Archive of Our Own ^beta

As usual, it was Viktor’s fault. Viktor insisted on inviting the media circus to Yuuri’s concert—the first time he’d danced publicly since his knee injury. Viktor got caught on camera kissing Yuuri in the wings. Viktor responded to the resulting upheaval by posting a picture of their hands tangled together, fingers interlaced, Viktor’s wrist counter just barely visible in the shadow of their joined hands. 

In the picture, Viktor and Yuuri wore matching rings. 

Yuri almost murdered someone when he saw it. He stormed down the hall of the dance studio and banged into Viktor’s dressing room to demand why neither Yuuri nor Viktor bothered to tell him that they were fucking engaged . 

The door actually splintered a little around the knob. 

“Oh, no!” Yuuri burst, throwing his hands up in immediate surrender. “We’re not—it was just—”

“We won’t get married until Yuuri graduates,” Viktor interrupted smoothly.

Yuuri gaped, his face flushing faster than Yuri could yell, “You won’t get married at all if I kill you first, shithead!”

“Of course. Would you rather be the ring bearer or flower boy?” Viktor asked. His eyes twinkled with unhinged, unbridled happiness.

“I’d rather cut off my own hands than toss flowers at your wedding,” Yuri growled.

Viktor nodded, unfazed. “Ring bearer, then.” Steam physically rose off of Yuuri’s red face.

“Don’t you fucking forget it.” Yuri flipped them off as he stomped away.

Viktor made it everyone else’s business that he met his stupid soulmate, like the attention whore he was, so it was Viktor’s fault that after his next performance, the reporter who cornered Yuri for an impromptu interview had the gall to ask, “Now, with one heartthrob of the ballet world officially off the market, everyone’s wondering, Mr. Plisetsky. How far are you from finding your soulmate?”

Behind him, someone hissed through their teeth.

Celebrities never shared the numbers on their step counters. Never. And reporters never asked for a number. Ever. It was a societal safeguard against the visceral and very real possibility of fans literally tracking a celebrity’s every step, perhaps even planning their own steps to intersect with them at just the right moment—to make them believe they were soulmates even if they weren’t, or else make it impossible to pick out their real soulmate from the swarm. No one broke the rules. No one. Yuri didn’t give a shit about any of it, and even he covered his step counter with makeup for performances and events. Those precious few who bared their mark to the world only did it after it ran to zero. 

Viktor, for example.

That said, people sometimes skirted close to the line. They wanted to know whether he was close . Like they were kindergarteners playing hot and cold to find the treat tucked under one of their chairs.

Usually, Yuri would scoff at the question. He’d say he wanted to focus on dancing and move the fuck on with his life. But this time, he wasn’t paying attention. He was watching Otabek bend down to let a little girl set a wreath of flowers on his head.

“…Mr. Plisetsky?” the reporter said.

Yuri’s head snapped up. “Sorry, what?”

“What?” she asked.

“What did you ask me?”

“How far are you from meeting your soulmate?” she repeated hopefully.

Yuri blinked. He spent about two seconds considering the fastest possible way to end this conversation, then he said, “I already did.”

Her jaw dropped.

“Are we going to talk about ballet now, or can I go?”

“Well…yes. Of course. But first, can you confirm—” 

Yuri looked past her at the cluster of people around them. “Does anyone else want to talk about ballet?” he said flatly.

“Can you tell us about the costume design?” someone cut in quickly. “Was it an intentional homage to Viktor in Swan Lake?”

Yuri answered the questions. He even hung around for a few minutes afterward and signed programs for a few starry-eyed admirers.

“Look at you,” said a voice behind him. “Almost an hour out here and you haven’t broken anyone’s kneecaps. That must be some kind of record.”

Yuri whipped around, already grinning. Otabek greeted him with a slight twitch of his lips—a gesture so small that Yuri wouldn’t even notice if he didn’t know exactly what to look for, but on Otabek, it might as well be one of Viktor’s heart-shaped smiles.

“It’s not my fault that he tried to climb onto the stage,” Yuri scoffed, tamping down his smile. “And he deserved it, anyway.”

“I didn’t say he didn’t,” Otabek said mildly. “Here.” He tossed something into Yuri’s arms—a jacket, Yuri realized. Yuri’s embroidered bomber jacket. 

Yuri shrugged into the jacket gratefully, relaxing as he buried his hands in the pockets. “Thanks.”

Otabek shrugged.

“Heading home?” Yuri asked.

Otabek nodded, the flower crown bobbing atop his head. “Want a ride?”

“Anything to avoid being in an enclosed space with those two,” Yuri said, poking his chin in the direction of Viktor and Yuuri with an exaggerated grimace.

Otabek nodded again, ducking to pick up a bag at his feet, and Yuri noticed a second bag by the first. Two bags, his and Yuri’s, like he’d already known what Yuri would say.

Yuri realized he probably did.

He directed a last nod over his shoulder at the person he’d been speaking with, then lifted his own bag onto his shoulder.

Otabek led him out to where he’d parked his motorcycle. Two helmets sat on the seat, and Yuri already knew which one was his.

It was so familiar, the way they moved around the bike, around each other. Like a dance practiced over and over until it built a second skeleton inside them. Yuri shoved his arms through the straps of his duffle, wearing it like a backpack. Otabek bent and gave his tires and engine a cursory check. Yuri tugged the bag off Otabek’s shoulder and hugged it in his arms. Otabek turned and secured Yuri’s helmet over Yuri’s head. Yuri swatted at Otabek’s hands as he tightened the strap under Yuri’s chin, even though ultimately, Yuri understood why Otabek was particular about the way his helmet fit. He didn’t want Yuri to die on the back of his bike.

Privately, Yuri didn’t think that’d be a bad way to go. 

Otabek picked up his own helmet, about to wrestle it on when Yuri kicked him in the shin.

Otabek turned to look at him, somehow managing to make a flat expression look both betrayed and long-suffering.

“Your crown,” said Yuri, shifting the bag in his arms until he had a hand free to reach up and touch a petal.

Otabek blinked. “Oh.” He set down the helmet and carefully lifted the flowers off his head. “I forgot.”

“I like the new look,” Yuri said, cocking his head with a soft smirk. “Thinking of trading out the leather?”

The very tips of Otabek’s ears blushed a pretty shade of pink. “I got it from a fan,” he said, rolling one shoulder in a gruff shrug. “It didn’t seem right to tell her no.”

“It’s cute,” Yuri said. He ducked his head slightly, avoiding eye contact for reasons he couldn’t really explain.

“I’ll just…” Otabek looked around helplessly, holding the flowers between his hands like they were radioactive. 

“Don’t leave them,” Yuri said. He snagged the ring of flowers for himself and stuck his arm through it. He carefully arranged the flowers over his shoulder so that neither of the bags would crush them, then motioned for Otabek to get a move on.

Otabek’s lips twitched as he pulled on his helmet.

They both climbed on the bike. Yuri latched his arms around Otabek’s waist, pinning the second duffle bag between his chest and Otabek’s back. Sometimes, he wished there wasn’t a bag digging into his ribs on the ride home. But sometimes, tucking himself flush against Otabek’s back, hooking his chin over Otabek’s shoulder, feeling his own heartbeat in Otabek’s skin—sometimes that was worse. No matter how many times they rehearsed that particular dance, Yuri still didn’t know where to put his hands.

Otabek brushed his thumb over Yuri’s knuckles before he kicked the bike into gear.

Halfway to Yuri’s apartment, Yuri nudged his knee into Otabek’s thigh. At the next stoplight, Otabek turned his head just enough to raise an eyebrow. 

“Hungry!” Yuri shouted over the hum of the engine.

Otabek nodded. Wordlessly, he navigated the bike between rows of cars, pulling into a turn lane just as the light turned green.

They ended up in a tea shop off the main road—their favorite tea shop, because it was the only place that brewed Otabek’s tea the way he liked it and stocked stuffed rolls for Yuri. Otabek dragged their bags to a corner table while Yuri ordered for them both. 

Otabek came back to the counter in time to help carry everything back to the table. 

Yuri dropped the flower crown onto Otabek’s head as he sat down. 

He took a bite of his roll and made a startled noise. “Try this,” he said, shoving the roll toward him. “They changed the recipe a little bit.”

Otabek tore off a polite chunk. He got it halfway to his mouth before Yuri jammed an elbow into his ribs. 

“Take a proper bite, damn it,” Yuri complained. “You won’t get any filling like that.”

Otabek rolled his eyes, but he picked up the roll and took a bite straight out of it.

“Well?” Yuri asked eagerly.

“Good,” Otabek said, nodding firmly.

“We’ll split it,” Yuri decided.

“You were hungry,” Otabek protested as Yuri sawed the roll in half.

Yuri snorted dismissively. “If I’m still hungry afterward, I’ll buy another one.”

He did buy another one, and they shared that one too, the same way they shared the tea and shared the seat and shared the stage. 

It was nice eating with Otabek. Otabek sneezed, and the flower crown slid down over his eyes. Yuri snapped a picture. Otabek asked to see it, then took a picture of Yuri laughing over his cup of tea. In the midst of the chaos, another camera flashed in his peripheral vision, but then Otabek dropped a flower into Yuri’s tea and Yuri forgot all about it.

As they cleaned up their table, Yuri’s phone buzzed with a text from Viktor: “I know we said no sleepovers, but Yuuri fell asleep and I don’t want to wake him. (((”

A picture of Yuuri wrapped up in a blanket on the couch accompanied the message.

Yuri groaned, but couldn’t muster any real anger. “Hey, Beka. Mind if I crash at yours?”

Otabek raised an eyebrow.

“Viktor and the Pig are being gross in my apartment.”

“Ah,” said Otabek. “Sure. The couch okay?”

“Sure,” Yuri agreed.

He returned to the thread with Viktor. “Whatever. I’m staying over at Otabek’s anyway.”

Viktor answered with a disgustingly long chain of emojis that Yuri didn’t bother reading.

Yuri reached a hand into Otabek’s jacket pocket for his spare gloves before they headed out.

