Chapter Text
Sometimes, Yuuri thinks it’s not the physical distance that separates them.
The cities of Hasetsu and Saint Petersburg are over 7,000 kilometres apart, which seems like a great, great distance, certainly too far to trek on any old day trip whenever Yuuri feels like. And that’s one of the things he really wishes he could do. Just do day trips. Whenever he feels like.
But it isn’t even so bad once Yuuri tells himself to put it into perspective. The cities that are most furthest-apart, on complete opposite sides of the globe, are nearly 20,000 kilometres apart. That’s the farthest you can be. That’s like flying to Saint Petersburg and back and then some.
Wow, don’t go breaking your own heart, Yuuri tells himself.
Have you ever thought about living in Vladivostok? Yuuri types out into a text on his phone because he can’t find the tab for his online conversation with Victor on his computer, squished somewhere in between sixteen Google Maps searches and distancecalculator.net and the Wikipedia page for great-circle distance or orthodromic distance (i.e. the shortest distance between two points measured along the surface of a sphere).
He hopes Victor forgives him for hypothetically asking to uproot his life for him.
Hhhuhhhh why? comes Victor’s understandably puzzled response. Isn’t it in the Far East? I don’t know much about way out there.
Me neither, Yuuri admits.
Yuuri’s the one who brought this up, but the only real takeaway from searching about Vladivostok online is that it’s a port city so it might be similar to Hasetsu in that regard. Though, its population is still five times that of Hasetsu’s.
You’ve never been there? Yuuri wonders.
Nope, he receives from Victor, and then he starts wondering if Vladivostok has any fun winter events that could keep Victor entertained.
Yuuri lives pretty south of his country but he’s been to just about every part of Japan himself—all the way as far as Aomori where the snow packs as high as two metres above his head during wintertime, and on occasion to Hokkaido for the annual Sapporo Snow Festival. He’d drop by there if he gets booted from competition early. Instead of going home, he’ll make himself feel better by getting some hot sake and wandering around to view the sparkling lights and amazingly cut ice sculptures.
He’ll stand around pretending he’s waiting for someone amongst the couples interlocking arms. He’ll tell himself he’s a bigger deal than he is and that he came up north so no one would recognize him.
The sake will warm him right up, get him a bit drunk at the same time so these things are easier to believe, and then magically the season doesn’t feel like as much of a total loss.
Victor continues musing on in text about how he hasn’t had much interest in the rest of Russia anyway and really only been to Saint Petersburg and Moscow. Never had an excuse to visit anywhere else.
Not even to visit some distant uncle? Yuuri teases.
Unfortunately, don’t have any uncles, Victor says.
Not even for vacation then?
Haven’t had a vacation in over two years :)
You’re kidding!!!! Yuuri screeches through text. Because of course Victor’s winter months are jam-packed, training or travelling all over Europe and around the rest of the world that when he has any downtime at all he probably just wants to stay home.
No vacations at all, though… That’s just absurd.
Even if I was allowed some time off, I don’t think I’d be let very far. Vladivostok is certainly too far. Russia’s toooo big a place.
Victor’s being hyperbolic. He has to be. He better be.
The last comment especially stings. Just a bit. Vladivostok is way, way, way too far. Victor won’t even consider going there. How many times a year are they supposed to dedicate over twelve hours each way and thousands of dollars just on airfare to see each other? How long are things supposed to last like this?
Ki ni shi nai de ne? Don’t worry about it, right?
His mind is still swimming when Victor sends that. Though, he can't help letting it pull a smile out of him.
Ehhhh, you know that?
Despite the image that Victor is a princess locked away in a tower surrounded by a felt hat-wearing fire-breathing dragon, maybe the only thing he has enough downtime for is learning random Japanese phrases to impress Yuuri with.
Of course! And others too. Victor begins typing out: Daijoubu Tanjoubi Omedetou Aishiteru! Suki!
Oh, god. Yuuri covers half his face so he has to type with one hand. Suki~
Suki~~~~~~!
Yuuri nearly cries at his desk. Victor really must be practicing on his own, which, ah, does so many things to Yuuri’s heart, thinking about how dedicated Victor is to learning Japanese for him. He pictures Victor with stacks of Japanese textbooks sitting all around him, glasses on his face, pencil to his lip, studying hard.
This is killing him. Who decided Yuuri has to sit here, abusing his wandering imagination, until he’s completely and utterly dissolved in his seat?
