Chapter Text
Class ends, and Yuuri wants to go home.
He enjoys learning new things, but most of his graduate classes are held in the evening, and he has never been much of a night owl. Plus, on nights when Yuuri has class, Victor usually has dinner ready on the table when he walks in the door. So he always wants to rush home right after class, but tonight is different. Tonight, Victor has a meeting with some parents of his students at the rink, so Yuuri probably won’t be getting dinner when he walks through the door. As his classmates start to pack up, he pulls out his phone and reads the new text from his husband.
Vitya: This meeting is running a lot longer than expected. I’m sorry, I won’t be home for dinner ☹
Yuuri’s heart sinks as he reads the message. He's usually the one to make dinner, so he looks forward to what Victor cooks for him – it's what gets him through his long evening classes. More than that, though, he won't be seeing Victor when he walks through the door. What he loves most about being married is that Victor is always just there - cohabitating, sharing Yuuri's space without needing a reason. Yuuri looks forward to just being together and talking; telling Victor about his day, even when his days are boring. He isn't exactly eager to go home to an empty apartment.
As a consolation, he tries to think of what to make himself for dinner when he gets home as he packs up his bag. He's about to leave the classroom when someone calls his name. He turns to see three of his classmates smiling at him.
“Are you going home, Yuuri?” a classmate named Hayri asks. He and the two girls standing behind him are in a study group with Yuuri, and they've all hung out between classes a few times. Yuuri has never been great at making friends, but he likes these three well enough.
“Uh, yeah," he replies. "There’s no study group tonight, right?”
“No, but it’s trivia night at the bar right off campus. We were wondering if you’d join us. We’re always looking for new members of our team, and we could really use another guy on the team,” Hayri gives him a joking smile. “I can’t be the only one to answer the sports questions!”
Yuuri chuckles at this, but doesn’t say that the only sports questions he can answer are about competitive figure skating – probably not the sports Hayri has in mind. He looks over at the two girls, Eda and Sadia, who smile at him encouragingly. He glances at his phone, and for a brief second considers calling Victor, but he doesn’t need to. He knows what Victor would say: “Wow, you’re making friends! That’s great Yuuri, you should go with them!” Yuuri can almost hear his husband’s eager voice. He thinks about it for a moment longer - Victor won’t be waiting for him at home, and this is a good opportunity to get closer to the friends he's made in class.
“Uh, sure, I’ll go to trivia with you. I can’t promise I’ll be any good, but I’ll do my best,” Yuuri says, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck nervously.
“No worries, we just play for fun!” Sadia says, slinging her own backpack over her shoulder and heading toward the door. Yuuri joins their group as they head out of the classroom and set off across campus.
They chat about classes and schoolwork as they walk through the crisp evening air. The other few times Yuuri had joined their study group, he asked them questions about themselves but never really had time to talk about himself. It doesn’t bother him, though – he usually feels awkward talking about himself, since they inevitably end up on the subject of his gold medals. He loves to talk about skating, but his anxiety always makes him worried about coming off too strong. He doesn’t want to seem like he’s bragging.
Yuuri sends a text to Victor, telling him that he won’t be home right away either. Just as he expected, Victor is thrilled that he’s taking time to make friends.
They get to the bar and choose a round table off to the side. They get a trivia sheet and choose their team color: the Yellow Team. His teammates all make their way to the bar to get their drinks before the trivia actually starts. Yuuri doesn’t want to embarrass himself, so he just gets a soda. He’s the last of his friends at the bar, and as he makes his way back to their table, he’s stopped by a group of giggling girls. They all seem too embarrassed to talk, but he sees the notebooks and pens clutched in their hands and knows what they want.
“Oh, autographs?” He asks, and the girls squeal and nod vigorously. “Sure thing!” Yuuri puts his drink on a nearby table and signs the proffered papers. He takes a group selfie with the girls, happy to indulge his fans.
