Work Text:
Victor Nikiforov had a problem. The Aria brand of shoes, which he owned and headed designs for, was known worldwide. Originally made famous for the signature gold soles, Aria had become a household name that the vast majority of households could not afford. Mila Babicheva, top international model, had caused a frenzy when she showed up at New York Fashion Week the previous year wearing Aria stilettos which had been dipped in actual 24-karat gold. The stir it caused had everyone buzzing with anticipation, every fashion magazine and website on the planet asking the question of what Victor would create next. Therein lay his problem. Victor Nikiforov was out of ideas.
His team of designers had sent over their own proposals and concepts, which were all hailed as objectively good, so Victor had waved on his approval without feeling one way or another in regards to any of them. He was stuck. Everything he came up with had been done before, had been explored before, had been worn to the ground with overuse. In his desperation, Victor had sketched up a clear stripper heel, inside which would be fitted a system that cycled rain-like condensation, before realizing that a single leak would result in a lawsuit big enough for him to kiss his dog goodbye.
However, work did not stop when inspiration did.
Victor adjusted the files he had under his arms, tapping his foot as he waited for the elevator to ascend. Aria was supposed to be doing a collaboration with an up-and-coming model, and Victor had said he would personally design for it. The project was exciting, or was meant to be. Heels designed for men. Well, really, they were designed for any gender, but the marketing team wanted to try the bold tactic of running only male models in their ads. Men walking runways in heels was nothing new. Men at the front of an international campaign, however, was.
Whispers and rumors were already circulating, which Victor hated because as much as the idea should excite him, he had nothing. He did not know if he should focus on glitter neon clubwear or aim for the image of a corporate executive in a pressed Armani suit, strutting across the 52nd floor of a Manhattan high-rise while giving powerpoints on sales growth projections. Both ideas were enough to make him want to curl up and die.
The elevator door dinged and Victor stepped out. Today, they were running a test with the face of their campaign, Yuuri Katsuki. The name had rung familiar to his ears. Reportedly, he was Japan’s top model, where he had become well-known for work with COMME des GARÇONS and Shiseido. Modeling for Aria would be his first step worldwide. Perhaps a new face would be just what Victor needed.
Files open as he walked into the room, Victor flicked through some of the designs they would be testing to get a sense of direction. Staff from Aria and partner companies greeted him good morning and Victor made sure to reply to each one. Floodlights were set, the backdrop white to capture the best contrast for the test shoot. The model was already there, makeup said to be finished, the photographer midway through framing shots.
Victor snapped the file shut when he stepped to the masking-tape mark on the floor, and looked up. The first thing he saw was the creamy expanse of shapely legs, a delicate ankle crossed over a calf toned while still holding the curve of softness. Victor’s eyes swept up to witness gorgeously bared thighs. Yuuri Katsuki wore a loosely fitted black romper which bunched around his small waist and showed off the cut of his clavicle in a manner that had Victor instantly understanding how it was he had shot to recognition so quickly. That face was gorgeous too, rounded cheeks over a defined jaw, a small nose and full lips, with lashes so long Victor would have thought Katsuki was wearing false ones if he did not know better. “Wow.” There was his inspiration. “Yuuri?” He tested the name, stretching the vowels and rolling the r. It felt pleasant on his tongue.
Yuuri’s gaze had been down, focused on the positioning of his legs for the photographer. Those long lashes rose, fanned over widening eyes the color of lacquered ebony. Victor was very used to being surrounded by beautiful people, but the cherry blossom blush that bloomed on Yuuri’s cheeks made even him pause. “Oh, Mr. Nikiforov, hi, ummm, h-hello.”
He started forward but Victor held up a hand. “Don’t stand up. And Victor is just fine.” They had work to do, schedules to keep. A model like Yuuri would likely have back-to-back appointments and Victor did not keep people waiting. He stepped over the line, kneeling down on the ground. From his pocket, he pulled measuring tape and tapped his knee to signal for Yuuri to rest a leg on it. The request was heeded, Yuuri stretching out his right. His skin was like silk.
Victor had Yuuri’s measurements in his file, but he always checked for himself. He looped the tape around Yuuri’s ankle, then measured from his heel to the tips of his toes, the arch and the instep. If he was going to design shoes for these feet, he wanted to know everything about them. His touch stayed light. “What do you usually wear?” he asked, so that he could produce a mental image. With that romper on Yuuri now, he imagined strappy kitten heels that showed off those pedicured toes.
