By RegalOneByTheStream
So i had this written and was waiting for the creativity gods to strike so that it would grow into a proper ficlet. But they never did, so whatever. Guess I'll do something with it.
As for the general special thing behind the fic, I kind of leave the reader out on a limb to figure it out. I dropped a ton of nudges, so shrug.
Disclaimer: nothing but the premise is mine.
WARNING! MC death.
XXXXXX
Never love someone who leaves you
Never leave someone who loves you
~anonymous, 2017
XXXXXX
They all wore black, but the aura around the casket was the blackest of them all.
It was one of those funerals where the world rebels against its loss: the torrential downpour of rain hadn't stopped for a while, despite the meteorologists' assurances that there was no danger, and everything seemed to be at a standstill. Shops were closed due to the unrelenting, abysmal weather; traffic lights lazily switched colors with few cars to dictate, and the car that preceded the funeral procession broke down, as if the world was screaming that it wasn't right.
And Viktor would agree. Why the universe had stooped so low as to snuff out a young, promising, talented man like Phichit Chulanont was beyond him. He had been coworker of the young man before, it was why he was here in the first place. They had had a single shift together in the years they had worked in the same place, and he could relay with complete conviction that damn, the man took amazing selfies.
It took one stupid, wayward driver speeding down the road to end it all.
The King of Instagram himself had a private funeral service, but online, millions mourned his loss. It was strange though, because millions of others were all talking about a Katsuki Yuuri, talking about sending consolation gifts and about how they were such good friends—Viktor had seen enough situations like theirs to write them as the closet gay couple.
But now, as even the deceased's parents walked away, stumbling to their car as Mrs. Chulanont clutched at her husband for dear life and wailed, Mr. Yuuri stood next to the casket, umbrella in one hand and a small silver pet carrier in the other, clutched to his abdomen for some semblance of protection from the chill of the midday rain. Coming closer, Viktor could see the three small hamsters inside, completely still and silent as if they understood the sober situation and were mourning alongside their co-master.
But Viktor didn't need to get closer to see Mr. Yuuri's aura. Blacker than night, the Asian man stood with an utter tranquility befitting of the color, staring down at his best friend (lover?)'s face emotionlessly. He was not crying. As Viktor joined him by the casket, he looked up, meeting Viktor's eyes for a second and obviously recognizing him by the look on his face, but he simply turned scarlet and looked down, the hand on the pet carrier clenching.
Neither of them spoke for a while, standing there by each other's side in the cold downpour, their only shelter the two meager umbrellas that did nothing for their pants from the thigh down.
Finally, Katsuki spoke. "You have the black, too."
Viktor didn't confirm it; it wasn't a question, anyways. "You knew he was about to die," he replied instead, and his condolences were the most honest thing he'd said in a long time. "I'm sorry for that...and of course, for your loss, Mr. Yuuri."
The other's brow scrunched, and Viktor appraised his features. He was distinctly Eastern, probably Japanese or Chinese. With his dark hair slicked from the downpour and that golden skin, he was the image of Eros. But his expression, squinting from the rain, mild confusion and deep sorrow reflected in his soulful eyes, made him seem like so much more than that. Viktor found himself staring and reverted his eyes to the casket.
"Yuuri is my first name," the Asian man explained into the awkward silence that had grown ominously between them. "Katsuki is my surname...it's differently structured in Japan. But yes. I...I just watched." Viktor could hear the sob, just barely wrestled back. Eyes on the casket. "How do you stand it? Knowing when people are about to pass, not being able to do anything…I told Phichit that I had it, that I could see that his time was short, I made sure he understood, and nothing changed!"
Viktor sighed and smiled wearily, the expression not quite entering his gaze, still fixed on the gleaming pine casket. "Fate chooses, Mr. Katsuki. We just have to suffer through knowing their death day...and though I don't recommend drinking now, it's an honorary part of the lifestyle to get drunk every now and again."
