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A Quiet Place to Rest: Katsuki Yuuri in the Aftermath of Scandal

Figure skating is a sport that doesn’t attract general attention, but in March 2017, figure skating dominated the major headlines of the Japanese news. Japan’s ace skater, Katsuki Yuuri,  was accused of doping during a World Championship hosted in Tokyo – the news traveled, and traveled fast. Only hours after the story broke, Japan and the whole world watched as Katsuki’s free skate fell apart in the midst of the greatest scandal in ISU history.

They are the most celebrated rivalry in figure skating history, surpassing even Yagudin and Pluschenko in intensity and sheer achievement: Katsuki Yuuri and Viktor Nikiforov, the two figure skating legends of the age. So when scandal broke out, it was vicious. Social media condemned Nikiforov and Katsuki in turns, while the news media scrambled to fact check the leaks.

Nikiforov’s coach Yakov Feltsman registered a complaint against Katsuki, claiming that Feltsman caught Katsuki red-handed, performance-enhancing pills halfway to his mouth. A mole within the ISU saw to it that the investigation leaked, and within hours the whole of Katsuki’s medical records was exposed.

Katsuki made no public comment. He ignored the press even as questions were screamed at him from the rink side. He skated his free program, graceless and lifeless, and after getting his scores he turned his back on the ice. He disappeared from the public eye, and after the World Championships, no one heard from Katsuki for months.

~

I went into Sports Journalism in 2007, and the very first international competition I was assigned to cover was the 2007 Grand Prix Final. In the Seniors’ division, the outlook was abysmal for Japan; Oda Nobunari had been withdrawn from competitions by the JSF following his arrest that year, Arakawa Shizuka had just retired after her medal in the 2006 Winter Olympics. Of the greats of the time, only Takahashi Daisuke had qualified. However, despite Japan’s limited chances at a podium finish, the GPF was promising to be exciting.  Chinese skater Cao Bin was dominating Asia, Stephane Lambiel had finally  recovered from his injuries of the previous season, and Viktor Nikiforov was beginning the quads arms race with his new quad flip. I wanted to cover that event, but as the newest reporter in the station, I was told to cover the juniors division instead. Yamaguchi Hiroshi (now part of ITV 4) was brought in for seniors.

That year, there were only two Japanese skaters in the junior division: in ladies’ singles, there was Nagano Sayo, who placed second that year but ultimately dropped from competitive skating. The other was Katsuki Yuuri.

It was only his junior debut, and so most of the media had yet to take notice of this junior athlete in a sport that was rapidly losing popularity. As far as I know, I was the only Japanese reporter to cover the Juniors events, and after the short program I thought I understood why. Nagano, despite her first place finish in both her qualifiers, seemed to be performing on a much lower standard than previous, and Katsuki gave an underwhelming performance in his short program, falling on several of the jumps. Going into the free program the following day, I was complaining to Yamaguchi about how disappointing their performances were.

I was expecting very little. But when Katsuki took center ice, it was obvious that something had changed. Gone was the childish fumbling of the day before, gone was the palpable fear before every jump. He didn’t skate a clean program, but everyone who watched was shaken by the beauty and grace of his dancing. At fourteen years old, Katsuki already had the effortless elegance on the ice that would later become his trademark as a world champion figure skater.

[IMAGE: Yuuri in the final pose of his debut FS]

I caught up to him for an interview. He blushed, said that he could do better, and apologized for disappointing Japan with a fifth place finish.

~

Katsuki Yuuri was a shy child, uncomfortable around journalists and uneasy with attention. That’s remained a constant throughout the years; Katsuki is infamous in sports media circles for being difficult to interview – if only because he disappears so quickly after every competition if he isn’t strong-armed into a press conference. In his junior years all interview requests went through his coach Tanaka and met a dead end. Tanaka was kind and gave us regular press releases about Katsuki’s training, but couldn’t get his student to agree to any kind of interview.

Things only got worse when Katsuki won the World Junior Championships. Everyone wanted news of the World Junior Champion, but all the press received was the reports that Katsuki had long since disappeared to Detroit to train under Celestino Cialdini from the Detroit Skate Club.

The next two seasons were agonizing for reporters assigned to cover his career. Katsuki’s senior debut was the most distinguished since Nikiforov’s. A bronze at the World Championships at his senior debut, coupled with the beginnings of his rivalry with Nikiforov? Everyone wanted an exclusive, but Katsuki remained elusive. I remember being at the press conference of the 2010 World Championships, and when I asked him about the now infamous glare, I remember being shut down immediately.

Interviewing Katsuki Yuuri about topics he does not want to discuss is impossible; his ordinarily polite (if not warm) demeanour shuts down and he has no compunctions about stonewalling the interview until his time is up. Viktor Nikiforov would be the one of the many subjects Katsuki will always refuse to address.

[IMAGE: Yuuri glaring at Viktor at the podium]

~

The years went by in a hail of medals for Katsuki, as he and Viktor Nikiforov began their rivalry in earnest. The internet had decreed that the hostility from the 2010 World Championships was a rivalry; Nikiforov and Katsuki both delivered on that expectation and more. Nikiforov unleashed his quad lutz; Katsuki added a Bielmann spin and forced the ISU to clarify their scoring on step sequences. They forced each other along as they left their fellow skaters behind.

[IMAGE: Chris, Yuuri, and Viktor on a podium. Chris looks resigned but happy, Viktor is smiling wide for the camera with gold, and Yuuri looking standoffish but polite with silver around his neck]

Christophe Giacometti – in his own right an outstanding skater, and Switzerland’s best since Lambiel – was heard to half-heartedly complain: “If you’re in an event with Viktor or Yuuri, forget about gold. In the GPF or Worlds, the rest of us shrug and ask each other ‘Well, which one of us is getting bronze this year?’” At any other time in figure skating history Giacometti would have seeded as #1. In the era of the Katsuki-Nikiforov rivalry, he only ranked higher than third when Nikiforov had to sit out a season because of an ankle injury.

