CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
The final night of Four Continents had arrived faster than Yuri had wished. His second late night in a row had ended sometime around 3am, and he still wasn't sure if he was ready. Thankfully, the Men's Free Skate wasn't until 11am, and he was late on the roster, so he wouldn't take the ice until sometime closer to 3:45pm.
He felt more nervous for the Exhibition Gala after that though, at 5:30pm.
In true Nikiforov fashion, Yuri slept until it was practically his turn to go skate. Viktor gently woke him up, and they proceeded to get ready and head over to the skating arena.
They took with them all of the things they'd need for Yuri's Free Skate...and the rest.
He felt eerily calm. His skin felt cool despite his layers. He thought he could see more clearly than normal, even without his glasses. Colors seemed more vibrant, even sounds were richer, tastes more sensual.
He looked up from where he sat in the staging area, "Am I dying...?"
Viktor gawked at him, "...Are you what?"
The skater shook his head and looked back down again, "I read once that people who are consciously aware of the moment of their own death, will experience the world around them so much more intensely than they ever did before that moment. I kind of feel like that's happening to me right now."
"You'd better not be dying." Viktor pointed at him, "You haven't skated yet. We haven't skated yet!"
"I've never felt like this before." Yuri said quietly, moving off the bench to sit on the floor and stretch. He spread his legs far apart and moved to reach as close to the left foot as he could. Viktor crouched behind him and helped push him down, just like Takeshi once did in Hasetsu. "I think I'm too calm."
"This is good!" Viktor encouraged, "Go onto the ice with a clear mind."
Yuri agreed to try, finishing his stretch and then getting back up again. It was about 3:23pm by then, and he decided it was time to get his skates on.
When the laces were done, and he'd pulled the bottom of his costume pants over the heels, he paused...seeing Viktor kneeling in front of him unexpectedly, "What's wrong?"
He put his arms on the bench on either side of Yuri's legs, and brought those azure eyes up to meet Yuri's, "It's almost time."
"...Yeah."
"Do you think it's strange that I'm probably more nervous than you are?"
Yuri tilted his head a little, but then smiled, bringing his hands together under Viktor's chin to toy at the knot of his tie affectionately, "Be nervous for me so I don't have to be."
Viktor nodded, and rose to stand, pulling Yuri up with him before heading over to the viewing area. Most other skaters had already had their turns and were just waiting to see what their final ranks would be.
Phichit's Free Skate score was 192.45, earning him a final score of 289.37, similar to his GPF final score. He was happy, but disappointed at the same time.
JJ managed a reasonable 214.89 with his own Free Skate, just under-shaving Viktor's old record, and bringing his total to 317.42. He was much happier with that score than he'd been with his just-barely-300 at the GPF.
According to the ranks, JJ was sitting on the gold medal at that point.
When Otabek finished his program, JJ still held on, with the Kazakhstani skater holding firmly to silver. An American skater held bronze for the moment.
Viktor felt a vibration in his pocket, and pulled out his phone to see a FaceTime request from Yurio. Tilting his head, but smiling, he accepted the call and saw the blond on the other end of the camera, "Hey."
Yuri was practicing a few moves from his step sequence in an adjacent hall when his coach rounded over to interrupt him and hand him his phone without a word. Getting a weird look on his face, Yuri glanced from him to the blue device being held out to him, screen down, and grasped it close. When he flipped it over and saw Yurio there looking back at him, the Japanese skater got excited.
"Yurio! Hey!"
"Davai, Katsudon." The blond said simply, his face as still as stone. To Yuri's surprise though, his Russian counterpart gave a thumb's up, "Give us all the show we want to see."
"Don't look away, or you might miss something." Yuri said eagerly, hoping Yurio would catch the subtle challenge.
The Russian Punk turned his head slightly, but then cocked a smirk and closed the conversation. It told Yuri all he needed to know, and he happily gave the phone back to his fiancé. At least...he meant to.
Viktor held the top of the phone with his fingers as Yuri kept holding onto the bottom with both hands. He was looking down at the phone, and then abruptly changed the position of his feet. Still holding to the phone, Yuri set his right foot behind the left, and then looked up into the eyes of his taller coach...then let go of the phone as he descended to the left with his right hand up near his head. He spun around, and then reached his fingers out to touch the side of Viktor's face before turning away again. Another spin, and Yuri was down on one knee, then rising again to throw his hands up and out to the left above his shoulders.