"He was yellow one day, and red the next...I thought I still had time…"
Viktor shook his head. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be, you didn't kill him." Katsuki sighed, rubbing his face. "I need to calm down," he murmured admonishingly, "I need…"
"You need to look out for yourself," Viktor said, "You know that having the black means we live until our luck kills us. And you're such a dark shade...you have such awful luck…"
Katsuki laughed, albeit nervously glancing at Viktor as he did so. "And you're the luckiest black I've ever seen. I thought you were some kind of gray for a minute before I took a second glance."
Viktor laughed, startling himself with the action. How long had it been since he'd laughed? "I'll take that as a complement!" He held his hand out. "Viktor Nikiforov, I'm a part of the host network...that's how I knew Phichit." he said, smiling. Katsuki Yuuri nodded at him, opening his mouth to say something, then pinking and snapping it shut so hard Viktor could hear his teeth clack together. The other man frowning uncertainly and jerking his head at the cage and umbrella in his hands. Trying to be smooth, Viktor redirected his outstretched hand to caress his silver hair...smoothly. Dammit.
"I'm...Yuuri Katsuki, and I work as a bartender..." the other said, a small smile gracing his lips due to Viktor's awkwardness, and Viktor swore up and down that that man, wet as he was, puffy-eyed and listless, and half his face hidden behind his blue glasses, was the cutest thing he had seen in a long time.
Yuuri Katsuki the Inadvertently Adorable nodded at the casket. "That's Phichit Chulanont. My best friend and roommate...he was a brother to me."
(Not lover. Brother.)
(Green light, much?)
Viktor smiled, mentally screaming at himself at how wrong it was, trying to take advantage of a person who was mentally unstable with grief just to satisfy his personal carnal desires, but couldn't halt the purr in his voice as he offered, "I take back what I said earlier…getting drunk right about now sounds like a wonderful idea."
Yuuri giggled halfheartedly in response, pinked face deepening to a firmer red color, his eyes shifting to the stones that were posted in the earth, sprawling in neat rows across the cemetery. "I, um, I know the feeling," he promised, "but I'm...I have to decline today...I have to get these guys home." Yuuri's gaze turned down at the three hamsters. And then he turned to Viktor, his warm brown eyes meeting with Viktor's sky blue ones for a fleeting second before he bowed into a forty-five degree angle. "It was nice to meet you, Vik—Mr. Nikiforov, but I think I should go now...erm, goodbye…"
"Wait!" Viktor snatched the retreating man's umbrella wrist, already fumbling for a pen in his pocket. Upon finding it, he pushed Yuuri's sleeve up and wrote on his wrist his phone number and instagram address. "My contact," he said breathlessly, nodding at Yuuri and smiling, "Call me sometime."
Yuuri didn't say anything, just nodded dumbly and scrambled away.
Viktor watched that dark aura retreat and smiled.
For three months after that, he constantly checked his phone. He had messages from clients and messages from Chris and messages from Yakov (most of which were left unopened) but none from the owner of that aura, who had Mocha skin and honey eyes and a mouth perfectly plumped for kisses.
When Chris' aura swung drastically from blue to green to yellow to orange to red, and eventually brown—the color of fallen leaves and wilted flowers and dust and death—Viktor found himself in a bar called Celestino's, drinking his sorrows away.
And oh, there was an angel with a black aura behind the counter.
Viktor was not about to let him leave a second time.
XXXXXX
Katsuki Yuuri was eighty-nine years old.
Of course, he didn't look it. He had retained the chub in his cheeks from childhood and had the easy weight-gaining ability of his father, and that alongside the plainness of his Asian features made him one twenty-three year old face in a crowd of much prettier, skinnier, more talented people. But it was him, and not them, who had the black, and him, not them, who had the ill luck of the trade, and him who would live for as long as it took.
He would never age a day over twenty-three until his luck got him killed.
His parents were dead. His sister had never married, but she was old enough to be his grandmother. Mari was most likely still in Hasetsu. Yuuri hadn't been able to bear watching everyone around him grow old, and so he had travelled, ending up in Detroit, where he met Phichit.
And his bad luck was still holding, because within months of their meeting, Phichit was dead, and Yuuri had met the man that he had pined after for so long, and had fully expected never to see that black-gray aura again.
