Chapter Text
The masked gentleman pressed his lips against Yuuri’s hand. His platinum hair was shiny in the candlelight.
“What’s your name?” Yuuri asked. Yuuri’s coach had told him he wasn’t supposed to ask for names at the ISU’s secret elite Grand Prix Banquet Masquerade, but he had to know who this stranger was.
“Vincent,” said the stranger, grasping Yuuri by the waist and pulling him in close. “And you, my sweet partridge?”
Yuuri gasped, blushing, but staring into the taller man’s aquamarine orbs, framed by a red domino, he was reminded of Victor’s eyes. Victor! Yuuri felt guilty. The ISU had forced him and Victor apart. But Yuuri had promised to stay true to Victor forever in his heart. His heart would not allow him to hug strange men, no matter how much Vincent’s well-muscled arms reminded him of Victor’s embrace!
“I cannot say,” Yuuri said, and tore himself away from Vincent, escaping into the rose gardens.
— My Heart of St. Petersburg , chapter 63.
victor_katsuki on Chapter 1: Yuuri can be very bold! Look at his short program from 2011— he skates like a hero coming to the rescue. Like a samurai! I’m glad you liked my story, I liked yours very much! Did you know, nobody else has written about Yuuri and Victor before? I was so disappointed! Until I found your story, of course.
nikiforovforever14 on Chapter 1: Carmen wasn’t one of his best programs. He wanted to match Victor’s Carmen from 2009, but he never got the feeling right.
victor_katsuki on Chapter 1: No! Carmen was amazing! Sure, he over-rotated his triple flip, and he really needs to pay attention to keeping his elbows tucked in, but that step sequence! I didn’t know about him being inspired by Victor, that’s so exciting! Do you know where I can find the interview? It’s so hard to find interviews with Yuuri, and he only has three photos on his Instagram, he’s so mysterious!!
nikiforovforever14 on Chapter 1: It was a Japanese magazine. You wouldn’t be able to read it. I guess the step sequence was OK, but you’re right about the elbows.
victor_katsuki on Chapter 1: Of course I’m right about the elbows! I’m right about the step sequences, too. Yuuri may not be the best skater out there technically, but his artistry always makes up for it, and I think that’s more interesting anyway.
Are you Japanese? You’re so lucky! You must know so much more about Yuuri, I’ve been using Google Translate for his JSF webpage and Youtube but I’m completely lost on Twitter and NicoNico and I can’t find any magazines! Do you know what his favorite color is? Is he dating anyone right now? Does he like dogs?
“What are you looking at?”
Yuuri jumps back, slamming his laptop shut hard enough that for a second he’s worried he’s cracked the screen. He hadn’t needed to be that paranoid—when he looks up, it’s just Mari, and she can barely read any English beyond Hello , Rock and OK .
But his heart rate’s kicked up, anyway, and he almost wants to hide his computer behind his back. It’s like he’s fifteen again, yelling nothing! I’m doing nothing, don’t come in! at the door. Something about being back home pulls him back to his teenage years. It’s half a miracle that his voice doesn’t still crack when he speaks.
“Nothing,” Yuuri says, his ability to lie not even marginally improved with age, “Emails? Nothing.”
Mari doesn’t believe him. He can see it in her face, the half-amused long look she always uses to let him know he hasn’t gotten away with anything. She probably thinks he was watching porn, which is lucky for him, because that’s a lot less embarrassing than what he’s actually doing.
“Mom wants you to go downstairs and help with dinner,” is all she says.
“In a minute,” Yuuri says, and smiles frozenly at her until she leaves. Mari doesn’t really care what he does, he knows she doesn’t, and Yuuri is an adult, so it isn’t any of her business anymore, but he’s not used to Mari poking her head into his room every once in a while, or his mother coming in two hours after lunchtime to tell him she’s just cut up some pears.
He’s lucky to have them. And he always knew he’d move back home, eventually. Once his career was over. But even so, he can’t help but be reminded that he hasn’t done anything in the five years he’s been away. That he’s back in the same place he was when he was a teenager, just minus potential.