The jacket rode up Otabek’s wrist as he drove, exposing a narrow strip of skin between his glove and his sleeve. When he shifted his grip to change gears, the very edge of his step counter showed on the inside of his wrist. All zeros. It had been all zeros as long as Yuri had known him. 

Otabek met his soulmate a long time ago.

A few months into their friendship, Yuri asked about it. “Are they shitty?” he asked, tapping two fingers against the black mark as casually as anything. They sat side by side in two ornate, decorative chairs in the lobby of the dance studio.

Otabek huffed a laugh through his nose. “What makes you say that?”

“You dropped them, didn’t you?” Yuri shrugged, slouching back into the stiff cushions and hooking a leg over the arm of the chair in a futile attempt to get comfortable.

“Is yours shitty?” Otabek asked, nodding down at Yuri’s wrist.

“Fuck if I know,” Yuri scoffed, flicking his wrist upwards and flashing his own row of zeros. 

Otabek’s lips twitched. “You don’t know who they are?”

“Don’t care, either,” Yuri said flippantly.

Otabek nodded. 

“I did this summer dance program,” Yuri explained, even though Otabek didn’t ask. That happened a lot with Otabek. “Got the lead in the end-of-summer ballet. The performance sucked. I sucked. Everything sucked. When it was over, I just wanted to disappear somewhere and scream, but everybody and their mother came up to congratulate me.” He paused, remembering it—the false praise, the false smiles, what felt like a hundred sweaty hands touching him all at once. “I didn’t even notice the stupid step counter until everyone was gone. But fuck, I didn’t care about any of them then and I don’t care about them now.”

Otabek hummed, his eyes sympathetic. “Why would you?”

Yuri flashed him a sharp grin. He liked it when Otabek played along, pretending that Yuri wasn’t the asshole in a situation where Yuri was definitely the asshole. “Who needs a soulmate anyway?”

“As long as you have other people who love you,” Otabek agreed easily. “Friends. Family.”

Yuri nodded. 

“I didn’t drop mine, though,” Otabek said. He cocked his head to one side, brushing his thumb along his step counter absently. “We still talk.”

“Oh,” Yuri said, startled. He combed his memory for some mention of a significant other, but came up dry. “It’s platonic?” he asked. Otabek would’ve said something if he had a romantic partner. Probably.

Otabek shrugged. “Maybe.”

Neither of them ever mentioned it again.

Otabek’s wrist counter disappeared in shadow as Otabek directed the bike into the underground parking lot below his apartment building. They split the bags between them and climbed the stairs to the apartment in silence as comfortable as an old and well-loved t-shirt.

Yuri dropped his bag on the floor and flopped onto the couch, already fishing for the remote. “Got anything new?”

Otabek huffed in amusement. Rather than sitting down, he headed for the hall, combing his fingers through Yuri’s hair on his way past the couch. “Not since yesterday.”

“Boring,” said Yuri.

Otabek snorted softly as he disappeared down the hall into his bedroom.

By the time Otabek returned, Yuri was settled cross-legged on the couch with a controller, a game pulled up on the TV. “Ready for me to beat your ass?” he tossed over his shoulder.

“You sound pretty confident for someone who lost three times in a row last week,” Otabek said.

“I was starving,” Yuri shot back. “It doesn’t count.”  

“Whatever you say.” Smug amusement flickered across Otabek’s face as he sat in the space next to him. 

Yuri watched out of the corner of his eye as Otabek let his shoulders relax all the way back into the cushions. He never relaxed like this anywhere else with anyone else. As far as Yuri knew, anyway.

Yuri bumped his shoulder. 

They started the game. They played for a while, then switched to a movie. Yuri melted deeper into Otabek’s shoulder as the hours passed. 

He didn’t know how or when it happened, but he must’ve fallen asleep, because he woke up when Otabek started to stand up.

“Beka? What happened?” Yuri rubbed at his eyes, shuffling higher up on the cushions.

“Sorry,” Otabek whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Where are you going?” Yuri rasped. He reached out and tangled his fingers in Otabek’s shirt.

“It’s late, Yura. I’m going to bed.”

“Oh,” said Yuri. He blinked a couple times. “Right.”

“Wait here while I get you blankets,” Otabek said. 

Yuri shook his head, then nodded, then rubbed his eyes again. “Yeah. Sorry.”

Otabek lingered for a moment longer, searching Yuri’s face—for what, Yuri didn’t know. Yuri returned his gaze softly and sleepily, almost cross-eyed at this distance, but grateful for the chance to just look . At the slope of his nose, the hard line of his jaw. At his mouth, his cheeks. His soft black hair over his deep brown eyes. 

Then Otabek ducked away, and Yuri let go of his shirt, and the moment was gone.

But as Yuri curled into his blanket, something shifted in his chest. About the size and shape of a loose washer rolling around the hollow beneath his sternum and lodging in the space between his heart and lung. Like something in the machinery of his chest had rattled loose. Like the bits and bolts of him were coming unscrewed. 

Yuri squeezed his eyes closed and meticulously thought through the steps of a difficult dance routine. He didn’t know much about the machine inside him—what it was or which piece it was missing—but he knew one thing.

If he touched it, it would fall.

His ringtone jostled him awake the next morning. Yuri groaned and reached over to answer it.

“What,” he snapped into the receiver.

“Hi, Yurio.” Something shuffled on the other end, followed by a murmuring voice that Yuri couldn’t quite make out. “Vitya,” hissed the closer voice. “Quiet.”

Yuri sat up, checking the caller ID. “Yuuri? Why the hell are you calling me at ass o’clock in the morning?”

“First of all, I’m so sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to kick you out,” Yuuri said.

“It’s a little late to worry about it now, don’t you think?” Yuri snorted.

“Well, yes,” Yuuri said. “And really it’s Viktor’s fault anyway.”

Yuri grunted in agreement. “Damn right it is.”

Viktor released a loud, betrayed gasp, followed by a peal of Yuuri’s delighted laughter.

Yuri smothered a small smile, privately pleased that Yuuri finally felt comfortable enough to tease Viktor like this. 

In the year or so since they started dating, Yuuri seemed more comfortable everywhere, really. Even Yuri had to admit—grudgingly—that Viktor was good for him. And god knew Yuuri was good for Viktor. Yuri had never seen Viktor as vibrant as he was with Yuuri. 

They seemed happy.

“If you make me listen to another second of your weird-ass morning after rituals, I’m hanging up and blocking your number,” Yuri said flatly.

Yuuri laughed again. “Okay, we’ll—Viktor, stop .”

“I swear to fucking god,” Yuri groaned.

Yuuri made a soft sound. “Right. I just thought—I wanted to warn you. Before you, uh, saw it.”

Yuri furrowed his brow. “Saw what?”

“It’s—there’s an article about you. About your soulmate.”

“Okay. And?” 

“People are talking about it.”

Yuri made a dismissive sound through his teeth. “People are always talking.”

“If it doesn’t bother you, that’s great. But it is…sensitive, you know. So it would be okay. If it did bother you, I mean,” Yuuri said gently.

Yuri scrunched up his nose. “Listen closely and let’s see if you understand this time. I literally could not care less.”

“Alright. That’s alright then. Have a good day. Oh, and Viktor says—”

Yuri hung up before he heard the end of the sentence.

He couldn’t go back to sleep, so he rolled off the couch and puttered around the kitchen for a while, raiding Otabek’s cupboards. He sat on the counter with a cup of apple juice, which he secretly suspected that Otabek only bought because Yuri liked it. Otabek drank tea, not juice.

On a whim, Yuri poked at the kettle until it agreed to boil and measured a little loose leaf into Otabek’s favorite mug. Then, out of curiosity, he pulled up the article on his phone.

It was regular fare: a lot of idiotic assumptions paired with rampant supposition. Someone had compiled a list of semi-celebrities that Yuri had met in the past year or so, and people had started crossing off names, trying to puzzle out which one might be Yuri’s one and only. Yuri didn't know why they thought he’d met his soulmate within that window—something about being single at a party, maybe.

It would’ve been funny if it wasn’t such a shit-fire.

Otabek wandered out in a loose t-shirt and sweats, his hair ruffled up and his eyes stuck together at the corners. Another screw came loose in Yuri’s chest and landed on his diaphragm, making it that much harder to breathe.

He sucked in a slow breath, reoriented himself, and threw a clementine at Otabek’s head.

Otabek caught it, but barely, his eyes snapping wide open.

“Morning,” Yuri said. He grinned a shit-eating grin.

“You’re awake.”

“Your tea is ready.”

“You never wake up this early,” Otabek said as he collected his cup. “Unless under extreme duress.”

Yuri glanced down at the Twitter thread open on his phone screen, where several thousand people had weighed in on who he had met and whether they were fucking and how he liked it. 

“Media thing,” he said, stuffing his phone into his pocket. “It’ll blow over.”

Otabek nodded seriously, but the hair sticking up at his temple ruined the effect. “Do you need anything?”

Yuri thought about it. “No,” he decided. “I don’t care what they think.”

“You shouldn’t.” Otabek leaned his hip against the counter by Yuri’s knee. “You’re better than all of them.”

Yuri smoothed down a lock of Otabek’s hair. Not all of them, he thought. 

“Thanks.”

Otabek shrugged and sipped his tea. He paused, looking down into the cup, then set it carefully back onto the counter. “Better at some things,” he corrected himself mildly. 

“What?” Yuri asked, snatching up the cup. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Just a little burnt,” Otabek said mildly.

“Shut up. No it isn’t.” He took a sip and immediately spit it back into the cup. “How is it possible to burn tea? That’s some bullshit .”

Otabek leaned his forehead into Yuri’s shoulder and laughed.

It took about twelve hours for the picture to appear and fourteen more for it to circulate across fan forums around the world.

Yuri heard about it from Mila as they warmed up before rehearsal the next morning.

“Is it true what they’re saying?” she asked, tugging her leg up until her shin kissed her forehead.

“What are you on about now?” Yuri grumbled, leaning forward in a perfect sideways split as he scrolled mindlessly through his phone.

“You and Otabek,” she said.

Yuri pulled a face at something Viktor sent. “What about us?”

“Is he really your soulmate?” Mila asked.

