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Yuuri was pretty sure somewhere he'd heard about the cruelty of New York City, of its dry, unearthly callousness and the menacing stare of concrete from all sides. And he grew up largely in Detroit, away from calm Hasetsu waters with sloping hills visible in the far distant inland, so he knew what cities were like. He did. He knew about the paranoid ghosts at your shoulder when you were walking too long under starless skies, and he recognized which alleyway whispers to run from.
But right now, drenched in holiday light, with sweet smells of candies and fancy restaurant feasts puffing into the winter air, Yuuri could not find those bad city things lurking in any shadow.
It helped, surely, that he was walking under this particular starless sky with the love of his life and most wonderful friends in the world.
They'd all managed to pull their resources and plan a trip to do a really cheesy thing, and that was to see the ball drop in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. That super overrated thing that was kinda laughable at this point - now that today's generation were so jaded to the passage of time and all - but also, it was a good excuse for a vacation. And despite how well-traveled the skaters were, they realized none of them had been to New York City before.
So Yuuri walked with his gloved hand in Viktor's, and somewhere behind them, he heard Phichit laughing at whatever Chris whispered in his ear. Yuri's voice raised above all the street sounds, and Otabek's went unheard. Sara and Mila trailed at the back of the group, deep and far away in thought with arms wrapped around each other.
They'd planned a full-out vacation, with sightseeing and the whole Big Apple tourist package. They arrived on the 23rd to an airport so packed they nearly drowned in the sea of travelers, and they'd Ubered through the chaos of New York's streets to an incredibly luxurious hotel that stood above the city. It was expensive and glamorous and so nice to get away without the pressure of a skating routine or special diet to maintain.
They had separate rooms, though some of theirs were conjoined. The first thing Yuuri had done after carding into his and Viktor's room was let his suitcase fall to the floor and rush to the window. He idly noticed a wide bed, a small lounge area, a kitchenette, all hauntingly pristine and clean to the point of sparkling. He threw the heavy drapes wide. It was nighttime, and the city was a jungle of glitter and movement, though up here it was soundless.
Except for the sound of Viktor stepping behind him. He wrapped arms around Yuuri, and Yuuri folded his own to clasp him there. “Beautiful,” Viktor mumbled near his ear.
A cold wind whipped past - it was true what they said, the buildings tunneled the wind straight through the city. With his free hand, Yuuri tightened his scarf. "Rockefeller Center," Yuuri heard Chris remind Phichit. Phichit giggled as if that was funny and whispered something back.
Tonight was the 24th; their first full day in the city had passed. They'd shopped at all the stores they'd never even consider if it weren't for the holiday buzz making them drunk with the idea of shopping and gifting. There were lights strung up around every store, outlining them with delicate, perfect angles - and oh god, the trees! There were decorated trees everywhere - thickly adorned, heavy with plastic birds and colorful bulbs, stuffed with garland, in every shop window and every store corner.
Here you were so anonymous. The city was just a soup of the entire world poured into a bowl of streets and lights and garland and no one cared who you were or what you were there for. It was freeing, and they all needed this, and...
It was almost Viktor's birthday. In about an hour, to be exact. Yuuri's heart raced when remembering it. Not because there was a significance to another year passing, or Viktor being another year older, or that birthdays were all that important. But it was an opportunity for Yuuri to bestow his love to Viktor in a bunch of materialistic ways he couldn't get away with the rest of the year. Except he wasn't a good gift-giver, and Viktor didn't do much that wasn't skate, read, or spend time with him.
He took a deep breath and the air was like a hit of coffee, without the gritty feel in your mouth or weight in your stomach, and he stared at the sky. Starless, sure - but purple and bruised and shielded. The city was a bubble. And right now, a good bubble.
They rented skates at the Rockefeller Ice Rink. Of course, they laughed as they did.
"Think these could finally get me gold?" Mila said, running a finger along the cracked leather.
"Oh, please let me see you with those on." Sara flashed a smirk at her, then promptly failed to shove her foot into the stiff ankle supports.
