Chapter Text
On Ice: Violin (On Ice Series #2)
by Yuuri Katsuki4.45/5 Rating Details 4,216 Ratings 378 Reviews
Following his comeback at the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship, Japanese Figure Skater Koushi Yahaba makes his way to the Grand Prix Series, along with his new coach: Five Time World Champion, Nikolai Vasiliev.
Koushi has a long way to go if he wants to end up on the podium at the Grand Prix Final and win gold. Good thing he has …more
Hardcover, 398 pages
Published April 14th 2016 by Detroit Books
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Praise for On Ice: Violin
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“Poignant and touching—an exhilarating journey in just a few hundred pages. Yuuri Katsuki proves to us once again that he is a veritable genius of words.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Katsuki’s sequel to the critically acclaimed On Ice: Piano is everything we ever wanted and more.”
—Booklist
“On Ice: Violin is an absolute wonder. If you’re going to read one book by Yuuri Katsuki this month, this better be it.”
—Sara Crispino, author of Letters to the Venetian
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“No fair, I wanted to do a review for your new book too!”
Pulling the phone away from his ear, Yuuri Katsuki—New York Times best-selling author and winner of the Akutagawa and Naoki Prizes—squinted at the screen bearing his best friend’s grinning face. “Hello to you too, Phichit.” He greets, fumbling for his glasses on the bedside table before sitting up. “What are you talking about?” He adds at the end of a yawn, mind finally catching up on what Phichit had just said.
Phichit makes an aggrieved noise. “Sara Crispino did a review for On Ice: Violin!”
“Oh, she did?” Huh, he thinks, that explains the e-mail he got from her a few months back. Yuuri hums, leaning against the headboard. “I haven’t checked.”
“Yuuri!” Phichit shrieks and Yuuri sighs. “Your new book came out a week ago! Don’t tell me you haven’t even checked it out.”
He lets his silence speak for itself.
Really, Phichit should have known by now that he hasn’t and that he has no desire to. Yuuri will look at his published work only after the hype has died down, when he’s already immersed in a new work and free of the phantom of the old one. He’d long stopped obsessing over his newly-released titles, especially when that way only leads to anxiety-riddled nights poring over passages he could have written differently and plot holes he should have filled several chapters ago.
It doesn’t always work. There’s a self-destructive part of him that constantly wants to nitpick at things, but he’d washed his hands off of On Ice: Violin as soon as Celestino had approved the final version for publishing.
“Geez, fine. But listen to me, it’s a very good book, and I’m not just saying that because we’re friends, okay? This legit made me cry, and you know the last time I cried because of a book was when Rudy died.”
Yuuri huffs out a laugh. “You need to let it go, Phichit.”
“He never found out that Liesl loved him, Yuuri!” Phichit yells and Yuuri is reminded of the first time they’d read The Book Thief. Phichit had said the same thing back then, tears streaming down his face and cursing Yuuri for even suggesting that they read the stupid, sad, horrible death book.
“Yes, yes.”
“Anyway.” Phichit grumbles. “Go look at your damn book or I’m telling Ciao Ciao on you.”
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Christophe Giacometti @christophe_gc
Congrats to @katsuki_yuuri on the new book!
70 retweets 90 likes
勝生 勇利 @katsuki_yuuri √
@christophe_gc thank you
Phichit Chulanont @phichit_chu √
read my freakout over @katsuki_yuuri’s amazing new book on my blog!!
179 retweets 200 likes
勝生 勇利 @katsuki_yuuri √
@phichit_chu you’re so ridiculous
Phichit Chulanont @phichit_chu √
@katsuki_yuuri im not IM SHOOK yuuri i am deceased your book has killed ME
勝生 勇利 @katsuki_yuuri √
@phichit_chu rest in pieces
Phichit Chulanont @phichit_chu √
@katsuki_yuuri SO MEAN
Viktor Nikiforov @v-nikiforov
Just finished On Ice: Violin. I was not prepared for that kiss. Also #SaveCocoa
259 retweets 398 likes
Christophe Giacometti @christophe_gc
@v-nikiforov OMG #SaveCocoa?
Viktor Nikiforov @v-nikiforov
@christophe-gc Hush, cat person.
勝生 勇利 @katsuki_yuuri √
#SaveCocoa is trending and I have 20 e-mails begging me ‘not to kill the doggo’ and 6 of them are from @phichit_chu
980 retweets 1,290 likes
Christophe Giacometti @christophe_gc
@katsuki_yuuri a friend of mine started that hashtag! HAHA he was so sad about Cocoa #SaveCocoa
Phichit Chulanont @phichit_chu √
@christophe_gc damn your friend beat me to it!!
