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i.
The first time Yuuri falls in love, it’s by mistake.
He loves to dance, first and foremost. He loves Minako’s studio with its hardwood floors and pristine polished mirror and steady barre. He loves sweeping across the floor, feeling like the most graceful creature to ever walk the earth. He loves working hard enough to make his feet bleed, cramped up in his flats with the edges digging into his skin. He loves it. He’s horrified when Minako suggests doing something else.
“Just check out the rink with me,” Minako says to Yuuri, in that voice that she reserves just for him. The one that’s neither too gentle, nor too stern. Yuuri loves that Minako is perfectly balanced in everything she does. “Just come see. I think you’ll like it.”
Yuuri doesn’t like it. It’s cold and the other kids look at him like he’s not from this planet. He hides behind Minako, clutching his tiny hands at her waist, begging to go back to the studio.
“Just try it,” Minako says. “It’s like dancing.”
“It’s like flying!” an older girl–– Yuuko, Yuuri thinks her name is–– exclaims. She hands Yuuri a pair of skates.
“I-I don’t know how….”
“I’ll teach you!”
Yuuri falls no less than twelve different times. He thinks Minako is laughing at him, but she’s skating by so fast that Yuuri can’t tell. Yuuko introduces him to her friend Takeshi, who Yuuri doesn’t like so much, but now his friend count is up to two, which was two more than it was this morning.
“Minako-sensei! Look!” Yuuri takes his first few shaky steps forward without Yuuko’s assistance.
“You’re a natural, Yuuri,” Minako glides past him again, her long hair flying as she turns to skate backwards grabbing onto his hands to pull him along. “It must be all that dance training. Where did you find such a good ballet teacher?”
“Minako-sensei!” Yuuri giggles.
(Years later, Minako won’t stop grumbling about the ice stealing her best student. Yuuri will remind her that she was the one who brought him to the rink that day.)
Yuuri goes back to the rink as often as he can. He learns how to skate backwards and how to spin fast enough that the world is a colorful blur around him, the only solid thing being the ice under his feet. He learns how to jump a single Salchow, and then the other jumps, and then he’s moving up to doubles and triples and he’s entering competitions and winning.
He falls in love with figure skating like greeting an old friend. The ice makes sense to him. There are no awkward social situations to navigate, no dark corners to avoid. There’s just him and the ice, just the rhythmic sounds of his blades cutting through the surface.
Yuuri thinks that maybe he was born to be on the ice.
(Yuuri will spend the rest of his life falling in and out of love with figure skating, but he’ll always come back. He’ll always have the Ice Castle, and Hasetsu’s sleepy seaside beauty.)
ii.
Yuuri falls in love with Detroit, Michigan like taking off on a triple axel.
It’s difficult at first. Yuuri hates America. Everything is too loud and his dorm room is shitty and he can’t figure out the microwave in the rink’s break room. He misses Yuuko and Takeshi and he misses Mianko and Vicchan and his mom’s cooking.
And then Coach Celestino introduces him to Phichit Chulanont.
“Yuuri,” Celestino calls Yuuri over from where he’d been doing compulsory figures in the middle of the ice. It’s just him on the ice, since Celestino figured out pretty early on that Yuuri works best when there’s no one else watching. He says that they’ll work up to an audience. Yuuri is just glad that he can fall without anyone watching.
“Wait! Before you come over here,” Celestino shouts, “can you do a triple axel?”
Yuuri sends Celestino a questioning look, but he does the jump anyway. When he lands it, leg muscles poised, blade balanced though with a slight wobble, there’s the distinct sound of two people applauding.
Yuuri skates over. Next to Celestino is a shorter kid with wide grey eyes and beautifully tanned skin. He looks like he’s probably a little younger than Yuuri.
They’re talking about Yuuri’s jump when he skates up. Yuuri feels his face heating up.
“This is Phichit, your new rinkmate,” Celestino introduces him. “Phichit, this is––”
“Yuuri Katsuki,” Phichit says. He smiles like he’s made of sunshine. “I loved your last junior world’s free skate. The music choice was perfect.”
Yuuri blushes. “T-Thanks. I liked the song a lot.”
“Me, too!” Phichit bounces. “I love Studio Ghibli, especially Howl’s Moving Castle!”
For what feels like the first time since he arrived in America, Yuuri smiles.
Five years later, Celestino yells at Yuuri and Phichit to stop messing around in the middle of the rink. He waves them over to the sidelines, where he has some of his younger students sitting and watching them.
“Do you think you could demonstrate a triple axel for the Tiny Demons”
Yuuri blinks. “Me or Phichit?”
“Both of you,” Celestino smiles. He turns back to the younger skaters. “Watch closely. These two have the best triple axels in the game. Yuuri’s been doing this jump perfectly for years.”
Yuuri blushes. “I’m okay….”
