Chapter Text
“I can’t fucking believe you.”
Victor couldn’t fucking believe himself either.
Yuri struggled to drag his suitcase over yet another set of gravel steps that led to the onsen, grunting when the wheels caught on the edge of a stair—only to break it loose through sheer force of will. “Why are we here again?”
“Well, I’m here on vacation,” Victor stated, overly cheerful. The bulk of his personality was still taxiing somewhere between St. Petersburg and their connecting flight in Beijing, much like the majority of his luggage. “Why you’re here still eludes me.”
Yuri growled, finally giving in and lobbing his entire bag over his shoulder. “Did you really think I was gonna let you fuck off to god-knows-where Japan right before the season starts?”
“I didn’t think; I hoped. There’s a difference.”
“Well screw you too, asshole.” Yuri charged ahead while Victor idled to slip his sunglasses on, beyond over this apparent survival trek it took just to reach the damn hotel. “And double screw you for getting a room here! Just how much farther is it?”
“Consider it endurance training.” Victor smirked despite himself as he waved a fan indolently before his face. “You could use some more of that anyway.”
“I swear to god, Victor—!”
“Oh, look, there it is.”
The inn was nestled in the Japanese countryside, worn and weathered but still well-loved from the looks of it. A Japanese woman was sweeping just outside the entrance, and upon Victor’s innocuous observation, surveyed them with a distinct air of disinterest.
But then came the growling.
“Makkachin, what has gotten into you?” Victor questioned his companion, tugging him lightly back with the leash.
Before Victor could even consider apologizing, the woman turned back into the inn with a muttered “kuso,” followed by a much louder “Otou-san! Okyakusan da yo!” As she slid the screen door shut, Victor couldn’t help but notice that she held a hand to the top of her head, but for what reason, he couldn’t begin to fathom.
“That was weird,” Yuri stated, deadpan; and it certainly had to be if Yuri felt the need to comment on it.
“Yeah…” Victor stared down at his dog. “What was that for?”
Makkachin, of course, said nothing, only thumping his tail against the ground as though he had done something good and fully expected to be rewarded for it.
The door clattered open again, this time unveiling an older Japanese man. “Welcome,” he greeted in English, heavily accented but functional. His smile was pulled a little tighter than necessary, Victor thought. “You have reservations?”
“Ah, yes… Two rooms.” Victor pointedly glanced at his teenage companion, hoping visual cues would smooth over any remaining language barrier.
The man nodded. “Follow me please.”
The foyer was modest but lovely all the same. Every groove told a story, every dent, a memory. Victor could easily imagine kids having grown up there—and dogs, if the scratches in the floorboards were anything to go by.
Speaking of…
“Makkachin can stay here, right?”
The innkeeper turned away from his records, slow and deliberate. It was more than a little obvious that he hadn’t caught all of what Victor had said with how fast he was speaking. “I’m sorry?”
“Ah, ehm, my dog.” Victor indicated down to Makkachin. “He can—you allow dogs?”
The man blinked thoughtfully at the animal. “Yes… Dogs okay. But children—my children—very allergic. Be careful.”
“Oh, I see.” Well, that explained the woman’s reaction from earlier. Victor would just have to have Makkachin mind his manners then. “I’ll… be careful.”
Yuri kicked at the ground, not at all adept at formalities even on his best days. “Rooms. Please. Now,” he bit out, tense, stilted, frame more so as he extended his arm to accept a room key.
But the man took it all in stride, depositing a key into Yuri’s awaiting hand, long-since acclimated to the temperaments that unruly foreigners could have after double digit flights.
“Finally,” Yuri grumbled. He slung his bag over his shoulder once again, departing with a curt “see you later, loser” towards Victor before disappearing down the hall.
“Bye, Yuri!” Victor called after him—almost fondly—only to wince when he heard a clatter of noise behind him.
He whipped around to locate the source, finding a poor Japanese boy had dropped an excessive amount of plates and laundry, struggling to collect it all with shaky fingers.
