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He wouldn’t say he’s living out a dream of his in any sense of the word.But this is a story that he likes to tell sometimes. It’s nothing special. So, here it is.Someone Victor knows rather shallowly goes on a trip to Japan for vacation and brings him back a souvenir from there. Victor himself has never been, so he knows he’ll be happy no matter what it is. He’s never tried Japanese sweets before nor does he have any idea what any of the famous landmarks look like.The souvenir turns out to be a clear plastic umbrella. It’s not very large or foldable. It might just barely cover him. He’s pretty tall.How’d you get this through security?—is the ungrateful first thing Victor asks. Is this some sort of hidden Japanese ninja weapon?No, of course not—they answer him. It’s just an umbrella.Oh. Thanks, then—Victor tells the friend. It seems like some last-minute thing bought at the airport—is what he doesn’t say.Still, it does make him ponder as to why see-through umbrellas aren’t a very popular design choice. He’s never seen anyone else use one here. And he never does for all the time after he starts using this partially invisible umbrella on rainy days. The arbitrary gift from Japan seems suddenly unique and special now. Living here with it, anyway.The real story starts when Victor arrives for his 1:15 job interview at 1:09, dripping wet head to toe and tracking water across the immaculate crystal floor. The receptionist checks him in without saying a word about his appearance, but she does give him a very judgy once-over.“I lost my umbrella,” Victor tries to explain to her. “Or, rather, someone took it, I think. On my way here, I put it down and someone… probably accidentally took it.”“How unlucky,” the receptionist says blandly. Then she points him in the direction of the washroom on that floor.Victor has maybe two minutes to stick his head directly underneath the hand dryer, which doesn’t do all that much. He crouches, having it blow down the front of his shirt to be more presentable, as well. He tries not to think about how degrading this looks while also hoping that nobody walks in on him. Maybe, Victor thinks bitterly, his interviewer won’t have eyes.He’s called in at exactly 1:15. Before going in, he combs a hand up through his bangs so they aren’t mercilessly flat against his face. And by some miracle his white button-up shirt is only sticking to him a little.“It’s, um, it’s pretty bad out there, huh?” Victor says after introducing himself and shaking hands with his interviewer—his own hand is very cold, his interviewer’s very warm. Victor sits down across the table, giving a smile. This is ridiculous, he knows. But he’s here. He made it here, somehow. The hard pattering outside can be heard through the walls.His interviewer is some sort of millennial on the tail end of the range. He stares at Victor through large framed glasses, serious and humourless. “You didn’t bring an umbrella?” he asks evenly.“No, well, uh, you see, someone took it. I had it on my way here. But I set it down while I was waiting for the train and when I reached for it, suddenly it was gone. I’m a bit sad because it was a souvenir from Japan.”“Japan?”“Yes.”A note is written down in pen on what Victor presumes is a copy of his resume.Everything around and within him feels cold and uncomfortably damp. He’s sitting in a puddle and it’s getting into every single crevice. He’s trying to control his shivering but he’s squirming just a little too much. They’ll probably have to replace this chair once he’s done with it because he’s soaking through the cloth seat. He can’t help continuously opening and closing his hands underneath the table and subtly rubbing his legs together, bouncing like crazy, trying to pass it all off as completely natural movement.If what was just posed to him previously was actually the first question of the interview then that was a really bad answer he’d given, Victor thinks despairingly. Does he seem like a careless person now? He’d walked in already looking a certain way, yes, but he could have put in more effort and spun the story differently. Is he able to be trusted if the image he’s giving is that he can’t even look after such a simple thing as an umbrella? Will he be able to handle responsibility if he doesn’t know where or when or how or by whom it could’ve been taken?Now then—he’ll follow up on his answer by stating his current plans for retrieval, retracing his steps of the day, surveying the general area he last remembers having it, and questioning any potential witnesses who are frequenters of the neighbourhood gathered over a series of days…“What are your salary expectations?”The question catches Victor off guard, so much so that he blanks. He doesn't have anything prepared. Is this not more of a late-stage question? Did they already go through a whole interview and he remembers none of it? He’s not sure. Perhaps having it in a fifteen-past time slot means every interview here is less than fifteen minutes.It still feels like too long. All Victor can think about is trying to get a hold on his uncontrollable shaking. It takes up ninety-five percent of his conscious thought; the other five percent left to fend for itself. His back teeth clench in an attempt not to chatter. He wants to get this over with so badly. He blurts out a number that happens to be a little more than double his previous salary.“Benefits and vacation?”“Yes,” Victor says. “Up front,” he clarifies quickly.“Telecommuting?”“I’d like to go home.” In actuality, Victor would like to sneeze but manages to turn it into a benevolent cough. “I mean, I’d like to set my own schedule. Pref—pref—preferably. ”The last thing Victor remembers is dizzily shaking hands again. His own hand is on a steady path towards amputation. His interviewer’s palm is a warm tea latte. He holds onto it for a little too long.Later, Victor collapses into bed like it’s the end of the world for the next three days and three nights. It’s an almost trite acceptance. Not acceptance at the way the interview went, no. He’d forgotten about that long ago.Rather—he has pure acceptance of the physical failure of each one of his body’s organs. It’s a slow, intimate, and time-consuming process. It’ll surely happen. He can sense the churning and bacterial decay within him like they’ve become close friends this whole while, knowing in a very deeply instinctive way that his demise will be all-encompassing and inevitable.He’s only experienced this uncanny feeling a few times in his life. And after the fact, because he always ends up still alive somehow, it sounds silly and ridiculous. So, he can never tell anybody about it.Common sense says this is merely some kind of extreme cold. But common sense has no merit when everything else about his condition at this moment screams otherwise at him. Where he feels so close to literal death that he’s been completely checked out for a neverending span of hours and days—mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.And then Victor’s suddenly awoken at some indeterminable time. He hears his phone ringing at the top of the fourth morning while still buried underneath the covers, all except for his eyes that blink open drearily at the materializing wall. Feeling is starting to come back to him, incrementally. He’s becoming a little more aware, enough to assess his situation somewhat.He tests it, and decides he can actually breathe a little better today. In and out, his lungs fill. The faint symphony of birdsong can finally be heard from outside his open window. Oxygen has never smelled sweeter, or at all. The shrill ringing next to his pillow stops just as Victor nudges at the phone with the tip of his middle finger just to confirm it’s there and not another one of his fever-induced dreams pulling him back into the hellscape. Whatever the call was going to be about goes straight to his voicemail.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Victor is toured around Marketing and Accounting and Quality one after the other along with some other departments that he can’t be bothered to remember. The office is a quiet buzz of paperwork and soft, distinctive key-typing from people all manic and serious about their jobs.It’s a day like any other. In the felt-laden grey that covers every inch of the space, Victor’s attention occasionally drifts, mostly whenever the windows to outside come into view, where the overcast sky outside mimics the lethargic pace inside. But every passing minute, he can see the outside world lifting, becoming more and more encouraging. Like the sun could peek its head out of the clouds at any moment, only waiting for the right time and the right amount of atmospheric pressure to do it.This is what occupies Victor’s thoughts until they pass by a closed office door before a long stretch of cubicles. Victor finds himself blinking around like he’s suddenly awoken and has no idea how he got here.The person touring him, John, raps his knuckles on the frosted glass of the locked door in front of them.Victor has this thought: if he has to guess, he thinks John is around the same age as him. He has a shining confidence about him, which is probably what got him to the position of operations manager, overseeing this whole floor of people plus Victor. It's admirable to a degree, and also somewhat off-putting. Victor himself is a little late to the career party. There were few years here and there where he had dreams and was adamant about pursuing other things, but what person hasn't had something like that before getting their life on track? This is Victor's track. He's here now and it doesn't bother him much. There isn't a whole lot that really, really bothers him anymore.“This here is Yuuri. This guy’ll actually be your section supervisor.” John jabs his thumb at the door with a strange sort of grin. Victor has no idea why he’s smiling like that. Is it some sort of inside joke? “But he’s not here today,” John tells him.Victor takes another glance at the darkened door with nobody inside. “Yeah, probably not. You know, he was actually the one who interviewed me,” Victor mentions.There isn't much he remembers about that day. It’s pretty lucid as it is. Perhaps nothing about that day was real after all, not the male with dark hair sitting across from him nor the distinctively boyish voice practically hurrying him out of the room before the carpets get any more soaked from his shoes.John leads Victor into the next area, gesturing around with his arms with some kind of importance. Apparently, this is where Victor’s new home away from home will be."This is you."“I like it,” Victor concludes almost immediately. He steps into the little cubicle space, examining everything at once. The desk is clean and spacious. There’s a window. It’s not too bad. He might change his mind about this later. It’s possible he might actually even hate it here and just wants to finish up the tour as soon as possible."I can tell you're going to like it here already," John enlightens him.Victor then notices, leaning off to the side against the edge of his new desk, a long navy blue umbrella with a polished wooden handle. In the middle of the empty cubicle with everything else cleaned out, it seems intentionally left here. Not to mention it looks quite luxurious, quite high-end.“Do all new employees get this?” Victor asks, lifting the weight of the umbrella by the handle with two of his fingers as John peers curiously at it. “Is it to defend yourself against anyone who decides to go postal?”“That? I have no idea,” John says, giving a measly shrug. “I didn’t get one on my first day. Maybe the guy before you left it behind." He knocks at it with the front of his knuckles. "See, it isn’t even retractable. I’ve got one that’s retractable and automatic. My wife got it for me. Flips out at the press of a button. I’ll show you sometime.”“I might just leave this in the office then,” Victor says vaguely, putting it back down. It would be quite hefty to have to lug around back and forth unless he actually needed it.“It looks like you’ll need it today,” John says exactly what he doesn’t want to hear, pointing to the window. “Just started raining.”Victor hadn’t noticed the drops when they were small and barely there, but suddenly it’s become a downpour in the blink of an eye. The sun he’d had so much faith in earlier had decided to fall back, hiding itself behind bruise-coloured clouds like it were afraid to face him.The hard smattering against the windows sends an unanticipated shiver through him, and the feeling actually shocks him. He never believed things would become like this, having a primal response to rain now. As if he needs one more thing in his life to fret over.“How often does it rain in this city?” Victor complains lowly, a sense of dread coming over him.John laughs at him. “Afraid of a little water?”Victor frowns. “You know, I lived my whole life having absolutely no opinion on rain until now.”“Huh?”Victor shakes his head. He’s not going to explain the embarrassment that got him here. In fact, he wants to forget it entirely. “Never mind.”“No, really. What?” John presses.“It’s okay.”“It’s not.” John is being painfully insistent now, hitting him playfully in the arm like a bro. Victor doesn’t know how to react to that except to stand there, even as John puts on a sympathetic expression. “Really, you can tell me.”Victor opens one of the overhead cabinets above his desk, taking the umbrella and lying it lengthwise inside so everyone in the office knows it’s on private property.“I’m actually afraid of water,” Victor lies. “Near-drowning accident as a kid. I nearly drowned.”“Oh,” John says, looking genuinely saddened. “Don’t be afraid, man. It’s just water.”“Thanks.”“So, you’re keeping it?” John asks him.“Yeah, why not?” Victor answers because there really isn't anything to it. “I happened to lose mine the other day.”After that, John leaves Victor to his own devices for the rest of his first day, which gives him some time to settle in. Set yourself up on your computer, John suggests after suddenly claiming to be very busy so he won’t be able to help. Figures. But it's fine with Victor. He has no idea what he’s doing but he’ll just try to be on his best behaviour for the rest of the day.-The company instant messaging system they use is some outdated version of MSN Messenger that isn’t MSN Messenger. The rounded bubble buttons with customizable glossy colour schemes reminds Victor of gentler times when he didn’t have to work for money and everything in his life revolved around his hobbies. He isn’t sure why the older messaging programs disappeared one after another—AIM and MSN and Skype—replacing each other for a time only to be subjected to the same fate. Did the newer replacements offer much more? Better? Faster? More features? It would only be natural.The late morning of his first day wanes as Victor fiddles around with what he can on his own, setting up and connecting his work email, and adjusting the borders of the windows in the programs to his liking. He makes John his first messenger contact because he’s one of the only names Victor can bring to the top of his head.Well, him—and Yuuri Katsuki.Both requests for contact are accepted nearly instantaneously which leads Victor to believe the system automatically accepts everyone and everything without first needing their permission. It seems a little invasive to him. Both of the contacts’ statuses immediately show up as green—online. This might be part of the efficiency ideology of this place that Victor has been toying with ever since his disaster of an interview experience. He’s honestly still not sure how he got this job. Then he wipes the thought from his mind because he remembers he’s supposed to be forgetting about it.While going through the settings, John sends Victor a somewhat unprofessional greeting that may or may not be a kind of meme. But before Victor can respond, there’s another message from his other new contact.
