Chapter Text
Yuuri is tired. The chilly air of the rink makes his eyes water and the only things he can focus on are the big clock on the farthest wall and the slow movement of its big hand.
He has had all the trouble in the world getting out of bed in the morning, and now the training session is killing him. His legs feel like he has run a marathon before breakfast and he is dizzy for several seconds after every jump. He knows he didn’t sleep well, but he did not think it would affect him so badly.
Victor watches him botch a double loop without a word and tries to help him get through practice without hurting himself.
To be honest, Yuuri has been tired for a couple of weeks now. He blames it on the changing weather, the first days of spring that came chillier than usual and brought him a cold, the end of the skating season that has been more demanding than ever on his body. Victor is now officially retired, but at twenty-six Yuuri knows he still has at least a couple of years and a handful of medals to win before he has to put away his skates, and he will not let a little seasonal cold shorten his career.
He tries to go to bed earlier and dress warmer when he goes outside. It will probably get better now that he can rest a bit and the sun shines longer every day.
It is still dark outside the morning Victor wakes up to the delicate sound of his husband throwing up in the toilet bowl. He clumsily jumps out of bed to find Yuuri pale as a ghost, his whole body shivering on the bathroom floor, agitated with violent spasms as he vomits everything he has eaten in the past twenty-four hours.
Victor dampens a hand towel to wash and cool down Yuuri’s face, but his sickness does not pass. Cold beads of sweat run down Yuuri’s neck and Victor takes his phone out with one hand to call a doctor as he rubs Yuuri’s back with the other. Yuuri protests that it is unnecessary, but he cannot finish his sentence before he gags and bends over the toilet again.
The physician diagnoses a food poisoning. Yuuri blames it on the mashed potatoes he ate the day before at the rink’s canteen. He is advised a two day rest and Victor decides to stay at home with him.
The next day Yuuri feels sick again in the morning but takes the anti-nausea medication and forgets about it. He sleeps a lot and soon feels better.
Yuuri avoids the mashed potatoes at the rink’s canteen and resumes his usual training rhythm. The incident is almost already forgotten when a week later he cannot help but notice how terribly sore his muscles are after practice. He is surprisingly out of breath when he finally slumps on the bench at the end.
Yuuri is questioning his usually great stamina as he takes off his skates, and he frowns when a rancid smell tickles his nostrils. He breathes again and inhales a full cloud of a disgusting salty stench. Before he can move to get fresh air, his throat tightens and his guts twist.
In front of the lockers, Yuri freezes with his can of fish jelly and his fork in his hands. His eyes widen behind his bangs when he sees Yuuri throw up his breakfast over the bench.
“I’m so sorry,” Yuuri stutters, leaning against the wall to stay up despite his wobbling legs as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
“It’s ok, just sit down, I’ll get a mop,” Victor says as he heads out of the room.
Yuri throws his canned lunch in the bin and slams the door of his locker before running out.
“BEKA! KATSUDON ALMOST PUKED ON MY SKATES!”
Yuuri spends the rest of the week at home, partly because he is ashamed that the locker room still smells like vomit because of him, but also because he tends to feel dizzy upon standing and Victor forbids him to put on his skates until he can stand up from the couch without seeing stars. Yuuri decides to reduce his meals to plain rice and boiled vegetables to try and calm his upset stomach and avoid another food poisoning.
And yet at breakfast on Sunday morning Yuuri is eating a bland bowl of oatmeal when his eyes stop on the kitchen counter and he gets a ridiculous idea. He keeps eating but cannot forget it and salivates just thinking about it.
When Victor joins him for breakfast he looks at Yuuri’s bowl with a perplexed frown. He bends down and sniffs the mixture suspiciously.
“Did you… Did you put soy sauce in your oatmeal?”
Yuuri nods slowly. “I wanted to see what it tasted like. It’s quite good, you should try it.”
In the following days Victor catches Yuuri squirting ketchup on his sushis, and making a mayonnaise and Nutella sandwich in the middle of the afternoon. Yuuri tries to convince himself that there is nothing wrong with trying new culinary combinations.
Although all the major competitions are over, Victor does not make Yuuri’s training sessions easier in April. That afternoon Yuuri is doing well, but it’s the fifth time in three hours that he asks for a break. Victor tries to ask him if everything is alright and Yuuri wiggles in front of him, rubbing his knees together and clenching his fists at his sides. Victor starts to comment his latest run through and Yuuri pretends to listen for about thirty seconds before he throws himself past the rink door.
“Sorry I just really need to pee!”
After a week Victor does not ask anymore when Yuuri leaves the ice in the middle of practice.
Part of the reason Yuuri is tired, he knows it, is because his nights are restless. Although he feels extremely tired during the day and would sometimes sell his blades for a nap, he has a hard time getting a full night’s rest. When he does manage to fall asleep he has vivid dreams and nightmares that wake him up at ungodly hours, heart racing in his chest. When he cannot sleep it is always for very strange obsessions. At the beginning he just turned in his bed and tried to fall back asleep. Sometimes he got up to have a glass of water. But now it has become too difficult to ignore.
That night as he lies in his bed, he does not want to be alone in his confusion anymore.
“Victor,” Yuuri whispers in the dark.
