A/N: Aaah the final chapter! Thank you all for sticking with me, I wrote this forever ago but never got round to posting it...I had a tonne of YOI fics in my drafts for like two years and finally decided to publish them! I know this is old (to me) and not necessarily reflective of how I write now, but I hope you guys enjoyed it anyway! It was just a little one I wrote for fun! Also thank you all for putting up with my breaks, all I really needed to do was edit the chapters and post, I didn't need to do any actual writing but sometimes stuff happens and sometimes I just don't have the mental energy but so many of you have stuck here until the end 3

Shameless self promo but if you want more YOI fics, I have a tonne that I've written and I'm in the middle of a pirate AU but updates are slow because that fic is a beast!

Epilogue...

"…and then I realised that I didn't have your number but it was too late and I couldn't go back and wake you. I looked for you the next morning but by the time I'd slipped away from Yakov you were already gone. I was devastated. I didn't know how to contact you and we'd had such a connection. I wanted to follow up on that spark I'd felt…and I'd been sure you felt it too. But I had no way to contact you and I wasn't sure where you were. But then….then I saw your video. You were right there…skating my program, skating Stay Close to Me. You'd clearly been more inspired by my program, than I had ever been performing it. You were saying so much with your skating that I had wanted to say when I skated it but…at that point I felt like a robot. Skate. Win. Skate. Win. The joy had been sucked out. But seeing you skate it…it brought my inspiration back. I could see just how you could be…you just needed help. My help and I remembered the banquet and what you said. I knew I could help you..I'd wanted to help you since I saw your face after the finals. I knew you were definitely in Japan and I remembered you'd said your parents had a hot spring in Hasetsu. Your video….it felt like a message to me…like you were summoning me. So I came" Victor told Yuuri, who was snuggled up next to him on the bed. A couple of hours earlier, Yuuri had found out about the banquet…and Victor had found out that Yuuri didn't remember a thing from that night. He didn't remember talking to Victor. Which actually…explained a lot. Victors mind flashed back to when he'd first arrived in Hasetsu, he smiled as he remembered Yuri's text once he'd worked out where he'd gone. You take stalker to a whole new level. He'd said. Victors smile dimmed as he remembered the first few nights and says spent there and he absent mindedly shared the memory with Yuuri.

He'd thought the shock and surprise on Yuuri's face was because he hadn't expected Victor to actually take him up on his offer….to give him his prize. Or maybe because in his sudden flustered state at seeing Yuuri after so long wishing to see him…pining for him, he'd stood up butt naked without thinking to announce his decision. But Victor was beginning to wonder if Yuuri had changed his mind or…if he…if he'd been wrong about Yuuri. Maybe what he'd felt was only one sided? Victor had crouched down to Yuuri's level, wanting to be close to him after so long apart.

"I want to know everything about you Yuuri" he'd said, meaning every word, bringing his hand up to gently caress Yuuri's face.

"Like what kind of rink you skate at. And what hobbies do you have" he'd moved closer. "And if there's a girl you like" Victor had run his hand down Yuuri's arm to rest on his hand. There had better not be. He'd thought. He'd asked the question because it had been months since they'd seen each other, and he didn't want to make assumptions. Yuuri could be bi after all and a lot could have happened. But….at the same time….he didn't think he'd read the banquet wrong and he'd held out…hoping to be reunited with Yuuri…surely he'd done the same. But the question tested the waters, so he let it stand.

"Let's get to know each other, a relationship like this should be built on trust, don't you think?" They'd gazed in to each others eyes and then….Yuuri had flushed bright red and scrambled backwards….away from Victor.

What did I say this time? He thought, bereft of Yuuri's presence.