He even still has the same stupid fantasies. Slowly, Yuuri sneaks his laptop back open, glances at the last couple sentences of victor_katsuki’s comment:
Anyway, I feel silly always checking back on this story to see if you’ve commented! We should chat and then you can tell me more about Yuuri and send me some photos from Japanese magazines? What program do you use? I’m victor_katsuki on all of them.
Yuuri looks at the comment until the small black letters start blurring in his unfocused vision, then carefully closes out of the entire window, deletes his browser history and goes downstairs. His mother wanted him to help with dinner, and if he does that, he won’t have to think about victor_katsuki’s offer.
Chopping daikon doesn’t quite take up all Yuuri’s attention, no matter how much he tries to focus on the steady thunk of his knife against the chopping board.
He doesn’t know how to say no to victor_katsuki without offending them. Commenting was risky enough. Yuuri can’t get any closer. He’ll slip up, he knows he will, and then everyone will know. He imagines the articles, the scathing fan comments, the reporters swarming up Yutopia’s front steps: Katsuki-san, isn’t it a little pathetic that you, the worst skater in last year’s Grand Prix, have constructed an elaborate fantasy life where you’ve somehow managed to start dating the best?
If he lets this go any further than a casual conversation, Victor Nikiforov might find out, and the barest suggestion of that thought makes Yuuri’s knife slip, barely missing his forearm.
“Careful, Yuuri,” his mother warns.
“Sorry,” he replies, chastened. Back to daikon. Her makes a game of it, trying to slice the daikon so thinly he can see the faint cartoon characters on his cutting board through each sliver of vegetable, but it’s not long before he catches himself thinking about victor_katsuki again.
They’re probably going to stop talking to him once Yuuri says no (or, more likely, disappears without responding). And what if they get demoralized and stop writing altogether?
If victor_katsuki stops writing, Yuuri will never get to read that second chapter. Weirdly confident spy Yuuri will never see Victor again. And reading about spy Yuuri touching Victor’s face is the closest he’ll ever get to it himself.
Maybe a little conversation would be okay. Yuuri’s twenty-three: he knows how to handle secrets. As long as he’s careful, Yuuri’ll be just fine.
victor_katsuki Hi!!!
victor_katsuki You added me!
nikiforovforever14 Hi
victor_katsuki It’s good to finally talk
victor_katsuki Well, we’ve been talking, but comments aren’t really the same
victor_katsuki I really like your story!
Yuuri dithers a little over punctuation. Thanks. with a period is too harsh, Thanks! too desperate, Thanks? too close to what he really wants to say, which is: Why would you? My story sucks. What’s wrong with your taste? By the time he’s decided on Thank you :) , victor_katsuki’s already merrily moved on.
victor_katsuki I want to know what happens next! The part where Yuuri eats four bowls of katsudon felt like foreshadowing, does that mean he’s going to have twins? Quadruplets? I think a boy with black hair and blue eyes and a girl with platinum hair and brown eyes would be good
victor_katsuki Though obviously their kids together will be genetically superior in looks and athletic talent no matter which one gets Yuuri’s eyes
victor_katsuki When are you going to write the next chapter!!!!!!!
Ah , Yuuri realizes, squinting. He doesn’t need to worry so hard about being likable. victor_katsuki’s kind of annoying.
nikiforovforever14 I’m not writing a next chapter!
nikiforovforever14 It’s not possible. There’s no way.
victor_katsuki Are you sure? You were at a really good part!
nikiforovforever14 I wrote that when I was a teenager. I don’t think I even remember what happened next.
victor_katsuki Oh, well
victor_katsuki You should write something, at least! Nobody else online’s written Victor and Yuuri together
victor_katsuki So we’re comrades in romance!
nikiforovforever14 Your story was good. Yuuri as a spy is very interesting.
nikiforovforever14 I don’t think he’d be any good at it in real life. But in a story, it’s interesting.
victor_katsuki Oh, that! I started a new one!
nikiforovforever14 You’re not writing any more?
victor_katsuki Hmm… I might! But let me show you the new one first, it’s better
victor_katsuki It’s not really ready but I’ll finish it up quick and post it right now!