YK: Hi. How’s your first day going? Are you liking it?
So, he really is online—his supervisor who isn’t here. Another aspect of Victor’s interview comes to the forefront of his mind, namely the part about working from home. He hadn’t realized it would be such a ubiquitous thing here.Ultimately, he uses the excuse that he should be giving response priority to his direct supervisor, ignoring John’s meme message.
VN: Hello! It’s been great so far. John showed me around.
Polite. Enthusiastic. Optimistic.
YK: That was nice of him. Sorry I couldn’t be there.
VN: Oh, that’s OK!
YK: Not very managerial of me, is it?
VN: No, no! I’m sure you have your own reasons why you couldn’t make it into the office. Do what you can. I’m not going anywhere.
His supervisor doesn’t respond after that, at least not immediately.All of these are pretty generic responses, after all. Victor is probably bothering him while he’s supposed to be working. If his supervisor were here today, maybe instead of working from home he’d be the one showing Victor around. But that’s redundant at this point.Victor crosses his legs and leans an elbow against the edge of the keyboard, tapping a finger at his cheek. There’s something swirling, something somewhat unsettling, something that he hasn’t quite been satisfied with yet. Not very managerial? Victor hasn’t exactly showed his Employee Of The Year side. But it’s only his first day. It still hasn’t been his first day under proper supervision yet. It's been rather easy so far so he's grateful. There hasn't been anything he's assigned to do yet except for familiarizing himself with what’s here. There’s still plenty to get used to, that’s what he thinks.
VN: Can I ask something… is what I asked for in my interview what I’ll actually be getting?
There’s a little bit of a pause. Maybe a minute or two.
YK: What?
VN: My salary, vacation, all that.
YK: Did you read through the contract you signed and sent me?
VN: Yes.
Victor did, really. He just hadn’t quite believed it. This is supposed to be part of what he’s trying to actively forget, sort of, but the numbers had seemed so absurd. It’s actually making him paranoid. Him—making that much money. He’d just asked for it. And it was given. Like there’s simply copious amounts of money lying around, hidden in a vault somewhere, heavy and untouched. And no one here thinks anything of it.
YK: Well, if you see otherwise on your paycheque, you have the freedom to file a labour lawsuit against us.
No, that's—Victor backspaces that.I wouldn't do that—he backspaces.I don't know the first thing about worker's rights... he definitely backspaces that.Don’t be stupid. Don’t say anything stupid. Don’t put him in a bad mood. Victor bites at his lip as his fingers crunch up.
VN: If anything, I would just come to you maybe about it. I’m sure it would be an honest mistake. If that were to happen, I mean.
How terrible and sad this would be… if he were to be fired after only his first day because he can't keep his mouth shut and they rescinded his pay and this was all some kind of mistake. Worst of all, remaining merely, totally, strangers with his supervisor.
YK: I was only joking.
Oh.It was only a joke.
VN: Oh! Haha.
That 'haha' might have escaped his lips out loud.Victor leans back in his chair, bouncing his foot in nervous habit. He can't take this. He'd found it cool earlier, wondering if there were a draft somewhere or if the window behind his computer were open. But the rain continues to quietly assault the building.
Typing...
YK: Please don’t sue us...
Victor doesn’t know why that suddenly makes him laugh.How cute...Can he think that? Is he allowed to?He'll keep it to himself.He leans back into the keyboard, hunched over.
VN: I won’t sue, I promise.
He reads those previous two lines from his supervisor again. And then again once more just to make sure.Even if he can’t remember exactly what his boss looks like enough to form a proper image of the smile, if he’s even smiling, the thought is amusing enough. A pair of steely eyes and a deadpan expression making jokes over company time in a recorded environment—to Victor, it elevates the whole thing into something wild.
YK: We’ve learned from our past mistakes. This chat is legally binding once you agree to the terms of service. You clicked it, so you really can’t sue us now.
VN: You're implying something happened before!?
YK: Of course not…
VN: This is another one of your jokes, right???
YK: No......
This whole thing makes Victor laugh.His stomach settles a little more and the rain outside resorts to the background. Instant messaging is different from texting and Victor has long since grown out of it. Not since the days of keeping up with friends he'd made who would eventually become distant and then become even more distant memories. Instant messaging is instant, but it's both fast and slow at the same time. Victor has this very conscious feeling of sitting down, and there's the feeling of the other person sitting across from him somewhere else. And despite that distance, they're both here and there, together. The time is the same, and so is the moment.
YK: If you don’t want to further incriminate yourself in writing, you can always come talk to me in person. Or if you have concerns about anything else, I’ll be in my office. I’m your supervisor after all.
VN: Oh, yeah! OK, I will. I’ll make sure to come you.
VN: About things.
VN: About whatever I need to come to you about. About possible suing… or anything else.
In the end, his management is… nice. That’s what Victor decides. He decides this from such a short conversation that takes up most of the morning and into the lunch hour of his first day.
YK: Seriously, don’t sue us.
VN: OK.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Tuesday comes softly upon Victor with residual rain from the previous day, giving him an excuse to bring the heavy navy umbrella back to the office. It had performed well for him, and throughout the length of his commute to the office he’d made sure to have his hand on it at all times.April showers bring May flowers, but this time he really has hope for the shower’s end. He has faith the clouds will fall back as they should and the sun shall announce itself by the time late afternoon rolls around. Or so it’s been forecasted to do so on the weather channel.This is Victor’s second day on the job where he meets all the people who had taken yesterday off, coming back from their long weekend, tending to their sick child, or simply having worked from home as it is apparently so common to do. They’re all equally as nice and eager to meet him as the people from yesterday, and Victor doesn’t make the effort to commit a single one of their names to memory.By 11:00 am, he has a spring in his step on the way back to his desk until he passes by the frosted glass office door that remains closed and dark for the second day in a row. It gives him slight pause.“What time does he usually come in?” he asks John as a last resort for an explanation. John’s office is on the other side of the cubicle section Victor sits in. His supervisor, Yuuri, on one side and John on the other.“He’s not in today,” John says monotonously, amongst a swath of paperwork that surrounds all sides of his desk and even the floor. Busy or just disorganized... Victor wonders about that.“Is he sick?”“No, he’s working from home.”“When does he usually come into the office?” Victor pesters, short of straight up requesting that he very much wishes to be supervised. He has to come in sometime, right?John keeps his eyes on the computer, straight and uninterrupted, when he says, “He comes when he wants.” And then in lesser words but all menacing aura: please leave now.Okay, then.None of Victor’s questions feel particularly answered, and he comes out of John’s office with a profound sense of disillusionment. What’s been just reiterated to him is this is the way things are, this is how the machine runs, and to be frank it’s something he doesn’t quite get. Typical office life has always confused him, even though he’s been doing it for a number of years now and it seems to be the same everywhere. People never know how to answer any of his questions completely, there’s a perpetual state of performed busyness that Victor finds annoying and inauthentic, and there’s the certain awkward sliding of himself into an inarticulate process without real rhyme, reason, or adequate assistance from any party.Maybe disillusioned isn’t the right word for this. It’s not quite disappointment, either. That would imply there was something to be expected, and he’s not really like that.With a heaviness, Victor settles in at his desk. The keys of his computer are smooth, the monitor is thin, but the too-bright sunshine from the window just in front of him is distracting. It hurts his eyes. He might have to move his computer to a more shaded part of the desk.The status for his supervisor’s contact on Victor’s messenger has remained online since it was first added the previous day.-This isn’t much of a story.Victor knows that, and the thought is dismal. Every time he signs on, his supervisor’s status is green. And it’s still green by the time he signs off. He assumes that sometime after he’s on his way home, that status will eventually appear offline as well. John’s own status has already gone through a rainbow of colours, busy and even do not disturb at various times throughout the day. Seems like a pain to have to keep updating it but maybe that’s why he always looks like he has too much on his plate.“You catch on quick for a newbie,” someone named Chris says to him. They’d actually met on Victor’s first day somewhere on the other side of the floor where Chris’s desk resides. Whenever they passed by each other in the halls Victor would always get a pleasant smile, but he hadn’t remembered Chris’s name until asking for it again just now.Chris has bright blond hair, droopy eyes, and something of an allure about him as he leans himself casually against the side of Victor’s cubicle, asking him how things have been going so far.Victor’s having the time of his life. He’s wearing a nice suit today and it’s a clean pinstripe grey.“I wasn’t expecting this to be my dream job or anything,” Victor laments, shaking his head and leaning back into his chair. “I know I haven’t been here long but—god. And don’t tell anyone I’m saying any of this. All I’m asking for is a little excitement, maybe.” He whispers that last part like that’s the most scandalous thing he’s said.“You want to be busy? You don’t want that,” Chris assures him, fanning himself with his hand like it’s already been a hard day’s work at 9:30. “I’ll let you in on some advice. Free of charge. Keep your head low, alright? Otherwise people will be coming to you for everything and then that’ll be you. You’ll be that bitch. That’s the kind of free you don’t want, trust me. Come in on time and leave exactly on time and people will subconsciously think you’re a lazy piece of shit but won’t be able to pin the numbers on you. Better yet, don’t even come in. Then, don’t even answer your messages. Nobody around here answers any of their fucking messages. It’s not like we’re a team or anything. But I have to give credit where credit’s due. Our MSN rip off is always reminding me it’s the glorious year of 2006. Bless.”Victor smothers his laughter into his hand so it doesn’t pick up throughout the office. “Spare me in your next spree, thanks. I have plans for my life.”“Do you? Well, it’s fine. I’ve reset back to zero after letting all that out. Thanks for listening. I’ll come back when I’m getting close again.”“That’s all well and good to know. But are you telling me that email is actually the way to get things done around here?”“Sometimes it is. When you make sure to Cc the important people. Nobody wants a paper trail on them.”“Can I add you on the MSN rip off?”“You can’t. Also, fuck off.”“And I heard the instant messenger is legally binding. I might’ve been threatened with it already but that’s besides the point. Pretty sure that’s the very definition of a paper trail.”“Victor, darling, darling, darling…” Chris practically mewls as he throws his head back like he’s never heard anything funnier. Then he leans a hand onto the top of Victor’s desk, blowing a piece of hair from his face, and staring Victor right in the eye with his absolutely unimpressed droopy eyes. “There’s nothing legal about this place. Of course, nobody’ll care about anything we talk about.”He leaves it at that, which worries Victor just a little. But when Chris is gone, Victor has the chance to add him to the messenger nevertheless.This request is also accepted without hesitation. Victor still can’t tell whether it’s the system accepting it automatically or if Chris is already back at his desk taking no heed to his own words. The seven years of experience here that Chris holds over Victor has undoubtedly turned him into something of a maniac.Unlike both John and Yuuri, Chris’s status seems perpetually set to yellow—away. Victor is highly skeptical what the different statuses are supposed to accomplish, realistically. If he has to message someone, he will. Regardless of their status, whether or not they respond back.
YK: Victor, could you send me the final sales numbers?
VN: Sure, for which one?
YK: Ending in 02.
It’s been how many days and he still hasn’t met his supervisor properly in person yet. They communicate primarily through messenger, sometimes through email but to a lesser degree. It’s not that Victor has a big problem with this. His supervisor can do whatever he likes, come in whenever he likes, ask of Victor whatever he likes.
VN: [Attached]
YK: Have you converted the last two columns? They look unchanged.
VN: I didn’t know what you wanted me to do with those.
YK: Convert them.
But he can’t help wanting to put a face to the name at the very least. The last bits of memory left in his head have deteriorated through several levels of obscurity over time.
VN: How do you do that?
YK: Use this: [Formula]
VN: Sorry, I don’t know how to do this…
Victor isn’t a stupid man, but is it so bad of him to want to walk physically into his boss’s office, to see his face and be in his presence and then get the answers he needs? He’s never wanted anything more at this point.On the table beside him, he has Yuuri Katsuki—Super written on a piece of paper and underneath it the respective contact information including email and work number he can be reached at. It wasn’t actually given to Victor by anyone. He’d manually searched for it and eventually gotten it off the address book associated with the email program that lists everyone in the company. Victor is so close to picking up the phone and dialing the number he has there in an attempt to be assertive and maybe a little bit forward, but then remembers it would probably lead to the office that’s been empty and dark for as long as Victor has been here.He jumps when the phone at his desk suddenly rings, displaying on its tiny screen a series of numbers instead of a name. Victor doesn’t have anyone’s number memorized, not even family or friends, so he wouldn’t be able to recognize it even if it’s someone he knows. It's his very first phone call at this job, so he picks up the receiver with a rather confused, “Hello?”A quiet, crisp voice comes over the line.
“You haven’t used this formula before?”
