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Viktor meets the boy with the milk chocolate-eyes on a rainy Monday evening.
Or, rather, he sees him standing in the middle of the downpour from a mile away, a lone figure being blown hither thither by the wind. As Viktor makes his way down to the bus stop from the main administrative building of the local high school, the boy sways a little, knocks a shoulder into the lamppost to his side, and quickly catches himself.
Viktor reaches the sheltered safety of the bus stop and snaps his umbrella shut. He leans back against the boards, closing his eyes and letting the steady pitter-patter of raindrops above him fade into the background. Thinks about today’s classes, the chapters of Lord of the Flies he's yet to cover with his year three class, the stack of unmarked essays sitting on his desk at home.
When he opens his eyes, the boy is still there.
Is he okay? Viktor wonders to himself. Frankly, the signs are all indicating otherwise. For one, he's willingly isolating himself under a roaring thunderstorm. For another, he's not holding an umbrella.
Speaking of umbrellas— Viktor turns to look at the half-open umbrella in his hands, all wrinkled and dripping wet on the outside.
It's not very poetic or fanciful, but he figures it'll do the job.
Viktor covers the distance between the bus stop and the zebra-crossing in a few long strides, and comes to a stop an arm’s length away from the mysterious stranger.
“Um,” he begins eloquently. “Hi.”
The boy turns and looks over his shoulder. He's wearing a thick blue jacket and jeans, and has a brown scarf wrapped tight around the lower half of his face. There's a phone in his hand, exposed to the rain like the rest of him. Upon noticing Viktor, his eyes widen, and he hastily turns away, making as if to walk off.
“—I was wondering if you needed an umbrella,” Viktor continues quickly, holding the umbrella out over both their heads.
After a halting pause, the boy clears his throat.
“Not really.” His voice is thick, hoarse; almost as if he'd been crying. His eyes are red.
Shit— he’s useless when it comes to comforting people. They don't teach you how to deal with emotions in the literature course at university, and sad to say he's no natural at being human.
Viktor shakes his head, tries to gentle the tone of his voice. “You'll catch a cold.”
“It won't make a difference now.” He's shrinking into himself, shoulders coming up and scarf rising simultaneously, looping further around his face.
But Viktor is adamant. If he can't make him feel better at least he can do this much. “I insist. You look like you need it more than me.” He tilts his face up to the bruised-blue sky. “Besides, I love the rain.”
No reply.
Fuck.
“Look, um, see this guy here?” Viktor shakes the umbrella a little for emphasis. “He's actually a terribly unlucky fella. Or, at least, he's made me a terribly unlucky man. One time last year, he got blown away by the wind, and I fell into a ditch chasing after him! And then just last week I got him caught between the train doors somehow, and he wouldn't come free no matter how hard I yanked. Everyone was staring at me like I was nuts , and in the end the guy on duty at the station had to stop the train and get the doors opened just for me and my stupid umbrella. It was so embarrassing I wanted to disappear.
So, like, what I mean to say is, I'm not trying to be some overly courteous, polite person. You'd be doing me a favor by taking it off my hands. Please?”
For a moment the boy’s breath catches and he goes stunningly silent, and Viktor feels like he's made a mistake so large and overwhelming it threatens to send him running back to his stack of unmarked papers. Then it passes, and the boy’s shoulders relax visibly, warmth flooding back into his eyes.
“If you so insist,” he says, reaching out and closing a hand around the plastic handle, and he still sounds a little shaky, a little scratchy, but he's better. Is it because of the umbrella? Viktor hopes so. There's a small smile on his face like the sun peeking through thick curtains of cloud.
“I do,” Viktor replies cheerfully, at the same time that the boy says “I'm Yuuri” and a loud, screeching honk sounds from behind him.
“Paging for Mr. Nikiforov, longtime patron of the 5:15 p.m. bus bound for Raffles street,” someone yells impatiently from across the road.
“Shit, I gotta go.” With a final nod to the boy— Yuuri— he dashes out into the rain and back to the bus stop, where bus 156 is still waiting generously for him.
“You didn't have to wait for me,” Viktor laughs, shaking droplets of water from his hair as he gets onto the bus.
“You're never late, s’ I thought it was strange. Besides, no one takes this bus except you, Mr. Nikiforov.” The old bus driver nods her head brusquely in his direction.
Viktor laughs again.
“Thank you.”
::
Chris finds him during lunch break on Tuesday, along with a very long, very thick baguette. The seat to his left is, regretfully enough, empty. Chris takes it.
“Have you heard?” He mock-whispers into Viktor’s ear, a cattish smile playing on his lips. “There's gonna be a new face in the English department.”