Yuri’s thumbs halted halfway through writing his response to Viktor. Slowly, he blinked, then looked up. “Is that what they’re saying?”

Mila dropped onto the floor beside him, bending over her pointed toes as she squinted at him with equal parts curiosity and concern. “You didn’t know?”

Yuri’s stomach squirmed, though he couldn’t articulate why. It wasn’t like this was any worse than the other random-ass speculations people came up with.

Still, something about it felt…wrong.

He furrowed his brow. “Where the fuck did they get that ?”

“Well…you and Otabek are pretty close.”

Yuri stared at her blankly.

“You eat together every day. You let him watch your sessions with Lilia. He drives you everywhere. You’re always touching.” She counted each point on her fingers. 

“And?” Yuri huffed.

“You tell him please and thank you,” she said pointedly, folding her arms across her chest. 

“We’re friends,” Yuri said dismissively.

“I think you’ve been around long enough to admit that we’re all friends,” she shot back with an unimpressed look.

Yuri sighed. “Fine. But it’s different with Otabek.”

She arched an eyebrow at him.

“Whatever,” Yuri muttered, ducking his head.

Mila flexed her feet. “You know, you could be soulmates and still not lovers,” she said. “If that’s why you didn’t want to tell us. I mean, yeah, people on the internet are being super gross about it, but it’s like I said. We’re your friends.”

Alarm zipped up his spine. “Wait, what do you mean, gross?”

“What do you think I mean? He’s hot, you’re hot. People are having hot fantasies about it. It’s been like one day and people are already making fan comics about you two, and not all of them are safe for work.”

Yuri grimaced. He didn’t even want to imagine it. The kinds of positions that they’d put him in. The kinds of positions that they’d put him in with Otabek . It was bad enough when people stuck him with strangers, when they had him do things he couldn’t imagine without his stomach turning, but he knew Otabek. This time he could imagine it. Vividly . Down to the tuft of Otabek’s hair that would stick up afterward. And even thinking it felt like betraying his best friend in the world. 

Did Otabek know about all this?

“Besides, it feels a bit stalkerish, you know?” Mila continued. “There are a couple pictures that feel a little too private.”

“What pictures?”

Mila cast him a sympathetic look and pulled out her phone. “I think it started with this post.”

Yuri pulled himself up, crossing his legs beneath him as she handed over her phone.

He blinked down at a picture of himself with Otabek. They sat at their table in the tea shop, shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee. Yuri’s hair was still slicked back to fit into the tiny ballet bun he wore for performances, his bangs slipping out of their bobby pins and falling over his forehead. Otabek wore his costume under his jacket. Their stage makeup looked gaudy and overdone in the soft tea shop lighting. That was the most damning thing—how unfiltered and unstaged they were, crusty with hair gel and tacky with sweat.

In the picture, they were twisted in their seats, facing each other. Otabek wore the flower crown. Yuri was frozen mid-laugh, his hand curled over Otabek’s wrist. Otabek had ducked his head, gazing at Yuri through his eyelashes.

Yuri zoomed in on Otabek’s face, on his soft smile and his blushing ears. He looked at the way that Otabek looked at him.

Mila was right. This was private.

The actual post read, “no because everybody’s talking about Yuri Plisetsky’s soulmate, but he sometimes comes to this tea place downtown and it’s. so obvious???? who his soulmate is???”

The person replied to their own post with, “@ everyone replying to this. shut up for a minute, just LOOK at them.” Yuri scrolled down and saw another picture, this one with Yuri flicking tea into Otabek’s face. Otabek had scrunched up his face, holding Yuri back with one hand on his chest. Both of them looked about two seconds from laughing.

A final post had a picture of the two of them leaning against each other in the parking lot by Otabek’s bike. “they went home together btw. if you even care.”

“Who the fuck even took these?” said Yuri. He combed his memory for any identifying characteristics of the other people in the shop with them, but he came up empty. He was only paying attention to Otabek at the time. 

“Probably a fan,” Mila said, taking her phone back.

Yuri clicked his tongue against his teeth irritably. Usually he liked fans. Unfortunately, his fans sometimes ended up on the fucking crazy side of the spectrum.

“Pretty much every picture of you two looks like that,” Mila said casually. “Just so you know.”

He shot her a dirty look. She just shrugged, nonplussed. 

He sucked in a breath, held it as long as he could, then released it all at once. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” he huffed. “The media has the attention span of a destructive toddler. All I have to do is keep quiet, and they’ll find someone else to terrorize.”

“Aww.” She pressed a hand to her heart. “Look at you, all grown up and making emotionally mature decisions.”

Yuri kicked her.

“Anyway, thank god you and Otabek have each other because if I had to spend that much time with either of you I’d actually die,” she said cheerfully.

“Excuse me?” Yuri sputtered.

She laughed, darting away before he could retaliate. 

Yuri made it halfway through the day on autopilot, his head echoing with invasive questions and gross comments and alarmingly not-gross-at-all suggestions. Forget it , he told himself firmly. He made it a mantra. Forget it, forget it, forget it. It’s fine. It’ll go away. It’s fine. It’ll go away. 

Mila’s voice in his head said, “Every picture of you two looks like that.”

Forget it.

Then he remembered that Otabek had a soulmate, and he fell flat in the middle of a dance. Lilia shooed him off to rest his ankle before resuming instruction.

Otabek found him in the dressing room, nursing his ankle with a pack of ice. 

“Hey,” said Yuri. He flashed him an instinctive smile.

Otabek sat down next to him, resting his hand on top of the ice pack without a word.

“It’s nothing,” Yuri assured him. “I’m just resting it. Just in case, you know.”

Otabek nodded seriously.

“Lighten up,” Yuri griped, poking Otabek’s cheek.

Otabek caught Yuri’s wrist before he could pull away. “Be more careful,” he grumbled.

“I am being careful. I was just…” Yuri sighed and sagged into Otabek’s shoulder. “Just distracted,” he finished weakly.

“What’s wrong?” Otabek shifted his grip on Yuri’s wrist and set it down on his thigh, his thumb resting gently over Yuri’s pulse.

“Soulmate shit,” Yuri said, releasing a tired laugh.

Otabek paused. “ Your soulmate?” he asked, his tone uncharacteristically delicate.

“People think it’s you,” said Yuri.

Otabek stiffened, his shoulder suddenly rock-hard beneath Yuri’s cheek, and that was all the confirmation Yuri needed.

“Don’t worry, though,” Yuri said quickly, rubbing his nose into Otabek’s tense shoulder in reassurance. “I’ll tell them to fuck off.”

“Oh,” said Otabek.

“I wasn’t going to say anything because saying shit only feeds the beast,” Yuri said, absently shifting his hand to pinch at Otabek’s fingers, “and it’s not like I care what anyone thinks anyway. But now you’re part of the shitshow, and you don’t deserve to be dragged through all that. Not to mention you’ve got your real soulmate to manage.” 

He held his breath, waiting to see if Otabek would accept this explanation. 

Slowly but surely, the tension drained out of Otabek’s shoulders. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I don’t mind it.”

Yuri blew out a relieved sigh. “Does your soulmate mind it?”

Otabek hesitated. “Do you mind it?” he asked. 

“Like I said. I don’t care.”

“Hmmm,” said Otabek, as if sensing that Yuri hadn’t told the entire truth. 

“I’ll have Yakov set up an interview or something,” Yuri said.

“Okay,” Otabek said softly. “No rush.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay.” Yuri squeezed Otabek’s hand.

Otabek looked down at Yuri, then at their joined hands on his leg. “This is okay?” he asked. 

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

“I meant—” Otabek’s fingers tightened around his. “Nevermind.”

“Thank you, Mr. Plisetsky, for your insights today. Before we finish, do you mind if I ask a question of a more personal nature?” asked the reporter. He smiled pleasantly, his whitened teeth flashing brighter than the lens of the camera behind him.

Yuri waved for him to continue, doing his best to look bored even though this was the whole reason he’d signed up for this stupid interview.

“You recently revealed that you’d met your soulmate,” said the reporter, managing to make it sound like a question.

Yuri nodded.

“In light of that revelation, we’ve seen rampant speculation about who that soulmate may be. A popular theory suggests fellow dancer Otabek Altin. Would you care to comment on these theories?”

Yuri glanced behind the reporter at Yakov, who nodded briskly. They’d practiced this conversation a dozen times, but a muscle still jumped in Yakov’s jaw, as if Yuri might spontaneously decide to go off script.

As if.

“As my fans know, I’ve always been focused on my art,” Yuri said smoothly, exactly as rehearsed. “Ultimately, I really don’t see how my soulmate matters to my performance as a dancer. When I mentioned my soulmate, I didn’t think it would attract any attention because I didn’t think it was relevant.”

“I think you’ve underestimated your own appeal,” the reporter responded with a chuckle.

“Apparently,” Yuri said, deadpan.

“You may not have expected the interest, but you certainly have it. People everywhere want to know the whole story of how you met your soulmate.”

“No, you don’t,” Yuri said. “There’s nothing exciting about it.”

“Nothing like this?” The reporter pulled up a picture on an ipad and turned it toward Yuri. The picture was taken over a year ago, back when Yuri first came to the US with Viktor. 

Yuri was still pissed about the circumstances of that move. Viktor had it in his head that he’d do a little charity work. Without a scrap of warning, he upped and left the Bolshoi Ballet in favor of pairing with a dance studio in Denver for some low-income outreach program.

Yuri followed him in a fit of rage, mostly. Viktor had promised to choreograph something for Yuri’s audition to the Bolshoi, then fucked off to another country barely three months before the audition date. 

Since coming here, things had changed a little. Yuri liked the studio. Lilia was an extremely decorated ballerina and a brutal ballet coach. She vowed to mold him into a dancer so beautiful, it would make the Bolshoi weep with envy, and he believed her. 

He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to be a Bolshoi ballerina anymore. At his current skill level, it no longer felt like the crowning accomplishment he’d imagined when he was young. He might make a bigger impact on his own.

Besides, he had friends here.

Friends like Otabek. Yuri met Otabek during his first week. A few obsessed fans caught wind of Yuri’s presence in Denver and chased him down as soon as he stepped foot out of the studio. He darted into an alley to catch his fucking breath, and there was Otabek, kicking up the stand of his motorcycle.

