Chapter Text
“Yuuri! Don’t watch the European Championships without me!” Yuuko yells as she barges into his room. It’s dark and he’s half-asleep from where he’s hardly moved on his bed. “You’re not even ready! Come on, get up, sleepy head!” She flicks on the lights and goes for the TV, pressing buttons to search for the right channel.
Yuuri groans and slowly sits up. His long hair falls in front of his shoulders. “It’s late. Shouldn’t you be at home, asleep?”
“I did my chores and my homework. Mom let me stay up late. Your mom’s letting you stay up, too. The men’s short program is about to start!”
“I don’t really care.”
“Victor’s competing.”
“So?”
Yuuko turns to the door. “Vicchan! Come make Yuuri less grumpy already.”
Vicchan hops up onto Yuuri’s bed, tail wagging hard as if they’ve been separated for weeks rather than hours. Yuuri pets him and adjusts how he’s sitting to make space for Vicchan to curl up beside him. “Why are you here, Yuuko?”
She finds the right channel. The reception is a little fuzzy, but it’s good enough. The broadcast is in Japanese. “We planned to watch all the competitions together, remember?”
“Yeah, well, that was before…” Yuuri sighs. “Just go.”
Yuuko sits beside him. “Victor’s your inspiration! You can’t just give up on him.”
“Yuuko…”
“It’s his first time at Euros. What do you want to bet he’ll win gold? He got bronze at the Grand Prix Final; I’ll be he’s trying to prove he’s better than that.”
“I don’t care anymore! What’s the point when I can’t even skate?” he snaps. Vicchan jumps, then sets his head on Yuuri’s right leg. “Everything I’ve dreamed of and worked towards is gone. It meant something when I thought I could do what he does. He can turn movement into magic and make art on the ice. He can climb up to the top with all his hard work. He can live the life that he wants. I can’t do any of that anymore.” He sobs, his already blurry vision getting worse with the tears. “It doesn’t matter if I could ever be that good because that’s been taken away from me.”
His left limbs—what remains of them, at least—ache after not taking his pain medication this evening, and when he reaches with his now-missing left hand to adjust the sheets, it’s a stark reminder of what he’s lost. His left arm beneath the elbow and left leg from mid-femur were both amputated a little over a week ago, after a truck going way too fast skidded on ice and hit him on his way to grab a snack from the corner store. He’s had long enough to go through the “what ifs” while sitting around and he’s decided it’s not worth thinking about those. The fact is simple: At fourteen years old, after only half a season of higher-level junior competitions, his career is already over.
“They’re starting warm ups! Victor’s going sixth, so we don’t have to stay up all night if you don’t want to. Do you need these?” Yuuko holds up his bottle of prescription pills. He points towards the over-the-counter ones instead and she counts out two of them before putting them in his hand. The pain isn’t as bad when he’s not moving like this, though he’ll need the prescription later if he wants to sleep soundly. “You should get a poster of him in this costume. It makes me think of a peacock.”
“I might take down the posters.” Yuuri looks at them all over his walls. What once seemed like inspiration now taunts him.
“Not until you have posters of yourself to replace them with.”
“Are you trying to make this harder on me? I’ll never skate again!”
“Why not?” Yuuko asks as if she really has no idea.
Yuuri sternly gestures to his left side. “I literally cannot. Who’s heard of a figure skater without a leg?”
“Then get a prosthetic leg.”
“It isn’t that simple. I’d have to work twice as hard after a long recovery period. No one bounces back from that. Careers can end from a broken ankle and this doesn’t even compare to that. It’s over for me.”
“You’re still young. You just entered juniors. You can come back even if you have to take time off.”
Yuuri shakes his head. “It doesn’t seem worth it. All that work and it might be for nothing. What if I can never get my balance back? What if I can’t do jumps? What if I get that far and it all gets taken away again? What if I can’t compete with prosthetics? What if I hurt my other leg? It’s the one that takes the most impact, after all. It’s more likely to get hurt.”
“What if you could compete against Victor?”
