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It’s over breakfast that Victor remembers it.
The kitchen was quiet, the smell of bagels wafting through the room. This time there was no scent of something burning, but that had everything to do with the fact that Yuuri had finally taught Victor how to operate a toaster correctly and safely. This time Victor had cooked breakfast without incident—a simple breakfast, but a successful one.
Yuuri was biting into his blueberry bagel with a thoughtful look on his face. “Y’know,” he said between bites, “It’s been a really long time since I’ve eaten a bagel.”
Victor raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What makes you and bagels such distant friends?”
Yuuri snorted. “Victor, it’s not like there’s a huge story behind what I eat for breakfast!” he admonished, his tone affectionate.
And something about that rang a tiny bell in the back of Victor’s head somewhere. Something about stories, and something about breakfast, and something about affection, too…
He was jolted from his thoughts by Yuuri’s shyly spoken words. “Um, by the way… Happy Valentine’s Day, Victor.” He smiled, his gaze coming from beneath his lashes. Victor’s heart softened instantly.
“Aw, thank you, Yuuri. Happy Valentine’s Day to you, too!” Victor said. “I almost forgot about it, to be honest… I never really had many opportunities or reasons to celebrate it in the past.”
Yuuri nodded, swallowing another bite of bagel. “Mm, me neither. White Day was always a bigger deal for us back home, but I never really got anyone anything.” He seemed to consider it. “Come to think of it, did I ever give out Valentine’s Day candy? Or even cards…?”
Victor frowned. That bell was ringing quite a bit louder now, hanging like a word on the tip of his tongue, just waiting to be realized.
But then, all at once, it hit him.
Victor shot out of his chair and abandoned his cream cheese bagel, deaf to Yuuri’s confused questioning that echoed after him as he ran back to their room. He slid through the entryway on his socks not unlike the way he would have on ice skates, though admittedly with far less grace.
His eyes roamed the room, scouring every piece of furniture for a flash of a nearly forgotten memory. He wasn’t sure why he had recalled this today of all days, and he wasn’t sure why it was suddenly so important to him; perhaps Victor just needed to be reminded that he had kept them at all.
The gentle padding of footsteps behind him informed Victor that Yuuri had followed him. “What’s wrong, Victor?” he asked tentatively. He must not have been too panicked, though; a quick backwards glance revealed that Yuuri still had the last few bites of his blueberry bagel in hand for an on-the-go meal.
“I just remembered something,” Victor replied, but his voice was distant. His eyes caught on the bottom drawer of the far nightstand, the nightstand that was never used before Yuuri moved in. He shot another look back at Yuuri. “Do you ever use the bottom drawer of your nightstand?”
Yuuri quirked an eyebrow at the odd question, but shook his head. “Is there something important in there?” he murmured hesitantly.
Victor chuckled. “Maybe,” he said, but even he didn’t sound too sure. He hopped onto the bed and scooted across it rather than walk around, a move which Yuuri scoffed at but mimicked nonetheless. Both perched on the edge of the bed. They considered the nightstand in silence.
“Well? Are you going to look?” Yuuri prompted.
The bottom drawer was obviously rarely used; the beveled edges of the wood were coated in a thin, pristine layer of dust. Even the knob seemed a bit grayed out, and Victor was suddenly struck by how strange it was that he seemed to overlook this one drawer so often.
He reached out and opened the drawer slowly, the dust puffing off in small clouds visible only in the golden light streaming through the curtains. The interior of the drawer, however, was nowhere near as dusty, seeming to be pristinely preserved from the last day Victor had opened it.
Victor let out a breath, a quiet one he hadn’t quite realized he was holding in. “This is where they were,” he said quietly, almost reverently.
Yuuri had been shocked mute for a solid minute, but finally his gaze tore away from the drawer’s contents and to his fiancé’s face. “Did you keep every fan letter you ever got?!” he asked, his voice tinged with awe.
Victor smiled gently. He had done exactly that. “Of course,” he said, winking at Yuuri. “What kind of skater would I be if I didn’t love my fans?” Forget the fact that most of the time they were kept for when Victor was hit by crashing waves of loneliness; that wasn’t the important part.
Yuuri suddenly turned pink. “Did I…?” He seemed too afraid of the question’s implications to complete it.
But Victor knew. He grinned widely. “Only one way to find out!” he crowed, reaching into the drawer with gusto.
Yuuri just put his head in his hands and prepared to go traipsing down memory lane with one Victor “Skating Legend” Nikiforov.
-
“Aw, this one says ‘I hope to someday be able to grace the ice with the same presence that you do, Mr. Nikiforov!’ They called me Mr. Nikiforov!”
Yuuri did not seem equally impressed. “So have sixty percent of the last million,” he reminded Victor, a lopsided smile on his face.
“There have not been a million,” Victor said. He smirked. “Don’t be jealous, Yuuri, I’ll never love them as much as I love you!”