Victor mumbles in his sleep.
“Victor.”
“Yuuri?”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Hm.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Snacks in the kitchen.”
“I want chicken nuggets.”
“… chicken breasts in the fridge.”
Yuuri cannot believe he actually woke up Victor for this.
“No…” he mutters sheepishly. “I… I want McDonald chicken nuggets.”
“We’ll go tomorrow.”
“But I want chicken nuggets right now.”
Victor yawns and stretches to look at the alarm clock on the nightstand.
“It’s 4 am.”
“I know,” Yuuri whines, “I swear I know, but I’ve been trying to sleep for hours and I can’t, I keep thinking about chicken nuggets and creamy ranch.”
Victor raise his eyebrows and blinks in the dark. It is not like Yuuri to wake him up in the middle of the night unless it is a life threatening problem, and surely chicken nuggets are not a matter of life or death.
“Creamy ranch?” he repeats, half asleep, half concerned.
“I need creamy ranch.”
Victor reluctantly turns on the bedside lamp and flinches when he sees Yuuri’s face only an inch away from him, eyes wide open and pupils dilated. Victor manages to convince him look in the kitchen to see if something can appease his hunger, and falls back asleep long before Yuuri crawls back in bed, stains of blue cheese sauce on his pajama shirt and brownie crumbs on his cheeks.
Mid-April Yuuri vomits his lunch on the ice when he catches a whiff of Georgi’s perfume. Victor holds him up to get him off the ice and Yuri accidentally skates in the half-frozen puddle of digested food. He curses the Katsuki family over a thousand generations and then some.
Victor makes an appointment with another doctor for Yuuri. The physician listens to their reports of binge eating and vomiting and suggests it might be bulimia. He gives Yuuri the number of a psychiatrist, who later agrees that Yuuri has mild anxiety, but no trace of eating disorder beside a strange taste for unusual food mixes.
Yuuri’s condition forces them to change their usual schedule. They still go to the rink together but train less intensively, and although they have not talked about it, Yuuri knows Victor is getting worried about the next competitive season. Yuuri tries his best not to complain and to make his symptoms less obvious, but Victor knows Yuuri too well and always notices when something is wrong. Yuuri protests when Victor cuts practice short one day, claiming he can still go through his program several times, but Victor stops watching and pretends not to hear him until Yuuri accepts to take off his skates. After skating alone for twenty-three years, Yuuri now barely ever skates when Victor is not there to look at him.
Some days Yuuri feels perfectly fine and is convinced he is not sick anymore, but there is never a full week without a hitch.
One Thursday Victor finds Yuuri standing in the kitchen, his shoulders shaking as he sobs uncontrollably.
“What’s wrong?”
“Makka ate my cracker,” Yuuri stutters.
Victor looks down at the crumbs on the ground, and then at the box of crackers, still full, on the counter.
“You can have another one?” he offers, confused.
“But it was my cracker and she ate it. The others won’t taste the same.”
“I swear they will, they’re all the same. Look, I’ll eat one to taste them,” Victor says as he takes a cracker and has a bite.
Yuuri looks at him silently for a second and then his lips distort in a wince and he bursts out in tears again.
“You ate my cracker.”
Victor does not know what to say to that, and so he holds Yuuri close without a word until his tears stop.
The next day Yuuri apologizes. He knows his behavior makes no sense and he is afraid that he will soon reach the limits of Victor’s patience. Every time he feels sick he prays that he will not have to watch Victor mop the floor again. He tries to be as discreet as possible to avoid admitting how many bathroom breaks he needs in a day. He does not wake up Victor in the middle of the night anymore, he slowly slides out of the bed and tiptoes to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich with the light of his phone. He knows they are married in sickness and in health, but surely there is only so much vomit someone can put up with, and Victor has already been dealing with his illness for several weeks.
During a particularly tough morning practice Victor finds that Yuuri seems quite unsteady on his skates, or maybe his sweats are too tight, but he is definitely developing a whole new style of dance that involves a lot of wiggling and elaborate step sequences.
Yuuri feels strangely hot in his training gear. May is warm and sunny but the air in the rink is as cold as usual. He has already taken off his jacket and his gloves, but his cheeks are still red with heat. There is some kind of impatience in his body, a nervous tension that spreads from his core to the tips of his fingers and toes. Even when he starts to get tired from his jumps and spins it is still there, distracting and uncomfortable.
He flubs a triple toe and takes a second to rest before getting up. Ass on the ice, he looks up at Victor and sees him press a finger on his lips as he types on his phone.
Yuuri suddenly feels both extremely stupid and terribly embarrassed. He considers getting up and resuming his routine, but he knows it will not help with his situation. He looks around him. The rink is almost empty.
Yuuri skates up to Victor at the barrier, does not give him time to joke about his last awkward hip move, and grabs him by his T-shirt to drag him into the men’s bathroom without even putting on the guards of his skates.
Yuuri’s face is tense, his jaw clenched, his cheeks flushed, and Victor fears he will be sick again.
“Are you alright? You look like you’ve got a fever…”
But Yuuri does not seem to hear a single word, he looks right in front of him, his expression strangely serious and confused at the same time. Victor prays not to have to clean up vomit in the rink’s bathroom again.
