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A dark cloud hung over Viktor as he sat in the break room, bent over a blank notepad with a pen hanging from his mouth. Yurio noisily sat in the seat across from him.
“Who pissed in your Cheerios?” the teen asked, biting into a protein bar. “Katsudon’s only been at Lilia’s studio for a couple hours, you can’t be that lovesick.”
Viktor stared at the pad mournfully. “I don’t know what to make my theme this season!” he wailed, collapsing fully on the table.
Yurio backed away, giving the man his distance. “I thought you were going to skate to love, or some sappy shit like that.”
“That’s the problem!” Viktor cried. “The only thing I can possibly skate for is love, but it’s too predictable!”
Yurio just watched him, unamused. “Why do you need a theme? Can’t you just skate to catchy music like a normal person?”
“I can’t be normal, Yurio!”
“Right, who am I talking to,” Yurio said drily.
“I need to be better than normal!” Viktor propped his head on his hand. “Besides, I’ve had a theme since my junior debut when I was sixteen.”
“What was it?”
“Sexuality.”
Yurio wrinkled his nose. “Yakov greenlit that?”
“No, but when has that ever stopped me?” Viktor pointed out wistfully, remembering all the thinly veiled threats Yakov had made over the years. Good times. “What’s your theme, Yurio?”
“Regret over my life choices.” Yurio paused. “What’s Katsudon’s?”
Viktor shrugged. “They’re not telling me until I pick one. They want to reveal them to each other at the same time.”
Yurio rolled his eyes. “Cute.”
“Can a person be a theme?” Viktor wondered aloud.
“What, are you going to get Katsudon’s name tattooed on your ass?” Yurio scoffed.
Viktor’s eyes took on a dangerous gleam.
“Oh no,” Yurio groaned, pulling out his phone to do damage control.
Viktor practically jumped up. “Should I get it the Roman alphabet or kanji? Ooh, maybe I can transcribe it into Cyrillic.”
Yurio: SOS
Yurio: vitya is abt 2 do smthn
Yurio: bad thing
Katsudon: [Seen 13:07]
During practice, Viktor did figures around the rink when Yakov told him to spin. “Vitya, are you listening to me? I told you to practice your Biellman!” he barked.
“Can katsudon be my theme?” Viktor asked, continuing in his slow circles.
Yakov took a deep breath, feeling his blood pressure spike. “If you design a costume based on a pork cutlet bowl, you can find another coach,” he threatened. Past experience told Vitya it was empty. “Now get your leg up or I’m taping it to your back.” That one wasn’t.
After an hour, Viktor braced himself on the side of the rink. Sweat beaded on his brow while Yurio sneered, preparing to switch off for his own session.
“What’s something people wouldn’t expect?” Viktor asked.
“Are you still obsessing over that?” Yurio groaned.
Thankfully for Viktor, Yurio was still tying his skates, meaning he couldn’t escape. “Probably victory or something, coming for my Yuuri’s record,” he mused. “Or is that too predictable, too?”
“You know, Katsudon’s name means ‘victory’ or some shit,” Yurio said absentmindedly, taking off his blade guards.
That gave Viktor pause. “Oh?”
“Mari mentioned it once.” Yurio shrugged, stepping onto the ice and skating off before Viktor could ask for more.
Already, Viktor could feel an idea forming in his mind. It involved calling up Minako on his lunch break the next day.
“Konnichiwa, Minako...-san?” Viktor greeted hesitantly. “Did I get that right?”
Minako chuckled on his phone screen. “You did, Vitya,” she teased. “Did I get that right?”
Viktor beamed. “Yes!”
“I certainly wasn’t expecting you to call today,” she said. “What’s the occasion?”
Viktor held a hand over his heart. “I can’t call my fiancé’s loveliest teacher?”
She rolled her eyes. “You could, but you wouldn’t.”
Viktor gave her that one. “What does Yuuri’s name mean?”
Minako perked up, intrigued. “You mean the kanji?”
Viktor nodded.
“What do you know about how Japanese names are read?” she asked.
“Not a lot,” Viktor admitted.
The phone was moving, as Minako picked it up and walked away. “Every kanji has a meaning and one or more pronunciations,” she explained, setting the phone down as she looked for something. “So when kanji are chosen for a given name, they’re chosen to produce the desired name, and because each kanji has a meaning, they result in a unique meaning. Or sometimes parents do it the other way around, they pick kanji and then choose a name based on that.” Minako shrugged as she scribbled something off screen. “And there are different kanji with the same sound, and vice versa. So, someone could have the same name as Yuuri with different kanji, or have the same kanji with a different name.”
