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It started with an innocent selfie on Instagram.
Well, two selfies on Instagram.
One on Yuri's account, of him and Otabek, sitting on the couch in their apartment, heads pressed together.
And one on Victor's account, of him and Yuuri, standing side-by-side on the ice.
The whole problem stemmed from the captions, actually.
Both Yuri and Victor had used the hashtag #worldsgreatestcouple on their posts, completely coincidentally (*cough* Victor's a copycat), and now everyone is fighting in the comments over who's really the world's greatest couple.
Some of their reasoning is fucking weird, too. Like, someone just called him and Otabek “grumpy cat children.” What does that even mean, and… why?
Yuri groans and shoves his phone into his pocket, zipping up the rest of his jacket with probably too much force.
“Yurio, what's the matter?”
Yuri looks at Victor, standing across the locker room with that goddamn grin on his face, and rolls his eyes.
“Your stupid Instagram post is making all our fans go nuts,” he says.
Victor nods.
“Ah, yes, the hashtag,” he says thoughtfully. “Honestly, I didn't even notice we used the same one until all the comments started coming.”
Yeah, right.
“There is a way to quiet them, though,” Victor continues, and… oh no, there's that fucking gleam in his eye that he gets whenever he has a horrible idea.
“Do I even want to know?”
Victor ignores him.
“I propose a contest!”
“... a contest?”
“It's fairly simple, really. We'll post some pictures of ourselves with our lovers - ”
“Lovers?”
“ - on Instagram, and not tell anyone why until it's over. Whoever gets more likes by the end wins!”
Yuri is reluctantly intrigued. Any opportunity to beat Victor and Katsudon at something is worth consideration.
“The end of what? How long are you planning on this thing going - if we agree?”
Victor hums.
“Tomorrow's Monday,” he says. “We could start then, and go until Friday.”
“But what if one of us has more followers, or something? Wouldn't that make it unfair?”
“I'm pretty sure we're evenly matched there. And a lot of our followers overlap, anyway.”
Yuri considers this for a minute.
“What does the winner get?”
Victor grins.
“Bragging rights! And the knowledge that they are the greatest couple in the world!”
Is he serious? Does he honestly expect Yuri to agree to this just for the sake of his pride?
… Maybe Victor knows him better than he thought.
“Fine,” Yuri grumbles. “One week, starting tomorrow.”
…
“Yuri, I understand you want to win this, but do we really have to take a selfie every hour?”
Yuri scrolls through the filters and replies without looking up at Otabek.
“Victor didn't say anything about the number of pictures allowed. The more we post, the more likes we get. It's science, or some shit.”
Otabek huffs and skates away to resume practice on his short program.
It's not like Victor isn't doing the same thing. All of their followers are getting a kick out of the sudden increase in posts per day, but none of them know why it's happening. Both Yuri and Victor haven't said a word to anyone other than Otabek and Yuuri.
The number of likes is too close to tell at the moment, but Yuri is sure there'll be a clear lead by the middle of the week.
…
Yuri knows it's playing dirty to get the cat involved, but really, Victor should know what he's up against.
“Why does Roza have to be in the picture?”
Yuri scoops up the cat and shoves her into Otabek's arms.
“Because cats,” he explains patiently, “always get more likes.”
“But isn't this supposed to be about us as a couple?”
“The picture isn't of Roza,” Yuri reasons. “It's of us, featuring Roza. Besides, Maccachin was in the background in at least seven of their pictures.”
“I don't think that's the same - ”
“Beka, do you really want to lose to them because you're hung up on the semantics?”
That shuts him up. He would never admit it, but Yuri knows Otabek wants to win just as much as he does. Yuri rolls his eyes.
“Now, just hold the cat, and let me take this fucking selfie.”
…
By Friday morning, Yuri has posted more pictures in five days than he did the entire month before the contest started.
“Isn't everyone going to be suspicious when you suddenly stop posting fifteen times a day?”
Yuri drops his phone on the pillow and looks at him.
“I explained this before, Beka,” he sighs. “We're going to tell everyone tomorrow, when we win. Everyone has to know that we beat them.”
Otabek sighs and rolls over to get out of bed.
“You're going to take twice as many today, aren't you?”
“Damn right.”
…
Victor is taking forever to add up his likes.
Yuri already finished his five minutes ago, with Katsudon looking over his shoulder to make sure he didn't cheat. Otabek does the same for Victor on the other end of the bench.
“If you don't hurry up, Yakov's gonna come screaming at us to get out of the locker room already,” Yuri scowls.
Victor raises a finger to his lips.
“Shh,” he whispers. “I posted a lot of pictures this week.”
“So did I, but it didn't take me ten years to count the likes.”
“Shh…”
Yuri rolls his eyes and boredly flips his phone in his hand.
“Done!”
Finally.
“Now, let's compare!”
Yuri shoves his paper towards the center of the bench, and Victor places his carefully down next to it.
All four of them hunch over to see whose number is higher.
No…
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Yuri exclaims.
Victor's eyes go wide.
“Are… are they…”
“Yes, they're fucking identical!”
Otabek winces and places a calming hand on Yuri's shoulder.
“At least we didn't lose,” he offers.
Yuri turns an icy glare in his direction.
“This is all your fault,” he snaps. “You should've let me put Roza in more than three of the pictures.”
A gasp is heard beside them.
“I knew you were doing that on purpose!” Victor accuses.
“Oh, like Maccachin wasn't in half of your selfies!”
“Purely by chance! It was bound to happen, we spend so much time around - ”
“Victor, Yurio, calm down,” Yuuri jumps in.
Victor stops talking immediately. Yuri rolls his eyes and grabs Otabek's hand.
“Come on, Beka, we're going,” he orders, and pulls him out of the locker room to leave.
As they exit the building, Otabek turns to look at him.
“You're not really that upset, are you?” he asks.
Yuri huffs.
“I'm just pissed,” he says. “I know we could've beat them.”
“Does it… does it really matter that much to you, to be named ‘world's greatest couple?’”
Yuri stares.
“I kind of forgot about that part, just now,” he admits. “To be honest, I was more focused on having more likes than their stupid pictures.”
Otabek sighs.
“Well, was it worth the collective hours you spent framing each shot perfectly and picking out filters?”
Yuri snorts.
“Kind of,” he says. “I mean, it was cool confusing everybody. And being forced to spend extra time with you.”
“Thanks.”
“No, seriously, it was… fun,” Yuri mutters. “Or something. You learned a lot about Instagram, didn't you?”
“More than I ever wanted to know.”
“Now, if you'd only use it once in awhile.”
Otabek smiles.
“Maybe,” he says vaguely.
…
otabek-altin #bestpetintheworld
Yuri smiles at the picture of Roza for a split-second before his stomach drops. He knows what's coming before he even scrolls down through the rest of his feed.
Sure enough.
y-katsuki #bestpetintheworld
“Beka, are you fucking trying to start another Instagram war?!”