Katsuki Yuuri was famous.
With the exception of Phichit and his family, nobody else knew the identity of the mysterious, sci-fi writer with the pseudonym Altair.
Katsuki Yuuri chuckled each time he scrolled through the articles speculating his identity. A teenage prodigy, a femme fatale, an old alcoholic, a nerd in his forties who never left his mom's basement. Rumors ran wild, the fanart even wilder.
Yuuri hated the bar, Phichit dragged him today to keep him from sulking.
'You'd never meet anyone if you don't put yourself out there, you are secretly famous after all, why not let the cat out of the bag though. I'm sure more than enough people would want to date you,' he sighed remembering the last words from Phichit before he disappeared to the other side of the bar.
Maybe I'll go online or something, I guess I do have my ways with words, Yuuri glanced over the shoulder, this is awkward. Where the heck did Phichit go. He tapped his fingers on the marble counter as he crossed his legs. His fingers closed around the glass of scotch with a spherical ice cube like the glistening full moon.
He never minded being alone, to him solitary freedom is a blessing (just not in a bar though). He missed his giant ceramic coffee mug with constellations studded on it and a cracked edge. He could be sitting with his coffee and writing right now. Frickin Phichit, exasperated, Yuuri thought of one million places he'd rather be than here.
He unclasped the glass because the iciness now bit into his fingers. He propped his chin up on his palm, maybe I should leave.
Then he jumped at the sound of glass shattering next to him.
"Sorry," the bartender who looked almost underage with emerald eyes and golden hair parted to one side apologized to the tall stranger next to him, "fuck," he muttered under his breaths as he left to fetch the broom.
"It's alright," a gentle voice begun. Yuuri turned and the stranger sitting next to him met his eyes, "sorry if I scared you."
Yuuri shook his head, "you don't have to apologize -" He almost stopped in mid sentence. He couldn't help but stare, silver hair, blue-green irises, starch white dress shirt with the tip button open. He was fucking beautiful.
Next to gorgeous stranger, a man with a five o'clock shadow in a tailored suit that appeared as if could he could have stepped out of a magazine raised an eyebrow.
"Let me buy you a drink," the corner of the beautiful stranger's lips curled up, "I'll make it up to you."
Yuri's heart leapt to his throat, "no- I mean, you don't have to, really, it's nothing." He wiped his clammy hands on his lap.
"No, I insist," he lowered himself on the stool next to Yuuri, "Victor." He stretched out hand with a wide grin.
"Yuuri," his cool fingertips closed around Victor's palm, surprisingly warm.
"This is Chris," Victor tilted his chin in his friend's direction.
Chris nodded with acknowledgement.
"He's my neighbor since we were in elementary school," Victor continued.
"That's a long time," Yuuri lifted his half empty glass and sipped. Almost as long as I had know Phichit. Speaking of Phichit, you little shit, where are you?
"Chris is a psychology professor," Victor turned facing him.
"What about you?" Yuuri couldn't bring himself to meet Victor's eyes. He is so damn beautiful, I can't.
"He's a jaded doctor who hates people," Chris mocked him.
"Hmm..." Yuuri paused, and tipped his glass. He wouldn't have guess Victor as the type who hates people. Being a writer, weaving together characters' life stories he always enjoyed people watching and imagining what they back story must have been.
"As I was saying earlier," Chris turned to Victor, I am on the fence if I should include this experiment into my lecture. These college kids are definitely going go home and try it."
Victor chuckled.
"What's that about?" Yuuri averted Victor's gaze.
"The premise is to see if it's possible to accelerate the process for strangers to fall in love, there's thirty six questions that two people take turns answering that gets increasingly personal. And the original subjects of this experiment ended up married and invited everyone in the lab to their wedding." Chris swirled his wine glass and emptied it.
"That sounds ridiculous," Victor's blue-green eyes gleamed with mockery, "right?"
Yuuri blushed, sipping his scotch (to which Phichit renamed liquid courage).
"Let's go try it," Victor's hand landed on his forearm.
Somehow they ended up passing Victor's phone back and forth. Chris excused himself at the first opportunity to prepare for his lecture and promised to send Victor the slides.
"Question one: If you could meet someone famous, who would it be?" Yuuri begun.
Victor touched his bottom lip with one finger, "my favorite writer. Hands down. I am a sucker for sci-fi," He blushed, "but I don't think I ever will because he choose to be in his own world, I guess Altair has his own reasons."
Yuuri almost spluttered into his drink. Grateful the dark ambience of the bar hid the redness creeping up his cheeks.
"You alright?" Victor rested a hand on his shoulder.
Yuuri coughed, "yea."
"Good thing you are with a doctor," Victor's hand returned to his side.
"What do you like about Altair?" Yuuri's palms clammy.
"You read his stuff too?" Victor's eyes widened with excitement, "Who knows if Altair is a 'he' to begin with."
"Um...sort of," Yuuri avoided his gaze.
"Well, where do I begin, no laughing okay? Some of his writing took me out of some pretty dark places," Victor brushed his hand through his silver locks, "I read the second book when I was training to become a doctor, that scene with the Vice Captain flashback where he stood up for himself got to me, I read it during one of my darkest days of residency, and I don't know, it made things better. It led me to realize the suffering is temporary. Sorry, I am rambling."
