Chapter Text
“I’m not even surprised that you own a KY fan blog,” Yurio says as he looks through Victor’s fridge, plucking out any half-decent items that he can find, “since you drool over him so much.”
Victor buries his face in his palms. When he had realized that he’d posted his raving about KY’s latest novel to the wrong blog, he’d deleted the post in a hurried frenzy, but there are copies of it all over the internet. Yakov had suggested that they try and pose it as a hacking scandal, but the fact of the matter is: Victor doesn’t care. He doesn’t care that the world knows about his admiration for KY’s novels, doesn’t even care that he’d inadvertently bashed himself while praising KY in that post. No, what he cares about is the fact that KY knows.
(Except, really, he doesn’t care about that either. He only cares that Phichit knows because that means, by extension, that Yuuri knows.)
Will Yuuri judge him now that he knows that Victor has fawned over his best friend for years? Will he see him differently?
When he expresses these concerns to Yakov, his boss blinks at him, shocked that he cares more about this than about his previously sterling reputation. Victor tells him just because he enjoys another author’s work—no matter how vehement this enjoyment may be—it doesn’t taint his own reputation in the slightest. The world had already known that KY was fantastic, and now they simply know that Victor sees that, too.
So it’s fine.
It’s fine.
It’s fine, but his phone has been in his hand for the past hour, and he has Yuuri’s phone number, and he wants to call. Wants to call so badly. He has floated his thumb over the button, has typed out and then deleted texts, has considered every possible form of communication from smoke signals to carrier pigeons. Instead, though, he sits on his couch and watches as Yurio grabs a baguette from his fridge and tears off the end, chomping on it.
“You keep your bread in the fridge?” Yurio asks through a mouthful, plopping down on a kitchen stool.
Victor ignores him, stares at his phone.
“It’s Yuuri, right? That’s what you’re freaking out about?”
At that, he glances up, confused.
Yurio rolls his eyes. “Everyone thinks that you’re worried about the whole posting-to-the-wrong-blog KY-fan scandal, but I know that you don’t care about that. You’ve got no shame, Nikiforov. But you care what your boyfriend thinks, right? Look—what does it matter? If he’s not already grossed out by you, then knowing that you have a fan account for your arch nemesis isn’t going to change that.”
“I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Victor sighs.
“Call him,” he commands. “I don’t like seeing you all sappy like this. It makes you twice as annoying. Call him right here, right now.”
“And say what?”
He groans, takes another bite of the bread. “I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t think he thinks any less of you, so just go for it.”
For a while longer, Victor stares at the phone.
He stretches out his arms, grabs his laptop and opens it, needing a distraction. However, all he sees are comments about the scandal on every last one of his social media pages. The scandal that shouldn’t really be considered a scandal, should it, because since when is running a zealous fan blog a crime?
“Yuuri doesn’t care,” Yurio emphasizes. “Victor, seriously, why would he care?”
Victor shuts the laptop, pinches the bridge of his nose. “If I tell you something, you have to swear you won’t tell anyone.”
The blond looks hesitant now, leans forward. “Okay, I won’t.”
“Yuuri’s best friend, who he lives with, is named Phichit Chulanont. And he’s KY.”
“You know who KY is?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s your boyfriend’s best friend?”
He’s not sure that Yuuri is his boyfriend, officially, but if the shoe fits… “Yes.”
Yurio doesn’t necessarily look shocked, just thoughtful. He moves to sit on the arm of the couch opposite Victor, leaning his back on the corner of it. It doesn’t look comfortable, but he remains perched there, finishes off the bread he’d taken from the fridge. “So, what? You’re afraid that this guy—Phichit—is freaked out?”
“No,” he sighs, because really, he couldn’t care less about that. “But he’s Yuuri’s best friend.”
“You’re saying that Yuuri might think you used him to get to Phichit, like a rabid fan?”
Victor pales.
Yurio blinks. “Oh. You hadn’t… You hadn’t thought of that, had you?”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” he confirms. “But thanks for adding that.” Victor makes an exasperated noise, scrubs a hand down his face. “I need to talk to him in person. I need to talk to him in person, Yurio. I’m flying to Detroit.”
“You can’t just fly to Detroit,” Yurio informs him, the obnoxious voice of reason. “You really think it has to be done in person?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.”
He’d done a quick interview about the scandal, and now his mission, according to Yakov, is just to keep his head low and let the book sales roll in. Stammi Vicino is selling well—impressively well—but so is History Maker. Nobody is sure who will win the month, though apparently Stammi Vicino had more pre-sale profits by a marginal amount.
Now, he’s just… Sitting.
And thinking.