Later, Yuri would learn that Otabek always parked there, in the alley next to the only Kazakhstani-owned restaurant in a fifty mile radius. He stopped in to say hello every morning before walking the last block to the studio. But back then, Yuri only knew that this broad-shouldered boy held himself like he could carry Yuri on his shoulders.

The clamoring fans drew closer, tracking Yuri like hounds on his scent, and he pressed himself back against the wall.

Otabek considered him for another split second, then said, “Hop on.”

On some wild instinct, Yuri climbed onto the back of the bike.

One of the fans caught them on camera as they skidded out of the alley, Yuri’s hair whipping out behind him. That was the picture that Yuri was looking at now.

Yuri didn’t want to know what the hell his fans did to track down the exact moment he met Otabek.

“God, you people are stupid,” he groaned.

Yakov shot him a warning glance from behind the camera.

“Can you elaborate?” asked the reporter.

“I’m not a Bond girl, alright?” Yuri handed the ipad back. “Besides, haven’t you ever thought about what you’re doing here? I mean, are you really prepared to be wrong about this kind of thing? It’s bad enough for me, but just imagine how fu—” a stern look from Yakov cut him off— “messed up it would be to watch the whole world decide that your soulmate would be perfect with someone else.”

Surprise flashed across the reporter’s face—even Yakov looked slightly taken aback. Yuri frowned. It shouldn’t be mind-blowing news that he had a scrap of empathy.

“Yeah, so. Next time maybe rub your brain cells together for half a second before you start trying to triangulate someone else’s soulmate,” Yuri grumbled, folding his arms over his chest.

The reporter rallied, leaning in. “Are you saying that your real soulmate finds the theories hurtful?”

“Are you being deliberately idiotic?” Yuri snapped back.

To his surprise, the reporter laughed. “Alright, then,” he said merrily. “I’ll admit, some of the pictures of you and Mr. Altin almost convinced me, but you seem hostile to the idea so, I’d say that settles the matter.”

Yakov gave him a relieved nod, motioning for him to end the interview, but Yuri squirmed uncomfortably. 

Hostile? To the reporter maybe. Not Otabek. Never Otabek.

Still…they had accomplished their objectives with this interview. Mission accomplished?

“If that’s all,” Yuri said, “I have to prepare for our performance tonight.”

“Of course,” the interviewer said graciously. “Before you go, would you answer one last question?”

Yuri suppressed a sigh. “What?”

“Is your soulmate a dancer?”

“Why does it matter?” Yuri huffed.

“I’m curious if there are any soulmate duets in your future.” The interviewer smiled hopefully.

“If you need to dance with your soulmate for the emotion in a piece to feel sincere,” Yuri said flatly, “you’re not that good a dancer.”

“I didn’t mean to imply otherwise,” said the reporter. 

“So what the hell do you want in a soulmate duet that you’re not getting anyway?”

The reporter pushed his glasses up his nose. “Since joining this company,” he said, “you’ve duetted almost exclusively with Otabek Altin. As I’m sure you’re aware, this has fed into the rumors about you two. However, in light of the fact that you’re not soulmates, I had hoped that in the future, we might see you dance with someone closer to your level.”

Yuri froze. “Sorry, what?”

Yakov made a sharp abortive motion, his eyes wide.

“While Mr. Altin is certainly a strong dancer, he can hardly contend with your stage presence,” the reporter said matter-of-factly. 

“I beg your fucking pardon ?” Yuri asked, drawing himself up to his full height.

Stop! Yakov mouthed, rising halfway to his feet.

“I didn’t mean to be controversial,” the reporter said. He raised his hands placatingly. “Most critics agree that when he dances with you, Altin all but disappears into the background. He is necessary, of course, but ultimately a prop.”

“A prop ?” Yuri spluttered.

“A crude comparison, perhaps, but—”

“No!” Yuri snapped. “If you think anyone else could do what he does on that stage, you’re delusional. Otabek Altin has competed for his roles with top ballerinas around the world. He has the technical skill and stamina of a world-class athlete. He has earned the personal attention of Yuuri Katsuki, who was heralded as Japan’s finest male ballerina only five years ago.”

Yakov sank back into his chair, resting his head in his hands.

Yuri set his jaw as he continued. “He projects strength in a way that occupies physical space on the stage. He expresses more emotion in one movement than some dancers can manage in an entire program. And he’s quiet about it, yes, because unlike every other ballerina I’ve ever met, myself included, he doesn’t spend the whole performance begging for a spotlight. He makes the whole thing richer from wherever he is and you know what? It isn’t his fucking fault you lack the discernment to appreciate subtlety.”

The reporter blinked. “Ah. Well—”

“I’m not finished,” Yuri bit, his eyes flashing. 

Yakov cursed softly in Russian.

“You think that our duets would have even close to the same meaning if there were two of me out there?” Yuri said. “A duet is a dialogue . Take our current ballet. My part is flighty and flashy, while his is smooth and slow. He grounds me. That’s the whole damn point of it. It’s the juxtaposition of a bird and a tree. If it were someone else out there—someone more effusive, someone more eye-catching, maybe—it would lose its emotional impact. Don’t you get it? Otabek is my counterpoint. Otabek is home .”

No one spoke for a minute, shocked into silence.

“That’s enough, I think,” Yakov said, stepping between Yuri and the interviewer. “Please excuse us.”

The interviewer stuttered out an awkward thank-you-goodbye, and Yakov directed Yuri out of the room by his elbow.

“Congratulations, Yura,” Yakov grunted as soon as they were out of earshot. “If anyone didn’t believe it before, they believe it now.”

“I—oh shit,” Yuri said, his eyes bugging. 

Yakov pinched his nose. “You’d better pray that Altin feels forgiving,” he said, “because that was your only chance to stop these rumors.”

Yuri grimaced. “What was I supposed to say?”

“ Nothing. ”

“He called him a prop ,” Yuri protested, his blood boiling at the mere thought.

“Altin is capable of handling a bad review,” Yakov said severely. 

“A bad review is one thing, but you can’t honestly expect me to sit back and let them insult him in front of my face!” Yuri burst. 

Yakov heaved a sigh. “Yes, I see that now.” He stopped in front of his office. “Now, you go explain to Altin why his name will be tied to yours for the rest of his life. I need a drink.”

Yuri swallowed nervously. “Is there anything else we can do?”

“I’ve already done everything in my power to help you,” Yakov grumbled. “You’ll have to handle your own mess from here.” He stepped into his office and closed the door firmly behind him.

Yuri lingered outside the door for a moment, shifting from foot to foot. Finally he sighed and headed upstairs to a small, unused practice room. Through the window in the door, he saw Otabek sitting on the floor against the mirror, a computer open on his lap. 

Yuri’s heart hammered as he pushed inside. Otabek looked up, his face unreadable.

Yuri’s breath filled the room, impossibly soft and almost deafening all at once.

“I think I made it worse,” he blurted into the silence.

Otabek lifted one shoulder in a careful shrug, glancing briefly down at the sports news channel on his laptop. “Probably,” he agreed.

“Sorry.” Yuri scrunched up his nose.

Otabek wrinkled his brow. “Well,” he started, “I think it’s—” and suddenly Yuri couldn’t bear to hear the rest of the sentence. If Otabek was going to be angry with him, he should be angry for the right damn reason.

“Actually,” he interrupted, “I’m not sorry. You know what, I’d fucking do it again. In fact, I’d tell that self-important asshole to kiss my ass. He can’t talk about you like that or I’ll personally feed him his own toenails. I’ll take out his teeth and put them back in backwards. See if you can stop me.”

“—cute,” Otabek finished, his lips twitching. He raised a single eyebrow.

Yuri opened his mouth then snapped it closed. “Cute?” he echoed, confused.

“You defending me,” Otabek said, tipping his head back to look at Yuri straight on. “You can leave the man’s teeth where they are, though. I really don’t think that’s necessary.” He flashed Yuri a fleeting grin.

“Oh,” said Yuri. He blinked rapidly. “You’re not upset?”

Otabek shook his head.

Yuri sighed in relief, crossing the room to sit beside him. “That’s good,” he said, “because I don’t think we can undo this.”

“Like you said, it’ll blow over,” Otabek said. 

“Right.”

“Are you gonna be okay?” Otabek asked, bumping their shoulders together gently.

“I’m fine,” Yuri said. “I’m just—how dare he say that about you?” He curled his fingers into a fist. 

Otabek shrugged and set the laptop aside. “It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”

“From who?” Yuri burst. “Who the hell thinks that? Have their brains been replaced with empty peanut shells?”

Otabek ducked his head to hide a grin.

Yuri poked him. “Names, Beka. I need names.”

“I’m not going to be responsible for that.”

Yuri clicked his teeth in frustration.

Otabek shifted to rest his forearms on his knees. He turned toward Yuri with soft eyes. “Did you mean what you said?” 

An unfamiliar thread of vulnerability laced the words.

“Everything except the part where I said I was sorry,” Yuri answered automatically. “And even that is sort of true, I guess. I didn’t want you tangled up in this.”

“You said I’m—” Otabek stopped, his ears pinking. 

“You are,” Yuri said. He wasn’t sure which specific part of what Yuri had said Otabek was referring to, but it hardly mattered. He meant it all. “You work twice as hard as anyone and it fucking shows. You’re gorgeous out there, Beka.”

Otabek breathed out slowly, holding Yuri’s gaze. “Not like you.”

“Of course not,” Yuri scoffed. “Weren’t you listening? That’s the whole point.”

“Right.” A small smile curled up Otabek’s cheeks. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Yuri said, leaning back decisively.

Otabek nodded to himself, looking away.

“I like dancing with you,” Yuri added, almost as an afterthought.

Otabek’s head whipped around again.

“You’re the only one I like to dance with, really.”

“Oh,” Otabek said, his eyes wide.

“Don’t act surprised,” Yuri laughed. “You know damn well I have a hard time playing nice.”

“Mmm,” he hummed mildly.

“Mmmhmmm,” Yuri said, jabbing his elbow playfully into Otabek’s side.

