Unexpected ▪ Yuri On Ice

To Fall or Fly

VN

A ball is means to an end. Regardless of how clean the throw, how fast it cuts the air or how high it flies it'll always fall.

But a balls glory, it comes from that throw. It comes from the speed, the power, the hight, all given by an arm. That arm gives it the glory before the inevitable end. Falling.

Looking at the ball that's just landed at my feet I can't see anything but my own reflection in the leather. Yuuri gave me my shot at glory, he made me happy, made me better, made me want to be better.

But I fell. Because that's how everything will always end, with my fall. Nature forces me down and it's all because I never should have glory, I wasn't made for that glory. Yuuri gave that to me. He gave and gave and gave.

I gave him mistrust back. Nothing more.

And without that arm picking up the ball it'll stay on the ground forever, it'll stay suspended in end.

"Nikiforov I've had it! First you take a day off then you come back as a damn mop! Clean up your act!" Yakov's yells do nothing to repair my ultimatum, my inevitable fate of hitting the floor and staying there.

It seems my psyche has synced with the ball as I only move when it's picked up. The face connected to the arm doesn't provide the same reaction as it always has. I don't scowl, or look away, or make a cruel remark. I stare.

I stare because I'm no longer looking at what I hate. I'm looking at what I am. Carsons face illustrates a much stronger reflection than the ball ever could because I am him. He is me. I always thought he was the villain of our movie, that we were above him.

But I've fallen and now we stand on the same ground. A ground world's beneath Yuuri's.

Oscar Wilde wrote; Yet each man kills the thing he loves. [...] The coward does it with a kiss and a brave man with a sword!

He was right. But he never taught me what happens after the kiss, he never told me that each man becomes the thing he loathes.

So I stare. I stare and feel myself fall and fall and fall.

All of a sudden I'm not the only one staring at my reflection, Chris is here too, staring at both my versions, confused.

"Victor do you wanna get lunch early? Let's go" he chirps, linking arms with me and practically dragging me off the field. All I can really pay mind to is the ground falling away beneath my feet, like it no longer wants me, like I belong on a ground even lower.

"Hey you absolutely need to talk to me. I've seen Yuuri" he almost hisses once we're away from the teams eyes, passing the changing room.

"Is he alright?"

"Of course not. He's just as much of a walking corpse as you are" Walking corpse? Walking is an overstatement.

"Don't compare him to me, don't do that to him" I snap, not feeling bad about it in the slightest. Chris needs to know his mistake.

"I get the feeling you're making yourself look a lot worse than you really are" I scoff as we enter the school through the back entrance. The hallway is complete emptiness, no usual noise from the volume of bodies at lesson interchange. It's nice. It's also terribly lonely.

"I'm not. I'm that bad"

"What did you do Victor?"

What did I do?

What have I become is the real question.

"I killed the thing I love. With a kiss"

"What?" The change of scent in the atmosphere is all that alerts me that we're in the canteen. The smell of a good meal always lifts my mood. Except today it makes me feel ill.