(And it’s driving him crazy.)
His phone rings.
He jumps, almost falls off of the chair. Then, he scrambles to pick it up, reads the caller ID, internally begging for it to be the one person he so desperately wants it to be. But it’s Yakov Feltsman. Victor groans, loudly, and answers it, making sure that his groaning continues even after he has picked it up so that Yakov can hear it.
“Victor,” Yakov says.
“Not Yuuri,” Victor tells Yurio, then returns his attention to the phone. “Yes? Another interview? Another piece of news? Did the world find my KY merchandise collection, too?”
“You have a KY merchandise collection?” Yurio and Yakov ask at the same time.
“I’m kidding,” he bites out, because surely ten items doesn’t count as a collection.
Yakov clears his throat. “There’s an opportunity for a book signing in Grand Rapids.”
“Grand Rapids?” Victor repeats. It’s odd that Yakov is asking him to do a signing, since that seems to conflict with the concept of keeping his head low. At the same time, though, events are important for marketing. He already has several signings planned out over the course of the next few months, the first one taking place in a few weeks. But Grand Rapids doesn’t sound familiar.
“Michigan,” Yakov provides. “Grand Rapids, Michigan.”
His heart skips a beat. “Michigan?”
“It’s about a two hour drive from Detroit.”
There’s a second layer to Yakov’s tone—a knowing one. Victor grabs a pillow and hugs it to his chest, smiling brightly at Yurio. “Thank you, Yakov.”
“You’ll have four days there. There’s another signing in Chicago, a day after the Grand Rapids one. So that means you’ll have two extra days.”
“Thank you, Yakov,” Victor repeats, and Yurio is staring at him like he’s insane.
Yakov exhales. “You’re welcome, Vitya. It’s in a week.”
“A week?”
Before he can further his complaints, Yakov has hung up.
Victor supposes beggars can’t be choosers.
~
Yuuri isn’t sure what to say when he reads the news.
When he’d first heard that Victor runs a fan blog about him, he’d been intoxicated, but now he’s sober and presented with the cold, hard truth. KY-fan1990 has essentially gone global, with people checking and refreshing the blog on an hourly basis. He wonders why Victor hasn’t taken the blog down—he’d taken the misplaced post down, after all. Yuuri would be lying if he were to say that he hadn’t skimmed through the blog himself, seen just a glimpse of the outlandish praise that Victor has said about him.
(Without knowing that it was him.)
“I messed this up,” Yuuri tells Phichit, resting his head on his friend’s shoulder.
Phichit has an arm around his side, offers a smile. “I don’t think you messed anything up. It’s not like this will change anything between you guys, will it?”
“He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know, and I thought he just liked my books, Phichit, I didn’t know that he… That he… I didn’t know about this.”
(One of Victor’s reviews had claimed that KY is not only the greatest author alive, but the greatest person to ever walk the Earth.)
(Another had claimed that his prose could move mountains, could make the sun rise in the west and set in the east. Could make oceans part.)
Needless to say, Victor is a fan, and Yuuri doesn’t know what to do.
“It’s obvious, now more than ever, that you have to tell him,” Phichit advises, rubbing Yuuri’s shoulder. “Don’t stress about it. I’m sure he’ll be surprised, but it won’t make him love you any less.”
Yuuri stares.
“Like,” Phichit corrects himself. “Like you any less.”
“I could just not tell him,” Yuuri says, quiet, because he knows what his words entail. “Not see him again. Think about it—he lives halfway across the world. If he finds out that I’m KY, and he’d never been serious about our relationship in the first place, then telling him would just unnecessarily complicate things. I could break things off with him. Just go back to the way things were before we met, before any of this ever happened.”
Phichit opens his mouth to speak, but Yuuri continues.
“He writes, I write. We’re competitors, but we read each other’s novels. The way things were.” The more he speaks, the more his voice drops, the more his gaze droops. “The way things were.”
“Stop,” Phichit snaps. “You’re not… Yuuri, you don’t want that. Listen, think about it—what do you want? What’s your ideal outcome? Lay it out.” Yuuri meets his eyes, offers a blank stare. “I don’t care how crazy it seems to you. Lay it out for me.”
“I want…” He starts, then swallows. “I want to keep writing. And I want Victor to keep writing. But I want…” Yuuri’s voice trails off.
“Keep going,” he encourages.
“I like him. I like Victor. He’s…” Yuuri thinks about their conversations in the coffee shop, about the time they’d spent together in Saint Petersburg. The dancing, the laughter, the feeling of Victor’s lips on his, the cold air as they’d stood together on the balcony, the light in his eyes . The way that words spill from his lips, spill from his fingers when he types, the way that he thinks, the way that his mind works. Everything about him is beautiful, imperfectly immaculate. “I want to spend more time with him. I want…” I want him.
