Chapter Text
Viktor.
Viktor, where are you?
You asked me to stay close to you, but I can’t do that if you can’t remember me.
Viktor, please don’t go; I’m afraid of losing you…
“Viktor’s doing fine, Yuri, the doctors say he’s not injured at all. Not even a sprain. He’ll be fit for Russian Nationals at the end of the month, I’m sure.”
“That’s not the point. They said they found him unconscious outside the rink after a fall.”
Viktor Nikiforov briefly considers letting the two people in the room — Christophe Giacometti and Yuri Plisetsky, by the sound of it — know that he can hear what they are saying, but he doesn’t. Instead he lies there with his eyes closed, his mind trying to regain some sense of where he is.
Alive, for one. Lying down on a bed somewhere. Yuri and Christophe are nearby. But there’s something missing, and the worst part is he doesn’t know who or what it is.
“The doctors say he’s fine, though. You should just let him rest. Honestly, he’s actually kinda cute like this.”
“You’re disgusting,” grinds out Yuri. There’s a rustle of some sort of wrapper. “Here. I got it at the stall down the street.”
There’s a pause. “This is delicious.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Yuri takes a seat by the bed. “I knew this trip was a crazy thing to do. I hate being right.”
“You’re just sore from all the physical labour that the actual act of rebuilding entails.”
“Hey! It was Viktor’s dumb idea! No time to gloat over winning the gold at the GPF six times in a row. No, it’s ‘let’s go see how Katsudon is holding up’, ‘let’s go help Katsudon rebuild his town’, ‘I wonder if Katsudon will be happy to see us’, like he’s smitten with the guy or something!”
“You’re just now getting that he’s in love?” Christophe chuckles. “He’s like a different person these days. The rest of us saw it a mile off.”
“Yeah, and it’s disgusting. Viktor Nikiforov is dead.”
“Out with the old, in with the new,” says Christophe, his voice sing-song. “Just accept it, Yuri. Yuuri Katsuki’s story this year has really changed him. We’re never really going to know how or why, but it did.”
Viktor is dimly aware of a tear rolling down his cheek at the mention of Yuuri’s name.
“Would you look at that, Chris. You made him cry in his sleep, you monster.”
Christophe chuckles. “Viktor, maybe you shouldn’t be eavesdropping.”
Viktor groans, keeping his eyes closed. “Yuri, you do care,” he mumbles, and the bed dips sharply as Yuri suddenly clambers onto it.
“Wake up, old man!” he shouts right into Viktor’s ear, as if to compensate for said moment of caring.
Viktor yelps as he opens his eyes.
He immediately regrets this action, because the lights in the room are far too bright. He tries to sit up at first, but then someone presses him back down. As his eyes adjust to the brightness, he realises he’s in a hospital room.
Yuri appears in his vision, looking about as crabby as Viktor expects him to look. “I’m going to kill you, you complete imbecile!” Yuri snaps. “I told you to keep your phone on you! Imagine my surprise when that Minako lady called me and said the ice rink people were taking you to the hospital because you’d had a fall and then stumbled outside like you’d been concussed!”
“Am I?” Viktor asks.
Yuri glowers. “Surprisingly, no,” he says. “In fact, you haven’t sprained or broken anything. Which I think is nothing short of a fuckin’ miracle.”
“Wouldn’t want to miss Worlds, would we?” adds Christophe’s voice from next to him. Viktor turns his head, and the Swiss man waves at him.
“You’d be disappointed at winning the gold simply because I got concussed,” Viktor points out.
“Point,” concedes Christophe. “The doctors say you’re free to go as soon as you feel ready.”
Viktor closes his eyes. His body still aches from the fall, but at least he can rest better knowing there hadn’t been any severe damage to it. Though everything still feels much worse than it really is, so maybe he’ll lie here a little longer.
“Where are we again?” he asks.
Yuri groans that now-familiar ‘bad clams’ groan. “We’re in Japan, stupid,” he says.
“Hasetsu,” adds Christophe. “You came here to find Yuuri Katsuki.”
The name tugs at him, but Viktor isn’t entirely sure why…
“Maybe I should get the doctor to come back and check you again. You might have brain damage after all,” Yuri says, and Viktor shakes his head.
“No, no. I’m fine,” he says, and slowly clambers into a sitting position.
Christophe’s hand is at his arm immediately, concern in his expression. “Are you sure you’re alright?” he asks.
Viktor moves his arm out of Christophe’s grasp, and stubbornly gets to his feet. His head spins a little, and he grabs the handle on the hospital bed to steady himself.
“I’m hungry,” he declares, before Christophe or Yuri can push him back onto the bed. “Let’s go eat katsudon.”
Viktor is keenly aware of the odd glances being exchanged between Yuri and Christophe at dinner.
