Work Text:
Victor Nikiforov could not pinpoint the exact moment in which Katsuki Yuuri had become his best friend, but came to the full realization on what had started as an ordinary summer day.
What should have been a simple acknowledgment had become a massive revelation for one very simple reason:
Victor Nikiforov had never had a best friend.
That's not to say that he had no friends at all. He had Chris who had grown close to throughout the course of his skating career. There were also his rink mates, Mila and Georgi, who he spent most days with and had come to think of as his extended family. There was even young Yuri Plisetsky, who he had developed a surprising fondness for. Yuri who would show his love by yelling his disdain and simultaneously following him halfway across the world to bring him home.
It wasn’t that Victor had an absence of friends in his life, he knew that he didn’t. But there had never been someone he could always go to. Someone who knew him inside out, who saw him as he truly was without the mask he always wore. Victor didn’t necessarily fault others for this– he had perfected the mask to such a degree that most of the time he himself got lost in it, not being able to tell where Victor Nikiforov, living legend, ended and where the actual Victor Nikiforov began.
So when Yuuri had sat with him at the beach just a few weeks prior and told him that all he wanted was for Victor to be himself, the initial sense of joy he felt was quickly overshadowed by a vicious anxiety.
Who was he? Who exactly was the real Victor?
He realized that in his twenty-seven years, he had never once stopped to find out. Never even considered that there was someone beside the Victor Nikiforov to discover. The revelation left him feeling more like a child than he ever had; lost in an unknown place, searching desperately for a familiar face that he just couldn’t seem to find.
The anxiety was quietly quelled when Yuuri gave him a soft reassuring smile that conveyed understanding and most of all patience. A smile that said, Take your time. You’ll find yourself and I’ll be with you while you search.
Victor left the beach that night with Yuuri close to his side, feeling more grounded than he had in years.
As the weeks passed by and summer quickly approached, a natural friendship bloomed. The conversation had served as a steady foundation on which they carefully built upon–day by day, brick by brick.
Each day yielded new discoveries, both about themselves and each other. Among them Victor found that he wanted to tell Yuuri everything. Whenever he felt excited about something, Yuuri was the first person he wanted to share it with. Every minuscule, trivial thought he wanted to vocalize if only to see the kind of reaction Yuuri would have. The way his dark eyebrows would furrow if he was confused about something. The way he’d bite the inside of his cheeks to keep from laughing at one of Victor’s more stupid jokes. The way he’d scrunch his nose when he was displeased.
The way he’d look at Victor with a kind of purpose and unwavering attention regardless of what he was saying–looking at him as if he was the only thing that could possibly matter in that moment.
Victor was used to having people’s attention. He had grown up with it and for a long time even reveled in it, basking in the way people would hang onto his every word. But something about the attention that Yuuri paid him felt different. It felt precious.
And even if he still could not share the most vulnerable parts of himself, he knew in his heart that in time he would. That eventually, Yuuri would erode those edges too, just as he had every other sharp and jagged surface of his being so far.
It was as terrifying as it was liberating.
Victor found his best friend in Katsuki Yuuri.
He found it in the comfortable silences they shared.
In the pure and unadulterated childish joy he felt that summer day they decided to skip practice and spend it at the beach instead.
“We can’t take a day off, not so close to the start of the season!” Yuuri had protested.
“I’m your coach and I say we can. Consider it an essential part of your training,” he said as Yuuri continued to look at him with an exasperated expression.
“You need to take breaks, Yuuri. Both for your body and your mind, you’ll burn out if you don’t,” Victor explained gently.
Yuuri relented hesitantly, “Alright…but we go back tomorrow. No exceptions.”
Victor smiled and threw his arm around Yuuri’s shoulders pulling him to his side. Under his arm he felt Yuuri tense for a moment before relaxing and leaning into the embrace.
Casual touches–brushes of hands, arms around waists, the occasional leaning of heads against shoulders– came easier and more frequently as the months passed by. Where once, Yuuri would have run away, they were now slowly being welcomed. Sometimes they were even hesitantly initiated by Yuuri himself. Victor treasured each and every one of the touches he was gifted, knowing how much they cost Yuuri to give away.
They walked like that all the way to Yu-topia to get their swim trunks and towels and then again as they made their way down to the beach. The sun shone down on them, warming their skin as they settled to claim their spot on the sand.
Digging their toes into the sand they watched as Makkachin roamed freely before setting her eyes on a group of seagulls. Her eyes lit up as she hurled towards them and sent them flying high into the cloudless blue sky. Undeterred, her bliss was tangible as she jumped into the water and splashed in the waves.