“Oh?” Viktor says with vague disinterest, fiddling with the piece of limp lettuce peeking out of the sides of his sandwich. It's a hideously sad sandwich; a slice of dry ham and plasticky cheese suffocated between two flat, soggy pieces of bread, with some equally soggy lettuce. Yakov refuses to change the cafeteria vendors no matter how many complaints he puts in, citing some popularity among the student population or some other bullshit reasoning. A modern-day tragedy.
“My sandwich is the victim of a modern-day tragedy,” he announces.
Chris elbows him lightly in the side.
“They say he's cute.”
Viktor pulls the piece of lettuce free and places it on his napkin. “Define ‘cute’.”
“Cute enough to die for.”
“Mmm.”
“His name’s Katsuki-something, I think. A bright-eyed youngster. Fresh blood.”
“Don't tarnish his purity, you heathen,” Viktor warns jokingly, tearing a chunk from Chris’ baguette. “You've done enough damage as it is.”
Chris winks at him. “Oh but my dear Viktor, it's all on a first-come-first-serve basis.”
::
He happens upon the boy Yuuri at the bus stop later that day.
“What a coincidence!” Viktor exclaims, raising a hand to his open mouth in surprise.
To his credit, Yuuri ignores Viktor’s meaningless dramatics. “I forgot your umbrella,” he deadpans.
“That's fine. Keep it.” Viktor drops down on the bench beside him, sliding his bag off his shoulders and settling it between his knees on the ground.
“I can't possibly do that! It belongs to you.”
Viktor looks up from where he's been fiddling with his shoelaces, meaning to make a display of True Kindness, but accidentally finds his eyes glued to Yuuri’s face instead. His gaze roves slowly from the soft corners of his lips to the bridge of his nose, the curve of his cheekbones—
And oh, he has beautiful eyes.
They're large and almond-shaped, and the sweetest shade of milk chocolate, framed with long charcoal lashes that glint tantalizingly under the fading daylight. Yuuri blinks once, twice, Viktor following the action religiously, tracing every dip and daydream, and then his lips are moving, forming words, forming sentences—
“Um, are you all right? Hello?”
Viktor jolts back into reality, blushing furiously. “Ah yes, of course! As I was saying,” he’s fighting to keep the flush from spreading to his ears, because he knows his body does that sometimes— betray him by making all his vulnerabilities and weaknesses known to the world— and failing horribly. “A lot of things belong to me. And, y’know, my heart isn't one of them either, so you can keep the umbrella.”
Viktor wants to die.
“It's a figure of speech! A metaphor! I'm a literature teacher; see, literature teachers are like that, we say things and we don't mean them half the time, I mean you no harm, really, I promise—”
“It's fine,” Yuuri interrupts him, laughing so hard that he's tearing up a bit. “Just,” he pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, “give me a moment.
All right. So what should I call you, Mr. Esteemed Literature Teacher?”
“Just Viktor is good.”
“Nice to meet you, then, Viktor.” Yuuri smiles, and all the birds are knocked out of the sky for approximately half a second.
Viktor’s stomach does a triple backflip.
He's really fucking cute.
“L-likewise.”
::
“...was it Yuuko? Yenko? Yamada?” Chris muses aloud over the dull buzz of the fans overhead.
“Maybe it's Yakov,” Viktor suggests helpfully.
Chris pulls a face. “I wouldn't fuck Yakov,” he articulates tastefully, with the air of a high aristocrat.
Viktor snorts. “I doubt anyone would.”
“Fair enough.”
For a while, the only sounds are the scratching of Viktor’s ballpoint pen against his stack of essay scripts, and the crinkling of plastic wrap. Chris’ got a bunch of mochi-bread hybrid creations today, fresh from the local bakery on this side of town. They're very good; Viktor can attest to the fact personally.
“I'll go ask around,” Chris decides.
Viktor turns the page, soggy sandwich long forgotten to his far, far right. “Sure.”
::
“So,” Viktor says, fighting to keep the smile off his face. “We meet again.”
It's raining, though not very heavily; a light drizzle, faint thunder, the sky a pretty bleached-blue canvas dotted here and there with wisps of silvery cloud. Viktor had been given the remainder of Chris’ mochi bread buns as a sympathy gift after he’d tripped on the way back to the staff room and made a fool of himself in front of half the department, and offers one to the boy in a blue button-up smiling tentatively up at him from the bus stop’s bench.
“I've brought your umbrella,” Yuuri says, brushing the offer aside, and holds out the aforementioned umbrella.
Viktor sighs dramatically. “I said you could keep it, didn't I?”
“I couldn't bear to keep something belonging to someone as wonderful as you, Mr. Nikiforov.”
“Well.” Viktor takes the umbrella from Yuuri, turns it this way and that, as if examining it for faults along the seams, and tries to pretend he's not incredibly flattered by Yuuri’s choice of adjective in describing him. “Regardless, I can't accept it now. It's raining, and something tells me you don't take the bus from here.”
“Which means?”
“Which means you're going to need it later.”