“I think he wants you, too,” Phichit tells him. “All you have to do is talk to him.”
Yuuri bites his lip, nods. “Thanks, Phichit. You’re a good friend.”
“I know,” he answers, teasing, and bumps his shoulder. “Now let’s go get sandwiches. I could go for chicken and cheddar on wheat right now.”
~
Seven days can’t pass quickly enough.
He doesn’t text Yuuri, and doesn’t receive a text from Yuuri. He assumes, though, that at some point Yuuri must’ve seen the announcement on his Facebook page—that he’ll be in Grand Rapids, Michigan for a last minute signing in a week’s time.
Yurio is sick of hearing Victor talk about Yuuri, but he doesn’t complain verbally—just gives him pitiful eyes and suggests that they do something else, whether it’s get food or talk about the marketing and publication of his own novel.
The scandal involving his review being posted to the wrong blog and the subsequent reveal of his fan blog quickly takes on a new name—#KYgate, otherwise known as #lubegate. It takes him a while for Victor to understand the joke, and then he realizes that KY is a lubricant brand. He wonders if Phichit knows that. Probably, by now.
And then, finally, he’s on a plane, bouncing his knee the entire time to the annoyance of the man next to him. He takes his freshly printed copy of History Maker with him as a sort of emotional crutch. He lands in Grand Rapids, but his returning flight will leave from Detroit.
(Because he’s planning on going to Detroit.)
(And seeing Yuuri.)
(And it’s possible, really, that his heart will burst before that’s able to happen, because he cannot wait.)
On Monday, when he arrives at a bookstore in Grand Rapids, he realizes for the first time how awkward these book signings will be. The first few fans don’t bring it up, but then a few do, and he simply laughs it off, saying that, yes, he does admire KY, does believe that he’s an incredible author with undeniable talent. The fans always appear to be shocked that he admits it with such ease, that he’s not flushing with embarrassment or denying it altogether. But why would he?
That afternoon, he’s driven to Chicago. The same thing the next day, aching hands and thoughts drifting far, far away from the bookstore. Signing is absent-minded, at this point—he’ll answer questions, smile for photos, sign the book, give them a wink if he feels it’s suiting. Fans always leave satisfied, talking excitedly to one another about this character or that scene.
“I read History Maker, too,” a woman in Chicago tells him, long, painted fingernails tapping the table that Victor is sitting at. “Between you and me, though, I preferred this.”
Victor’s expression tightens as he hands her the book. “Why?”
At that, she looks surprised. “Why did I… Why did I prefer your book?”
He nods, cracking his knuckles in an attempt to stretch out his sore fingers. “Yes.”
“I don’t… I don’t know.”
“Hmm.”
The next fan approaches.
Soon enough, the signing is over, and the following day he’s in the backseat of a car heading to Detroit. He stares out the window, suitcase by his side, phone in his hand. He should text Yuuri—he knows that. If they weren’t currently in a precarious situation, Victor would surprise him, as a romantic gesture. But, no, this time, he’ll text him.
I’m in Michigan.
For a while, there’s no response.
detroit? Yuuri asks, and it’s such a simple word, but Victor hasn’t talked to him in a week and he finds himself wanting to tell Yuuri about everything—how the trees on the side of the road look beautiful and how his coffee had tasted this morning and how that taste had reminded Victor of him and how much he has hated not talking to him and everything, everything. He could talk to him for hours.
Instead, he types three words. Are you busy?
the usual place?
Victor smiles, can hardly contain himself.The usual place. He’ll meet Yuuri at the usual place. Because they have a usual place. Sounds perfect. I’ll be there in an hour.
~
Victor is a block away from the coffee shop when he pauses.
He doesn’t know what Yuuri is thinking, doesn’t know what he has been doing for the past week. And he wants him—he wants him so badly, wants him more than he thinks his heart can handle. It occurs to him, now, that this is it. That for whatever reason, Yuuri might want to end this, might think he’s weird for being obsessed with his best friend, might think—god forbid—that Victor had been taking advantage of him like Yurio had suggested he might.
First, he breathes. Then, he walks.
And swings open the door. Yuuri is sitting in the corner, turned away from the entrance, his phone in his hand. Victor pauses in the doorway, because he’s there, and he’s real, and Victor had seen him a little over a week ago, but this feeling hasn’t changed since day one, this feeling of disbelief. He approaches, slides into the stool beside him.
“Come here often?”
