"No one in the whole wide world knows your true eros, Yuri."
The evolution of the relationship between one of the most celebrated couples in modern anime.
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General
- From the official art, there's the main trio bathing in the hot springs together
◊; Yuri and Victor are cuddling in the front while Yurio sulks in the background. - Yuri's fascination with Victor borders on both simple admiration and what quite a few viewers believed to be a Celebrity Crush.
- The ending animation has a lot of very intimate moments between Yuri and Victor, including showering together near the beach and ultimately, Victor brushing Yuri's hair in a very intimate setting — Yuri's bedroom at night, with only a candle as light.
- This◊ official artwork has Victor and Yuri on what seems to be a Christmas Starbucks date in Moscow. You can even see Victor's hand holding Yuri close to him!
- Another official scan◊ shows Yuri and Victor lying on the ground, with Victor slightly hovering over Yuri and Yuri gently tugging on Victor's tie while resting his head on Victor's right arm. Both their shirts are even ruffled, with Yuri's shirt being slightly unbuttoned; and there's how their hair is somewhat messy and slicked back. It's almost as if they were making out a moment ago.
- "Stay Close to Me"'s lyrics when translated from Italian make it explicitly clear the singer is addressing a male lover. note Victor chose a love song between two men to express himself for his program, and this is the song that brings Victor and Yuri together.
- "Stay Close to Me" is actually only a half translation — the song's full name would be "Stay Close to Me And Don't Let Me Go".
- Here is the translation of the song. Make of that what you will.
- Early after the series' first episode has aired, information about the song titles of the anime soundtrack◊ was released, and so far they have been accurate. The last track involves the same aria, but this time it is played as a duet which, in Episode 12, plays over the ending credits while Yuri and Victor pair-skate together.
- The animation director, Noriko Itou drew a picture of Victor holding Yuri in a Bridal Carry in their chibi versions here inspired by Takashi Shiina's (the mangaka of Zettai Karen Children) sketch of them doing the same thing but not in chibi versions. They joked alongside creator Mitsurou Kubo that it must be something that Victor and Yuri were secretly doing off-screen.
- Most of the coaches show a degree of affection for their charges: Celestino wraps an arm around a devastated Yuri after his disastrous performance at the Grand Prix Finals and he's happy to pose for selfies with Phichit, Leo's coach offers consolation hugs and heartfelt reassurance when he fails to place at the podium, and even Yakov can't resist holding Yurio aloft after an impressive performance. Victor, however, needs to be pried off of Yuri with a crowbar... and his body language verges on possessive. He's draped across Yuri in interviews, holds his hands before every performance, and is wrapped around him nearly every time they sit in the kiss and cry. Their post-performance hug has become such a tradition that Yuri suffers withdrawal symptoms if Victor isn't there to administer said hugs, and Victor has little shame about cuddling Yuri in front of other skaters. If you look at the background characters, you can see a range of reactions to this excess of affection, ranging from "What the heck?" expressions to "Victor's glomping his boyfriend again" amusement.
- Fun fact: this pairing won the "Best Couple" award from the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2016, even practically dominating the results with 69% of the votes, with The Big Damn Kiss also winning "Most Heartwarming Moment" with 55% of the votes — just to give you an idea on how big it is.
- The cover for the PASH! Illustration File 2017◊ magazine involves Victor and Yuri (plus Yurio and Makkachin) on what seems to be a romantic ride to the beach, considering the surfboards and floats seen at the backseat. It’s also worth noting how Yuri is practically sitting on Victor’s lap, given that the latter’s arms are around him while driving.
- Another image◊ shows Yuri sleeping peacefully, with Makkachin slumped over him and Victor's hand gently tousling Yuri's hair, making the two look like a domestic couple. In fact, it implies that after the events of Episode 12, the two are now living together in Russia, which is eventually confirmed by Word of God.
Episode 2
- A few viewers speculate that when Victor fell asleep after dinner and a soak in the hot springs, he wasn't actually asleep at all note . In fact, he seemed to be posing for Yuri, what with his arms and legs slightly spread apart and his robe loose enough to expose his chest. To add, there's when he "woke up" and expresses he's hungry again, and part of his robe falls down from his shoulder, which is a very seductive image in its own.
