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The first few weeks of school were quiet for Yuuri.
He’d always thought American college was all study groups and dorm parties and rooming with your best friends. Honestly, he thought there would be friends involved at all. He’d met plenty of people at orientation. He’d participated in ice breaker games and meet and greets and social dances in the days leading up to school, but he was still pretty self-conscious about his English, and he spoke too quietly. Everyone seemed to lose patience with him before he had the chance to get to know them.
He knew Phichit from juniors, at least. But Phichit was being ambitious with his academics and had overloaded his schedule to graduate a few semesters early with two majors.
And compete, somehow?
Yuuri wished he knew how to do that without going crazy. He was having a hard enough time as it was just adjusting to a new school in a new country.
All he knew was that he saw his friend next to never, and when he did, they wound up vegging out to The King and the Skater until Phichit fell asleep. Which was always before Yuuri. And then he’d have to go back to his own dorm.
Phichit was rooming in a block of singles. He had one twin bed and about enough room to walk around it without bumping into the wall. He had a sink and a mirror and about fifty strings of decorative lights and no room for Yuuri to hide out with him.
It wasn’t that Yuuri didn’t like his roommate. They just never talked.
Like, at all.
Apparently, they’d been put together because they had “similar qualities.” Which meant they were both skaters and they were both foreign students. Yuuri’s roommate was a little shorter than him, but with broad, muscular shoulders and dark features. His black hair was always slicked back from his face. He always wore huge noise-canceling headphones. Sometimes, especially at night when the block around them was starting to quiet down, Yuuri could hear the screech of electric guitars leaking from the little speakers.
On those nights when Phichit was in class or studying or off at a party that Yuuri didn’t have the guts to attend yet, Yuuri would sit and watch his roommate and wonder just what they could possibly have in common.
He tried once, their first night, to bring up figure skating just to break the ice. They were both studying with Celestino. Maybe they’d be doing some competitions together at some point. But when all Yuuri got was one-word replies and indiscernible glances, he didn’t know how to keep the conversation going. He put in his own headphones and tried not to let the loneliness creep under his skin.
Otabek was so incredibly fucked.
It wasn’t fair. It couldn’t be ethical. But somehow, someone on some board somewhere had matched him with Katsuki Yuuri his very first year of college.
He was rooming with his favorite figure skater.
He wasn’t a crazy fanatic or anything like that. He didn’t have posters . But he had to admit he’d been staying up late to watch shitty live streams of every competition featuring Japan’s Ace ever since juniors.
There was something about the way Yuuri moved that was so appealing and comforting to Otabek. Like the equalizer bars that described every note that played through his stereo. Yuuri was propelled by music, made for music, and Otabek loved music.
And for nine months they’d be sharing the tiniest dormitory he’d ever seen.
It was going to be nine months of torture.
It wasn’t like Yuuri was legendary or anything. He was no Nikiforov, that was for sure. But Otabek had already endured a summer semester of Celestino bearing down on him for his sloppy choreography, and Yuuri was pure beauty on ice: an entirely new being that contrasted so peculiarly with his otherwise reserved and standoffish personality. Yuuri looked like he knew what he was out on the ice.
Otabek craved that kind of security. He didn’t know what he was anywhere.
So when Yuuri started talking jumps and programs and all other sorts of skating stuff their first night in the dorm, Otabek froze up. He couldn’t let Yuuri see just yet how hard he was fighting just to keep up with other skaters his age.
So he closed himself off, at least for now, at least until his case of the chokes wore off a bit. They’d get there eventually.
But god, Yuuri really was as beautiful off the ice as he was on it. It was going to be a hellish freshman year.
“Otabek!”
Yuuri’s voice was a silly, giggling chirp that flipped the final k of Otabek’s name up in an adorable little squeak. He was usually so quiet. But all of a sudden, at 9 o’clock on a Saturday night, he filled their little room with all of his on-ice energy.
Otabek sat up from where he had been slumped over in his bed obsessively creating playlists for his Bandcamp page. He glanced up, pulling back his headphones, and saw ruddy cheeks, glazed eyes and a goofy grin.
“Otabek, I can’t let you stay in here when it’s homecoming!” Yuuri practically sang, inviting himself very presumptuously into Otabek’s bed. He perched on its edge with a sunny smile and bracketed Otabek’s shoulders with his arms. He smelled like cheap beer. “Come on, Phichit and some of the ladies’ skaters and I are going!”
“Are… are you drunk?” Otabek asked, as if he didn’t know.
Yuuri shook his head frantically. “No! No, no, no, I only had one beer! Well, one and a half, because Phichit didn’t like his!” He ran his fingers down his face, like maybe he’d be able to feel the signs of his buzz on his skin. “Oh my god, I’m…”
Otabek couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s pretty embarrassing,” he chuckled. “Getting drunk off a can and a half of… what, exactly?”
“Natural Light,” Yuuri groaned. “God, it is, isn’t it? What am I going to do? I’m on scholarship; if I show up to the dance looking drunk, I’ll...”
“Stay here,” Otabek blurted before he could stop himself. “Stay here with me.”
“What?”
He could feel the heat rising in his face. He hadn’t meant to be so forward, but he definitely didn’t want to go to a dance, less so with that tittering, overly-optimistic Thai kid that shared his ice time.
But this was the first real conversation he’d had with Yuuri since they moved in together. And it was incredibly nice, even if just for the moment.
“I… I could stay with you while you sober up. And then maybe we could see how the dance is?” he mumbled.
Yuuri’s face broke into a slow smile that glistened in dark chestnut eyes. “Hey, that would be really nice,” he said softly. “Thank you so much.”
And then he pulled Otabek in, falling lightly against his shoulders and wrapping his arms around to squeeze him tightly around the middle. His weight was gentle and pleasant against Otabek’s chest.
It was embarrassingly breathless and delicate, a moment suspended in time that wrung Otabek dry and helpless, thirsty for the way Yuuri overwhelmed his senses. A hint of sweat, the subtle press, the warmth of touch that Otabek hadn’t felt for as long as he could remember. He could have sworn that the thrumming of his heart was palpable through his teeshirt. A dead giveaway. Yuuri would know.
But if Japan’s Ace knew anything, he didn’t show it. He let himself flop down where he sat, his torso curled around Otabek’s side.
“You smell nice,” Yuuri mumbled. “Are you really going to go to the dance with me?”
“I don’t know,” Otabek joked, turning back to his music. “Is there a theme?”
Yuuri snorted. “Welcome to the Jungle,” he said with a laugh. “I think there’s a photobooth?”
Otabek smiled. “Well, we might as well make some memories, right?”
“Yeah,” Yuuri sighed. “Yeah, that would be nice.”
And Otabek agreed. It really would be.
Phichit, I think my roommate
just asked me to homecoming.
1. I thought you were asking him
2. WHERE ARE YOU!?
No, like ASKING ME.
TO HOME COMING.
AS A DATE.
...and?
I think I’m gonna say yes.
Yuuri pressed his face into Otabek’s cheap cotton sheets to conceal his smile. He’d seen the blush bloom across Otabek’s cheeks and down his neck, seen the nervous shift of his eyes, and he realized that college was about taking chances and stepping out of the things that make one comfortable.
That sometimes you step into something sweet and quiet and comfortable without even realizing it.