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Viktor is tired- this shouldn't surprise anyone
He's always tired these days, he's been tired, perpetually, for longer than he thinks is reasonable, but he never talks about it, not that there's anyone to talk to- not anymore, anyway- but it's still something he just tends to keep to himself
No one needs to know how much life it's self has been taking away from him lately, how much he's been drained of any substance from the typical pains of life....
But he's tired, is the point, and his eyes are stinging as he makes his way down the empty road
He isn't too far from home, that's the one bit of good news he can attest to, but as he starts to let his mind wander into the releif- momentary and dull as it is- of going home, he doesn't notice the figure appearing in front of him
...Atleast, not at first
It's like the road is empty and then the next, she's there
A stranger in every sense of the wod, a woman with long black hair dressed all in white, with her head hanging forward, her body completely still, almost like she was a statue or something....
He leaned a little closer, squinting as he tried to get a better veiw of her features through the thick glass of his windsheild
She was just so deathly still....
....Until she wasn't
Suddenly, she started moving, turning towards Viktor, hair still hanging in her face, covering her features, as she began to move forward
It was a slow movement, he could vaguely tell that the stranger was limping.... but he couldn't tell much elsse...
He wondered if maybe the person needed help, but before he could even think about getting out of the car to check on the stranger, the figure suddenly sped up, advancing atleast twice as quickly as before- if not faster
It had become immediately clear that she wasn't in need of any help, that whatever she was approaching the car for, it wasn't benevolant
He cursed as she began charging at the car, slamming his foot on the gas pedal and hurriedly throwing the car into reverse
But even at the speed of the moving car, the woman didn't seem to be losing much ground
His heat raced, a cold splash of fear suddenly flooding into his veins as he hurried to turn the car around, never taking his foot of the gas pedal for even a moment
He glanced over his shoulder as he drove, his stomach sinking as he saw the figure still approaching, but she was starting to lose steam, either from slowing down or Viktor speeding up, he wasn't sure wich and he didn't really care
All he cared about now was making it back home alive
~+~
"Oh, hey Viktor, you doing alright there buddy?"
Viktor blinked rapidly, the sound of the other man's voice was enough to jolt him out of whatever strange stupor he had been in, panting quietly as he turned his full attention to the other man
He vaguely recognized the stranger as one of his neighbors, cute, with dark hair and a complexion to match, a smile always seeming to be perched upon his lips
Phichit, Viktor remembered absently
"I'm alright, yes," he finally replied on auto pilot, a slightly sympathetic, understanding look replacing the warm smile a second later
"You sure about that? Because, you know, it's ok if you aren't fine," he promised
Viktor was quiet for a moment, and although he wasn't typically one to share his private details with anyone.... well, maybe it was the tiredness getting the best of him
"You're going to think I'm absolutely insane," he prefaced with a sigh, arms crossing over his chest as he stared in Phichit's direction
"I think.... I think I saw a ghost,"
~+~
"So you were on your way back from the cemetery when this happened?"
Viktor gave a slow nod, quietly thanking Phichit for the cup of tea that was placed in front of him
Though, admittedly, his attention was more focused on Phichit's roommate, a beautifull man with dark hair and glasses who was studiously taking notes across from Viktor
He vaguely recalled hearing him addressed as "Yuri"...
"Can you tell us more?" the man- Yuri- prompted softly, adjusting his glasses as he glanced up from his notepad
"There isn't much else to tell," Viktor shrugged
"I was driving along Maple Street, saw the.... whatever it was.... and after a few moments of watching it stumble around, it started charging me and chased me half way down the road before I lost it,"
"Would you be willing to go back there and show us?" Phichit asked, taking a seat next to his roommate
"I... suppose so,"
"Great! This'll make for a pretty neat episode if we can catch anything,"
Yuri gave his freind a pointed look before glancing back- far more sympathetically- at Viktor, offering a soft smile
"We won't film it without your permission though, ofcourse,"
Right... the reason for their interest was a web show
Apparently Yuri and Phichit were paranormal investigators, like Buzzfeed Unsolved meets Ghost Hunters or something, Viktor hadn't asked alot of questions, he had never been interested in things like that, he was a little too much of a scaredy cat
But still, the fact that he lived across the hall from internet celebrities was pretty cool, he supposed...