"This is stupid," Yuri said, though he was the only one with his skates already laced up. He stood, glaring at the rink like it'd wronged him by existing. When Otabek finished adjusting his own, he quietly took Yuri's reluctant hand and dragged him onto the choppy ice.
Yuuri watched Viktor turn the old rented skates over a few times. He eventually put them down and started fitting his feet into them, methodical as if these were his own pair. Still, Yuuri teased, "Is this below a five-time world champion?"
"Ah, you're asking me when you maintain a world record now?" He sat up, skate half-laced, and watched the couples gripping each other skate across the ice. Otabek and Yuri whisked past every so often, breezing by the amateurs. "When I see families and just... normal people out there having fun, it reminds me that ice skating is a lot more than a solitary pursuit."
Did Yuuri mention how beautiful Viktor was under fairy light? Because he was very beautiful. The shelter they were under was loosely decorated, not for the holidays as much as for the winter season, and tiny golden lights were strung above their heads across the overhang. Their light bounced off Viktor's hair - it really made one think of starlight. So maybe there were stars out tonight.
But also, Viktor had looked incredible in the brightly colored Christmas lights. And well, he was enchanting in the pure dark, or the brightest of sunlight - Yuuri supposed Viktor was just. Beautiful.
He didn't forget that, ever, but sometimes he was hit with a hard, punching realization that Viktor was a god among men.
Solitary pursuit. Yuuri understood that, as he'd been lost to his skating this way for years, but he thought of how much longer Viktor had experienced this and his heart ached. He wondered if his birthday gift would suffice for all the love Viktor deserved in his life.
They skated on Rockefeller Rink in rented dirty skates under a fake-lit sky, hand-in-hand, around couples holding each other up and their other friends disguising themselves as the same.
"It feels good to just... skate, too," Yuuri commented at one point, and Viktor held his hand tighter in fierce agreement.
The skates were cheap and the ice had been cut to pieces since its last zamboni, and suddenly there was light snow - it didn't affect the ice, but the feel of skating through snow was strange. They'd been thrown into the city, a place so harrowing and absent of nature, yet they were being delivered from the most manufactured aspects of the art they all loved.
Yuuri checked his phone until it was midnight and he could pull Viktor into the middle of the rink, stopping in a clear area. The decorative trees, Christmas statues, and skyscrapers stretched high around them in disorienting high sweeps. It was quiet in the pit of the rink compared to the streets, even with the laughter of other skaters, and they were the only two in the world.
Snow fell a little steadier, but still gentle. It had a long way to travel from the world above those tall buildings. Viktor gave him a sly smirk because he knew Yuuri was trying to be romantic. Yuuri refused to succumb to the tease, and he whispered, "Happy birthday, Vitya," before kissing him in the middle of that wonderful wintry dream. He placed his head on Viktor’s shoulder and told him, "I have a gift for you. It's at the hotel."
"You brought it with us? It must be good then."
Yuuri blushed. That was all he ever fought for: goodness, and being good, in Viktor's life.
They pulled from the center to return to the circling skaters. They re-entered the line behind Phichit and Chris; the proud wink Phichit sent Yuuri's way didn't go unnoticed, though Yuuri pursed his lips to fight a smile and pretended not to see.
In a high-rise, regal hotel room, tucked safe and warm into the folds of clothes in Yuuri's suitcase, was a framed photograph. The frame was an intertwining of gold and silver ringlets and shapes, quite a lovely juxtaposition of metals. The picture itself was a simple one that Viktor had likely forgotten Phichit snapped one evening when visiting, but it'd been too perfect to be pushed to the depths of Phichit's Instagram feed. It showed Yuuri, Viktor, Makkachin, and Vicchan, sitting together on their couch, all piled into the other, with loving grins or - in Makka and Vicchan's case - lopping tongues.
He hoped Viktor would want to hang it somewhere high and open so that he could always remember the solitude and cold was only an act on the ice, not a way of life, not an expression to mirror reality - there was no more lonely, there was only love, and the unconditional warmth of a hand in his own no matter what cold world they skated through.