#vicuuri

For a country that prided itself on their respectable nature, there were some instances where Japanese people were just plain rude to one another. Rivalries were common practice in Japan as it seemed everyone had the same goal, to the best at their craft. More than once Viktor had listened to a chef at one restaurant try to prevent him from giving his business to a rival restaurant blocks away. For the most part, the practice didn’t really bother him. On occasion, it was more of a nuisance than anything, but he didn’t really take it to heart and could overlook it most of the time. There was one group of people, however, that rubbed him the wrong way every time. Hockey players, in particular the recreation hockey team that trained out of Ice Castle. 

Before Yuuri had returned to Japan and started training at Ice Castle again, the men’s recreation hockey team practiced for three hours on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights. They rented out the entire rink to themselves and had been doing so for the past three and a half years. Viktor knew that the Nishigori’s were not partial to the hockey team and found them to be a rather rude and destructive bunch, but they paid good money and that was something that they couldn’t afford to let pass them by. It was, perhaps, the hockey team alone that kept Ice Castle afloat during the economic recession that hit their region. 

But the Nishigori’s were, at heart, a family of figure skaters. So, when Yuuri came back to Hasetsu they were more than happy to once again allow him access to the rink anytime he wanted provided it was not already booked out. For a while this was enough for Yuuri, after all, he had not really decided on having a competitive season after his last one ended so miserably. He mainly used the rink after closing hours, when the ice was clean and there were no wandering eyes (or in the case of the triplets, phones) to pry oh his private reintroduction to the ice. However, when Viktor blew in with the winter storm things changed, fast. 

Ice time soon was something that Yuuri was needing and Viktor gladly booked Ice Castle for them, typically a day at a time. Tuesdays and Thursdays worked for them at first. Yuuri wasn’t allowed to touch the ice to train but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t learn from watching Viktor skate himself. After long runs and grueling weight training sessions in the gym, Yuuri would spend hours at a time watching and absorbing Viktor’s technique with nary a word passed between them. 

As soon as Yuuri was ready to touch the ice, Yurio mysteriously appeared in all his angst-filled glory and ice time was needed in larger quantities. This meant stepping on a few toes, or rather skates, as Viktor appealed to the Nishigori’s for help. Viktor offered to pay double the usual rate for the hours the hockey team utilized in exchange for a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule. It took a lot of convincing, but Viktor secured their much-needed ice time and the hockey team begrudgingly moved their practices to Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday morning, 

Their first Wednesday practice was marred, however, by every locker in the locker room being covered in crusted over shaving foam. A gift from the hockey team for the new arrangement. Viktor prided himself on his ability to remain level headed in most situations. This, however, was not one of those situations. His anger seemed to amplify when he was in direct contact with Yurio who allowed a string of Russian expletives flow freely like a sailor who hadn’t seen land or a woman in months. Yuuri on the other hand just went to the cleaning closet, collected a bucket of water and a rag, and began cleaning the lockers. 

Friday morning the trio arrived early just in case there were any other nasty surprises awaiting them in the locker room. Luckily, there was nothing more than the overwhelming stench of man sweat that typically followed one of the hockey team’s practices. They thought that they had got away scot-free until they went to hit the ice and found it to be unfinished with large divots carved out in random places. This time it was Yuuri who was angered by what the hockey team would later call a ' harmless prank’. 

Yuuri grabbed Viktor’s hand and pulled him along to the office where they waited for Yuuko to show up. Yuuri relayed what had happened to her in a calm manner but made it very clear that something needed to be done. Upon seeing the chaos of the rink herself Yuuko agreed and called for a meeting between the skaters and the leaders of the hockey team later that night. 

Viktor, Yuuri, And Yurio took their time patching the ice carefully, ensuring they packed each divot well with ice shavings before giving it a cleaning with the Zamboni. Yuuri was silent through the process but Viktor could feel the anger radiating off of him in waves. It seemed like he took it personally.

