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Victor Nikiforov is seventeen years old. Yuuri is only fifteen. It’s something that he thinks about often. If he were the same age or maybe even just a year older he wouldn’t, but lo and behold he is a mere sophomore with a senior friend and he doesn’t know what to make of this.
“When you say ‘this’, are you talking about how much he wants to bone you?”
Yuuri flinches.
“Can you not?” he asks because there is just something unsettling about that.
After everything that's happened between them, does it really all just come down to something as basic as... well, as sex? Yuuri doesn't want to think that, and some part of him is telling him that he's being ridiculous, but still...
Phichit doesn't seem to take much notice to his internal struggle. He only shrugs and keeps on scrolling. It’s not that Yuuri minds that he pays more attention to his phone while they hang around in his room, but he’s having a serious crisis here and would like some serious input. And because it’s a serious situation, he throws a giant sushi plush at his friend’s head.
“Nooo!” Phichi screams. Literally screams. “You made me like that! He’s gonna know I was creeping through his insta!”
Right now, Yuuri doesn’t care about that. He’s a man on a mission and he needs some intel to make sense of things.
“Do you really think Victor wants to- just.. y’know… that? With me?”
He can’t even get the words out but it’s still a question he needs to ask. The room goes quiet as Phichit stares at his friend and looks like he finally realizes what's happening. The mistake of his past now forgotten as he watches the blush on Yuuri’s face spread everywhere the longer he stares.
“I think that’s part of it,” he finally says and it does nothing to quiet Yuuri’s mind.
“Oh, my god!”
“Part of it!” Phichit repeats and even throws his phone off to the side. “Like a small part. Like maybe .5 percent of the whole 100 percent.”
“But still there!”
“Oh, I fucked up…”
Yuuri’s mind is going a mile a minute. Because if what Phichit says is true then what does that make of every interaction between him and Victor?! And why him really?! He isn’t special, he isn’t part of any clubs, or part of any team, or even really that good looking–
“You’re plenty good-looking. You’re gonna be hot when you get older, trust me I can totally tell.”
“Did I really just say all of that out loud?”
Phichit sighs and beckons Yuuri to come join him on the bed. Yuuri does and Phichit initiates a hug that Yuuri not only accepts, but melts into. Phichit always gives the best hugs, he’ll take them whenever.
“Listen here, my precious fragile forest creature,” he says and pats at his head. “Victor does like you. And not just because one day you’ll grow up to be an ethereal being of grace and beauty, but because he generally just likes you for you.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“You’re a good person,” Phichit says. “One with extremely low self-esteem, but you’re still a good person. Tons of people like you because of that, and the fact that Victor is crushing on you isn’t all that surprising.”
Yuuri pulls away from the hug and stares Phichit right in the eye. Because friendship is something obvious, something more physical is a good maybe, but a crush?
“That’s just ridiculous,” he says and flops backwards.
“You were so ready to believe that he wanted to do other things with you, but him genuinely crushing on you is ridiculous?”
“Using people is one thing, but actually liking them is another,” he says.
Phichit only gives him a look over his shoulder before he reaches for his phone again.
“Do you really think Victor is the kind of person that would do that when he’s hung around you for over a year now and nothing like that has happened?” he asks quietly and gives his attention back to social media. “Oh, no… he dm’d me…”
Yuuri scrunches up his eyebrows and reflects on that. Is Victor that kind of person? His persona is flirty and Casanova enough that he can see if someone were to believe that but… that isn't exactly all the time is it? Yuuri thinks that he's only ever seen that part of him when they ended up in the company of people that neither were particularly close to. And he does know that Victor doesn't think much of them because... Well, because were they the ones that went out with him on a midnight ice cream run? Twice? Because he was so confident in being able to stand on the tire swing and eat at the same time? Or watched him get caught in an avalanche of giant stuffed animals when he wanted to grab at the giant one that looked like Maccachin and wouldn’t listen to him when Yuuri said that one was basically a platform for the others?
They probably have never had a moment where they were with him when he “saw a dog so beautiful he wanted to cry” and then kind of did. Or ever see his giant collection of terrible kung-fu movies from the 70’s. There is probably no one else in the world that knows that he has a playlist completely devoted to Ukrainian Eurovision contestants because if even Chris doesn't know, then that must be true.
Yuuri smiles at that one, even as he feels a tight clench in his chest. He probably could have gone his whole life without knowing about Eurovision but Victor threw that into his life much like a lot of things. Oh, wait a minute… What was that thing about mixtapes…?
“Hey,” Yuuri calls out and pokes at Phichit with his foot. “Does getting a copy of a Eurovision playlist count as getting a mixtape?”
Phichit just laughs.
Yuuri Katsuki is fifteen years old. Victor is seventeen. Most of the time he doesn’t think about that. Sometimes he does though. When he does it feels like it should bother him more, but for the most part he just doesn’t really know what to think of it.
“When you say ‘it’, you’re talking about how you want to do it, right?”
“Get out of my house.”