“So will you.”
“There's a covered walkway from the stop I get off at that leads back to my apartment,” Viktor lies.
Yuuri squints at him in disbelief. Concurrently, bus 156 pulls up to the curb and honks twice.
“Really,” he says, and takes one of Yuuri’s hands in his. Viktor places the umbrella in his open palm, then closes his hands around Yuuri’s smaller one.
Yuuri stares at their hands, transfixed. Beat. Then he turns beet-red, from his neck all the way to the tips of his ears. Viktor swears he can see steam rising from his cheeks.
“You should spend your time with someone more worthy of it,” he stutters, pulling his hands away lightning-quick.
“Like who?” Yuuri mumbles in response, but by then Viktor’s already flying onto the bus, yelling an apology to the bus driver, his bag swinging wildly from one shoulder.
“Not me!” Viktor doesn't say, the phantom-sensation of Yuuri’s hands branded onto his skin like a seal, red-hot and burning. “Definitely not me!”
Viktor Nikiforov is a fool.
::
He invites Chris out for drinks later that night, for reasons. And gets absolutely shitfaced, which is a hard feat for a man like himself, for the same reasons. Fairly obvious reasons.
“What, my dear Chris, does it mean to be in love?” Viktor hiccups into his glass, the world tilting in slow-motion around him as his head spins, delightfully giddy and fast.
Chris pounces on his question with overwhelming enthusiasm. “Why, has everyone’s favorite bachelor found a lover at last?”
“No, no, no.” Viktor prods defensively at Chris’ half-exposed chest. “He just has… very nice hands. Eyes like milk chocolate. A smile like morning sunshine.” He lets his head thud onto Chris’ shoulder with a wistful sigh. “I like morning sunshine.”
"You still sound remarkably like a love struck teenager." Chris chuckles pleasantly.
"Shush you. You're annoying."
Chris hums curiously and tilts the contents of his glass down his throat. “Well anyway, to answer your question, being in love means finding the other person’s ass very, very attractive.”
Viktor frowns.
“...he does have a nice ass.
But all I wanna do’s hold his hand, really.”
“You are an innocent five year-old, Viktor Nikiforov,” Chris tuts.
Viktor kicks him under the table; he doesn't retaliate.
::
Mila drops by Viktor’s cubicle between classes on Thursday, bearing exciting old news.
“We’re getting a new member of staff soon, you know,” she informs him from ten feet away, coffee mug balanced precariously atop her laptop, which she has propped on one hand while the other digs through her pocket for some thing or another.
“I know,” Viktor returns.
“His name’s Katsuki Yakult!”
“Are you sure?”
Mistaking his question for genuine interest, Mila beams at him. “Absolutely.”
“Katsuki Yakult.”
“Yup!”
“Okay.”
::
It rains again in the afternoon. It seems the rain has gained a penchant for lazy afternoon walks across town, leaving muddy footprints in the grass everywhere. Even Viktor, self-proclaimed lover of the wet season, is less-than-pleased with these developments.
He is also very soggy. Like the sandwiches the school cafeteria sells. He hates soggy sandwiches.
Being the hideously irresponsible adult he is, he's still yet to remember to bring along another umbrella for long enough to actually stick the spare one in his bag, so he is left, once again, to run across the school track in a shaky beeline for the sanctuary of the nearby bus stop. And who else is he greeted with, if not the elusive, eclectic Yuuri-with-the-milk-chocolate-eyes?
“Umbrella,” Yuuri says stubbornly, and shoves Viktor’s shiny black umbrella unceremoniously at him.
Viktor, the poor man, is still recovering from being assaulted by rainwater, lightning, and thunder. He takes a deep breath, then another, pushing his bangs out of his eyes.
“How about this: you let me walk you back to wherever you live, and I'll take the umbrella.”
Yuuri mulls the offer over for a few achingly long seconds, during which the rain only worsens, the howling of wind around them morphing into ear-piercing banshee-shrieks. He's not wearing his scarf today, Viktor notes, his face free of visual obstructions for once. Yuuri bites his lip as he thinks, a gesture that appears small and harmless but is a dangerous assault on Viktor’s heart.
“I guess that works,” he concedes.
::
Viktor: 1
Umbrella: 0
::
The rain is so heavy and the winds so strong that they have to huddle under the umbrella pressed shoulder-to-hip-to-thigh to avoid getting thoroughly soaked. Also, Viktor finds an excuse to put a hand around Yuuri’s waist.
As the surrounding world goes to shit they inch their way down the sidewalk, shuffling to a stop at the zebra-crossing.
Green light.
“I never got to thank you properly for Monday, did I?” Yuuri says suddenly, his breath a warm cloud fanning out along Viktor’s cheeks.
“It's no big deal,” Viktor replies dismissively.
“It was— is, for me.”