Otabek rolled his eyes. 

They sat side by side, settling into a fresher, easier silence.

“So hey,” Yuri said, his voice cutting through the quiet. “You wanna grab dinner later?”

To Yuri’s surprise, Otabek actually laughed, looking at Yuri like he was waiting for him to say “gotcha”.

Yuri raised an eyebrow.

Otabek shook his head incredulously. “Where?” he asked, his voice curling around the corners of his smile.

“I picked last time,” Yuri said.

“Alright,” said Otabek. “My place. Leftovers only. We’re taking JJ’s car.”

Yuri made a face. “What the hell, Beka? JJ drives the douchiest car in the universe.”

“Exactly,” Otabek said. “That way no one will think you’re in it.”

Yuri paused with a retort already loaded on his tongue, processing the implications of that. Otabek didn’t want to be seen together. 

Pain knifed through Yuri’s chest.

He rolled back his thoughts before the hurt could radiate out into his ribs, his spine. Otabek didn’t want to be seen together because of the soulmate thing. If they appeared in public together right after Yuri tried to deny the rumors, no one would believe a word Yuri said.

Not that it really mattered, because Yuri regaled the world with all Otabek’s virtues in the same breath. 

He forced a breath. He forced a smile. 

“ Wow ,” he joked, swatting Otabek’s shoulder. “It’s like you don’t even want to be my soulmate.”

Otabek cast a longsuffering look up at the sky, but he was still smiling. Like he couldn’t stop. Like he didn’t know how.

Yuri let himself relax a little, but only a little, because the un-screwed something inside him suddenly felt very wobbly. “We can take JJ’s car, but I’m stuffing his glove box with softcore gay porn.”

With visible effort. Otabek pinned his lips down in a solemn line. “It’s what he deserves,” he said severely.

Yuri grinned, delighted.

“We should go back out,” Otabek said, nodding toward the door.

Yuri shrugged. He leaned his head back against the mirror and let his eyes close. “Yeah. We should.”

Otabek said nothing, but he settled back in, and they stayed there together just a little bit longer. 

“Because I know you aren’t monitoring it yourself,” Mila said, draping her arm around Yuri’s shoulders as he waited in line for the bathroom at Viktor and Yuuri’s fucking not-a-real-engagement party three weeks later, “I thought I should tell you that there are people popping up everywhere to cyber bully the creeps. It’s kind of fun. You want a highlights reel?”

Yuri hesitated, torn between the desire to remain as aloof as humanly possible and the desire to see his stalkers get torn to shreds. 

“Say no more,” she said cheerfully. “So obviously we’re starting with my comment, because I’m the funniest person I know. Here. Look at this.”

He leaned down to peer at her phone screen. She showed him the funniest conversations and the most cutting comments and by the time she’d finished, he’d almost pissed himself from laughing on two separate occasions. 

Eventually, they found themselves huddled together in the kitchen, recovering from their laughter with cups of punch.

“Damn,” she sighed happily. “Restores your faith in humanity, doesn’t it.”

“I guess,” Yuri hedged. He smiled as he leaned back into the counter.

The past weeks had weighed on him more than he cared to admit. He didn’t interact with the online discourse, so he didn’t know exactly what was being said about him. But the gossip itself niggled at the back of his mind—a set of invisible eyes watching him in his most private moments.

That said, it wasn’t the worst thing to happen to him. Ever since his televised outburst—personally, Yuri thought outburst was an extreme term for the incident, but Yakov would not be swayed—his stomach had settled. He didn’t squirm under the what-ifs and what-now’s anymore. This was his reality. He couldn’t change it any more than he could change the phases of the moon.

Besides, he realized something that day: he’d rather have everyone believe Otabek was his soulmate than have anyone believe Otabek was in any way inferior. 

“There are serious counterarguments too,” Mila added. “This girl explains that the social norms for physical touch are different in different countries. This guy—I don’t know if this is necessarily a point in his favor, but he found a picture of Otabek from before he met you where you can see the top half of his counter and it looks like it’s already at zero.”

“Shocking,” Yuri said.

“Oh, but someone else—these people are scary, you know that?” Mila frowned at her phone.

“You’re noticing this now?”

She shook her head dismissively. “Someone said that the two of you went to the same summer camp like a million years ago.”

Yuri snorted and refilled his cup.

“Is it true?”

“You think I remember anyone who went to summer camp with me?” He leveled her with an unimpressed glower.

“Ugh. Fine.” She scrolled further. “Are you ever going to tell me whether you’re actually soulmates?”

“Why the fuck are you still asking?” Yuri asked.

She sighed.

“You’re getting close, aren’t you,” Yuri said flatly.

She looked up at him in surprise. “What?”

“You’re projecting your soulmate insecurities or whatever-the-fuck onto me. That’s where this weird-ass obsession is coming from,” he said, folding his arms over his chest.

She wrinkled her nose. “I’m watching out for you, ungrateful twerp.”

“Whatever.”

Mila cuffed the side of his head, but after she rubbed the inside of her wrist when she thought he wasn’t looking.

Yuri rolled his eyes, but said nothing.

A clamor from the living room announced a new arrival to the party. Mila leaned back over the counter to catch a look at the door. “Otabek,” she told Yuri.

Yuri perked up, following her gaze. “He said he wouldn’t be here for another hour.”

“Well, it’s your lucky day,” she drawled. 

Yuri made a face at her as he rounded the counter, headed toward the rumble of voices in the living room. He arrived just in time to hear Otabek ask, “Where’s Yuri?”

“Phichit and Chris stole him from me,” Viktor said, pouting.

Otabek shook his head. “Not your Yuuri. My Yuri.”

“Ah! I see. Your Yuri,” Viktor purred. His eyes slid over Otabek’s shoulder to Yuri in the doorway. He winked.

Yuri closed the distance, slinging an arm around Otabek’s shoulders as he reached out and smacked the side of Viktor’s head. “Shut up, Vitya.”

“Ow,” Viktor complained. “Accosted at my own party.”

Otabek’s shoulders relaxed slightly. He nodded at Yuri in greeting.

“Hey, Beka.”

“Viktor!” sing-songed someone behind him. “We have your present!”

“Ugh. Christophe,” Yuri grumbled. Otabek pulled him out of the way as Christophe and Phichit tumbled past him, tugging a laughing, protesting Yuuri between them.

Viktor took one look at Yuuri and jumped him.

“Viktor,” Yuuri said, his voice muffled through a mouthful of Viktor’s hair. “Viktor, I can’t breathe.”

Viktor pulled back, giving Yuuri a closer look. “You’re— god, Yuuri, you look...”

“Exactly like normal?” Yuri suggested.

“Don’t listen to the small angry child, Yuuri,” Christophe cooed, putting his back between Yuuri and Yuri. “The dress is perfect .”

“I’m nineteen,” Yuri sniffed.

“A child,” Christophe repeated dismissively.

Viktor and Yuuri were staring goopily into each other’s eyes. Yuuri drew his fingertips along Viktor’s cheeks and pulled him into a long kiss.

Yuri grimaced.

Phichit cheered and snapped a picture. “Oh, but you can’t take him away yet!” he cut in. “We have karaoke!”

Yuuri pulled away, laughing brightly. “Don’t worry, Phichit,” he said. “Viktor told me he would win in a sing-off, and I am very much looking forward to proving him wrong.” He winked at Viktor, who looked legitimately star-struck.

The little knot of friends traveled toward the TV, where Phichit started distributing cheap plastic microphones.

Before Yuri could drag Otabek back into the kitchen, Viktor looked up and caught his eye. “Come on, Yurio! Join us!” he chirped.

“Like hell,” Yuri said, scowling.

Yuuri folded his arms across his chest, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t feel like getting beat?”

“Oh, you fucking asked for it you piece of—”

Behind Yuri, Otabek smothered a laugh.

Karaoke was ear-splitting and surprisingly sweaty. Yuuri and Christophe started dancing together somewhere in the chaos, and Viktor pulled them apart, stealing Yuuri for himself while Phichit cackled and took pictures and grabbed Christophe’s hips himself. Yuri got Otabek to sing a duet with him, after which Viktor and Yuuri took over the makeshift stage to sing six duets, all in a row. Mila took a turn with the mic. JJ blasted out a surprisingly emotional power ballad. By the time they all wound down, slumped over each other on the couch, Yuri was breathless and second-hand drunk, feeling light and bubbly all the way into his toes. 

Viktor and Yuuri left first.

“Thanks for coming, Yurio,” Yuuri said, his eyes warm.

Yuri shrugged. VIktor ruffled his hair on the way out.

Otabek drove Yuri home. As Yuri climbed off the back of the bike, he noticed Otabek rubbing his hands together to warm them. 

“You want tea?” Yuri asked.

“Are you brewing it?” Otabek shot back, raising an eyebrow playfully.

“Shut up. I’ve been practicing,” Yuri said.

“Oh. Well. In that case.”

“I thought I told you to shut up,” Yuri grumbled. “Come on.”

Otabek followed him up to his apartment.

Viktor was staying the night at Yuuri’s place. Yuri didn’t know how that worked with Yuuri’s roommate, Phichit, but whatever. It wasn’t his problem. For now, it meant that he and Otabek had the kitchen to themselves.

Yuri set up the kettle. “The ballet will be over soon,” he said conversationally.

Otabek hummed in answer.

“After closing night, I’m going to Moscow for a few weeks,” Yuri said.

“Visiting your grandpa?”

“Yeah. He’s sick, so.” Yuri shrugged, trying not to give away his discomfort.

Otabek nodded firmly. “Take care.”

“You want to come?” Yuri asked. 

Otabek hesitated. “The rumors will get worse,” he warned.

“If you don’t want to come, just say that,” Yuri scoffed.

Otabek’s eyes crimped at the corners. “I’ll come.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

Yuri smiled to himself. “Good.”

He started to pour the water, but Otabek lunged across the room to catch his wrist. Yuri froze, feeling the warmth of Otabek’s body all along his side.

“What?” Yuri asked, his voice dangerously close to a whisper.

“You have to wait ,” Otabek murmured into his ear.

