
Yuri gives up kicking him after a while and crosses his arms around himself harder. Even Makkachin concludes he's just gone crazy again and goes to huddle up against Yuri on the boulder again.
Victor stops laughing eventually, and Yuri says, in his best cold voice, "Are you done now?", which sets Victor off again.
He takes a deep breath and says, "You're very cute."
"What?" says Yuri.
"What," says Victor.
"What do you mean?" says Yuri.
"That -- you're cute?" says Victor.
"I'm not cute!" says Yuri, lifting his head up enough to glare at him.
"Am I using the wrong word?" says Victor. "Adorable. Sweet. Charming? Dear."
Yuri makes a noise somewhere between a boiling tea kettle and an angry cow. "Victor!"
Victor has no idea why Yuri looks so upset but he stops anyway. Well -- "You are cute," he insists.
"What is happening to me?" says Yuri, to Makkachin. Makkachin just tries to climb into Yuri's lap and give him sloppy kisses -- which is exactly what Victor wants to do.
Victor gives up. He'll just have to figure out what he should have called Yuri instead of cute, even if he has to ask Mari or Minako. "Do you ever think about doing ice dance again?"
Yuri pushes Makkachin off his lap. He thinks about it, his mouth settling in a serious line. "I liked it," he says finally. "But -- I suppose it would depend on the partner."
Victor gathers up all his bravery in his hands. He feels like he's jumping off a cliff, but he's somehow sure that even if Yuri doesn't catch him, he'll jump after him anyway. "What if it was me?"
"I think -- I think I'd like that," says Yuri, and Victor's heart feels like it's bursting free of bonds he didn't even know it was trapped in.