Boo. It's me. I'm back again with more filthy romance and shitty humor. Contains mildly strong language but not much else. Word count: 3,715.
Disclaimer: not mine, not for profit.
Five Times Yuuri Did Something He Regretted With Victor
i.
There were approximately two thousand and fifty-three thoughts running through Yuuri's head at that moment, and at least two thousand and fifty-three of them ran along the lines of: Oh my fucking god, I am literally going to die.
"What am I doing here?" he shouted over the howling wind.
Yuuri found himself asking that question at an alarming frequency in the past week or so, but this—nothing was comparable to this. He was used to the cold with all the practice he did on the ice, but this was not a type of cold or a type of situation he ever wanted to face in his about-to-be-miserably-short life. His toes and fingers were starting to feel numb even despite the thick layer of gloves and socks he made sure to pull over his extremities. His brain was most likely not getting enough oxygen. His nose was watering, his clothes felt too heavy and yet too light at the same time, and his goggles were painfully digging into his skull.
Oh, and he was free-falling.
Like, falling through the air with nothing to support him.
Like, hurtling towards the ground at nine point eight meters per second squared.
That was probably worth mentioning.
"You're having fun!" Victor shouted back over the wind.
"This is your idea of fun?"
Because this was the absolute farthest thing from Yuuri's definition of fun. Cuddling with Makkachin was fun. Sleeping in was fun. Drinking hot wine in Barcelona was fun. Skating with Victor in an empty rink was fun. Eating katsudon was fun. Hell, even being stuck in a too-tight car with eight angry ferrets and Jean-Jacques Leroy was more "fun" than this.
Imminent death was not fun.
"You agreed to it," Victor yelled with a grin that stretched from ear to ear.
And Yuuri knew he was right. He had agreed to the skydiving trip with Victor, relented after a solid three days and two hours of pleading.
"Yuuri, it will be a great experience, don't you think?" Victor had begged.
"Victor," he had replied. "I should be preparing for the next season. I don't think this is a good idea."
"It would be such a nice change from practicing all day."
"Like I said, no."
"I'll do the dishes for a week."
"No."
"I'll do the dishes and the laundry."
"Still no."
"I'll do the dishes and the laundry and let Makkachin sleep on your side of the bed."
After that, Yuuri had agreed. Agreed to fall to his death on the promise of being able to cuddle with a poodle. What a fucking idiot.
As if sensing Yuuri's thoughts, Victor flashed him a smile as brighter than the sun, which was impressive because at more than a couple miles above the ground, the sun was very bright. If his mind wasn't so focused on the fact that the rest of his body was hurtling towards the ground at terminal velocity, Yuuri might have even blushed.
"This is definitely considered fun," Victor shouted again. "This is what being alive really feels like."
"This is what falling really feels like," Yuuri corrected.
Victor grinned and smiled that signature "brighter than the sun at three point eight kilometers above the ground" smile. Warm enough to melt gold. Or Yuuri's heart, whichever one had the lower melting point—and Yuuri was starting to suspect it was not the former.
"Maybe that's why they call it falling in love."
Okay.
Correction.
Even though his mind was focused on the fact that the rest of his body was hurtling towards the ground at terminal velocity, Yuuri still managed to blush.
-::-
ii.
"Yuuri, are you getting this?"
"Yes."
"Yuuri, are you sure you're getting this?"
"Yes."
Victor adjusted his position, struck another model pose that made Yuuri's heart beat just a bit faster, and gave the camera his brightest smile. If he didn't know any better, Yuuri would've guessed Victor was trying to compete with the camera phone's built-in flash. Trying to compete with the built-in flash and somehow winning.
"Got it," Yuuri called as he snapped a few consecutive pictures on Victor's phone. He could never tell the difference between one picture and the other, but Victor certainly could and needed a wide selection to choose from before he uploaded one on Instagram. Not that Yuuri minded filling both their camera phones up with pictures of Victor, of course.
"Wait, Yuuri, stay there for a sec."
"You want another pose?"
"No," Victor replied, adjusting his position next to the clothing display once again. "I want you to take a picture of me romantically embracing the mannequin."
And to Yuuri's disbelief, Victor wrapped his arms around the mannequin and peered from over the doll's shoulder. He arched his back and shot Yuuri a look that made him sure he was turning into an old man with wobbly knees and eleven kinds of heart problems. Victor raised an eyebrow, and Yuuri wanted to memorize that look, not caring if it was burned into his retinas for the rest of eternity because that would've been just fine with him.
