Work Text:
When Phichit tags Yuuri in his “skater selfie challenge”, he thinks nothing of it. Phichit proceeds to spam his instagram, tagging each and every skater he can think of. Victor, Yuri, Leo, Guang, even Minami gets added to his selfie spree. By the end of the day, there isn’t a single skater Yuuri can name that hasn’t been tagged.
Still, when he sleeps, not a person had responded. Restless, he takes one of himself with Victor, half asleep.
Tired, he never uploads it.
It’s only three days later when Phichit calls him that he remembers.
“Yuuri! You’re so slow!” Phichit sounds like he’s pouting even through the phone and Yuuri chuckles, resigned as he scrolls through instagram on his computer. There’s Georgi with a heart, Michele and Sara together, and another of Emil photobombing the background.
“Sorry, sorry.” He means it. Yuuri hastily uploads the blurry one he snapped of himself and Victor, tagging Phichit back with a written apology. From the vibration he hears from Phichit’s side and the satisfied hum, the Thai skater had received it. Yuuri refreshes the screen expectantly, and yes, Phichit liked it.
He’s not the only skater either.
“JJ liked it too?” Yuuri murmurs, clicking on the Canadian skater’s instagram. His eyes widen when he sees the other’s feed: dozens of selfies await him, largely JJ forming the signature “JJ style” hand sign in a variety of locations. There’s a café, at the park with his siblings, another few at a volunteer sight, and a genuine one taken from another person of him covering up a laugh, face flushed and eyes tight with joy, as he takes a plush lion from a small blonde girl.
“Of course!” Phichit says proudly through the phone, and Yuuri chuckles at the sound of his body twisting in the blankets. It comes out as a shaky static through the phone. “He’s the only active one of you lot!” The line is joking, and Yuuri sighs, resigned. Throughout all these years, he still depended on Phichit for help in regards to communication and social media. “Besides, doesn’t he look great?”
“True,” Yuuri agrees, scrolling through more photos. There’s a few scenery ones too, a close-up of a purple hydrangea, another of a crack between the pavement and the road and a few preview shots of JJ’s next fashion line. They’re good photos, but obviously not taken with the selfie camera. “Not as good as your photos though,” Yuuri amends, honestly.
“Really?” Phichit laughs, pure and warm-hearted. Yuuri hums in reply; talking with Phichit was a comfort and a blessing. “I hope so. Hey, check your feed!”
Yuuri refreshes the page. A picture of him and Phichit sits in the front page, back from Detroit, hand in hand and grinning wide at the camera lens. He’s giving a peace sign and Phichit is mid-laugh, leaning in to his embrace.
“Cute,” he teases. He clicks the heart.
For the most part, Yuuri doesn’t keep track after that. He throws himself into training; failing to land the quad loop and trying again. Yuri can’t land it either and Victor isn’t the best teacher. Regardless, with the sheer force of will, Yuuri wakes up every day, tired body eager for another attempt.
It is only when he’s taking a lunch break one day, sharing piroshkies with Yuri, that he notices it.
“Oh,” he mumbles, taking in the photo. It’s Phichit, Leo and Guang, all posing with JJ’s signature pose. Those they sit in a line, faces messy with crumbs, Phichit’s grin remains the most radiant, his hands raised. They’re probably at some pub, or doing some night window shopping, because though the background is dark there’s warm lights all around. Yuri’s phone screen is just big enough to read Phichit’s description, clearly tagging JJ with one line “You next”.
“I didn’t know you followed Phichit.”
“Who said you can look?” Yuri barks in reflex, instantly shielding his phone screen from the Japanese skater. Yuuri raises an eyebrow, in wait, until the blonde huffs, bringing his phone back down. “I follow my rivals. That’s all.”
“Really?” Yuuri doesn’t mention how Yuri even considering Phichit as a rival could be considered a compliment. Instead, he cups Yuri’s hands with his own, index fingers brushing at the screen. “Mind if I look?”
“Fine,” Yuri mumbles, drawing away with a frustrated groan. Yuuri feels a little bad, but they had been using his phone for music the whole time so it had been trained of battery. He scrolls through the feed, mostly of other skaters, and notices a disproportionate amount of selfies from two main sources. Curious, he clicks on JJ’s instagram.
