I wasn't born in the winter

But as a baby I loved it

For all of ten seconds

As a newborn child I wailed whenever I came into contact with the cold wight stuff falling from the sky

I hated it

My mother simply bundled me up more and tried again

But try as she might she could not get me to like the snow

A few years passed much in the same until I met Minako

Her studio was always warm and dancing,

Working hard

Only made me warmer

I loved ballet in a way I had never loved anything before

It made me so happy and I spent hours upon hours there

Learning

Practicing

Honing my skills,

In the winter I practically lived there

Loving the warmth of ballet

Then one day she announced that I would be competing

I only had a couple months to prepare and I made the most of it

Spending every spare second in that studio

I was so excited,

I knew I was really good and I hoped I could win

But the day came

A nice warm summer day

I walked on to the mat took my starting position and turned to view the crowd

Then the cold crepted in.

It enveloped me

Seeping through my soul and making my heart throb painfully

Sliding across my skin

Freezing my lungs solid so I couldn't Breath

I couldn't breath!

No matter how much I gasped for air,

My lungs just wouldn't fill

And when I finally began to warm back up I found myself surrounded by people

Staring

Judging

Pitying

Ice

Never having left my starting position.

A few months later I began ice skating

I still hated the cold for a long while I hated every second I spent on the ice

But still awarded it equal time and energy as I did ballet.

I guess it was my own childish version of self harm

The first disgusting taste

I was ashamed of how I let the ice win that day, so I skated

I was ashamed that I couldn't talk in class, so I skated

I was ashamed that I couldn't stop those bully's from beating me up and calling me names

So I skated.

And skated

And skated

At some point

Without me ever realizing it I began to love the sting of cold

I began to crave the scraping slide of my skates over the ice.

Dream of the whoosh in my ear as I spun faster and faster

Even the crashes, the slide the wipe-outs felt like I was finally breathing

I had found my second love

It seemed only fitting that together they would bring me to my soulmate

The first time I saw him skate I thought I was dreaming

The way he skated drew my eye

The way he moved caught my attention

The pure emotion his body conveyed

The story he told in a language I understood more thoroughly then even Japanese

Enraptured my heart

I swore I would skate on the same ice as him one day

And I was right

But at the same time I was oh so wrong.

My pathetic excuse of figure skating

Was a disgrace to the ice and to him

But more importantly It was a disgrace to myself

I am better than that but the cold froze my joints

And spilled ice water into my blood

Pumping cold through my veins.

I don't know what happened that night

but I know that I woke up warm

despite my state of undress.

My cheeks burned with knowing at last night's shockingly apparent activities

I was so ashamed of myself

I don't even know who it was

But whatever happened

I know it felt good

Warm

It didn't take long for the cold to sink back in

I returned to Detroit and rushed through the end of my degree

and, apparently, the end of my career.

I crashed and burned

And it wasn't even warm

Just cold

So I returned home to the warmth of Hasetsu

To Yutopia

And her hot springs

To Miniko and the ballet studio

But even though I was home in the warmth

I still felt a shard of cold ice

Stuck in my gut

Then He arrived

Victor

Victor Nikiforov

The indisputable king of ice

And He beckoned me

Into his warm smile

And warm arms

He brought me up

Pulling me off the freezing ground of rock bottom

And placed me back on the skates I had forsaken

Everything with Victor was warm

No not warm

HOT

A burning inferno of passion and surprise

For someone who was so used to the cold

Victor burned

It scared me

It scared me how much it burned

It scared me even more how much I loved it

Victor made even the cold of the ice warm

He turned the stinging of cold to that of fireworks

He turned the icy shard of regret to excitement

Victor was like my own personal ray of sunshine

Playful

Shining

And warm

Then Yurio came

I could feel the ice seeping it out of its refuge

Spreading back through my body

I was freezing again

From the inside out

Just like all those times before

I almost welcomed it

But then I thought of Victor

My shining ray of sunshine

And something new happened

.

.

.

I fought back

I would give Victor all the warmth and heat he had given me

I would convince him to stay

And I did

From there life went on

I reveled in the heat of Victor

It pushed me to go higher and further

Work better and harder

To turn my head and see the world in a brand new light

Eventually I realized I was in love with Victor

Not with Victor Nikiforov the king of the ice

But with Victor

My ray of sun

In love with all his playfulness

And passion

And heat

It scared me

It scared me so much that I almost let the ice have me all over again

But Victor's light left no room for ice.

And eventually I began to hope that Victor might love me too

At the cup of China

Everything clicked

It was like I knew all along

All so clear

All so obvious

And all so very mine in a way no one had been before

And his lips

His arms

His body

A perfect searing heat against his frozen skin

It was like the sun was finally rising on my life

And it took the form of love

My own personal sun to bring light to all parts of my soul

Victor is my sun

My love

My warmth

And well...

I don't like the cold