Victor is reading on the couch in his apartment, innocently minding his own business, when his phone beeps a beep that will change his life forever.
It's the Saturday right after the World Championships, so the skating season is over and time has slowed to a crawl. Georgi is traveling with Anya, Yura is with his grandfather in Moscow, and Mila is out with her college buddies. Victor doesn't know where Yakov goes during this time, but he likes to imagine his coach hanging upside down from the ceiling of their ice rink like a bat.
What it all adds up to is: Victor is alone, except for Makkachin. Victor is re-reading his financial adviser's projections for his portfolio. Victor is very, very bored.
He takes out his phone and it chimes again before he can even unlock the screen.
Beep-beep. Beep-beep...Beep-beep.
He expects that Chris is spamming him with beach photos, but the messages are from four—no, five—six different people. It's bizarre. His next thought is that his PR team is preparing to crush whatever the latest baseless rumor about him is. Doping, bribing judges, nonexistent love affairs? It's always the worst after Worlds.
But this turns out to be none of those things. Mila, Georgi, Chris and several of his agents have sent him links to a YouTube video. Victor's chest constricts when he sees the thumbnail image. He's frozen for a full minute, staring at the man who took his heart for a twelve-hour roller-coaster ride.
Yuuri Pole-Dancing Katsuki.
Victor chides himself. He should have known better than to get attached. Isn't he always telling Chris that the ice is his one true love? But Victor, stupid Victor, had danced with Yuuri in Sochi and believed him when he groped Victor, and Yuuri had smiled up at him, and crooned about coaching and hot spring resorts. And Victor had gone up to Yuuri's hotel room the next morning with two coffees and his heart doing somersaults, and the clerk had informed him that Yuuri had checked out early without a word to anyone.
He never contacted Victor, even though Victor's social media accounts are easy to find. Yuuri never even showed up to Worlds. Despite his poor performance at Japanese Nationals, the ISU would have invited him anyway as Japan's sole internationally-ranked male figure skater, so it was purely Yuuri blowing the competition off. Again, without a word to anyone.
Victor can't even bring himself to be mad at him. That banquet was the most fun he'd had in years, even if it was only for a few hours.
He taps his phone screen back on, and presses Play.
As soon as Yuuri skates to center ice, Victor notices something wrong: Yuuri's gained weight. He's not overweight by normal standards, and normally, Victor wouldn't care. But every time a figure skater lands a quad jump, the impact slams down on their ankle with a force of seven to ten times their body weight. Every extra kilogram increases the risk of injury and long-term damage.
Victor recognizes the opening motions of Stammi Vicino. His knuckles go white as he grips his phone. This routine has four quads. What is Yuuri thinking?
Yuuri downgrades the quadruple Lutz to a triple, and Victor lets out a sigh of relief. The quad flip is downgraded as well, but Yuuri keeps the original spins and step sequences. No, he improves them. He devotes his whole body and soul to them. The video is silent, yet Victor can hear every note playing. Yuuri has a gift for rhythm and physical expression, and his interpretation is more raw and human than anything Victor did with it.
The routine nears its end. Yuuri finishes with a quadruple toe loop, and Victor almost drops his phone.
He watches the video again. And again. He's torn between admiration, exasperation, and simply appreciating Yuuri's body. He catches himself humming music that he thought he'd grown sick of, and wondering why he cares so much. It's none of his business if Yuuri gets out of shape and makes jumps that will shred his ankles; that's Yuuri's coach's job. Come to think of it, why isn't Yuuri's coach in the video?
A quick Google search tells Victor that Yuuri broke things off with Celestino Cialdini immediately after the GPF in Sochi. He had faced Japanese Nationals alone. No wonder his performance had suffered there.
"Be my coach, Victor!"
When Yuuri was holding him at the banquet, was his offer actually serious? Has he been waiting for Victor's response all this time? The fact that he hasn't hired a new coach certainly points to that. And now he's uploaded a video of himself online, skating Victor's routine, a song about a man reaching out to the man he loves—
"Stand by my side," the lyrics of Stammi Vicino say, "and don't go."
"I'm an idiot," Victor thinks, and he smiles so wide it hurts his face.
He's booking a flight and packing his suitcase and practically skipping around his apartment. He's pulling his favorite books off the shelves and sorting through outfits and looking up how to get Wi-Fi and cell phone reception in Japan. He's downloading Hiragana and Katakana flashcards and a Japanese phrases app to his phone.
Halfway through pronouncing "Ohayō, Victor Nikiforov desu," his phone beeps again, this time with a reminder: He has a photo-shoot in Paris in a few days.
Oh. Right. Responsibilities: he has them. He also has calendar filled with ice shows, interviews, modeling contracts and merchandise-licensing for the rest of the off-season, on top of still skating part-time to maintain his skills. He doesn't get to go on vacation like his rinkmates do, and who would he go with, anyway?
He floats back down to reality, and feels the ever-present grayness that followed him all last season settling back on his shoulders. It would be easy to cancel the flight and do what he's always done. He's gone through the routine so many times he can do it in his sleep. It's a routine that makes his coach, sponsors, fans, the Russian Skating Federation, and his financial adviser very happy. Victor had thought it made him happy, too.
But then Yuuri Katsuki dirty-danced his way into Victor's heart and showed him what being happy actually felt like.
A laugh bubbles up in his throat, tight and hysterical. He shouldn't dump all his appointments and run off to Japan. He shouldn't quit the most successful skating career in history to become a coach-with-benefits for someone on the other side of the world. There are several hundred people who would physically haul him out of the airport if they knew what he was doing, and tie him to a chair until he came to his senses.
"So don't tell them," says a voice in his head that sounds a lot like Yuuri Katsuki.
Victor is not an irresponsible man. He couldn't parlay competitions into contracts, if he didn't act professional, reliable and level-headed. He didn't just stumble into celebrity. He's spent fifteen years building a network, an image, a brand. But now—
On his laptop, the cursor hovers over the button to cancel his flight to Japan. He should. He's twenty-seven, more than old enough to know better. But he's also old enough that he's tired, in a way that no amount of sleep can fix, and he can't remember the last time he felt this alive.
He closes his browser, and for the first time in fifteen years, decides to be irresponsible.
Author's note: This is a finished work. It is meant to stand alone.