Chapter Text
Otabek stared at the colorful sign on the door that was supposed to lead to his new room. His name was spelled in English characters, but Otabek could still tell that it had initially been spelled wrong. There was an “I” printed where the “E” should to be, but someone had clearly taken a Sharpie and crudely wrote over it in order to correct the mistake. The font was blue by the way. Bright blue. He looked down at the other sign taped onto the door.
“YURI” it said in bold red block letters.
Otabek opened the door and dragged his suitcase inside, neglecting to remove his headphones. He didn’t want to be presumptive about claiming a certain side of the room before his new roommate arrived, so he just started putting some clothes into the closet to pass the time. He honestly didn’t know who or what kind of roommate he had been assigned. They did compatibility test match-ups for this kind of thing, but Otabek’s answers had all been incredibly neutral – especially on opinion-based questions, ranging all the way from “I don’t have a preference” to just “I don’t care.” His roommate could have gone either way.
Otabek’s thoughts wandered and he thought maybe he could talk to his floor leader about how they usually divvied up living spaces. If nothing else, the conversation would get him acquainted with the person more-or-less looking after him for the next few months and simultaneously help pass the time until his roommate arrived.
Otabek had just finished hanging his three jackets when he heard someone yelling in the hall over the volume of the music in his ears.
“No no no no NO! For fuck’s sake, WHY?”
“Yurochka, please. It’s not that bad.”
“Yes it IS! You were the one person I didn’t want as my floor leader, goddammit!”
“Well now you’re just hurting my feelings.”
“What in holy Hell did I do to deserve this?”
Otabek finally put his headphones and laundry aside to stick his head out into the hallway and see what was going on, along with many other curious students who were also moving in. What he saw were two almost frighteningly attractive blonde guys standing in front of the room next to his (located right before the door to their living area and meant to be his floor leader’s). The shorter blonde one was turning red from what Otabek assumed was pure rage and frustration.
“I have travelled thousands of miles from my homeland, to come to this school, to live in a dorm, taking the one in a million risk of having YOU as my floor leader and I fucking end up living right next to you?”
“Actually it would be more like a one in twenty thousand chance, there isn’t – “
“SHUT UP!”
The shorter blonde then stormed off, completely leaving their living quarters and his leopard-print luggage behind. Otabek heard the taller blonde man sigh and saw him shake his head with an oddly fond expression on his face. Just as he moved to presumably take the luggage somewhere else, he met Otabek’s curious and prying eyes. Otabek kind of felt guilty for eavesdropping for a moment (even if it was hard to ignore), but the man’s face lit up upon seeing him.
“Hi there! You must be Otabek Altin. Sorry about the name on your door, I did my best to fix it. I learned English phonetically so I’m not great with spelling, especially with names. I promise I’ll reprint it later, but I was just in such a rush to get everything ready for today. Oh gosh, I didn’t introduce myself! I’m Victor Nikiforov, your floor leader.”
“Right,” Otabek said, taking his hand. “I gathered.” Otabek wasn’t sure if that sounded rude or not. He was a man of few words and had been told in the past that he didn’t always make a great first impression because of it.
Victor just yielded a bright laugh, though. “Of course you did! Yeah, that’s my room right next to you. Don’t worry, you’ll still have fun even if you’re living close to your ‘babysitter’, I promise.” He used air-quotes. “Although, you don’t seem like the hard core partying type.”
“I’m not, no,” Otabek replied.
“That’s perfectly fine. Makes my life easier, that’s for sure.”
Otabek usually didn’t ask about other people’s business, but his curiosity got the better of him. Also, Victor had an almost dangerous aura of charisma that made Otabek feel like he could tell him anything and Victor would take it to his grave if asked. “If you don’t mind my asking, who was that just now?”
“Oh! I knew I should have stopped him from running off, I could’ve introduced you two! That was Yuri Plisetsky, he’s your roommate.” Victor rushed to explain further, even grabbing Otabek’s arm as though he was trying to keep him from running away, despite the fact that Otabek hadn’t even thought about leaving. “He’s normally not that upset, I swear. That whole scene was kind of my fault after all. Want me to help you move in a bit? I feel bad.”
Otabek vaguely thought that this man went from 0 to 100 in the blink of an eye, and yet he accelerated so smoothly that he almost didn’t notice. Otabek’s guards were so down in front of this man that he even accepted his offer to help and then asked him to elaborate as they unpacked Otabek’s electronic keyboard.
“Well, you see Yurochka and I trained at the same facility in Russia ever since we were young. I’m practically his older brother.” Otabek detected the tone of a proud doting mother more than a brother’s. “And while brothers will always love each other and be family and come home to spend every holiday together, you never really want your brother to be looking after you while you attend school. So I somewhat sympathize with his frustration.”
“Didn’t he know you go to this school?” Otabek asked while setting up the piano’s legs.
“Oh, yes,” Victor said. “He knew I went here and that I was going to be a floor leader. But the building and floor assignments are completely random, so I imagine he probably thought the chances of being in the same building as me, let alone having me as his caretaker were so slim that he took the gamble. He’s also wanted to go to this performing arts school ever since I decided I was going to go when I was ten. I don’t think anything was going to stop him from coming here, even the possibility and eventual reality of having little old me living next door.”
“And he just found out today?” Usually Otabek wouldn’t be this talkative with strangers, but if it was the person he would be living next to and who would be kind of taking care of him for many months then making some conversation couldn’t hurt.
“Oh, we talk all the time. I just didn’t tell him. To be completely honest I wanted to see his face when he came to move in and saw me standing in the hall waiting to greet him.”
Otabek saw the mischievous grin Victor had on and took back his previous thought about Victor not really acting as a stereotypical older brother.
“Could you make sure Yurochka gets these whenever he returns?” Victor asked when they were done setting up, turning over the abandoned leopard-print luggage to Otabek. “I don’t want him accusing me of stealing his stuff. Again.”
“Of course,” Otabek responded in what he believed to be a pleasant tone.
“Thank you so much. I’ll be next door if you need me. Floor Tea Nights are every Friday at eight, and I try and plan a brunch every so often so let me know what days are best for you! Oh and don’t worry about Yurochka. He seems prickly at first, but he’s really just a soft little baby kitten under all that bravado. He warms up to people who are nice and feed him.”
Otabek didn’t really know what to make of that advice but he took it. “Okay.”
Just as Victor was about to leave, he whipped back around. “Oh! I almost forgot: do you have a favorite kind of tea?”
“Not really.”
“Any allergies?”
“No.”
“Do you prefer the temperature on the floor to be hot or cold?”
“I don’t care.”
Victor was silent for a moment, observing Otabek. Then his face split into a grin. “Yurochka’s going to love you.”
Otabek was about to ask why, but Victor spun away yelling “Bye!” over his shoulder.
And now Otabek was left with twice the amount of luggage that he started with, and still no idea which bed he was supposed to put it on.