"I think I remember that scene," Yuuri grinned. He wrote that chapter in a tiny cafe in Barcelona while sitting next to the window sipping a cappuccino and watching tourists stroll down la Rambla.
"Anyways, I would love to meet Altair some day," Victor took the phone from him, "I have a feeling Altair is a man in his twenties, not sure why, my intuition said so, anyways, yes, I confess to be his fanboy, and I am not ashamed of it. Next question: Would you like to be famous? In what way?"
Yuuri leaned back and took a deep breath, "I would want to be secretly famous like your favorite writer, keep the rest of the world from guessing," he chuckled, "Your turn."
"I don't want to be famous, I rather go home to my money," Victor interlaced his fingers, "it's not like being a doctor pays that much anyways, given the context of time it took me to get there. I guess I am on the practical side."
"Fair enough," Yuuri scrolled on the screen with one finger, "what would be a perfect day for you?"
"Waking up after recovering from work, jogging with my dog and walking back with a cappuccino in my hand on an autumn day, and going home knowing Altair's latest book that I haven't started is waiting for me. You know one of those sunny days in the fall where it was just getting cool and the leaves are everywhere? One of those." Victor smiled.
Yuuri blushed. I can't believe he likes my writing this much. His heart fluttered. Even his editor Celestino never met him in person. He snuck in as one of the fans at a convention and walked by the booth with stacks of his own books and Celestino grumpily handed out autographed books and telling the fans for the millionth time that he was not Altair. He eavesdropped on fans before out of curiosity, but never had anyone told him that his book became such a big part of their lives, let along this beautiful stranger. He couldn't meet Victor eyes right now, he cleared his throat, "my perfect day, it's not anything special really, a good writing day really. When inspiration is with me and that feeling I get where there's not enough hours in a day for me to put everything down on a page, or when I am outside and I get an idea and all of a sudden I need to find every scrap of paper I can get my hands on like napkins so I can jot it down."
"Wow, you really love writing," Victor leaned forwards, his knee accidentally brushed past Yuuri's.
Yuuri jumped, while heat rose on his face, "so-sorry, I didn't mean to." He scratched his head.
"No, I'm sorry," Victor emptied his drink, "must be the alcohol."
"I do love the fact I get to write for a living," Yuuri presses his lips together as warmth radiated from the pit of his stomach, "I mean, my writing makes enough to support me, buy a few nice things for my loved ones, travel a little." Yuuri's actually made enough from his books that he didn't need to work another day for at least the next twenty years. Before Victor asked him more about his books he clicked on the glowing screen to the next question, "when's the last time you sang to yourself? To someone else?"
"Eh?" Victor rested his chin into his palm, and sighed, "I don't sing to myself, in fact I am terrible at singing. Last time I sang to someone else was when I was a med student rotating through ICU. My thirty something year old patient with lung cancer that spread every part of his body was being taken off the ventilator," his silvery brows knotted together, "his wife bright their two year old and she needed to leave to feed the parking meter. She asked if I could sing to their son because that was his bedtime ritual."
"I'm so sorry," Yuuri shook his head. I couldn't imagine what they have gone through.
"They turned on the morphine drip, I held the kid and sang him to sleep," Victor's eyes glistened, "then his father passed away in peace before he woke up".
"How do you deal with so much death? I guess in your profession it's inevitable." Yuuri leaned forwards.
"It acts as a constant reminder for me to live, because anything can happen at any given moment." Victor stared into his empty glass, "anyways, let's not talk about sad things tonight, what about you Yuuri?"
"Well, I don't sing to other people," he shifted in his barstool, "I um...sing in the shower?"
Victor's eyebrows unfurled and he bursted out laughing, "you don't look like someone who sings in the shower."
"What do someone who sing in the shower look like?" Yuuri picked up is glass, the round ice cube now a quarter of its original size. Then the sound of a cocktail mixer being slammed onto the table interrupted his train of thoughts.
"Excuse me? Are you two going to gawk at each other all night here?" The bartender with a golden mane hissed through an emerald glare.
I don't want this night to end, Yuuri's heartbeats accelerated. He pulled out his phone, 10:15 pm, and a missed call from Phichit. He decided not to call him back. And shit! I can't believe I just told someone who looked like that I sing in the showers.
"Sorry," Victor's smile apologetic, "you want to take a walk?" He pulled his grey coat from s hook under the counter if the bar, "I actually hate bars, I prefer coffee shops."
"Sounds good," that's one more thing you and I have in common. Yuuri couldn't keep himself from smiling, as he mirrored Victor's motion sliding his arms into his long navy coat along a silent sigh of relief that Victor wanted this night to go on.
"Let me show you the best coffee shop in town," Victor dropped five dollars in the tip jar for the feisty blonde college kid working at the bar, he buttoned his grey coat with long fingers, "I am a doctor, my blood is replaced by caffeine." He grinned.
"Next question?" Yuuri followed him out of the bar.
Author's note:
This story is based on a real psychology experiment. I usually write stories that are a little dark to say the least, I wanted to try something different.
Let me know what you think!