- This episode continues the trend, with Victor deciding to ask Yuri about himself... while tilting his chin up to look at him, running his hand down Yuri's arm and grabbing his hand, and leaning in close to him while sensual mood music plays in the background.
- When Victor touches him, Yuri blushes, his eyes dilate and he starts to tremble.
- Later that night Yuri is lying in bed — covering his face with his hands and blushing — as he thinks about how Victor is there in his house. "I get it now. My heart is pounding because of how happy I am."
- Victor is quite interested in knowing if Yuri currently has a lover, and even looks elated when Yuri denies dating anyone at the moment. Victor even goes as far as knowing about any past lovers he might have had, which Yuri declines to elaborate.
- When Yurio arrives at Japan and tells Victor to go back to Russia, Yuri watches on with a dismayed and fearful expression, clearly not wanting Victor to leave.
- The second preview for the anime had a Stinger where Yuri talks to Victor. When the audience gets to see them talk, we see that Victor's face is deathly close to Yuri's, and his thumb is dragging down on a blushing Yuri's bottom lip.
- The scene itself comes from Episode 3, and what he ends up telling Yuri is "No one in the whole wide world knows your true eros, Yuri", right before asking Yuri to show it to him.
- The particular quote they use for Victor's line is from Episode 4, which in all honesty is just as homoerotic — "I'm not going to go easy on you, though. That's just how I show my love."
Episode 3
- This episode is one Ship Tease goldmine. Besides the scene pictured and mentioned above, Yuri tells Victor that his concept of eros is a pork cutlet bowl, but his monologue on the ice says that he "knows who [he's] dancing for." Victor, for his part, tells Yuri that he loves pork cutlet bowls.
- The fact that Yuri is dancing for Victor and the entire song is dedicated to sexual love, asking him to look only to him and stay with him has quite a lot of subtext on its own. Even more considering that Victor whistles seeing Yuri dance.
- The entire Eros program, thanks to Yuri's premise for the dance. He imagines it as a successful playboy who has his eye on the most beautiful woman in town, and despite her better judgment, she falls for him anyway only to be tossed aside. Yuri then has the idea of playing the part of the woman, and plays her off as a woman trying to seduce the playboy rather than be seduced. Keep in mind that he does the program in the hopes that Victor will stay and coach him, and you can replace the characters in the story quite easily.
- Yuri describes eros as something that makes you lose all rational thought and focus on one, single thing. We see it when he's thinking about cutlet bowls, but the only other time we see this thought process in action is when he's desperate to have Victor stay, and his vision starts to blur and wobble as he's thinking about trying to win.
- There's one more, subtle time we see this thought process, as this post notes that Victor's eros demonstration is enough to compel Yuri to walk out onto the ice without him even being aware of it.
- There's one more, subtle time we see this thought process, as this post
- Victor is even more prone to touching Yuri than before and Yuri is actually more receiving. Yuri actually jumps to hug Victor before his performance, stating that he would be the tastiest pork cutlet bowl ever during the hug, to which Victor whispers back that he loves the dish. After winning the competition, Victor holds Yuri from both of his arms.
- Never forget that when Victor is demonstrating the Eros program, Yuri literally says that Victor is sexy enough to "make even [him], a man, pregnant."
- The English dub didn't even bother to change the line. (If anything, it's even better via the omission of "even", just straight up going for "might impregnate me.")
- The preview of the following episode has this dialogue, which the dub didn't bother to change either:Yuri: "Who'd even be happy to see me naked on the ice?"Victor: "At the very least, I would be."
Episode 4
- For the past three episodes, Yuri doesn't react in the slightest whenever he sees Victor naked. But when he was about to protest to Victor about using the composition of his free program, he suddenly looks away in embarrassment when he sees Victor doing stretches, and Victor wasn't wearing anything at the time.
- When Victor stretches Yuri in the hot springs, a group of men can be seen watching out of curiosity. But one man in particular — an old man, mind you — closed his eyes while his hands are in prayer position and says "thank you, God" while the scene is going on.