You don’t have to Yuuri types, but victor_katsuki blinks offline before he can even finish the first word.
Seduced! The Stunning Star of St. Petersburg
World-famous classical violinist Victor Nikiforov, desperately seeking inspiration, wins tickets to a concert. The performer is none other than international singing sensation, Yuuri Stardust!
No shower scene this time, though Victor does spend a gratifying amount of time lounging naked in the moonlight on the terrace of his rooftop penthouse apartment.
This Yuuri has a mesmerizing gaze and a voice like smooth liquor and leather short-shorts (really?) that expose a pair of perfectly rounded buttocks that victor_katsuki needs a whole paragraph to describe. Reading about how attractive someone inexplicably thinks he is is weird. Yuuri has to take breaks, switching between Archive of Our Own and the latest PAD strategy guide in another tab, but he keeps reading anyway.
“We’re calling up one lucky member of the audience tonight,” Yuuri Stardust announced, and the whole concert hall shook with the crowd’s screams. Spotlights scanned the audience, rippling over what must have seemed from above to be a single, massive, unthinking beast, chanting in one voice a single name—”Yuu-ri! Yuu-ri! Yuu-ri!”
Victor, enraptured, screamed with them.Tonight, he had become a fan, made one with the crowd in their frenzied love.
Brightness shone down on him, and, for a long moment, Victor did not understand what it meant. It seemed only natural that just now, his passion for music reignited, his whole world would be flooded with light.
“You,” declared Yuuri Stardust, reaching out with a beckoning hand. Trembling, just a little, Victor allowed himself to be led up to the stage.
Victor was no stranger to the stage, but he was a stranger to Yuuri, and to the excitement and delight Yuuri stirred up within him: something he had not felt in years.
The opening strains of Yuuri Stardust’s hit single, “Baby, Stay Close To Me” , began playing as Yuuri helped Victor climb up, his hand firm and warm as it closed around Victor’s palm. Pulling Victor up brought them close together, so close that when Victor spoke, the microphone by Yuuri’s lush lips picked up his voice.
“Hi,” Victor breathed, hardly daring to speak for fear that it would break the moment, the spell that Yuuri had cast over him. “I’m Victor. Victor Nikiforov.”
“I know,” Yuuri smirked, his breath tickling against Victor’s neck. His voice was as smooth as a banana daiquiri, and the movement of his body as he danced even more fluid but just as sweet.
“I am a world-famous violinist,” Victor realized. Of course Yuuri recognized him and knew his name. Maybe Yuuri had even seen him perform.
Yuuri ran a teasing finger down Victor’s jawline, mahogany eyes bright with mischief.
“Dance with me, Victor,” he said, blocking his mic so the words were for Victor and Victor alone. Before Victor could respond, the pop star turned towards the audience, light glinting off the body glitter shimmering on his strong shoulders and well-muscled torso, and launched into song.
It’s better than the last one, though maybe that’s because Yuuri’s had time to get used to this strange, hyperconfident version of himself on the page. It’s not victor_katsuki’s fault fictional Yuuri’s so inaccurate— they’re just a fan, how could they know what Yuuri’s really like?
Besides, he isn’t sure if he does want them to be more accurate. Next, Yuuri twined around Victor, resting his heading on Victor’s shoulder as if he was crooning right into Victor’s ear reads a lot better than next, Yuuri got stage fright, cried and threw up.
With this Yuuri, it’s easy to pretend he’s the one who tangled his hand in Victor’s Ferragamo tie and pulled him close, only to then push him away, who draped himself against Victor’s spine, the entire length of him pressed against the arch of Victor’s back , who dipped Victor in a grand finale, his strong arms supporting Victor’s entire weight, then pulled him backstage the moment the floodlights were extinguished.