“Sneakers?” Yuuri responded and the vision rudely snapped to worn-out Nikes splattered with mud. Victor had once owned such a pair, that his poodle had chewed through one lonely day when she had been a puppy.
“And at home?”
“Right now it’s cold, so… fuzzy socks.”
Victor was in trouble, in more ways than one. He had found the only model on the planet that had not immediately answered both questions by giving him the name of his brand. He had designed house slippers, once, during a depressive episode. They had only produced a hundred but every model claimed to own a pair. Good. Maybe this was what he needed, something different. He looked up the line of Yuuri’s legs, to make eye contact with the still-blushing model. The gel in his hair was not holding, letting a few strands loose to hang over his BB-creamed forehead. Victor liked his look. Yuuri was not androgynous. He was soft and gorgeous without losing an obvious touch of masculinity. Victor could definitely work with that. “I assume you can walk in heels?”
“That was the very first part of the interview.”
“Good.” Victor held out a hand and a pair of black stilettos was dropped into it. He balanced one on his upper thigh and slipped the other on Yuuri’s foot. Yuuri instantly switched legs so that Victor could fit on the second. “Show me.”
Yuuri was not tall for a model, but the heels put him over six feet. He stood with ideal posture and walked with confidence, the heels clicking on the polished floor. Smooth, practiced, natural. He kept his gaze straight ahead, obviously comfortable. The way the lift accentuated his already glorious calves and sculpted the backs of his thighs was an art form in itself.
Victor had Yuuri booked for two hours. He used every minute. Yuuri modeled twenty different pairs of shoes for him, some from the previous season, some from the current, and a couple from a competitor brand. A few Victor had him change out of the second he stepped into them, but Yuuri never complained or questioned it. At the end of the session, they shook hands and Victor thanked him before watching Yuuri walk away. He spent the rest of the day thinking about Yuuri and his legs, but not a single design came to mind.
Once Victor formally approved of Yuuri as their lead model, the locations and sessions were booked. Even though they did not have their star product, the rest of the line was well underway. Two of the designs had already been produced. The first was a white heel, with a silver cross-hatch and sparkling Swarovski crystals accented by the softest of swan feathers. Yuuri modeled those while lounging in a leather armchair against a penthouse backdrop, wearing an open sheer white robe lined with fur. Faux, of course, Victor was an animal lover. Victor fitted the shoes onto his feet again, holding an ankle as he fixed the feathers prior to the photos. The manner in which Yuuri smiled at him left Victor feeling unprofessional.
The second was a midnight blue, the heel counter of which glimmered with a multicolored fleur de lis. Yuuri modeled those in a pressed navy suit that fit his slim waist like a sin, standing on a rooftop at sundown. That time around, Victor held Yuuri’s hands to help keep his balance when the model stepped into the shoes. He liked to think that the contact lingered, Yuuri’s fingers sliding out of his maddeningly slowly.
His sketch pages remained blank.
On set Yuuri was a fatale, with angelic lips that he kept parted when Victor rebalmed them after the makeup girl took too long coming back from a break. Then, he got a taste of ordinary Yuuri, who came in to view his photos wearing rolled-up jeans and a Wayne State hoodie that was far too baggie. He had on sneakers, which were not worn but also were not new. The blue-framed glasses he blinked over, black hair messy as if he had woken up and done nothing, made him look so young and cute that Victor had not recognized him at first.
Yuuri wrinkled his nose at the photos, muttering critiques at himself like many models did. However, none were complaints aimed at the photographers or the lighting staff, all notes he seemed to be making to himself without really realizing that Victor could hear the sound coming from his lips. Photo review finished, their conversation turned to the collaboration, Victor wanting to hear Yuuri’s thoughts about the campaign.
As their talk grew longer, Victor invited Yuuri to continue it over lunch, assuring him there was a place nearby well-suited to a model’s diet. They stayed for two hours, topics drifting from work to work to work to Yuuri’s home back in Japan and then his poodle. They swapped photos and then condensed versions of their life stories. The restaurant manager came by to very politely ask them if they would not mind moving their conversation so that her establishment could close for its afternoon break.
Yuuri agreed to have lunch again, not the next day, but the day after, following another shoot. They started off talking of work again, at the beginning. Victor confessed to him that he was out of ideas. Yuuri told him about his struggles with overcoming anxiety.