The first picture he sees is of JJ giving a peace sign, adorned in a black hoodie and a sick mask pulled below his chin. It’s such a familiar pose that Yuuri squints at it, tracing his form, wondering from where had he seen it.
He scrolls to the description, and “aahs”.
“Matching with phichit+chu !”
Yuuri clicks the heart.
(Later, when JJ teasingly messages Yuri, Yuuri gets told he’s never allowed to use Yuri’s phone again.)
It’s entirely Minako’s fault that he’s late to the realization. She had been spamming his messages with pictures of flamingos throughout the night for reasons that he isn’t entirely sure of, so he had simply shut off his phone before clambering into bed to Victor’s open arms. They hadn’t exactly, uh, gone to sleep right away, but Yuuri had been a bit too preoccupied to check his phone for any updates.
So when he wakes up to about twenty instagram updates, he doesn’t bother to check it.
It’s Georgi that tips him off.
“It’s lovely isn’t it? A relationships so close, yet so far, pulled apart by geographic themes when oh! A man comes through.” Yuuri isn’t sure if the Russian skater is crying exactly, but by Mila and Yuri’s roll of eyes his talks are entirely standard procedure. “I wish them luck. To think, that this battle of selfies could result in such a dramatic tale!”
“Wait.” There’s only one person that comes to mind when it comes to selfies with Yuuri, and he doesn’t recall anything about romance. “Who are you talking about?” It’s probably some lady in Britain. Or Spain. Or another country that Georgi recently found an old romantic tale from, usually in central Europe.
“Phichit and JJ!” Oh.
Yuri groans and Mila chuckles. There’s really only one way to react.
Yuuri calls Phichit.
“You’re in a romantic escapade with JJ?”
“I’m in a romantic escapade with JJ? Oh,” Phichit laughs in the call, and Yuuri feels himself tense at another voice chuckling in the background, “what do you think? Are we in a romantic escapade together?”
“I,” there is no doubt who that voice is, “thought we were in a selfie war.” There’s minor rustling in the background, some static and Yuuri hears a very distinct pop of wet skin. “Then you showed up.”
“Then I showed up,” Phichit agrees. There’s a noise of something clattering against wood, and a “pluuf” noise of someone falling back into a plush item, and Yuuri needs to go back to practice, now. “Ah, okay, Yuuri. See you!” Phichit says his goodbyes, JJ saying something in the background, and Yuuri hangs up.
His face is red. There’s sweat on his hands, and he cannot quite believe this.
He opens up instagram and sees the first picture on his feed.
It’s a picture of Phichit and JJ, the former making the “JJ Style” hand sign and the latter making a simply peace sign. They’re matching, grinning, clearly in some sort of crowded airport. Yuuri scans the scenery, sees the people pointing behind and a little boy mid-trip and grabbing onto his father’s hand. He sees an elderly couple huffing as they drag their luggage. The angle is taken so high up that he can almost read the signs of the poles along the baggage claim rinks.
Still, his eyes return to the center. He’s seen many of Phichit’s selfies throughout the years they had known each other, had taken several with the Thai skater, and had commented on many throughout their friendship. He recognizes the other’s form enough that even from behind, he could probably point out, “oh, that’s Phichit taking a selfie.”
But there’s something different in this one. A light that filters and mood lighting can’t bring to mind. Yuuri scrolls through Phichit’s page, taking in the growing daily count of pictures from the start of the selfie challenge. He sees one name in particular appearing more and more, almost sporadically until there’s just pages of the two, making silly jokes and poses. It’s almost overwhelming, the level of affection that permeates through the touchscreen.
Yuuri can’t possibly like them all.
But he’s going to try.
The next time Phichit starts a selfie challenge, Yuuri sends in a picture of his lunch. He uploads it probably within two minutes of being tagged.
Still, he’s not the first to respond.
“Fast,” he thinks, thumbing through his crowded feed. It’s a little on the lewd side, a flash of stomach and the barest edge of JJ’s chest, grinning upward. He’s still wearing the black sick mask. “Cute.”
Phichit is the first to like it. Yuuri smiles.
“Double cute.”