They were still in their dance, each step Yuuri took echoed by one from Victor, Yuuri forward, Victor back, until Victor felt the hard surface of a wall behind him and the hard planes of Yuuri’s muscular chest in front. He started leaning down, instinctively, as Yuuri looked up, Yuuri’s eyes impossibly bright in the darkness, his lips a luscious pink. Yuuri looped his arms around Victor’s neck, one hand slowly guiding Victor’s head—
Suddenly, Yuuri’s manager, a man with a receding hairline named Celestino, interrupted them!
“Yuuri, they want an encore!” he exclaimed.
“St. Petersburg needs me,” Yuuri intoned, “I must go.” And then he left. Would Victor ever see him again??
Yuuri scrolls down, then up, then down again. Is that really the ending? Is this really okay?
At least now he has a direct line to the author.
nikiforovforever14 I liked how Yuuri and Victor met in the story. Yuuri’s performance was very interesting. It would have been nice to see what happened next.
victor_katsuki I wanted to show it to you! For the rest, you’ll have to wait till chapter two
victor_katsuki Did you like it?
Yuuri hesitates, his fingers hovering over the keyboard, then he types all in a rush, wishing he could close his eyes.
nikiforovforever14 It was good. I wanted Victor and Yuuri to kiss.
And there it is, all typed out to be archived on the internet forever. His face burns with the shame of it, the embarrassment, knowing that he hasn’t grown at all since he was fourteen. That he still wants what he can’t have.
victor_katsuki Me too!!!!!!!!!!
They’re talking about his old programs again— victor_katsuki messages him a different video practically every day. Yuuri never watches them, of course, and it’s almost too embarrassing to talk about them, but at least victor_katsuki seems to know a lot about skating, and Yuuri will suffer through a lot of things if it means he gets to talk to victor_katsuki about Victor’s routines afterwards.
Then victor_katsuki brings up Carmen , a routine Yuuri’s tried to banish into the recesses of his dark past, never to be thought of again.
He should’ve known. Nothing really embarrassing ever stays in the past. Faced with the red feathers on his costume attached right to the crotch, the under-rotated spins, and the bit in the middle where he got so nervous he forgot the entire choreography, Yuuri breaks.
nikiforovforever14 That was probably one of the worst performances he’s ever done. I can’t see anything good about it. He definitely started crying in the middle.
nikiforovforever14 I know you like him, but Yuuri’s got a lot of low points in his career. Actually, I’d say his career is at least 95% low point.
victor_katsuki Oh, I know!
Even though Yuuri started it, he can’t help but feel a little insulted. Wasn’t victor_katsuki supposed to be his fan?
victor_katsuki But that’s part of his charm, isn’t it? You never know what’s going to happen!
victor_katsuki Besides, Carmen’s choreography completely ignored Yuuri’s strengths
victor_katsuki Yuuri’s best programs draw attention to his grace, but in Carmen he isn’t doing anything more than skating around in circles until he has enough speed for a jump he isn’t even going to land
victor_katsuki The problem is he always hesitates before he makes the jump and slows down too much
victor_katsuki And then he can’t decide if he wants to keep his arms raised for points, so his shoulders tense up and that throws off his balance
victor_katsuki And you can tell he hasn’t chosen a fixed point to pay attention to when he spins. Sloppy, Yuuri! He isn’t good enough to get away with ignoring something so basic
victor_katsuki ends up typing three more pages of criticism, slowly dissecting Yuuri’s every bad habit. Yuuri reads the whole thing instead of going to sleep, until the blue light of his phone starts making his vision swim.
He skips quad flip practice with Takeshi the next day, trapped in a loop of self-hatred and self-pity, reading the Youtube comments on his worst performances just so he can see the insults and sadly agree. He is the worst skater in the history of the sport. He is supremely untalented. And he does look like a “fucking flamingo LOL” in pink. Too many of the comments on his Skate Canada program last year are positive, so he skips them and goes back to victor_katsuki’s critique.
The worst part is that he can’t even argue with any of it. Yuuri’s indecisiveness does make his skating worse, objectively. He should have focused more on coordinating with his music instead of just worrying about jumps. And he does always forget about his elbows.
victor_katsuki’s criticism is soul-crushing, but it’s true. And specific. And— and maybe it’s helpful, because victor_katsuki doesn’t just say what Yuuri’s doing wrong. WiIth the blithe casualness of a fan who’s never had to struggle with jumps and spins in real life, they say what Yuuri should have done instead.