Yuri shifted uncomfortably, his heart rattling in his chest. “I’m not a patient person,” he snipped. 

“I know,” Otabek said. He pulled back, taking the kettle himself.

Yuri slumped back against the counter. “Why does it matter?”

“The leaves are delicate.”

“Maybe you should get some sturdier leaves,” Yuri grumbled.

“I like this kind,” Otabek said simply. 

“If you say so.”

Otabek smiled. “Get us a flight, Yura. This will be ready when you’re done.”

They flew out to Moscow on a red-eye. Otabek fell asleep for a while, and Yuri combed his fingers through his hair. They spent the rest of the time leaning together, watching movies with a shared pair of headphones.

Yuri’s grandfather, Nikolai Plisetsky, met them at the airport. Yuri hurtled into him, wrapping him up in a firm hug.

Nikolai chuckled. “Hello to you too, Yurochka.”

“How are you?” Yuri mumbled into his shoulder. “Are you eating? Are you sleeping? How’s the cane I sent? Do you need anything?”

“I am fine,” Nikolai said. 

“Are you taking your medicine? When’s your next check-up?”

“I am fine,” Nikolai insisted, squeezing Yuri as tight as his wasting arms could manage.

Finally, Yuri pulled away a little. Otabek, waiting with their luggage a few strides away, nodded at them graciously.

“This is Otabek,” Yuri said, tugging Nikolai toward his friend. “Beka, this is my grandpa.”

“Nice to meet you, sir,” Otabek said, bobbing his head in a neat little bow.

Nikolai clapped a hand on Otabek’s shoulder. “Come,” he said. “We will eat pirozhki.”

Yuri filled the silence on the drive home, switching back and forth between Russian and English. Nikolai spoke some English, but he wasn’t comfortable in the language. Otabek was equally competent in Russian. Yuri spoke both, so he ping-ponged between them so fast that they started to blend together.

He worried a little when he left to go to the bathroom, leaving them alone in the kitchen. The indistinct stop-and-go of their conversation rumbled behind him. But when he returned, they were wrapped up in a recording on Otabek’s phone, pointing out details and making comments like old friends.

Yuri smiled to himself as he settled in.

They did run into one small hiccup. When Nikolai showed them to their rooms, a leak in the roof had worked its way through to the upstairs guest room. The three of them stood in the doorway for a second, watching water drip off the ceiling onto the mattress.

Otabek broke the silence. “I can take the couch.”

“For two weeks?” Yuri scoffed. “We’ll just share.”

Nikolai frowned. “I will pay for a hotel,” he said decisively.

Otabek whipped toward him, his eyes wide. “That’s not necessary, sir:”

“My Yurochka kicks in his sleep.”

Yuri’s jaw dropped. 

Otabek cleared his throat loudly, clearly trying not to laugh. “I see.”

“I won’t kick you,” Yuri grumbled.

“He will kick you,” Nikolai disagreed.

Otabek glanced back and forth between them, pursing his lips to pin down a smile.

“Trial run?” Yuri suggested. “You can sleep with me tonight and if it sucks, Grandpa can get you a hotel tomorrow?” He looked desperately at Nikolai for his approval.

“He will kick you,” Nikolai said again.

Yuri winced.

“We can try it,” Otabek told Yuri. “For tonight.”

Nikolai shook his head and shuffled away. As they followed, Yuri leaned into Otabek and whispered, “I haven’t kicked anyone since I was six years old.” 

“Have you shared a bed since then?” Otabek asked mildly.

Yuri sputtered.

A faint smile tugged at Otabek’s lips as they dropped their things in Yuri’s room.

“One night,” Yuri said. “One night, and then you can decide if you want to stay.”

Otabek sobered. He met Yuri’s eyes and said, “After a night, you might not want me to stay.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Yuri snorted. “I always want you to stay.”

He left the room before Otabek could respond.

Yakov had an appointment, so he left Yuri and Otabek to rest for a few hours. Neither Yuri nor Otabek wanted to nap, familiar enough with international travel to know that the jet lag would be worse if they crashed before a reasonable local bedtime. Instead they went to the kitchen and made tea to tide them over.

For the first time that day, Yuri checked his phone. 

He had a series of messages from Viktor and Yuuri asking about his flight. Yakov and Lilia sent Nikolai their love and best wishes. He had a few messages from Mila and the other dancers in his company, which he replied to curtly.

“How is it in Moscow?” Mila asked eagerly. “Pics! I need pics!”

Viktor also wanted pictures, so instead of sending them out to both of them, Yuri just started a new Instagram story. He scrolled through his pictures from the airport, but most of them were selfies with Otabek, and Otabek lurked in the background of all the ones that weren’t.

Yuri frowned, turning to the photos he took with his grandpa. Again, he’d pulled Otabek into basically all of them. 

Everything from the drive, everything from their meal—it all had Otabek plastered all over it. 

Yuri stared down at his phone, deliberating. He could still send the pictures directly to Viktor and Mila. That way the world wouldn’t have to know that Yuri brought Otabek home to Moscow. But realistically, the world would find out anyway. Yuri would rather have his selfies pasted over the gossip boards than stalker photos taken in a cafe somewhere. That way he could own it.

Fuck it. Yuri picked a couple pictures and posted the story.

Reactions flooded in almost instantly. Yuri sat and watched them fill up his screen, feeling strangely untethered.

“omg it’s truuuuuuuu!!!!”

“so cute!!!!!”

“you’re such an angel!”

“beautiful!”

“tell your grandpa we love him!!!!”

“ahhh I wish it snowed in my part of the world!!!”

One comment in particular grabbed his attention: “why so many mixed signals??? tell us the truth!!!!”

Or, more accurately, the responses grabbed his attention: “bitch wym mixed signals?” And, “literally all he’s done since the soulmate story dropped is say how great this guy is. omg so confusing.” And, “listen, I’d get it if he’d denied the rumors but like…he hasn’t?”

That last thing couldn’t be true. Could it? He definitely denied the rumors at least once. Didn’t he?

He thought about the disastrous interview, but…no, he never said that they weren’t soulmates outright. He never said it to Mila, either. Or Viktor. Or Yuuri. 

Maybe he should. Just once. To get the truth out there. To say he’d done his part.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard. “Otabek Altin is not my soulmate.” That’s all he had to write.

Instead he slipped his phone into his pocket, resting his chin on his hands. He looked over at Otabek, who was pouring water from the kettle over two tea bags.

 Yuri pulled out his phone again. “Otabek Altin already has a soulmate,” he typed out, then deleted it before he could hit send.

“Cream or sugar?” Otabek asked.

“Cream?” Yuri answered absently.

“I am not Otabek’s soulmate,” he tried, but he didn’t even finish writing before he erased it. 

He drummed his fingers on the table. What was the holdup? He yanked up the memory from when he first heard he’d been paired up with Otabek—the way his stomach squirmed. He didn’t want people thinking they were soulmates. Did he?

He didn’t. He definitely didn’t.

But apparently he didn’t want them thinking that they weren’t soulmates either.

Which, now that Yuri thought about it, might make sense, actually. He may not be Otabek’s match, but who in their right mind would ever advertise that? Compared to fucking Otabek, any soulmate in the world would be a downgrade. 

Yuri knew, of course, that this was not a particularly charitable line of thought. He still didn’t post a statement on his Instagram.

God bless the poor bastard that fate put with Yuri Plisetsky. Yuri was an asshole.

“Do you think my soulmate hates me yet?” Yuri asked. He placed his phone face-down on the table.

Otabek hummed mildly, stirring the cream into Yuri’s tea with a spoon. “What for?”

“For letting everyone think it’s you.”

The spoon stopped in Otabek’s hand. He faced away from Yuri, his face hidden in shadow, and Yuri ached to know what he was thinking.

Right up until the moment Otabek spoke, that is.

“They’re probably relieved,” he said.

Yuri’s jaw dropped. “Hey!” He flailed, scrambling for something to throw at him. He picked up his spoon, then set it down in favor of a decorative plastic fruit in the center of the table. “Take it back!”

Otabek put up his arm to deflect it, bursting into laughter. 

“Oi!” Yuri shouted, grabbing another fruit to throw, but he couldn’t even pretend to be angry in the face of Otabek’s laughter.

Otabek doubled over with the force of it, shaking his head.

“I mean, okay. I’m not a great soulmate,” Yuri grumbled, mostly to keep the joke going. “But I could be.”

Tears gathered in Otabek’s eyes. He slid onto the floor, literally wheezing.

Yuri folded his arms over his chest, but he didn’t say anything else. His lips twitched into a smile as he watched Otabek rub the back of his neck, trying to contain himself. So far, he hadn’t managed it, and Yuri was glad. Otabek didn’t laugh enough.

God, he was pretty when he laughed. His dark eyes crinkled up and glistening, his broad shoulders shaking, his face open and honest and happy.  

Yuri wanted to make him laugh like that every goddamn day for the rest of their lives. He wanted that face burned on the backs of his eyelids. 

Otabek managed to meet Yuri’s eyes. He smiled, his eyes framed by dark, wet eyelashes. Without thinking, Yuri leaned forward, reaching, and the something in his chest leaned with him. All at once, the whisper of friction holding him together gave way. 

Cities fell inside him.

It felt like a landslide—a great, inevitable tumble that started at the base of his throat and ended in his toes. He gasped for breath, his lungs somewhere near his knees, his heart thudding in the pads of his feet. Dust swirled in the cavity of his chest. 

Yuri froze, his hand still outstretched. He wanted…he just fucking wanted.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean—” Otabek choked on a chuckle. “I’m sure anyone would be happy to have you as their soulmate.”

“Damn right,” Yuri said, leaning back. He rested his hands carefully on his lap. 

“You’re…” Otabek trailed off into light, self-conscious laughter. He ended the sentence with a messy smile and two thumbs up.

Yuri felt his whole body flush. His fingers twitched into his thighs. “Yeah, you too,” he said.

Otabek clambered back onto his feet and finished stirring the tea. He crossed the kitchen to hand Yuri a cup.

When their fingers brushed, Yuri felt it zip straight through his clear, uncluttered body like lightning through water.

“Thanks,” said Yuri. 

