"...and so that's why we need to...Lord Katsuki, are you listening?"

Yuuri sat up straight. "Yes, of course!" This was a lie. But really, how could he focus? The entirety of the last hour had been the Royal Planner droning on about the events that would be underway throughout the weeks leading up to the wedding. There were dinners, teas, meetings with minor officials, meetings with major officials, all sandwiched between a betrothal ball and the wedding itself. Apparently being delightfully charming in public was the majority of the Consort's role. Which, you know, was totally great for Yuuri.

The Royal Planner (did she even have a name? He'd never heard anyone say it) frowned hard at him, clearly not believing him. "Lord Katsuki, shall I remind you that you have a legacy to uphold? Her Majesty, the Queen—may she rest in peace—was renown for her events. As much as Prince Victor must guide our kingdom, you must make things appear effortless."

Like that wasn't any pressure. Yuuri knelt his head.

"I know. I'll keep focused, I swear."

The Planner huffed out a sigh and looked up. "Well, in the two minutes I have before your mind wanders again, you ought to think of who you'd like to include among your wedding party."

"My what?"

"Your wedding party? Is that not something they have in Sagashima?"

Yuuri set his jaw at the Planner's mocking tone, but ignored the insult and thought over who he'd want with him in the days leading up to the wedding. His parents still had Sagashima to attend to, and Mari had picked up his responsibilities in Hasetsu. He had a few friends back home...but they had their own families, their own businesses—which, even though it was doing well, Hasetsu needed all the business it could keep...

Oh! Of course.

He jotted down a name, then passed it back to the Planner, who frowned.

"That's it?"

"He's all I'll need."

She sighed again, wearily, then set the paper aside. "Then let's go over the basics of a formal tea again."

Oh, god. He couldn't take any more of this. He already knew he was going to fail; any and all of this planning was just delaying that fact.

"Now, Lord Katsuki, if we know that the Duke of Sueitz—who, despite all my warnings, the Prince will invite—will mortally offend the Grand Duchess of..." She looked up as Yuuri stood up, trying (and failing) to be discreet. "Are you late for an appointment, Lord Katsuki?" she asked dryly.

Yuuri swallowed and shook his head. "Uh...no, but...

"Then why are you trying to leave before our lesson is up?"

"I...just need to excuse myself for a moment. I'll be right back," he assured, then quickly stepped out of the room.

~

Yuuri never came back to the lesson.

Instead, as quietly as he could, he made his way out of the palace and down to the river. He inhaled deeply as he reached the ice, cold air stinging his lungs. He really shouldn't have done that, but he would have gone insane if he'd stayed another moment. All this talk of teas and parties and talking points was completely overwhelming; he needed something he knew.

So it was time to skate.

He strapped the skates to his boots as quickly as he could without being careless, then tucked his spectacles into his coat pocket as he made his way to the frozen river. It had been a while since he'd skated, but after a few tentative pushes forward, gliding around the ice was as easy as breathing.

Left, right, left, right. An easy turn away from the riverbank. Right, left. A slow, wide turn toward the center, arms outstretched then pulled in to help him spin...yes, god, yes, this was what he needed.

Yuuri lifted his head as he picked up speed, smiling as he turned to glide backwards. The cold air bit at him, whipping his hair around his face. He leaned to the left, easily spinning around to face forward. He gracefully lifted one leg behind him, arms stretched out easily to keep his balance, then let himself sink into another spin.

Oh, if only things were as easy as skating.

As he completed another lap around the ice, an idea struck him. There was something he'd only tried a few times when he was younger, on the rare occasions he'd wanted to show off. It'd resulted in a bloody nose the first time he tried, and a bruised ego several times after. But the payoff after a success had always been too great for him to stop trying.

He skated forward, building up speed, then, with a deep breath, pushed himself off the ice. He twisted, spinning once—no, twice!—in the air before landing. He wobbled, but stayed upright, and a delighted laugh bubbled out of him as he skated backwards.

