Detroit Metro Airport

It was well into the evening when Yūri landed in Detroit. Practice had probably ended hours ago at the club. So it didn't surprise her that much when she found Venus and Phichit waiting to meet her.

"Yūri!" Phichit pulled her into a hug as soon as she was close. "Oh thank goodness! It was a nightmare! I couldn't sleep for days!"

Yūri sweated nervously while Venus rolled her eyes behind Phichit's back. "I-I'm sorry?"

"Quit the melodrama, Phichit," Venus said. "You survived."

Once they picked up her luggage, a celebratory selfie later, they were on the way to Phichit's dorm. The Thai skater filled Yūri in on all the things that had happened since she left. "You said that Celestino considered counseling?" Yūri asked.

"Even if I was dating the creep, it'd never work," Venus said from the driver's seat.

"Then Giles tried to suck up to Venus to make her change her mind—"

"You can see how well that worked."

"Ciao Ciao's trying to find new partners, so now it's just you and me going to the World Championships," Phichit finished as Venus pulled up to the dorms. "See you in the morning, guys!"

"Good night, Phichit!" Yūri called after him.

The ride back to their apartment without Phichit to fill the empty space was awkward. Yūri didn't know what to say without making the situation uncomfortable. Actually, she knew what she wanted to talk about but didn't know how to put it into words.

"Thank you for the tickets," Yūri finally said. "I had fun in Korea."

"That's good," Venus replied without looking at her. Not that she could even if she wanted to. "I saw the posts on Instagram. The Shanghai Dragon was good to you?"

"He was." Yūri refrained from telling her about He Long's rare show of anger at the stone wall that guarded Deoksugung Palace, after she had asked if the superstition surrounding the road was true. Seeing the rage he just barely hid was enough to tell Yūri that something had happened on that road before.

Had he been angry with himself for walking along the wall with her in the first place? Or had he been angry at her for believing it?

"Did something happen?" Venus' voice pulled her out of her reverie, like she knew there was something on her mind.

"…I think we ran into Yi-Rang."

Venus' right hand curled and uncurled around the steering wheel. In the dark, Yūri couldn't see her face that well but she knew that Venus remembered her. "Think?"

"She didn't look like how I remembered her," she said.

"Plastic surgery, Yūri," Venus explained. "South Korea's the plastic surgery capital and she definitely got a face job after what happened. I'd bet money on it."

"I'm not sure if it was her," Yūri admitted. At least, she wasn't entirely confident in her guess anymore.

"Then what made you think it was?"

"Well…when I asked who she was, she said I didn't have to remember her."

"That's her," Venus said immediately. "That was definitely Tae. And after what she did, you do deserve better."

As much as Yūri wanted to disagree with her, she didn't feel she had the right to do so. Yūri herself had forgotten all about Yi-Rang until they met briefly in the park.

"What else did she do?"

"She said sorry, but I think it was because she thought she interrupted our date. "

Venus let out an angry huff. "That lying bitch. Why am I not surprised?

"She also said," Yūri added quietly, "that she was happy for me and that she wouldn't forgive He Long if he made me cry."

"Huh," Venus snorted in disbelief. "What gives that snobby little Barbie the right?"

"Are you still mad at her?"

"Yes." The answer came out in a sharp tone that left no room for argument. As unhealthy as it was to hold a grudge, Venus wasn't one to forget so easily. She could live a thousand lifetimes and never forgive the Korean in each one.

Truthfully...part of Yūri still hated Yi-Rang as well.

To avoid pressing the matter further, Yūri stared out her window as they began to pass through familiar streets. Just a few more minutes and they would be home, and Yūri would be training for the Worlds again with Phichit in the morning. Thankfully she hadn't gained too much weight in Seoul. Then again, sightseeing around the city with He Long had been a workout on its own.

"Venus?" Her friend's ears twitched, indicating that she was listening. "Has Celestino found new partners for either of you yet?"

"We're still in the middle of a season, Yūri," Venus said, turning into their neighborhood. "If there's a team that wants to quit, they're too proud to do it until the season's over."

Of course they were. Figure skaters were proud to a fault. Rarely were there figure skaters who casually announced that they wanted to stop in the middle of a season. The only reasons they ever would were if their bodies refused to go on or when they decided they finally had enough. And neither of those options were easy to accept.

Yūri knew all too well the tears that came with swallowing one's pride.

"But what if he can't find you a partner?" Yūri asked.

"Then I'll ask you."

Yūri looked at her friend in shock. "What?"