An embarrassingly red color flushed to his face, and Yuuri gritted his teeth.
I will not be jealous of a mannequin, he told himself. I will not be jealous of a mannequin Victor is holding the way Makkachin holds milkbone snacks.
Hands shaking, Yuuri held the phone back up again. He wasn't sure about the quality of the pictures, but in that moment, he was too shaken with disbelief and jealousy and embarrassment that it didn't matter either way.
Victor grinned as he finished taking the pictures and tipped the mannequin sideways, as if bending over in a romantic tango. One arm looped around the mannequin's waist. The other cupping its face.
We're literally going to hell, Yuuri thought.
Eyes widening, Yuuri continued to stand there in shock, in the middle of the entrance to Saks Fifth Avenue, rooted to the ground. He was probably scaring away quite a number of customers and blocking the rest of them from entering, but Yuuri didn't care. Someone could be yelling his name and he wouldn't even notice. Someone could be shouting insults and he wouldn't even notice. Someone could wave a hot bowl of katsudon under his nose and he wouldn't even notice.
"I'm going to ask you guys to leave," snapped an irritated voice to Yuuri's left.
He blinked, and the employee looked down at him with a mixture of disgust and annoyance. Which kind of brought the reality of what they were doing back into focus—standing in the middle of a store and scaring away potential customers by striking ridiculous poses with the mannequins on display. Of course the employees were going to kick them out sooner or later.
Yuuri cleared his throat.
"Right," he managed. Because that was the only thing he could manage.
He gestured wildly to the still-tango-dancing Victor, who planted a kiss on the mannequin's cheek before leaping off the display and running to Yuuri's side. Out of the corner of his eye, Yuuri spotted two uniformed security guards starting to move towards them.
"We gotta go," Victor said, as if that wasn't obvious enough already.
Taking Yuuri's hand in his, they sprinted from the shop and into the street. If Yuuri wasn't so focused on the fact that he was mere seconds away from being arrested in Russia in a clothing store for posing with the mannequins on display, he would've enjoyed the feeling of Victor's fingers laced around his. The same fingers that had been wrapped around the mannequin's waist just a bit too sensually for Yuuri's mind to not be slightly jealous.
Suddenly, he broke out into a fit of laughter mid-run.
"I never got a picture of you tango-ing with that mannequin," he wheezed as his feet passed over the cobblestones.
Victor laughed, and Yuuri swore if he could bottle up the sound and pour it over his breakfast for the rest of his life, he would. Out of breath from laughing and running, they made their way down the street together.
-::-
iii.
"You're fucking figure skaters," Chris shouted over his shoulder. "If you can land a quadruple flip, you can balance."
Balancing on a canoe and balancing on ice were two completely different things, and Yuuri would point them out to Chris if he wasn't so worried he would fall over if he so much as moved his tongue. One required balancing on a solid surface, the other required balancing on a surface that shifted and swayed no matter which way you tried to move or distribute your weight. One lead to falling on a solid surface, where you could get back up again. The other lead to falling into the river with your new shirt and your fiancé and possibly also your best man.
Although Chris seems to be managing just fine, Yuuri thought with bewilderment.
"We're figure skaters," Victor shouted back. "We don't swim."
"How do you do it?" Yuuri practically screamed as the canoe gave another sideways wobble.
Ahead of him, Chris mumbled an ambiguous phallic comment about a balancing pole Yuuri didn't quite catch all the words of.
"You just shift your weight with the boat," he replied helpfully. "Like this."
He stomped on one end of the already-rocking canoe, and Yuuri shrieked as he was almost hurled into the river. Ahead of him, Chris doubled over in laughter as Victor and Yuuri spluttered and cursed. Clearly, at least one out of the three of them would make it through this trip without falling off the boat.
"I'm going to make Jean-Jacques Leroy the best man at the wedding, holy shit," he heard Victor curse from behind, followed by another series of other choice words in Russian.
"Why are we standing up again?" Yuuri asked. He was regretting his life decisions more and more with every passing second. Decision one: agreeing to go on the canoeing trip with Victor and Chris. Decision two: going into figure skating instead of swimming or rowing or something that involved liquid water. But not necessarily in that order. "Isn't that a dumb way to tip the canoe?"
"How else are you supposed to get the full experience of canoeing?" Chris called.
The full experience. Yuuri didn't want the full experience of anything at the moment, not the full experience of canoeing or the full experience plunging into a river, not the full experience of being wet from head to toe and putting up with Chris's water-slash-thirst-slash-being-wet jokes from there until the airport. The only full experience he wanted was to get the hell off of the canoe and onto solid ground again.
