Chapter Text
Viktor squabbled outside the television station for at least ten minutes trying to fix his shirt, at one point demanding “divine inspiration” from Yuuri, who just stared. Phichit sent several texts asking to know what Viktor’s abs were like (“ wait, DOES he have an eight-pack? ”) and Yuuri replied that unfortunately the unbuttoned shirt didn’t reveal enough of Viktor to distract from how absolutely ridiculous he looked.
Mustard
Well then ask him!!
“Phichit wants to know what your abs look like,” Yuuri said.
“Washboard,” Viktor said, immediately and without hesitation. “Tablettes de chocolat.”
You
He said something in french
I think about chocolate
Mustard
wtf?
I refuse to believe that
u must have worded the question weird
“Phichit doesn’t believe you,” Yuuri said.
“When I get this shirt off,” Viktor said, suddenly looking more frustrated than Yuuri had ever seen him, “and when we finally get a ghost-proof camera, I am going to mail Phichit an entire slideshow of my beautiful body.”
He looked quite determined.
“Please don’t do that,” Yuuri said. “Look, I know you’re frustrated by all this, but it really doesn’t look that bad.” Yuuri paused, trying to look at Viktor critically. The rumpled shirt was… well, it didn’t exactly match Viktor’s fashionista image, but it was cute. And at least he hadn’t vanished his pants and was stuck going in in his ghost-undies and shoes. “You look nice.”
The determined gleam to send weird pictures to Yuuri’s best friend slowly faded from Viktor’s eyes, and a soft smile spread across his face.
“You’re right. Who cares if I look like a jackass? I’m dead. Let’s go.”
The inside of the television station wasn’t much to write home about– the foyer boasted cheap carpeting and florescent lighting. A man at the front desk signed them in and gave them directions to the recording studio where one Ms. Nila Korhonen was setting up with her crew.
Korhonen looked rather frazzled when they walked in, and the first thing she said was, “Oh my.”
Yuuri glanced nervously at Viktor-- who had been on the brink of hysterics only minutes before-- but the man had settled his most charming camera smile into place and it didn't budge.
“We got a little handsy,” he said with a wink, and if they hadn't been in public Yuuri would have considered smacking him, ghost or not.
Korhonen laughed, apparently interpreting that as a joke, and then, to Yuuri’s horror, said, “He'll have to match.”
She was without a doubt talking about Yuuri.
Viktor just raised an eyebrow as Korhonen summoned an intern to maladjust his wardrobe. Yuuri was instructed to removed his tie, leaving him vaguely wondering if the whole fiasco were some sort of genius plot on Viktor’s behalf to get him to change the tie. He was then told to undo the first button on his shirt, and the intern arranged it to look casually but stylishly rumpled. It was, ironically, probably the exact look Viktor had been going for.
“Yes, I think a sexy yet classy clavicle slip should do it,” Korhonen said, eyeing Yuuri, who couldn’t believe that was apparently something people said. “Maybe muss up his hair a bit.”
The intern gave Yuuri an apologetic look before sticking her fingers his hair. Viktor wolf-whistled, a self-fulfilling prophecy of jackassery.
After that, Korhonen and Viktor were all business, talking about Korhonen’s outline for the interview and where the cameras would be. Yuuri stood next to Viktor, feeling like a slightly deflated third wheel. This was probably the fanciest interview he’d ever been involved in. First of all, it was in an actual studio, even if it was a cheaply-decorated set in Fukuoka. Secondly, Korhonen’s crew had three cameras. Three . Why? Why?
To catch his nervous twitches from every possible angle, he supposed.
At one point, Korhonen shot Yuuri a guilty look and said, “My network doesn't cater to sports fans, and we broadcast primarily in Europe, so… We'll need to explain who you are.”
The intern shoved a styrofoam cup filled with terrible coffee into his hand. “Um,” said Yuuri, feeling like he suddenly needed to defend why he was allowed in Viktor’s presence at all.
Viktor came to his rescue immediately, thank God. “He's the number one Japanese skater. Japan’s Ace. What more do you need to say?”
Korhonen shrugged and moved on to asking how much they were okay talking about their home life, which was a fairly invasive subject but somehow made Yuuri relax slightly. He'd grown up promoting his family home, after all, and was good at separating “family-friendly public details” from “my weird private life.”