He twisted his body around with a bright smile, only to slide to a halt as he saw something on the riverbank. He squinted at it. Was it a person? It was too hard to tell from this distance. He skated up, to the bank, pulling out his glasses and putting them on. He came to a quick stop as the blur turned into Victor. For once, though, he didn't become an apologizing wreck at the site of the prince; the huge grin on Victor's face immediately dispelled any of his worries.

"You skate?" Victor called as Yuuri made his way over to him.

"When I can." Yuuri's breaths came out in white clouds as he laughed. "And when I need to. I could only plan out teas and dinners for so long."

"Of course. You know, I used to skip out on lessons, too." Victor held out his hand to help Yuuri off the ice. Yuuri took it gratefully, looking up to thank him. His words died on his lips as he met Victor's eyes, the curious intensity on the prince's face making his heart jump up to his throat. For a long moment, they stood in silence. Then...

"You are absolutely beautiful when you skate."

Yuuri's eyes widened, that curious feeling of his heart filling his chest coming back. Victor tilted his head slightly, giving Yuuri a smile.

"It's such a shame that you're so terrible at public speaking."

His heart deflated, and he felt the blood rush to his cheeks and ears. "I'll try to get better." He pulled his hand away from Victor's, making his way to a fallen tree to take his skates off, not looking up as Victor sat beside him.

"Why didn't you speak at the Senate meeting last year?"

Yuuri froze, face heating up even more. Things had been going so well. He swallowed. "You remember that?"

"It's hard to forget."

Yuuri glanced up at Victor, then abruptly leaned down to unbuckle his skates. "I don't know. I'm just...not good at speaking in front of others, I guess."

"No, that's not it."

"What?" Yuuri's head shot up, brows furrowing. Victor pressed a finger to his lips thoughtfully, staring hard at Yuuri.

"People only fail that badly when they have something to prove." Victor's lips turned up, though that curious intensity was back in his eyes. "So, what do you have to prove, Katsuki Yuuri?"

Yuuri stared at Victor, mouth open but stuck in stunned silence. After a moment, Victor gave him another bright smile.

"I love to skate, too," he said, as if the previous conversation had never happened. "Could I join you next time?"

~

Despite Victor's request, there was no time in the next two weeks for either of them to skate. The betrothal ball was a week away, and they had about a moment each day to see each other before being pulled off to their various duties. Yuuri didn't dare skip out on another lesson, not with the way the Royal Planner had nearly burst a vein when he'd come in the day after his skating. No, for now it seemed best to quietly go with what she instructed him—the last thing needed at the moment was her dying from an aneurysm.

But...when a page came in to announce that the Viscount of Yím Pàen Din had arrived, Yuuri hadn't even excused himself before rushing out of the room. He skidded to a halt in front of the suite he knew had been set up for his guest. He knocked on the door and smiled as it opened, greeting him with the bright grin of Phichit Chulanont, the aforementioned Viscount of Yím Pàen Din.

Yím Pàen Din was part of a neighboring kingdom—an ally of theirs—and Phichit had been sent to study in Bellezza at the same time as Yuuri. They'd initially bonded over their complete cluelessness about their temporary new home, each awkwardly trying to get used to the culture and social cues, complaining about homesickness, and making jokes about Celestino—who was playing host for both of them. The sunniness of Phichit's homeland had clearly rubbed off on him; he consistently brightened up any room he was in by sheer force of his friendliness. He'd kept Yuuri from becoming completely withdrawn in a strange new land, and Yuuri was incredibly grateful for that alone (and that Phichit edited his name out of his very long, detailed letters home, which he'd heard were regularly passed around his court. When asked why he wrote everything down, he'd replied, "Pictures are worth a thousand words, and there's no way I can get portraits of everything! So I need a thousand words to get things just right.")

Phichit had barely gotten a "Hi, Yuuri!" out before Yuuri grabbed him in a tight hug. God, it was nice to have a friendly face besides Victor's here.

"I'm so sorry I never wrote," Yuuri said as he pulled out of the hug and stepped into the room. "I...things got busy."