Viktor suddenly realized what Yuri was doing, and backed off to give him more space, watching gladly, even as Yuri only half-spun around for what would later be two quad flips. Viktor then joined in the dance as Yuri held out his hand to bring him in, and they continued with their Duetto right there in the staging area.
At least, until JJ sauntered through, a trail of skating reporters following him as he did a walking interview. He spotted the duo and immediately chortled at them, "Aren't you practicing the wrong program, Yuri?"
The Japanese skater paused, and Viktor sadly did as well, but Yuri put his hand on his coach's arm gently and looked at the Canadian square in the eyes, "You were looking at the last program I do before I leave this place with the gold."
The reporters were all excited about that challenge, and looked to JJ for his response, but in his usual cocky manner, the Canadian brought his hands up to form his own initials, "Good luck in the attempt. You'll have to break Viktor's record a second time in a row to catch up to me. Considering how quickly you crash and burn..."
"I'm not the same skater I was in Sochi." Yuri cut him off, "And considering how hard you crashed and burned in Barcelona, you're the last person I'd expect to be giving me grief about that sort of thing."
JJ shrugged, "I still made the podium at that event. That's more than you did."
He started walking off again, the crowd of reporters following after to continue haranguing the man over how he felt following his flawless Free Skate.
Yuri just bitterly watched him go, the high of his euphoria long gone. He felt Viktor snaking an arm around him though, pulling him close and leaning over, slate blue eyes staring deep into him.
"...Crush him."
The younger man was a bit thrown off by the vulgarity of Viktor's request.
"I want to see the light leave his eyes when he watches you take center stage. I want him to know that as long as either of us has skates to wear, he will never touch a gold medal from a major ISU event. Winning at Skate America or the NHK Cup will never mean anything so much as winning here, or at Worlds, or even the Grand Prix Final." Viktor continued, soon reaching up with his free hand to trace a line over Yuri's heart, "The FC gold medal will be sitting right here in an hour."
"...No pressure..."
"There's nothing beautiful about JJ's attitude." Viktor explained, "He doesn't know how to be humble. It disgusts me." He moved the free hand from Yuri's chest to his chin, stroking his lower lip with his fingertips, "And since I can't compete here...I'm counting on you to be my proxy. So...Yuri. Go out there and show him what a real champion looks like. You want to do that, don't you?"
The raven-haired skater nodded, and pulled himself upright by yanking on Viktor's tie, pulling close to his face, "I do."
They heard the cheers of the previous skater's show concluding, and smiled at one another.
"It's time."
.
.
.
Yuri held to Viktor's shoulder as he leaned over to pull the rubber guards from his blades, and then handed them to his coach so he could get his track coat off. He could feel the energy in the stadium, and it filled him with excitement.
Viktor looked at a list of the current top scores, and showed them to Yuri despite his better judgment. He felt the skater could handle it this time.
"You scored higher than all of these people at the GPF. 319.41, remember?"
"I'll have it on my tombstone," He said, "Next to yours, with your full head of perfect hair."
Viktor smiled and tossed his head a little to wave that very hair around, letting it fall to conceal one eye, "All you have to do is exactly the same as you did at the Grand Prix Final, and you'll still score higher than before. You've been boosted a lot by your Short Program...so don't take any risks if you don't 100% think you can pull it off."
"Next to take the ice...representing Japan, Katsuki Yuri." The announcer said overhead.
He took a deep breath and stepped through the gateway, feeling his blades slide on the ice beneath him. He turned back around to face Viktor one last time, but found that there wasn't really a lot to say. Viktor held his hands with his own, bringing them together to clasp them between them, kissing Yuri's fingers gently.
The skater watched as it happened, and looked up at his face when Viktor pulled away again. Unable to help himself, he propped himself up by his elbows on the rink wall and kissed him lightly. Viktor smiled through it, and brought up his right hand to deftly, barely touch his fiancé's jaw. After that, Yuri was off without a word, heading for the center of the rink with the roar of the audience propelling him forward.
