[Updated] (Sorry last time I got too excited and uploaded half the chapter without finishing it. I know I could've made a new chapter instead but my OCD perks up every time I think about that idea. :P)

Disclaimer: I don't own Yuuri on Ice.

Canon divergence from episode 11. Viktuuri. Enjoy!

PROLOGUE

Victor was nowhere to be seen.

The noise of the crowd was dulled to the back of his head. He was distracted. He was banking on muscle memory. Sweaty palms. Trembling fingertips. One moment it would seem that nothing mattered, and the next moment that everything did.

Until last night, it seemed he still had a tiny glint of hope of getting the gold. Today, it felt as if he were bound to fail.

As much as he didn't want to, he glanced up at the scores. J.J managed to pull off a good comeback, he might just make it to the podium if any of the top three screwed up. Phichit was in the rink at the moment, and guessing by the crowd reaction, he happened to be having the time of his life.

"Where's your old geezer?"

Yuuri looked at his side. It was the younger Yuri, hands shoved in his pockets and a permanent scowl on his face. From behind his platinum blond locks, Yurio threw him a piercing gaze.

"I - I don't know."

"It's barely minutes before your free skate and you don't know where your coach is? You make me laugh," he grumbled, even as an undeniable softness came over his feral expression.

Yuuri couldn't think of anything to say. In fact, he wasn't sure how much of his brains were properly functioning. A little ago he felt as if he had difficulties holding himself up. As a split-second of awkward silence followed, Yurio smacked him lightly on the shoulder.

"I just came to say - I - good luck," Yurio took in a sharp breath, before reverting to his typical nauseated face as he turned to leave, "Do not disappoint everyone this time."

Yuuri clenched his fists. Do not disappoint.

The digital watch on his wrist ticked. Phichit's performance halted to an end with a loud applause. The guy gave him a smile as he passed by. Yuuri's moment had arrived.

The lights hurt his eyes. The damned disoriented sensation again. Even as an odd grief clenched at his heart, he knew he had to perform. The world that wanted Victor back was watching. Minako-san was on the balcony cheering him with a large glittering banner. His peers were watching. Yurio was watching. His family, the triplets - everyone was watching; everyone but that one person he wanted to the most.

Victor, that dummy. Sometimes he too sucked at handling situations under pressure.

He knew what he had to do. Perform like poetry. Bid farewell. Bring Victor back to where he belonged. No, not him. The ice. It was Victor's first love, and perhaps the truest one, and today, even without Victor watching, he hoped he'd be able to show him he loved him enough to let him go.

He glided into the rink and took the pose. Achingly glanced at the empty space near the railing. The music began.

"After the final, let's end this."

Thinking about it now, it probably had come out the wrong way. To say Victor had been shocked was an understatement. The poor beautiful man right out of the shower, he must've had thought Yuuri had some sort of strategy or technical improvement in mind. His blue eyes had gone so wide that Yuuri had to look away.

"Why?" It was stoic.

There was a million ways Yuuri could've answer that question. But he had chosen none. "It's getting late. We can talk about this later, you know. No pressure."

It hadn't been a very nice thing to say. Nor was the idea to leave things hanging between them, like that. "I see," Victor had said; he sounded understanding, yet somewhat detached. Yuuri could hear the rustle of sheets behind him; since the last few nights Victor had slumped over him, lovingly buried his head at the crease of his neck or on his chest (when asked, Victor had dramatically announced he was getting old and needed the warmth). Tonight, he was already on the second bed, reaching out to switch off the side lamp.

"Yuuri?"

"Hmm?"

"You want me to be by your side during the free skate tomorrow, don't you?"

He didn't reply. The more he yearned, the more selfish he had felt. He had hoped the answer was too obvious to be required to be channelised in literal words. After all, he had never been good with words. Staring at the ring on his finger gleaming against the shadow play of the moonlight through the hotel window, he had drifted off to sleep.

By the time he had woken up the next morning, Victor was different. By the time of the event, Victor was gone.

The piano's tempo was accelerating. It was time for the triple axel jump.

"You always tend to flub your jumps when something's on your mind, Yuuri."

He wouldn't. Not this time. Victor had pulled him up from zero, supported him through his innumerable falls; he missed him right then, even in the middle of the rink. He missed how Victor jumped into a happy hug, how he wrapped his arms around him from behind, or pulled him close by the arm for a selfie, or threw his weight on him and surprised him with a kiss. He missed poking him on the head where Victor would say his hair was thinning out. This performance was an ode to his hero, and he wouldn't mess it up this time.

The triple axel had landed perfectly. A spasm of applause. He thought the height was good enough, given how light-headed he felt.

Quadruple toe loop. Perfectly landed again. For a moment they felt effortless. For a moment it seemed he was harnessing energy out of the music. He felt like a ripple in the water, dancing along the troughs and peaks of the wavelengths of sound.

"I wish you'd never retire."

He wished Victor had never said that. This was where Victor went wrong, filling his head with a dream that didn't matter in the larger picture. Yurio was fifteen, and he had already surpassed Victor's record. Victor couldn't have remained unfazed by this. Yuuri had seen it in his eyes. The past eight months came flashing back to Yuuri: he had undergone all those struggles only to qualify for the finals by a hair's width; till now all he had been trying to do was to prove to himself that he didn't suck in a career he had chosen for himself, and to Victor that his efforts on him were worth the pain. But what did it mean to the world? How did he measure up to Yurio? What did he have that nobody else did? Why was he letting Victor watch his glory shatter; why was he denying him a chance to regain it?

The piano descended to a low. He could hear the commentator's faint voice as if it was coming from the end of a tunnel, "So far so good... Is Yuuri Katsuki going to attempt the quadruple flip again? While he was unable to land it in the China Cup..."