“Oh, did I startle you?” Victor sunk to one knee before him, gathering some of the towels. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled. I’ll help—“
“No, no, no, please—“ The boy pushed Victor’s hands away, appearing alarmed at the mere idea. “My fault—it’s my fault, so—“
“Nonsense. Let me—“
“Ah—“ The boy suddenly jumped back, fear evident in his eyes. “A-a dog…” He pressed a hand to his head, biting into his lip with the motion.
Oh, so this must have been another one of the innkeeper’s children, Victor thought, and while the logic remained sound, he couldn’t help but feel something was off about the whole of it. “Yes, that’s Makkachin. I heard you’re allergic, but don’t worry, he’s—“
The boy scrambled up, pressing anxious fingerprints into the lens of his glasses. “I-I-I have to go. I have to—“
“But you dropped—“
“I have to go! I’m sorry!”
And with that, he was gone—like a dream—except instead of departing with a wayward glass slipper, Victor’s prince left plates stained with soy sauce and towels smelling of sulfur in his wake.
It was oddly fitting, considering what little Victor knew of him.
Victor glared over at Makkachin. “You’ve been awfully troublesome today, haven’t you, boy?”
The dog merely lolled his tongue out in response, mind equally devoid of abstract thought or bad intentions.
Victor sighed, defeated, and buried his face in Makka’s fur. “But you’re still a good boy,” he murmured, not caring in how his voice picked that exact moment to crack, reaching up to rub misplaced assurances into his dog’s back. “Still a good boy…”
“I’ve had it with you,” Yuri groused, dropping ungracefully onto a cushion across from Victor in the lounge room. No coordination. All limbs. Judges would have scored that very poorly indeed, Victor observed for no reason in particular.
“And good morning to you too,” Victor chimed back, playfully snapping his chopsticks together at him. “Sleep well?”
“Fuck off,” Yuri answered as the other expected of him, roughly yanking dishes closer to his side of the kotatsu. “It’s been days,” he finally elaborated when he had been at least somewhat satiated with food. “Aren’t you going to go practice at the rink?”
“Why should I?”
Yuri leveled Victor with a look like the other had casually suggested he might stop breathing.
“You can’t seriously mean that.”
Victor folded his fingers together, chopsticks remaining poised, and rested his chin atop them. “And if I do?”
Uncharacteristically tactful, the boy remained silent. Victor returned to eating, paying a modicum of attention to the soccer game playing in the background. He couldn’t understand a word of what was being said about it, but the score indicated a probable defeat in their near future.
“Then…” Victor looked up from his food, patient. “Are you really on vacation?”
Victor blinked slowly. Yuri just stared at him, not budging an inch. This wasn’t a matter of whether Victor was on vacation or not; it was a more introspective dive into the nature of vacations themselves. Because vacations implied an end—a return back to work—and Yuri was far too disillusioned to accept that label anymore. So Victor could very well pretend Yuri wasn’t yet privy—could treat him like the kid he should have still been and deny the unspoken understanding—or he could give in and admit what they both knew to be true.
In the end, as he always did, Victor chose the coward’s way out.
“I’m going for a walk.” Victor pushed himself up from his forgotten meal, his motions fluid even in retreat. “I hear there’s a beautiful waterfall on a hiking trail not far from here.”
Yuri dropped his gaze down to the table. “Without Makkachin?”
Ah. More code. “He’s sleeping right now. I don’t want to disturb him.”
“Hn.” His chopsticks clicked as they made contact with the bottom of a bowl. “Do as you please.”
And he would.
Victor wished right about now that he had picked a better excuse than “walking” to avoid difficult questions.
To keep his story straight, he did go where he indicated he would: a hiking trail that led up to a waterfall. It was carved alongside a Shinto shrine—a “jinja,” Victor had picked up—and was actually part of the shrine itself if what he could parse from his spotty Japanese comprehension was to be believed.
