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He isn’t expecting to find Victor at the top of the arena steps (leaning over the railing, one hand dangling idly over the side, his expression one of rapt attention) so much as he isn’t surprised when he finally does. Watching him here feels like–the last piece of a puzzle slotting into place. The ending of a book you stayed up all night to read. The program danced by a young skater who, at long last, finally feels the heartbeat of the music. And the thing is–
No one he knows has ever actually believed this, but Yuuri isn’t a selfless person.
Being mild-mannered (because confrontation is terrifying) or passive (because he doesn’t trust himself most of the time) or unprotesting (because by the time he’s figured out what he actually wants to say the moment has passed) or agreeable isn’t the same thing. He is petty, if mostly inside his own head. He hates and he resents and most of all, he wants, graspingly, greedily; there are things he wants as much as anyone else in the world. He wants to win. He wants to be noticed. He wants to stand on the ice, triumphant, feeling the thrill of vindication and the eyes of the world on him, and–what he actually wants at this precise moment, more than he has wanted anything in his life, is for Victor to never, ever look at anyone else that way again.
He allows himself a moment to rage at the unfairness of it all, that somehow eight months of living with, working with, getting to know Victor Nikiforov, in all his bumbling, faux-confident, turn-on-a-dime glory, has not lessened the longing. Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen? Don’t they always say never meet your idols?
Then he stops. He thinks that maybe, someday years down the line, he’ll remember this as the moment when he stopped hoping, stopped searching, stopped thinking maybe, maybe, maybe–frantically bargaining with the universe for a way to freeze time in its tracks. He gave everything he had, and still lost. (His hand brushing the ice on that kamikaze quad flip. Victor staring out at the rink like a boat being drawn into shore.) It hurts; yes, it hurts. It isn’t selfless. This is the thing no one (Victor, except Victor) has ever understood about soft-spoken, toothless, down-on-his-luck Katsuki Yuuri: how little he can handle being anything less than perfect, coming away with anything less than gold. The idea of keeping Victor with him, watching wistful longing shift day by day into resentment, or even boredom–it makes him sick.
He’s already been given more than he ever expected. He’s done things that, eight months ago, he’d barely dared to dream of. The memory of seagulls at the beach; the comforting weight of a ring on a finger; eight months of Victor Nikiforov’s undivided attention-edging-into-awe. That isn’t enough, but it’s better than the alternative. It has to be. He has to let go.