"I guessed when I got the summons," Phichit said with a smile and a shrug. He raised his eyebrows. "So...your marriage."

Yuuri shook his head. "Let's...talk about that later. Tell me about Yím Pàen Din! You moved back there after I left Bellezza, right?"

Phichit easily picked up his cue and eagerly started talking about his home, going over everything from the current situation at court ("You should see the letter I was writing before I left. Let me see what I can remember from it.") to gushing about a play that had been making the rounds in his city ("It's about a king who marries a skater and the music just makes you want to put ice skates on immediately. Maybe it can come out this way!") Yuuri switched easily between listening raptly and giving his own updates on Hasetsu and Sagashima. For a few hours, things were just as they had been a few years ago: two friends sitting on a bed, spending the whole day swapping stories and laughing.

Finally, though, after a particularly funny memory of Celestino trying to wrangle the two of them in for a cotillion left them laughing to the point of tears, a silence fell between them. Phichit looked over at Yuuri, who was staring hard at the ceiling. They both knew where the conversation was going.

"So...the prince?"

Yuuri nodded mutely.

"You two are really getting married?"

Yuuri nodded again.

"Well, congratulations! Sorry it's so late." At Yuuri's silence, Phichit propped himself up with an arm to look down at him. "This...is something you want, right? I mean, you were so excited the one time the prince came to Bellezza that you ended up getting too sick to meet him. I assumed you always had kind of a...thing for him."

Yuuri sighed and pushed up his glasses to rub his eyes. "You're right. Well, kind of. It was definitely a thing. But...I'm not sure what kind of thing it was, really. Or...is. I don't know." He pressed his lips together hard, keeping his hands over his eyes. Very softly, he admitted, "But I do know that I never wanted things to be like this."

Phichit's brows drew together in concern, and he pulled himself up to sit. "Are things bad? Has he been...?"

"No! Victor is..." How did he describe Victor? He'd only really seen him a few times, but... "He's...he's everything I thought he'd be. Maybe a little dramatic, but...I can't say I'm really surprised by that. No, Victor is wonderful. It's me." Yuuri sighed. "Did Ciao Ciao tell you about last year?"

Phichit made a face. "He...might have mentioned it."

Yuuri shook his head. "So I had that failure, and then hardly even a year later, I got a summons announcing that Prince Victor Nikiforov had chosen me to be his betrothed. And now it's all lessons on how to be a host and what the manners are on the mainland and how to...just stand around and be pretty!" He let his head fall back, eyes shut. "Everything's just been a reminder of how terrible I am at doing anything in the court. I wish I could get out of it."

"Why don't you break off the engagement? There's still time to say no to the marriage."

"It's not that easy. Then I'm the kingdom's most ungrateful earl, and Hasetsu will probably lose all of its funding." He sighed, staring up at the ceiling again. "I know I can be a good leader. A-and if I had more time, I could show Victor that. But that's not what a Prince Consort does, apparently. Now I just want to show everyone that I'm not some...some stupid hick from nowhere."

"You def-definitely..." Phichit was interrupted by a large yawn. "Sorry. But anyway..."

Yuuri quickly sat up. "No, no. You must be exhausted from the trip." He smiled a bit. "I shouldn't have kept you up so late."

Phichit laughed. "Give me a couple days and we can stay up all night like we used to." As Yuuri got up, he added, "And you're definitely not a 'stupid hick,' Yuuri. I'm sure Victor can see that, and everyone else will, too." He paused as Yuuri relaxed at the validation, then added, "And if you need to talk, there's an open ear right here."

Yuuri half-smiled. "And you won't write home about what I say?"

"If I do, it'll be with a fake name."

Yuuri laughed. "Fair enough. I'll see you soon, Phichit."

"Night, Yuuri." Phichit sent him another sunny smile before Yuuri shut the door behind him.

Well, things were still stressful. But at least he had a friend on his side now. That helped more than he thought it would.

~

Yuuri couldn't sleep.