"I'm kidding! I can't make you to miss another two seasons just to wait for the ISU's approval." The car came to a stop, but Venus made no move to get out. "But I'm not giving up either. As long as I still want to skate, I'll keep going. Celestino found a partner for me even with my bad rep. If I have to switch to ice dancing to get a partner, so be it."

phichit+chu

[pic] Guess who's back? shanghai-long Congrats,
lucky bastard! #reunion #backfromworlds
#dtw #seoultodetroit #hopeyoubroughtgifts

The next day, Yūri fell back into her usual routine without too much trouble. Of course, she spent more time in the workout room and the dance studio with Venus and occasionally Phichit. Other than that, it felt like she had never left at all.

But there were some noticeable differences. One was that Celestino was gone. With two of Celestino's Junior skaters qualifying for the Junior World Championships, he had gone to accompany them. His senior skaters were left in the care of another club coach who made sure they didn't slack off during Celestino's absence.

That included the recently split pair skaters.

Pair skaters always trained with a partner, but Venus refused to have anything to do with Giles. The only other skaters at the rink that could help them train in a pair were ice dancers. With the search still on for a partner for each of them, the best the split pair could do was train with the ice dancers so that they wouldn't be too out of practice when their new partners were found.

Despite the temporary arrangement, the ice dancers couldn't afford to help the split pair skaters out for long. They were competing at the Worlds and needed to practice with each other, not with skaters from another discipline. So most of the time, Venus could be found skating by herself.

"Hello~Yūri."

The Japanese skater felt the words breathe onto her ear like an unexpected wind. She reflexively swung her arm against what must have been the owner of the voice, which then groaned in pain. Yūri looked behind herself, jolting in shock when she saw Giles lying on the ice and holding his stomach. "Giles?"

"What is your elbow made of?" he groaned, sitting up slowly.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't know it was you!" Yūri apologized frantically, hesitantly offering a hand to help him up. She didn't know how much her efforts would be appreciated.

Giles was about to take her hand when he was suddenly lifted up by the back of his shirt. "Don't be sorry, Yūri," Venus said, glaring at her ex-partner from the corner of her eye as she forced him back on his skates. "I'm sure Badcock had what was coming to him."

"But—" Before she knew it, Venus was already pushing her across the ice and away from her ex-partner. "What if he's hurt?" Yūri asked. She wasn't very fond of the guy but she felt guilty for hitting him accidentally.

Venus let out a short derisive bark. "Yūri, Titanic could crush him and that brain-dead douche wouldn't know it."

That wasn't the most flattering statement, but Yūri knew Venus hadn't meant it as a compliment. Any mention of Giles by Venus was never said without an insult in the same sentence.

"Hurry, Ciao Ciao's junior boy is going to be on soon!" Phichit called as Yūri stepped off the ice.

Once she removed her skates and stowed them away safely in her locker, Yūri joined her rink mates in the break room while the TV broadcasted the Junior World Championships. Due to the time difference, they had missed the short program for Junior ladies. Thankfully, Celestino's junior in the women's bracket had made it through.

"He's right after a Russian kid," Phichit explained, a smile suddenly creeping onto his face. "Get this: the Russian has the same name as you!"

"You mean—"

"Our next skater, representing Russia: Yuri Plisetsky!" The announcer on TV answered for her. The blond teen she had briefly met in Sochi made his entrance, embracing the applause from the crowd. He'd taken second after the short program but he didn't seem happy about his standing. If the expression on his face as he waited for his music was anything to go by, he was disgruntled. This was a skater who refused to settle for less than gold.

"He looks like an angry Oompa Loompa," Venus commented, getting a snort of laughter from Phichit in response.

Yūri could see his determination throughout his skating, from the triple toe loop with a raised arm to the announcer commenting on the jumps he didn't perform in the first half. Yuri was definitely loading the second half of his program with jumps just to beat Celestino's junior. But could his body handle the abuse he was going to take?

She didn't even know Yuri and she was already worried for him.

"Whoa!" The Detroit skaters yelled at the same time, with Yūri scrambling to sit up. The Russian Yuri had just executed a triple Axel, a loop, and a triple loop in combination, his arm raised on the loops. "The munchkin stole your combo!"

"He didn't steal it, Venus!" Yūri defended. "Everyone's bound to jump the same combo eventually!"

"I don't know, Yūri," Phichit suggested with a wide grin. "He might be a fan of yours."

"Phichit!" Yūri couldn't find a suitable counter to that. Jump combos weren't a monopoly. Every skater had performed the same combination jump of another skater in the past. Yūri had revealed her new jump combo just last month and now here was Yuri, adding a small detail to it to match his style.

That didn't make Yuri her fan, did it? Maybe his coach had found her jump combo and tried to push his students to learn it as well.

