Archive of Our Own ^beta

Five years they’d been friends. Five years since Otabek stole him away (aka rescued him from his creepy rabid fans) and offered him the hand of friendship. It had been the first time anyone had bothered to actually ask Yuri, to make it plain that they wanted him as a friend, and Yuri appreciated the straight forward gesture more than he could say. In a world of complicated human interactions and vague body language, things which gave Yuri headaches and caused him to rage because he just ‘Couldn’t Understand People!’ the kindness he saw in Otabek’s gesture and words was unrivalled and inspired fierce loyalty in Yuri almost immediately, and a trust which, whilst slow to bloom, soon became absolute. Within a week Otabek had been cemented in Yuri’s mind as his first, most true, friend, a position which Otabek took very, very seriously.

Otabek had made the incomprehensible world of human relationships a little less foreign. Yuri had been able to reach out to people in a way he’d never been able to before, with Otabek as his unwavering support, and Yuri had been so proud of what he’d been able to achieve, and what he’d learned about himself and others. He considered himself a successful haver of friends and successful navigator of human interactions. But now, five years later, it was like the rules had changed, and Yuri wasn’t sure how to interact or what words or body language he should use. And Otabek, who had always been his rock and his guide, suddenly couldn’t help him.

But first, let’s go back.

—

When Otabek had first introduced himself and become Yuri’s friend he’d already been engaged to a pretty, seventeen-year-old, Kazakh girl named Galina for several years. Yuri met her after his exhibition skate, when she approached with her father to congratulate Yuri and to give Otabek some of the flowers and stuffed bears that had been thrown down to the ice after their performance. She smiled softly at her fiancé before turning to Yuri and congratulating him on his gold in formal Russian and complimenting him on the impressive performance she had just witnessed. She handed him a stuffed tiger and Yuri clutched it to his chest, even though it was cold from the ice, suddenly feeling he needed to cover himself with something more than his flimsy, shredded shirt.

She was polite to him, Otabek was polite to her, and completely against his nature, Yuri was polite as well. Until, of course, Viktor appeared, teasing him and admonishing him, at which point Yuri had felt his emotions bubble over and had yelled at him to, “give up his bullshit and shut his stupid, old man mouth!”

Galina’s father had ushered her away with a fierce glare in Yuri’s direction at that, and Otabek had followed on their heels, leaving Yuri alone with an uncomfortable feeling in his gut. He didn’t want to wreck things for his new friend, even if having a fiancée at that age seemed weird and kind of gross. He made his way back to the locker room slowly, relieved that the space was empty by the time he got there, and typed out a message to Otabek, apologising for upsetting him and his wife-to-be. Sending any sort of apology felt weird to him but the response he got back from his friend was so positive that he just knew he’d made the right decision. Otabek said he wanted Yuri and Galina to be friends and, even as he’d scowled in confusion at his phone, Yuri had replied that that sounded great, and that he couldn’t wait to get to know her, and Otabek, better.

He’d held firm to that conviction right up until the minute before he was due to meet the girl for the second time.

“I don’t know how to talk to girls, Beka,” Yuri whispered, fidgeting in his seat beside his best friend as they waited for Galina and her father to arrive at the cafe.

He didn’t quite understand why her dad had to sit in on their meet-up but did vaguely recall the way his grandpa hated to let his granddaughters (Yuri’s cousins) spend any time alone with boys or men once they reached puberty. It was weird, stupid really, but Otabek assured him it was normal and that asking about it, or picking a fight about, wasn’t the way to build a friendship.

Otabek gave him one of his small, secret smiles as he patted Yuri’s knee. “Talking to girls who are friends is just the same as talking to boys who are friends and other gendered people who are friends,” he said confidently, smiling a little wider at the way Yuri went suddenly bug-eyed at the mention of ‘other genders’.

“But I don’t have any girls who are friends!” Yuri hissed back. “I don’t have any friends who are boys aside from your dumb ass, and I-“ he stopped himself before he could even mention the other thing but Otabek’s smile was painfully kind, even if it was subtle.

“It’s fine,” Otabek reassured him. “Galina’s nice, wouldn’t hurt a fly, honestly. And to be her friend, the easiest thing to do is to probably just compliment her hijab or brooch. She loves getting new hijabs, and brooches and clips for them, it will make her day if you compliment her on them.”

“But won’t…” Yuri scowled. He hadn’t needed to think about becoming friends with Otabek, he’d just offered himself along with his hand to shake and that had been that. This seemed much more complicated. “Isn’t that a bit offensive or something?”

Otabek snorted at him, actually snorted, and didn’t seem to care at all that Yuri was glaring at him with knives in his eyes.

“Since when do you care about being offensive, Punk of Russia? And no, telling a girl her hijab is a nice colour isn’t offensive. Just don’t make it sound flirty, or I’ll have to fight you.”

This time Yuri felt for sure that his eyes were about to leave his head and smack Otabek in the side of his, but the older boy just bumped their shoulders together and gave him another of those selective little grins.

“Joke, Yuri, joke.”

Yuri huffed and bumped his shoulder against Otabek’s as hard as their seated positions allowed.

“You’re such an asshole.”

His grin spoiled it of course, Yuri couldn’t seem to keep the smile off his face when he was with Otabek. His reputation as a punk would go out the window at this rate but he couldn’t make himself care.

But then Galina walked in, her father a few steps behind like a terrifying shadow, and Yuri froze. He needed to make a good impression on the fiancée of his brand new best friend, he couldn’t fuck it up, even if he wasn’t sure why, he just knew that Otabek was trusting him, and Yuri didn’t want to disappoint him. There was also a little part of Yuri’s brain which couldn’t help but think of this as a test of some sort. Or like Otabek was coaching him in a new skill. Yuri prided himself on being a fast learner. He could pick up choreography after a single viewing, he’d created his ‘Welcome to the Madness’ skate from scratch in just a few hours, he had learnt enough Japanese on the plane from St Petersburg to Tokyo to be able to find Hasetsu and track down Viktor. One off season Grandpa had even taught him enough piano for him to pass his level four exams.

Yuri Plisetsky knew he was exceptional, he could definitely take this instruction and achieve success. Even idiots could make friends. Even Georgi had friends! Not that he wanted to be friends with Georgi, he had standards. He had Otabek. And it wasn’t like he wanted a whole hoard of friends, like JJ the human dick cheese. Otabek was plenty, really. But he felt compelled to have Galina at least like him a bit, even if they didn’t become fully fledged friends, because he firmly believed that if she was good enough Otabek to decide to marry her, then she had to be a good person with a strong character and probably even a decent sense of humour. And at heart, he just didn’t want to let Otabek down.