A soft laugh escaped Yuuri’s lips as he watched Makkachin play in the ocean with a look of amused fondness.
“Let’s go!” Victor said, nudging Yuuri’s shoulder as he stood up and removed his shirt in one fluid motion. Still sitting in the sand Yuuri stared after him, watching him race down to the shore to meet Makkachin.
Victor turned back and flashed him a smile, his face lighting up with child-like excitement, prompting the other man to follow.
Swimming out into the ocean with Yuuri at his heel, the waves rocked his body back and forth in a gentle motion. When Yuuri finally caught up to him, the water made it halfway up his chest. As he was trying to catch his breath a more forceful wave crashed into them making Yuuri lose his balance and fall into the water.
The stunned and slightly embarrassed expression on Yuuri’s face as he emerged from the sea made Victor fall into a fit of loud laughter which was swiftly cut off by water being splashed in his face.
“What are you laughing at, huh?” Yuuri shouted over the waves, attempting to maintain a scowl and failing miserably. Jumping over the waves he wrapped his arms around Victor’s neck and dragged him under the water with him, letting him go quickly after a moment so they could both come up for air.
Sounds of laughter, of crashing waves, and Makkachin delighted barks filled the air as the day went on. They stayed like that, playing in the ocean like two children basking in the summer sun together. In the ocean, they let go of their responsibilities, their anxieties, of the demands the entire world constantly hurled at them.
The two of them splashed around and swam deeper into the ocean. Looking at his surroundings, Victor allowed himself a minute to take in the incredible absurdity of the moment. Closing his eyes he submerged into the water.
Here on this beach, in a small and quiet Japanese coastal town, he was living an impossible dream he never even knew he wanted.
He could feel the cool saltwater surrounding him all over. Holding his breath, he felt the weightlessness of his body–the gentle push and pull of the underwater currents. His toes barely grazed the rough sand on the ocean floor; arms splayed around him, slowly coming up above him as the water flowed through his fingertips. He stayed still, letting the feeling and the light ringing in his ears surround him. For a moment he allowed his mind to be empty of everything except the sensations coursing through him. A quiet tranquility that he had not known, settled in every part of him for that brief moment under the waves. Under the water he felt the immensity that stretched before him. Nothing else mattered other than that feeling.
Unconsciously, his arms pulled him upwards towards the brilliant sunlight painting the surface of the water. His feet pushed off the sand and propelled him the rest of the way up until his face broke the surface. He took a long deep breath of air, letting it fill his lungs, keeping it for a moment before letting it extinguish the light burning in his lungs as he breathed out.
The sun tinted his eyelids pink as he blinked slowly. Iridescent colors reflected off the tiny droplets of water that fluttered on his eyelashes. Slowly, they slid off onto his cheek and down his bare neck, eventually finding their way back to the ocean.
Pushing his body, he laid on his back, letting the waves carry him and the warmth of the sun engulf him. Soft fingertips faintly grazed his hand and he felt the moment Yuuri’s pinkie finger carefully intertwined with his own. Turning his head slightly to the side and he finally opened his eyes fully.
Yuuri’s profile was only a small distance away from his own glistening under the sun and the sight knocked the air out of lungs more than any amount of time underwater ever could. Victor allowed himself to indulge and fully take in the sight of Yuuri’s floating body next to his; Yuuri’s golden skin glistened under the sun, his wet hair completely pushed back, leaving his face exposed and unobstructed.
He was daylight personified. Bright and all encompassing, beautiful in an inexplicable manner.
There were often moments when Victor looked at Yuuri and couldn’t help but wonder how different things would have been if he had found him earlier in life.
He often imagined what it would have been like to grow up together. To have known each other as children and experience the terrifying yet fascinating vastness of the world. Brimming with curiosity, charging towards the unknown wildly and without fear. Would he be a different man today if he had had someone to go into the ongoing battle of growing up with? A cavalry of two on wooden toy horses, fortifying the foundations of their growing and changing selves.
He wondered how his life might have progressed differently if they had known each other as teenagers. To have the other to confide their deepest secrets in when they felt that no one else in the whole world could possibly understand the growing pains that wracked through them. When every little struggle felt like the end of the world, a cataclysmic tidal wave that threatened to wash every trace of their childish selves and leave in its place a raw and undefined version of their being. Would he be a different man today if he had had a companion to navigate the rising tides that life kept indiscriminately hurling at their younger selves? A fellow sailor to help steer the ship through stormy seas, using the stars as guides to lead the way to the undiscovered and uninhabited lands of their futures.