He tossed and turned after getting into bed. His brain kept jumping from manners and etiquette to his frustrations at his situation to Victor's question about proving himself. Plus, since he had spent most of the day with Phichit, he'd missed dinner completely. A roiling mind and a rumbling stomach were definitely not conducive to a good night's sleep. So, finally throwing his covers off and shoving his feet into his slippers, he decided to fix at least one of those problems.

He lit a candle quickly before making his way out of his room. The palace was...different when it was dark. The charming carvings in the doorways seemed sinister in the candle light, and the halls were eerily quiet when everyone had gone to bed. For all of his marveling at the palace's beauty, Yuuri decided that he wouldn't have wanted to grow up here. He wondered how Victor felt about it.

It took a few tries, but Yuuri finally found the kitchen. He lit the room's lamps, glad for the warm light, then let out a little huff as he looked around. Just something simple—bread and cheese or an apple, something that wouldn't be too much trouble. He opened a cupboard, blinking as he was met by kombu of all things. Why would they have this here? He dug a little further into the cupboard, laughing a bit as he found bonito flakes. These were Sagashima ingredients! Why would...

Victor.

A pleasantly warm feeling filled Yuuri's chest at the thought of Victor making sure ingredients from his home were in the pantry, and he smiled as he pulled them out. He knew they had pork, too...well, if all the ingredients were here, he might as well. Plus, actually cooking might ease some of his nervous thoughts.

He'd managed to get the ingredients with no fuss at all. The problem came when he was pulling out his pots and pans; despite the very careful way he tugged at them, one pan fell out of the cupboard and crashed to the floor. Yuuri flinched at the noise and froze. Hopefully he was far enough away that...

"Anushka?"

Damn it.

"Don't tell me you're already doing breakfast preparations now! We only have one more..." The kitchen door opened, and Victor and Yuuri blinked at each other. Yuuri grimaced; Victor grinned.

"Yuuri! What are you doing h..." He trailed off as his eyes drifted to the stack of ingredients on the table. "Are you cooking? You can cook?"

Yuuri stood up straight and shrugged. "Well, I did say that my family didn't have servants, and my mother wanted me to be able to eat on my own..."

"Amazing!" The simple exclamation made Yuuri's cheeks heat up. "What are you making?"

"Katsudon. It's, uh, it's my favorite thing to eat back home." He looked down at the pots and pans in his arms, then glanced back up at Victor. Well...it wasn't ice skating, but maybe they could steal a few moments to themselves. "Do you...want me to teach you how to make it?"

Victor's eyes sparkled at the offer, and he quickly nodded, setting down the stack of papers in his hands to help Yuuri pull out the pots and pans. Yuuri gave an awkward laugh.

"So now if the servants revolt and you're left on your own, you'll be able to eat. If...you have the ingredients for katsudon, at least." At Victor's lack of reaction, he added, "That, er, that was a joke."

"I know," said Victor brightly.

"It...wasn't a very good one."

"I know," Victor repeated, just as brightly.

Yuuri's cheeks went pink, and he quietly began laying out the ingredients for them. "So...we make the dashi first. Here, let me fill the pots, then we'll put in the kombu..."

He walked Victor through each of the steps, helping him measure out the bonito flakes and quickly jumping in to stir his pot and turn down the heat as the dashi started to boil. Then came the pork cutlets. It was surprisingly fun to guide Victor through the egg wash and breading. The prince was an eager student, doing his best to follow Yuuri's lead exactly. They laughed as Victor accidentally coated his hand in breadcrumbs, and Yuuri hovered over his shoulder as he dropped his cutlet into a pan to fry, pulling him back slightly so hot oil didn't splatter on him.

As they waited for the pork to cook, Yuuri was abruptly aware at how...comfortable this was. As if it were the most natural thing in the world for him and Victor to be cooking with each other. He glanced up at Victor, who seemed very invested in making sure he didn't overcook the pork. Even in the middle of the night, even as he stared intently at a pan of oil, he hadn't lost that dancer's poise that had caught Yuuri's eye almost twelve years before. That ache returned, though now Yuuri had a better idea of what it was. He wanted to be closer to Victor, to touch him and make sure that the beautiful man in front of him was real and not something straight from a fantasy story. He pressed his lips together, eyes going straight to Victor's hair, and he started to reach up...