Chris is kind of single minded and it doesn’t faze him much anymore, but right now it just doesn’t seem right. Not like the other boy cares much, he’s been doing nothing but lying on Victor’s bedroom floor and flipping through magazines and leaves Victor with nothing to do but stare down at him from the bed.
“You’re really gonna tell me that after saying all that you do to Father Feltsman you’re gonna turn into a saint now?”
“What I say to Yakov to rile him up isn’t the same as having this conversation now,” Victor tells him. Chris only scoffs though, and that makes Victor bristle. “I’m serious!”
Chris finally looks up from the glossy pages and gives Victor some attention. He’s got that gleam in his eye though, and Victor’s not really sure if he wants to hear what he’s going to say.
“You’re really gonna tell me you never think about tapping that?”
Nope. Definitely not the response he wanted…. But if he’s honest…
“I’ve… looked,” he confesses. “I can’t help that, but I’ve never really… thought much about that. He’s fifteen.”
“So you keep saying,” says Chris, who then goes back to his magazine. “But also like you keep saying, you’re seventeen. That’s only a two year difference.”
“Sometimes that’s a lot.”
Chris scoffs again.
“It’s true! I mean, I’m not the same person I was when we were sophomores.”
“Well, that is true. You’re a lot happier now.”
“Am I? I just figured I was a little more mature about things, but am I really?”
“Well for your situation, yeah.”
Victor things about that, and… well, yes, it’s true. He is a different person from the one he was when he was fifteen. He does want to smile and laugh and play around more. To be fair though, he does give credit where credit is due, because he is at least 1000 percent sure Yuuri has something to do with that.
Yuuuuuuri! The pretty little sophomore boy that barreled into his life when him and his friends crashed an upperclassman’s party when he was only fourteen and made him want to protect this child with his whole being.
Which is how it started out, Victor will admit that. At least he’s pretty sure that’s how it started out, he wouldn’t be completely surprised if it turned out he was in love this whole time.
But could he be blamed?! When Yuuri is not only beautiful but also so graceful?! And he’ll fight someone on this, he will when he has seen up close how devoted Yuuri is to his dance. Something he didn’t completely understand until he saw his feet for the first time and promptly started to freak out over until Yuuri calmed him down enough to tell him that it’s all normal… and the freaked out again because how is that normal?!
But he just shrugs it off; the little up and down of his shoulder is so familiar whenever Victor asks about his feet. So nonchalant! Yuuri is so strong! And so smart! Victor can barely understand the soap operas his mother watches let alone do more than string together basic sentences in Russian and Yuuri is able to hold full conversations in both English and Japanese like nothing!
And he’s so kind! His heart it pure gold, he loves his friends so much! He worries about them so much! He’s offered Victor half of his ice cream where Chris would have laughed at his terrible attempt to show off when trying to hop on that tire swing. And he even rescued him from his near-death experience with the giant stuffed animals when he wanted to buy the giant dog one for him since he loves Maccachin so much. He even gave him a playlist with all his favorite anime openings when he showed him his super-secret Eurovision one…
Victor smiles at that one, even as his chest clenches up tight and his cheeks start to ache. He can’t help himself, he just feels so happy.
“He deserves so much more than that,” he finally says. “He deserves to be loved and cared for and to never cry. I hate it when he cries…”
He gets no reply. When he finally bothers to look down at Chris again, all he gets is a blank expression that usually means he’s thinking and that has Victor raise his eyebrows.
“You’re absolutely smitten,” Chris says, and all the tease from his voice earlier is gone. He’s completely sincere when he says this.
Victor isn’t one to blush full red easily. Not really, anyway. But even he is self-aware enough to feel his ears burn all the more with every second Chris stares at him.
Suddenly Chris just rushes him and tackles him into the bed. The both of them land backwards hard and send the pillows flying off and the headboard into the wall.
“My little Victor is all grown up and in love!” he nearly wails. “I can’t believe my Victor is in love with a–!”
“Shut up!”
Victor doesn’t raise his voice like Chris does, but his words are more intense and it makes them both still. They both look to the closed bedroom door and wait. When nothing happens, the relax a little more, but the air is still tense and they untangle themselves from each other. Chris sits at the head of the bed. Victor towards the end.
All the happiness he had felt earlier is suddenly drained from him and leaves him feeling exhausted.
“Hey,” Chris calls out to him and he turns his head to look at his friend.
Chris, who is usually all innuendos and smirks has the same serious face on that Victor saw several years earlier when he first brought Chris over to his home. It’s both a comforting and depressing reminder.
“You’re almost out,” he says, and gives him a small smile.
“Yeah,” Victor breathes out and nods. “Almost out.”
Chris scoots closer to him and shoots him that all too suspicious smirk. He recovers way too quickly, Victor thinks and just waits for it. He ends up nudging Victor’s shoulder with his own and says, “Well, when it gets tough just lay back and think of Yuuri.”
“Oh, my god!”
Victor picks up a pillow and smacks him right in the face. He keeps smacking him.
“I only meant the cute stuff!” Chris defends. “Like cuddles and hand holding! Get your mind out of the gutter!”
“Get out of my house!”