"I was just joking!"
JJ's voice rang through the night, and Yuuri couldn't help but bite his lip to keep from giggling. He couldn't believe they'd just walked out on their dinner like that. They were only half done and, while they had paid for the meal—Victor threw down some cash on the table as they made their way out—he still felt that it was a bit of a waste. It didn't really seem fair to JJ either since he'd just wanted to join their little party. Yuuri didn't exactly dislike JJ; he sometimes found the teenager's boisterous personality a bit overwhelming, but he didn't mind including the skater in their good times before the big competition.
The Grand Prix Finals.
Yuuri couldn't believe that it was the very next day. The destination of his long, arduous, eight-month journey had finally arrived. This time last year, he had been a ball of nerves, holing himself up in his hotel room in Sochi and trying not to panic as each minute clicked closer and closer to the inevitable. This year, he was pleasantly surprised to find that he'd actually enjoyed himself long enough to mostly forget about being anxious. He knew that a large part of that had to do with going around Barcelona with Victor that day, but he could also appreciate that hanging out with friends also helped. He wasn't alone anymore, he realized, and that seemed to make all the difference in the world.
Yuuri looked down at the ring on his right hand and smiled to himself. Did he really 'propose' to Victor an hour ago? He couldn't believe himself sometimes. There was just something about Victor, and the comfort he provided, that made him want to break out of his shell more than usual and do things like…this. But he didn't regret it. He'd called the rings 'good-luck charms' in the moment, in a small lapse of nervousness, but Victor had seen through it and accepted it for what it really was. He didn't know if Victor felt exactly the same way, but at least the Russian hadn't said anything against it. It wasn't like he doubted that Victor loved him, but he felt like maybe he shouldn't have sprung something that big on Victor so suddenly...
When Victor slung an arm around his shoulder, he flashed him a small smile at the action, but made no effort to join the conversation his fiancé was engaging in with Chris. He just stayed lost in thought, enjoying the mere contact that Victor was providing. Enjoying the sound of laughter coming from behind him as Pichit chatted with Minako-sensei and his sister.
But still…certain revelations from that evening eventually came to the forefront of his mind and left him with an odd feeling in his chest.
Victor looked over at his fiancé as they entered the lobby of their hotel. The walk back from the hotel had been long, but not uncomfortable; he'd spent most of the walk chatting lightly with Christophe and enjoying the calming beauty of Barcelona at night. He felt the weight of the bags in his arms and the glistening ring on his finger, and his heart swelled at the memories of the happy excursion he and Yuuri had enjoyed earlier that day.
He seems to be really quiet this evening, Victor thought. The young man beside him had been walking in silence the entire way back to the hotel, but Victor hadn't tried to force him into the conversation, having learned by now that when Yuuri needed space, it was best to give it to him. He knew that it probably wouldn't do him any good to press Yuuri, but something really seemed to be eating at him. As soon as they got to their room and began preparing for the night, Victor took a deep breath and decided to finally break the silence.
"Yuuri…is something bothering you?"
Victor noticed Yuuri jump a little at the question.
Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, the possible cause of Yuuri's silence struck him and he couldn't believe he hadn't realized it before. After the wonderful dinner they'd had, Victor had almost completely forgotten that Yuuri had asked to go sightseeing mere hours earlier…as a distraction. Yuuri must be feeling anxious about the next day — the Grand Prix Finals were, undoubtedly, the culmination of all the work he had done in the past year and the weight of all his efforts were nothing to disregard. After reaching the top of his field, as he began going through the motions, Victor hadn't really noticed that weight.
But he figured that Yuuri did.
Yuuri sat on the edge of his bed and clasped his hands together, his face slowly turning red.
"Victor?"
"Yes, Yuuri?" Victor asked, sitting beside him. He figured that he'd learned from his disastrous attempts in China and he was ready to stay by Yuuri's side as he needed him. He was ready to be a better coach, a better lover, a better…
"…Did I really… go crazy at the banquet last year?"
…Oh.
Victor looked down at Yuuri's face that was red with embarrassment. And blinked.
Then laughed.
I guess it's not that, then.
"Hey," Yuuri protested, pushing Victor away as he reached out to hug him in relief, "I'm serious! How could I have forgotten something like that?!" He poked the Victor in the side when he didn't stop laughing.
"Well, I'm pretty sure the sixteen glasses of champagne you downed had something to do with it." Victor chuckled. He escaped Yuuri's poking fingers, shifting off the edge of the bed to sit on the wooden bench-like windowsill.
Yuuri's mouth dropped open, "Sixteen?!"
Victor reigned in his laughter and reached out to hug Yuuri again. This time, the young man let him wrap his arms around his shoulders (although Victor suspected it was more out of shock than actual forgiveness for laughing at him). As Victor pulled back, Yuuri hung his head as he tried to process what he'd just been told.
"Victor," Yuuri said after a moment, "I need to see those photos."
"Are you sure," Victor teased, "You might not like what you see."
He was enjoying this too much.
