The rest of the week was hell for Yuuri. Back in Detroit, she was unable to focus on the ice. She just felt too excited and anxious about the idea of skating with Victor. She had told Celestino the news, which her coach had been overjoyed to hear. He marveled at the opportunity that had been presented to his student. The skating opportunity, that is. Yuuri still hadn't decided what she was going to do about her other option, and wasn't going to discuss her deepest feelings with her coach.
Because of her spotty focus, Celestino told her to only do singles or maybe some doubles as she ran through her program and worked on some of their ideas and potential modifications for the World Figure Skating Championships. It was only a few months away now, why didn't he understand that she needed to be preparing? Yuuri was frustrated; singles wouldn't help her do much to refine her program. She could do them in her sleep. When she told her coach this, all he did was agree with her, telling her that with her lack of focus, she might as well be near-asleep on the ice. Yuuri privately disagreed. They certainly weren't helping her focus any more than she was already struggling to. A little bit more of a challenge would keep her in the moment instead of off in her imagination. What could she say? She had not gotten over her crush on Victor as much as she had thought, that was clear to her now.
Celestino was getting fed up with her as the days wore on. Yuuri sensed this and felt guilty, but even all her effort was leading to some very sub-par practices. She didn't snap out of her daze until Thursday, when she managed to hear one of the comments her coach made under his breath.
"Honestly, if she keeps going on like this, she's not going to end up skating with Nikiforov."
Those words caused Yuuri to straighten up with a start, a panicked rush of adrenaline filling her body. He had hit on what Yuuri herself was most worried about. So far, she hadn't heard anything back from Angela about the situation. What if Victor had decided that he wasn't going to be a part of this after all?
Celestino noticed a pleasant improvement in Yuuri's technique and a return to her previously dedicated practicing as the weeks passed. He wouldn't have been so pleased that the the motivation came from a surge of worry and anxiety. As a coach he tried to do his best to help his student feel at ease at competitions, but he would be the first to admit that (especially in the beginning), he was no miracle worker. Sometimes he made things worse rather than better.
Yuuri had always struggled with her emotions when it came to skating because of all the people and the pressure they added. The more people that watched her, the more nervous she became. Somehow that pressure could also lead to intense interpretations, her emotions worn on her sleeve. This season, Yuuri had taken much more control over her theme and music choice than in the past. She had chosen "isolation" as her theme for the year. She felt for the first time that there was actually an element of her true character hidden within the choreography, leaving her far more vulnerable to the crowd. A certain desperation was present in her routines, a frantic search for someone else. But she was always alone on the ice, even though she might be surrounded by thousands of people. In a odd way, it helped her to work through her emotions because the start of the story of her program was someone who was scared and lonely. Those feelings always filled Yuuri in the moments before she started skating- alone and left to be torn apart by the sharp eyes of the judges, spurred on only by the whims of a fickle crowd. For the first time, embracing her crippling fears was actually an asset instead of a hindrance. She didn't need to pretend to be something that she wasn't. She could show some of her pain (but it was always beautiful pain).
Her routines, though freeing, were also exhausting. Channeling that much (negative) emotion always made her feel drained, and combined with their intense physical demands, Yuuri was starting to feel burnt out. Where could she go next season when she was already reaching so deep? Now that the world had seen this, they would demand more from her. They always did.
As a young fan watching Victor Nikiforov, she had been delighted by each new surprise that he unveiled. Even from his junior days, he was always so driven, always able to pull out something new. Each routine was more mesmerizing than the last. How could he manage to find the willpower to keep going, to keep innovating, to be constantly pleasing others? Yuuri marveled at it. At times she contemplated quitting skating altogether and returning home to Hasetsu. What would it feel like to lift the weight from her shoulders and return to anonymity?
But she did her best to stop herself in her tracks whenever her mind strayed to that dangerously tempting territory. For as much as the sacrifices and demands of skating hurt her, she knew she could never simply walk away. Skating was its own drug; the thrill of finishing a routine and receiving a good score, the high of standing on the podium, followed by a return to the reality. A return to the pain and the early wakeups, all the falls and bruising and tears. And a willingness to do anything to get back to the top, because it was worth all of the sacrifices.
And so Yuuri gritted her teeth and followed her coach's instructions. She drilled her jumps again and again, pushing herself back up after every fall and dismissing her coach's concerns even as her whole body became littered with black and blue splotches. She ran around her apartment before the sun even came up, moving as fast as she could so that she could be present at the rink at half past five, ready for a new round of tortures. She made herself focus, putting everything she had into this, letting all her emotion out on the ice, and putting herself back together at the end of the day. When the pain felt like it was too much, when curious eyes lingered at practice as she sprawled on the ice after a bad landing, she closed her eyes and took a moment to think of what this all would lead to. The thrill of the crowds cheering, all because of her. Yuuri stood up again, as she always would.