Yuuri groaned and flopped back on the bed, burying his burning face in a pillow.
Victor just giggled and folded the letter closed. He placed it on top of the steadily-growing pile on the floor, more than prepared to do this all day. He and Yuuri had, after all, agreed to make Valentine’s Day a relaxing day with nothing more than spending time together. Granted, this probably wasn’t what Yuuri had in mind, but…
“Ooh! The next one is shaped like a heart!” Victor exclaimed. This was exactly what he had remembered. Yuuri talking about Valentine’s Day traditions had reminded Victor of the Valentine’s cards he had received from fans past, and now here they were.
It had taken half an hour to get to them, sure, but Victor didn’t mind. He also hoped that Yuuri didn’t mind either. Much.
“Aww! ‘Dear Mr. Nikiforov, Your ice skating warms my heart!’ That’s adorable,” Victor said.
Yuuri picked himself back up. “That’s cliché,” he grumbled.
Victor laughed good-naturedly and set it aside. He turned back to the pile and froze, his hand hovering over the pile.
Yuuri, half-interested though he was, picked up on Victor’s hesitation immediately. “What is it?” he asked, stretching to see over Victor’s shoulder. In the space of a few seconds, Yuuri went very stiff and then was off the bed and flailing.
Because the next Valentine’s card was labeled “To: Victor Nikiforov, From: Yuuri Katsuki.”
“See, you did send a Valentine!” Victor said, fighting through the awe that was trying to well up within him. It wasn’t like it was a secret that Yuuri had been Victor’s fan for years, but Victor couldn’t help but be struck by the peculiarity of circumstance. When Victor had received this letter years ago, he had read it and forgotten the name, holding on only to the honest and heartfelt sentiments within it. And now, this Yuuri Katsuki was standing—or floundering—right next to him, existing closest to his heart.
Yuuri was still stammering, seeming to be flip-flopping between cursing his past self and begging Victor not to read this one aloud. Victor, fantastic fiancé that he was, decided to spare Yuuri the pain and read it silently to himself.
It was written in wobbly English letters, a detail that made Victor smile. He could picture a younger Yuuri completely focused on writing, probably frowning in that same way he did now when he was putting all his effort into something.
Dear Victor Nikiforov,
This card is supposed to get to you in Russia on Valentine’s Day. I hope it made it there!
I never give out Valentine’s cards, so I do not know what else to write. This morning I had a bagel for breakfast, which I do not eat very often. Do you like to eat bagels? I think it would be really fun to eat breakfast with you!
I hope you keep skating forever. You are really amazing and I want to be on the same ice as you someday!
Happy Valentine’s Day,
Katsuki Yuuri ( 勝生 勇利)
Beneath Yuuri’s name was a messily scrawled drawing of two stick figures with a heart between them. One was tall and seemed to have a rope coming from its head—a ponytail, Victor realized. The other was slightly shorter and was nondescript apart from the giant smile on its face.
Victor couldn’t have wiped the smile off his face to save his life.
Yuuri had fallen silent at some point, preferring instead to focus very intensely at a particular spot on the ceiling. His face was still beet red, as red as the previous heart-shaped Valentine, and Victor saw a little flash of the nervous but focused face of the younger Yuuri writing a letter to his idol.
“Do you still think it’s fun to eat breakfast with me, Yuuri?” Victor said softly. The tenderness of his voice made Yuuri’s head shoot back in Victor’s direction, as if he had been worried that Victor was crying or close to it.
But Victor’s eyes were dry and he was smiling with a nostalgic look in his eyes, and Yuuri didn’t seem like he knew what to do with that.
“Everything’s fun with you, Victor,” he muttered, looking away again.
And if that didn’t make Victor’s heart sing all over again, nothing else would. He giggled. “You’re still just as cute as you were when you were younger! Maybe even cuter,” Victor said with a wink.
Yuuri seemed to choke on air. “Wh-whatever! Let’s go do something else already, I’m tired of reminiscing!” he demanded. He grabbed onto Victor’s wrist and started pulling.
“Alright, alright,” Victor chuckled. “Besides, we have to finish breakfast! There’s a certain young fan whose dreams I need to keep fulfilling.”
Victor had expected the pillow to the head, but he was pretty sure it was worth it. Yuuri hurried out of the room, still mumbling under his breath, and Victor stood to obediently follow him. His cream cheese bagel was probably cold by now, but he and Yuuri could find something else to do.
He looked back at the letters on the floor and the letter still held carefully in his hand, as if the paper were made of glass. He held it the same way he held Yuuri, with a gentle touch and reverence beneath a grip that would sooner die than let it fall apart.
Victor smiled and scooped the other letters carelessly back into the dusty drawer. He refolded Yuuri’s letter and placed it on top.
It was the first one he would want to read next Valentine’s Day, after all.