"You have my permission," Viktor promised
"I'd be happy to take you back there tommorrow night,"
"Great! What about interveiws? First hand accounts? Can you give us a backstor-"
"Phich," Yuri said softly, placing a hand on Phichit's leg as the other man- somewhat reluctantly- began to calm
"Sorry, just... I get pretty excited over this stuff,"
"I can tell," Viktor chuckled
"It's ok, there's nothing wrong with that ofcourse, you're passionate about your job, that's never a bad thing,"
Phichit seemed to light up at the confirmation, giving Yuri a teasing "Told you so" sort of look and earning a playfull roll of Yuri's eyes before the conversation melted into seriousness again
"Well then, if that's everything, we'll talk to you again in the morning? I'm sure you want to get some sleep,"
Viktor nodded, rubbing the back of his neck
"Yes, thank you, I'll see you in the morning then,"
Viktor had been ready to brush the incident off as just a one-off, another of the millions of strange paranormal encounters people seemed to have across the world, but he wasn't against investigating it
A beleif he would double down on after waking the next morning...
~+~
"Well I'm not surprised you're having nightmares," Phichit mused as Viktor rubbed miserably at his face
"I mean, what you experienced yesterday was obviously pretty terrifying, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that you're having nightmares for weeks after this," he added
Viktor wasn't sure how he felt about that, but he had bigger priorities at the moment
"It isn't just the nightmares," he said after a beat, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small plastic bag with several strands of hair sealed inside, carefully setting the bag on the table
"I woke up with this on my pillow this morning, my hair is falling out,"
Yuri and Phichit went quiet at that, exchanging concerned looks with eachother before Yuri forced another smile on his face, reaching out to gently squeeze Viktor's hand
"We'll figure this out, ok? We'll investigate tonight and hopefully come up with a reasonable answer,"
"Thank you," Viktor said softly, offering Yuri a tired smile of his own
"I appreciate that,"
~+~
The night was colder than Viktor thought it would be
Even though it was only October, it was cold enough that he could see his breath turning white whenever he exhaled into the frigid night air
He felt a little bad for dragging Phichit and Yuri out in this weather, but it was their choice so....
"You saw it right around here?" Phichit asked as he adjusted the camera
"Yes, I was only a few feet away from the road sign so I would say around.... five or six feet away from right here," Viktor confirmed with a nod, watching as Yuri moved to attach a light to the sign for better film clarity
"Got it, you ready to do this?" Phichit asked, earning a quick nod from Viktor as he stepped aside, giving the investigators enough space to do whatever they needed to do
"Great!" Phichit smiled, leaning up on the balls of his feet to turn the camera on as Yuri took his place in the center of the road
"We're here with Viktor, who saw the spectral entity here last night," Yuri said for the camera, glancing over his shoulder and gesturing Viktor to come closer- something he was happy to comply with, he wasn't the biggest fan of standing there on his own
"Can you tell us about what happened last night?"
"I was on my way home from the graveyard on Rosewood, last night at around.... mm... well a little after midnight I think? I was driving home alone and I suddenly saw something standing in front of me, about five or six feet past this point, going that way," he explained, gesturing to the specified location
"I wasn't sure at first what it was, but I started to notice that it looked like a woman, and after about... thirty seconds or so of my sitting there observing, the figure suddenly started coming towards me,"
"Can you describe what exactly the figure looked like?" Yuri prompted, earning a nod in response
"Um, kind of tall I guess, but hunched over, long black hair that covered her face and dressed all in white, she kind of reminded me of an adult version of that girl from The Ring actually,"
Yuri nodded studiously, rubbing his gloved hands together, apparently as impacted by the cold as Viktor was
"And how fast would you say she was moving?"