- When Victor questions how Yuri sees their relationship, he casually suggests lovers and then states he'll do his best... and he sounds strangely eager and all too willing to actually go through with the idea.
- What's incredibly touching is that while Yuri refuses the idea, he doesn't entirely reject it. Instead, he says that he wants "Victor to be Victor", which essentially says that Yuri doesn't want Victor to "act" as anyone, preferring him to stay as himself.
- The beach scene in general is a very emotionally intimate moment for Victor and Yuri, with Yuri opening up about his own insecurities and Victor being there to listen and comfort him. Yuri's statement sums it up well:"When I open up, he meets me where I am."
Episode 5
Oh, where to begin?
- Apparently, Victor thinks the most effective way to distract Yuri from his own nerves is to turn him around and hug him across the chest from behind, all while the press enthusiastically snaps pictures of them. He's right.
- Never mind what Victor is whispering into Yuri's ear:
"Seduce me with all you have. If your performance can charm me, you can enthrall the entire audience." - It follows that during his short program performance Yuri skates specifically keeping in mind what he thinks Victor would like to see from him, intercut with flashbacks of Victor encouraging him. The score he gets for his effort is not only a personal best but also puts him in the lead by 25.81 points.
- Feeling the pressure the next day, Yuri purposefully ignores Minami's attempts to get his attention as he tries to focus on himself. All it takes is one disapproving comment from Victor (“How can someone who can't motivate others motivate himself?”) for Yuri to start screaming cheers from the stands.
- There's a little treasure trove of Ship Tease right before Yuri's free program performance — Victor telling Yuri he looks beautiful in his costume, Victor applying balm to Yuri's lips, and then the intimate hug they share right before Yuri goes out on the ice, all within the span of fewer than thirty seconds of screen time.
- For the split second after Victor puts lip balm on Yuri, it's easy to think Victor is leaning in to kiss him instead of hugging him.
- Victor's thoughts serve as narration for Yuri's free program performance, which is set to the “Yuri on Ice” piece introduced in the previous episode meant to represent Yuri's career as a professional figure skater. When Yuri skates the segment representing Victor becoming his coach stiffly, Victor sounds a little hurt when he thinks that it seems like him coming into Yuri's life hadn't made him happy at all.
- That is until he notices that Yuri ended his performance with an arm outstretched towards him, bloody nose and all. Then he just silently reaches out his own arms to let Yuri go in for a running glomp. Although he ends up dodging Yuri since his nose was still bleeding, he still gives him a very affectionate hug later, even cuddling and nuzzling against him.
- Finally, played over the credits, Yuri's press conference after winning the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship where he announces that his chosen theme for the Grand Prix Series is “love”. He goes on to elaborate his reasons for choosing it: the impact of Victor becoming his coach has made him see and appreciate the support network in his family and friends that he never realized he had. Now that he understands what love is and is stronger for it, he knows that Victor “is the only person [he's] ever wanted to hold on to” and that he'll prove it to himself with a gold medal.
Episode 6
Just like Steven Universe, with every episode people said it couldn't get gayer. Episode 6 proved them all wrong.
- It's small, but there's how they sleep next to each other on the plane, with Victor resting rather comfortably on Yuri's shoulder. The keen-eyed viewer may also notice that the two are sharing a blanket.
- In the Chinese restaurant after having too much to drink, Victor strips (completely too, his underwear ends up on top of Guang-Hong's head) and drapes himself all over Yuri.
- Yuri and Victor's photo together: a naked Victor all tangled on Yuri. Victor actually seems bothered that the other skaters won't leave the two of them alone. Yuri's worry, different from how this situation would normally play in anime, is not that people think that they are dating, but that he was fooling around before a competition."Things are getting R-rated here..."
- Let's reiterate: in the picture, Victor isn't just throwing his arms around Yuri while completely in the nude. He's looking at the camera with a very possessive glint in his eyes, and his lips are noticeably puckered, like he's ready to give Yuri a smooch.