Shouldn’t you be getting to sleep? Victor reminds him after their little back and forth has exhausted Victor’s current vocabulary, which hadn’t been very large to begin with.
But Yuuri wants to keep doing this all night long. He’ll destroy his sleeping pattern if it means Victor can learn Japanese phrases to his heart’s content, getting to say all sorts of things that Yuuri will store away and keep to himself for the long lonely winter nights.
Don’t stay up too late, okay? Isn’t it past midnight there? Are you sleeping already? Am I sending too many texts?
Yes, you are, Victor.
It’s times like these when his hands turn on autopilot. Yuuri picks up his phone, hits the call icon next to Victor’s name and then waits for the ringing to stop. It only takes one.
He doesn’t know what Victor’s doing right now but his response is immediate. Yuuri can still see his cheshired grin. “Hello? Yuuri? Have you decided to use your voice to wish me goodnight?”
Yuuri breathes out, closes his eyes, feels his heart swirl. Hearing Victor’s voice is so relieving that Yuuri quickly closes out of two leftover tabs for Google Images of Vladivostok architecture and four for real estate websites comparing apartment rental prices—done only out of sheer curiosity. He was getting ahead of himself, and the websites were all in Russian anyway so it wasn’t as if he could understand anything enough to actually follow through.
“Did you know… Vladivostok is only a thousand kilometres from Hasetsu?” Yuuri says despite trying (and failing) to rein himself back in. He doesn’t mean to sound like this, wishes he had more of the mental strength to close the one tab that’s been doing the most damage to him all this time: a visual representation of the flight path from Saint Petersburg to Hasetsu—hardly a stone’s throw away.
“Oh,” Victor says, tone somewhat taken aback, probably wondering why they’re back on that now. And then after a long tangent of silence when Yuuri doesn’t elaborate anything more, Victor lights up the phone with the sparkle of his laughter, then says, “How far is a thousand kilometres?”
“It’s…” A lot closer than 7,000.
Yuuri licks his lips, shakes the thought from his mind. It really doesn’t matter if they’re 7,000 or 1,000 kilometres away after all. After some point, it’s all the same. If Victor’s not here, he might as well be as far as outer space, sending messages from another galaxy. He’s here texting Yuuri and he's here talking to Yuuri, but he’s not here enough.
“It’s a pretty big city?” Yuuri says, not knowing where to go from here. “The population is six hundred thousand. Okay, I know you’re used to a lot bigger so maybe it’s actually a downgrade. But it’s not remote by any means. I dunno, I guess I just thought that was pretty interesting.”
“Pretty interesting,” Victor echoes, contemplative. “Not as bustling as Saint Petersburg but not as cozy as Hasetsu.”
“So, it’s just right?”
“Hm.”
That’s not a yes or a no or even a maybe. That’s Victor-speak for “you stumble and fall when you’ve got something on your mind, and you’re terrible at trying to hide it.”
“A plane ride would only take an hour,” Yuuri mentions.
“Yeah, it would.”
“We could do day trips to visit each other.”
“I doubt it. Aeroflot has about a thirty percent chance of arriving on time.”
Yuuri laughs, leaning his head down against the desk, presses the phone close into his ear.
Even if Victor’s about to chastise him for saying ridiculous things that’ll never come to fruition anyway, he keeps his hand on it, afraid to let it go in case the phone slips from his grasp or he misses something very important. Phones and signal and cell reception between continents can be pretty unpredictable, and Yuuri wants to hear it all, everything, anything Victor might say to him. No matter what it is.
“Wouldn’t it be nice…” Victor says instead, “...if we could spend those waiting times together? I wouldn’t detest flying as much.”
Yuuri imagines what that would be like.
And normally they would FaceTime but Yuuri doesn’t want to do that right now. He wants to focus all his attention on listening to Victor’s voice, however crackly or lagged it is. If he were to see or even think about Victor’s face right now, all smiley because Victor smiles when he doesn’t know what else to do—Yuuri feels so sure he’s going to completely come apart.
“I miss you, Victor,” he says, loud enough so the phone is able to pick up his voice, but quick enough that if Victor can’t quite catch it then he’ll ask for Yuuri to repeat himself, and Yuuri gladly will.
But he doesn’t have to. Victor hears him perfectly.
“I miss you, too.” Victor’s voice finally dips towards sounding so uncharacteristically sad, but he’s trying so hard to make the best of it. “I miss you so much, Yuuri.”