Yuuri takes off his glasses and wipes them easily on the sleeve of his shirt. “I got some pretty bad news on Monday, actually. It was a new city, new town and all, and then that afternoon I got a call from my parents back home, telling me Vicchan— our poodle— had died. I didn't know what to do.”
Viktor’s hand goes slack on his waist. Slowly, his lips part, forming a silent ‘o’.
“I was just standing at the end of the street, wondering what to do with myself, y’know? Suddenly everything was dark and scary and I felt sad and sick to the stomach and so, so alone. And then you came along, this gorgeous, awkward stranger with an ugly black umbrella, telling me all these things about yourself you normally wouldn't tell a random guy on the street— let alone one that had been crying— and I guess for a moment I could breathe again. You helped me a lot, Viktor.”
“I'm sorry, I didn't know—”
Yuuri rises onto his toes and leans forward, like a daydream in motion, all soft corners and blurred edges.
Yellow light.
“Thank you.”
If Viktor had zoned out for even a tenth of a second he might have missed all of this: the butterfly-wing brush of Yuuri’s lips against his cheek, the way his expression wavers with an open vulnerability, the blooming warmth of his hands on Viktor’s shoulders.
Beat.
Then everything is gone— the fire, the ice, the whispering air all around them. “I'll stop bothering you and your umbrella now,” Yuuri is saying, but he sounds like he's underwater, like there are bubbles escaping with every syllable he utters, and Viktor’s cheek is still warm, but his sides are cold, cold, cold.
Red light.
The walking man by the traffic light flashes green. Yuuri steps out onto the road.
The rain keeps falling.
::
Viktor enters the staff room on Friday morning with tousled hair, an untucked shirt, and eyebags the size of quarters. The moment he gets to his desk, he's in his chair, head on the table and arms folded protectively on top.
“Heartbreak’s a bitch, isn't it?” Chris comments empathetically, waltzing his way into his cubicle.
“Like you'd understand,” comes the low, whining reply. “He gave me back my fucking umbrella then took my heart with him and left.”
Chris leaves his milk bread (whole, untouched, and uneaten) on Viktor’s table and pats him on the shoulder.
“Cheer up, buddy. What happens, happens. There will be other men with sweet asses.”
Viktor groans.
::
The bus stop is deserted, as expected.
::
Makkachin is a good dog. Yuuri may be a cruel man, but at least Makkachin is kind to Viktor. He doesn't complain when Viktor buries his face in his fur and cries his beautiful eyes out after work, barking softly on occasion and nuzzling him with his nose.
“I am a sad, sad man,” he wails pitifully while chewing on chunks of milk bread. The bread is soft and sweet— far too sweet for the likes of a bitter soul like him. But he's hungry, so it can't be helped.
Makkachin howls along in sympathy.
::
On Monday morning Viktor gets in to work just before the bell’s due to go. He braces himself for a scolding or telling-off from one of his more diligent co-workers, but finds his side of the staff room surprisingly deserted.
After a bit of wandering, he manages to track down the source of faraway commotion, and winds up over in the English department. There's a crowd surrounding one of the cubicles, excited, chattering teachers that look uncharacteristically energetic and alive for seven in the morning.
“What's going on?” He asks Georgi, skirting around the edges of the buzzing throng.
“It's the new guy,” Georgi says matter-of-factly. “He's apparently really famous. Wrote a bunch of papers that got published and won some awards for his work too.”
“He's also cute,” Chris adds, throwing an arm around Viktor’s shoulder. “Let me introduce you to him.”
Viktor lets himself get pushed through into the center of the circle, where a man dressed like a university professor is standing with his back to them.
“Yuuri!” Chris calls.
A lightning-bolt of realization goes down Viktor’s spine, but before he has the time to properly process this particular bit of information the man looks over his shoulder with a bashful smile, turning to face them properly.
“You called—”
In that heartbeat of time their surroundings fall away, and they are just Viktor and Yuuri again. He'd recognize those eyes anywhere— those soft, almond-shaped eyes, sweet as milk chocolate and the quietest sigh.
“Oh,” Yuuri murmurs, looking quite out of things.
Viktor grabs him by the wrist then, curious onlookers be damned.
“Hi,” he says. “That was a half-assed farewell kiss.” It's a lie, actually. It's the best kiss he's ever gotten. Ranked number one on a list peppered with, well, all sorts of kisses.
Still, Yuuri goes bright pink at that.
“I'm sorry.”
“I want another one. A not-farewell kiss.”
Chris wolf-whistles behind him.
“Um, here?”
He latches his other hand firmly around Yuuri’s wrist too, for good measure. “Would you go out with me for dinner tonight? The weather forecast said it wouldn't rain all day. No more umbrella bullshit— I'm doing this because I want to.”
A shaky smile blossoms on Yuuri's lips.
“I’d love to.”
::
It doesn't rain for a long, long time after that.