He took his position, and took one last deep breath. Soon, it would be over and done.
The sound of the piano rose into the air, and the audience quieted.
The soft scratch of blades whispered beneath him as he started to move.
On the ice, he felt like he was home.
"Katsuki Yuri is opening his program with two consecutive quads again...the first one is coming up...a combination. Quadruple toe-loop...dou-...no, triple toe-loop!" The programming announcer was saying, surprised.
Not that Yuri could hear what was being said while he was skating, but he could feel the excitement. He had already increased the difficulty of his program and he'd barely even started.
"Quadruple Salchow! Beautiful! Followed by a triple-flip! AND HE HAD BOTH OF HIS HANDS IN THE AIR!"
Yuri felt a wobble as he landed, but recovered from it without anyone noticing, and skated on.
The calmest part of his Free Skate came up. He slid forward on the ice for what seemed like forever, twisting only when it was time to complete the wide outside spread-eagle, following into a flawless Ina Bauer.
Viktor had one hand over his mouth as he held onto the poodle-plush tissue box. The whole display was like déjà vu. Yuri was going to put it all out there and go for the highest possible score with his current skill, and as it stood, it was even more difficult than his own last Free Skate.
The skater rounded back, and threw himself into the air, one arm over his head as he completed the triple axel. The crowd screamed its approval. They were even louder when he finished the quadruple toe-loop after that. He didn't dare raise an arm for that one though.
.
"I think the triple is all I'll manage this time." Yuri had said, breathlessly slouching on the practice rink's wall at the end of their experiment the night before.
Viktor scraped ice shavings from his gold-plated blades, "Even a single with an arm in the air gets a higher score than one without. But are you sure you want to do this? You don't need all this extra stuff to win."
"It's not about winning anymore..." Yuri answered, stretching his arms before rubbing one shoulder, "It's about seeing how far I can push myself while I still have this chance." He looked at Viktor and put his hands over the man's hips, "I may never score this high again. Either because of nerves when you start competing again, or because I myself will start to wear down...this is it."
.
"Triple Lutz...triple toe-loop...! Very clean!" The announcers continued.
.
"I don't want you to think you're not allowed to try your hardest just because I'm on the roster alongside you." Viktor scolded, resting his arms over Yuri's shoulders in turn, "You've more than proven that you're my equal. Don't short-change yourself so much."
"I'll never be your equal, Viktor." The younger skater insisted, smiling up at him, "You've been my hero for more than half my life. I'll always look up to you. So...don't ever stop trying to surprise me, okay?"
.
"He's going to try for his coach's signature move again, the quad flip!"
Excitement rang high as Yuri entered the final loop before leaping into the jump.
Shards of ice flew off his blades, and the world spun around him. He felt the ground come back up at him, landing on the opposite foot from the one he jumped off from, and the wind blow by as he moved backwards, away from the final quad of his Free Skate.
It was over.
He'd landed all his jumps. He didn't slip, fall, or touch the ice with his hands...nothing went wrong.
The crowd was already cheering as he entered into the final spin series, then rising up calmly to put his right hand over his heart, and extend the left out towards the man for whom that heart beat.
Yuri was panting from exhaustion, but instead of a bewildered, tired look as he'd normally given, he had a smile on his face. He was proud of the show he'd just finished. The score...almost didn't even matter to him at that point. He raised both his arms to the audience and bowed, clasping his hands together in gratitude before finally pushing off with his toe to head for the rink exit.
Yurio watched the event intently from his grandfather's house, his fluffy cat snoozing next to him.
Viktor took Yuri's hands as he came off the ice and hugged him, patting him on the back as he pulled the skater towards the bench in the kiss and cry.
Yuri felt as calm at that moment as he had when he'd been waiting in the staging area. He couldn't understand how it was possible. Sitting on that hot-seat had always been so terrifying before, yet now...
As they sat, Yuri slouched against Viktor's left arm, holding it to his chest as Viktor clasped their hands, lacing their fingers together. He was beaming at his pupil, and moved his free hand to push a strand of hair from Yuri's eyes as they both heard the voice on the overhead speaker echoing through the stadium.
"The score for Katsuki Yuri..."