Later that night while they awaited the representative from the hockey team, Viktor lounged against the wall along the back of the office while Yuuri stood a few paces in front of him, eyes glued to the security footage that was paused on the small TV in the corner. Yuuko sat behind her desk, a small stack of papers in front of her, occasionally thumbing through them to ensure everything she needed was there. The knock on the door seemed to jar Yuuri out of his thinking as the door swung open and admitted a large muscular man who was dressed as a repair technician. Viktor assumed he must have come directly from work.

“I assume you know why I asked you to come in tonight?” Yuuko asked Eiji Shimoto, the captain of the hockey team.

“Sorry to say that I don’t really. You said that you wanted to review our unofficial contract with the rink.” He sounded genuine, it was a good act, but the lie angered Viktor. 

He stepped forward until his chest was practically resting against Yuuri’s back and then proceeded to bury his face in Yuuri’s hair managing to both startle and completely fluster the man in the process. 

“Wah-! Get your face out of my hair!” Yuuri yelped in a panic as he pulled away and turned to look at Viktor with a bright red face. 

“I’m just trying to mask the smell of the shit floating around,” Viktor said innocently as he pegged Shimoto with a glare. Shimoto did his best to look confused but his face suddenly fell as Yuuko turned on the television and played the security footage for everyone to see. The entire hockey team was seen purposefully chipping away at the ice with the tips of their skates. Shimoto at least had enough decency to look at the floor in shame after he realized that he had been caught. 

“You are lucky that Yuuri came to me and not my husband with this kind of information otherwise I am sure that there would be worse consequences then your team not being allowed to practice here any longer.” Yuuko may have been a small woman but she spoke with such authority that Shimoto said nothing in response. 

“What you did was reckless.” Yuuri followed up, his voice was as sharpened with the anger that he held back all day. “The three of us that booked this ice time are international champions for our respective countries. Viktor here is an Olympic gold medalist. This is how we make our living.” He took a step closer to Shimoto who seemed to have shrunk in the process of the verbal lashing.

“You could have ended someone’s career. All it would have taken is one of us not noticing a single gouged piece of ice while we were patching up your mess and hitting it wrong. We don’t hide behind pads that protect us when we fall. When we fall, we don’t tend to do it from a low height because unlike hockey players, we are taught how to fly high above the ice.” He took another step forward and gestured at Shimoto’s outfit.

“Unlike you, we don’t have a day job to fall back on should we be injured in a way that removes us from the ice. What gives you the right to toy with the safety and quite possibly the lives of other people. If you were so opposed to the arrangement, you should have said something instead of acting like toddlers. What kind of adult puts shaving cream all over the locker room because they are upset with an arrangement they agreed to. What kind of human destroys a person’s property because they didn’t like being told that they had to be flexible.” He took one more step forward until he was face to face with Shimoto and then pretended to smell the air. 

“Let’s go Viktor, I trust Yuuko can hand the rest of this and I am starting to smell that shit you were talking about earlier.” He abruptly spun on his heels and left the room. All the dazed Viktor could do was follow him as he was told to. 

They walked out to the front of Ice Castle before Yuuri slowed his pace and stopped. It was only then that Viktor noticed he was shaking with the anger that boiled inside him. Viktor didn’t think twice before he wrapped his arms around Yuuri, the Japanese man tensing momentarily in his hold before finally relaxing and allowing himself to be held. 

“You were brilliant,” Viktor whispered. 

“I was angry.” Yuuri quietly countered, “All I could think about the whole day was what would happen if we missed one of the divots. What if-” He sighed in frustration trying to get the words to form in his mouth.

“What if you had hit one of the divots and gotten hurt.” He finally whispered.

“Oh, Yuuri, my sweet Yuuri,” Viktor whispered back and held him tighter. They stood there for a long moment saying nothing beyond that. A part of Viktor didn’t want this moment to end, it was the first time that Yuuri had allowed him physical contact since the banquet at the Grand Prix. But the logical side of him knew that it was getting late and after a hard day of training Yuuri was more than likely running on fumes.