"Ahh... well, at first it was rather slow, limping actually, but after a momenr or two-"
"Guys," Phichit interrupted suddenly, wich, if the look on Yuri's face was any indication, was evidently off script
"Look behind you..."
Viktor and Yuri exchanged a very quick glance before turning to look behind them, as instructed, and instantly wishing they hadn't
The creature- ghost- whatever it was- from the night before was back, standing only a few yards away from them, as still as the night, before it suddenly began to move again, charging towards them in the same hunched, limping manor Viktor had initially described, but faster than before, seemingly choosing to forego the slow creeping stage
Yuri wasted no time, grabbing a hold of Viktor's hand and racing with him towards the car, shouting for Phichit to hurry and join them
Phichit needed little prompting, already having grabbed the camera from where he'd stationed it earlier and nocking over the tripod in the process, the camera as focused as it possibly could be on the figure approaching them as he threw himself into the car, Yuri's foot slamming on the gas pedal the second the door was shut
Phichit scrambled to lean over the back seat, keeping the camera aimed out the back window as he watched the figure slowly vanish the faster and further Yuri drove
"Oh my god..." Yuri panted quietly, his grip like a vice on the steering weel
"I know," Phichit agreed quietly, glancing back at Yuri over his shoulder
"This episode is going to go VIRAL!"
~+~
"So then you just record what's happening, you don't... get rid of it? You know, exorcisms and things?"
"Well.... sometimes we do," Phichit explained as he took a sip of tea
"Or more specifically, we have a freind who does, we call him in every now and then for special cases, but that's only when we're investigating private residences and have been specifically asked to do that,"
Viktor nodded slowly, looking pale, depressed, and... hopeless
Yuri could barely stand it
He knew he'd only just met Viktor the night before, but he already had something of a soft spot for him, he was just such a gentle soul, and he clearly had alot going on in his life that was already taking a toll on him, he didn't need this too
"You shouldn't be worried about it," Yuri assured him
"As long as you don't go down that road again, you should be ok, the spirit is trapped there, it can't just.... follow you home,"
"Are you sure?" Viktor asked worriedly
"Pretty sure," Yuri agreed with a nod
"I mean, unless it's you that's being haunted and not the road, but if that were the case then why would it only be appearing on that road to begin with?"
"You do have a point..." Viktor agreed, rubbing the back of his neck
"Alright, thank you so much for your help, really,"
"Ofcourse," Yuri nodded
"We'll be keeping in touch over the next few days for the episode, alright?"
Viktor nodded back, rising from the couch and shaking Yuri's hand politely
"I'm looking forward to it,"
Yuri did his best to keep his demeanor calm until Viktor was gone, only letting himself relax into the heap of anxiety he really was once the door was closed
"You know we're definitely going back there, right?" Phichit prompted, grabbing a cookie from the plate on the coffee table
They hadn't been touched wile Viktor was there and like hell Phichit was going to let them go to waste when they were still so fresh...
"I know," Yuri agreed, shifting uncomfortably on the couch
"Phich.... what the hell was that thing? It.... it didn't seem like a ghost or a spirit of any kind.... did it?"
"I don't know," Phichit shrugged back, moving to settle next to Yuri on the couch and hand a cookie to him, something Yuri accepted greatfully, if a bit hesitantly
"I mean, spirits can appear in many forms, and we've only been doing this for about a year, it's not like we know everything, hell even the most experienced professionals don't know anywhere close to everything, if they did then this stuff wouldn't be paranormal,"
"I know," Yuri said quietly, closing his eyes for a short moment
"I just.... I don't know, something about it really unnerved me.... it just felt so..... wrong.... you know what I mean?"
