Chapter Text
Yuuri fucking hated anxiety. Every time it was most inconvenient for him, his anxiety disorder decided that it was its time to shine. Performances, new classes, parties, hell, even family gatherings--you name the event, Yuuri couldn’t get through any unfamiliar situation without at least a mild panic attack.
His first day of new classes was no exception. His first class of the day was Creative Writing at 10 o’clock. Translation: his first class of the day was mostly stoners, slackers, music students, and anyone who had a job that took place mostly at night. Yuuri fell into the last category. He hadn’t gotten home from Joffrey Tower until late the night before, as he did almost every night, and there was no way he would have been able to get up for an earlier class.
Despite his sleepiness, Yuuri could feel his heartbeat increase and sweat bead across his body as he tried to find a seat as quickly as possible.
Yuuri ended up sitting in the front row, as far away as possible from the only two other people who had arrived so far.
In the back corner of the classroom were two boys, one of whom was chatting eagerly while the other stared at his phone and pretended to listen. They were out of Yuuri’s earshot, but he couldn’t help but be struck by them. The boy who was talking was delicately beautiful, with a head of shocking silver hair. He stood out in stark contrast to his friend, who was equally handsome, but had stronger, darker features.
Yuuri didn’t realize he was staring until the silver-haired boy suddenly looked up and made eye contact with him. Yuuri felt panic seize in his gut, and he swiftly ducked his head to hide his rapidly reddening face.
He only had to wait for a few more minutes until the classroom filled up and the professor arrived, but to Yuuri it felt like an eternity. His face wouldn’t stop burning, and the mild anxiety he felt to begin with only seemed to increase as he replayed the moment the silver-haired boy met his gaze. It was 10 minutes into the first day, and he had already made a complete stranger think he was a fucking creep. Great.
Fortunately, the professor stood up at the front of the room, yanking Yuuri out of his self-destructive reverie. He introduced himself as Professor Cialdini (“Although let’s be honest, you’ll all be calling me Celestino by next week anyway, so I might as well encourage you to start now”) and passed out syllabi.
Surprisingly, but thankfully, the workload didn’t look like it would be all that much over the course of the semester. Maybe that meant that Yuuri could actually get some sleep. Yeah right, I’m taking 3 other classes.
However, Yuuri’s stomach dropped when he read the first assignment more carefully.
“Yes, you read that right,” Celestino announced cheerfully, “our very first assignment is a partner project. I figured it would be a good way to force you all to get to know each other without doing cheesy get-to-know-you games. Make no mistake though, I would do those if I could get away with them, but college students are way more feisty than grade schoolers.”
At the collective groan from the class, Celestino added, “Oh, and before I forget to mention it, I will be assigning you partners, since I want you to make new friends.”
“Ah, shit!” exclaimed a girl in the second row, “I think I somehow got stuck back in sophomore year of high school! What’s happening?”
Celestino laughed good naturedly, but said, “I already have the list written out, you’re not getting out of this after I spent fifteen extra minutes on it.”
“You spent fifteen minutes randomly pairing off students? Shouldn’t that have taken like 3 minutes?” asked the same girl from before.
Celestino just rolled his eyes, said, “I got distracted, okay? Come to the front when your name is called so you can move to sit by your partner,” and started reading off pairs of students.
A pit of dread was pooling in Yuuri’s stomach as he waited for his name to be called.
“Yuuri Katsuki and Viktor Nikiforov.”
Yuuri reluctantly made his way to the front of the classroom, stopping in his tracks when he realized who his partner was.
The silver-haired boy from earlier was standing expectantly next to Celestino. “You’re Yuuri, I presume,” he said with an accent that Yuuri had a hard time placing. Accents had to be very distinctive for Yuuri to pick up on them in English; he hadn’t lived in America long enough to be completely used to the sound of a native speaker.
“U-uh, yeah,” Yuuri managed to say, “You must be Viktor?” He hated that he sounded so timid, but Yuuri knew from experience that when he was this close to panicking that the only way he could speak was in either a whisper or a yell. For some reason, anxiety took away his volume control.
Viktor nodded and said, “I’ll go grab my shit and move it to the front by your seat.”