Chapter Text
phichit+chu NATS NATS NATS NATS NATS
katsuki_yu I see you’re enjoying being back in Thailand
phichit+chu it is time for REVENGE yuuri
phichit+chu there is a national title out there that is soon going to be mine
phichit+chu i am going to worlds next year even if i have to strangle nithiz saowaluk on the podium to do it
katsuki_yu lbr he’d probably let you
katsuki_yu honestly it’s sort of terrifying how much the kid idolises you
phichit+chu i KNOW
phichit+chu my very own kenjirou minami
katsuki_yu who?
phichit+chu the skater who kept staring at you at ur nats, kinda gave off a ‘notice me senpai’ vibe
katsuki_yu blond hair with a red streak?
phichit+chu thats the one
katsuki_yu he was sort of… intense
phichit+chu he was very intense and also very much in awe of the great yuuri katsuki and posted like 100 surreptitious selfies with u in the background to his instagram
phichit+chu after the awards ceremony he really wanted to go talk to u but he chickened out when he saw u glaring
katsuki_yu glaring? why was I glaring?
phichit+chu bc u couldnt see anything
katsuki_yu so you mean squinting
phichit+chu when half the skating world thinks ur fckin terrifying yuuri, its glaring
phichit+chu maybe u should consider contact lenses
katsuki_yu hahaha ask celestino to show you pictures of my eyes when I tried contact lenses for the first time
katsuki_yu we had to drop out of an ice show in japan and go to the hospital instead
phichit+chu ooooh stories from celestinos midlife crisis yes pls
katsuki_yu I wish you wouldn’t call it that
phichit+chu what would u call moving to a foreign country bare weeks after breaking up with your girlfriend to coach a skater u saw skate on an abandoned rink once
phichit+chu bc i would call it a textbook midlife crisis
katsuki_yu why am I friends with you
phichit+chu bc u were lowkey rude to me when we met and i decided to befriend u out of spite
phichit+chu sent katsuki_yu an image
phichit+chu nithiz made me a banner
phichit+chu i kno ur thai is shitty so ill save us all a bit of embarrassment and tell u it means ‘welcome home and good luck’
katsuki_yu would you say the banner is better or worse than the voicemail last year?
phichit+chu better
phichit+chu so much better
phichit+chu i dont kno if u remember but it was literally 40 mins of him apologising and crying bc he was being sent to worlds instead of me
phichit+chu i mean fair to him i was ROBBED
phichit+chu but i did miss last year’s nationals so like
phichit+chu its not like it was his fault
katsuki_yu if it had been a year or two earlier they would have sent you regardless
phichit+chu ah yes the olympic effect
phichit+chu basically the driving force behind christophes entire career
katsuki_yu oh my god he did start off in the olympics really young didn’t he
phichit+chu sent katsuki_yu an image
phichit+chu foetus!chris for ur viewing pleasure
phichit+chu looking at him this young and innocent u just sort of wonder where it all went wrong
katsuki_yu idk but I’m like 90% sure its stéphane’s fault
phichit+chu u kno what that makes a disturbing amount of sense
--
There is a strange detached feeling in Yuuri’s chest as he sees the social media posts roll in from the Thailand National Championships. A shot of Phichit waving at the audience. Phichit fist-bumping Celestino. Phichit laughing as he picks himself up after a fall. Phichit putting his skate guards on.
He turns away from his laptop screen to try and focus on his annotated copy of The Life and Times of Michael K, but he can’t make his eyes stay on the neatly printed words in front of him.
Phichit signing something for a fan. Phichit taking a selfie. Phichit cajoling Celestino into giving him a piggyback ride.
Yuuri’s phone rings.
It’s like a spell has been broken. Yuuri shuts his laptop lid and drops his book, reaching across his desk to pull his phone free of its charging cable. The caller ID reads, The Other Rink, followed by a string of emojis that Yuuri knows Phichit is responsible for. The thing in Yuuri’s chest comes loose once more, but he pushes it down, determined to ignore it, and picks up the call.
“Yuuri, it’s Andrea. Are you busy right now?”
Yuuri knows better than to think of that question as anything more than a formality. Yuuri doesn’t pick up the phone when he’s busy, and Andrea both knows this and doesn’t care. She’s called Celestino before, when Yuuri has ignored her calls, and demanded he pass him the phone.
