New story! I thought this was an interesting idea :)))

[ April 1, 2016 ]

Cheers echo around the stadium as a very out-of-breath Victor Nikiforov strikes his final pose. He takes a moment to recover before smiling and waving and collecting as many items thrown at him as he can manage. He flashes everybody his signature Victor Nikiforov smile – the one that the media has always captured, the one that the fans have grown to love.

Yuri's waiting impatiently for the scores to come out. Victor did well, of course. He deserves to win.

Not that Yuri would admit it.

"Yuri!" Victor spots him and waves him over, and he rolls his eyes but stomps over to him anyway. The cameras are clicking eagerly. Victor puts a lazy arm around the blonde and cheeses for the cameras. Yuri glares at him.

"Did you drag me over for any particular reason, or was it just to please your fans?"

"So mean!" Victor chuckles despite his sad tone. "I wanted to congratulate you on a magnificent free skate yesterday, Yuri! That quad flip at the end was – "

"Yeah, yeah," Yuri interrupts him, pushing him over to the kiss and cry. "Just go over there and get your d – " He pauses. No cussing in front of the reporters. Right. " – Uh, your darn scores."

Victor smirks at him, knowing exactly what he was going to say, but allows Yuri to basically manhandle him all the way to the kiss and cry. The blonde shoves him down on the bench just as the announcer says in English, "We have the scores for Victor Nikiforov!"

There's a moment of tense silence. Yuri huffs and crosses his arms, having been coerced onto the bench with Victor. Yakov sits beside them in eager anticipation, although he tries not to show it.

"His free skate score is 228.15, giving him a total of 334.17! He has taken first place from Christophe Giacometti by only 0.2 points!"

Yuri keeps his arms crossed and a scowl on his face as Victor smiles and poses for the cameras. He and Yakov sandwich Yuri between them like a small child – he is not a child! But he stays there anyway – he doesn't know why – and allows the cameras to take pictures of his scowl beside the brightest smile that ever existed on the Earth.

The official results flash on all the screens a moment later, and Yuri scans them quickly. Victor's first, and Christophe's second. JJ's third. Michele's fourth. Phichit's fifth.

And there isn't a sixth.

Yuri frowns and turns to Victor questioningly, but the older man seems to be contemplating the same question, his blue eyes narrowed as he looks the rankings up and down. As though on cue, Phichit walks by, head lowered, fists clenched, and Yuri can see the tears he's so desperately trying to hold back.

"Phichit, good run out there," Victor calls to him encouragingly. Phichit glances at him and says,

"How are you all so composed right now?"

Both Russians blink at him in confusion. "What?"

"Y-You... Do you even know what happened four nights ago?"

Yuri thinks back. Well, he went out to eat sushi with Victor and Yakov and Lilia. And he vaguely remembered scrolling down social media, but Yakov usually doesn't like them playing with their electronics during such a high-risk competition. So he was a good boy – like always, he insists to himself – and rarely touched his phone after that.

He exchanges looks with Victor before turning back to Phichit. "No."

Phichit's lips tremble, and suddenly Victor's darting over to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, trying to give him the Victor Nikiforov hug that always makes everyone feel better – except Yuri, of course, Yuri thinks indignantly. It definitely does not work on him. Ever.

But Phichit pushes Victor away. "Does the name 'Yuuri Katsuki' sound familiar to you?"

Yuri thinks about it before nodding, despite Victor's lost look. "He was fourth at last year's Grand Prix. I told him we don't need two Yuri's in the same bracket. He was a – "

"He's dead," Phichit all but screams, and Yuri's eyes widen. Dead? Dead? "His car crashed on the way to the airport, all the way back in Hasetsu – he'd been working so hard for this competition, too – "

Yuri's mind goes blank, and he doesn't remember much else after that. He knows that Victor somehow took care of the situation and eventually guided him out of the building and into a waiting cab. He knows that Victor shepherds him into the hotel and up the elevator and into the right room. He knows that Victor tells him he'll stay until Yuri's safely in bed.

When Yuri finds himself staring at the ceiling in his hotel room, all alone, there's an immense amount of guilt. He knows the crash has nothing to do with him, but he and Victor hadn't even noticed that Yuuri was supposed to be on the roster.

Or that he never showed up.

They were too focused on their own routines – on winning – to think about the other competitors. And although he would never admit it to anybody, Yuri knew that the thing bothering him most was his lack of respect toward the Japanese Yuuri.

He thinks about last year's Grand Prix Final. He vaguely remembers Japanese Yuuri – he was pretty good, and his step sequence was phenomenal. The emotion he poured into his skating might've even surpassed Victor's.

If only his jumps were a little cleaner.

"Not knowing my own competitors' names," Yuri whispers into his pillow, almost wanting to die. That guy had probably been a fan of Victor's, but he'd been dismissed like any other fan. Yuri suddenly pictures the Japanese Yuuri in his head, although he doesn't have a very clear image – a pair of big brown eyes hidden behind thick glasses, slicked back hair, skating a program that Victor had said "didn't capitalize on his true abilities. He's trapped in there."

Yuri Plisetsky always tries to put up a tough front, but the immense guilt is eating away at him. He quietly slips out of his room and knocks on the door of the one beside his, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He doesn't know why.