Otabek nodded as he sat down.

Yuri shook his head, wondering how the hell he managed to end up all the way in love.

Yuri went to bed early. He had a sudden crisis about climbing into bed with Otabek and decided to nip that particular problem in the bud. Not that it helped. Instead of having a quick panic attack while he tried to shuffle under the covers without thinking about sharing a bed for more than one night, maybe even every night—getting an apartment and a cat and sleeping in together on Sundays—he had a long panic attack while he stared at the ceiling and thought about exactly that. 

There were other thoughts too, of course. Other bed-related thoughts.

He groaned into the pillow.

He was still awake when Otabek tiptoed into the room a few hours later. He listened to him shuffle through his bags for pajamas, slip them on, and approach the bed. He listened to the long, slow breath that slipped out of his lips.

The bed dipped as Otabek climbed on. He settled in, lying flat on his back with his arms stiff at his sides. He kept a careful distance between them.

After a few minutes, Otabek whispered, “Yura?”

Yuri ran through his options and summarily decided not to answer.

Otabek sighed and rolled toward him. Hesitantly, almost gingerly, his hand found Yuri’s shoulder in the dark and slid down his arm until they were almost flush, Yuri’s back to Beka’s chest.

Yuri should have been shocked stiff for at least thirty seconds, but it took less than ten before he melted into the embrace. On instinct, he burrowed deeper.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” Otabek whispered.

“Shut up,” Yuri mumbled back. His cheeks burned hot.

“Is this okay?”

“Shut up,” Yuri repeated, grabbing Otabek’s hand and tucking it under his chin like a child with a beloved stuffed animal.

Otabek relaxed into the mattress.

This sucks , Yuri thought. This is terrible. Of all the things that could happen to a guy on the same goddamn day he realizes he’s in love with his best friend, this is the worst.

But it was warm, and comfortable, and that was the last thing he remembered before he fell asleep.

Yuri woke up plastered to Otabek’s side. His head was pillowed on Otabek's shoulder, his arm looped around Otabek’s waist. His shirt was rucked up, Otabek’s fingertips brushing the bare skin at the small of his back.

Bleary-eyed, Yuri lifted his hand to trace a circle on the center of Otabek’s chest. He watched the rise and fall of Otabek’s breath. 

Otabek was still asleep. When Yuri peered upward, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of his friend’s face, his features were smooth and unburdened. Yuri skimmed his fingers over his jaw, up his nose.

He’d never wanted to kiss someone so badly in his life.

The thought startled him out of his haze. He pushed up on his hands. The arm that had been pinned between their bodies almost collapsed under his weight, tingling with the sudden rush of blood.

Yuri hissed through his teeth, shaking the arm violently to wake it up.

This, finally, drew a murmur of protest from Otabek. He cracked open one eyelid, drawing his eyebrows together. “What’s wrong?” he mumbled.

Yuri scooted farther away, in case Otabek could somehow smell the arousal on him. Or worse, feel it. This second scenario was startlingly possible , he realized with a start. 

“Nothing,” he said. Then, when Otabek said nothing, he offered, “My arm fell asleep.”

Otabek shifted, squinting slightly. Seeds stuck his eyelashes together at the corners. “Sorry,” he said, his voice husky.

“Don’t worry about it.” Yuri pinched his own fingertips irritably, too flustered to look him in the eye. “Go back to sleep.”

“Might as well get up.” Otabek pushed up onto one elbow.

“You’re insane for that,” Yuri told him.

He just smiled, rubbing the back of his hand against his eye. Yuri stole guilty glances, his heart ringing inside him. 

“Did I kick you?” he asked.

Otabek blinked, then shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“There, see? I told you.”

“You did,” Otabek agreed. A smile flickered across his face.

Yuri sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Really. What’s wrong?” Otabek asked. He sat all the way up, facing Yuri in the bed.

“Nothing,” Yuri said again.

“Did I—were you uncomfortable?” Otabek leaned back cautiously.

Yuri snorted and reached out to tug at the hem of Otabek’s shirt. “Where are you going? Don’t go anywhere.”

Otabek’s face was unreadable. “Okay.”

“I was very comfortable,” Yuri said frankly.

“Okay.”

Yuri wrinkled his nose, thinking about what to say next. “Give me a couple hours to figure out how the hell to talk about the rest of it,” he said at last.

He deserved a little time to process this inevitable, unprecedented, familiar, startling, new, bizarrely old love.

“Okay.”

“I need to take a shower,” Yuri said.

Otabek smiled softly. “Okay.”

Yuri climbed out of bed and disappeared down the hall, aware of Otabek’s eyes on his back. In the shower, he turned the water as cold as it would go. 

Nikolai took them out for the day. They went for a drive, wandered a market, and ate at hole-in-the-wall restaurants when they got hungry. Otabek waited in the car while Yuri and Nikolai visited the cemetery where Yuri’s grandmother was buried. 

“You are good friends,” Nikolai observed as they stood side by side, facing the headstone.

Yuri stuffed his hands deeper into his pockets. “Me and Otabek?”

“Mm.”

“Of course,” he said. “I wouldn’t have brought him otherwise.”

“We were good friends,” Nikolai said, nodding at the regal headstone.

Yuri said nothing, digesting that.

“Love like that is a treasure,” Nikolai said.

Cautiously, Yuri asked, “You knew I loved him like that?”

Nikolai smiled. “I only meant, Yurochka, that the most important people in life are your friends,” he said. “But it seems like you mean something else?”

“Oh,” Yuri said, blushing.

“I am not surprised,” Nikolai chuckled.

“I haven’t told him yet.”

“And why not?”

Yuri shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said honestly.

“Do you fear for the friendship?” Nikolai asked.

“No,” Yuri answered automatically. No matter what happened, he and Otabek would be fine.

“Good,” Nikolai said. “No one, no matter what other role they play, will stay by your side unless they are your friend.”

“Otabek will always be my friend.”

Nikolai smiled. “Then you have nothing of value to lose.”

Yuri gave this some thought. His grandpa was right, he decided. There wasn’t any real reason not to tell Otabek except that he didn’t want to hear him say he didn’t want him that way. Any way. Every way.

It was scary.

“Go,” Nikolai urged him gently. “Tell him.”

Yuri sighed and headed back, leaving Nikolai alone with his wife. He found Otabek at an overlook a short distance from the car, leaned up against the railing. 

He took a quick picture of the view.

Pocketing his phone, Yuri closed the distance. “Hey.”

Otabek turned toward him with a smile. “How are you?”

“Good.”

Otabek nodded.

“I’m getting cold,” Yuri said. “There’s a cafe just down the hill where we can wait, if you’re game.”

Otabek agreed, and they wandered down side by side, their shoulders bumping gently with every step. A wave of humid heat swallowed them as soon as they stepped inside. They stomped the feeling back into their toes at the door.

No one noticed them at first, as they shuffled into a long line. Yuri pulled off his hat to fix a tag, letting blond hair spill out all over his face. A strand stuck in his mouth. He spat and spluttered, but he couldn’t get it out with his mittened hands. 

A laugh rumbled in Otabek’s chest as he leaned in to brush the hair back.

Yuri met his eyes. He drank in the warmth, the steadiness in his gaze. There was nothing new about the way Otabek looked at him. There was nothing new about the way Yuri looked back. 

Yuri dropped his head, pulling the hat over his ears again. “I should tell Grandpa we’re here,” he said.

Otabek nodded.

They crowded close, trying to take up less space in the busy cafe. When they made it to the counter, the employee lumped their orders together. Otabek and Yuri argued briefly over who got to pay. Otabek won, but Yuri stubbornly stuffed the same amount into the tip jar. The employee gave them a discount and shrugged when Yuri asked about it, saying, “I’m soft for a cute couple.”

Realistically, they were probably softer for the one hundred percent tip, but Yuri still blushed.

As they huddled in a corner with their drinks, Yuri noticed several other people watching them. They didn’t seem to recognize him. Nothing like that. But they glanced over whenever Otabek leaned in to say something. Their eyes darted back and forth between them when Yuri touched Otabek’s arm. A girl across the room eyed Otabek with a predatory smile, but her friends pulled her back. Yuri watched them explain with indelicate hand motions why that wouldn’t go over well.

He and Otabek had both their wrists covered. These people didn’t think that they were soulmates. They just thought that they were in love.

“Something’s bothering you,” Otabek murmured.

Yuri hummed noncommittally, setting down his cup.

“Are you ready to talk about it?”

“Right. Yeah, it’s just…” He sighed.

Otabek looked over at him, his brow furrowed. “What?”

Yuri smoothed out Otabek’s eyebrows with his thumbs. He brushed a piece of lint off Otabek’s shoulder. He straightened Otabek’s jacket. Then, gently, he gripped both Otabek’s shoulders and turned him around to face the cafe at large.

Otabek cast a confused glance back over his shoulder. Meanwhile, Yuri stepped up behind him, drawing his hands in across his collarbones until his arms encircled him entirely. He rested his chin on Otabek’s shoulder.

“Everyone in this place thinks we’re in love,” he said, with all the nonchalance he could muster.

“So…what?”

Yuri kept his eyes down, turning his nose into Otabek’s neck. “Are we?” he murmured.

Otabek locked up. “What?”

Yuri didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. Instead, he pressed a sweet, soft kiss to the corner of Otabek’s jaw.

Otabek whirled around, crowding in close. “ Yuri ,” he said urgently.

“I’m not sorry,” Yuri said. He tugged off his mittens and reached up, cupping Otabek’s face between his hands. 

Otabek gaped, his eyes blown wide. “You’re serious.”

“You never answered the question,” Yuri said. He brushed his thumb across Otabek’s lips. 

“It’s not up to me,” Otabek rasped, his breath hot on Yuri’s fingers.

“Isn’t it?” Yuri asked. He pulled Otabek closer. “Nothing’s gonna change on my end. You know me. I’m a stubborn bastard.”

Otabek blew out a shaky laugh. Fuck it , Yuri thought, and he kissed him. 

It was brief–only a hello. It was soft—barely a whisper. It was chaste and sweet and it tasted like coffee and the cold.

