Picture credit to mochii! You can contact her at her instagram: mochiicream. Thanks so much for the design, mochii!

A sigh escaped from Yuuri's lips as he dropped his backpack onto his bed. Exhausted, he took off his glasses and placed them onto his bedside table. He plopped down beside his bag onto the fluffy duvet that covered his mattress, several papers jumping into the air at the sudden movement.

As a freshman in university, Yuuri was unaccustomed to the large amount of work he received and hadn't properly planned out his schedule. A week ago, he had found himself stuck with three papers due within two weeks and no research done. His routine for the past few days had consisted of working at the school library until closing time and then returning home to his apartment to work until his body forced him to sleep.

After a week had passed, he found he had miraculously finished two of the three papers. With one more week to go, he decided he could take a break for the night, finish the last paper in the following days, and then proofread all of his papers before they were due.

His break from work, he decided, would be indulging himself in the lovely world of fanfiction ― something he had not been able to do a single time while he had been working on his papers. He pulled his laptop out from his backpack and pressed the power button. With a yawn, he looked over at his clock; it read 20:06. Yuuri concluded he could read until 23:30 and then go to bed to receive the sleep his body direly needed.

Once his computer had turned on, Yuuri opened his e-mail. He found several messages from classmates asking about his progress on his papers and a few from his parents and sister asking about school life. He disregarded these, clicking on the search bar. He typed in "Makkachin" first, hoping to find an e-mail notifying him of the user's activity.

Makkachin was the username to Yuuri's favourite fanfiction author on . Although not much was known about her, Yuuri felt oddly connected ― if only through the characters in her stories. Makkachin was a relatively well-known author; one of the writer's stories, Food Stakes, had made it onto the sites most popular list at #5 for an entire month. Although Makkachin was popular for her stories like Food Stakes that had angsty plots about friendship and competition, Yuuri mostly enjoyed Makkachin's romantic stories. They were usually full of such longing from the main character's point of view that Yuuri sometimes cried. Yuuri wondered if Makkachin had some form of unrequited love of her own ― to be able to write longing with such accuracy. It was impossible, however, for Yuuri to know as the only thing written in Makkachin's profile was "Writing is fun and enjoyable!" She kept personal details out of her profile and her stories' intros and author notes.

After Yuuri entered Makkachin's username into the search bar, three unread e-mails appeared. One notified Yuuri that she had updated Food Stakes. While Yuuri found the story entertaining, he was in need of a good love story, and he glanced through the other two e-mails in hopes of one.

The second e-mail, however, disappointed him as well. It read that Makkachin had updated Living Flames, a horror story that she had decided to attempt a few weeks ago. Many of Makkachin's readers agreed that it was well-written but obviously new territory to the author. Yuuri was surprised to see the update notification; Makkachin had commented in the last chapter that she might drop it as it was not very fun to write. Nonetheless, it appeared that the author had not yet decided to give up on the experimental story.

The third e-mail piqued Yuuri's interest, yet at the same time, it made him wary. The notification was about a love story of Makkachin's, yet the "new story" notice alarmed him. Yuuri knew that Makkachin's first chapters always focused on setting up the scene. While they were good for explaining the story's background to the reader, they never held the angsty romance that Yuuri desired in that moment. The story was also based off an anime of which Yuuri wasn't particularly fond.

Displeased with all three, Yuuri decided to check out Makkachin's update on Food Stakes. Horror made him feel uncomfortable, and he hadn't yet worked up the nerves to attempt reading Living Flames. He decided that if he was in the mood later, he would read the first chapter to the new romance story, Cloud on a Bed.

Makkachin wrote relatively long chapters, and twenty minutes had passed by the time Yuuri finished reading the update. The chapter was full of tension as the main character and her friends tried their best to win the cook-off in which they were partaking. Throughout the entirety of the chapter, things didn't look good for the protagonist as ingredients went missing and equipment kept breaking. She managed to cook according to these disadvantages, but her process was considerably affected. Makkachin ended the chapter on a cliffhanger ― right as the meals had finished cooking and were to be presented to the judges.

