Chapter Text
Yuuri stood behind Yuri just inside of an automatic door. He was keenly aware that his backside was causing the door to repeatedly slide open because there wasn’t enough space for him to move in any further. They weren’t in a market, or any place where you’d expect such a door, rather a packed bar on St. Mark’s Place, a block or so from where he’d spent the day slinging bowls of pork cutlet. While a hostess with perfectly arched brows and a red-painted scowl squinted dubiously at the Russian’s ID, Yuuri scanned the bizarrely-themed izakaya, growing more and more embarrassed every time his ass triggered the sensor and a little chime announced its presence. He pushed forward a bit and was rewarded with an over-the-shoulder glare from Yuri when he bumped into him.
Stuck between a door and a hard face, his mind randomly supplied. A third of himself chuckled inwardly, another third glowed with pride at a passably clever manipulation of an English proverb, and the last third had a minor conniption as his ass tripped the door sensor yet again.
He had already been on edge just by being in the area. Yuuri specifically avoided this raucous block of curiosities, its sidewalks packed with enough people to take his anxiety from its usual low hum to full shrieking in his skull. So that evening when the behoodied blonde had suddenly plunged with confidence into the masses, Yuuri had only had a blink of time to decide whether this mysterious “business proposition” was worth the strain on his nerves. He steeled himself and walked in close step behind the potential paycheck, dodging a drunk Hello Kitty themed bachelorette party and shying away from a guy on the curb aggressively hawking bootleg DVDs. When they finally slowed down in front of their destination, Yuuri’s stomach had tightened in trepidation.
“You been to this place?” Yuri had jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, gesturing to the izakaya. A passing tourist laughed like a squawking bird and the acrid scent of weed wafted around them. A giant tanuki statue outside the door of the establishment glared at him with demonic red eyes and a conspicuous erection.
Dazed by the surreality, Yuuri had to push the words out. “Uh, no.”
“Oh, it’s crazy in there,” Yuri had laughed as he hopped down the steps to the small courtyard where people had been lounging around, waiting for their names to be called. A girl pushed her face into a hole in a painted board that gave her the body of a yakuza and grinned wide as a friend snapped her picture. Behind her, a group of guys were crowded around a dilapidated cotton candy machine that whirred loudly as it pumped out clouds of violet spun sugar.
At that point, Yuuri had wondered if he could casually bolt to the subway, but a menagerie of crust punks lounging on the stairs to his left had eyed him up to panhandle. He noped his way down the steps and pulled up behind his only lifeline in this madhouse. Said lifeline was arguing with a young Japanese hostess in a red happi holding a clipboard. He hadn’t been able focus on their conversation, too distracted this time by a massive pile of baby heads staring down at him from the thrift shop window on the second floor. A screen above the decapitated doll skulls flashed FUCK PUTIN!!! before going into a Ramones video. Sure, why not?
Now, finally in the air-conditioned and dimly lit space and able to move away from the demonic ass-detecting door, Yuuri held out his identification with only a slight tremble while his acquaintance bitched about having to produce a second ID—“The fuck is point of city ID if not proof I can drink??”. As his age was verified, the Japanese man raised his eyes and took in the painfully kitsch distillation of various bizarre aspects of his country’s culture. The beer hall decor was a violent clash of Shinto festival paraphernalia, 70’s exploitation cinema posters, and Shunga-style pictures of geisha in dirty positions with mollusks. Enka music warbled over crackling speakers, competing with the roaring din of diners sat in low thatched chairs around tables.
“Nimei-sama desu!” The hostess’s shrill call announcing their arrival to the staff snatched Yuuri’s attention back, and he quickly followed her as she grabbed two menus and led the way to their table.
The open kitchen to his left responded with a rousing “Irrashaimase!”. He hardly had time to take that in as they were seated directly across from a glassed off interior courtyard that held nothing but two naked, anatomically detailed mannequins with long-nosed tengu masks over their faces.
“Look!” Yuri laughed as he sat down on one of the small chairs, leaning back and pointing at the female casually. “That thing has massive tits, huh?”