Yuuri falls silent. He stares at the screen where the skaters from the first block are starting to exit the rink. He focuses on Victor at the edge of the screen, and then the camera does, too, zooming in just as he takes off into a triple flip. Victor stumbles, catching himself at the last second and then standing upright a moment later with a smile. The smile turns sheepish when he meets his stern-faced coach off the ice.
His parents don’t call him Yuuri. Only Yuuko and Mari picked up his new name that easily while his parents are still hesitant about it, having a hard time understanding him. That ongoing conversation has taken a back seat in the wake of the accident. Competing as a man feels like a pipe dream, but when Yuuko says it so easily, it sounds like a natural step. He’s a boy, after all; why shouldn’t he compete in that division? What would the ISU have to say about it? It’s not like most would know how to connect his new name to his old in local competitions; he’s practically a nobody. He was on track to compete in international junior competitions next season. By the time he ages out of junior competitions, Victor should still be competing.
His contradictions to Yuuko’s proposal start to sound more like a plan. What’s stopping him from getting a prosthetic and returning to the ice once he’s recovered? It may not be as good as his own leg, but as long as it will let him skate and jump, he can compensate for anything else. He’s dealt with the stress and pain of practicing and getting into shape. This would just be one more thing on the list.
To see himself on the same ice as Victor would be everything he’s dreamed of. Just like before, everything is in his hands, with the exception of the quality of his leg. Can he pick himself back up and get back on track?
“You say that like it’s easy,” he whispers.
“It’s not,” she says, “but you didn’t start this because it was easy.”
Four months later, Yuuri is back on the ice. Another two months after that, his stamina is close to where it used to be. His physical therapist has been keeping him on track as he learns how to work with his new leg. While much is different, he could feasibly skate his old routine again if he wanted as long as he rested well between practice days.
After watching Victor take silver at Worlds, his drive is back. He wants a piece of the world that Victor lives in even if he has to claw his way there and work twice as hard as everyone else. Though depression still clings to him, he continues to fight through it, not willing to sit by and let go of his dream. Nothing will happen unless he makes it happen. He approaches the rest of his life the same way: He chops off most of his hair, pushes back against the school and his parents until he can wear the boys’ uniform, and stubbornly refuses to answer to his old name in any context.
The roadblocks remain frustrating. He listens to his body, not willing to risk further damage by pushing his limits too hard. He learns the difference between acceptable pain and the kind that could cause injury. When his therapist says to stay off the ice, he does. It results in him spending much more time resting. This season won’t be a good one, but he knew that from the outset. It’s intended to get him back on his feet and set him up for future seasons. He shouldn’t be wasting a year on recovery, but that’s the hand he’s been dealt, so he’s going to make the most of it.
If his season gets started at all.
His first coach walks off two days in when she realizes he’s transgender.
The second doesn’t get that far. One mention of wheelchairs and he’s out the door.
The third coach stays for two weeks. Yuuri’s the one who ends that contract after he overhears him calling Yuuri the wrong name and pronouns. Turns out he’s been “playing along” with Yuuri and it’s only by chance that Yuuri saw the unsubmitted forms listing the wrong information. His parents back him up on that one. They may still be getting used to his transition, but they’re letting him pursue skating in the men’s division and would never allow anyone to disrespect family like that.
By the time the fourth starts trying, he’s exhausted.
“That double axel was terrible! Do it again,” Coach Fuyu Sumida says.
Yuuri groans. It’s the tenth time he’s done it and he’s only getting worse. “Isn’t it your job to tell me how to fix this?”
“Not at this point. It’s like trying to boil an empty pot! Put some water in there and then we can critique. Again!”
“That doesn’t even make sense!”
“Again!”
Yuuri skates around until he’s in a good position, then pushes forward until he builds enough speed. He knows how to do this, he’s done it hundreds of times before, but Sumida is staring at him and judging him and looking at him as a kid whose leg moves wrong and whose chest is too large to be a boy—
He barely lands with a hand on the ice. He knows exactly the look he’s going to get when he looks up: Sumida, arms crossed, wearing a frown.
“You don’t have focus or control. How am I supposed to guide you if you lack those?” He claps once. “Again!”
