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Yuuri supposed he loved ballet as much as anyone else who had been doing it for practically their entire life, but he couldn’t count the times he had lain in bed cursing his body for lacking the expression needed for contemporary dance. He could do god-knows-how-many fouettés with Phichit after long rehearsals for Instagram posts, his jumps were lauded for their height, and his lines had been praised to the ends of the earth, but he just couldn’t connect with an audience, as he’d been told in what felt like thousands of not-so-gentle rejections from the more contemporary companies in New York City.It was frustrating, and it made Yuuri want to curse ballet for ruining his ability to express his emotions through movement. Deep down he knew that ballet wasn’t the culprit, but blaming ballet was easier than facing the true problem. Yuuri didn’t want to quit the company, but he also didn’t want to feel stranded, homesick, in a concrete jungle doing something he only sometimes loved.Yuuri tried to lose himself in the empty studio space, desperate to let emotion flow out of his body and anguishing over the fact that however deeply he threw himself in to a piece of choreography, it was never enough. At this rate, he’d drown before he got cast in a contemporary piece.Frustrated, Yuuri threw himself in to a desperate firebird (if he had nothing else left in New York, at least he had his flexibility), but caught the slick-canvased toe of his fresh pair of ballet slippers on the way down, sending him tumbling to the ground with a graceless thud. Yuuri rolled on to his back, hugging his knees to his chest and gently prodding at what were sure to be fresh bruises in the morning.The door to the studio swung open seconds later, and Yuuri angled his head to see his roommate standing in the doorway, face flushed from either a recent rehearsal or from getting caught staring at fellow corps member Phichit Chulanont and relentlessly teased. It was impossible to tell with Seung-Gil; his face remained, as ever, a careful blank slate.“Phichit and I are done. Are you coming back with us?” Seung-Gil waited stoically in the doorway, not deigning to comment on Yuuri’s sprawled position on the floor. Yuuri nodded and rolled to his knees, wincing as he put weight on them to climb to his feet. Seung-Gil stepped out of the doorway as Yuuri tossed his slippers in to his ballet bag, pulled on his street shoes and a light jacket, and slung his bag over his shoulder.“You really should take better care of your knees,” Seung-Gil watched Yuuri idly as he made sure he hadn’t left anything in the studio.“Yeah, well, I didn’t exactly mean to end up on the floor,” Yuuri bit back, sharper than he had any right to be. Seung-Gil was looking at him out of the corner of his eyes. “This time,” Yuuri tacked on, knowing Seung-Gil knew as well as anyone else how badly Yuuri wanted to break into the world of contemporary, with all its floor work and associated bruises.Phichit was chattering a mile a minute as soon as Yuuri and Seung-Gil rounded the corner to meet up with him at the front door of the building, juggling his phone and an ever-present cup of iced green tea. Phichit had become an expert of sneaking out of the studio between classes and rehearsals to get his green tea fix, seeming to defy time and physics to make it to the nearest café and back on time. He claimed with a sly smile that underground passageways were his secret weapon. Yuuri wasn’t entirely sure he was lying.“Yuuri, I keep telling you you should check Instagram more often, the RNB is truly posting a wealth of Vic-pics recently and you are missing out,” Phichit punctuated his statement with wiggling eyebrows and a sharp elbow to Yuuri’s ribs. Yuuri felt himself turning an unbecoming shade of crimson.“Phichit, honestly, I don’t know why-” Phichit, without even taking his eyes off of his phone, reached his hand up to gently pat the top of Yuuri’s head.“Shh, there there Yuuri, we’ve all seen the posters you’ve decided to plaster your wall with,” when Phichit turned to look at Yuuri there was what could only be described as a wicked grin on his face and Seung-Gil had turned his face away to hide – was that a smile?“Because he’s a beautiful dancer, because I want to dance with that level of emotion someday, because,” Yuuri was flustered despite having to defend his choice of wall art to Phichit and his meddling ways at least twice a week, “I mean, god, have you ever seen lines as perfect?”“Yes, yours,” Seung-Gil’s interjection was startling in both its mere existence and in the stark honesty in his eyes. Yuuri glanced openmouthed between his two friends for a beat too long.“You can’t seriously mean that,” he ventured softly.“We can and do, Mr. Soloist, and stop trying to change the-” Phichit looked entirely too confident in this statement before he stopped in his tracks, thumb frozen on the screen of his phone and eyes widening as he stared at it.Seung-Gil grabbed Phichit’s arm, shaking him out of his sudden daze and pulling him along down the sidewalk as Yuuri laughed, “Phichit, you can’t just stop in the middle of the street,” before seeing the expression on Phichit’s face.“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Yuuri said, concerned, “What did you just read?”“Nothing, nothing, I…” Phichit trailed off, still looking shell-shocked, “it’s not April Fool’s is it?”“Phichit, it’s October,” Seung-Gil supplied bluntly.Before anyone could question Phichit’s odd behavior further, there came a chime from his phone and in a few seconds, Phichit’s entire demeanor had changed.“Sushi with Otabek?” He relayed the contents of the message he’d received with a smile. Yuuri could see the tension around Phichit’s eyes, but let it go for the time being.“I’ve been dying for some good sashimi,” Yuuri smiled and bobbed his head. Half an hour later, the three of them walked in to a hole in the wall in Flushing that Otabek swore by for sushi. It probably helped that it was a five-minute walk from where he lived. Otabek, stony-faced as ever, waved the group over to a table in the back corner of the restaurant.“I just ordered a bunch of sashimi, some nigiri if any of you want some. I hope you don’t mind, I got a bit of everything,” Otabek said as Yuuri slid into the booth next to Phichit.“Thank god, I’m starved,” Yuuri sighed, “Rehearsals have been murder lately,”“More like suicide. You’ve been working yourself to death in the studios until our rehearsals end every day,” Seung-Gil quirked an eyebrow at Yuuri from across the table.“Anyway, did you see the Russian National Ballet’s announcement earlier?” Otabek leaned forward conspiratorially and Yuuri could see Phichit’s eyes widening in his peripheral vision, “Crazy, right?”“What happened?” Yuuri asked, furrowing his brow as Phichit began emphatically shaking his head next to him. Seung-Gil stared at him with affectionate distaste.“You didn’t see?” Otabek glanced between Yuuri and Phichit, whose head shakes had kicked up to a level of intensity that could probably cause a concussion.“I haven’t been on any social media since Quixote rehearsals started,” Yuuri said uneasily.“Well…” Otabek shot another look at Phichit, who had dropped his face into his hands, “They didn’t give any details on why or what’s next for him, but…” Yuuri’s stomach bottomed out as he anticipated the words to come:“Victor isn’t with the company anymore. He’s not dancing this season.”