Summary: Kagome hasn't stepped foot on the ice since that incident, but as Yuri's older cousin, she does all she can to support him. When Viktor shows up with the idea of being his coach, Kagome is reunited with an old friend she hasn't seen in almost ten years. How will their relationship bloom when she keeps her heart so carefully guarded?

Pairing: Viktor/Kagome.

Disclaimer: I do not own either series. Each belongs to their rightful owners.

Note:
Flashbacks/Past written in bulk italics.
Will lack canonicity.

Prologue

She couldn't explain the way she felt. It wasn't normal for her to feel so nervous over something she'd done countless times now, yet here she was wringing her hands together behind her back and fidgeting with the skirt on her costume. The pink and white sparkles kept catching her eye, and she kept smoothing the sparkling material down.

Her heart pounded in her chest. Her mind was racing a mile a minute. Any minute now, it would be her time, yet something seemed off to her.

"Are you alright?" The voice was gentle, concerned, and she nodded automatically.

"I…- of course!" she exclaimed, and she turned to face the figure she had been standing alongside. Her blue eyes met his own icy hue of blue, and she offered him a smile she hoped wasn't as nervous as she felt on the inside. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"You look really pale," he responded, and she was taken a back by that information. "Do you need to sit down?"

She shook her head. "I-I'm fine, really," she said, trying her best to reassure her companion beside her. "It's probably just the lighting playing tricks on your eyes, you know."

The sixteen-year-old girl turned away from him next, avoiding meeting his eyes as she downcasted her gaze to her feet. She felt strangely cold.

"It's about him again, isn't it?"

His question was stilted, his words tense. She failed to pick up on the jealousy lingering in his eyes as she avoided his gaze entirely.

The quiet question instantly made her stiffen up, shoulders tensing, and hands tightening into taut fists. Still, she didn't say anything in response, sinking her teeth into her lower lip and gnawing until blood-soaked against her tongue. She ignored the way her vision blurred and her eyes began to sting with the presence of tears. She lessened the pressure on her lip, and the small wound healed in seconds.

Of course, he didn't know everything about her turbulent relationship with him, but she'd taken to sharing her woes with him about Inuyasha. Just recently, barely a month ago, she'd shared how their relationship had ended- it was the easiest way to describe it, anyway. As a breakup. She'd told him about how he'd rather go back to his ex- not that he needed to know it was really her ancestor. Or that he'd betrayed her by using the jewel to revive her back to her prior glory. The entire thing left her with this deep, aching, clawing pain in her chest.

She held her tears back and shrugged, pushing some of the strain away from her. "Maybe it is, maybe it isn't," she responded finally, voice going soft. "I'm not going to let him impact me any, though," she added after a few seconds.

Saying those words didn't do anything to sway that odd feeling away from her.

Something felt wrong.

She didn't have time to think about it before she was finally called, and she forced all other thoughts out of her head. She shook her head and turned to offer him a smile. She could tell, looking at him, that he could tell how weighed down it was. So, she turned and left before he could find the words to say, opting to not give him the chance. It just seemed to be the much easier option for her.

"Oops, time to go," she said as she left. "Bye-bye for now."

She went to the rink, taking her place like she had countless times before. She'd been competing since she was a child, but the last year of her life had been a forced hiatus due to all the strife with the well and the jewel. She took a breath to try and clear her mind, closing her eyes before tilting her head back. The next time she opened her eyes, she was gazing up at the fluorescent lights aimed down on and all around her. They were nearly blinding, but she ignored the way they made her eyes sting all over again. Once she was ready, she began the routine she'd been practicing over and over again.

As she fell into the rhythm, she thought that the bad feeling she harbored would have faded, but each step she took only caused it to multiply. Halfway through her routine, a sharp pain shot through her chest, and she nearly tumbled face-first onto the ice. She would've hit the ground hard, but she caught herself before she started to fall and went on with her routine as if nothing was amiss, only giving it a second thought when she worried the judges might've caught the slip-up.

However, as she reached the apex of her routine, something felt off to her. Without warning, her world began to spin and pain surged through her chest again, this time much harsher than before. A metallic taste washed over her tongue, and, before she could understand why, her body dropped to the ground mid-jump. She landed on the cold ice and she fell motionless. She heard silence fall over the on-lookers. It lasted for a few seconds, but when it didn't seem like she was getting back up, worried mumbles carried through the crowds.

Her eyes fluttered open and closed, and, as she lay there, she could feel something warm pooling beneath her ribs and chest on the ice. She focused bleary eyes on the area, only to spot a rapidly growing pool of blood beneath her. The place where the jewel had once been inside her body was searing in pain. It felt like it was on fire. She wanted to cry and scream, but no sound could form.

It didn't take long for the blood to be spotted, and worry turned to panic in seconds as medical assistance was called for her. She didn't remain conscious long enough to see them rush to her side.

Waiting was the worst part, she decided. She waited alongside her cousin's family as she waited for him to finally show up, but it felt like it'd been forever now. She liked to think of herself as a patient woman, but maybe this time it was her nerves making her so impatient.

She was worried about Yuri.

She'd witnessed his failure, and she was worried he'd beat himself up about it too much. A failure didn't have to be the end of it all, but she knew how it could feel like the end of the world with the feeling crashing down around you.

Kagome sighed and looked down at her feet. Her heart was heavy in her chest, but before she could think too much about it, Yuri's familiar aura reached her senses, and she perked up. As she finally spotted him, a smile bloomed across her face and she held her hand up as high as she could to garner his attention.

He stopped upon spotting her, and she could feel the several emotions that rolled off him. Her smile softened, blue eyes glistening slightly with the presence of tears. She let her hand fall back to her side as she called out, "Welcome home, Yuri!"

CR: I've been working on this for a little while, and I'm glad it's ready to post now!

Pairing is final. If you don't like it, I don't care.

Anyway, that's it for now! Thank you all for reading, and I hope you all enjoyed! Hopefully I caught all the errors before I posted, but if not sorry.

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Bye for now~