Despite his overwhelming success in international skating, Katsuki keeps the same distance with the press. He still refuses to do full length interviews. Neither has he accepted any invitations to feature in other media – no guest appearances in dramas or variety shows. He has no visible social media presence. Aside from his competitions, his only public appearances are his ice shows for the JSF and the occasional ad for his sponsors, the most notable of which are Mizuno and Kose.

“My favorite,” Katsuki confided in me last July, “are the KitKat ads.”

[INSERT IMAGE: A KitKat ad for an ‘Icy Mint Chocolate’ flavour. The add is captioned ‘kittokatsuki’. Yuuri is posing with his Olympic Gold]

~

It’s has now been a month since the 2015 World Championships – and from there you know the story. Pills, doping accusations, the reveal of extremely private medical information. Humiliated and his privacy grossly violated, Katsuki skated in front of his home crowd in second place from the short program, and he dropped to twenty third. Nikiforov, having finished first the previous day, skated last and dropped to twenty fourth.

The backlash had been immediate, intense, and very nearly bloody; Nikiforov and his teammates needed police escort through the Tokyo Haneda Airport. Katsuki disappeared immediately after his free skate, turning his back on Nikiforov in what could be considered this year’s most iconic photograph in sports journalism. He wasn’t at the press conference, or in the ISU banquet after Worlds; he posted a two-sentence statement via his official Twitter

[Embedded Tweet]

@YuuriKatsuki

I will be taking an indefinite break from competitive figure skating. Please excuse my performance at Worlds 2015.

Aside from his first press conference, Nikiforov makes no other public statements; his social media accounts, normally active, appear to have been abandoned. Rumors of a huge fight between coach and skater surface, and only a week after Worlds the news from Russia was that Viktor had parted ways with his coach. Soon after that, Nikiforov was seen everywhere – first in Switzerland to make a visit to his good friend Giacometti, and then in an ill-advised trip that would later be fodder for gossip tabloids, Nikiforov makes a trip to the Detroit Skate Club.

The visit, far from being a quiet pilgrimage of apology, quickly turned viral. Katsuki wasn’t there, and Phichit Chulanont was waiting.

[Insert twitter video. Phichit is screaming and being restrained by a bulky hockey player: “You broke his heart twice [Thai insult]. I told him you were dangerous and you broke his heart twice!”]

The flames of the scandal blew hotter and hotter, until news from Japan was that Katsuki was getting increasing amounts of stalker fans desperate for news about their idol.

I suppose, then, it wasn’t out of the blue that I received an email from Katsuki himself. I packed my bags and left for Hasetsu immediately.

~

Yu-topia is the last onsen in Hasetsu. It’s a small town not often visited by tourists outside of figure skating fans who want to see the hometown of Japan’s ace. It’s very provincial, despite the upgraded train station; Hasetsu Castle dominates the landscape, overlooking the town from craggy mountains, and the cries of seagulls fill the air even in the downtown districts.

Katsuki meets me at the train station, looking pensive and bundled up in a cable-knit sweater despite the warming April weather. He’s brought his dog with him – a toy poodle he calls Vicchan – and immediately comes up to help me with my luggage.

“I’m sorry about the dog,” he apologizes. “He didn’t want me to leave, so I just brought him along.”

It was the hardest part about leaving for Detroit, Katsuki confesses. His friends and family were all incredibly excited on his behalf for the opportunity to grow as a skater, but dogs have no such perspective.

“Everyday he’d wait for me in front of the Ice Castle like he used to. It got so bad that for a few months after I had left, Vicchan was more of Yuuko-chan’s dog than my parents’.”

Celestino Cialdini discovered Katsuki in the JGPF 2007, as most of the figure skating world did. He offered Katsuki a place in his rink on the spot. Katsuki, whose coach Tanaka was returning to retirement, thought the opportunity was not one to waste.

“I love Hasetsu,” he remarks while driving. “But the DSC had a solid reputation, and could get me a scholarship to the University of Michigan. An Olympic skating rink, and a free university education? I wasn’t going to get that here, so I moved. Celestino has been an absolutely amazing coach since.”

Katsuki initially enrolled in the university’s business program – he had planned to come back to the onsen if he had no options after retirement. It wasn’t enough to be an Olympian and a student, however, and two years into his degree, Katsuki suddenly switched to another program: neurobiology. The added subject matter added time to his education; despite it being five years after he moved to Detroit, Katsuki has yet to complete his university degree.

“I’m actually on leave right now,” he admits shyly, and silence descends on the car as he refuses to elaborate.

This is fairly typical behaviour from a Katsuki being interviewed by the press; by now I was fairly used to the rhythms of prying answers out of him. “Why neurobiology?” I prompted.

Katsuki considers the question, and takes a deep breath before answering. “People online have been speculating about my anxiety disorder since the news came out at Worlds. Some of them are saying that it’s new, or recent, but really I’ve had trouble with it since the beginning of my career.”

He tries to smile, but instead it comes out grim. “My mom thought getting me a dog would help me from tgetting so nervous all the time in middle school, and it worked back then. But then I started going into more and more competitions, with bigger and bigger stakes, and it all just compounded until my senior debut. I got this horrible panic attack the day before the free skate, and when we got back to Detroit, Celestino basically forced to get me help.