“Toilet,” was all Yuuri could manage to get out before he bolted to the back of the establishment, rushing past a wall of defunct pachinko machines and locking himself in a bathroom covered in sharpie graffiti and chopstick wrapper wallpaper. Taking a few moments to breathe, he methodically washed his face and hands at the sink with cold water, trying to calm down from being dragged to this weird brothel-themed dinner for what was supposed to be a professional meeting.
He wasn’t a prude or anything—he definitely had a healthy sex drive and plenty of racy little fantasies to bother him at night in the very awkward bunk bed situation he shared with Nishigori. But something about overt and unprompted sexuality had always made him distinctly uncomfortable. It made his chest feel tight, like being on stage in a play in front of a faceless crowd and you couldn’t remember your lines or what you were supposed to do next. He blamed that feeling on why he was a twenty-four-year-old virgin; the few sexual situations he’d been on the precipice of had always soured when the person he was with purred a suggestion into his ear or touched him too erotically too quickly and it broke his brain, sending him spiraling out of the warm haze of intimacy and right back into the frigid waters of his anxiety.
He quietly debated taking the emergency Xanax in his wallet as he dried his hands, but it was his last one, and his dealer hadn’t returned his texts in weeks. Fuck it. He ran a hand through his hair to push it back off his face and left the little miracle in his back pocket. Fuck it all.
Exiting the bathroom, he stopped short as the song that had been piped into the room ended and an air raid siren started bawling over the speakers. Sure, naturally. Walking back to the table, he looked around to see if anyone else was cognizant of the madness he’d been plunged into (no, everyone else was wasted), and sat down across from the Russian who was drawing a thick-headed pour of Asahi out of a beer tower sitting in the middle of their table.
“Here, man, drink up. You look like you need it.”
Yuuri tentatively took the beer and stared into it for a minute. He wasn’t sure of the cost, but if he had to go halves on a beer tower with this kid, it was going to eat up the profits of about half an hour’s worth of Katsudon sales. With a sigh, he drank.
“So this place is pretty much just like Japan, huh?”
Yuuri couldn’t tell if it was a joke or not and kept his poker face in place until the boy slapped the table top and grinned, taking a long sip of his beer. Smacking his thin lips, he wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. “This beer is like sexy canoe.”
Yuuri choked on the mouthful of amber liquid he was drinking, getting it down with only a little dribble over his chin that he wiped at with a napkin. “Wh-...uh, what was that—”
“Fucking close to water.” The blonde snickered and took another deep sip from his glass, apparently pleased and completely oblivious to his misfired joke. “We should drink vodka over a good deal making, but maybe you can’t handle it if this is what you grew up with, huh?”
“....are you really 21?” Yuuri ventured skeptically, his eyes narrowing a little behind his glasses.
“Hey, fuck you man! I got in here, didn’t I?” Yuuri must have looked a little startled by the easy way he was cursed out, because a menu was passed across the table into his hands. “Anyway, here: order up a bunch of stuff for us to try, all the good stuff.”
Yuuri hesitated, the menu’s distracting collage of food pictures and large prices in starbursts only sort of registering in his overwhelmed mind. “I, uh—”
“Don’t worry, it’s on me!” Yuri wiggled a credit card between two fingers with an arrogant smirk. “It is business meeting, so my company covers it. It’s like a….what’s the word? Deduction or whatever.”
Yuuri was still suspicious of the little punk’s true age, but wasn’t about to turn down a free dinner. “Uh, okay, is there anything you don’t eat?”
“Pfft, we’re in the food business! We eat everything, right?” Yuri grinned and took another sip of his beer, sitting up straighter in his seat. “Anyway, order up and then we’ll talk business.” His glass green eyes dragged away from Yuuri’s face to the walls around the room. He swallowed another gulp and then pointed at the white paper strips that lined them, with various kanji and kana written vertically over prices listed in yen. “What are those?”
