Chapter Text
Yuuri hates social events.
He has to struggle through conversations with people who he doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know, including sponsors who are helping fund his career. There aren’t any new sponsors approaching him this time around, not since he literally landed on his face and dunked his scores in the garbage. The bruises may be hidden beneath a layer of makeup, but everyone saw him. He doesn’t want to be seen after that and certainly doesn’t want to be seen in a dress, but it’s the only formal outfit he brought with him. It’s a beautiful deep blue dress with a silver bolero. He keeps picking at the three-quarter length sleeves. They’re long enough to hide what they need to, but being around so many people makes him feel prickly.
He downs a glass of champagne, then picks up another to sip a bit more slowly. He needs the boost.
What would it be like to attend a banquet after winning gold? His eyes keep wandering to Victor Nikiforov. There’s a man who knows what he’s doing. Someone who’s handsome and perfect and has everything he could want. Sure, Yuuri knows there’s a lot of hard work that goes into it all, but he’s jealous. The jealousy never lingers long enough to grow into something sour. Even this close to his idol, he still looks up to him like a god amongst men. He desperately wishes to skate against him someday.
He downs another glass. Like that will ever happen.
Every hallway in the hotel looks the same. Yuuri has no idea where he’s going. There’s someone at his side with one arm around him, guiding him along. Anything to get away from banquet hell. He’s too hot and itchy and tired of constantly tucking his long hair back behind his shoulders.
They stop before a door. Another man—Christophe, beautiful Chris—swipes a keycard and opens the door. Yuuri is led to the bed—his bed, his hotel room, he recognizes—and the man supporting him helps him sit, which is probably a better alternative than letting him fall face-down onto the bed. He snorts. Is that what he does now? Fall on his face? It’s suitable.
The dazzling face of Victor Nikiforov looks at him with a smile. “There. Doing better?”
Yuuri wipes his eyes. Memories of dancing are quickly fading away, yet he feels the strain of his muscles all through his body—including his face, as if he had just been crying. It won’t do to cry in front of Victor. “I’m fine,” he says, a little too loud. He struggles to take off his bolero and cool off, but he can’t get the right angle.
“I’ll get her some water,” Chris says. He opens the mini fridge and grabs a bottle, tossing it to Victor, who hands it to Yuuri. Yuuri sets it on the bed. Victor puts it back in his hands. Yuuri drops it on the ground and resumes taking off his shrug. He only succeeds in making it sit lopsidedly along his shoulders.
“She’s not inclined.”
Chris sighs. “Clearly. She likes you, though. Convince her to have a drink before we leave or she’ll feel like ass in the morning.”
Victor picks up the bottle, sits next to Yuuri, and gently places it into his hands. “My dear Ms. Katsuki…”
“No,” Yuuri says with a pout.
Victor tries again, this time with Yuuri’s given name, and he takes the bottle and flings it across the room with an anguished shout. “Shut up!” he yells. “Just shut up!” He’s past his limit and everything is too much. His eyes are hot and wet and he has enough awareness to feel ashamed at having other people see him like this, but he can’t care about it. It’s too damn hot in here. He pulls at his sleeves harder, stretching the fabric.
“What can we do to help?” Victor asks softly. It’s a good question. Yuuri has answers, but can’t put them into words. “Do you want help with your, ah… what is it, a cardigan?” Much better question; Yuuri nods. “Okay, then help me out here.”
Victor stands and guides him through removing the bolero one sleeve at a time, freeing him from the awful material within seconds. He sighs and tries to lean back, but Victor sits and puts his arm behind Yuuri’s back, keeping him upright. Chris offers him the bottle again and says, “Drink.”
Yuuri uncaps the bottle and drinks. He’s thirstier than he thought and downs half of it in one go before trying to set it down. Chris takes it and puts it aside. At that point, Victor lets him lie down. He spreads his arms across the bed and watches the ceiling spin.
“Ms. Katsuki…” Victor starts. Yuuri lets out another frustrated sound. “Do you want to play cards? Chris has a deck. Any game you want.”
He’s tired, wants to rest, and doesn’t want anyone to look at him while he’s all dolled up like a woman. He wants to stay right at Victor’s side all night so he can keep looking at him and not miss a moment. It’s too much for words; he’d play cards in a heartbeat but he doesn’t feel right. He remains silent instead of answering, idly scratching his arm.
Victor’s hand stops his. “We’re worried about you.”
Yuuri pulls his arm back. Victor lets go, watching closely. His shoulders relax when Yuuri scratches his arm, nothing more. The scabs from recent cuts itch badly. “I’m fine,” Yuuri says, his well-practiced response to any serious questions. Did Victor ask a question? Close enough.
“We’ll play cards on the floor,” Chris says. “You can join us or not.”