But Victor turned before he could reach any farther than his shoulder. "Am I doing all right?"

"Oh! Um, let me see.." He flipped over the cutlet, examining both sides much more intently than normal to avoid staring at Victor's hair again. "Yeah, see how it's golden brown on both sides? That means it's done. Here, let me show you how to dish it up."

He expertly sliced his cutlet; Victor...attempted to slice his cutlet. He praised Victor's excellent mixing as they made the sauce and egg to go over the top. Then, with a bit of egg, a bit of seaweed, and a bowl of rice to serve it on, they were done. Yuuri's bowl was picture perfect; Victor's much less so.

Yuuri smiled at their work, then held his bowl out for Victor. "Here. Let's see how we both did."

Victor gave him a bright smile as they swapped bowls, and they both sat at the simple kitchen table with their bowls. Yuuri nodded to Victor. "You go first."

Victor looked up at him, then took a bite. Immediately, his whole face lit up, making a little bubble of pride rise up in Yuuri's chest.

"Wow, amazing!" Victor took another bite. "Is all food in Sagashima like this? This must be what God eats."

Yuuri looked down at the table at the praise, a proud smile spreading across his face. "Even better. My mother makes it so much better than I do."

"Then we should go straight there after the wedding!"

Yuuri laughed. "Sagashima would love that. I'll take you to the hot springs, too..."

"There are hot springs?"

"You didn't know?"

"I haven't been able to visit!"

Probably for the best that Yuuri didn't mention that he'd obsessively been tracking where Victor visited before the betrothal and thus knew that Victor hadn't visited Sagashima. So he decided to brave Victor's katsudon instead.

Oh, god.

Yuuri coughed. It was too salty and the consistency was all wrong; he had to admit, it was almost impressive how badly Victor had done while following Yuuri's careful instructions. He quickly dug to the bottom of the bowl to get a bite of rice in an attempt to cleanse his palate. Ah, but the sauce had soaked through the entire thing.

"Is it bad?" Victor asked, watching with drawn brows as Yuuri tried not to choke.

Yuuri coughed again, then shook his head with a laugh. "It's terrible. It's...really, really terrible." He looked up and quickly added, "But, ah, for your first try..."

"No, I understand." Victor shut his eyes and pressed the back of his hand to his head, faking a swoon. "If the servants revolt, I'll be useless on my own." He peeked an eye open to look at Yuuri. "I guess I'll just have to look to you to keep from starving."

Yuuri smiled, cheeks heating. Was this flirting? This was flirting, wasn't it? Should he flirt back? He wanted to. Now he just had to come up with something witty and...

"Here." Victor pushed his bowl closer to Yuuri. "We can share. You ought to eat some of your masterpiece."

Yuuri smiled and took a bite from the bowl, brain still whirring. Was it too late to flirt? Victor was still looking at him with warm eyes, so no, there was still time to flirt. But how? Yuuri had never flirted before—at least not consciously. His eyes darted around Victor's face, looking for something to go off of.

"So, uh...why are you up so late?" Not flirting! Too late. Time to stick with it. "I-I hear you usually go to bed fairly early." Damn it. If there was a prize for "Worst Flirt," it would definitely go to Katsuki Yuuri, Earl of Hasetsu.

Victor sighed, setting down his fork to tap at the stack of papers he'd set down earlier. "These. It's all the facts and figures for the kingdom. I can't make sense of them at all." He pushed a hand through his hair, looking down at the scribbled notes. "I'm supposed to figure out the budget for next year. And look at all the complaints and suggestions that made it past Yakov, then decide what to make into laws or amendments or whatever it is I'm supposed to do with them." He managed a small, wry laugh. "I swear, sometimes I can still hear my father. 'Vitya, you should have prepared for this.' 'Vitya, you should have been paying attention.' 'You're twenty-seven years old, Vitya, how do you not know how to do this?'" He shrugged. "Though Yakov says the same things to me, so maybe I'm just hearing him."