Yuuri glanced up, registering the papers that hung like hundreds of ofuda, protecting the restaurant from the spiritual malaise that might creep in from the sordid streets outside. “Oh, that’s just the menu items but written in Japanese. Like,” he pointed to one close by. “That one says takoyaki for 500 yen,” he pointed to the next one, “okonomiyaki for 700 yen,” he pointed to the one after that which was written in red ink and his mouth stopped working, his cheeks going bright red to match.
“What, what’s it say?” Yuri looked quickly between his table-mate's horrified look and the paper, wanting in on the secret.
“K….Katsudon!” He couldn’t say what was actually written out loud without dying on the spot, and damned if he was going out in a porn-themed izakaya in the East Village. Luckily, a waitress stopped at their table and distracted the younger of the two from the awkward topic long enough for Yuuri to put in an order. He’d chosen several items from the menu, some of his traditional favorites from home, but also a couple he knew would be suitable for a Western palate.
“And Katsudon, order a bowl of that,” Yuri nudged him under the table with his sneakered foot.
Yuuri added the request to the order and handed off their menus, taking a moment to refill his beer from the tower and take a deep drink. Once he’d gotten it down, he leveled his gaze across the table and went into pro-mode. “So, what’s this business you want to talk about?”
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Yuri started, settling in and talking with animated hands. “My company does catering, yeah? Kind of a big time local operation, we work with SWM Events, you heard of it?”
“Uh, no,” Yuuri shook his head, brow furrowed. Wait, had he? The acronym sounded familiar.
“Okay, well, they basically do lots of parties around the city, like weddings and stuff, but for people who are stupid rich. My company is contracted to do their catering.”
“Your company.”
Yuri squinted across the table. “Yeah, the company I run with my grandfather.”
Your grandfather’s company. Yuuri nodded, sipping his beer and staying quiet about it.
“Anyway, there’s a wedding coming up, and the bride is like….REALLY into Japan. I guess she lived there for a summer and she’s asking specifically for katsudon to be served at the reception. It’s her favorite, but it’s really hard to cook right, you know? So basically, I’m looking for an outside contractor, because none of my people are really solid on Japanese style and this bitch is so fucking picky. You got any experience doing catering?”
“Yeah, actually,” Yuuri replied, filling up his glass from the dwindling tower. “I grew up working at my parent’s place. It’s an onsen—uh, like, a bath house.” He hated telling this particular factoid to Americans because it inevitably earned him a strange look. Most Americans had hang ups about public bathing and the word “bath house” in particular had certain connotations that led them to believe he’d grown up amongst steamy homosexual debauchery.
If only.
“Oh, da, like banya. My grandfather takes me to Mermaid Spa sometimes in Brooklyn. That’s really cool,” he frowned, grabbing awkwardly at a takoyaki with his chopsticks, having trouble picking it up, “But d’you do lots of catering at a bath?”
“Normally, we’d just serve lunch and dinner, but we had a banquet room for parties and I’d help with that. What kind of headcount are we talking about?”
“They have until a week before to finalize their headcount, but they’ve currently locked in at 500 guests. How many people fit in your parent’s banquet room?”
“Uh…twelve,” Yuuri replied.
“You think you’re up for this?” The Russian leveled him with a gaze that was all business. “It’s a different set up than a food truck. People think feeding a crowd is easy, but there’s a lot to consider…” He sighed and took a long sip of his beer. “I mean, you don’t seem like a total moron and your food is really tasty, so I’m willing to give you a chance, but if you fuck this up it’s gonna look real bad for everyone.”
Yuuri’s anxiety started to claw its way over the protective barrier of beer in his system and he pursed his lips, trying not to let its voice fill his head with hissed doubts. You have no business taking a job like this. You’ve never even served half that in a day at the cart, and you think you’ll have the stones to face a room of 500 drunk party guests? It’s not even just on you if you screw it all up; it’s your ass, this kid’s ass, the wedding planner too. Just go back to your cart and make your knock-off Katsudon and be thankful for what you’ve been able to scrape together for yourself—
“Oh, right, should probably talk about money. You won’t be the only one cooking, they want other food too, so, you know, her granny doesn’t flip out that there’s only weird Asian stuff to eat. That’s my team’s job. You’re basically responsible just for a katsudon appetizer. So what I’m saying is, I’m willing to cut you eight percent of their quote for your services. That sound fair to you?”