Yuuri blinks at him, then realization crosses his features. His arms extend, but only halfway—as though he’s hesitant, unsure.
That movement is the only sign that Victor needs.
It’s a messy hug, with them both sitting on stools like this. Victor’s stool wobbles underneath him and he almost falls onto the ground, which wouldn’t be a good way to start this conversation. Yuuri catches him by his elbows and helps him regain his balance, and then they’re both laughing, breathless, captivated by the sight of each other.
The coffee shop is almost empty at this time of day, apart from a few people scattered throughout. Victor notes that although Yuuri doesn’t have a drink, there’s a half-eaten blueberry muffin on the table in front of him. He’s wearing a grey sweater and jeans, and Victor isn’t sure he has ever looked better than he does in this moment.
“Hi,” Yuuri says.
“Hi.”
Except, then, pain crosses Yuuri’s features.
“Sorry, Victor, I… I need to tell you something. It’s really important, and it can’t wait. Sorry, I know you just came all the way here, but I really need to get this out.”
It’s a stinging, an irreparable stinging. Victor tries not to let the pain show, tries to contain it and fails. He’d come all the way here, had prayed and hoped and desired… But he should’ve known, should’ve guessed that Yuuri wouldn’t be able to look at him the same way after knowing about the verses Victor had written time and time again about how incredible Yuuri’s best friend is.
Victor had thought that it wouldn’t matter, but judging by the look in Yuuri’s eyes, it had.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Victor says, quiet. “I know what you’re going to say.”
Yuuri pales. “You… You do?”
He nods, turns his head away. “I do, and I understand.”
(Of course, Victor doesn’t understand. But writing characters is what he does best, and perhaps he can write himself a new character who hasn’t fallen in love with Yuuri Katsuki, who isn’t heartbroken, who can move on from this with ease and an air of confidence. Perhaps, he thinks, he can rewrite himself.)
“You understand?” Yuuri asks. “What do you mean you—Victor, what do you think I’m talking about?”
“You want to end this,” Victor elaborates, and he makes a gesture towards the coffee shop, then towards himself.
“What?” he blurts. “You think…” Realization comes forth in an instant in the form of raised eyebrows and a slack jaw. “Do… Do you want to end this?”
“You don’t want to end this?”
“I thought, because you said, because you suggested that I want to, and I don’t… I wasn’t going to say… I wasn’t going to say that, but…” When Yuuri blinks, there are tears brewing in his eyes, remaining there, unmoving, like a threat. “I wasn’t going to say that but if you want to then that’s… That’s…”
“I don’t want that,” Victor admits, slowly realizing what’s happening. “Hang on, Yuuri, I don’t want that. Listen to me, okay? I’ve never wanted that. I thought, because of what happened, that you might want that. There’s something that I need to tell you, too, and I wasn’t sure how to tell you because at first I didn’t think that it would matter but then—”
“I’m KY.”
“—that information was released and I figured I had to tell you. Yakov set it up so that I could come here and that’s why I really just need to let you know that—what?”
A glistening tear slips down Yuuri’s pale cheek. He retracts, shoulders drawing inwards, as though bracing himself for impact. “Victor, I’m KY.”
“You’re…”
Victor starts laughing.
“No you’re not,” he says, because he’s not. Yuuri isn’t KY, Phichit is. Is he trying to cover up for his friend? What’s the point of that? And why would he—
He looks uncomfortable, shifts in his seat. “I am.”
Victor lowers his voice, suddenly conscious of the others in the coffee shop. “It’s okay, Yuuri. I know. Phichit is KY. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but I found out a long time ago. When we were at that restaurant, you left your phone face up on the table, and I accidentally read some texts he had sent to you.”
“You think that Phichit is KY?”
A sensation akin to vertigo swirls in his stomach. He starts to feel lightheaded.
Yuuri takes in a deep breath, then continues. “Victor. In Japan, we usually address people by their surname first. Then their given name.”
“Yuuri Katsuki, so…”
“Katsuki Yuuri,” Yuuri finishes, and searches his eyes. He’s fumbling with his hands on his lap, and then he pushes up his glasses, nervously sucking in a breath.
Victor doesn’t react.
Just stares.
“Katsuki Yuuri,” he repeats, slowly.
“Katsuki Yuuri,” Yuuri confirms.
“KY. That means Katsuki Yuuri?”
“That’s… Yes.”
(When is he supposed to wake up?)
(And is this what it feels like to have one’s mind short-circuit? Is this what it feels like to break? Because his brain isn’t working properly, thoughts aren’t coming forward—he can’t stitch together the pieces of the puzzle because if someone were to ask him to pronounce his own name right now, he’s fairly certain he’d get it wrong.)