When the cameras were prepped and they finally sat down for the interview itself, Yuuri had had three of the terrible coffees and was positive he has going to vibrate out of his own skin at any second.
Next to him, Viktor was giving off a different kind of energy than Yuuri had ever seen from him in person– calm, confident, straight-backed but still somehow loose and casual. It made his ridiculous open shirt look natural. His interview face, Yuuri realized.
Briefly, Yuuri wondered if this was the version Viktor he’d fallen in love with. That thought, however, was quickly discarded: the Viktor that made him fall at first sight was and always would be the Viktor that moved across the ice like he'd invented it.
This Viktor, though. This Viktor was reassuring. This Viktor had publicity in the bag; there was no need to worry. The rushing in Yuuri's ears could stop now, thank you very much, there was no need.
The start of the interview was normal chatting, getting both Viktor and Korhonen comfortable talking to each other. Most of it would be cut, unless Viktor said something particularly attention-grabbing.
“Yes, you could say I drove myself to an early grave ,” Viktor joked. Korhonen tittered. Yuuri did his best to keep his face straight while his soul left his body to join Viktor’s floating an inch above the couch they were on. Not literally, of course, but that had been wildly inappropriate .
Eventually, Korhonen started asking actual questions, and Yuuri felt his whole body go stiff.
Rigor mortis , declared a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Viktor.
Viktor. He should focus on Viktor. Viktor, who was perfectly relaxed and had tried to take off his shirt for him. Viktor, who was completely ridiculous.
Yuuri felt his stiff interview smile melt into something more genuine.
--
Korhonen, who seemed to want to ruin Yuuri’s life, sent a cameraperson after them when they left to get filler shots of them walking around town. Yuuko had taken some footage of their practice the day before and sent that along, but apparently that wasn’t enough.
Korhonen had wanted them take a stroll along the beach, but as soon as they left the building, Viktor informed the cameraperson that wasn’t happening. They were going shopping.
Yuuri almost wished they had just gone to the beach, because it was out of season so at least there wouldn’t be a ton of people staring at them. As it were, they walked a kilometer to a mall, with people ogling at them the entire way. They probably looked like the set-up for some sort of joke: a washed-out skater, a foreign ghost and a cameraperson walk into a mall.
They went to the food court first, and Viktor encouraged Yuuri to cheat on his athlete’s diet and get a burger for lunch.
“You deserve it,” Viktor said, making the motions of patting his shoulder even if it felt like a cool, gentle breeze. “You’re practically vibrating.”
“I’m pretty caffeine sensitive,” Yuuri said, which was true, even if his shaking was at least partially from anxiety. “But if you’re going to give me a cheat day, I’d rather have my mom’s cooking tonight.”
“That’s fair,” Viktor agreed. “But we’re getting ice cream later.”
Yuuri snorted. “Sure,” he said.
Yuuri ordered some fish and steamed vegetables, which he wolfed down because even though Viktor made the cameraperson stop filming while Yuuri ate, it was still a camera and people were staring . He felt like people were watching them all the way to their first stop at the shopping center.
Luckily, once they’d been in the tech store for a couple minutes, the employees and shoppers accepted their presence and went back to whatever they were doing.
Then Viktor descended on the cameras.
He took so many selfies .
“Can I help you?” a teenaged employee asked in English. Her nametag read Yukiko.
“Yes,” Viktor answered immediately. “We need a high-quality spectral-imaging capable camera. I’d like a personal one and maybe a couple of mobile attachments.”
Yukiko stared at him for a quarter of a second, then turned turned to Yuuri with wide eyes hiding just the quietest plea for help. Yuuri knew that face. He had made that face throughout his entire first year in the US. Phichit made that face whenever their Boston-native neighbor tried to talk to him. That was the “I have greatly overestimated my language skills and have no idea what you just said” face.
He could translate, but that seemed rude since she’d approached them in English, so he said: “We want a ghost camera. He also wants one for his phone.”
“And one for your phone,” Viktor corrected. “Maybe your mom’s too.”
“Ah,” Yukiko said, nodding, then gave what was obviously a practiced spiel about the different options they offered. “But, you know, there are new mobiles with ghost-cameras inside,” she finished.
