Yuuri felt her eyes widen. "Oh my god, I'm so... I wasn't thinking!" She stumbled over her words in a rush to apologize. She made a mental note to kill Phichit later for suggesting she post the video. She knew there was a reason why she rarely used her social media, and it was moments like these.

"Exactly!" Yuri hissed, "and now thanks to your stupidity we are all going to be stalked for the rest of the day. No, the rest of the week, and maybe longer! Nice going, Katsuki."

"Yuri, she didn't mean to cause anything," Victor interjected, skating over calmly. He casually put his arm around her waist, causing Yuuri's heartbeat to pick up as if she was in the middle of skating a routine. Yuuri blushed furiously. She was grateful that Victor (quite literally) had her back, but she felt too flustered to properly argue with Yuri right now.

"Victor, you're the whole reason that she's even here- you're the one skating with her. How could you let her post that stupid video and set all of this off?" Yuri whined. He swiped at his hair angrily, messing it up in what he probably thought was an intimidating way. Yuuri privately thought he looked like an angry cat. Then Victor gave her a reassuring squeeze on the waist and she nearly stopped thinking entirely.

"Yuri, I was the one who took the video in the first place. I don't see the problem here- it's just a video of her skating. It's her choice to post it. Anyway, the whole reason that this is happening is to practice for the Worlds exhibition. A little extra publicity and mystique never hurt, no?"

Yuuri scowled and put his earbuds in before retreating back into the locker room. His music was turned up so loudly in an attempt to block out the outside world that Yuuri could hear the vicious drums from where she stood. The sound of the slamming door echoed through the rink. Victor finally let go of her, and Yuuri let out the breath she didn't know she had been holding as the teen disappeared from view.

"Victor, thanks for defending me back there."

"Of course," he replied, "Yuri, as I'm sure you've noticed, can be quick to anger. It was unfair of him to accuse you like that. It was beautiful skating." Yuuri smiled and ducked her head. "I am sorry I was so... distracted this morning. I didn't know if you were aware of the reaction to your video, and I didn't want to make you worry about it before you had to."

Yuuri felt a surge of guilt. She hadn't managed to reconcile her stereotype of Victor the Celebrity Skater (flirtatious yet aloof, and way out of her league) with the Victor she was actually skating with. She had assumed, since he was being cold this morning after yesterday's dinner, that he regretted his choice to spend time with her outside of the rink. Even finding out about the popularity of the video, she had thought that he was mad at her because the video revealed part of the surprise. Yuuri felt heartened that he seemed to just be trying to protect her, then immediately chastised herself for thinking that way. Victor probably wasn't thinking as much about all of this as she was.

Yakov told them, rather abruptly, to take a break. They hadn't skated for very long yet that morning, and Yuuri felt slightly confused until Yakov stormed off to the lobby, already wearing a grimace and cursing under his breath. Yuuri sat down on the bleachers, pulling out her phone for the first time this morning. She winced at the amount of notifications that she was seeing on the screen, before biting the bullet and opening up Instagram. She nearly screamed, because there were already hundreds of thousands of views, and way more comments than had ever appeared on anything she posted before. Knowing that she shouldn't go any farther without calling Angela, Yuuri couldn't resist scrolling through some of them.

She closed the app very quickly after that, because some of the theories as for why she was there were a little bit graphic, and way ruder than they needed to be. Yuuri dialed Angela's number. Her nerves lessened as the phone rang; Angela would tell her what she needed to do to navigate this situation.

"Angela!" she cried out the moment the other woman picked up. "You saw the video. Help me!"

Angela chuckled.

"Already on it. Good job, by the way. Here's a general breakdown of the situation. So far, the general consensus among the fans is divided. Last night, it became a trending video on Instagram but other than that, there was just general excitement and praise for your skating and the quad you landed. Things changed at some point after that when one of Yuri Plisetsky's fangirls made the connection with the rink. Good so far?"

"Yeah, I'm following."

"Okay, so after that, the fan theories get a little bit wild. The current most popular one is that you are in Russia for special training to improve your jumps because it's well known that Feltsman is a jump expert. Nearly tied with that one is the theory that you are involved with one of the skaters at the rink, but people can't decide between Victor, Mila Babicheva, or both."

Yuuri blushed at the idea.

"We want to give your fans an explanation about this before things can get too wild, so we have a few options. We could tell them the truth, but I don't think that we should waste the surprise of the exhibition skate on quelling the rumors. Victor's publicists think that revealing a relationship between the two of you is the easiest way to end this. It wouldn't totally diffuse the situation, and would probably lead to more gossip, but it would bring more attention to both of you and cause the reveal at Worlds to be more impactful."