“I didn’t go, of course, not at first. But then it kept happening, and it wouldn’t stop no matter how hard I tried. So I went.”

This is the most personal information I’ve ever heard from Katsuki. I say nothing, hoping not to break the spell, and am rewarded. He continues, contemplative.

“That was also the time I changed my major. I couldn’t understand what was wrong, why I couldn’t turn off the anxiety in my head like other people do. Dr. Gracechurch, my therapist in Detroit, she suggested taking a class in brain chemistry so I could better understand it. And I guess I wanted to know more, because soon enough I enrolled in enough units to get a minor. I guess I just kept going after that, and here we are.”

~

Katsuki pulls back from the conversation after that. He points out important landmarks as we pass through the streets of Hasetsu with ease, and when I remark upon it he smiles. “When your parents run an onsen, you pick up the tools of the tourism industry quickly.” It had helped him in America upon his arrival there; Katsuki had enough English to get by on the schoolwork, while rinkmate Phichit Chulanont from Thailand struggled with the most basic of coursework.

“Of course it eventually got harder for me. I was in university and learning neurobiology with limited English. That wasn’t fun.”

Learning neurobiology while skating wouldn’t have been either, I point out. Considering the practice hours Katsuki keeps (a whopping thirty hours a week on the ice during the off-season, even more when including off-ice sessions), it seems amazing he made any headway at all into a degree, not when so many skaters choose to forgo university altogether- Viktor Nikiforov included.

“My sister Mari never really showed an interest in getting a higher education, even when my parents really encouraged her to go to university. The DSC may have been the main reason why I went to the University of Michigan, but my parents are definitely what keeps me going through my degree.”

Katsuki Hiroko and Toshiya are Hasetsu natives, running the family hot springs since Toshiya inherited the business from his own parents in the late eighties. They are an old couple now, warm and welcoming when they greeted me as we arrived at Yu-topia.

“Is this Morooka-san?” Hiroko-san asks Katsuki, eyes wide. She shakes my hand enthusiastically after Katsuki’s stuttered confirmation, and pointed to a series of framed newspaper clippings on the wall. A closer look tells me that they’re all articles about Katsuki’s career, and I was surprised to see that the oldest clipping on the wall was that story I wrote long ago, about the promising junior skaters Nagano Sayo and Katsuki Yuuri.

Toshiya-san surprises me again when we were introduced. “My favorite sports writer!” He exclaims. “You cover my favourites! Our Yuu-chan, of course –” he winks at his blushing son, “—and my favorite football team!”

Friday nights in Yu-topia have always been Sagen Tosu nights. Toshiya-san has a fair number of friends who come to the inn and eat katsudon for victory or drink large amounts of sake in defeat. They’ve been doing so for decades now. When Katsuki started competing, it was easy enough to adapt the tradition, and the whole neighbourhood turns out to watch his events on the enormous television they set up in the inn for that very purpose.

“Was sports a big focus for your family?” I ask Toshiya-san over sake that night. He guffaws.

“Hiroko and I met in high school football,” he confides. “She was very competitive then, captain of the varsity team! Yuu-chan reminds me of her back in those days, very focused and driven. Hiroko hated to lose too.”

Team sports, however, were never in the interests of their more introverted children. Mari went into ballet at seven, with her little brother trailing after her the next year.

“Mari gave it up only a few weeks after Yuuri started with Minako-sensei. She did judo in middle school and high school instead, said that it was much more satisfying. She never took it as seriously as Yuuri-kun took figure skating, however.”

Katsuki stayed in ballet for four years before stepping into an ice rink and falling in love, if you trust Hiroko-san to tell the story. Soon enough, as Katsuki shot through school, he was spending more time in the ballet studio or the ice rink than he did in school or at home.

“The day he came home bragging about a double axel was when I knew,” Hiroko-san reminisced with a warm smile. “He was so excited about doing this move or jump and he never was that excited about anything. That’s when I knew my son would devote all his life to this sport.”

She produces photographs of a young Katsuki Yuuri with little prompting, much to Katsuki’s embarrassment. There is one photo particularly striking, of an eight year-old Katsuki at the barre with the most eerie expression of concentration on his face. It was only when I began to compile the photographs for this feature that I realized what it was.

Nearly a decade and a half later, Katsuki practices at barre with the exact same expression on his face.

[IMAGE: Comparison of two photos. Yuuri at 8 and 23]

~

I was to stay in Hasetsu for three days, and that first night I spent in the company of the Katsuki family. Hiroko and Toshiya were wonderful dining companions; a lifetime in the hospitality industry had settled them into ease with strangers, and I was just another guest who wanted to know more about their famous son.

Katsuki Mari was another story.

Despite his low profile in the media, Katsuki’s private live has always been a source of speculation. His parents are a staple for phone interviews – they cannot resist talking about their son, as proud parents do, and the internet at large has dubbed them the most adorable of celebrity parents. Okukawa Minako, Katsuki’s ballet instructor, has her studio filled with students dreaming to become the next Katsuki. Even his school friend and former rinkmate Nishigori Yuuko is borderline famous on YouTube, being the only source of videos of Katsuki’s early figure skating career.

Katsuki Mari is never approached for these sorts of things. I asked her about her brother’s distinguished skating career once, when I encountered her outside the stadium of the Saitama World Championships. I remember her, smoking lazy rings of smoke across the parking lot. “Of course I’m proud. Was there any other response you wanted?”

It was easy to see the family resemblance. Mari and Yuuri look nothing alike, and yet they both dam up a conversation with the same ease.

The day after I arrive in Hasetsu, however, it is Mari-san who knocks on my door at six in the morning. Framed against the early morning sunlight and already smoking, Mari-san asks me: “Do you want to follow my brother through his training routine?”