Phichit Chulanont @phichit_chu √
@katsuki_yuuri is2g this friendship is over if you kill off the doggo
勝生 勇利 @katsuki_yuuri √
@phichit_chu now that you put it that way #GoodbyeCocoa
COCOA LIVES 2k16 @kurotsukki56
@katsuki_yuuri SENSEI PLS DON’T KILL COCOA
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The thing is, Yuuri never imagined that he’d end up as an author at twenty-four.
As a kid, he did ballet under a family friend before getting into competitive figure skating. He wasn’t a natural or a genius on ice, or any of those things that would’ve made for a good story. Yuuri was just Yuuri. And Katsuki Yuuri who was quiet and unassuming and who had two friends in total, inevitably had a lot of free time on his hands and bucket loads of anxiety that only disappeared when he was dancing or skating. He’d made it as far as Nationals, had made waves in the Junior Division of the Grand Prix Series, had been preparing to make his Senior debut when Viktor Nikiforov, Yuuri’s north star, left the ice due to an injury, and had taken with him a piece of Yuuri’s heart and his motivation to skate.
It had been impossible to continue being on the ice when Viktor couldn’t.
So he’d stopped. He found the competition to be too much and too little, found the ice to be cold and uninviting without the breathtaking strains of Viktor Nikiforov’s choreography weaving before him. It sounds rather shallow and wholly inadvisable to base an entire career on a single person, but Yuuri had lost the fight, had misplaced the passion, and it had only hurt when he’d tried to continue without a spark in his center.
“What are you going to do?” Mari asks, not unkindly, cigarette perched on her lips after a season of flubbed jumps and messy step sequences.
“I don’t know.” He says quietly, because this wasn’t a conversation you have at sixteen with your sister. Not when you still have more to give. Not when you still have your whole life ahead of you. But Mari knows him and knows that skating had been the plan until he was good enough to skate alongside Viktor Nikiforov or the ice tired of him, whichever came first. Neither of them expected that Yuuri would tire of the ice first. “I’ll finish school.”
Mari hums in understanding as she places a warm hand on his shoulder. “And after?”
“I was planning on applying to schools abroad. It—it was supposed to be for skating, but I think, I mean. I can probably reach the grade requirement for an academic scholarship if I study hard enough.” He says, all the while thinking I can’t stay here anymore, I’ve failed everyone and I don’t deserve to stay here.
Mari nods and says with a gravity that makes Yuuri choke on a lump in his throat, “okay, if that’s what you want. We’ll be here to support you.” Because as much as they constantly fight over TV shows and house chores, Mari understands him when he doesn’t want anyone to.
The months between sixteen and eighteen blur into pages and pages of knowledge Yuuri crams inside his head with a drive he previously reserved for skating. He hits the books harder than he ever has, staying up all night learning English, shaping foreign words with a clumsy tongue and a frantic heart. The months leading to his high school graduation is good; Yuuri has a purpose and a brand new fire and a goal that he’s so close to achieving.
And then his dog dies.
Vicchan dies and opens up a pit right in the middle of Yuuri’s chest that threatens to consume him whole. Vicchan dies and Yuuri cries until his tears run dry. But it’s not enough, because Yuuri still feels so strongly, is fit to bursting with hurt, and the ice had become a stranger in the time he was away so he can’t let any of it out but he has to, needs to let it all out before he implodes. So he turns to ballet and dances, dances until his feet bleed and Minako yells at him.
And it’s still not enough.
He turns his attentions elsewhere then, skin crawling with a story waiting to be told, and finds the notebook where he’s scrawled down the beginnings of a short story for his Japanese Lit final. So he starts to write, lets the story bleed out of his fingertips into the paper. The cacophony in his head stops its onslaught for what feels like the first time in years and come morning, the two pages required by his teacher has turned into a twenty-three-page monster that Yuuri’s lost control of.
But his mind is clear, his heart is calm, the words that used to crawl helplessly on his skin locked in ink and paper.
Still, he doesn’t think much of the story he wrote when he submits it. It’s longer than anything he’s ever written before, and he knows he’s made countless mistakes along the way, but it’s done and Yuuri feels the way he used to feel after skating a program. Which is why he’s surprised when his Japanese Lit teacher calls on him one afternoon. And Yuuri who has never done anything remotely out of line at school and therefore has never been called on by a teacher, panics.
