Yuuri had always loved ballet, initially just because of Minako. The older woman had been so kind to Yuuri when she was just a girl. It helped that with the dwindling number of students in Hasetsu, there were very few students in any of her classes, and Yuuri got lots of attention. Minako managed to instill technique within her, and the movements of dancing began to feel as natural as breathing. Part of it might have been that Yuuri did a lot of practice on her own. The more ballet she did, the more that she liked it. Yuuri could still remember the excitement that she had felt when Minako gave her a key to the studio. She had spent hours dancing, day bleeding into night, relishing in the fact that she could. As Yuuri started skating and her feet grew more important, she abandoned her childhood dream of dancing en pointe in favor of preserving her feet. She tried her best to incorporate more ballet into her skating routines as her visits to the studio decreased. But she never stopped dancing.
Lilia seemed to be testing her resolve to continue, however. A constant stream of corrections flowed from her lips as Yuuri warmed up at the barre. Turn out, leg higher, point you toes. Yuuri had heard them all from Minako thousands of times before, but with Lilia, each one sounded like an accusation. She continued on though, trying her best to incorporate the critiques, conscious of Victor dancing across from her. She glanced across at him, noting his flawless positioning. One person shouldn't be allowed to have it all, yet Victor possessed world-class skating skills, ballet technique worthy of a professional, and good looks.
They transitioned to the center of the room, where Lilia grew even more critical of Yuuri, if such a thing was at all possible. Every stray movement was catalogued and, more often than not, commented upon. Yuuri couldn't let her focus drop for even a second because those sharp eyes would definitely notice. Though she was intensely focused, the movements were taking a toll on her body, especially after the rough treatment she had put herself through during the morning's practice. Yuuri desperately tried to hold her arabesque, but she felt her legs muscles tremble with the effort.
Perhaps Lilia wasn't entirely monstrous, because only a few moments later she told them to take a break. Yuuri sagged out of position and went out to where she had left her water bottle in the hallway. She sat on the floor to take the pressure off of her protesting legs and drank deeply. She nearly choked on her water when Victor sat down next to her.
"Great work in there," he said with a smile.
Yuuri snorted. Clearly, that was not the case. If the amount of things that Lilia had to say were any indication.
"I'm hardly doing well here. The amount of times that she's corrected me so far…"
"Don't let that bother you. Lilia is a taskmaster. She refuses to even bother training a few of the skaters at the rink, you know. Took one look at their dancing and refused to bother."
Yuuri wasn't sure what to say to that. It was a relief to know that she wasn't necessarily so bad. At the same time, it still hurt to not be quite good enough. It was the same way that she felt when she was skating; she could pour emotion into her movements, but that didn't make them match the judges' exacting sense of perfection.
"Besides, I think that we are going to work on lifts after this, so I'll be getting yelled at a lot more, too!" Victor added, somehow still sounding cheerful even in the face of a lecture from Lilia. When they walked back into the studio, his suspicions were confirmed.
"In dance, your partner is your ally on the stage. You must trust your partner to match you at all times, and you must trust your partner immensely with each lift that you perform. There is a reason that we are starting with lifts in here rather than on the ice. I have no doubt that the two of you could technically do it, but here is where we establish the bonds of trust and partnership."
Yuuri blushed as she glanced at Victor.
"Now, you don't need to learn very advanced or impressive lifts. What we really want to develop here is the story of the routine, which begins with the chemistry between the two of you on the ice. Proper timing and good emotion can transform the incredibly basic lifts that you will perform. Yuuri, turn around. Victor, put your hands on her waist."
All of a sudden they were both close, so close that Yuuri could feel Victor's breath tickle the back of her neck. And then his hands were on her, feeling absolutely electric. It seemed to ignite a fire in Yuuri's nerves.
"Yuuri, you are going to jump, and Victor is going to help lift you. Do not try to hold her at the top. We just want to establish good timing."
Yuuri bent her legs and propelled herself into the air. With the added boost from Victor's muscular arms, she felt herself nearly to Victor's head. Yuuri felt like she was flying, but she descended rapidly.
"Victor, you shouldn't grip her waist that tightly. You'll leave bruises. Again. Lift her higher."
The pace of the lesson rarely slowed down for the next hour. It was a constant stream of instructions from Lilia, coupled with a few lectures that served as breaks for the skaters. The feeling of Victor's hands on her began to feel comforting and familiar, because Yuuri knew that he would do his best to catch her when she fell. Lilia made them do the same lift again and again until Yuuri's legs were perfectly in position and Victor hardly needed to shift his weight to use his legs to lift her. Her torso felt a little bruised from when Victor had gripped a little bit too tight, but she didn't say anything. Because she knew he would apologize profusely and demand that they stop so he didn't continue to hurt her. And Yuuri didn't want this to stop.