Well, what could he say. Victor had always liked surprises.

Where did he go wrong?

The breeze tingled on Victor's skin. He had been standing in front of the sea for the last two hours, lost. He rubbed the golden ring on his lips. This was the same spot he stood on last morning, holding the ring against the sun. Till last night, he believed this ring could withstand everything.

"After the final, let's end this."

That numbing sensation of those words. He checked his watch. He was at odds with himself. It was almost time for his performance. Should he go to Yuuri? Should he not? Should he adamantly stay by him no matter what, or should he relent and let Yuuri do what he proposed to. It had been hard to make sense of it all since last night. Why didn't Yuuri reply? What was on his mind? Why did he face the other side? Was the tension breaking him? Was Victor pushing him too hard? What the hell happened and why couldn't Victor make sense out of it?

"There was a girl in Detroit.. When she tried to hug me, I pushed her away without thinking about it. I felt like she was intruding into my feelings."

He needed space. As a coach, no matter how inexperienced, Victor needed to learn how and when to give it. It was best he stayed away if Yuuri wanted him to. What if this wasn't the right way, though? Last time he tried to do something coach-like, he drove Yuuri to tears.

"You don't have to do anything! Just have more faith than me that I can win!"

Nothing made sense.

"Oii!"

He looked back. A relatively tiny figure was running towards him, his face scrunched into a fiercer-than-usual scowl and blond hair flapping about in the air. He paused right in front of Victor, panting for breath and barking mad nonetheless. "What the hell are you doing here, dumbass?!"

"Yurio?" He did a double-take.

"If Yakov or Lilia gets to know I'm here, I'll be dead," Yurio grumbled in between his shallow breaths, "Katsudon's free skate has started and I'm looking all over for you. Can you not think just about yourself for once?!"

Dammit. It had started already? Victor broke into a run on instinct. If he was fast enough, he might just make it to the rink before Yuuri finished the programme. Yurio followed suit, huffing and puffing, "Hey, wait up stupid!"

But.

"What happened now?!" Yurio yelled even as he rammed into Victor's back because of the abrupt halt. Upon watching Victor's unmoving figure, fists clenched, Yurio punched against it. "Have you two completely lost it?!" he was incredulous. Victor took a deep breath. He didn't know what to say.

Upon receiving no answer, Yurio tugged at Victor's sleeve, calmed from his outburst now. He frowned, "I don't know and don't want to know what happened between you two. But all I know is that the coach should be there with the skater in the kiss and cry. Save face, if nothing else."

Victor smiled at how Yurio had his own way of showing he cared. And with that realisation, it all hit him like a slap to the face.

He had been so engrossed in sightseeing through Barcelona, exchanging rings, living and loving that he failed to notice the obvious meaning behind Yuuri's shockingly ambiguous statement. Let's end this... Let's end this... Let's end this student-coach equation? Was that what Yuuri meant? Oh, no. Did Yuuri want him to step down? Did he want Victor as a competitor instead?

There was no way Yuuri would turn away and leave him hanging mid-air if he had been talking about their relationship. And there was no way Victor would let a severing in their professional relationship affect the personal one. If nothing else, he had a solid gold ring to vouch for it.

Victor ran the fastest his legs could take. There wasn't much time left - and like Yurio said, the least he could do right then was to be there by his side before Yuuri left the rink.

"Please be my coach until I retire!"

Victor felt tears rushing up to the surface. It did sound like a marriage proposal. "Ah, Katsuki Yuuri," he mumbled to himself, "if only I'll let you go that easy."

Yuuri spun himself into the air for the quadruple flip as if his world depended on it. For half of my life, I've been trying to catch up with you, Victor. It has been an unending chain of surprises. One. Two. Three. Four flips. Your being my coach wasn't a waste of time. He stretched his arms up as his right feet reached for the landing. For everything you have done for me, Victor -

"Aaaaand he made it!" the commentator's elated, distant voice reverberated somewhere around the music, "Katsuki Yuuri is on road to flawlessly complete a programme with a difficulty as high as that of his coach Victor Nikiforov!"

Yuuri's heart throbbed so hard it could burst, even as he moved on to the last step sequence.

- thank you. Spasibo. Arigatou.

Yuuri sensed the fatigue already getting to his head. It was going to end anytime. He felt his fingertips slacking even as he pushed them as hard as he could. Sweat itching into his eye as he spun. Victor always told him to dance like the most beautiful person to ever exist on ice. He wasn't going to let him down when the end was seconds away. Because a part of Victor resided in him. Because -

Because I love you. Because I have always loved you and never expected you to love me back. I wish I could've put it in words, but I know this will reach you.

The music slowed down. He closed his eyes while he took the last pose, frozen at his spot. He could hear the applause ring so hard it was almost vibrating through the ice floor. He didn't want to open his eyes and watch his finger pointed at an empty space, or worse even, at someone else. But he had to. He had to walk back to the kiss and cry. The performance was over.

He never looked up. Exhausted, he fell to his knees. Just when he thought he was too cold to move, he realised he was wrapped in an embrace. He wouldn't have bothered if it hadn't been the smell of a very familiar perfume.

"Vi-Victor?"

It was him. It was really him. Victor gazed at him, his face glazed with tears. For a split-second it did feel like a hallucination; he had never seen Victor cry before. But the warmth of the embrace was too good to just be inside his head. Yuuri began, "Victor, I -"

"No, Yuuri," he touched his face tenderly," all of that later. I'm sorry I took so long. I love you too, Yuuri, and damn me if I ever doubt you again."

They grinned at each other. All ends had new beginnings.

Hi guys. New (and obsessed with) in the fandom. I am testing waters here, will do longer chapters from the next as I lay the background to the story. In any case, please leave a review!