Chapter Text
Yuuri was shaking when he entered the coffee shop, and it didn’t have anything to do with the brisk fall air outside.
Beyond the door there was a wall of warmth and sounds and smells, but Yuuri barely registered any of it.
He saw Victor right away, sitting at their usual table, on the seat facing the door. That was usually Yuuri’s seat, because Yuuri didn’t like sitting with his back to the door, which Victor knew.
But Yuuri supposed Victor wanted to see him coming.
Which he didn’t, because his eyes were fixed downwards, on his hands resting on the surface of the table, not fidgeting but tightly clasped together.
His hair was falling forward, hiding half of his face.
Yuuri’s chest ached, but he stepped forward.
When he pulled out the chair and took the seat opposite, Victor looked up briefly, no hint of surprise on his face, so maybe he had seen Yuuri coming after all. Maybe he just didn’t want to look at him.
He only met Yuuri’s eyes for the briefest of moments before directing them back at his hands, the table, so Yuuri supposed that must be it.
“Hi, Vitya”, Yuuri murmured. He didn’t lean over the table, didn’t try to kiss Victor hello. He was already feeling too warm in his light jacket, and he shrugged out of it, though he wondered if there was any point in taking it off at all. “Do you want to get some coffee?”
Victor just shook his head briefly, then slid his hands forward across the table, resting them on Yuuri’s forearms, squeezing weakly, for a moment. His fingers were cool against Yuuri’s skin, and really, this touch told Yuuri everything he needed to know, everything he had already known before he had even come here.
There was a yawning hollowness opening up in his chest, but he didn’t move. He already knew, but he would let Victor say his piece.
“I think it would be better if we broke up.”
Yuuri’s world did not fall to pieces hearing those words from Victor’s mouth, but only because his world had been shattering bit by painful bit for weeks now. Weeks of dodged calls, cancelled dates and vague excuses. This was just the culmination, an inevitability.
“I … see”, Yuuri said, toneless. He wondered briefly if he should just leave it at that. If he should just let Victor walk away. And if this had happened a year ago, perhaps he would have. When he’d first started dating Victor, he’d expected it to end any minute anyway. Had known that Victor deserved so much better than him and would no doubt one day see that, too.
But now … until a few weeks ago, Yuuri had been secure in their relationship, had known what they were, who they were to each other. Had known that they worked. Or at least he’d thought he’d known. But it seemed he had been mistaken. Still, he didn’t understand, and he loved Victor too much to not want to understand.
“Can I ask … what happened, Vitya? I thought we were doing so well, I thought we were happy. Or at least I was, but maybe … Isn’t there … Can’t we work on this?”
“What is there to work on?”, Victor returned, and Yuuri suppressed a wince.
“Our relationship. Don’t you … don’t you want to at least try? If there is something making you unhappy, just tell me and we can work something out.”
“We can’t.” The words were so final, brooking no argument.
“So you’re just giving up on us?”, Yuuri whispered. “After all this time?”
Victor licked his lips, still not looking at him. He swallowed. “I don’t know what to tell you.” His voice was neutral, almost bored sounding. So controlled.
All that control that he’d slowly, slowly relinquished, with Yuuri.
“I—” Yuuri’s voice didn’t break. It didn’t. There would be plenty of time to fall apart about this later, but for now he wouldn’t make a scene. “I just want you to be honest.”
Victor looked up then, though he didn’t meet Yuuri’s eyes, not quite, his gaze trained somewhere on his cheek, the bridge of his nose. “I suppose I just don’t love you anymore.”
Yuuri couldn’t help the wounded noise that escaped him, then. Just a small thing, barely audible over the din in the café, but loud enough that Victor would have heard it.
Victor pulled back his hands now, and Yuuri found himself glad for it. His skin was burning where Victor had touched it. Not the pleasant burn he’d always felt under Victor’s touch. Something chafing.
“I’m sorry.” There was no emotion in those words.
One of Victor’s hands disappeared briefly under the table, and when it returned it set a key on the tabletop with a click that Yuuri felt into his bones.
Yuuri just nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and reached into his jacket pocket for his own keys. It seemed to take an uncomfortable eternity, prying the key to Victor’s flat off the key ring, and when it was done Yuuri quickly closed his fist around the remaining keys so Victor wouldn’t hear them jingling with his trembling. Then he set Victor’s key down on the table next to his own before picking the latter up.
Victor, too, picked up his key and slipped it into his pocket.
Yuuri couldn’t stay here. And really, there was no point in staying any longer, was there?