Victor pauses, and then in his polite voice says, “...This is Victor speaking.”“I hired you because I thought it said Excel on your resume.”“I do know Excel," he says huffily. "But I don’t know how to use all possible Excel formulas.”“Why not? ”“Uh…”Is Victor a computer?The voice isn’t exactly frustrated with him. In fact, it sounds as if all of this is menial and could be done easily by his supervisor’s own hand. But he’s teasing. And, likely, he’s doing this for Victor’s benefit, to let him learn, to give him a new skill, or for him to be delegated the work that can be handed off and become part of his duties. In that case, he’s grateful. He’ll do his best to learn.“Are you calling on your personal number?” Victor asks distractedly, the thought just coming to him. “It didn’t say your name.”“This is my cell phone.”“Did the company give it to you?”“It’s my personal cell phone. They don’t give phones to supervisors. Only managers and above.”“You work from home so much but they don’t give you a phone?”“Don’t ask me how that works.”“Would you want one?”“I suppose… honestly, if you need help with the formula then just ask me. That’s what I’m here for.”“How come you know my number at work? You called so quickly.”There’s another silent pause. During this time while Victor is waiting for the answer, he uses his other hand to copy the formula from the chat to the spreadsheet. Math has never been Victor’s strong suit, and simply putting two and two together doesn’t usually get him anywhere.“...I got it off the address book.”The answer ends up being a simple one. It’s not like his supervisor doesn’t have access to his work email at home. Victor glances down at his own piece of paper on the desk with the number he’d scribbled at the top of it. It's not the one that's currently being used to call him. “Oh. Right. I forgot you could look it up like that.”They go through the formula, and other formulas, as well as sales figures in excruciating detail for the rest of the call. It lasts an hour and a half, or something like that, and eats into Victor’s lunch by forty minutes or so. But by then, he has a spreadsheet filled with complicated numbers that have been drilled into him.Instead of growing impatient as morning turns to afternoon, his supervisor’s voice only gets gentler and gentler. Even if it’s a little awkward sometimes. Victor overthinks whether or not his loud and heavy-handed breathing can be heard through the phone, every time he hums confusedly over an equation, whenever he bites the tip of his tongue, even. It’s possible the periods of silence on the other side are a result of Yuuri nearly dozing off at several points during the call when Victor attempts to substitute something on his own—after which he reports the results to a rather sleepy-sounding, “Hm? Ah, yeah. That’s good. That’s very good.”Their lunch hour is flexible so Victor will still take his hour, but his stomach has started making awful rumbly sounds. He might’ve asked his supervisor out for a bite to eat somewhere around here—if he were here. And if his supervisor were up to it.“I’ll let you go then. Take your lunch,” Yuuri says in a breathy voice, sounding like he may be stretching back in his chair. “You asked a lot of good questions, though. I’m impressed.”Victor delights, shifting the phone over to his other ear. “Well, you answered them all so it goes both ways.”“Was all of it helpful?”“You were very helpful.”Victor saves and closes the document, feeling newly refreshed. This day feels more productive than all the other ones combined, and the conversation was so casual he’s actually rather relaxed. The screen showing the length of the call goes onwards of 1:42:07... 1:42:08… and getting close to finally setting the receiver to rest feels like the closing of a large and important and sacred chapter.“I’ll talk to you later then,” Yuuri says eventually.“Yes,” Victor replies, blinking in tune with the passing seconds until he thinks of what to say next. “Thanks! For today. I’ll see you… tomorrow?”The last word is a Freudian slip, coming out of Victor as both unintentional and unconscious desire. Tomorrow is Friday and all evidence provided thus far should lead to the most sensible conclusion—being that nobody takes off work all week only to come in on a Friday. It’s simply not done.So, naturally, the last thing Victor hears is:“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The restlessness with which Victor finds himself in manages to carry him again to the next day. Lately, it’s been trailing him. He’s sleeping with it, waking with it, and taking it everywhere. And he doesn’t realize this just yet, but it’s what will carry him throughout all the rest of his days. This incredibly efficient motivator, and suppressant. It alternates between the two at odd times irrespective of his mood. For one—it will cause him to move forward and ever forward, desperate not to remain in place for unfounded fear of what will happen if he does. And for another—in contradiction—he’ll oftentimes be too consumed with a dizziness to do anything at all.He’s not necessarily happy nor excited, not expectant nor anticipative. But he does have this sense that something will happen no matter what. He can’t shake the feeling.It’s 8:45 again. He offers a rousing good morning to everyone he knows on his way through the office to his desk, and he says it as well to people he happens to come across but doesn’t recognize at all, who may not even be from this floor, but it would only be polite of him to greet them as well.By 9:30, he’s at the printer fervently making copies in place of being at his desk. He taps his foot, every so often having to catch some of the sheets before they hit the floor because they have the tendency to shoot out the side at an angle that lets them slip off the ledge where they’re supposed to stay. The first copy Victor makes as a test shoots out from the printer like a bullet and hits the wall before sliding down the crack between the wall and the table, seemingly gone.Victor had stood there so completely dumbfounded by this that it prompts him to go around the office inquiring if the printer was broken. Or, maybe not quite broken but dysfunctional or defective in some capacity. Most everyone he asks about this give him strange and confused looks, believing it to be working fine for them until then. It’s only until one guy, wearing dark jeans and a hoodie in the office, reveals to him that the printer does this about 1% of the time, and the rest of the time the papers slip out the sides at a rate of about 25%. This, he informs Victor with a deep sort of listlessness, is completely normal printer behaviour.“Don’t listen to anyone here,” Chris angry-whispers at him, when Victor reports to him his absurd collective findings.“I have to make these copies for Yuuri, though.” Victor had been ordered to through the messenger.“Punch in three times as many as you need in the printer and take what comes out. Leave the rest. That’s the only way to do it.”Victor frowns. “That seems like an incredible waste of paper.”“Gotta do what you gotta do. Company resources aren’t your problem. Anyway—you’ve been so working hard. Let’s go get coffee.”“Wh… I really have to make these copies…”“Set the printer for three hundred and we’ll come back for them.”Without much of a choice, Victor is back in the printer room. Though, coffee sounds nice right now. He secretly inputs only 150 copies even though he’s positive he doesn’t need that many.He can hear Chris announce across the entire row of cubicles that he and Victor will be downstairs on their break getting coffees and not to look for them for the next fifteen minutes. There’s the implicit assumption that they’ll be getting them for everyone, which sounds like a task that Victor is not really up for, but Chris doesn’t seem to bother getting anyone’s orders because he’s fetching Victor from the room telling him to hurry up just as the printer starts whirring to life.-As they cross the chilly parking lot on a short cut to the nearest chain coffee shop, Victor buries himself into the contents of his scarf, shoving his hands far into his pockets.Despite being spring, the cold is too much for him. He can no longer take it. He’s wanted to get things off his chest for a while now, and this is the only way he knows how—talking as much as he can fit in one stream of consciousness for the next ten minutes, with Chris nodding along at every interval. Victor’s not sure if he’s making sense, if his words are being parsed correctly, or if the wind is chopping them in half before they can cross the space from him to Chris. But for once, he feels like he’s talking to someone who isn’t actually all that bad.“So, in your delirium, you accepted an offer that didn’t seem half bad. There’s no logical sense to it. Not from their end nor from you,” Chris somehow reasons. “You do have a sort of Armani look about you, you absolute bastard. Despite your shit interview skills, you took advantage of our precious supervisor. Think of poor him having to explain to the HR reps.”“You’re going after me for this, after all?” Victor says with incredulity.“You accepted the job.”“Of course I did.”“You didn’t have to.”“Of course I didn’t have to. No one has to do anything. He didn’t have to put me through.”“Are you on Instagram?” Chris inquires.“Yes.”“Famous?”“Not even a little.”“Do you do porn?”“...Are you seriously asking me that?” Victor shivers even as the warmth from the shop hits him upon entrance.He’s never not accepted a job offer in his life.This time, the delirium he experienced is one part of what informed his decision. But it probably wouldn’t have mattered in the end. Always in the back of his mind, he finds comfort in the things that don’t end up working out, in the way that he can always submit his resignation if he wants, whenever he wants, and never look back on it. One day he can drop everything and never see any of coworkers ever again. It isn’t such a big deal to him. He'll find another job. He'll live another life. This is the sort of blind faith in himself and in things being okay that keeps him steady.Without any sort of consultation with Victor, Chris walks over to the counter in two quick strides to tell the barista, “Two medium Americanos. One medium dark roast.”Catching up, Victor wonders how on Earth Chris knows that he’s fond of Americanos. He can barely keep up with Chris’s rapid-fire pace. “Who’s the dark roast for?”“For the supervisor who you thank the sun and all your lucky stars for plopping this job into your hands.” Chris rolls his eyes like that much should be obvious, hitting the back of his hand against Victor’s forearm in a kind of brotherly encouragement. “From you. He likes a little sugar.”“Oh… okay.”Chris takes out his wallet before Victor can even react. “It’s fine. I got it.”“Are you sure?”“Yeah, it’s easier.”“Does everyone only do what’s easiest around here?” Victor asks, legitimately.“Speak for yourself. Just make sure to get the next one, okay?” Chris gives him an eye-catching smile. And then, almost like before he forgets, he tells Victor, “Don’t quit by Monday before you do. I think I’d like a specialty coffee.”-Coming back to a mess of papers all over the floor of the printer room, Victor now has his arm up to his shoulder between the table and the wall, after having moved the table over as much as he could, which wasn’t much, and tries his best to reach the papers that have fallen into the crevice. He now bears a responsibility for all of them, and, despite specific instructions from Chris, doesn’t feel like he can just leave them there.Carrying the hundred-fifty or so copies in his arms back to his desk is a task that takes him way longer to do than he cares to admit because he has to refill the printer tray three times.On the way back, he passes by the secluded office door that was once closed and dark for seemingly days on end, now with an unfamiliar light on, open and inviting. The delicate sounds of typing and clicking can be heard from in there, and Victor, firmly clutching the copies to himself, feels so silly standing out here, off to the side and just out of sight like this.Without thinking, he ducks his head and scurries by the office as quickly as he can without saying anything.
VN: The printer isn’t working.
YK: Really? It was working earlier.
VN: Yeah, no, I just tried.
YK: I’ll check it out.
Victor counts to ten, picking up the stack of hundred and fifty copies, and walks the several paces over to his supervisor’s office. He inches up to the door, heart beating, peeking inside. It’s empty.Both the desktop computer and a laptop are open at the same time, and stacks of paper and other documents occupy every other space of the desk. A blue thermos mug sits next to the laptop’s keyboard, but Victor can’t tell what’s in it.He places the copies on Yuuri’s chair, and rushes out.
VN: Never mind, I forgot to refill the paper tray.