Yuuri pushes him roughly into the first stall, falls on his knees before even closing the door, and swiftly pulls Victor’s sweats and briefs on his thighs.
Victor’s eyebrows jump high on his forehead. “Oh wow...“ he breathes, “Haha ok erm… Ok.”
Victor is not one to complain, and he feels like Yuuri does not really care about his opinion anyway. In fact, he is already taking him deep in his mouth, one hand at the base and the other in his own pants. He is so determined and fervent that it only takes minutes for Victor to get hard and spill in his mouth, while Yuuri comes all over his hand.
It is not the first time they have had fun in the bathroom, but it sure had never been so quick.
Yuuri has an apologetic smile, washes his hands, and is back on the ice before Victor can catch his breath in the toilet stall.
Victor thinks it is just a lucky day and does not ask further, until Yuuri jumps him the second they get home after practice, strips him naked before reaching the bedroom and rides him fiercely on the couch, making sure to let the neighbors know how much he is enjoying it. Victor cannot help but notice that Yuuri is far more expressive than usual, and he is proud to be doing such a great job as a lover.
“I’m sorry, I just…” Yuuri says as he pants afterward, flushed and sweaty on the couch.
“I can’t say I didn’t like it.”
“I just kept thinking about it, I was getting hard for no reason, I just needed to…”
“Always glad to help.”
Some days Yuuri feels even worse than usual. He has started to experience a kind of stomach ache he does not remember ever having before. It is like a hand is clenching around his lower abs, like someone has punched him between his hips and keeps pressing a fist inside him. At first he tries to ignore it, but after a tough day of practice he gives up and miserably slumps on the couch without even taking off his shoes.
“Are you alright?” Victor asks with concern. “Do you want a cup of ginger tea?”
“No, it’s not nausea, it’s like… cramps. It’s in my abs and it… it radiates in my back.”
“Do you want a back rub?”
“No I’ll just… No…”
Victor watches him curl up on the sofa, hold his knees over his chest and tuck his head in.
“Yuuri?”
“Can you draw me a bath please? As hot as you can stand.”
One day at the end of May Victor has to grab Yuuri by the arm when it is time to leave the rink, because Yuuri is engrossed in the contemplation of the children skating class that is just starting.
Yuuri does not understand how he did not notice the children sooner. They are awkwardly wiggling on the ice and agitate their short arms to try and maintain their balance. They look at the same time kind of funny and incredibly cute. Yuuri gasps when one of the children falls on his butt. A couple is standing at the barrier and cheering for a little girl in a pink winter coat. Yuuri observes them for a few seconds and feels strangely warm in the chest.
Victor pulls on his arm again and Yuuri pouts.
“We'll have to queue for lunch if we don't leave now Yuuri…”
“But look at their skating boots! They’re so tiny! And that little hat! It’s adorable.”
Two days later Yuuri receives a large package at the apartment. Victor watches him unpack a dozen knitting needles, five colors of wool, and two pattern magazines. Yuuri threatens to knit Victor an abominable Christmas sweater, and Victor stops complaining about the balls that now cover the coffee table, and pinches his lips to stay silent when he sits down on a crochet hook.
On the first Sunday of June they invite Yuri for lunch, and when he leaves at the end of the afternoon Yuuri stops him on the doormat.
“Yuri wait!”
He walks up to him and wraps a ridiculously long, clumsily knitted scarf around his head until his blond hair is completely hidden and only his piercing eyes shine through the thick wool.
“There,” Yuuri coos, “you’ll catch a cold if you go out with your neck bare. You should wear a hat to protect your ears you know.”
Yuri slowly turns to Victor. It's 80° outside and Yuri has to tie his hair up so it won’t stick to his sweaty neck.
“Victor,” he growls behind the scarf. “What the actual fuck.”
Victor watches Yuuri's face distort and his bottom lip quiver. He pales and bends to talk in Yuri's ear.
“I’ll buy you lunch tomorrow if you leave without making a scene,” he whispers quickly. “Please.”
Yuri frowns in confusion and Victor pushes him outside, closing the door before he can utter a word. Victor sighs in relief when Yuuri smiles happily, feeling strangely satisfied with his gift for Yuri.
The next physician they meet has Yuuri undergo STDs tests despite him being married for over two years. There is no link between chlamydia and nausea but it could explain his frequent trips to the bathroom, and Yuuri is ready to try anything that could give him an answer. The doctor earns a dark glare from Victor when he suggests that he should also get tested even though Yuuri’s results came back negative, and the whole waiting room is glad to hear that Victor is a faithful husband and that just because they are a gay couple it does not mean they fool around every now and then.
Yuuri keeps complaining about feeling tired and skips several training sessions to take three hour naps in the middle of the day. Summer is approaching and he spends lazy afternoons trying to rest and keep his stomach in check.
It does not prevent him, however, from sneaking up on Victor at inappropriate moments to demand attention. Whether they are at the rink, the restaurant, or the mall, Yuuri always finds an occasion to look up at Victor through his fluttering lashes and bite his lower lip before pushing him in a changing room and yanking his pants down.