"I do," Phichit confirmed, giving Yuri's arm a slight, comforting squeeze
"I think everything is fine though, it's just another weird entity, we'll go back tommorrow in the daylight for some ground work and then go back again at night to see if we can catch it on camera again,"
"Oh joy," Yuri groaned, but he wasn't too upset by the prospect, this was his job after all
"I just hope that Viktor is ok, he seemed pretty spooked,"
"I'm sure he's fine," Phichit promised with a small shrug
"I bet he'll have his nerves calmed by moring,"
~+~
The next three days didn't exactly go as planned- for anyone
Phichit and Yuri tried all three days to make contact with whatever was haunting the road again, but there was just no luck
And Viktor, arguably having a much worse time with things, had barely slept in those three days, constantly awoken by nightmares and the strange sensation of being watched and the few rogue incidents that he just couldn't explain- his bedroom window opening suddenly on a night with no wind, the lights in his apartment flickering on and off for seemingly no reason, the strange feeling of something constricting around his throat....
But it was the nosebleed that finally pushed him to try for a resolution again
"It just feels incomplete," Phichit mused, head resting on his free hand as the other scrolled through the episode's progress, his face wrinkling in dismay
"Viktor's coming over in the morning for another interveiw, right?"
"That's what he said," Yuri agreed from the couch, adjusting his glasses as he flicked through camera footage
They had gone out for the past three nights and not gotten so much as a blip of activity, even when they had left the cameras out all night in the hopes of catching something when they weren't there, it seemed that there wasn't anything more interesting than a raccoon interested in showing up for the spotlight
For a place with so much activity just days before, it was disheartening to say the least
"I hope he can give us a new lead, otherwise editing this thing into something that's more interesting than the minute and a half footage of that ghost is going to be a new circle of hell,"
As if the universe had heard his plea, a nock sounded almost immediately at the door, prompting the two men to exchange surprised glances before Yuri hurried off of the couch and moved to answer it, eyebrows raising when he caught sight of a very familiar face on the other side of the door
"Viktor?"
"I need your help," Viktor blurted out, sans any greeting
"Remember what you said about that thing haunting the road versus hauntning me?"
"Yeah....?"
"I think you were wrong before," Viktor breathed
"I think it is haunting me,"
~+~
"The nightmares were just the beginning," Viktor sighed, rubbing his face in exhaustion
"I've been experiencing paranormal activity in my home for days now, objects moving, the window opening suddenly, lights that flicker in and out with no reason... I keep feeling like I'm being watched, sometimes I'll wake up feeling like someone is touching me- choking me- and then... I woke up about half an hour ago with a nosebleed,"
"That's not too unusual," Phichit assured him
"That's not what prompted me to come here," Viktor noted
"I.... woke up with a nosebleed, I went into the bathroom to try to clean it up, and when I looked in the mirror, I.... I saw that thing standing behind me...."
That was it, the seemingly magical phrase that had Yuri and Phichit staring at eachother with worry, and that had Phichit blurting out what came next
"I think it's time we call the exorcist,"
~+~
"Well, it definitely sounds like you're being haunted by something, though what that something is, I'm not sure yet,"
Viktor just nodded along quietly, unable to help the fact that his focus was no longer on the thing that was haunting him, it wasn't even on Yuri anymore, instead it was just on the newest arrival to the little rag-tag group
The Exorcist
"I'll get rid of it though, don't you worry about that, your ass is safe with me,"
Pursing his lips, Viktor finally decided to say something
"And you're... sure... you're an exorcist?"
Slowly, the petite blonde in front of him leaned forward, tilting his sunglasses down, a single brow raising at the question
"What, do I not fucking look like an exorcist?"
"No you don't," Viktor replied simply, watching in confusion as a pleased, amused grin spread across the blonde's face
"Yeah I know, that stuffy ass shit preists wear? Not my style,"
"So then you are, or aren't, a preist?"