- Another tidbit: from the look in his eyes, Victor seems to know that he's being pictured, and puts both himself and Yuri in such a pose to declare to everyone else that Yuri belongs only to him.
- What doesn't help is that while Yuri dreads the possibility of messing up his performance due to the people's assumptions, he has an Imagine Spot of an article covering said scenario... and the title of the article reads: "A Result of Frantic Love?".
- Christophe questions if Yuri's current physical fitness (i.e. most likely, the firmness of Yuri's butt) is related to the training his "master" gave him. Everyone's basically assuming Yuri and Victor are having sex.
- When Christophe mentions that Yuri will get hate from being the one that made Victor leave ice skating, Yuri's reaction is that he wants to be hated as the man who took Victor from the world.
- The entirety of Yuri's eros performance (especially his monologue) in the China Cup."I'm the only one who can satisfy Victor. I'm the only one in the whole world who knows Victor's love. I'll prove that now."
- Before the performance, when Victor holds Yuri's hand and gently caresses it with his index finger, telling him not to seduce the audience by picturing himself as a pork cutlet bowl or a woman, but as himself with his own natural charm. This already seems romantic enough, but it goes even further when Yuri grabs Victor's hand and laces their fingers together. He then proceeds to bump foreheads and noses with Victor, saying "Don't ever take your eyes off me."
- And right after Yuri goes out on the ice, Victor's hand immediately goes up to touch his forehead where Yuri had touched it.
- Plus, Yuri purposely lacing his fingers together with Victor's is even more romantic from a Japanese perspective. In Japan, that type of seemingly innocent hand-holding is only done between lovers or people who want to be lovers, hence the trope's prevalence in works that feature lesbian relationships. Two grown men doing it would be unheard of unless they were in a romantic relationship. The problem is, because Victor is Russian, he probably didn't understand the significance of the gesture at all.
- Let's also not forget that right as Yuri starts his short program, he licks his lips in a rather erotic fashion. And if you remember his real inspiration for the Eros program...
- In the kiss-and-cry following Yuri's performance, Victor throws his arms around Yuri after seeing his score, and when he tells Yuri how anyone would feel great after watching that, he sounds incredibly aroused. This post explains that the scene is actually a lot more sexually-charged than it looks.
- Yuri is shown to be watching Christophe's performance alongside Guang-Hong and Phichit — with Victor's arms around him.
- After Chris' performance has, ahem, reached its climax, Victor can be seen gently patting Yuri on the arm almost consolingly.
- Yuri's proclamation at the end of the episode:"W-With my coach, Victor, I'll win with the power of love!"
- In the preview for Episode 7, Victor, brimming with pride, refers to his student as "my Yuri". The note of fondness and possessiveness did not go unnoticed, especially since this is in the preview to the episode where the duo make the jump to Official Couple.
Episode 7
Let's just say that the Ship Tease in this episode went beyond.
- When Victor notices that Yuri hasn't slept at all, he immediately takes him back to his bed and covers him with a blanket before falling asleep right on top of him. Note that when this happened, Yuri was in nothing but his boxers. One has to wonder if Victor stripped him beforehand.
- When Victor covers Yuri's ears so he wouldn't freak out from hearing the audience's cheers, the distance between them gets a little closer the next time we see them. With their stances, it looks like they're about to kiss — which doesn't happen, but heavily foreshadows the moment when they actually kiss later in the episode.
- After Victor accidentally makes Yuri cry, he admits he doesn't know how to comfort him and offers to kiss him, although Yuri shoots him down and tells him that even if Victor doesn't say anything Yuri wants him to stay by his side."You don't have to say anything! Just stand by me!"
- Keep in mind that in the above scene, Yuri uses the words "hanarezu ni soba ni ite"... which is the exact same name of the piece that Victor skated to in the very beginning of the series ("Stay Close to Me'), and the program that Yuri imitated that resulted in him attracting Victor's attention.
- In the English dub, the line is changed from "just stand by me" to "just stay close to me, Victor!", likely also in reference to the song "Stay Close to Me".