I was up and at breakfast before Katsuki was even out of bed.

~

Shadowing an athlete through training is pretty common in sports, especially in the off-season. It’s a good way to intimidate opponents and increase interest in a team or athlete during the times when their fans have no competitions to look forward to, often for months at a time.

Several skaters have taken advantage of this before; Stephane Lambiel did a documentary after recovering from the hip injury that took him out in 2008, and Team Russia does an annual feature on their most promising juniors about to debut. Last year’s feature? Yuri Plisetsky, who said on international television: “Why would my favorite skater be Viktor Nikiforov, he’s an idiot. No, Katsuki has better steps and even Viktor knows it.”

Katsuki has never done anything like this. The only glimpses we have of his training are official press releases and the social media accounts of his rinkmates. He’s something of an Easter egg in Phichit Chulanont’s Instagram – or as Chulanont calls it, #spottheyuurikatsuki. Although Katsuki shares the ice of the DSC with a handful of other skaters and a hockey team, Chulanont is widely known to be the only other figure skater Katsuki would share ice time with.

He blushes when I bring it up. “I just don’t like it when people watch me skate,” he stutters.

It seems a strange answer for someone who competes in international televised competitions.

“That’s different,” he insists. “In practice you really need to focus on training, and when people are around I get nervous, especially when I’m doing things I’m not very confident at yet.”

Take his training in quads. “It was the year after my last juniors, and I just started at the DSC.” Katsuki fails to mention that it was also the season where he swept the junior golds and broke through all the junior records set by Viktor Nikiforov. “That was all the judges and commentators could talk about, that I had no quads in my programs. So when I went to Detroit, everyone was watching. Everyone at the rink would stop what they were doing when I started the set-up for a quad, and when I fell…” He reddens and clams up. I give up on finding out more, and make a note to contact Phichit Chulanont for more information.

~

It isn’t surprising to hear about how much Katsuki was thrown by company. Hasetsu is a tiny town with a tiny population; on his morning run Katsuki meets three of his mother’s friends, an old classmate, and the fisherman on the bridge calls him Yuu-chan. The gym is generally deserted at the hours Yuuri-kun comes in, and at the ballet studio, Okukawa-sensei had already given him a key.

He had much the same situation in the rink. Before moving to Detroit his home rink had been Ice Castle Hasetsu, and in such a small town, there were no other winter athletes who needed the rink as much as he did. Often times he skated only with the Nishigoris, Takeshi and his wife Yuuko. Takeshi, whose parents managed the place when Katsuki was still training in Japan, often let Yuuri sneak into the rink at off hours.

In return for Nishigori’s generosity, Katsuki attributes much of his growth as a skater to the married pair. “Yuuko-chan introduced me to skating,” he tells me. “And they let me in here when they didn’t have to. I’ll forever be in their debt.”

~

It’s a five mile run from the onsen to the Ice Castle, and once Katsuki arrives there’s stretching and more cardio before he steps on the ice.

“But I thought you were taking a break?” I ask him. “In any case, do you have a coach while you’re here?”

“This is basic conditioning to keep me limber,” he explains. “As far as next season is concerned, there haven’t been any solid plans yet. Phichit-kun wants to move back to Thailand and has already asked Celestino to come with him if I don’t return to Detroit.”

It’s an ominous declaration to hear from one of your favorite athletes, and I don’t press the issue. Katsuki continues on with his cardio, and after Takesh-sani pushes him into the deeper stretches, he straps on his skates and heads for the ice.

There’s nothing fancy on the program for this morning, and Katsuki seems content to carve out compulsory figures on the ice. If Katsuki were competing in the ‘60’s he would be the undisputed champion; his compulsory figures are a work of art and he does them with such obvious ease.

“Why compulsory figures?” I ask him as he skates to the boards for a water break.

“I always get that question,” he remarks. “But it’s usually other figure skaters who ask me. The press isn’t that interested.”

It’s not quite true. Every time I have been granted a pass to the training days of ISU events, I have always wanted to ask about the compulsory figures that Katsuki does without fail at the beginning of every practice session. I went through my old notes and files from Katsuki’s competitions, and the question appears fairly regularly. I’ve definitely asked him the question once before, in the press conference after the 2013 Four Continents.

In my notes he answers much the same way: “I don’t see how my compulsory figures are that remarkable.” Around the globe, figure skaters are rolling in their graves.

In the present day Katsuki laughs it off once more, shrugging and saying that it’s just something he likes to do. When the source refuses to speak, however, I am obliged to seek out new ones, and so I consult with Nishigori Yuuko.

“We learned figures from our first coach, who had to do compulsory figures back in the day and told us it would be good for our edges. Takeshi and I never had much patience for it, but Yuuri-kun always found them calming, I suppose. Most of his late-night ice time is just for compulsory figures.”

~

Yuuko-san is a wealth of information, although she refuses to say anything on topics Katsuki has declared off-limits. She says much on the subject of Katsuki’s early training, and even takes me to the small glass case in Ice Castle Hasetsu containing Katsuki’s first pair of skates, impossibly tiny and well-worn. She points out the running trails Katsuki-san has used since early childhood, and takes me to see their old middle school when Katsuki-san gently evicts me from the rest of his training session.

“Don’t feel too bad,” she consoles me. “The only reason he doesn’t practice alone is the risk of injury, but if he had his way he’d never skate in front of a crowd at all.”

It’s the second time this comes up, Katsuki’s aversion to bystanders. I ask Yuuko-san about it too, and she shrugs. “Not all of us can see clearly into the way that Yuuri-kun thinks and feels; he’s always been incredibly private. That said, Yuuri-kun has always been driven and keen to prove himself, and I think that’s what drives him into competition.”