Victor had a problem, and it was that Yuuri was too inspiring. Everything that Victor came up with wasn’t enough. It did not capture Yuuri, could not encompass all of him. A magazine article Victor found stated that Yuuri was known as the Eros of Japan, but he was so much more. As soon as the cameras were off him, his shoulders would slump and his smile would escape, his lashes concealing the shy gaze he assaulted Victor with. Yuuri would wiggle his toes when changing out of shoes and roll his neck after changing out of outfits. Victor was not sure which of those was more distracting.
Yuuri was kind, if not sometimes absent-minded. Victor understood how that was, though, when one was focused on their own work. He was also funny, managing to make even Lilia crack into a smile, a feat Victor was not sure he had seen anyone accomplish before. She scolded him for it after, pulling back on his hair extra firmly with her comb. Yuuri shot Victor a look that had him excusing himself, folder covering the lower half of his face. If Lilia caught him laughing, Aria would need to find itself a new director.
The deadline to launch neared and Victor had nothing. He invited Yuuri to lunch once more, asked him everything he could think of, just in case some idea stuck. Instead, his heart ached with faltering resistance when Yuuri stabbed at his kale and moaned about wanting something called katsudon. When he asked Yuuri what he would have wanted to be if not a model, Yuuri replied that he would have probably become an athlete of some sort, maybe a dancer. Victor remembered that Yuuri’s file listed a background in ballet. When he asked Yuuri what he thought Victor would have wanted to be, Yuuri replied—without skipping a beat—a podiatrist. Victor sputtered into his iced coffee and admitted that was an option he might consider if he had Yuuri as a patient. He choked on it again when he felt a touch against his ankle, Yuuri’s foot nudging his.
However, the flash of panic that crossed Yuuri’s face told Victor it was not intentional. With a chuckle, he nudged back, throwing Yuuri a playful wink and a line about how he did not mind. The meal finished to them trying, and failing, to hide small smiles as they played a game of footsie under the table.
Victor told Yuuri he could walk him to the metro station, so they would be able to continue their conversation. Somehow they walked past it and kept going. Victor had an office to get back to and a design to force out. Yuuri had an agent to meet.
Instead, they ended up at a park, watching owners run their dogs and listening to the far-too-skilled talents of a street musician. Victor asked Yuuri if he might dance, but the model blushed and shook his head. After a request of “please,” Yuuri said he would, once Victor finally made a shoe for him. It was teasing, sweet, and it threw Victor off to be called out so directly. In retaliation, Victor grabbed Yuuri’s hands and tugged on them, twirling him in, out, and in before letting go. Yuuri’s laughter was more melodic than the music.
They left the park to dark clouds building overhead, picking up the pace as they headed back toward the restaurant. They made it under the awning just as a squall began pouring onto the streets. Victor had the valet pull his car around, offering Yuuri a ride home so he could stay dry of the rain. It might have worked, except a passing motorist hit a puddle at speed and soaked them both. Victor scowled while Yuuri laughed, running into the restaurant to beg for towels they might be able to spread over the seats.
In the car, Yuuri crossed his legs and gave his gratitude for the unexpected afternoon out. Victor kept his eyes on the road. When they arrived in front of Yuuri’s apartment, Yuuri unbuckled himself and, after a second’s hesitation, leaned over the center console. For a breathtaking moment, Victor thought he would receive a kiss on the cheek but instead Yuuri plucked a wet, dead leaf from his hair. “Thanks for the ride, Victor,” he muttered, looking up from under his lashes, and then he was gone. Out the door of the car and in the door of the lobby. Victor did not want him to go.
“Yuuri!”
The doorframe to Yuuri’s building was stained a lipstick red, the glass panes of it giving sight to the lit chandelier hanging low in the lobby. Yuuri had worn that same black romper to lunch as he had the day Victor had met him. The raindrops that soaked him reflected the light streaming from the inside, dazzling off his skin, his hair, his entire silhouette. Victor saw it. The design.
Yuuri seemed to recognize Victor’s frozen expression, because his beautiful lips formed a circle of understanding. He cast the most dazzling smile and yelled at Victor, “Go!”
Victor went, throwing the gear off Park and slamming his foot onto the gas. He skipped home, heading straight for his office where he threw everything off his desk except the phone, which he put on speaker as he made a hundred calls, fabric shears already in hand. A sketch, a drawing, would not suffice. Victor needed to be able to hold them, needed to see what they would look like on Yuuri.