Fans really are incredible. These aren’t just insults. They’re a checklist, everything Yuuri needs to work on if he— if he—
He doesn’t let himself think about that. Yuuri stands up, leaving his bed for the first time all day, and barely remembers to brush his teeth and shovel down food before he’s running towards the rink.
Yuuko’s just finishing up paperwork as Yuuri jogs into Ice Castle, the sky outside slowly beginning to darken. Her headphones are in, but the music is low enough that she looks up when Yuuri walks in, giving him an easy smile that he quietly returns.
“Yuuko, could you put some music over the speakers? Whatever you’re listening to is fine.”
Yuuri’s carved out hours of frustration onto this ice, working off nervous energy as a kid, then his awkward, amateurish routines in Junior’s, and most recently his many failed attempts at the quad flip, supervised by Takeshi or one of the triplets acting as a spotter.
Yuuri isn’t supposed to do any quads at all without proper supervision, though sometimes he stretches the definition of “proper” to include the Nishigori kids. But he can work on victor_katsuki’s advice, as long as he changes all the quads to triples. It’s not about quads right now, really. It’s about precision. About working things through.
There aren’t any routines for him to practice, especially since he doesn’t even want to think about the ones he used for the Grand Prix, so Yuuri makes up what he can, random elements from years of competition all strung together.
He feels a little silly at first, painfully aware that the last time he felt confident enough to make up his own routines, he was fourteen and tossing his head every thirty seconds so he could pretend he had hair like Victor Nikiforov’s, but sooner or later he settles into a rhythm. No jumps to practice, no choreography to learn: it takes him back to childhood, when skating was a solution for anxiety instead of a cause, when skating was just something he did when he was alone.
What had victor_katsuki said? Elbows in, like this— no, like this — he doesn’t know how long it takes, but eventually Yuuri flows into the music, practicing his movements again and again to the fluid rise of the singer’s voice.
“Yuuko, that song— could you play it again?”
victor_katsuki Yuuri’s not at World’s ): ): ): ):
Yuuri’s half-yawning with the covers pulled up over his head in a cocoon, laptop propped up against his pillow. It’s late into the AM hours, and he feels a guilty thrill at being awake, though he doesn’t have to wake up at five anymore. He’s a little glad that victor_katsuki’s in a different time zone, so they can stay up with him late into the night.
nikiforovforever14 He didn’t qualify.
victor_katsuki I knowwwwww
victor_katsuki But I want to see him!! I was hoping he’d go as a spectator. Or to support a rinkmate.
Oh, shit. Phichit’s at World’s right now. Yuuri’d almost forgotten. He searches through the mass of blankets around him for hs phone, tapping out a quick “good luck” as victor_katsuki rambles on.
victor_katsuki And my boss yelled at me today
victor_katsuki Well, not really my boss. More of an employee. But he acts like my boss!
victor_katsuki And I had to put my laptop down, and when I got back everything I wrote was gone!!
Having the screen between them makes Yuuri a little bit bolder than he’d usually be. It’s easier, saying things when he doesn’t have to worry about his accent, or the too-quiet softness of his voice.
nikiforovforever14 You don’t write on anything that saves your work, so what did you expect? The website even tells you to use a different application. Just write in Docs next time instead of typing right into the posting form.
victor_katsuki sends a mass of emoji, small yellow crying faces all in a line, and Yuuri smiles, the darkness of Yutopia around him too quiet to disturb with a laugh.
nikiforovforever14 It’s a shame. I really was looking forward to the second chapter of Seduced!
victor_katsuki Oh, it wasn’t that story. I started a new one!
nikiforovforever14 Another one?
victor_katsuki I was trying to come up with lyrics for Yuuri to sing in chapter two, but all I could think of was “ice king, ice king, you’re not a very nice king” and then I gave up and started writing a story about Yuuri and Victor being long-lost childhood friends instead
victor_katsuki But I’m not inspired anymore. I’m demoralized
victor_katsuki I’d be inspired if I got to see Yuuri again, but he’s not here!!
nikiforovforever14 If you want to be inspired, you should watch Victor’s SP.
victor_katsuki Ha! That was pretty good, wasn’t it?
victor_katsuki You should tell me what you liked about it
They only get to talk for a little bit longer after that before victor_katsuki has to head to sleep, leaving Yuuri alone in his blanket cocoon, waiting for his Puzzle & Dragons stamina to refresh. He could try to play some MonHun, but his DS is all the way on the other side of the room.