Viktor’s head reeled a bit. “Alright,” he said slowly.
Minako laughed, sitting propping the phone up in front of her so her face was in frame. She held a napkin up so Viktor could see. Viktor leaned forward, peering at the grainy screen to make out what she’d written. On it were four characters, with Roman letters written next to each. It read:
勝 – katsu
生 – ki
勇 – yuu
利 – ri
Viktor’s heart fluttered at seeing his fiancé’s name on paper. Minako started from the top, explaining the meaning of the kanji; victory, pure, courage, and advantage, respectively. She took a moment to add a line to the bottom.
勝生 勇利
“That’s what Yuuri’s name looks like written out.”
Viktor gently touched the screen, smoothing over the unfamiliar characters and committing them to memory. “So ‘Katsuki,’ what does that mean?”
Minako paused for a moment. “Something like ‘born to win.’”
Viktor broke out into a wide smile, suddenly knowing what his theme was going to be. “Thank you, Minako-san!”
That night Viktor sat Yuuri down in front of the kotatsu they’d brought from Japan. “I have my theme, Yuuri!” he sang, holding a notepad to his chest.
“It took you long enough,” Yuuri teased.
Viktor was too excited to think of a comeback, practically bouncing in his seat. “Do you want to show them to each other?” He was equally excited to tell Yuuri his theme as he was to see their own.
Yuuri laughed. “Sure.”
Viktor took a minute to write on the notepad, tongue sticking out as he carefully traced the character from memory. When he was satisfied, he ripped the page off before passing the blank pad to Yuuri. Yuuri took a moment to write their own theme, before similarly ripping the page off and setting the notepad aside.
“Ready?” Viktor asked, foot jiggling under the kotatsu. “I’ll go first!”
He quickly turned the page around, practically waving it in Yuuri’s face. Yuuri leaned back, grabbing it from Viktor and looking at the page. The only thing written on it was “勝” in thick lines, large enough to take up the whole page.
“My theme is katsu,” Viktor said softly, heart still pounding in his throat. “Victory.”
But they both knew it was more than that. It wasn’t just “victory,” it was victory in the context of Yuuri and the home that Viktor had found in Japan. It was victory, sure, but it was more than that.
Yuuri held the page in front of their eyes, blinking as their eyes shimmered in the light. Finally, they barked out a laugh.
Viktor pouted. “Don’t laugh! It’s romantic!” he insisted.
Yuuri shook their head. “It is, it is,” they agreed. They grabbed the paper with their theme written on it. “It’s just that my theme is nike.”
Yuuri turned their paper around, revealing the word “νίκη” in unfamiliar characters. Viktor blinked for a moment. “Nike?” he repeated.
A blush spread over Yuuri’s cheeks. “Nike. Nikiforov,” they mumbled.
Viktor’s eyes lit up, the pieces clicking into place. “We’re a couple of lovesick fools, it seems,” he laughed, cupping Yuuri’s cheeks in his hands.
“It seems so,” Yuuri laughed in tandem.
“I’m still coming for your record, Katsuki,” Viktor threatened.
“I’d like to see you try, Nikiforov.”
Viktor and Yuuri had refused to show each other their Free Skate costumes, working separately with their designers and swearing anyone who had seen them to secrecy. At Skate America, Viktor had debuted a stunning remake of Yuuri’s Yuri on Ice costume, with a red and gold color scheme in the place of blue. The mesh corset was the same, though Viktor dared to make the entire back see-through, because he was Viktor, and Viktor was nothing if not a show-off.
Decked in red and gold, Viktor flashed his fiancé a wicked grin from the ice, wearing the same outfit with which Yuuri had broken his record. The message was clear: I’m coming for your record, babe.
Skate Canada was Yuuri’s turn. Yuuri stood at the edge of the rink, one of Viktor’s long overcoats draped over her shoulders (it was a femme day, Yuuri had declared that morning and it hadn’t changed since). Viktor looked at what little he could see of Yuuri’s costume poking out from below his coat. All he could see were bare legs and a set of skates decked out in feathers. Viktor was anxious to see what Yuuri had planned for him.
Chris came off the ice, roses clutched to his chest as he waved to the stands. “Good luck, ma chère,” he teased, passing by Yuuri.
Yuuri smiled anxiously, turning to Viktor, coat still pulled closed over her chest. “How’s my eyeliner?” she asked.
“Perfect,” Viktor assured. Of course it was perfect, he’d applied it himself.
“Lipstick?”
“I’d kiss you right now if it wouldn’t rub off,” Viktor said, eyeing the dusky pink curve of his fiancé’s mouth.