“I thought those exploded,” Viktor said. “I mean, I’m already dead, but I want to keep this one around.”
He jabbed a thumb at Yuuri and winked. Yuuri blushed. The girl giggled and shook her head.
“We don’t sell those. There are some competitors. Nokia, for example…”
Cameras and recording devices in general were highly finicky about ghosts, and virtually no mobile device came with a ghost-proof camera standard. Attachment cameras had been around for a while, but only very recently were major companies selling phones with internal ghost-cameras (for an extra fee, of course).
Unfortunately, the most famous example also happened to be a model that overheated and exploded. Other companies had started installing them, but they were generally poor quality.
“I’ve always been an iPhone man…” Viktor said, very carefully levitating a cellphone. Yukiko did not look nearly as nervous about this as she should be.
“The phone released next month will have an optional ghost-camera,” Yukiko chirped immediately, the faithful salesgirl. “You can pre-order one from our store.”
“Hmm,” said Viktor, tapping his chin.
“Or you can order online if you want time to think,” Yukiko continued. After a thought she reiterated, “From our store.”
Viktor decided to think on it, and Yukiko found them an affordable ghost-friendly landline phone. They played around with some very expensive tablets that could recognize ghost-fingers as well as they could recognize living ones, and Viktor insisted Yuuri try a virtual reality system. Yukiko set up a game where he adopt and care for a virtual puppy. Viktor baby-talked to it.
Then they moved back to the cameras, which Viktor tested very thoroughly by taking selfies with Yuuri, the cameraperson, Yukiko, and a random other ghost in the store.
Eventually they bought two ghost-camera mobile attachments, a regular camera, a ghost-proof phone, some spectrelectrical grounders so Viktor would stop zapping things, and the tablet. Yuuri’s hand shook as he handed over Viktor’s credit card.
He knew Viktor was loaded. He had access to all his banking information. But still. He was impulse buying a tablet .
Who did that?
Yukiko scribbled her email down on a store card (Yuuri assured her he could read the Japanese perfectly well) so they could contact her if they needed more.
“She was so nice,” Viktor said as they left. “Should I try to find her on twitter? Insta? How old do you think she was? I try not to follow minors.”
“Uh…” Yuuri said.
“You wouldn’t understand her posts anyway,” the camraperson said.
Viktor pouted. “I’ve been doing duolingo every night…”
Viktor had not gotten very far in duolingo, since he could barely type. Still, he could understand some basic conversation in Japanese and read the most common of kanji, at a level that surprised even Yuuri. However, he still struggled with conveying anything more complicated than “I like Hiroko-san’s tsukemono,” and a young woman’s informal tweets were probably years beyond him. Yuuri thought this was okay, though. Japanese was a difficult language to learn, ghosts supposedly had a lower neuroplasticity than the living, and it wasn’t like Yuuri himself spoke any Russian. He’d taken a semester in the hopes of understanding some of Viktor’s Russian-language posts, and he still couldn’t say much more than dasvidanya .
“She didn’t recognize you,” Yuuri said, by which he meant, “Maybe you shouldn’t blow up a random person’s twitter who doesn’t realize what she’s gotten herself into.” Viktor raised his eyebrows like Yuuri had perhaps meant, “If she’s not a fan, she’s not worth it.”
“I–I mean,” Yuuri stuttered, but then Viktor was nodding.
“Yes, I don’t think she wants me to follow,” Viktor said. “Her intentions were pure.”
Yukiko’s intentions were obviously to have higher sales, but none of them said anything. Instead, they made their way to the ghost specialty store, where Korhonen’s cameraperson got the most embarrassing filler footage of all.
For one thing, the store had weird… ghost… gloop.
It was marked as “ectoplerm.” It smelled like a cleaning product. It looked like green slime. And it coated Viktor’s hand as if his hand were actually solid.
“Yuuri,” Viktor rasped, caressing his face.
“I don’t like this,” Yuuri said, his face being caressed by ghost gloop.
“Is my kink not your kink?” Viktor asked, mockingly hurt. He did draw his hand back, to be fair.
“We have self-heating–” the salesperson started to say.
“ No ,” Yuuri interrupted.