Otabek stood up when Galina approached and Yuri rushed to do the same, giving her what he knew was his ‘awkward white person’ smile, but she just smiled back nodded to him before saying something in Kazakh, first to Otabek and then to her father, who removed himself to another table in the back of the cafe. Yuri let Otabek and Galina speak for a bit, trying not to seem bored or angry, which was fucking difficult and deserved a damned medal on its own, but he figured that two people who were planning to get married probably had lots to talk about, and he could tolerate them a lot better than he could other couples, mostly because they seemed to be talking so sensibly and without the doe eyes or any sort of kissing or hand holding. If couples behaved like this he wouldn’t constantly feel the urge to kick Viktor in his stupid face.

All of sudden Yuri realised that Otabek was saying his name, when the older boy gently shook his shoulder to get his attention. He’d spaced out, lost in his own thoughts, which would probably cost him a few points in the friendship winning thing he was trying to do so he snapped to attention as quick as he could manage.

“What’d I miss?”

Galina gave him a small smile. “I was apologising for speaking only Kazakh. I am not very fluent in any other language but my own.”

“No need to apologise,” Yuri assured her, surprised that he meant it, and that he wasn’t annoyed by her earnestness. “Your Russian is good. I can’t speak any Kazakh, yet.”

Otabek chuckled and Yuri had to battle to keep himself from scowling. He’d scare them both off at this rate and be back to zero friends. But Galina tilted her head as if to look at him better, her pale yellow hijab catching the light as she did so. She smiled too.

“You plan to learn Kazakh?” she asked, and Yuri felt his cheeks begin to heat.

Was she teasing him? Mocking him? Did she think he couldn’t do it? He felt a sudden urge to kick her under the table but a second later Otabek’s hand was back on his leg, a warm and reassuring presence which immediately de-escalated his rage.

“Yuri already speaks English, Japanese, and French, as well as Russian,” he told his fiancée, sounding proud. “I don’t doubt he’ll be fluent in Kazakh when we next see him. He’s determined.”

“Like you,” Galina pointed out with a touch of merriment, and Yuri felt proud that she saw similarities between them. She really wasn’t so bad, even if her signals weren’t as easy to read as Otabek’s.

“I like your hijab,” he blurted out, his throat tightening until he let out a squeak at his own awkward words. He hadn’t meant to say it like that, or at that volume, and his mind raced as he searched for a way to fix what was probably going to be his next friendship setback. “I mean… the fabric’s really nice, like, floaty and shit. I mean, not shit! I mean it’s like sunshine. And it matches your shoes! And I really like yellow! And-“

“Thank you!” Galina clapped her hands, cutting Yuri off and saving him from having to swallow his own tongue to stop his rambling. “My father thinks I’m foolish to pack so many different hijabs when my mother only wears black, but colour is so important to me. And I love to coordinate as well. Thank you for noticing. You’re so kind.”

Yuri clenched his jaw, determined not to spew anymore verbal diarrhoea if he could help it, and scanned her words for any sign that she was being sarcastic or setting him up to be the butt of a joke. But he didn’t see anything to make him suspicious.

“You know,” Otabek said slowly. “Galina even has a leopard print hijab. And matching shoes.”

And that was it. “Leopard print! Seriously? That’s so fucking cool!”

“I know, yes? My mother rolls her eyes at me every time I wear it but she does not understand fashion.”

Yuri grinned, first at Galina and then at Otabek, both of whom smiled back, even if their happiness showed more through their eyes than on their lips. They talked at length about fashion, which of the big cats was their favourite (Otabek liked cheetahs because they could purr and when they did it sounded like the rumble of a motorcycle engine), Galina’s university choices for the following year, Yuri’s hatred of his tutors, Otabek’s lack of interest in further study, and which country should have won EuroVision.

By the time Galina’s father appeared, again looking like the whole concept of teenagers gave him reflux, Yuri was swapping phone numbers and email addresses with the two Kazakhs and following their social media accounts. Yuri was practically buzzing, endorphins pumping through his blood stream like he’d just scored a perfect program and it was hard not to feel giddy as he and Otabek walked back to where they’d parked Otabek’s bike.

The last thing Galina had said to him had been, “We are friends, yes?” And Yuri hadn’t managed to be even a little bit cool when he’d rushed to say that they definitely were.

“See,” Otabek told him as he handed over Yuri’s helmet. “Galina recognises a good person when she sees one. I knew you would find a friend in her as well. Yuri Plisetsky can do anything he sets his mind to.”

“Damn straight,” Yuri shot back, jumping on to the bike and wrapping his arms around Otabek’s waist. “I can beat dumb Viktor’s record, win the GPF on my first try, make piroshki just like Grandpa, and make friends like an absolute boss.”

Otabek responded by revving the engine and together they sped off through the city, back to their hotel, to spend the night laughing their way through shitty American action movies and eating their own body weight in paella.

A day later Yuri got his first text from Galina, teaching him his first five Kazakh phrases (including a very creative curse), and a farewell hug from Otabek.

Friendship, Yuri decided, was something he could definitely be a total master of.

—

‘Dear Yuuko-san, are we friends? Can we be friends? I would very much like it if I was to be considered your friend.’

Yuri pursed his lips as he read back over what he’d written. He still wasn’t great at writing in Japanese so wasn’t entirely sure that he’d managed to get the subtleties right, but also knew that he’d never get any better at it if he didn’t practice.

That was why he was sending her the message in the first place, to practice, and not just his hiragana. Yuri was practicing making friends. After spending time with Otabek, and then Galina, Yuri had started to think about friendship. Yuuko had been nice to him from the moment he arrived at Hasetsu; she had been encouraging when he felt too tired to keep training, she had given him nice food and always had a cold drink waiting for him when he got off the ice. In return Yuri had helped her with her nose bleeds and had refrained from yelling at her three tiny demon children. He hadn’t been sure why she’d offered to drive him to the airport when he left, or why she’d insisted on it when he said no, and he’d been suspicious of her cheerful, chatty texts at first but now… Yuri wondered if he just needed to make it official, and ask her to be his friend properly, so that they both knew that they really were friends with each other.

Despite the time difference her response was near immediate.

‘Of course! Thank you so much, Yuri-chan! I am honoured! It is an honour to be called your friend. The girls will be so jealous.’

Yuri snorted at that. He liked the idea of annoying the Nishagori triplets, and he really liked the idea of Yuuko lording it over them, of them being jealous because she got to call herself an official friend of Yuri Plisetsky. But mostly Yuri felt warm inside at the knowledge that he and Yuuko were friends, and that he knew for sure.

‘You be sure to tell them it’s a very exclusive club,’ he wrote back. ‘Thank you for being my friend.’

‘It’s my pleasure, Yuri-chan,’ she replied. ‘You are a wonderful friend. I cheered for you so much during your Free Skate that I hurt my voice!’ Yuri grinned. ‘And your gala exhibition was so impressive! I had a nose bleed! I bet it made Yuuri blush!’

‘He tried to tell me I was too young to skate like that but then he put his glasses on upside-down as he said it and that ruined the whole effect of his scolding. He just looked dumb.’

‘!!!!’

