Chapter Text
Victor exhales in relief, zipping his two suitcases close —he’s never quite mastered the art of traveling light, no matter how loud Yakov’s scolding used to be or how deep Yuuri’s annoyed frown can get these days— and looks around the room one last time, making sure he hasn’t left anything behind in his hurry to prepare for the unplanned overnight flight he’ll be taking in a couple of hours.
His eyes land on the one item he’s intentionally left out on the little table near his bed, and he steals a glance towards the bathroom to check that Yuuri is not exiting yet —and feels silly when he realizes the sound of running water should have been enough to let him know that the younger skater is still showering and not about to walk in on this surprise.
Shaking his head at his own nerves and assured that he is alone for now, Victor walks over to the tiny desk in the corner of the room, tearing a sheet with the hotel’s logo from the thick pad at their disposal. He picks up a similarly branded pen and lets his fingers dance along the page in neat, clear letters, biting hard on his lower lip to stop his hand from shaking, focusing on the message he wants to leave there.
He pauses, right before writing down his instinctive choice for a last word above his signature.
Love.
He didn’t even think twice about it, was about to let the ink stain the paper in the forever foreign pattern of the alphabet and language he and Yuuri share a knowledge of, like there’s nothing to it.
But this isn’t nothing, is it? This isn’t his own mind, where he can —and does, daily— freely go on and on and on about the depth of his feelings for Yuuri, where that word has started timidly featuring months ago and is a near constant by now.
No, this is a written note that Yuuri, his precious and anxious enigma of a student Katsuki Yuuri, will read on his own on the night before his free skate, alone in a country that is mostly hostile to his success in stupid and misguided resentment of Victor’s own decisions about his career. And no matter how convincing Yuuri has become at playing the part of Eros, no matter how he possibly links that loaded word to the relationship he’s refused to assign a label to when Victor explicitly asked him what they should be to each other in the early summer on Hasetsu beach; the fact remains that the older skater still doesn’t know, to this day, where they stand.
Yuuri has made love his theme for the whole season; a season he says he’s dedicated to his new coach. And however he meant the words Minako had to awkwardly —and possibly inaccurately— translate for Victor that night he sat in front of Yuuri’s televised announcement with his family and friends, and whatever he was trying to say in Beijing by attempting a quadruple only Victor himself has ever landed in competition —and at the end of an already grueling program, no less, because that’s just the kind of dangerously challenging and delightfully surprising creature Katsuki Yuuri is— he did choose that word himself, with no prompting on Victor’s part.
Victor who —accidentally, spontaneously, ridiculously— ironically made sure right after that prowess that the entire figure skating world and its fans have much clearer ideas and opinions on what they are to each other than Victor himself, if the comments under nearly all of his Instagram posts since the Cup of China are to be believed. He cringes at the memory, unsure what he should be more ashamed of; the unexpected kiss he sprang on his unsuspecting student, or the way he cowardly downplayed the reason behind it the second he felt how tense Yuuri’s muscles grew at the brush of lips against his. At least Yuuri seemed relieved at his explanation and didn’t appear to feel any resentment towards Victor, even long after the elation of sharing the podium with his best friend had subsided. He only shared a quick glance with Victor before casually relaying his lie to the media, extrapolating that it was simply his coach’s usual dramatic antics at work and nothing more, and Victor nodded and smiled along like his brain and heart weren’t quietly tearing each other apart over this aggravating non-development.
Not only did the whole event leave their relationship in the same frustrating limbo it has been in since last spring, it also managed to deepen the pining agony Victor has been steadily increasingly battling since he landed in Japan, now complete with an added layer of confusing regret —upon letting himself get carried away without giving Yuuri enough of a chance to actually back out of the most intimate contact the two of them ever shared if he’d wanted to, and on international fucking television no less— and constantly maddening, consuming want —now that he knows for sure what those lips feel like again his, it’s harder than ever to back out and let Yuuri set the pace like Victor swore to himself he would after his initial very overt seduction attempts were so clearly rebuffed.
The shower going suddenly quiet jolts him out of his thoughts, and Victor allows himself to write down the four-letters word after all, gut-twisting feelings and fears be damned, as well as a last minute addition that makes him giggle to himself.
He rereads the note, imagining Yuuri’s reaction to it while he will be at Makkachin’s sickbed, and immediately feels his stomach churning for different reasons. Here he is, wallowing in this schoolboy crush of his —as Yakov so tactfully referred to it, in Russian thankfully, before begrudgingly accepting to take over for Victor as coach tomorrow— when he’s supposed to be thinking of Makka’s fate.