“Are you upset?” the man across from him whispers. Then, suddenly, he takes Victor’s hand, laces their fingers, grounding him. “Victor?”
“I’m… You’re KY?”
Yuuri thinks for a second. “Hang on, I can prove it. Um… Okay, look.” He grabs his bag and takes out his laptop, begins pulling documents up on the screen. “See? Here’s a rough copy of History Maker. And here’s Dime a Dozen.”
The documents are covered in highlights and notes.
They unmistakably belong to a writer.
“So you’re… You write?” Victor questions.
“Um, yes.”
“You write… You wrote… Everything KY wrote? You wrote?”
“Yes. Are you… Are you okay?”
Victor shakes his head. He gets up, releases Yuuri’s hand, and asks the barista for a cup of water. He sits back down and downs the whole thing in a few seconds, setting the cup on the table and pushing it away from him. “I run a fan blog about you?”
“Um, apparently, yes,” Yuuri replies, and he’s blushing now. “If it… If it’s of any consolation, I’m flattered.”
“And you read it? My fan blog? My fan blog about you?”
“I… Some of it, yes.”
Victor nods, slowly, and his thoughts are sluggishly returning to a semblance of coherency. But only a semblance. And not even that. “You’re KY. I run a fan blog dedicated to you, and now the world knows that. And I… We’re dating.”
Yuuri looks surprised by that, but nods anyway.
“I’m dating KY.”
“Yes.”
“I run a fan blog dedicated to my boyfriend, KY.”
“When you put it that way… Do you need a minute? Um, I’ll get you more water.” Yuuri takes the cup and stands up, walks away.
Victor’s eyes don’t leave him for a second.
KY, walking in front of him.
(He’d always had a blurry image of KY in his mind. Of a smile. Yuuri casts him a smile as he fills the cup with water, a shy, nervous one, but a smile all the same. And, Victor realizes, it fits. It fits.)
(As he goes back through his memories with him, everything fits. As he thinks about the love portrayed in History Maker, it fits, because, yes, he can see Yuuri crafting those words, can picture him sitting down on a couch with his fingers flying across the keyboard, can picture him typing long into the night in a way that Victor had never been able to imagine Phichit doing.)
(It fits.)
Yuuri sits back down, hands him the water.
Victor doesn’t drink it.
“Are you mad?” Yuuri blurts, then. “Because I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. At first, I was shocked that you’d want to spend time with me, because you’ve always been my favorite author. I was grateful for any time that we could have together. But then things changed so quickly and then you left and I… I was going to tell you, in Saint Petersburg. Do you remember, at the airport?”
I need to tell you something, Yuuri had said.
Victor had hugged him when he’d started stammering to get words out.
Oh.
Right.
That’s…
“Am I mad?” Victor repeats, and Yuuri nods, desperate for an answer. “I’m… I’m not mad, but… I just… You’re… I can’t believe… I need a minute.”
“Yes,” Yuuri exhales. “Yes, yes, sure. A minute. I understand.”
Victor doesn’t stop looking at him.
Yuuri licks his lips, focuses on the table as though it had just said something of interest.
“It makes sense,” Victor realizes out loud, because Yuuri’s anxiety is starting to permeate the air, starting to wrap around his throat.
“I would think so,” Yuuri answers.
He nods slowly. The silence is awkward, now, as Victor lets everything sink in. “Why didn’t you tell me from the start? At my book signing? Does Phichit know?”
“Phichit knows. I didn’t tell you at first because I didn’t think it’d matter, but then, as we got to know each other…” He avoids his eyes. “I didn’t want you to think differently of me. I was afraid of that.”
“Think differently of you?” Victor repeats.
It’s then that he starts to fully take in Yuuri’s appearance—his forehead glistens with sweat and the goosebumps on his arms haven’t faded. His posture is unnaturally stiff, the way that he’s bitting his lip looks almost unbearably painful. By being so lost in his own thoughts, Victor realizes, he has been killing him.
So he lets a slow smile spread across his features, makes sure that Yuuri can tell it’s genuine and meant only for him, and takes his hand again. “How could I ever think differently of Katsuki Yuuri?”
The tears from earlier return, but this time for a different reason. Yuuri leaps into his arms and Victor holds him, burying his face in the other man’s shoulder and realizing that, no, this isn’t KY in his arms—this is Yuuri Katsuki. Yuuri Katsuki who is a writer, but is still Yuuri Katsuki, who still orders drinks with caramel on top and who texts with autocorrect turned off and who knows more about famous authors than he does about the back of his own hand.
Still Yuuri Katsuki.
“Thank you for forgiving me,” Yuuri mumbles.