"Um, do whatever you need to in order to fix this, Angela. You're the pro here; I just want to be able to skate without a crowd of reporters around the rink!" Yuuri hung up soon after. Everything was starting to sink in for her and she felt a surge of nervous energy. It was like the early days of her career all over again; she felt almost immobilized when she stopped and thought about how many people had seen that video of her skating. It had been a very personal moment. Had coming to Russia been a mistake?

Yakov came back soon after, and Yuuri gratefully followed him onto the ice, praying for something to help her forget about the outside world. The gruff man obliged, presenting her and Victor with the beginning of the choreography of their duet, starting from Victor's entrance. The music wasn't on yet, but she could almost hear it in his body.

They met in the middle, slowly stumbling their way through the first few movements. Individually they were both the epitome of grace and technically perfect but together the routine wound up looking awkward and a little bit wrong. Yuuri saw each step Victor took, each graceful turn that he made, and tried to follow as best she could, but she lacked the emotional focus to try to match him this time around. Her thoughts were unstructured and she found herself dwelling on the video. She never skated well when she was distracted. There were a few fleeting moments where she felt one with the characters they were trying to create. However, all too often she felt herself lagging despite her best efforts. Yakov looked on disapprovingly all the while.

She felt their skating slowly grow more harmonious even though she was still nervous. Looking at Victor, she noticed him responding to her movements. The combinations began to flow together. It finally felt natural to be moving in tandem with Victor.

Yakov stopped them, playing the music so that they could get a sense of how fast they would need to move. It took some adjusting, but soon they were fluid again. He stopped them, and Yuuri realized what must be happening almost before he said it. She felt a nervous flutter at the idea of actually trying lifts on the ice.

"This is where the first lift happens in the program. It doesn't go very far above the ice at all- you will simply grab her waist and spin. Lilia believes, and I agree, that you might be able to attempt it today."

Yuuri stiffened as she felt Victor approach from behind her for the lift, and launched herself off the ice as he raised her, the same way they had practiced with Lilia. In that moment, everything was going just right. Victor spun underneath her, and put her down gently on the ice.

"That was passable," Yakov commented. Yuuri grinned broadly at Victor, catching her breath. "Victor, let her slide past you at an angle on the landing. Once we have gotten this a couple of times safely, I'll let you do the footwork going into it."

They continued to repeat the lift. Some of them wobbled more than others, but to her amazement, Victor never truly dropped her. There were a few lifts that felt more like controlled falls, but neither skater crashed to the ground even when they ended up on the ice. The bruises that she was acquiring weren't anything particularly novel or painful, so Yuuri considered it a success. Yakov evidently thought that that was good enough for now, because he started the music again, from the same place as before. The pair of skaters started their footwork, getting into position for the lift. It was all over before Yuuri could even blink, and she was shocked by how simple it felt.

Yakov gave them a few more choreographic sequences which grew steadily harder. The mounting physical demands of the movement was the real challenge, because the more they practiced the less they were able to do. By the time Yakov told them to go stretch, they felt exhausted but had about a minute of the choreography nearly perfected. Victor's phone rang as he stretched a little distance from Yuuri. Her ears strained to hear even though she knew it wasn't polite. He was speaking in Russian, so she needn't have bothered.

She was about to head into the locker room when she felt a hand tap her on the shoulder. She turned to find Victor with a goofy smile on his face.

"Yuuri! I got a call from my publicist, and… I have something I need to ask you. Will you be my girlfriend?"

Yuuri allowed herself a moment to think that this was all real, that Victor really did like her as much as she liked him. And she let herself hope that one day maybe it could be real. But for now she had to content herself with the lie that they were telling the world, a shadow of what might have been. So she plastered the same theatrical smile onto her face.

"Victor, this is such a surprise! But of course!" she joked, words tainted with a strangely bitter sarcasm.

She disappeared into the locker room immediately after, changing into comfortable clothing and removing her mask of happiness and cheer. Was it acceptable to mourn something that never even happened? Her childhood fantasy was technically being fulfilled, but this was far from how she had intended any of it to be. To the public, she was living the dream, a world-class figure skater dating a world-class figure skater. Hardly even a real surprise. Yuuri didn't really want a relationship between the shells of professional skaters that the press got to see. Her thirst for victory was working against her; she always wanted more than she told herself she did.

Before, she might have been content to have Victor any way that she could, even if it was all a farce. But some traitorous part of her mind had begun to see the real possibility of a relationship with Victor. The Victor she had gotten to know yesterday. The one she had hoped was beginning to see the real her, too.