And although Victor is no stranger to distracting himself from unpleasant thoughts or events —has kind of become a master of the art a solid decade ago, really—this doesn’t feel like his habitual avoidance techniques. It doesn’t compare to chopping off his trademark waterfall of silver hair and going on a weekend long raging party that he only has bits and pieces of memories of on the tenth anniversary of his parents’ deaths and right before the first GP qualifier of that season; it’s also nothing like buying an apartment at a ridiculously high price even for St Petersburg’s market on a whim after the first person he ever gave his foolish heart to shattered it by turning out to be a cheating partner with a family who had only been seeking the thrill of a few forbidden fucks with a young famous untethered athlete.
This feels different from anything he’s ever done before, even if technically Victor is about to leave his home country to fly to Japan in a hurry for the second time this year. But back in March, he’d been fleeing a tasteless and deadly monotonous life he’d come to merely exist through, when he’s now tearing himself from the one man who gave his existence its meaning back and abandoning him at the worst possible time —going against the very core of the program Yuuri himself danced to call him to his side. Back in March he’d been excited, and impatient, and a little bit scared in the thrilling way that skating itself hadn’t felt in years.
Now, well. Scared doesn’t begin to cover it. As lonely as he felt along the years, Makkachin has always been there for him. Imagining the end of her life doesn’t just scare him, it’s bone-chillingly terrifying, it leaves him feeling numb and lost, on the edge of an even darker and deeper pit than the one he was living in until that fateful banquet in Sochi, and Victor has no idea how he’ll manage not to fall into it should this happen now.
He shakes his head —he won't think about this now. He doesn't want to think about anything, really doesn't want to think about having to go anywhere Yuuri isn’t, doesn’t want to have ever received the news that he needs to go and face the possibility of losing his best friend while the love of his life struggles with his demons in a competition that's cost him so much in the past and only has his own emotionally constipated former coach as support through it.
He sighs, hiding the folded note with the precious item beneath Yuuri’s pillow and despairing that he can’t think of anything he can do to fix this impossible situation.
Yuuri chooses that moment to come out of the bathroom, wet hair clinging to his forehead and right hand straightening still foggy glasses on his nose, body wrapped in a towel and a cloud of steam from his scalding hot shower. Victor’s thouthgts almost immediately drifts into forbidden territory at the sight, and he has to fight to keep his eyes leveled at his face and not latch onto his naked chest.
Their eyes meet as Yuuri’s lenses quickly clear of condensation and Victor catches sight of the poorly masked anxiety in his student’s, which effectively pulls his mind out of the gutter right away.
“You’re still here,” Yuuri notes, his features relaxing slightly in relief.
“Of course, Yuuri,” Victor chuckles, stopping his lips from straining into the false grin he’s been plastering on for years. “You didn’t think I’d leave without saying goodbye, did you?”
The playful teasing still sounds fake to his own ears, but he didn’t really have any hope of completely erasing the edge to his voice, not when his only audience is the one person who’s ever allowed —demanded, actually— that Victor be himself around him.
But Yuuri either doesn’t notice or pretends he didn’t. Instead he blushes, betraying his real answer to Victor's question, his left hand still reflexively grasping around the door handle behind him.
“No, I know you wouldn’t,” he assures, almost successfully sounding like he’s not trying to convince himself of that fact. “I just… I was afraid I’d taken too long in there and made you late. Are you done packing?”
He didn’t even take ten minutes, which is a solid half hour shorter than Victor himself usually allowed his sore muscles on the night between two programs. He has a point, however, Victor thinks when he checks the time on his watch.
“I am. The cab should be here in a few minutes.”
“Okay, good” Yuuri breathes. “Good,” he repeats, lower, less sure, and most definitely not intended for Victor’s ears.
He walks over to his side of the room to get dressed as Victor politely averts his gaze and busies himself gathering all his belongings —apart from what he left in Yuuri's bed— in one spot.
When he looks back at him, Yuuri is slipping his sneakers on with a wide-eyed, panicked look on his face as his eyes search around the room for something. Victor bites on the soft knowing smile that wants to spread on his face, and he grabs the piece of clothing he picked up from the floor when he packed his own things away earlier.
“Here,” he says, catching Yuuri’s attention.
The transparent distress on his face dissolves when he recognizes the Team Japan jacket that Victor is handing over and a wobbly smile takes its place, making Victor's stomach flip in the process.
“Thank you,” he whispers, putting it on and reaching for one of Victor’s bags without him asking.
They leave the room after Yuuri makes sure —three times, but Victor doesn’t even think of making fun of him for it tonight— that he’s got the key card in his pocket.
And then, after more encouraging words and a parting hug, they each head on their own towards two different, yet similarly frightening tomorrows.