I see an opening, and casually mention “So he’s always been competitive?”

Yuuko-san catches my eye and I see that there’s no fooling the Ice Castle’s Madonna. She throws me a bone anyway. “Not in the way that you think. He hates to lose, that’s true, but usually the frustration is directed inward. He wants to be the best; we all have, at one point or another. Yuuri-kun just never gave up on that.”

I itch to ask her about Viktor Nikiforov, but I hold my tongue. She says nothing.

But she gives me tapes of Katsuki’s early skating recitals.

Later that night, after borrowing an old VHS player from the Katsuki’s, I settle down in my room to watch the recordings. The first tape begins adorably, as videos of young children do, but I am not surprised by the poise Katsuki has on the ice. This is the beginnings of Katsuki Yuuri, figure skating legend, I tell myself.

The last one is unlabelled, only dated, which strikes me as strange. The previous tapes had been carefully labelled by Yuuko-san’s mother in spidery handwriting, but this one was blank and had different casing.  

On screen, a twelve-year old Katsuki Yuuri skates to center ice, still with stubborn baby fat clinging to his middle. The music plays, and  jolt of electricity runs through my spine. Katsuki moves beautifully and with a skill well beyond his years, but I hardly notice.

Katsuki Yuuri, at twelve years old, was skating Viktor Nikiforov’s O Mio Babbino Caro.

~

As I shadow Katsuki around Hasetsu, it’s quickly becoming clear that Viktor Nikiforov is the ghost haunting the town. You can see the outlines of Nikiforov in the boundaries that people don’t cross, invisible landmines they avoid.

“Ah, Yuuri-chan!” Fujino-san at the market smiles warmly at Katsuki, who runs small errands for his mother in the hours between his morning training on the ice and evening sessions with Okukawa-sensei. “It’s lovely to see you up and about again after that horrible business in March.”

Katsuki blushes, mumbles some reply about keeping busy, and makes a hasty retreat with his mother’s package.

Nakashima-san, the old fisherman on the bridge, obliquely mentions the ‘Russian hooligan who made Yuu-chan leave his training’. The Nishigori’s children, triplets who inherited the interest in figure skating from their parents, debate on the possibilities of the next season in hushed tones, and yet they manage to avoid speculation on Viktor Nikiforov’s rumored retirement.

Now that I know what i’m looking for, however, it’s easier to see the traces of Nikiforov that stubbornly cling to Katsuki’s skating. On the second day of practice, Katsuki seems unnerved and frustrated; unlike the careful footwork of the day before, he focuses instead on his jumps.

With O Mio Babbino Caro fresh on my mind, it’s easier to see the spot it: the setup for the flip is familiar, as is the landing of the Salchow. An idea starts to sprout in my mind, and the next time that Katsuki skates to the boards, I ask him: “Where did you start learning how to do your jumps?”

Katsuki’s eyes widen, but he answers easily. “Coach Tanaka began training me on jumps when I was about thirteen. The videos are on Yuuko’s YouTube channel, I think.”

At the time of Nikiforov’s last junior season, the season he had used O Mio Babbino Caro as his free skate, Katsuki would have been twelve. And when Katsuki skated that program, there had definitely been jumps; downgraded to doubles and singles, definitely, but the jumps were there all the same.

~

Over the years, Katsuki had developed a reputation for being unsociable among his fellow skaters.

His presence on social media is an aberration at a time when Phichit Chulanont exists. Although Chulanont is Exhibit A of the hyperactive social media user, most other figure skaters are often found on these networks as well. Chulanont and Giacometti have hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagam, Yuri Plisetsky is the king of Tumblr, and Minami Kenjirou has a YouTube vlog dedicated entirely to figure skating and Katsuki Yuuri.

The only other major figure skater as absent on social media is Otabek Altin from Kazakhstan.

“I like Otabek,” Katsuki remarks. “He’s very considerate.” I want to ask him about Altin’s silver medal at the ill-fated Worlds, but I bite my tongue.

This reserve extends also to his offline life; Katsuki has a large number of devoted fans, but they stay at polite distances from him at all time. Later, I see Maeda-san, one of the onsen’s few employees, berating a small group of girls she found sneaking behind the onsen’s walls.

Katsuki hardly notices them.

I begin to see he hardly notices anything. Perhaps it’s the shocks from last March still taking time to process, but Katsuki is one of the most introverted people I have ever met, deeply engrossed in his own thoughts and hardly ever venturing out. On the ice, it’s easy to miss: he has an almost bombastic presence in competition. It’s impossible to look away from his skating, and one gets the feeling that Katsuki is revelling in his power to enthrall the audience.

[Insert image from Rostelecom Eros]

Off the ice, however, it seems as if Katsuki shrinks into himself, actively trying to make himself less noticeable. Off the ice Katsuki will allow his shoulders to slouch, will adopt a less commanding posture. Off the ice, Katsuki lets his hair fall into his eyes, and he wears large prescription lenses in cheap, plastic frames. It’s easy to mistake him for someone else -- I’ve seen it happen to some of the newer reporters. They crowd at the entrances to stadiums or at the airport, waiting for a quote, all the while Katsuki strides past without comment, hair down and bundled up in a nondescript sweater.

I mention this to him, and make a joke about his being the Clark Kent of figure skating.

He laughs. Katsuki is tying on his skates, about to head out into the ice for an afternoon of jump practice. I laugh too; it’s funny watching him laugh it off even as I watch the transformation with my own eyes.