For the remainder of the morning, the two cups of coffee sit idly on Victor desk but he’s already forgotten which of the two cups has sugar in it.-“What’s on your mind?”Victor lays his head back on the metal bench, arms stretched out, legs stretched, kissing the lip of the cigarette he holds to his mouth. He’s just outside the building, underneath the shaded overhead and off to the side where they put the cigarette disposals.“Nothing,” Victor replies. It’s a nice sunny, cloudless day today. A change from earlier in the week.“You look like you’re thinking real hard about something,” John says, squinting from the sunlight. He stands off to the side and scrolls mindlessly through his phone. The cigarette he’s holding is in the same hand.“I’m a bad worker,” Victor admits dully. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”“What? What do you mean?”When Victor doesn’t respond to that, claiming it’s all just a joke, and shrugging off the several prompts afterwards for elaboration, eventually John gives up. Victor feels absolutely no responsibility to John, despite technically being under him in the bureaucratic hierarchy. He runs the whole floor, but Victor doesn’t report directly to him, making their relationship something akin to water from separate ponds.John ends up changing the subject. “You know, your supervisor, Yuuri, is in today. Surprised the guy had it in him to come on a Friday after being away all week.”“That’s what I was thinking, too.”“I woulda just skipped the day. No harm in that.”“Same.”“Funny how you’re only meeting him now. Did you say hi to him yet?”“Not yet.”“Oh, never mind. You guys have already met. At your interview, right?”“Yeah.”Time had escaped him—that’s what Victor would like to say, or have himself believe. But that’s not entirely accurate. When he thinks of himself, really thinks about the way he’d behaved, he wants to cry out in frustration. The inarticulate, unflattering state of himself is nigh unbearable. In front of his boss, he doesn’t want to seem… out of sorts. And not just that. There’s something else.If they had bumped into each other in the hallways or on the floor somewhere or in the washrooms or somewhere else, but god forbid it be the washrooms, then there would be no avoiding it. Victor would have put on his best face, put out his best hand, and introduced himself like normal. He probably would have done it even a little jokingly because, like John said, they’ve already met and they’ve already chatted like they’re good friends. So, where’s the problem? What’s left?Victor takes another drag, staring forward towards the bustling street in front. “What’s he like?”“What’s he like?” John repeats in confusion.“Like… personality-wise?” Victor is curious. Things like—he likes a little sugar in his coffee. But when John only looks blankly at him, not appearing to have an immediate answer to that, Victor switches it to, “Work style, then?”“Hmmm…”This doesn’t appear to make it any easier, with John not looking particularly happy to have to be thinking about this at all. He doesn’t divert much attention from his phone.All he manages to come up with is, “He doesn’t smoke so I don’t know him that well.”“You only know people who smoke?” Victor snorts through his dry throat.“Actually, I do, alright? I find him… a little scary,” John admits. “He doesn’t seem to like talking to me.”“Really? How long have you guys known each other?”“Not that long. We’re strictly work professional. If you want any more than that, let me tell you, all the most important conversations happen when two guys are out having a smoke together. How can I get to know him if we can’t bond over a smoke?”“You could be on a Marlboro commercial with that.”“Because of my dashing Hollywood looks?”“Because you sound like right out of the ‘50s.”John clicks his tongue, sucking in through his teeth at that assumption. Of course, there isn’t much delicacy in so straight-forwardly telling someone their fate is to die at forty from lung cancer.“It’s his loss,” John says without much of a care, tapping the ash from his cigarette. “Can’t expect to move up if you don’t network. None us like doing it but you gotta do what you gotta do.”“Is that what this is? Networking?” Victor says.“Yeah, you’ve got the right idea. Getting schmoozy with management. I’m only joking, of course. Well, let's say half-joking. I can tell already you’re a decent guy. You're not fucking crazy, like this one guy who dismantled the vending machine and rearranged all the filing cabinets at night when everyone was gone, and honestly not doing that is all I ask for around here. You seem like a good worker so just keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll go places.”“Er…”Victor breathes out through his nose, resting the dainty part of his wrist with the cigarette between his fingers against the metal arm of the bench. He nearly blurts out that he’s trying to quit smoking out of an abundance of caution because the thought of himself suffocating on his own saliva one of these days is too gruesome to entertain. Talking about quitting now wouldn’t be to anyone’s surprise, however. Without having to hear it, the conversation goes as follows in typical echoing fashion: ‘How's progress going?’, to which he would reply, equally echoey: ‘There is none.’ Except John wouldn’t ask him about something like that, wouldn’t care to.The word he’d missed from earlier is confrontational. Victor doesn’t want to seem confrontational, or crazy, in front of his management. There may have once been a time where he would’ve done whatever he wanted without thinking twice about it. And still, he imagines that there’s a time and a place somewhere out there where a version of him is like this, doing this in some capacity. This version of him has agency and a purpose and a sense of being. He doesn’t hesitate or believe in some uncanny feeling of emotional death when he has a temporary loss of bodily control for a few days.This him isn’t lonely or lost. He has wants, beliefs, desires; an intimacy with others and himself. When he thinks of something, he commits to it.And yet—the version of Victor who is here now has a perpetual restlessness about optics and even more about not getting the answers to questions that he hasn’t even asked yet, of which he doesn’t have the confidence to know how to properly formulate. He carries on a smoking habit for the sole reason that he hasn’t quit yet.“Better head on up then,” John says, implying a not so subtle ‘we’ in there. He takes one last puff of his cigarette before stamping it out in the ashtray. “Those guys can’t run themselves up there, eh?”“Yeah.” Victor gets off the bench, doing the same. He doesn’t want to go back up.He has to repeat certain things to himself in a kind of mantra: he will learn to forgive himself for not acting soon enough, for not acting well enough, for not being good enough—eventually.-Just like that, Victor walks out of there late Friday afternoon with everything still intact. He survives his first week, having gone to the bathroom six times but that couldn’t be helped, and he pats himself on the back for it. These sorts of small victories are worth celebrating (there’s a glass of wine waiting at home for him).“Hold it, please.”Before the elevator doors in front of him have a chance to close, Victor reaches out to press the button that opens them up again, until someone rushes in to stand beside him. They say a quick thanks, and Victor switches to closing the doors again. He doesn’t have any plans for the weekend, except if he remembers it right he thinks dog food looked to be on sale in this week’s flyer.“How was your first week?”To be honest, there was a lot on Victor's mind. “It… was… fine.”They’re not on a high floor so the ride down is quick. There isn’t any music playing, not even to fill the space, and the rumbling is faint until the elevator dings on the ground floor.“You didn’t come say hi to me once. Even though I came in today.”The first glance over causes Victor to avert his eyes in the very next moment. He'd been so careful all day. His memory is inarticulate, but his instincts run for him. The side profile is all he can see, a little bit shorter than him—but only by a little bit. The glasses that sit on the bridge of his supervisor's nose as he faces forward, and eventually as he passes by Victor to take his leave from the elevator first, they help to carry him with an air of dignity even as he inquires such a thing from Victor and yet doesn’t wait for the answer.What is it? What is it about you? Victor implores. The caffeine, in amounts he’s not used to, is still racketing through his veins.“Sorry,” Victor blurts, following out of the elevator and trailing a few paces behind on the lobby floor. Someone had told him before never to apologize in a work environment. It's better to misunderstand the instructions. To promise to do better. Apologies aren't conducive to productivity.“Were you avoiding me?” Yuuri asks, despite not looking at him and continuing on forward.“No…”“I thought we’d have broken the ice by now.”“Yeah…” Victor doesn’t deny that.“Then why? I’m doing my best here, as your supervisor.”They’re past the revolving doors and are standing outside the building now, as Yuuri confronts him. They face each other. He really is so young, too young to be the supervisor of a team of malcontent office workers. But Yuuri’s eyes don’t let him go, like when they were sitting across the table from each other, except Victor doesn’t have any excuses to give now. He feels more judged at this moment than before and he probably deserves it. They have certain responsibilities to each other, as supervisor, as employee.“Why did you hire me?” Victor asks finally, now that he’s no longer technically on work premises and he can be free with what he wants. He desires an answer so he can stop all this unfair behaviour. Do they know each other from somewhere? Did they have classes together? Did they have a fling at some time, at some place, when Victor was out of his mind, careless and stupid as he used to be, and that’s why he feels like he’s going crazy from the physical pull he feels. He feels completely out of control of himself. Nothing makes much sense.The answer Yuuri gives is exactly what Victor would’ve expected, probably what would've been told to HR, so it’s abridged and to the point. “We’re short staffed and you had a good resume." And then Yuuri adds, seemingly only for Victor's ears, "Do you know how many people know Excel? Almost no one.”Something comes bubbling from behind Victor’s lip. “That isn’t even the least bit believable.”So, Yuuri keeps going, his eyes dancing and fixed on Victor. “I felt bad for you. In fact, I pitied you."“That sounds more like it,” Victor breathes."If I gave you everything you wanted, there was no doubt in my mind that you would work your ass off for me.”Victor chokes.Because Yuuri remains standing there hanging on to Victor after hours on a Friday, even if just for a little bit, just to have him understand, instead of heading off home or wherever it is he's going after this. It's like he’s compelled to do so through the sheer inability to control himself from adding more and more to his story—if all of it, any of it, is even true. With Yuuri, it feels like there’s always going to be more, no matter how weird and strange things ends up being, how truthful any of it is, and how long Victor could be standing here, waiting all night, just to hear more from him.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“He’s not in today,” John tells him on autopilot without batting an eyelash. He’s in the same upright typing position at his desk, as if he hasn’t moved all week, since the last time Victor saw him. It's the same every single day without change—paperwork stacked up high and high and high and a frenetic energy masked as substance and air that's deathly silent.“That’s not what I was going to ask,” Victor says stubbornly. “Is Chris in today?”“Of course he is.”“Of course.”“He’s in everyday,” John says with a lilt, suspecting Victor might be being sarcastic with him.But Victor isn’t at all being sarcastic with him, which is why he firmly says, “I believe you.” And goes to head out the door. It almost feels like being stuck in a time loop, or stopped time, with the camera framing the most sporadic action in a frozen 360 degrees, except that everyone is aware at the same time and knows and remembers everything about it and it's all fine. Nobody has the motivation to do a thing about it.“Hey, are you married?”The question posed forces him to stop in his tracks, and it's so far out of left field that Victor has the brief thought that it should be illegal to ask. “No, why?”“I haven’t heard you asking about where any of the girls are in the office yet.”John merely looks to Victor for a simple answer, but a million and one things run through Victor’s head on the proper way to answer this.It’s a joke—that’s what John’s slightly upturned eyebrows and innocently questioning tone projects. But there's something improper about it. Maybe it's the way John keeps glancing at the framed photo of him and his wife on their wedding day sitting on his desk, and how Victor really couldn't care less. She has short black hair in the photo and she's beautiful. They must be happy together.“That’s because I’ve been wondering about my supervisor, you know, so I can be supervised,” Victor says testily, but tries not to make it sound like he's feeling tested. “I don’t view the office as my personal dating field.”“Haha, it was just a joke.”Of course it was. “Okay, thanks. I’ll talk to you later then.”Without waiting for an answer, Victor makes the roundabout trek to Chris’s desk across the floor.He purposely goes that way because there’s a twinge every time Victor passes by Yuuri’s darkened office, as if there’s some part of him that doesn’t quite fully believe there’s no one actually in there at this time, or won’t ever be at some point through the rest of the day. When he talks with Yuuri on the messenger and reads the responses, prompt and casual like nothing’s wrong, it feels like he’s right here, giving Victor things to do, just off and over to the side.Yet for some reason Victor still feels the need to ask about it.“Come on, let’s get you your fancy latte,” Victor says to Chris who actually seems busy for once, hunched over his keyboard. “Come on, come on. I’ll pay. My treat.”Chris turns a one-eighty in his chair and drops what he’s doing. “Oh, thank god. You made it just in time. I was about to start working.”The walk is cool but not brutally so. He’d already paid for Chris’s specialty drink on Monday, so when Victor offers to pay for a bagel with cream cheese or a croissant or something else too, Chris gets skeptical. He’s a glutton, not one to refuse, but still skeptical. “You’re in a good mood today.”“I’m normal,” Victor insists.“Did something good happen?”“No.”“Did something good happen last night?”“No.”Mindlessly, Victor takes this time to note Chris in his designer scarf around his neck and dark denim jacket with white fur on the collar. It’s rather stylish despite taking it all off for when he’s in the office and then he’s wearing a shirt and tie like the rest of them. There isn’t a ring on his finger.“That reminds me. Are you single?”When Victor brings this up so casually during their wait for their drinks, Chris doesn’t flinch at all. He doesn’t do anything except for look over at Victor, in silent regard, judgement, potential assessment—Victor can’t tell which it is. But the pause, for as long as it is, doesn’t tend to mean anything good, in Victor’s own experience.Then Chris laughs. “I didn’t know you were the type.”It confuses Victor to hear that. “To be that way?”