Chapter Text
Before he met his soulmate, Yuuri Katsuki knew plenty trivial information about him. From age four, Yuuri had noticed that when his mind strayed to his soulmate, it was often supplemented with little tidbits of information that he shouldn’t know.
His soulmate had an extreme hatred of strawberries.
Then, in class one day, they learned about soulmates and the connection between the parties. Because soulmates were technically half (or a bit) of a soul that yearned to be together as a whole, a connection was established at a young age and maintained until death, even once soulmates had met and solidified their bond. This connection existed solely to bring soulmates closer before they could be together and this was done in pointless little spots of knowledge that held little meaning but nonetheless was important for the soulmates.
Yuuri had kept a little blue notebook ever since then.
Inside; a list that kept growing over the years. Pieces of information about his soulmate that had no explanation, only meaning for Yuuri. The progression of the information was fascinating, watching childish dislikes turn into lazy teenage habits, from there into mostly independent adulthood preferences.
His soulmate was adamant that only a particular laundry detergent was used.
Yuuri wouldn’t deny it, he had a list of favourite facts about his soulmate. Many people did. Some immediately adapted their lifestyle to mimic or include their soulmates likes and dislikes. Some people disagreed heavily with their soulmate and stubbornly refused to change their opinion. Yuuri even met someone who refused to wear clothing coloured anything other than their soulmate’s favourite colour (their soulmate was an infant who like neon orange).
Yuuri’s list of favourites steadily grew longer over the years
‘Obsession with Winnie the Pooh’
Became ‘Thinks the colour green is nonsensical’.
‘Once walked into a glass door’ was edited not once, but six times to keep up to date.
‘Has had a poodle soft toy since birth’ was at the top of the list.
‘Likes figure skating’ made Yuuri’s heart stutter and sent him tumbling down the stairs so he could ask his parents if he could take Yuuko up on her offer of lessons.
‘Bought a poodle’ made Yuuri beg his parents for a puppy -preferably a poodle, like his soulmate and Viktor Nikiforov had.
‘Sneezes when looking at fluorescent lights’ made Yuuri giggle so hard in the dark of night he fell off his bed and his parents came in worried.
‘Speaks English fluently’ came a month after Yuuri’s move to the states.
‘Doesn’t like wearing clothes’ was added to the book while blushing hard, because Yuuri had been training at the time and landed in Phichit’s arms out of shock when his skates flew out from under him.
‘Thinks James Bond is gay and having an affair with Q’ was added with no small amount of confusion (and if it was followed by an intense week of movie marathoning James Bond, then no one had to know).
‘Wonders if the black mould growing in the bathroom is poisonous,’ was an addition that left Yuuri very worried (and confused about his soulmates age). Until two hours later when Yuuri woke in the dead of night thinking:
‘It’s a fungus, not mould. May still be edible.’
(If the next day Yuuri and Phichit were crowding a news article speculating about Viktor Nikiforov’s recent hospital admission, then it was a coincedence).
‘Once mixed up water and Smirnoff vodka when very thirsty’ lead to Yuuri’s first drink -Smirnoff Vodka. Yuuri was not overly impressed.
By age twenty three, Yuuri still felt his chest ache for his soulmate, and he frequently consulted his little notebook just for entertainment and reassurance. In fact, Yuuri very rarely left it off his person, remembering to take his soulbook when he forgets to take his phone.
This was the little blue book that fell out of Yuuri’s pants pocket when Viktor Nikiforov managed to get the very drunk Japanese man into his hotel room and bed. Viktor thought he had been imagining it when his chest felt lighter, cooler at the Grand Prix. At the banquet, his eyes kept finding the drunk final placer, the one with the eyes like caramel, the hair like liquid ink, and the step sequences of a god.
Then he had been pulled into a dance with him, as though the other man was magnetised to him too. Their hands had touched and Viktor could swear that pain he didn’t realise was there all along left his body. A part of him that had never actually been whole clicked into place with Yuuri in his arms, and suddenly Viktor was the happiest, luckiest man on the planet.
