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Yuri's having a weird dream where Vicchan is barking and pulling him toward the estuary. He thinks someone's waiting for him there, but he's not sure of it. Probably, his sleeping mind thinks, it's Godzilla. He's not very frightened though -- he's almost excited to find out who it is. There's an alarm going off but it's not scary, just annoying. It's Phichit's ringtone. Phichit would never scare him.
Yuri surfaces from sleep, and reaches for his phone. "Whar? Phichu? You okay?"
"I'm fine!" says Phichit. "How are you? How are the babies? Did you have a good day at the studio? Break any hearts?"
Yuri's not quite awake, but it's three am, two hours past the latest time he expected Phichit to call him, and his brain knows Phichit's 'I don't regret it because it was hilarious, but you're probably going to yell at me and I do kinda dislike that' voice. "We're good," he says warily. "I had a good day at the studio?" He doesn't even touch the heart breaking comment, because Phichit just yells at him if he tries. "How was the competition?" Phichit had been invited to appear at a Grand Prix event as a guest, and even though he hadn't expected to score high, he was still excited about it. Yuri was excited too. He hoped Phichit did as well as he knew he could.
"Good, good," says Phichit. His voice is very bright and cheerful. Too cheerful.
Yuri pushes himself upright. It's late enough that his room is only lit by the streetlights and the reflected shine of them off his Victor Nikiforov posters. "What time is it there?"
"Late," says Phichit vaguely. "Hey, have you been on Twitter lately? or Insta?"
"No," says Yuri.
"Yeah, maybe stay off for a while?" says Phichit, voice lilting up in a way that isn't quite a question.
"Phichit, what did you do?" says Yuri.
"Well, you remember how I said I would get you a bunch of pictures of Victor Nikiforov?" says Phichit.
"Yes," says Yuri. He's not proud of himself for agreeing. But it's been a lot this entire competition season and Yuri is weak and he just wants a picture of Victor looking daddy in the Armani suit he's been wearing to all the banquets so he can print it out for his wall. And ... well, Yuri is pretty gay. He still has a copy of the photoshoot with Victor in Alexander McQueen and five inch heels. For reasons.
"Sooooo I got a bunch and and they're great, but like, Chris G caught me creepshotting Victor flipping his hair, and he made me go with him to get introduced so I could get a proper shot for Instagram--"
"What," says Yuri. This is so much worse than he was expecting. He doesn't know what he was expecting, but anything would be better than this.
"It wasn't like, 'hi dude, what's up, I'm not being weird, I'm just taking pictures for my roomie's bedroom slash shrine to your shiny hair!', I swear!" says Phichit.
"What did you do," says Yuri. His soul is already beginning to shake off the bonds of his mortal form and preparing to descend to hell.
"Really," says Phichit, "it was his fault, because Chris said 'this is Phichit, he trains under Celestino with Yuri Katsuki' and I said 'yeah we're roommates hahaha' and Victor said 'Yuri Katsuki? Haha I see him a lot but he's never actually stuck around long enough for me to talk to him' and -- are you making that noise or did someone's airbrakes go weird?"
Yuri takes a deep breath in and lets it out like the college therapist taught him. "Go on."
"In my defense I didn't think Chris would think it was that funny and I forgot he was liveblogging like, most of it, because if I had I definitely would not have said what I did, but it's fine, you're not in trouble, unless you look on Twitter or Insta for a couple days --"
"Just spit it out!" says Yuri.
"So maybe," says Phichit in a rush, "possibly I was really tired and wired by that point and maybe my filter wasn't working so great, I mean, at all, and maybe possibly I may have said something not entirely unlike 'he has anxiety and he thinks you're cute. Why do YOU think he never sticks around, you stupid gay?'"
Yuri is aware that someone in the room is making a horrible noise of despair, but if he keeps on disassociating hard enough he can pretend it isn't him. "PHICHIT!"
"I didn't mean to!" says Phichit. "It just happened!" It probably did, really -- but Phichit has a finely tuned sense of drama and also he hates it when people say mean things about Yuri. "Don't be mad! Just, uh, don't go online for a week? two weeks. Maybe until after the Finals."
Yuri hangs up on him.
Phichit immediately tries to call him back, but Yuri is too busy shoving his head under his pillows and trying to scream into the uncaring night without getting a noise complaint to care. He wants to let his essence dissipate from the prime material plane but he can't concentrate on it because Phichit won't give up sending him texts. Finally it's annoying enough that Yuri picks up his phone to read them and then block Phichit forever.
PHICHIT: how dare u hang up on your parent
PHICHIT: im telling ur mom
Yuri flips through his photo roll until he finds an appropriate file and sends it.
YURI: [my husky screams into the void.mov]
PHICHIT: it's not that big of a deal! he laughed! i think he was kind of flattered!
YURI: [toy poodle joins husky in screaming into the void.mov]
PHICHIT: it'll be FINE.
YURI: NO IT WONT
PHICHIT: I FEEL IT
YURI: UGH HAVE FUN DOING THE DISHES UNTIL U DIE
PHICHIT: okay that's fair
PHICHIT: but it will be fine
PHICHIT: im sure of it
Later:
Yuri's dog is dead, and he hasn't seen him for five years. Some teenager just screamed at him in the bathroom, and now Victor Nikiforov is offering him a pity picture because Yuri's roommate told him he has a pathetic crush on him.
Things are not fine.
Yuri turns and walks away.