He ignores them anyway, focusing more on the delicious breaded pork cutlet in the bowl in front of him. They bring to him distant, fond memories of warmth and laughter. He’s not sure why, but he savours it anyway.
When he sets down his empty bowl and looks around, he suddenly catches a glimpse of a familiar poster on the wall.
It’s Yuuri Katsuki, arms outstretched towards heaven, Hasetsu Castle sparkling in the background. Viktor feels his heart skip a beat at the sight, though once again he’s not quite sure why.
Minako Okukawa comes out to greet them after the meal, this time with a bottle of sake. Viktor turns down a cup, though, because his head is still throbbing slightly. So Minako pours herself and Christophe a cup, and they drink to each other’s health.
“I must say, we’re all very thankful for your visit here,” Minako says once she sets her cup down. “It’s a very touching gesture of solidarity to be with Yuuri during the rebuilding of his hometown.”
Viktor blinks. That sounds odd, for some reason, and yet no one else is treating it as anything but the truth. “How is he doing?” he asks, his voice hesitant.
Minako sighs. “He could be worse,” she says. “Hiroko and Mari say he doesn’t sleep much, if at all.”
“When will he be coming back?” asks Yuri. “I still need to kick his ass on the ice.”
“Hopefully in time for next season.” Minako shrugs. “But who knows? The rebuilding is still going on, and Yuuri refuses to leave until things are back to the way they were again. He’s stubborn like that.”
“He could train here, couldn’t he?” wonders Viktor.
“He’d need a coach here, and there aren’t any coaches in this entire prefecture that would be of any use to him,” says Minako. “That’s why he went to Detroit in the first place.”
Viktor nods, as Christophe finishes his cup of sake and pours himself another. Yuuri Katsuki. The last clear thing he remembers about the man is a drunken dance at the Grand Prix Final banquet, and a slurred promise whose words he cannot quite recall.
Viktor can’t sleep that night. He tosses and turns, too keenly aware of Christophe’s snores in the bed next to him, and Yuri mumbling something in Russian in the other bed across the room. Finally, he clambers out of bed and heads to the window, looking out at the still-recovering town below.
He looks up the news on the April earthquake and tsunami. There had been widespread damage, but the casualties had been surprisingly low (less than fifty people were killed or injured, in fact) due to a very early and fortuitous evacuation broadcast. More notable was the miraculous rescue of Japanese figure skating legend Yuuri Katsuki, who had somehow survived the heart of the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami while at the top of the hill below Hasetsu Castle. After making a full recovery, Yuuri had then taken the next season off to help his town rebuild, and the numerous donations from his fans worldwide had sped up the recovery of the town much faster than originally anticipated.
Still, as Viktor walks through the quiet streets of Hasetsu on his way to the newly-reopened Katsuki Yuuri Skating Rink, he notices that there are still many buildings that are little more than just piles of rubble. Hasetsu still has a long way to go before it can be called fully restored, but at least it’s well on the way there.
The doors of the rink are unlocked. The lobby is covered in pictures of Yuuri at his competitions, and there’s even a glass case displaying slightly water-logged trophies just inside the front doors. At the counter, Yuuko Nishigori is filling out paperwork, with Takeshi Nishigori sweeping the floor of the lobby. Their daughters are sprawled out on one of the benches by the trophy case, oohing and aahing over something on their phones.
The one in purple looks up when Viktor enters. “Hey, it’s Viktor Nikiforov!” she exclaims.
Viktor smiles and waves. The triplets immediately swarm him, snapping pictures of him and demanding autographs.
“Hey, hey!” scolds Takeshi. “Let the man breathe!”
“Sorry, our girls can get quite enthusiastic!” adds Yuuko, as the triplets run off with triumphant grins on their faces. Yuuko’s expression softens once the girls are out of earshot. “Are you looking for some ice time, Mr Nikiforov?”
Viktor nods. “I couldn’t sleep,” he admits, “so I thought I’d come by and skate it off.”
Yuuko raises an eyebrow. “We heard you were in the hospital earlier,” she says. “Are you sure you’re well enough to skate?”
Viktor laughs. “Yeah, everything's fine!” He reaches for his wallet. “How much for a couple of hours?”
“Oh, no need!” says Takeshi with a strange twinkle in his eyes. “Yuuri Katsuki’s in there; you just have to ask if you can share the ice.”
Beyond the doors leading to the rink, Viktor can hear the sliding of skates against ice. He nods his thanks to the Nishigoris (who are grinning from ear to ear for some strange reason) and heads through the doors.
At first, the brightness of the rink blinds him a little, but once his eyes adjust, his breath is taken away.