Yuuri grits his teeth. “I can’t go again. I’ll fall.”
“Why will you fall?”
“Because you just said! I don’t have focus or control!”
“Then get them and go again,” Sumida says as if it’s that simple.
Yuuri makes an aggravated sound and skates off to circle the rink. Anger simmers inside of him and he wants to yell at his coach. Sumida doesn’t know what it’s like to have all of his struggles bothering him at every turn. Probably doesn’t care. It isn’t something that he can move past, especially when he doesn’t know how much Sumida is judging him.
The loop turns awkward when he’s stuck staring at Sumida on the way back. Once he’s in front of his coach again, he only feels a smidge better.
“Are you able to focus now?” Sumida asks.
Yuuri scowls. “No.”
“Then—”
“Which division do you plan to enter me into?”
“Junior men’s singles, under the name Yuuri Katsuki, as you wished.”
“You’re not going to secretly change it to women’s or misplace the application or withdraw because you don’t think I should be competing at all?”
“You can skate, so you will compete. You’re a boy, so you compete with the men. I’ve already spoken with the JSF and once they’ve ironed out the logistics for your unique situation, we will be able to enter you into the regional competition. You and I are both professionals, Yuuri, so I’m going to treat you like an athlete, not a child.”
The way he says “You’re a boy” is so straightforward it catches Yuuri by surprise. “You don’t think I’m weird?”
“You’re blazing your own path in more ways than one. It takes courage to do that. Sometimes a little weirdness, too. Whatever you are, it’s simply you.”
Yuuri tries to absorb that. It’s similar to something Yuuko said once. He skates around the rink again as the thoughts settle. Sumida said he’ll treat Yuuri like an athlete, and so far, he has—from offering respect to drilling him to his limits. Maybe he really isn’t waiting to see how Yuuri will fall. He keeps pushing Yuuri to try again, but it doesn’t seem like he wants to break Yuuri; more like he trusts that Yuuri can do it, and Yuuri just needs to get with the program. He’s done these jumps before, after all. He’s good at them. Triple axels should be within reach.
He skates past Sumida on the way back, then picks up speed and carefully ensures his form is correct before launching into a double axel. He touches down afterwards, but it’s much cleaner than before. Looking back, Sumida nods approvingly.
The next attempt is a little wobbly. The third is near perfect. Yuuri pumps his fists in the air.
“Again!”
Yuuri’s parents will pay for his skating as long as he continues to get good grades at school. Catching up his missed semester isn’t too hard—boredom from sitting in bed for so long is worse than doing homework—but since returning to the classroom in April, he’s had a whole new set of problems to deal with. His classmates keep touching his prosthetics. People who barely knew his name before now call him by his deadname every chance they get. Students he’s never met before shove him away in the halls and call him a pervert. One person trips him and the ensuing fight leaves them both scratched up and Yuuri’s left limbs feel like they’re on fire for days.
Even when he’s in pain from using his prosthetics too often or because the fit changes over time, he never uses his wheelchair at school. He doesn’t need people thinking he’s helpless on top of being a freak, and besides that, he’d have to figure out his class schedule with the school in advance. There aren’t any elevators in the building and it has four floors.
His grades start to slip because of stress and pain. Putting his head down and working hard only goes so far. Even English, which he’s particularly motivated for, is a struggle to get through, and when he gets back a test with a poor grade, he starts to panic. He walks through the hall between classes just trying to keep it together. It makes him an easy target and he ends up shoved up against the wall. Through his tears, he makes out that it’s one of the guys who’s been unreasonably mad that he’s “no longer a girl.” He tenses up, trying not to shake worse. This is the last thing he needs today.
A fist comes out of nowhere and socks the guy in the face. Takeshi plants himself in front of Yuuri. “Leave Yuuri alone.” They remain in a standoff until Takeshi raises his fist again, then the guy backs off with his hands raised and scoffs when he leaves.
Takeshi turns towards him and asks, “You okay?”