Maybe it's the thrill of the moment, the excitement of being in a public place where someone could find them, but each time is more intense for Yuuri. Things that he barely noticed before now make him moan so loud Victor fears they will be heard. The mere idea of feeling Victor’s skin against his own gets him flustered. Each climax comes stronger than expected and leaves him limp and panting in Victor’s arm. Victor quickly gets used to Yuuri's new drive, and never complains when he is dragged in a corner for marital duties.
A fourth general practitioner lets Yuuri talk about his symptoms for about thirty seconds, and after looking at him with squinted eyes, he somehow concludes that Yuuri is gluten intolerant. Yuuri throws up on his shoes after he washes his hands with scented sanitizer and Victor looks very pleased.
Yuuri also manages to throw up in a taxi, where the smell of leather seats wins over his anti-nausea medication, and in a coffee shop, because of a strong espresso aroma. Every time he practically dies of embarrassment and spends several minutes apologizing and helping to clean up. Yuuri is convinced it is only a matter of days before Victor says he cannot take it anymore and they need to divorce.
It is early in the morning but the sun already shines high in the sky when Victor sees Yuuri in the bathroom, standing on the scale in his underwear and looking down at the numbers with a confused pout.
“I put on five pounds,” he says without looking up at Victor.
“It’s muscle weight, you’ve been working hard on quads.”
“No.” Yuuri shakes his head. “My jeans are too tight, it’s butt, hips and thigh fat. And the waistband of my sweats is tight too.”
At first Yuuri thought his training gear had shrunk in the wash, but when he realized none of his sweatpants allowed him to squat for a spin comfortably anymore, he had to find another explanation.
Victor watches him pinch his thigh and pull on a fold of skin. “Maybe you should cut down on mayo a bit?” he suggests.
Yuuri knows Victor does not mean any harm, it is rather common during the competitive season for him to make a quiet comment when Yuuri tries to take a third serving of a dish. But this time the words cut him to the quick and immediately make him angry. He already has so much to worry about, he is anxious about his health, he fears for the next skating season, and now Victor thinks he is getting fat. He looks up suddenly and flushes. “I don’t remember asking for your opinion,” he blurts.
“Sorry I just…”
“I don’t care what you think, leave me alone!”
“Yuuri, I didn’t mean to…”
“Why is everybody so mean to me?” Yuuri sobs as the first big hot tears run down his cheeks.
Victor has hardly ever looked so helpless.
They make an appointment with a gastroenterologist and after a series of not so glamorous tests, samples and swabs, nothing is found.
They are advised to see a urologist, who might be able to explain the cramps Yuuri has in his lower stomach, and if not, at least find the reason behind his multiple bathroom breaks.
Victor insists on driving fifty-five minutes to find a woman urologist to make sure no other man gets to touch Yuuri’s intimacy.
In the waiting room Yuuri turns the pages of his magazine without taking the time to look at them. Besides his mother, Victor, and maybe two old men at the onsen, no one has ever seen him naked, and certainly no woman has ever touched him there. He focuses on the idea that she will only be doing her job, and that she has probably seen more men’s attributes than Chris. Probably.
“Relax,” Victor says as he puts a hand on Yuuri’s thigh to stop the twitch of his leg.
“It’s not you who’ll be naked in front of a stranger.”
“I can get naked too if that makes you more comfortable.”
Before Yuuri can answer, the door of the doctor’s office opens and a distinct “Mr. Katsuki?” resonates in the room.
It turns out that the urologist is a hot and open-minded young woman, and she offers to give them her personal phone number ‘in case they want to try something new’, all the while holding Yuuri’s balls in the palm of her hand.
She does not find anything wrong after examining Yuuri and lets them go with her business card and a not so subtle wink.
The ride home is particularly silent. Yuuri soon cannot stand the tension anymore.
“Victor stop it.”
“What?”
“You’re sulking.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m just surprised at how much you enjoyed her cleavage.”
“You were watching me, you know it turns me on.”
“We sure saw how much you liked it.”
Yuuri sighs as he looks out the window to hide his burning cheeks. “She was checking my prostate,” he mumbles between his teeth.
“And then she checked your erection.”
“Park the car,” Yuuri orders suddenly.
“What?”
“I’m still hard and I’ll be hard forty-five minutes if I have to wait for us to be home.”
Three days later Yuuri and Victor are waiting in line in the bagel shop near the rink to get lunch, and after five minutes in the queue Victor sees Yuuri lean a bit too far to the side. He catches him before he can actually fall, but Yuuri is out cold in his arms. He comes to himself only a minute later but Victor has already called for a doctor, and Yuuri is too disoriented to protest when they take him in the ambulance.
The ER intern concludes it is hypoglycemia and tells Yuuri he can go home after giving him a cracker. Victor insists they will not leave the hospital before Yuuri gets a full check-up. Yes, he is aware of how much a private room costs, no, he does not want to call his insurance to know if it is covered.
By the power of Victor’s credit card Yuuri gets tested, prodded, sampled, and scanned in just about every possible way.
Yuuri knows the staff is judging him for undergoing such an advanced series of exams when he looks perfectly healthy aside from maybe feeling a bit tired. He is one more hypochondriac who could give his spot to someone who is actually sick.