He pushed to his feet, surprised when Victor copied the motion, getting up from his chair as well. He leaned forward over the table before Yuuri could turn away and Yuuri’s heart lurched painfully in his chest.
He didn’t think he could handle it if Victor kissed him now.
But Victor didn’t, just pressed his forehead against Yuuri’s, leaning into his space, one hand coming up to rest against his chest, just underneath the collar bone.
Yuuri was still shaking but he couldn’t pull away from Victor’s warmth, his familiar scent, his touch. His own hand came up automatically to cover Victor’s on his chest, squeezing it almost painfully.
It only lasted three seconds, maybe four, before Victor pulled away, jerking his hand away like he’d been burned. He sank back down on his chair, pulling his jacket closer around him, not looking at Yuuri.
Yuuri had to take a moment to breathe, swallow.
“Well …”, he said then, his voice a hoarse whisper. “I suppose …” He trailed off. Victor said nothing.
“Say goodbye to Makkachin for me.”
Victor nodded once, terse.
Yuuri pressed his lips firmly together to stop all the other words that crowded onto his tongue, and picked up his jacket. “Bye, Vitya”, was all he could press out, not trusting himself with more.
“Goodbye, Yuuri.”
Yuuri left the café and didn’t—couldn’t—look back.
Victor’s hair was always so soft, so silky under his fingers.
Yuuri never got tired of running his fingers through it, playing with it. Never got tired of touching it.
He said as much now, with Victor’s head pillowed in his lap, Victor curled onto the side and scrolling through Instagram on his phone. Yuuri had been playing on his 3DS originally, but Victor’s presence was just entirely too distracting.
First he had just idly petted Victor’s hair with one hand when he didn’t need both hands for the game. Then he had found himself lingering over the dialogue scenes because they let him pet Victor for longer. By now the console had long since been discarded on the coffee table, one hand running through Victor’s hair and the other gently scratching as his scalp.
Victor only made an appreciative sound every once in a while, but he only looked up when Yuuri spoke.
“Good thing I’ll never tire of having you touch my hair, then”, he said. The smile on his face could only be described as dopey and Yuuri loved him so much.
“Doesn’t it ever get too much?”, Yuuri murmured, not quite an idle question. He loved it when Victor touched him, too, but when he repetitively petted the same spot for too long sometimes Yuuri could get overstimulated, oversensitive.
“Never.” There was no hesitation to Victor’s answer. He shifted onto his back so he could gaze up at Yuuri. “I like watching you when you do that”, he said, still smiling, “You look so focused. Like you’re taking care of a very important task.”
Yuuri couldn’t help his blush, but he smiled, too. “Petting your hair is a very important task. A great responsibility.”
“I agree.” Victor nodded in his lap. “I wouldn’t entrust it to anyone else. In fact, I think no one else should ever be allowed to touch my hair.”
Yuuri shook his head fondly and tugged on some of the strands in his fingers, not painfully, just to tease. “No one? Not even a hairdresser?”
“Nope!” Victor grinned. “I’ll just let it grow out.” He let his phone drop on his chest and stretched both arms upwards, wrapping them around Yuuri’s neck, thumbs caressing the sensitive skin. He wasn’t smiling now but his eyes, gazing up at Yuuri, were impossibly warm. “Only you”, he whispered, “for the rest of my life.”
Yuuri returned to a flat that was dark and empty.
He was relieved that Phichit wasn’t home, and wouldn’t be home for a few more hours. As much as he trusted Phichit, and no matter how much time he would spend crying on his shoulder in the next weeks, there was always a piece of himself that Yuuri had to hold back in front of others. Even in front of Phichit. He could never quite let himself fall apart unless he was alone.
And that was what he needed to do now.
He needed to fall apart, at least for a while.
He’d taken off his shoes and jacket and dropped his keys on the table by the door and now he was standing by the door to the living room, motionless.
It didn’t look any different. Not any different from this morning before he’d left to meet with Victor, already knowing with a bone-deep certainty what was about to happen.
But also not any different from a few weeks ago, when they had still spent almost every day and every night together, talking in tentative hints and allusions about moving in together. When they’d still been so incandescently happy.
Yuuri wondered if it would have been more or less painful if it had come out of the blue, if Victor hadn’t pulled away so gradually and let it drag on for so long. Was it worse to have the ground pulled out from under you all at once, leaving you to plummet into the depth, or was it worse to watch the ledge slowly crumble beneath your feet, unable to do anything about it?