Yuri could imagine her laugh. It wasn’t so annoying that it made him angry, and not too loud either, which he really appreciated. Yuuko was nice, and she didn’t mind laughing at and teasing Katsudon with him. Also, she’d stopped calling him Yurio after the second time he’d reminded her it wasn’t his actual name, which Viktor and Katsudon still hadn’t managed. She was nice and she was his friend and suddenly Yuri wanted to do something nice back.

‘When’s your birthday and what do you want for it?’

He watched the three little dots dance as Yuuko typed and tried to imagine what she might be thinking or writing. Was he trying too hard? Or being too much of a friend too soon? Maybe she thought he was creepy or that he was trying to flirt, even though Yuri had never flirted in his life and wasn’t sure he even knew how to. There was no one to teach him how to do that. Yet. It was only because he’d had his own birthday recently, so birthdays were on his mind.

‘It’s next month actually. You don’t have to get me anything, though. Any presents I get seem to be snatched up by the girls anyway. Being your friend is enough.’

Yuri frowned hard. He wasn’t sure he understood.

‘So you don’t want a birthday present? Or you don’t want a present from me? Or you just don’t think I’m up to the challenge of getting you a present that 1, you will like and 2, your girls won’t be able to steal?’

‘Oh? That’s how it is, Yuri-chan? Ok then, consider yourself challenged! Now get to bed. You have training in the morning and it is past your bedtime!’

Yuri couldn’t stop himself, he actually blew a raspberry at his phone. Then he took a selfie with his tongue out and sent it to her for good measure.

‘You can’t tell me when to go to bed! I’m sixteen! I don’t have a bedtime!’

She sent a photo back, tongue out and eyes crossed, silly enough that Yuri snorted out a laugh.

‘Friends don’t let friends skate without getting a decent nights sleep first, Yuri-chan. As your friend I am saying you need your sleep so that tomorrow you can kick Yuuri-chan and Viktor-kun’s asses during practice!’

‘Good point,’ Yuri conceded with a grin. ‘Goodnight, Yuuko-san.’

‘Sleep well, my friend. xx’

Yuri fell asleep with a wide grin on his face that night, more proud of himself than he would have thought possible for something so simple. He couldn’t wait to tell Otabek about his progress and how he had succeeded in cementing his friendship with Yuuko. He hoped one day he’d be able to introduce Yuuko to Otabek, his best friend, and to Galina too. He thought the two women would really get along well, and then he could be the kind of friend who introduced friends to new friends.

Otabek and Galina would be able to help him think of a birthday present for Yuuko as well. They’d sent him absolutely brilliant ones and Yuri was determined to become an expert in friendship present buying.

—

“Mila!” Yuri yelled out across the rink, interrupting the redhead from her lazy, early morning laps of the ice. “Oi! Hag! Baba!”

She raised an eyebrow at him before skating in his direction, ignoring the way he was drumming his fingers on the barrier, waiting for her. He needed to talk to her and to get the whole conversation over with before anyone else arrived. The last thing he wanted was for the stupid old couple to walk in on them while he was discussing… this.

He’d been friends with Otabek for almost a year and was looking forward to seeing him again at the Final but something had been playing on his mind lately and it didn’t feel like something he could ask Galina or Yuuko about - just didn’t feel like the right sort of conversation, or the right sort of friendship for this conversation- Yuri scowled as his confusion began choking him again. The point was, he didn’t feel like he could talk to his other female friends about this, and every time he tried to bring it up with Otabek he chickened out, which left him with few options. Like Mila.

“What do you want, brat?” she asked him good-naturedly.

Yuri chewed on his lip, looking at the sharpness of Mila’s eyeliner, then at the little rainbow tattoo on her wrist. She was bound to know about his problem, was bound to know the answers too, but he couldn’t just come out and ask her… so to speak.

“Baba,” he said a little breathlessly, clutching the wood of the railing so tightly his hands were starting to cramp. “Are we friends?”

Her look of surprise was so extreme, her whole body displaying her shock, that Yuri immediately figured he had been wrong. He misunderstood tone and body language and social interactions so regularly, and often so spectacularly, that he should have seen it coming. Of course Mila didn’t consider him a friend. She’d never said as much and she was older and (not that he’d ever admit it to her) cooler. He knew surprise when he was it, though. Mila was shocked that Yuri would assume friendship with her, and was likely about to laugh in his face and tease him so bad he’d need to flee the country.

“Forget it,” he told her, hating her perfectly manicured, raised eyebrows and her gaping mouth with her glossy, plump lips. “Forget I said anything! If you ever mention this to anyone, I’ll-“

“Aw, Yuri!” Mila squealed, interrupting him with such enthusiasm that she made him jump. “Of course we’re friends! Why would you even need to ask?”

Yuri scrunched his brows, confused again. Mila stepped off the ice and immediately grabbed up his hands. Her eyes were a little glassy and her smile was dopey. She looked like she’d suddenly become drunk and Yuri wasn’t sure whether he should trust her after all.

“Why wouldn’t I ask?” he snapped at her. “How else would I know? How else would you know? Don’t be stupid!”

Mila just gave him another gormless grin and squeezed his hands in hers. The action drew Yuri’s attention to the tattoo on her wrist again and he bit his lip as he considered it. Mila was his friend, he had confirmation of it now, and they’d known each other a long time, since Yuri had started as a Novice and Mila had been in her last year, gearing up to join Juniors.

“I’m guessing you’re asking because you need something,” Mila said, breaking through his thoughts with her cheerful enthusiasm.

She was more annoying that Yuuko or Galina, no where near as easy to read as Otabek, or so easy to talk to, but she knew him, she was caring, and she lived her life without worrying what other people thought of her. And she knew all sorts of people.

“You’re queer, right?” he said suddenly, wincing at her renewed surprise and at his own bluntness. He still believed, firmly, that it was best to be straightforward and to the point in life, but was slowly learning that he sometimes said things a little too forcefully. Sometimes his volume wasn’t something he could control. But he really was working on it.

“Well…” Mila said cautiously and Yuri immediately imagined her pulling her hands away and revoking her friendship. He had to do something, fast.

“I mean, sorry!” Yuri said too loudly before pursing his lips and trying to whisper. “I mean, you’re bisexual or something? And you know about that sort of thing, right? You know about, um…”

“Yuri,” Mila said in a sing-song tone, and Yuri tried to figure out how she was feeling if she wasn’t offended or upset or disgusted.

He couldn’t tell and knew that he would probably have to ask. Otabek had reassured him multiple times that it was perfectly ok to ask people to clarify their intentions and whether they were angry or sad or worried. It was fucking difficult to do but Yuri had to admit that it worked well. Yakov yelled at him less now and always started his rants and speeches by telling Yuri the what and why of his feelings and concerns.