He refreshes a few sites in the vain hope that someone’d decided to post new content at 2 AM, then closes out of his browser and opens up a text file instead.
It’s impossible for victor_katsuki to see Katsuki Yuuri, the figure skater, but, as nikiforovforever14, Yuuri can give them something else.
Even though he hasn’t written anything close to prose in eight years. Even though he struggled with essays so much when he took classes in Detroit, even though he can barely remember how to put a sentence together—
Yuuri brings the cocoon up above his head, dimming his laptop to a faint glow. Calm down. This isn’t a competition. Plus, victor_katsuki liked My Heart of St. Petersburg, so their standards are really low.
Writing was so much easier when he was a kid and didn’t really understand plot or characterization or purple prose. He used to be able to start scribbling as soon as he opened up a notebook, just like he used to be able to see the ice as nothing more than an escape.
He wants to capture that feeling again. He’s been trying to capture it ever since he came back to Japan. Being young, before self-doubt, expressing everything without restraint. If he could write again, like he used to, what would he even want to convey?
His feelings for skating, his feelings for Victor. His feelings for Victor, his feelings for skating…
Trancelike, as if he’s been mesmerized by the blinking cursor on his screen, Yuuri types:
Figure skating is hell.
Japan’s representative, Yuuri Katsuki, pauses before stepping out onto the ice. Knowing that it’s his last season. Knowing that he won’t be anywhere close, same time next year.
He’s been fighting losing battles for so long. Against inexperience. Against puberty. Against mediocrity. And now, the one he knows he’ll lose, against age. He can feel the other competitors watching him sidelong, the same way he watches them. Wondering, each time, is this the year it’ll all be over? Or will this be the one brief moment the podium’s going to be mine?
In figure skating, Yuuri thinks ruefully, watching the blade of his skate scar the unmarred surface of the ice, you’re only as good as your last score.
Or, well, he amends, catching sight of a glint of silver hair at the corner of the rink, you are. I am. He isn’t.
The way Yuuri looks at Victor is different from the way Yuuri looks at everything else. There’s no calculation here. He’s too overwhelmed by Victor’s presence. Even blurred by Yuuri’s poor eyesight, Victor shines. And Yuuri can’t look away.
This is why he’s the only one who sees the spotlight above Victor’s head wobble and fall.
Yuuri was never a speed skater, but he’s still a pro. He doesn’t think about his own body. He doesn’t think about his career. All he cares about is Victor, leaning against the rink wall as he laughs at something Yuuri cannot hear, and the doom that nobody but he has recognized.
His whole world, for a moment, is Victor. Has always been Victor. Then it is light. Heat. Pain. Darkness.
He wakes to the blurry forms of people leaning over him. A soft bed. A steady medicinal beep at his side. The prick of an IV needle in the vein of his left arm. He blinks, and the blurs resolve themselves. Celestino, a worried set to his mouth. Victor, handsome, perfect, even with his face pinched from— worry? Pain?
“Are you…” he says, voice weak, and yet somehow strong.
“You saved me,” says Victor. Victor’s eyes are beyond blue. They are the ocean. They are the sky. They are ice itself. And Yuuri is but one man, awed by the sheer beauty of the natural world.
Celestino breaks their silent communion, impatient.
“Yes, but— You were hurt. Badly hurt. Yuuri…”
His words are a guillotine. Yuuri’s heart severed from his body. The air severed from his lungs.
“Yuuri… your injuries. They’re too extensive. You’re never going to skate again.”
