Chapter Text
Look at this video! Almost better than you, the text read. Chris had an indulgent emoji habit, so it was followed by a winky face, a kissy face, and several hearts in different colors and styles.
But Victor didn’t see any of that. He braced his fingers on his forehead and pressed play on the video, the freeze-frame alone enough to make his heart flutter.
It was the boy from the banquet. Yuuri Katsuki.
The Japanese skater had fallen, terribly, and ended well below the other competitors in the Grand Prix. But then there had been the banquet…
Victor stared at the video, following the form, the gesture, the arc of Katsuki’s body. He was out of shape, but it didn’t seem to matter. He performed perfectly enough Victor could see parts of himself in the nuance.
At the banquet, Yuuri Katsuki had had too much to drink. Far too much. Victor hadn’t paid him much mind during the competition. Victor responded well to attention but didn’t dole it out on strangers, and Katsuki had kept adamantly to himself. But when he was overflowing with champagne?
By the end of the night, that one Japanese boy had all of them in various stages of undress, dancing and posing and laughing. Yuuri had come to him, hand extended, and pulled Victor into an aggressive, if sloppy, dance that was some approximation of tango or pasodoble. He’d looked so sure of himself, so drunkenly confident, leading Victor across the dance floor, dipping him and giving him passionate poses to mirror.
Victor pressed play again on the video.
Yuuri had come to Victor, undulating against him, and said:
“If I win this dance battle, you’ll become my coach, right?”
And then, throwing his arms around Victor:
“Be my coach, Victor!”
And that was the moment.
Sometimes, in life, one is acutely aware of the world shifting around them. One second and everything is changed, even if it looks just the same. That is what Victor felt: a profound pivot of his entire being as his soul aligned itself around this new axis.
He didn’t think anything of the petal he found on his pillowcase the next morning.
Well!?!? Chris’ text popped up at the top of the screen.
It’s good.
There were other competitions after the Grand Prix. Nationals, world championships, but Yuuri was at none of them, even if Victor found himself hoping to see his face. But then, Yuuri hadn’t even wanted a photo with him the day after the banquet.
Just good?! You’re not looking at his ass. Chris texted. Butt emoji. Kissy face. Splayed hands. Winky face. 100% emoji.
But then why post this? Victor pressed play for the third time, watching his routine unfold across the ice via a smaller, thicker body.
A beautiful body.
Victor blushed, coughed, touched his throat where it suddenly felt tight, obstructed by his emotions.
Yuuri had said his parents owned a resort, and before Victor could think twice about it he was flipping through search results. Two hours later he had plane tickets and a reservation, and the very next day he found himself stepping off a plane in Fukuoka and collecting Maccachin.
Hasetsu, Yuuri’s home, was as beautiful as Yuuri, and Victor availed himself of the hot springs to relax post travel. He found his eyes wandering the place, taking in all of the little details. The tanuki guarding the pond, the carved fountain. The moss encroaching at the edges of the stone tiles. He drank it like a parched man, wondering what these tiny truths might tell him about Yuuri.
He was settling in when Yuuri arrived, out of breath, in a panic.
And Victor laughed, because his heart felt light at the sight of him, even fumbling, startled, and embarrassed as he was. Victor stood from the bath and extended his hand, welcoming Yuuri to his world.
—
He fell more in love every day.
Yuuri was unlike anything Victor had known before. He was shy and insecure, lacking in self confidence and physically unfit but with a secret passion and determination that burned against all odds. It entranced Victor, leaving him breathless - and Yuuri hadn’t even made it onto the ice.
Yuko, who managed the rink where Yuuri practiced, talked idly to Victor one day as he rested.
“Maccachin looks just like Vicchan,” she said. “Yuuri got him because you had Maccachin, you know. And he named him after you.”
“Me?” Victor found it hard to believe.
“He’s spent his entire career trying to follow in your footsteps,” Yuko laughed.
Victor smiled at that, his heart racing. So, perhaps Yuuri felt something special towards Victor, too.
“Let’s sleep together,” Victor said, and startled Yuuri allowed it. Victor curled on the floor beside Yuuri’s bed, asking him quiet questions into the night, until Yuuri stopped responding, fast asleep. Victor was practically buzzing from adoration, but it manifested as a fit of coughs, suddenly feeling a scratch in his throat that he couldn’t quite muffle. He tried to press his face into the blanket, but there was something in the back of his throat, then on his tongue, and as he pulled away, still coughing, he found three petals on the blanket - soft pink things.
Victor frowned, staring at them, and decided he must be imagining it.
But when he woke up the petals were still there, and his throat still felt sore, and Yuuri yelped in surprise when he stood up from bed, like he always did, and accidentally stepped on Victor.
“Gomen’nasai!” Yuuri said. “I’m sorry!”
“It’s OK, Yuuri. Calm down,” Victor soothed, standing and gliding his fingers from Yuuri’s elbow to his wrist, where he could hold his hand. “Tell me about your dreams.”
Yuuri was blushing, stuttering. “Oh I - I don’t really… remember my dreams.”
“Don’t you?” Victor asked, leaning close, eyes searching Yuuri’s.
His head shook quickly.
“Shame,” Victor lamented. He dropped Yuuri’s wrist, though that small bit of contact was enough to have him aching. “You should get to your workout, then,” he said, touching Yuuri’s stomach instead. “I still haven’t gotten to see you on the ice.”
Another blush, and then a bow, and Yuuri was dressing in an instant and heading out.
Victor watched him depart and sighed, looking down at the three petals. He scooped them up in his hand and went to the window, offering the wisps of dreams to the sky. The wind lifted them out of Victor’s palm and twirled them up, up, and out of sight.
Surely, surely, it was just a dream.