Still, it did surprise him how open and quiet the supposed tourist attraction was, recalling the locals’ emphatic praise regarding it. He was the only one out there as far as he could see, and despite the number of layers of self-deprecation he was currently under, that did manage to strike him as a bit suspicious. Best not to overanalyze, he thought, trying to take in the peace.
He heard the waterfall before he saw it, the rushing of water against stone harsh and unrelenting. Then, when he turned the final bend, he found the source—
Only to stop dead in his tracks.
The waterfall hardly impressed him—the locals had exaggerated; Victor had seen better—but it was the person standing below it, just outside the assault of the vicious spray, that Victor took interest in.
A man slighter in him in size and age. Japanese, Victor could only assume. His kimono corroborated as much, though it was stranger than most he’d seen so far: stark white and borderline see-through from the water’s effect on it. He faced away from Victor, eyes closed, still and poised as shachihoko, waiting for something.
(Or someone?)
As though sensing his presence—as though expecting him—the vision turned to engage him. The way his kimono spread over the water’s surface gave the impression that he was floating as the fae did, not bound to the earth by anything other than his own whimsy.
His ethereal glow did not exactly debunk the theory either.
He surveyed Victor passively, boredom evident, until his expression suddenly transformed with some form of recognition.
He took a single step back in preparation to flee.
“Hey, wait!”
The vision froze, statuesque once again despite the water still partially beating down on him. But he was real—so, so real—with how his big eyes widened and his pink lips parted.
It made Victor’s heart stutter in his chest.
“What’s your name?” Victor inquired none-too-quietly over the continual falling of water. When he only got carefully calculated blinks in return, he tried, “English? Eng-lish? Do you speak English?”
The vision visibly faltered. “A… a little.”
“Oh, good.” Victor waded into the knee-deep water to get that much closer to him, momentarily shocked by the temperature. “I’m sorry for startling you.”
The vision studied him, lingering on certain aspects Victor found flattering. “Didn’t startle… Just didn’t know you were there.”
Victor chuckled. “That’s what startling means.”
The younger man shook his head. “No—just didn’t know you were there.”
The emphasis did nothing to clarify things. “What do you—?”
“Did you like the show?”
“’Show’? Oh, you mean—no, I wasn’t—you misunderstand—!”
“Yuuri misunderstands?”
Victor tilted his head. “If Yuuri is you, then yes. It was an accident.”
“Accident…”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“It wasn’t…?” The vision shook his head, almost violent in the action. “Nande mo nai.”
“Okay…?” Formalities finally seemed to catch up with Victor, compelling him to extend his hand in belated greeting. “You’re Yuuri, right? I’m Victor.”
Yuuri stared down at his hand disdainfully as though displeased with the meager offering. He looked between it and Victor intermittently until something seemed to dawn on him. He grasped the presented hand, but rather than shaking it, brought it up to his mouth to press a kiss into the inside of Victor’s wrist.
“Why are you—?” Victor hardly thought this could be a Japanese custom he was only just hearing about.
Yuuri glanced up at him through the fan of his eyelashes, his lips practically burning a hole into Victor’s skin. His tongue suddenly assisted in the worship, gentle, but at the same time, insistent and coarse like that of a cat’s. It only served to set Victor’s senses more on fire.
“I don’t—why—?”
As suddenly as it started, it stopped, Yuuri leaving Victor’s wrist just as it was, if not a bit wetter.
Clear, undistilled silence.
“Yuuri…?”
“I’m going now,” Yuuri announced, turning his back to the other. “Enjoy your walk.”
“Wait—!”
All too humanly, his legs displaced the water as he struggled up the bank. He took down the opposite end of the trail, his footsteps receding far too quickly, fading into the dull hum of the nature around them.
The chill of the water seeping into Victor’s bones seemed inconsequential to the burning heat still present on his wrist. Even then, he kept his arm out as though placing it back at his side would render the interaction void—as though the kiss would slip down his hand and into the drink if he dared to move it.
