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There is, for the briefest of a moments, a dizzying rush of emotion—hurt, exasperation, anger.
It ebbs quickly and easily—a product, maybe, of years of having to rein in such ugly emotions—and Victor waits until it settles into frustration sitting cold in his stomach. Slowly, he breathes out, rubbing his own temples.
"End this," he says, slowly. The words feel like they’re in none of the languages he speaks. "You want to break up?"
Being with Yuuri, sometimes, is like a game of tug-of-war; Victor pulls on his side, and sometimes Yuuri will be dragged over, but then Yuuri would pull as well, and Victor would have to allow himself to be pulled along, to be drawn into Yuuri’s territory, Yuuri’s frame of mind, and figure out what’s going on there. Except it’s no easy task, trying to navigate the labyrinth that is Yuuri’s head, and always, always, Victor’s left in this state, struck speechless by even this.
"I want to—" Yuuri starts, only to close his mouth abruptly. "Victor, I—" He’s not even looking at Victor; he’s staring down at his ring instead, absently rubbing it, and the sight, untimely as it is, allows a bit of Victor’s frustration to thaw.
Even now, Yuuri hesitates. Even now, he stumbles over vocalizing the full extent of his thoughts, when it comes to their relationship. Even now, he doesn’t allow himself direct statements, like maybe doing so is the same thing as saying a birthday wish out loud.
It’s something Victor has grown to slowly understand about Yuuri—but it is, at the same time, still something he’s learning to work his way around. He doesn’t understand a lot of the things that go on in Yuuri’s head, can scarcely try to comprehend most of the things he believes: about himself, about Victor.
About the two of them.
"Yuuri," Victor says—and this, saying Yuuri’s name, trying to understand Yuuri, is a language he speaks much better than any other alternative. Tentatively, he reaches for Yuuri’s hand. Yuuri doesn’t resist, and Victor allows himself a patient inhale. "Yuuri," he says again, holding up Yuuri’s hand between the two of them. The ring glints, reflecting off the light from one of the bedside lamps. "Yuuri, what is this?"
"I—" Yuuri’s quiet for a seconds, and Victor knows he’s staring at the ring. Victor doesn’t take his eyes away from Yuuri’s face, watches and waits as emotion after emotion flit through his eyes, open as a book as it always is. "A ring."
"That’s right," Victor says, and he takes care not to sound patronizing. It helps him, when he has to slice things into even facts, and he wants it to help Yuuri. "Who put it on your hand?"
He sees Yuuri swallow. "You did."
"And," Victor says quietly, "What does that mean?"
It’s always quicker than a shutter sound, when Yuuri cries. It starts quiet, a soft gasp as the first tears start, and then he’s choking on a sob and tearing his hands away from Victor’s to wipe under his glasses, and the rest of Victor’s frustration at the situation goes away, replaced by something else—frustration at Yuuri, maybe, for still failing to understand, but more than that frustration at himself, for still being unable to convey the full extent of his own side of their relationship.
He doesn’t reach for Yuuri, though, lets his hands twitch on his lap as Yuuri rides the first wave of tears, waits until Yuuri’s hiccuping. He wants to, wants nothing more than to hug Yuuri and wait, hopefully, for this to work itself out—but they’re not children, and this conversation isn’t about what either of them want, separately, but what they want from each other, together.
It doesn’t make it any less difficult, having to be in this situation.
"Yuuri," Victor tries again, and it’s nothing more than a whisper. "What did I call these?"
The rings. It takes Yuuri a while to understand, but the question—the effort of having to remember—shocks his brain into momentarily stopping the onslaught of tears. "Engagement rings," Yuuri says quietly.
"That’s right," Victor says, and the urgency creeps into his voice, syllable by syllable. I want you to understand, he almost says, but he bites it back. "Yuuri—"
"You were looking at the rink today like—and when Otabek—" Yuuri finally lowers his hands back to his lap. His eyes are still wet, and Victor wants to wipe the tears away with his thumbs, but clarity’s coming back to Yuuri’s expression, so he waits. Waits for Yuuri to find ways to articulate himself. "I don’t want to be the person—I—it’s one thing, to be hated as the man that stole you from the world. I can live with that. I want that. But to be—to be the person that drags you away from something you love, from the life you love, just because—just because I love you—"
He breaks off. It’s been left unspoken, between them, up until this point, and the words hang heavy in the air.
But Yuuri, between the two of them, has always understood it better when things should not be left unspoken, and he doesn’t take it back.
The silence that chases after Yuuri’s voice is abrupt.
Victor searches himself for an answer.
He thinks of Yurio—Yurio breaking Victor’s world record at fifteen, Yurio announcing the death of Victor the figure skating hero of Russia. Yurio so often does things on instinct, but he of all people, even at that age, knows what Victor’s giving up. Not because he has to, not because he’s being forced to, but because he chose to.
And it strikes him as startlingly characteristic of Yuuri, to be caught up in his feelings and get lost in it so easily and so surely. He’s a walking contradiction—so mild-mannered yet so callous, so diffident yet stubborn in nursing his ego, so quick to downgrade himself yet so selfish. Victor isn’t blind to that part of Yuuri, but it is the ego and the selfishness talking on Yuuri’s part; the part of him thinking that his control on Victor is so strong, so irrefusable, that Victor would leave twenty years’ worth of his own life for him.