The nurse who does his blood work jabs the needle four times in his forearm before finding a vein. The specialist who conducts his cardiac stress test lectures him lengthily for not telling him earlier that he actually is a high-level athlete. Yuuri almost passes out from the stress when he has to explain he may momentarily have forgotten that he is a world class champion, and Victor in the corner hiding his laughter behind his hand does not help him compose himself. The MRI technician plays on his phone as he waits for the scan to be over without once looking up at his monitor. Yuuri even manages to anger the janitor by throwing up in the hallway on his way out.
At the end of the day he is so shaken and exhausted he sobs all the way back home and it is long before Victor manages to calm him.
It is no more than twenty-four hours later when Yuuri’s phone rings and he is asked to come to the hospital as soon as possible.
The receptionist opens wide eyes when he gives his name and she elbows her colleague in the ribs so she looks up from her keyboard. She silently slides the datebook toward her and points something with her pen. The other woman looks at Yuuri over the counter and gapes like a dead fish.
In the waiting room Yuuri feels like an animal in a zoo. He can see heads pop behind the windows of the rooms, some nurses walk in front of him several times in a very short period, each time glancing at him not so furtively. He hears whispers behind him and turns to see a group of nursing assistants chatting with low voices and looking at him curiously behind their clipboards.
Victor also seems to have noticed the strange behavior of the hospital staff and twitches nervously in his chair, crossing and uncrossing his legs every other minute. After an uncomfortable half hour, an old man with a white blouse walks up to the reception desk. The secretary nods toward Yuuri and the man lets out a distinct “Ah.”
His office is gray and dusty. Two chairs in front of a large desk. One of the walls is covered with old and heavy books. On the nameplate on his desk, his degrees take up more space than his actual name.
“Mr. Katsuki, we have received the results of the tests you did this week,” he says slowly as he opens a folder and carefully spreads documents on his desk.
“I’m dying, right?”
“No, you’re not dying. We examined the results of your blood and urine tests, and our deductions have been confirmed by the MRI. You have a rare form of pseudo hermaphroditism.”
“A form of… What?”
“It is not exactly that simple but to make it short, your secondary sex characteristics are masculine, but your primary sex characteristics are those of a female. It’s due to a different sensitivity to hormones when you developed as a fetus in the womb. Most patients live perfectly well with this peculiarity and it’s usually only discovered by accident when they visit the hospital for another reason.”
All of this makes very little sense to Yuuri.
“Why does it make me sick then?” he asks in incomprehension.
The physician clears his throat.
“You actually have a second condition, and it’s this second condition that makes you ill and tired.”
Yuuri gets paler if possible. “It’s cancer, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s a very common condition, we see it every day in this hospital and nowadays very few people die from it. My own wife has had it twice and she’s absolutely fine today.”
Yuuri relaxes slightly. Victor takes his hand and they smile at each other until the physician continues.
“The scans showed that you have a uterus, and considering to your test results, we can say with almost no possible mistake that you are pregnant, Mr. Katsuki.”
Yuuri does not blink. There is the heaviest silence in the room and the doctor’s words float in the air, echoing in his ears without really reaching his brain. After a long moment a tiny voice rises next to him and pops his bubble of confusion.
“Who’s the father though?”
Yuuri did not think he could feel any worse, but he does.
“Victor, are you kidding me!?”
The doctor fumbles in the folder and takes out another document that he places on the desk so Yuuri and Victor can read it.
“Thanks to the blood samples we took when we checked your blood type against your husband, we were able to run a paternity test. You are, without a doubt, the father, Mr. Nikiforov. Congratulations.”
His last word is barely audible, lost behind the loud thump Victor makes when he hits the floor after passing out on his chair.
“I should have been the one fainting, Victor,” Yuuri says bitterly as they wait for the physician to come back in his office after leaving them alone for a few minutes.
“Do you know how long my mother cried when I told her I was gay?” Victor mutters almost for himself. “She cried because she would never have grandchildren…”
“Well I have a uterus so you’re married to a woman now, you need to go back on your coming out.”
Victor sighs and rubs his face with his hands.
“This does not change who you are, it does not change anything, anything at all.”
When the doctor sits back behind his desk he turns the pages of his calendar and speaks without looking up at Yuuri and Victor.
“I can schedule an abortion next Friday,” he says casually. “It’s in a week, but considering your case we need to make a particular appointment with a surgical team. I hope it won’t be too much of an inconvenience for you. You are probably still in the legal delay but it doesn't really apply here anyway, it’s a case of force majeure.”
Yuuri does not have time to think before he hears himself answer.
“No, it’s alright, I’ve been sick for almost three months, I can wait a week more.”
“Perfect. We’ll need to make a preliminary appointment before Friday so we can prepare the operation, among other things we need to know how far along you are.”
Yuuri shrugs. After four physicians, two specialists, and a full check-up, he really does not care if he has to undergo a few more exams, so long as he can get this over with.
The appointment is scheduled for Tuesday.