He was at Yuuri’s door at dawn, having worked through the night.
Victor was well aware it was unprofessional, knew he was inviting trouble if Yuuri had not been as drawn in as he had. Victor would not cross that line, he would simply pass himself off as the inspired artist in a moment of madness. All he needed was to see Yuuri in the heels and that would be enough for him.
Yuuri opened the door with sleep-weighed eyes, yawning into the overly long sleeve of an aged sweatshirt. It hung around mid-thigh, concealing any shorts he wore underneath. He had on his glasses and a pair of fuzzy socks on his feet. Victor’s heart beat a bruise into his ribcage.
“I have them,” Victor choked past his tied tongue, holding out the prototypes of the heels he had carved out himself, painting the heel breast and shank bloodred, stitching mesh over the vamp and setting the crystals along the throat. They were not perfect, not yet, but once Yuuri stepped into them, they might be. “Please, Yuuri, try them on.”
Whatever Yuuri thought about being woken up way too early and offered designer heels, he did not say. Instead he smiled and reached forward, smoothing down Victor’s messy bangs before accepting the shoes. He held the door open with his foot, inviting Victor in with a nod of his head. The apartment was quiet and neat, but warm, with photos on the wall of what looked like family, the toy poodle, and also three different hamsters.
Yuuri excused himself and Victor waited, sitting himself on the arm of the sofa in the living room, too anxious to relax. He heard the click of the heels first, focus jerked toward the sound. Yuuri had not changed, still in the sweatshirt, but the fuzzy socks were gone. Instead, on his feet, he wore the shoes. Victor had made sure they would be in Yuuri’s exact measurements, fitting him without fault as they were meant for him and only him. He walked toward Victor with confident strides, like he was on a runway, approaching before turning, showing them off from every angle. The crystals glittered in the dim morning light and Yuuri’s smile had Victor fluttering.
“Once more,” Victor begged, voice hoarse, and Yuuri obliged.
The oversized sweatshirt made Yuuri’s legs look even longer than usual, stretching out for days in front of Victor. Yuuri turned, his back to Victor, and raised his arms overhead, crossing them behind his head in a pose. The sweatshirt lifted an inch and Victor forgot how to breathe. Because he caught a glimpse of the plush curve of Yuuri’s perfect ass. Because Yuuri was wearing nothing underneath.
“Yuuri…”
The model turned back, that sweet blush on his cheeks, his bottom lip bitten between his teeth. Victor understood how it was that he had come to be known as the Eros of Japan. “Well?” Yuuri asked, his voice hushed like he did not want to break the tension lingering between them. “How do you like it?”
“I love it,” Victor replied and stepped over the line, kneeling down on the ground. The floor was cold and hard against his knees, but Yuuri’s thighs were hot and soft against his face as he buried himself between them. Yuuri’s back hit the wall behind them and his fingers instantly wound into Victor’s hair, pressing him in closer. Victor breathed hot over Yuuri’s skin, mouthing at the velvet of his hardening cock. He had wanted to worship between Yuuri’s legs since the very first moment he had laid eyes on them, since Yuuri’s endearingly stammered greeting.
“Ahh, Victor,” Yuuri exhaled, spreading his legs.
Victor grasped one of his ankles, lifting his leg and pinning it back against the wall. He nuzzled in and ran his tongue over the smooth silk of Yuuri’s balls before sweeping up and swallowing the head of his cock. Yuuri arched into it, muttering encouragement and praise, all in a soft morning voice that Victor wanted to be able to hear daily. He gasped when Victor sucked hard and whimpered when Victor lavished him with his tongue, memorizing Yuuri’s taste and weight in his mouth. Just like the rest of him, Yuuri’s cock was perfect. It nudged at the back of Victor’s throat, left the salt of precum on his tongue, filling his desperation in the most ideal way.
Yuuri’s grip tugged at the roots of Victor’s hair as he came, spilling down Victor’s throat with a warning that Victor had ignored. He drank Yuuri clean and moaned into the flat of his stomach before Yuuri’s hands yanked him up. Their mouths crashed together then, finally, one of Yuuri’s legs hooking around his hip, the heel scraping at the back of his knee. They had definitely crossed the line of professionalism, and would cross it again while tangled in the sheets of Yuuri’s twin bed.
Victor had found his inspiration and he would never lose it again.