There’s a buzz that runs through Yuuri, up his arms, up his spine. He basks in it, bathes in it, wishes it wouldn’t stop. “You do?”
“Of course I do!”
“You mean it?”
“Yes!”
His heart stops beating so fast. In one simple second, he can calm down now. “...Okay, then. Okay, um. That’s all, then. Good night, Victor.”
“Yuuri, wait! You… you can always come live with me in Saint Petersburg, you know? I know I keep bringing it up, but it’s really not so bad. It gets cold sometimes but we can bundle you up in, like, a lot of scarves. Seventeen scarves. I’ll hug you in my arms a lot.”
Oh.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“It won’t be so bad—I want to do it!”
“Don’t push yourself.”
“Please say yes?”
“I know…” Yuuri reassures him, at least hopes it comes across as reassurance for his lack of an answer to Victor’s proposal of this every time, more often completely fizzling out whenever Victor mentions living with him. Whenever he thinks about being able to snuggle up close to Victor every night. It’s too much for him. “Seventeen scarves is… just... a lot of scarves,” Yuuri murmurs.
After a beat, Victor seems to agree, “You’re right. Instead of seventeen crap scarves, I’ll buy you… nine… nine really high quality scarves instead.”
Yuuri lets out a laugh. “Better.” Though, he doubts Victor will actually remember to buy even one when the time comes, but it’s the thought that counts.
“You’ll still visit me for the holidays, right?”
The lilt in his voice turns hopeful, as if this wasn’t already discussed between them before. Decided well before they left each other's arms at the airport in Barcelona when Yuuri had to catch his flight back home.
Yes, of course Yuuri will be back to visit. Why does Victor even need to ask that?
Yuuri can hear the phasing in and out of noise in the background on Victor’s side—the clinking of cutlery and vague streams of Russian.
But Victor doesn’t seem to be paying much attention to whatever’s physically happening around him, keen on listening instead for Yuuri’s answer. Yuuri doesn’t know how or why this is always the one thing he’s sure of, among all of the infinite other things he’s not sure of, only going off of how attentive and caring and patiently listening Victor sounds in response to him and only him.
“Yuurriii, please hurry and come. I’m so cold and lonely without you.”
“I thought the cold wasn’t so bad there?”
“It isn’t.”
“Victor… actually, I don’t care all that much about the cold… I actually just…”
“It won’t be cold when you’re here with me.”
“I wish we could just—”
He cuts himself off, squinting into the darkness, mouth unable to form words, not even able to utter an apology when for the first time during conversation Yuuri lets the phone slip from his ear to hold at arm’s length.
The tinny, distant sound of “Yuuri?” sounds very far away. But he’s going to leave Victor hanging for only a few moments.
Because he just can’t stand it sometimes, letting the easiest things affect him like this. Born a charmer, always a charmer—Victor doesn’t even have to touch him or take his time caressing his fingers against Yuuri’s palm to make it so unbearably hard to stay away.
So often there’s a time lag where they end up talking over each other until it gets so ridiculous they both have to stop, meet each other with “You go ahead” in unison and then “No, go ahead!” in exasperated unison again. Because the sound has to travel quite far, over the mountainous Russian expanse and the Sea of Japan, just to get to each other.
But Yuuri is plagued with almost always being able to catch what Victor says when it’s never the other way around. The awareness that this is very much a horrible romantic drama they’re currently living in isn’t enough not to make his heart go crazy every time Victor throws out some off-hand cheesy thing that’s still audible all the way from the corner of Yuuri’s bedroom, with Victor feigning ignorance while Yuuri suffers alone under the covers of his blanket.
Speechless until it’s far too late to say anything, nothing ever works out well enough to feel totally, honestly satisfied with how often they seem to miss each other.
And Victor keeps pretending he’s about to sleep soon so he insists Yuuri should too, even though it’s nearing only 7 PM for him and there’s no way Yuuri can sleep after the night culminates to this.
His threats are all talk, and it’s the only thing Yuuri can rightfully call him out on from several time zones away.
In the end, Victor presses to stay on the line with him, eating his dinner silently, while Yuuri tucks a pillow under his chin and goes through the process of booking a ticket online to Saint Petersburg—the earliest direct flight on the Eve of Russian Christmas.