~

Later that night I show him Minami’s YouTube account. The Katsuki’s and various other friends, gathered together in a banquet hall at Yu-topia, scream with laughter at Katsuki’s red-faced embarrassment.

“I’m so happy I could die,” Minami wails at the camera, brandishing his silver medal. “I got second place, and Katsuki-senpai touched my arm. I’m never washing the jacket again!”

“Why is he so happy?” Katsuki demands frantically. It’s frankly amazing that Katsuki had been unaware of Minami’s vlog; Minami is one of his biggest fans and online, Katsuki’s fans tend to congregate around pages that Minami moderates.

Okukawa-sensei apparently thinks the same, because she only laughs at him harder. “I can’t believe Phichit hasn’t showed you this yet! I can’t believe you haven’t Googled yourself yet, this channel is one of the first things that pop out in the search results.”

Katsuki flushes deeply. He mumbles some excuse, that Cialdini monitors his internet usage tightly and that he’s been forbidden from Googling himself in Detroit.

For a skater so deeply affected by the energy of others, it’s a wise move. But the same maneuver also left Katsuki unaware of the massive fanbase behind him. Whether it’s a direct product of Katsuki’s permanent ban from Googling himself, or merely because Katsuki doesn’t pay attention is unclear.

But it’s not just that Katsuki doesn’t pay attention. It becomes clear to me that there’s something else preventing Katsuki from getting a solid hold on his own fame. Going through my old interviews with Katsuki confirms it.

“I don’t see how my compulsory figures are remarkable,” Katsuki had told me in the 2013 Four Continents Championship, blinking at me owlishly.

“I did not perform my best today. I apologize to Japan for disappointing their hopes. I will do better next year.” He punctuates this speech with a deep bow, body still pudgy and soft at fourteen.

“Please excuse my performance at the 2015 Worlds,” he wrote, after sustaining the most intrusive offense against his person in the form of leaked medical information.

“I don’t understand why Minami-kun is so excited about sitting next to me,” Katsuki says weakly after watching Minami’s ecstatic video about sitting next to Katsuki at the Japanese Nationals. “It’s not that big a deal.”

~

A new picture of Katsuki is emerging: quiet, painfully shy. He is a quiet and considerate young man, always glad to be helpful to his parents and others. His fame embarasses him; he doesn’t understand how people can come to admire him.

He is incredibly dedicated to his sport, and incredibly dedicated to his friends. But it takes a lot for him to open up, and words are definitely not his strong suit. He says one thing and means another; he has secrets he likes to hold close and facts about himself that he considers irrelevant.

This is a much deeper understanding of Katsuki than I have ever gotten. But all this has yet to explain where Viktor Nikiforov comes into the picture.

~

On the last day of my stay in Hasetsu, I follow Katsuki to the rink wordlessly and sit at the bleachers, watching. He does his jumps, his steps; once you realize the influence, it’s impossible to deny Nikiforov’s ghost, skating on the rink alongside Katsuki.

He goes through a succession of old programs -- the Lohegrin program a smiling callback to Minami Kenjiro, filmed by the Nishigori triplets to be uploaded in response to Minami’s latest video. After sometime, Katsuki queues up some music, and halfway through his session, a familiar melody plays.

“Isn’t this the melody for On Love: Eros?” I ask, confused. Instead of the sensual guitars and violins of Katsuki’s last short program, the instrumentation of this arrangement skews toward the a different aural profile: a soprano chanting a Latin prayer, organs, and other woodwinds create an ethereal effect.

Katsuki skates towards me to reply. “Eros is only part of a series of arrangements. The overall theme is On Love, and it’s about the different kinds of love. This one is Agape.”

He queues the song again, and heads back to center ice before it plays.

If Eros was a homage to sexual love, Agape is focused on a different concept: unconditional love. There is something profoundly emotional in Katsuki’s skating, in the graceful lines he carves on ice and illustrates with his body. It’s a depth of feeling that overwhelms, and by the end of his performance I have tears in my eyes.

My camera hangs limp in my hands; for once, I am happy that I did not record it.

“Morooka-san!” Katsuki calls from the rink. “What did you think of the new program?”

It takes me a while to respond.

“It was honest,” I finally say. It was a performance that could have only come from a genuine part of his heart.

Katsuki pauses, seems to consider my answer. “Do you think I’m honest?”

One of the things I have learned of Katsuki is that he says one thing and means another; he has secrets he keeps close to his heart. “Not in your words,” I concede. But his performances? They have only ever been as honest as he could make them.

“Is there anything else you want to ask me?”

There are many questions I could ask, but I know that at this point, there is only one that matters. My throat feels as dry as a desert, but I force the words out.

“Where did you learn your jumps?”

~

Katsuki is ten, Yuuko-san is twelve. Katsuki is going to be a danseur and win a Benois de la Danse, like Okukawa-sensei. But since Yuuko-san is his friend, Katsuki comes to Ice Castle Hasetsu to skate with her anyway.

There is an old television in the skaters’ lounge, and one day Yuuko-san is watching the Junior Grand Prix Final. The last performer is a young skater from Russia making his junior debut, his hair fanning out in a silver halo as he finishes his last combination spin.

“And that’s when I knew,” Katsuki admits fourteen years later, sounding like the admission was being pulled from between his teeth.

“That’s when I knew that he would change my life.”

~

By the end of Nikiforov’s junior days something had changed; something had soured in Katsuki’s admiration of Nikiforov. “It doesn’t matter what it was,” Katsuki said tiredly. “It was stupid, but we were children. And after, I was too young and too blind to see clearly.”

~

“I wish I could say that I didn’t hate him before,” Katsuki confesses.

