Hey there, thank you for picking up this fic!
There are a few things I want to say to start with: first a thank you to my friend Hayley (ProfessionalCatFan / i-demand-a-hug) for proofreading this for me!
And second, about this fic, this is going to be a long one and I'll update it every ten days from now on, so every 5th, 15th and 25th day of the month! The story is a guardian angel AU, and I believe the story will explain the setting somewhat but if there are questions feel free to ask!
Third, although angels are heavily religious creatures, in this fic's context they're not really bound to any of the religions we have in our world, and the concept of "God" is... somewhat different. It'll be a point in the fic so it will be explained there, but these angels are more of my vision of angels and not really related to any religions that have angels in them. This is mostly because I'm personally agnostic and I wanted to keep actual religions out of this and keep it as a separate experience. Anyways, the story will discuss these things in later chapters! If you have questions, again you're free to ask!
Anyways, not to make these notes any longer, I once again thank you and hope you enjoy this fic!
Katsuki Yuuri. A 24-year old, world class figure skater, who completely lost in the Grand Prix Final just a month ago. There had been plenty of reasons why he had ended up losing and performing even worse than in the finals a year before. Even though there was an excuse, he ended up completely blaming himself for his loss and gave a statement to the press that he was planning on retiring, and returned home...
And that, Victor had presumed to be the end of his short time as Yuuri's guardian. He had been assigned as his guardian just a few months ago, to keep him safe during the competition. There had been a few moments where Victor had had to step in, to make sure he didn't sustain any lethal injuries but even he couldn't save Yuuri's performance.
Although he had really wanted to. Even now he felt sorrowful, going through the memories of the last performance and every moment he had so wished he could interfere. But his job was only to prevent Yuuri getting badly injured, and that was all that he had done. He hadn't kept that close watch to Yuuri after that; it seemed insensitive to snoop in, and there had been no signs of danger to his life. After all, most of the time Yuuri was just locked up in his room.
So he had spent most of his time sitting on the roof of the inn where Yuuri and his family lived, waiting for when he would presumably get his next assignment. And eventually he did.
However, it was not what he had expected. That night, he had been secretly soaking in the resort's hot springs while everyone was asleep, when he suddenly got the mission. Although it wasn't that anyone came to inform him of the mission; it was more that he got a realization of what he was supposed to do now, a sense of purpose that just came to his mind. After all, angels were rarely called back to heaven. Usually they just instinctively knew what they were supposed to do and where they were supposed to go.
But, Victor had been just rubbing his other wing peacefully, when he suddenly was hit with the realization that he was supposed to pose as a human on his next mission. Pose as a visitor from abroad, right in this particular inn. He blinked a couple times, letting go of his wing. This wasn't what he had expected. He had gotten a mission like this just a couple times before, but never had he been asked to pose as a human for someone he had been guarding.
And now he was supposed to pose as a human in front of the person he had been looking after for a while now. His wings fluttered a little, and he realized he was smiling. It wasn't unusual to grow fond of the human you were guarding, so Victor presumed this feeling of happiness sprung from being able to stay with Yuuri a little bit longer.
But another thing he understood at that moment was that he was supposed to inspire Yuuri to continue skating, and that made his heart flutter excitedly. That would mean another chance to see Yuuri skate again, and maybe this time he could help Yuuri win.
He got up from the water, walking a few steps away from the spring before he stretched his wings, fluttering them just a couple times before he began to pull them in. He would have to get used to not having his wings for a while again. It wasn't that hiding the wings was painful, but Victor personally didn't like it; he liked the feeling of flying, and the freedom it brought him.
But now gravity bound him down. He had fully retracted his wings now, and he stretched his arms this time. He needed to prepare his human self. A fake identity, as humans would call it.
Victor closed his eyes and raised his hand as he began to weave his place into this world.
Yuuri woke up from his sleep, hearing someone calling his name and knocking on the door. He blinked a couple times before he sat up and looked outside of the window. It was probably getting to evening already, since it was getting dark outside. His nap had lasted a bit longer than he had meant to.
"Yuuri~!" His mom's voice called out again from behind the door, and he shook his head to clear his thoughts before getting up.
