GAHHHH my brain decided it needs to do some more #yurionice meta today.
We know Victor arrived in Hasetsu with some <cough> expectations. Not his fault, obviously (a drunken dry hump BE MY COACH) will do that to someone, so it must have physically HURT to see Yuuri putting up walls and avoiding contact like that.
It threw Victor through a loop. We find out that he stayed up drinking all night a few times, and although at the time it was played as a "ugh irresponsible Victor", we know differently. It was because he'd made this giant leap and put his career on hold, and everyone in the press was talking about that.
Yet Yuuri wouldn't let him in (both figuratively and literally). That HURT, and I'd bet meant a couple of Nikiforov panic attacks.
Then Yurio arrives. And Victor has a chance to hit the emergency eject button.
What if Yuuri can't skate his choreography?
What if Yuuri doesn't let him in? Ever?
Victor can declare Yurio the winner and head back to Russia, experiment never completed. But we see his face just before Onsen on Ice starts: the fear that this was a bad idea.
I can't imagine the relief that must have washed over him when Yuuri pulled him in for that hug, just before heading out onto the ice.
And I can't imagine the surprise and joy Victor must've felt to watch Yuuri nail it.
At the end, as Yuuri stood and accepted his accolades, he visibly relaxed into Victor's touch.
Victor probably understood that he still had a long way to go, that this adventure was not going to look like what he thought it was going to look like, but that it was going to be okay.
And it fills me with such warm and snuggly goodness at everything that followed.
It is so so so impressive and amazing that Yuuri Katsuki skated as well as he did at Rostelecom.
Think about it. He gets a call from his sister, who is at the vet with Makkachin who is in a bad way. It's quite possible that this call is exactly the same call he got in Sochi, over a dog who in every way represented Victor AND Makkachin.
The lowest he's ever felt skating was Sochi, and it's possible that history is repeating itself. He sends Victor home (because Yuuri KNOWS how it feels not to be there) and he braces himself against the enormous emotional blow that is losing his coach and reliving his trauma.
No one will EVER be able to claim that Yuuri getting that score, and squeaking into the final was not Herculean.
Victor probably KNEW by then what happened in Sochi. And still Yuuri gave him up (and gave up his support) so that he could be with his sick pup.
It makes you wonder if THAT, watching Yuuri fight through his skate, is when Victor decided he wanted to spend his life with Yuuri.
It was certainly a great reason to sprint through an airport.