“To date coworkers,” Chris says.“It was just a question.”“I’m not single, then. Sorry.”“Oh.” Victor takes his Americano from the counter when he’s called over for it, taking a sip, as they continue waiting for Chris’s breakfast croissant to be warmed up. The liquid swishes around in his mouth as he tastes it. “Somehow I knew you weren’t…”“You knew I wasn’t? Then why’d you ask?” Chris nearly laughs at him again.“Just being polite.”“Asking if I'm married is being polite. Asking if I’m single is an offer.”“I’m lonely, okay?” Victor says with a breath and a little too much sobriety. “Profoundly, achingly, stupidly lonely. It depresses me to keep thinking about it and yet nothing changes and the thoughts don't stop. Like there isn’t anything else I could possibly want to do these days and with the rest of my life? Love? Sex? Everything in between? Will those things even be fulfilling enough for me, or is there something else entirely that I haven’t thought of yet? The universe is conspiring against me and I’m undeserving. I really don’t know why we have to be built like this—with desires and urges and endless nonsense fantasies. It’s exhausting and I’m at my wit’s end.”Chris sighs and places a hand on Victor’s shoulder, rubbing it in sympathy. “I understand how you feel. But, you know, maybe it’s because you have terrible judgement, like to think you and I would ever work at all. No offence. There’s something really wrong there.”“I guess. Also, the third person in this might make things a little awkward.”“We’re open. So, the awkward wouldn’t be with them.”When the butter croissant is ready, the little brown bag gets put into Chris’s jacket pocket before his fancy latte is taken. Chris gives Victor a look and takes his hand with purpose as they hurriedly walk out of the coffee shop.Back through the parking lot, sliding between some cars, and heading near the wall of their office building somewhere in the back, Chris lets go of his hand. They’re both still carrying drinks, as Chris leads Victor to the wall, back against it. He looks around, both ways, and behind him, before coming back to Victor.Somehow, Chris’s voice drops low, dragging his gaze from Victor’s eyes to his lips to even further below. “What was your first kiss like?” he asks Victor with some amount of curiosity, taking a sip from his latte.“Kinda bad,” Victor admits without thinking. He looks side to side as well, a little stunned at the situation. There’s no one around at all. No one hangs around the office outside, like the good drones they are.“What about your second kiss?” Chris prompts.“Kinda bad, as well.”“Have all your kisses been bad?”“Mm, pretty much.”“I feel sorry for you.”“Thanks.”Chris rubs at his eyes in contemplation of some kind. “Were they with girls?”“Does that matter?”“...Probably not.”Chris moves the coffee in his right hand out of the way when he comes in closer, and the overpowering scent of Chris’s cologne, alluring and sexy, has Victor doing the same in the other direction, holding his arm out and away to be safe.He knows what’s happening before it happens. When Chris takes hold of his chin, lifting his face and holding him still, Victor knows what’s happening as it’s happening.Chris gives him an airy kiss, light and surface-level with lots of space. It’s frothy. Chris moves his lips a little, in sweet, small gestures, just enough to try and coax a response from Victor. It's nice. But Victor can't concentrate much, letting it play out however it does. He's paying too much attention to the air and the space around them, and the coffee cup grows heavier and heavier in his hand like weighted rocks, to the point that he’s darting around, not able to focus at all. He takes it for what it is, somewhat comfortable and friendly, too reserved for how Chris probably really is, and with the prevailing thoughts that someone else is already in this place, someone who belongs here, and who cherishes being here—more than Victor does and ever will.Chris is the one who pulls off, ending the moment between them. He immediately licks his lips and takes one more quick glance around them just to be sure. Victor, too, has a sudden urge welling up in him. He reaches for his tube of lip balm from his back pocket, flipping the cap off with his thumb, and then re-coats his lips with it. Chris watches him do so with a look of amusement.“How about that?” Chris asks, with the hint of a purr but it's laid back. Victor’s kiss number whatever.“It was…” Victor thinks hard about it, rummaging around in his brain to find the right phrasing, and putting the balm back in his pocket. The words he manages to come up with are: “...not great.”He tries to say it like he’s actually surprised by it this time.But Chris isn’t offended. It’s like he’d expected it all along, ever so casual. “Yeah.”He smiles again, genuinely, giving Victor another comforting squeeze on the shoulder in a moment of mutual understanding: this is the way it was destined to be.It’s the touch that really gets Victor. This small touch is more intimate than the kiss, closer and more purposeful, in all the right places, and Victor’s heart flutters from it, but it’s for all the wrong reasons. This isn’t even what he was asking for at all in the first place. Perhaps he can't actually get the things he wants, really deeply wants, simply by yelling them out loud and hoping that someone will come along knowing exactly who he is and what he's all about enough to put him at ease for all the rest of eternity. It just doesn't work that way.And hoping for something to blossom when he confines his only interactions to a dismal office setting—it's entirely nonsensical. He's kidding himself. He should know better. He may lust and long for love as much and as long as he likes, all the while knowing explicitly that he's hopeless for anything to come about. And yet, the way he still attempts and attempts at something that doesn't change, getting his hopes up—that's idiotic. That's his detriment. That's his utter downfall.Their walk back to the office and the ride in the elevator to their floor has Victor silent, as Chris makes a quick phone call beside him, talking of what he’d just done and with who, along with reassurances that he did it to help a friend—as if the other person would know or would find out somehow about what he and Chris had done even without having been there. Victor is a little embarrassed to be the one in the story, hearing it now out loud from this perspective.But Chris is blisteringly cool and honest about it. As the ‘friend’ in this situation, Victor wonders just what the sort of relationship Chris and his partner entails, or what the sort of agreements are on what they can and cannot do with other people. From the phone call, it sounds like Chris is forgiven, or maybe there had been no problem at all right from the get-go.Chris’s last request to him before they reenter the office is to not make this weird between them. And Victor agrees—he doesn’t want this to be weird.It’s not illegal to have an affair with a colleague, if a little short lived, after all.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Victor wakes at 7 to static grey and lies idly in bed for fifteen minutes.The course of the rest of his day starts with these fifteen minutes, dependent on the number of alarms he silences forcefully and on whether or not he dozes off back to sleep for the sake of dreams that make him feel more and more like waking from comatose. He’d forgotten to close the blinds from the night before, having been distracted from sunset through sundown and late into the night until he lets himself fall asleep. And so, the severity of the morning sun is a rude and brutal stabbing at every angle.There’s no breakfast except for breakfast TV and kibble for his dog. The steady voices of the news hosts are part of what help to wake him, playing on a loud enough volume so that they can’t be ignored as he traverses back and forth throughout the rooms of his apartment. But it remains background noise to his routine of soft pink lip balm that tastes as good as it smells, the padding of his happy dog’s feet following him, and the old, crackling air humidifier that doesn’t work half as well as it used to.It’s only on his way out the door that he tends to remember something he’d forgotten. Like just now, Victor notices the leaves of one of his house plants browning and drooping down over the edge of the pot. He feels the leaf with two of his fingers, his other hand pulling through the arm of his coat. It’s confusing because he’d given it water what seemed like only a few days ago and it hadn’t complained until now, growing fruitfully. It’s supposed to be a rather hardy thing.He steps out onto the balcony with the potted plant carefully held from the bottom between his two palms, shifting to one hand so as to sweep away debris; the dozens of used notebook pages weighted down with various objects on the floor and dried leaves of previous plants’ unfortunate lives from the railing. “Be careful with it. It’s on its last days,” he relays to his haughty dog who’d followed him out, whose tongue is out with an innocent curiosity and tail swishing back and forth so hard it hits the edge of the sliding door on every motion.This, above everything else, is what dictates the rest of Victor’s day, making him late to the office by ten minutes.It’s just this plant, he explains to people. It’s working so hard. Victor’s trying to make sure it gets all that it needs: water, air, sunlight, shelter. It doesn’t take a lot, and doesn’t have a lot to give. But still, for unknown reasons of which Victor could spend all day thinking about and never understand, it may decide on its own not to go on any longer, and it would be out of his hands.But Victor’s grown up with the idea that if he puts all of his most precious things outside onto the balcony, airs them out, prays and hopes and maybe some more, then perhaps something miraculous will happen.-When John comes around to Victor’s neck of the woods offering to go for a smoke break together, Victor lies and says he’s already gone for one. It doesn’t hurt him to say this, eliciting a look of disappointment from John, and there’s the hint of a smirk from him that says: you don’t have to be so honest next time.His honesty brings him a few minutes later into the building elevator, by himself. Victor presses down on a button labelled ‘Balcony’ situated above the rows of all the other buttons. The outside ring of the button glows bright white when it’s pressed. It’s mysterious and tempting, in the way that a lot of unknown things are to Victor, things of a nature that he has never done or tried before, and wants to know about so badly, even if it kills him, always pulling him into doing things he probably shouldn’t be doing. The limits of potential off-limits don’t hold him back, nor do any consequential consequences. So, he rides past every storey of the building without a single restraining thought.When the elevator doors ding and open, there’s a tiny hallway, and stairs, and another door; smooth steel and heavy and spectacularly unlocked. The bottom of the door drags roughly against the floor, and it sticks. He has to pull it shut behind him once he’s on the other side.The outdoor courtyard he comes across is a lovely concrete piece. Victor can see the blue sky, wide and open. It comes to his sudden realization that working for one of the tallest skyscrapers in the city means there’s a skyline. The buildings around him look tiny and insignificant and Victor feels almost bad for them. There’s chain link safety fencing on all sides, with scattered smoke grates and chimneys protruding upwards across the ground.Victor thinks he has the place all to himself, taking a few steps forward into a wind that breezes past him.Off to the inconspicuous side, there’s a white-painted wooden bench under the cover of shade provided by one protruding smoke tower. The feet of the person sitting there are propped up on the paired table in front, with a laptop comfortably on their lap. They’re wearing dark rectangular sunglasses and slouching down so far their head is hanging over the back of the bench.Victor squints from the bright sunshine, holding a hand over his forehead for shade. “What are you doing here?” he asks incredulously.Yuuri lifts his head up, turning. Victor can’t tell what expression he’s making.“I’m working.”He doesn’t seem to be lying about that. There’s a thick open binder spread on the table filled with signed worksheets, things stapled together, elasticked together, and sticking out at odd angles. Leaning against one of the legs of the table, on Yuuri’s side, is a formal brown leather messenger bag.His clothing is too casual—Victor notices. Not extremely fit for office. The Ray-bans he’s wearing have to be prescription.“Sure,” Victor says, watching the wind blow through the sheets ruffling about all strategically weighted down. “But, if I may ask, what are you doing here?”“When it’s nice out, I come here.”“Mmhm.” Victor hums in a confused acceptance. “Were you in at all today?”“Did you see me?” Yuuri says curiously.“I couldn’t have if you weren’t there,” Victor surmises.“I suppose not.”Victor’s eyebrows knit together, even as Yuuri raises his own brows back, above the rims of his sunglasses. He’s being awfully cute about this. “I distinctly remember you not being in the office even when the weather’s not so nice.”Victor can see Yuuri’s eyes peeking up at him. “When the weather’s bad, I’ll go somewhere else entirely.”“Oh… you don’t plan on going in at all today?”“I won’t if I can help it.”“What about on Fridays? You came in last Friday.”Yuuri shrugs.Victor doesn’t know if that means one thing or another. “Mondays?”Yuuri makes a clear scoff at that, akin to throwing up.That has Victor letting out a laugh, shifting his weight over to one leg, still with a hand over his face to keep the sun out of his eyes. “You commute all the way here and then decide not to actually come into the office. That’s some dedication.”“You could put it that way.”“I thought all this time you were working at home.”“Sometimes I stay home,” Yuuri admits. “But I like coming here. I’ve been doing this for a while now and nobody ever comes up here. It’s nice being here all by myself.”“So… I’m the first one to come here after you? Does that make me special?”Yuuri looks back at him again after pushing the screen of his laptop back slightly and adjusts himself, sitting up a little straighter. From this angle, Victor can’t quite make out what’s on the computer screen, but he’s curious. More work stuff, he’s sure. Yuuri nudges the bottom edge of his sunglasses, sniffing the air. “You ask a lot of questions though you know all the answers. Why do you still look so confused, Victor?”“Because... I’m actually still pretty confused!”“What’s confusing? If you tell anyone else about this place, it won’t be good for either of us.”“Either of us?”He doesn’t know why Yuuri says that, in particular.Victor closes his eyes, giving a sigh. It’s hard to make something of all this, and there’s the feeling like the sun is becoming too much for him, beating down against the back of his hand.When Victor collapses into the seat next to Yuuri on the bench, he doesn’t ask for permission. It has Yuuri shifting over just a little.Settling in on the opposite side of the bench, Victor finds his limbs too long. He has to bunch up between the bench and the table in an awkward attempt to fit. Yuuri beside him has an overt expression about him with suddenly having to share. But he’s so surprised, it skirts into shy territory, rather than being particularly unwelcome. From that, Victor waits—and further waits—for the request telling him to leave.It doesn't come just yet. Victor scrambles with his pockets, shuffling out the lighter and pack of cigarettes he’d brought with him.