Yuuri answers the call before he’s even fully awake, thinking for a moment that he’s still in America and his family’s gotten the time zones mixed up again.
“Hello?”
A pause, on the other side of the line, during which Yuuri contemplates sitting up, but doesn’t, instead letting his head fall back onto the pillow.
“Sorry,” says the voice on the other side of the line. In English, and it’s not Celestino or Phichit. If it’s a reporter— Yuuri almost drops his phone in a panic, before he realizes that he’s nowhere near important enough for reporters right now and reaches for his glasses instead.
The person on the phone keeps talking as Yuuri fumbles around. Something about the connection puts a strange echo into their voice, like they’re calling from an auditorium, or a swimming pool.
“I didn’t really mean to call, I was typing, and then I slipped on the, ah—the floor. It’s a very slippery floor.”
“Hmm,” says Yuuri, only half-listening. He finds his glasses, slides them on.
“I hope I didn’t wake you,” says the voice, “I don’t know what time it is in Japan.”
It’s eleven in the morning, sunlight peeking through the tightly-drawn curtains on Yuuri’s window. He’s had about six hours of sleep. He squints down at his phone: it’s not an actual call, just a messaging app. The screen reads “katsuki_nikiforov”.
“It’s fine,” he says. It’s not fine. He doesn’t want to be on the phone right now, or, in fact, ever. The moment katsuki_nikiforov hangs up, he’ll go back to bed.
He waits. Katsuki_nikiforov does not hang up. The silence settles around them like snowfall. Yuuri yawns, brings his blankets closer around him. His head drops down onto his pillow, eyes sliding closed for one blessed second before he shakes himself awake again.
“Did you read it?”
It takes a moment to realize that he was the one who said something, the sentences slipping from his sleepy mind without conscious intervention.
“Ah! Yes! I can’t wait for the next chapter, is Victor going to help Yuuri with his physical therapy? It’s not easy to get back into competing shape after an injury, but I suppose they could do it in the off-season.”
It’s a mark of how dedicated Yuuri is to his artistic vision for his imaginary life that he actually sits up now, ballet-trained posture too upright to let him sink back into sleep.
“What? No. It’s a career-ending injury. Yuuri’s never going to skate again.”
Saying it out loud hits him harder than it should. Writing about never skating again, losing his career through noble injury rather than his own incompetence, had brought him nothing but a sense of sick joy. He’d thought it would’ve been a relief to never have to worry about success or failure ever again, to finally be sure. To finally have some peace.
He isn’t at peace, in Hasetsu, even with no more demands or obligations on him, nothing to make his nerves claw at the inside of his skin. And even if Hasetsu could have given him peace— he doesn’t want it. He doesn’t know how to want it.
“You can’t take his skating away,” katsuki_nikiforov gasps, indignant, on the other side of the phone, “You can’t do that to Yuuri. No— you can’t do that to the world!”
“His career’s basically over, anyway,” Yuuri says, “After the Grand Prix final. He lost. Sixth place.”
Celestino had told him that nobody could really lose the Grand Prix, that he should’ve been happy just to get to that level, but Yuuri’d seen the look on everyone’s faces afterwards, had felt his routine slip from him, worse and worse with every second, no matter how hard he’d tried to recover.
He hears a scoff from katsuki_nikiforov, a sound that translates over the connection to a crackle of soft static.
“So?” katsuki_nikiforov demands, “I don’t care about the Grand Prix. His skating is beautiful and I like to see it. That’s what matters to me most.”
Is it really that simple? Can it really be that simple? Yuuri envies katsuki_nikiforov’s perspective. He thought like that too, once, without judges’ preference and point totals and his own insecurities clouding his simple enjoyment of someone else’s art.
“Maybe he isn’t permanently injured,” Yuuri concedes, and then, because it’s still his story, damn it, and he’s going to write what he likes, “He’ll just be horrifically disfigured, with no chance of reconstructive surgery.”
“That’s a crime against the world, too!”
“Something’s got to happen to him,” Yuuri says, quite reasonably, “His face or his skating. Choose one.”