Viktor then spent over an hour playing with various ghost-friendly toys, which included a mirror that showed his reflection even when he went invisible, “easy-levitation dehumidifiers” for ghosts who lived in humid climates and whom were plagued by condensation, and ghost-tasers that gave off mild electric shocks that made him giggle. He bought a book on materializing clothes (which came with a magazine of different, easily envisioned styles) and sniffing salts that supposedly gave ghosts highs.
“To celebrate when you win,” Viktor said. “I’ve already picked you out a brand of champagne. Oh, but the Grand Prix Final is in Barcelona this year, isn’t it? Should I change it to cava?”
Yuuri’s face was hot. “You might be getting ahead of yourself there. I haven’t even qualified yet.”
Viktor waved his hand dismissively. “Even if you don’t perfect Eros in time, you’ll still blow away the competition at Nationals.”
Yuuri couldn’t tell if Viktor’s confidence made him more or less nervous.
They didn’t get ice cream because Yuuri was lactose intolerant, but they did go into a candy store and Yuuri filled a bag with gummies for his mom and sister, who both loved them. Viktor dragged them into a few high-end fashion stores that Yuuri felt uncomfortable just standing in, and then the cameraperson started grumbling about wanting to go home.
Yuuri didn’t understand why the cameraperson didn’t just leave, but he was tired too and coaxed Viktor to leave buying him a “proper suit and tie” for another day.
“So,” the cameraperson said as they left the mall, “beach next?”
Yuuri winced. Viktor whistled.
“Is Ms. Korhonen going to pay for the cab?” Viktor asked.
The cameraperson shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
Viktor turned to Yuuri. “What do you think?”
Yuuri sighed. “I guess. But you’re carrying the bags.”
They walked down the beach at sunset, the cameraperson following at a distance. It looked disgustingly romantic on the final cut of the interview.
--
The day after the interview, Viktor let Yuuri sleep in, and after that it was business as usual. Mari teased Yurio at breakfast, Yurio and Viktor said awkward thank yous in Japanese to Yuuri’s parents, and the the rest of the day was spent at the Ice Castle. Yuuri put in a few more evenings at Minako-sensei’s dance studio, and Viktor reached level 16 of the Kim Kardashian App.
He married his in-game ghost boyfriend.
“Why does he look like me?” Yuuri asked.
“Because I can gift him make-overs,” Viktor said. “Do you want to see me gift him a nice tie?”
Yuuri rolled his eyes. The digital couple had a baby named Yuratchka. Yuuri didn’t ask about that one. He didn’t know what was more horrifying: Viktor naming his fake-child after Yurio, or Viktor naming his fake-child after him .
Viktor photographed all this religiously with his new camera, and finally figured out how to post photos himself. The ghost-friendly tablet made him capable of responding to professional emails himself and advancing in duolingo, but he still stuck to his phone for most online tasks. It was, he explained, good practice.
Viktor’s various social media accounts had gained a huge influx of followers since his death, even more when that video had gone viral, and now there were multiple fan-accounts dedicated to interpreting Viktor’s #ghostposts. The caption “shhhheep” on a six second video of Yuuri falling asleep on his empty breakfast plate sparked debate. Did he mean Yuuri was counting sheep, or did he mean “sleep”? Meanwhile, a picture taken from their roof of his ghostly hand held out in front of sunrise, captioned “lever dude,” led to wild theories. It didn’t help that he’d posted it six times.
Yuuri hadn’t even noticed all this happening, until Phichit texted him to ask if “lever dude” was some sort of obscure Emperor’s New Groove reference.
You
He says it was supposed to say sunrise in french
But his phone was set to english and it autocorrected
It made him laugh and that made it post a bunch of times
““Accidentally””
Mustard
I sense you’re implying something here
Perhaps that your lifetime hero and soulmate is an actual troll
But perhaps not
You
Shhhh
Mustard
I cant believe you didnt notice all the fan accounts
Two months ago youd be running one
You
You know im just a lurker
Mustard
Tru
You'd just be sending me screen caps
And ranting about how everyone’s wrong
“Viktor’s fav jello is RED doesn't EVERYONE know that”
You
It's green actually
besides
I havent been paying attention to viktor nikiforov media buzz much lately
Since he, yknow, is here
All the time
Mustard
Forever
You
Forever
Haha
Mustard
I looked up lever dude
Lever du soleil
He should have written it ‘souleil’
Lever dude SOULeil
You
He doesnt think thats funny
I didnt even tell him that joke was from you :’(
Mustard
Wtf? ur stealing my jokes now???
im offended at viktor too that joke is hilarious
Youre both disappointments
One morning soon after, Yurio announced, “I have a flight back to Russia tomorrow.”
