February 2011
Detroit it was then.
Yuuri couldn't quite believe it, or much else really in the past couple of weeks.
It had started with an argument with his coach after he'd asked for more of her time over the summer months. She'd responded that it wouldn't be possible as she'd signed up with an ice show over the summer. Yuuri got angry. He was wanting to get to the top level and here was his coach abandoning him during a crucial time. It was bad enough he had to share her with another two skaters, and even worse that she was making her way to Hasetsu less and less often, meaning Yuuri had to go and train in Fukuoka while also trying to get into university.
Yuuri had managed, somehow, to get into KA Academy University in Fukuoka, even being accepted earlier than he'd expected. But now his coach was upping sticks, and there seemed to be no-one else in Saga or Fukuoka who could help him. They either already had students, or were unwilling to spend time coaching someone who was also at university.
It was a dilemma, and he'd really needed Yuuko's help, but that was in short supply these days. She was distracted by something, and Yuuri didn't know what. Eventually, in a fit of desperation he'd asked the university what his chances were of being accepted onto a student exchange program. After discussing his situation the university agreed to the request. And so, after asking some vague questions on the forums (Who coaches such-and-such in Paris? Who coaches whatsisface in New York? What's the skate club in Detroit like?), Yuuri found himself getting in touch with Celestino Cialdini. Celestino reviewed some of Yuuri's earlier routines and seemed pretty eager to add him to his coaching roster. Celestino was based at a rink only five minutes walk from where Yuuri would be attending college at Detroit Mercy if he was accepted onto that exchange program, and although he wouldn't have Celestino all to himself, he was attached to a skate club and that meant there were other coaches and trainers he'd have access to.
Detroit Mercy and KA Academy University quickly advised Yuuri he'd been accepted, and suddenly his choice to move to America became very real indeed. His parents agreed to support him, and the university agreed to arrange his accommodation. Minako-sensei got a bit weepy-eyed but promised to visit him and told him how proud she was of his accomplishments so far.
However, when he'd broken the news to Yuu-chan, she hadn't take it well, crying her eyes out and physically shoving him away. Her response shocked him, but he left her alone. His decision seemed to have really upset her, even though they barely saw each other these days.
It wasn't until a couple of days later when she'd turned up at Yu-topia Katsuki that he figured it out.
She'd sent him a text that she was coming over, so he tried to pretend everything was normal, looking out notes on some of the stuff he'd been readying for the next season. Yuuko had a good eye, so he usually tried to get her opinion on costumes and finishing poses.
But as she slid open the door to his room, he'd seen the look on her face, put his skating stuff away, and had sat and listened to his oldest friend as she told Yuuri she was pregnant.
It wasn't planned. She wasn't currently in a relationship with the father, but she did love him. She was keeping the babies (plural!). And she was quitting her degree to become a full-time mother. Her due date was two weeks before Yuuri would leave for Detroit.
Nishigori was the father.
As Yuuko talked, Yuuri realised how departed from his friends' lives he was. Yuuko told him that she and Takeshi had been seeing each other on and off for a couple of years – and Yuuri hadn't even noticed. Obviously he'd known they were close friends and were rarely seen without one another all through school...
No really, Yuuri should definitely have noticed. How had he not noticed? And why hadn't Yuuko ever told him? Well she'd probably just assumed he would have figured it out, he guessed.
As they moved past the bombshell pregnancy talk, Yuuko started sharing gossip about his classmates – not her old classmates, but his current classmates. Most were going on to university, and others were taking active roles in family businesses or local industries. But Yuuri was surprised when Yuuko started talking about nights out she'd had with them, what their interests were and what some of them were planning for the future. Yuuko knew more about his school friends than Yuuri did.
Suddenly he was enveloped in an odd feeling of not belonging. It solidified in his mind that going to Detroit to dedicate himself to skating and studying was the right choice. He'd accidentally cut himself off from Hasetsu, and while that fact in itself stung, he had to accept that somehow he'd done it to himself.
He told Yuuko that he felt like he was abandoning her, but she assured him he was right to follow his dreams, and she also assured him that she and Takeshi would work things out.
December 2011
Yuuri ached from head to toe. Celestino was a brutal coach.
The Italian was a former figure skater who'd taken up endurance athletics after retiring, before turning his attention towards coaching. As such he was as strong as an ox, full of energy, and completely perplexed that his young charges couldn't keep up with him.