Victor leaves Yuuri on the bed. It gives him some time to doze off, listening to the other two chat quietly in what he thinks is French in between the soft sounds of cards. Eventually, Yuuri gets annoyed enough by his dress to get up and change into his pajamas on the other side of the bed from those two. He doesn’t care if they see him; if they’re prudish, that’s their problem. He only feels comfortable once he’s in his pajamas, bra discarded carelessly along with the dress. He doesn’t like that his chest is still obvious or his sleeves are too short, but it’s too late to hide anything now.
Changing lifts enough stressors from him that he’s finally comfortable enough to sit in the space they’ve made on the floor. Chris shuffles the deck and deals the cards out again. “Ready to play, Katsuki-san?”
“Teach me,” Yuuri says. Victor lights up beside him.
Yuuri doesn’t recall much of the previous night. He remembers drinking. There’s a blur of excitement. Anxiety. Cards, quiet in his room. Emerging from the bathroom with new lines on his wrist—someone with bright blue eyes panicking and bandaging him. The cuts had helped him finally shake his stress. That isn’t something other people understand.
The bandage and hangover are a testament to how the night went. As far as emotions go, he’s right back in the haze of grief and depression that settled over him a few days ago, dysphoria ever-present beneath it all and steadily surging towards the forefront.
He feels sorry for the people who helped him, whoever they are. It probably ruined their night. He isn’t worth it.
Yuuri ignores the knocking on his bedroom door.
“I know you’re in there,” Phichit calls. “C’mon, open up.”
He doesn’t want to have this conversation. He wants to hide in here forever. Phichit’s been his closest friend for years and he’s about to fuck it all up.
“Ciao Ciao’s worried. Like, really worried. I don’t know what you said to him but the vibe is really bad.”
He’s not even sure he’ll keep his parents’ unconditional love. He has so few connections and he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he has to sever them. What’s worse: losing his loved ones or choking himself with a lie?
“Please? Let me in? We’re friends, right?”
It feels like he’s frozen in place, unable to face his friend or turn him away. It’s similar to the beginnings of a panic attack, but early enough to pause or stall it.
“I’m really scared that you’re going to hurt yourself badly. I just need to know you’re okay, even if you have to shut me out for whatever reason. Please.” Phichit’s voice is raw in a way he’s rarely heard before.
Yuuri finally moves. He unlocks the door and opens it a crack. Phichit looks at him, clearly stressed. He thinks about leaving and sitting in the living room, but something about leaving his room has him even more afraid than opening the door.
“Hey—,” Phichit says softly, following the greeting with his given name.
Yuuri shuts the door as a spike of fear hits his heart.
After a pause, Phichit knocks again, gently this time.
Yuuri opens the door again just a crack and retreats to sit on his bed. He grips the sleeves of his jacket and stares at the floor. It takes all his power to keep his anxiety in check as Phichit enters his room and sits beside him on the bed. “Sorry,” Yuuri manages to say. Shutting the door in Phichit’s face wasn’t right and neither was ignoring him.
Phichit rubs his back. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“Yeah,” Yuuri says. He won’t lie about that with Phichit. “Not severely. It’s fine.”
“I’m glad it isn’t severe.” Normally Phichit would argue that it’s not fine at all, but he’s letting it slide, which reinforces just how worried he is. “You, um. You cut your hair. It’s… well… A lot. What happened?”
The sink in his bathroom is filled with the long hair he had an hour ago. It leaves him with short, choppy hair that’s uneven all around but no longer feels like it’s constricting him. His neck is cold. “I don’t want you to hate me.” Yuuri wrings his hands, unable to sit still.
“I love you, okay? I’ve never seen you like this and I’m really worried, but I’m not going to be mad at you, whatever it is.”
He pushes the words out before he can choke on them. “I’m transgender. I’m a man. This is—This is who I am. Who I’ve always been. I can’t keep living like I’m someone I’m not. I want to peel my skin off every time I wear a dress and I can’t stand the body I see in the mirror. I can’t take another day of being called the wrong thing. I can’t survive another competition. I was shit at the Finals for other reasons, but Nationals was the last straw. The wrong name, the skirts, the women’s this and that… Everything’s wrong and I can’t do this anymore.” He sobs and hot tears fill his eyes. “My name is Yuuri.”
Phichit pulls him into a hug. “You’re my best friend, Yuuri Katsuki, and I’m gonna stick by you no matter what.”
Yuuri breaks down. He cries harder than he has in months. It simultaneously feels too real yet not real at all. The fears he had about being rejected by Phichit dissipate. He hasn’t lost his best friend. He feels the start of gratefulness well inside of him, something that will grow when his anxiety isn’t crowding it out. “Thank you,” he manages to say. “I’m sorry it took so long for me to tell you. I trust you more than anyone, but…”
“What changed?”