The little blue book, that Viktor curiously opened, was filled with Japanese writing, but there were a couple pages in English that Viktor could read. And with every little sentence that Viktor knew was true about himself, he looked up and stared at the man sprawled on the hotel bed, dribbling, and smelling of sweat and champagne.
Viktor Nikiforov kept a large binder scrap book that he kept adding sheets of pages to. It was silver and white on the outside, gifted to him by his mother on his fifth birthday. She said it was for Viktor to fill with things about his soulmate. And fill it Viktor did.
The first entry was in shaky cyrillic letters written in pencil, gone over in pen with a more practiced hand.
‘Likes bubbles’.
From there, Viktor was possessive and dedicated to his book, filling it every day with the splotches of knowledge he received. The book moved with him from his family home in Moscow to Saint Petersburg to train, into the small apartment with the strange black fungus growing in the bathroom. The book sat next to him on the hospital bed when he tasted the fungus in a moment of expected stupidity.
‘Likes ballet’. A pair of ballet shoes were drawn next to the entry, with an actual white ribbon glued to them.
‘Fell into the hot pool. Twice,’ was written carefully inside a blue splash on the black page.
‘Can eat four bowls of katsudon before becoming sick. Stop at two.’ Was penned in golden next to a note to find out what katsudon was.
‘Owns a toy poodle,’ was inside a heart. Viktor might have immediately told Makkachin and danced around the room with the bemused poodle upon finding this out.
‘Has anxiety and is prone to depression,’ was lovingly stroked as tears slipped down Viktor’s cheeks.
‘Figure skates,’ was added one morning when Makkachin shook snow all over the living room furniture.
‘Face planted rink wall three times,’ was carefully corrected each time it needed to be.
‘Likes Champagne a little too much,’ was written with a grin (and a note on the shopping list).
‘Doesn’t like triangles. Thinks they are arrogant,’ was written in at two in the morning when Viktor shot awake in realisation. Same goes for
‘Likes bears because of how honest they are with their aggression’. Viktor couldn’t help but laugh until his neighbours pounded on the wall in annoyance.
When Yuuri didn’t seek out Viktor the morning after the banquet and left for Japan, Viktor cried until his chest hurt and his eyes burned. Yuri warily patted his back the entire flight home.
‘Loves the song Ends of the Earth by Lord Huron.’ Was written in the beautiful silver and white book with a shaking hand and a numb brain.
Finding out that Yuuri didn’t remember the moment they clicked, they became one soul burned Viktor more than anything else, but it did explain Yuuri’s actions, his careful avoidance of the soulmate subject. His dismissal of the blue book he carried everywhere, and the stuttering negative reply to wanting to see Viktor’s scrapbook.
Finally, in a hotel room in Barcelona, golden rings resting heavily on fingers, and a competition to win the next day, Viktor pressed his book into Yuuri’s hands, wiping stray tears away. He would only skate if he could have Yuuri, and the latter needed to learn that Viktor was going nowhere.
Yuuri frowned at Viktor, but opened the book nonetheless, not understanding the cyrillic that covered the pages, along with the doodles and photographs stuck in. Viktor hastily climbed onto the bed and sat next to Yuuri, leaning behind him to push his chin into the other’s shoulder.
“That says, ‘hates salted caramel’” Viktor supplied, eyes roving the page. “And under it ‘Thinks vanilla scented things are awful.’”
Yuuri leaned back a little, frame tense.
“‘Thinks cinnamon is nice, but shouldn’t be in a Lush bathbomb,’” Viktor smiled and turned the page. “‘Thinks gold is a romantic colour’,” the Russian nuzzled Yuuri’s neck.
“Bu- But these are things about-”
“You.” Viktor supplied. “At the banquet last year, when we danced, I felt something click, I felt new and… good. I felt good with you, whole, and then you left. I can’t ever leave you, Yuuri, and it’s not just a crush,” he softly said, eyes lowering to a point on the page.