Maybe twenty-three pages was too much, maybe he wrote a few parts in English instead of Japanese, maybe he gave her the wrong file—
“Am I in trouble?” Yuuri blurts out as soon as Makoto-sensei sits down across from him, because he can’t think of any possible reason why his Japanese Lit teacher is calling him
Eyes widening behind thick glasses, Makoto-sensei shakes her head. “Oh, no. No, no, no. Far from it actually, Katsuki-kun.”
“Okay.”
“Yes, well.” She starts, clearing her throat a few times before meeting Yuuri’s gaze earnestly. “I called you here because I wanted to submit your work to a literary magazine. It’s very good and I really think you have a future in writing, if you don’t mind my saying.” She finishes with a smile that doesn’t even register to Yuuri because—
“You want to submit my work?” He echoes dumbly, blinking at his teacher in bemusement, because what?
“By proxy only, of course,” Makoto-sensei blurts out suddenly. “I’m not going to—goodness—I’m not going to take credit for your work.” She assures him, although Yuuri never even considered that to be something that she would do. “It’s just, there’s a literary magazine where teachers can show off their students’ best works. They’ll publish your name and everything if you get selected for it.”
Chewing on his bottom lip, Yuuri asks, “you really think it’s good?”
“Yes, I do.” Makoto-sensei nods firmly. “It’s amazing, Katsuki-kun, if a bit too dark for my tastes.” She adds afterwards with a soft laugh.
“That’s—“ Yuuri hesitates, swallowing down the sudden lump in his throat. Should he tell her? He doesn’t want her to think that he writes like that normally. “My dog died. When I wrote it. I—I wanted it to be an ode to my dog. A goodbye of sorts.” He tells her haltingly, gaze averted to his lap, eyes swimming with unshed tears.
“Oh. I see. I—I didn’t think. You must think me insensitive. You probably don’t want something so personal published—“
Except, he does. Wants it in a way that he can’t quite explain. Wants to share to the world how he had loved Vicchan and how much happiness she’d brought him and how much he’ll miss her now that she’s gone. Wants the world to know the story he’d written under the haze of grief and overwhelming love. “No. I mean, yes. It’s okay. You can submit it if you want, Makoto-sensei.”
Makoto-sensei blinks, her eyebrows scrunched up in concern. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Yuuri breathes out, and it feels like a release. “It’s probably not even good enough to get selected.”
There’s a short beat of silence before Yuuri feels two warm hands on his shoulders, prompting him to look up from where he’s staring at his hands and into his teacher’s face. “Trust in yourself, Katsuki-kun. You have real talent at telling stories.”
And as it turns out, he does.
Because Yuuri’s twenty-three-page homage to Vicchan not only gets published, but it wins him an award that he has to wear a suit for to receive. He goes to Tokyo with his mom, Minako, and Makoto-sensei to receive the award; his hands clammy as he stands in front of a crowd, a mustached man handing him a silver pocket watch and a check.
It’s only later, when he’s back in Hasetsu and eating his mom’s katsudon, that he thinks maybe, just maybe—
—he can still tell stories even off the ice.
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saudade
current mood: page 127 of on ice violin
[image]
source: saudade #SAME #On Ice Series #I CAnt BELIEVE THEY KISSED #IS THIS REAL LIFE #NIKOUSHI 5EVER
nik0lai-vasil0ve
ok who sold their soul to satan for on ice violin
koushiiiiiii
p sure someone sold cocoa’s soul to satan
COCOA-IS-ALIVE-2K16
HOW DARE
lesfleurs
No, okay. But guys, what if it’s a parallel to what happened to Nikkun? I love Cocoa as much as the next person, but he
might actually die in the next book.
binchpls
i agree with you with the parallels. Katsuki-sensei loves parallels in his work. BUT??? I rly don’t think cocoa’s
gonna die bc as much as sensei loves parallels, he’s also a fan of breaking them. and besides, what would
cocoa’s death even achieve other than create much unnecessary angst???
source: nik0lai-vasil0ve #On Ice Series #I LOVE THIS BOOK #IM STILL CRYING #COCOA IS ALIVE #SAVE THE DOGGO #DONT KILL THE DOGGO
pheecheet-chulanope
iM LAUGHING
[image]
phichit just threatened to unfriend katsuki-sensei if he kills cocoa
naruhina5ever
those two are #friendshipgoals
pheecheet-chulanope
LMAO KATSUKI-SENSEI JUST REPLIED
[image]
FCUKEN SAVAGE
source: pheecheet-chulanope #SAVAGE #SAVECOCOA #Phichit Chulanont #Yuuri Katsuki #these two are so precious