The ice is for a single person alone.

It can only belong to one single person alone.

It was hypocritical for them: for any of them at all to deny that. Even within pairs, within teams — they all sought to be that one. That one who audiences became transfixed with under the blinding lights, the heavy pushes of skates in the final moment. And the cheers and claps and screams in the single moment you stand on the ice, gasping for air and dizzy with nausea and adrenaline and the time freezes and there are falling flowers and bright lights—

There was never anything quite like it.

No, there really wasn't.

That crystal white field of white. The ache that sometimes makes her collapse and gasp for breath and tears that made her pound of fist into the wall and the hole in her heart she wished she didn't have.

* * *

Yui arrived back in Kyuushu only a few days before Yuuri, there is a brief moment where her eyes water at the sight of the civilian streets of grey and colourful houses and small apartments and low buildings; the sight of the fluttering seas of soft pink cherry blossom, the low hums of the subways and the occasional clicking of bikes and children's footsteps.

She chides herself, wondering where the old her: the uncaring, sadist Yui went.

Slinging her single bag over her shoulders, Yui pulls out her wallet and looks for her Japanese bus pass among the many other foreign tickets and receipt in her wallet. Only to give up after two seconds and pull out the crumpled bills from her pocket.

She hadn't ridden a train in a long, long time.

Home was still a long way back down the memory lane.

***

Yuuri returns later next week. Yui is all serial-killer smiles full of homicidal intent. But she only terrifies Yuuri more as she steps with her smile dark:

"You don't look so good, my dear kouhai."

Beside her, Minako goes pale and lunges for him with a killing blow, it's needless to say that the next hour is less than enjoyable and little better than despairing before he is finally released from the claws of his sensei and his senpai.

But during that hour surrounded by shouts and shrieks and cackles, the weight on his heart lightens slightly and suddenly, he hasn't disappointed his senpai, he hadn't failed in front of his idol, he hadn't screwed up his skating career, and he hadn't lost.

And then they come crashing back then, and he just sinks and sinks until he can't even see the surface anymore.

But he was home.

* * *

The next weeks pass, and the world goes on. It cared nothing for the boy of a man who was holing himself in the bedroom with a shame and weight on his heart she was no stranger to. But the guilt Yui held was different from the one of her pupil. It was because she was the one who introduced him to her world.

* * *

It's a Saturday where Yui practically kicks down the door with a mildly disturbing smile and drags her hedgehog of a student to the rink.

Yuko's face literally lights up like a freaking Christmas tree before she slams the keys to the rink in front of them. And runs off laughing like a hyena leaving Yui to roll her eyes for the nth time in her life at her best friend.

Yuko shuffles around to the back and takes care of her job while Yuuri ran off to change, leaving Yui to enter the rink alone. And for a second she stops, eyes wide and filled with nostalgia of the sight in front of her.

The bleachers filled with fans, the ice that told stories of both pain and joy and victories and failure. The screen that had displayed scores, all in three digits.

Graceful spins and lutz's, expression perfect, form flawless, it was like the entire rink was entranced with his illusion. The ice was his stage, the slashes and scratches of the blade a part of the orchestra, the clicks of the toes of his skates the accents in his play. He was the conductor, the rink his orchestra. He was the artist, his body creating a masterpiece of poses and techniques. Quiet they were: afraid of the single sound they would make, of the single thing they could to ripple the pond, to shatter the illusion.

She comes to him like a moth drawn to a flame, lips curved and legs bent and arm outstretched. He catches her within a single movement, capturing her like a sea of sparkles and sequins and rhinestones — first the tips of her fingers, then her palm, her wrist, her elbow, then her shoulders. His other arm raises to reach for her hand, entwining them as they moved across the ice in a lovers' embrace. Red and blue, gold and grey. They separate with a spin then clash back together in a single moment of beautifully saturated colours and vibrant sparks.

The noises have disappeared but Yui feels the cold breeze on her face again, and slowly untangles herself from her mind, the wisps of daydream disintegrating slowly. Like the mist of a cold night on a sunny day, rising like the spirit of a reluctant soul, hauntingly beautiful.

It takes her a while to blink away the bleariness that usually accompanied a daydream. But as she does, she realizes that her kouhai had already taken to the ice.

Yuuri looked like a poem.

The first note rings across the frozen ice, and Yuuri's head bows low, his arms spread like wings. And then, just like that, without warning: it starts. Hands to the sky, legs dipping, hands clutched to his chest. A quadruple lutz, a quadruple toe—

Those moves... They were the same.