Yuuri stretched out on his bed with a smile on his face. Makkachin knew how to perfectly enchant others into her stories, regardless of the reader's preferred genre. While Yuuri had wanted a romance story, he found himself extremely pleased with the cooking story about friendship.

Excited by this new chapter, Yuuri clicked to message the author. He typed out a long message about how much he liked the author and how well-written the chapter was. However, he chickened out before sending the message. After every chapter he had read, he would go through this process of writing a message and deleting it before sending it. Yuuri saw this author as a god and was too intimidated to directly message her. As per usual, he instead turned to updating one of his own stories.

Yuuri himself was a fanfiction author and a good one at that. Many of his stories had made it onto the site's top 100 most popular, some within the top 50. However, he never felt confident in his writing and always wrote while considering how his readers would react. He never let his reader's feelings take absolute control over what he wrote, but if he felt they'd react badly to something, he'd make sure to leave it out. Some of them had noted before that they felt like he could have written more but hadn't. Regardless, Yuuri was always frightened to write out all that he wanted to write.

After a week of writing school papers, however, Yuuri's imagination was eager to be used. Once he opened up Word, Yuuri's fingers flew across the keys. He paid no attention as he wrote and allowed his feelings to come out as he pleased. Yuuri didn't even attempt stop himself; he enjoyed writing like this, and chapters that were written like this had always been the most well-received.

By the time he had finished his chapter and uploaded it, he noticed that it was already 22:32. With only an hour before he would head to bed, he picked out five stories at random that he would read. For the following hour, he read. All of the stories he had chosen were romance fanfictions, but he felt as if none of them really compared to Makkachin's most recent update. After finishing the five stories, he noted it was 23:28. He closed his laptop, ready for sleep, before heading to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

When he looked at himself in the mirror, he noticed bags under his eyes. Yuuri laughed at the sight before picking up his toothbrush and holding it under the faucet. As the water ran over the toothbrush, he stuck his tongue out and scrunched his nose, making funny faces at himself. Then he brushed his teeth. As he left the bathroom, he turned out the lights.

The moment Yuuri reentered his room, he tossed his backpack and laptop off from his bed. As he got under the covers, he reached for his bedside lamp and pulled on the cord. Once the lights were out and his head hit the pillow, Yuuri closed his eyes and let sleep overtake him.

Yuuri groaned as he woke up the next morning, displeased with the pressure he felt on his chest. He opened his eyes and smiled when he found Vicchan, his dog, laying there. The small poodle had its eyes closed and was breathing slowly. Reluctant to wake the sleeping dog, he slowly pushed the poodle off of him.

Once he got out from under the covers, he tucked in the dog and smoothed out the rest of his sheets. As he walked to the bathroom, he let out a loud, unrestrained yawn. His eyes forcefully shut themselves at the sudden brightness as he flipped the light switch. He turned on the shower water, making sure to adjust the temperature so it wasn't ice cold yet didn't quite hold any warmth. As he stripped himself of his clothes, he noticed that he was starting to look a little chubby. He hadn't been working out at all during the past week, and the lack of exercise was starting to make itself known in his face and stomach. He had to admit he wasn't fond of his ability to gain weight so easily, but he also wasn't extremely conscious of his body figure. He just accepted this fact as it was and occasionally exercised to keep himself at a healthy weight.

Finally clean and awake for the day, Yuuri dried himself off. Wrapping his towel around his waist, he walked over to the bathroom sink. He repeated the same process as last night, making funny faces at himself before brushing his teeth. He couldn't quite pinpoint when he had started doing that. He only remembered his mother making funny faces with him when he was younger, and he kept the fond memory close to his heart.

He made sure to turn off his bathroom light as he left the room; his parents had taught him that wasting electricity was expensive and should always be avoided. He walked over to the dresser opposite his bed and pulled out the top drawer. From here, he pulled out some navy boxers and white crew socks. He then proceeded to open his second drawer, taking out a black T-shirt. He choose black pants from his fourth drawer, completing his outfit for the day.