Yuuri dries his eyes with his sleeve. His glasses are smudged. “What do you want?” It may have been a long while since Takeshi last bullied him, but he hasn’t forgotten about it. They barely interact nowadays outside of passing each other on the ice.
“I want them to leave you alone.”
“What do you want from me?” He fixes his collar and tie and smooths out the wrinkles in his shirt.
“Nothing.”
“Right. Okay,” Yuuri says, unconvinced.
Takeshi huffs and crosses his arms. “Maybe I just want you to stop looking like a kicked puppy, and for these guys to get a taste of their own medicine.”
“They’ve never punched me.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have the patience to figure out their insecurities and demean them. A punch is close enough.”
The hallway is starting to clear up as students reach their classrooms. “I don’t get it. We’re not friends.”
“Some of us have a sense of empathy.”
“As long as it’s not pity.”
Takeshi rolls his eyes. “I don’t pity you when people are assholes to you; I pity them. They wouldn’t have the guts to take what they dish out or keep getting up like you do. They’re cowards who can’t handle someone brave enough to be different. I’d punch them all, but I don’t want to actually get suspended.”
It’s been long enough since they’ve had an actual conversation that Yuuri doesn’t know what Takeshi is like anymore, but he sounds genuine, a big difference from the kid he used to be. Putting himself between Yuuri and the bullies goes a long way to support that. “Thanks,” he says cautiously. “You’re not gonna follow this up by calling me fat, are you?”
Takeshi looks surprised, then sheepish. He pats his belly. “I’m worse off than you are. I don’t have as much time to skate or work out as I used to between homework and clubs. You’re still competing, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” Yuuri swallows. “In the men’s division.”
“That means you can skate against Victor, right?”
He smiles shakily. At least someone treats him like he’s normal. “That’s the plan. I’ve got a long way to go, though.”
“I hope you get there. That’d be something.”
Yuuri points down the hall and starts walking away, trying to end the conversation with as little awkwardness as possible. “My teacher’s going to kill me if I’m not in class in the next thirty seconds.”
“Oh. Yeah. Go ahead. I just…” Takeshi groans. “...need to sprint across the building and down a floor. Bye!” he shouts, taking off in the opposite direction.
Yuuri stares after him for a moment before jogging to class.
No one recognizes Yuuri at the Regionals. Not that he made friends last year, or even left an impression on anyone if they remembered him as anything but a shaky girl. He sticks to himself, certain that he’ll fall apart if he talks to anyone beyond basic greetings, and only goes out of his way to shake hands with a few top senior skaters he recognizes in between fidgeting as he makes sure his left sleeve is pulled down and his binder is in place. He steps onto the ice with a new name and new limbs, the fake skin of his left arm fully hidden beneath a glove and sleeve.
He doesn’t have triples and his left limbs remain stiff with limited range of movement. Despite the limitations, he pushes himself. He’s more afraid of losing this opportunity than he is of being watched by an audience.
He ends in fourth place out of twelve juniors, barely earning a place in Sectionals. After that, he scrapes by into Nationals. For the first time, he panics—barely keeping it together on the ice and falling apart in the hallway after a fall in his short program—but he finishes his routines at Junior Nationals.
“You made it,” Sumida says to him. “You went so much further than we planned.” Making it to Nationals seemed so out of reach back in the middle of summer.
“It’s not enough,” Yuuri says, wringing his hands as they sit in the stands between programs.
“Your short program was clean and your free skate wasn’t terrible. We’ll need to work on recovery, but you did very well overall.”
Yuuri shakes his head before Sumida’s finished speaking. “It’s not enough to participate.”
“You want to win.”
Yuuri nods.
“This season was always going to be a test run to get you back on your feet. You know that. Next season, we’ll do better.”
“You’ll stay?”
Sumida sighs dramatically. “I don’t know. I’ve got clouds to watch and books to read… My schedule’s quite busy.”
“But you will? You think I can do better?”
“I think you can take gold. Maybe not next year; you’ve got some growing to do. But the year after, if you keep it up? You could take Nationals. Reach the Olympics. You’ve got potential, Yuuri, and I’m going to make sure to help you get as far as you can possibly go.”