“Yuri!” Mila sang at him again. “Are you trying to tell me something? You know you can tell me, right? If you’re bi or gay or questioning, or-“

“No!” Yuri interrupted. “I mean, I don’t actually know, I’ve not thought about that side of things much but… but, like, a year ago Otabek mentioned something, and, well…” Yuri looked at her beseechingly, desperate for her to read his mind or his expression before the angry feelings that were bubbling in his gut rose up too high and too big for him to manage. Instead she just grinned saucily.

“Otabek, huh? You know he’s engaged, right? His parents are doing the whole arranged marriage thing to him.”

Yuri nodded. He was aware. He thought the arrangement was odd and knew that Galina and Otabek were resigned to it, but didn’t feel like telling Mila that. He didn’t want to tell her things about his other friends if they weren’t also Mila’s friends. It was complicated but Yuri thought he was getting pretty good at navigating the ins and outs of friendships now. Or at least better than he’d once been.

“I know all that, that’s not what I mean. It’s just,” he paused, organising his thoughts and reminding himself to keep his voice steady. “Last year Otabek said this thing. He said, ‘girls who are friends, boys who are friends, and other gendered people who are friends’. And I,” he swallowed, focusing on Mila’s glossy red hair so he didn’t have to look at her face. “Mila, I-“

“I have a book at home about being non-binary,” Mila told him softly and Yuri nodded again, brows creased but throat too cramped up to ask her what that meant. She sounded like Yuuko when she was being her most gentle, or like Galina when she was patiently teaching him how to conjugate verbs in Kazakh. She didn’t sound like she was teasing or setting him up for a fall. “Non-binary is a term for people who don’t necessarily feel like either boy or girl,” she explained. “And I follow a YouTuber who is genderfluid, which means they move between genders. Sometimes boy, sometimes girl, sometimes both or neither. You can come back to mine tonight and we can watch some of their videos together if you’d like?”

Yuri nodded, yet again, swallowing thickly. He didn’t even bother to push her away when Mila launched herself at him and hugged him tight.

“But,” he tried to carry on, despite his voice being muffled by Mila’s strong arms and soft bosom. “But how do people, how do those people, how do they know that they’re… that. How do you know if you’re not a gender? How do you BE that?”

Mila eventually pulled back, holding Yuri by his shoulders and looking like a proud older sister.

“To be honest, brat, you actually do a pretty good job of straddling that line and fucking with the whole gender thing already. And if it’s anything like coming terms with sexuality then I’m afraid it’s normal to feel confused but it’s also something that you just sort of know, you know?”

“Yah, I think I do,” Yuri agreed before narrowing his eyes at her and wriggling his shoulders until she let go of him and gave him some space. “If you tell anyone about Any of this, I swear to fuck, Baba!”

“Oh, as if I would!” she shrieked at him. “True friends keep each other’s secrets, brat!”

“Hag!” he shot back at her playfully.

“You wish you had my looks!” she teased, before her smile turned soft again. “And I would be happy to teach you, by the way. If you’re ever interested. In how to get my look, I mean.”

“Maybe,” Yuri rolled his eyes. “Maybe for my exhibition skate, after I wipe the ice with the ancient losers.”

He took off his skate guards and glided out on to the ice, speeding up as he saw Mila start to chase him. She smiled wickedly at him, gaining speed, and by the time their rink mates arrived the two were cackling and whooping as they sped across the ice in a very athletic game of tag.

—

Yuri looked at himself in the mirror, wondering whether he’d ever work up the courage to show this outfit to his friends, let alone the wider world. It wasn’t exactly a risqué ensemble. He’d worn flashier things on the ice. Hell, he’d worn costumes with sequins and mesh and bits of fabric flapping off them that definitely looked a lot like skirts. The Yuri staring back at him in the mirror was just wearing a leopard print mini skirt over black leggings with platform Doc Martins and a slinky black halter top that shimmered in the light and showed off his toned arms just as much as his narrow waist. It wasn’t anything to gasp at. Not really.

He’d been practicing for a year to get his eyeliner to look the way Mila did it and finally felt like he wasn’t just repeating the Winter Soldier look he’d sported for his ‘Welcome to the Madness’ skate over two years ago. And now he was eighteen. He was an adult, with on point eyes, a strong, athlete’s body, and zero courage to wear his chosen outfit out to a club to celebrate.

The worst part was that he’d already talked to Otabek for hours about how excited he was to be going out. He’d been bragging, if he was honest, telling Beka how great his new outfit was, how he was going to rock the club scene and have a proper wild night. Otabek had wanted to come over for the occasion but hadn’t been able to owing to a fracture in his foot that he needed to focus on recovering from. He had sounded tired, or possibly sad, Yuri hadn’t been able to tell, but he’d assumed it was due to the forced time off the ice, and the fact that Galina had chosen to move to Canada to continue her studies, thereby pushing their engagement out even longer. Knowing that it must feel horrible to be in that situation, Yuri had tried to take Otabek’s mind off of things with talk of everything he wanted to do now that he’d reached the magic adult number.

But now… Yuri desperately wanted to come out. He still wasn’t sure about the sexuality side of things, that all felt vague, like something just outside his reach, but he was sure now, after hours spent binging the videos of gender-fluid and non-binary YouTubers, that he was himself gender-fluid. Fairly sure, at least. Or as sure as a person could be whilst competing in Men’s figure skating, and continuing to use only he/him pronouns.

Glaring at his reflection Yuri saw himself slump. He grabbed up the tiger plushy from his bed and held it to his chest. He couldn’t go out, not like this. Not when he couldn’t even send a photo of himself dressed up in one stupid skirt to the people who were his friends. The people he hoped were his friends.

A light tapping on his apartment door disrupted his thoughts and Yuri jumped before remembering the food he’d ordered to treat himself for his birthday. He kicked off his boots, more violently than was perhaps necessary, and trudged out of his room toward the front door, confused by his own feelings and behaviour, his two cats trotting along behind him like a royal entourage.

He was Yuri Plisetsky. He was a multiple gold medalist and world champion. He had mastered four languages besides his mother tongue, and every recipe in his grandfather’s handwritten recipe book. He had passed all of his high school exams, some of them he’d even done quite well in. He successfully maintained four friendships and had refrained from kicking anyone for over six months. He was supposed to be a soldier, to be brave! Instead he slunk to the door, already planning out which fluffy pair of pyjamas he’d change in to once he’d collected his order.

He was so lost in his melancholy thoughts that he didn’t even realise for a second that his food wasn’t sitting in front of his door, where the delivery guy usually left it. Instead there were a pair of feet in, frankly, ugly ass sneakers. Yuri glanced up, meeting eyes with Yuuri Katsuki, who’s eyes then slid down to take in Yuri’s outfit.

“FUCK!” Yuri screamed, stumbling back from his door and flailing, tiger toy still in hand, as he tripped over his own feet and both cats. “Fuck shitting fuck shit dick spitting mother fucking FUCK!”

