CHAPTER SEVENTY EIGHT

By the time Yuri woke back up again, it was well past midnight. The common room had been darkened to almost pitch black, illuminated solely by the light of the television on the far wall. Some movie or another was playing, but he wasn't worried about figuring out what it was, as he sat upright and rubbed his eyes sleepily

"...Ah, you're finally awake." He heard someone say quietly, barely a whisper. It wasn't Viktor's voice though.

"...Yuu-chan."

"They didn't think you'd wake up again until tomorrow." The Madonna mused. She pointed at where the few remaining guests were asleep at their tables or on the floor next to one.

Yuri blinked, then turned, looking at where Chris was out cold with his arms crossed on the table, head resting within them, at Phichit nearby, curled up with his head on Makkachin's back, and finally, Viktor, slouching against the same table as Chris, but leaning onto it with only one arm, his cheek resting on it.

Yuri sighed then, remembering why he had even fallen asleep at all, and lowered his head, "...Sorry." He whispered.

"Why?" She whispered back.

His cheeks flushed, "For being loud. I didn't... I mean, your kids..."

Yuuko smiled at him, "They didn't hear."

"...But Yuri said..."

"I knew what the noise was before he even caught on that there was a noise." She pointed out, stretching briefly before moving across the floor on her hands and knees to get closer and sit next to him, "Mine aren't exactly virgin ears, you know." She said, almost sheepishly, "Takeshi took the girls to our room afterwards anyway. It was time for them to go to bed."

"...Why are you still down here?" Yuri wondered, checking the time on his phone, "...It's nearly 3 in the morning."

His friend nodded sleepily, "I wanted to make sure you were okay when you woke up again. I knew you'd be out until either noon or not long at all. I banked on the 'not long at all' possibility."

"...I'm so embarrassed..." Yuri had his hands on his head, ruffling his hair anxiously, "I usually don't make a lot of noise...so...I didn't realize I was so loud... I'll never live this down."

"It's your wedding party. Why should it matter?" She wondered back at him, "If anyone tries to give you grief, I'll protect you." She smiled again and leaned forward to give him a reassuring hug, "You have too much to look forward to, just to let something like this get you down. You've earned the privilege of getting to scream out your spouse's name. No one else is ever going to get to. Think about how it makes him feel."

"...You're being surprisingly understanding." Yuri said quietly, wondering where the catch was.

She just ruffled his hair a little as she pulled out of the hug, "I'm the one that introduced you to Viktor in the first place. I feel like I should get to dote on you a little now. My little Yuri is growing up so fast suddenly!" She moved to wipe a tear from her eye, "We all thought you were hopeless when you came home from America single!"

The skater suddenly flinched at the reminder, "...Did my parents hear? Or my sister?"

Yuuko shook her head, much to Yuri's relief, "I don't think so. They were all shutting down the kitchen when it happened. If they heard you over all the noise they themselves were making at the time, I'd be surprised."

Yuri suddenly felt movement behind him, and a second or two later, looked back to find Viktor rising like the dead, only for him to slump over his back, snake his arms around Yuri's small frame, and fall right back to sleep again. Yuri laughed quietly at it, "...I can never be sure if he's conscious when he does that."

The Madonna had her hand over her mouth, trying to muffle her snickering, "Happens a lot?"

"Like clockwork."

Yuuko smiled happily as she leaned over the table, "I can't wait to see the looks on both your faces when you see what we did to the Ice Castle."

.

.

.

The next morning, the group finally saw how much snow had fallen, and Yuri's mom had put every last one of them to work to clear the sidewalk in front of the resort so guests could come and go as they pleased again.

Of course, by 'every single one of them,' it mostly meant Yuri, since there was only one shovel...the rest stood around for moral support, cheering him on from the background like the nameless crowd of some old side-scrolling fighting game. By the time he was done, it was nearly noon, and he was even more exhausted than he'd expected to be. He'd started the day fairly sore as it was, but the work of clearing so much snow made it worse.

He was about to head back when he saw a pair of notedly absent people walking up. He felt a little energy return as he looked up and waved, "Minako-sensei, Mikhail...where were you guys all night?"

"We went out looking for you, but the snow got bad after a while, so we holed up at my snack bar since we were close at the time." The older woman answered, chipper as always, "You look better!"

"Mh." Yuri nodded, letting the shovel lean against the wall as he stuffed his hands in his pockets to warm them.

"It all worked out?"

"Mh."

"Where's Viktor?" Mikhail wondered, looking around.

"Doing everything he can to avoid shoveling snow." Yuri answered jokingly, "He's probably inside by no-"

"YURI!" The man's voice came yelling unexpectedly, "YURI!"

