⛧ rocket ⛧

that being said

i don't think we talk enough about how the banquet encounter probably sent victor into a panic of sorts.

like obv we can tell this man is all about big emotions: chasing them, feeling them, expressing them creatively so everyone else feels them too. except lately that's not been the case so much. until yuuri. he's all of 27 and feeling so strongly about someone after a long time (perhaps strongly in general too given how numb and burnt out he is wrt his career). he's in his late 20s, at the peak of his career (which has a short shelf life to begin with) and he's starting to panic about what happens to him when the skating goes away.

not to mention he's possibly also having the vv late 20s anxiety of "what if this is my only shot at love?" and now, without meaning to, he felt a stir of something that feels closer to who he's always known himself to be (big time feeler) right when he thought he was getting too old and crossing over the bridge of never getting it back. you're telling me that won't make you run your ass across the world??

don't get me wrong im not saying victor is not a romantic but i think there're additional motivators to his actions (a lot of which we have to imagine based on context cues bc we never got ice ado 😭) that add to his character and paint such an interesting picture of his version of their love story.

bc imagine the relief that he'd have felt when him and yuuri finally start to become something real. bc yuuri proved him right. right when he was on the verge of falling off into cynicism, to becoming numb about something that meant sm to him once, their relationship proved to him he was never wrong for wanting grand romance (and who the hell doesn't like being right)

is it any wonder then, that he becomes so child-like with yuuri? as if yuuri didn't give him everything he dreamed of since he was a kid.

for victor that idea is that of banquet yuuri

for yuuri it's childhood idol victor

they're both infatuated with a version of the other that's only conditionally present, short lived, made up or exaggerated. and the story makes a point to actively THWART the possibility of love at first sight. it keeps insisting that it's not love. not yet.

but it's not nothing. they are unquestionably drawn to each other. esp bc the other represents to them something they're yearning in themselves: yuuri is to victor connection, passion, and the feeling of aliveness that he'd become so numb to, so devoid of. victor represents a voice for self-validation, of acceptance from an opinion that seems to matter well above yuuri's own.

but just bc they want that doesn't mean they know how to get it or even accept it for what it is. they constantly miscalculate their moves and misunderstand and upset each other.

but they keep at it. and it grows into something more. the shift is so evident as they go through the motions of GPF. we see their relationship become one of easy familiarity. and you can tell what it is now, without them having to say it to each other or to us. they show us a love story just by building a special relationship and showing why it should matter.

And they were soulmates.