Yuuri stood frozen in the doorway clutching a plain white box, mouth hanging open, staring as Yuri scrambled back, trying to cover himself with a stupid plushy, cheeks flaming red and eyes fast filling with tears. He could not let Katsudon see him like this. There was no way. Sure, back when he’d been a fifteen-year-old the two of them had bonded briefly over Viktor’s flashy costumes, but that didn’t mean Yuuri would understand his current choice of clothes. Yuuri Katsuki had the worst fashion sense in the skating world! He seemed to actively pick out clothes that made him look lumpy and even larger than he was when he’d been gorging on pork and not bothering to exercise. At that very moment he was dressed in what looked like snap pants. Snap Pants! And a cheap windbreaker that looked like it was made out of recycled plastic bags.

Still, there was no way he wasn’t going to tease Yuri for what he was wearing. Katsudon had spent too much time with Viktor and that douche had made teasing Yuri his number one hobby. He let out a sob, covering his mouth too late, and finally made it to his feet, making a mad dash back to his bedroom and slamming the door.

He was already stripped down to just his leggings when he heard that timid knocking again, this time on his bedroom door. He should have known Katsudon wouldn’t be able to just let things go.

“Yurio?” he called tentatively and something about the tone of voice sent Yuri’s anger and fear spiking.

“That’s not my fucking name, you dipshit!” he screamed, tripping and hopping across the room as he pulled off his leggings. “Can you just leave? Please?! I don’t need to hear whatever stupid lame jokes you plan on making about me, ok? Please, just go!”

Somehow he managed to convince his limbs to cooperate enough for him to actually get his pyjamas on - an oversized fuzzy jumper in white tiger print and black track pants which may have once belonged to Otabek - but when he stumbled back across the room to open his door, the stupid Katsudon was still there, looking like a confused puppy, which just made Yuri want to scream again.

Instead he stalked over to the front door, where the delivery guy was peaking through the open doorway looking fearful, snatched the bag out of his hand, and slammed the door in his snooping little face. When he looked back he saw that Yuuri’s face still looked the same, and he still couldn’t read it. He’d always found it difficult to tell what Katsudon was thinking or feeling, and hated that he didn’t know what the man was thinking about Him specifically. Katsudon had teased him even more than Yuri had realised when he’d first come to Japan, and the old embarrassments still rankled at times.

But Otabek had told him, more than once, that not all teasing came from a place of maliciousness, and that Katsudon wasn’t a malicious person. He also reminded Yuri regularly that if he didn’t understand someone’s expressions then the sensible, grown-up thing to do was to ask bluntly but politely. Yuri was good at the first part, not so much at the second. Not yet, anyway.

“What do you want?” Yuri asked eventually, when Yuuri continued to stand there, in his house, with his face as red as borscht and blinking like he was practicing eyeball Morse code. “Seriously. What do you want, Katsudon? Do you not think you’ve got enough blackmail material yet? Think I’m going to give you more? Huh?”

His voice was getting high, and loud, but he couldn’t help it. Frankly he was lucky he wasn’t noticeably whining or throwing anything.

“I… um…” Yuuri held up the box in his hands. “I brought cake. Birthday cake. Viktor couldn’t come but I didn’t want you to be alone on your birthday. I know Otabek’s not able to come, and Mila’s away competing, and I know they’re the usual people you’d celebrate with. Not me. But still… I didn’t want you to be alone on your birthday. That’s the worst feeling in the world and… I didn’t want that for you.”

Yuri narrowed his eyes and stalked forward, his junky birthday dinner swinging from his hand in its steam wet bag. Nervous, Yuri decided. Katsudon looked nervous but not much else except for perhaps - hopeful?

“You would do that for me?” he asked slowly. His lips twitched when Yuuri nodded like an out-of-control bobble head doll. It felt kind of nice that someone still thought he was scary even after they’d seen him dressed in feminine party clothes, then having a complete meltdown, and now wearing his fluffiest pyjamas. He stalked a little closer and watched as Yuuri took a step back and held out the cake box like an offering to a dragon. Yuri grinned wider as something clicked in his brain. “Katsudon,” he said in his best imitation of Mila’s sing-song tone. “Are we friends?”

Yuuri blinked. “Um. Yes? I hope so.”

He seemed to find Yuri’s wide, unfettered grin the most terrifying thing of all but didn’t resist when Yuri tugged him to the sofa and served them both large portions of noodles and beef with a huge amount of enthusiasm. He didn’t resist when Yuri bumped shoulders with him and chattered away about Otabek’s broken foot and how much of an upset that was for his season and actually stole food from his plate.

It was only when they’d eaten their way through half of the cake that Yuuri got up the courage to bring up what he’d seen when he’d first arrived.

“You know, Yurio - I mean, Yuri!” he corrected himself quickly. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of your clothing choices. I would never tease you about that, never.”

Yuri grunted, and mashed what was left of his cake in to mush on his plate. He wasn’t sure if he believed that. And sure, Yuuri had always been pretty decent to him, but they didn’t have the same trust built up between them that Yuri did with his other friends.

“Whatever,” he mumbled. “Just forget about it, would you?”

He expected Yuuri to oblige but instead the old idiot kept right on talking.

“You remember my ‘Eros’ skate, right? Well, d’you want to know the story I made up for myself to help me perform it?”

Yuri glared. Yuuri was almost definitely teasing him now. “You were thinking of katsudon, Katsudon! You’re sexy thoughts were about pork and eggs and rice because you’re a freak with a food fetish.”

He made a face and dropped his plate down on the coffee table as if just holding food would make Yuuri do something sexual, but Yuuri just snorted at him and jabbed him with his elbow.

“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”

“Never!” Yuri assured him. “I’m telling that story at your funeral.”

Yuuri rolled his eyes. “Well, the truth is, I had this story in my head when I performed. At first I tried imagining myself as a playboy, chasing after and seducing the most beautiful woman in every town I went to, but I just couldn’t make that work for me. So I asked Minako to teach me how to move more like a woman. I imagined myself as the beautiful woman, seducing the man, seducing the whole audience, the whole world! Every time I performed that routine I stepped in to the mind and soul of that beautiful seductress. And I enjoyed it. I loved it, Yuri. And while I wouldn’t exactly call myself non-binary, I know that I’m not… entirely male. Does that make sense?”

Yuri sat silently, as still as he could, as he tried to process what Yuuri had told him. He hadn’t been expecting it but it made sense. The more he replayed ‘Eros’ in his head the more he saw the feminine in Yuuri’s movements, in his aura. That gender shift was part of what made the skate so compelling. Tears prickled suddenly behind his eyes and Yuri launched himself at the man beside him, hugging him tight, so tight that Yuuri was wriggling in an attempt to get Yuri to loosen his grip.

“I’m gender-fluid!” he yelled against Yuuri’s shoulder. “I’m gender-fluid and I want to tell people and I want to wear shit like I was wearing when you turned up but I just don’t know how! I want to tell Otabek but I don’t know how!”