The door opens to reveal Victor, clad simply in a white t-shirt and black sweatpants. He doesn't even look that surprised to see Yuri. "Come in," he says, and Yuri does so, gladly. The door shuts behind him and Victor heads to the coffee machine, silently offering Yuri a cup. Yuri doesn't usually drink coffee, but he accepts this time.

"Couldn't sleep?"

Yuri tries to decide if Victor's having the same problem as he is. After all, Victor didn't even recognize Yuuri's name; as talented as the man is, he's thick. And he's arrogant. Yuri looks away, feeling that same clawing sensation in his gut. He lets out a noncommittal grunt.

Victor hands him a cup and he takes it, peering inside. Victor's already added cream and sugar for him, it seems. "I can't, either. I just checked the news." He holds up his phone. "Since he made it to Worlds, his death was actually all over the news. We just didn't..."

"We didn't think to check the news on it, because we're in the bloody thing." Yuri tries not to spill his coffee as he kicks at the ground angrily. "Because we're the damn champions, because we're the important ones – but at least I knew his name, you know? I knew the name of the man who stood fourth at the Grand Prix, even though I wasn't even in his division. What were you doing? Dancing and laughing with all the other important people?"

Victor looks guilty. But Yuri's fired up. And he'll say anything to try to ease the guilt tearing him apart.

"You're fucking arrogant, you know that? You think you're top of the world and that nobody else matters – goddammit, they do matter! And I – " Yuri's not crying. The hotel maids really need to do a better job at dusting. " – I want to fix what we did wrong. He probably – probably – didn't deserve to die."

Victor's silent, his blue eyes cast downward, and Yuri refuses to look at him but knows they're feeling the same inner turmoil. "... Me, too. I wish we could go back in time."

Yuri can't sleep that night, even after Victor finally falls asleep sprawled out on his bed. Instead, he grabs a pen and a piece of paper, trying to think. One thing's for certain: Yuuri Katsuki cannot make it to 2016 Worlds.

He goes backwards from there. If Yuuri never makes it to Worlds, then that means he messed up somewhere along the line. The Grand Prix, probably. Yuuri has to flub the Grand Prix, which might reduce the chances of him making Worlds. And then he needs to fail the Japan Nationals, too, because just as the European Nationals results have a say in who goes to Worlds, so do the Japan Nationals'. Yuri clicks his pen thoughtfully.

He grabs Victor's laptop and inputs the password ("Makkachin") before launching a browser. He spends the next hour looking up Yuuri Katsuki's profile. If he's going to do this, he needs all the information.

There's a lot of stuff about his death, as Victor said. Yuri clicks on them all with gritted teeth. The first one simply read,

March 31, 2016 – Yuuri Katsuki, a prominent figure skater from Hasetsu, Japan, was the only casualty in a head-on-head drunk driving accident. He had been heading to the airport in a car driven by his ballet teacher, Minako Okukawa, when they were met with a drunk driver coming around a blind corner. Okukawa made it out safely.

Katsuki, 23, had been heading to the figure skating World Championships when the accident occurred. Although failing to win gold at the 2015 Grand Prix, he came in respectably as fourth and went on to win gold in Japan Nationals. He would have been one of six skaters in the men's singles division at Worlds.

Katsuki leaves behind a grieving family of three, who run the hot spring and inn Yu-topia Katsuki in Hasetsu, Japan. At the very least, Okukawa says sadly, Katsuki will finally be reunited with his beloved poodle, Vicchan, who died days after last year's Grand Prix.

He has a poodle named Vicchan and a family from Hasetsu who runs a hot spring and inn. He's 23 years old – fairly old for a figure skater, but then again, Victor's 27. Yuri takes his mind off the current issue for a moment just to mentally call Victor an old man.

Other articles address Yuuri's anxiety and inconsistent performances. He tends to mess up when there's something on his mind, or when he's distracted. He gets nervous easily and trembles even when he's on the ice. He's in Detroit with Coach Celestino.

He's made it to the Grand Prix Finals for the first time – and lands fourth! A magnificent outcome for Yuuri Katsuki! Hasetsu is overflowing with pride and joy. They hang up a sign above the ice rink he always skated at – Ice Castle – congratulating his achievement.

There are posters of him at the train station in Hasetsu, there are dishes named after him, there are little kids in Hasetsu who want to be just like Yuuri Katsuki.

Yuuri Katsuki has idolized Victor since he was eleven. He has posters of him on his bedroom wall. His poodle is named after Victor. He copies Victor's programs whenever he's feeling down.

When Vicchan – his poodle – died, Katsuki was so out of it for a month or so that he seriously flubbed everything. He barely made it through Nationals, but he did it.

Yuri can't stand it anymore, flinging the pen across the room with so much force that the point actually punctures the thin wall and stays there for a moment before slowly falling to the floor. He's dead, his mind repeats over and over and over, refusing to let him think of anything else, he's dead.

Is it worth it? Is it worth it to use one of his three chances?

Is it worth it for Yuuri Katsuki, who might never be anything but fourth place at the Grand Prix Final?

Yes, of course it's fucking worth it. Yuri's frustrated with himself for even hesitating. Of course it's worth it to correct this guilt brewing inside of him.

He glances at Victor once before looking back at his messily scribbled notes in almost undecipherable Russian.

And then he has a plan. The corners of his lips curl upward.