Victor realized that dwelling on what-ifs was useless, but a part of him couldn’t help but feel only a tiny bit bitter for having to wait twenty-seven years to meet Katsuki Yuuri.
It didn’t matter however because now he found himself in that vast ocean with Yuuri. Together, navigating their ship, manning their calvary.
“I think you’re the best friend I’ve ever had, Yuuri,” he said quietly.
Yuuri did not say anything, but then again he didn’t need to–the soft, yet brilliant smile he gave Victor was in itself the only response he could want. In that moment Yuuri looked at him with such a soft tenderness, Victor almost had to look away.
He refused to look away though, hoping that his own expression could convey to Yuuri everything that he could not put into words. And as Yuuri continued to look at him, eyes crinkling slightly, giving his pinkie finger a light squeeze, he knew that Yuuri understood the magnitude of his words; That Victor had carefully placed that confession in the palm of Yuuri’s hands, trusting that he’d, if not reciprocate the sentiment, would at least be gentle in the handling.
And Yuuri was, as he knew he would be. That same quiet tranquility, the feeling of absolute weightlessness fell over him once again, stemming from the knowledge that Yuuri cherished his confession; Held it just as carefully as it had been placed, and would guard it close to his heart for safekeeping.
They stayed on that beach for hours, playing in the ocean, laying in the sand until the sun started to go down. That same beach where Yuuri once told him all he wanted was for Victor to be who he was. Just Victor.
The feeling of weightlessness continued when they went over to the showers near the edge of the beach to rinse off the day.
Under the gentle stream of water Victor watched Yuuri. Tiny droplets made their way down his body as Yuuri pushed his dark hair back with his hands, exposing his elegant neck. A sense of longing ripped through him as he watched.
Over the past few months Victor had noticed that he longed for many things, the list constantly growing at an alarming rate. It varied from day to day, from hour to hour. At that moment he longed to pause the scene. Freeze it in time, encapsulate it in a crystal box and put it on a high shelf so far out of reach where nothing or no one would ever disturb it.
As their eyes met, Victor wanted, more than anything, to reach out and close the remaining distance between them. To be so close to Yuuri. He yearned to feel the sweet agonizing dragging of the seconds before their lips finally touched. He yearned to know how those lips would feel against his, if they would be as soft as they looked, what rhythms Yuuri would create, what his gasps would taste like.
He could have done it, it would have been easy with Yuuri so close. If anything it might have even been expected. A perfect conclusion to a perfect day. But as he looked at Yuuri, he knew it just wasn’t time yet. There was a glint in Yuuri’s eyes, a look of deep understanding that though it wasn’t time yet, it would be soon.
An understanding of exactly where they were both heading, and a full acceptance of the intended path that lay before them.
As the seconds passed, there was a flash of mischievousness in Yuuri’s eyes. His lips turned upward fractionally in quiet amusement as his hands came up to cup the water that was falling before suddenly throwing the water he had collected in his palms at Victor’s face. Stunned, he looked at Yuuri who flashed him a full smile as he giggled, the movement making his eyes scrunch up and crinkle. The sound of his laughter was lightly drowned out by the steady stream of water falling on them.
Victor could feel his own laughter bubbling up inside of him as he reached over to playfully hold Yuuri’s head under the water. Yuuri yelped in surprise as he instinctively tried to wrestle his way out of Victor’s hold. Standing on the tips of his toes he reached up to grab Victor’s own head, ruffling his hair as they jostled, their laughs echoing around them.
An elderly couple walking along the beach gave them a funny look as they took in the sight of two grown men splashing in the beach’s showers. It must have been a curious sight, Victor thought as he caught their gazes from the corner of his eyes.
For a split second, he swore he saw a smile grace the elderly woman’s face; a twinkle of fond nostalgia in the man’s eyes. They shared an amused conspiratorial look, the woman giving her husband’s pinkie finger a tiny squeeze as they continued making their way down the beach in the opposite direction.
Victor smiled quietly to himself, as he brought his attention back to Yuuri. To his laughter, to his smile, to his hands in his hair. An array of bright oranges and pinks painted the sky as the sun began to finally set. The final shreds of daylight faded, but the all encompassing warmth it brought with it stayed, engraving itself deep into his bones, running smoothly through his veins, and finding a permanent home in his chest.