Viktor always considered himself a storyteller and while he would never out and out lie about anything, a little stretching of the truth never hurt anyone right? Why bother telling someone about your boring trip to the grocery story when instead you could tell them about the way traffic had backed up because a street performer got into a confrontation with one of the pedestrians after he lost control of his prop and accidently knocked said pedestrian in the head with it. He had, what he considered, a flair for dramatics. No one disagreed with him, but no one told him that it wasn't necessarily a good thing either.
It was this story teller's spirit that lead Viktor to buy the journal in the first place. Leather bound with an intricate tree embossed on the front cover. The pages were pressed pulp mixed with flower petals. It screamed 'buy me', and so he did. He cradled his treasure in his arms all the way home trying to plan on what he wanted to do with such a splendid journal. It was too grand for something as medial as daily journaling.
The journal was deposited on his desk as soon as he got home and left, but not forgotten. Viktor plotted and planned all day on what he would do when he finally settled on writing a story of his own. When night came and his tasks were completed for the day he sat at the desk with a steaming cup of tea and jam. He gently ran his fingers over the first blank page before inspiration struck and he set his pen to the paper.
The next day the Russian team flew out to Sochi for the Grand Prix finals. The entire trip had Viktor writing adamantly in his journal much to the curiosity of the rest of the team. But Viktor just brushed off their questions, lost in his own story. He was seen often with the journal in their spare time, so much so that Yakov had to physically remove the journal from Viktor's possession so that he would focus on the competition.
"Get me a gold and you can have it back. Now get your butt on the ice!" he barked out.
With the journal out of his possession he felt lost. He had become so invested in what he was writing that nothing else seemed to matter. Things as they were, however, Viktor easily placed first in the men's single event and promptly requested his journal back. With a sigh the coach released the journal back to Viktor who carefully placed it in his bag before escorting Yuri out of the arena.
As he was walking something felt strange, like he had done this before. Deja vu is what it was called right? But this wasn't quite the same. It wasn't just a feeling that he had been here and done this before. It was the ability to know what would happen next, the words that Yuri would say to him moments before he said them. The fact that in a moment he was going to turn around and…
"Commemorative photo? Sure!" and say something stupid. He watched as the younger man in front of him turned around and walked away. Viktor was sure that this had all happened exactly like this… but how?
Viktor was left questioning himself through the press' constant questioning. He could hardly pay attention, finger poised at his lips in deep thought. That had happened before, he was sure of it. It wasn't until he retired to his hotel room and saved his journal from its dark prison that he remembered. Those exact words, that whole scene. It played out just as he had written it. No, it must all just be coincidence, right?
That night he wrote again. A happier part of his story. The young man, fresh off of his failure from the major skating competition and depressed, indulges in his alcohol just a little too much. He just wants to forget. It is here that he catches the eye of a prominent skater and they dance the night away. The young man leaving without giving the skater his name. He goes home to think about what to do with his life.
Through practice for the gala that night Viktor felt nervous. What if he really did have something to do with the way that things turned out? It was a far fetched idea to be sure, but the thought kept tugging at his mind. Three jumps he missed, three simple jumps that someone at his level should never miss. Yakov pulled him off the ice and demanded to know what was wrong.
"I am just not feeling well." He lied and went back to his hotel room to sleep, or rather toss and turn until the banquet that night.
He was on edge through the event but as the night wore on and his "drunk skater" had yet to show, Viktor found himself being lulled into a false sense of security. It was in the split moment that he allowed himself to forget that things began to move. He watched as the young Japanese skater, drunk with a tie looped around his head, approached them, begged Viktor to watch him dance and if he beat Yuri in a dance off to become his coach. It was that moment he knew he messed up.
There was something about the journal, something that made him move, made him become a part of the story. He could only watch as the man in front of him danced on the pole with Chris. He was forced to dance, a smile on his face, with the man who he didn't know. It was a special kind of hell. The more he danced with him, the more he spoke with him, the more he fell for him; and yet he already knew that he was doomed to end the night without a name.
He tried several times to open his mouth to ask, to beg for mercy, but it wasn't in the script that he had set for himself the night before. Unable to stop the wheels of motion Viktor watched as the skater drunkenly stumbled off into the hallway and out of his life for good. Or was it?
With no explanation at all, Viktor ran up to his room and grabbed the notebook. He quickly jotted down a few line about the young skater meeting his idol again, in the hotel lobby, where they would talk in earnest about anything and everything. The man would leave and give him a name, Yuuri, and they would talk and perchance love.
Viktor sat for hours in the lobby and waited. Several times the woman behind the counter asked him if he needed anything. The only thing that he needed the attendant couldn't provide, he needed his Yuuri. Finally giving up Viktor went up to his room and grasped the journal in both hands cussing at it for making him look like a fool. In a fit of anger he threw the book across the room where he left it, forgotten and alone until the following morning.
Viktor packed away the last of his hygiene items and grabbed his bag in preparation to head out the door before he remembered the book he chucked into a corner the night before. With an annoyed sigh he backtracked and picked it up. The book had landed with it's cover open to the back of the book, fine script looking back at him.
There are three things to know about this book
What you write will happen as you write it.
So long as it does not take a life
And so long as it does not force one to love.
He looked at it for a long time in shock at the words he saw there. So he was right, the journal did possess the power to make things happen. He gave himself a little smile, he had a plan to meet his friend again, all he had to do was write it out.
April came and with it Viktor's desperation grew. He knew he needed to meet the skater, but he didn't know how. It wasn't until his phone was inundated with messages of a particular youtube clip that he knew how he was going to make this happen.
"Makka, let's go on an adventure!"
He quickly wrote in messy scrawl of a snow storm hitting Japan and the arrival of the skater's idol. What fun would it be if his entrance was boring. He quickly grabbed a few items and threw them in a bag, clipped Makka's leash to her, and pointly left the book on his desk, the pages he had written on ripped out and a note to whomever found the book to use it wisely.