Work Text:
(2013)
Like most of the terrible decisions made on a whim in Yuuri’s life, Yuuri would like to blame Phichit Chulanont, prime instigator and enabler.
Ill-advised underaged drinking in Detroit? Phichit. That frat party where Yuuri woke up the next day in nothing but an apron and an illegible scrawl that could have been the name ‘Chad’ scribbled on his left bicep? All Phichit, baby. Or what about that night which they're never supposed to speak of again? You guessed it, Phichit.
“Phichit — no!”
“Phichit, yes!” Phichit insists, eyes twinking, and Yuuri groans.
He loves Phichit — he really does. Phichit is the best thing to come out of Yuuri’s training in Detroit, but Phichit is also the absolute worst. Sometimes, both these things can be absolutely true.
Cue to this very moment in celebration of Yuuri’s 21st birthday, which just so happens to coincide with the release week of ESPN’s The Body Issue. How fortuitous, indeed.
Yuuri usually has an almost-negligible interest in the appearance of professional athletes’ bodies. Bodies are weird, everyone has one, and having grown up in the vicinity of a public bath where casual and obligate nakedness is a requirement, nudity has since ceased to be remotely provoking.
Except. Except this is the first year ESPN’s featured an international winter sports athlete, one who just so happens to be Victor Nikiforov, and Yuuri has never once balked at obtaining more merchandise for his expanding collection.
“Fine,” Yuuri sighs, yielding to the inevitable conclusion and the unstoppable force of nature that is Phichit Chulanont.
“PHICHIT—” Yuuri shrieks after opening his bedroom door, “— WHEN I SAID YOU COULD BUY A COPY FOR ME, THIS IS NOT WHAT I MEANT!”
Phichit smirks (that traitor), because of course he does. Yuuri is drunk, but definitely not drunk enough for this. Who’d have known that beneath those classic boy-next-door good looks lay the soul of the very devil. Not Yuuri, that’s for sure.
Victor’s tastefully naked body, arced in a graceful Ina Bauer, blown up in glossy 24" by 36", papers every bare inch of Yuuri’s room. Yuuri can almost appreciate the artistic vision (it’s a beautiful photo, Yuuri will admit) — almost being the operative word here — if it hadn’t been his bedroom involved and knowing Phichit will almost certainly post it online for mass consumption.
“Every body has a story, Yuuri,” Phichit says completely straight faced, snapping a quick photo of his masterpiece horror while quoting the Body Issue tagline with such seriousness to Yuuri’s absolute lack of amusement. He grins, swiping at his phone. “Please, please, please let me post it— I promise I won’t tag you!”
“It’s a cool wall, man,” agrees one of the hockey players (Chad?) Phichit invited over for drunken revelry, nodding as he shuffles his way over to the others playing beer pong. “You figure skaters sure know how to party.”
It’s absolutely not cool. Sober Yuuri would know that. Sober Yuuri would be well-aware what a terrible decision this is. Unfortunately, Sober Yuuri isn’t here right now and Drunk Yuuri, decision-making lubricated by eight yagerbombs, two vodka tonics and the implicit approval of an independent third party, feels his resistance crumble like wet paper.
“Do it for the ‘gram, Yuuri!”Phichit says evilly, and Yuuri lives to absolutely regret it.
(The next day, Yuuri will wake up with a realization that he will have to quit competitive mens’ figure skating to live under a rock for the foreseeable future because he will never be able to show his face at international events ever again.)
a deleted post:
[instagram image: a photo of a bedroom done up in neutral tones and rumpled dark blue bed sheets has been covered with several large posters of Victor Nikiforov’s feature from the ESPN Body Issue. In the corner, a full-length mirror shows a glimpse of the back of a messy black-haired individual covering his face with both hands. The tips of his ears are very red. In the opposite corner, a glass display case houses several distinctive medals, one of them a junior GPF gold medal.]