Yuri eased back, blinking cautiously at Otabek. Otabek kept his eyes closed. He heaved a stilted, broken breath.

“Beka?” Yuri whispered.

Otabek gave him a thumbs up.

Laughter bubbled up in Yuri’s chest, and when he let it out, it felt like singing. 

Before he could kiss Otabek again, he noticed his grandfather’s silhouette in the window. He picked up his drink and downed the rest in one gulp. “Grandpa’s outside,” he said. “We should go.”

Otabek followed him toward the door, but before they stepped outside, he caught Yuri’s wrist and tugged him back. Yuri looked at him expectantly.

“Yes,” Otabek said, his eyes solemn and intense.

It took Yuri a moment. “Yes?”

“Yes.”

Are we in love?

Yuri’s face split into a brilliant smile. 

It was dark out by the time they returned home. Yuri felt fat and full and warm in his mittens and coat.

Nikolai went to bed early. His bones were tired, he said. But he hugged Yuri hard before he said goodnight, and smiled warmly at Otabek on his way out.

Yuri turned to Otabek as soon as his grandfather’s door clicked closed, grinning ear to ear. “So,” he said. He leaned casually against the wall.

Otabek smothered a smile of his own. “So.”

“So…?”

Otabek raised his eyebrows, folding his arms across his chest.

“Come on, Beka,” Yuri complained.

Otabek studied him almost reverently . He released a measured breath, dragging his hand back through his hair. “Is this real?”

“It better be,” Yuri scoffed.

“If I wake up,” Otabek murmured, crossing the room toward him, “and this is all a dream, it will shatter me.”

“Nothing can shatter you,” Yuri disagreed. “You’re fucking unbreakable.”

Otabek stepped up into Yuri’s space, effectively pinning him against the wall. “I’m not,” he confessed in a broken whisper. “I’m not unbreakable. I’m not even close. I’m so—you could destroy me.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“I’d let you,” Otabek said seriously.

“I wouldn’t,” Yuri repeated.

Otabek smiled.

“I’d never hurt you,” Yuri said softly. “You’re my friend.”

“You’ve always been my best friend,” Otabek agreed.

Yuri shrugged helplessly, hyper aware of the narrow space between them. “You’re mine.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Otabek said, nodding amiably.

Yuri laughed, startled. “Save the sappy shit. If I have to start saying things I like about you, we’ll be here all night.” 

Otabek raised an eyebrow. “Do you have somewhere to be?”

“I have some things I’d like to do ,” Yuri shot back. His body buzzed with breathless anticipation.

Otabek’s eyes shuttered closed. “Fuck, Yura,” he rasped.

“Is this going to break your soulmate’s heart?” Yuri teased, sliding his fingertips along the inside of Otabek’s wrist. Two fingers pushed under the sleeve of his leather jacket, and Otabek’s shoulders shoved in even closer.

“Do you even give a shit?” Otabek asked, his eyes pinned on Yuri’s lips.

A devious smile tugged at the corners of Yuri’s mouth. “No.”

“Good,” Otabek murmured, and he ducked his head, dragging his nose along Yuri’s jaw.

“Good?” Yuri repeated, releasing a small, helpless laugh. “You’re as bad as I am.”

Otabek hummed in answer. His lips pressed against Yuri’s throat, but it wasn’t a kiss. Not yet.

Yuri’s breath hiccuped in his lungs. “Hey, asshole,” he croaked.

Otabek looked up. His dark eyes seared Yuri’s skin. 

Yuri swallowed. Otabek’s eyes followed the movement down his neck, then snapped back up again even darker.

“Fucking kiss me already,” Yuri said, and he meant it to be impatient and demanding. Instead it fluttered out like a prayer, a whisper of breath across Otabek’s cheek.

Otabek slid a hand around the back of Yuri’s neck. His fingertips burrowed into the hair at the base of his skull. They swayed so close, their foreheads touched. 

They hovered only millimeters apart, lips parted, sharing heady breaths. Yuri ached to close the distance, but something stopped him—some strange sense that it wasn’t his place, wasn’t his turn .

Otabek brushed his thumb over the sensitive skin below Yuri’s ear. 

“What are you waiting for?” Yuri hissed. 

Otabek’s lips pulled into a wolfish smile that Yuri felt more than saw. “Listen to yourself, Yuri,” he murmured, his voice brimming with barely contained laughter. “I’m not the one waiting anymore.”

“You smug motherfu—”

Otabek cut him off with a kiss.

Immediately, Yuri hooked an arm around his neck and yanked him in closer, deeper. He made a muffled sound of approval into his mouth. 

His free hand raced up and down Otabek’s body from his neck and shoulder down his arm, up his chest, along his cheek, down his back. He clutched greedy handfuls of his shirt and pushed uselessly against the leather jacket. He bit almost frantically at Otabek’s lips, trying to feel all of him at once.

Just as Yuri started to think he might combust from sensory overload—the sheer unbelievable immensity of Otabek’s mouth, Otabek’s hands, Otabek’s skin on his skin, the width of him, the weight of him, the heat of him—Otabek caught his jaw and held it still. Yuri released a startled, involuntary gasp. 

Otabek held Yuri in place as he kissed him. Yuri planted his hands firmly on Otabek’s chest and let himself melt into Otabek’s mouth.

They kissed long and slow and deep until Yuri felt like he was drowning. Finally, Otabek moved away from his mouth, pressing searing kisses along his jaw. His free hand slipped up under Yuri’s shirt.

Otabek backed every movement with his entire body, and every part of him was burning.

Yuri made a noise somewhere deep in his throat, scrambling to keep from sliding down the wall. 

“Stop squirming,” Otabek murmured into his mouth. In a single, smooth motion, he lifted Yuri by the hips and pinned him securely between his chest and the wall.

“Fucking fuck ,” Yuri gasped, automatically locking his ankles together behind Otabek’s back. Otabek kissed him, deep and filthy. When Yuri resurfaced for air, panting for breath, he finished, “You fucker .”

Otabek dropped his face into Yuri’s neck with a heady laugh. “Hey, Yura?” he said.

“What?”

“I love you.”

Yuri cursed under his breath. “I have so many sappy words for you when we’re finished,” he said sternly.

“Really?” Otabek asked, amused or embarrassed or maybe both.

“I swear to god,” Yuri grumbled. “Yes, I do. You’re my absolute favorite person in the universe. But for fuck’s sake, Beka, can you please just take me to the bedroom?”

Yuri woke up tangled in Otabek’s arms. He turned his head into Otabek’s chest, bare skin beneath his cheek. 

“You’re awake,” Otabek observed softly. He traced his fingers up and down Yuri’s spine.

“Mmm,” Yuri said noncommittally.

Otabek huffed fondly.

Yuri let his thoughts drift, but they kept coming back to this: soft skin and warm sheets and the steady heartbeat beneath his ear. He smiled. And smiled. And smiled.

Absently, Yuri wondered where Otabek’s soulmate was. Who were they? What were they doing? Did they have any idea what they were missing?

Otabek still talked to his soulmate, and Yuri knew everyone Otabek talked to, so realistically, Yuri must know them. But the only thing he really knew about Otabek’s soulmate was that they met a long time ago, and that didn’t really narrow it down.

Now that Yuri thought about it, even from the very beginning, whenever Yuri asked about soulmates, Otabek turned it back on him. 

Did you drop them? asked Yuri, and Beka said, Did you drop yours?

Does it bother them? asked Yuri, and Beka said, Does it bother you?

Except…

Platonic? asked Yuri, and Beka said, Maybe.

Yuri replayed that conversation in his head. It seemed oddly familiar now, in retrospect. Platonic? Maybe. Are we in love? It’s not up to me.

As if in a dream, something Mila said about a summer dance camp floated back to him.

“Yura?” Otabek whispered. “I need water.”

Yuri reluctantly lifted himself halfway up to sitting. He watched the muscles in Otabek’s back move as he reached for the nightstand.

“It’s me, isn’t it,” Yuri said, dragging his fingertips along Otabek’s shoulder blade.

Otabek rolled over to face him. “It’s always you,” he agreed. “But what exactly was the question?”

“I’m your shitty soulmate,” said Yuri.

Otabek laughed, leaning in until their foreheads touched. “Does it make a difference?”

“It does if I hurt you.”

Otabek shook his head. “You were my friend, Yuri,” he said. “That’s all I ever needed from you.”

“It still hurts not to have what you want ,” Yuri said.

“That has nothing to do with being soulmates.”

Yuri thought about that, rubbing his thumb absently along Otabek’s jaw. “I guess so.”

“You’re disappointed that we don’t have other soulmates to loudly and publicly spurn, aren’t you,” Otabek said, poking him in the ribs.

“Maybe a little,” Yuri admitted. “Imagine if we got to fight fate itself for the chance to be together. That would be a hell of a gesture.”

“You know the soulmates thing doesn’t work like that.”

“Still.”

Otabek smiled at him dopily in the morning light.

“Well, I guess I forgive you,” Yuri said, scooting closer. He cupped Otabek’s face in both hands.

“For?”

“For being my soulmate,” Yuri said, as though it should have been obvious. He leaned in and pressed a hard, hot kiss to his lips. “I love you anyway.”

Otabek rolled his eyes, then rolled them over, hovering on his elbows above Yuri’s head. “We don’t have to tell anyone,” he pointed out.

“They already know we’re soulmates,” Yuri responded, raising an eyebrow.

“They think we’re soulmates,” Otabek corrected.

A slow grin grew on Yuri’s face. “What, you want to tell them they’re wrong?”

“No,” Otabek said. “But we don’t have to tell them they’re right.”

Yuri thought about it. “It’s what I was doing already,” he mused, “and I thought we weren’t soulmates.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay,” Yuri said. “I like it.”

They kissed again, both grinning so hard their teeth clicked together. 

From the outside, nothing changed. Yuri rode around town on the back of Otabek’s bike. They drank tea and ate stuffed rolls. Yuri draped himself over Otabek at every opportunity. Otabek saved his softest smiles for Yuri alone. They danced together, ate together, and slept in the same apartment at the slightest suggestion. They never said a damn word about the counters on their wrists.

In every picture, they looked shockingly in love.