Yuuri laughed. "Oh my God, I wondered why you kept asking me about girls and past lovers and everything…why you kept trying to sleep with me for sleepovers. You couldn't work out why, if I was unattached, after the banquet…I wasn't responding to you…why I wasn't coming on to you right back like I had at the banquet" Yuri exclaimed. "I was so confused. I had no idea why you'd just shown up out of the blue after watching that video." Yuuri reached up to cup Victors face and turn it to him. "I could never change my mind about you Victor. I just….I didn't remember. I thought I'd skated so horrendously and let everyone down and that I didn't deserve to be there and I hadn't even been able to talk to you…and I must have been so different…but you pined for me"

"I did" Victor said quietly. "I've been in love with you for so long Yuuri. But I realised that your Eros was hidden. Buried. I realised just how drunk you were. I thought it was merely liquid courage but you where still in control. But I was wrong. I realised that, but I knew this connection was still there. When you didn't respond to my flirting…I worried but I waited…I wanted to help you whatever happened between us personally, so I pulled back. I slowly started to get to know you but I realised early on that you were shy…quiet…that the you from the banquet wasn't your usual self at all. Then I realised that you felt something for me, even if you were too shy to act on it…or even realise what it was in the beginning. I knew I just had to wait…draw you out…get you to open up and let me in. It took a while but…now we're here" Victor said, kissing Yuuri's forehead.

"I'm so sorry Victor, it must have been terrible for you…in the beginning…" Yuuri trailed off sadly.

"It was hard, that first night…you didn't respond to me at all, you wouldn't let me in to your room." Victor remembered being alone, in a strange country unable to speak the language. Yuuri the only person he could interact with. He'd thought a relationship was imminent after the banquet, he'd thought he'd show up to coach Yuuri and they'd end up together…but Yuuri would barely look at him and had shut him out. His things where boxed all around him, reminding him that he'd just uprooted his entire life for this man, this man that wouldn't talk to him, wouldn't even look at him. "I thought…I can't be wrong..I'm never this wrong. I watched the videos, and looked through the photos, to remind myself…to give myself hope that you would let me close again. I had to make do with hugging Makkachin that night" Victor sniffed, remembering crying as he'd looked through everything, before he'd fallen asleep. He'd woken with new resolve, to persist but to do it more subtly, to tone it down, because Yuuri wasn't ready for the full force of Victor. He decided to get to know Yuuri as much as he could, to work out how to approach him. He'd realised he needed to approach Yuuri like a skittish animal…and he had in the beginning. But as they'd gotten closer and closer and Yuuri had gotten more and more comfortable…things had fallen in to place. The Yuuri he'd met at the banquet started to shine through.

Yuuri hugged him tightly, kissing him gently on the lips for a moment...two. He pulled back gazing in to Victors eyes.

"So….the whole photo thing was your ploy to get close to me?" Yuuri asked. Victor nodded.

"After the rink…I thought I'd use it to break the ice…a joke to start a conversation. But then I wanted more than one conversation. I wanted many conversations. I wanted to know you and then…then I wanted to stay close to you always. The photo just started everything."

"So that's why you got that strange look on your face back at the church" Yuuri realised. Victor smiled in response.

Hours earlier, Yuuri had not only found out about the banquet, but he'd also…accidentally…proposed to Victor. With out realising it at the time. He'd buried it under Japanese customs and thank yous, but it had been an engagement ring and he had been proposed to. Yuuri wouldn't realise quite what he'd done until later…just after he'd find out about the banquet. They were soul mates and they both knew it, they couldn't bear to apart from one another. Victor had proudly showed off his ring to their friends, and when Yuuri had flushed and become flustered, unsure how to tell the others, unsure how to put his feelings in to words and possibly a little uncomfortable at them all knowing his inner feelings, Victor had taken the reigns and announced their engagement.

But at the time….Yuuri had asked for a commemorative photo. Victor, can we….can we take a…a commemorative photo? He'd stammered. Victor had been thrown momentarily, back to a similar situation. When he'd asked Yuuri for the same thing. His mind had replayed everything in brief flashes, and his face must have reacted to the memories. Yuuri had asked if he was okay and he'd responded in the affirmative before merrily taking a photo with Yuuri in front of the church…rings visible on their clasped hands.

"All I wanted to do was to try to cheer you up, make you happy….to stop you from becoming lost…to help you." Victor said quietly.

"You did Victor, and you always make me happy" Yuuri said quietly, cupping Victors face and leaning in for a deep, slow kiss.