Work Text:
It’s a realization he only comes to after being in America.
While he loves Japan and his hometown, there are some things that they are a bit behind on. It’s only after he comes to Detroit that he realizes what that feeling had been, that weird discomfort of when people made sexual jokes or talk about anything involving the subject. The laughs and waving off of when others asked him if he’d do someone, showing him a picture of said person in question.
Yuuri was asexual.
It felt right . Back at home, he never could understand people wanting to be that close to someone (other than for the obvious reasons, he understood that it was necessary for reproduction reasons), even if people had said that he’d understand later, that he’d eventually feel that way in his life. Yuuri just couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that the main thing you could want in a relationship was to have sex. Even if he didn’t have that much experience with romance other than his one sided crush on Yuuko, he couldn’t ever see that being the most important thing with romance and relationships.
It was okay that he felt differently, there were other people out there that understood; Phichit had been the first person he told after looking it up one day in their dorm room. Phichit simply smiled and hugged him, saying he was happy for Yuuri, that he understood what he meant. While he hadn’t told his parents in person; he’d brought it up during one of his regular phone calls with his parents, his mother had cried but said she was happy for him and that no matter what she would still love him. Yuuko and the rest of the Nishigori family had been told by his family under his own request, and they understood as well. Minako had learned the same night of the rest of his family, and while she had wished to hear it from him, she was glad for him.
Thus he accepted it and told himself that everything would be okay.
That is, until one Victor Nikiforov had shown up naked in his family’s hot springs, declaring himself as Yuuri’s coach and things went from peaceful to chaotic.
Yuuri’s not exactly sure how things ended up like this, but suddenly having your childhood idol (and not to mention crush) show up like this, it’s a lot for the mind to wrap around.
One thing he’s learned in that time is that Victor can be extremely clingy and affectionate. The first time they really get to talk Victor’s running his hand down his arm to hold his hand, holding his chin with his other and looking straight at him. Yuuri can’t help but back away not only from shock and the level of intimacy, but for the other pressing issue.
Ever since finding out he was asexual, physical contact became a bit of a struggle. Phichit throwing an arm around him casually and the casual hugs was something that took awhile to get used to, and his family while they love him, keeps their distance. It’s something he’s had to accept as them trying to be understanding, plus he’s always been a bit hesitant with physical contact even before finding out he was asexual.
But with Victor, personal space doesn’t even seem to exist. He’s lost track of how many requests he’s turned down of asking to sleep together (besides the obvious implications, there’s the box of posters hidden under his bed and he’d rather die than have Victor find them), acted like he was burned every time Victor touched him and having to avert his eyes whenever they were in the hot springs.
It gets worse when Yuri Plisetsky shows up, Onsen on Ice is to happen and he’s been given the task to skate to eros, a song about sexual love. Yuuri wants to die right then and there on the spot, but if he’s going to have Victor as his coach, he needs to be able to skate to it. Even after he finds his inspiration in the form of pork cutlet bowls (he still can’t believe he said that, but it is one of the few things that causes him to stop thinking rationally), he just can’t get into the role of the story he came up with. It’s just not him, and probably never will be.
But he can act, pretend that it’s him, and with Minako’s help he’s able to get closer to how he feels and is able to pull it off. He can hide it, pretend like he understands it, play the role that he feels most comfortable with, and is rewarded with Victor staying to be his coach.
It doesn’t mean that Victor’s laid off with the affection, heck if anything he’s gotten more affectionate since Yuri left. It starts to become too much and he starts avoiding him if just to keep himself in check. That day at the beach, he opens up a bit about it, but not the full truth, but just enough that he hopes Victor will understand.
He seems to get it, the affection is still there, but it’s less and enough for him to manage. Maybe if things continue like this, it’ll all be okay.
Months later, Yuuri still hasn’t told him, even now that they’re in a relationship.
They haven’t had a chance to really talk about it, after the kiss in China all they had done was sleep, just sleep with each other due to Yuuri’s exhaustion from the day’s events. Even when they came back, they’d gone right back to training and while Yuuri’s gotten used to the hand holding and hugs, he’s scared to death if thing might come to anything more.
It all comes to a head one night after Rostelecom.
They’d started out sitting on Yuuri’s bed, talking and hold hands until Victor had placed his hand on Yuuri’s cheek, turn his head to face his and kissed him. Yuuri’s surprised a bit by it, but returns the kiss regardless and it’s when Victor’s got him pinned to the bed that things start to go off the rails. There’s a tongue prodding at his lips, which he lets in, a hand running down his sides and when it starts going towards his thighs does Yuuri jerk his head to the side breaking the kiss and trying to keep his breathing under control. Deep breaths, he tells himself, trying not to panic but it’s hard not to, he can’t break down like this, not in front of Victor.
“Yuuri?” There’s a concern in his voice that makes Yuuri just want to tell him to leave him alone so he can deal with this, but he’ll want to know what this is about. So he tries to get his breathing back to normal, mumbling out an “I’m fine” once he can feel like he can talk without gasping for breath.
Victor helps him sit up, giving his hand a soft squeeze, the other hand resting on his back. “Breath Yuuri, breath,” he says, “It’s okay, everything’s fine.”
Yuuri nods, counts in his head as he breaths, in out in out , and once he can breathing normally again he looks at Victor, who has a look of confusion and concern across his face.
“Are you okay?” he asks and Yuuri nods.
“Y-Yeah I just, freaked out there for a bit.” he replies, squeezes Victor’s hand back. “I’m fine, sorry for making you worry.”
“Yuuri...Did I do something wrong?”
“What? No, no you didn’t it’s just…” he sighs, he probably should have told Victor this from the start.
“It’s just that...I’m asexual so…” he trails off and looks off to the side, not trusting himself to meet Victor’s eyes right now.
“So it was too much for you right?” He looks back over at Victor, a look of understanding on his face.
“Yeah. I probably should have told you sooner but there was never a good time for it…” He pauses and takes a breath before continuing. “I’m fine with everything we’ve done up till now but that was...just too much. I can handle the hand holding, hugs and the like but the touching is...just a bit too much.” Victor bring his hand to Yuuri’s check to bring their foreheads to rest against each other, a small smile on his face.
“It’s okay Yuuri, I probably should have asked beforehand. We’ll go at your pace, and if it becomes too much we’ll stop. I don’t want to overwhelm you. Alright?”
Yuuri nods, a smile on his face as he moves to wrap his arms around Victor and rest his head on his shoulder, and action that Victor mirrors. It was okay, they were okay and everything was going to be fine. They’d figure this out together, and even if they never did anything more than what they had done already, that would be fine with him.