But there it was, hovering around the silver-headed Russian man he had only plucked up the courage to talk to at Phichit's funeral, and even then, he had been the one to approach first. Viktor Nikiforov. Yuuri could hardly breathe when the man approached him, couldn't do anything but nod. And oh, was he an asshole, going off and correcting the way Viktor said his name! But he's seen the man before, when he went to visit Phichit at his work, and had a firsthand account of his charm on full blast—Yuuri had been slammed with it full in the face, resulting in this crush-not-quite-a-crush that he'd hated with a passion from the day it began.
And now, he was being eyed by the same man. Over the counter, too, in his place of business, which did things to his libido that Yuuri was too ashamed of to focus on.
His damned unlucky black aura.
Yuuri's hands were trembling as he served out drinks, as his skilled hands worked at the cocktails and collected gracious tips from local patrons who knew and loved him, including the original Celestino himself, who was more than happy to see his bar in Yuuri's hands.
Yes, think of Celestino and his fatherly aura and the nice ebony bar—not of how the popular, well-respected, most clamoured-after host, Viktor Nikiforov, was looking like he'd like to bend him over that bar for activities that would make Celestino faint—ah, pure thoughts!
As quickly as he could to avoid eye contact, Yuuri raked his gaze over the bar. It was a slow Thursday evening, with only a few patrons in on the house. Soon, it would only be him and Viktor.
Soon came too quickly.
Yuuri tried to squeak something about going back to the employee's only area, but Viktor had none of it. "Yuuri," he purred, grasping the man by the wrist in a firm, gentle hold.
"I—I have to—"
"Yuuri," Viktor sighed, and with a solitary tug he pulled Yuuri across the counter and touched their cheeks together. When they pulled back, faces only inches apart, Viktor smiled, tilting his head so that his hair swept off of his eye. "Kampai! I think that's how they said to say it..."
And oh god Viktor was so close and Yuuri was so gay for him and Viktor had no idea what that purr in his voice did to his systems—
(Viktor's breath smelled like mint and beer.)
(Yuuri had the sudden, fervent inclination to see if it tasted that way as well.)
Viktor blinked, once, twice, his eyelashed fanning Yuuri's cheeks as his gaze met Yuuri's, the Japanese man having frozen into place the second he realized he was kissing his crush-not-quite-a-crush. And then Viktor closed his eyes and hummed deep in his throat, a sound that vibrated into Yuuri's core and sent tingles down his spine. And then Viktor was kissing him properly, and instead of Yuuri's awkward lip waving and teeth clacking, Viktor's kiss was all mouth and humming and tongue, lots of tongue, tongue in his mouth, mapping the area and wrapping around Yuuri's own and oh that sinful humming.
All too soon it was over.
(Indeed, Viktor's mouth tasted like mint and beer.)
But Viktor didn't seem satisfied, and the man mewled and latched onto his neck, sucking a pattern into the skin there. And he bit a little, and it kind of hurt, but Viktor's mouth was so warm and he was still making those sexy humming noises, and as his head fell limp, Yuuri lost the ability to make coherent decisions.
And so Yuuri growled.
Legitimately growled.
Viktor pulled back for a second, confused, and then saw the bright red flush that had overtaken his cheeks. He chuckled, planted a light kiss on Yuuri's lips, and whispered, "Go out with me."
Yuuri blinked. "Oh."
The smile that Viktor radiated with when he finally said yes was blinding.
And if anyone told him that three months later, he would be sliding a golden band onto Viktor's hand and Viktor would cry over him and lose his job over him and become Yuuri's apprentice and co-owner of Celestino's he would tell them to go fuck themselves.
Viktor and Yuuri had been married for a few years now.
And the black aura could go fuck itself.
XXXXXX
Fin.
Ok. That was a bit more cursing than I expected from Yuuri. But that's okay. With that spunk and Eros locked away in his brain, I can see him as an inner pottymouth.
Drop a fave/review on your way out!
Thanks for reading!
RegalOneByTheStream