It doesn’t get cold enough for snow or ice in January this year. Yuuri gets anxious about his regular walking route anyway. He’s gotten into the habit of triple-checking traffic to make absolutely sure the coast is clear.
He doesn’t get nightmares often, but they’re more frequent now that it’s winter again and he’s more jumpy than usual. If his family notices, they don’t say anything. The stress becomes something he needs to work through. It’s easier to handle than his anxiety; it doesn’t stop him from doing anything, just makes him stressed, which he recognizes isn’t very good, but there’s not much he can do about it.
Vicchan becomes his vigilant guardian. The dog’s been at his side often since his accident and seems to know when Yuuri’s having a bad day. He wakes Yuuri sometimes during the nightmares and makes it easier to handle the phantom pains that come along with them. Those nights are some of the hardest to get through without losing hope for his career and continued physical recovery. As much as Yuuko tries to be there for him, Vicchan is truly his closest friend. He doesn’t know what he’d do without Vicchan to help him.
“Have you ever thought about what you’ll do when you leave Hasetsu?” Yuuri asks. He sits in his wheelchair next to Yuuko as she stands on the boardwalk, the two of them looking out at the beach where Vicchan is running across the sand. The sun is nearly low enough to touch the gentle waves.
It’s been one and a half years since the accident. Lately, he’s come to realize how thankful he is to be alive to see the sunset.
“I want to stay.”
“Everyone else is leaving.”
“It’s home,” she says simply. “Are you planning to leave?”
“Sumida-sensei wants to enter me into international competitions this year or next. I don’t even have triples yet, but he thinks I can do it and hold my own against some of the other juniors. I’m nervous about traveling internationally, but also nervous that I might find someplace I like more than Hasetsu. If I keep skating, I don’t know if there will be a place for me here after I graduate.”
“Whether you stay here forever or you drop by once a year, there will always be a place for you here. You’re my best friend and that will never change.” She takes his hand and squeezes it.
“Do you think…” he says, faltering in the middle of his sentence. Oh, no. Now she’s looking at him and there’s no way to back out of this gracefully. “Have you thought about being more than friends?”
Yuuko smiles brilliantly. “I’d like that.”
Dating Yuuko is a lot like being her best friend, except with the addition of kissing, sex, and really awkward dates. Neither of them are good at flirting, Yuuri is especially bad at talking about feelings and keeps clamming up, and the mere mention of Yuuko someday wanting children sends Yuuri spiraling for at least five separate reasons.
Yuuko has the grace to say that the two of them may not be prepared for a relationship with each other, instead of saying that Yuuri’s a mess of a human being. He hides away from her for a week straight until Mari talks some sense into him. Despite the awkwardness of the month-long relationship and the break-up, the two of them remain good friends.
He scrapes through Regionals with an awful short program and an excellent free skate. Sumida doesn’t need to voice his disappointment in the former. It’s hard to remain focused when his mind is on Yuuko and a whole mess of worries, including the hormones he’s just started taking. He supposes that’s just the teenage experience for a lot of people, even if he’s coming at it from a different angle than most. The only thing that pushes him out of his head is the reminder that he needs to perform just like he does in practice if he ever wants to compete against Victor.
Yuuri’s family gifts him an aquatic wheelchair for his birthday.
It isn’t the video game that he asked for, but he tucks his disappointment away and expresses his gratefulness. These chairs aren’t cheap and it even has the correct rims on the right side so that he can use it one-handedly. It’s been nearly two years since he entered the springs for any purpose except to clean the area, and even that has been rare since he doesn’t want the minerals to damage his prosthetics. He could make it to the springs with his crutches, but then he has to worry about his arm, and he doesn’t want anyone to look at him strangely for his body, so it’s easier to avoid the springs altogether.
His disappointment only lasts until he starts really thinking about entering the springs. It’s been so long that he yearns for the water, and now all he needs to do is go there.
He rolls over towards the springs after they close to the public, but hesitates in front of the entrances. No one’s out there, so it shouldn’t matter which he chooses; he and Mari would always pick either one after hours. But he doesn’t know which one his family would find appropriate.