Now Yuuri was alone in his dorm room, unable to work on an essay due the very next day because everything hurt so much.
He physically dragged himself from his bed and sat down heavily at his desk before opening his laptop and checking facebook.
Immediately he was bombarded with notifications, but he only stopped to check on Yuu-chan's.
Yup it was yet another picture of her and the triplets.
Yuuri could scarcely believe that Yuu-chan was now a mother of three. But he was so relieved that she seemed to have taken to motherhood with ease, and he was relieved that Nishigori was stepping up and being a father to them. He and Nishigori had mended the last of their fences before Yuuri had left, with Nishigori apologising for bullying him when they were younger, and assuring him that Yuuko was the love of his life, and that he'd do anything for her and their children. Yuuko and Takeshi had gotten back together and they'd gotten engaged weeks before the triplets had been born. Yuuri had an invite for the wedding, but knowing his luck it would clash with a competition.
Moving to America had been more jarring than he'd thought.
With the differences in academic years, Yuuri had started his degree in April in Japan and had spent some time getting used to the basics of student life. A few months into his studies he'd then had to pack up his life and move to Detroit.
Detroit didn't quite embody the American Dream as much as it had when he'd thought about this move in his head, but he liked the campus and his professors, and the Detroit Skate Club was great.
The club itself consisted of a clutch of instructors teaching and coaching groups and individuals mostly for intercity and statewide competitions, but he hadn't been the only foreign skater there – Canadian Junior Jean-Jacques Leroy had joined Detroit just before him. In spite of their age gap, Yuuri had tried to befriend him, but to no avail, and within weeks JJ was gone, having gained his Olympic medal-winning parents as coaches after his younger siblings had started school. Being the only foreign skater at the rink did leave him feeling quite isolated at times, although the fact that Celestino was himself an immigrant helped a little. Yuuri soon became acquainted with some of the American skaters at the rink, most notably Leo de la Iglesia, a junior skater aged just thirteen who possessed a sunny and kind but often shy disposition.
All too often rink time was swallowed up by study time, and he often felt isolated from both his fellow students and his fellow skaters. He struggled to attend lectures and seminars and hand in coursework before deadlines passed, while also getting enough rink time, never mind trying to have some sort of social life.
Lectures were particularly jarring. He couldn't focus, and he would often feel overly aware of himself in lectures. Everyone else was sitting stock-still, listening to the speaker and taking notes, while Yuuri felt horrible pains in his stomach, heard his blood rushing in his ears and felt like his skin was crawling. Yuuri often had to fight the urge to run away, convinced at times he was going to pass out on the spot while everyone was looking at him.
Sometimes he could control the feelings, scratching at his hands or subtly kicking off his shoes and rubbing his feet along the ground. Oddly the sensations helped bring him back from wherever he felt like he'd be going otherwise. At other times he couldn't control it and he'd have to dash outside for a few minutes while he waited for what he was feeling to go away.
With the transitions to studying and living abroad not going as well as he'd expected, Yuuri gave up on his Grand Prix dream for another year.
Yuuri was a person who rarely felt lonely. He enjoyed his own space and always had. After all, home had been far from a quiet environment, and the family's onsen had been far busier when Yuuri was little. Yuuri escaped the noise regularly, taking Vicchan to the beach, retreating to Minako-sensei's studio, or visiting Ice Castle.
In Detroit he was definitely feeling cut off, and it wasn't an isolation particularly of his own making – he hadn't made any real friends at college so far, and while Leo was great, he was only 13 to Yuuri's 18, and Leo had friends his own age.
His only real contacts in his spare time were his forum friends, chief among them being KnifeShoes and Makkachinfan.
Things on the forum had changed somewhat as well. As social media had started its relentless march to supremacy, forums had become old news. Viktor hadn't done a Q&A in ages, and he'd set up a facebook page to go with his twitter account, both of which he updated regularly. With Viktor's own internet habits changing, a lot of fans left the forum. Even Flutz who'd been every bit as obsessive as Yuuri was had vanished, and Makkachinfan could be gone for weeks at a time. Still there was a core group of Viktor fans who stuck around, so although the forum was no longer what it once was, Yuuri stuck around, wanting to hold on to his internet friends.