As Phichit says, some things are unavoidable: death, taxes, and publicists.
Yuuri sighs. “Not really,” he says. “What do you need?”
Because Andrea always needs something, be it a social media account with Yuuri’s name stamped across it, or Yuuri dressed in a kimono endorsing dish soap – and she nearly always gets it.
“We need to talk about your plans for the summer,” Andrea says. “A season off is one thing, but dropping out of the World Team Trophy means that you should probably show your face in Japan a couple of times before the next season begins. Stars on Ice have made their usual offer. You want to accept?”
“Tokyo area?” Yuuri asks, running his finger down the spine of his book.
“I figured you’d prefer it that way,” she replies. “I can try and get something closer to your hometown if you want, though. To be honest, there aren’t many shows that will turn you down.”
Yuuri grimaces. “No, that’s fine. Tokyo’s good.”
“If you stop by the club sometime, we can iron out the dates,” Andrea says. “It would also give me a chance to talk to you about the other offers that have come through for you. There are a couple of endorsement deals I think you might be interested in.”
Yuuri doubts that. He’s never had an endorsement offer that he was interested in.
He pulls his hand away from his book. “Andrea,” he says. “Those ice shows…”
“Yes?”
Yuuri lets the rest of the sentence drift away from him without ever saying it. “I’ll start putting together some exhibition skates for them, something fresh.”
There’s a pause. “More video game music?” Andrea asks dryly.
Yuuri flushes. “I, uh,” he says, “I haven’t really had that much time for gaming this season.”
“Well, let me know what you decide,” Andrea replies. “I’ll pass the information along to the relevant organisers whenever you’re ready.”
Yuuri sometimes forgets that Andrea speaks fluent Japanese, especially as she insists on them speaking English together. “Thanks,” he says.
Andrea sighs. “Take care of yourself, Yuuri. Text me when you have a good time to meet.”
She hangs up.
Yuuri sits in his desk chair for a long while, staring at nothing, before he finally reaches for his laptop. When he opens the lid, the first thing he does is close the window of Phichit’s adventures in Thailand and open up his music library.
Choreography isn’t something Yuuri ever thought he would be good at when he was younger. He remembers messing around in Minako’s studio, stitching together childish routines to whatever music had captured his attention that week – and he remembers the way she would always, always clap, no matter how much of an idiot he made himself look.
In the Novice Division, Coach Nakamura handled it. She only suggested he make the switch to professional choreography when he moved up to Juniors, not that his family had the money to afford it. His parents would have done it anyway – scraped and saved and sacrificed for his skating, for a potential success that he might not have even been capable of – and the thought of making such a selfish request turned his stomach.
So Yuuri told Coach Nakamura that he wanted to do it himself.
He hated it, in the beginning. Yuuri has always been all too good at tangling himself up in the spectre of unspoken rules, and it felt like choreography was littered with them. He obsessed over each movement, each turn, each spin, terrified of the possibility that someone would somehow read his inexperience through his skating, and laugh. Coach Nakamura didn’t help much at all, noncommittal whenever he asked for her opinion, and evasive when he asked for her help. Whenever he had to show her his progress on his programs, he felt tense with anticipation of disdain that never came and interest she never showed.
He still feels like that sometimes, but it’s easier now, with time. Celestino knew what he was doing, and never held back from comments and opinions, unselfconscious even when he had to mime whatever change he thought Yuuri should make. And Yuuri gradually figured it all out, learned how rhythm works on the ice, how his body needs to move, which patterns work and which don’t.
He gets it, now, for the most part.
Yuuri scrolls through the playlists in his music library, frowning just a little when he realises how many of them relate somehow back to skating. EARN THAT QUAD is his and Phichit’s playlist from strength training at the gym, and Only True 90s Kids Remember is a playlist full of all the pieces Celestino skated to during his competitive career. There are other, more utilitarian titles, likeWarm-Up Music (2013-14) – which was previously titled OLYMPICS HYPE, and was put together by Yuuko and Nishigori for him – and Demos from Minnah. He hovers over that last one, before dragging the cursor away and instead clicking on Classical Program Ideas.
He plugs in his headphones and sits back to listen.