But hadn't Mila found her at the banquet in Sochi and dragged her over to Viktor and Yuri, insisting that she meet an admirer? Hadn't she introduced her to Yuri?

Why would Yuri admire her in the first place?

"Yuri Plisetsky!" Yūri snapped out of her reverie to see that the program was over and the Russian Yuri was waving and bowing to the crowd. The look on his face was one of pride. There was one competitor left and Yuri looked so sure that he had already won.

His coach, Yakov Feltsman, didn't look as pleased. Yūri didn't know why he was so upset, seeing as he was speaking to Yuri in Russian with a scowl on his face. Maybe he was scolding Yuri for backloading the second half of the program.

The lecture didn't last for long as the announcer called out Yuri's score, putting him in first place.

Phichit Chulanont

Yuri Katsuki won the 4CC with a 3A+1Lo+3Lo combo. Yuri Plisetsky won the Junior Worlds with a 3A+1Lo+3Lo combo. #coincidence? #ithinknot #confirmedfanboy #twoyuris

{Omg! They have the same jump combo!}

{Does this mean Yuri's a fan of Yuri?}

{Which Yuri?}

{If they get married, they'll both be Yuri Plisetsky}

{All right, hold up people! First, figure skaters get inspiration from one another all the time without having to be fans 1/3}

{Yuri probably saw the jump combo and wanted to try it for himself. That doesn't make him a fanboy! 2/3}

{And two, Yuri Katsuki is eight years older than Yuri Plisetsky! And she has a boyfriend who she CLEARLY loves! 3/3}

Yuri Plisetsky

phichit_chu Let me polish my knife shoes.

Phichit Chulanont

yuri_plisetsky Denial's not just a river in Egypt...

Yūri woke up to her phone going off like crazy.

Her first action was to check her phone and lie in bed as she browsed through social media. Yūri had been tagged numerous times, causing her to sit up and scream when she found the reason for it.

Who cared if Phichit was a boy and bigger than her? She was going to strangle him! (Maybe Venus was starting to rub off on her because Yūri didn't have violent thoughts until now.)

Her social media-savvy friend had made a post comparing her and the Russian Yuri after the teen's victory, emphasizing their near identical combination jump. Now the world was going crazy over #twoyuris!

"Yūri!" Yūri jolted in her bed as Venus rushed into her room with her own phone, jumping onto the mattress with a video of the Junior World Championships already pulled up. "You're not going to believe this."

"Celestino's junior—?" Venus shushed her harshly as Celestino's junior girl began her free skate. Why was Venus so worked up? Had the junior landed a quad, just like her parents wanted of her? The announcer had commented on the junior's ambition, stemming from the fact that there was supposed to be a quad later on.

That was probably why. Venus must have been angry that a bunch of stuck-up parents had gotten their way.

Yūri knew the takeoff edge for the toe loop. She counted four rotations, confirming that the junior had learned the quad her parents had angrily fought for. She never expected the crash landing that followed.

Venus winced while Yūri gasped when Celestino's junior girl fell, one of her feet laid out at an unnatural angle. What broke Yūri's heart was seeing the girl trying so hard to get up, only to fall as soon as she was on her feet.

The music stopped as the junior girl began to cry in pain. Yūri spotted Celestino among the first responders, trying to calm one of his youngest students as she was lifted onto a stretcher.

"Her parents must be proud," Venus said coldly as the audience clapped awkwardly, unable to do more to comfort the wailing junior as she was carried off the ice. "Those smug asshats are probably patting themselves on the back right now."

Yūri wanted to scold her. One of their younger rink mates had just been injured, probably beyond repair with no hope of returning to the ice and Venus was shaming the parents? How could she be so callous?!

Yet as the final results for the World Junior Ladies' free skate came in, with Celestino's junior forcibly withdrawn, Yūri wondered if the parents thought the quad attempt was worth the injury.

{[link] Seriously guys, this literally broke me heart}

{She was never going to make it. The second she jumped, I knew she wasn't going to land it.}

{Does anyone know what happened? It looked like she twisted her ankle}

{I swear I heard her foot crack when she crashed}

{How could her coach let this happen? He's such a horrible man!}

{He probably thought with Katsuki's almost quad, he could get a younger girl to do a fully rotated quad}

{This is why girls can't do quads}

{Celestino is so abusive!}

Venus Jones

Since you're so desperate to blame
someone, blame her stage parents.
They broke her ankle before the Worlds began.

The expression on Venus' face was one with little remorse as she answered Celestino's phone call during practice. "Y'ello?"