“Nothing to forgive. I understand, but I’m glad you told me. I guess this means I should tell you that I’m not actually Victor Nikiforov.”
He pulls away, frowns.
“Kidding,” Victor provides, then kisses him on the lips.
He means for it to be chaste, but Yuuri meets him with more than that, a hand coming up to tangle in Victor’s hair. Victor copies the movement, his other hand squeezing Yuuri’s fingers for reassurance, and he melts against Yuuri’s lips, his warmth, him.
“Victor Nikiforov and KY,” he mumbles, keeping their foreheads pressed together, lips just an inch away from Yuuri’s own. “That’s a dynamic duo, isn’t it?”
“Dynamic indeed,” Yuuri laughs, and then kisses him again, deeper this time. Victor can’t get enough, shifts his stool closer, almost letting it tumble again, but he figures death in a coffee shop would be worth it if he could just get five more seconds of kissing Yuuri Katsuki. “Do you want to go do something?” he adds.
They end up going to his apartment.
(Victor holds his hand the entire way there.)
(It makes him happier than it should, maybe—fills him with a sort of light that he hadn’t known existed before today. He swings their arms, and Yuuri laughs a little bit at the ridiculousness of it all, and so does Victor, and he notes aloud that perhaps this story would make a good book.)
His apartment is nice—carpeted floors and neatly arranged furniture. There’s a kitchen off to the left, connected to the foyer and living room, and there are two bedroom doors off to the right with a shared bathroom. “Phichit is at the rink right now,” Yuuri explains.
Victor laughs. “Phichit skates? Is that how you knew so much about skating?”
“I skate, too, sometimes,” Yuuri adds, smiling back. “It’s a hobby. But, yeah, that’s how. So, um… Do you want to order lunch? Or talk more? Or…”
He’s still nervous, Victor realizes. Not quite the open and lighthearted Yuuri that Victor knows and loves. But Victor will do whatever he can do to convince him that, yes, he’s more than okay with this revelation. “I want to talk. Where do you write?”
“The couch, or my room, or the coffee shop.”
“Can I see your room?”
Yuuri hesitates.
Victor brings Yuuri’s hand to his lips and kisses a knuckle. “Please?”
“You can’t… If you don’t judge it, okay?”
“Judge it? Why would I judge it?”
As soon as he enters, he realizes what Yuuri is talking about.
There’s a wall covered entirely in sticky notes. From the floor to the ceiling. White sticky notes, yellow ones, big ones, small ones, pastel ones, even a few heart-shaped and star-shaped ones. And all are scribbled on.
“Phichit calls it my brain dump wall,” Yuuri explains, watching Victor’s reaction. “I know it’s sort of weird.”
Victor steps closer, plucks one sticky note off of the wall and reads it. They’re all story ideas. Some expand upon other story ideas, and in a few places there are sticky notes stacked on top of each other. “What’s this one?”
It reads Victor.
(The ‘i’ is dotted.)
“Nothing, nothing,” Yuuri says, snatching it out of his hand and hesitating before sticking it back on the wall. When he realizes that Victor isn’t going to drop the topic, he ducks his head, takes in a breath. “I… I wanted to write about you. I don’t know, at some point. Maybe a character inspired by you. You’re just…” He pauses, and when he continues, there’s a newfound confidence to his tone. “You’re interesting. The way that you act. The things that you do. If I were to write you, it’d be hard to capture that, because the way that you are is hard to explain in words.”
Victor doesn’t say anything—isn’t sure what to say.
“It’s like you’re drowned in diamonds,” Yuuri explains, “but the materialism—the diamonds themselves—they aren’t what truly make you happy. What makes you happy is watching the light reflect off of them. Does that make sense?”
Victor hugs him again, and this time Yuuri’s feet are lifted off of the floor. “You make me happy,” he tells him. “No metaphors required.”
“You make me happy,” Yuuri answers, then kisses him.
“Can I read all of them?” he asks, gesturing towards the wall of story ideas.
Yuuri looks surprised. “You’d want to?”
“I’d pay good money to.”
At that, he laughs, then nods. “You can read them.”
Then, Victor approaches the small bookshelf in the corner. Victor's novels are propped up so that the covers show, and he sees Yuuri’s signed copy of Fragile as Glass front and center, proudly displayed. When he picks it up, however, he sees that the pages are highlighted—he hadn’t noticed that at the signing. Bits and pieces are circled, other parts have large stars or exclamation points written beside them.
He picks up another one of his books, and it’s the same. Then another.
“I like to remember my favorite parts,” he explains.
Then Stammi Vicino. It’s the same.