♡ 💬 ➤
liked by christophe-gc, v-nikiforov, ESPN_bodyissue and 1,364 others
phichit+chu Happy birthday to my friend who’s a big @v-nikiforov fan! ❤️❤️
#figureskating #victornikiforov #thebodyissue
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v-nikiforov !!!!!!!! whose room is this?💗🥰
christophe-gc HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA he’s going to kill you
a post nearly two years later:
[instagram image: another young figure skater features prominently in the photos. In one photo, the dark-haired figure skater is suspended in the air in a beautiful butterfly spin. In another, both Phichit and the other skater are leaning on each other posing with their junior grand prix medals. The other young man is smiling, and laughing with the gold medal around his neck.]
♡ 💬 ➤
liked by christophe-gc, sara-crispino, cao-bin, minako-okukawa and 8,561 others
phichit +chu Congrats to @y_katsuki for making the GPF Final in Seniors!!!! Ganbatte, Yuuri! 💪🏻⛸🎆🎉
#figureskating #ISUGrandPrixFinals #katsukiyuuri #detroitskatingclub
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christophe-gc See you soon, Yuuri! <3
y-katsuki thank you phichit! will do my best! 💞
minami-kenjirou がんばって 勇利 くん!!!! 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻
(2015)
Contrary to popular knowledge (and Yuuris’s belief), Victor Nikiforov is well-aware of who his competitors are.
Time was that a new up-and-comer fresh from Juniors could steal the championship right from under you – Victor would know, he used to be one of them. He's Russia's greatest pride and glory, but no one can guarantee exactly how long.
His biggest competition is Chris — Chris’ sensual style and breathtaking artistry are the closest challenge for his title, and it’s that benchmark that pushes Victor forward, past the ennui and heaviness to keep going, to give his best for his closest friend. The rest he knows in passing, some better than others. Cao Bin’s been on the circuit for years, even before Victor, and Victor likes him well enough. Cao has excellent footwork and tight spins, but he’s been plagued by a bad ankle and ageing joints and Victor knows he’s been planning his retirement in the coming months. Crispino’s program is good, but he loses points on careless jumps and a shaky quad sal that he underrotates more than half the time. The Canadian, however, might become a challenge— he has a half-decent quad lutz in the last third of the program, something not even Victor’s managed so late in his choreography. Beyond his jumping ability though, his program's comparable to watching paint dry. Victor can’t help but wince at his PCS scores.
It’s the last contender for the GPF that intrigues Victor the most, the one he knows the least about.
He's heard mentions of Katsuki peripherally – a young skater from Japan who was the GPF and World Junior Champion two years running several years ago. His relative anonymity intrigues him, but it’s fairly common for Junior champions to crash out on reaching the Senior circuit. It’s his first year in the Senior GPF, and it’s research, really, that drives Victor to haunt the few videos of performance footage he can find on youtube.
Victor discovers Katsuki’s body flows like music, the lyricism in his hands curling like fluttering birds above his heart. His hands breathe poetry into the sonnet of his step sequences and Victor is left reeling at the beauty of his body turned art. It’s at that moment where Victor is convinced that Katsuki is destined for a top of the podium finish when the grace and flow of his movement pauses with the anticipation of a jump — and Katsuki falters.
And falls.
And falls again.
Incredulously, Victor watches Katsuki pick himself up and then launch himself into a difficult triple axel - triple flip combo in the second half of the program that he executes perfectly whilst stumbling on easier jumps. Victor watches him fall in half a dozen competition videos before he laughs ruefully.
Katsuki’s Achilles Heel is his hesitation in an otherwise artistically perfect program. A pity, given how he’d outstrip Victor’s PCS scores if he ever perfected his jumping technique. He has excellent stamina, performing beautiful combinations and difficult jumps at the end of the programs if he doesn’t overthink them, not remotely winded by choreography that would challenge most top rank skaters. Katsuki would be a beautiful threat if he wasn’t so damned inconsistent.
And he is beautiful — inconveniently so.
He also looks oddly familiar, and yes, Victor can be scatterbrained, but he would never have forgotten those soft brandy eyes.
With that, Victor takes to Instagram.
Katsuki Yuuri is a fan.
Victor gleans this as he pours over hours of interview footage, countless instagram posts and tumblr gifs, where Katsuki blushes and cites Victor Nikiforov as his inspiration to start figure skating as a child, when Katsuki uses the same entry to his combination layback- Biellmann spin that Victor used in Turin in 2006. Katsuki Yuuri, he discovers gleefully, blushes sweetly to the tips of his ears, exactly like his mystery fan featured in the deleted instagram post by Phichit Chulanont.