“I mean...what’s their quote?” Yuuri did some fast mental math in his head based on what he figured was a typical catering budget for a wedding. This boy is going to pay you five whole American dollars.
“They’re paying $275 a head for dinner. So your cut would be eleven grand to cover ingredients and labor. You think that’s enough?”
A baseball bat named debt swung hard and sent the anxiety monster flying. “Y-yeah, I think that’ll work out.”
“Eleven THOUSAND dollars?? And you’re one hundred percent sure he didn’t mean rubles, right?”
Yuuri sat on the edge of Phichit’s twin bed in a closet-sized dorm room on 20th Street. Miraculously, the fashionista had managed to score a single, and without a roommate to share it with, every inch of the space was utilized to the fullest. The seemingly delicate androgyne had pushed the cumbersome desk that was assigned with his quarters into the common area to free up more space for multiple racks of clothing. The walls were covered in hooks that held scores of hats, scarves, pocket squares, necklaces, and shoe organizers. While Yuuri was impressed with the sophomore’s utilization of vertical space, he was pretty sure the room broke several fire codes.
“Well, it’s 500 guests, so the amount definitely makes sense, you know? I mean, it’s not going to be a full eleven thousand. They’re going to use their suppliers to get me ingredients and then deduct that from my pay, but it’s still going to be a serious chunk of cash.”
“That’s nuts. That means their food budget is more than a hundred thousand dollars, right?” Plugging in a garment steamer, Phichit stood in front of a Saint Laurent silk shirt on a hanger. He gently wafted the hot mist towards the fabric, tugging lovingly at the vertical black and gold stripes. “That’s actually effing bananas. How do people even afford things??”
Yuuri raised an eyebrow and gestured pointedly at the shirt. Phichit had gushed not ten minutes ago that it retailed for $1200.
“Don’t look at me like that. I found this baby at Buffalo Exchange for a hundred bucks!” Turning off the steamer, he stepped back to admire the find. “Besides, being the King of Thrifting is a completely different story than some rich jerks dropping obscene amounts of money on a wedding just to impress their friends and family.”
“I suppose so, Macklemore,” Yuuri leaned back and raised his feet up as Phichit swiped at them, bending over to access some drawers that were tucked away in the space under the bed frame. The anxiously polite man worried for a split-second that the teasing was too much for the delicate beginnings of their friendship. It had become a new habit to spend time after work hanging out with the young student ever since Yuuri found out that his dorm had a sweet roof deck and it wasn’t too far off his commute home. Phichit had shown up at the cart one evening after his studio class had let out for the day and offered Yuuri a beer and a nice, breezy view in exchange for a meal. Yuuri had been happy enough just to spend time with someone who wasn’t Takeshi, and had come back a few more times on his own (with dinner, as an apology for his intrusion).
Phichit seemed to enjoy his company well enough, and certainly didn’t mind the free meals if it meant more money going into his fashion budget.
“For the sake of our continued friendship, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” Yuuri felt the tips of his ears get warm as Phichit confirmed that they were, indeed, friends. It was nice to have someone new to be casual with.
Pulling out two separate pairs of slacks, Phichit held them up in front of the shirt and pursed his lips as he compared his choices. “What do you think, black or charcoal?”
“Uh...charcoal?”
“Bzzzt, WRONG. Definitely black.” He tucked the losing pair back into the drawer and began going along the wall, accessorizing. “So, this is all cool, right? You said this guy looked like a teenager—did you research him at all?”
“I mean, he gave me some business cards?”
Phichit turned to look at him intensely. “Are you serious? You haven’t even Googled him?”
“I’ve been, uh...pretty busy since the meeting.” Admitting that you suck at the internet to an Instagram influencer was more embarrassment than Yuuri wanted to deal with at the moment.