-
Victor greets him at Pulkovo International Airport by nearly running headfirst into a solid glass pane, but managing to finally get a kiss successfully in front of a dozen flashing cameras. Victor, this is so embarrassing, Yuuri had planned to say in advance because he knew very well this would happen. But it turns out the long forgotten touch of Victor’s lips on him, reminiscent of a time where they’d almost cracked both their heads on ice during a competition, feels too good to interrupt.
-
“Hello everyone! Thanks for waiting. I’ve brought the one and only: Japan’s Ace, Yuuri Katsuki!” Victor declares this to a restaurant full of Russian skaters and a tableful of Christmas dinner.
“H-Hi,” Yuuri says with a one-handed wave and a sheepish smile.
“Oh, finally. I’m starving.” Yuri P. is the first to shovel his face full of turkey before receiving an elbow to the side from Georgi. “What? I just saw him at GPF. They haven’t seen each other for, what, a couple weeks and you’re acting like he just returned home from war. Holy shit. You all are something else.”
“He did come back from war.”
“He’s a guest.”
“Shush, Yurio.”
“Tyi idiot.”
After they sit down and commotion in Russian begins again, Yuuri leans over to whisper in Victor’s ear, “I thought it was just going to be the two of us?” He’d just come from the airport not an hour ago after all, not that he’s not disappointed. Just surprised. It feels like Victor’s entire ice club is here.
“I might have let slip to Mila what restaurant we were going to.” Victor gives him a small smile, placing a hand on Yuuri’s leg and squeezing. It has Yuuri nearly convulsing. “It’s fine, right? Are you hungry? You’re not too exhausted to eat?”
“Oh—yeah! I mean, no, of course it’s fine. I haven’t washed my face in twenty-two hours but hopefully no one minds.”
“No one minds! Let them have their fun. The kids haven’t seen you in awhile,” Victor says.
The kids, meaning the up-and-coming soon-to-be Russian Junior Champions at the ice club that latch onto Yuuri’s legs every time he visits. Yuuri doesn’t know why they do when Victor’s right there in front of them everyday, but maybe it’s because Yuuri isn’t as tall so they can actually see his face. And it might have something to do with the fact that Victor is always picking them up and swinging them around, intimidating them out of pair skating forever.
Under the table, Yuuri slides a hand underneath Victor’s, lacing through his fingers, taking hold—if only to prevent Victor’s hand on his thigh from arousing more sweet feelings in him than it should. Maybe pair skating will be in their future one day?
When the vodka starts coming around, Yuuri is already shaking his head before anyone can say anything to him.
“Come on!” Mila says. “Just one!” But she has a twinkle in her eye like she knows it won’t end up being just one.
Which is exactly why Yuuri is against it. “No no, I’m so tired. I guarantee you I’ll fall asleep if I do,” Yuuri tells her.
“You won’t,” all the older skaters assure him in unison. But even as Yuuri tries to explain that he literally just came off an exhausting flight, he’s only followed by choruses of “Yuuri Katsuki is not a sleepy drunk” down the table.
It has Yuuri melting into the seat of his chair, with Victor laughing, wrapping a protective arm around Yuuri’s shoulders, and planting kiss after kiss to the side of his forehead. “You’re too cute,” he mutters with a smile into the shell of Yuuri’s ear. And then loudly to everyone else: “I won’t let them make fun of you.”
One of them shouts, “Victor Nikiforov, you’re the only one here who fell head over heels in love with him because he was like that!”
Ahhhhhh, no. That’s totally unfair, Yuuri thinks, and so so so totally untrue. If only they could all understand. They have it all wrong. If only Victor especially could understand that it’s not Yuuri who’s the cute one in this relationship.
-
Yuuri wakes up the next morning to Victor’s head smushed underneath his chin, arms around his middle, straggly silver hair tickling his nose, and the familiar scent of Victor’s apartment in Saint Petersburg that he hadn’t quite gotten to enjoy taking in the night before.
He remembers making a dizzying promise to Victor to stay by his side and never ever leave ever again the night before in the midst of a heated moment. Not that it means one of them is moving to Vladivostok. And not that it means one of them is retiring from competitive skating for good.
But if Yuuri could spend every day like this, falling asleep to Victor’s “Oyasuminasai” and then waking up to an even huskier “Dobroye utro, Yuuri” in the mornings, then he’ll need a little more time to think about it. He'll need to stay in Victor's arms just a litle longer to make all of these difficult decisions in his life easier to take on. So, it’s a good thing Yuuri had hesitated on buying that return trip ticket.