After dressing himself, Yuuri looked at his clock; it read 6:13. He had roughly an hour to eat breakfast and head to school before his first lecture started. Grabbing a pair of sneakers from his closet, he headed toward the pile of belongings beside his bed. Yuuri picked up his laptop from the ground before packing it into his bag. As he left the room, he turned off the lights and left the door open just enough for Vicchan to make his way out once he woke up.

Outside of Yuuri's bedroom was his apartment's living space. Yuuri groaned at the sight of all the microwaveable meals that littered the room. He made a mental note to himself to do a major cleaning once he was done with the last paper. The stress from these papers was turning his lifestyle unhealthy.

He continued walking through his apartment to the kitchen, hopping on his left leg as he attempted to slide his right foot into his shoe. Once Yuuri reached the kitchen, he placed a hand on the counter to support himself and slip his foot in. He switched hands to get his left foot into a shoe.

Now that he was fully dressed, he headed to the refrigerator. He looked inside to find a carton of eggs, a stick of butter, a half-full gallon of milk, a few apples, and some bread. He pulled out the eggs and milk. Yuuri closed the fridge and opened the cabinet directly to the right of it, pulling out a glass. He opened the egg carton and noticed there were only three left. He took two of the remaining eggs and cracked them into the glass. Yuuri added a little bit of milk to the glass before returning both ingredients to their place in the refrigerator.

He pulled open the drawer two drawers over from the fridge and took out a fork. Closing the drawer with his hip, he picked up the glass of egg-milk mixture and stirred it with the fork. Once the mixture looked like it had blended well enough, he reached for a pan from the cabinet below the utensils drawer. He placed the pan on the front left burner of the stove and turned on the flame at medium-low heat. As he tossed the egg-milk mixture into the pan, Yuuri reached over to grab a spatula from the jar beside the stove. He pushed the yellow liquid around with the spatula as it started to bubble and solidify. Pleased with the rumpled appearance of the eggs, he turned the burner off.

Yuuri reached into a cabinet and pulled out a plate for his scrambled eggs. After scraping them onto the plate, he set the dirty pan into the sink. He proceeded to open the fridge and pull out one of the apples in the bottom drawer. He rinsed it off in the sink before dropping it onto the plate beside his eggs. Once again reaching into the cabinet next to his refrigerator, he pulled out another glass and filled it with water.

He took his meal to the adjoined living room and sat down on the couch. He ate in silence, planning how he was going to work on his assignment after school. Once he was finished eating, he headed back to the kitchen to clean off his dishes. He put the two forks, the plate, the two glasses, and the pan into the dishwasher afterwards.

Yuuri glanced at his watch and saw that it was 6:52. He had a little bit over half an hour until he had to be on campus and in class. The walk there was only fifteen minutes, so he decided he had enough to glance over some reviews for his new update. He walked back to the sofa in his living space and pulled out his laptop.

Opening , he was pleased to see that a good amount of people had read his new chapter. He scrolled down until he reached the oldest review he hadn't yet read. A soft smile formed on his lips as he read one of his reader's comments on the story.

Katsu im so happy u finally decided to update sunlight shower! u dont usually write about family but i think ur doing well for exploring a new genre im not surprised u find ur inspiration in Makkachin tho shes a good writer and u can sometimes see her influence in ur stories in a good way ofc! keep up the good work im looking forward to the next update
-TigerInk

TigerInk always responded to Yuuri's updates in a young, overly-excited way. It was endearing to the aspiring author that someone was so invested in his writing. Scrolling up, he read some other reviews by readers. Most of them raved about how good of an update it was or that the story was going well, considering Yuuri had never written a story on family before. Finally, Yuuri was reading the most recent review, and his heart stopped.