Yuuri listened Victor quietly, stomach twisting slightly. Oh, he'd been a selfish idiot. He'd never once thought that Victor would be stressed about becoming king. Even if he hadn't wanted to be the prince's fiancé, he shouldn't have wrapped himself so tightly in his own anxieties. That wasn't fair to Victor.

But maybe he could fix that now.

He lightly touched the papers. "Could I look?"

Victor's eyes flicked up to look at him, and he nodded. Yuuri took the notes and looked them over. All right, fairly straight-forward. He'd done things like this for Hasetsu before. He spread the papers out in front of him.

"Here, let's look at the budget. Here's the amount of money you have in the treasury, and here's where it's all going now." He pointed at the various numbers along the page. "There's a little less than there was last year, so you need to adjust where your funds go. Like...say education. If you want to keep giving this amount of money to schools, then you'll need to put less money toward something else." He glanced up at Victor, who was listening intently. "Like, say...throwing less parties here at the palace." He laughed as Victor looked actively offended at the suggestion. "I'm kidding. That's just me trying to get out of my responsibilities."

"You don't like parties?" Victor looked surprised by that, strangely enough. Yuuri shrugged.

"Not...really? I mean, I can go to them and mostly do all right. But planning's completely different." He pressed his lips together, looking down. "I, uh...I heard your mother was amazing with them."

The corner of Victor's mouth twitched, and he nodded. "She was the perfect hostess. It was like she sparkled once she got in front of other people. She lit up a room just by stepping inside it."

"You're the same way."

Victor looked up with wide blue eyes, apparently surprised by something that Yuuri assumed was fact. Ever since he was young, Victor's mere presence turned heads. Yuuri had seen the others at the Senate, heard what other people said about the prince. For every comment about him being a spendthrift or an airhead, there were five more sighing about how lovely he was and commending his poise and grace.

Yuuri, for once, maintained eye contact with Victor after his compliment, and his lips turned up as he watched the prince's surprised look soften into a warm one. His heart swelled comfortably in his chest, and he finally broke his gaze as he asked, as delicately as he could, "Do you miss them?"

"Do I miss who?"

"Your parents."

"Oh." Victor's warmth seeped away, and he suddenly seemed very interested in pushing around a bit of rice in the bowl. "Yes, of course. But..." He trailed off and shrugged. Yuuri's brow furrowed.

"...but?"

Victor's lips thinned slightly. "Well, it's not as if I saw them so much more often before they died. The only real difference is that now I have budgets and things to take care of."

Yuuri looked at Victor sympathetically. He wasn't surprised—his family, he knew, was rare in how much time they spent with each other—but even so...he hated thinking of a young Victor more or less alone in this big, empty palace.

"Victor, if..."

"So were you responsible for budgets and laws in Hasetsu?" Victor asked quickly. He smiled. "Was that how you got the 12-percent population increase?"

Yuuri blinked, earlier response forgotten with Victor's words. How had he known...oh, of course. Hiroko had probably sent the updates for Sagashima by courier. He smiled, pleased that Victor had remembered that.

"Well, it wasn't me specifically. But I've worked with my mother for the past few years, and things have gone fairly smoothly. So I know something about how to do it."

"Can you help me, then?"

Yuuri blinked. Was he really suggesting this?

"I'll help you with hosting in exchange," Victor added. "I know how to be confident in front of crowds; let's see if I can teach you how to be the same." He winked and held out his hand. "I won't tell the Planner if you don't tell Yakov."

A wide smile grew on Yuuri's face, and he took Victor's hand. "All right, I agree."

"Perfect." Victor pulled Yuuri's hand over and lightly kissed his knuckles, smiling warmly as he caught the way Yuuri's eyes brightened. "It's a deal, then."