Yūri had no idea what Celestino was saying on the other end, but it sounded he wasn't happy with something Venus did. "So what if I made that tweet? I wasn't lying."

There was a reason Yūri wasn't as vocal on social media as Phichit, Venus, or any of the other skaters. She was always afraid of saying something that would result in a scandal with no way to repair what was destroyed. Yūri didn't know how others managed to shake off the scandal and carry on with their lives.

She had always wondered how Venus did it.

"And I'm supposed to be worried about that?" Venus snapped into her phone, unimpressed by whatever Celestino had said. "I don't care if her parents are mad that a bunch of my followers sicced CPS on them."

This time, Yūri could hear something that sounded suspiciously like, "I'm getting a manager for you!" from the phone.

"I don't need one, Celestino. I've done perfectly well on my own."

Whatever Celestino said on the other end made Venus' eyebrows rise while her eyes narrowed coldly. "Tae Yi-Rang got what she and her coach deserved!" She hung up abruptly on Celestino.

A sigh came from Yūri's side, causing her to jump when she found Giles next to her. "And this is why guys are too scared of you," he said with an air of mock sadness.

Venus scoffed at her ex-partner with a sneer. "Well, it's a good thing I never had time for men."

Somewhere behind her, Yūri could hear Phichit choking on something. Her head turned in his direction, ignoring Giles' cry of pain—Yūri briefly wondered if Venus had thrown something at him—as she rushed over to pat Phichit's back. "You okay?"

Phichit nodded weakly, gripping his water bottle as he sputtered and hacked. Yūri guessed that he had swallowed water too quickly. "I-I'm fine," he rasped. Once he could breathe without aggravating his lungs, Phichit drank some water while regarding Venus with wide eyes.

With one last look at the ex-partners to make sure they weren't fighting, Yūri stepped out onto the ice. The World Championships was just a week away. If she was going to make it onto the podium, Yūri needed all the time she had left.

Yūri would be lying to herself if she said that she would be happy with only a spot on the podium. Sure, she would be satisfied—but it wouldn't be enough. She wanted the world title, to be crowned the world champion and stand as tall as He Long now and Kim Yuna and Mao Asada in the past…

…and…and even Viktor.

But could she really get up there? This was her very first World Championships in the senior division. Even though she had met the minimum technical score to qualify for Worlds last season, the JSF had assigned her only to the Four Continents after Nationals. And who could blame them? She was a late bloomer. Everyone knew that. Could she really make it onto the podium?

Could she really win the world title?

"Yūri!" A hand fell on her shoulder, making Yūri jolt at the unexpected action. She spun around, taking a step back when she saw Giles before her.

"Hi, Giles." Yūri removed the hand on her shoulder as politely as she could and tried to go back to skating. Unfortunately, Giles only followed her and tried to get her to look at him again.

"Aw, don't be like that, Yūri. I just wanna talk to you."

"You should be training."

"But I don't have a partner."

Yūri felt extremely tempted to snap that it was his own fault he didn't have a partner to skate with anymore. But she didn't have the heart to be that cold to anyone, so she said, "Then practice by yourself."

"But I want to skate with you!" Giles skated in front of her to block her, skating forward while Yūri skidded to a halt to avoid colliding with him.

"I'm not even skating in pairs!" she protested.

"But you did ice dancing!" He skated towards her, wrapping an arm around her to pull her closer. "Come on! It'll be just like skating with the snob from Shanghai!"

Uncomfortable and annoyed, Yūri used the palm of her hands to shove Giles away from her. The male pair skater stumbled back but remained standing. "What the hell?!"

"At least when I skated with He Long," Yūri said coolly, dusting off the front of her clothes, "he actually had motivation." Even if said motivation was an unwillingness to lose a bet. "But you? You're lazy, selfish, and you never listen to a thing that anyone says."

"I'm not the villain here!" Giles argued. "It's Venus' fault that I—!"

"Maybe if somebody finally stopped skating like a novice because Venus deserves better than a dime-a-dozen asshole like you!" Yūri snapped.

With deafening silence as the response, Yūri glided away from him. She felt like an iceberg: invincible and magnificent. Once she was off the ice, she shoved her skate guards on and marched past her rink mates without a second glance.

When she was alone in the locker room, the gravity of the situation dawned on her and guilt crashed down all at once. Yūri promptly dropped onto a bench and held her face. "Oh no..."

Had she really just gone off on one of her rink mates? In front of everyone else in the club?

What did they think of her now?

They probably thought she was a bully. (The actual word she was looking for was something else entirely, but Yūri didn't want to swear anymore than she already had.)

"Yūri?" She perked up when she heard Venus behind her but made no move to look at her. "Are you okay, girl?"