“Tell Victor we can’t wait to see his choreography for Yurio’s programs this year!” One girl squeals as the rest thank him for the autographs.
“I will!” Yuuri replies with a laugh, picking up his drink and heading back to his own table.
His little group of friends stare at him strangely as he sits back down. “What was that about? Do you know those girls?” Eda asks.
Yuuri is a little embarrassed, but does his best to explain. “No, I don’t know them, they just wanted my autograph.”
Hayri laughs, thinking Yuuri must be joking. The two girls stare at Yuuri with a puzzled expression, but before he can explain further, the trivia caller announces the start of the game. Yuuri is silently grateful that he doesn’t have to answer more awkward questions right now.
The trivia goes well; it isn’t as hard as Yuuri thought it would be. He’s surprised by how many answers he knows, but he still has fun bantering with his friends about the few answers they don’t know. The game comes to an end, and it turns out that the Yellow Team is tied for first place.
“Alright folks, looks like we need a tie breaker question to determine the winner. Will it be Yellow Team or Blue Team?” the announcer declares, and the crowd of slightly drunk college students cheers. “The first team to answer the question right wins. The question is…” He gives a slight pause, building the suspense, before reading the question off a card in his hand. “Who is the most decorated competitive figure skater of all time?”
Yuuri’s eyes widen when he hears the question. He looks at his teammates, but they all look bewildered – they don’t know the answer. He glances at the table where Blue Team is sitting, and they all look equally as confused. Finally, he looks at the table where the fangirls are sitting. They smirk at him, knowing the answer as well as he does, and he smirks back. Yuuri sighs as he thinks that of course this had to be the tie-breaking question.
The eyes of the whole bar are on him as he shouts the answer: “Victor Nikiforov!”
The announcer stares at his card for a few seconds, building the suspense again, before shouting out, “That is correct! Yellow Team wins!” The whole bar cheers for them, and Yuuri’s friends clap him on the shoulders, awed that he knew the answer to the tiebreaker. Their prize for winning is one free beer each, and Yuuri figures he can indulge himself with just one drink on this special occasion, so he makes his way to the bar with his friends.
When they settle back at their table, the rest of the bar has calmed down and moved on from the epic tiebreaker incident, but Yuuri’s friends are still in awe. “Yuuri, how did you know that answer? I’ve never even heard of Victor What’s-His-Name before,” Hayri says.
“Nikiforov,” Yuuri corrects. He takes a sip of his beer and says, as casually as he can, “He’s my husband.”
Yuuri can feel the blush on his cheeks just as much as he can feel his friends staring at him. He expects them to be confused, bewildered, disbelieving. What he doesn’t expect is for Sadia to exclaim, “So you are married!”
“Huh?” Now Yuuri is the confused one.
Seeing his confusion, Sadia goes on, “You always wear that ring, but you never talk about your personal life. You’ve never mentioned a significant other before, so we were curious if it was really a wedding ring. We actually had a bet going. I just won 20 bucks!” This prompts laughter from around the table.
“Yes, it’s a wedding ring. I’ve been married for two years. It just doesn’t seem like the first thing I’d tell people about myself,” Yuuri explains with a shrug.
“Okay, but wait. You said you’re married to Victor Nikiforov?” Eda says the last word slowly, and looks at Yuuri to make sure she’s pronouncing the Russian name right. Yuuri nods, and Eda continues, “But why have none of us ever heard of him, if he’s the most decorated competitive figure skater of all time?”
“Well… How often do you all watch figure skating?” Yuuri starts off, and his friends all shrug and avert their eyes. “Plus, he’s from Russia, so I don’t think they would interview him very much for your TV programs here in America.” Yuuri thinks this is a good enough answer, but it doesn’t stop the questions. He knew this would happen when they found out about his former figure skating career, which is why he tried not to talk about himself.
“So if he’s such a big shot in figure skating, how are you married to him?” Hayri asks, and Eda smacks his arm. “Sorry, that came out wrong! I mean, you’re great Yuuri and I don’t doubt your relationship or whatever, but how did you meet him?” Now they’re really getting to the part Yuuri hates to talk about.