"I'm awake. What is it…?" he asked. Hiroko smiled softly at him, and Yuuri felt a little twist in his heart. Even though he had been gone from home for so long and only to return with his tail between his legs, his mom had been incredibly supportive and kind the whole time. But it mostly made Yuuri feel guilty.
"Good morning, Yuuri!" she said, and after Yuuri returned the greeting she continued. "Could you go clean the men's bath? There's only the foreign visitor in there right now, so it would be a good time to clean it up," she explained.
"Foreign visitor?" Yuuri questioned immediately, trying to go through his memories to remember if there had been talk of one.
"Did you forget already? The one who arranged to stay in the unused banquet room while he's here. He came here yesterday evening…," Hiroko explained. When Yuuri still looked confused, she continued her explanation. "Don't you remember? I even told you he's apparently your fan."
"Ahh, that one," Yuuri remembered. He had probably wanted to forget that, since he didn't really want to meet any of his fans right now. Not after that flop. He opened his mouth, preparing to refuse to go clean the bath. But looking at his mother's face, he realized he couldn't just say no after being asked for help. He would have to meet the visitor eventually no matter what he did, so there was no use avoiding it.
Besides, if he was lucky he might be able to avoid being seen by him entirely.
"Alright, I'll go clean up," Yuuri said and his mother smiled widely at him.
"Thank you, Yuuri! I'll make food for you when you're done, alright?" she said. Yuuri nodded, and as she headed off, he closed the door. He should change his clothes to something more suitable than his sleepwear, that he had not bothered to change out of before his nap.
Hopefully the foreign visitor wouldn't be too social.
Yuuri opened the door to the bathroom hesitantly and looked around. He couldn't see the visitor anywhere, so he was probably soaking in the hot springs outside. He sighed in relief as he began to mop the floor. If he just did this quickly, he would be able to slip away before the guest came in.
Although, if he had been there already when Hiroko came to get him, it would probably be nigh impossible to do this fast enough to not meet the guest. Yuuri still decided to at least try, and he kept mopping the fastest he could. Which was not much faster, since he couldn't exactly do sloppy work either.
He sighed deeply as he cleaned one corner of the room. This wasn't exactly what he had imagined his future as a figure skater would be, trying to avoid a fan desperately. But he couldn't help it: he was ashamed of having suffered a bad loss in the finals for two years in a row now. And if this foreign visitor was his fan, he might have… no, he must have at least seen his last loss.
Yuuri bit his lip. He had been mulling this same thing over and over in his mind, and even he was starting to get tired of his attitude. He should get his thoughts together and start thinking of what he was going to do now that he was retiring. He had been spending all his time at home until now. If he continued this way, he would end up taking care of the hot springs for the rest of his life…
Maybe that wasn't that bad of a future. He had had his fun with figure skating, and maybe it was time to stop while he still had some pride left in him. It wasn't that his career as a figure skater had been that bad after all, despite the humiliating losses at the Grand Prix Finals.
With these thoughts, he was about to finish cleaning up. There was just a little bit left, so if he just hurried he might be able to actually finish this before the guest came out of the bath…
Unless the guest wasn't standing right in front of him at this particular moment. Yuuri dropped his gaze immediately away from him, and tried to keep mopping in hopes the other would just ignore him.
"You…," he said instead however, and Yuuri flinched a little bit as he turned to look at the guest. The foreigner had a smile on his lips. "You're Katsuki Yuuri, aren't you?"
Yuuri looked at him in the eyes, trying to return the smile but he could feel his smile twitching. Maybe it wasn't still too late to run away.
Thank you for reading the first chapter! I hope it somewhat managed to catch your interest, haha~ I apologize if the characters seem anyhow stiff, this is my first time writing them in a longer fic so it might me take a little while to get used to them... But I'll keep trying my best, and rewatching the series to get a hang of their character! Also, some things about Victor might seem a little different since he's an angel, but I'll try to keep him as close to his original self as possible.
But, not to blabber on I thank you again for reading! The next chapter will be up on 25th of February. I hope to see you there!