“Do you mind?” Victor asks with the cigarette between his fingers.Yuuri’s shoulders relax after a few moments, to the way he was before. “No. Go ahead.”Victor lights one up, takes a puff, and exhales every single one of his problems out into the wind. The things and problems and people that take up too much space in his brain suddenly dissipate, becoming smaller and smaller. He hopes Yuuri doesn’t think badly of him.But still, Victor smiles brightly towards the sky, gazing towards the tiny far away airplanes and white birds that make their way across the landscape.“You’ve found a gem up here. I can’t believe no one else knows about this place,” Victor says in awe, loosening the tie around his neck just a little. He’ll do it back up once he has to go back downstairs.“I’ve been here for years. You’ve been here two weeks and you’ve already found out about me here.” Yuuri has a suddenly resistant and possessive undertone, slouching all the way back into the comfortable position he’d had from the very beginning. He hangs his head back over the bench, relaxed, and Victor dips his own head, peeking to see below Yuuri’s sunglasses. His eyes are closed, calm. “I don’t get you,” Yuuri says quietly to the air.“Oh, I’m sorry.” Victor laughs under his breath, so immodestly. He can’t stop himself. “It’s rude of me to barge in like this. Could you invite me here properly next time?”Yuuri says no, and he says it very shortly and stiffly. He's insistent about keeping this place the way it is, not to be dismissed as something frivolous, turned into something it's not. This isn’t some beachside getaway, he says.“It can be,” Victor suggests.No. This isn’t some lovely date to the cinema or to any place pictured on the front of a plastic greeting card, either. Yuuri doesn’t own the real estate. But he’s laissez-faire.But Victor also doesn’t mean what he says earlier. When he says ‘invite me here’ he means it figurative and imaginative. As in: the space in approximation to wherever Yuuri is, or may be, or will be, in the future. As in: not fixed to any particular physical locale.“How else will I get to say hi to you? You’re never in the office.”Yuuri bites at the corner of his lip, letting out a grumble. He hadn’t thought about that. But if Victor greets him only on the messenger, Yuuri would be okay with that.“You really don’t like seeing my face that much?”Yuuri objects to that statement. He'd never said that.“So, what could I possibly do then? Hmmmmm...?”There’s nothing he can do!“I’ll be good,” Victor promises, reaching a level of unprecedented annoyance, and leaning his body inwards towards the middle of the bench.He piles on the charm and Yuuri immediately becomes skittish, turning away. His knees turn outwards, the laptop on his lap following.“I’ll be anything you want,” Victor proposes instead, leaning more into the space between them. “I’ll be serious and work hard for you. I’ll be relaxing and casual and won’t cause much trouble. Exciting with a sense of humour so you won’t be bored? All of the above, none of the above? What’s your type?”“Stop!” Yuuri’s snort bursts out of him like firecrackers, and it’s immediately muffled into the back of his hand. He looks like he wants to say something, his teeth kissing the side of his fingers in hesitance. He glances back at Victor, very very briefly, enough just to make it known that he sees Victor there, exactly where he is. His sunglasses are thick, but Victor knows behind them Yuuri's eyes are sparkling. He's sure of it.Despite everything so far and despite all attempts to get it under control, it has Victor so obsessed. He’s sure his beaming can be felt from here, even on far sides of the bench. Getting Yuuri worked up, along with a laugh out of him, it's… well… it’s infectious.He can picture it now—a new employee secretly and determinedly dragging a bench he’d gotten from somewhere, maybe from downstairs near the ashtrays outside at the front of the building, and a table from somewhere else, maybe one of the floor’s reception areas… he drags them into the elevator and through the hallway and up the stairs to here. Because he wants to. Because nobody notices and nobody stops him. Yuuri does it because he’s Yuuri.It seems like hard work.But Yuuri sits here now looking extremely effortless and exceedingly cool no matter what’s true, with the sunglass shades on the bridge of his nose and the way his hair ruffles over itself from the wind like the peeled pages of a book. For how young and responsible and professional Yuuri is, how confident and strange and amusing his words are, answering all of Victor’s questions honestly and unabashedly without ulterior motives—all of it flusters Victor’s cheeks and blooms the centre of his chest. He believes it’s true, just because he wants to believe it.“Oh… okay then,” Yuuri submits, fingers going back to tapping back and forth incessantly against the edge of his laptop, in a nervous tick. To Victor, he says, “You can stay here and I won’t say anything. Just—I don’t need you to work so hard to... You don’t have to do anything or be anything but yourself.”Yuuri’s fingers still in their movements against the keyboard, and the wind blows Victor’s cigarette smoke into the vast open space in front of them. Hm? Victor hums.Perhaps it’s not quite something Victor really realizes yet. Or, perhaps he has an inkling of the thought but can’t put it into fully formed words yet.It’s a strange thing to start working for a steady paycheque, Yuuri tells him simply.Yes, Victor nods. I understand.Doing things that wouldn’t ever be done otherwise. Talking to people whom would never be associated within their same circles in any other circumstance, if given the choice. Like the two of them, for instance, him and Yuuri, sitting here and talking without much effort. Maybe they wouldn’t have met like this otherwise.Do you have dreams? Victor wants to ask Yuuri. Off the record and away from prying corporate ears. The steel door from this place is heavy and Victor had made sure to shut it safely and securely behind him. He wants to whisper to Yuuri out of earshot of everyone else: do you have things that you would still like to do and to achieve? Are they still in you? Or have they been let go?Victor used to have dreams—still does, in fact, if he thinks real hard about it and admits it to himself in the dark when it’s late at night and he’s completely alone. He used to like to run long distance and make music and skate on the weekends on special occasions. He would tie up his shoes and his skates until they cut off his circulation, and he would breathe and heave himself to exhaustion because nothing quite felt like soul-searching until that point. It was fun and exhilarating. He was good, too. People told him so. But even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have the least bit cared. In fact, there wasn't ever really a point where he stopped doing any of things. Not really.While Yuuri continues to do his work quietly, his fingers pick back up to dance across the keys of his laptop, and Victor remains beside him to finish off his cigarette.Yuuri asks him how things had been back in the office that morning, and Victor says they’re the best he’s ever known. Because it’s true. He doesn’t know any better. But Yuuri probably doesn’t know any better, either. He could always come down to find out, but he probably won’t.The time allotted for Victor’s break is long over, at least the time that's so stated in his contract. Not that the others would notice or care all that much (John might give him a weakly-attempted word about it). But out of some sense of duty Victor, stands up from the bench getting ready to head back.“Have a good night, if we don’t see each other.” “G’night,” Yuuri says without looking at him, because they won’t.Victor blots his cigarette out in the ashtray placed on the centre of the table. With rather belated realization, he sees it’s entirely filled up with used cigarettes. Yuuri continues on working.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Stepping across the tarmac of Sheremetyevo International Airport in shiny Marc Jacobs and clutching onto the lapel of his herringbone coat enduring the cold assault of winter wind, this is just another day for Victor. The pilot greets him by name at the top of the stairs and guides him to his seat not too far down the aisle where a glass of champagne is awaiting. All the hustle and bustle back at the airport, the chanting, and the camera clicks have already dispersed from Victor’s mind, focusing now on removing his coat to give to one of the attendants and then sitting down in the cushy leather seat to stare out the window.He isn’t something different from anyone else—the view from here being exactly what someone else a few rows down would see. Besides the large jet engine taking up a proportion of the window. But Victor downs the rest of his champagne before the flight even takes off.He’s all too eager to turn on airplane mode on his phone having not stopped furiously buzzing away since he’d boarded the plane. “I’m not some big celebrity,” he’s always said without an ounce of care for how anyone else perceived him. “I’m just an ordinary person. I do ordinary things. And I’m not coming back.”But what he means to say is that he’s not meant to come back.His uncle prays for him to think it over one last time.His fans have no idea what they’re sending him off for. They send their love and affection and well wishes with tearful faces and handwritten signs. The impression they’re given is that Victor is attending the Grand Prix. But what they don’t know is all the equipment that Victor would need for his career is left back in his bedroom in dozens of sealed boxes, and just about all of his other belongings having been cleaned out. He packs up his essentials to take with him and throws away anything else. These things aren’t necessary to where he’s going. Not a lot of his old life is , to be honest.Victor imagines for himself a life of which others also dream of. He has a place to call his own, one that isn’t too big and isn’t too small. He brings along his dog whom he loves to death. He wakes up every morning warm and dewy-eyed next to someone who brings him in closer and makes him appreciate every aspect of his life that had brought him to this point. He makes a modest amount of money and dreams every day about striking it rich. One day—it’ll happen. One day—everything will fall into place.The plane takes off and Victor bids farewell to the shrinking land. It flies farther and farther until there’s nothing of it left at all, and it’s not solemn, not even a little bit. He takes this time to slip the knee brace off his right leg as he slides back into the reclining chair, feet up, into a position he finds most comfortable.It’s only after six hours pass and the sky outside is a pitch black, the lights in the cabin dimmed to a hollow yellow, that Victor feels the phantom pain in his leg, creeping up on him slowly. It’s not there, steady and numb and all in his head. The nerves fracture and fizzle out one by one by one.Of course, his first instinct is to ignore it, then deny it, then both at the same time more aggressively until he can do neither no longer. His pain hasn’t existed for awhile, and he has the doctor’s words echoing in the back of his head to prove it.But he falls apart from it, still. He braces his forehead against the side of his hand, clenched and shaking and refusing to move. The hot tears fall with only some meagre attempt to hold himself together, at the same time praying that no attendant notices him. Because it’s so, so distant and isolating and claustrophobic. He breathes in and out, in contempt.Most people learn how to deal with this by now, when they fall and their heart breaks for the first time, when it’s a full body shut down, when they’re a teenager and death is inconceivable. Victor is sheltered and so helpless, so he collapses. His childhood is a cloth full of holes and his young adult life pretends nothing is there.The first thing he does once he lands safely is buy a pack of foreign cigarettes.The second thing he does is sit on the pebbly ground outside John F. Kennedy where the coat he brings is more fashionable than functional, and all the taxis are moving around him like a shapeshifting puzzle. Victor remains alongside his single luggage and shivers, pretending he’s waiting for his ride. He sits like that for so long. Airport staff can’t keep away, asking constantly if he needs assistance in securing a vehicle. It’s like this for a long, long while.Fed up eventually, the third thing he does is stand back up. He heads back inside where it’s warm again and his fingers turn from ice cold to on fire, and via his laptop and café wifi he sends out one single resume application to the first relevant job posting he sees. The coffee he drinks is watery and it takes months to get a call back.-Outside on the rooftop terrace where dust balls migrate from one side to the other, Victor has his feet up on the table in front with minimal effort, sitting on the bench again next to Yuuri, and sharing a lit cigarette between them like they’re young and in the movies. But every time Victor hands it over, Yuuri takes it just to hand it right back. His attention is still focused primarily on his laptop.“I never did end up doing much more than this,” Victor says with regret, turning what’s in his hand over and around. “I thought it’d be easier to get addicted to a vice. But I’ve had this pack since I got it in the airport. It’s different. I kind of have to force myself to finish it. Just... don’t see the appeal in it, I suppose.”“Mmhm.”“I don’t know if it was worth it to come here,” Victor says honestly, leaning back on the bench. He looks over at Yuuri, working so hard, so straight-laced. “It’s only been a little while. People smoke a lot more in Russia, and they drink a lot more too. So, if I came here just for that I’d be gone in an instant. But who am I to judge? I don’t really know what it would take for it to be worth leaving home.”“Hm?”“Americans are totally crazy! That’s what I thought.”He says that in a loud exaggeration without meaning to. But what he intends is that those who hail from this country, their volume, their velocity, the way they’re full-bodied and all-encompassing, has always been attractive in some way to Victor. He’d come here because sometimes the cold, frigid, melodrama from back home becomes too much for him.Yuuri seems to sit on what he says, in seriousness. “Am I crazy?”Which surprises Victor. “No!” he says, tilting his head back on the bench and regarding Yuuri’s calm and upright demeanour. “Or, are you?”“I’m an immigrant, actually,” Yuuri says slowly. “I came for college and finally settled.”Victor hums. In fact, today Yuuri’s wearing a white dress shirt tucked into washed blue jeans and his sneakers are kicked off carelessly. The two of them match, if only from the waist up. That is, until Yuuri dons the black baseball cap that sits idly on the table.“So, maybe I’m not true American.”“No, you are,” Victor contends.“So, I’m crazy then?”“N…”If it’s not one thing it’s the other, and either way makes no real difference to Victor. But Victor simply wants to know, just the act of knowing—the history, the background information, the artistic collection, the skeletons in the back of Yuuri’s closet, if he will so be allowed to know. If Yuuri will oblige him, Victor will continue to ponder.But Yuuri is still waiting for an answer, looking to him with judgement, waiting to see what Victor’s best answer is. He’ll probably be disappointed either way.