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It had only been two week since the Grand Prix Final ended and Yuuri had come second. This was certainly a pleasure for both his family and his friends, but mostly for Victor, who was expecting Yuuri to move in and train with him in Russia. He had decided that he couldn’t live without his little katsudon, so the best thing for both of them would be to move their base in St Petersburg and have Yakov on their side. It would be the most beneficial way to practice for both of them, which was why he had no trouble convincing Yuuri to do this. He had a very strong point though, that they would be together.
The only problem was that Yuuri, as always, was acting weird since the day he settled in. Obviously, Victor didn’t expect him to get used to this right from the start, even though they were living together for almost a year, but they were in Russia, so his nerves were much worse than usual. Victor could see him walking around the apartment with no sense of restraint, or get too distracted with housework. When there was nothing left for him to clean, he would go outside and run alone. He always made excuses like “I want to be at the same level as you”, or “I should make a good impression to Yakov”, so that Victor wouldn’t have anything to complain for.
As a matter of fact, Yuuri was definitely not fine. The pressure of being with Victor in his hometown was terrible. He had this idea in mind that he had to be perfect, so that other people would actually believe that he was worthy of Victor, even though this was far from the truth. He had won the silver medal at the Grand Prix, what more could he do to prove himself? But he was too blind to see it. Since all this was in his mind, he always worked harder than the others at the skate rink, he wanted to practice more and he never stopped to take a breath. This was slowly leading him to exhaustion, which didn’t make things better. The time came that he started making mistakes during practice and breaking things. This kind of behavior was making Victor worried, because he had seen it before during the Finals, and it was Yuuri’s anxiety coming back. But, no matter how hard he tried to approach him, the reply that he got was “You don’t have to worry, everything’s fine! I just need some time to adapt, that’s all!” which was always accompanied with an obviously fake smile.
One day, things got out of hand. Yuuri insisted on washing the dishes after dinner, but Victor offered to relieve him from his duties for once. He tried to take the plates off his hands, but Yuuri’s sleep deprivation combined with his nerves made him drop everything on the floor. He rushed to clean up this mess, yet Victor could not stand this anymore, seeing his katsudon shaking.
“Yuuri, come here, tell me what’s wrong. You’ve been acting weird ever since you moved here. Can we talk about it for a second?” Victor asked.
“I already told you, nothing’s wrong. Besides, I have to fix this so I don’t have time for that now,” he replied.
“Well, if you’re not coming here then I guess I’ll have to come there. Now tell me, talk to me about it!” Victor’s voice was a little louder than he intended.
“I said I don’t want to talk about it!” Yuuri shouted, then looked at his boyfriend and teardrops started to form in his eyes. He immediately left the scene and, right before he reached for his backpack, Victor grabbed his hand and actually cornered him on the wall. He was speechless, breathless, so close to him.
“You’re not leaving unless you talk to me. We can stay like this forever, if you’d like. I can keep my hands beside you for as long as it takes,” he suggested.
“Don’t you get it? When you came to Hasetsu, it was like I was living with a legend! Everyone kept asking me and my family about you, this was the whole town’s concern. There wasn’t a single person who didn’t want to know more about you because they thought you were perfect! But, the thing is that how can I live up to this image you have created for yourself? Next to you I seem like nothing more than an ordinary skater and I don’t want that! I want people to think of us as equals and I can’t relax until I succeed!” Yuuri’s speech left his boyfriend staring. This was something he didn’t expect to hear.
“What the hell are you talking about? First of all, what gave you the impression that you’re somehow underneath me? You don’t get this at all, do you? You actually got a silver medal! You are here, in Russia, training with me and Yakov! And, do I really have to spell out the most important one? You are the person I love and no one can convince me otherwise!” Victor had made this pretty clear to his boyfriend that all this was nonsense. So, what was left for him to prove this was a deep kiss. He could feel Yuuri’s heartbeat slowing down, his body relaxing and his muscles releasing the tension. This was all he needed to calm down. The reassurance that everything was going to be alright…