Work Text:
As weird as it sounds, Yao was overjoyed that he was going back to school: he had been sick for almost two weeks, and there's only so much you can do when you're stuck in bed with a fever that never seems to go down and the risk of spilling your guts out anytime you try to eat something. After two weeks of agony, he finally set foot in his school and headed cheerfully for his classroom; even his classmates, whom he had met along the way, were relieved to see him so well, considering that the last time they had seen him he was hardly conscious and with his face down on his desk.
Upon entering his classroom, he noticed that nothing had changed. That is, nothing except for the fact that the seat beside him, the one beside the wall, wasn't empty anymore, but it was occupied by a guy. A guy who apparently must really like hitting the gym, seeing how broad his chest and arms were; he could tell he was tall, too, and he did had a nice, attrattive face, so Yao's brain automatically put him on the "you mildly intimidate me but I'd still be dtf if you asked me" list. He asked his friends about him, and they told him that the guy's name was Ivan Braginsky and that he and his family had moved to their city from Russia.
After Yao sat down his classmates started talking among themselves next to him, but he kept stealing a few glances at the guy on his right.
Ivan was quiet. For a while, he thought his classmates simply forgot to mention to him that he couldn't speak; then he heard him mutter something under his breath after he accidentally bumped his pencil case and made it fall from his desk, its contents spilling messily on the floor.
«Here, let me help.» Yao kneeled next to the russian boy and started gathering the various pens and markers that had fallen out of his pencil case.
«Ah.. thank you.»
«It's no problem. My na-» the bell started ringing and the teacher's arrival and the start of the lesson stopped him from introducing himself to Ivan, but he still planned to do so during lunch break.
Too bad that, as soon as the bell rang, he immediately got up and went out of the classroom. Yao asked his friends about that too, and they told him that Ivan spent the break in some corner of the school yard with his two sisters. There goes his plan to make a good impression and have lunch with the new guy.
Holding him back after the lessons ended would have seemed weird, so he gave up for that day and just went home.
The next day Yao luckily managed to find the other boy while he was walking up the stairs of the school, so he took a deep breath and walked up to him.
«Hey good morning!» Ivan flinched slightly, surprised at the sound of his voice.
«Oh, hi. You.. are the one who helped me in class yesterday, yes?»
Yao nodded, happy that he remembered him. «I didn't manage to introduce myself yesterday, so I wanted to do it today. My name's Wang Yao, hope that we'll get along!» he extended his hand towards the russian boy.
«I'm Ivan Braginsky, pleased to meet you.» Ivan shook his hand; Yao noticed that the other's hand was a bit colder than his «You're actually the first person who talked to me out of class, you took me by surprise ahah.»
«Don't worry about that, I'm sure the others are just shy and don't know how to approach you, it's pretty rare to see transfer students here.»
They kept chatting while they headed together to class and after they sat at their desks. Ivan told Yao that his father had to move because of his job and that his children accepted to go with him only because he let them bring their two cats with them; he discovered that the russian boy loved sunflowers and that, while he didn't work out at the gym, he played ice hockey, which explained why he looked as jacked as he did.
He also found out that Ivan's sisters had different mothers than him: his older sister Irunya had a ukrainian mother, while his younger sister Natalya had a belarusian mother; because of this, he grew up hearing both languages and could mostly understand them, though he struggled in speaking them.
They exchanged numbers before the lessons started and, even though Ivan still went out to see Irunya and Natalya during the break, they still shared a few words between each lesson and while they walked out of school. Ivan was undoubtedly a little intimidating, but he turned out to be a really nice guy, albeit a bit shy.
They kept talking through messages that afternoon. Ivan even sent him a picture of his cats: in the shot he could see a slightly messy bed with the two pets cuddling together in the middle and, after translating their names, he could clearly see why they were named the way they were. Tapochka was black, with white paws that looked like slippers, while Oblako was a big, white ball of fur. Yao thought that seeing Ivan snuggling with them on an armchair in front of a fireplace would have been the best vision ever.
Turns out that they did, in fact, get along, and very well so. They started speaking with each other on a daily basis, which helped Ivan become friends with Yao's friends and getting used to not being in Russia anymore as well. They often met up to do homework together, then they started hanging out at each other's places, mostly to watch movies or play videogames. Ivan joined the local ice hockey team and Yao always came along to watch him practice; in turn, Ivan always accompanied him in his morning jogs in the weekends. The russian boy soon became a constant in his life and, as the months when by, he couldn't help but being glad for his friendship.
Although he had found Ivan attractive from the star, but he didn't know when IT started. Bumping shoulders as they walked, hugs lasting longer and being tighter than before, huddling together for warmth on the couch while watching movies, brushing hands as they studied, catching each other's eyes from the opposite side of the room to fastly pretend it didn't happen the moment after, waking up closer than friends do during sleepovers.
Out of shyness or nervousness, neither of them really said a word or pushed to bring up the subject, but deep down they both knew that both of their hearts skipped a beat at the sight of the other. Over time, their fingers stopped brushing and started intertwining, their eyes stopped shying away, their arms stopped holding back and then their lips soon started catching each other.
Yao was the happiest he had ever been, and he was also right: seeing Ivan snuggling with his cats WAS an amazing vision, although he preferred being part of it rather than staring at it from the distance.