Hi there! Hope you've been doing alright :') If it's okay, I'd like to request for a scenario of Phichit w/ a fem! shy s/o -- where s/o gets to ice skate for the first time, and gets pretty nervous about falling down a lot. She admires Phichit very much though, and would really love to meet him! AND he's the one who inspired her to ice skate. :') Thank you very much for reading this -- take care and stay safe always!
Catch Me When I Fall (I Fell For You Before I Realised)
Phichit Chulanont
Notes: Nearly 1k words? That’s more than I’ve written in a very long time. I wasn't super sure how exactly to write this (I wasn't sure how they would be S/Os if they were meeting for the first time) so I tried my best to write a logical timeline, and ended up with more backstory than actual skating. Still, I hope you liked this, anon! Thank you for requesting <3
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You’d been classmates in primary school. That’s when you met him. He hadn’t been a professional figure skater then, but he was every bit as energetic and carefree as the world would later see him to be. You, on the other hand, were shy. Quiet whenever you could be, and blushing in embarrassment after moments where you weren't. But Phichit, even at the age of eleven, was magnetic, drawing people to him and coaxing them out of their shells. Coaxing you out of yours. Four years later, he'd go on to do the same for one Yuuri Katsuki, but this is before. When you both were eleven, and he was the one to make you laugh openly, beyond the shy smiles you used to give.
He left you when you were fifteen. Packed up, apologised, and moved to Detroit. To chase his dream. You didn't hold him back, of course, not when you knew how big this was for him. You couldn't shut down the quiet voice in your head whispering to be more selfish and hold onto him. But you didn't. And so he left.
You'd tried to keep in contact, but upper secondary was hard, and Phichit had it worse, balancing high school, in a new country, with a professional's training schedule to boot. Contact dwindled, and by the time his first competitive season under Celestino rolled around, you'd barely even texted him anymore. You caught glimpses on social media, of course, with Phichit being an avid social media addict, but you were too shy to text first, and he was too busy. You watched all his competitions, feeling less and less like his friend, and more like a generic supporter. He still captivated you with his skating, and you wished you'd gone skating with him before he left. You wanted to skate now, to feel the euphoria he felt on ice. But you never did. You were too scared.
When he announced he was moving back to Bangkok, you'd stared at his post for what felt like millenia. You let yourself feel the smallest bit of hope that you might see him again, and then flushed at the thought. He was so different now. He felt like a faraway dream. But against all your expectations, he'd turned up at your door, five weeks later. You'd nearly gone into cardiac arrest, but you let him in, and as he sat in the same spot on your bedroom floor, you felt like everything had changed, yet at the same time, nothing had changed. You let him tell you about Detroit, carrying the conversation as he always had, and eventually, he coaxed you into telling him what you'd been up to in the three years he was gone.
He'd apologised, of course. He'd apologised for growing distant, as if it was entirely his fault, when it was your fault just as much as it was his. More, you'd tried to argue, but he wouldn't let you. Tears were shed, and by the time you'd parted, you had his new number in your phone and a heart both incredibly heavy and yet incredibly full.
Contact between the two of you started back up, and you'd found yourself falling for him—how could you not, when he was so endearing, so captivating? You didn't have the courage to tell him how you felt, but you hoped he felt the same. Life had already granted you two miracles, one when you met him, and one when he came back to you. You hoped it wasn't too much to ask for one more.
As it happens, it wasn't. Phichit asked you to be his girlfriend, high off the euphoria of his gold medal at the Cup of China, and what else could you do but say yes? As the world marvelled at Victuuri's love story taking shape, you revelled in the feeling of finding yours. Eventually, you worked up the courage to tell him about the one thing you regretted when he left, that you never skated with him, when it was such an important part of his life. Which brought you to your current predicament.
“Phichit, I can barely keep my balance on land, how am I going to skate like this?” You were at Phichit’s home rink, skates on, and slowly hobbling to the rinkside. You weren’t sure if you were shaking because you were unsteady on the thin blade guards, or because of the nerves.
Phichit, to his credit, was trying to both hype you up and calm you down. He guided you from the gate with a reassuring smile, already on the ice and moving naturally in his own skates like they were sneakers. “You’ll be fine,” he soothed, “I’ll be right next to you, and I’ll catch you if you fall. You trust me, don’t you?” he continued, and you smiled back, shaky but not hesitant. You trusted him, without a doubt, and with a deep breath, took off your blade guards and took a careful step onto the ice.
You hadn’t been prepared for quite how slippery it was. You knew it had to be, obviously, because it was ice, but you felt yourself slip a little bit, almost immediately, and panic overtook you for a split second, until Phichit caught you. Right. He wouldn’t let you fall. He held his hands out to you and you took them, letting him gently guide you forward until you were skating in tandem, with him skating backwards and pulling you along. After the initial fear, you found that it was fun, and freeing. You’d let go of Phichit’s hands, slowly, and started to rely more on your own movement, until you could skate around the rink comfortably. The entire time, Phichit was there at your side, steadying you when you slipped, and helping you up if you fell. It was comforting, knowing that he was there.
You knew, without a doubt, that he’d always be there.
I just reread an aMAZING fanfic (I’ll put the link in the comment box) and when it came to the wedding scene, Viktor and Yuuri said their vows in eachother’s native language. Now that concept is super sweet but I also I think that Phichit, best man extraordinaire, was sobbing right next to Yuuri all the while he (and I guess every other non-Japanese, non-Russian figure skater) had absolutely no clue what either of the grooms just said. But they vibe. Like they already know these two are so in love anyway. What’s a language barrier to soulmates?