~

He doesn’t tell me the whole story -- again, typical. Instead he shares with me some fragments of his fraught relationship with Viktor Nikiforov. The only parts of this story that has never had extensive media coverage was the story from before Katsuki’s junior debut; a brief encounter with a childhood idol that had somehow soured that affection.

“He and I have talked about this before already,” Katsuki tells me. “If I’m to be truly honest, we haven’t hated each other in a long time. Things have changed between us, and it was still changing when --”

“The scandal.”

“That wasn’t Viktor’s fault,” Katsuki says immediately. “Or Coach Feltsman’s. It was a misunderstanding, and it was being clarified when all the leaks went live. If anyone’s to blame it’s the person who leaked the information, and believe me, he will be held accountable.”

“So you don’t blame Nikiforov at all?”

“No,” he says firmly. “It was an understandable misunderstanding, even if in the end it was very damaging to both Viktor and me.”

“Have you spoken to him at all since Worlds?”

Katsuki flushes. “Not yet,” he says quietly. “Agape was for him, because -- because --” Frustrated, Katsuki rubs at his eyes.

“I’m not good with words. I’m not really good at saying stuff, but maybe, with this program…”

~

That afternoon, I pack my bags again, and this time it’s Mari-san who drives me to the train station. She smokes inside of her car, cranking the window down and blowing smoke out to the road.

There is silence in the car, and suddenly she asks me. “Did you get what you need?”

The past few days have been ripe with revelation. I nod furiously.

“Good.” She takes a deep drag from her cigarette. “I’m glad I convinced him to have you.”

1.

Physically, Katsuki Yuuri during his adolescence had been no different from a regular boy.

In the dead of one summer night, a ten year old Katsuki Yuuri had woken up from the blistering heat only to find his underwear uncomfortably tight, which, on closer inspection, was because of a certain part of his body being much more hard and swollen than normal.

Yuuri did what any young boy without any idea of what’s happening to his body would do-he freaked out. He had no idea what caused this strange occurrence, but he knew that his dick isn’t supposed to defy gravity and stick out like that. A bizarre pulse ran through him when he tried to push it down, which made him snap his hands away from his crotch like it had burned him. Feeling helpless and lost, he tried to go back to sleep hoping that he’d be back to normal when he woke up.

But sleep was elusive that night for Yuuri. Worries about how he would go to school the next day if his abnormal state persisted kept him up, and he only managed to fall asleep when he almost passed out from exhaustion. Thankfully the next morning there was nothing strange about his lower body, and Yuuri tried to brush it off as something he had imagined. 

But after it happened again a few nights later and also the next, he realized that this might become a regular occurrence. He wished he could directly ask someone, but as he didn’t have any older brothers or any boys close to his age he was comfortable enough breaching such a private topic with (Takeshi briefly came to mind but he immediately rejected the idea, his irritation caused by the frequent teasings of the older boy still too fresh in his memory). 

He tried to figure out what he could on his own-the swelling didn’t hurt but made it hard for Yuuri to pee, it went away faster when dumped with cold water, and also if Yuuri became mentally upset (he’d rather avoid the latter option, even though the first one was more physically uncomfortable). What he had heard from eavesdropping on some of his more rowdy classmates gave him the impression that this was a pretty regular thing, not some weird disease, and didn’t have to be reported to his parents (thank god), so Yuuri tried to accept this phenomenon as a bothersome but unavoidable part of life.

Things didn’t really change when one year later Yuuri fell in love with the grace and the beauty of a sliver haired boy on the ice. He was still the same quiet, awkward, ordinary Yuuri who felt too small and too big in his body all at once, apprehensive of the rapid changes in his growing body but also eager to become bigger, better, someone who could flawlessly replicate the moves of Victor’s performances without butchering them because of short and floppy limbs. 

If his body was more unruly during the nights when his dreams were full of flashes of silver and faint memories of gliding across the ice hand in hand with another, he was not old enough yet to figure out the meaning behind it. The only thing he registered was his desire to share the same space as Victor, to skate on the same ice as him, to bare his soul as freely and beautifully.

Even on that fateful day, only a few hours before this dream was shattered to pieces and remolded into something burning and fierce, Yuuri had still believed that Victor was the most beautiful person he ever had the fortune to lay his eyes on. The memories from both Victor’s short program and his free skate-the sharp movements of his slim, toned body that seemed to be declaring his tacit claim as a god on the ice, and the soft, fragile dance across the ice that had enraptured Yuuri’s heart and soul-filled his thoughts even when he saw the boy in person. There was little he could think of except how desperately he wanted to reach Victor, truly reach him in ways more than one, although for now he was satisfied with the few moments he got.

Those moments had seemed to stretch forever as Victor faced him, his lovely eyes bright and twinkling with a smile that made Yuuri wish he could bottle it up and look at it every day as a reminder of the goal he was working so hard for. 

But before Yuuri could wrap his mind around the intensity of that strange craving, the venomous words that left Victor’s lips the very next moment had destroyed it. The soft touch of Victor’s hand patting his hair felt like something he had dreamed of for so long, but not like this, never like this when it was nothing more than a show of contempt without any affection behind it.  

Despite Yuuri’s earnest efforts to not think about Victor after he returned to Hasetsu, determined to forget the jarring difference between that angelic face and the cruel soul hidden beneath, the dreams still continued, albeit with a much different air from before (and less frequent because of how often he crashed into a dreamless sleep after a day of grueling practice). In the past even if he didn’t remember the details of his dreams, he always remembered the feelings they left behind-excitement and hope, glances of a future he was going to create with his own hands. 