So similar yet so different. It was like, for a single moment, even if it were only a second: Yuuri was no longer chasing just after Viktor's shadow, but the wisps and tangles and loose threads of his own dreams. And with that, the indescribable feeling of her throat tightening and eyes stinging from the salty tears came over her again. But unlike Viktor's routine of masterpieces and tested depths, Yuuri's was like a newborn butterfly, just clambering out of his cocoon, no longer the caterpillar he once was, and ready to explore the world.

When the last spin was done. Both she and Yuko were silent for a moment.

Before Yuko's eyes went wide and started cackling. "Sugoi, sugoi, sugoi!" She giggled, "that was just like Viktor's! I thought you'd be super depressed after something like last year."

And Yuuri, Yuuri. Yui narrowed her eyes at her kouhai, with all the nerve he had begun chuckling. "Well, I wasn't sure, but I just really wanted you and senpai, to see, Yu-chan," he said, rubbing his arms, "I kept thinking back to before when you, senpai and I used to try to copy him. I guess I'm just trying to rediscover my love for skating." He laughed.

Yui's eyebrow raised incredulously. Just. Just?! Katsuki Fucking Yuuri. Do you know how much you looked like fucking...

He instantly panicked looking at the murderous aura surrounding his mentor. "I just..."

And then, miraculously, the miserable bastard was saved.

Three head suddenly popped out from under Yuko, in the order of blue, purple and pink which Yui instantly recognized as girl triplets Axel, Lutz, and Loop. This, time, both she and Yuuri sweat dropped.

Yuko, however, just beamed with delight. "Haven't they grown since you guys last saw them?" She chirped.

And then suddenly, it was like a bunch of carbon copies of teenage Yui suddenly appeared, just younger and chubbier with baby fat.

"Yuuri! You really did get fat!"

"Are you really retiring?"

"Have you really never had a girlfriend before, Yuuri?"

Yui used Yuuri as human shield as they both slowly backed away with Yuko trying desperately to pin and calm down the triplets until the familiar sliding sound of skating blades reached their ears and they turned back.

It was Takeshi Nigishiro. Yui squeezed her eyes in disdain, but there were understandings among torturers of Yuuri that she cracked a dry smile at him.

"They're all you fans, Yuuri," he started with a warm smile. And then he slid forward and wrapped an arm around his neck with the three girls suddenly appearing around the two guys— And then it happened. Yui snickered. Nishigori pulled up Yuuri's thin shirt and his fat stomach dropped out. Takeshi laughed and patted it, while the three girls started taking pictures and videos of it, still amused.

Yui snickered. Although I don't like you, we still make a good team.

But eventually, all fun things came to a stop with Takeshi giving his usual warm, bubbly, happy-go-lucky speech, and the two of them set back for the onsen, with Yuuri suddenly frantic that he had missed Viktor's performance and Yui agreeing to help him find a channel, keeping the warning about seeing another Yuri to herself.

* * *

She shouldn't have.

Yuuri totally freaked out seeing the other one, and it was like no one could stop him or his hysterics and she and Saeko, another regular at the Katsukis' hot spring managed to drag him up to his room, where there he finally managed to calm down.

But not for long.

Just about everything in the world was wrong about him.

And maybe just about everything else just hated her—

Both Yui and Yuuri blanched seeing the uploaded video of him skating Viktor's free skate routine, and Yui noted duly, that among the short time the video had been released, there were already millions of views, retweets, and comments. It went viral. Distantly she could hear Yuko scolding the kids and someone crying and another disagreeing. Yui sucked on her lips in distaste (they could've at least asked her to edit it so Yuuri didn't look like the obese moron he is). However, another part of her was occupied with the fact that he was bound to see this.

And then all hell broke loose.

Yuuri suddenly fainted, and Minako, the old hag, suddenly recovered from her hangover, slamming open the door and demanded why the damned video was being retweeted everywhere. She could literally hear Hisashi Morooka, the commentator at Yuuri's match squeak out a "Katsuki-kun, you have time to do this?!" And the other Yuri, making a comment about how the Japanese one was a moron or an idiot, or something along those lines.

Yui paled even more. Viktor Nikiforov was really bound to see it.

Fuck her life.

* * *

It was only a few days later when he came in. As Toshio-san, Yuuri's dad described, after the familiar poodle tackled her when she returned and demanded who the thing belonged to. The old man only said cheerfully that came with a 'good looking foreign guest' that was when she had already suspected who it was.

But what proved her ultimately suspicions were the indistinct yelps, the murmurs of a distantly familiar voice, and Yuuri's "WHAT?!" ripping across the air of the entire hot spring and possibly (most likely) all of Hasetsu.

Yui sucked in a breath and curled herself up tighter on the couch.

Now you've really done it, Yuuri.

***

so it's been edited, most of the last parts have been edited, but the rest of chapters will probably come the following 3/4 weeks (you know, the chapters up until i had hiatus)