As if reading his thoughts, Chris sent a small splash Yuuri's way with his paddle.
"Less trying to stare at Victor through the back of your head, more rowing," he teased. "Don't get wet before you fall off the boat."
Twenty-one, Yuuri made a mental note. Twenty-one innuendos in the last three hours. Maybe I'll charge him a dollar for every joke he makes. He can sponsor my next season single-handedly.
"Twenty-two," Victor called from behind. They both had been keeping track.
"Twenty-one," Yuuri corrected.
"Twenty-four," Chris added from ahead of them. "I've been writing all of them down."
As the boat gave another dangerous wobble, Yuuri heard Victor mutter from behind, soft enough so that only Yuuri could hear. "That's not the only thing going down tonight."
With a startled choke, Yuuri whipped around, eyes widening at the mischievous grin spreading across Victor's face. It was only when he heard an indignant yell from Chris that he realized his mistake of turning around so suddenly; the entire canoe tilted with such speed that Yuuri was sure the wooden boat was trying to hurl the three of them and all their sin-filled comments into the river. Sneakers still scrambling to find a foothold on the canoe, Chris's surprised face was the last thing Yuuri saw before they hit the water.
-::-
iv.
"Extend," Victor said, so Yuuri extended his arms a bit further.
"Stretch," Victor said, so Yuuri stretched his free leg out a bit further.
"Jump," Victor said, and Yuuri never had to ask "how high?"
"Yuuri, eat this flaming-hot chili pepper that I bought from the market," Victor said, and the first thing that came out of his mouth was the tea he had been drinking.
"What?" he exclaimed, spluttering and wiping the tea from the front of his shirt. What was it with Victor and ruining all of Yuuri's new shirts? The first one had been stained by whatever was growing in the canoeing trip river, and now the second one was stained with bits of boiled and dried-out dead herbs. Fun.
"Just eat it," Victor urged, plopping down next to Yuuri on the floor.
As soon as he sat down, Makkachin moved from his position by Yuuri's side to Victor's lap. Yuuri eyed the brown poodle and gave the dog a scathing look. Traitor.
"I don't like spicy food," Yuuri protested weakly.
"Exactly. I've never seen you eat spicy food. If you never try it, you will never know."
The problem was Yuuri didn't want to know. All of his relatives could gobble down three bowls of spicy ramen without breaking a sweat, then finish a couple dozen spicy lobsters on top of it. He'd been teased countless times for his inability to withstand even the smallest bits of grounded black pepper. When he was younger, he couldn't even touch the tip of his tongue to the chili oil his parents loved so much.
"I've had my fair share of suffering for this lifetime, Victor," he said. "I love myself too much to put that thing anywhere near my mouth."
Victor pouted half-heartedly, but Yuuri could tell he was concealing a laugh beneath it.
"I'll tell Makkachin to lick away your tears if you cry," he offered.
"No."
"You can use my hair as tissues."
"There aren't enough hairs on your head."
Another pout.
"Please," Victor begged. "I just want to see you try it. If you don't like it, you never have to try it again. And you'll get to watch me suffer by eating the second chili pepper I bought from the same place. Promise. Pinky promise."
"You bought two of those?" Yuuri asked incredulously, eyeing the angry red peppers Victor produced from his pockets.
"What if you liked the first one?" Victor answered defensively, waggling his pinky finger before Yuuri's face. "I had to make sure."
Perhaps it was because he really wanted to see Victor eat the chili pepper, too. Perhaps it was because his shirt was already stained with dead leaves, so why would staining them with angry red juices from the chili pepper make any bit of a difference? Perhaps it was because Victor was rubbing off on him and a small part of Yuuri thought it would be really funny to have "Katsuki Yuuri—died from chili pepper" engraved onto his tombstone.
Perhaps he was just an idiot.
Yuuri took the angry-looking, shriveled-up vegetable of Satan between his thumb and forefinger, trying to keep as less skin-to-pepper contact as possible. He glared at it furiously and hooked his little finger around Victor's.
Fuck me sideways, he thought to himself as he took a bite from the pepper, his brain and tongue and all six senses immediately filling with regret and the sound of Victor's laughter.
-::-
v.
"I hate this," Mila said.
"I hate this," Georgi agreed.
"I hate this, and I'm going to fucking murder you when I'm out of this mess," Yurio said.