But now he could only see Victor skating all alone in the middle of a vast, icy expanse, gliding away from Yuuri every time he got close, mocking and unreachable in his perfection. Victor’s smile in the sole poster that had survived Yuuri’s rampage was the same, an ironic fulfillment of his wish to have a reminder of his goal, never mind how that goal had become twisted into an abomination of its original form.

The following couple of years Yuuri threw himself so hard into training that he didn’t have time for anything else. He often felt like an alien when his classmates excitedly chattered about the things that interested them, be that the newest video games (which Yuuri would’ve loved to try out but he didn’t have enough time, not when he was still so behind), the dullness of their assignments (Yuuri could never emphasize with their laid-back attitude, not when he felt so guilty about all the extra expense his skating put on his parents and it was only natural he paid them back by at least doing his best at school) or the pretty girls and boys they were interested in (the idea of being attracted to someone because of their looks without knowing them personally was so confusing to Yuuri, and he didn’t understand why Yuko rolled her eyes when he told her so).

The last topic, in particular, was something he still had trouble with even after he finally moved to Detroit. All the people in his age group-both from his campus and his rink-were so much more confident in their sexuality and free in their affections that Yuuri wondered if his lack of interest in any kind of casual companionship meant there was something wrong with him. 

Although Yuuri would never look down on a person because of their looks (he promised himself that he’ll never be like Victor, cold and cruel and stepping over fragile hearts), he wondered if his choice of profession had made him have overly high standards when it came to physical attractiveness. Most of his close acquaintances were athletes with attractive, toned bodies, and although Yuuri himself was plain and boring to be with, he was aware that he had managed to at least keep his body fit and strong thanks to his intensive training.

Thanks to the poster of Victor that still smiled arrogantly on their dorm wall, Phichit had teased him that rather than Yuuri’s standards being high in general, his standards were Victor, and that’s a high hurdle to pass for any of the poor souls that tried to hit on Yuuri (Yuuri didn’t remember that happening ever, and wondered what drugs Phichit was on). Besides, the idea of Victor being his standard of beauty was ridiculous-Yuuri had come to hate the man even more after their brief exchange at Junior Worlds and being reminded of how he would never be acknowledged by the other man unless he managed to kick him off his throne. 

Just because sometimes he found his breath hitch during Victor’s routines when his movements complimented the tight lines of his body that had grown strong and masculine while still maintaining his swanlike grace, that didn’t mean anything other than the cold, clinical fact that Victor got lucky enough to both blessed with handsome genes and a puberty that had been kind to him. 

And good enough taste in fashion to flaunt those good looks, curse him.

That being said, Yuuri was no longer completely ignorant of what his body’s reactions meant. He had gotten a basic idea of things years ago when he first got access to the internet, and at the age of sixteen he was well aware that he had a normal sex drive for a teenager of his age, despite his complete disinterest in finding a partner to actually do something about it. While he didn’t really have anyone he found attractive enough to fantasize about, the mechanical motions of jerking off were pleasant enough, and a good way to let off steam. He hardly ever thought about anything while he did it, and tried to just get things over with considering the lack of privacy in the dorms. 

Very rarely-he could count the instances with the fingers of a single hand-when he had their room to himself, was mentally in a good place and also had a considerably lighter schedule than usual, he had tried to experiment a little bit with his own body and figure out what makes it tick. But even during his awkward attempts at fantasizing he had only managed to think up scenarios with imaginary faceless partners, uncomfortable with the idea of allowing anyone he knew so deep into his private space, even if it was all in his head. 

The occasional dreams-always too dim and abstract for his liking-were also similar, though at least they had helped him figure out that he liked gentleness, strength and flexibility in a partner. The idea of dreams reflecting a person’s desires made sense enough, and Yuuri had to admit that he had a preference for the dreams where he was being supported by a pair of strong arms as his mystery lover worshipped his body with a rain of caresses and kisses, treating him like he was something beautiful and precious no matter the ridiculous the overall scenario was.

So saying that a sex dream (Yuuri wondered if it was the right term since no sex took place, a small blessing allowed by his lack of experience) involving Victor Nikiforov after his humiliating defeat at the hands of the very same man was confusing would be a massive understatement. 

It made him almost want to completely stop thinking about anything even remotely sexual, a decision that solidified the day when Victor’s face from that stupid dream (unnaturally soft and adoring and yet so passionate) popped up in his mind while he was on his bed in the middle of a jerking-off session.

Yuuri had almost bitten his tongue in surprise when that happened, and he would’ve just stepped into the shower and blasted his crotch with ice-cold water if he had been capable of it. But too far gone and only seconds away from finishing, Yuuri could only close his eyes in embarrassment and anger when he couldn’t will his weak legs to move.

Phantom Victor, just as cruel as his real life counterpart, took advantage of this, and Yuuri could almost imagine him leaning over him as he whispered encouragements into Yuuri’s ear, could pretend that the hand working his dick wasn’t his own but another’s, could delude himself that warm weight on his back belonged to a strong, wide chest and not the thick woolen blanket that was too hot for Yuuri by this point.

Yuuri was so, so confused and his lust-riddled mind felt like it was clouded by a thick layer of fog, so he just kept moving his right hand frantically, desperate to escape this baffling torture as soon as possible. The last thing his traitorous mind dreamt up before he broke was Victor biting into his shoulder (even though it was just Yuuri’s other hand digging into his own skin) and telling him that he could come, and Yuuri should’ve been indignant because he didn’t need anyone’s permission to come and definitely not Victor’s, but his body and mind must have been conspiring against him together because that only drove Yuuri into the most powerful orgasm he could remember having, making him bury his face into the pillows to muffle the unbidden scream that left his throat. He collapsed onto his bed like a doll with its strings cut, the strategically placed towel below him wet and sticky with the proof of his madness.