A/N: Written for the prompt 'challenge' on the holiday-prompts New Year's prompt table.

It's a couple of days after New Year's, and most places in Hasetsu are still closed for the holidays. Not the ice rink, though, at least not for Yuuri.

Yuuko and Takeshi watch him practice, occasionally shouting bits and pieces of advice while they drift about on their own skates. They're taking the day off from their triplets thanks to doting grandparents. His coach isn't here, and won't be for a couple days yet. In a way, it feels like the old days, when they would mess around on the ice together after their lessons had ended. Him and Yuuko copying Victor's routines while Takeshi showed off his jumps.

But things are different, now. They've both graduated ahead of Yuuri; they're working part time when they aren't exhausting themselves looking after three little babies. Takeshi quit skating at local competitions when he was in high school and started working at the rink instead. After she became pregnant, Yuuko had to choose between her family and her skating.

And there won't even be much more time for days like these when Yuuri can pretend that nothing's changed since middle school, since he's going to university in far-off Wakayama. Kii Gakuin is a good school for athletes; it's near a rink, and they have flexible learning options, and he can major in something easy like English. He might even be able to train somewhere else, depending on how the online courses work out.

It's going to be different. Yuuri tries not to think that it will be hard. No more late nights at the rink with Yuuko or Takeshi watching him skate figures before leaving him be and going home. No more eating Mom's katsudon or Dad's tempura. No more hours of practice with Minako-sensei, who he can't even remember not knowing. No more magazines unexpectedly showing up on his bed in exchange for picking up CDs and other band merch for Mari when he travels. No more familiar streets of Hasetsu, familiar beach, familiar posters of him everywhere. No more tiny baby triplets, who seem to grow bigger every couple of days. No more Vicchan, which is the part that he tries not to think about most, because the dorm at Kii doesn't allow pets and he hasn't found any apartments there that do yet.

But Hasetsu, for all it has to offer him, is starting to get too cramped, in its own way. Minako-sensei is excellent, but he needs a better coach. More competition. Yuuri knows he can be better than he is. He knows that he could skate on the same ice as Victor some day, as much as that feels like a distant dream. He never feels like he's enough, but he knows that he could be.

And there will be a couple of things he won't mind leaving behind. Like the posters. Those are never not going to be embarrassing. He could win gold over Victor at every major competition and he's pretty sure he would still cringe on seeing them posted at the rink. Yuuko used to be on the posters there, too, the two young hotshots of Hasetsu Castle, until she'd hit a wall in her ability, and then she'd retired and they came down for good.

Yuuri could practice long into the night, but when Yuuko and Takeshi step off the ice, he does, too. It's rare that they have time like this nowadays, between the tight schedules all three of them have. Yuuko smiles and helps him take off his skates in the locker room when one lace proves troublesome, wincing in sympathy when Yuuri pokes at his toes and complains that he can't feel them.

Takeshi rubs her back as Yuuri stretches, some random pop song playing from one of their phones. Other than the music, it's quiet, comfortable. Yuuri's spent a lot of evenings like this here with either and both of them.

"We should get lunch," Yuuko suggests. "What's open today?"

"Not much," Takeshi says, and then the two of them start poring over their phones in an attempt to find what is. They come up with a curry place, a restaurant that Yuuri thinks he might have eaten at once or twice. He's not the biggest fan of curry, but Takeshi loves in, and it's open, so they go.

"You have to come back and visit sometime, if you can," Yuuko says over lunch when the conversation turns towards Yuuri's university. "Bring us souvenirs from Wakayama. I bet the triplets would love to see their uncle Yuuri!"

Uncle. Yes.

It could have been a lot more awkward than that.

Yuuko hadn't planned to have kids so young. They'd been an accident – a happy one, on the whole, in the end. And if the timing had been different, Yuuri would have spent her entire pregnancy quietly panicking, because it hadn't just been her and Takeshi; it'd been the three of them in a tangled triangle that they'd never really talked about.

Him and Takeshi making out in a closet at school one afternoon. Yuuko kissing him after a local competition, both of them high on the joy of winning gold in their sections. Walking in on her and Takeshi pressed together against the wall of the rink's office. At one point, teenage hormones driving them crazy, they'd started pooling their pocket money to buy hours at a love hotel and sneaking off to it when they had the time. They'd worried so much about getting caught, but Yuuri's parents, at least, were already so used to him spending hours out of the house at practice that they'd never noticed a few more.

Thankfully, he and Yuuko hadn't done anything that could lead to her pregnancy around the time it must had happened, only her and Takeshi. If things hadn't turned out that way, he's not sure he'd be planning his new life at Kii, planning out routes to the ocean from his dorm and checking the hours at the rink.

They would've told him to go anyway, at least.

When they step outside again, Yuuko stretches. It's been a long time since she and Takeshi looked so relaxed. Having kids must be so hard. Yuuri had been fascinated by the development of her pregnancy, but he hadn't known what to do with himself the first time Takeshi had handed him one of the little babies in the hospital. He's visited a few times since then, bringing presents from his parents, and he still can't wrap his head around having children. He feels too young, and Yuuko was only a year older than him when they were born.

"It's such a nice day," Yuuko sighs, and then her smile turns mischievous. "We should take advantage of the time we have before Yuuri leaves, shouldn't we?"

Takeshi catches on first. "Oh, yeah. We should. What do you think, Yuuri?" He slings an arm around his shoulders and pulls him in.

"Huh?"

"Hotel Queen?" Yuuko whispers, ducking in close.

Yuuri face goes on fire. Hotel Queen is the love hotel near the beach. They haven't been there in a couple of years. Neither of them has done anything more affectionate than hold hands with him since they discovered Yuuko was having triplets. He'd thought...

"Um." He's fiercely aware of the fact that they're in public, even if the street is relatively empty and Yuuko's tone was too low for anyone but him and Takeshi to catch. But she looks beautiful when she smiles, and Takeshi's arm is heavy on his shoulders, and they wait patiently for him to answer. "Okay," he whispers back.

Takeshi keeps his arm where it is. Yuuko's smile widens, and she takes his hand to lead both of them down towards the beach.