Attention: This story contains strange biology and dark themes.
13 years ago
"Yuuri, your step sequence is flawless," Yuuko clapped happily, praising her friend as the young boy finished his small performance and stopped in a delicate crunched up pose.
Yuuri lifted up his head and smiled shyly. He rubbed his knuckled tentatively with the tip of his fingers and skated towards the exit where Yuuko was standing, her hands crossed in awe and fascination. "You are going to make all the judges gape once you start performing at the competition."
"I am not that good," Yuuri huffed, blushing furiously, trying to make sure that there was no accidental misconception in Yuuko's head that he was any good and could win anything, even a local competition. He wanted to skate beautifully. He wished deep down in his heart that he did so amazingly that all eyes were on him, but he even more than to win he was scared to fail when everyone praised him to be good.
He didn't want to be a disappointment. If everyone believed that he was going to do so well and he went and let everyone down, Yuuri wasn't sure, he could look anyone in the eye.
After all, it would be a betrayal of sorts, wouldn't it? Yuuri's heart trembled lightly in his chest when he imagined the disappointment on the faces of his parents, his sister and Yuuko if he failed. He wasn't any good. "The other skaters have better programs and actual coaches," he murmured.
Yuuri didn't have a figure-skating coach. His mother's close friend, Minako-sensei was coaching him in ballet. It was always a matter of teasing snubs at school, where all the boys were playing boy-sports, he was dancing 'like a girl'. And despite everything Yuuri felt a sense of exhilarating relief dancing in Minako's studio. Every time he stretched, standing on his toes in the arabesque position. Or when he was performing certain steps, Minako thought he was still too young to do, things like cabriole or even double cabriole.
Once she caught him practicing advanced steps like that, she had taken them to the ice castle. At first Yuuri had thought, she was so mad, she was going to punish him by making him join the few hockey players who usually practiced at the rink.
"If you want to jump," she told him in a serious tone. "Here is a good place to jump. On the ice."
And Yuuri had fallen in love with the ice once his feet stood strong on the water-glass. And he had wanted to smash that glass under the blades of his skating boots.
"You are so amazing that you don't need anyone to teach you how to dance," Yuuko protested, tapping on Yuuri's shoulder encouragingly.
"That's not true," Yuuri sighed and then looked at the TV screen attached to the wall.
"The youngest figure skater in history to land a quad axel with a very intricate combination spin had taken the figure skating world by storm. Fourteen year old Russian figure skater Viktor Nikiforov had a dazzling performance just this evening, breaking records and hiking up the stakes for the future Figure skaters."
A small gasp left Yuuri's lips when his eyes fell at the fairy-like boy with angelic looks, tender silver hair and brightest blue eyes, stare at him from the screen, as if he knew that Yuuri was watching him. He was smiling and waving. Everything had disappeared around Yuuri at that moment as his eyes were glued to the TV screen. Then the interview with the boy was cut short (which Yuuri didn't understand anyways) and his performance was played, making Yuuri mesmerized, enchanted, paralyzed and breathless.
On that moment, Yuuri's heart made a strange vow, tentative wish to skate one day on the same ice as Viktor Nikiforov.
"Yuuri?" he suddenly jumped up startled, hearing Yuuko's shouting. "Are you alright? Don't space out on me."
"Did you see him, Yuuko?" he asked, still enthralled. "Did you see him dance on the ice?"
"Yeah," Yuuko nodded. "He was good. Wish I could jump so high. You, on the other hand, definitely can pull all of those moves."
Yuuri, nodded, but there was a sadness in his eyes, because he knew that Yuuko was just being supportive. She didn't really mean it. He wished he could be that good, he wished he could have been so free and easy on ice when people watched him. But his anxiety was there, like a villain, enslaving his confidence and high spirits.
He didn't feel any better a month later at his first competition. His shoulder's were tense, his heart was beating fast. He was begging to all possible deities that he could perform whatever he had trained and arranged. Minako was there, standing by his side, giving him a lecture supposedly to encourage. His father and mother were there, waving at him, while his father had dragged up his enormous old fashioned camera to shoot Yuuri's performance. As if they didn't have enough embarrassing material on him already stored in the family photo albums.
Mari was smiling too. Yuuri breathed harder. Air wasn't enough suddenly. it wasn't enough and he was going to faint. He was going to fail and they all were there to witness his failure.
He watched the performances of the others and his heart beat faster, hammering inside her chest. His knees trembled and he wondered if it was a good idea to come and compete at all. He had caught up in all the praise he had received, thinking he could actually be here on the same ice with actual skaters, while he was just an impostor, an amateur pretending to be a skater.
"You are going to do well, Yuuri," Minako said, tapping on his shoulder.
Yuuri panicked even more, hearing those words. He was going to embarrass himself and everyone else who had believed in him.