- Keep in mind that in the above scene, Yuri uses the words "hanarezu ni soba ni ite"... which is the exact same name of the piece that Victor skated to in the very beginning of the series ("Stay Close to Me'), and the program that Yuri imitated that resulted in him attracting Victor's attention.
- In the middle of Yuri's free skate, Victor becomes so swept up in his performance that after Yuri performs a triple Lutz-toe loop combination, Victor's reaction consists of him placing his hands on his cheek, his mouth ajar, and a slight blush on his cheeks. Let's also not forget how astonished he looks when Yuri attempts to land Victor's Signature Move near the end of his program.
- The episode ends with Victor tackling Yuri and kissing him. Yes, you heard us right.
- Even with Victor's arm placement obscuring their lips to air the kiss on TV, the reaction shot of Yuri's family, the Nishigori family and Minako audibly gasping cement it.
- The way the two look at each other afterward, especially with Victor cradling Yuri's head, only adds to an already romantic moment.
- One of the creators of the series confirmed on her Twitter that they did, in fact, kiss.
Episode 8
Episode 8 may be a breather, but that doesn't mean things are getting any less gayer.
- For almost the entire episode — until the very end, that is — , both Victor and Yuri are nothing but joyful, unbothered by anything or anyone. With the way they act, it almost looks like they're a newlywed couple on their honeymoon.
- Which is even more fitting with how they act towards Yuri, being friendly and loudly cheering him on (much to Yurio's irritation). Now they don't just look Happily Married, but also like Amazingly Embarrassing Parents. They're so adorably sweet you can almost feel your blood sugar rise watching them.
- Before Yuri performs in the short program, he suddenly grabs Victor's tie and pulls him close, whispering in his ear, "Don't worry. I'll show my love to the whole of Russia," while the camera focuses on their lips.
- And not minutes before, Victor was at Yuri's feet, tying the laces of his skates for him.
- That scene can be read with BDSM subtext. Lacing is a common theme for some BDSM scenes, especially with Dommes (what Yuri's eros persona is), and Yuri telling Victor "the performance has already started" sounds like a reminder that they're playing a scene. Yuri's inner acknowledgement of his embarrassment ties into this further - it's something he personally doesn't do, but it's part of the role he's playing: the seductive, confident Domme.
- A Blink-and-You-Miss-It moment: Usually, at the beginning of his Eros program, Yuri will send a sexy smolder to the audience before moving on to his first step sequence. In this episode he doesn't just give a smolder, he blows a kiss as well, and it's very possible it was meant to be directed at Victor.
- And this is followed by another Blink-and-You-Miss-It moment: when Yuri is skating to the parts that lead up to his camel spin, Victor is seen smiling, eyes wide in amazement, blushing slightly, and with his finger on his lips.
- Following his performance, after Yuri's score is announced, Victor kneels down, takes Yuri's right foot, and kisses it on international television. The show leaves no room for interpretation either — the audience's applause goes thunderous, and one of the reporters covering them at the kiss-and-cry announces "overcome with happiness, Nikiforov kissed Katsuki's skate!"
- The English dub made it a lot gayer, the reporter announces "Nikiforov is so overcome with pride, he kisses Katsuki's skate! Now that's a devoted coach." If you listen more closely, you can even hear Yuri make a sound that's something between a gasp and a giggle when Victor kisses his skate.
Episode 9
Twice, only twice do they interact in this episode. And yet...
- Before Victor departs to return to Japan, he hugs Yuri and comforts him with these words, "Even if we're apart, my heart will always be by your side".
- Throughout his free skate, Yuri thinks about Victor for almost the entire time he's on the ice. He's so used to having Victor with him and providing support that when he starts off, he seems tired and weary, and his vision is blurry and unstable.
- The scene may be hilarious, but the fact that Yuri goes about hugging everyone he meets after the free skate just shows how accustomed he has grown to being hugged by Victor to the point that it becomes extremely unnatural for him if he has no one to hug.
- Their reunion in the airport at the end of the episode. You think that nothing could beat their first kiss? This scene will prove you wrong.
- What do they do the instant they see each other? They immediately start running for the door, and you can see that while they're doing so, they don't take their eyes off the other for a second.