There was a long silence.
“Sorry,” Maru said. “I think Small-Yuri is saying he is leaving with no warning. Am I correct?”
She said it like she was asking Yuuri for comprehension confirmation, except she said it in English, so obviously she understood.
“I can’t stay here forever,” Yurio snapped. “I was supposed to bring the dog here, and that’s it.”
Yurio had very obviously only come to whine at Viktor, and wasn’t ‘supposed’ to bring Makkachin anywhere, but that didn’t stop Hiroko from kidnapping him from practice to visit all the souvenir stores in Hasetsu. It was very important to her all of Yurio’s friends and family back home got souvenirs. Not that Yurio understood anything she was saying.
“Now that he’s gone,” Viktor said after Hiroko had dragged him off. “We need to talk about Eros.”
Yuuri’s palms went sweaty. He knew his performance was nowhere near his own potential. Minako had helped him improve the routine quite a bit by switching his approach to a more feminine one, but he’d just hit another ceiling. He’d told Viktor the theme might be impossible for him as he was now, but they both knew that was just an excuse.
“Nationals are almost here, and as your coach it’s my job to push you to new limits…” Viktor started babbling. He’d given a version of this speech at least five times before, except now Nationals were less than two weeks away and Yuuri really hadn’t made many improvements. Yuuri stared at Viktor’s shoes.
“...should I make a mail order for the ectoplerm?” Viktor finished, and that was a new addition to the speech.
“N-no!” Yuuri protested. “Why do you always make weird jokes instead of real advice?”
“Excuse me?” Viktor countered. “I’m just trying to push you–”
“Well you’re not doing a very good job of it, are you?” Yuuri snapped back, his face going red. “I need support and advice, not– not constantly being pushed out of my comfort zone.”
Viktor blinked, annoyance fading. “Your comfort zone? I didn’t realize–”
“You didn’t realize you make me uncomfortable?” Yuuri’s voice was shaking. He was over-reacting and didn’t know how to stop. “You’re always joking– about us, about you dying– and even when I ask you to stop you do it again and again–”
“Yuuri–”
“You never listen –”
“Yuuri, you should have told me–”
“Nevermind.” Yuuri inhaled a long, shuddering breath. He needed to stop wherever this was going. “Nevermind,” he repeated. “I’ll– I’ll just try it again.”
And he did, and it was awful.
“I think we should call it a day,” Viktor ventured after Yuuri fumbled a basic step sequence for a second time. Yuuri assented, and they had the most awkward walk home yet.
--
Yuuri didn’t bring up his blow-up again, and while Viktor shot him weird moping looks several times that indicated he wanted to say something, he never did. Yurio left without indicating he noticed anything between them, and his departure was distraction enough that Yuuri’s family didn’t seem to notice either.
The awkwardness faded slowly, and they were nearly back to normal by the time the interview finally aired. They had to watch it online, and Viktor had Yukiko send them a cable to hook Yuuri’s laptop up to Yu-topia Inn’s television. Several of Toshiya and Minako’s drinking buddies showed up, as well as the Nishigori family and Ms. Takanaka, the pharmacist who’d wanted a picture with Viktor at the train station.
“Yuuri is so handsome,” she said when his face first graced the scene. Yuuri watched it through his fingers, the way he used to watch horror films when he was a kid. He was tempted to get up and leave, but that would drag Viktor along with him.
“Oh good, they got rid of that tie,” Mari drawled, and the crinkled of annoyance in the back of Yuuri’s head at that was enough to give him the strength to keep watching.
The interview was a segment Korhonen periodically hosted about recent celebrity deaths. She started off with a spiel about Viktor’s life– five time world champion, hailed as a skating god, the Usain Bolt of skating, blah blah blah– and then she cut to Viktor egging Yuuri on in the virtual reality game, explaining that Viktor now found himself in Japan.
