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i.
Every action doesn’t have to have some grand reason for happening.
Victor has had long hair since he was young. He didn’t particularly have any reason for growing it out beyond the thought that it would look pretty. When he cut it, the same non-thoughts are going through his head.
He’d had long hair for years by that point. It was merely nice to occasionally change things up, nothing more.
ii.
“We need to talk about your image.”
Victor signed with a sports agency to deal with all his sponsorship deals and ice show pay negotiations shortly after he won Junior Worlds. Winning Junior Worlds wasn’t exactly the biggest money-making accomplishment, but it was a good start to make people take notice of you. Yakov said that Victor needed to be prepared for the future, and it was better to sign now before he started getting offers.
Yakov was right, of course. The next year Victor won the Olympics. If he hadn’t already had Anton, his assigned agent, he would’ve been paralyzed by what he needed to do. As it was, he just let Anton decide.
Over the years, he’d come to heavily rely on Anton and his team. With the rise of social media, having perfect PR was a necessity. A single misstep could result in unwanted backlash.
Everything about Victor’s life was perfectly curated—where he went, who he hung out with, what he posted on Instagram, what he said in interviews. He had some freedom, of course, but Victor had no problem doing what Anton suggested. The man had worked miracles in making Victor, a male figure skater, a global icon. He obviously knew what he was doing.
The only suggestion Victor refused to do was cut his hair.
He loved his hair. His fans loved his hair, he always argued. It made him stand out. You could never confuse Victor with anyone else, and wasn’t that a good thing? It made him noticeable and marketable.
Anton usually acquiesced and switched topics, but never for long.
“It’s unseemly,” he’d always say at his next meeting with Victor. “You’re a grown man in your twenties! Long hair, it’s fine for a teenager, but it’s holding you back. You can do so much more with an image that leans into your innate masculinity. You’d have the sex-starved wives going crazy with a single photo shoot.” Here, he usually looks Victor up and down, an unimpressed frown on his face. “You aren’t sixteen anymore, Victor. You can’t pull off that androgynous look. Your shoulders are too broad, your jaw too sharp. Isn’t it time for a change? Wouldn’t everyone find it such a surprise?”
But Victor always refused. He had tailored every part of his life so he could appear perfect. He wasn’t a person so much as a living and breathing magazine ad by this point. But his hair meant a lot to him. He’d had it long since before he started skating.
And yet—
Isn’t it time for a change? Wouldn’t everyone find it such a surprise?
Anton was beginning to get to him.
Victor won his second Olympics. People were delighted, but they weren’t surprised. He revealed a new program, and they weren’t surprised.
More of the elf prince stuff, the comments on twitter said. At least he does it beautifully
Isn’t it time for a change?
Victor had an in-person meeting with Anton at least once a month. They had them more frequently in the summer, Victor’s peak months for non-figure skating content.
The comments from the previous season were starting to get to him. So, he did what he always did when he had a PR problem.
“Anton, I’ve been thinking about making a change. What hairstyles do you think are stylish right now?”
iii.
Victor’s been a bit overwhelmed ever since he won the Olympics. He would never say so out loud, but the sudden increase in media appearances, ice shows, photo shoots, and fan meet and greets were starting to take a toll on him. He was always physically exhausted by the end of a long day of training, but more and more frequently he’d been feeling completely run down emotionally too.
By the time summer faded into autumn, he only felt relief. He was still in the news for anything figure skating related, but the rush of appointments died down. It’d been over six months. Who cared about the Olympics? The only people left were the true figure skating fans.
Victor much preferred it that way. Sure, the worldwide attention was nice, but he was an athlete not a celebrity. He wanted to skate, not go on talk shows.
The start of the season went off without a hitch. He placed third at his first assignment on the Grand Prix circuit and, out of spite, won his second. He was a favorite to win the Final. He hadn’t won the most points in either of his qualifying competitions, but he was the reigning Olympic champion. People expected him to do well.
There was also the fact that the Grand Prix Final was being held in Russia. Moscow and not St Petersburg, but still in his country. The Russian Skating Federation had been putting maybe a little bit of pressure on him winning.
Or maybe a lot of pressure.
But it was fine! No matter where the Final had been held, Victor planned to win. A little extra pressure to win in his own country meant nothing.
However, it did mean there was a larger than normal crowd.
In most places, figure skating wasn’t that popular. It was an expensive, niche sport. Things like Worlds would get a decent turn out, but even the Grand Prix Final wasn’t ever as crowded. Especially for the men’s discipline. Ladies was always more popular.
Not so much this time.
Victor was the reigning Olympic champion, as he so often told himself, and he was competing in his home country only a few months after the end of the Olympics.
The arena was packed.
This was fine. It just meant Victor had more of an audience to entertain! He had two very fun programs this season, if he did say so himself. Yakov still wasn’t letting him choreograph his own stuff, but he’d been allowed to give more input than usual to his choreographer. Victor enjoyed skating the programs and it was even better in front of a large audience to clap along and energize him.
He bumped into someone as he made his way to the ice for the free skate. He’d left to use the bathroom and gotten separated from Yakov. Now, Victor really needed to be rink side before the warm up started.
“Oh, sorry,” they said before leaving abruptly.
That had been happening a fair amount that weekend. It felt like there were more volunteers than usual at this competition. Victor just shrugged off every bump and accident. The hallways were rather small.