“All I know is that the grammar in all your emails is perfect, okay!” Victor succumbs, with a pristine huff.-What Victor eventually learns is that the distance between them shortens ever so slightly every time. Every spot he sits at on the bench is a little bit different, just minisculely, and it’s not such a large bench. Yuuri’s blushes can be seen from where he sits, noticeable in the way he takes every compliment Victor dishes to him with total unpreparedness, mulling each of them over and over like they’re something fragile and precious to be held carefully in the palm of his hand.“I’ve been here for awhile now. Things have started to get comfortable.” Yuuri sighs, putting the back of his hand up to his forehead and staring outwards to the sky. “And I’ve never even been to Europe yet.” He looks over at Victor with something moody and meaningful in his features. “I’ve always wanted to go.”Victor shakes his head without a second thought. “Oh, you don’t want to go. It’s in a terrible state right now. Absolutely horrible.”-Admittedly, a lot of what Victor says contradicts what he says previously. Things that he says frivolously, things that he can’t remember because he hadn’t done his due diligence and made up some random thing at the time. And now, again, he has to make something up.Because when Yuuri asks—“Is it true you kiss as a greeting?”—he means it in the context of being a European in Europe, which is a perfectly rational thing to inquire about. But for some reason, Victor takes it entirely too personally, blurting out the following:“Wouldn’t you like to know? Why don’t you come and find out?”And so now he’s sure Yuuri’s head is buzzing with confusion. Most of all, it completely silences Yuuri, blushing him to the tips of his ears.-“What was your life like back in Russia?”The question catches Victor off guard and he puts the bud of the cigarette to his mouth, having a moment to take it in before answering. They talk about anything and everything. Victor doesn’t really mention specifics. But every so often he alludes to the expansive beauty of the night sky if you go far enough north, jokes about the way some European hotels have better breakfast bars than others, and that the prevalence of face masks in Asia is something that interests him. The stories seem to capture Yuuri’s attention, sometimes forgoing the work laptop to the table as he gauges Victor with more questions.Victor shrugs. “I didn’t do much there.”“Your resume said Bachelor of Education,” Yuuri says before pausing, pulling the laptop back onto his lap, as if to bring up Victor’s application right then and there to read from. “Executive Assistant for high-ranking individuals. Business and Finance Administrator. Some of the company names are in Russian so I can’t read them. Coach. Teaching Assistant. Research Assistant. Subject Matter Expert. Sounds all really impressive. And then under Hobbies and Special Interests you have ice skating. That’s cool.”Yuuri looks over at Victor with intrigue, an expression of which spills from the sparkle of his eyes to the apple of his cheeks. Although, it’s unclear if he’s asking specifically about certain parts of Victor’s resume or others. Victor shrugs again, beckoning forth more before opting to clarify.“Just seems like you were very established there,” Yuuri concludes.“Maybe so.”“You wanted to teach?” Yuuri tries again.“At one point in my life, yes.”“What age group?”“I’m not particularly inclined towards any.”“What sort of subject matter?”“Whatever I happen to be good at.”“Which is…?” Yuuri scrolls a finger down the pad of his laptop, settling on some part of the screen that Victor can’t see. “Under SME, what you put seems deliberately vague.”“Mmhm.”Victor doesn’t deny that. And Yuuri doesn’t seem like that much in a hurry to find out, nor being something worries him all that much. He waits for an answer that never comes.“You don’t have to tell me about your life if you don’t want to...” Yuuri says slowly, expression neutral.“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you.”Victor knows he’s being obtuse about this. His gaze falls to the ground, unsure about a lot of things.Yuuri nods, accepting but not really accepting that. “Okay.”He doesn’t ask about Victor’s life any further. Prying too much still isn’t in his core, despite being All American.But he does become a little more quiet after that point. It’s palpable and Victor’s fault. But he doesn’t think about it too much, stuffing the end of his finished cigarette into the ashtray. His afternoon break ends and Victor flits off, giving Yuuri a short wave as he heads back through the steel door off the roof, and trying still to be cool and casual.-When there’s a suddenly loud bang and a pop, it almost feels like waking from a dream.Feeling a hand against one of the cubicle dividers, Victor in his day clothes makes his way down the dimly lit hallway after hours. The air feels heavy and dry and smells faintly like that of used fireworks and dust particles from a huge running fan.Every so often something flashes, enough for him to be blinded briefly before the white stars fade from his vision and the myriad of purples and pinks helps to light the way for Victor to move forward.It’s around… he guesses... seven in the evening. The office has been turned into a throbbing club scene, and the particular floor he’s on is unknown to him in terms of layout. He has to make his way through it like he’s making his way through an eerie haunted house, with extreme caution and concern for his well being, albeit it’s a house where his ears are ringing from obscene dance music seeming to grow louder and more incoherent with every second, flickering chaos, strobe lights, and rainbow confetti on every inch of surface.The receptionist’s desk acts as a makeshift bar only at this moment in time because it houses all the champagne, flaky bite-sized appetizers with grinded up insides, fish cakes, crackers, and other abominations. It’s where Victor is currently headed because it’s closest to where the elevators are.Before he can quite make it, someone suddenly crashes into Victor’s side and an arm is put around his shoulders, preventing him from going any further.“Nikiforov, initial V!” they yell happily in his ear. “Have a drink! Is it spiked?”“Okay...” Victor responds vacuously. “I shouldn’t be hearing this”On top of now having to carry a whole body stuck to him, Victor shuffles over to the counter, grabbing a flute of champagne already poured amongst a dozen others, and sips at it. He hopes to god it neutralizes the amount of sensory stimulation he’s getting because it’s becoming too much all at once. His head is pounding.“Glad you came. Or, rather, stayed!” John continues yelling, breath alcoholic, face way too close, and rubbing Victor’s shoulder with the palm of his hand. He laughs crazily. Victor can’t see his face properly. “The company’s Q2 is a smash. It’s all thanks to you. You’re a superhero—the best hire we’ve had in years! Cheers!”John tries clinking his glass with Victor’s, but misses. Some of the champagne in it sloshes to the floor.Victor takes another sip of his glass, attempting to nudge the hand off his shoulder and distance himself from the sweatiness of John’s armpits. “You guys were already doing fine before I showed up. I’ve just barely received my second paycheque.”“Wrong! You’re a valuable employee! Have you seen the strippers yet? Doesn't matter how long you've been here... they’re over by Finance, and Finance doesn't discriminate.”“Maybe later.”Two others coming to get drinks from the kitchen pat John’s back in the process and give Victor a sympathetic look. Victor smiles back awkwardly as he maneuvers John’s body out of the way, aching under the weight. It feels like John wants to drag him purposely to the floor.“No...? Smoke break then?” John slurs. “Smoke?”“No, thanks.”“Come onnn, you’ve been such a loner lately. I haven’t even gotten to show you these emails from the GM. Look here. I’ll brighten the screen up. See here. This guy’s from ten minutes ago. He keeps trying to call me, what an idiot, but I don’t wanna pick up. Why are you working right now! What am I supposed to tell these guys? Hm? That I can’t answer them because I’m about to get blazed? What? I’ve got my own shit to do! I’m sick! Sick of it! Where’s Yuuri when you need him, goddammit? I’ll forward all these emails to him.”“Err, I’m going to go finish my drink.”“Fine.”Letting go of Victor, John stumbles away, fumbling around with a lighter and cigarette he manages to take out of his back pocket, flicking multiple times at the lighter until Victor closes his hand over it.“Seriously, don’t do that. We’re inside,” Victor tries to say as calmly as he can while exclaiming over the music. He’s growing tired already with this party.But before he knows it, John has broken away from him again and has lit up the cigarette, smoking it openly in the hallway. The smoke mingles with the haze that drifts above the whole floor. Victor agonizingly looks to the ceiling, hoping there aren’t any smoke alarms close by.“Your loss,” John yells, pointing at him accusingly with the cigarette between his fingers. He puffs on it like an animal.Leaving the kitchen, Victor storms back to the main area, champagne flute still in hand, and squeezing between a half dozen dancing bodies. How anybody could get physically drunk at work is beyond him.He informs Sara, the Lead, that John is an indoor smoking hazard, and she tells him it’s fine, like she’s used to this. Fine—whatever. He leaves the issue alone, drinking in peace for now.Some moments later, he spots Chris beckoning him over to a corner of the desks. He’s socializing with someone whom Victor doesn’t know. The cubicle they’re standing next to has all kinds of paperwork still stacked on it, coloured drawings pinned to the felt walls, and framed photographs of the person’s kids, presumably, sitting on the desk. The framed kids shouldn’t be watching this. Chris sits on the edge of it like it’s nobody’s business.“Hey, having fun?” he asks Victor.“Not really,” Victor responds.“You’re a real riot. You say that about everything, don’t you?”“No, I’m normal.” Victor prays to god that he’s normal.“This is Georgi, by the way,” Chris introduces lamely. “QA.”Victor looks at the guy beside Chris. He has a familiar stoic vibe about him. “Hi.”“Hi,” Georgi returns.“And this is Victor...” Chris trails off. Victor does… whatever Victor does these days. It’s unclear. “Anyway. I did my best to overload the company server for this party so people would get off their phones and have a good time. The wifi should be shot. But some people, I swear to god, they just want to work twenty-four seven even if sending an email takes them half an hour. Unbelievable.” Chris points a ways away.Victor doesn’t understand a word Chris says, but he’s right. When Victor follows his finger, he can see Yuuri leaning by himself against another cubicle divider facing the crowd of dancing people—his phone out in one hand, glass of champagne in the other.“Really? He came?” Victor’s legitimately surprised by that. Until now, Victor feels like he’s been maneuvering around the foggiest of nights. “Didn’t think he would want to come to these sorts of things. He doesn’t even come during the day.”“He doesn’t usually come to these things,” Chris replies, rolling his eyes. “Love the guy when he’s here, and you wouldn’t think it but he works too much. And I wouldn’t put it past him to leave soon. He’s usually gone by this time, so you better go on over before he does. He’s probably waiting for you.”Victor blinks. “What makes you say that?”“Oh, no reason. He probably wants to show face before taking off. And it looks like you’re his last one.”When Victor glances over again, he notices Yuuri looking up and around at the floor a bit before going back down to his phone, staring rather intently at it. The three of them are behind the cubicle here so it would be difficult to see them, especially with the dimmed lights. Victor can already feel the pain his retinas will have to go through once he gets back into regular light.“Don’t wait up.” Victor pats at Chris’s shoulder.He bids them good night if he doesn’t see them again before the night’s end, before walking towards Yuuri’s silhouette. Victor hasn’t drunk much, but he’s not willing to push himself even if there are others going at it much harder than him and would undoubtedly take the heat off of anything he may end up doing. The dancing of some of his colleagues turns raunchy in front of him, and it’s some sight to see those in their blazers and pencil skirts losing themselves next to copy machines and curled motivational posters pinned to the walls.“Hey,” Victor says, smiling when he finally turns up to Yuuri. “Didn’t see you there.”Yuuri glances up at him, eyes glossy, and tucks his phone away into his pocket. He smiles back ecstatically, demeanour changing entirely. “Victorrrr,” he purrs. “How’ve you been?”Victor’s knackered, but in a good way.“Oh, you know. Just making the rounds.”That’s a lie. He hardly knows anyone here, pretending like he hasn’t just been hovering around as he scratches at the back of head.Yuuri nods, cheeks looking a bit ripe but it could just be the fluorescence shining on them. “Same, same. How do you like the champagne we got? Good, right?” Yuuri takes a drink of his to show, downing half of it at once.“Yeah, it’s good. Not enough to get drunk on, but good.” Victor says this with a bit of cheek.“Hahaha. Not enough to get drunk on? Spoken like a true master of alcoholic beverages,” Yuuri says, raising his glass of nearly-empty champagne towards Victor who shrugs, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “How many have you had then, Mr. Russian?”“Hmm, just two. I’m trying to pace myself and not do anything too embarrassing in front of people. How about you?”“I’m on like… number sixteen.”“What…!?”“Have I embarrassed myself yet?”The admission has Victor staring at the glass in Yuuri’s hand, fluttering side to side as Yuuri sways slightly to the music, and Victor wonders if he should take the glass before Yuuri triggers alcohol poisoning in himself. The familiar flush on Yuuri’s cheeks is starting to seem brighter, regardless of the fluorescence behind them.“I’m kidding,” Yuuri says, laughing at him. He puts a reassuring hand on Victor’s shoulder, rubbing up and down his arm. Victor has the mindless thought this is the first time Yuuri has touched him. “I think I’m actually closer to… seven. But I’m not drunk. Just a little tipsy, is all. We’re celebrating our second quarter so we might as well let loose, right?”“Is that how it is?”“It is how it is.”Victor finds himself subconsciously swaying in the same direction and to the same beat that Yuuri is. There’s something in the water here, in the air, in the golden-grey haze dispersed over the whole floor, and in the bubbles that seem to make people willingly want to lose their minds. And Victor is part of it, no less.He takes a firm hold of Yuuri’s forearm, examining Yuuri’s face full of rosy cheek and punchy warmth, but all that seems to be there is a full honesty. “You’re sure you’re okay, though?” Victor implores.“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Yuuri assures him again, poking Victor in the chest with his other hand—the one not holding onto his drink. “I’m fine! But I appreciate your concern. I want to know about you. Are you okay? Are you having fun? Did you want to dance?”Victor opens and closes his mouth, watching the mirth in Yuuri’s eyes. Something pools in the pit of Victor’s stomach at the thought of being dragged out in front of everyone by Yuuri’s pull. It’s tempting, and hard to tell but it looks like Yuuri is being serious.