That evening Victor walks into the bedroom to see Yuuri standing in front of the mirror, his shirt pulled up under his chin and his hands flat on his stomach. Victor leans against the door frame and watches Yuuri turn slowly, observing his profile with worried eyes, gently brushing his belly where it is so subtly swollen. Yuuri stands there for a moment, looking down at his belly button, pulling down his pants waistband down his hips to have a better look. He could swear his lower stomach is getting rounder by the hour. He has suddenly realized how tight he unconsciously kept his abs to fit in his jeans, and when he unbuttoned them while watching TV earlier he let out a sigh he did not know he was holding.
“I still kind of think it’s a joke you know,” he tells Victor without looking up. “But I can feel it, it’s just there, inside me.”
Victor walks up behind him and hugs him.
“It looks like you ate too much katsudon,” he says with a smile as he looks at Yuuri’s reflection in the mirror. He tightens his embrace. “It’ll soon be forgotten, in a week it’ll be over and you’ll live normally again.”
Yuuri remains silent. Somehow Victor’s words do not make him feel better. They are full of a soothing confidence, a promise of an easier time, but Yuuri finds that he is not looking forward to that time. He is anxious about the operation.
Victor brushes Yuuri’s cheek with his hand and presses a finger under his chin, tilting it up to kiss him.
“Don’t worry,” he whispers, “I’ll take care of you until you feel better.”
Yuuri pinches his lips. “Thank you,” he mutters.
Under his fingers he can feel the tiny bump between his hips, and when he looks at the mirror again he is shocked to see that his traits are so drawn that he barely even recognize himself.
Yuuri decides not to talk to his family about his condition before it is all over and he can calmly explain them what he went through. He knows that right now he would only worry them and make himself even more anxious than he already is.
On Tuesday Yuuri is back at the hospital and wiggles uncomfortably on his chair. He had to drink a whole bottle of water with breakfast for an ultrasound in the morning, and no matter how tightly he crosses his legs he feels like his bladder is about three minutes away from exploding.
There are two heavily pregnant women sitting with Victor and him in the waiting room, and Yuuri repeats to himself that a lot of people have to undergo ultrasounds for things other than pregnancy, and that he and his husband are not completely out of place in this room. He vainly tries to ignore the posters with baby pictures and the leaflets for childbirth classes.
The technician’s eyebrows disappear behind her bangs when she calls “Mrs. Katsuki” and sees Victor and Yuuri stand up. Yuuri is too busy trying not to pee himself while also considering crawling behind the desk to hide in embarrassment to correct her. She looks at him up and down, then at Victor, and gestures for them to come in.
There is a giant, very detailed illustration of a female reproductive system pinned on the wall in front of him, and Yuuri seriously contemplates running out, until the technician drizzles a cold blue gel on his lower stomach and he is trapped between the ultrasound probe and the exam table. He closes his eyes and hopes for the procedure to be over as soon as possible. Victor takes his hand and presses gently, and Yuuri practically breaks his fingers in return, unable to hide his stress.
“Holy shit it’s really there…”
Victor and Yuuri both frown in concern and the nurse chuckles.
“I’m sorry, I thought my colleagues were kidding, but it’s actually there, look…”
And she points at a white form on the monitor. It is mostly black and white snow though, and Yuuri simply chooses to believe her when she says that the small clear dot is a baby. He is glad she found what she wanted to see and crosses his fingers that he will soon be free to go. He looks at Victor and Victor seems slightly amused. They exchange shy confused smiles and look back at the screen.
At this moment the picture gets clearer and the nurse draws a large circle with the tip of her finger, far larger than the little snowflake Yuuri had been staring at.
“Here’s the head… and here, the body, with the legs right there…”
Yuuri’s jaw falls slack and his blood freezes when he looks at the whole picture and sees what it represents. It is like his heart just stopped beating and sunk in his chest, his whole body is covered in goosebumps and he can feel the hair rise on the nape of his neck.
Since the revelation of his condition, the idea of being pregnant had been quite a vague concept in his mind. To be honest he had never really thought about pregnancy in his life. As a gay man he was very likely never to have to deal with a pregnant person, whether himself or his lover. His sister had not expressed the will to have children, and so the whole process of growing a human had remained a blurry mystery for him.
Beside his symptoms and the slight swelling of his lower stomach, he had no idea what exactly was going on in his body. He had this ridiculous image from 6th grade class of a tiny seed that would one day grow, a small bean that made him sick and sapped all his energy. He thought he was pregnant with a few cells, he thought the fetus looked somewhat like a microscopic raspberry, that it was nowhere close to looking like a baby.
And now it is there in front of him, displayed on the wide monitor. It is a baby with a round head and a tiny nose, gently moving its small arms and legs to curl up on itself.
“I suppose you can’t tell me the date of your last period?” the nurse asks as she poorly represses a chuckle. “You’re about eleven weeks in.”
Yuuri knows Victor is also trying to remember what they did eleven weeks earlier that was so exceptional it made him pregnant.
“Do you want to hear the heartbeat?” the nurse asks again, this time with an excited smile.
Both Yuuri and Victor are gaping at the screen, perfectly motionless as they forget to breath, and it is like neither of them has even heard the question. The nurse interprets it as some sort of beatitude and she takes it as a yes. The black and white picture stops moving and they see the graphic of the signal appear underneath. A new sound fills the room and echoes in Yuuri’s mind. It is a quick rhythm, muffled as if they were underwater, but strong and regular. Yuuri can only feel his own heart tighten with each beat he hears.