He was a bit annoyed to be bumped into again not even a minute later, however.
“Sorry,” he said this time, when it was clear the girl who had bumped into him wasn’t going to.
She giggled. “I was hoping I’d be able to see you!”
If Victor hadn’t had as much media training (which was really just Lilia training) as he had, he would’ve scowled. There was a time and a place to meet a skater, and right before he was meant to warm up on the ice was not it.
“I have somewhere to be,” he said stiffly, “so—”
“Oh, right!” she said, smiling brightly. “I just wanted to ask one thing.”
Victor stifled a sigh. He needed to be nice to his fans. “What?”
The next bit always felt like it was happening both in slow motion and too fast when he thought back on it. The girl reached into her bag and drew out a pair of scissors. She reached forward and, Victor, dumbly, shocked that she had managed to smuggle in scissors, did nothing to get away. She yanked at his hair, and in one swift movement cut half of his ponytail off.
If there was one thing going for the stadium being so crowded, it was that people noticed what happened immediately. Actual volunteers, not ones who had faked a badge in order to assault a skater, rushed over and drew the girl away. Victor, numb and not processing what happened, let himself be shuffled into a different room.
The rest of the competition was a blur. The next morning, as soon as businesses opened, Victor walked into a hairdresser (his hair now only just past his shoulders) and asked for them to shave it all off.
(He didn’t win that Grand Prix Final, by the way. He didn’t even place. He skated well, but his mind was elsewhere, and it was obvious. Just another thing that girl had stolen from him.)
iv.
This was the single most embarrassing situation Victor had ever been in. He thought he’d been in embarrassing situations before but none of them held a candle to this.
All he’d wanted was to buy some gum for an upcoming flight. It helped him with the air pressure change. That was all.
Instead, here he was. Sitting on a chair in Yakov’s apartment with dirt and tears on his face, blood on his knees, and gum and peanut butter all over his hair.
When Yakov opened the door to see a tearful and dirty Victor, he’d sighed and started massaging his temples. He still hadn’t removed his hands from his face.
“We’re going to have to cut it,” he said, finally. “You matted it too much.”
Victor sniffled. Today sucked.
v.
Victor looked into the mirror.
He barely recognized himself.
His long hair hung in clumps, darker than usual due to the buildup in oil. Victor couldn’t remember the last time he showered, let alone used conditioner.
There were bags under his eyes, dark purple shadows that made him look gaunt. A scattering of blackheads ran across his chin and left cheek. Another casualty of the fact that he couldn’t bring himself to get out of his fucking bed.
Victor hung his head. He couldn’t stand his reflection.
But looking down wasn’t much better.
Looking down meant he saw the goddamned cast on his leg.
“It was inevitable,” the doctor had said. “You broke it doing something besides skating, but skating is what made the bone vulnerable. Tripping over your dog or landing a quadruple jump, it doesn’t matter. You were always going to have a broken foot in the near future.”
Victor wasn’t handling his mandated rest well. In the two weeks since the hospital visit, he’s only gotten out of bed to use the toilet. Sometimes he ate, but not nearly enough.
People had been calling. Well. Yakov had been calling. Victor didn’t have friends. He had Makkachin (who was the cause of his current suffering, but he would never blame her) and Yakov. He also had a physical therapist, but he was ignoring their existence. He wanted to be left alone.
It was refreshing, in an unhealthy sort of way. No one to bother him. He could relish in his own filth and misery as much as he wanted. Stay in bed all day. Eat junk food without being yelled at.
Stare at his haggard reflection until he saw double.
His grimy, exhausted reflection.
Victor wouldn’t bluntly admit it, but he was something of a vain man. He was good looking, and he knew it.
He didn’t look very good at that moment.
His reflection stared back, mocking him.
This is who you are, really.
Something in him snapped.
Victor slammed a drawer open, then a second when the first didn’t provide what he was looking for. Limbs trembling from exhaustion, he brought out the pair of scissors meant for cutting hair.
He did not use the scissors as intended—taking small, measured cuts. No, he chopped at his long locks wildly as if his scissors were a knife. There was no rhyme or reason to his frantic movements. Victor was overtaken by the urge to destroy his reflection, and this was the only way he could.
By the time he came back to himself, his hair was ruined. Some parts were as short as ear-length, while there were a few spots he hadn’t managed to cut at all, still floating down by his waist. Most of his hair was somewhere in between those two lengths, mostly leaning towards the shorter side.
He looked worse than ever before.
Calmly, Victor returned the scissors to their drawer.
Then, he sat down on the floor of his bathroom and cried.
+i.
Victor was drying his hair with a towel when Yuuri asked a question Victor knew he must have been waiting to ask for weeks now.
“Why did you cut your hair?”
Victor turned to look at Yuuri who immediately turned red and started waving his hands around.
“I-I mean! Only if you feel like telling me! I know you’ve always avoided the question and—”
“It’s fine.”
Yuuri clamped his mouth shut, staring at Victor with wide eyes. Victor gave him an easy grin which managed to make him somehow turn even redder. How cute!
Victor didn’t talk about why he cut his hair that often. The people who needed to know already knew, and he liked having that aura of mystery for those that didn’t. But Yuuri, he didn’t fall into either of those groups. Out of everyone who had ever asked, he deserved to know the most.
He tapped a finger against his lips. “Hmm, where to start? Ah, right, so…”