A few pieces he skips past bare moments into the music. Others, his interest holds until barely halfway through. Occasionally, he hears a familiar few notes, an echo of an old exhibition skate, and his finger hovers just over the skip button, unsure if he wants to reminisce or pull away entirely.
Beethoven. Chopin. Yiruma. More Beethoven. Piano upon piano upon piano. Saint-Saëns. Dvorak. Mozart. A whole orchestra inside his head, perfectly in tune, but somehow not quite right.
Yuuri exits the playlist, eyes sliding shut as he leans back in his chair.Think, he tells himself. Think. What is the story you want to tell?
But when he reaches inside of himself for some echo of a desire, there’s nothing but static.
--
tealxross
If you ever feel unprepared for something, just remember that fifteen year-old figure skater Christophe Giacometti was planning a long junior division career when his country went “yolo” and sent him to the Olympics anyway.
chulanope
#no you don’t understand #he didn’t even realise he would be headed to the olympics until someone asked him about it at the press conference after nats #he was like ‘vancouver? world juniors this year are in the netherlands’ #and then #the dawning look of horror on his face #HE WAS NOT PREPARED
@crispysala’s tags on this post are a gift but i can’t believe no one thought to include the gif
[GIF]
“oh fuck”
1,011 Notes source: tealxross #figure skating #i adore chris but this gif is the funniest thing ever #‘i fucked up’ #‘…by not fucking up’ #god he looks so young here #chris is the master of many things #including both sex appeal and puberty #christophe giacometti #swiss hottie
--
The day Victor’s mother died, he did everything right.
The kids in his grief counselling group would always talk about that last day as if it were something they needed to fix. Like a kiss goodbye and an “I love you” would suddenly make everything okay. It wouldn’t, but each time Victor opened his mouth to say that, the guilt closed his throat. All he could do was sit there in tense, dreadful silence.
The thing is, Victor was one of the lucky ones. His mother died, but he never had to worry about money, or moving schools, or living with strangers, or whether or not she knew he loved her before she was gone. For all he sneered at his aunt that he was her pity case – a tragic orphan – it wasn’t like there was much tragic about him, at all.
He missed his mother, though, deeply and bewilderingly. Everything about her ached, like a severe burn struggling to heal.
Victor runs his fingers down he now loose stitching of his mother’s old skates. Never let it be said that Yuri Plisetsky has never strayed close to a white flag; the fact that he brought them with him to America means he probably knew it was unlikely he could talk Victor into coming back to Russia.
It’s… kind of nice, that he would come anyway.
Victor sighs, and puts the skates down.
It was a dumb idea to take them with him to the rink. The leather is worn and soft, and the laces are close to snapping. Victor will never admit it aloud, but Yakov probably saved him from injury by making him buy fresh boots all those years back. It’s a miracle Victor got as far as he did without the things falling apart.
“Do I still love skating, huh,” he murmurs in quiet Russian.
What kind of question even is that? Victor’s relationship with skating isn’t so much loving as it is co-dependent. He doesn’t know what kind of person he would be without it, and he has no idea if that’s something he should try to figure out.
He thinks he’d miss skating, though, if he stopped.
The door to the rink opens, and Victor looks up from his seat in the stands. He’s not technically supposed to be here quite yet, the ice having been booked months in advance by Yuuri’s – former? – coach, but Karen had said something about an away competition, which Victor had aligned in his mind with Thai Nationals and decided to chance it.
Oh. It’s Yuuri.
Victor relaxes back into his seat, fingers straying to his mother’s skates yet again. He really should call attention to himself, but…
Yuuri skates differently when he knows Victor’s watching. He’s a touch tenser, a touch less certain, a touch off in his jumps. It feel self-conscious. Victor hates it. He prefers—well, maybe not the polished Yuuri from competitions and podiums, but the Yuuri he saw that first night at the rink. Distant, lost in a story only he knows, candid.
Yuuri laces up his boots quickly, and runs through his usual warm-up routine. Victor’s seen him perform it countless times now: three laps around the rink, followed by a set of compulsory figures he makes look lazy. Yuuri drifts out of his last figure of eight and skates over to the boards, where he sets up his phone with a portable speaker. A few moments later, music fills the rink.