Yuuri smiled, stepping into Viktor’s space and leaning up to press a soft kiss to his cheek. “Don’t take your eyes off me,” she breathed. “Not even for a moment.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” Viktor gasped. Before he knew what was happening, his coat was pressed back into his arms as Yuuri skated out on the ice.
Viktor’s heart caught in his throat. All he could see were legs, legs stretching on for days before disappearing below a baby blue skirt. Two lines of white feathers crawled up her back, reminiscent of a pair of wings, disappearing into two opaque keyhole sleeves.
Viktor clutched his chest. “Those thighs could kill a man,” he gasped.
“I think they already have,” Chris said, appearing beside him with a stunned gaze. It took a lot to leave Chris breathless.
Yuuri took her starting pose in the middle of the rink. This, Viktor knew by heart, as Yuuri’s eyes flashed open at the first note, springing forward like she was carried on wings. Arms thrown out behind her as she skated into her first jump. Somehow her stride seemed even longer than it had in practice, with her legs on display for the world to see. Absently, Viktor noted that her sleeves seemed bulky, heavier than expected.
Viktor clutched Chris beside him. “That’s my fiancé. Hold me, I’m dying.”
Chris patted Viktor’s arm on his shoulder, eyes never moving from Yuuri’s dance. “You and the rest of us, Vitya.”
Viktor hadn’t blinked for an entire minute when Chris next spoke. “You’re drooling,” he said with disgust, holding out a handkerchief for Viktor to take.
Having lost all capacity for thought, Viktor took the handkerchief and stuffed it in his mouth. Chris watched his friend with equal mixture disgust and concern. Watching Viktor was like watching a train wreck in slow motion, as his brain slowly turned to mush.
Two minutes into Yuuri’s program, she dropped to one knee, free leg dragging across the ice as momentum carried her forward. Her hand moved over the line of her neck (what Viktor wouldn’t give to be that hand right now), reached her collar and pulled.
Her sleeves opened up, and Viktor panicked for a moment, because a wardrobe malfunction mid-program was the last thing Yuuri needed and- oh. Where a set of soft blue sleeves once were, a pair of downy white wings stretched down Yuuri’s arms, streaming out behind her as if she were the goddess of victory herself. The crowd gasped, and and Yuuri couldn’t help but smirk (the little shit). Someone was about to get an outrageous presentation score.
And Viktor. Well, Viktor was but a mortal.
He went down like the Titanic. His head made a hollow thud as it hit the concrete floor. Thirty seconds later his eyes sprang open, dark spots dancing at the edge of his vision. Chris and Chris's boyfriend crowded above where he’d passed out by the rink side. He mumbled something around the handkerchief in his mouth. Chris’s boyfriend did the honors, grimacing as he pulled the soaked cloth from Viktor’s mouth.
“What was that?” Chris asked.
“Can you marry us right now.”
Chris rolled his eyes, looking to his boyfriend. “Put it back in.”
He refused, helping Viktor into a chair so he could watch the end of Yuuri’s program as he went to go get medical. Yuuri underrotated on the quad Lutz, but Viktor was in a forgiving mood. By the time Yuuri skated off the ice, Viktor’s world had steadied enough for him to stand. With Chris’s help he hobbled over to the Kiss and Cry to greet Yuuri.
Her eyes lit up when she saw him, beautiful in all her winged glory. Viktor went down again, on one knee this time. “Marry me,” he pleaded.
Yuuri looked at him strangely. “Honey, we’re already engaged?” she pointed out, showing him the ring still on her finger.
“Right now,” Viktor insisted. “There’s got to be an officiant in the crowd somewhere.”
“Ignore him,” Chris said. “His head’s a little scrambled.”
The two of them propped Viktor up on the bench in the Kiss and Cry while they waited for Yuuri’s score. Viktor leaned against Yuuri the whole time, nuzzling his head against the feathers on her arms. “So beautiful, so blessed,” he murmured, over and over.
“Vitya, I got a 200.2, aren’t you happy?” she laughed, trying to pry her fiancé off.
A paramedic interrupted them. “I’m here to look at a possible head wound?”
Yuuri glanced up. “But I didn’t fall?” she said in confusion.
“That’d be me.” Viktor raised his hand. “I may have passed out a little.”
Yuuri blanched. “You passed out?! Vitya, honey, are you okay?”
Chris chuckled. “He was awestruck by your beauty.”
Yuuri blinked. “You’re kidding.”
Yuuri and Viktor went home with a gold medal and a mild concussion, respectively.