"What, what?" He answered, wondering what in blazes was going on. He stuck his head around the gate, only to get bowled over by the Russian.

"They're going to let us in the Ice Castle!"

"Eh?"

"Today! In an hour!" Viktor took Yuri's hand, "We have to get ready!"

Mikhail and Minako watched with amused looks on their faces as Viktor dragged his partner off, paused, came running back with Yuri still in tow, waved at them happily to welcome them back to the resort, and then rushed off again, pulling Yuri in behind him the whole way. Mikhail grabbed the shovel and brought it with them as they made their way up after them.

Fairly soon after, there was a proverbial avalanche of professional skaters evacuating the hot spring and running down the street like all their butts were on fire. Viktor was in the lead, still holding Yuri's hand, as they rushed across the bridge together, easily outpacing the rest of the group. Yurio and Otabek walked calmly, barely crossing the last street that lead to the bridge as the rest of them made it all the way to the other side.

When the group finally made it to the concrete steps leading up to the main entrance to the ice rink, they had too much momentum to wait for the doors...and crashed into it rather unceremoniously. As it finally slid open, Viktor dropped in first, followed by Yuri, then Chris, and finally Phichit.

"...Why didn't...the doors...open...?" Yuri wondered, delirious from the impact.

"We must've...run into the motion sensor too fast..." Phichit suggested, pushing off the pile to stand up again and rub his head.

"You guys all got here in a hurry!" Yuuko laughed from behind the skate rental desk, "You're not going to see anything we don't want you to, though!"

Viktor was clawing at the floor, trying to get to the second set of doors, "Must...skate...!"

Chris hoisted him up like a beached dolphin, even as Viktor was still 'paddling' in the air, and set him down again to let him walk it off. Yuri was still on the floor, rubbing his forehead where he'd hit the door, finding himself picked up quickly thereafter by the same man. When they finally found themselves in the rink-side area, they looked around, half-expecting some form of display to hint at what was to come on the morrow...but there was almost nothing flashy to see at all.

There were numerous rolled-up tapestry-like things hanging from the rafters all around the rink's edge, and the rink walls themselves were covered in boring blue tarps. Yuri was almost disappointed, given how much effort had been put into keeping him and Viktor out of the Ice Castle that whole time.

"Two conditions to skating today." Yuuko said suddenly, interrupting his train of thought.

Viktor had already run out onto the ice with his shoes on, and collapsed onto his back like he had been some shipwrecked survivor that finally found land again. He lifted his head at the sound of the woman's words, curious.

"First, you absolutely do not lift the blue tarps." She was saying, pointing at the rink walls, "If I hear so much as a crinkle, you're all out!"

"...And the second condition?" Yuri wondered nervously, standing close to the rink entrance.

She winked at him, "Practice the routines listed in the email I'm sending you. This is the final list! Be ready for it!"

"...Why are we having to work so hard for our own wedding party?" Yuri asked pointedly, thinking the whole thing rather odd, "Shouldn't other people be performing for us?"

Yuuko shook her head, "Are you kidding? You guys live for skating. What better way to celebrate your wedding than by sharing the journey that got you there with the rest of us?"

The triplets are calling it 'The Best of Nikiforov on Ice' but I prefer to call it 'The Journey.'

Viktor was busy getting his skates on after that, literally throwing his shoes over the rink wall as he pulled them off. Yuri absentmindedly went to collect them as he looked at his phone, waiting for his email inbox to refresh before finally seeing Yuuko's most recent message. He pulled up the email, and loaded up the PDF attachment, curious to see what the final listing would look like compared to what Minako had showed them.

"...You are humbly invited to Ice Castle Hasetsu on this very special occasion, April 16th, to celebrate the wedding of Yuri Katsuki and Viktor Nikiforov." He read aloud, his cheeks flushing as he did so, "We are happy to present the following performances from these two World Champion Gold Medalists and some of their closest friends."

He lifted his eyes to see Viktor and Chris messing around on the ice already, trying to out-jump one another as they warmed up. Phichit wasn't part of their clique though and he came sliding up to the rink wall near where Yuri was still reading his email.

"What's it looking like?" He wondered.

Yuri pushed to stand, leaving his backpack on the floor as he moved to turn and let the Thai skater get a look, "Literally looks like a competition program for the GPF or something, with there being so few of us."

Phichit leaned on the wall to get a better read on the small device, "...Firebird...Aria..." He said out loud, "Your Free Skates from the year before last."