“I was not ready,” Victor says gravely once they are back in the parking lot.
Yuuri cannot even answer. He shakes his head slowly in agreement. They sit in the parked car without a word for several minutes, staring blankly through the windshield. It feels like the image of the baby is imprinted in their retinas and the thumping sound of the heartbeat still resonates in their brain. Yuuri looks down at the envelope in his hands and opens it with feverish fingers. They just left the exam room but he still feels like it is not real. He takes the small black and white photo out of the envelope and holds it up so Victor can see. Yuuri is not even sure that it is his own voice that he hears.
“I can’t believe we did that.”
The next days are slow at their apartment. Yuuri mechanically rests his hand on his stomach several times a day, and every time Victor reminds him that he does not have to be anxious, that he will soon be cured, and that he is there for him.
At first Yuuri feels embarrassed when he is caught stroking his stomach, but after a few times he gets irritated that Victor feels the need to call him out on it and does not let him do whatever he wants with his hands.
In the grocery store Yuuri stares at a mother with her baby a bit longer than it is socially acceptable and Victor smiles, saying they almost had to buy a stroller but, luckily, they found out in time. Yuuri wonders if the baby in his stomach could look as cute as the baby in the stroller front of him. Surely it looks far cuter.
The next morning Yuuri’s sickness is less intense. His growling stomach gets him out of bed. Victor has left for practice and so Yuuri freely circles his bellybutton with his palm as he walks to the kitchen.
“What do you want to eat?” he asks lightly with his head in the fridge, rising on his toes to look on the upper shelves.
He jumps in surprise when he hears Victor answer from the entrance.
“I’ve already had breakfast thanks. I’m leaving, I’m already late, Yuri will be mad.”
Without thinking Yuuri answers back. “Sorry I thought you had left already…”
There is a silence before Victor speaks again. “Who were you talking to then?”
Yuuri gapes at the fridge for a few seconds as realization slowly sinks in. He finally manages to compose himself. “Makka.”
There is a chuckle and Victor comes to give Yuuri a peck on the lips before heading out. Once alone Yuuri looks down at the poodle lying on the carpet.
“And you, what do you want to eat?”
At night Yuuri is strangely at peace. In the dark when Victor is asleep, he lets the tip of his fingers roam over his belly and the sensitive skin of his chest, and he feels surprisingly appeased. It is like taking a moment for himself, although he is never really alone anymore. He wonders if the baby is moving its little arms and legs or if it is asleep. He tries to guess in which position it is, maybe it is upside down and does not even know it. His heart races when he imagines a baby boy or a baby girl.
When he feels all warm and cozy in bed next to Victor, Yuuri is calm and happy, knowing that the little thing in his belly is safe with him under the blanket. He has saved the ultrasound picture on his phone and looks at it for long minutes on his pillow in the middle of the night. He catches himself having ridiculous thoughts that make him shake his head and question his sanity, but he is convinced that it is a perfectly objective observation to say that the baby has inherited Victor’s nose.
Friday comes quicker than expected and Yuuri is extremely sick when he wakes up that morning. He spends so much time in the bathroom that they are almost late for the appointment. In the car he keeps his hands nervously pressed against his stomach and does not let go while they sit in the waiting room.
Victor brushes his arm fondly and whispers that it is only a matter of minutes until he can forget about it.
Part of Yuuri wants to tell Victor to shut up. Something inside him wants to scream at him that he is the worst at dealing with other people’s feelings and that he has no idea what he is going through. Yuuri knows he does not normally feels this kind of anger toward Victor, that it is only the stress and the exhaustion talking, and so he clenches his jaw tighter and waits for his turn silently.
A nurse calls his name and he is invited to undress and put on a greenish paper gown. He sits on the exam table in his gown and his socks while waiting for the doctor, balancing his legs under him and twisting his fingers together on his lap.
The relief Yuuri had been expecting is not there. He should have been relieved when he understood his disease could be cured. Maybe this morning he could have been glad to finally be on the last day of his sickness. When Victor parked the car in front of the hospital, there he could have felt relaxed that he would soon go home free of his burden. Or even in the waiting room, that would have been an appropriate moment to start and move on after these difficult few weeks of his life.
But even there in the exam room, he tries to convince himself that it is only a couple of hours until it is over and he can live a normal life again, but it does not bring him any comfort. The white walls, the neon lights, the aseptic smell of the hospital, the cheap material of his gown, everything makes him nauseous, everything feels wrong.
Yuuri looks up. Victor is sitting on a plastic chair against the opposite wall, nonchalantly slouched against the armrest, checking his phone. He does not really look nervous, if anything he looks slightly impatient. He seems perfectly oblivious to Yuuri’s distress, and Yuuri has never felt lonelier than he does in this five hundred room noisy hospital. He can feel his heart beat in his throat and every second he gets closer to throwing up again. The exam room suddenly feels far too small and he struggles to breathe evenly.
When the door opens and he catches a glimpse of a white blouse, Yuuri jumps down from the table, blurts that he needs to go to the bathroom, and runs out. He gasps for air as he jostles a group of nursing assistants in the hallway and throws himself between the closing doors of an elevator.