Yuuri is on the ice, clad in his JSF uniform with gloves on his hands and his beat-up skates on his feet. His face is rounder than in the posters, but his shape is still fairly lean. Probably from months of hard work, Viktor realises with a jolt. He’s moving through the choreography of a programme, his body moving as one with the music in his head.
Viktor recognises the piece almost as if he’s skating it himself. He watches, riveted with wonder, as Yuuri lands his quadruple Salchow and moves into a beautiful step sequence, followed by a triple Axel and a triple flip. Though the song isn’t playing anywhere at all, Viktor swears he can hear the duet of the piano and the violin just by watching Yuuri’s movements.
As Yuuri glides effortlessly across the ice, arms outstretched like he’s flying, Viktor reaches up and touches his face, and is surprised to find his fingertips coming away wet. Tears are rolling down his cheeks, and for some reason he can’t stop them. But he also can’t look away. Not from Yuuri, ever again.
Yuuri lands his next combination. Viktor’s heart rises to his throat as Yuuri then plunges into a dizzying and sublime step sequence, gaining more momentum with each turn, each twirl. He’s mounting towards one more quad, Viktor knows. The original choreography had a quad Salchow at the very end as a shout-out to Yuuri, but Yuuri is taking off on his backwards inside edge —
It’s a quad flip. And Yuuri nails it.
In the moment when Yuuri lands the flip, everything comes crashing back to Viktor in an inexorable wave of memories.
“Be my coach, Viktor!” Yuuri’s eyes shine up at him, and Viktor is pretty sure in this moment he has never seen anything more beautiful in his life...
Viktor is standing in front of the mirror in an unfamiliar room, examining his suddenly shorter and stockier body. He tugs at his much-shorter black hair, before turning in the mirror and grabbing his ass with a satisfied grin...
“What’s up with you lately?” Yuri Plisetsky demands, as Viktor smiles at the new selfies on his phone that he definitely didn’t take, and the report about how Makkachin had chased a squirrel yesterday…
Viktor looks at the Japanese words scrawled on his cheek and the note stuck to his mirror, his smile growing wider and wider as his heart flutters like it’s about to take flight…
“I’m so sorry; I thought you knew,” Christophe’s voice is too gentle, too consoling, as Viktor cries into his shoulder, as a series of texts vanish from his phone…
Viktor’s feet burn and ache in protest as he launches into that quad flip in a set of beat-up skates...
Viktor finds himself reeling, tears falling harder from his eyes as he remembers and remembers and remembers. It’s as if a part of him has been reawakened, and now everything suddenly seems to fall into perfect clarity.
Yuuri.
Yuuri, I’ve found you.
I’m by your side now, and I won’t ever leave you again.
Yuuri, I’m coming for you!
As Yuuri eases into his final combination spin, Viktor feels as if his heart’s going to burst. Finally, he can bear it no longer, and as Yuuri raises his arms in his final pose, Viktor runs.
He’s never donned his skates and gotten out to the ice so fast before in his life, but there he is, suddenly at centre ice where Yuuri is standing, his heart pounding furiously in his chest.
“Yuuri,” he breathes, like a prayer.
“Viktor,” whispers Yuuri, his beautiful brown eyes wide in bemusement. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.” Oh, Viktor yearns to reach out and touch Yuuri, as if to make sure the man won’t disappear on him again, but he refrains. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting for so long.”
Yuuri looks down at that, his expression unreadable. Viktor’s pounding heart stutters a little.
After a long moment, Yuuri speaks up again. “I thought it was all a dream,” he murmurs, and Viktor is startled to find tears running down the Japanese man’s cheeks, shining brightly in the fluorescent lighting of the rink.
“I’m here now,” he replies, extending a hand. Yuuri’s breath hitches at that. For a long moment, the rink is silent before Yuuri wipes away his tears and looks up at Viktor with shining eyes.
“I remember you,” he says, and places his hand in Viktor’s.
The dance comes to them as naturally as breathing, as if their bodies speak the same language. They glide together on the ice, side-by-side, hand-in-hand, and at one point Viktor’s vision blurs again with tears that he doesn’t bother wiping away. He is sending out a plea, and miraculously, Yuuri is giving him the answer.
Or perhaps Yuuri has always been the answer.
They skate together to the same unknown-and-yet-familiar music, two crimson threads finally weaving together into one. Yuuri traces Viktor’s cheek with all the familiarity of a lover, a feather-light touch that causes Viktor’s heart to sing. Even though he knows in this new chance together this is just their first reunion, it feels more as if he has been reuniting with Yuuri in thousands of other lifetimes, thousands of other chances.
As they circle around one another without taking their eyes off each other, Viktor takes Yuuri’s hand and kisses his ring finger.
“I remember you, too,” he says, and Yuuri’s smile is brighter than all of the stars in the sky.