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Day Four

There was a day of rest between the short program and the free skate.

Victor Nikiforov walked through his house, bored. Since the accident, he'd moved back in with his parents, and although they were all too ready to take him back, he suspected that they secretly wished he hadn't come back – only because they wished the accident hadn't happened at all.

Victor had woken up in a hospital bed, surrounded by his immediate family and Yura. They'd told him, over a course of a week or so, that he had been in a car accident and suffered brain damage. After a few tests, they'd determined that the only thing wrong was his memory. Amnesia. He couldn't remember anything from before he woke up.

With that said, he somehow had an extensive knowledge of what was "right" and "wrong" in figure skating, and when he asked about it, Yura had told him (proudly, it seemed) that Victor had been five-time world champion before the accident. 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015, Yura had told him.

Victor didn't ask what had happened in 2016.

This year was the 2017 Grand Prix, and Victor had been following it carefully on television. After all, his dear Yura was in it.

Speaking of Yura, the teen skated beautifully. Victor had gone to the rink and watched him a great many times, but had never really tried to skate, himself. He reasoned that skating was a thing of the past – the past that he couldn't remember.

Yura and Yuuri Katsuki had placed within a point of each other in the short program, but Yura was ahead. Although Victor wanted to cheer for Yura, naturally, something in him kept telling him that Yuuri looked oh-so-familiar – that he should be cheering for Yuuri, as well.

Maybe it was just because Yura talked about him a lot.

Victor let out a small chuckle. No, he knew that wasn't true. Everyone around him seemed to always assume that he wouldn't use the internet as a resource, but he did. He'd looked himself up a good three months ago, only to find a billion articles on him and Yuuri.

Were they just all a bunch of idiots? He wasn't mentally impaired – he just couldn't remember anything from before he woke up.

He had coached Yuuri for a year, bringing him to victory as the silver medalist in last year's Grand Prix Final. The Japanese man had missed gold by 0.12 points.

He watched all the videos there were of the two of them over and over again. He looked for any and all pictures and saved them all to his secret stash on his laptop. He valued any information he could get on the mysterious Yuuri Katsuki – which, to his great pleasure, was spread widely across the internet.

He knew who Yuuri Katsuki was, in theory. He even knew that the two of them had probably been in love (there was a ton of evidence regarding that, and Phichit's occasional #tbt's only confirmed it). He just didn't remember him.

He was even more interested in Yuuri now, because of the short program. Victor had been watching the Final on television, as promised, but to his great amazement, something changed in him during Yuuri's performance.

Yuuri had been captivating. He'd been passionate and dynamic and beautiful and everything in between. He'd skated like he loved it.

He'd skated it like a broken man.

Watching him, Victor felt something strange inside of him, and all of a sudden, he had a vague recollection of an indoor ice rink. He'd never seen it before, but...

The doctors had long since given up on trying to restore Victor's memory. "Sometimes things act as triggers," they'd said, "but we can't seem to find yours."

Maybe, thought Victor, that was because nobody had introduced him to Yuuri Katsuki.

That raised another question: Why hadn't Yuuri come to visit him, all these months? Had he been afraid? Angry? Annoyed?

His phone buzzed with a message from Yura, and he picked it up eagerly to see the reply he'd been waiting for.

[ 1:06 ] Yura Plisetsky: He doesn't know you very well, so he felt awkward going to see you.

[ 1:06 ] Yura Plisetsky: But you were his idol or something.

[ 1:07 ] Victor Nikiforov: Really? I'm glad! Tell him to come visit soon!

[ 1:07 ] Victor Nikiforov: After the Final?

[ 1:15 ] Yura Plisetsky: He says he can't. He's a fucking moron.

[ 1:16 ] Victor Nikiforov: Whaaaaat? Why not? Why, is he afraid? I want to meet him! His performance was amazing!

[ 1:17 ] Yura Plisetsky: The idiot won't fucking agree.

Yura wasn't exactly known for his clean mouth, but two curse words so close to each other, about the same person, was strange, even for him. Victor frowned at his screen. Yura was actually irritated with Yuuri for refusing to come see Victor.

"If I were Yuuri, how would I think?" Victor wondered aloud, staring at the ceiling. The white ceiling gave him no answers. He sighed. "Did he really love me?"

And although he theoretically couldn't make any assumptions, somewhere in him the resounding answer was "Yes."

But then, he thought, as he continued to stare at nothing, was he really Victor Nikiforov anymore? He said he was, and he looked the same and sounded the same, but who was he without his memories? Without his experiences that had shaped him?

He stood up abruptly and reached for his laptop. Yuuri didn't want to see the man who merely reminded him of his Victor.

And he never would.