“Oh, well, um - I’m also a retired competitive figure skater. Victor used to be my coach. We just kinda… fell in love… while he was coaching me. We got married after he retired.” Yuuri shrugs as if to say that he doesn’t know what else to say. He can feel the blush creeping over his face – talking about his love for Victor still makes him blush, even after two years of marriage.
“AWWW” his friends all cry in unison as he finishes his explanation. “Yuuri, that is so cute!” Sadia says.
“I can’t believe we didn’t know any of this. Were you any good as a competitive skater?” Eda asks.
How does he say this without sounding like he’s showing off? Yuuri twists his ring around his finger anxiously as he replies, “Uhh, yeah, I mean, I guess. Uh, I won two golds at the Grand Prix… and two golds at Worlds… and a silver in the Olympics…” He trails off as his friends take in what he just said.
“You mean we’ve had an Olympic medalist in our study group for months now and we didn’t even know?! Holy shit, why didn’t you tell us any of this before?” Eda voices the shock the other two have on their faces.
Yuuri just shrugs, his face growing hot again. “I don’t know… I don’t like to seem like I’m showing off, so I don’t really talk about my skating career a lot.”
“That’s not showing off, dude! Those are amazing accomplishments. You should be proud to talk about your skating,” Hayri encourages him. Yuuri is grateful for his kind words, more than he can say. His new friends don’t know much about his struggle with anxiety, but they always treat him kindly no matter what, making him feel welcome in the friend group. All he can do is smile and nod at Hayri.
It seems everyone is still processing the new information. There’s a quiet moment before realization dawns and Eda asks, “So those girls earlier really did want your autograph?” Yuuri nods. “Does that happen often?” Eda asks another question, and Yuuri shrugs.
“It happens more often when I’m in Japan, but people do recognize me occasionally here in Detroit. I used to train here, so people at the rink recognize me pretty often.”
Sadia’s eyes widen. Hayri whispers, “Wow, it’s like you’re a celebrity,” to which Eda smacks his arm again. Yuuri just laughs and shakes his head, though he doesn’t bother to deny the claim. After all, he is a little famous, at least in the skating world.
“Yuuri, just one more question: Can we meet your husband?” Sadia asks, eyes sparkling with enthusiasm, before adding, “Not just because he’s a decorated athlete or anything. He obviously makes you really happy. As your friends, I think we should get a chance to meet him! You should invite him to trivia night next week. Maybe he can tell us if there’s anything else you’re keeping from us." This final comment is said with a laugh, teasing. But Eda and Hayri are nodding in agreement about inviting Victor to trivia, and Yuuri can’t help but smile.
“Yeah, I think he’d like that. I’ll ask him about it.” With that, the conversation shifts, and the rest of the night is spent in a blur of laughter and newly strengthened friendship.
~
Victor is already home when Yuuri gets in. “Hey, how was trivia night?” he asks, coming to greet Yuuri at the door as he takes off his shoes.
Yuuri can’t help the huge smile on his face. “It was really fun, actually. Our team won! And you'll never believe the final tie-breaker question." Yuuri doesn't want to feed Victor's ego; knowing that there was a trivia question about him is sure to set Victor off into some sort of dramatics. But it's objectively a funny story, and how can Yuuri not tell his husband about the most interesting part of his day?
As predicted, when Victor hears the story he is both excited to have been the subject of a trivia question and disappointed that no one else had known the answer. Yuuri decides to change the subject before he can start a dramatic monologue.
"Anyway, uh, my friends want me to come back next week, and they invited you, too. They want to meet you.”
“Really?!” Victor asks, excitement already in his eyes. “That sounds amazing. Of course they want to meet me, and I would love to meet them,” he says, planting a kiss on Yuuri’s cheek. So much for not feeding Victor's ego, but Yuuri wouldn't want it any other way.