It didn’t matter. It wasn’t like Yuuri had been given a choice.
He thought back to when it had started, about three weeks ago, or maybe four? It had been so gradual at first that he couldn’t say for sure. Just Victor being a little more busy than usual, but they still saw each other plenty. And when they did see each other, Victor was just as affectionate as usual, if a little less talkative, a little more thoughtful.
Yuuri had thought, at first, that there was something else going on with Victor, something they would talk about eventually, when Victor was ready.
Instead, Victor pulled gradually further away from him. Claiming to be busy at work, cancelling dates. His texts became less frequent, his answers vague when Yuuri asked about his day. When they did see each other, they’d kiss, and it wouldn’t feel forced, but it never went any further, either.
Three weeks, maybe four.
That’s all it had taken for Victor to fall so thoroughly out of love with him.
Or maybe it had started much earlier, and Victor just couldn’t be bothered to try and hide it anymore.
The thought was a piercing pain in Yuuri’s heart, that maybe Victor had been unhappy for so long while Yuuri had been blissfully ignorant. That some of what Yuuri recalled as his happiest memories might not have been real at all.
It was enough to finally break through the numbness and make tears spring into his eyes and crash down his face.
He cried silently at first, uncaring that he was dripping all over his shirt, hands curled into tight fists. But as much as crying was a relief, it was also a dam opened, and all the doubts and fears and hurt, everything he’d been dreading for the last weeks that had now been confirmed, spilled forth until he was sobbing and heaving for breath, knees shaking under his weight.
He had half a mind to walk over to the couch and collapse there, press all his pain into the cushions, but his legs wouldn’t take him further than two steps into the room, before they gave out under him, knees hitting the hardwood floors painfully.
He doubled over, hands uncurling only long enough to dig into the fabric of his shirt for something to tear at. He could hardly breathe through his sobs and he felt dizzy, not quite the same as the familiar feeling of a panic attack, but just as painful.
His crying was harsh and ugly in his own ears, echoing in the empty flat and he would have clamped his hands over his ears if it would have helped. He wanted to curl into himself so tightly that he disappeared.
The first crying jag didn’t last forever, though, and eventually his sobs subsided enough that he could suck in deep, shuddering breaths and straighten up enough to grab a tissue from the sideboard.
There was a kind of exhausted calm in him now, a renewed numbness, as there always was after crying. He lingered on the floor a while longer, just breathing and tugging at the tissue balled up in his fist and trying not to think.
Eventually, he got up.
Wandering aimlessly through the flat, he managed to drink some water, wash his face and put on the kettle for tea. He hovered before the tea cabinet for long minutes, unable to make a choice, and finally grabbed the most basic tea bags because he wouldn’t have to pay much attention to how he steeped them.
The mug was too hot to hold so he left it on the counter.
He wandered from the kitchen into the living room to his bedroom door. He stopped, went back and into the kitchen again. He did it again.
He ignored the occasional buzzing of his phone in his pocket. He wouldn’t tell Phichit before his classes were over. He’d just drop everything and hurry home and Yuuri didn’t want to interfere with his education. And it wasn’t like he was ready to talk, anyway. Even the faint thought that it might be Victor texting him, saying that he’d changed his mind, didn’t tempt him to pull out his phone.
I suppose I just don’t love you anymore.
It wasn’t going to happen.
He passed his second crying jag sitting on the floor again, this time leaning back against his bedroom door.
He didn’t dare go inside.
He knew Victor’s scent still clung to the pillow on his side of the bed, he knew the poodle plushie Victor had bought so they’d have something to cuddle when Makkachin wasn’t around was tucked somewhere between the blankets. He knew there were photos and a birthday card and a valentine’s card tacked to the wall next to his desk. He knew there were at least four pieces of Victor’s clothing and a wilted rose that Yuuri had been unable to throw out and an unopened package of Victor’s favourite chocolate bars in the snack drawer.
He couldn’t go inside.
When he calmed down this time around he was sitting with his legs tucked close, his arms wrapped around himself, fingernails digging into his skin. His mouth was dry and tacky and he felt the faint beginnings of a headache coming on.
It took a while before he could convince himself to get up.
He drank his now lukewarm tea leaning against the counter in the kitchen.
He pulled the skin off his lips with his teeth until they bled.
I think it would be better if we broke up.
He felt like his lungs were trying to turn themselves inside out.
He heard Phichit’s keys in the door—it could only be Phichit’s keys now, after all—as the first tears were running down his nose again.