Yuuri hugged him tight in answer to the confession, not offering solutions or anything that might put up Yuri’s hackles, only sharing the relief and joy that came with coming out to someone who truly cared about him. They would figure out the best way for Yuri to tell his other friends about his gender identity eventually but for right now there was cuddles and there was cake and that was enough.

—

“So,” Yuri said forcefully, leaning in to glare at the laptop screen. Galina raised an eyebrow at him with a sassy fearlessness that she never would have back when the two had first met nearly five years ago. “When do I get to meet your friend? You’ve been talking about him non-stop for months. Put me out of my misery already!”

Galina rolled her eyes and toyed with the golden tassels on her hijab. She was wearing the tiger brooch Yuri had sent her for her birthday and it made him preen proudly.

“It’s no big deal, Yuri,” she told him. “He’s just a friend.”

“No big deal?” Yuri echoed her too loudly, scaring both of his cats out of the bedroom. “New friends are a huge deal! I want to meet him and make sure he’s good enough to talk to you and breathe in your presence. If he isn’t I’ll remove the blades from my boots and stab him in the thighs!”

Galina snorted at that, smiling through the webcam at Yuri’s antics. Gone were the days when she’d sat stiffly, carefully neutral around Otabek and by extension, Yuri. Life in Canada suited her, it seemed, and he felt proud of her for all she was accomplishing in studying Zoology in a foreign country, and that she’d been able to master English so well. Yuri knew it was because he had been an excellent tutor, and in return Galina had helped him with his own school work and had forwarded him links to her research in to feline genetics.

“Is that someone threatening my life that I hear, eh?” came a voice through the laptop speakers, and Yuri frowned a little.

He was naturally suspicious of Canadian accents, whether English speaking or Québécois, but the man who popped in to shot and sat down beside his friend didn’t look anything like certain horrible Canadians that he knew. He looked like a commercial for maple syrup instead.

“You look like a lumberjack,” he said in English, drawing in back in distaste at the flannel and facial hair and arm hair and the tuft of chest hair poking up through the hideous, horrible, flannel. Did he mention the flannel. “Do you chop down trees for a living?” he asked sarcastically before turning to Galina and swapping to Kazakh. “Galina! He looks like a lumberjack!”

The two laughed but Yuri clamped his lips shut. He wasn’t impressed. Galina dressed like a goddess. She understood fabrics and fashion. He couldn’t understand why she would be friends with someone who looked like he was on a permanent camping trip. And yet this man, this Joshua, was all Galina had been talking about for months and now she wanted Yuri to meet him. Yuri wasn’t sure what she expected from him, he still wasn’t the sort to sugarcoat what he thought or mind his tongue. Galina knew that and she still thought this Joshua guy was someone he should meet.

Yuri squinted, looking at them closely. Something didn’t make sense and he hated when things didn’t make sense. It made him angry, made the rage at the world rise up, because he hated being at a disadvantage and not having all of the information. He hated not understanding. His anger was focused on Joshua, the lumberjack sitting next to one of his closest friends, so close that one of his hulking shoulders was almost touching her hijab.

Galina said that he was a PhD student at her university, studying biodiversity, and that they had bonded over their love of animals, but Yuri was suspicious. The guy looked at Galina the way Viktor always looked at Katsudon, all soft eyed and heart shaped smile (beneath his beard) and for a moment Yuri was scandalised. Surely he was reading their body language wrong! Then, when Joshua looked away, blushing, Galina looked across at him the way Katsudon used to look at actual katsudon! It was too much and Yuri had to fight his own brain and body to keep from flailing or throwing something heavy across the room.

“Holy shit! HOLY SHIT! You aren’t friends at all, are you?” he screamed at them and gaped at them, horrified, when they didn’t refute it. “You’re… you’re something else!”

Galina pursed her lips, but then nodded. “It’s true. Joshua and I have been dating. We-“

“But what about Otabek?! What about your fiancé?!” Yuri interrupted, not caring how loud he got or that Galina might be upset by how he was acting. When Joshua tried to tell him to settle down he practically hissed at the screen but Galina remained calm and composed. She even raised an eyebrow at him questioningly, a move she’d picked up from Otabek years ago, and Yuri relented in to unwilling silence.

“Otabek knows. And he understands. He and I have been talking about this, and about how we feel about each other, for a long time now. And I am not the only one to have feelings for someone. Otabek is…” she paused, pursed her lips thoughtfully before she swallowed whatever it is she had been going to say originally. “Otabek has strong feelings for another.”

Yuri was stunned. He shook his head and scooted back from the laptop a little as his forehead scrunched. He tried to understand but just couldn’t. Beka was his best friend, they talked about everything, they didn’t keep secrets, they were everything to each other. So how was it that Galina knew about this other person when Yuri hadn’t even had a clue.

“That’s wrong,” he told her, ignoring the odd look Lumberjack Joshua gave him. “Otabek hasn’t said anything about that to me, hasn’t acted like that toward anyone I know and I would be able to tell if he had a crush on someone.”

“Wait, you don’t-“ Joshua was interrupted by Galina’s elbow to his ribs and Yuri felt a smug fizzing of glee in his chest at that, even if he didn’t like that the Canadian apparently knew something that he didn’t.

“Yuriym, I love you, you’re my dear friend, but honestly, you are so stubborn and focused on your skating, you fail to see the romance for the roses.”

Yuri doubled down on his frown. He wasn’t a fan of unnecessary, flowery language - especially about flowers - it just took too long to understand and was a dumb excuse to avoid just telling the truth.
“Don’t use metaphors, Galina, that’s not fair,” he told her, leaning toward the camera. “Just say what you mean.”

Her smile, which had already been fond, turned even softer at that and she held up her hand, clasped in Joshua’s in a very couply way.

“Sorry, Yuri, of course. I am in a romantic relationship with Joshua. We’re dating. Otabek and I have made the decision to end our engagement,” she said slowly in English, for the benefit of the bearded wild man next to her no doubt. “It was arranged for us when I was fourteen-years-old. We were friends and we accepted it because it made everyone else happy. But now… Otabek is still my friend, Yuri, I hope he always will be. But I do not want to marry him. Just as he doesn’t want to marry me.”

“So you’ve discussed it with him?” Yuri asked, unsure of how much he should expect to be told. His two best friends were breaking up, but so far no one seemed particularly upset. The emotional cues were all over the place and it was making him antsy. “How does Otabek feel?”

“He’s ok. We came to the decision together,” Galina reassured him. “And aside from Joshua, you’re the first person to know. We wanted you to know, but Beka didn’t know how to tell you.”

Yuri felt a strange knot form in his stomach at that. Why wouldn’t Otabek want to tell him something so important?

“This other person he has feelings for,” he ventured gingerly. “Do I know them? Is that why he didn’t want to tell me?”