But even the fittest of athletes tire eventually, and she and Victor were no exception. She found it harder to jump, and she was sure that Victor's arm muscles must be protesting. She was small and therefore fairly light, but she definitely liked to indulge in some of her favorite foods once in awhile. In the beginning of her career, people on the Internet called her fat, and though she knew that it wasn't true, it stung. She tended to avoid social media because of this.
Their technique started to suffer significantly, and Lilia finally had had enough. She dismissed them for the day, telling them to get some rest because tomorrow they may start learning choreography. Yuuri was glad to slip on a pair of sweatpants, enjoying the warmth they gave her aching muscles. Her stomach audibly growled, and Victor turned to her.
"Oh? You are hungry? Then we should go to dinner!"
Yuuri acquiesced, guilt at shamelessly taking advantage of Victor's hospitality quashed by the intense hunger she was feeling. Lunch had been nearly five hours ago, and she needed something to eat. Victor started walking, his long strides dwarfing hers, and Yuuri had to hurry to catch up as they went out the door. Her legs were not happy about the speed that she was going. She followed him into some sort of fast-food style restaurant. Yuuri had never been a big fan of this sort of food, but they were also both wearing sweatpants so they didn't have too many other options. She trusted that Victor would choose something remotely healthy. Yuuri sat down in the chair, almost falling into it because of her lack of control over her legs.
"It's times like these when I miss the onsen back home the most," she mused.
"Oh? What is this onsen? Is it a kind of food?" Victor asked.
"No, no," Yuuri laughed. "It's a bath fed by a hot spring. My family runs an inn in Japan and the onsen is part of it. It's very soothing when I have sore muscles."
"That sounds perfect right now. I shall have to go to Japan and try it myself one day!"
Yuuri looked down at her feet, realizing that she hadn't managed to make it home in nearly four years. More than the onsen, she missed her family. Victor seemed to pick up on her sudden gloom, and he looked at her questioningly.
"I haven't been home in four years. The only times I've been back in Japan have been for the NHK Trophy. My Grand Prix event assignments created a training schedule where I just didn't have time to make a trip home."
Silence followed this announcement, and Victor got up and went to the counter. Yuuri sat there, running through the conversation in her head and mentally hitting herself. Victor looked strangely serious when he came back.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to share so much earlier. I know that it must be annoying to hear me whine, but…"
Victor held up a hand as if to cut her off.
"No, no need to apologize. I just realized, well… we are skating a routine about love and I realized how little I actually know about you. But we can get to know each other better tonight!"
"What?" Yuuri sputtered. That seemed very direct, even based on what the tabloids sometimes said about the man. Surely he couldn't mean to say...
"That is, if you want to talk to me over dinner?!" Victor questioned. Yuuri relaxed, feeling a little bit ashamed for having assumed the worst about Victor's character. She nodded.
"So, what was it like to grow up in Japan? How did you even get into skating in the first place? I know here in Russia it is a popular sport because of our colder climate, but I can't imagine that it is as much of an institution there."
Yuuri smiled, happily describing first her ballet lessons with Minako, and then the day that she met Yuuko. The other girl had latched onto Yuuri immediately on the first day of school and played with her; the rest, as they say, was history. Yuuri and Yuuko did nearly everything together, and so naturally her friend wanted Yuuri to skate too.
"Little did we know what that would lead to," Yuuri laughed. "I have so much to thank Yuuko for. Her family owns the rink in town and she gave me my own key around middle school and told me that I could skate whenever I needed to. It really helped me with my anxiety; whenever I was beginning to feel overwhelmed, the rink was just a few minutes away."
Victor nodded in understanding.
"For me, skating was less of a refuge and more of a chore because my parents got me a coach as soon as I started showing promise. But I didn't let the hard work take away the joy of skating. I used that as my motivation all through my younger years," he added.
Yuuri reached down to grab another bite of food, only to realize that their meals were long gone. Victor seemed to notice this too, getting to his feet. Yuuri also stood, not wanting this to be over. It felt slightly unreal to be casually sitting and eating dinner with him, even though she had quickly come to realize that the Victor she was getting to know was very different from the one he presented to the public. Yuuri turned to go back towards her hotel and noticed that Victor was still with her.
"Let me walk you back to your hotel?" Victor asked. Yuuri's heart melted a little bit more. He was such a gentleman! As they walked, before she even knew what she was saying, Yuuri had launched into another story.
"Anyways, the reason I even started skating seriously was because of you, actually. Yuuko and I watched you together on television and would try to imitate your routines. I got frustrated when I couldn't do any remotely similar jumps and decided that it was time to learn more, so that I could one day skate on the same ice as you."
Yuuri belatedly shut her mouth. She wasn't sure what could have been more embarrassing to let slip to Victor, except for maybe the wall of posters of him that she was pretty sure still covered her bedroom walls.