"Then it gets into the stuff we did this past year." Yuri nodded, "Shall We Skate, Intoxicated...then this new one from the Russian Yuri, Soldier...then back to me with Eros."

"I was really surprised to hear he'd given back the Agape outfit." Phichit commented, "But then I thought about his GPF Exhibition Skate and realized it was entirely not his style." He huffed a laugh, "Viktor really pulled a number on him by making him do that one instead of Eros."

"Right?" Yuri agreed, "He really wanted to do Eros, too." He looked back at the screen again, "Looks like there's a bit of an intermission after that's done...only for me to come back out again doing YoI..."

"YoI?"

"Easier to say that than 'Yuri on Ice' all the time." Yuri explained, "Then the other Yuri is doing Allegro Appassionato, then back to Chris with Rapsodie, you with Terra Incognita...then finally back to Viktor with Winter's Wish, and finally...Duetto, and a freestyle skate." He lifted his head again to see Viktor and Chris horsing around like little kids, skating as quickly as they could in one direction, only to stop as close to the rink wall as they could and take off again in another direction. Ice was flying everywhere as they scratched their way over it, "...What a weird way to end the official program."

"Why? Duetto is perfect."

"No, I mean with Winter's Wish. They had it a lot earlier on the list before, even before YoI."

"Maybe they realized what it was about?"

"I'm still surprised Viktor even kept that program when he knew he was going in for one more year. It probably confused the heck out of a lot of his fans."

"Not as much as Aria did!" Phichit laughed, "There was a whole Thai skating forum where they were freaking out about how the lines were talking to a guy! Everyone was wondering if Viktor even knew!"

"Oh he knew. He did it on purpose." Yuri pointed out, "One of those subtle, under-the-table surprises for anyone who was paying close enough attention."

"Ahh...I knew you'd pick up on it, being such a huge fan of his." Phichit laughed, "You'd never have missed anything about Viktor back then."

"I missed that one, actually." Yuri admitted sheepishly, "Viktor told me about it only after we got back from the Grand Prix Final." He wasn't sure how much more detail he should go into explaining what Aria meant to them now though, "He has a really crazy Free Skate planned for next season, too."

"Oohhhh!" Phichit got excited, "I saw the interview you guys did after Worlds! A theme about 'rage' seems so out of character for him! Where'd he get the idea?"

Yuri just smiled, "...From some stuff that happened while we were in Russia. It's all good now, though...but..." He looked back out onto the ice again, seeing where both Viktor and Chris had gathered up some of the ice they'd sheared off the rink's surface with their power-stops, mashing it into small snowballs and threatening to put it down the other's shirts if given half a chance. They were circling each other, panting from the exertion, twitching once in a while to make the other flinch in defense, laughing at the absurdity of it but neither giving up the game yet. Yuri got an idea, and started moving for the rink entrance, "...I'm sure he'll find something to rage about to inspire him."

Phichit watched curiously as Yuri stepped out onto the ice, still just wearing his shoes, and something of a devilish grin on his face, like he was planning something dastardly. He saw Yuri gathering up some of the frost crystals where he passed a pile on his way out to the center of the rink...and carefully, ever-so-quietly, snuck up behind Viktor. Chris had seen him and knew what was going to happen, so he made extra certain to keep Viktor's back facing the direction Yuri was coming up from.

"Giving up already, Chris?" The Russian wondered, the ice starting to melt in his ungloved hand, "I can keep this up all day!"

"You won't have to." The Swiss skater winked, "You've already lost."

"Hah...?"

Yuri was right behind him, and tucked the small ball of frost down the back of Viktor's shirt rather unexpectedly.

Viktor twisted as he felt it, dropping his own snowball in the process, "AHHH! TRAITOR! I trusted you!"

"Snega v pal'to~!" Yuri called out, retreating quickly as Chris came up to dump his own snowball down the front of Viktor's shirt, making him twitch and yell out again in protest. The others were howling with laughter as he tried to shake it out.

Yurio and Otabek had finally arrived at the rink by then, walking in on the odd sight, but not daring to question it. They watched with rapt curiosity though as Viktor finally regained his composure and went skating off after the shoe-born Asian.

Yuri was so close to the safety of the rink-side area, still laughing at their antics, only to find himself literally barreled into with a BOOF. Viktor carried him off, spinning him around so he couldn't wiggle free, and skating backwards with his arms around Yuri's torso.

"You're lucky you're still wearing your coat." The Russian said, "Otherwise you'd have two ice-cold hands going up your back right now."

"Is that a threat or a promise?" Yuri wondered.

Viktor nearly dropped him from the surprising nature of the question, but then laughed, "Maybe both."