“Yuri,” Galina sighed. “He wants to tell you, truly, he just doesn’t know how. Because he’s an idiot, and because it’s important. And yes, you most definitely know them. In fact, Beka is going to find it hard these next few days. We plan to tell our parents and whilst I get to do it like this, behind a screen and with thousands of kilometres between me and my disappointed father, Otabek has to speak to his parents in person. He’s going to need your support, I think.”

“Of course!” Yuri cried. “He’s my best friend, I’d do anything for him! Do you think I should fly out to Almaty? Is that too much?”

“You should do what your heart tells you, eh?” Joshua offered but Yuri glared at him until the smile dropped from his stupid rugged face.

“Oi! We aren’t friends yet,” Yuri told him, “so watch it. I’m competing in Canada this season, you don’t want me to turn up at your log cabin or whatever cliche you live in, to beat you to death with a bag of your own beard clippings!”

He hadn’t known exactly what to expect from the Canadian but the roar of laughter wasn’t it and he jumped, along with the cats who had only just ventured back in to the room.

“Consider me duly warned!” he chuckled. “I’ll be on my best behaviour until you decide I’m worthy, eh?”

“And if you hurt Galina,” Yuri continued, pointing at the screen and trying to sound threatening, which was a struggle given the continued laughter. “Otabek and I will both come for you! You hear me, asshole!”

“Yuri!” Galina yelled back, and even though he was trying so hard to look fierce, he had to smile, because she never used to argue back with him, or raise her voice, and now she was going to stand up to even her parents. “Otabek has already given him the ‘shovel speech’, he doesn’t need it from you as well! He is a good man, he treats me very respectfully.”

Yuri crossed his arms and pouted. He still wasn’t convinced.

“Is he Muslim?”

“I’m Jewish, actually,” Joshua told him with a grin, enjoying Yuri’s sudden look of surprise.

“You’re Jewish?” Yuri snapped at him. “But I’m Jewish.”

Joshua’s grin grew wider. “Maybe we can be friends after all. When you’re ready, of course, eh?”

“Don’t push it, lumberjack,” he muttered, scowling even though the man’s laughter wasn’t really that annoying.

He focused instead on Galina, who gave him a smile that was truly joyful, and Yuri had to be happy for her. But Otabek was another matter and Yuri made his excuses to end the call so that he could make one to his best friend. Otabek had been in a low mood a lot lately. He hadn’t been making eye contact like he’d used to and his shoulders always sloped like something was weighing him down. That sort of posture wasn’t good for his spine or his skating and Yuri decided it needed to be fixed.

He really was happy for Galina, because she was living a life she was choosing and making her own decisions, but he needed to hear from Otabek himself that their long engagement had come to a mutual end. Otabek was his best friend, after all and Yuri intended to be the best best friend he could be, and do whatever Otabek needed him to.

—

“Hey,” Yuri said gently, trying to read Otabek’s mood.

He was one month away from twenty and he felt he should be able to read all of Otabek’s gestures and moods after so long but he was struggling, and it caused a pain in his chest that made him want to scream. The picture on his laptop screen was grainy because of the low light in Otabek’s room and he couldn’t see much of anything beyond the outline of his friend’s shoulders which were still sloping in that heavy way that made Yuri feel sad down to his bones. He had to do something to fix it, there was no way he was letting the person he loved most in world sit there so dejectedly.

“Hey,” Otabek responded, his voice devoid of emotion. He didn’t make eye contact.

“You’re sad,” Yuri stated, wanting to at least get the facts out in the open from the start.

But Otabek just sighed.

“I’m not sad, Yura.”

Yuri frowned. He was going to give himself a headache at this rate. He didn’t understand. “I talked to Galina though. I know about Joshua. I know you two are breaking off your engagement. It’s ok to be sad in front of me, Beka,” he urged. “I care about you, I won’t laugh. You didn’t laugh at me when I came to you a blubbering mess ‘cos I’d figured out I was gender-fluid and didn’t know what to do next.”

Otabek grunted but his eyes did briefly flicker up to Yuri’s face before he looked away again. “Forgot to ask, present pronouns?”

“He/him,” he shrugged. They were speaking in Russian and figuring out any pronouns besides those were just a pain, but he appreciated the sentiment. “Russian sucks like that. And thanks for asking but I’m not dropping this. I hate seeing you like this. You’re miserable.”

“I’m not miserable, Yura.”

Otabek closed his eyes, face passive, breathing deep like he was trying to calm himself and push down the emotional cues that Yuri needed in order to navigate their interactions. Otabek was subtle to begin with but Yuri had still always found it simple enough to read him. He was the only person alive who Yuri didn’t struggle to understand and predict - usually. Now, after five years of friendship it felt like Otabek was shutting down and shutting him out.

“Beka?” he whispered, not wanting to startle his friend or disturb him. “If you’re not sad or miserable or whatever, then what’s going on? It’s about the engagement, right? I didn’t think you were in love with Galina, not in a romantic way, but if you are, if that’s what’s upsetting you, then-“

“It’s not!” Otabek said forcefully before lowering his voice to match Yuri’s. “Honestly it’s not. I’m not in love with Galina. I’m really happy for her, and we came to our decision together.”

Yuri bit his lip. Otabek still wasn’t giving him anything and it was starting to upset him. He felt guilty, as if he’d done something wrong to upset Otabek somehow, and he didn’t like it.

“So if it’s not Galina, then,” he said slowly. “Is it me? Am I reason you’re feeling and acting like this? Did I mess up? Because I can do better! I can be a better friend!”

“Oh no, Yura!” Otabek responded, his voice suddenly full of care and kindness and feeling. “You haven’t messed up! I couldn’t ask for a better friend! I care about you more than anyone,” his voice cracked and Yuri wished there was some way he could hug the poor man at the other end of the webcall. “I’m sorry that I made you feel badly about yourself, Yura, I never want that.”

“Well I never want you to feel that either,” Yuri told him. “If it’s not Galina, and it’s not me, then is it your foot? Is this latest injury worse than you told me? You’ve wrecked it three times now. Are they going to keep you off the ice for the season? Do they need to operate? Is it bad?!”

“No. Sweetheart, of course not,” Otabek whispered, his voice like a calming caress. “I’d never keep something like that from you. I know how worried you get when anyone’s injured. It’s just a sprain, I promise.”

Yuri whined. Otabek was being sweet but still hiding from him and still sounding so sad. He didn’t understand and he really didn’t like it. It made him want to punch the screen but he knew Otabek would probably sigh at him if he did that, so he sat on his hands instead. He’d sort of hoped that Otabek would bring up the mysterious ‘someone’ Galina had mentioned so that he wouldn’t have to, especially since Yuri couldn’t think of anything else that could be bothering his friend. The trick would be in bringing it up subtly, so that Otabek didn’t shut down again or try to change the subject.

“Galina says you have feelings for someone,” he blurted instead, and wanted to punch himself. “Shit! I mean, fuck! She says that maybe you aren’t upset about the engagement ending because you’ve found someone else, like she has. Is she right? Do I know them? Are they making you sad? D’you need me to beat them up, cos I swear, Beka, I’ll beat the snot out of them if they’re the reason you’ve been acting so miserable.”

