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He's gone.
He's actually gone.
It doesn't feel real yet. The moment he first heard the news burns with a never ending fire in Yuri's brain, the words echoing around inside him and showing no signs of fading away.
"I'm so sorry, Mr Plisetsky. Otabek died this afternoon."
Yuri doesn't process it at first. It doesn't really click with him until the next morning when he wakes up and shit, Beka is dead, and he isn't coming back. Yuri cries and cries and cries some more, thinking about how things would never quite be the same and how there'd always be a Beka shaped hole in his life where Otabek had once been.
He doesn't want to go to the funeral, yet when the day arrives he finds himself putting on a suit and going, mostly because he has to and it's what people expect and he knows deep down he'll never forgive himself if he doesn't go. He doesn't cry once he's there, unlike Otabek's dad who bursts out sobbing when he's doing a reading.
It's not Yuri's first funeral, but it's certainly the most difficult. Once the coffin goes behind the screen and everyone starts filing out of the room, Yuri follows the procession, but when he's in the hall that leads out of the building, he finds himself stopping just before he gets to the exit.
"Yurachka?" Nikolai says gently. "Are you okay?"
Yuri wants to scream and shout at that because no, he is obviously not fucking okay, his boyfriend has died and he's just had to sit through his funeral, on what planet would he be okay with any of that?
"I don't want to leave," Yuri mumbles. Nikolai nods in understanding, putting a comforting arm around his grandson.
"I know, Yurachka," he says. "But you must. Shall we go together?"
Yuri nods, although part of him still doesn't want to leave the funeral, and therefore Beka. With his grandfather's arm around him, he puts a brave smile on his face and steps out of the building, ready to face whatever the world is going to throw at him next.