(Oh yes, the high tech gaming system where Yuuri could walk a dog in a digital world. Of course that’s how she wanted to introduce Japan.)
“So what were your first thoughts?” Korhonen asked, and Yuuri realized he had absolutely no idea what happened in this interview. He had vague memories of some of his own answers, and of staring at Viktor the whole time, but almost nothing of what Viktor had actually said. Apparently nerves were as bad as alcohol for him.
“Believe it or not, I didn’t actually think I was dead,” TV-Viktor said. “I remembered speeding straight for a tree, but then– I don’t know what I thought was happening. Then I saw his face, and I just thought, ‘Oh no, I really missed this one up.’ But at the same time, Japan was exactly where I wanted to be.”
“So you’d met your soulmate before?” Korhonen asked.
“Yes,” Viktor nodded. “We met at the Grand Prix Final the previous season.”
This cut to some footage from the Grand Prix, and an explanation of what it was, but then–
“I’ve admired Yuuri’s skating for a while now,” Viktor continued, “and he sort of brushed me off when we first met–”
What.
“–but I definitely felt a connection when we finally got to talk at the banquet.”
What .
“Did you know you were soulmates?” Korhonen asked.
Viktor laughed good-naturedly. “No, but I was definitely interested in him, if you know what I mean. Actually, he had me considering coaching him even before–”
WHAT .
Viktor started talking about how he’d been at an impasse in his career ad had been considering retiring anyway, but Yuuri was barely paying attention. The sound of the TV faded to static, and all Yuuri could make out clearly was his own heartbeat. He had messed up. He had messed up big time.
He didn’t remember the banquet. At all. What had he done? What had he done?
“–so maybe dying was a blessing in disguise,” TV-Viktor said, and Yuuri definitely remembered that because it had upset him. On TV, he pressed his lips together in quiet disapproval.
So why couldn’t he remember Viktor being definitely interested in him?
“Are you okay?” Viktor whispered in his ear. “We can leave if you want. I’ll just watch it later, when you’re asleep.”
“I’m fine,” Yuuri squeaked back, his voice weirdly high-pitched. “I just need to ask you something. Uh, later.”
TV-Viktor then started talking more seriously about their current goals together, about the “privilege getting to know Yuuri as both a skater and a person.” Both TV-Yuuri and the actual Yuuri turned bright red. Minako cooed.
There were some normal scenes of their practice together, and then a clip of them squatting on the ice together and giggling. It was taken from the opposite side of the rink.
Then Korhonen’s voiceover started talking about that stupid HHH video. The video played, along with a montage of comments, and then it cut back to the shot of them giggling like children. Viktor flipped upside down, and Yuuri laughed so hard he lost his footing and fell from a squat onto his butt. The camera– which was positioned right at the height of the barrier to the rink, the exact height of a certain set of triplets– scooted towards them.
“We found a truly ancient skate in the locker room, and just started playing around with it,” Viktor’s voice-over explained as the camera moved.
Right, okay. Yuuri vaguely remembered Korhonen asking about the video. It was basically the only real news the general public had gotten about them, after all. But he didn’t realize Yuuko had sent Korhonen… whatever this video was.
Viktor went invisible, and the camera angled to show the skate move across the ice. It was almost the same video as the vine, except from a slightly different angle. And filled with the sounds of Yuuri’s whooping laughter.
“Sh–!” Yuuri’s swear was censored as Viktor’s hand flickered over the skate. “You’re visible!”
“Ack!” Viktor said, and the skate started spinning rapidly as he removed his hand. This, of course, only made Yuuri laugh harder.
The scene cut back to the interview set. “You both seem very happy together,” Korhonen observed.
Yuuri nodded animatedly. She’d talked to him specifically for at least ten minutes before she’d asked this question, but the edit made it seem like he’d volunteered himself for the question.
“Yes, of course,” TV-Yuuri answered. “I mean, I can’t speak for Viktor–” he blushed and glanced over at his soulmate. “–but I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.”
Both TV-Viktor and real Viktor beamed at him.
“AAAW!” the Nishigori triplets chorused. Yuuri buried his hands in his face. They didn’t even know what he was saying!