“Oh, no, no, no.” Victor puts his hands up in front between them. It’s an offer that he has to refuse. “I’m... no good at dancing. But I’m still having fun. Don’t worry about me.”Yuuri smiles coyly at him again, not bothered at all. “You lie. You have a dancer’s build. I can tell.” He looks Victor up and down, trailing his eyes from Victor’s satin button-up down to his leather Marc Jacobs, and the pad of his finger draws a delicate line on the underside of Victor’s forearm, up to his wrist. He comes up with such a conclusion with eyes that are challenging, coloured soft coats of neon, and Victor’s skin feels prickly.“What makes you so sure?”“You’re European,” Yuuri says with confidence, as if that explains it to the very end.“Oh, yes. Well. We’re all in it purely for the entertainment,” Victor says, getting into it.Yuuri laughs and laughs and laughs at that. “Of course. I’m glad you’re having fun, though.”He winks.And Victor can’t help going along with it. He feels giddy. He’s not tipsy at all, he’s sure of it, but maybe something’s getting to him already. He feels somewhat floaty with contentedness. Or maybe it’s the pulsing atmosphere, wearing him down with its emphatic beat and choruses of happy, drunk people running around without a care. It’s incredible to see the people he knows vaguely from his floor acting like this; incredible to see his supervisor like this, grinning widely at him, skin warm, and so close to him. Yuuri doesn’t seem to mind at all, far gone from his usual state of keeping a certain distance at all times. Whether it’s physical or emotional or some other sort of magical hysteria, it’s all overridden.Without thinking, Victor reaches a hand out to brush the mess of bangs hanging over and getting into Yuuri’s eyes. He’s not sure why he does this other than fulfilling some urge within him telling him to do it because Yuuri would be okay with it. And thankfully he seems to be. Yuuri blinks a lot, thinking hard about the gesture, and looking a tiny bit less debauched now.But his gaze up at Victor is telling him in fact it’s more than okay, feeling more than friendly, looking most appreciative. It nearly has Victor regretting not accepting the offer to dance in place of what else might be on Yuuri’s mind.Yuuri suddenly downs the remainder of his champagne all at once.“Oh, okay then,” Victor says, thinking it’s far too late for him to do anything now. He watches Yuuri lick his lips afterwards, placing the glass down on whoever’s desk it is they’re leaning against. There are already a couple of other flutes there now that Victor notices it. He feels bad for everyone who works on this floor and will have to deal with the aftermath.“Come on.” Victor barely catches what Yuuri says to him. His hand is taken, interlaced with Yuuri’s, and they start off in an unknowable direction.Startled, Victor doesn’t resist. He takes a helpless look in every which way behind him, but every other person is already too occupied to see what’s happening around them. Even Chris and Georgi’s heads seem to have disappeared from behind their previous cubicle, nowhere in sight, having probably left s they said they would. It doesn’t necessarily calm Victor’s racing heart but it doesn’t accelerate it any more at the same time.They take the emergency stairs down a couple of flights to their floor where Yuuri uses the pass in his pocket to access. The music echoes behind them, loud and painful and metallic, up and down the stairway shaft in zigzagging motions.It’s even darker on this floor except for a few safety lights operating here and there, and Yuuri pulls him across the floor to where Victor can only guess in his disorientation is their section.Once they’re outside Yuuri’s office, Yuuri lets go of Victor’s hand to handle the door, letting his arm fall to his side.It’s hardly recognizable even if it’s after hours. Victor looks around the place, seeing the most bland interior. Nothing more, nothing less than what’s entirely necessary to a coasting career. The starkly black and white walls have nothing pinned to them, with nothing set up on the desk other than manuals or office policies of some kind. It’s a space that boasts if something were to happen, if there were a natural disaster, nothing of value would actually be lost. If something even better were to happen, Yuuri could be packed ready and out of here in a minute tops, never to be seen again.Yuuri walks towards his desk, turning around to sit casually at the edge, facing Victor. Yuuri hadn’t bothered to turn the light on so it’s still dark, the navy evening sky outside Yuuri’s office window cascading inside, and it’s rather quiet. The party, spanning several of the top floors of the building, end at the floor just above them so they can still hear the faint pounding of music. The ceiling shakes slightly with the associated dancing.With Victor’s prolonged silence, Yuuri decides to speak first. “Okay, I’m a little drunk after all,” he admits, his head cocking teasingly to the side. He leans back, hands braced against the desk. His white shirt is unbuttoned three down, past his collarbones. It’s definitely not work-appropriate.“Mm,” Victor replies, hearing his heart in excess in his ears. His throat feels dry. “Thanks for telling me.”Yuuri grows more intent when Victor coats his lips as a result, even though Victor remains standing where he is, five feet away.“I’m still… wondering… do people really kiss in greeting in Europe?” Yuuri says quietly, fallen back, like the thought has been bothering him immensely all this time.Well…...and Victor has the sudden, spontaneous thought...
Don’t you dare try it with anyone.
He’s not sure where this comes from, or what his brain is attempting at. He can’t think of any valid reason why Yuuri would bring up such a thing, and nothing feels quite proper with the space closing in around him, from five feet to four feet and a half now. He’s not sure how he got here, how either of them ended up here. The expression on Yuuri’s face is expertly poker and unreadable. His feet cross one over the other, imploring Victor for an answer, whatever it may be. He’s ready for anything. Mentally prepared. Feeling good.“We do,” Victor answers eventually, truthfully, once the initial aggression subsides. “Sometimes. It depends. It depends on the context. Who you’re with. Whether or not you’re in France. Things like that.”Yuuri laughs lightly again, ringing out like bells. It’s an enchanting spell.Three feet.“Have you ever done it?” Yuuri asks him. “Kissed in greeting?”“Yes.”“To a complete stranger?”“Probably.”“Probably?” Yuuri’s tone of voice is marred by a deep and husky surprise. When the corner of Yuuri’s lip curls in teasing, Victor lifts the back of his heel again.“No. It’s not really like that,” Victor says hurriedly, as if he’s got something to prove. “You’re obligated to, not to be construed as rude. You try to feel for if the other person is going for it, and then you sort of go along with it.”“Ohh.”“Yeah… it’s a bit silly. Maybe it’s traditionalist and outdated.”“So, you can kiss just anyone then?” Yuuri says, with a calculating look in his eyes.It means more than he lets on.“That’s not quite exactly what that means—”“But you have.”The room is an everlasting quiet, except for the residual spectator noise in the background, grinding away, bounces of runaway laughter, and thundering steps across the ceiling over their heads.Yuuri seems highly invested in Victor’s reaction, whatever it could possibly be, what it could possibly mean. But Victor doesn’t know what’s expected of him at all. Yuuri has this uncanny way of feeling like he’s everywhere all the time and knows about everything at once, even, especially, when people find him least capable of it. The sultry look Yuuri gives him now is knowing and still at the same time teeming with pleasantries. He strings Victor along, taking him for the ride and draining him of everything, of every rational thought and any doubt that Yuuri doesn’t know what he’s talking about.“How...?” Victor breathes. It’s his first question of many. It had been so quick. The fact is they had been behind the back of the building and they’d been so careful. He and Chris had made sure to check around them multiple times.Yuuri points upwards, indicating his usual place from the roof.“Ah.”Victor hadn’t even thought to look up. That was his fault. He hadn’t known about the rooftop terrace at the time.“I’m not going to tell anyone,” Yuuri assures him in his little benevolent whisper that’s louder than it should be. “This isn’t a threat.”But that’s not what worries Victor at all. The misunderstanding has Victor insistent. “We’re not together—he and I. That is, he’s not single. And he wouldn’t turn over to me anyway. I guess I seemed too desperate to him because...”Victor doesn’t think any of this is meant to be a threat in the first place anyway, or would ever be. Yuuri would never. That’s not his intention in coming here. It feels like there are a lot more pressing matters at the moment than that of blackmail. If Victor were to be fired over anything, and it’s crossed his mind so many times now, it wouldn’t be from blackmail or threats or any accepting of lascivious bribes from certain coercing someones.“I’m rather lonely,” Victor concludes. “Desperate and lonely.”Yuuri inquires him with an interested look, one that says he isn’t afraid of anything, not of any consequences whatsoever. “Oh, I see. Then that’s what you were thinking at the time? When you and Chris…?”Victor bites at his lip. He’s not going to try and sugarcoat anything. “Well, more specifically, at the time I was thinking that dating a coworker wasn’t illegal.”One foot now. Victor is ever so entranced, as Yuuri shifts his position, chin raised, so he’s looking up into Victor’s eyes. Cool. Composed. Glued.“That’s awful. What if you were caught?”Yuuri’s eyelashes flutter, like the idea doesn’t even mean that much to him. He’s asking Victor what he thinks.“You left the door behind us wide open,” Victor returns right back, and he can see the darks of Yuuri’s eyes dart over his shoulder to the door of his office—so, he has. He wears a knowing expression. They could get caught. Neither of them have been particularly careful about this. Anybody could walk by and see them without much effort at all. And yet, Yuuri understands the risks.So, the question is changed. “What if I’m using my position to take advantage of you?” Yuuri proposes.“I’m trying to get ahead in my career so it’s fine.”Victor leans forward, puts the inner part of his palm cupped underneath Yuuri’s jaw, steadying him, reassuring him. Their skin where they’re touched is a tandem of heat, and Victor’s hand moves down Yuuri’s neck, unable to help himself.“As long as you don’t say anything,” he whispers discreetly, “I won’t either.”It’s brought precisely to this. Victor kisses the opposite corner of Yuuri’s lips, the side of his cheek, and Victor’s heart beats out of his chest so heavy and urgent. It’s like nothing else. There’s an ache that constrains him, coursing through him, electrifyingly, all the way from his lips down to the tips of fingers to the ends of his toes. The way Yuuri leans in to him, gently, first one way into Victor’s hand, and then the other, towards the centre of Victor’s mouth for more, and more—it’s to the point that Victor can’t stand it. He’ll cut it off right there if he could. But Yuuri moves on him anyway, despite what Victor had told him, rebellious and not listening at all.It’s sweet and tender. This isn’t quite the greeting kiss he’s used to back home, not even close. There’s not enough cheek. Victor is used to two. Often, three. It’s quick, in rapid succession, mindless without much thought.But Yuuri doesn’t want anything to do with that. One of his hands comes slowly around the back of Victor’s neck, pulling him in closer, towards the depth of his mouth, where he accommodates Victor’s by teasing his bottom lip between his teeth. It’s done minutely, in a messy tangle of pulsing hypnotic beats and torturously hot breath, before inching his way to capturing Victor’s mouth in its entirety. Those lips of his overwhelm Victor, being unbelievably soft. And there’s no hurry, even though Victor’s heart feels as if it’s running away from him.There’s always been this pull towards Yuuri that Victor can’t rid himself of. It stops him mid-sentence, mid-work email, mid-banal thought. They bother him constantly, even when Yuuri isn’t around all that much to stoke the flame. His constant absence is dreadful, to the point that Victor is actively seeking him out at every chance he gets. He doesn’t think it’s entirely fair for it to be like this. It’s beyond reason, never simply enough.Yuuri closes his eyes, kissing him so sweetly, limbs melting around Victor. “I want you to think about me, and only me,” he requests. He touches every part of Victor's skin, tapping a finger lightly to his cheek.“Mm.” Victor can hear him, but he can’t really process. His hands smooth down Yuuri’s backside, pulling him in close, but there’s only so far he can go before his knees hit the edge of the desk and he has to maintain himself. Yuuri’s own knees are pulled apart, inviting, and Victor is grateful for it, pulling Yuuri in and burying himself into the thick of Yuuri’s neck. Nothing has ever felt so good, being this close. He’d forgotten what intimacy with another person felt like—even if this is all they do, even if this is as far as they go.They stop for a moment, for minutes, just feeling each other, and everything around them. Is this okay? Is Yuuri okay with this? Because Victor has needed this for such a long time.In the midst of it, he finds himself confessing to all sorts of things. Boring, mundane things that don’t make any sense for the situation. He used to have shiny, silver hair that skirted around his waist, and he’s reminded of it just now when Yuuri’s fingers stroke softly through the strands of his hair. It was nothing special. Just a phase when he was young. There had been no reason for it, nor for cutting it, for that matter. He considers growing it out again, but if he does it’ll only be because he’s too lazy to get it cut.“Do you always do things without reason?”Yeah. Though, he'd never thought of it like that before.“Me too,” Yuuri says.Victor has sheet music, too, that he writes sometimes when the melodies come to him. Piano melodies. Violin melodies. They’re always playing in his head, whenever anything happens, when something nice happens, and equally when something awful happens, because Victor’s life feels like it should have a professionally-made soundtrack behind it for every single arbitrary up and down he experiences.“Are they beautiful?” Yuuri asks him.Victor hopes so.“Can I hear them?”He would, attempting to hum something into the corner of Yuuri’s ear while Yuuri holds him, but the thumping music is too loud. He stops after only a few notes. He’s not a good singer.Sorry.“That’s okay.” Yuuri laughs, hugging around Victor's waist. “Do you wanna get out of here?”He does, very much. But Victor thinks he’s way too exhausted for that. And his place is a million miles away. If he attempts to take transit, he’ll more than likely fall right into the train tracks. He might just stay here overnight, sleep at his desk, and hope that the building's security doesn't lock the doors from the inside over the weekend.“My place is only a few blocks away.”Yuuri's words hang loosely in the air.God.So, they somehow hobble out of the building together, the beating electronic pop fading slowly, and they emerge onto the street at night lit up by dazzling downtown lights. Instead of turning right as he usually does, Victor follows Yuuri to the left in the complete opposite direction, hands laced in each other's.