"Nope, I'm a free agent," he promised, moving his sunglasses up to rest on the top of his head and holding his hand out for Viktor
"Yuri Plisetsky, better known as-"
"The Cursing Exorcist," Yuri noted blandly from across the room
"We just call him Yura though, to avoid confusion with my Yuri," Phichit added, crashing on the couch next to Viktor, who slowly put his hand out to shake Yura's in return
"And.... how exactly are you an exorcist? I thought you had to be a preist, and sanctioned by the Catholic church,"
Viktor hadn't been to church since he was a small child, but he was still preeeeeeettyyyy sure that they wouldn't approve of the guy in tight leather pants and the Metallica tank top acting as an exorcist
"Like I said, I'm a free agent," Yura shrugged back
"I'm apparently 'too vulgar' and 'not religious enough' and 'not a preist' to be approved of by the church, but we all know it's just because I'm fucking gay,"
For the first time, the man who had accompanied Yura- a brunette with an undercut and a square jaw who was just a bit taller than the blonde- made a sound, humming in apparent agreement
Interesting
"But can 'free agents' do exorcisms...?"
"Sure," Yura shrugged back
"I mean, the church has their asses in a twist about it but who gaves a fuck? And besides, I don't mess with possessions, for the record, I leave that shit to the fuckers who the church can't claim 'no liability' for, seems only fair, I just do general malicious spirit extermination,"
"So you're more like a ghost buster than an exorcist," Viktor pointed out, watching as Yura started to turn red, his body tensing as a flash of anger suddenly snapped across his face
Though, Yuri- bless his heart- stepped in to stop the apparent onslaught of rage and insults before it happened
"We don't use that term," he corrected quickly, though his expression was basically assuring Viktor that he was, indeed, correct
"You don't need an exorcism though, if you're not possessed," Phichit added a beat later
"Just an extermination, and that's what Yura's for!"
"Don't talk about me like I work in fucking pest control!" Yura sneered, making Viktor wonder if there was anything that wouldn't set him off
"We need to figure out what's haunting you and why," stated Yura's companion- a man who's name Viktor still didn't know- said suddenly
"Otabek is right,"
Ah, Otabek then
"I can't do anything until I know what got you into this mess, Buzzfeed Unsolved over here already told me the basics- creepy ass Ring lady chasing you down Maple after you get done with the graveyard, fine, but I need more information from you,"
"Ofcourse," Viktor nodded
"Anything you need,"
"Good, then we'll start easy- are you involved in anything satanic or occultish?"
"No,"
"Have you experienced any severe trauma recently?"
The first one was easy to understand, but the second one had Viktor a little surprised, head tilting
"Well... no, but why would that matter?"
"Trauma tends to draw in dark spirits, make you more attractive to them,"
"Ah... well, no, rest assured, nothing like that,"
"Then what were you doing at the cemetary?"
Ah... another surprising question....
"A freind of mine passed away recently, I went to visit her grave, but we were just casual freinds, I'd hardly call her passing traumatic, sad yes, I'll miss her, but... not traumatic,"
Yura nodded, having pulled a notepad out from his backpack and already starting to take notes
"When did she die?"
"Ah... about two weeks ago? Her funeral was last Thursday,"
"That soon?" Yura frowned
"Then why were you visiting her grave only days later? If she was just a casual freind then was such a close visit necessary?"
"I... needed to ask her for some advice...." Viktor explained, wringing his hands a bit anxiously
"Advice?" Yuri chimed in curiously
Viktor's lips pursed, clearly not wanting to continue with this particular line of thought, but he was a good client who just as clearly wanted to be done with whatever was haunting him, so he answered
"I'm a drag queen, I was recently offered a sponsorship deal on my YouTube channel from this company I've never worked with before, and when I looked them up, they've got a history of pretty homophobic shit, but the CEO has changed recently and has promised to do better but I haven't seen if that's happened or not yet... so I just... I just wanted to ask if I should take the sponsorship or not you know?"
"Trust me, as a fellow YouTuber- take the sponsorship," Phichit chimed in, earning a slight roll of Yuri's eyes
"You said that this girl was only a casual freind, why ask her advice on something like that?"
