PRESTO

two. "tragedy of skaters."

To lose the need to skate was death for them.

She reminisces of the days long gone in the Kyuushu airport. The snow had carved a world of grey tundras outside. Leaving nothing of the sakura blossoms from weeks before. And the snowflakes continue to fall; as if trying to hide, trying to cover up and preserve its innocence, and Yui Akaashi closes her eyes and thinks of why she is here.

Them; the artists of the ice and water, of the magic of winter and the grace of snowflakes. They were lovely and beautiful when they were. Yet when they weren't, they were received with disasters and harbingers and people who knew no better.

She started skating at seven. She retired at twenty-four. The reason for her fall from grace was simple. A disease. The disease that had befallen many others, before her, after her, with her. The disease of the loss of passion.

Had the same disease consumed her former partner?

The answer was true and obvious.

No, it had not.

Yui knows Viktor Nikiforov, that charming, charismatic, bright, brilliant legend of Russia. That cunning, ruthless, relentlessly selfish skater on the ice. That was exactly who he is. And being the relentlessly selfish skater he is, and this is the poisonous, tempting, irresistible fruit he offers and bears.

She knows that man. Better than anyone else in their world, better than anyone else on the planet. And she knows, the reason why Viktor Nikiforov was coaching Yuuri Katsuki was not because of what had charmed Yui. Not the passionate, young soul of a skater. Not determined and beautiful spirit of an underdog. No, those were things that neither of them no longer needed. It was because Viktor will pour the gasoline, and Yuuri will light the fire.

( And he will take all that is good of it and return to his dream,

leaving Yuuri with the burns.)

What a selfish man, Yui thought. Going halfway across the world just to follow a personal, useless motto of pride and personality.

* * *

For the girl named Akaashi Yui, her story was a mundane one whose ending was no different than the many others before her.

*
【Note: the clock's numbers are the literal representation of years she had left before her retirement: e.g., the clock is at twelve, Yui herself is twelve adding those two together (12+12=24) would equal twenty-four, the age Yui is at her retirement.】

The clock starts ticking at twelve.

At twelve, Akaashi Yui stands with cold eyes and an empty smile in the middle of the rink surrounded by flashing lights and smiling coaches.

Girls older than her from all races and religion and culture stare at her with snake-like eyes. All bitter and hateful, yet begrudgingly respectful all the same.

There were no other glory than the envy of the others: there were nothing to be gained from those hours of bloody toes and bruised knees, of the coaches that turn from sweet to sour in an instant and the fiends she dared to call friends and comrades — the vipers that would no sooner bite the hand that feeds them to taste the fruits of a greater power.

*

The clock is at ten.

Fourteen years old, Yui learns that skating is only of the sky and cliffs, of only the gold and first place and nothing else, of the rush of adrenaline in the heat of cold, the ice of the rink, the flashes of camera and the three digit scores on the screens. And most of all: the whispers and words of the others in sequins and silk, those other who wishes for the things she doesn't want.