the full piece written for @yoimagiczine, you can also find it on ao3.
On the birth and lives of soulmates. Yuuri and Victor meet for the first time as children in times none of us can think back to; day and night, light and darkness, you’d think the meeting nothing special. Wrong. aka Yuuri and Victor invent the concept of soulmates and fill the night sky with their every touch.
(Once upon a time.)
Cold days like this one chill Yuuri to the bone; tea and blankets don’t provide enough warmth, chased away by the longing whistle of the wind and the clatter of tree branches shooing it away. The thin walls of his family’s tiny wooden house forget how to be a shelter on days like this. But despite this, despite the chill in his limbs and the mist of his breath, Yuuri looks forward to these days; only on days like these does the boyappear.
The unnamed boy; a boy with a lantern and a thick scarf around his neck, and a snowy avalanche of hair. The lost boy, or the searching boy, Yuuri has no idea who he is.
The wind promises another blizzard today, and Yuuri hopes that this time he’ll get to invite the boy inside. On cold days like this one, nobody will say no to a cup of hot tea.
The clock strikes 6pm, Yuuri presses his forehead against the cold window, squints his eyes and wishes he could urge the darkness outside to dissipate and clear out till he can see better—when the boy appears.
As always, he’s surrounded by a beam of cold, white light, as though he’s the moon itself, bathed in such celestial presence that he can’t be a mortal. Even mortals suffer from sadness, though, and the boy’s light seems dimmer tonight, his movements slower and not as excited as Yuuri knows them to be. His lantern flickers in the night among the snowflakes falling around him but he pays them not a single glance. From where Yuuri sits, they look like pellets or darts, so unforgiving in their shooting at the boy.
Normally, the boy dances whenever he appears; he doesn’t walk but rather flows just an inch or so above the ground, jumps into the air and turns and turns and turns and turns—but not today. Something’s off about him today.
Today, he shuffles his feet through the snow with each step. The lantern he usually holds in front of him at an arm’s length is nearly dragged behind now. His feet—Yuuri notices with a soft, disappointed ‘oh’—are firmly planted on the ground.
Suddenly, the boy freezes and turns—and looks straight at Yuuri.
“Here at Dial M we can perform any feats of magic you wish over the phone, at no cost whatsoever for the first 10 minutes. After that, we’ll charge you $0.01 for every minute.”
“You know, you ask for the weirdest things sometimes, Yuuri,” Victor says, the phone between his shoulder and ear, a glass in one hand, and a kettle in the other.
“I thought you liked weird,” Yuuri chuckles, and it’s to Victor’s credit that he holds back the well, I like you that pops into his head. Yuuri adds, “Now: pick a drink.”
“Uh… vodka.” Great, let him think you’re an alcoholic, why don’t you.
“Huh. Well, I sure hope you can hold your liquor, then. Pour.”
Knowing better by now than to protest but it’s empty!, Victor obeys; he’s unsurprised to see a transparent liquid that is probably not water, but is still as in awe as always. He’s been calling on a daily basis for a month now, but no matter how hard he looks, he still can’t see where the illusion lies. At this point, he’s not even sure Yuuri dabbles in illusions anymore. “Yuuri,” he asks calmly, “how are you doing this?”
Victuuri | Magical Realism AU | Romance & Adventure | Rated T | 4.9k
My collab with the wonderful Min ♥ for @yoimagiczine! (Leftovers still going on, get yours while you can!)