“Nothing. Everything.” Yuuri laughs. “I realized I’m tired of missing out on my own life. Grief made me think hard about what I’d regret years in the future. I want to know what it’s like to be myself. Losing competitions made me realize there’s a timer on my competitive career. It’s as much what I don’t want as what I do. I don’t just want to never be called a woman again, but I also want to skate as a man. More than that, I want to skate on the same ice as Victor.” He grins crookedly. “Pipe dream, right?”
“Not at all. Your score is high enough, right? And your muscles and stamina are incredible. If they let you into the men’s division, you’ve got a good chance to get to the Finals. I don’t know the logistics, but I’ll fight like hell for you if I have to.”
“Really?”
“Really. I’m behind you 100%.”
Phichit becomes his rock.
Yuuri applies for a legal name change right away and gets in touch with the ISU and JSF regarding his information ahead of the next season. If everything goes right, he’ll manage to graduate with his new name on his degree and enter the Grand Prix in the men’s division. Phichit keeps him from freaking out while sorting out the details and helps him get started with an informed consent clinic in Detroit that will start him on testosterone.
Celestino takes the news in stride and wishes Yuuri the best. Yuuri does not go crawling back to him to ask him back as his coach; he’s heading back to Japan for graduation and this time he’ll stay there, so it isn’t going to work out. In the meantime, Yuuri practices between his studies, working on his jumps and keeping everything else up to his usual quality. He wears a binder as often as he can safely do so, swapping between a custom tailored sports binder and sports bra during his breaks at the rink. He takes the time to practice Victor Nikiforov’s free skate routine as well. Something about it calls to him. He isn’t sure if it’s inspiration, but he’s chasing anything that might bring back his passion at this point. It also feels important to him, knowing that the song is of a man singing to another man who is likely his lover. Celestino had pointed out the gendered phrasing when helping him review a translation of the lyrics. It makes him wonder if Victor, too, is hiding in plain sight.
Phichit’s there for him when he calls his family. They’re concerned about him transitioning so quickly, especially in the wake of losing Vicchan and performing poorly in major competitions, but he assures them it’s something he’s been thinking about for a long time. Phichit’s testimony of his increased happiness helps settle their nerves. His parents still have reservations, but Mari picks his new name right up with ease. All in all, it goes much better than he feared.
Leaving Phichit and returning to Japan puts Yuuri in a weird headspace. He has grown past needing his friend’s constant presence yet feels unsteady going somewhere new as himself. The days are so busy he hardly has time to think between his studies, skating, and clerical problems. His legal name change is approved with just enough time to get a new ID in advance of graduation, though updating that information with the university is like pulling teeth. He goes back and forth with the ISU and JSF, and ultimately the JSF accepts the ISU’s ruling of his self-declared gender. Taking testosterone helps cement the decision; they won’t let him skate in the women’s division anymore, but they’re not inclined to bar him from skating altogether. His data is updated right away, well in advance of the 2016 season, and his scores are historically high enough that he qualifies to represent Japan in the Grand Prix despite changing divisions. Apparently there aren’t as many high-ranking skaters in the men’s division as he thought.
There have never been any other transgender skaters skating at his level. Being the first one terrifies him. It’s unlikely anyone will know until the Grand Prix assignments in June, if they even put the pieces together that he’s the same person and not someone else with the same family name. He hopes the media doesn’t get weird about it. The last thing he wants to deal with during interviews is personal questions. Phichit has graciously not featured him in social media posts yet, but demands photos once Yuuri’s feeling up to it.
Returning to Hasetsu starts with a gut punch. There are posters at the station featuring him all dolled up in an outfit with a skirt and his deadname front and center. He stops in the bathroom to look at the mirror and reassure himself that he finally looks like his true self. Compared to a few months ago, he’s unrecognizable.
So unrecognizable, in fact, that he needs to stand right in front of Minako and introduce himself before she realizes who he is.
His parents fuss over him. Minako pesters him about his weight. Everything feels normal and he slots right back into his old life, this time as a man. No one even mentions his transition. When his mother recommends that he visit the onsen, she points him towards the men’s section. That, and his favorite menu item now being named Yuuri’s Katsudon, make him tear up. He feels more welcome at home than he could have imagined.
Yuuri refuses to look at social media after the video of his Stammi Vicino performance goes up. He doesn’t even look at his texts. He practices a half-day and then hides in his room for the next couple days when he’s not helping out around the onsen.
When he sees Victor, he’s not sure he’s awake.
When Victor pesters him to talk shortly after arriving—after Yuuri hastily hides an embarrassing number of Victor posters—he has to wonder if Victor has given any thought about his decision to come here as his coach.
“Have you ever been in any competitions?”
“Come again?” Yuuri asks, sitting next to Victor on the edge of his own bed. He isn’t sure he heard that correctly.