Yuuri isn’t wrong, about all the things Victor would give up for him, but leave it to him to be a walking contradiction in even this, to simplify something, in the middle of overthinking, into; I’m holding Victor back.
He’s not. There is nothing Victor wants more than he wants this.
As always, it’s his body that reacts first—so he kneels in front of Yuuri, taking the hand Yuuri’s wearing the ring on. It’s become of a mindless habit at this point, to want to kiss the ring, to make sure it’s there, because just touching it is no longer enough.
"What do you want, Yuuri?"
Yuuri’s hand is shaking in his, just a little bit, so Victor tightens his hold on it. Yuuri’s voice is no less shaky when he says, "I want to know what you want. Tell me honestly."
Victor frowns—it’s an unfamiliar expression, and he feels the way his mouth tightens. "Yuuri, you know—"
"No, I don’t," Yuuri says, voice rising and falling so abruptly it sounds like his voice cracks. "I don’t know, Victor. I don’t even remember—I—tell me. I want you to tell me."
It’s in an emphatic staccato, Yuuri’s words, and Victor, surprised in his own right, says; "Ask me, then. Ask me what I want."
Yuuri’s own hand tightens around Victor’s. "What do you want, Victor?"
Five words—five words that, Victor realizes in the seconds that follow, Yuuri has been dying to say without knowing it. His mouth’s parted, maybe in surprise, like the words had come out of his mouth involuntarily, like he hadn’t processed the words completely before he’d said them.
Victor can’t begrudge him that surprise, not when he himself feels how new it is, for what he wants to be the most important thing in their relationship, for it to be something he has to vocalize, has to make Yuuri understand. Relationships are about compromises, and Victor knows this, rationally, but it’s still difficult, having to rework his twenty-seven-year-old habits.
Yuuri had assumed the worst from whatever he saw today, hadn’t thought to ask; of course he hasn’t, just like Victor, in a moment of clarity now, hadn’t thought to say anything. It wasn’t that Yuuri spoke Japanese or Victor spoke Russian—it was, maybe, that Victor’s physical action hadn’t been enough to cut through Yuuri’s own love language barriers.
It’s a slow process, but Victor sees Yuuri’s eyes clear.
"I want to marry you," Victor says, simply, easily. Mustering a tight smile, he taps his index finger against Yuuri’s ring. "Whatever happens, whatever you choose to do tomorrow, I want to marry you."
He sees more than hears Yuuri inhale sharply. "Victor—"
"I’m not done," Victor cuts in, without raising his voice above Yuuri’s. It’s a shame, because he loves the way Yuuri says his name, loves all the love and all the possibilities in it. "I chose to come to Hasetsu, Yuuri. I chose to leave behind the things I did. I thought about it, and I packed up my life and came to you. You stole me away, yes, but who ever said I wanted to resist you, even if I could?"
Yuuri’s gone completely silent, and as always, Victor revels in that—in the ability to surprise Yuuri, for all that Yuuri has brought into his life.
It hadn’t been without a sting that Victor watched Yurio break his world record, just like it hadn’t felt particularly good, when Jean-Jacques Leroy had been credited with pulling off a jump in a way Victor himself hadn’t done, will never do now. The sting of it, however, came more from feeling like a stepping stone in someone else’s career, someone else’s history, than it did anything else. If he digs past the surface, it had been relief that he felt most of all, watching Yurio—relief and comfort, in its twisted way, watching someone metaphorically take the heavy weight of being the primary face of Russia’s figure skating world off Victor’s shoulders.
Victor Nikiforov the figure skater is dead, yes, but Victor sees no problem with that when Victor the figure skater has been wanting to rest for so long.
It’s a past he’s leaving behind willingly, and it had helped, seeing Yurio take on what had been, at one point, Victor’s primary responsibility in his life.
But this—Yuuri in front of him, Yuuri having to hear from him what he wants because there will always be days when he doubts himself, doubts Victor, doubts them—is what Victor wants to choose, over and over again if he has to.
Victor feels something unseat in his chest. Belatedly, he recognizes it as genuine worry—frantic and agitated, that he’d come close to losing Yuuri.
Still with shaking hands, he gently pulls Yuuri forward with a hand on his neck. Yuuri lets him; his eyes are glassy with tears, still, and he’s beautiful, and Victor doesn’t ever want this to end. "Do you want to end this, Yuuri?"
Quietly, so low Victor almost misses it despite the proximity, "Never."
"Me, too," Victor murmurs back. "Can you choose me back, then, Yuuri?"
Yuuri’s slow in putting his hands around Victor’s face—too careful, like he’s still scared about doing it—but Victor waits, waits for Yuuri to look his fill, waits for Yuuri to decide when to kiss him. It won’t always be fresh and new and surprising, no, but Victor will never tire of meeting Yuuri halfway where he needs to—not when Yuuri does it, too, speaking Victor’s love language in turn as he leans in to catch Victor’s lips in a kiss.
It won’t always be new, not like the accusation that had been in Yuuri’s words when he brought up Otabek; they will have more arguments like this, and Victor will have his frustrations and questions where Yuuri will have his insecurities and his grievances. It won’t be perfect all the time, and love will always be something they have to choose—but they’re both stubborn hard workers more than they are anything else—
—and they will be okay.