There are more books, too, a wide variety of different authors and titles. None of them are annotated in the same way that Victor’s are.
At the bottom of the shelf, tucked away, are Yuuri’s own novels. A shiny new copy of History Maker. Victor picks it up, thumbs through the pages. “Ever since I thought I’d found out that KY was Phichit, it never fit. Picturing him writing this, it never fit. But if I think about you… Then it fits.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t even tell you how happy I am that you know,” Yuuri blurts. “It was like this, thing, weighing on me, like a rain cloud permanently floating above my head, and now I’m just so glad you’re not upset. But…”
“But what?” Victor asks, turning around.
Yuuri sits down on his bed. “Now what?”
(Now what?)
Victor thinks for a moment. “Can I tell Yurio? And Yakov? Maybe a few others? They’ll keep it to themselves, I swear on their behalf.”
“I don’t mind, as long as the world doesn’t find out. I like my privacy.”
He nods, understanding. “I vote that we worry about the future later. For now, for today, I want to talk to you about History Maker. Because I have a lot to say.”
Yuuri laughs. “I sort of already read your review. The whole world did.”
“It barely scratched the surface,” he explains, then sits down beside Yuuri on the bed. “I need to give you my detailed praise.”
“Your detailed praise?”
“Very, very detailed,” Victor explains, and shifts closer to him, their thighs touching as he kisses his neck, one hand on his shoulder to steady him. Yuuri leans his head back to give him better access and Victor hums at the taste of his skin, shuts his eyes as he continues his praise. He works his way down to Yuuri’s pulse point, then to his collarbone. “I liked it,” he tells him. “A lot.”
“I liked Stammi Vicino,” Yuuri answers, voice sounding drowsy, content.
“Good. One thing, though.” He pulls away from Yuuri’s neck, meets his eyes. “Did you really have to injure Marcus in chapter fourteen? I mean, I know you had to, because of what it did for the plot and for the characterization, but it hurt me, Yuuri. You hurt me.”
Yuuri brushes his hand through Victor’s hair. “Is this what our relationship is going to be like from now on? Because in Stammi Vicino, the way that you described the character’s initial depression was heartbreakingly beautiful, and chapter… Hang on.” He stands, fetches the book off of the shelf, then sits back down. For a second, he flips through the pages, then pauses, pointing at a highlighted paragraph. “This part. Chapter twenty-one. This was my favorite part.”
~
Eventually, they’re lying down, Victor’s head resting on Yuuri’s chest as Yuuri drifts his fingers through his hair. He holds Stammi Vicino in his other hand, and they quietly discuss it, but he can tell that Victor is too drowsy at this point to hold a decent conversation. He’d had two books signings, and mingled with his jet-lag and car trips, it makes sense that he’d be tired.
“Sorry, we can keep talking later,” Victor mumbles against his shirt. “I definitely want to.”
“Don’t apologize. Do you want to sleep on our couch?”
He shifts his head onto Yuuri’s shoulder, yawns again, and this time Yuuri can feel his breath hot against his neck. “Is here okay?”
Yuuri rests an arm on Victor’s shoulder to get more comfortable, but keeps his other hand in Victor’s hair. “It’s okay,” he promises, and that appears to be all the sign Victor needs, because a second later, he’s silent, silver eyelashes contrasting against pale skin, chest flush against Yuuri’s side.
Of course, that’s when Yuuri hears their main door unlock.
He winces with anticipation.
“Yuuri?” Phichit calls.
By some miracle, Victor doesn’t wake up.
Phichit walks past his bedroom door, freezes in his tracks. His jaw drops. “You’re—”
Yuuri takes his hand out of Victor’s hair and presses a finger to his lips, indicating for Phichit to be quiet. Phichit silences himself, but keeps his eyes glued on Victor Nikiforov, who is currently searching for Yuuri’s touch again, unconsciously shifting. Slightly embarrassed, Yuuri puts his hand back in his hair and begins his earlier soothing motions, this time letting his nails lightly scrape across Victor’s scalp. The man on top of him stills again, evidently content.
Phichit mouths, silently, What happened? How did he get here?
With a single look, Yuuri promises to explain later. Phichit seems to understand.
A second later, Phichit gives him an impressed thumbs up.
If Yuuri wasn’t blushing before, then he certainly is now.
~
When Victor flies home, he’s overly excited to share the news.
But he remembers what Yuuri had said about his identity being a carefully guarded secret, and he plans on respecting that completely. So he brings Mila, Sara, Yakov, Christophe, Georgi, and Yurio into a room. They surround him, looking confusedly at one another.
“Yuuri is KY,” he reveals.
A pause.