Phichit snorts. He tugs Yuuri along by the arm, pushing off until they’re closer to the center of the rink. “C’mon, let’s show them how Japan’s Ace and the Pride of Thailand do a triple axel.”
Phichit goes first. He picks up speed and then launches into the forward take-off, landing on his right back outside edge. Three and a half perfect rotations.
The little ones burst into applause, yelling and cheering as Phichit glides by them, high fiving them as he goes, ever the crowd pleaser. His charisma is so natural it’s no wonder he can charm any audience right out of their seats.
“Your turn!” Phichit slides to a stop next to Yuuri, gently nudging him away from the boards. “Just like you showed me, remember? The first time we met?”
“How could I forget? You talked my ear off about Studio Ghibli and then tricked Ciao Ciao into buying us dinner.” Yuuri smiles fondly. He ducks Phichit’s attempt to ruffle his hair and takes off, picking up speed. He lands the easiest triple axel he’s ever done in his entire life.
No wobble.
The kids applauded again and Celestino grins, proud.
That night they make spaghetti for dinner, bumping into each other in their cramped kitchen while they try to follow the recipe that Celestino gave them.
“Yuuri, look!” Phichit has a long, gray rag on his head. “I’m Ciao Ciao!”
Yuuri laughs so hard his sides ache, feeling warm and comfortable and at home.
iii.
This is it.
It’s their last exhibition skate together before Viktor retires from the competitive scene for good. Logically, Yuuri knows that nothing will change. It’s not the last time he’ll get to show the world his love, not the last time they’ll perform together, if you count ice shows. It’s definitely not the last time they’ll skate together, not by a long shot. If Yuuri has his way, they’ll be skating right up until their fiftieth wedding anniversary.
But it is the end of an era, and Yuuri feels the need to mourn it.
They fly across the ice, an intricate dance carved into the history of figure skating at this point. The Katsuki-Nikiforovs: gold medalists, proud dog owners, record breakers, loving husbands. Yuuri catches sight of Viktor leaning back in an ina bauer, one of Yuuri’s favorite moves.
One last one, Yuuri thinks, One more time. For you.
He takes a deep breath.
Three turn. Left back inside edge. Four rotations. Right back outside edge.
Yuuri gets to see Viktor’s shocked face, right before they slide in for their end pose. He breaks a moment too early and turns to Viktor, the roar of the crowd in his ears.
“Well?”
Viktor catches Yuuri’s hand and spins them into their signature bow, twirling Yuuri under his arm. Yuuri giggles and skids into him, feeling light and a little exhausted and happy. He pulls Viktor into a tight hug, holding him while he cries into Yuuri’s shoulder.
“That–– Yuuri, a quad flip? Why––?”
Yuuri pulls back so they can rest their foreheads together, embracing in the middle of the rink with the lights reflecting off the ice and their rings. Viktor is holding him so tight, looking into his eyes like they contain the secrets of the universe. He’s still so beautiful, sweaty and face going red and blotchy with exhaustion and tears. Yuuri cannot believe that this is the face that he gets to wake up next to everyday for the rest of his life.
He smiles as soft as he can and brings his hands up to cup Viktor’s face. He presses a gentle kiss to Viktor’s lips, ISU regulations be damned. The crowd roars.
Viktor’s saying something, but Yuuri can’t hear him over the cheers of the crowd. It’s okay. Yuuri understands anyway.
“I love you, too,” he mouths back.
iv.
Self love had always seemed like the ghost of a concept in Yuuri’s mind.
Almost like the physics of skating. Yuuri understands things like centrifugal force and velocity and things like that, but it never really registered with him until he’d made his first jump and felt them all. The air whipping his hair back as he picked up speed, the force of his skate striking the ice as he lept, the tug of gravity on his bones and the tuck of his arms against his body. And then the jolt of reconnecting with the ice, his remaining momentum sending him arcing across the ice again, balanced on a single blade.
Yuuri thinks about that when he takes off for a jump in the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics and becomes the first person to ever land a Quad Axel in competition.
Four and a half rotations.
He’s smiling so hard he can barely finish his program. He doesn’t dare look over at Viktor, Phichit, and little Yura in the sidelines, because he knows that if he sees them, he’ll be tempted to break everything and skate over to them. So, he skates on.
He thinks about Hasetsu and the first time he landed a single Salchow, wobbly but proud. He thinks about late night practices and numb fingers, thinks about the time he stupidly decided to skate without gloves and tore his palms up on the ice. He thinks about the million and one triple axels he landed in Detroit, all the midnight pizza runs with Phichit, studying for midterms in between going over practice footage. He thinks about meeting Viktor for the first time. He thinks about their comfy house, with its garden and their small army of dogs, and the room they keep cleared for when Yura stays over.
Yuuri smiles to himself.
Four and a half rotations.
He did that.
Yuuri finishes up his program. He stands, panting and beaming in the middle of the ice.
My heart isn’t made of glass, he thinks, it’s made of gold.