“Ohhhh my gooood, Yuuri.” Accessorizing forgotten, Phichit climbed onto the tiny bed next to him and grabbed his MacBook from underneath his pillow, getting comfy with it on his lap and opening it. “Do you have the business card? You really need to do some basic research, what if he’s a scam artist or something?”
Yuuri fumbled around in his back pocket for his wallet, pulling it out and willing away the rush of feelings that had bubbled up from sitting very close to someone very cute in a very private space. Did he always smell this nice? Should he ask him about his cologne or would that be creepy? “Here,” Yuuri handed two cards over. “Top one is the caterer, the other one is the wedding planner.”
Phichit’s nimble fingers flew over his keyboard as he browsed the search results for the catering company, skipping the link to their webpage and hovering over the links to review sites. “Well, that’s good news. They’ve got a ton of reviews going back several years, and they’re really highly rated. It’d be hard to fake that. What’s SWM Events, is that the wedding planner?”
“Yeah,” Yuuri replied, tapping the second business card that said as much.
“It looks like they’re an exclusive partnership or something. They keep getting mentioned together. Hold up,” He ran another search query for the event company and his dark eyes widened. “Oh, dang.”
“What? What’s wrong?” Yuuri leaned in closer, forgetting his nervousness at their proximity and looking at the screen over his glasses.
“These people are like….effin’ serious, Yuuri.” Phichit’s well manicured index finger stroked the track pad as they both scanned the results. “The King of Oligarch Weddings in the Big Apple,” he read aloud, clicking on a New York Times article link. “Russian-born Viktor Nikiforov has built an empire in the wedding industry catering to the luxurious tastes of both local and foreign billionaires keen on celebrating their nuptials in ostentatious and often ludicrously expensive revelry—ah crap!” The screen had faded out to a white block of text demanding subscription to read further. “I hit my free article limit.”
Yuuri didn’t respond. He was preoccupied, flopped over onto his side and curled up, trying to control his breathing.
“Uh, are you gonna make it?”
“I definitely don’t have enough Xanax for this,” he muttered against the sheets. They smell like him, a voice behind his building anxiety pointed out. It wasn’t helpful.
“Do you need a hookup?” Phichit closed the laptop and put it aside, getting on his knees on the mattress and leaning over the anxious bundle on his bed. “Hey, what’s wrong? This seems like a pretty legit opportunity!”
“It’s too legit,” Yuuri replied, pressing his fingertips to his eyes, his glasses sliding up over them.
“Yeah, well you’re TOO LEGIT TO QUIT.”
“Phichit, no, this is a major deal. It said that guy has a ‘wedding industry empire’! What if I really mess this up and his whole business collapses or something??”
“You aren’t gonna mess it up,” Phichit replied, patting his shoulder kindly. “Have a little confidence, okay? I’ve been eating your food for a month, and it’s delicious. I know this is a little more intense than a food cart, but, uh...fake it till you make it, Katsuki! If you think positively, it’s gonna work out.”
Yuuri rolled off the bed and stood up, fixing his glasses on his face and not quite making eye contact. “I gotta get home and get my purchasing order for the week together, Phi.”
Phichit shifted so he was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking up at his friend. “When’s the wedding?”
“Next month. If you don’t hear from me afterwards, I’ve fled the country.”
“Noooo, who will I buy lunch from if you pull a runner?” Phichit wiggled his feet to mimic running and grinned up at him, eyes shining. “Have some confidence, okay? You’re a pretty cool guy even if you don’t believe it.”
“Oh yeah?” He could feel his ears turning red again.
“Yeah, I don’t usually invite randos in food carts up to my dorm room, okay? You’re privileged to be amongst my pretties.” He swept his hand around, indicated the massive collection of clothing with a cheeky grin. Yuuri couldn’t help but smile a little, something in his chest feeling melty.
“Thanks, Phichit. I’ll see you around, okay?”
“Get home safe!” Waving him out, Phichit grabbed his phone and flopped on the bed, pulling open another search. Yuuri was already on the elevator and didn’t hear Phichit’s shout as he descended to the lobby.
“Holy CRAP, this guy’s A DADDY.”