“Surely the signs are big enough for you to read without your glasses,” Mari says. She’s cleaning up the dining room.
“Yeah,” he says, but doesn’t move.
“Do you need help getting in or something like that?”
The edges are high enough that he should be able to sit on them when transferring between the chair and the water. “It’s just been a while.”
“You’ll be fine. Take breaks and all that. Just don’t let the giant mask give you nightmares.”
There’s only one giant mask in the onsen. Yuuri ducks his head to hide his smile. “It’s not that scary.”
“Sure it isn’t.” She makes a face at the plates she just picked up. “On second thought, you wanna switch?”
“What was that? I didn’t catch that,” he says, heading for the men’s side of the springs. He is not about to get roped into chores with the allure of the springs calling to him.
Just after turning seventeen, in his third year back on the ice, Yuuri places third in the Junior Grand Prix Final and wins Japanese Junior Nationals, easily qualifying for the Olympics in Vancouver.
“I don’t think I’m supposed to be here,” he squeaks, walking through the airport with Sumida. This feels so much bigger than all of his other competitions. So much more real. It’s his first time competing at an event against senior skaters, and while he has no illusions about winning, he can hardly believe he qualified. It’s not every day a junior gets a shot at the Olympics.
This will be his first time competing against Victor. He tries not to think about that too much.
“It’s not that different from the Final. Same people, same events, but there’s a lot more going on at the same time.” Sumida pats his back. “If you cannot handle your anxiety, talk to some of the other athletes and figure out how they handle the pressure.”
“Am I really good enough?” Yuuri asks for what must be the hundredth time that week.
“If you are not good enough, then neither are all the skaters you defeated. Give them the respect of accepting your victories. You don’t have the repertoire to skate a winning program, but I expect you to do your best with the program you have. Show the world the pride of Japan. You’ll outskate some of the seniors, I’m sure of it. This is what you’ve trained for.”
Yuuri nods and pushes down his anxiety as he takes in the scenery. Sumida is right, but his head doesn’t always respond to logic. He will probably feel calmer once he’s settled in.
There are so. Many. People.
Yuuri likes it well enough when he gets lost in the crowd. Not so much when there are twenty other Japanese athletes staring at him, most older than him, all wanting to know more about him. At least once he gets to know them, it’s easier to hang out with them in the dining hall and avoid having to talk to other people. (Sumida says something about networking that goes in one ear and out the other.)
Not everyone gives him his space so easily.
“Well, hello there,” Christophe Giacometti says, sitting across from him at breakfast the morning of the first full day of competition. There’s only a couple of days before the men’s short program and Yuuri’s starting to feel the nerves. “Yuuri Katsuki, right? I’m Christophe Giacometti, but you can call me Chris.”
Yuuri stares at him. Why would one of the top skaters sit with him? Belatedly, he says, “Hi. Yeah, that’s me.”
“Congratulations on your win at Junior Nationals. I got to watch you up close at the Final in Tokyo. This is your first season skating internationally, right?”
“I’m still not sure how I made it this far,” Yuuri says, rubbing the back of his neck. It’s not a surprise that Chris watched him, but hearing him say it feels like a whole lot of pressure. He tries to push down his worries that Chris will clock him due to his chest or voice even though he’s binding and his voice has dropped low enough to pass easily enough. “I kind of feel like I got here by accident. I’m completely outclassed by you guys from seniors. Your free skate this year is amazing.” His face tints pink as he remembers the program; Chris went with two very mature programs this year and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t into it.
“So is yours. You’ve got a good triple axel. Junior or not, your skill’s nothing to sneeze at. This is my first Olympics as well.” His gaze slides across the room. “Think I’m good enough to steal the crown?”
Yuuri follows his gaze. Victor Nikiforov waves at the two of them from the salad bar. Yuuri freezes in surprise, only realizing once Victor’s turned to sit with someone that he probably should have waved back instead of gawking. “You know him, right? What’s he like?”
“He’s just as dramatic and driven as the media portrays him to be. A little bit airheaded.”
“What does airheaded mean?”