“I haven’t paid attention to Japanese competitions so I may have missed something, but aside from your video, I couldn’t find anything about a Yuuri Katsuki online past the ISU rankings. No past competitions or anything. Strange, but the internet doesn’t hold all knowledge. I doubt this is your first season competing, though, as most people your skill have been at it for years. If I could see your other performances, I would be better able to figure out your strengths and weaknesses, along with gaining an understanding of your competitive experience.”
“You came here based on one video without knowing a single other thing that I’ve done?” Yuuri asks. He winces as his voice cracks.
“You have a high ISU ranking and that says something. Someone put it into my head that I could be a coach. I don’t think she was in the right state of mind and may not even be skating anymore, but you have no coach, do you?”
“I trained with Celestino in Detroit for the past five years. I needed a few changes in my life and coming back to Japan was part of that, so I wasn’t able to continue with him. I’ve been competitive since I was 14, but my success has been up and down.”
“These ups and downs,” Victor says, “have they prevented you from competing in the Grand Prix? Or have we missed each other at qualifiers?”
“The second, yeah. Something like that.” Missed each other by a few hours, separated into gendered blocks of time, but he’s still shaken and starstruck from Victor being here; he’s not ready to come out yet. “My weakest spot right now is jumps. Quads are difficult for me and I’m adjusting my technique in general after building up muscle recently.”
“We’ll run through the basics tomorrow to see where you’re at.”
Working with Victor is exhausting. Working with Yuri is doubly exhausting. Yuuri finds himself too tired to let his anxiety simmer and instead simmers himself in the hot springs, entering one of the private ones late in the evenings. He’s less concerned about guests seeing him naked and more concerned about Victor knowing things he’s not ready to talk about.
Yuuri nearly dozes off when he hears footsteps padding towards the pool, making him sit up stiffly and open his eyes in time to see Yuri turn away from him, set his towel on the side, and slip into the water on the opposite side of the bath. The kid looks even more exhausted than he is.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not bathing with the old geezers in the big one and the others were locked,” Yuri says. While the public baths are open all day and night, no one staffs the counter to lend out private keys past nine. Yuri’s been in the public one a few times and seems to be getting used to it, but that doesn’t mean that he, like Yuuri, doesn’t need a more secluded space at times.
They sit there quietly. It’s nice to relax with the hot water and cool night air. Giving this up for five straight years was a mistake, but he’s never felt as comfortable in the water as he does now. Cutting his hair short and living as a man made his dysphoria less intense and boosted his confidence.
“Why are you trying to con Victor into training you?”
Spending quality time with Yuri was never going to be easy.
Yuuri shrugs. “He came here on his own without me saying a word. I don’t know what about it inspired him, but I’ll take the hand he’s offering.” And pray he can afford the fees afterwards.
“He thinks you’re an unknown. He wouldn’t be here if he could put your name to your performances. What’s he going to say when he realizes you’re competing in women’s competitions? Your free skate won’t be the right length, you know that. We shouldn’t even be competing against each other here.”
The harsh words make Yuuri grin. At least that’s one person he doesn’t have to come out to. “What would a coach have to offer to someone who’s already perfect? He’s seen my skill and my potential, just as he’s seen yours. I’ll be competing in the men’s, anyway.”
“It isn’t fair to him to hide who you are. But whatever. The attention to our competition will out you,” Yuri says.
“I’ve spent the past decade hiding who I am. I don’t want to hide my professional history, and I’ve told him I’ve been competitive for years, but it’s hard to tell someone to look up performances where everything felt wrong to me. I will eventually. I just don’t know if I’m prepared to know what his response will be.”
“Are you going to freak out when the announcer interviews you?”
“I’ve already been in touch with Morooka. International journalists might have something to say, but he’s nice. We talked about respectful ways to refer to me and my history. He won’t catch me off guard.” Morooka has already agreed not to directly mention his transition or his past in women’s skating until after the skate. It’s a notable fact that’s going to come out anyway, and he’d rather it be presented first by someone with tact than smeared about by someone who thinks he’s a freak. He’s lucky the viral video and Victor arriving here haven’t outed him yet.
“Then I guess we’ll be on an even field.” Yuri stares hard at him. “I don’t get it, though. Why skate in the men’s? Why take hormones and change your name? Is it because you want the muscles to do quads?”
“The only thing you need to get is that I’m a man. Once you see that, everything else should make sense,” Yuuri says.
“I don’t get it,” Yuri says again, softer this time, as if saying it to himself. He stares at the water in front of him, then sighs, leans back, and closes his eyes.
Yuuri’s frustration fizzles out quickly between his exhaustion and the hot water. Yuri’s a kid, he reminds himself. Many people his age don’t even know trans people exist. As long as Yuri treats him seriously as a competitor—and so far, he has—the other pieces should eventually fall into place.