Otabek laughed, that soft, warm, sweet tea and blini laugh that always made Yuri’s spine tingle. It would be better if he could see the man’s face properly, so that he could see the laughter in his brown eyes and the tiny suggestion of a dimple in his left cheek. But Yuri satisfied himself that he’d at least been able to lighten Otabek’s mood a bit.

“Again, I’m not really miserable,” Otabek told him. “I’ve just been struggling with something and… yes, it has to do with the person Galina told you about. I’m guessing she didn’t tell you their name?” Yuri shook his head, squinting in an effort to see Otabek’s face just a little better in the gloom. Otabek huffed out a breath through his nose. “I’m pinching her the next time I see her, for interfering. But in answer to your other question, yes, you do know the person I’m in love with. No, you shouldn’t beat the snot out of them. I just don’t know how to tell… that person…. how I feel.”

“Shouldn’t it just be like how you tell someone you want to be their friend?” Yuri asked honestly, actually glad that he couldn’t see Otabek’s face when he heard another chuckle. Otabek had a lot more experience than Yuri did when it came to relationships of all kinds and sometimes knowing how little he knew about people made Yuri embarrassed. “Can’t you just ask them to be your girlfriend and shake hands on it?”

Otabek sighed. “Not exactly. They aren’t a girl for a start. And they’re too far away for a handshake. I’d have to tell them like this, through a computer screen.”

“Oh,” Yuri said lamely. “So then, just say, ‘Do you want to be my boyfriend?’ And then fist bump the screen or something.”

Otabek snorted loudly and began to laugh, and Yuri smirked proudly.

“And what if they aren’t a boy?” Otabek asked, sounding a little more like himself and less down in the dumps. “What if they’re gender-fluid and just using he/him pronouns right now because Russian is a difficult language to be gender neutral in? What then?”

Yuri made a face. He didn’t know what Otabek was getting at but he wasn’t about to let the mood drop again so he shrugged dramatically and flapped his hands.

“Then you say, ‘Hey sexy human, want to date me?’ You can still use the fist bump if you want but blowing a kiss is also an option.”

“That’s your expert opinion, is it?” Otabek laughed again and shifted around until he was facing some sort of light source and Yuri could finally see his face.

“Yup!” Yuri grinned and nodded, not wanting to drag his eyes away from Otabek’s wonderful, perfectly balanced features. Just looking at him made Yuri’s heart beat faster and made it impossible not to smile. Whoever had won his best friend’s heart was one lucky human.

“Alright then. Yuri?” Otabek asked in a louder, more confident tone. “Sexy human that you are. I love you, want to date me?”

He even blew a kiss and for a second Yuri sat stunned, unable to move, sure that Otabek must have been joking. But if it had been a joke surely he would have just done the fist bump, Yuri’s brain figured. Nobody blew a kiss if they didn’t mean it, did they? Otabek definitely wasn’t the sort to blow a kiss he didn’t mean. Yuri had known him for five years and had never seen him blow a kiss to anyone! So that meant…

“I…”

“Yuri?”

“I… Holy shit! Holy fucking- Yes! YES! Fuck! Shit! FUCK! I love you too! Shit! Fuck! SHIT! FUCKING SHIT!”

In the silence that followed his outburst Yuri tried to take a few deep breaths, which was a difficult thing given how hard his heart was beating and how much he wanted to keep on screaming at the top of his lungs. He wanted to grab his laptop and shake it. Otabek, meanwhile, appeared to be trying, and failing, to keep his laughter from bubbling forth and Yuri felt a sudden horrible fear that maybe a prank had been played on him.

“Oi, asshole! Don’t laugh at me!”

Otabek stopped, or at least tried to. “I’m not, I promise. I’m laughing because I’m happy. You made me happy. I love you so, so much and I haven’t known how to tell you. Thank you, Yura. You want to fist bump the screen with me?”

Yuri nodded, and they did, and he felt better. Sometimes, he supposed, his reactions could be a little extreme. Luckily Otabek never seemed to mind. He always accepted Yuri for exactly who he was.

“You love me,” he said wonderingly, turning the idea over in his mind. “For how long?”

Otabek shrugged his shoulder and his lips twitched up in the smallest of smiles. “Since forever, really. But romantically? Since you were eighteen, when you came out to me and showed me how good you looked in that leopard print mini skirt.”

He blushed then, something which Otabek rarely did, and Yuri leaned forward to study the way the warm flush spread out across his cheeks and down toward his jawline.

“You’ve felt this way for nearly two years and you didn’t tell me?” he demanded, acting angry even though he felt the exact opposite. “What the hell, Beka, friends are supposed to tell each other everything.”

It was a tease and Otabek responded with a groan, throwing his head back in what counted as a dramatic gesture for him. Yuri just giggled in response and ran to put the garment in question on over the top of his practice leggings. He’d never considered any kind of relationship with Otabek besides friendship; Beka had been engaged when they met and Yuri had been fifteen and oblivious. But he deeply loved Otabek and now Yuri’s mind was brimming with possibilities. Friendship involved things like hugs and shoulder bumps and fist bumps and forehead bumps. A romantic relationship involved things like kissing! Yuri had never wanted to try that with anyone before but the thought of trying it with Otabek made his entire body feel tingly, like adrenaline and ice.

Otabek opened his eyes in time to see Yuri return to stand in front of his laptop, in his skirt, and he immediately groaned again and slapped his hand to his forehead. Yuri cackled.

“Being in love has made you a drama queen, Beka!” he yelled. “I still need my badass best friend, you know? Don’t go all,” he waved his hands vaguely, trying to come up with something appropriate,” all roses and chocolates on me.”

Otabek sat up and looked at him, his eyes dancing mischievously. He looked practically wicked as he looked Yuri up and down, eventually resting his gaze on Yuri’s face and giving him the eye contact he’d craved.

“I would never send you chocolates,” he deadpanned. “They’re not part of your diet plan. Yakov would kill me. And I’d never send you flowers without first ascertaining that they are safe for cats. I’m more likely to send you a gaming gift card to be honest. Or a new skirt. You look really good.”

Now it was Yuri’s turn to blush and he could tell by the way Otabek looked at him with his head resting to the side, that he was appreciating the view.

“We’re still friends, right?” he asked softly, secretly loving the dopey grin Otabek gave him upon hearing the question. “Even if we’re romantic as well?”

“Definitely,” Otabek agreed. “You’ll always be my best friend, Yura. I couldn’t ask for a better one.”

“Awesome,” Yuri nodded to himself, feeling satisfied. “Fuck! I can’t wait to see you in person so I can kiss you!”

Hearing Otabek choke on his own spit and surprise was the second best thing Yuri had heard all day, after Otabek’s confession of love and request that they date, of course. He cackled at the laptop and sent his cats skittering from the room in surprise.

— — —