Huh. It’s Holst. A little overdone, but at least it’s Saturn, not Jupiter.
Yuuri waits a few moments, then pushes off the boards, and starts to sketch out a pattern on the ice. Turn. Turn. Turn. Walley jump. Another turn. Yuuri makes a disgusted face, and skates back over to his phone.
The music changes. To Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Which is, if possible, even more overdone than Holst.
Victor frowns down at the rink. It’s odd to see this process – the development of the choreography that Yuuri is so famous for – but it makes sense to think that Yuuri starts his programs with the step sequence. It’s so often the focal point of them, the moment the music swells and then comes crashing back down.
At least Yuuri skips Ride of the Valkyries before it can get particularly far in.
Then—Victor frowns. He hasn’t heard this piece before. It’s… the only word he can truly come up with is lonely.
His chest feels tight.
He’s just… tired. Of decisions, of goals, of stretching and compressing and twisting himself to look, act, become something more. He feels like he’s existing underwater, and the only things that reach him unmuted are the physical, teeth-knocking impacts that maybe it would be healthier to avoid. Rough landings. Sex. Pointed words and poisoned emotions.
He’s tried doing everything right, but it doesn’t work. Nothing works.
Victor Nikiforov has never skated an honest program in his life. Everything he has ever shown the audience has been a façade, a defence mechanism. He’s been irreverent, and cheeky. Serious. Brave. Passionate.
He doesn’t think he has ever let himself be alone.
Victor Nikiforov is the boy who said “I love you” to his mother and didn’t really mean it, “goodbye” and didn’t really believe it. He’s the boy who bit his tongue and choked on his loss, who doesn’t have a mother and never had a father. He’s—
Really fucking alone.
Victor looks down at his hands, down at his mother’s skates, and he inhales. Dimly, he can hear the music cut off, another piece flooding the rink, but it doesn’t matter.
One more season, he decides, gripping the dulled blades of the skates so hard the metal almost cuts his hands open.
It doesn’t feel like hope. It feels like delaying the inevitable.
--
Christophe Giacometti @skater_giacometti
For the next hour, I’ll be answering your questions here on twitter. Use the hashtag #AskChris and I’ll try to get back to you!
jane air @skategirl9901
What’s the hardest thing about competitive figure skating? #AskChris
Christophe Giacometti @skater_giacometti
@skategirl9901 Generally, the initial expense. For me, personally, being away from my cat during competitive season.
Luna Heather @luna122494
Who is the #MysteryMan in all your instagram posts? #AskChris
Christophe Giacometti @skater_giacometti
@luna122494 That’s my dance instructor and choreographer, Arnold! We’ve known each other for a long time
just a little bit @hmbmv
you have sleepovers with your choreographer??!? #AskChris
Christophe Giacometti @skater_giacometti
@hmbmv Well when you put it like that it does sound weird hahaha #nothingtoseehere
born to win @katsudonyou
You mentioned that Phichit was your second favourite skater, but who is your first? #AskChris
Christophe Giacometti @skater_giacometti
@katsudonyou That would be Yuuri Katsuki, the man who broke my heart. It was a night I’ll never forget. Sadly, Yuuri cannot say the same.
Phichit Chulanont @phikachulanont
@skater_giacometti oh my god, Yuuri’s going to be so pissed when he sees this
Christophe Giacometti @skater_giacometti
@phikachulanont Don’t you mean IF he sees this?
Phichit Chulanont @phikachulanont
@skater_giacometti are you kidding? I’ve already sent him a screenshot #skaterbrosbeforeskaterhoes
[IMAGE]
crispysala
I can’t decide if the best thing about this is the implication that Chris is sleeping with his choreographer (and fyi Arnold Bachman is a POLE DANCING INSTRUCTOR) or the implication that he and YK had a one night stand that YK was too smashed to remember
crispysala
Or that Phichit is #CONFIRMED as the friend who screenshots you trash talking someone behind their back and sends it to them just to stir shit
chulanope
chris’s programs are choreographed by a pole dancer
everything makes sense now
2,034 Notes source: crispysala #figure skating #international man of mystery on ice #christophe giacometti #figure skating’s ultimate insider #phichit chulanont #japanese sweetheart #yuuri katsuki #social media
--
Yuuri’s head is an echo-chamber of everything he hasn’t done today – the essay he hasn’t planned, the music he hasn’t chosen, the choreography that doesn’t exist. Part of him doesn’t want to head back to the rink to teach Victor, but that’s a petty, selfish desire and Yuuri refuses to tolerate it. He made a commitment. He’s going to keep it.
