"Okay, try to control your flow a little more." Victor noted, his pale lips buried behind the print of his thumb.
Yuuri's shoulders arched up to touch the tip of his earlobes. Resting, then releasing as his hitched breath relaxed to match the pacing. "I'm exhausted."
Victor's silver-tainted hair brushed his cheeks as he tilted his head to measure his confusion. "That's a first, I would think you'd be more fired up than this."
"I'm not. Not today, anyway," Yuuri sighed. "I'm flubbing a lot more than I should be, I even managed to blow the step sequence you gave me."
"You do kind of suck today," Victor replied. Yuuri's chocolate eyes widened in shock and disappointment. "But I guess that makes sense. After all, it is your first time directly competeting against me."
"Don't remind me." The dark-haired male slouched. It was a dream that he was dreading now that it was reality. Victor was a phenomenal skater - He was someone people worldwide looked up to. Yuuri knew this like the front and back of his hands, but it would mean he would be all the harder to beat. He's out of his reach. Beyond it, even.
He's the sun, and Yuuri can only rotate around him; unable to touch. Unable to feel.
"Let's call it a day. I'm sure you'll get it tomorrow." A gentle smile, the same that made Yuuri's face flush in astonishment the first time he'd ever watched him glide over the ice like it wasn't even there.
Yuuri wiped the beads of sweat crowding his forehead, a lopsided, dopey smile curling beyond his cheeks while his feet rushed over to the door of the rink; his toes curling behind his skates.
He could hear Victor's weightless movements behind him, skates shredding the ice louder than his own. The thought almost made him tear up; the thought of his skating being inferior to that of his coach, someone who put so much faith in him. It wasn't jealously, Yuuri knew better than that; it was fear.
<3
The water enclosed the two men, both sinking to the rocks below the spring, steam brushing their skin like fire does to a candle.
"That feels incredible," Yuuri exhaled, his previous exhaustion from earlier that same day melting away. But his anxieties and worries of competing against his own coach - well, that was something that he didn't think would leave until the actual day of the competition.
"Victor, hey," Yuuri glanced next to him, trying to draw attention from the taller, adult child. "Are you sleeping?"
That was an obvious answer. Victor was softly snoring, lips brushed apart, eyelashes resting over his kind, ocean eyes, and pink dusting his cheeks. Only he could fall asleep in a hot spring.
Yuuri swallowed his pride and shifted over. He could feel his outer thigh collide with Victor's smoother thigh. He wrapped his arm behind the hunched man's back, his fingers naturally curving Victor's skin as he pulled him closer to his shoulder. Like a nurturing child, he laid his head on Yuuri's tan shoulder, resting more at ease.
Now Yuuri just had to make sure he didn't fall asleep, or they'd both drown.