"Because she's.... the only freind I really have," Viktor confessed quietly
"I've just never been very good at the 'making freinds' thing so I don't really have any, Gia and I weren't especially close- we never shared secrets or deep personal information or anything like that, but she was all I had,"
A deep pang of sympathy throbbed in Yuri's chest, he could perfectly understand what Viktor was going through
Since moving to the states, Phichit had become his only freind- the only one outside of Yuko, who was still in Japan, that is- and even that was due to a rather large amount of work on Phichit's part, the extrovert who was happy to adopt Yuri as his pet introvert, even though Yuri himself barely knew how to keep up with the many social parts of their lives most days
It was through Phichit that they had met Otabek and Yura in the first place, Yuri wouldn't even have them if not for his roommate, so Viktor being that alone....
It was understandable and relateable on a deep, personal level to Yuri
"How did you communicate with her?" Yura asked suddenly, gaining everyone's attention
"At the graveyard, you said you went to talk to her, was it just.... talking, the way you and I are talking now, or did you use some kind of tool like.... a oujia board?"
Oh no
No no no, don't tell Yuri that-
"I used a oujia board,"
The other four went silent after that, each expressing their disdain for the object in different amounts of dissatisfaction
"God, one of these days all of those motherfuckers are going to burn, because I'll be the one lighting them on fire," Yura grumbled, dragging his hand down his face
"Why? What's wrong?" Viktor frowned
"Oujia boards are.... kind of the pinnacle of bad energy," Yuri explained
"They always open a door to other realms- and they do it unsafely at that, but.... add on top of it that you broke two of the most fundamental rules about using them and used it alone in a graveyard..."
"That was bad?" Viktor pouted
"...Very bad," Yuri confirmed with a wince
"Oh.... can you.... can you fix me?"
Yuri's heart only sank further, Viktor just sounded so earnest and desperate and a little bit scared....
He quickly looked to Yura, hoping the answer would be a positive one
But... judging by the look on Yura's face, he wasn't so sure if that hope would get him anywhere or not....
"That's a complicated question," Yura said slowly
"I might be able to, I might not, it depends on what the fuck you conjured up, if it's just a negative spirit then yeah, I should be able to, but if it's a demon... that might be a bit above my paygrade, I'm not sanctioned by the church, like I said, so there are some... limits... to what I can do,"
"So what do I do if it is a demon?"
The other four exchanged breif glances, before turning their focus back to Viktor
"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it,"
"Ah..." Viktor nodded slowly, the weight of the conversation clearly starting to sink over him
"Fair enough... so what now then?"
"Now," Yura said, rising to his feet
"I guess it's time for an investigation,"
~+~
"This investigation idea was SHIT!"
Yuri, utterly flabberghasted by what he was hearing, turned to Yura with a look of shock on his face
"It was YOUR idea!"
"Yeah, well, it was shit!" Yura shouted as he jumped into the back of the car, practically clinging to the seat as Otabek and Phichit piled in beside him
The logic wasn't lost on Yuri, to be fair
They had come back out to the road so Yura could get a better idea of what they were working with, being the resident expert on all things related to spirits, demons, and negative entities, but things hadn't gone as planned
Yura had thought that even if the creature was a powerfull demon, he would atleast be able to put it under some kind of hold, keep it restrained temporarily, but that wasn't the case
Even his most powerfull tools hadn't done anything, the creature didn't even seem to react to them, meaning that not only was the creature on the road not a spirit, but that it wasn't a demon either
Viktor, upon seeing the exorcist's failure, had become incredibly grim, no doubt feeling like hope was lost
He was unusually quiet as he settled into the passenger's seat next to Yuri, and the investigator couldn't help but feel responsible for the change in attitude
He knew, logically, that it wasn't his fault, but....
"Is there anything that can be done?" Viktor asked quietly, to no one in particular
"I can still give you a purification, maybe loosen the attachment it has to you," Yura suggested, though he didn't sound very confident in it
"I wish I knew how to help, but I'm agnostic, religious stuff isn't really my thing," Otabek added, a nod from Phichit soon following
"I'm Buddhist, I can't do much either.... but maybe Yuri can...."