Victor isn’t on the ice when Yuuri arrives, instead leaning against the boards and scrolling through something on his phone. He looks up briefly, before returning his gaze to his screen.
“What do you know about Noemi Palmer?”
Yuuri frowns. “Who?”
“Exactly,” Victor says, viciously tapping a button on his phone. “What about Edward Barrerra?”
Is this a test? Is Yuuri supposed to actually know who these people are? “Uh…”
Another vicious button tap. “Keith Mathis?”
Something clicks in Yuuri’s head. “Wait, are these – are these figure skating coaches?” He processes that statement, and realises what it means. “You’ve decided to continue skating?”
Victor looks up from his phone and meets Yuuri’s eye. Then he looks away. “Yeah. For now, at least.”
That’s… Yuuri doesn’t have a clue what that is. Good? Bad? A demonstration of how a reasonable person makes a reasonable decision, compared to Yuuri’s own fucked up thought processes?
“I’m glad,” Yuuri says quietly, and is startled to find he means it.
Victor still doesn’t look up from his phone. “Yeah, well, I’m not,” he says. “Ugh, I’ve got about fifty offers from coaches back in Russia, and three vaguely threatening emails from the FFKKR mentioning everything from mandatory military service to national pride.”
Oh. Somehow… Somehow Yuuri had forgotten about this side of the deal. That Victor continuing skating meant him going back to Russia, where every single coach alive would be fighting for a chance at shaping the potential he embodied.
He takes a deep breath. “Well,” he says, “what do you want in a coach?”
Victor shrugs.
Yuuri feels his fingers scrunch into his palms, nails scratching lightly against his skin. He swallows. “I mean,” he says, “you probably want someone with a good eye for jumps, right? And you definitely need someone to work on your skating skills with you. I can—I can ask Celestino what he knows about the people who’ve made you offers, though he probably won’t know much about Russian—”
Victor’s looking at him now, phone screen black, and Yuuri feels his face heat up.
“Sorry,” he says, though he doesn’t know what for.
Victor fiddles with his phone, but he doesn’t unlock the screen again. “It’s fine,” he says. “It’s just – to be honest, Yuuri, I don’t really care about any of that.” He pauses, considering. “After your senior debut, why did you stay with Celestino Cialdini?”
Yuuri’s mouth goes dry. “What?”
“Well, you can’t deny that you made a big splash at the Grand Prix,” Victor continues. “Cialdini wasn’t a particularly well-known or well-regarded coach, and you could have definitely traded up for the next season. So why didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t—it wasn’t like that, Victor.” Yuuri’s gaze drops to his feet. The laces on his right trainer are twisted. “Celestino was—he was the first coach that… that I could work with.” He swallows again. “He—he understood me.”
That’s a lie. It was never that Celestino understood. It was that Celestino tolerated even when he shouldn’t, and Yuuri was too much of a coward to switch to a coach that might not give him so much leeway.
“That’s what I want.”
Yuuri’s head snaps up, heart jumping into his throat. “Celestino?”
“No. To be understood by my coach.”
“That’s—that’s not something that’s very easily quantifiable, Victor.”
Victor pushes off from the boards. “Okay,” he says, “how’s this? I want a coach that cares about me. Who is a team with me. Who wants me to win not because of anything like reputation or expectation, but because it means I’m doing well, and they want me to do well. I just—” his voice softens, “I just want a coach who cares.”
I just want a coach who cares. It hits Yuuri somewhere soft and unguarded, batters at the cracks that litter what little armour he could ever assemble, and suddenly, it’s like staring in a mirror turned back four years.
(Yuuri just needs to be more disciplined with himself.)
And Yuuri’s treacherous, treacherous brain opens his mouth, and says words that never should have been spoken aloud.
“I could be that.”
--
katsuki_yu PHICHIT
katsuki_yu PHICHIT HELP
katsuki_yu PHICHIT I’VE JUST DONE SOMETHING REALLY REALLY STUPID