She was utterly exhausted as she returned to her apartment. It was already eleven at night, far past when she logically should be sleeping in order to get up so early. Her body needed to rest in order to cope with the abuse she put it through daily, but Yuuri couldn't resist staying a little longer after practice had ended, letting herself go through a little bit of Victor's routine. With the tantalizing potential of skating with her idol, Yuuri had something else to look forward to besides the thrill of victory. The thrill of Victor. Yuuri was embarrassed to admit that, even after several years of seeing him at international competitions, she still freaked out for a moment whenever she caught sight of him. As she had gotten better and started to see him more, she had even exchanged a few words with him, but was always too afraid to try to say anything more than "hello". She had felt like she might pass out when he winked at her after the Grand Prix Finals.
She was finally in bed, already half-asleep, when her phone rang on her bedside table. Sleepily, she answered, wanting nothing more than to flop back into her pillows.
"Yuuri!" Angela cried out from the other end, her loud voice shattering the blissful silence of Yuuri's bedroom. "I have more news for you about Victor! I know that it's been about a month since I brought this idea up, so tell me if this feels too soon but: how do you feel about going to St. Petersburg next week?"
Yuuri lay there, silent for a moment, before reason returned to her.
"Angela, I thought that we were doing this during the off-season. Both Victor and I still have Worlds coming up. This doesn't make sense."
"Well, his team decided, and I agreed, that this would make a wonderful exhibition skate! I suggested that it would be the most effective PR move as a surprise for everyone. If you started a routine, even just saying your exhibition skate was to Victor's song would get rumours going. When he joins you on the ice midway through and it becomes a duet, everyone would go wild!"
Yuuri couldn't deny how much the idea appealed to here. It sounded like something out of a storybook. Well, not really. But the sentiment was still there. And even though she knew it would all be for show, it certainly seemed romantic. The real question was if this was reasonable or not. Could she really afford to take any time away from her preparation for the World Figure Skating Championships?
She said as much to her friend.
"Yuuri, you would still technically be preparing for Worlds, just for the exhibition skate instead. And I don't think the two of you have much to worry about. Your routine difficulty is still higher than all of your opponents there, unless they make dramatic modifications. This is a chance that we cannot let slip away, girl! The only reason I even knew anything about Victor back in college was because of you talking about him all the time. You better not try to say no!"
Yuuri quickly agreed with Angela. Her friend didn't really need to do much to convince her that skating with Victor was the way to go, but she really just worried about how her coach would react.
"Do you think that Celestino will be okay with me missing so much time at the rink?" Yuuri worried.
"I talked to him already and he seemed to think that it would be alright. You know, it will definitely be a different experience with Victor's coaches, and I think that you will learn a lot from this. Plus you get to spend time with Mr. Handsome. Face it, Yuuri: there is no good reason not to do this."
Angela continued her excited chattering for far longer than Yuuri would have liked, and Yuuri finally told her friend to just shut up because some of them really needed to go to sleep. She hung up the phone and pulled her cover up, but Yuuri struggled to make good on her word, tossing and turning and generally feeling too excited to possibly go back to sleep right then. After getting up to put on a sweatshirt, she looked over at her clock to see that it was already midnight. Yuuri groaned. Tomorrow was going to be awful.
Yuuri slowly came to, rolling over so that the sun wasn't in her eyes. Her eyes drifted shut uncontrollably, but she forced herself awake. Coach wouldn't be happy if she was late to practice. She might have to cut her conditioning short if she stayed in bed too much longer. Opening her eyes again, she startled when she realized she hadn't been imagining things. The sun was actually out, which was not a good sign. Her clock said that it was seven. She was an hour and a half late for practice! Yuuri ran around her apartment in a frenzy, tossing on some warmup clothes and grabbing her skating bag before sprinting down the hall of her apartment building. She took the stairs two at a time and didn't slow down until she had gotten to the rink, panting heavily. Celestino and Phichit were already there, and Phichit was working on his spins.
Yuuri awkwardly approached the rink, setting her stuff in the bleachers and spending a few minutes stretching before lacing up her skates and gliding over to her coach. She began apologizing profusely.
"Coach, I am so sorry for missing practice. Please forgive me, I forgot to set my alarm last night and…"
Much to her surprise, Celestino didn't look angry with her in the slightest. Unusual. Normally he was very displeased when skaters missed out on valuable ice time. He smiled a little bit at her. Yuuri did a double take.
"Yuuri, Angela called me last night to talk about your opportunity for a unique exhibition skate, and she said that she was going to call you about it after. She spent half an hour talking to me- I can only imagine how long she must've kept you up."
Yuuri winced in remembrance. Angela might be a great publicist and a great friend, but often she didn't know quite when enough was enough. She started her usual warm-up soon afterwards. Practice seemed to fly by that day, but Yuuri wasn't sure if that was a result of missing the beginning or because of how much she thought about her trip to Russia.
Almost before Yuuri knew it, it was the night before her flight. She sat on her bed, surrounded by a mess of clothes she had decided not to bring. She looked at her poster of Victor, hanging on the back of her door, and smiled. Tomorrow, she would make her dreams into a reality.