Yuri instantly flushed pink, feeling Viktor's eyes on him the moment the words were out of Phichit's mouth
"Yuri?" Viktor asked hopefully
"Sure, Yuri is a witch-"
"But I'm new to it," Yuri insisted quickly
"And I don't know anything about this, when I banish things it's just... it's like bad luck and maybe a low level negative spirit, I certainly don't know how to banish demons,"
"Well lucky for you this isn't a demon," Yura noted, earning another bewildered look from Yuri through the rear veiw mirror
"I don't know how to banish demons, much less whatever in the hell THIS is!"
"Maybe you don't have to banish it," Otabek suggested, to Yuri's surprise
"Maybe you can just do what Yura tried to do and restrain it,"
"Do you think that would work?" Viktor asked hopefully
"I don't know... I don't know what it is so I can't say..." Yuri sighed
Not to mention, ofcourse, that he still didn't know anything about banishing things in general...
"But there's a chance?"
Yuri looked down into Viktor's eyes, at the hope reflected in them, and couldn't bring himself to deny him
"Yes," he promised, his hand curling lightly around Viktor's
"Ofcourse there's a chance,"
~+~
For the next several days, Viktor made himself at home in Yuri and Phichit's apartment, a mutually agreed upon decision based on how little sleep Viktor was getting on his own
The symptoms seemed to start fading, however, after Yura's cleansing
The physical symptoms started first, followed by the nightmares, the edge coming off more and more, little by little, each day
Yuri decided to add a charm of his own to the protection surrounding Viktor somewhere around the fifth day, and that seemed to do the trick, the nightmares stopped and the physical symptoms were completely gone, but...
"It's still there..." Phichit mumbled quietly, staring at his laptop screen
"I don't understand though, I thought that this.... whatever this thing is.... that it was haunting me, why is it attacking other people now!?"
The video had been posted online by a random delivery guy who, on his way home from his latest delivery, also ran into the.... thing.... on Maple Road
It had attacked him just like it had attacked Viktor, had chased him even longer than it had been chasing Viktor before...
"It's like... once you were detached from it, it gained some kind of freedom to go after others," Yura mused quietly as he watched the video
"Or maybe more accurately, it got angry and decided to take it out on anyone who comes around," Phichit suggested
It probably didn't matter wich suggestion was the most correct, Viktor looked guilt-ridden regardless
"It's my fault," he said after a beat, wringing his hands
"I'm the one who conjured it to begin with, and now it's not just attacking me, it's attacking innocent people too,"
"It isn't your fault Viktor," Yuri promised, squeezing Viktor's hand
"It is," he said with a sigh, rising to his feet suddenly
"And I'm not going to let it keep hunting people,"
"That's great and all, but you don't really have a choice," Yura mused, leaning his head on his hand
"I mean, Hocus Pocus over there is supposed to restrain it-"
"I'm working on it," Yuri insisted, face flushing a little
"I'm just... I'm just trying to make sure I know what I'm doing so I don't make any mistakes and make it worse..."
He had spent the better part of the last five days studying spells and charms until the information was starting to blur together, but he didn't feel like he was getting anywhere, he didn't feel any more confident than before that he had any chance in hell of getting whatever this thing was trapped so it couldn't terrorize people anymore
"I do have a choice," Viktor said suddenly, turning to Yuri and taking both of his hands, much to the investigator's surprise
"I'm going to become a witch, the two of us together can surely do more than just one person on their own can right?"
"W-Well-"
"So I want to learn, and I want you to be the one to teach me, be my coach Yuri, please?"
Yuri stuttered, but Viktor's gaze was firm and unwavering- he wasn't going to drop this, that much was clear....
So there was really only one logical response
"O-Ok...?"
Good lord, what was he getting himself into?