“You didn’t realize that?” Mila asks.
Victor freezes. “What?”
“Yuuri Katsuki. Katsuki Yuuri,” she explains, glancing around. “Seriously, nobody figured that out except for me? Whenever you talked about Yuuri, you’d get this wild look in your eyes, this, like, fervor. It’s the same look you got whenever you talked about KY. Not a hard connection to make.”
“You’ve been dating KY this whole time?” Yurio asks. “And you seriously never found out? How is that even possible? You thought it was his best friend?”
“There was… There was a mix-up.”
Yurio stands up, leaves the room. “I’m out. I swear, I’m done with you.” He hesitates in the doorway. “But… Congrats, I guess.” Then he’s gone.
“This is the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard,” Georgi declares.
Yakov and Sara note that they’d always suspected something.
Christophe claps him on the back, tells him that this is great news, since Victor is now dating the man he’d admired for years on end.
~
Yuuri—or KY—is the best-selling author of the year.
However, according to their ongoing pattern, Victor should take that title next year. And then Yuuri again. And then Victor. And so on and so forth. Victor assures him, as he plays with Yuuri’s fingers and kisses his neck, that just because they’ve been dating for a little over a year now, he’s not going to back down.
Yuuri promises that he won’t, either, and a healthy rivalry forms between them, replacing the detached one that had been there before.
Victor moves to Detroit, but visits Saint Petersburg often. He communicates with his editors over Skype, attends business meetings when necessary. It’s not perfect, but luckily Yakov has been wanting to upsize the publishing company’s space for a while now, and he has his eye on a building in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that might be perfect.
Victor and Yuuri drink coffee every morning.
(At the same coffee shop, where every barista now knows them by name.)
During interviews, Victor freely speaks of his lovely husband, Yuuri, and of his greatest rival, KY. He’ll meet Yuuri’s eyes in the audience, and the interviewer always seems to know that something is going on, but they never quite figure out what.
Of course, there are conspiracies online about the irony of Yuuri’s initials being “KY” backwards, but more often than not, they’re shut down due to how outrageous of a suggestion it is. Victor always laughs it off when these theories are presented to him in person.
~
One morning, three years later, they’re at a local park, cloud gazing on a blanket.
“I’m ready,” Yuuri says, then.
Victor pulls Yuuri onto his chest, wraps both arms around him and kisses the back of his head. “Ready for what?”
“To tell everyone. I think I’m ready.”
He breathes in, deep, and shuts his eyes. He smells Yuuri’s shampoo, reaches for his hand and feels the golden ring on his finger. “If you are, then I support you, one hundred percent.”
“I know. But do you think it’s a good idea?”
“I do,” Victor admits, because he always has. “The world should know that my husband is handsome, intelligent, and prolific,” he tells him, then squeezes his sides playfully.
Yuuri squirms on top of him, laughing. “Then I’ll do it. I’ll tell everyone.”
“How would you do it?”
“I’ll write a book.”
“What, like an autobiography? KY: Revealed?”
He laughs, shifts so that he’s lying beside Victor, meeting his gaze. “No. Well, sort of. I’ll write our story. Like a fiction piece, except it’s based on what really happened.”
Victor had wondered, since the day he’d met Yuuri, how he’d write him.
(At first, he thought he’d use fountains of literary devices. He’d pour them out and shape them and craft words in order to get as close as possible. He’d edit and edit until he’d done him justice, until he’d perfectly described the feeling that Victor gets around him, that weightlessness, that sense of acceptance, of love.)
(Then, he thought, no, he’d use simple language. Because general terms would be the best way to describe him—getting into the intricacies is unnecessary when it comes to Yuuri Katsuki. Though he’s hard to generalize, abstract words and phrases may be the best way to approach such a problem.)
(Or maybe lists. A list of all the things that he is, a list of all the things that he does—he writes prose so elegant it could bring anyone with a capability for emotions to tears, he laughs so magically that it could hold the attention of an entire room, he talks so excitedly that Victor could listen to him all day, every hour, for the rest of his life.)
(Lists, literary devices, simple language, perhaps a combination of all three. Perhaps bullet points. Maybe a wall of sticky notes. Maybe speaking the words aloud would help, or maybe thinking them time and time again. Maybe he could write them on restaurant napkins, in the sky, on a piece of lined notebook paper.)
There are thousands of ways that he could write Yuuri Katsuki.
But, over time, Victor realizes that he doesn’t have to.
That right here, right now, he’s content.
So, he leans closer to him. There’s a love heavy in both his heart and mind. A love that doesn’t need a definition, because it’s real, and that’s all that matters.
“And what would you call it?”