Victor’s not so conceited to believe that Katsuki willingly plastered his entire bedroom with photos of Victor’s naked body, though if that blush and the corners of some familiar posters in the background is any indication, Katsuki would likely be receptive to an introduction to another fellow figure skater.
Victor traces the curve of Katsuki’s jaw with his eyes and is filled with renewed anticipation, a desire to meet Katsuki Yuuri, ace skater of Japan.
Perhaps he’ll offer a commemorative photo for Katsuki’s collection.
(2018)
“We don’t have to do this, Yuuri,” says Victor, giving Yuuri an out just in case Yuuri wants to run screaming for the hills, and Yuuri loves him so much his heart could burst.
It’s much too late for that, with ESPN staff milling about the rink, contracts signed in black and white and Yuuri and Victor both standing by the ice in plush dressing robes with nothing underneath, but it’s rather the thought that counts that matters to Yuuri anyway.
“But Yuuri— ESPN wants the Body Issue to be a Winter Olympics edition, and we can’t do it without you when you’re the men’s singles champion!” Phichit had said pleadingly, and Yuuri definitely wants to blame Phichit for this one.
Everything comes full circle. Yuuri doesn’t have hang ups about nudity, but he is immensely reserved, embarrassed to have his person, with all its flaws— its scars and ugliness on display. Yuuri’s one reason for doing this is right next to him, gazing worriedly into his eyes, and holding his hand as Yuuri tries to stifle the beginnings of an anxiety attack in its tracks.
“I wish I had one of you,” Victor said once, two years ago, when they finally discussed Yuuri’s embarrassing poster collection, his gaze soft and adoring as he thumbed the edge of Yuuri’s cheekbone, kissing the tips of Yuuri’s fingers like he was something precious. Yuuri, embarrassed and ashamed, struggled to put his feelings of respect and admiration into words, hesitant and wary of driving Victor away. He needn’t have worried — Victor, with his lovely heart-shaped smile, ordered ten first edition posters of Yuuri express-shipped to the onsen to bridge the gap between them.
The Yuuri of two years ago had found it difficult to believe himself deserving of Victor’s devotion, but if there was one truth, it was Victor indubitably was deserving of his.
Yuuri is different now — if not different, he is changed. Victor transformed his life irrevocably, transmuted from spun silver to gold, and at the heart of it, Yuuri is brave enough to give him this, to stand firm and bare his body to the limelight. To say with pride — I am here, I exist. I wouldn’t be here without love.
He gets to do it with Victor, and that makes all the difference.
“Let’s do this,” Yuuri says, squeezing Victor’s hand. He takes a breath and removes his dressing robe, stepping out onto the ice.
“You’re beautiful, Yuuri,” Victor breathes, and Yuuri believes him.
The Body Issue - Cover Athletes - Katsuki-Nikiforov Yuuri & Victor Katsuki-Nikiforov
[The Body Issue website features Yuuri and Victor’s name in bold red font. Next to their names are gifs of Yuuri and Victor performing quad flips, their bodies rotating in complete synchrony. In another photo, Yuuri does a beautiful sit spin, while Victor leans into a forward spiral. Another features Victor lifting Yuuri in their iconic ending pose of Stammi vicino, non te ne andare. The last photo showcases Yuuri’s battered and bruised feet free from its wrap, with Victor lovingly rubbing salve into his aching arches.]
Ages: 26, 30
Heights: 5”8, 5”11
Yuuri: 2018 Men’s Singles Olympic gold medalist, ISU Grand Prix 2017 gold medalist, World Figure Skating Championship 2018 gold medalist
Victor: three-time Olympic medalist (2 golds, 1 silver, 2006-2014), ISU Grand Prix five-time gold medalist, World Figure Skating Championship six-time gold medalist
Photoshoot: 2018
Location: Saint Petersburg, Russia
Photographer: Mark S.
“I was rather apprehensive to be featured at first, but knowing I could do this with Victor made all the difference. In figure skating, you fall a lot — the ice shapes you, beats you bloody— and each fall you take might make your skate your last. I had to learn to be brave to get here.” — Katsuki-Nikiforov Yuuri