I didnt know that you were also a big fan of Makkachin! Since you are I decided to message them and direct them over to your profile. They did inspire you after all. Makkachins very responsive to readers reviews so I definitely think theyll read mine and check out your stories. I hope they likes it and you two decide to do a collab or something!
-más de Chris

Yuuri's heart and mind were racing. Makkachin is going to read one of my stories? he thought. Nononono, this is bad. I'll just disappoint her. My writing doesn't compare to hers at all. Why is this happening? I nev-

A beep stopped him mid-thought. Yuuri looked down at his watch which read 7:15. He had to leave if he wanted to get to school on time. He slammed his laptop shut, deciding he'd deal with the problem later, and shoved it into his backpack. Realizing he didn't have his glasses on, he ran into his bedroom to grab them from his bedside table. Vicchan jumped up in surprise at the sound of the door slamming into the wall.

"I'm sorry, Vicchan," Yuuri apologized. "C'mon, boy. I'll feed you real quick. And when I'm home, I'll give you a nice long walk to apologize for waking you up early." He scurried out of the room to his kitchen and yanked open one of the cabinets. Snatching the dog food, he poured some into the bowl that was in front of the sink. He picked up the water bowl beside the now-filled food bowl and added water to it. Yuuri quickly plopped the bowl onto the tile floor before running back to the couch to retrieve his backpack. As he was unlocking the door, Yuuri called out to his dog.

"Be a good boy while I'm gone, and watch over the house for me!" he shouted. Then he rushed out of his house into the apartment building hallway. A beep was heard, and running down the hallway, he called out for someone to hold the elevator open for him.

A few people shot glares at Yuuri as he apologetically smiled and slid into the elevator. He looked down at the floor, holding his backpack strap tightly, during the entire descent to the first floor. Once a ding was heard, the doors opened, and Yuuri ran out of the elevator like a bat out of hell. He darted to the building exit and slammed through the doors. The August air was hot and humid, and two minutes into his run to school, Yuuri was sweating. He paid no attention to the beads of sweat that rolled down his face and neck, desperate to make it to school on time.

By the time Yuuri arrived to school, it was 7:28. He rushed to his first class, working his way through the crowds in the hallways and jumping out of the paths of others. Just as he reached his first class, he saw his teacher turning the corner from down the hallway; he had made it just in time. Yuuri relaxed once he entered the room and scanned it for a certain Thai boy. His eyes landed on the dark-skinned boy at the very back of the classroom with an empty seat beside him. He waved in Yuuri's direction. Yuuri rushed over to the other's side and claimed the available seat beside him.

"Phichit, you will not believe what happened!" Yuuri exclaimed. The shorter male smiled at the sight of his friend's excitement.

"What, did you get a date?" Phichit joked. Yuuri was not entertained by the other's joke and gave him a look.

"No. You know how I write fanfiction occasionally?" Yuuri asked. Phichit raised an eyebrow in response.

Phichit was the only other person to whom Yuuri had revealed his fanfiction obsession, but it wasn't intentional. Phichit had spent the night at Yuuri's place once and had seen the taller boy writing something on his computer. Interested, Phichit had peeked over the other's shoulder before he could close his laptop. Although Yuuri had wanted to keep it a secret, Phichit's constant pestering made it impossible to hide the truth. Yuuri decided that if anyone were to know the truth, Phichit would be the one. When the older boy had revealed the truth, Phichit had admitted to liking fanfiction as well but nowhere near as much as Yuuri. For the Thai male, reading fanfictions was a pastime; for Yuuri, it was a necessity.

Phichit's eyebrow raise was not one of confusion but one of mocking doubt. The younger boy knew that Yuuri read fanfiction on a routinely basis. "Occasionally" was an extreme understatement, and both of them knew it. Yuuri shook his head in exasperation.

"Well, you know how I read fanfiction, right?" he restated his question. Phichit knew his answer would be cut off, so he simply nodded in response. "Okay, so you know about the user, Makkachin, right?" he asked. Phichit's eyes lit up with excitement, and Yuuri knew he was about to enter one of his fanboy moments.