Over the past few weeks Victor has become used to seeing Yuuri rush to the nearest toilet, and so he barely looks up from his phone when the door slams shut behind him. It is only ten minutes later when the physician starts frowning that Victor gets up to check the bathroom.
He does not find Yuuri in any toilet stall on the whole floor. He takes the stairs two at a time to check the bathrooms on the upper floor but only manages to get screamed at when he accidentally rushes in the women’s bathroom. He asks the reception desk if they have seen Yuuri leave but no one remembers seeing a patient in the lobby.
Yuuri’s clothes, shoes and phone are still in the exam room and Victor pales as he fears Yuuri has had a dizzy spell somewhere in the hospital. The doctor informs the security guards and they have a service dog smell Yuuri’s belongings. They are organizing the search when the reception desk gets a call from the underground parking lot attendant.
Victor’s heart is torn between deep relief and increased worry when he finds Yuuri sitting on the ground next to their car. He is curled up on himself, awkwardly pulling at his too short gown to cover his legs. His socks are soaked and his knees are scratched. His body shakes as big tears run down his burning cheeks.
Victor hastily takes off his coat to wrap around Yuuri’s shoulders, and Yuuri cries even harder, hiding his face in his hands.
“I’m so sorry…” he says between two bursts of tears. “I’m sorry… I can’t…”
“It’s ok to be afraid, it’s ok,” Victor whispers as he brushes back Yuuri’s hair. “Nobody likes operations.”
Yuuri shakes his head vigorously and his lips tremble before he can speak again.
“I can’t kill it I… I can’t… I don’t want to…”
Victor stops for a second. He looks down and realizes how Yuuri’s hands are flat on his stomach and his knees drawn up to try and hide it. When Victor extends his hands to brush Yuuri’s forearm, Yuuri tenses and moves to remain out of reach.
Victor closes his eyes briefly to try and clear his mind, but it does nothing to help him understand what is happening.
“You… Yuuri, you… you don’t want to abort?”
Yuuri shakes his head again and sniffles loudly. His nose and cheeks are bright red and his lashes are heavy with tears.
“I’m sorry,” he sobs, “you can leave, I won’t ask anything from you.”
Just when Victor thought he could not feel more confused, he now adds disbelief to worry and confusion. “What?”
“You kept saying it’d soon be over and I’d be cured…” Yuuri stumbles, his lips as wet as his cheeks. “I know you don’t want it but I can’t kill it, I can't, I'm not strong enough.”
“Oh Yuuri…” Victor sits next to him and lifts him from the cold ground to cradle him on his lap. “All this time and you didn’t tell me…”
Yuuri sniffles again and hides his face in Victor’s shoulder. He knows it is over now, Victor will leave him and his monstrous body to live a normal life with someone else. He drools on his shirt and can barely breath at the thought that it is the last time Victor holds him close.
“You looked so worried,” Victor continues softly, “I felt guilty for putting you through this. I… I didn’t even really think about the baby I just… I thought you were scared and you would feel better if it was fixed quickly.”
Yuuri practically drowns in his own tears. He gasps for air and fights to form words as his jaw shakes.
“But I’ll… I’ll be a monster… A pregnant man…”
Victor kisses his forehead.
“You’re not a monster, Yuuri.”
“I’ll look so gross, what will the others say?” Yuuri sobs as he covers his face with his trembling fingers.
“You’ll be beautiful.”
Victor sits Yuuri in the car, fastens his seatbelt and arranges his coat over him so he will not get cold with only his gown. He runs back to the exam room to take Yuuri’s belongings and briefly apologizes to the doctor, saying he will call back soon to explain the situation.
Once at home Victor draws a hot bath for Yuuri, who is still hunched up on himself on the couch, tangled in Victor’s coat, and shaking like a leaf. Victor carefully manages to pull off Yuuri’s wet socks and untie his crumpled gown. He helps Yuuri into the bathroom and after a moment of hesitation he climbs in the bathtub behind him.
It takes a while for Yuuri to relax in the water. After trembling violently for several minutes, he slowly extends his legs and shyly unwraps his arms from around his waist. His muscles are sore with stress and his skin is still covered in goosebumps despite the steaming water. He lets his hands float over his stomach, watching his fingers move under the surface around the slight bump of his belly.
Victor washes Yuuri’s back gently, running a wet cloth down the nape of his neck until the tension in his shoulders softens and he lets his head fall back against Victor’s chest. They do not say a word.
When Yuuri’s breathing is finally even and he does not twitch every time Victor moves, Victor slowly brushes Yuuri’s sides with the tips of his fingers. So very carefully, he lays his hands on Yuuri’s waist, and Yuuri’s heart beats faster. He takes Victor’s hands and brings them over his swollen stomach. He gently presses them down until they are flat against his skin and places his own hands over Victor’s.
“I’m doing this,” Yuuri says, weakly but resolutely. “Are you with me?”
There is a moment of silence and Yuuri holds his breath. For a second he contemplates how quickly his priorities have changed without him realizing. His heart tightens in his chest, and he fears he has taken the wrong decision, without knowing exactly when he made his choice.
Victor kisses the back of his shoulder softly.
“We’re doing this together.”