“Yuuri, are you home?”, Phichit called into the flat. Yuuri didn’t answer—Phichit would see his keys and his shoes by the door, anyway.
It only took his roommate a few moments to find him where he was, both hands leaning heavily onto the counter top, shoulders pulled up high, head hanging, weeping silently.
It wasn’t until Phichit turned on the lights that Yuuri realised how dark it had gotten around him.
“Oh Yuuri…”, Phichit’s voice was soft, his hands warm as he stepped forward to wrap himself around Yuuri. “I take it it didn’t go well, then?”
Yuuri didn’t reply, didn’t have to, really.
“Come, come here, let’s sit down.”
Gently Phichit coaxed him into the living room and onto the couch where Yuuri tucked himself into a corner right away, pulling his legs close.
“Now, tell me”, Phichit said, his hand a comforting weight on Yuuri’s knee. “What happened?”
It took Yuuri a long time to find his words between hitching breaths and the fall of tears, Phichit’s thumb all the while rubbing gently over Yuuri’s kneecap. After a while Yuuri had to keep himself from twitching away from the repetitive motion.
“He broke up with me.”
“What!?” Phichit looked genuinely shocked.
Yuuri had told him, of course, about how things had been between him and Victor lately, about his suspicions when Victor has asked him to meet at the café to talk. But Phichit was used to Yuuri’s worries and fears, to his catastrophising. He was used to those catastrophes never actually occurring.
“Are you sure?” Yuuri could hear from Phichit’s tone that he was already in problem solving mode. “Maybe you just misunderstood him? I’m sure it’s not all that bad.”
Yuuri scoffed. “I’m pretty sure, Peach.”
“No, that can’t be right. Well, take me through it, then”, Phichit said, sitting up a little straighter. “What did he say to you exactly?”
Now Yuuri did pull away from his touch. “Well, let me think”, not bothering to pretend he had to actually think about it. “The first thing he said to me when I came in was ‘I think it would be better if we break up’. What do you think that means?”
He could hear how bitter he sounded, but the hurt was just to fresh to be anything but.
Phichit deflated. “Oh my god, Yuuri, I’m so sorry—I …” There was a long pause. “I can’t believe he would actually do that! I mean, it’s Victor!”
Phichit said his name like that would explain everything, but it just made Yuuri wince.
“Did … did he say anything about why?”
Yuuri wrapped his hands around his forearms, letting himself feel the sting of his fingernails.
“He said—he—”, a sob fell from Yuuri’s lips without permission, without warning. “He said he just doesn’t love me anymore."
“Really? Victor said that? But … he—he was so far gone for you!”
Yuuri whimpered, shuddering with another sob. “Peach—”
“Sorry, you’re right, that’s not helpful.” Phichit’s arms wrapped around him instantly, pulling him close. “I’m so sorry, Yuuri. I’m sorry you’re in so much pain. I wish there was anything I could do.”
Yuuri just leaned into him and gave himself over into his third crying jag.
After two more crying spells and varying amounts of talking—quite a lot from Phichit and hardly any from Yuuri—exhaustion had settled deep into Yuuri’s bones. His eyes were itchy and puffy, his nose irritated from all the wiping and his headache had only grown stronger, along with the misery in his chest.
Phichit had offered to order them pizza and get some ice cream, too, but Yuuri really wasn’t feeling hungry.
He’d also offered to go and break Victor’s legs, and while it had startled a laugh out of Yuuri, he was still far from the point of wishing violence on the man he loved.
Yuuri felt a little bad about how helpless Phichit was, wanting to offer comfort but not quite knowing what to do except hug Yuuri and tell him he was sorry over and over again. It was an easy thing to feel bad about, much easier than the many complicated emotions warring in his mind.
He finally convinced Phichit that he really only wanted to go to sleep now and leave this whole rotten day behind him—knowing full well that the next day wouldn’t be any less rotten. It would be a long, long while, he knew, before his days were anything other than rotten again.
He wrapped himself in a blanket right there on the couch and ignored Phichit’s insistent questions about whether he wouldn’t be much more comfortable sleeping in his own bed. He knew it was for the best if he stayed out here tonight.
When turned off the lights and disappeared into his own room, Yuuri rolled over on the couch so he was facing the backrest and pressed himself as far into a corner as he could go.
He closed his eyes and breathed deep. The couch smelled of nothing in particular, just that familiar, slightly stale smell of home.
He kept his hands fisted tight into the blanket to keep from reaching out to someone who wasn’t there.
He didn’t sleep.