"The next skater is Katsuki Yuuri with his short program Waltz of the Flowers to the composition of the same name."
The audience clapped as Yuuri stepped hesitantly on the ice. A steady, static noise filled his ears as he skated to the center of the rink. His legs were shaking. He looked at his family apologetically. Mari was holding a 'You can do this, Yuuri' poster in her hands, waving it in the air as if it was a flag.
The notes of the music filled the rink and Yuuri's hands moved above his head, gently delicately, as he skated around in a slow swirl. He was getting ready for his first spin. Lifting his leg up, Yuuri felt like he was going to let go of his boots and fell down on his face. He was also worried that he was going to cut his fingers into shreds during the spin. Biellman position was generally hard and required a lot of flexibility. People looking at Yuuri's slightly chubby form gasped as the boy delicately curved his body, his blades above his head as he span around beautifully, like a flower coming to life in early spring when the snow melts.
The music melted around Yuuri's body and Yuuri melted into it. The two complimented each other and there was nothing more natural and flowing than those tender movements on the ice. There was a loud applause when Yuuri performed his step sequence he had worked so hard to perfect over the month, as he kept thinking about the skater with the angelic face who had eaten his heart.
Yuuri's heart suddenly was set free and he soared, gliding over the ice beautifully. The crowd cheered, he could hear the audience clapping in awe.
Yuuri was doing so good and he couldn't help but feel so free, so happy. And just like that, he was getting ready for the most important jump, adding speed to his skating, preparing for the perfect momentum when he felt something deep inside his gut snap. He felt that anxious bubble burst as if he was met with an immediate threat. He wrinkled his face even though his skating continued to accelerate. He had that feeling one gets when they feel like something bad was about to happen. But everything was perfect, Yuuri was doing perfect. He wasn't bleeding on the floor like he was about to breathe his last breath.
He was soaring like a graceful swan, waltzing on the ice like it was the place he was meant to be. The shreds of ice peeled off and splashed away under the sharp blades of his boots and Yuuri's heart throbbed faster. It was as if for a moment his heart and his skating beat to the same rhythm.
His hands became clammy, his vision turned blurry and Yuuri jumped up, as the world went dark before his eyes.
The cheering audience went silent as the boy fell down and started to convulse on the ice.
"Yuuri!"
"Oh, my god, Yuuri," someone shook his body, but he couldn't really feel anything other than pain and pain and like he was about to die or go insane.
"Minako-san," it was a man's voice. "Please calm down."
Someone pried away his eyelids and he could swear he felt a strange sensation against his eyeballs.
"Can you hear me, Yuuri?" Yuuri could hear distantly, but couldn't move to respond. He felt weak. It was as if life was being sucked out of him.
"He doesn't seem to have a major injury," the man spoke. "He will be alright. Perhaps, it's the shock and the stress of a performance in front of an audience after all he is a young boy."
He felt how the medics moved his body onto the transport board. "Good thing he doesn't convulse anymore," the man said."I thought we were going to forced to give him a injection."
"What is going on with him?"
"It looks like a nervous breakdown. I would say, somatic binding if we all weren't here, looking at his performance and this sudden... blackout," the man answered. "But look at his eyes, his nerves are not responding. It's as if he is undergone a near apoptosis."
Yuuri remained immobile. He remained immobile for an entire week. Lying in a hospital bed, unable to move or utter a single word or see a single thing. It was terrifying. He could hear his mother's voice talking to him, he could hear Mari's and his father's voices. He could hear all, but he could not respond back. It was as if he had just died and his soul stayed behind to hear his family's grief.
It was only a week later that he managed to move his eyelids and stare at his mother's face. But... the colors didn't look as clean and bright anymore; everything was muted and dull. His mother cried for a good two hour, realizing he had finally come back to consciousness. Yuuri never told her that he was conscious the entire time. She would feel worse, and he didn't want to make her upset.
"Yu-chan," she hugged him tightly. "You gave us such a scare, baby. Let me call your father and Mari and Minako-sensei. She was so worried about you."
His family surrounded him with love and care and he realized he would have broke down without their love, because the world now looked grim and the food he once loved didn't have almost any taste. He somehow had damaged himself. But when days followed and Yuuri finally was discharged he realized that not tasting the delicious katshudon and not looking at the vibrant colours of onsen's ornaments were just slight disappointments, compared to what his body now was incapable to do. He could hardly stand on his own feet. He could hardly move. Being a dancer, a figure skater; it all was a lost dream.
And Yuuri cried, because he was weak and somehow the things that made him feel free and happy were taken away from him.
His family never gave up on him. They took him to all the doctors that would have them, but it was all futile, as none knew what happened to Yuuri, other than to be bewildered and suggest something outrageous like Yuuri was a nerve-bound soma.
Hopefully the story seems interesting. More things will be explained in the coming chapters and we will see Victor in the following chapter.