“I- I have a book too…” Yuuri pulled it from an inner pocket. Viktor smiled to himself. Sentimental Yuuri. The Japanese opened it, thumbing through the pages. “Is it true- did you get your own gum in your hair and have to cut it?” Yuuri asked shyly. Viktor blushed, but hid it in Yuuri’s neck.
“That is true. I was sixteen when that happened. Not entirely sure how though…” The Russian mumbled. Yuuri placed his book inside Viktor and shifted them to the nightstand, turning until he was facing Viktor’s chest, embraced in a familiar warm grip -and sure enough, that piece of his chest that never felt whole, was sending a chilling wave through his body, gooseflesh going up his arms and down his spine.
Viktor was his, never to leave.
Yuuri knows that Viktor likes spoons more than any other piece of cutlery. He knows that Viktor likes those lights in jars, the colour red, and mongeese. Yellow light bulbs not white, beef mince over chicken, Hufflepuff house over all the others.
He likes to wake up first, to trace the lines of Yuuri’s face, to make them both coffee, his with four sugars and milk, Yuuri’s with one sugar no milk.
He likes it when Yuuri cooks, when Yuuri wears his clothes, when Yuuri wears no clothes.
Viktor likes to be bitten gently while getting passionate, to be held close, have lovely somethings and sweet nothings whispered in his ears.
He likes to have his hair played with, gripped and pulled.
Viktor knows that Yuuri likes to sleep in, at the very least doze in the sun that hits their bed, or softly and slowly lavish each other with the love that wasn’t expressed the night before. He knows that Yuuri likes to cuddle on the couch after a long day. He knows that Yuuri hates toast most of the time, but still maintains a stubborn opinion on jams. Viktor knows that Yuuri likes to take baths, but even more now that Viktor will take them with him. Viktor knows that singing the wrong lyrics to a song will make Yuuri cringe, that removing or putting something in the pot draw of the kitchen makes Yuuri close his eyes because of the noise.
Yuuri likes bowls more than plates, thinks muffins are moderately pointless and decently overpriced everywhere, and that cherry flavoured things pair well with edam cheese.
So in their shared apartment, there is only raspberry jam and apricot jam, because Yuuri maintains that raspberry jam is superior despite not liking toast, and that apricot jam is nice on pastry. There is an expensive brand of coffee in the pantry, that Viktor buys especially for show (both he and Yuuri do this so people think they are well cultured adults. In truth, instant coffee packets or Starbucks blend work just fine).
Half of the glasses are upside down in the cupboard, the other half are right way up. Same with the mugs. Yuuri and Viktor share shampoo because they both like smelling like each other. A cherry blossom scented diffuser sits just inside the door, to remind Yuuri of home (Viktor put it there), and a pear scented one is on a side table in the hall, just so the smell can touch their room but not fill it. They trade turns for picking movies (Yuuri maintains that Mean Girls is a modern classic, Viktor claims that Titanic is far better). They have a two guest bedrooms, one for guests, one with an ikea kids bed and a flat packed bassinet (the cot is hidden in the laundry room where Viktor thinks Yuuri hasn’t seen it). Viktor wants kids, Yuuri isn’t so certain at the moment.
Yuuri writes his little discoveries, both conscious and unconscious in his little blue book.
(Viktor can only sleep with something to sniff, he brushes his hair with his left hand, he has been known to lick condensation off of windows).
Viktor keeps up his scrapbook, often sitting down with Yuuri and flicking through the pages, or getting the younger man’s help with sticking things in.
(Yuuri has woken up in a sink with a hangover, cracked two ribs falling off a bunk bed, and intensely enjoys the Jurassic Park films).
(Neither of them have removed their rings for any reason in over twenty years)
Viktor and Yuuri know everything there is to know about the other, and they love each other so much at the end of it.
The last entry and top of Yuuri’s favourite list is ‘Loves Yuuri Katsuki.’
Viktor’s last thought is ‘Loves Viktor Nikiforov.’