But then, slowly, he brought his hand to his back pocket and patted.
“That son of a bitch...”
Love was nothing but a fairytale, after all.
“Oh, you had a run-in with a kitsune.”
Victor choked unceremoniously on the sake that was halfway down his throat. “A-a what?”
“A kitsune.” The elderly man gestured to the bartender. “Happened to Ryuunosuke just last week. Right, Ryuu-kun?”
“Ah—“ The bartender’s cheeks colored, hand halting where it had previously been polishing. “Yes… There’s a family of them who live around here—at least one, though there are conflicting reports. I wouldn’t worry too much. Kitsune are only in it for the thrill of the deception, so your wallet will probably show up sooner or later—albeit, a little lighter.”
“Well, that’s… a relief.” It was, truly. A photocopy of his passport was in there, and he’d be lying if he said that didn’t make him a little nervous. “Then… what is a kitsune?”
“Fox youkai,” the old man grunted into the bottom of a pint.
“’Youkai’…?”
“Spirit, I guess,” the bartender clarified with a shrug. “You know… mythical creature.”
Victor swirled his cup. “Yes, but… what do they do exactly?”
There was some Japanese muttering between the men.
“Shapeshift…?” was what they finally decided upon. “Does that mean anything to you?”
“Yes, that makes sense.”
“Good. Yes, they shapeshift. They’re foxes, but they have the ability to turn into beautiful humans.”
“And they use it to get money from people?”
“To trick them in any way, really. They’re not dangerous if that’s what you mean. Mostly just a nuisance. Slightly less so than tanuki though.”
“Tanu—?”
“Raccoon dogs.”
Victor considered this a moment before downing the rest of his shot. “I’ll take your word for it.”
The scritch-scratch of nails against hardwood floor woke Victor from a dead sleep. His mind tried to helpfully remind him that it was probably just Makkachin, but the dog cuddled up to his side testified to the contrary.
Victor turned on his bedside light just in time to see a fox hovering over his open suitcase, Victor’s wallet clutched between his teeth, looking very much like a child with their hand halfway in the cookie jar. The poor thing’s little chest puffed up and down sporadically, a barely audible whine escaping him.
“I’m not mad,” Victor said. It was a lie; he was at least a little irritated if he was being honest with himself but not nearly enough so to seek any kind of petty revenge. “O… Okotte nai,” he added as an afterthought and definitely not because he had practiced just in case this very scenario presented itself.
Yuuri—and it was Yuuri, wasn’t it?—didn’t give any indication that he registered the assurance. One leg was still lifted in the air—folded delicately at his side—as the other balanced precariously against the zipper of his bag, tail poised, eyes alert, wallet just starting to slip from the clutch of his jaws.
Then Makkachin lifted his head, his big vacant eyes boring into the fox’s far too sentient ones.
There was the tiniest boof—the barest hint of a bark—and Yuuri’s ears laid flat against his head, the wallet falling from his mouth onto Victor’s still thus unpacked clothes. He bolted out onto the veranda via the barely left ajar shouji screen, tail flickering just once before disappearing out of sight.
Victor sighed. “Well, at least I know how he got in.” He pushed himself up from the futon to retrieve his wallet, finding it just as the bartender implied it would be: untouched aside from all the bills and coinage having been neatly extracted. There were some teeth marks on the outside, sure, but Victor found strange comfort in it. It meant that it was real—that Yuuri actually existed.
“Did you have to scare him off like that, Makka?” Victor asked, a wry, bitter smile pulling at his lips. “I was hoping to give him more of a piece of my mind.”
Makkachin woofed softly.
“You’re right. I wouldn’t have done that.” He crawled back under the covers, drawing his dog close and whispering like it was a secret, “Think he’ll come back?”
Makkachin just settled deeper, sinking into the mattress with the dog equivalent to a sigh.
“Yeah… I don’t think so either.”