- After sharing an embrace, Yuri asks Victor to take care of him until he retires from ice-skating. Victor's response? He gently takes Yuri's hand and kisses it, responding with a tender voice that it sounded like a marriage proposal. Which Yuri does. Not. Deny.
- When they embrace again, Victor then adds that he hopes Yuri never retires. In other words, he's saying that he wants to be with Yuri even though he's no longer competing, that he wants to be with him even if he's no longer his coach. He's basically accepting Yuri's proposal and taking it even further, subtly telling him that he wants them to be together for the rest of their lives. This leads Yuri to cry out Tears of Joy.
- As many a fan had pointed out, the hidden messages of the aforementioned exchange between the two strongly resonates with the song that brought them together. In case you forgot, the title of the song is "Stay By My Side and Never Leave Me", or anywhere along the lines. Yuri asks Victor to stay with him until a certain point, and Victor's reply is contextually the song's title itself, which almost mirrors Yuri's plea to Victor in Episode 7.
- Also, look closely when Victor kisses Yuri's hand. Which hand does he take? The left hand. And what part of his hand does he kiss? His ring finger.
- Additionally, if you take a closer look at Victor's appearance, his expression looks worn and his hair is slightly unkempt. One can only imagine how long he's been waiting for Yuri, and how anxious he must have been while waiting for his arrival. It makes the moment when they see each other even more worthwhile.
- In the preview for Episode 10, Victor asks what Yuri will get him for Christmas. Yuri says that it's "something round and golden". If you pay enough attention, Yuri has a flushed face and briefly looked downwards before looking back at Victor, who's also looking down with a soft expression. It's possible that there was something they were looking at.
- The preview also shows the two of them inside what looks to be a church, and note that Episode 10 takes place in Spain, a country where same-sex marriage has been legal for over a decade...
Episode 10
A smorgasbord of homoerotic revelation.
- Victor calls Yuri a "jet-lagged sleeping beauty" in his narration.
- Yuri and Victor's hotel room is a double, meaning it has two separate beds spread a few feet apart. The first overhead shot makes it clear that the beds have been pushed together so the mattresses are no more than a few inches away from each other, with the remaining space likely attributable to the bed frames.
- Victor says that Yuri has given him "life and love" — something which he says he hasn't had in over twenty years, due to his skating career.
- When Yuri recalls how the other skaters land their jumps and how he messes up his own, he becomes upset and quietly begs for Victor to come help him. Again, the English dub makes it even gayer by rephrasing his line: "Where are you, Victor? I need you..."
- After swimming in the pool with Christophe, Victor attempts to get warm by clinging onto Yuri (with Christophe joining along), and he was in only his swim trunks at the time.
- In the DVD/Blu-ray version of this episode, Yuri winks at Victor after he asks Victor to take him sightseeing.
- When Yuri barges into a jeweler's to pick up a ring on the fly, there's a glimpse of the receipt as he puts down his credit card. It takes a bit of squinting, but it's possible to make out where it says "Flat Gold Wedding Ring"◊ and the price — 768.94 euros, or 828.65 USD if you prefer.
- Victor and Yuri are engaged. Even better, they already have a wedding date in mind.
- Let's make this perfectly clear: Yuri and Victor exchange rings in front of the Barcelona Cathedral while a choir is singing. note
- And then Victor makes sure to let the other finalists, Yuri's ballet instructor, and sister know that they're definitely engagement rings over dinner that evening.
- Yuri and Victor basically had the PG-13(ish) version of a drunken one night stand.
- After the ending credits, which shows a drunken Yuri dancing with Yurio, Christophe, and Victor, we see Yuri clinging onto Victor and asking him to be his coach, with Victor blushing in response. This heightens the possibility that Victor might have already been attracted to Yuri for at least a year, even before the video of Yuri skating Victor's program was uploaded online. If that's actually the case, it would put all the times he would act just a little too flirtatious or touchy-feely with Yuri — before Episode 7 anyway — in a completely different light.
- Bonus in that, while clinging onto Victor, Yuri was pretty much grinding on his crotch.