TV-Yuuri blabbered on about how Viktor crashing into his life had been hectic but overall had been wonderful, and then Korhonen concluded with some gushy statement as the footage of them walking down the beach played. There was a final shot of Yuuri landing a jump, and Korhonen urged her watchers to “watch out for the skating duo at Japanese Figure Skating Championship.”
Yuuri finally let out his breath.
“Yuuri! You’re so handsome!” Hiroko cried, throwing her arms around him. She hadn’t understood 99% of what was said in the interview. “Viktor too!”
There was some congratulating all around from their guests, and then one by one they left.
“What did you want to ask me?” Viktor asked when they were finally alone. “You’re really tense. I know ectoplerm grosses you out, but I give a really good backrub–”
“Viktor,” Yuuri said. Viktor shut up. “I. Uh. Okay. Uh…”
There were four thousands thoughts running through his head and all he could think was WHAT DID I DO AT BANQUET .
“About. About when we met–”
Viktor nodded intently, and then… disappeared.
“Viktor,” Yuuri repeated. “You’re invisible again.”
Silence.
“Viktor, I’m trying to tell you something,” Yuuri said. No reply. “Um, are you okay? Viktor?”
Nothing. Viktor was gone.
--
“The fuck ?” someone said. She was holding a bottle of Lemoncello.
“Holy shit,” another woman said, having apparently dropped her drink. Dark, alcohol-scented liquid puddled out around her. “I can’t believe that worked.”
Viktor had no idea where he was. He was in… someone else’s house… staring at a particularly hideous sectional couch. Someone was passed out on it, sharpie doodles drawn across her face and arms. His own damn interview was on the TV behind him, and a ouija board was spread out on the coffee table.
He should have seen this one coming.
A third woman, who was holding the ouija board’s pointer, whooped in triumph, and grabbed the bottle of Lemoncello from her accomplice. She took a swig.
Who drank Lemoncello from the bottle ?
“Quick– wha– what’d’we ask him?” the Lemoncello bottle shot monster asked.
“I’m…” slurred the woman who’d dropped her drink. “I’m gonna punch the ghost.”
“Ghost? More like GILF ,” hollered the first woman. She reclaimed the bottle of Lemoncello and took a drink herself, apparently because these people were uncultured heathens.
“Wouldn’t it be pr’nounced JILF?” mumbled the person on the couch.
Viktor very distinctly wanted out of here.
“How’d’ya…. Um…” The woman with the pointer said, apparently very intent on the idea of summoning a celebrity ghost and asking him questions. “Ice jump?”
“JILF! JILF! JILF!” the one with the Lemoncello started chanting. The one who wanted to punch him started to draw her fist back.
Viktor put on his crowd-pleasing smile to try and calm them down, even as his brain started to chant there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home . He had, after all, dealt with drunk fans before, but certainly after he’d been summoned against his ghostly will–
The entire interaction lasted about ninety seconds, and then his as back at the bar in Hasetsu.
--
“VIKTOR!” Yuuri was in his face immediately, and put both arms right through him as if he were trying to hug him. He couldn’t, of course, and would have fallen on his face if Viktor hadn’t psychically caught him.
“Where did he go?” Hiroko asked, looking not quite as panicked but equally worried. The entire finally had gathered in Yuuri’s bedroom.
“You don’t do that on… not accident!” Mari yelled, shaking her fist at Viktor.
“‘On purpose,’” Viktor provided. “It wasn’t on purpose, though. I was… summoned.”
There was silence, and all three of the other Katsukis turned to Yuuri in confusion.
“Like… with a ouija board?” Yuuri asked, nose wrinkling. “I didn’t think that was real.”
“Well apparently it is,” Viktor said. Then in a whine, he added, “It was so awful, Yuuri.”
Yuuri sighed, and turned to explain to his family what happened.
“Were they fans?” Mari said.
“Maybe,” Viktor said. “They certainly got the idea from watching Korhonen’s segment.”
“Could this happen again?” Toshiya asked. “Maybe you should see an expert.”
Yuuri translated for Viktor, then tacked on, “But Nationals are this week. We won’t have time.”
Viktor sighed. “We’ll figure something out. We’re both too stressed to think of anything now. Hot springs, I think, and then bed.”
Yuuri nodded. That was definitely a better idea than googling ‘top ten times an exorcist summoned a ghost and then killed them.’ A much better idea.