"I love this!" Victor practically shouted from atop the human pyramid the Russian skating team (plus Yuuri) made for him. On ice. On solid water. On the solid water of Yakov's rink. Who probably would kick all of their asses to the eighty-seventh ring of hell and back in time for morning practice if he ever found them like this.
"Vitya, please get down before we all fall," Mila begged. "Yura here looks like he's going to collapse."
"Am not," Plisetsky protested indignantly. "Shut your face, baba."
Secretly, Yuuri agreed with Mila. He absolutely hated this. He had to readjust his position and his footing on the ice every five seconds, and the other skaters had to do the same, slipping and trying to stay in one place while supporting a giant of a man between the four of them on ice, which was way harder than it looked even though Mila was there with her lifts.
Ice dancers and pair skaters don't get enough credit for doing this, holy hell, Yuuri thought as he struggled to keep himself from slipping. How do they even manage it?
"I hate this," he declared, joining in with the rest of the team.
The other three skaters gave Yuuri a look that was half respect, half "we understand your pain." You weren't really part of the team until you said you hated lifting Victor Nikiforov between the rest of you an hour before morning practice even started because he'd won a bet on the outcome of the Four Continents. For the record, Victor had bet on Yuuri, but the rest of the team—Yuuri included—had bet on Otabek Altin or even Jean-Jacques Leroy. Mila even placed a bet on Makkachin as a joke.
"What do you eat?" Mila complained. "You're so heavy I'm surprised the ice doesn't cave in under your weight."
"I try to keep a healthy diet of good nutrients and self-confidence," Victor answered. Yuuri was vaguely concerned the sound of Victor's voice was coming from directly on top of his head, but he was too focused on the ice and his skates and keeping a good grip to look up.
Then, Yuuri felt the tip of a toe pick prodding his hair. It didn't sting, more of a tickle, but Yuuri yelped in surprise all the same, and the sound of Victor's wheezing laughter floated down from above.
"Victor, stop," Mila snapped again, but she laughed at Yuuri all the same.
Traitor, he wanted to tell her, but another prod of Victor's toe pick made him yelp again before he got the chance.
"Oh my god," Yuuri practically screamed. He was never, ever, ever in his entire life going to place another bet with Victor. In terms of the most regrettable decisions in Yuuri's life, the situation he was in was definitely one of the top ten or even top five.
"I really, really hate this," he declared for the second time that day, and this time, he let himself lose his grip on the ice.
-::-
i.
"What am I doing here?" he wanted to say out loud, wanted to scream until his voice was the only thing that filled the little chapel.
The reverend to his left was saying something—Yuuri was sure he was saying something important, and he was sure he should be listening but was too filled with his own thoughts to actually pay any proper attention. His mind was too busy chanting the "what am I doing here, what am I doing here, what am I doing here" routine.
He'd asked himself that question a thousand times over since he met Victor, asked himself that question after every single regrettable, unfortunate decision he had made with Victor laughing at his side. Skydiving, canoeing, eating that cursed chili pepper, getting kicked out of clothing stores in Russia, lifting Victor up in the middle of an ice rink. To be honest with himself, he didn't really hate any of it—not by a long shot. If anything, all of the little "regretful" decisions he had made with Victor by his side only made Yuuri love him more, want to hold him closer, reassured him of Victor's unwavering presence and support.
I was only able to make those silly decisions and do those silly things because you were there by my side, Victor, he wanted to say.
Yuuri shook his head, focusing in on the reverend's voice again.
Of all the decisions he had made since the day Victor arrived at the hot springs, this was probably the choice with no regrets. No looking back, just looking ahead. No regret, no begging, no falling into rivers, just the glint of a solid gold ring and a vow.
The reverend addressed the audience, then Victor, then finally turned to Yuuri.
He swallowed nervously and looked deep into Victor impossibly blue eyes.
"Do you, Yuuri Katsuki, take this man, Victor Nikiforov, to be your lawfully wedded husband?" the reverend asked. He had probably repeated those words a thousand times to a thousand couples in his life, but it was the first time the question had been posed at Yuuri. The first time Yuuri had to make such a decision.
No regrets, Yuuri thought, taking a deep breath. No regrets, no regrets, no regrets.
"I do."
Some side notes: I am actually banned from going to Saks Fifth Avenue for posing with the mannequins. To this day, I regret nothing. Also, the third section is inspired by Jin Boyang, Li Zijun, Daisuke Murakami, and Wakaba Higuchi's adventures on a canoe.
As always, feedback is appreciated!