“Let’s just say he isn’t always as clever as he thinks he is. He’s a good man, though. Are you a fan?”
That would be an understatement. “Kind of.”
Chris grins like he knows Yuuri’s a bigger fan than he lets on. “He doesn’t plan to visit the Olympic Village often, so make sure to meet him while he’s here. He’s already been mobbed by snowboarders looking for an autograph. I wish I’d had the foresight to book a hotel room. The beds here are abysmal. I’m looking forward to the parties, though.”
“Are there normally parties at the Olympics?”
“So I’ve heard, but you might be a little young for some of them. I know you’re not old enough to drink, but I haven’t checked the age of consent in Canada. Too young for Victor, in any case,” Chris says casually.
Yuuri’s faint blush burns redder. Sumida had sat him down for a brief talk about safety, covering topics from avoiding pickpockets to using condoms and keeping an eye out for sketchy adults. As much as he respects the talk, he really doesn’t think it will be a concern. Even if he wanted to get intimate with another athlete, he’d have to deal with their reaction to him being trans and disabled, the fallout of which he does not want to stress over. “I wouldn’t expect him to look at men anyway. There aren’t exactly a lot of gay athletes.”
“You’d be surprised. I’ve heard a lot of stories about what goes on at the Olympics. All rumors, of course, but enough that I wouldn’t want to make any assumptions. Put thousands of athletes in one place and you’re going to get all sorts of people.”
That’s something Yuuri hadn’t really considered. Of course other people would be closeted from the public. The media attention would be a nightmare, not to mention the response from fans or fellow athletes. “And you’re open-minded?”
“I’m openly gay. To everyone except the media, that is. It’ll come out someday, I’m sure, but I’d rather not deal with that. Friends, family, skaters—they all know. Once the free skate is over I’ll have to make sure a few of those hockey players figure it out,” he says with a wink.
“Um. Good luck?” Yuuri squeaks. Though the conversation is slightly awkward, he holds onto the fact that Chris is gay and other athletes here must be, too. He’s not alone.
“If you’re looking for something to do this summer, the Gay Games runs during the summer on the same years as Winter Olympics. You don’t have to be gay to participate and it’s a lot less pressure than the Olympics. It would be fun to have more skaters there. Think about it.”
Yuuri has never heard of the Gay Games before. “I’ll look it up and ask if my coach knows anything.” He can’t look past the Olympics right now because it’s too overwhelming.
Yuuri misses his chance to meet Victor. He doesn’t find another opportunity to bump into him, but as Sumida reminds him, his priority is to skate well and impress the world. As nerve-wracking as it is to skate at the Olympics, some of the pressure is relieved by knowing he isn’t competing for a spot on the podium, though it feeds into frustration that he’s not good enough. If only he hadn’t been injured, he’d be in the senior division already and skating more strenuous programs. It stings to be called a late bloomer by the media, but he can’t correct them without outing himself.
He needs to have a good performance regardless. A few sponsors are offering nice bonuses if he can pull off quality programs. That kind of money could get him much better prosthetics. His leg is a good enough model, but he will need a replacement soon, and it would be nice if he could take that expense off of his parents’ plates and get something better. Insurance won’t cover something good enough for professional skating and his current leg doesn’t offer the fluidity he desires.
The thought of losing his chance at a better leg and burdening his parents leads him to cry in the cafeteria the day between the short program and free skate. He did fine in the short and it was over before he realized it, but now he’s worried about falling during the free. This is a bigger audience than Worlds. It’s a bigger audience than any junior competition, period. Televisions across the world from people who don’t know the first thing about figure skating are going to be showing his performance.
His strategic position at the corner of the room facing away from everyone else doesn’t work. “Is this seat open?” someone asks in Japanese.
“Yes.” Yuuri looks up from his nearly finished lunch to see China’s top skater and current World Champion, Cao Bin, sit next to him. Great. Exactly who he wanted to embarrass himself in front of today: A guy the same age as him who has achieved ten times more than he ever will.
“You had an amazing short program yesterday. Will you be competing in senior competitions at the end of this season?”