"You mean the Makkachin? The one who writes Food Stakes and released what is literally the best update ever last night?! That Makkachin?!" he squealed. Yuuri nodded with a smile on his lips.

"Mhmm," Yuuri excitedly responded. "So, here's the thing. I also happened to update last night, and-"

"Okay, class, settle down," a voice shouted from the front, penetrating the air. Laptops were pulled out, and conversations died down immediately after the command was given. No one dared to talk during Professor Yakov's lectures. Anyone who even breathed too loudly would get an overly-aggressive scolding; most people cried. Eager to tell Phichit his story, Yuuri opened up a sticky note on his computer and began typing:

So i happened to update it last night and in my update, i may or may not have mentioned the fact that Makkachin is a big role model of mine.

Yuuri tapped on Phichit's shoulder to get the younger male's attention. Upon reading the message, Phichit scrunched up his eyebrows and pulled up his own sticky notes application. He wrote:

So?

Yuuri aggressively blew air out of his nose, frustrated that his fanatical friend wasn't understanding the severity of his situation. A few students in front of the two turned around with fear in their eyes. Yuuri saw Yakov shoot a glare in their direction before proceeding with his lecture.

So! mas de Chris said that he was going to message Makkachin and tell her about my stories! shes going to hear about my stories and possibly read them DO YOU NUDERSTAND?!

"Oh. My. God," Phichit exclaimed. Once again, people turned around to look at the duo. This time, however, it was a majority of the room. Professor Yakov let out a grunt of frustration.

"Phichit Chulanont and Yuuri Katsuki. If either of you intend to interrupt my class one more time, please leave now. If not, then please pay attention to the lecture," he shouted. When he noticed neither of them moved, he added, "If I hear a single noise from back there, I will be sending you both home immediately." Yakov then proceeded to give his lecture. Phichit eagerly jumped back onto his sticky note and typed something out. Yuuri looked over to see the writing:

Go check and see if anything else happened! Quickly!1

Yuuri looked up to see if the professor was paying attention to them, but he seemed to be distracted by his presentation. He discreetly opened up Google Chrome and typed " " into URL bar. A loud gasp came from Yuuri's mouth.

"OH. MY. GOD," he shouted. Everyone in class turned around once again, murmuring. The professor stopped talking and calmly walked over to the classroom door, opening it.

"Boys, here is the door. Now if you could please stop interrupting class and continue whatever you are doing outside of the classroom." Both boys blushed as they hurriedly picked up their bags and scurried out of the classroom. The door slammed behind them as they left. Now that he could freely talk, Phichit turned to Yuuri. He was shaking with excitement.

"Okay, so you wouldn't have practically screamed that out in class unless something really good or really bad happened. What is it?!" he squealed. Yuuri mumbled something in response, but Phichit couldn't pick it up. "Yuuri, you need to be louder. C'mon. What happened?!"

"Makkachin messaged me."

El Fin

Preview of next chapter:

His heart was racing as he held the cursor over the send button. He would finally be able to talk to one of his favourite authors. Never before in his life had he expected this opportunity to come. Sure, he'd considered sending messages several times before, but he'd never found the determination to actually send anything. Now it was happening. He clicked 'send.'

A sigh of relief was let out as the pressure was removed from his shoulders. He'd sent a message. Now he just had to wait for a response…

Omggggg. It's my first time writing a fanfiction in, like, forever. Watching Yuri on Ice, my inner fangirl just came out, and before I knew it, I was writing this. Tbh, I have so much planned for this, and I really hope y'all stick with me until the end to watch it all unravel.

Shoutout to my soulmate (notreallybutreally) starmini who helped me sooooo much with the formation of the storyline and basically betareading this chapter. I'd have lost motivation halfway through writing this without you.

Anyway, so, that's it for the first chapter. Hope you enjoyed it! Leave a review and let me know your feelings. While I have this vaguely mapped out, I'm open to any ideas y'all might have. Also can anyone guess who TigerInk and más de Chris are? lol