- While they're dancing together, Victor and Yuri also strike similar poses to the ones that the playboy and the woman do in the eros story back in Episode 3, and Yuri is the one leading. Yuri attributed himself to the woman back in Episode 3, but as Episode 10 reveals, Yuri actually fits into the role of the playboy who left the woman, and Victor fits perfectly into the role of the smitten, flirtatious woman who Yuri was initially trying to emulate in his program. Plus, like the woman in the story, Victor probably has been worried about Yuri being "tired of him", considering how distant Yuri acted towards him in earlier episodes in comparison to the night Yuri forgot.
Episode 11
This episode may be the most emotionally-devastating one to date, as well as the most lacking of moments between Victor and Yuri, but there still is...
- Before Yuri's short program, Victor takes Yuri's right hand and kisses his engagement ring for good luck. Then as Yuri heads for the rink, the episode shows both Victor and Yuri pressing their lips against their rings. They're basically sharing an Indirect Kiss.
- While skating his short program, Yuri thinks back to the conversation he had with Victor regarding changing his last quad to a flip. The conversation ends with Yuri asking Victor if he wants to see him perform it, and Victor gets that tell-tale gleam in his eyes and blushes before enthusiastically replying that he does and shares an affectionate embrace with Yuri. You can even see a bit of nuzzling.
Episode 12
Get ready: this is the Grand Finale... at least of Season 1.
- When Yuri and Victor have a falling out over Yuri's decision to retire after the Grand Prix Finals, the last thing we see before the scene cuts to the following day is Victor grabbing Yuri by the shoulder. What happens next is to left to anyone's imagination.
- Before that, after Yuri said his piece about his retirement, Victor immediately starts to cry. While Yuri definitely doesn't intend to break up with him, the whole scene plays out as if they actually are going to break up.
- During Christophe's performance, while being photographed by the press at the kiss-and-cry, Victor is seen with his arm around Yuri and happily asking the nearest photographer to take a photo of the two of them with his smartphone.
- This episode repeatedly teases us with scenes between them that makes it look like they're about to kiss, even though they just end up hugging. At this point it's no longer queerbaiting, yet the tension escalates each time it happens.
- The entire exchange after Yuri places second is full of innuendos and suggestive imagery... and that's not even considering the part where Yuri straddles Victor which caps the scene and somehow got past the censors thanks to clever framing and feet placement.
- When Victor expresses mock-disappointment and says he doesn't want to kiss the medal unless it's a gold one, he asks Yuri for any ideas of "something that would excite [him]". It's almost as if he's indirectly asking Yuri to kiss him and maybe even more. The way Victor seductively whispers it doesn't help... especially with Yuri's conflicted expression, as if he caught on the hidden message behind Victor's question and is struggling to contain himself.
- Hell, in the English dub, when Victor asks for "something that would excite [him]", he switches to something that really sounds like his bedroom voice - deep, low and inviting.
- After Yuri finishes his free program, Victor decides to resume his career as a figure skater, even though he doesn't want to, because it's what Yuri wants. But then after the Grand Prix Finals ended, Yuri announces that he aims to get a gold medal next time, which implicitly means that he intends to continue staying with Victor on the ice and not only off. Victor's reaction is nothing short of overjoyed.
- Last but not least: Victor and Yuri pair-skating to "Stay Close to Me", the same aria that Victor skated to in Episode 1, and the same aria that brought them together.
- The song they skate to at the exhibition, "Stay Close to Me", is now a duet that's about reciprocated love. The lyrics are changed to reflect a happy couple in love who don't want to be separated.
- This might be them at their most intimate yet: they alternate in taking leads, their eyes almost never leave the other, and Yuri even caresses Victor's cheek during their performance. It's basically the equivalent of a romantic ballroom dance scene you'd normally see in Disney movies or in other romance films, and it's far more romantic than their dance-off at the banquet.
- Let's not forget the fact that they're doing this dance at the exhibition gala. They're literally at their most romantic in front of a live audience and in live television. They're basically showing the entire world that they're this madly in love with each other.