"Venus…" Yūri gulped. "I messed up."

"No you didn't."

"Yes I did."

"Trust me, you're fine."

"I shouldn't have done that."

"Yeah, you should have chucked your blade guards at him."

"He's just so rude and has his head shoved in the ground and can't even take a hint and I just—I just blew up!"

"Hey, he had it coming for a long time," Venus said nonchalantly.

"I should really go back and apologize."

"You don't have to."

"And that's the problem!" Yūri cried. She wasn't guilty about the fact that she had yelled at a rink mate. What disturbed her was how much she had enjoyed it. "I don't want to apologize! I mean he's annoying and inconsiderate and that's the first time I ever blew up at him so I really should—!"

"We lost our heads with each other practically everyday. Did I ever apologize to him?" Venus pointed out.

No, she didn't. In fact, she never did. When they were still partners, Yūri had assumed that Venus was too proud to admit any faults on her part and apologize first. Every fight between the two was left unresolved but they somehow managed to skate the next day, as if the fight never happened. But now…how much of their problems had always been Giles' fault? "How did you even put up with him in the first place?"

"It's called a contract, sweetie."

"Yours expired!" Yūri's head shot up, the back of it hitting something hard. It turned out to be Venus' head as the two women held their heads where they had collided. "Sorry…" Yūri hadn't even noticed Venus sitting down on the opposite side.

She had forgotten all about the contract that Venus had signed two years ago after her suspension had been lifted. The contract that bound her to Giles until it was time for it to be renewed. Thinking back to the time Giles became a permanent resident at the Detroit Skating Club, it would have expired in February. And Venus announced her plans to Yūri just before the end of the month.

"Pair skating is exciting and all, but I didn't try it for the thrill of it." Venus' voice pulled Yūri out of her reverie, making Yūri feel guilty for tuning out her friend. "I thought I'd finally get somewhere in pairs that I never did in singles. Turns out I was wrong."

Yūri turned to look at her. "You're not—you're not leaving pairs, are you?"

"I am."

"Tell me you're not retiring!"

"What?!" Venus leaned back from her side of the bench until she met Yūri's eyes, her body angled in a reclining position. "Hell no! I'm still young!"

"Then—" If Venus was quitting pair skating, then ice dancing was out of the question. So that meant…that meant… "You're coming back?"

Venus nodded. "I'll be at a disadvantage, especially with that suspension on my name. But the thing is..." She stood up and Yūri had to twist around on the bench to look at her. "I can't depend on a man to get me to the gold anymore."

Something went wrong.

What went wrong?

What happened?

During the time Venus and Yūri had spent in the locker room, Phichit had been practicing a quad. Celestino said he'd gotten it a few times, but his last attempt resulted in a crash landing that injured his ankle. Now he was in the club physician's office while the skaters waited outside, waiting for the verdict.

Please let Phichit be okay.

He had to be okay. In just a few days, they were going to fly out together for Worlds. With Phichit only knowing a few basic words and phrases in Japanese, Yūri had promised to show him around. Phichit had jokingly promised to get Viktor's autograph for her.

Yūri felt a pair of arms wrap themselves around her. She pushed at the arms, but they only tightened their hold. It felt like she was being suffocated. The more she struggled, the more they held fast to her. Frustrated, Yūri dug her nails into an arm until it pulled back in reaction and she pushed whoever it was away from her.

Yūri narrowed her eyes at Giles, who now lay on the floor where she had pushed him. He rubbed at the marks her nails had left on his skin. "I was just trying to help!"

"Don't ever touch me again." The words came out in an icy hiss, making the idiotic pair skater flinch. Finally, he had the brains to be scared. Then Yūri realized that the words had come from her.

Maybe if it had been any other time, she would have apologized. But when the physician allowed them to see Phichit, Yūri rushed in without a glance back. "Phichit?"

The Thai skater looked up, his ankle strapped by a plastic cast. "Hi, Yūri," he greeted with a sad smile.

Yūri was afraid to ask, but she knew she wouldn't rest until she knew what happened. "How bad is it?"

Phichit looked down at his strapped ankle, close to tears. "They said it was a sprain. I'm lucky that I didn't tear anything, but...I can't skate for a week."

"A week?" But that meant—

"A week," Phichit repeated, as though he could hear her thoughts. "I have to miss the Worlds." He looked up, doing a double take when he saw her. "Yūri…please don't cry."

"I'm not!" She was trying not to. No tears had fallen, but they threatened to spill from her eyes. Yūri thought that with Phichit, at least there would be one competitor she knew and could talk with.

With Phichit out of the running, she would be alone in Japan.