Yuuri took a deep breath and, in spite of the blush in his cheeks, looked up at Victor with scary intensity and nodded.
"Alright then. Just give me a minute."
Victor didn't have a ton of photos from the night — a bit of a travesty, given that it had certainly been a night to remember — but that was quickly remedied by texts to Chris and Yurio. Within five minutes, both skaters had sent all the videos and photos they had. Victor chuckled at the 33 photos from Yurio, far more than either he or Chris had taken, that had been sent with a quick [Don't look too deeply into this!] message; the teenager keeping that many photos clearly showed that he wanted to remember the events of that night, no matter what he said about being 'dragged into it'. Victor handed his phone over to Yuuri, who took it with shaking fingers.
The next minute was mostly silent as Victor watched Yuuri's face switch between red and pure white, going back and forth as if he didn't know whether to be merely embarrassed or full on mortified. He apparently decided to settle on the latter emotion as he reached a certain set of photos, letting out a small squeak and covering his eyes with his other hand. Victor didn't need to ask what had caused his sudden agitation.
"So Yuuri…where did you learn to pole dance?"
Yuuri squeaked again in embarrassment again and shoved Victor's phone back at him. The Russian man caught it and slipped it back into his pocket, satisfied with his handiwork. Yuuri rolled his eyes at the ever-present smile on Victor's face before letting out a short laugh.
"Should I even askwhat else I did?"
"Well," Victor said, tapping his chin as if in thought, "You did come up to me with your tie around your forehead, throw yourself on me, and ask me to be your coach."
"I did that? To you?! How were you not disgusted with me?"
"For the record, I found it to be quite endearing," Victor moved from the windowsill to sit beside Yuuri, close enough for his cold cheek to press against Yuuri's very warm one, "I could never find you disgusting."
"Things actually make so much sense now," Yuuri said, "Knowing that I did all this and couldn't remember."
"I could say the same," Victor smiled, "I was so confused when I came to be your coach after having the time of my life and you pushed me away."
"I diddo that, didn't I?" Yuuri let out a groan and put his head in his hands, "Kill me now."
"I can't do that," Victor said, "I wouldn't be able to marry you if I did."
Yuuri froze at that. He peeked through his fingers and turned to look at Victor. "You were serious about that?"
"Yes," Victor said without hesitation, "Were you?"
"Y-yes, of course!" Yuuri blurted before ducking his head again, "I just…I just didn't think you'd…actually…"
Victor sighed. He could almost see the darkness slowly creep over Yuuri's face. It was heartbreaking, honestly, watching how the man he loved could be trapped by such a low self-esteem. Always doubting how people saw him, how people cared about him. He felt awkward, not always knowing what to do to comfort Yuuri. But he was learning.
"Listen," Victor said softly, "Do you know what my favorite photo from that night is?"
He pulled out his phone again and began flipping through the album of all the GPF banquet photos. Past the ones of Yuuri twisting on the floor beside Yurio, frozen mid-spin with a look of concentration on his face. Past the one where Yuuri was clutching the pole doing the Superman pose in his boxers with an intense, almost smirking look on his face as he reached out at something with his right hand.
(Although Victor did like that, just out of the camera's view, he had been that something.)
He scrolled through all the embarrassing and racy photos and finally stopped on the last one. It was him and Yuuri in the center of the shot. Victor was leaning back, one leg up in the air and a hand on Yuuri's back, and Yuuri was holding the side of Victor's face. The picture perfectly captured the amount of pure happiness in that moment. Both men were smiling at each other like they were the happiest people on the earth, just dancing with each other like that. Like two lovers who had been reunited instead of two skaters who had just met that evening. For Victor, when Yuuri had held him like that, he hadn't cared that Yuuri's breath smelled of alcohol. He hadn't cared that he probably looked like a fool in front of all the other skaters and sponsors and ISU officials in the room. All he cared about, at that moment, was the man in front of him with a glassy smile on his face as he chased away Victor's loneliness and breathed the Life and Love that Victor had craved for so long. That photo captured that feeling in all its pixeled glory.
It was beautiful.
"Do you think I wouldn't want to marry someone who made me smile like that?"
Yuuri was silent for a few seconds as he stared at the photo, then smiled. He put his arms around Victor and hugged him.
"Thank you," Yuuri said softly, his voice muffled against Victor's side, "Thank you for everything."
"You're welcome." Victor said. He closed his eyes as he returned the hug, content with the moment they were having. Feeling Yuuri against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. He wished they could sit like that forever.
But he suddenly remembered something and decided to ruin the moment as he let his lips twitch upwards into a smirk. He poked at Yuuri's cheek.
"Yuuri~, you still haven't answered my question..."
Yuuri extracted himself from Victor's embrace and looked up at him, confused.
"Where didyou learn to pole dance? And how did you get so good?"
Seeing Yuuri's face turn crimson, and hearing him stutter as he scrambled for an explanation, more than made up for the sharp jab in the ribs the young man inflicted on him a second later.