“Thank you. No, I’ll be competing in Junior Worlds. I have a lot to work on before I’m ready for Seniors. Maybe next season. Your program was beautiful, too. Are you going to Worlds this year?” Some skaters skip during Olympic years. He can’t recall if Cao Bin has made an announcement either way.
Cao Bin nods. “I have so much energy I don’t know where I’d put it if I didn’t! It’s stressful, but that’s how I thrive. How are you doing?”
“I’m doing great,” Yuuri says. His voice doesn’t seem to back him up. “I’ve managed a lot of pressure before. No big deal.”
“The Olympics is kind of a big deal. I’m not used to it, either. It almost doesn’t feel real. If I mess up, more than just the usual people are going to see.”
“You’re worried about messing up?”
“Oh yeah.” Cao Bin laughs and his cheeks turn pink. “Sometimes it feels like I’m going too fast to stop and think about what I’m doing. With a sport like this, we have to chase it while we’re young. Other things fall by the wayside. Not education, of course, if your parents are anything like mine.”
“I brought my homework with me,” Yuuri says glumly. He sits upright and sighs. “The JSF has put a lot of faith in me above so many seniors. I don’t want to disappoint them by messing up and I don’t want to miss out on my sponsorships. I’m saving up for… something nice. I mean, it’s also essential, but the high quality would make a lot of difference in my life and I want to cover the cost so my parents don’t have to.”
“How did you get through Nationals?”
Yuuri pushes a sad-looking piece of egg across his plate. “I was really jittery before I skated and I had a panic attack afterwards.”
“But you did it.”
“It’s different.”
“There’s you, the ice, and the audience. A few more cameras doesn’t have to change things. What got you through?”
He thinks back to everything he’s told himself to get through his competitions. This year has been his first competing internationally and has made him incredibly nervous about being outed, but the longer he goes without any negative press or interactions, the more confident he gets. “I really wanted to win,” he decides to say, because that drive is one of the things that has helped push his nerves away. “I managed to focus on that while I was on the ice. I want to be the best skater out there, and I want to stand on the podium next to—um, the people who inspire me. That doesn’t really work here since I’m not getting on the podium, though.”
“You can still skate to impress. I’m sure you could catch the eye of some of those skaters who inspire you. You’ve already caught mine,” Cao Bin says with a wink.
Yuuri doubts Victor would pay attention to him at this level. “Oh. Thank you. I’ll consider that.”
“Do you want to go for a walk and see if we can find some good tea?”
“It beats homework.” The chance for a good distraction will help. As amazing and intimidating as Cao Bin is, right now, he just seems like any other athlete. The normalcy might help ground him as well.
Yuuri does so well in his free skate that he gets a new personal best. He leaves long before the Olympics are over, but not before shaking more hands and taking more photos than he can count. Chris and Cao Bin’s numbers end up in his phone. He hopes he isn’t too anxious to text or call them after returning home. They’ve both been so kind and encouraging, and he only feels a little guilty about staring at them in the gym; they’re just as attractive as every other athlete in the village.
Back home, his classmates suddenly think he’s cool. It turns out many of them had no idea he was a competitive figure skater but pretty much all of them watched him on the Olympics. That much attention is strange and uncomfortable, but after dealing with endless interviews this season, he navigates it with minimal stress. The attention is actually kind of nice, at least when it’s not the entire classroom turning to stare at him.
There’s enough money in his bank account for top surgery and standard expenses like food while traveling, with a good chunk left over to go towards a nice prosthetic leg. If he does well at Junior Worlds and works hard this summer, he might earn enough to get what he wants by the time he goes to college. It feels like a lifetime away, but if everything goes right, then a little over a year from now he’ll have his college plans sorted out, a new leg, and a flat chest.
He holds Vicchan close the night before he’s due to fly out to the Netherlands. Everything’s falling into place. He actually made it to the Olympics and did well; sixteenth in the world isn’t bad. He made a couple of friends, respectable skaters who think he skates well. His friends and family support him both personally and professionally.
He smiles into Vicchan’s fur as he realizes that he’s happy.