The silence on the other side of the line is much too long.
“Fine! Take his face! I don’t think I could bear it if I couldn’t see him skate again.”
“Fine,” Yuuri replies. He doesn’t know why, but he feels a little like he’s just won something.
“But, you know, it’s very cruel of you to make me choose— “
Katsuki_nikiforov’s rant is interrupted by a shout from downstairs, his mother pausing between tasks to call:
“Yuuri! Aren’t you going to have breakfast?”
Yuuri freezes, slapping a hand over his mic just a little too late.
“Who was that? Was that your name?”
“Ah,” he says, still partway in the throes of panic, “My name. She said… it was— “ and here Yuuri is struck with a flash of brilliance— “Yuuichi. That’s my name. It’s Yuuichi.”
“Delighted to meet you, Yuuichi,” says katsuki_nikiforov, their voice low and warm around Yuuri’s assumed name.
“Good to meet you too,” Yuuri replies, his mind too blank with relief to summon up anything else. He can barely even mumble out a couple words of goodbye as katsuki_nikiforov, finally sensing an end to their bizarre conversation, makes their excuses.
He hangs up smiling. A crime against the world, they’d said. His skating is beautiful, and I like to see it.
“Yuuri!” Mari yells from downstairs, “It’s almost lunchtime, get up already!”
“One second!” he yells back. There’s someone he has to call first.
The phone rings once, twice, before connecting, an actual cellular dial tone. Yuuri’s voice only shakes a little when the person on the other end picks up.
“Ah— hello, Celestino?”
The auditorium buzzes when Katsuki Yuuri’s performance begins. Nobody’s seen him since the accident. Not even Victor Nikiforov.
Victor looks up from his phone with a languid gesture, more interest than he’s shown in a competition in a while. He’s been winning at World’s for countless years. The ennui is unbearable.
Perhaps today Katsuki Yuuri, injured as he is, will show him something different.
When Katsuki glides onto the ice, something shines: the spotlights, reflecting off a smooth half-mask. The audience stares, but there is no hint of that horrific, disfiguring scar, only silver paint over ceramic as white as bone. He is cold, remote. A phantom made of ice and blade.
Music filters in— the opening strains of Saint-Saëns’s Danse Macabre. Katsuki begins, and at once, Victor is riveted.
There is no elegance in the way Katsuki moves now. Grace, yes— but this is not a skate that indulges in the beauty of movement. This is a skate that exposes the brutality of Katsuki’s shattered soul.
Victor has not seen anything like it in a long time. Katsuki contorts himself. Twisted, like his body was twisted in that terrible accident. And then, without steeling himself, without perhaps even noticing that he is going to do it at all…
In the moment before the music surges, Katsuki jumps.
Quad salchow. Quad lutz.
He lands already spinning into his step sequence. The rink falls quiet. So quiet you could hear ice melt.
Drip. Drip.
A small dot of red liquid appears on the center of the ice. As Katsuki skates through it, the liquid follows his skate, drawing an elegant, curving line in his wake.
Katsuki’s routine is circular, taking him through that same spot again and again, until he has carved a latticework of red onto the stone. Stark and striking. Every motion revealing that the man skating on the ice today is an entirely new Katsuki Yuuri, one that no one has ever before seen.
Drip. Drip.
Red on the ice. Red on his skates. No one would call Katsuki a sprite, a prince, a hero, after today. No, Victor Nikiforov thinks, there is only one word for the man who’s keeping the audience— and Victor himself— captive with his unforgiving grace. Monster.
He doesn’t know why the thought excites him so.
Only when Katsuki finishes is Victor freed from his spell. Enough to look up towards the rink ceiling. Towards the source of that vibrant red. Something horrible must be up there, and Victor hasn’t even looked, so entranced was he by Katsuki’s performance.
A murmur rises from the audience as they, too, discover the horror above the ice. The body of ISU board member Jake Chapman dangles from the rafters, a thin line of blood around his neck slowly trickling out onto the floor.
Drip. Drip.
— Frozen Agony of the Mask , chapter 1