Hi! I'm back again with a short one lololol. I'm writing this in the notes app in my iPhone tho, since I usually don't have much time to just sit down and write at my laptop. My phone goes where I go too, so hopefully this works out a lot better in keeping a more... stable update cycle. XD

Please enjoy!

Chapter Name: I Know You

Normal POV

It was not in Viktor Nikiforov's nature to reveal every little thing he knew. In fact, he rather liked to keep little factoids about people, the observations he had made about them, to himself. It gave him something to turn around and around in his head at the end of the day, as he lay in bed with his eyes locked on the ceiling.

He remembered the day it all began. The day this journey with Yuuri had started.

It was one of those days.

A young man, one with chestnut brown eyes and inky black hair had rejected a commemorative photo with him one day, at the end of the Grand Prix Final. He had done so silently, with a blank expression, though shock and then hurt had cut across his countenance for mere milliseconds. Viktor wasn't even sure he had seen them correctly.

Viktor had turned to his coach Yakov and his rink mate Yuri, asking, "Who was that?"

Yuri fumed silently while Yakov raised a brow. "Katsuki Yuuri. He placed last today. Vitya, you need to be more aware of the competition! It's like I always tell you-"

But Viktor wasn't interested anymore.

Instead, the name "Katsuki Yuuri" was turning around and around in his mind.

A few months later saw him in his bed on a cold night in his apartment. Makkachin had been asleep next to him, ever the source of comfortable heat. Viktor laid awake, his mind on Katsuki Yuuri again.

He was obsessed.

After all, no one had ever rejected him before! The job was done with a silence that made Viktor wonder if Yuuri had even known who he was. But of course he had to know, right? He had just won gold that night. So what was it? Jealousy? Surely the skater didn't blame him for his loss.

The questions circled in his mind, and just when he thought he had an answer, the cycle began again. It was this frustration that had prompted him to sit down and find out more about the raven haired skater.

Google was a fine scholar with information on everything and everyone, after all.

That was why, a few months after his fifth consecutive gold, he laid awake, for once not because of his late night mourning for his lack of inspiration, but due to his hunt for videos of Katsuki Yuuri on YouTube.

He did this every night, and he had watched every video, but he still searched again and again, in hopes there had been something he had missed.

What he was not expecting, however, was a brand new video of the skater.

[Katsuki Yuuri] Tried to Skate Victor's FS Program [Stay Close to Me]

Viktor's gasp had Makkachin raising his head with a whine. He punched his thumb onto the link, holding his breath.

It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. It needed work, of course, and there were a few things here and there that he wished he could tell Yuuri how to do, to fix, so that his skating would appear even more beautiful.

It took his breath away.

Someone out there had learned his entire free skate in just a few months, which was enough to surprise him, but what got to him even more was something else...

Yuuri was thinking of him in the same way that Viktor was thinking of the skater himself. He skated the program beautifully and with the same message that Viktor himself had been struggling to convey.

Yuuri did it effortlessly.

The next morning, Viktor watched the video again with fresh eyes. He laid on his couch in his living room, Makkachin on top of him, his fingers at his temple in thought. He felt his eyes widen with the realization that, for the first time in a long time, he felt inspired.

Viktor finally turned to the thousands of Twitter and Instagram notifications on his phone where people had tagged him over and over again with their comments about the video.

He read some scathing comments about Yuuri's "attempt" and his weight. He read some supportive ones.

Finally, he opened a blank draft.

[I thought it was beautiful ^-^

I'm flattered, Yuuri.

Thank you.

*link*]

He hoped he had shut up the scathing remarks with that. The skating community was as spiteful as it was loving, at the end of the day. Viktor sighed.

He then pulled up a new tab in his browser, searching for the next flight to Japan.

That event was just another one of those factoids Viktor liked to keep to himself, though he had accidentally hinted at it just after his meeting with Yuuri.

"Do you eat them often?"

"Yes, yes." Yuuri nodded.

"Why? You haven't won anything."

Viktor was glad Yuuri hadn't asked how he knew that...

There were just some things he'd rather keep to himself.

Ok so this one jumps around in the timeline A LOT. I hope it was clear... I hope there aren't any spelling mistakes.

I forgot to mention that I'm un-beta'd so you're going to find some grammatical errors here and there. Chapter one was particularly horrible HAHAHA. Mostly bc it was late at night and I was biting my nails thinking "what if this is a really crappy lemon?"

I know for a fact that I messed up with the semicolons I had somewhere in there lololol.

But please bear with me! I try. XD Hopefully the mistakes don't distract from the reading.

Thanks for the support so far, everyone! Please leave a review and lmk how I'm doing!

Lots of love,

~Crescent T.